Leave the Centra Ruins and make sure you have Enc-None equipped. This run is timed, and having to kill trash mobs every five steps is not conducive to your ultimate success. If you don’t have the ability, skip ahead to “Cactuar Farming in the Kashkabald Desert”, where you can get all the AP you need… or at least enough for Enc-None. No more excuses to not have this ability. Also consider boosting your Magic stat boosted somewhat so you can draw spells more easily and keep your HP low so you can spam limits. There’s method in this madness, which you’ll see shortly.

Once that’s done, enter the Centra Ruins and head up to reach the ruins proper, the screen where you presumably farmed Tonberrys earlier. This time head through the arch and up stairs. In the next screen, if you head right and up around a fountain you can find a Drain draw point, for what that’s worth. Go left and up to reach another flight of stairs and follow it up. On the next screen, enter the building, go some stone steps and stand on a stone cube which turns out to be… an elevator? Weird.

When the cube deposits you on an upper screen you’ll see two ladders. If you go up the right ladder you can find an Aero draw point, which is fine… but it’s not why you’re here. Climb the left ladder instead and when you reach a small landing, climb another ladder and enter a tower to find some… device. Whatever, glowing light, interact with it, some machinery will spring to life and no discernible advantage will have been gained. Hmm…

Climb down the ladders to reach the ground again and interact with another device between the two ladders to create a staircase to the right. Follow it up and past a familiar screen, exiting to the right again over the Aero draw point to reach a new, higher screen.

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(1 of 3) Grab an eye from a gargoyle statue

Ascend a dim ladder near the stairs, on the left-hand side of the screen, then interact with a gargoyle statue and pluck out its eye. Climb back down the ladder, take the stairs up to the right to reach the roof. Abandon the stairs and if you go right you’ll find a Pain draw point, which is an excellent spell if you don’t already have it. Otherwise go left and climb a ladder to find a second gargoyle statue, this one possessing the eye the other was missing.

Insert the eye you stole from the previous gargoyle to get a code (make a note of it - like the student ID found during the Tomb of the Forgotten King, it’s random) then take both eye from this gargoyle and climb back down and make your way to the first gargoyle. Insert both eyes into this gargoyle as well and a brazier will light up, showing off a row of numbers. Use the directional buttons or analog stick to enter the code given to you by the first statue, and when you’re done, press [Triangle] to confirm.

With this done, a door should open below you. If you’re hurting for time, exit the ruins and return (or just wait for the timer to run out), as Odin awaits you beyond the open door… And unlike the rest of this endeavor, if you run out of time while fighting Odin, it will result in a game over. You’ll want as much time as possible for this fight.

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(1 of 3) Enter the depths of the Centra Ruins to find Odin

Boss - Odin¶

Odin is an odd bird. He doesn’t attack, your only limitation in this fight is the timer. If it runs out, he’ll finish you off with his Zantetsuken attack, which will result in a game over and loss of progress… well, it’s supposed to anyways, but the PC version is somewhat buggy and the fight might not end when the counter runs out, making it impossible to lose.

All that said, Odin isn’t a terribly challenging opponent, boasting a measly 4,000 HP at level ten, rising only moderately to 10,000 HP at level thirty, and capping out at 31,000 HP at level one hundred. For any reasonably-leveled party, a Tonberry should have had more HP, and the Tonberry King certainly did. He is immune to gravity, however, so if that was your crutch earlier… well, you just shouldn’t need it against a foe with such trivial HP. If you entered with low HP yourself, you can just spam limit breaks to win the fight in short order. It’s not like Odin’s going to attack, right?

If you’ve got plenty of time, consider collecting some choice magic and items from Odin, as he has the Triple spell - an excellent spell for junctioning to numerous stats. Triple is the 4th best Str-J (likely the best spell you can get full stocks of now for this), 2nd best Mag-J (easily the best spell you’ll get for this purpose until you have full Ultima stocks), the best Spd-J, 2nd best Eva-J, best Hit-J and 3rd best Luck-J. For general purposes, Magic is your best bet, and you’ll noticeably better off if you can walk out of this fight with three full stocks, which requires a decent Magic score in its own right. You can also Mug a Luck-J Scroll from Odin, in case you want to start boosting a character’s Luck stat. A somewhat dubious endeavor, perhaps, but it’s still more interesting than the eight G-Mega Potion items you’d otherwise get as a drop.

Defeat Odin and you’ll get your customary 20 AP, the Odin Card and his services as a GF. Or rather, a pseudo-GF, as Odin doesn’t function quite like other GFs. He can’t be junctioned and you can’t summon him at will. Instead, he’ll randomly appear at the start of fights and cuts down your enemies for you. Kind of annoying if you’re trying to keep your level low, Mug specific items, draw spells, or anything more sophisticated than outright killing the foe, but if that doesn’t bother you, then Odin is an interesting enough addition to your arsenal, albeit one you won’t have any control over.

As for his card, Odin refines into 100 Dead Spirit items, which each refine into two Death Stones or twenty Death spells. Regardless of its merit as a card (pretty good, actually), it’s not worth refining this one.

In any event, with that done you’ve obtained everything you can from the Centra Ruins. If you still need to read about farming AP from Cactuars, continue reading the following section Cactuar Farming in the Kashkabald Desert, otherwise the next story section is Trabia Garden.