Frozenbyte Games shared a trailer this week for the release of a free update for Nine Parchments called The Astral Challenges. It includes six new arena levels, a new quick chat feature, and a new unlockable character.

The six new arena levels in The Astral Challenges update are designed for characters who are at least level 40. Monsters in the arenas will not drop health or mana like they do in Adventure Mode, but mana will spawn in-between waves of enemies, and three new items will also be available in the arenas called Immunity, Supercharged Mana, and Supercharged Blink.

New spells are also available as well as two new staffs that can be found in the new arena levels.

New spells include:

  • Ice Nova• An Ice blastwave bursts around the caster, affecting anyone caught in its wake, slowing and freezing them• Deals 50 Ice damage per cast• 4 charges• 4s charge regeneration time per charge
  • Hailstorm• Throwable ice spell that conjures a Icefall in a large area• Deals 50 Ice damage per falling projectile• 1 charge• 18 second charge regeneration time per charge
  • Piercing Shadow• A stream of shadow magic which pierces all targets, freezing and inflicting moderate damage• Uses new element type: Shadow• Pierces all enemies dealing 20 damage 4 times per second• After channeling for 1.7 seconds powers up and deals 70 damage for the remainder of the channeling• 13.2s regeneration time to full mana

New staffs include:

  • Staff of Shadows• +8% Fire, Ice and Death power• Blink deals 25 Death damage 2 times per second for 4 secondsStaff of Nightmares• +30% to all healing received• +40% beam spell power for 7 seconds after Blinking

Both spells and staffs have also received some adjustments as well.

Spell adjustments include:

  • Cursed Fireball Rain•Increased damage from 25 to 50• Reduced charge regeneration time from 40 to 20• Reduced delay between projectiles 0.33 to 0.2• Stomp speed from 10 to 12
  • Poison Flower• Flight speed from 12 to 16• Stomp speed from 10 to 12• Reduced charge regeneration time from 20 to 17
  • Electric Totem• Reduced charge regeneration time from 180 to 60
  • Bouncing Heal• Reduced charge regeneration time from 60 to 25
  • Chain Death• Reduced charge regeneration time from 45 to 35
  • Steal Heal• Reduced charge regeneration time from 60 to 45
  • Electric Wave• Reduced charge regeneration time from 15 to 10
  • Deadly Sacrificial Bomb• Reduced charge regeneration time from 45 to 30

Staff adjustments include:

  • Gislan’s Staff of Verdure• Increased damage from 30 to 40
  • The Staff of Serenity• Increased Life spell power from 10% to 15%
  • The Searing Staff• Melee now deals 40 fire damage instead of physical• Increased chance to deal bonus damage from 20% to 25%• Increased bonus damage from 20 to 100
  • The Eventide Icicle• No longer gives +5% elemental resistance• Instead has a 40% chance to freeze melee attacker for 5s
  • The Copper Rod• Increased chance to stun target in melee from 10% to 20%
  • Owl’s Lightning Rod• Increased Lightning spell charges from 15% to 25%
  • The Wolfram Rod• Shorter stun duration from 25% to 50%
  • Nim’s Enchanted Broom• Increased chance to deal additional damage from 20% to 50%• Increased Steam damage from 15 to 30
  • Nim’s Boreal Broom• Increased max stack amount from 3 to 30• Reduced damage per stack from 2 to 1• Reduced duration from 10 seconds to 3 seconds
  • The Staff of Quackening• Chance that Blink regenerates itself increased from 15% to 20%

Another feature of the update is a new character named Prince Selius. He has his own staff and hat accessories, unique spells, and six new achievements to unlock his new variations and skill trees. Frozenbyte states that they will reveal more about the new character in an upcoming blog post.

Nine Parchments is currently available for PS4, Xbox One, PC, and Switch. You can check out the trailer for The Astral Challenges free update below, and it is currently available for all of its consoles expect for Xbox One, which will come once its patch has been approved.  Head over here to read DualShocker's review of the game.