This entry may not make completely clear the fact that Relic Weapons are very time, money, and labor-intensive items to upgrade. Many individuals fail to realize the actual scope of the quest and begin it without having a real means of finishing it, usually giving up their upgrade after either the first or second upgrade. There are individuals who start their own Dynamis Linkshells - even sponsor their own runs, spending millions of gil on their own Timeless Hourglasses - for the sole purpose of obtaining Ancient Currency, Attestations and Fragments. Single-unit Currency is bazaared for thousands of gil on many servers; 100-unit Currency can sell for over a million, and 10,000-unit Currency is almost never sold. Prices may vary between servers. Of the few final-stage Relic Weapon owners in Final Fantasy XI who have come forward with their experiences, it's been learned that it will take two earth years to get the stage five relic.
Should you, the reader, decide to take on the task of completing a Relic Weapon, please be aware that this type of commitment may very well be necessary. You should seriously consider not performing any upgrades before you have the coins and attestation to upgrade all the way to Stage 4; that way if you give up you have the coins instead of a useless Stage 2-3 weapon.
Relic Knuckles --> Spharai Example
To give an example of the effort required here, lets make the following quite realistic assumptions: In one Dynamis run you gain about 100 single currency pieces. Mostly there are less, but the occasional 100 piece evens that out. You can go two times per week to a dynamis run (Or every 3 Earth Days).
Stage 1 > 2: 100 Byne Bill x 4
Stage 2 > 3: M. Silverpiece x 14
Stage 3 > 4: L. Jadeshell x 61
Stage 4 > 5: 10,000 Byne Bill x 1
= 17,900 single-unit Ancient Currency An average of 179 Dynamis runs
Approximately 112,000,000 - 179,000,000 gil Could take nearly 2 years
This sums up to 17,900 pieces of single-unit ancient currency, or an average of 179 Dynamis runs on the above assumption. This again means to do 2 Dynamis runs every week for 90 weeks, which would mean nearly two years if you were to obtain your currency simply by sponsoring your own Dynamis runs. Of course, upgraders typically buy Ancient Currency where they can (although it's not so abundant as most groups in Dynamis are collecting for their own sponsors Relic upgrades), and if the price of 100-unit pieces is approximately 800k - 1 million a piece, you're looking at a total of 112,000,000 - 179,000,000 gil worth of Ancient Currency. Not to mention the prices of any of the other items that are needed in the various stages of upgrades.
On top of all this is the requirement of a few Rare/Ex items that can only be obtained in Dynamis: Beaucedine and Dynamis: Xarcabard. These aren't items that drop off any mob while you're fighting your way to a win - you will need to go out of your way with your Dynamis group to obtain these items. And the fights aren't necessarily easy either.
So basically, this is a very long, very expensive process. Square-Enix has even said that Relic Weapons are not meant to be for everyone - they're only meant for a handful of people who have the means and resources to go about the upgrades. So if you would like to get a fully upgraded weapon, now have an idea of what you're in for!
