I spent almost three hours wandering the misty bamboo forests of Chapter 3 before I stumbled on where winds meet leave sect, and I immediately regretted not looking for it sooner. I was actually searching for a lost shrine to unlock an extra prayer bead slot when I tripped over the corpse holding the access scroll, so I found the whole area completely by accident. The half-abandoned temple complex hides some of the best early-to-mid game loot in the entire game, plus an optional boss fight that drops a permanent stat boost you can’t get anywhere else. Most players walk right past the hidden entrance because it’s blocked by a fake rock wall that only triggers if you’ve picked up that specific weathered scroll first. This guide will walk you through every step of finding, exploring, and clearing the area without missing any of its hidden rewards.
How to Find Where Winds Meet Leave Sect Without Wasting Time
First, you need to grab the required tattered scroll to unlock the entrance. You’ll find it on a dead monk slumped against a bamboo stalk, about 100 meters west of the third Bamboo Forest checkpoint. You don’t have to interact with the scroll immediately, but you do need to pick it up before the entrance will open. If you skip the scroll, you can hit the fake rock wall 100 times with your strongest attack and it won’t budge, so don’t waste your time trying to brute force it.
Once you have the scroll, follow the shallow stream running west from the checkpoint for about two minutes until you see a cluster of three red lanterns half-hidden behind thick bamboo stalks. The fake rock wall is directly to the left of the lanterns, and you’ll get a prompt to “move the rubble” when you walk up to it if you have the scroll in your inventory. You can come back to this area later even if you progress past Chapter 3, so don’t stress if you missed the scroll on your first run through the bamboo forest. Fast travel back to the third checkpoint, grab the scroll, and the entrance will open like normal.
Top Hidden Rewards You Won’t Want to Miss
All of these rewards are exclusive to where winds meet leave sect, so you can’t get them from chests or boss drops anywhere else in the game. Most casual players only find 2 of these 4 rewards on their first run, since two are hidden behind interactable environmental triggers:
- Wind-Cutter Staff Skin: A rare cosmetic that boosts your staff attack speed by 3% permanently, even if you switch back to other skins later. It’s found in the wooden chest tucked under the stairs leading to the main altar.
- 5x Greater Qi Restoration Pills: These sell for 1200 coins each if you don’t use them, making them one of the most valuable common loot drops in the chapter. They’re stashed in a loose wall panel in the side dormitory.
- Leave Sect Secret Tome: Unlocks a new alternate heavy attack combo for the staff that deals 20% extra damage to flying enemies, which comes in very handy for the cloud bosses in Chapter 4. It’s hidden under a loose floorboard behind the main altar, you have to roll into the wall to trigger the prompt to lift it.
- Permanent Vitality Boost: The small offering bowl near the main altar gives you +15 max HP when you interact with it, no quest or payment required. It works even if you’ve already hit your base HP cap for your level.
The vitality boost is account-wide if you unlock it on your first playthrough, so it’s worth grabbing even if you already have high HP and don’t need the extra buffer. You’ll also get a hidden lore entry when you pick up the secret tome that fills in backstory about the Leave Sect’s connection to Sun Wukong’s early travels.
Beating the Leave Sect Elder Optional Boss
The Leave Sect Elder is the only non-story boss in where winds meet leave sect, so you don’t have to fight him to progress the main quest. He spawns immediately after you pick up the secret tome, jumping down from the rafters of the main hall, so don’t be surprised when the fight triggers out of nowhere. He’s a wind-type monk with fast, long-range attacks, but he has a very clear pattern that’s easy to learn after a couple of tries.
His main attacks are three fast wind slashes that track your movement, a jump slam that creates a wide wind AOE, and a grab attack that takes 50% of your current HP if it lands. Stay within 2 meters of him at all times to avoid his long-range wind projectiles, they’re almost impossible to dodge if you’re more than 5 meters away. If you have the fire gourd unlocked, use it once at the start of the fight to apply a burn debuff that ticks for 2% of his health every second for 10 seconds, which cuts the fight length almost in half. If you’re below level 12, you might struggle to beat him even with the fire debuff, so don’t be afraid to leave and come back once you’ve leveled up a bit more.
Beating him gives you the Wind Walk ability, which lets you run 30% faster in misty areas and reduces the stamina cost of dodging by 10% for the rest of your playthrough. It’s one of the most useful passive abilities in the game for exploration, so it’s well worth the effort of the fight.
Common Mistakes to Avoid in the Leave Sect Area
The most common mistake players make is leaving before checking the small back garden behind the main hall. There’s a hidden fox spirit sitting under a peach tree there, and if you give her the regular peach you can pick from the tree near the Bamboo Forest’s first checkpoint, she’ll give you a free skill point and a rare lore entry about the Leave Sect’s final days. Most players don’t even notice the garden path hidden behind a cluster of bamboo next to the dormitory.
Another mistake is using your prayer bead HP upgrades before you grab the permanent vitality boost from the altar. The boost stacks with any prayer bead HP buffs, so you get more total HP if you grab the altar boost first, then apply your prayer bead upgrades. You also shouldn’t sell the Greater Qi Restoration Pills unless you’re really strapped for cash, they’re the only mid-game item that restores 100% of your Qi in one use, which is a lifesaver for boss fights later on.
You don’t have to fight the boss immediately after he spawns, you can run out of the main hall and fast travel to a nearby checkpoint to restock on healing items or level up, and he won’t despawn. A lot of new players panic when he jumps down and try to fight him underleveled, then end up dying and losing all their unspent experience points.
I’ve run through this area at least 8 times across different playthroughs, and I still find tiny little details I missed the first few times, like a hidden note from the sect elder tucked in a crack of the altar talking about his training with Sun Wukong. Taking 15 minutes to fully clear where winds meet leave sect is one of the highest-value side activities in Chapter 3, and the rewards will make the rest of your playthrough significantly easier. Don’t rush past the bamboo forests without checking for that hidden rock wall, you’ll regret missing out on all the free loot and upgrades that make the game’s harder later chapters way more manageable.
