Saltfire Day 78 16 September 2026
Window
How do you make Window in 8 merges?
- 1 Breath + Salt Dust
- 2 Breath + Breath Wind
- 3 Dust + Wind Sand
- 4 Ember + Ember Flame
- 5 Flame + Sand Glass
- 6 Dew + Dust Clay
- 7 Clay + Flame Brick
- 8 Brick + Glass Window
Why is 8 merges the shortest possible?
Day 78 asked for Window — a tier-4 element, one of the complex — and it goes in eight 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.
Three of the eight merges come straight out of the primordials — Dust, Wind and Flame — and everything else is built on top of those. The last step is Brick + Glass, which is where Window finally condenses.
Now look at Dust and Flame: made once, then wanted in two different merges. That is the whole reason the floor is eight and not ten. A step buys you an element for the rest of the run, so par counts distinct pairs, not branches of a tree — the second time the chain reaches for Dust it is already sitting in the tray, free. Counted as a tree, with a fresh derivation for every single ingredient, this same solution reads as ten merges.
Window has two 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. Two steps fuse an element with itself (Breath + Breath and Ember + Ember). Self-merges are legal moves and a few elements only come out that way — always worth a try when a run stalls.