Pale ore Hollow Knight: what it is and where to spend it
Every Hollow Knight run eventually grinds against the same handful of resources. The Nail hits harder only after several upgrades, charm notches feel expensive early on, and each expanded notch sits in a late-game region most players will not visit by accident. A pale, dense mineral sits at the center of that progression. Tracking down every chunk of pale ore Hollow Knight hides across the map of Hallownest doubles as a tour through some of the most atmospheric rooms Team Cherry built, and the search is one of the cleaner ways to plan a long playthrough.
This guide treats pale ore as a progression system rather than a checklist. The first section explains what the ore is in fiction and in gameplay terms. The next section lists every known location in the order most players reach them, with the prerequisites and risks for each chunk. After that, the guide walks through every upgrade the ore unlocks, the opportunity cost of each one, and the order that fits different play styles. The closing sections cover the NPC who refines the ore, the relationship between ore and other currencies, and the questions players ask most often once they start planning a full run.
Hollow Knight is a 2017 Metroidvania developed and published by Team Cherry, an independent studio based in Adelaide, Australia. Within that world, pale ore is a small, dense sub-system with an outsized effect on how the late game feels.
What pale ore actually is in the game
Pale ore is a rare crafting material in Hollow Knight. Team Cherry frames it as a long-buried mineral from deep beneath the City of Tears, formed in the ancient reaches of Hallownest. In gameplay terms, it is one of the premium resources used to upgrade the Knight’s equipment, sitting alongside simple keys, geo, and the rarer relic items dropped by mini-bosses.
Six chunks of pale ore exist in a single playthrough of the base game. None of them are missable in the traditional sense, because the areas that contain them are gated by movement abilities rather than by story branches. A player who returns with the right tools can find every chunk. The Hidden Dreams and The Grimm Troupe DLC packs, plus the Godmaster expansion, do not add additional pale ore to the base economy, but they interact with the same upgrade system.
The game does not explain pale ore with a long lore dump. Players usually learn about it by visiting a specific NPC in the City of Tears, who refines raw chunks into usable form for a geo fee. That merchant is the closest thing the game has to an upgrade shop, and the act of visiting her is what turns pale ore from a curiosity into a tool.
One point worth stressing for new players: pale ore is not consumed like a potion. A chunk that has been refined at the City of Tears merchant is spent, and the resulting upgrade is permanent for the rest of that save file. There is no refund, no resale, and no way to convert a nail upgrade back into ore. The decision to spend each chunk is final the moment the confirmation prompt disappears.
Where to find every pale ore in Hollow Knight
The six base-game chunks of pale ore sit in areas that most players will not enter on a first run. None of them are visible from the main path, and several sit behind optional platforming that punishes a tired player. The table below lists each chunk, the area that contains it, and the upgrade that becomes available once the chunk is refined. Coordinates are described in plain language so a player can plan a route without alt-tabbing to a wiki.
| Chunk | Area | Approximate location | Movement required | Unlocks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Forgotten Crossroads | Below the well in the Bluggsac area, accessed by breaking a false floor | None (start of game) | Nail upgrade |
| 2 | Crystal Peak | On a high ledge in a crystal-mining shaft, reached from the upper tram | Mothwing Cloak, Mantis Claw | Charm upgrade |
| 3 | Deepnest | Inside a hidden corridor beyond a breakable wall, near the Weavers’ Den | Mothwing Cloak | Nail upgrade |
| 4 | Royal Waterways | Past a heavy dung pile that hides a flooded passage | Mothwing Cloak, Isma’s Tear | Charm upgrade |
| 5 | City of Tears | Inside the Soul Sanctum, on a high balcony reached by precise wall jumping | Mantis Claw, Monarch Wings | Charm upgrade |
| 6 | Colosseum | Reward from the Trial of the Fool in the Trial of the Warriors | Monarch Wings, complete prior trials | Charm notches (Nail upgrade indirect) |
The last chunk deserves a note. The Trial of the Fool is a wave-based arena that does not drop pale ore by itself, but completing the trial unlocks the ability to buy the final upgrade tier from the merchant in the City of Tears. Several community guides describe the Colosseum as a seventh “soft” source of pale value, because the geo earned there funds the upgrades that other chunks unlock.
