Hollow Knight pale ore: every chunk, upgrade, and route

Hollow Knight pale ore: every chunk, upgrade, and route

A first run through Hallownest usually ends with a stubborn notification on the player UI: only three of six chunks found, and the Nailsmith will not upgrade the Nail past a certain point without the rest. Hollow Knight pale ore is one of the few crafting resources in the game that is permanently missable in a single save file, because some pieces sit behind late-game traversal abilities, hidden walls, or one-time dream sequences. The frustration is not that the items are unfair, but that nothing in the UI tells the player when new chunks become reachable. This guide maps every confirmed chunk, the upgrade it pays for, and the order most players can collect them without backtracking into already-cleared zones.

Pale ore functions as a currency rather than a key item. The Nailsmith in the City of Tears forges it into higher Nail damage tiers, and the same material is also consumed by the Pale King statue in the Ancient Basin for a lore-based interaction that does not cost a chunk. The resource is never sold, never dropped by regular enemies, and never respawns. There are six chunks in the base game, and the official Hollow Knight entry on Wikipedia lists the count as six base-game pieces with additional chunks added through downloadable content, which is the figure used throughout this article.

What pale ore actually does in the game systems

Pale ore is consumed exclusively by two game systems. The first is the Nailsmith upgrade track, which increases the damage of the Nail, the player’s primary melee weapon, through four tiers. The second is a one-time dialogue with the Pale King in the White Palace, which provides lore rather than a stat change. The confusion most players hit is that the Nailsmith tracks both Pale Ore and Geo as separate requirements, so a chunk without enough Geo simply stays in the inventory until the player returns with currency.

Mechanically, the resource is a binary state. It is either in the inventory, consumed, or locked behind a traversal gate. There is no in-between value such as a half-chunk, and there is no way to refund a consumed chunk. The game stores the count in the player save file, so loading a previous save before consumption is the only way to recover a spent piece. Because the game autosaves on rest, that recovery is only practical before the next bench.

Quick reference table: every pale ore chunk

#	Region	Sub-area	Access requirement	Risk profile
1	Forgotten Crossroads	Below the well near the False Knight arena	None beyond basic traversal	Low
2	City of Tears	Near the Nailsmith’s anvil in a hidden wall alcove	Mothwing Cloak or equivalent dash	Low
3	Deepnest	Past the Weavers’ Den, in a husk-filled passage	Mothwing Cloak plus lantern or shade cloak	High
4	Royal Waterways	Hidden room off the main water channel	Isma’s Tear to swim in acid	Medium
5	World’s Edge / Kingdom’s Edge	Inside a breakable wall near the colosseum	Desolate Dive or Vengeful Spirit to break the wall	Medium
6	Queen’s Gardens	Inside the Traitor Lord’s arena, on a high ledge	Mantis Claw, Monarch Wings, and Isma’s Tear	High

The table is a planning aid, not a step-by-step walkthrough. The risk profile reflects expected enemy density and platforming precision, not a guarantee of a clean run.

Why the Nailsmith track matters for the mid-game

The Nailsmith sits on a balcony above the main thoroughfare in the City of Tears. He offers four upgrade tiers, and each tier doubles the required ore count before locking further upgrades behind additional ore. The Nailsmith will not accept a chunk until the player has enough Geo on hand, which is why many players walk into his balcony with three chunks in their inventory and still walk out with an un-upgraded Nail.

Upgrade tiers, costs, and effects

Tier	Pale ore cost	Geo cost	Nail damage	Notes
Old Nail (base)	0	0	5	Starting weapon
Sharpened Nail	1	200	9	First Nailsmith upgrade
Channelled Nail	2	450	13	Adds a forward nail art
Coiled Nail	3	800	17	Adds a downward nail art
Pure Nail	4	2,000	21	Final form, unlocks new dialogue

The cumulative cost for the full upgrade path is four Hollow Knight pale ore chunks and roughly 3,450 Geo. The remaining two chunks in the base game are not required to finish the Nail track, which is important when a player decides whether to backtrack into a hostile region for cosmetic reasons or skip a chunk that is locked behind an ability they will not earn until late.

