Farming Endgame Materials - The Don Guide

There are a ton of materials in Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time, many of which are dropped by or harvested from specific ore deposits, fish, trees, monsters or gatherables. Frankly, so small part of this guide has been devoted towards locating these materials and informing players of the best ways to farm them! Even when such questions can be answered, the answer itself may not be to your liking. Simply put, some materials are an absolute chore to farm, but fortunately there are ways to increase your odds of getting the game’s rarest materials! This page will provide details on The Don in Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time, including how to find him, how to farm Cashnuts to trade with him, and what materials The Don can sell!

Page Breakdown¶

The Don’s Wares¶

During Chapter 1 you will travel to Ginormosia, a massive, mostly optional continent where you can explore, fight, farm, fish and generally engage in the game’s core mechanics in a free, unstructured way. It’s essentially the game’s sandbox, and if you’re willing to spend time increasing Area Ranks you can find a wide variety of mundane and boss monsters, fish, trees, ore deposits. You can find every material in the game in Ginormosia, but the few things you can’t find in Ginormosia are notable because of their absence. Namely, there are a handful of materials that only can be found in Treasure Groves - Dragontree Wings, Dragontree Horns, Evil Shards, Poseidon Swordfish, Godfish, Beelzebub Tuna, Sultan Hearts… to name a few.

Fortunately there’s a wandering merchant (whom you encounter during your first visit) named The Don, who can stock nearly every item in the game, including items not otherwise found in Ginormosia. While this is undeniably good news, there are enough caveats that may prevent The Don from being more than a supplement source of these materials. First, The Don’s stock at any given time is somewhat random - there’s no guarantee he’ll be carrying exactly what you need. Second, The Don’s stock varies depending on what region you find him in, and that region’s Area Rank. Third, The Don’s stock is very limited (rarely exceeding 1-3 of the game’s rarer materials. Fourth, The Don’s stock rotates over time, so if he doesn’t have what you need, you’ll just have to wait for him to change locations (and stock). Finally, you need Cashnuts to trade for The Don’s wares, and while these can be farmed (and gained from the producing of farming!), accruing Cashnuts is generally a slow endeavor.

All that said, The Don probably won’t be your primary means of obtaining the game’s rarest materials… but the alternatives aren’t a whole lot better. To run Treasure Groves you will need to farm Treasure Grove Saplings from Mimics, plant them, hope RNG spawns a boss worth farming, then actually run the Treasure Grove itself, which can take 10+ minutes even on lower difficulty/year settings. Simply put, it’s a time sink either way, so having two different time sinks producing materials simultaneously is going to get you the materials you need much, much faster, and in that light The Don becomes an indispensable source of endgame materials.

The Don Recipes¶

It’s also worth noting that The Don is also the exclusive source for a variety of recipes, like the Desert, Pirate, Pink Magic and Holy gear sets as well as a variety of mounts, decorations and accessories. Like most of The Don’s wars, these are randomly stocked (usually only around 3 items at a time) and some items may be gated by the Area Rank where The Don is located. If you want the Holy Set you’ll need to find The Don in an Area Rank 6+ region, for example, but his stock of recipes remains the same for every region

The Don Endgame Materials¶

While exclusive recipes are certainly appealing enough reason to seek out The Don from time to time, having a supplemental source of endgame materials is the reason why this page is being written. You should do this in addition to other things - leveling Area Ranks or farming Treasure Groves, for example, stopping to check in with The Don every time you notice he’s changed regions to see what new stock he has. As long as you keep a steady supply of Cashnuts flowing in, you should also be able to use The Don to accumulate those rare materials you need to craft the game’s best gear and reach Hero Rank in various Lives.

Alas, complications abound with this, as The Don’s stock varies depending on where you find him and what the Area Rank of said region is. Boosting a region’s Area Rank is a grind in itself, but you can also use the opportunity to farm legendary materials, like the the Legendary Don Horn (no relation to The Don the merchant!), Legendary Shiny Diamonds and Legendary Divine Logs. Just clear Challenges in regions to gain Area Points, and when an area reaches Area Rank 4+ you’ll start seeing legendary events spawn, which, in the case of vegetables, ore deposits and trees can yield 1,000 Area Points per harvest! Challenges otherwise yield a stable 50-200 Area Points each time they’re cleared. It’s a fairly slow grind to reach the 12,000 Area Points you’ll need to hit Area Rank 5+, but it’s a grind you’ll need to do if you want The Don to carry his best materials! Just find each region’s Tower and change the Area Rank up and down to cause challenges and legendary events to respawn.

Anywho, once every region is Area Rank 5+ you can start getting the rarest endgame materials from him. The list below will catalog the rarest of these materials, but note it’s not meant to be a full, comprehensive list of the materials The Don can spawn - just the ones that can’t be otherwise farmed in The Past or in Ginormosia… mostly Treasure Grove exclusive materials:

Finding The Don¶

Before you can peruse The Don’s wares, you’ll need to find The Don. Fortunately the game help you in this endeavor by making his location with an icon on Ginormosia’s map! Look for a square white icon with a green backpack on it - this marks The Don’s current location. He’ll usually be found on the road and travels between towns and campfires, where he’ll pause on his travels for a length of time. If he’s near towns, his icon will be subordinate to the town’s icon, which can make it hard to spot him - if you don’t see his icon, check near towns for a buried icon!

Farming Cashnuts¶

Now that you know what The Don can stock and how to find him, let’s talk about currency. The Don doesn’t trade in gold, he only wants Cashnuts, a currency exclusive to Ginormosia. You can earn these in a variety of ways, notably by finding Leafes and completing quests and challenges in Ginormosia, the latter two of which are repeatable. Granted, you only get 3-5 Cashnuts per quest/challenge in most cases, and The Don’s most expensive wares can run you 100 Cashnuts a pop. At that rate, it can take quite a while to harvest up the Cashnuts you need… although you’ll probably bank a fair bit just grinding up Area Ranks.

You can also sell vegetables at various Evershop stalls. There’s one near every town, and each Evershop has six slots where you can offer up your veggies - each slot can hold a stack of five vegetables. Over time the inhabitants of Ginormosia will take your veggies and leave Cashnuts (and perhaps other items) behind as thanks - the lowest tier vegetables are worth one Cashnut each, so filling up an entire Evershop stall will earn you 30 Cashnuts. There are six towns in Ginormosia, hence six Evershops, for a grand total of 180 Cashnuts if you populate every Evershop. That’s not a bad rate of return, and rare vegetables will earn you more Cashnuts. Sometimes Evershops also have specials that run where certain vegetables are more sought after, doubling your Cashnut gains if you provide those vegetables. Exchanging vegetables for Cashnuts takes time, however, so it’s not something you can abuse for immediate gains, but if you do the rounds and keep the Evershops stocked you should see a steady supply of Cashnuts come in - no good reason not to restock these every time you check in on The Don’s wares. Of course, you’ll have to grow the vegetables yourself, or at least harvest them from farms in Faraway Island or the Viridia Plateau. Failing that, you can buy low-quality vegetables from the Material Shop in Faraway Island - this is the closest you can get to trading Gold for Cashnuts.

For more information on farming Cashnuts, check out our Best Ways to find Cashnuts page!

That should be everything you need to know about The Don - look for his icon on the map, chase him down and see what he has for sale, buy what you can, restock the Evershops to keep a steady supply of Cashnuts coming in, then go about other business to give time for The Don to restock his wares! Make this part of your endgame grind and you’ll be done… well, faster than you otherwise would, certainly.