Black Myth: Wukong allows you to wield a ton of spells and tricks, but your staff is still the most reliable weapon in your arsenal. Upgrading it requires Refined Iron Sand, however, a material that may be elusive depending on where in the game you are.
The staff in Black Myth: Wukong has a crafting system reminiscent of Monster Hunter titles, with a set path to take if you want to upgrade it. And early on, odds are you’ll find yourself starved of this resource—especially if you want the shiny staff from the Yellow Wind Sage or if you’ve ventured just further and fought Kang-Jin Loong.
Here are some early-game locations we’ve found for Refined Iron Sand in Black Myth: Wukong, focusing on Chapter Three.
Black Myth Wukong Refined Iron Sand locations
Black Iron Sand starts becoming more plentiful after the third chapter, and it’s easy to get your hands on a few of those items early on—at least enough to craft your shiny new staff. They’re usually locked inside treasure chests or drop after defeating bosses.
The New West is where you start finding more drops, especially if you take down Captain Lotus-Vision (a superhero name if there’s ever been one) in the Pagoda Temple. You may need to beat him before you can unlock some of the chests we’ve listed.
Here are some of the chests that award Refined Iron Sand, in our experience. We’ve focused on the beginning of Chapter Three since this is where they stop being so rare, but we’ll update this article once we’ve found more locations.
- Lower Pagoda (Pagoda Temple): Follow the path until you find a set of stairs, then turn around and look for a door behind you.
- Lower Pagoda (Pagoda Temple): After going up the stairs, head to the left and enter the first door to your left as well.
- Lower Pagoda (Pagoda Temple): Continue past the stairs (and the first chest), then look for a hole in the ground on the left side, near some enemies. Drop down and make a left to climb a crag of rocks, then continue following the path on the other side until you spot a room with a chest and two braziers. Alternatively, spawn at the Lower Pagoda shrine and turn back to find this.
- Upper Pagoda (Pagoda Temple): Defeat Captain Lotus-Vision. Its arena is inside a hole in the ground from the Upper Pagoda shrine.
- Upper Pagoda (Pagoda Temple): On the first door past the Upper Pagoda shrine. Watch out for the bat.
- Upper Pagoda (Pagoda Temple): Keep going until you find a sandy ramp. Climb it to find a small room with another Refined Iron Sand.
- Mani Wheel (Pagoda Temple): Defeating the boss in the area drops two Refined Iron Sand.
