The "Secret"

Several people have claimed that it is impossible to find this place without
any hints.  I admit that it is not easy as I designed it to be difficult.
Anyway, here are the steps for the people who are still interested.

___________________________
What's in the secret place?

1. The names of all the staff who worked on this game.
2. 3 good weapons (hard or impossible to get in normal games)
3. 3 good armors (hard or impossible to get in normal games)
4. A music selection menu.  Arranged in the order of the OST,
   you can choose to play any one of the 74 sound tracks.

____________________________________
I can't find it in the original rom!

Yes, this is only in the English patch.

___________________________
How do you make this place?

The town is in the original rom, but no dialogue is present.  This
strongly suggests that it is some unfinished area left by Square.  I
just added the necessary dialogues.

This oversimplifies the actual work a little.  To make the code "give"
you weapons/armors, or to make a selection menu needs deep understanding
of how the original codes work.  To design "the way" to reach this place
also requires some tedious reverse engineering process.  It is like
ASM hacking, but at a slightly higher level.

____________________
How do I get there!?

This is the important part (well...).

1. First defeat the Water Gate Guardian with Poet in your party.

2. After step 1, go to a pub and make the Poet leave.  Then find the Poet
   again.  He should be easy to find within several cities.  Talk to him
   and listen to his new song (the Song for defeating Forneus) with a
   NON-FULL party (i.e., you must have room for the Poet to rejoin).

3. Now check the storeroom, and you should find a strange item:
   Mana's icon.  Take it with you.

4. Go to Divine Tower and find a man inside the tower.  To enter the tower,
   you should trigger the Maximus' quest.  (See walkthrough if necessary.)
   This man is the only one (other than Tiberius) not wearing the purple
   robe inside the tower.

5. Talk to this man, and agree to give him the Mana's icon when he asks
   for it.  However, he takes the icon and says he has lied to you.  Keep
   talking to him until he tells you to pray, with Tiberius.

6. Go to get Tiberius to join your party.  Leave the tower (when you can,
   probably after solving the Maximus quest) and go to the Ancient Ruins
   right next to Stanley.  If you forget to open a treasure box in the
   Devil King Palace (the Death prayer is written inside the box), you
   have to do this first before going to Ancient Ruins.

7. If you did steps 1 to 6 correctly, at the end of the Ancient ruins you will
   get 3 options.  Choose the Prayer of Life.  Then get out of the cave
   and locate the newly appeared town, Shinon, near Loanne.  This is
   your destination.

You are screwed if:

1. You have already defeated Forneus and Poet was not in your party when
   you did it.  Obviously you can't complete step 1.

2. You have defeated Forneus with Poet, but you then defeat another gate
   guardian with Poet as well before listening to his Forneus' song.  You
   won't get Forneus' song from him any more in this case so step 2 is screwed.

3. You sell or drop the Mana's icon.  Obviouly a stupid move.

4. You have already cleared the Ancient Ruins before you finish steps
   1 to 6.  Step 7 is hopeless.

5. Someone has found that if you defeat Forneus last, it will screw things
   up even if Poet is with you.