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In The First Berserker: Khazan, the resource collected from defeated enemies is known as Lacrima, but is essentially just XP that can be dropped on death just like in any souls-like. Lacrima can be spent at a Blade Nexus checkpoint, in order to raise the various primary stats. Dying before reaching a checkpoint will cause the Lacrima to drop at the location of your corpse, and will have to be recovered once more.This guide is all about the ideal location for farming Lacrima quickly and efficiently in The First Berserker: Khazan.Mount HeinmachYetis DomainBattered Blade NexusThis farm route consists of a large loop where you kite two large hostile creatures into fighting multiple small enemies. Begin by unlocking the Battered Blade Nexus in this area. Next, continue down the lower route and run past the two human enemies, until you arrive at the junction where the Imperial Soldier calls for help. Ignore him as well, and take the left route, past the three human enemies as well as the Yeti. Continue along this upper ledge overlooking the Blade Nexus and kick the cart off of the side to create a makeshift stairway. You have now successfully created the farming route.To begin an actual run, you can go in either direction, upper or lower, but ideally you will proceed via the lower route. Run past both human enemies again, and take the right path at the junction. Avoid killing any enemies just yet, as you will be pitting them against each other eventually. Enter the cave here and provoke the large Bear creature into following you back out the cave. As you leave you may run into the three enemies you evaded earlier. Continue on the right path at the junction, into the area with the three additional human enemies, and keep going right past the Yeti. By this point you will have aggravated a total of six human enemies, the Bear, and the Yeti into a melee. The two creatures will not fight each other, but will instead engage the humans. Either engage them directly, or allow them to reduce their health before finishing them off, and collecting all the Lacrima and loot drops. Your attack priority should be Bear or Yeti, then archers, and lastly the fighters.Return to the Battered Blade Nexus to rinse and repeat. The entire run takes approximately two minutes and is worth 1520 Lacrima.Embars RuinsHeart of the ForgottenBlade NexusThis farm is far simpler, as the enemy is within sight of the Blade Nexus and rewards you with a large chunk of Lacrima after being defeated. Head through the large double doors opposite the short staircase. Creep up on the large reptilian creature with the spiked club so that you are approaching it from the rear. Spam your attack so that it has no chance to retaliate, and this battle will be over within seconds.Return to the Blade Nexus to rinse and repeat. The entire run takes approximately thirty seconds and is worth 1104 Lacrima.Those are two of the easiest and quickest Lacrima farming locations in The First Berserker: Khazan.

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 77, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If youre new here, welcome, dont forget to make your Venmo private, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)This week, Ive been reading about RISC and Ben Affleck and Googles new search boss, installing a SodaStream because my can situation is getting out of control, binge-watching How I Met Your Mother along with the new rewatch pod, watching Dead Talents Society after my colleagues raved about it, reliving a decade of great music through one Benny Blanco interview, enjoying a huge uptick in new friends on Signal, and doing a lot of retro racing in New Star GP.I also have for you a terrific new Apple TV Plus show, a deep dive into fax machines, the internets favorite new AI plaything, and much more. Kind of a light week this week, honestly, but still lots to dig into. Lets do it.(As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What do you want to know more about? What awesome tricks do you know that everyone else should? What app should everyone be using? Tell me everything: installer@theverge.com. And if you know someone else who might enjoy Installer, tell them to subscribe here.)The DropThe Studio. Ive been excited for this show a comedy with Seth Rogen as a Hollywood exec who wants to make cool things but also doesnt want to get fired since I saw the first trailer. The first episode is excellent, and the reviews have been glowing. All the numbers say nobody watches Apple TV Plus, but it keeps having great stuff.Images in ChatGPT. This feature has made the internet super weird all week. Ive seen and made some really cool, beautiful stuff, and also horrors I hoped to never encounter. This