How To Unlock More Tempering Needles In Wuchang: Fallen Feathers.

There are a lot of mechanics to keep in mind while you are playing Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, from building up stagger, managing your Skyborn Might, and plenty more. One of the more interesting combat mechanics in the game comes after you beat the very first boss, Dhutanga, and that is Tempering.

Based on Acupuncture and pressure points, Tempering in Wuchang has you placing needles into Wuchang’s arm to give you the ability to empower your weapon with unique effects. There are quite a few needles to choose from, and plenty hidden around the world for you to unlock. So here is everything you need to know about Tempering.

What Is Tempering?

Tempering is a system that lets you apply temporary effects to your currently equipped weapon, while also boosting its damage. You have a limited number of charges when it comes to Tempering, but this is recharged every time you die or Enter the Dream at a shrine. It is best to equip it to a quick slot so that you can use it in tense scenarios without opening up the pause menu.

Temperance is only active on the weapon you activate it on. It will not apply to both of your weapons at the same time.

Every weapon can use Tempering, but some weapons can only use certain effects. If a weapon has no status or element, then it can take on any Bone Needle. If it has a damage type, such as Flamebringer being able to ignite itself in Fire despite not dealing Fire by default, then it can only be Tempered when you have a Fire Bone Needle equipped.

Other weapons work a little differently. For example, the Plumed Grace weapon deals Feathering damage, but can be Tempered with Feathering, Poise Break, or Spellpower. A weapon will always say whether it can use the current Tempering set-up by looking at it in theTempering menu itself.

Certain weapons also give a boost to certain effects used in Tempering, such as making the effect more potent or extending the duration of Temperance.

Initially, you only have a single Temperance charge, though you can get up to three through upgrades in the Impetus Repository.

You can only have one Bone Needle equipped at a time, and only in the Yangchi Acupoint. For all other Stone Needles, you can have any combination you want.

Every Type Of Tempering Needle And What It Does

While there are typically multiple of each type of needle, they are generally grouped into categories that determine what they do. Here is each needle and what types are available for each category:

Try to make many different combinations to fit the scenario!

Keep in mind that the damage bonuses provided by Stone Needles are only applied when you use Tempering. It is not passive.

How To Unlock More Tempering Needles

After you get your initial Bone Needle, all the rest are entirely optional, with none of them acquired from bosses. As such, there are two different ways to unlock the remaining needles for Tempering.

Defeating Manifested Inner Demons

If you want to unlock more Stone Needles, you must find and defeat your Inner Demon. This does not relate to the Inner Demon that spawns when you die with full Madness. Rather, there are certain areas in the game where your Inner Demon will manifest naturally. When you are in these areas, the screen will pulsate red and the words ‘Demon Manifested’ will appear on-screen.

Defeating your Inner Demon here will also reset your Madness back to zero, though you can thankfully fight them regardless of what your Madness level currently is.

Just defeat them to acquire a bottle of Bo Blood, as well as a new Stone Needle. The Stone Needle you get is unique to each encounter, so try to find them all to get them all.

When you first get a Stone Needle, it will be called a Shadow Stone Needle. On a New Game+ playthrough, defeating the same Inner Demon again will drop an improved version of this Stone Needle called a Gleaming Stone Needle, increasing how much the Control multiplier is enhanced by.

Acquiring Them In The Impetus Repository

To get new Bone Needles for the unique effects that are applied to your weapon, the process is much simpler, with no time limit and completely unmissable. This is because they are all located within the Impetus Repository with no additional requirements to unlocking them. Just a single Red Mercury Essence and you’re good to go.

The Bone Needles are split into two opposite sections in the Impetus Repository, with a passive ability that has to be unlocked first before you can acquire the Bone Needles. However, because Wuchang lets you refund your Red Mercury Essence whenever you want, it’s a worthwhile endeavor to only acquire a Bone Needle when you actually need it, then just refund it after it has served its purpose and putting that Red Mercury essence into a stat upgrade instead.

How To Unlock More Tempering Needle Slots

Once you unlock Tempering, only two Acupoints will be available to you, the Yangchi Acupoint for your Bone Needle, and the Huizhong Acupoint for any Stone Needles you acquire. Of course, two Acupoints is hardly enough, especially when you can see the three other locked ones right in front og you.

So how do you unlock these? For the Tianjing and Xiaoluo Acupoints, you just unlock them in the Impetus Repository, nice and simple. The Jialiao Acupoint is a bit more complicated though. You can find it in the Impetus Repository as well, right by the very left end of tree. However, it requires you own the Cyan Feather Chisel to unlock.

Well then, how was this Cyan Feather Chisel found? That requires defeating Zhao Yun, located at the Tomb in the Avian Dwelling. For this fight to become available, you must complete the entirety of the White-Robed Elder’s questline, and then make your way to an endgame location, the Bo Capital. After you have gotten here, just return to the Tomb, defeat Zhao Yun, and the Cyan Feather Chisel is yours.

With this, you can unlock the Jiaoliao Acupoint, and finally make your Tempering as powerful as possible.