Hey everyone who loves Nexon games,

Jaepamin here!

Out of all the different stuff you can do with game characters, I’m a big fan of affinity quests where the feels actually go back and forth. You get fun story scenes, sure, but the rewards for clearing them are pretty juicy too. Hehe

In MapleStory, “Popularity” is a pretty important stat that basically works as a trust meter. You can think of it like Popularity = how much other players like you.

Also, in old-school MapleStory (MapleLand, MaplePlanet), there are items you can only equip once you hit a certain Popularity threshold. So today, I’m gonna break down a simple and fun quest that boosts that affinity stat a.k.a. Popularity. Let’s go!

Kerning City JM Quest: Dark Swamp Area

The quest I’m showing today starts when you talk to the NPC “Back Alley JM” in Kerning City. The one that boosts your affinity here is “[Kerning City] Dark Swamp Area”, so go ahead and pick that up.

Once you accept it, JM asks you to bring “20 Jr. Necki Skins” and “5 Witch Grass Leaves.” After you’ve got everything, just drop the items off at Myung Pharmacy right above JM.

The quest takes under 3 minutes. In old-school MapleStory, it takes around 15 minutes, and for Witch Grass Leaves, you have to get up close and use a basic attack to make them drop, so keep that in mind.

JM’s Conspiracy Theory

After finishing that quest, accept “JM’s Conspiracy Theory” to start the real affinity quest. Talk to JM and he’ll say something pretty suspicious, like “Lately, a strange monster has been showing up in the Monster Sewer.” After that, he asks you to go check in with certain NPCs because he needs more info.

If you visit Mongdangtta > Nella > Lakeris in that order, you’ll hear the story behind the mystery monster. Turns out Lakeris accidentally spilled a Growth Potion into the sewer, and that’s what caused the whole thing.

And of course, a Ligator ended up drinking the Growth Potion and turning into the giant “Dyle”. I used to just skip all this back in the day, but actually reading it now? It’s pretty fun.

In the end, totally exasperated, he asks you to take down Dyle. I used to think he was just some nasty NPC doing shady stuff in Kerning City, but honestly, he kind of comes off like a gentle older guy who really cares about the town.

Now head back to the sewer, take out 1 Dyle, and that’s it. If this were old-school MapleStory, it probably would’ve been a little rough, but now you can pretty much tap it once and it drops.

After beating Dyle, go back to JM and you’ll get 12 Popularity. Then the quest closes out with JM dropping the pretty funny line, “Don’t trust Lakeris.”

If you want to raise your character’s Popularity to make trading smoother, or you need to equip items that require Popularity, this one’s definitely worth doing.

Thanks for reading!