Mu: Dark Epoch is a fantasy MMORPG, one with a specific focus on voluptuous and scantily clad elf ladies, that kinda plays like an extremely simplified and much more limited World of Warcraft. It's actually an outgrowth of a pretty popular old pre-WoW MMO called Mu Online, which was kinda Korea's answer to EverQuest and Runescape but found a global audience. That game is actually still freely available, and it's much more of a "real" in-depth MMO than this.
This one pretty much plays itself on rails, with just occasional input and tweaking from you. Bad for general entertainment, but good for GPT offers. It's actually more like an "idle RPG" than an MMO in many ways; once you've done your first day or two of setup by going as far as you can in the "main quest", the only thing left to do is check off your checklist of "dailies" (activities that grant EXP and items) each day and participate in at least a couple of scheduled boss battle events. Your character also auto-grinds EXP on the best available mob the entire time you're offline, so if you power it off for 12 hours or so you'll often log back in to find you've automatically advanced a level, at least in the early going.
It's recommended for GPT players because it only requires a device to be tied up for about two hours per day to collect all your "dailies" and such, there's minimal button-pushing during that time so you can be doing something else for most of it (vast majority of gameplay unfolds automatically), you can do everything except the couple of scheduled group boss battles whenever you want (and no real big loss if you miss those), then once all that's done you shut it off and continue gaining EXP toward your goals. Reaching some of the good-paying goals is also very doable with only minimal in-game spending that you can probably be reimbursed (and in my case got a few bucks profit for) for around $18-20 USD.
However, some preparation and knowing what you're doing before you go in helps TREMENDOUSLY with this one. Thus this guide. Read at least the first few sections before you start the offer and download the game!
HOW GPT OFFERS ARE STRUCTURED
This is the first bit to understand before going in. All the offers I've seen thus far simply involve reaching certain character levels, which is good, this is what you want. These are often peppered with paybacks for purchases, and in my case (with a mid-2026 Torox offer) these made you anywhere from 2 to 5 dollars back in profit for doing most of them with the larger ones going up to $20 in profit.
You'll notice the really good payouts begin in the Lv 300 range. The Lv 310s are quite doable solely with F2P or just tiny spend. Lv 360-380 is doable with a little more moderate ($20-50ish) spend, though more demanding of not making mistakes or missing days along the way - if you do you may be able to catch up the ground by upping your spend to more like $50. The 400+ will require bigger spend of over $100, but these might still be profitable, we'll get into that toward the end of the guide (assuming most people will be content to shoot for 311 or 366 without committing serious money).
As far as speed of progress, you'll blow through over 100 levels during your first day of "main quest" setup and can feasibly get to level 180 within 72 hours or so. From there it hits a hard wall. You'll be limited to roughly five or six levels per day on most days from here, and even a bunch of real-money spending will only tack on maybe two or three more levels per day most days. However, that's sufficient to at least clear the Lv 311 goal by the end and puts you in good position to hit 366 if you can play and do most everything every day.
WHEN TO START THE GAME?
Before you accept the offer and start the game ... wait for a Friday. Saturday is "double XP day" and is a crucial element of gaining levels, so this gives you the maximum amount of five Saturdays during the period (with the last one being your final day assuming a typical 30 day window).
Why Friday and not Saturday? You'll get the same amount of Saturdays either way, but this gives you the initial Friday to do "new player setup" stuff so you can take better advantage of your first Saturday.
CHOOSING CHARACTER CLASS AND SERVER
For the purposes of GPT offers, we want the class that does the most and fastest damage to endlessly respawning mook mobs ("area of effect" attacks primarily) as that's where the vast majority of our EXP will come from.
That rules out the swordsman/knight entirely. If you look around, the general advice is Wizard or Elf with an ENE focus. I ended up with an Elf in the ENE branch, which worked out OK in terms of attack types, but if doing it again I think I would try the Wizard. At minimum, with the Elf focus more on AGI than ENE initially, that's where all the good crowd-killing attacks for mooks that can't really fight back are. There's another class called "Dark Lord" that you can essentially pay real money to switch to a little after starting, but from reading around it doesn't seem worth it, it seems to be for people who want to focus on PvP and we're going to be avoiding that as much as possible just to do a 30 day GPT offer.
