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  • How To Make The Aeterna
  • How To Get To The Finals Of The Lacuer Tournament
  • How To Get The Deadly Edge
  • How To Get Mithril
  • Crafting The Aeterna

Star Ocean: The Second Story R has a plethora of mechanics that allow you to become incredibly powerful very early, as long as you know how to use them properly. With experience and proper planning, it's very possible to break the difficulty of the game in half and acquire very strong items and weapons far earlier than intended.

RELATED: Star Ocean: The Second Story R - Beginner Tips

One such (infamous) item is the Aeterna, previously known as the Eternal Sphere in the PS1 version of the game. This sword is one of the best in the entire game for Claude and Dias, if not the best - and you can get it only a few hours into the game.

How To Make The Aeterna

The method to make the Aeterna is nothing if not drawn out - there are three discrete steps that you'll have to take to make this fantastic sword.

  1. Win the battles of the Lacuer Tournament and get Claude to the finals.
  2. Acquire the Deadly Edge.
  3. Customise the Deadly Edge with Mithril, and then customise the result with another piece of Mithril.

This will require some setup - each step is detailed in the sections below.

There will be spoilers for the possible results of the Lacuer Tournament arc of the game.

The Aeterna has a whopping 1,600 ATK stat, one of the highest in the game without delving into the optional dungeon. In addition, every attack with this sword launches stars that also attack enemies, turning your attack into barrages that shave off massive amounts of enemy HP, if it doesn't destroy them completely. A word of warning: acquiring this sword is the single best way to destroy the difficulty of the game, so buyer beware!

How To Get To The Finals Of The Lacuer Tournament

You'll encounter the Lacuer Tournament as part of the story, so progress the game until you've reached this point. The key here is that Claude must win every battle up to the final one against Dias, which is impossible to win.

  • On Claude's route, you must lead him to victory yourself through three battles.
  • On Rena's route, there is only one battle that you must watch, but Claude will be controlled by an AI.

In both cases, you'll need Claude to be at a high level and to have picked a good weapon shop as a sponsor. For our recommendation, click here.

In addition, equip him with good Special Skills and make sure they're levelled up. Helmet Break and Meteor Palm are good picks.

How To Get The Deadly Edge

Despite losing to Dias, as long as Claude actually fought him, you'll be able to acquire the Deadly Edge. If this didn't happen, you won't be able to get the Aeterna on this playthrough - hopefully you have a saved game before the tournament!

After the tournament, head to the blacksmith's house on the west side of Lacuer and enter his home. A cutscene will play out in which you'll get the Deadly Edge.

This is already a fine weapon, but we can make it even better.

How To Get Mithril

The key to this process is Mithril, a high-level material that you usually cannot acquire at this point in the game, especially not in the quantity you need.

To get Mithril early, you'll need to spend someSP and spare time. The method here is to level up a character's ESP skill - whenever ESP is levelled up, you'll gain a random item from a list - Mithril is on that list.

The ideal process is as follows:

  1. Save your game with multiple characters ready to level up ESP a few times (this is best done with temporary characters that you don't intend on keeping - Celine is a good early opportunity if you don't want to keep her, as is Leon if you're on Rena's route).
  2. Level up ESP on your chosen characters. If you didn't get two Mithril, load your saved game and try again.

The chances of getting Mithril from an ESP level-up is low, but it shouldn't take too long before you acquire both in a single level-up session.

Crafting The Aeterna

Turning the Deadly Edge you acquired earlier is something that only Claude can do, despite Dias also using swords. To do this, you'll need to Customise the Deadly Edge with Mithril.

Mithril is a high-rank material, so you'll need Claude's Blacksmithing level to be quite high - at least seven levels is enough to complete the process without too much wasted time.

Successfully Customising the Deadly Edge with Mithril will turn it into the Blade of Minos. This is a great sword, but we can instantly make it even better. Customise the Blade of Minos with Mithril, and you'll get the Aeterna.

If your chances of success with either of these Customises are less than 100 percent, make sure you save before attempting it. Reload the game if you fail and try again until you have this amazing sword.

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