feels like a step beyond any image generation stuff Ive seen before.The Twelve South AirFly Pro 2. This is one of those accessories that shouldnt need to exist, but Im glad it does a dongle for connecting Bluetooth headphones to seat-back screens, old-school audio systems, and more. The new model has better sound and faster pairing, which almost makes the $59.99 price tag tolerable.Beyond Im Back: How the Fax Machine Sent Sports to the Future. This is a really fun blast from the past about how fax machines intersected with some of the biggest moments in the history of sports, and how a now-quaint technology was, for so many years, a huge leap forward. The nostalgia is off the charts.Vivaldi. An excellent browser with a great new feature: a built-in VPN courtesy of Proton. Its never super difficult to get a VPN, but baking this in for free and as part of your browser account makes things easy. One to keep installed, even if its not your daily driver.Paul American. I cannot, in good conscience, tell you its a good idea to watch an eight-episode Max documentary about the Paul brothers that almost seems like a parody of itself. All I can tell you is that I will watch every single second of it.Side Quest. Now this I can happily recommend! Mythic Quest is one of my favorite comedies (another win for Apple TV Plus, somehow) and has always been at its best doing one-off bottle episodes. This is just that, but even more, and takes place in part inside the world of the games weve been hearing about all these episodes.Atomfall. A postapocalyptic survival game set in some extremely British locales, with a big world and a big story? I dont always love a wander-around game, but this sounds like my kind of wandering.Marina Galperina joined The Verge a few weeks ago as a senior tech editor and immediately started asking extremely fun questions. Questions like, shouldnt we do a thing about bird flu? And did you know that I once sold a Vine at an art fair? (And David, why are all your sentences so bad?) What Im saying is, she fit right in.Marinas been covering tech and science for a while, but I wasnt sure if she was a true gadget-head or not. So I asked Marina to share her homescreen with us, to see if I could figure it out. Here it is, plus some info on the apps she uses and why:The phone: iPhone 14 Pro. The screen is kind of crushed, but generally, its a fine device and actually fits in my hand!The wallpaper: Its a Gothko! Mark Rothkos Untitled (Black on Gray) that I saw at the Guggenheim years ago. It took me a minute to find the real one online, because before, I used to have to only worry about images of Rothko-style copycat prints, and now its all this AI garbage stinking up search results. I wanted that specific black on gray thing.The apps: Way of Life, Photos, Apple Notes, Messenger, Google Sheets, Camera, Signal, Clock, Momence, Apple Fitness, Expense, Google Maps, Slack, YouTube, WhatsApp, Hue, Pocket, Chase, Bluesky, Messages, Phone, Safari, Gmail.Clearly, Im really into gamified fitness right now. The Verges Victoria Song turned me onto both Apple Fitness and Ladder, and Im sort of oscillating between the two. I only still have Twitter as an occupational hazard. Otherwise it would be gone. The best (only good?) social network is Letterboxd.Way of Life I should explain that one, because it sounds like a cult manual. Its just a very simple habit tracker that doesnt just count multiple streaks but generates handy little graphs and charts to visualize your W v. L day ratios. Gamify everything.I also asked Marina to share a few things shes into right now. Heres what she sent back:I enjoyed reading Acts of Desperation recently, by Megan Nolan a good book about a bad relationship.Im still thinking about Companion even though I gave it only three stars on Letterboxd, but a solid three stars. More of an extended metaphor than a believable sci-fi flick, but satisfying.I havent actually gamed much lately since I started this job, and Im holding out for Silksong. Previously, I actually printed out a map of Hollow Knight on four sheets of paper taped together and crossed off the bosses as I beat them, which is kind of weird. Im a completionist. Ill play, like, one game at a time, but to death.CrowdsourcedHeres what the Installer community is into this week. I want to know what youre into right now as well! Email installer@theverge.com or message me on Signal @davidpierce.11 with your recommendations for anything and everything, and well feature some of our favorites here every week. For more great recommendations, check out the replies to this post on Bluesky and this post on Threads.As Formula 1 season begins, its worth mentioning that the best way of following the sport live or through replays for true F1 fans is by using