Phantom Blade Zero accessory upgrades: how to unlock Jewel and what to polish

Polishing makes an accessory’s passive stronger, and the gap is big. Battle Wraps start at 5% extra damage and finish at 10%. A Puppet’s Wooden Heart doubles from 25% to 50% summon duration. That is worth a few crystals on the right pieces, and a waste on the wrong ones.

Unlock accessory polishing

1. Clear the Crimson Forest. It is the second region, and Jewel will not appear before you finish it.
2. Enter the Village of Lu. It is the third region, and the Place of Awakening is the bell you start from.
3. Take the path ahead. The meeting with Jewel starts by itself and there is no hidden shop to hunt for.
4. Pick Polish Accessories. Take the faint weeping dialogue option too. That moves Whence the Weeping forward, and it is one of the quests the Perfect ending needs.

Polishing at a bell

Once you have met Jewel you never need her shop again. At any bell, choose Upgrade Equipment and open the accessories tab. Pick the accessory, read the material cost and confirm. Her own stall is on the cliffside in the village, but the bell menu does the same job.

Materials and where to get them

Every accessory begins at level 1. Tainted Crystal Shards take most of them to level 2, and that is where most of them stop. A smaller group goes on to level 3, which costs Refined Indigo Crystal. When you start a new cycle the polish ceiling rises, so some accessories gain further levels in New Game Plus.

You get crystals two ways:

1. Bell shops. Both crystals are on sale. The stock grows with every Quick Hand Zhang hideout you find, so open his hideouts as you pass them.
2. Chests. Check the cracked wooden chests that glow light blue first. That is where crystals turn up.

What a full polish gives you

These are end values. A few accessories gain an extra effect once polished, and Medicine Case is one of them. Offensive pieces mostly raise damage, defensive ones cut damage taken, and support ones raise your maximum Sha-Chi.

What to polish first

Pick things that fit how you fight, then stop. Counterstrike Bracers comes from the Gold-Masked One fight and pays off for anyone who parries a lot. Reflex Device makes every parry and perfect dodge easier to land, and it suits any weapon. The three Quick Hand pieces are tied to a weapon class. Only the one that matches your main weapon is worth the crystals.

Keep a few crystals in reserve. You will find better accessories later, and a pile of shards on a piece you drop after two regions is the worst way to spend them. Weapons are the other half of your build, and they can be refunded and rebuilt freely, which crystals never can.

Accessory slots and limits

You start with two slots and can reach six. The extra four come from the Boundless Capacity nodes in the skill tree. Accessories fall into three types, offensive, defensive and support, and you can wear at most three of any one type. A build with three offensive pieces and three defensive ones is legal, but a run of six offensive pieces is not.