The Mana World Forums

I was thinking of the crystals being used while reading the modern age in the Wiki. If parts of different crystals were scattered in different areas of TMW they could be joined together by an alchemist once all the pieces have been found. If you had pieces of a crystal you could use it for alchemy purposes but its effect would be very limited. Once all the pieces were found and the alchemist joined the pieces into one your alchemy would vastly improve. The alchemist would have to inspect the pieces as the Ninja inspects the logs for quality. That way it would take a bit longer to acquire your completed crystal. The NPC could ask to inspect the pieces and find that one was flawed and you need to get another or it wasn't the properly match piece so try again.
I don't know if this is copy written or not and I don't want to steal or take away from it. In Diablo you would acquire crystals throughout the realm. You would start with a chipped stone, once you got 4 chipped stones it would become a larger stone. 4 of the next larger pieces moved you into yet another size stone until you got a completed crystal. The more complete your crystal was the more your ability or protection improved.