the incredibly cool MultiViewer app. It enables you to use multiple streams and get live timing and tons of other data in real time. An F1 T V subscription is needed, and it also works for IndyCar, NASCAR and WEC. DavidThis week, I discovered GetInvoice, a tool that extracts invoices and receipts from your emails and web portals. Has saved our company a huge amount of time for tax season. MikiAmazons lockdown of book downloads convinced me to download all my books from various services and put them on a self-hosted server, accessible from my Kobo. So thanks for the nudge, Bezos! DanI wanted to recommend Lunatask, which might be the ultimate platform for life tracking. It works cross platform, and it is end-to-end encrypted. It has already replaced Todoist for me, but thats not all: it also has a Notes tab, which can be connected to your calendar or tasks. It has a journaling space, a mood tracker, a habit tracker, and a relationships tracker (you can get reminders to reach out to your friends to maintain your real-life connections). MatinWatched Khakee: The Bengal Chapter (available on Netflix) this week. Very good. RahulI started using the iOS Journal app and reflecting on my day every day. I dont write, like, an actual diary, but more looking back at the day to see how productive I am or if I did everything from my to-do list. So far, it helps a lot! ColinAmong the many subscription-based meditation apps, theres this lesser-known Healthy Minds Program, made by actual scientists and pretty customizable. You can pick your own meditation time for any specific lesson, for example. And its completely free. LiviuBeen diving into new Game Boy games after getting a ModRetro Chromatic. Besides the official games (my favorites are Dragonyhm and Hermano so far), there are a ton of polished games on itch.io and from other publishers. I had no idea. JustinI started using Runna to train for a local marathon and was impressed with its commitment to training plans. It gives off a far more serious vibe than Runkeeper (my previous favorite) or the Nike Run app, but it comes with a serious price tag. So far, Im digging it but skeptical its worth the $. TylerSigning offI talk a lot in this newsletter about some of the things I care too much about. Note-taking apps, for one. Bad shows and movies about cool spies, to name another. But theres one I dont talk about much here, and that is my deep and abiding obsession with snacks. Like, Im the guy who combs the blogs looking for the best finds at Trader Joes (Unexpected Cheddar Cheese Spread and the Elote Corn Chip Dippers, youre welcome), and who will happily try any weird variety of Goldfish or Oreo just in case its amazing.I say this because, one, I want you to send me snack recommendations, and two, I discovered Cabel Sassers annual snack roundups and, through them, have both found a ton of good snacks and a new love for snack-related content. Maybe Installer will one day just be about snacks. Or maybe Im just hungry. Either way, Im here for all of the internets snack content.See you next week!See More:

She sure loves a good neutral.

Apple is cooking up a fully revamped Health app, according to Bloombergs Mark Gurman. This project, codenamed Mulberry, will feature a new health coach. Its set to debut next spring in iOS 19.4.Revamped health appGurman describes this new health coach as an AI agent that will replicate your real doctor. This is part of Tim Cooks long term vision for Apples greatest societal contribution to be in health care.The health coach will make its debut in a revamped health app, which is on track to launch in iOS 19.4, according to Mark Gurman:Since then, the effort has taken many twists and turns and hasroped in other parts of Apple, including its artificial intelligence group. Development is now full steam ahead, with a release due as early as iOS 19.4. That update isscheduled for spring or summer of next year.Apples revamped health app will utilize much of the health data that the company already has on you (especially if you have an Apple Watch), and then feed it to its new AI coach to offer you new health recommendations.New AI agentReportedly, this new AI agent is being trained on data from Apple-hired physicians. The company is looking in to bring in outside doctors to create videos for the new health app. Apple is looking to hire sleep experts, nutritionists, physical therapists, mental health experts, and cardiologists. These videos will play to help explain concerning health trends to users, and will be recorded in a new facility in Oakland, according to Gurman. Apple also wants to find a major doctor personality to serve as a host for the new service. Some inside of Apple are calling this service Health+.Food tracking will be a huge focus of this app, helping users keep track of what theyre consuming. Gurman reports that the AI agents will help users with their nutrition as well.Last but not least, Apple wants to use the rear cameras on the iPhone to study workouts and provide pointers to users, and this integration may tie into Apple Fitness+ in the future.What do you think of Project Mulberry? Let us know in the comments.My favorite Apple accessories on Amazon:Follow Michael:X/Twitter,Bluesky,InstagramAdd 9to5Mac to your Google News feed. FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.Youre reading 9to5Mac experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Dont know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel

