Chapter 2: the Hughes Power Station blackout
Only level 4 is open until the mission is cleared. Take the terminal tutorial, use the four teal hexes, and break the Tesla Tortoise armour to reach its core.
Chapter 2 is a single-dungeon chapter with a hard map restriction and the game's most important tutorial: the one that explains terminals. It is also where the world map stops being scenery and becomes a system.
The chapter's shape
- Only Level 4 is accessible until the main mission is cleared.
- The main mission is Blackout: head to the Hughes Power Station and restore the power.
- The boss is the Tesla Tortoise.
- The dungeon is room-based rather than multi-area, which makes it the shortest full dungeon in the early game.
Missions
| Mission | Reward |
|---|---|
| Blackout | 25 Hunter Points |
The Power Station is already open if you completed the optional Power Station Checkup mission in chapter 1. That is the first time the game makes an optional mission a soft prerequisite, and it is worth remembering as a pattern.
The terminal tutorial
Before you leave the city, the Elderly Man stops you and walks through terminals. When it ends he hands you Teal Energy Hex x4 and Metal-Coated Rounds x50.
This is the mechanic that the rest of the game builds on:
- Place a coloured hex on a terminal to make it produce energy of that colour.
- Place more coloured hexes on neighbouring tiles to increase the energy flowing in.
- When enough energy accumulates, the terminal's effect activates on all connected hexes of that colour.
- Setting the top and bottom entrance of an elevator to the same colour shares energy across levels.
- Connecting multiple terminals makes the requirement the sum of their individual requirements.
- A terminal connected to a dungeon extends its effect to the whole dungeon.
The effects are worth building around: doubled damage of a given element, doubled charge speed, doubled knockdown rate, halved gravity during knockback, reduced status ailments, prevented encounters, and an Effect Amp terminal that doubles every other connected terminal's effect. The full list with activation costs is on the green hexes page.
The dungeon and the boss
Inside the station you fight a Machinegun Gear and Stray Curs immediately, then work through the rooms. The last room holds the Tesla Tortoise, a boss shaped like half a bubble with a heavy armour wall around a fragile core.
The armour is the puzzle. Scratch damage on the shell does nothing useful; the fight rewards getting around or through the armour and converting on the exposed core. If you are bouncing off the shell, change position rather than changing weapons.
After the boss
You get a cutscene, the reward, and a walk back to Ebel City. Returning to the base triggers another cutscene and the option to advance the chapter.
Two things to do before you advance:
- Clear the remaining optional missions, including A Father Attacked, which pays a Compact Scope α — a part you would otherwise buy.
- Look at the terminal network you just built. Teal hexes are the tutorial colour, and the habit of chaining them sets up the green and black networks later.
Why this chapter matters
Chapter 2 is where the game's two halves meet: the combat system from chapter 1 and the map system that gates everything else. Players who skip the terminal tutorial spend the next ten chapters wondering why routes are locked and why enemies feel harder than their level suggests.
Mission details and terminal rules: community chapter and world-map documentation, checked 2026-10-31.