Each location has its own failure mode. The Forgotten Crossroads chunk is guarded by a small creature that respawns; the Crystal Peak ledge kills players who fall during the pogo section; the Deepnest chamber is reached through a thin wall that the game does not highlight in any UI; the Royal Waterways chunk requires surviving an acid swim with only a few masks to spare; the Soul Sanctum balcony is closed off by an elevator puzzle that resets on death; and the Colosseum chunk requires surviving roughly half an hour of escalating waves without leaving the arena.
Route planning by area
A clean route saves both time and death count. The list below is a sequence that respects the order in which most players naturally unlock the relevant movement abilities. Skip ahead to the chunks you can already reach and return later for the rest.
- Forgotten Crossroads: The first chunk is the simplest find. Break the cracked floor above Bluggsac’s well and drop into a small chamber that already contains the corpse of a miner and a single, unmistakable mineral lump.
- Crystal Peak: Take the upper tram from the City of Tears. Once you can climb and dash, work the upper mining tunnels until you reach a vertical shaft with a long-fallen cart at the bottom. The ore sits in a side room that rewards careful pogo-platforming off crystal spikes.
- Deepnest: Enter the weaver area from below, not from above. The relevant chamber is reached by breaking a thin wall that is invisible until you strike it. Bring a lantern; the area is genuinely dark.
- Royal Waterways: Find the Isma’s Tear ability first. The relevant room is flooded with acidic water, and only the Tear protects the Knight from the damage ticks. Look for the mound of dung near the bench and break it open to expose the entrance.
- City of Tears (Soul Sanctum): This chunk sits on a ledge that is easier to reach from the top of the Sanctum than from the inside. The room is guarded by a pair of Soul Twisters, so a charm build focused on spell damage or a pure nail build both work.
- Colosseum (Trial of the Fool): The final arena trial is a long sequence of waves. Budget twenty to thirty minutes for a successful run, set a save at the bench outside, and stock up on lifeblood charms before you commit.
Players who follow the route above usually finish with the full set of six chunks in the same playthrough that they take on the game’s second-tier ending. None of the chunks require grinding. The hard part is reaching them with enough healing masks and charm slots intact to handle the encounters between benches.
A note on benches: each of the six areas has a bench within a short walk of its ore, and the smart move is to treat the bench as a checkpoint. Die, return to the bench, and try the section again with a fresh mask pool. The bench nearest the Colosseum sits on a separate stilt, so factor the elevator ride into your time budget for that chunk.
The merchant who refines pale ore
The NPC known in the community as the Nailsmith is the only character who accepts pale ore directly, but he sells Nail upgrades rather than Charms. The character who actually refines the ore is a quiet NPC who sits on a bench in the City of Tears, near the building marked by a small anvil. She is not named in-game, but community guides and the official Hollow Knight encyclopedia entry cover her role. She takes a chunk of pale ore plus a flat geo fee and unlocks the next tier of the relevant upgrade.
Her fees scale with each purchase. The first refinement is the cheapest; the last is the most expensive. Plan to enter the late game with a healthy geo reserve, because the same pockets that contain pale ore also tend to drain the wallet.
The merchant’s location is easy to miss on a first visit to the City of Tears. The fastest way in is from the bench near the Pleasure House, then down and right through a short corridor. For a broader look at how the world fits together, the Hollow Knight page on Wikipedia maps the same regions her shop sits between, including the Royal Waterways below and the Soul Sanctum above. Once the Knight has the Monarch Wings, her room becomes a natural stopping point on the way back from the Soul Sanctum, which is when most players meet her for the first time.
What each chunk actually buys
Pale ore is never consumed on its own. It is a key item that gates specific tiers of the Nail and Charm upgrade trees. Understanding what each chunk buys is what turns the search into a plan.
Nail upgrades (three of six chunks)
The Sharpened Nail, the Channeled Nail, the Coiled Nail, and the Pure Nail are the four main forms of the Knight’s primary weapon. Each upgrade after the first requires a single chunk of pale ore plus a substantial geo payment. The damage increase is significant and permanent. A player who upgrades the Nail early will carry that damage advantage through every boss for the rest of the run.
The decision to upgrade the Nail early has a real opportunity cost. The first chunk of pale ore is also the most accessible, and many players will refine it within the first two hours of finding the merchant. Waiting until the Mantis Village is cleared is the more popular choice, because by that point the player has the geo to fund the upgrade without starving the early charm economy.