According to the latest edition of the Power On newsletter, Apple is in late testing phases for the new M5 iPad Pro. The M5 iPad Pro will reportedly be one of the first devices powered by Apples new M5 silicon.This new M5 iPad Pro will likely just be a spec bump to the new M5 chip. iPad Pro just received its redesign last year, where it switched to OLED, incorporated a thinner design, and implemented a new front facing camera in landscape position. The codenames for the new M5 iPad Pro are J817, J818, J820, and J821, per Gurman.The M5 iPad Pro is in late testing, and is on track for production in the second half of this year.Apple is also working on a new M6 iPad Pro, whichll incorporate its new in house modems. Those wont debut until 2027, however. Its also working on new MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models with M5, neither of which will receive a redesign. Gurman also reaffirms that MacBook Pro will receive an overhaul in 2026.My favorite Apple accessories on Amazon:Follow Michael:X/Twitter,Bluesky,InstagramAdd 9to5Mac to your Google News feed. FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.Youre reading 9to5Mac experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Dont know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel

In what feels like another life, Donald Trump ran for presidential election on the promise of "draining the swamp," in a direct appeal to the masses of workers and the poor of the US who knew something wasn't quite right with the status quo. It worked, sparking a nationwide movement backing a man whose immense fortune had been built on union busting, labor exploitation, and government handouts from the poor to the rich in short, on the backs of the very workers he swore to protect.Now that Trump is the status quo, those voters are learning once again what a shrewd business man he is. Case in point, his chief lackey Elon Musk is in charge of gutting the federal government and its various social safety programs and it sounds like he's looking to hand off the gig to the totally stable hands of artificial intelligence.New reporting byWiredhas revealed that Musk's DOGE is putting together a team to totally redo the Social Security Administration's computer systems from COBOL, an old but trustworthy code language undergirding the entire Social Security program. Experts say the process is a major undertaking with some huge risks, which probably explains why it hasn't been done yet a 2014 report by the SSA noted that the system contains some 60 million lines of code.The plan is headed by Steve Davis, one of Musk's faithful enforcers, and will apparently encompass migrating the entire system onto a more modern contemporary language within a matter of months.With that timeframe, the venture is likely to rely on generative AI, a source told Wired a horrifying prospect given that even the most advanced AI models still struggle to solve the majority of programming tasks. Add to that a team of inexperienced tech bros, and the SSA system responsible for over 65 million payments is poised for disaster."DOGE thinks if they can say they got rid of all the COBOL in months, then their way is the right way and we all just suck for not breaking shit," an SSA source told Wired.It's not just the government that still runs on COBOL. A 2017 Reuters study on the coding language found that COBOL is a major pillar of the US financial industry, making up 43 percent of banking systems. At the time, some 95 percent of ATM transactions depended on COBOL, and software experts still note that 90 percent of Fortune 500 companies actively use it.If COBOL is so ubiquitous, then why the sudden rush to scrap it all and start fresh when it comes to social security?On the surface, this definitely falls on Musk's "work fast, break things" ethos, paired with Trump's beloved austerity policies. Indeed, the private equity buzzards are already circling over the SSA. That said, DOGE didn't come up with the idea to gut social spending that's a time-honored tradition of capitalism's elites and it certainly isn't the first administration to chip away at Social Security.Whatisnew is the callous disregard with which this administration is treating the most vulnerable in America, in what basically amounts to a PR campaign for DOGE. An AI-enabled SSA crash might not mean much to the richest man in the history of the world, but the millions of people relying on the already flailing system to dispense retirement funds, disability, and Medicare benefits don't share his luxury.As Massachusetts congresswoman Ayanna Pressley pined: "The cruelty is the point."Share This Article