You also want an older server, like the oldest possible. People call them "old servers" but really, the key to the server is the age/level of the oldest 10 accounts on it. It's just that the older servers will most likely have accumulated the oldest players. What's the point of all this? The higher the level of the most powerful users on a server, the more of an EXP boost you get as a new player (for me it was almost 600% starting out, it decreases a bit as you gain levels but it was still a little over 400% when I wrapped up). This approach does have its downsides in terms of PKing in certain limited areas, joining parties of similar-level characters and in getting into active guilds that actually help you, but if you're just shooting for the Lv 300 goals you won't get deep enough into the game that this stuff really matters.
TO SAVE FOR SATURDAY OR NO?
If you read around about this game one very common piece of advice you'll see is to skip your daily tasks on Friday, because you can then cash them in on Saturday for more double EXP grinding time. At best this advice is poorly worded and incomplete everywhere I've seen it, though, and I ended up just disregarding it entirely and still doing just fine toward the realistic goals.
The first thing that posts usually don't make clear is that you're not saving the earned POINTS, you save the TASKS - in other words, you don't even do the task on Friday and you can then "withdraw" it on Saturday instead. If you earn points in a day, and don't use them, they're just wasted and gone when the next day rolls around.
Now, the next thing is that not every task is eligible for this. And the game of course does not explain this anywhere. I'm still not even entirely clear which ones are and which ones aren't. Some of the tasks you skip you may get nothing out of at all.
The final issue is that there's a fairly high price to pay to "withdraw" any tasks that are available. If you pay "garnets" (the game's most common and free currency) to withdraw them you only get 60% of the task. If you pay "diamonds" (the premium currency only available by spending real money) you get 80% back, but there's no way to get 100% of the points back.
All-in-all I decided it wasn't worth it. Your mileage may vary if you can find a good detailed and SPECIFIC guide to how it works, but most of the game's player base seems to be Brazilian and Indian with a smattering of Chinese and Korean thrown in, so good luck getting that in English.
WHAT YOU SHOULD DO ON SATURDAY INSTEAD
Each Saturday, on the left menu bar where they try to sell you all the different packages of the moment, one will appear that offers a potion that gives you 400 level grinding points free and clear. They're 1.99 each, each purchase gives you one potion plus some minor other stuff, and you can buy them twice.
I don't think most GPT offers reimburse you for these, but if you're serious about getting to level 366 or higher, buy both of these (around $5 USD total after tax) each Saturday and use them both that day. You don't need them if you're just shooting for 310 or lower, but they give a kick of about eight more levels each Saturday that collectively can add up to making it to one more of the higher goals (assuming five Saturdays, about 40 levels in direct impact for 22 dollars that isn't compensated, but the advanced pace of character development will also help you level faster overall).
THE BASIC STRUCTURE OF THE GAME
Your first day or two, expect to invest a little more time than usual as you follow the "main story" quests (which mostly auto-play in the background) to unlock various features and powers and such you'll be needing. But, aside from that, the daily flow of the game is basically:
> Check off all your "daily tasks" at some point, which earns Contribution Points (I'm going to call these CnP because I just don't wanna use CP) up to a cap determined by your "VIP Level" (increased only by spending real money). Most of these play out in the background with very little to no input, so put them on while you're making and eating breakfast, in the shower, etc and whatever
> Take the CnP you earned from the dailies to the "Land of Demons" for use, a special endless mob-grinding area where you gain more EXP than usual faster, and just let that sit there and grind (usually about 35-45 minutes total) with the device on until your time runs out. The "efficiency" rating here can't really be trusted as it'll send you to your doom against enemies you aren't ready for, generally pick either the closest mob below your level or one that's JUST above by 5 or so, your defense can be a little lower than recommended but if it's more than 5k or so points you'll probably get killed too quick.
> Do any little story or side quest things that might pop up (usually based on your level) found in the right-hand sidebar, or any current one-time special event or holiday things for bonus items/equipment and EXP (often hidden in the collapsible left-hand sidebar with all the package sales stuff)
> Most days there are at least two regular events to hit for a little more CnP (not subject to the regular cap) and EXP as well as items and garnets: the "Guild Boss Battle" at 12 noon EST, and either the "Square of the Devil" or the "Ruins of Battle God" at either 8 or 8:30 PM EST (adjust as needed to your own local time). The first two of these require joining a guild to participate in. They also have very tight time windows of 5 or 10 minutes to join and participate from when they start. They're helpful, but they won't kill you if you miss a few of them so don't re-arrange your whole life around this.