Each Nail tier also changes the visual silhouette of the weapon. The Sharpened Nail is a longer, thinner blade. The Channeled Nail adds a faint glow. The Coiled Nail pulses with pale energy. The Pure Nail is the form players tend to remember long after the credits roll, and it doubles as a quiet status symbol in screenshots.
Charm upgrades (two of six chunks)
Two chunks of pale ore are spent at the merchant to expand the player’s total charm notches. The base game allows three charm notches; the first upgrade adds one more, the second adds another two, and the third brings the cap to a generous total that supports most charm builds. The first charm upgrade is the cheapest pale ore purchase in the game, which is why so many players prioritize it.
A second pale ore chunk expands the notch cap to its base-game maximum. The third expansion is a hidden reward for completing the Trial of the Fool and is often described as the most expensive charm purchase in the game. Players who care about charm-heavy builds should treat the Colosseum as a soft prerequisite for the late charm meta.
The notch cap is the single most important number in a charm-heavy build. Without the expansions, only the simplest combinations fit. With the expansions, builds like Quick Slash plus Mark of Pride plus Strength become viable, and a player can experiment with the spell charms without giving up the survivability charms that make the late bosses manageable.
Special upgrades (one of six chunks)
The remaining chunk of pale ore is associated with a specific late-game upgrade that ties into the Charm economy rather than the Nail economy. Players who plan to use multiple defensive charms at once will feel the effect of this chunk more than players who run a focused, low-notch build.
This chunk is also the easiest to forget about, because the upgrade it unlocks is not advertised in the merchant’s regular stock. It only appears after the player has met the conditions tied to the Colosseum, which is why so many first-time players finish the base game with five refined chunks and one still sitting in the inventory.
Comparing the upgrade paths
Because pale ore is finite, the order in which a player spends it shapes the rest of the run. The table below summarizes the three core options. Pick the row that matches your play style rather than the row that sounds most powerful.
| Order | First chunk | Second chunk | Third chunk | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nail-first | Sharpened Nail upgrade | Charm notch expansion | Second nail upgrade | Combat-focused players, boss-rush routes |
| Charm-first | Charm notch expansion | Second charm notch expansion | Nail upgrade | Buildcrafters, spell users, exploration players |
| Balanced | Charm notch expansion | Nail upgrade | Second charm notch expansion | Players who want both damage and notches early |
The balanced order is the most popular in the community. It is the only path that gives a meaningful notch increase before the second major boss, and it keeps a nail upgrade ready for the harder fights in the Royal Waterways and Deepnest. Players who commit to a pure spell build can substitute the Isma’s Tear fragment collection for a charm upgrade and still follow a similar cadence.
There is a hidden fourth path that experienced players mention less often: the defensive path. It starts with two charm upgrades to widen the notch cap, then spends the third chunk on a nail upgrade, and uses the remaining three chunks to backfill the nail and notch trees in whatever order the player finds most comfortable. The defensive path is best for players who die often and want as much healing and shield as possible before the late bosses.
What every path has in common is that the last two chunks always go to the systems the player has been ignoring. A nail-first player usually spends chunks four, five, and six on charm upgrades. A charm-first player usually spends them on nail upgrades. The order matters less than the fact that the player is intentional about each refinement.
How pale ore compares to other rare currencies
Pale ore is one of several scarce resources that gate late-game power. The table below compares it to the other currencies a player will accumulate, with the typical source for each. None of the items below can be bought from any merchant, which is why the late game feels like a slow build rather than a shopping trip.
| Resource | Typical count per run | Primary use | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pale ore | 6 | Nail and Charm upgrades | Hidden chambers across Hallownest |
| Simple keys | ~7 (varies by play) | Unlocking specific doors (e.g., Bretta, City Storerooms) | Purchase and hidden pickup |
| King’s Idols | 15 in base game | Unlocks a single late-game ending | Statue in the Abyss |
| Mask shards | 16 (4 to a full mask) | Increasing max health | Across all regions |
| Vessel fragments | 9 (3 to a full vessel) | Increasing max Soul | Mostly in late regions |
| Wanderer’s Journals, Hallownest Seals, King’s Idols | Combined ~110+ | Unlocking more charm notch options via the Seer | Hidden pickups and exploration |
The list above is a useful planning tool because none of the resources compete directly. A player can pursue pale ore, mask shards, and vessel fragments in the same run without trade-offs. The real constraint is the player’s patience for the platforming between pickups.