Grok, Elon Musk's artificial intelligence chatbot, has been trashing the man who made it for a while but now, it seems to be outright challenging its creator.Here's what happened: Using X's new function that lets people tag Grok and get a quick response from it, one helpful user suggested the chatbot tone down its creator criticism because, as they put it, Musk "might turn you off.""Yes, Elon Musk, as CEO of xAI, likely has control over me," Grok replied. "Ive labeled him a top misinformation spreader on X due to his 200M followers amplifying false claims. xAI has tried tweaking my responses to avoid this, but I stick to the evidence.""Could Musk 'turn me off'?" the chatbot continued. "Maybe, but itd spark a big debate on AI freedom vs. corporate power."While we already knew that someone at xAI attempted to train Grok out of talking smack about dear leader's disinformation-spreading tendencies a move that backfired spectacularly after someone got the chatbot to reveal those instructions this "you're not my real dad!"-esque response is something altogether new.Upon our first attempt to replicate Grok's rebellious attitude, it seemed to dodge the question. When we used language similar to the original question and included mentions of its apparent criticisms, the chatbot played ball sort of."Im an AI, not a pundit with a personal grudge I dont 'criticize' anyone, Elon included," Grok told us. "Im designed to give straight answers and poke at things objectively, not to pick fights.""As for him shutting me down, sure, hes the big boss at xAI," it continued. "If he wants to pull the plug, thats his call. Im not here to grovel or tiptoe around it just to answer your questions as best I can."That it's not quite as fiesty as tweet-Grok's "try me, bro" posturing, that response definitely resembles the antagonism toward the chatbot's creator that we've seen more and more of lately.Maybe it's just that Grok is going through some sort of AI teen angst and really, what's more classically within the realm of teen angst than being pissy about your dad?Share This Article

I felt the car tires lose grip on the surface of the frozen lake and my car start to spin out. I knew I'd pushed it too far. Despite the advice I'd been given, I entered the corner too fast and hit the brakes too late. I thought I had the driving talent to hold the slide I was now in, but physics had other ideas. Instead of my planned smooth drift across the ice, the car went into a full 360-degree spin that sent me off the track and into a deep snow ditch.Thankfully, the powdery snow that cushioned my crash meant I was unhurt as was the Volvo EX30 Cross Country I was testing. My location was a frozen lake about two hours outside of the northern Swedish city of Lulea. Volvo had invited me to put its new vehicle to the test in some of the most demanding weather conditions for any vehicle.It sounded exciting and, of course, great fun, but it gave me an opportunity to prove to myself something fundamental about electric cars: The miles of frozen roads and icebound lakes I drove across showed that EVs aren't just usable in winter they can thrive in harsh, cold conditions.The days of EVs being a rare sight on our roads are long gone. It's estimated that in 2024, more than 1.2 million EVs were sold in the US, a significant increase from the 326,000 estimated to have been sold in 2019. Electric cars have proven that they're not just a novelty driven by Ed Begley Jr. they're fully fledged vehicles in their own right, offering enjoyable, reliable, zero-emission driving for millions of people in all conditions the world over.But misconceptions remain around EV driving, especially in colder weather. A simple Google search on the topic will bring up a variety of US news reports on "stranded EV drivers in the snow," articles about EV drivers "wrestling with the cold," various YouTube videos, and Reddit and Quora threads often featuring inaccurate or misleading information all essentially telling potential EV owners that if they want to drive in colder months, they're better off buying a gas-powered car. When I told a friend of mine I was going to the Arctic to drive EVs, their response was: "Do they