When you reach a certain point in Spirittea, the spirits start affecting the game’s user interface through textbox shenanigans. This is a fun bit of fourth wall breaking, but reading those mucky text boxes is tough, making the quest to learn how to make a cleansing elixir important.
After you discover the spirit, Onishi, things start to get a little messy in your bathhouse… and in your text boxes. This spirit leaves a purple ooze residue in the bath when it visits, and because the spirit spent some time haunting your dialogue menu, those are covered in purple gunk as well. To fix it so you can more easily read your in-game prompts, Wonyan asks you to find the long-lost recipe for a Purifying Elixir. Per usual, the ghostly cat isn’t the most helpful, so we’re here to break down this quest so you can get the gunk off your textboxes and out of the baths.
Related: Spirittea Walkthrough: Full Main Story Guide
Where to Find the Purifying Elixir Recipe
Wonyan tells you he’s pretty sure the recipe was buried in a graveyard just outside town. But where is this graveyard, and just where should we be digging to find the recipe?
First things first, you’ll want to purchase a shovel from the Shop if you don’t already have one. You’ll need it to dig up the recipe (and tomes around town if you want to learn more about your new Spirit friends).
Next, head down towards the temple. To the East of the temple, you’ll find the graveyard, which can be a bit tricky to spot because there are only a handful of graves. It’s directly next to the water at the bottom right of the map.
Once you’re in the graveyard, head for the top corner, to the right of the stairs, and next to a nice little tree. Here, you’ll see a gravestone.
If you switch on your Spirit Vision, you’ll notice that the spot directly in front of the grave glows a little bit brighter green than the surrounding grass. Personally, I find this difference a bit hard to spot because it’s pretty subtle, but rest assured, the space just in front of the headstone is what you want here.
Head over there with Spirit Vision on and use your shovel to dig. The scroll with the Purifying Elixir recipe should pop out. Grab it, and your in-game avatar will hold it up while the (ooze-covered) textbox announces you’ve found the scroll.
Now, you’re ready to read the recipe and gather the ingredients.
Purifying Elixir Ingredients & Locations
Head to the bathhouse kitchen if you’ve purchased this renovation or back to your house so you can open up the cooking interface and read the recipe. When you do so, you’ll learn that the Purifying Elixir has three ingredients:
- Sakura Blossom
- White Rice
- Rice Wine Vinegar
The second two ingredients, white rice, and rice wine vinegar, are both sold at the Convenience Store. You can also swipe a free rice wine vinegar down by the West beach at the little stall where the town’s resident old men like to sit and have a drink.
As for the Sakura Blossom, this one can be a bit trickier if you don’t know where to look. Rest assured, there’s an ample supply of pink blossoms in your town. Head up towards the bathhouse, going all the way to the top where the bathhouse entrance is located.
Head to the East, where you’ll see some stepping stones in the river. These lead to a little patch of land on the other side, where a Sakura tree blooms in all seasons. There should be a plethora of Sakura Blossoms on the ground here, which you can gather for your Purifying Elixir.
Making the Purifying Elixir
Once you have the ingredients, you’re pretty much ready to go. The one thing to keep in mind here is the preparation instructions, which clearly indicate you need to ferment the ingredients. That means you’ll need to use the fermentation station in the corner of your kitchen, which looks like a little brown basket towards the bottom of the room, just past the stovetop.
Pop your ingredients into the basket and hit start. Then, you’ll need to wait a bit while the ingredients ferment. Once it’s finished, the bottle of Purifying Elixir will appear on the ground near the fermentation station. Pick it up, and Wonyan will pop up, encouraging you to use the elixir to clean up your text boxes.
There should be extra elixir left over, which you can store and use whenever the Onishi spirit leaves behind a bit of grime in your baths. Given how often this happens, it’s a great recipe to have on hand whenever you’re open for business.
