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Black Myth: Wukong isn’t your typical Souls-like. Leveling up working completely differently, and so does leveling up your base stats. If you want to increase your maximum health, mana, stamina, defense and more you’ll need to collect rare Mind Cores. Just getting Mind Cores isn’t enough, you’ll also need to find the right NPC — and these items seem limited at first. Many bosses drop Mind Cores, but you can actually farm them from high level enemies later in the game. If you’re looking to boost your basic attributes, this is what you’ll need to do.
Want to buy all the Mind Cores you can? Check out our Black Myth: Wukong farming guide for more information. Or upgrade your main character with hidden Vessels.
What Are Attributes?
Attributes are your basic statistics — there are six attributes. At the start of the game, you’ll have a base set of attributes. By collecting Mind Cores, you’ll be able to trade to an NPC to increase those stats. Leveling up does NOT increase attributes. You need special items called Mind Cores.
- Attributes: Health, Mana, Stamina, Defense, Stamina Recovery Speed, Elemental Resistance
These are the six attributes — by trading Mind Cores to the NPC Xu Dog you can select different attributes to increase. Xu Dog is a permanent trader you can unlock early in the game that moves to various locations depending on where you’re currently in the story.
How To Find Xu Dog
To increase your stats with Mind Cores, you’ll need to find Xu Dog. This NPC has a short quest that becomes available in Chapter 2.
- In Chapter 2, progress into Yellow Wind Ridge early in the chapter and reach the Sandgate Village Entrance shrine. Instead of going to the village, pass through a small cave path to find Xu Dog.
- Talk to Xu Dog and he’ll request you defeat a giant frog. Do it and talk to Xu Dog again to progress the quest.
- Next, you’ll find Xu Dog in the Crouched Tiger Temple basement area. From this location, Xu Dog will brew Celestial Medicine in exchange for Mind Cores.
Later, Xu Dog will move one last time. If you complete the quest in Chapter 3 and unlock the Painted World secret area, Xu Dog will move to the village permanently.
How To Get Mind Cores
Let’s recap. Mind Cores are rare items that can be traded to Xu Dog for Celestial Medicine — Celestial Medicine is used to increase your main character’s attributes permanently. So, where do you find Mind Cores?
- Mind Cores are primarily dropped by defeating bosses. Major bosses and some optional bosses will drop Mind Cores.
- Later, Mind Cores can be purchased at any shrine. x2 become available from Shrines in Chapter 2. x4 in Chapter 3. Every following chapter adds more Mind Cores for purchase.
- Rare Mind Cores will also drop from enemies. You can farm Mind Cores by defeating shielded enemies in Chapter 5.
And that’s how you increase your stats in Black Myth: Wukong. It’s a lot more complicated than other Dark Souls games — even unlocking the hub requires a secret quest in Chapter 3. If you want to boost your defense or health or anything else, make sure to save up cash and buy all the Mind Cores that appear at any shrine vendor.