Why four chunks, not six, end the upgrade path

Team Cherry designed the Nailsmith track so that a focused player who finds four chunks can finish the upgrade without touching the highest-risk regions of the map. The two leftover chunks in Deepnest and Queen’s Gardens are intended as long-term goals for completionist runs or for players who want to experience the Traitor Lord fight as part of the natural difficulty curve. The game does not warn the player that skipping a chunk in the Royal Waterways will make the second-to-last upgrade awkward, so a route plan is the only reliable solution.

There is also a quiet design reason for the gap. The two leftover chunks sit in the two regions that double as late-game combat milestones: Deepnest gates the Herrah dream sequence, and Queen’s Gardens gates both the Mark of Pride charm and the Traitor Lord pantheon. Pairing the chunks with those encounters means that a player who only wants the Pure Nail can finish the upgrade by the time they reach the colosseum, and a player who wants the rest of the chunks is naturally pushed through the hardest fights in the base game.

Chunk-by-chunk route planning

The cleanest route through the base-game ore is geographic, not chronological. By moving from the Forgotten Crossroads outward in roughly the order the map opens up, the player minimises backtracking through zones with respawning enemies. The plan below assumes the player has already obtained the Mantis Claw and Mothwing Cloak, which is the standard state of the save file by the time the first ore becomes relevant for the second Nailsmith tier.

The route also assumes the player is willing to spend the Geo cost for each upgrade as soon as the chunk is in hand. Holding chunks in the inventory without spending them is a common habit, but it costs the player nothing to forge the Sharpened Nail on the first visit to the City of Tears, and the damage increase is felt immediately on the False Knight rematch and on every Tiktik encounter in the early game.

Chunk 1: Forgotten Crossroads well

The first chunk sits in a small chamber below the well next to the False Knight arena. After the False Knight fight, the player can drop into the well from a breakable wooden platform and follow a short tunnel to a side room. The chunk rests on the floor, unguarded. This piece is the easiest to miss because the well is a dead end on most map paths, and the chamber is easy to confuse with the Gruz Mother arena. The pickup itself carries no risk beyond a short fall, so the practical advice is to take it on the way to Greenpath the first time, not on a return trip.

The chamber has one quirk worth noting: the floor below the chunk is a thin platform that breaks on the second landing. Players who bounce on the platform to recover from a missed jump will find the floor gone on the next attempt, and the only way back to the surface is a wall climb that requires the Mantis Claw. On a fresh save, the safer move is to drop straight in, pick up the chunk, and climb back out with a simple pogo off an enemy.

Chunk 2: City of Tears hidden alcove

The second piece is in a small room that branches off the main thoroughfare of the City of Tears, a short wall-jump above the Nailsmith’s balcony. The chamber is hidden behind a cracked wall, and the game does not telegraph the crack with any audio cue. The pickup is gated by the Mantis Claw or any upward traversal ability, so the chunk is not reachable on a first visit to the city without the claw. The actual risk is platforming: the wall crack sits above a drop that will reset the player back to the balcony if the wall jump is mistimed.

The wall crack is also one of the few spots in the base game where the camera framing is misleading. The crack is small and easy to walk past on the way to the Nailsmith, and the room behind it contains nothing else of value. Players who are in the city for a story reason will often pass the crack three or four times before noticing it, especially if the city is being cleared in a single pass before the colosseum.

Chunk 3: Deepnest husks

The Deepnest chunk is the highest-risk piece in the base game. The room is a husk-filled passage in the lower Deepnest, past the Weavers’ Den. The hazards are threefold: the husks themselves explode into smaller husks when struck, the floor is uneven and difficult to read in low light, and the chunk sits in a small alcove that requires a shade cloak dash to escape without taking damage. Players who arrive without the Shade Cloak will see the chunk but will not be able to reach it safely. The recommended order is to combine this pickup with the Herrah the Beast dream sequence on the same run, because the dream reward makes the husk fights more survivable.