> Up to five "support quests" to help someone with their Lost Continent monster battle per day (under the Support tab near the chat buttons), and after level 300 you can do periodic "bounties" placed by other players (like 3 every 12 hours or so). These don't gain CnP or EXP but you do get power-up goodies and such from them. Stick to the "Ruler of Fear" ones, you can get killed by friendly fire easily with the "Death Beam Soul" ones
> Keep a periodic eye on the Auction House for any purple-background equipment for your class with an upgrade arrow indicating you can equip it for a boost
> Sundays only you can get an extra 70 CnP by participating in the Castle Raid at 8:30 pm EST. You literally just have to duck in and leave to get the points but if you participate you get a haul of crystals and such for upgrading your Holy equipment.
SHOULD YOU SPEND MONEY UP FRONT?
Yes, absolutely, if you trust your GPT provider and if the offers break you even or make you a profit. Absolutely take the two "monthly card" offers if and when they are available per your offer terms (the two cards found under the "30 Plus" tab that appears when you first boot up the game/under the "Receive Rewards" button), that give you daily garnets plus a one-time haul of diamonds each, together about $20 USD). Note that the offer may have you wait 3 and 7 days to buy them respectively, though. But these together give you more than enough diamonds to cover the really important stuff to make it to the 300 levels in time, the daily garnets will also be quite helpful for powering up, and they'll boost you to "VIP 2" which gives you almost 100 more CnP per day.
WHAT TO USE DIAMONDS ON
The most careful decision you have to make is how to manage your limited diamonds. You only get these from purchases, the game almost NEVER gives them to you for free and in 30 days you could very well never even see 1 freebie, so mistakes here can be a real setback.
The main thing is to cover as many weeks of the 150% experience boost as you can. This is offered as a potion when you go into the Land of Demons (under the Efficiency tab at the top), for 240 diamonds for 7 days, but it's also available in the Garnet Shop at any time. It isn't just for the Land of Demons though, it boosts all your combat experience outside of it too including AFK grinding. I believe the game gives you one 24 hour potion and a couple 30 minute potions for free near the start, deploy these strategically with your diamond purchases to cover as much of your 30 days as possible, at bare minimum you should have the final two weeks covered so have 480 diamonds laid aside for that.
If you're not buying anything for real money beyond the cards and maybe some smaller packs that you're reimbursed for, save at least 600 of the rest of your diamonds for the "Damaged Scroll" quest that will appear around level 280 / about 20 days in. This quest opens your 4th equipment set when completed which is a huge boost to your power, but relies on collecting 14 of a "rare drop" item that only comes from the "World Bosses" that you normally only fight 4 or 5 times per day. Most days you'll just get 1 or 2 scrolls, it's entirely possible to get 0 in a day, so this can easily drag out through the rest of your 30 days and hobble you in the most important stretch if you don't buy your way out of it. They're 60 each in the Diamond Shop so set aside at least 600 for 10.
Those are the absolute necessities, around 1200 diamonds will cover that. If you end up going all in and buying more, the most "bang for your buck" comes from: awakening scrolls for your best attack skills, the six daily "wishes" for straight-up EXP points (expands to eight at VIP 3 and more beyond that), buying additional attempts at daily tasks that give more CnP and EXP (where available), and then if you still have some, focus on equipment that boosts damage output, attack speed and garnet drop rate.
EXP-BOOSTING EQUIPMENT AND ITEMS IN THE EARLY GAME
First of all, very early in the main quest (I believe somewhere in the first day) you're handed an item that gives you a 5% experience boost. I don't think the game makes this entirely clear but this is PERMANENT, so use it as soon as you get it.
There are some garnet shop items that boost your experience earning rate to target early on. The first is the Panda pet. You get a free temporary Baby Panda that does the same thing on your first day, but then it expires. Buy the real Panda ASAP after that.
