The short answer
| Stage | Where the Kina comes from | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Levels 1–45 | story and zone quests, Sealed Dungeons, mobs on your route | don't grind; just don't waste it |
| After 45, every day | Duty Missions, dungeon cubes, Abyss mobs | the daily routine is your income |
| After 45, extra | gathering, crafting, selling on the Market | for players who enjoy it; buying on the Market needs membership |
No market prices here: they change daily and differ on every server. Check them in the Market window.
Two kinds of Kina: bound and unbound
The game shows two Kina balances (MetaBot, Game8, Timesaver):
- Bound Kina stays on the character that earned it. It comes from quests, Duty Missions and selling to NPC merchants (allthings.how, Timesaver).
- Unbound Kina can be moved between your characters through Server Storage, and it's the only kind you can spend on the Market (Game8, MetaBot, allthings.how).
When something accepts both, the game spends bound Kina first. That's in the item description itself (Game8), so you never burn your unbound Kina on enhancing by accident.
What this means for you: without membership you can't buy on the Market anyway, so the difference only matters when you want to move Kina to another character.
Where Kina comes from
Quests, Sealed Dungeons and the Daeva Pass
Story and zone quests pay Kina once per character (MetaBot, GamesFuze). Sealed Dungeons (solo mini-dungeons under a question mark on the map) give Kina too, alongside Daevanion crystals (MetaBot, Game8, mein-mmo). The Daeva Pass also has Kina among its rewards (Game8; NCSOFT lists "in-game currencies" in the pass).
This is your whole income while levelling, and it's enough. How to level efficiently: leveling guide 1–45.
Duty Missions
Duty Missions are 5 rewards a day from the Duty tab in your Journal, from level 45. Kina is one of the possible rewards (MetaBot, Game8), and Game8 says it comes in faster there than from expeditions. The limit is per server, not per character, so do them on your main. Don't open the Duty tab before 45: a known bug hides your missions until the day after you hit 45. More in the daily and weekly checklist.
Dungeon cubes after 45
The reward cubes at the end of Conquest, Transcendence and Sanctuary give unbound Kina along with the gear (allthings.how, GamesFuze). You open a cube with Odyle Energy, so the income is limited by how much energy you have. Don't spend energy just for Kina. Spend it where you need gear and take the Kina as a bonus: Odyle Energy guide.
Monsters in the open world and the Abyss
Mobs drop small amounts of unbound Kina (allthings.how, MetaBot). couga54 says that in the first days at 45 nothing paid better than farming mobs in a quiet corner of the Abyss: Kina, AP and gear at once. The Abyss is the PvP zone, open from 1,000 item level.
Kina from monsters has a daily cap of 1,000,000 (Game8, allthings.how). So a whole day of grinding doesn't pay more than a few good hours.
Hidden Cubes
Hidden Cubes are chests tucked away on ledges and in corners all over the map. Most of them take a Hidden Key, which you get from quests, daily attendance, the Daeva Pass and Monolith levels (Game8, Destructoid). Neither guide lists Kina among the rewards. Open the ones you pass, but don't hunt them for Kina.
Gathering and crafting
Gathering (Essence Extraction) costs no Odyle Energy, so it's the one income you can grow with your time alone. couga54 and MetaBot agree that Odyle nodes are worth the most (MetaBot: about four times other materials of the same grade). Gathering levels up as you use it.
The best seller is Alchemy: potions, scrolls and Manastones, which players use up constantly (Game8, mein-mmo). Even if you can't sell, crafting your own consumables means you don't buy them from NPCs.
Selling on the Market without membership
Every source agrees on this much:
- The Market opens at level 45 (allthings.how, DTG Reviews).
- Buying on the Market needs membership (Special Quai, about $15 a month). NCSOFT's notice of 8 Jul says an active membership is required to trade; ExpCarry, GamesFuze, Game8 and Timesaver say the same.
- You can only list items marked tradable. A lot of top dungeon gear is bound to your character (GamesFuze, MetaBot).
- The Market takes a tax on every sale; the rate is shown in the Market window (GamesFuze, Space4Games). Each server has its own Market (ExpCarry, Timesaver).
Sources disagree on selling without membership. ExpCarry and GamesFuze say a free player can list items but can't buy. Timesaver and allthings.how say the whole Market is locked without membership. Check it yourself at 45: open the Market and see whether the "sell" tab lets you list.
If you can list: sell materials (especially Odyle) and crafted consumables, not your gear. Selling to an NPC merchant only gives bound Kina (allthings.how), so anything tradable is usually worth more on the Market. Check what a similar item sold for before you set a price (MetaBot, Timesaver).
Never sell or salvage gold items, even for other classes. They're fuel for rerolling Soul Binding lines later (23 things the game doesn't tell you).
The only official way to turn real money into Kina is the Quna exchange, which also needs membership. How that works, and whether it makes the game pay to win: Is Aion 2 pay to win?
Plan by stage
Levels 1–45: collect, don't farm
- Follow the story, do the zone quests and Sealed Dungeons on your route. Kill mobs in your way, but don't grind in one spot (Game8).
- Gather the nodes you pass: the skill levels up and the materials come in handy at 45.
- Spend Kina only on what you really need: potions, the first cheap bag expansions, enhancing to +10.
- Don't open dungeon chests in the story. They cost Odyle Energy and you'll replace the gear anyway (first week plan).
After 45: a daily routine
- Duty Missions on your main every day (5 rewards).
- Odyle Energy on dungeons where you still need gear. The Kina comes with it.
- The Abyss once you have 1,000 item level: mobs for Kina and AP, up to the daily cap.
- Gathering and crafting if you have spare time. They don't use Odyle Energy.
Which dungeons to run at which item level: what to do after 45.
Alts: when a second character pays off
A second character has its own Odyle Energy (from level 22), and daily income limits count per character (Timesaver, allthings.how). Unbound Kina can be moved to your main through Server Storage (Game8, allthings.how); bound Kina can't. Duty Missions don't multiply: they're counted per server. Timesaver adds that Daeva Passes are bought per character, so an alt only pays off if you actually play it.
What not to waste Kina on
Enhancement is the biggest Kina cost in the game (Game8, MetaBot), so every Kina you don't waste elsewhere goes into gear you keep.
- Enhancing past +10 on gear you'll replace. Up to +10 always succeeds; from +11 a failure costs stones and Kina (gear progression).
- Good Manastones in levelling gear. Salvaging the item deletes them.
- Low-level gear from merchants or the Market. Quests and dungeons replace it within hours (Game8).
- Bag expansions once they get expensive. The first ones are cheap, later ones cost millions; use the Server and Character Storage instead (Game8).
- Soul Binding on levelling gear. It costs Kina and Soul Codex on items you'll throw away.
Gold sellers, bots and "free Kina" sites
Buying Kina outside the game breaks the Terms of Service, and NCSOFT has warned it can cost you the account (news from 4 Oct). The same goes for bots and exploits. Sites with "Kina codes" are scams. The real codes are on our codes page.
