With the pain of RNG-dependent drops behind me, all that is required to transform the Gae Bolg Atma into its Animus form are nine (9) upgrades that come with a number of requirements: they cost 1500 Tomestones of Mythology each, they require completing a series of objectives, and they can only be done one at a time. So let’s look at everything that has happened up until the first upgrade…

Among the 12 Atma pieces, the sixth and the seventh were by far the ones that took the most times – 8 to 10 hours, each – while the eighth through the twelfth were the easiest – less than two hours for all four.

So you take your 12 Atma pieces and your Zenith weapon to Jalzahn to turn your Zenith into an Atma; despite his flowery language, the only upgrade you get at this point is a boost in item level: from 90 to 100. No stats are added or changed going through this upgrade.

The only change is a palette swap of the original model; the Relic Atma is colored closer to your AF2 set (whereas Relic/Zenith were of a palette similar to AF1).

With a new weapon in hand, Jalzahn now gives out the Trial of the Braves quest.

Coincidentally, Final Fantasy Tactics was all about the “Zodiac Braves Story”. It would be neat if Square made references and throwbacks to it.

You know, I wonder who might possibly be in possession of these old books?

It’s actually not Rowena, but she does point you to where you need to go: her associate not too far from her..

Oh? She’s offering the nine books for a discount? How wond–

1,500 Myth Stones each. Nine books. That’s 14,500 Stones total. 145 runs of Crystal Tower or 290 runs of any other 50 Myth dungeon. Thanks, Squeenix.

Well, whatever. You gotta do what you gotta do for your Relic Weapon, right? Yep. Now off to getting that first 1,500 set for the first book…

And there’s even more grinding to do. That’s 10 sets of 10 monster kills;

three dungeon clears;

three FATEs;

and three leves.

And this is all for one book. You cannot buy another book until this book has been finished. This really isn’t too much of a problem; the most annoying thing is finding the FATEs and being able to clear them (good luck, if there is nobody else in the area). After the RNG hell of finding Atma pieces, this guaranteed progression method is much more preferred.