The next thing is the Spirit Horse mount. This one is tough at a whopping 30000 garnets, but it's worth saving for early as it gives a substantial EXP boost against mobs specifically. This is where those two "month card" purchases really help, if your offer set reimburses you for those.
Finally, I don't think the game tells you this up front, but once leveled up the Ring of Attack gives you a 5% EXP boost so focus on getting and leveling that one first.
JOINING A GUILD
One of the downsides of joining a higher-level server is that it'll probably be composed of just a few guilds that are only for whales, while there are one or two underdeveloped "dumping ground" guilds for newbies to cycle through that have very poor activity. Still, it's better to join ANY guild than no guild. Even if you get zero help from your guildmates (pretty much my experience all 30 days), just being in any guild qualifies you for a lot of extra stuff that's really helpful (including a bunch of extra daily CnP points). There's an "auto-join" button that will just dump you in one that's taking anybody, just hit that to start out.
The one thing to maybe shop around for with guilds is one that has progressed enough to have a Guild Shop built, as this provides some significant extra boosts. It's not totally necessary even to reach 360 but it is helpful and gives you some more cushion when it gets tight at the end.
DAILY TASKS BREAKDOWN
Some of the daily tasks are very straightforward, some are not at all in terms of how to maximize them (or even do them), some appear to be available but are actually not at first because you're too low of a level or don't meet some prequalification. A detailed list of how to handle each follows:
BELLATOR: The first thing on the list actually doesn't get you CnP, but is important to do daily. It gets you money, a chunk of EXP, but most importantly the "Skill Orbs" that are the only way to level your skills up (and this is the only place to get them). You'll probably tear right through this with ease each day of the first two weeks or so, then you'll hit a wall where you might not get any orbs for days as you're stuck on one annoying jerk. Just keep grinding away, you can keep trying each day without burning one of your three turns until you get the skill orb off the guy. You also don't have to get orbs all 30 days to level the most important skills, which are anything related to damage output but ESPECIALLY group attacks
LAND OF DEMONS: The other thing at the top of the list is where you use the CnP you earn rather than obtaining it. As mentioned before this is where you gain the most EXP in the game in the shortest amount of time, but you're limited in how long you can be there each day based on how many CnP points you have on hand. Also, again, CnP points that have been earned already do NOT roll over to the next day or become withdrawable, so spend all you have here each day.
ICARIA: This doesn't unlock until you forge your first set of wings, probably a few days into playing. Once it does it grants CnP for each attempt, but it's also where you grind the items needed to level up accessories (as mentioned before, the first target for this should be the 5% exp boost from Ring of Attack at level 11 or so). In this one the enemies don't fight you, they simply march in a column toward the exit and you have to kill as many as possible before they escape. This one is semi-active, at least if you want to maximize it. Be sure to boost to the maximum at the start, and save the "slow" power until the 5th or 6th (final) wave when the enemies are starting to routinely get past you. You may also want to manually re-position your character at times as the appearance of "bosses" can make them abandon guys that are near death and about to escape and go running way over to the boss instead, which is not at all necessary (the bosses are actually the weakest enemies that appear, they die almost instantly).
BLOOD CASTLE: Pretty straightforward. Always boost to the 50% max (gold is no object in this game) and always take the highest level available even if you can't get the highest ranking on it (as you'll still get more EXP). You need the "Invisibility Cloak" for each try at this which you will get tons of items to forge from your regular play through all 30 days, just remember to forge a few here and there.
BOUNTY QUEST: Longest but most straightfoward daily quest, you can just let this run passively in the background while you go take a shower or something. Takes close to 10 minutes to complete each time. Just a total auto-play with no difficulty at all but gives CnP, EXP and items (actually gives the second-most daily EXP of this stuff behind Blood Castle).
WORLD BOSS: Usually you'll want to fight the highest-level boss available, but if one just opened up and you're about the same level it might be a little much for you. You also may have to wait a while if another player just killed them in the last 10 minutes or so. Try not to split these with other players, fight them solo.
SOLO BOSS: Always fight the highest-level boss available in this one, you'll always be able to handle them and you get better rewards. No cooldowns or waiting on other players you can always just knock all these right out.
