Note that the Darkness Temple can be skipped until a later point that will be noted when it comes up. The plot hook sends us here now, though, and it comes next in terms of monster levels, too, so this is where I'm putting it.

The entrance is low on the mountain trail, just outside of Mandara. Flammie will also drop us off here directly if we try to land at the temple south of the village. While the first room is simply a small cave, as we've been told, most of the interior has proper Mana temple architecture, if with a considerably darker color scheme than usual, though there are also additional sections of unfinished cave further in, some requiring the Axe and Whip to progress. "Holy Intrusion" plays inside, as you'd probably expect from a Mana temple that's full of monsters.

A Demon Head (Fierce Head) guards the initial cave entrance. It spawns Dark Bats, but otherwise isn't particularly remarkable. More appear further in. Dark Knights, stronger counterparts to Armored Knights, occupy much of the temple proper, and cast Countermagic (Wall) on themselves to reflect spells. The Ninja, Tar Man, and Mini Devil also make repeat appearances to flesh out the variety.

If you're especially lucky, a Dark Knight might drop a Gauntlet. These are dramatically stronger than even the best armwear sold in the Gold City, especially in terms of magic defense, and happening to get one will give a character an almost unfair advantage for quite a while.

The temple has a number of dead ends, and floor buttons in several places raise Whip posts, unlock gates, or open new passages. This results in some backtracking, but there aren't any noteworthy puzzles as such. The middle door in the first temple-style screen, initially closed off with a gate, leads to a small room with a pair of Demon Heads and...

In the depths of the temple, floor buttons create invisible bridges lined with blue flames, a neat visual effect if nothing else. The door in the back takes us to a strange abstract room with crystalline stalagmites and a remarkably large slime. A voice speaks.

The Hewpo Slime (Lime Slime) mainly uses magic, casting Dark Force for standard damage, Evil Gate for a defense-ignoring attack that deals more damage to targets with more HP, and Antimagic to dispel enchantments and reset weapon charge. It also flings slime bubbles as a physical attack. Only the core is vulnerable; the surrounding slime body mostly just gets in the way. It also shrinks as the slime takes damage, making the core easier to hit with weapons, and changes color every so often, which has no discernable effect. As a nice change from all the recent bosses with no exploitable weaknesses, fire magic works especially well, and we have plenty of that, so this shouldn't take long.

After the battle, we're taken to the inner sanctum of the temple, where "Prayer and Whispers" replaces the music.

Though it still has a darker color scheme than the other temples, this room isn't as gloomy as the outer areas, with blue flames burning in the torches, and the stained glass windows a blue and green pattern instead of pure black. The seed rests on its altar, and a dark winged figure stands in front of it.

The Sprite gets the spells that the slime used. Dark Force is both the least expensive and generally the most useful. The Girl gets no new magic.

The concept of the netherworld (魔界, makai) is fleshed out more in other Mana games, and its translation is apparently standardized as Mavolia in more recent official localizations. That has a nice ring to it, actually.

"Eternal Recurrence" now plays, and all that's left to do here is to gain the seed's power. It reacts much as the others did, though its glow is so dim that it barely brightens the surroundings at all:    

Mana Energy is now 5.

As usual, the monsters inside the temple are now gone. That means no more Gauntlets from here, either.

Most rooms in the temple don't change the current background music. Curiously, although entering the inner sanctum will start playing "Prayer and Whispers" as you might expect, the entry cave always sets the music to "Holy Intrusion", even after the monsters are gone. An oversight, or deliberate?

Although the Mana Seed and spirit are nice for progress, there was no sign of a sage in the temple. Let's try here again.

From the air, the city looks much like any other, except for the wall around it and what might be a palace a short distance north of the main district. On the ground, though, everything (except the teal-striped window awning on one building) is a gaudy golden color, even the grass and trees! As in other Imperial towns, "Tell A Strange Tale" plays here.

As previously noted, the item shop here has the best armor sold anywhere until nearly the end of the game, though it's correspondingly expensive. Watts has also set up shop as he often does, using a building in the southwest part of town.

The king everyone speaks of lives in a larger building in the northeast corner of the city.

A pair of young women upstairs are seeking a share of the riches.

On the top floor are the king...

...and what appear to be his wife...

...and a government official.

Where do they get the power, though? That building north of the city proper seems suspicious, as it's even more prominent than the king's mansion.

Close up, it looks kind of like a Mana temple. Curiouser and curiouser. But, of course...

