Journey of Light Guide
Everyone unlocks the two gem slots. The $5 pack is the best value in the event, and full max means buying everything except the $20 pack - 289% pack value on Gen6+, the best-value event in the game.
Bottom line — Everyone unlocks the two gem slots (2,000 + 10,000 gems), no exceptions. Anyone spending at all should take the $5 pack (4th airship + 100 hours of pocket watches) — the best value in the event by a wide margin. Going for full max means "buy everything except the $20 pack" — at 289% pack value on Gen6+, this is the best-value event in the game.
Event overview
Send airships out to bring treasure home. One flight takes 8 hours, and each return yields a treasure chest — Common (green) 90% / Premium (blue) 10% (Ton's impression is that blue is coming up less often this time than it used to — unconfirmed).
Four slots: ① free ② 2,000 gems ③ 10,000 gems ④ the $5 pack. F2P (3 ships) gets 30–45 flights across the event; with the $5 pack (4 ships + 100 pocket watches) it is 52.5–72.5.
💡 Last-wave trick: a wave sent just before the end still counts even though it lands after the event closes → always squeeze in one more.
⏱️ Pocket watch optimization 1 watch = 1 airship, 1 hour off (Ton calls them "compasses")
Shortening every slot costs slot count × hours remaining, rounded up. With 4 ships at 3 hours 3 minutes that is 16 watches; drop under 3 hours and it is 12.
Just above an hour boundary, wait a few minutes before using them — Ton waited 3 minutes to turn 16 into 12.
One free per day, and leftovers roll into the next event → no need to rush, and banking them for next time is fine.
🎁 Converting treasure chests green → blue → purple/gold
| Step | How | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Common (green) → Premium (blue) | Combine 3 green | Usually worth doing |
| Combine 3 Premium (blue) | Random conversion | Exquisite (purple) 75% / Dazzling (gold) 25% |
Purple Mythic hero shards ×2 · Lucky Hero Gear Chest ×2 · speedups Gold Mythic hero shards ×10 · Lucky Hero Gear Chest ×10 · speedups ×10
In the era of Experts and T11/T12, speedups became a required currency, and this is one of the cheapest places to get them. The 25% conversion swings on luck (Ton's gold chests ran cold this time) — over a large enough sample it converges.
🏁 Milestones the currency is cumulative flights · 900 at the end
Natural flights top out around 60 even with all 4 ships running, so full max needs roughly 7,200 pocket watches (= 7,200 hours), funded by packs. Milestone count × 8 = hours you have to shorten. The further in you go, the more Mithril becomes the headline reward.
| Version (Furnace tier) | Mithril per milestone | Total Mithril |
|---|---|---|
| Gen3-FC5 ~ Gen5 | 5 → 20 (7 bands) | 93 |
| Gen6+ | 5 → 20 (plus higher-tier rewards) | 93 |
| Gen1 ~ Gen3 (FC3) | 3 → 16 | 55 |
The shops sell Mithril 20–40 at a time; here it is 93. The first Mithril bands are cheap (free play carries more of the load), then the per-unit price climbs sharply from the middle — cut it at one of the sweet spots below.
💳 Strategy by budget five sweet spots
| Budget | Buy | Reaches | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| $0 | The two gem slots only | 30–45 flights · first milestone band | ~90 hours of speedups plus gems and shards — a solid haul for free |
| $5 | + the Expedition ($5) pack | 52.5–72.5 flights · first 3 milestones | The best-value pack in the event — buy this before anything else |
| $35 | $5 + $10 + $20 | Middle milestones (50) | Extra Mithril on a small budget — the line Ton used to run |
| $220 | Through the sweet-spot band | Mithril back under $5 each | The budget dolphins should think hardest about |
| Full max | Everything except the $20 pack | 900 flights · 93 Mithril | ≈$4 each plus speedups, shards and Lucky chests — 289% pack value |
⭐ Skip the $20 pack
Its value is not bad, but it is unnecessary for full max → skipping it and keeping the $20 is the standard line. Fill in 3–5 days of natural flights and you finish anyway (Ton bought out immediately for the video). Judged on Mithril alone, the Gen1–3 version runs over $5 each — but once you count the speedups, Lucky Hero Gear Chests and hero shards, which are especially valuable to a whale early on, it is still a landslide.
📈 Why it is the best value in the game buyout value per TalkStream
🧮 Using the TalkStream site
Journey of Light page → pick your Furnace / Fire Crystal tier (FC10, T12 and so on) at the bottom right → Show details
Gives you the full breakdown of gems, speedup hours, Mythic shards and hero gear. There is also a breakdown per milestone threshold, which answers "I am only going to 150 — what do I actually get?". The current Gen6+ breakdown is posted on Ton's Discord too.
Chest probabilities, slot costs and conversion rates cross-checked against whiteoutsurvival.wiki. Figures shift with generation and patch.