As we're flying over the terrain, it's interesting to note how bare-bones the world map is for the Upper Lands. While the Gaia Lowlands map is richly detailed, with a close approximation of the actual paths we used on the ground (though there are some discrepancies), the Upper Lands appear almost entirely as solid forest, with just a handful of landmarks, like the cannon in the southeast. Even the colorful trees in this area don't show up on the map at all! And some of the few details that do appear, like the northward flowing river that splits the region into two sections, don't seem to correspond to anything we find while exploring on the ground. That's unfortunately an ongoing issue with the game map. A lot of care and attention went into detailing the Gaia Lowlands, and most of the towns and villages throughout the game are similarly fairly well approximated, but everything else seems to have been rushed and is mostly meaningless filler.

Based on the snowy ground, we seem to have arrived in the middle of winter. Moogles wander around the area, and purple dragon-like creatures fly by every so often. A comparatively calm tune (track 15 森が教えてくれたこと / "What the Forest Taught") plays in the Upper Land forests.

Considering the way cannon travel works, the only part of this that should surprise anyone is that nothing worse happened.

How about these Moogles, then?

Since Moogles are basically molebats in Japanese, maybe that's why it's molebears and not something else.

And who's this?

Let's look around some more, then. With the new area comes new enemies. Rabbillions (Silktails) are little more than just stronger Rabbies in pink, though they also have weak Heal Water and Acid Storm spells. Death Crabs (Steamed Crabs) can throw their claws in an arc and power up their attacks with Thunder Saber, which at least doesn't inflict any status effects. Blood Owls (Nemesis Owls) make nuisances of themselves by casting the Silence spell to mix up directions, though they have a small chance to drop Feathered Hats for The Girl and The Sprite. Sahagins also make a repeat appearance.

The seasons seem to be all out of whack around here, too. East of the wintry arrival location is a section of forest that looks like it's in autumn, while the area south of winter looks like spring, and east of that and south of autumn is summer. Nikita appears in the spring area, but doesn't carry anything particularly noteworthy. The seasons normalize to the west of spring, where a crystal orb that won't respond to anything blocks passage, and to the east of summer, where another cannoneer provides travel back to the Gaia Lowlands.

Another exit from the summer area to the northwest leads to a smaller area with three Molebears (Pebblers) where "The Boy Heads for the Wilds" plays. Molebears can tunnel underground, as well as spin rapidly to spray dirt in all directions or charge forward, but we handle them without undue trouble.

The Moogles return, and Watts and Nikita come with them. "Color of the Summer Sky" plays here now.

Let's try that, then. But first, let's grab these treasure chests...

Let's do that loop. Just note that with the moogles back in their village, the winter zone now has enemies.

A pond in the northeast of the spring area has shrunk, allowing access to another exit there.

The Sprite dashes ahead...

...but something's not right here. The music cuts out.

Hearing a loud cry, everyone turns northward.

"Crisis" starts playing. We know what that means, right? The Axe Beak (Spring Beak) hops around a lot and can use Wind spells including Balloon against one character and Air Blast or Thunderbolt against the party, but also has a corresponding Earth weakness.

Keep it pinned down with Gnome's attack spells for best results. Anyone trying to use weapons should aim for the head from a safe distance. This fight reminds me a lot of the Tiger Chimera in the witch's castle, except that actually having magic makes a huge difference.

After the battle, "Roses and Spirits" plays. Let's continue north. What's this? The architecture of this large structure looks familiar...

...and "Prayer and Whispers" plays inside. Sure enough, there's another seed here, but let's check on the pointy-eared old man first.

The music changes to "Soul of the Night".

He makes the familiar summoning whistle, and a floating genie-like figure appears.

Jinn vanishes with another whistle.

This gives The Girl her first spells that target enemies. One allows her to inflict the handy Balloon status. The other, Detect (Analyzer), scans enemies for HP and weaknesses, may disarm traps when used on dropped treasure chests, and also has another use that the old sprite will mention shortly. She gets a third saber spell as well, but since attack traits are bugged and it adds no status effects, it's essentially useless. The Sprite, meanwhile, gets two direct offensive spells, with the more efficient one also being more inconvenient, plus the spell the owls keep spamming that inflicts Confused status.

Like Luka in the Water Temple, the old sprite will continue to provide saving and free healing.

Unlike in the Water Temple, however, notice that everyone has their weapons out. It's unclear why, particularly since no combat ever occurs here... possibly it's just a vestige of cut content. Regardless, that does mean that we can level up non-combat spells here at the same rate as in an actual combat area.

The seed reacts to the Mana Sword much as the previous two seeds did, glowing a pale sky blue:    

Mana Energy is now 3.

That's that for here. Let's build our spell levels up while we're in the area, pay Watts a visit, then on to Matango!

Let's try out Detect on that crystal orb...

Unfortunately, Detect will tell us only which spirit has the correct magic, not which magic that is, even though each crystal orb only reacts to a specific single spell. Still, it helps narrow things down when the answer isn't readily apparent.

This particular crystal orb responds to Air Blast, one of The Sprite's new spells, and clears away the barrier to open a new pathway. Crawlers join the enemy ranks in this area, with an attack that can cause Poisoned, but more annoyingly, the Sleep Flower spell, which inflicts Asleep.

Continuing west and north, we eventually reach a cave, where a muffled, echoing version of "Dancing Beasts" plays. The Garasha (Kimono Bird), a flying enemy that spawns Molebears and has some Jinn magic, makes its first appearance inside. It's a short cave, though, and on the other side...