Upgrade Materials Guide

Who this is for: players who keep falling behind on gear, anyone deciding whether to farm chests or trade Red Souls, and readers who want the three upgrade lanes separated from the skill-tree economy.

What Upgrade Materials Do

Every piece of gear you actively use is upgraded at a Spirit Mirror — the same mirrors used for fast travel — under Enhance Equipment / Abilities. The menu separates three categories (IGN wiki, AltChar):

• Sword — raises attack power alongside Issen and Oni Armament damage. Fed by iron-family materials.
• Clothing — raises health and stamina. Fed by cloth materials.
• Oni Gauntlet — raises Oni Power and soul-absorption speed/range. Fed by rarer mineral and trophy materials, mostly from closing rifts.

Exact per-level tables exist (PowerPyx lists materials such as Whetstones, Iron, Tempered Iron and Tamahagane for the sword), but published numbers disagree between sources — treat any specific cost list as community-verified rather than gospel until you confirm it in your own Enhance menu.

Material Types by Gear Lane

COMMUNITY REPORTED Guide sites (AppMedia, Gamerch) organize materials by purpose — recovery items, basic-ability, special-ability and equipment/pouch upgrades — and warn that rare materials such as Tamahagane should be saved rather than sold or wasted.

Where to Find Materials

• Treasure chests: the reliable backbone. Small chests hold recovery items; the large black chests around Kyoto and mission areas hold upgrade materials (IGN wiki).
• Map awareness: chest icons appear on your map, and hidden chests are telegraphed by a blue glow from your Gauntlet — trigger Oni Vision there to reveal them.
• Mission and side-quest rewards: hovering a quest on the map previews its reward; main quests list their material rewards bottom-left (AltChar).
• Optional battle content: one-tree shade (一樹之陰 / chance-encounter fights) and closing rifts pay materials — Malachite specifically is a rift-closing reward (IGN video guide).
• Bosses: story bosses reward materials — beating Rasho-gan pays hempen cloth, a Power Stone and an Oni Stone (Rasho-gan guide).

Buying Materials with Red Souls

After completing the Careful What You Wish For quest (mission 6), travel back to Yorimasa's monument — a trade point appears where you can convert surplus Red Souls into materials for clothing, sword, gauntlet and Hozuki pouch upgrades, plus consumables (IGN wiki). This is the main sink for Red Souls once your priority skills are bought.

Best Farming Methods

1. Early: open every chest you pass and preview side-quest rewards before choosing which optional content to do; side quests are the fastest source of cloth and iron while you are still weak.
2. Mid: when a rift or one-tree-shade encounter is available, do it — Malachite and pouch materials do not come from ordinary chests reliably.
3. Late: if your skills are done, feed Red Souls into Yorimasa's monument trades instead of hoarding them.

Buy vs Farm

There is no general shop for equipment materials; the Red-Soul trade is the only direct purchase route and it unlocks mid-game. Before that unlock, farming chests and side content is your only option — which makes quest-reward previews valuable: never start an optional quest blind when you can see whether it pays the material you need.

Late-Game Material Management

• Save rare materials (Tamahagane and similar) — the same upgrade lines continue into the late game, and Gamerch notes maxing every Hozuki pouch also consumes large amounts of materials (and unlocks a related trophy).
• Power Stones and Oni Stones are not equipment materials — they upgrade skills (Power Stones for basic abilities, Oni Stones for special abilities). Keep the two economies separate when planning.
• Plan around the point of no return (the final mission, The Clash at Rendaino) if you want a cleanup save for collectibles and materials.

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