ANCIENT HUNT: This is another "select your boss" fight but you go into what is technically a PvP zone for this. I say "technically" because I found it very rare to actually see other players in there, and when I did they were busy killing a boss and were no trouble. But if you jump in the boss fight you might get killed by their AoE attacks, or you might kill them similarly. So best to take on the bosses by yourself. With this one you generally do NOT want the best boss available, to the contrary, try the highest one that is a lower level than you first and step down if you can't do more than 1% damage every 1 or 2 seconds to them.
ELITE MONSTER: You go into the Ancient Hunt PvP area, but to kill 6 or 7 of the regular roaming mook enemies. Well worth it though, as you get a lot of EXP and good items. When you've bagged your limit for the day you'll stop doing damage to them, so just leave.
EQUIPMENT OPTION: Add at least one option to a piece of equipment for 10 CnP. Straightforward, but you don't get very many of the gems needed for this unless you pay for them with diamonds, so you may have some days where you can't do it.
GARNET WISH: You can pay with diamonds to get either a bunch of garnets of a chunk of EXP. You'll be skipping this most days unless you buy a ton of diamonds, but once every 3 days or so you get to do a Garnet Wish for free and that counts for your CnP for this task.
LUPERCAL: Daily mining sessions, self-explanatory, you will get plundered repeatedly but the main thing is to get the CnP. Plundering only takes a certain portion of your mined garnets, they don't get your power-up stones.
LUPERCAL PLUNDER: Now you're on the other side of plundering, but in your first 30 days it can be hard to find targets, you really have to keep checking this periodically. You don't get the CnP unless you beat the victim so don't fling yourself at higher-level players.
AUTO-COMBAT: Pretty much all auto-combat counts while online, but the AFK stuff doesn't. Just remember you have to click "Collect" in between the three stages of this to start the next, your further killings won't count until you do.
GATHER SACRAMENTS: This is a weird one. It unlocks pretty early on, but LONG before you can hope to handle any of the monsters in it. It's another weird PvP zone full of CPU-controlled scorpions that for some reason has like office hours and isn't open too early in the morning (by US time anyway). The scorpions will kill you in one swipe even well into the 300 levels. However, there are two stones you can gather from just outside either exit from the "safe area" to fulfill this requirement.
GOBLIN CARAVAN: This one doesn't grant CnP, it only appears on certain days (I think M-W-F), and you need permission from one of the most powerful guilds on your server to do the "gold" version (which they'll almost certainly ignore). You can always do the less profitable "silver" version but you mostly get stuff to spend at the Guild Store, which you may not have (this is different from the Reputation Shop, your guild has to collect X amount of wood and gold from various things and then build it, and then it's in the Guild Estate). Probably not worth even bothering with this if you don't have a Guild Shop. If you do choose to do it basically it's an "escort mission" of a slow goblin through the Scorpionland you do the Gather Sacraments quest in, you have to stay close to them to keep them moving. It's annoying but doable at lower levels, keep in mind you can usually just run THROUGH approaching scorpions and circle back around later to get out of a pinch, also if they're blocking the road you can "push" the goblin by being close to it from its back.
GUILD QUEST: As the name indicates you must be in some kind of guild to do this one. If your guild isn't active it can be hard to find partners to do the S rank quests, and if it's just two people you both probably need to be in the 200 levels to complete it successfully. Once you get to Level 300 or a tad over you can start soloing these, despite what the game says about it being "too difficult." Until then just use your free re-rolls and try to get A rank quests.
LOST CONTINENT HUNT: This takes you into another PvP zone, the Lost Continent, but it's not too scary. There are two monster types to kill, like a big demon with wings called Ruler of Fear and Death Beam Soul who has tires on his arms. People gravitate toward the latter because it gives better loot and it can be hard to catch those as they get wiped out quick, but there's usually ample of the first type and they're in the "safe" initial zone where other players from the opposite "camp" can't kill you. In the "neutral" zone part you can be killed but not by people in your camp. It's usually no problem to just clean up three guys who are in your safe zone to get the daily CnP, however, you won't be able to solo these guys for at least the first few days. I think it was around level 200 I started being able to kill them alone.
LOST CONTINENT GATHER: You just gather from stones in the Lost Continent. I didn't see much of a difference from getting the fancier-looking Magic Orbs that are farther into the PvP zone and there's more competition for those, you can just grab the safe ones near your starting point to get your CnP.
