Kernel Hearts Chips and Builds

Between climbs you are not grinding a traditional talent tree. You are installing skill chips onto MAHOU.OS, the operating system of your android unit, with a hard cap of 256KB. The number is a bit. The system is the meta-progression. If you skip the shop, you will re-enter Folktale Fields with the same body and wonder why the bar still eats you.

Combat mods you find during a Heaven are different objects. Public writeups split them as mementos (equipment-like) and relics (often area or passive drops), plus a purification step for builds and a lost souls hook. Full run-layer page: mementos and relics. August 2026 demo notes retuned mementos and relics so they scale with player level. Short demo runs still make some scaling choices feel mild; the director says that is the two-floor length, not the full seven-Heaven curve.

The two layers

Layer A — chips (persist). Bought or unlocked with run rewards in the lab. Equipped up to 256KB. This is your “class fantasy” between sessions: more mana, greedier dodge, spell-first Fernet, stamina-first Spika. Death does not uninstall them. That is the roguelike mercy.

Layer B — mementos, relics, floor loot (reset). Picked up inside a Heaven. They make this climb weird. They go away when the backup fires. Greedy lingering exists to farm this layer. See combat for why that greed is priced in blood.

If a YouTuber shows a broken interaction, ask which layer it was. A relic that only exists on floor two will not be on your OS after a wipe.

How to spend 256KB as a beginner

You will not get a complete chip encyclopedia from trailers. You will get a budget habit:

1. Stay alive. HP, guard, dodge. Folktale Fields punishes glass more than it rewards 2% damage.
2. Feed the kit you actually press. Fernet wants mana / pet uptime. Spika wants attack speed and i-frame tools. Laika wants heavy-commit payoff. Dolce: read her select screen, then spend.
3. One flex chip. Leave room in the 256KB for an experiment so you learn the cap. Filling every byte with the same stat is how you never find a build.
4. Do not duplicate a relic’s job. If the run already drops movement relics, maybe the OS should buy defense.

Purification, as named in previews, is the “make this pile into a build” step. Until the UI label is in your client, treat it as: after a run, clean the loadout you actually want to take next door, not a junk drawer of every chip you ever saw.

Example starter plans (demo-informed, not gospel)

Fernet spirit battery. Chips that extend spell uptime and survivability. In-run, stack Koka, spend Raiquen on Pixips, transform on the Ringleader. Page: Fernet.

Spika blade loop. Chips that reward staying in melee. In-run, Sangetsu to approach, Higanbana when surrounded. She is the reason some demo players stay. Page: Spika.

Laika pillar. Chips that make heavies and Blood Pillar less suicidal. Open with Blades, plant the pillar on shields, dodge like you mean the recovery. Page: Laika.

Co-op specialist. One player buys utility (revive, ping-adjacent QoL if it exists as a chip, shared sustain). Three players buy damage. A four-stack of identical DPS chips is how you wipe to one leftover caster. See co-op.

These are roles, not byte tables. When a datamine or official codex lists actual KB costs, this page should grow a table. Until then, lying about a 32KB “meta chip” would be worse than a short list.

Shop discipline after a wipe

The demo walkthrough already says: spend. Add this:

• If you died to the bar, buy defense or movement, not another damage chip.
• If you died to Pixips, buy a tool that hits air, or admit you never pressed spell.
• If you died to the Ringleader, buy a boss habit (mana, i-frames), not a field-clear chip.
• If you won and still felt slow, then buy damage.

Economy was rebalanced in August. Older shop advice can be wrong. Trust the current prices on your screen.

Lost souls, sin events, and other named systems

Previews mention Lost Souls, Sin Events (random events), and purification. They are part of the roguelike seasoning — extra decisions on a floor, extra reasons to linger or leave. Do not build a religion around a named mechanic until you have seen it twice in your own client. Log it, finish the Heaven, shop.

Launch-week warning

September 17 will reshuffle values. The 256KB cap, the lab backup, and the split between persistent chips and run loot are the design. Numbers are not. Recheck Updates before you copy a streamer’s OS screenshot on day two.

For who should use which plan, open the tier list. For the verbs those chips feed, stay in combat.