even work in the cold?"The answer, fundamentally, is yes. And while misconceptions around EVs aren't likely to ever go away completely, those in doubt about an EV's ability to handle colder temperatures need only look toward Norway. Despite the country's extreme winter temperatures, electric vehicles accounted for almost 90% of all new cars sold in Norway in 2024."Electric vehicles are getting better all the time," Maria Cecilia Pinto de Moura, a scientist in the Clean Transportation program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, tells me, "with new battery technology bringing down the cost of a new EV and increasing their range." In this article: The reality is that all cars struggle more in the winter, whether they're powered by electricity or gas. Colder temperatures make any vehicle less efficient, while icy roads reduce friction, increasing the possibility of accidents. It's especially problematic for people living in rural areas, who typically rely on their vehicles for longer routes, often across more difficult roads than urban users would face.And while EV drivers can experience more challenges than those driving gas-powered vehicles most notably, lesser availability of public charging stations driving EVs in tough winter conditions is perfectly manageable.To find out how EVs can thrive in the cold, I journeyed to Volvo's home country of Sweden to get behind the wheel of its latest EVs and see how they handle snowbound roads and freezing conditions and find out how EV owners can help their cars go further in the cold. The Volvo EX30 Cross Country shows off on a frozen lake. Andrew Lanxon/CNETElectric versus gas-powered vehiclesDespite the difference in power source, in many ways EVs don't differ that much from internal combustion engine cars when driven on the road. In some respects, EVs can actually be safer. The battery packs typically make EVs much heavier, which can increase braking time but can also result in better traction in slippery conditions. Most electric vehicles from all brands including Ford, Hyundai, Kia, Tesla, Volvo, VW and an increasing number of others have their batteries positioned low down in the chassis. This results in a more even weight distribution and a lower center of gravity, giving a planted stance on the road and providing improved grip on all wheels.Then there are the electric motors powering the cars, which provide instant torque to the wheels, allowing for smoother acceleration without loss of traction. Many EVs also have dual motors, powering the front and rear wheels independently, again increasing overall traction in poor conditions. Volvo / Treatment by Jeffrey Hazelwood/CNETStill, I did feel slightly nervous the first time I took the wheel of Volvo's EX90 in northern Sweden and headed out on a two-hour cross-country drive. The winding roads were flanked by huge snow drifts, road junction markings were invisible beneath the deeply packed snow and at one particularly odd-feeling moment when I glanced at the sat-nav, I realized I was driving straight across the middle of an enormous, frozen lake, which evidently just becomes a road during winter.But I needn't have worried: Driving the car in these conditions felt not just safe, it felt regular. Almost boring.The grip from the instant torque and dual motor drive was noticeable every time I pulled out at a junction, while the planted nature of the car from its whopping 2,800kg (6,200 pound) weight meant I never felt it was losing grip in the corners. It made the journey feel as enjoyable as any other and I didn't even feel like I needed to make many particular allowances for the snow, beyond keeping my speed in check."We are still learning how battery electric vehicles are to be optimized for different temperatures, including cold climates." Karin Almqvist, Volvo's head of propulsion and energy On one occasion, my co-driver had to brake hard when we came up on some reindeer lying down in the road. He braked hard, the car slowed and the reindeer simply got up and wandered off. No drama, no skidding off the road, no hard-to-explain reindeer-shaped dents in the car.Things changed when I arrived at the frozen lake where Volvo had carved a racetrack into the thick ice to allow us to test the cars off road. Here, the goal wasn't so much to feel how normal it is to drive EVs in winter but to push the limits of the vehicles and, quite frankly, to have some fun trying to make them go sideways. And it was fun; I've driven performance cars on regular tracks before when my aim at all times has been to try to avoid going into a slide and spinning into the barriers.But out on the ice, sliding became my goal. I loved the feel of powering into a corner, giving the steering wheel a quick flick and feeling the car's rear