Walkthrough for the East Crossbell Highway in Chapter 1, during the main quest “Monster Damage Investigation” in The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero, including basic information about dungeons, the monsters encountered in the area, and the treasures you can find as you explore.

When you’re finally done with all your business in the city, exit via the East Crossbell Highway gate in East Street, which will take you to… East Crossbell Highway, of course. After some drama with the public transportation system you’ll make the decision to hoof it on foot. What lies ahead are two proper “dungeon” areas - the first since the Geofront, and these ones feature stronger, more varied enemies and no Orbment Charging Stations.

Dungeons in Trails From Zero¶

This is, in many ways, your first proper dungeons in the game, so there are a few things worth going over.

Enemy Levels and Soft EXP Caps¶

Fighting new, higher-level enemies will give you significantly more EXP than beating up enemies you outlevel, and this serves as a soft cap on your level as you progress through the game. The enemies in the East Crossbell Highway are all Lv8, meaning you’ll get good EXP until you outlevel them by a bit - hitting Lv10 just running through and fighting everything in this area’s three maps should be a pretty simple manner. This is a fine goal for most of the dungeons in the game, and if you’re gunning for the Rise and Don’t Grind achievement… well, you don’t have to worry about that any time soon, as enemy levels will keep your own levels below 40 until late in the game. So grind away! The extra Sepith sure won’t hurt.

Rare Monsters¶

Finding most monsters is a simple enough matter - you see them roaming around, you sneak up on them, give them a good smack, then engage them in battle and defeat them. Simple. Some monsters, however, do not appear as individual entities in a dungeon, instead randomly spawning alongside other enemies. This isn’t so much of an issue in the East Crossbell Highway (save for the Shining Pom, which is its own category of tedious, hard to spawn monster) but in the next dungeon which begins immediately after this one, Old Armorica Road, it’ll become something you want to know.

In this case, there are two rare monsters on Old Armorica Road, the Sasa Panda and the Bad Frogger. The former only spawns with Death Corolla enemies, while the latter only accompanies Helmet Hunters. To get these to spawn you’ll just need to find some of the monsters they accompany, preferably near an area transition, and keep fighting said accompanying monsters until your target appears. If you don’t have any luck, zone out and zone back in and try again. This can take quite a number of tries, and some rare monsters are rather flighty. On the plus side, these rare monsters have a high chance of dropping U-Material.

Treasure Chests and Shiny Spots¶

There are two major types of treasure in dungeons, the common variety found in chests, and the also common variety found on the ground, appearing as shining motes of light. If you have the Detection Quartz equipped, you’ll see the location of every chest marked on your map, which trivializes the hunt for chests. We’ll also provide a list of all the treasure chests you can currently reach in each area, but it’s worth noting that you won’t be able to get every chest just yet.

Shining spots are randomized treasures that appear on the ground. Just look for flashing lights as you explore and snag them when you see them. They’re transient, temporary, and don’t count towards the Chest Nut achievement, so there’s no great loss in missing them. Shiny Spots tend to yield Sepith or some ingredient - nothing world breaking, but still nice to have.

Exploring the East Crossbell Highway¶

The first section of the East Crossbell Highway is pretty simple, just follow the road east until you reach a fork. Go up the stairs to the north, defeat two monsters (a Berga Bug and a Grass Drome, then loot two chests to score a Leather Jacket and a Teara Balm. The former should hopefully be obsolete already, assuming you picked up the Martial Arts Uniforms at the Barca Casino earlier.

As for your foes, these enemies are as basic as it gets outside of the Geofront, but your preparations will make your mileage vary. If you bought new weapons from the Gironde Armory and gambled for new armor at the Barca Casino, you’ll likely find these enemies to be pushovers. If not, they’ll put up more of a fight. Assuming you’re not vastly overleveled they should provide you with a hefty amount of EXP - 25 base EXP, but this number could drastically increase depending on your performance in battle, and your own level. If you’re underleveled, it’s not going to take a long time to change that.

Exit to the northeast when you’re done and you’ll reach the second screen of the East Crossbell Highway. This area is more diverse in terms of enemy population, and you’ll find every enemy here save the Acerbic Tomartian and the Shining Pom. Despite there being fifteen enemies roaming about, there are still only two treasure chests, one containing a Silver Brooch on a hill north of the road, just before the bridge, and another containing All Sepith x20 southeast of the road, near the exit to the third section of the East Crossbell Highway.

The third screen is arguably the most interesting. Every type of enemy native to the East Crossbell Highway can be found here, with some caveats; the Egg Snake can only be encountered accompanying other monsters, the Acerbic Tomartian only spawns in one spot (north of the fork near the bus stop) and the Shining Pom rarely ever spawns at all. Check out the Where to Find the Shining Pom in East Crossbell Highway page if you want detailed information about getting this elusive monster to spawn at this point in the game.

Otherwise there are two treasures in this area; follow the road and when you reach the second ramp, search both north and south of it to find an EP Charge and a Steel Wrist respectively. When you approach the fork along the eastern edge of this area you’ll get a scene, after which you just need to follow the road north to reach the area transition to the next stretch of road/dungeon, Old Armorica Road.