There is plenty to do in Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time, some of which is completely optional and not needed to complete the game. Once you progress enough in the main story, you will probably start getting Treasure Grove Saplings while exploring Ginormosia. These randomly-generated dungeons are key to getting some endgame materials, as there are specific boss-type entities that only appear inside them. This page will go over the basics of Treasure Groves, as well as dive deeper into some of the intricacies of them.

Page Breakdown¶

Unlocking Treasure Groves¶

You’ll gain access to Treasure Groves as you progress the main story, specifically after completing Chapter 4. In order to start exploring Treasure Groves, you’ll need a Sapling. Normally, you’ll be able to get these in one of two ways (you find the first one in the story), either by purchasing one from The Don, the wandering merchant in Ginormosia, or by defeating Mimics that are on the Ginormosia map. In the case of the latter, these are the ones that run away from you at first, but you’ll need to be careful, as they can also self-destruct sometimes.

Once you’ve gotten a Sapling, head over to your base camp in the Present time and look for the clearing just east of the stairs to the Goddess Statue. Plant the Sapling here and it will immediately grow into a Treasure Grove dungeon. Note that these can be done solo, or as part of multiplayer. In the case of the latter, if you join someone else’s Treasure Grove and like it, you can save it as a Branch to redo on your own later. This option allows you to easily farm some of the exclusive bosses found within Treasure Groves.

Treasure Grove Progression¶

The dungeons are completely random and are laid out as interconnected nodes, with a boss at the very bottom. In order to complete a Treasure Grove, you’ll have to make it to the very bottom and defeat the boss. However, there is a time limit of one hour, so if you fail to complete it in time, you’ll be kicked out of the grove. The good thing is that you can re-enter the dungeon and the timer will restart from an hour, so it’s not a big deal (why is a timer there at all, then?). You can also leave the dungeon at any time, to the same effect, since all of the progress is saved in either case.

So, with that quick thing out of the way, let’s take a look at how to progress in Treasure Groves. When you open the map, you will see a lot of nodes, with the boss at the bottom and you starting out at the top. Complete the current node/floor by fulfilling the objective, then you’ll be able to move onto the next floor that’s connected to the previous one. You won’t be able to redo floors you have completed, but as long as you don’t defeat the boss, you can go back and clear any floors you might have passed.

Once you clear the boss at the end of a Treasure Grove, you are finished and will not be able to do anything else with that dungeon. You can then replant a new Treasure Grove at this point, where you have the option to either start from 100 Years or from 0 Years. This basically just increases the difficulty for new ones, with Treasure Groves going up to 900 Years in total (where you finish that one at 1,000 Years, the maximum when this was written). In addition to all of the items and equipment you obtained during your dungeons, the other reward for completing Treasure Groves will be Goddess Fruits.

Depending on the year of the dungeon, you can receive between 1-3 Goddess Fruits for finishing Treasure Groves. This is solo, but if you do these in multiplayer, then you’ll receive an extra number of Goddess Fruits equal to the number of players (up to 6 at later tiers). You can trade in these Goddess Fruits at Marco’s Shop at your base camp guild for items and recipes, which can include character customization options.

All Treasure Grove Normal Floors¶

So, now you know about how Treasure Groves function, so it’s time to go over the floors themselves. For the most part, the normal floors are all self-explanatory. There is one for monsters, as well as one for each of the gathering types (Mining, Woodcutting, Fishing, and Farming). When you plant a Sapling, the dungeon will usually be a specific type, with more nodes of that type being present. So, if you get a Mining dungeon, then there will be a lot more nodes dedicated to Mining, over the other types.

For the most part, all of the normal floors will have one of two objectives. You will either need to clear all of that node’s type, or you have to do a specific task. For enemies, you might need to defeat a certain number of a specific enemy, while for gathering types, it’s to get an Eternian Fruit. Basically, you just chop a tree or mine an ore, until you retrieve said item. Once you complete the task on a floor, the portal to the next one will activate and you can leave via it.

All Treasure Grove Rare Floors¶

In addition to the normal floors above, there are four rare floors that you don’t see too often. These are Aging Altars, Strangelings, Treasure Troves, and Monster Houses.

Aging Altars Rare Room¶

This rare room is represented by a statue icon, when you look at the floor plan. Probably the most lucrative rare room, the Aging Altar allows you to place a piece of equipment in it, that you can then get back after finishing the dungeon. Doing this will let you get an extra skill on that piece of equipment, separate from the two other skills that are much easier to acquire. By adding materials with the item you’re burying, you can increase the rarity of the skill you receive. Of course, the skill you get is completely random, but you can view the list of potential skills via a button press.

There are two trophies/achievements tied to this mechanic, called Time Capsule and Time Rusts No Gear. The former is just for using this mechanic, while the latter involves rerolling Year 900 dungeons until you get an Aging Altar. Once you do that, you can simply place any item there, then finish the dungeon to properly age it and get it back from the statue just outside the dungeon.

Strangelings Rare Room¶

A second type of rare room will have the little spirit icon on it, indicating it’s a Strangeling room. Despite what you may think, this room doesn’t give you an actual Strangeling, but will rather yield something called a Souped-Up Strangeling. The one you receive will be completely random, but you can take this to the Goddess Statue back at your base and use it to power up that particular Strangeling. This will increase their stats and each Strangeling can be powered up a total of five times. Note that the cost of doing this will be the same as reverting a Strangeling into a Buddy.

Treasure Troves Rare Room¶

Shown with a treasure chest icon, this should be pretty self-explanatory. When you enter a Treasure Troves, there will be a number of chests around the room (or in the center of it). This is basically a freebie room, as you won’t encounter anything else in this room. Grab the goodies from the chests, then go to the next floor.

Monster House Rare Room¶

The last rare room on the list, Monster Houses are just as the name says, a den of monsters. Instead of fighting normal monsters, though, you will be faced with a bunch of Shadows Monsters, more powerful variants. They do give more EXP for defeating them and if you’ve finished the main story, they can drop some extra things for various activites that open up then. Monster Houses can be one of the best ways to level up your Combat Lives, especially if you are in the Year 900 block of a dungeon. Defeat all but one enemy, leave, then re-enter and keep doing that over and over.

All Treasure Grove Exclusive Bosses¶

When you check a material’s location while crafting, you may notice that some of them will simply say that they are only found in a Treasure Grove. For the most part, this can be true, as there are a number of boss-type encounters that are only found in these dungeons. This section will attempt to list all of the bosses exclusive to Treasure Groves, along with a list of materials they can drop. This includes ores, trees, fish, and enemies.

As you can see from the quick list above, there are three exclusive enemies, one ore, one tree, and a whopping five fish. It is possible to obtain some of these materials from the wandering merchant in Ginormosia, although his wares are completely random and these items will be quite expensive, too.