A more careful check of the city finds one more NPC on the wall behind the mansion, who we have to reach by circling all the way around.

Spy... Southtown... something valuable... sounds familiar.

Southtown is slightly south of east from the Gold Isle. Maybe our spy friend can help. Not that there's much else here.

"Holy Intrusion" plays inside, confirming that this is indeed a Mana temple. And right there in the very first room is a treasure chest...

The first floor is just a short series of small rooms, populated mainly by Beast Zombies, which are a stronger, and undead, version of Jackals that can additionally cast Acid Storm and Speed Down. There's also a Ninja and a Wizard Eye.

Up the stairs, we find ourselves in a sudden boss battle. The Biochimera (Blue Spike) resembles a stronger blue version of the witch's Tiger Chimera, down to very similar behavior. This time, however, we have both a wider variety of ranged weapons, and more importantly, plenty of magic! It has no particular weakness, so Freeze and The Girl's offensive fire magic work as well as anything, though it also has fairly high magic defense.

Partway through the battle, the Biochimera loses its head and starts exploding. However, any AI characters in the party will keep on attacking, because it's just a ruse. The tiger regrows its head and keeps fighting for a little while longer. It's on its last gasp, though, and goes down for good shortly after.

After the battle, a stairway rises from the floor, and the tower continues. The next floor has the same layout and Beast Zombies as the first one, along with a Ninja and a Tar Man. Also like the first floor, it has another treasure chest right away.

Up the stairs is already another boss battle. The Gorgontaur (Gorgon Bull) resembles the Fire Temple's Minotaur boss, though it can also use a nasty petrifying gas attack in addition to punching, charging, guarding, and casting an ineffectively weak (despite its high level) Earthquake spell. Although it has higher magic defense than the Biochimera, its earth affinity means Jinn's spells inflict bonus damage, so Air Blast carves it up quickly and efficiently.

As the battle progresses, the Gorgontaur will activate extendable claws that give it additional reach when attacking. Air Blast cares not.

After the battle, another new staircase rises, and "Eternal Recurrence" plays. Up the stairs is the inner sanctum of the temple, already, where the seed rests on its altar and a glowing wispy figure stands in front of it.

The Girl gets her most expensive spells yet. One inflicts direct damage, and should be reserved for enemies that are specifically weak against it. One creates a shield that takes physical damage in place of the target until used up. And one is another saber spell that despite its high cost is effectively useless because attack traits are bugged and it provides no status effects. The Sprite gets no new magic.

"Prayer and Whispers" now plays, and all that's left to do here is to gain the seed's power. It reacts much as the others did, and its glow is so bright that it overwhelms the surroundings entirely:    

Mana Energy is now 6.

As usual, the monsters inside the temple are now gone. No one in the city has anything new to say, so that's it for here.

Once more, no sign of a sage. Let's try back here. Again.

That's 筋斗雲, from the 16th century Chinese novel Journey to the West, but probably better known indirectly through countless references to it, like Goku's Flying Nimbus. I'll refer the curious to Jim R. McClanahan's more detailed explanation of the original, which literally translates to "cloud somersault".

Yet another Mana temple? Fine, then. An additional Mana Seed and some more spells couldn't hurt.

It seems likely that you were still expected to be traveling by sea at this point, making the remarks about Sage Jach flying from place to place so effortlessly come across as mocking. Imagine having to cross the ocean and climb the entire mountain from the bottom every single time you wanted to visit.

Early screenshots and promotional material show only some fairly minor changes to the world map in these areas between the final version and the latest known previous one. As shown in the previous chapter, Manten Mountain lacked Mandara and the clearing in front of the Darkness Temple that lets you land right at the entrance, but was otherwise essentially the same as in the final map. The Golden Isle is a bit more interesting:

Although the island itself looks much the same, the river and lake were more prominent, and the city less developed, with a very different layout and without its enclosing wall. I can imagine there being a sidequest just to get from the beach into the city, perhaps sneaking up the river. And I'd certainly hope that a full-sized temple was planned, instead of just jamming a pair of bosses plus a pair of weapon powerups and a handful of enemies into a tiny little tower that's over almost before it begins. The final game's Light Temple is the most perfunctory one so far.

It would have been nice for reclaiming Wisp to have more impact, too. Perhaps a direct confrontation with those misusing the spirit's power, or at least some kind of fallout after they no longer have access to this power. Although Wisp does mention that the transformed gold will eventually revert to what it originally was, nothing actually changes during course of the game, and no one even notices that anything has happened.