Saltfire Day 66 4 September 2026
Incense
How do you make Incense in 7 merges?
- 1 Dew + Salt Brine
- 2 Brine + Ember Broth
- 3 Breath + Salt Dust
- 4 Broth + Dust Seed
- 5 Ember + Seed Tree
- 6 Ember + Tree Resin
- 7 Ember + Resin Incense
Why is 7 merges the shortest possible?
Day 66 asked for Incense — a tier-4 element, one of the complex — and it goes in seven merges. Not fewer: par is worked out across the whole recipe tree before the puzzle ships, and then proved by replaying the chain above against the game's own rules, starting from nothing but Salt, Ember, Dew and Breath. If that replay had spent one step more or one step less, the build would have failed and this day would never have run.
Two of the seven merges come straight out of the primordials — Brine and Dust — and everything else is built on top of those. The last step is Ember + Resin, which is where Incense finally condenses.
No intermediate here is wanted twice: every element the chain makes is consumed by exactly one later merge, so par is simply how far Incense sits above the primordials. There is nothing shared to save a step on — seven links of chain, seven merges.
Incense has three recipes in the tree, so the route above is the cheapest way in rather than the only one. Another chain of the same length is quite possible; a longer one is far more likely.