9Dragons/Blood Essence

There is a rare material in the game known as Blood Essence (BE). It can be obtained as rare drops from killing monsters or gaining 999 Blood Count. When the Blood Count, a number derived from how many kills a character has, reaches its maximum of 999, the player will receive a Blood Essence and the Blood Count is reset to zero again. Blood count is also reset to zero whenever a player dies from being killed by a monster. Blood Essence can be used to refine or strengthen weapons (they glow brightly when this has been done). Weapons can be refined until +9 in game. For levels 1 and 2 of refinement, success is 100% guaranteed. The materials for the first and second levels of refinement may be bought at the general store in Hefei; these are Blood of Sleeping Dragon and Blood of Crouching Dragon, respectively.

From level 3 and above, there is a chance of the weapon breaking, resulting in the loss of the weapon as well as the Blood Essence used to refine it; after level 3 refinement, you will receive half of the BE used to refine back in your inventory. Blood Essence is often sold or traded at different values depending on the server. On Nirvana (US) the price is around 350k-400k in game gold (as of February 16, 2008). On Bardo (EU) it is around 280-320k (as of 19 Feb 08) in game gold and on Asura (PK server) it is around 250K - 300K game gold (as of April 8, 2008).


 * - levels 10, 11, 12 are not yet available to Acclaim version players. Level 12 refinement is however possible for Game Masters and VGMs.