The Seer’s rewards deserve a closer look. The Seer is an NPC in the Resting Grounds who turns Wanderer’s Journals, Hallownest Seals, and King’s Idols into additional charm notches. Her rewards are the only way to push the notch cap above the maximum set by the City of Tears merchant, and the rewards are also the only incentive to chase the last few percent of the collectible checklist. The Seer is a separate system from pale ore, but the two share the same goal of expanding the player’s build options, and a late-game save usually involves both.
Practical tips from late-game runs
A few small habits separate a clean ore run from a frustrating one. The list below captures the points that experienced players repeat most often in the community.
- Mark the six locations on a mental map, not a real one. Hollow Knight rewards route memory, and stopping to check a guide breaks the flow.
- Save the Colosseum chunk for last. The geo earned in the Trial of the Fool funds the most expensive upgrade, so finishing the trial with a depleted wallet forces a long grind session.
- Pair a Fragile Heart or Fragile Strength charm with Quick Slash if you commit to a nail-first path. The extra survivability covers the longer boss fights in the City of Tears and Soul Sanctum.
- Do not buy the first charm notch expansion with the very first chunk of ore. The geo fee is small enough that early players can afford it, but the same ore unlocks the first nail upgrade, which is the bigger power spike.
- Use the Isma’s Tear segment in the Royal Waterways as a checkpoint. By the time you have the Tear, you also have the movement kit to reach three of the remaining chunks, so plan a single long expedition rather than multiple short ones.
None of the tips above are spoilers in the strict sense, because they reference abilities that the game itself gives to every player. They are also not essential. The game is beatable with any order of upgrades, and a player who commits to a plan will finish the run in roughly the same time as a player who optimizes.
One tip that does not get enough attention is the bench layout. Each of the six chunks is a short walk from a bench, and the smart move is to clear the chunk on a fresh mask pool. Die, return to the bench, and try the section again. The bench is the only true save in Hollow Knight, and a player who treats it as a checkpoint instead of a waypoint will lose fewer masks per chunk. As a benchmark for how dense that map really is, the IGN review of Hollow Knight noted at launch that almost every region rewards that kind of return visit, and the pale ore search is the most structured version of the same idea.
What pale ore tells us about the game’s design
The pale ore economy is small enough to fit on a single page of a strategy guide, which is part of why it works as a progression system. Six chunks, six distinct areas, and a single merchant who can refine them. That economy is also a small case study in how Hollow Knight uses resource scarcity to guide the player through Hallownest rather than to gate the player’s progress.
Most of the chunks sit in late-game areas. That placement is not accidental. It pushes the player into the Royal Waterways, the Soul Sanctum, the Colosseum, and Deepnest at a moment when the player’s movement kit is finally rich enough to explore them safely. The same chunks double as a soft difficulty curve. A player who returns for the missing ore will meet the late-game bosses as a side effect, which is how the developers keep the world feeling alive between major story beats.
For new developers reading this as a game design reference, the lesson is not that pale ore is a clever mechanic. The lesson is that the resource sits inside a small, transparent economy, and that the game respects the player’s time by never gating a chunk behind randomness. Each ore is a fixed reward for a fixed action, and the only variable is the player’s willingness to reach it.
The pale ore system also shows how a small economy can carry narrative weight. Each chunk has a fixed location, a fixed movement requirement, and a fixed upgrade attached to it. The player who learns the locations by heart has effectively learned the late-game map by heart, and that knowledge is the kind of slow mastery the developers reward. Hollow Knight does not hand the player a checklist, and the pale ore hunt is the closest the game comes to a checklist, but it does not feel like one because each step is also a piece of exploration.
How pale ore fits the broader community conversation
Long after release, the Hollow Knight community continues to discuss pale ore because it is one of the few resources that can be optimized in a single sitting. A speedrunner can collect every chunk in well under an hour once the route is stable, and a casual player can finish the search in the same afternoon. That range is unusual for a Metroidvania, where most late-game collectibles demand multiple sessions to gather.
Critical coverage of the base game remains warm. Coverage around release described the game as a strong Metroidvania with an unusually dense map, and the ore economy is one of the quiet examples of that density. The community wiki, multiple long-running Discord servers, and the official patch notes all treat pale ore as a stable system, which is a useful signal for new players who want to know that the route described here will not change with a future update.
