The definitive answer to how this system works was spelled out to me in the IRC chat today, by no one less than BluFlash himself. I guess that conversation inspired him to put the information out on the message board, and it here it is from the man himself.

Here's the breakdown.

1 tear will increase 2 slots.
1 scale will increase 1 hardness.

When your refinement fails, you lose one slot and one hardness.
You can not re-use tears to increase your slots.

Example:

You are refining a +7 Sabre that currently has 0/3.
Use one tear and it will change to 0/5.
Use five scales and it will change to 5/5.

When you try to refine, and fail.. it will change to 4/4.
You cannot reuse a tear to increase your slots back to 4/5.
You will still have a +7 Sabre.

In another post made yesterday, they are planning to be selling these items from the coin mall just about as soon as is possible, and the original plan was, yesterday. Pretty typical actually, but they are working on it.


Update: The Tears and Scales are now available from the coin mall. Single Tears are 1300 coins and a package of 5 scales is 6000 coins. Considering that a 90 premium package is priced at 4000 coins, this refinement insurance system is a little bit expensive and might not be available to some of our younger players.

For me, the cheapest option was to buy the gold membership right up front. This gives me a 30 percent discount on the direct purchase of coins, and I got a few bonus coins up front. Gold membership cost me 25USD and will last for a year, but it paid for itself right away because I bought the 100USD package of coins. My net cost was 95USD and I got a whole bunch of bonus coins.

I bought one Dragons Tear, and a package of 5 Scales, and I applied them pretty much right away to my current spear. That process isn't any more difficult than adding an ornament to a weapon or jacket. You don't have to add all 5 scales at once, but I did. That might have been a small waste of real world money.

I took my spear to that bitch by the stump and refined it to +3 with no problem. It took 2 tries to get +4, but I got my spear back when refinement failed. It also took 2 tries at +5, and again I got my spear back when refinement failed. I refined the spear to +6 on the first try.

So now I have a SM 5 HP Return +6 Spear with 3/3 hardness. It should be fairly easy to sell when I'm done with it. What does your weapon look like?

- SpearDriver