Vitality decides if you can use a Mystic Art in Where Winds Meet. Sooner or later, everyone unlocks a powerful new Mystic Art skill, checks the requirement, and realizes they’re still 20-40 Vitality short. The game barely explains why, which is why the system feels more confusing than it is. Here’s how Vitality works in Where Winds Meet and how to increase it by all possible means.
How Does Vitality Work in Where Winds Meet
Vitality is the segmented ring placed between your equipped Mystic Skills in the bottom-right corner of the screen during combat. Almost every Mystic Art consumes it, with puzzle skills like Meridian Touch being the exception. Stronger skills such as Blinding Mist, Dragon Head, Honking Havoc, and many late-game rotations can drain large portions of the Vitality ring in a single use.
Vitality is increased by combat actions like hitting enemies, blocking, and performing deflections. Your max Vitality determines what skill you can slot and how frequently you can cast in a rotation, so the cap increase is one of the most important upgrades to activate endgame Mystic Arts.
How to Increase Vitality in Where Winds Meet
To upgrade Vitality in Where Winds Meet, you’ll need to unlock nodes in the Melodies of Peace passive trees. For it, collect Oddities and give them to two specific NPCs across the map. Since every node gives you a +10 boost, you’ll definitely want to track down both collectors if you want to use high-level Mystic Arts.
First Vitality Vendor – Qi Sheng in Qinghe
The first NPC is Qi Sheng, the old disheveled-looking man near the riverbank southeast of General’s Shrine, close to where you meet the first Wayfarer and learn the bear Mystic Art. He is marked on the map with an oddity/butterfly icon and can be found very early in the story.
Qinghe Oddities include the following things, which you can bring to him:
- Whisper Hives (beehives)
- Dagger General
- Redmist Beetles
- Enchanting Lotus
- Ironwing Mantises
- Small critters and curios, scattered all over the region
These Oddities appear on the minimap with a special icon, and respawn across exploration routes. Qi Sheng’s Melodies tree has three Vitality nodes (+10 each), for a total of +30 Vitality increase from Qinghe. This gets you to ~70 Vitality when combined with your base, enough to drive mid-tier Mystic Arts.
Second Vitality Vendor – Bai Ji in Kaifeng
Inside Kaifeng, climb up to the small hamlet just north of the Granary of Plenty (look slightly right of the outpost), northeast of Plainfield, and find Bai Ji on the rooftop, another oddity collector. Before you trade anything, you first have to complete his side quest Oddity: Melody Hunt. During it, you have to track oddities, follow sound cues, and then finish at the capital roof. Once done, his complete Melodies of Peace tree will open.
Kaifeng’s oddities are different from those of the Qinghe region. Here, you will want to do activities like:
- Knock birds out of the sky
- Grab glowing seeds before they fall to the ground
- Catch frogs, rats, and fast-moving critters
- Collect purple plants
The icons are the same category of markers as in Qinghe, but represent different interactables. Bai Ji’s tree also contains three Vitality nodes (+10 each), which gives you more +30 Vitality. Between both collectors, the total Vitality you can increase from Melodies of Peace is +60. Combined with the starting pool, it’s enough to cast even the Mystic Art techniques that cost 80–100 Vitality.
Additional Vitality Gain: Inner Way – Fury Harvest
Beyond raw Vitality increases, there’s one more upgrade that makes Mystic Art use easy: the Fury Harvest Inner Way. This passive gives certain recovery actions a 50% chance to generate 1 bonus Vitality, which makes it easy to refill your ring during fights without relying only on hit/block/deflect regen. When you have to cycle high-cost Mystic Arts, this passive helps a lot. To unlock Fury Harvest, you must defeat Ye Wanshan, a Campaign Boss in Where Winds Meet, whom you encounter during the Bodhi Sea quest.
Ye Wanshan can be accessed through Bodhi Sea, a mist-choked swamp in the far north of Qinghe, inside the Sundara Land zone. Move across the swamp platforms with care and watch for crocodiles. Use Wind Sense as you get closer; crocodiles can’t be dodged once they attack. Movement is restricted here; you only get a single jump, so use solid land whenever possible.
Once inside Bodhi Sea, find three drums and strike each one. They are not marked on your map, and you need to listen for the sound cue. When a drum is nearby, a directional sound wave indicator will show on your HUD. Follow that cue through the swamp until you reach each drum. Kill the enemies around every drum, but expect one final flurry when they revive briefly after “death.”
Once all three drums are struck, return to the central drummer on the wooden platform only to find him gone. A visual distortion will hit your character, and you’ll awaken in a different location, a dreamlike area that leads to Ye Wanshan. Follow the path until you reach a clearing with a Hero’s Tomb, where the boss waits. After you have defeated Ye Wanshan, you’ll return to Bodhi Sea with the mist lifted. Enter the newly opened tower nearby to finish the quest and receive 1x Fury Harvest: Tome alongside a few other rewards.