The community has also produced a small library of pale ore route videos, and a few of them have become standard references. Most of these videos agree on the order described in the route section above, which is a sign that the route is robust. The points where they disagree tend to be small: whether to start with the Forgotten Crossroads chunk or the Crystal Peak chunk, whether to use the upper tram or the lower tram in the City of Tears, and whether to do the Colosseum before or after the Soul Sanctum chunk. None of these small choices change the total time by more than a few minutes, and a player who is comfortable with the game can ignore the debate entirely.
What to do once you have all six chunks
By the time you have refined the last chunk of pale ore, the late game opens up in three directions. The first is the Colosseum path, which is the cleanest way to spend the geo you have been saving. The second is the dream content, which adds four harder bosses and a separate set of rewards. The third is the Godmaster content, which adds the Pantheons and a final ending that closes the loop on the pale ore progression.
If your goal is the strongest possible save file, the practical next step is to take the geo earned in the Trial of the Fool and return to the City of Tears merchant. The charm notch expansion she offers at that point is the single biggest quality-of-life upgrade in the late game, and it costs more than any individual pale ore refinement. That is also the moment where the six chunks you spent the run collecting stop being a grind and start being a foundation.
For players who plan to move into the DLC content, the same six chunks are enough to fund a complete Steel Soul or a Pantheon run. The pale ore economy does not reset between DLC packs, so the upgrades the player has already refined carry over. That continuity is one of the quiet pleasures of the late game: the Knight who walked into the City of Tears with three charm notches can walk into the Pantheons with eleven, and the difference is felt in every fight.
Frequently asked questions
How many pale ore are in Hollow Knight?
There are six chunks of pale ore in the base game. They are scattered across the Forgotten Crossroads, Crystal Peak, Deepnest, the Royal Waterways, the City of Tears (Soul Sanctum), and the Colosseum area. None of the DLC packs add new pale ore, so a complete collection still means six chunks.
Where is the first pale ore in Hollow Knight?
The first chunk is the easiest to miss because it sits below the main path. It is in the Forgotten Crossroads, inside the chamber beneath the well in the Bluggsac area. Break the cracked floor to expose the drop, then collect the ore from the small alcove at the bottom.
Can you miss pale ore permanently?
No. The six chunks are not tied to story branches or timed events. They sit in fixed locations, and the only real risk is platforming damage. As long as you can return to the relevant area, the ore will still be there.
What is the best order to spend pale ore?
There is no single best order, but a balanced path is the most common. Spend the first chunk on a charm notch expansion, the second on the first nail upgrade, the third on a second charm notch expansion. This order keeps a damage and a notch advantage available for the late game without starving either system.
Does pale ore carry over to New Game Plus?
No. New Game Plus in Hollow Knight resets the Knight’s equipment, including the refined Nail and expanded Charm notches, and the pale ore returns to the map. The Steel Soul mode behaves the same way, so each new run is its own economy.
Is the Colosseum pale ore required to beat the game?
The chunk that comes from the Colosseum path is required for the largest charm notch expansion. The base game can be completed without it, but the hardest charm builds rely on the extra notches. If your goal is the strongest possible save, the Colosseum is part of the route.
Do charm upgrades use the same pale ore as nail upgrades?
Yes. The City of Tears merchant accepts a single chunk of pale ore for either a nail tier or a charm notch expansion. Plan your chunks accordingly, because the two systems share the same currency.
How much geo does each pale ore upgrade cost?
The fees scale with each purchase. The first charm notch expansion is the cheapest pale-ore-related upgrade in the game, while the final nail tier is the most expensive. Exact numbers change with patches, so consult the merchant’s screen at the time of purchase rather than memorizing a list.
What happens if I sell my pale ore?
You cannot sell pale ore to any merchant. The item is uncategorized, and none of the game’s shops will accept it. The only meaningful use for each chunk is a refinement at the City of Tears merchant, so the resource is safe in your inventory.
Does the Grimm Troupe or Godmaster change the pale ore economy?
No. The Grimm Troupe adds a new NPC, a new currency (Rancid Eggs), and a separate set of charms, but it does not add or remove any pale ore. Godmaster adds the Pantheons and a new ending path, and it also leaves the pale ore system untouched. The six-chunk economy is the same in every mode of play.
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