If you're already at a high Trailblaze Level in Honkai: Star Rail, it'll take a long time to ascend a new character to make them good enough for the enemies you're facing. It also takes extra materials to level up a five-star character like Jing Yuan than a four-star character in this game.

Jing Yuan is the second limited character, and he follows the path of Erudition with Lightning as the combat type. If you're lucky enough to get the character, here are all the materials you'll need to get him and his Traces leveled up.

Updated February 21, 2024, by Sean Murray: Jing Yuan has incredible potential if you can get the right materials. This guide will tell you everything you need to know, and then set you up with links to other helpful Honkai: Star Rail topics.

Jing Yuan Ascension Materials

Here are all the materials you'll require to ascend Jing Yuan after reaching a certain level:

To ascend this character to a certain phase, you'll have to reach the maximum level of the previous phase.

This will take extra Credits and some character EXP materials that can be farmed from Golden Calyxes.

You can also get Credits from Golden Calyxes if you're running short. Moreover, if you have time for it, you can also defeat all the mobs on the map using Jing Yuan to get some free character EXP every day. This is a long and tedious process that takes a lot of time, but it saves you about 80 Trailblaze Power a day at higher Equilibrium levels.

Jing Yuan Trace Materials

Each character has a set of eight main traces including one Basic Attack, one Skill, one Ultimate, one Technique, one Talent, and three Bonus Abilities. The Technique is unlocked at the start while the Bonus Abilities need to be unlocked with further ascensions, though they don't need to be upgraded.

As for the rest of the Traces, you'll have to upgrade them regularly as you increase your character's ascension level. It's important to focus on them since your Relics and Light Cones scale off these Traces, so you'll just get diminishing returns if you don't prioritize them. Here are all the Trace materials you'll need and where to find them:

Immortal Scionette, Aeroblossom, and Lumintwig

These are mob drops that can only be acquired from the Mara-Struck enemies in The Xianzhou Luofu region. There are two types of Mara-Struck enemies. The smaller enemies can revive themselves once after being defeated and going back to half health, while the bigger enemy has a set of abilities.

Other than that, you can also head over to the Material Exchange section of the Synthesizer where you can put together two Materials of the same rarity to make one Immortal Scionette, Aeroblossom, or Lumintwig. Moreover, you can only get drops of a higher rarity at a certain Equilibrium level.

You can also craft these higher rarity items by putting together three items of the rarity below it in Material Synthesis.

Key Of Inspiration, Knowledge, And Wisdom

This item can be farmed from the Crimson Calyx in Rivet Town. Based on your Equilibrium level and the difficulty you select, you'll face enemies like Imaginary Weaver, Everwinter Shadewalker, and Frostspawn. The lineup of enemies is randomized, which means it can change every time you start a run.

You can start getting Keys of Knowledge at difficulty three and Keys of Wisdom at difficulty five.

Once again, you can craft and exchange other items to get the Keys whenever you need them, though you'll be wasting Trailblaze Power in this scenario if you're using Material Exchange. This is because you still need two items of a particular rarity to craft one of the Keys, and both of those items took some Trailblaze Power to get.

How To Get Shape Shifter's Lightning Staff

This is the special boss drop required to ascend Jing Yuan from the third ascension onward. It can be farmed through the Shape of Doom Stagnant Shadow found in the southern Stargazer Navalia. You'll be fighting a Disciple of Sanctus Medicus, Mara-Struck Soldiers, and Entranced Ingenium.

Ice, Wind, and Imaginary are the best combat types for this fight since at least two of the enemies are weak to each of these elements. It'll be quite easy to defeat the Mara-Struck Soldier and Entranced Ingenium, but the Disciple will give you a hard time since it can heal itself and spawn even more soldiers.

You have to defeat all three initial enemies to complete the run, but you don't have to defeat the soldiers summoned by the disciple.

Here are a few tips to defeat the Disciple of Sanctus Medicus:

• Focus on the other two enemies first before you start fighting the main enemy. Moreover, it's recommended to bring AoE characters like Herta, Sampo, or Welt to this fight.
• When the Disciple summons two more Mara-Struck Soldiers, defeat one of them and leave the other one since that'll prevent the boss from summoning more enemies for a bit.
• The Disciple will have one turn including both its attacks where it'll heal itself. Once that happens, it won't do the healing attacks for the next few turns, which makes it the perfect opportunity to funnel all your abilities on the boss

For Jing Yuan builds, check out our guide here.