KEEPING EQUIPMENT UPGRADED
Mu has a weird equipment system and it never explains it adequately in-game. Basically as you go you'll gradually open up four different "sets" or "tiers" of equipment, all of which you can have equipped simultaneously (there are more beyond this but will be non-applicable unless you're going for the 400 level goals). The confusing part is each of these tiers starts with a basic E-rank equipment type you can't upgrade (the junk you're constantly auto-selling for scraps of gold). You need to find the 2E version first, THEN you can start upgrading them to at least like 6E or 7E depending on the tier.
Upgrading is a weird process of sacrificing other 2E equipment of that tier plus Evolution Jewels, and then the pets and ring accessories and wings have their own unique items used to upgrade them. But you have to keep up with all this as it's your main source of power growth, more so than just leveling. Also, you get big power bonuses when each set has had each piece upgraded to the 7, 9 and 11 levels so that's something to look out for.
To make it more confusing, there's a "Moros" (purple background) version of each of these pieces of equipment that's the ultimate and the one to shoot for. You get these as very rare boss drops or quest rewards sometimes, but mostly you want to keep an eye on the Auction House to look for other players selling off their duplicate stuff, where you can buy these for a fairly trivial amount of garnets. Moros stuff inherits the upgrades you've already done to the base equipment so don't worry about doing that while you have it.
Anyway, tinker around in the "Craft" section and you'll get the hang of it. The final thing is the "Holy" equipment, which is in an entirely separate menu but worth keeping tabs on as it grants a LOT of stat boosts when leveled. You'll get drops of these from a couple of your assorted daily tasks in the Lost Continent, the first thing to do is equip one of each piece, then you start leveling them similar to your regular equipment with a combination of unique stones and "sacrificing" other pieces of equipment. The stones you need come from drops sometimes but a lot of them will need to be bought either from the Lost Continent Exchange Shop (with a unique crystal currency, Ruler Points, used only for this) or via other players selling them off via the Auction House.
MISC. PARTING TIPS
> I made it to the 366 goal with about $50 of compensated spend and $8 uncompensated for about $350 total profit (despite a bunch of forums insisting THIS WASN'T POSSIBLE NOWAY MAAAN), and looking back on it, I feel the biggest key to success was joining an "old" server right away. It has its little downsides, mostly your available guilds not being overly helpful, but the EXP boost alone outweighs it let alone some little perks like at the lower levels of World Boss and Ancient Hunt you're almost never competing with other players for your kills.
> That said, you have to basically not miss a day of completing at least most of the important stuff to pull off 366 in 30 days. That's fairly painless as so much of the game is auto-play but you do have to fire it up at least twice throughout the day and be on top of stuff. Lv 311 is much more forgiving, I hit that with a week to go, so you could potentially take a few entire days off and still make it there with minimal spend. If I had had a guide like this before starting out instead of figuring everything out on the fly, and had purchased more of the 1.99 potions on Saturdays and covered the early couple of weeks with the 150% EXP potions, I think I could have made the 410 goal in time.
> Early in the game you get an orb as a gift that automatically advances you one level ... save this for the very end of the game obviously. If you start on a Friday, your time should be up either the end of the final Saturday or the same time the following Sunday, depending on how your GPT provider does it.
> I mentioned it before but it's also crucial to just buy your way through the "Damaged Scrolls" quest around level 280 ASAP with diamonds, be sure to have at least 600 available in addition to the 240 each week to get the 150% EXP potion, that's your bare minimum of diamond spend to get to the goals beyond level 310.
> Look up any gift codes you can find online and try them. I had about 10 work with pretty good benefits, including tickets for more attempts at World Boss and Blood Castle that were very helpful at getting more CnP points late in the game. There doesn't seem to be a limit on attempting to enter these.
>On that note if you get tickets for extra Bellator attempts it's probably better to use those early (while you're still tearing right through it) than later (when you can get stuck on a guy for days). The other ticket types save for more CnP on Saturdays or at least late in the game where the benefits are better.
>You get passive stat boosts for owning mounts, not just from the one you currently have equipped. The game doesn't really make this apparent. I usually found there were better uses for garnets (and definitely diamonds) than buying them, but if you have a bunch to spare, go for it.
