Ancient Pal Manuscript
Material · MaterialMonster2★Old writing set down on Pal hide, sometimes turned up by Pals sent on expeditions. Research cannot move forward without it.
Ancient Pal Manuscript feeds 2 different recipes, which is why it is worth farming past the point you think you need it.
Details
It weighs almost nothing and stacks to 9,999, so there is no reason not to carry a full stack.
Where to Find Ancient Pal Manuscript
Ancient Pal Manuscript shows up as world loot — fishing in the Grasslands, fishing in the Forest and fishing in the Desert, and 6 more pools besides, usually 1–2 at a time.
Sending a team on the Verdant Hollow, Secret Realm of the Forest and Blazing Cavern expeditions brings some back without you leaving base, and 13 more expeditions can return it too.
| How | Where | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Expedition | Verdant Hollow | Easy · 30 min · 100% chance · 5–7 at a time |
| Expedition | Secret Realm of the Forest | Easy · 30 min · 100% chance · 7–10 at a time |
| Expedition | Blazing Cavern | Normal · 45 min · 100% chance · 10–13 at a time |
| Expedition | Hidden Sanctum of the Desert | Normal · 45 min · 100% chance · 13–15 at a time |
| Expedition | Astral Frost Cavern | Hard · 60 min · 100% chance · 15–17 at a time |
| Expedition | Celestial Sakura Cavern | Hard · 60 min · 100% chance · 17–20 at a time |
| World loot | Fishing in the Grasslands | Grade 3 · 46.5% chance · 1 at a time |
| World loot | Fishing the treasure spots in the Sunreach Isle | Grade 1 · 11.9% chance · 3–11 at a time |
| World loot | Fishing in the Mount Obsidian | Grade 1 · 10.6% chance · 2–4 at a time |
| World loot | Fishing the treasure spots in the Feybreak | Grade 1 · 10.3% chance · 3–8 at a time |
| World loot | Fishing the treasure spots in the World Tree | Grade 1 · 9.0% chance · 8–16 at a time |
| World loot | Fishing in the Desert | Grade 1 · 7.6% chance · 2–3 at a time |
| World loot | Fishing in the Snowfields | Grade 1 · 7.2% chance · 2–5 at a time |
| World loot | Fishing the treasure spots in the Sakurajima | Grade 1 · 7.2% chance · 2–7 at a time |
| World loot | Fishing in the Forest | Grade 1 · 6.8% chance · 1–2 at a time |
Using Ancient Pal Manuscript Well
The two Training Manual recipes are the small half of what this item is for. Its real sink is the Pal Labor Research Lab: 157 of the lab's 168 research projects list Ancient Pal Manuscript as a material, and clearing the whole board costs 3,663 of them. The only eleven that ask for nothing ancient are the opening rungs of Handiwork, Mining, Medicine and Kindling, which take ordinary wood, stone, ore and herbs instead. Everything past those first steps is gated on manuscripts.
Per-project cost climbs in fixed steps: 5 or 7 at the shallow end, 10 to 20 through the middle of each tree, and 70 for the deepest rungs. Eighteen separate projects want 70 apiece, so a single late-tier research is worth roughly four full runs of a 60-minute expedition. Check the number before you start a job — the lab consumes the materials up front, not on completion.
Expeditions are the only supply that scales, and difficulty is not the thing to optimise for — rate per hour is. Secret Realm of the Forest returns 7-10 in 30 minutes, which is 14-20 an hour, matching Celestial Sakura Cavern's 17-20 per 60 minutes while asking only an Easy team. Verdant Hollow's 5-7 per half hour is the weakest of the six routes. If you can only staff one station, run the two 30-minute Easy routes on a loop rather than parking Pals on a Hard one.
Spend your first manuscripts on the research that makes expeditions better, because that line pays itself back in the same currency. The Lumbering tree's expedition branch runs six projects at 7, 10, 10, 15, 20 and 20 — 82 total — listing duration cuts of 5%, 10% and 5% and reward increases of 5%, 10% and 5%. The Mining tree carries a shorter version of the same branch: its first duration rung is free, and 37 more manuscripts finish the rest. Nothing else you research feeds back into your own manuscript income.
The cheapest lab research speed upgrade in the game is on the Cooling tree. Its two research-speed rungs cost 7 and 5 manuscripts and need only 15,000 and 30,000 work to complete, where the equivalent pair on every other suitability demands between 150,000 and 1,000,000. Twelve manuscripts and an afternoon of Cooling labour buys the same +10% per rung the expensive trees charge a week of base output for.
Alternatives and Upgrades
Other Pal drops at a similar tier, for when you want to weigh this against the rest of its class:
