With the Whip in hand, the party can now snag the posts by the path to the Water Temple for a shortcut, as Dirac's soldiers suggested back when they were more coherent.

You could also take the long way, through Pandora, but nothing much has changed there. The entrance to the ruins remains blocked, with no sign of Dirac outside. The Girl's friend Pamela appears near the south exit from town, wandering around blankly, but you can't do anything about that yet, either.

You could take cannon travel from just south of the forest, too, if you prefer.

Luka is fine, and heals and saves as usual, but that doesn't mean there aren't other problems.

The previously unenterable cave now has Garfish (Iffish) both inside and in the pond outside that had been empty before.

A round thing in the second room hatches into an Omnom Tadpole (Tonpole). Not too bad, until it transforms into an Omnom Lizard (Biting Lizard) and the boss music abruptly starts playing.

The lizard jumps around a lot and can eat characters, which is less than pleasant. Try to attack from diagonals. The most frustrating thing about the battle, though, is that it can heal up to three times, while you're still stuck with only a limited item inventory for recovery.

Eventually, it collapses, though without the usual pyrotechnics.

The rear wall bursts open, and a tune with an air of mystery (track 23 永劫回帰 / "Eternal Recurrence") starts playing. Inside awaits a floating figure that resembles a mermaid in oceanic colors and holds a spear.

The Girl steps back and does her summoning animation.

The Sprite steps back and does his summoning animation. The Boy looks around expectantly.

Well, that's a bit different. The implication of a bond between him and the sword would also explain why only he can restore its power.

The Girl and The Sprite now have three spells each through Undine. Each can raise their magic level up to the party's current Mana Energy level, and should try to keep levels as high as possible in order to maximize spell effectiveness. Helpfully, all three spells for each character/spirit pair share level and experience.

Remember that you'll get half as much magic experience where the characters don't have their weapons out. It's understandably tempting to spam The Girl's spells in an inn or other recovery spot (preferably free ones like Luka), but stepping out into a combat area means you need fewer castings per level.

The Girl's spells include a healing one, which tends to be the single most useful type of spell in any game. The status cure also helps, but Ice Saber's freezing effect makes enemies temporarily invulnerable as well as immobile, limiting its usefulness. The Sprite, in addition to raw offense, also gets a health-draining spell and one that can temporarily lower enemy defense in addition to inflicting some damage.

Let's check in with Luka.

That settles our next destination.

The shortcut Watts opened makes returning to the Dwarf Village much less trouble than the first time there. In the temple entrance sits a crystal orb by a river of lava. As promised, the orb reacts to the Freeze spell, vanishing and taking the lava with it when hit.

Inside, the architecture bears a resemblance to the Water Temple, but with a more earthen color scheme. A gloomier, more percussion-heavy, take on the usual temple theme plays in both the entrance and the palace proper (track 13 聖なる侵入 / "Holy Intrusion").

The Batler and Green Slime make repeat appearances, while the agile Unicorn Head (Chess Knight) and quarrelsome Goblin Lord (Goblin) show up for the first time. The Goblin Lord also tends to spawn a Goblin Guard (Ma Goblin) or two, and can heal nearby monsters. Both types of goblins may attack with boomerangs in addition to axes, while the Unicorn Heads have high defense and a hopping charge attack that can stunlock characters.

A short bearded figure with a big green hat appears in front of them.

The Sprite is not amused and gets in his face...

...then follows up with several weapon strikes.

Then the screen starts shaking.

He disappears.

And so the party faces the Fire Gigas, in a moderately large arena with no obstacles.

Expect to get hit with a lot of fire magic. The Fire Gigas also turns intangible fairly often, making it invulnerable but also unable to attack until it rematerializes. Take advantage of the opportunity to heal. Ice Saber will give a slight damage bonus to weapons as long as it's reached level 1, but due to a bug, they won't benefit from the water weakness. However, Freeze does so benefit, and thanks to that multiplier will likely make up the bulk of your offense. For best results, start casting as soon as the gigas becomes targetable again just before materializing.

"Prayer and Whispers" plays after winning, and monsters no longer appear inside the temple. Gnome stands on the altar steps in the next room.

The screen briefly glows.

The Girl has a sulky reaction to being referred to as The Sprite's wife.

The seed reacts to the Mana Sword much as the Water Seed did, except that it glows brownish instead of bluish:    

Mana Energy is now 2.

The Boy and The Girl step back.

The Sprite nods and steps up to the seed.

At the end of that line, The Sprite falls down the stairs.

But just as they're starting to get worried...

The Boy's face at this point speaks volumes about his feelings on the matter, but that's all the objection he makes.

As far as magic goes, The Sprite gets a second damage type out of this, though with less efficient spells, plus a status attack that rarely serves much purpose beyond grinding spell levels. The Girl gets support spells that give temporary bonuses to character stats, plus a second saber spell that, though more expensive than the first, also inflicts a much more useful status effect.

While that scene gives us a new destination, it unfortunately doesn't give any clues to getting there. Maybe Luka could help?

Or maybe she'll just have something else for us to take care of instead. Oh well, looks like it's off to Pandora next.

Meanwhile, having 2 Mana Energy instead of 1 allows spells to reach level 2 now, and also raises the attack/magic effect bonus from +1 to +4. It's still not much, but hey, it's better than nothing. Gnome starts at level 0, so will take more spells cast to get to level 2 than Undine, which has likely already made it to 1.