The husk passage is also a quiet test of patience. The husks do not respawn, so a player who clears the room once and dies on the way out can return to an empty room with the chunk still in place. The Shade Cloak dash is the practical escape, but a careful player with the Mothwing Cloak and a full Soul meter can also pogo off a husk to reach the alcove. The risk is that the pogo leaves the player in the middle of the swarm, and a single hit can chain into two more.

Chunk 4: Royal Waterways acid room

The Royal Waterways chunk is locked behind Isma’s Tear, the acid-swimming ability. The room is a side branch off the main water channel, accessible only by submerging into acid for a short distance. The chunk sits on a small dry platform in the middle of an otherwise flooded corridor. The risk is moderate: the acid inflicts damage over time, the room is short, and the exit is on the same level as the entrance. The pickup is best combined with the Dung Defender charm, because the charm economy makes the Dung Defender area more efficient on a single run.

The acid in this room behaves like the rest of the Royal Waterways: it drains two masks on a full submerge and one mask on a quick dip. The chunk platform is just high enough to break the surface, so a player with the Quick Focus charm can heal between the entrance dip and the exit dip without losing a mask to the acid. Players who arrive without Quick Focus will eat the two-mask cost, which is the practical reason to plan the Royal Waterways run after the City of Tears rather than before.

Chunk 5: Kingdom’s Edge breakable wall

The Kingdom’s Edge chunk is in a small breakable wall near the entrance to the colosseum. The wall is fragile enough to be broken by any spell or descending attack. The challenge is that the colosseum itself is a wave-based combat area, and the chunk is past the first wave. Players who want only the chunk can enter the colosseum, take the first wave, and leave through the side passage before the second wave begins. The risk is medium because the wave enemies do not pursue past the side passage, but a slow run will eat into the player’s health pool before they reach the chunk.

The side passage also contains a hidden Grub, which is a useful secondary reward for the same run. The Grub is in a small alcove past the chunk, and the only way out is back through the colosseum entrance. Players who are not ready for the colosseum can clear the first wave, grab both the chunk and the Grub, and rest at the nearby bench before the second wave begins. The colosseum is a soft checkpoint: the player can leave between waves without resetting the encounter, which makes the chunk pickup unusually forgiving for a mid-game pickup.

Chunk 6: Queen’s Gardens Traitor Lord arena

The final base-game chunk is in the Traitor Lord’s arena, on a high ledge above the main fighting floor. The pickup requires the Mantis Claw, Monarch Wings, and Isma’s Tear, which means the chunk is not reachable until the late game. The fight itself is a long, multi-phase combat with high damage and a punishing aerial phase. Players who only want the chunk should accept that the Traitor Lord fight is the cost of admission, and the chunk is best collected as a reward for the fight rather than as a separate trip. The Queen’s Gardens area also contains the Mark of Pride charm, which is a more efficient pickup on the same run.

The high ledge is a soft target. A player who clears the Traitor Lord in a single attempt can simply wall-jump up after the fight and pick up the chunk without re-entering the arena. A player who dies and respawns at the nearby bench will need to re-enter the arena, but the Traitor Lord only spawns when the player enters the main room, so a careful approach from the upper entrance can let the player grab the chunk without re-triggering the fight.

Ability gates and how they reshape the route

The most common reason a player ends the game missing Hollow Knight pale ore chunks is not that the chunks are hidden, but that the player does not have the right ability on a given visit. The game’s ability gates are strict, and the UI does not show which chunks are gated by which ability. The list below is the practical gate map, in the order the abilities are normally obtained.

• Mothwing Cloak: unlocks the City of Tears chunk via the wall jump above the Nailsmith.
• Mantis Claw: unlocks the Queen’s Gardens chunk, which is otherwise unreachable.
• Isma’s Tear: unlocks the Royal Waterways chunk and the Queen’s Gardens chunk.
• Monarch Wings: unlocks the high ledge in the Traitor Lord arena.
• Shade Cloak: makes the Deepnest husk escape survivable but does not gate the chunk itself.

A useful planning trick is to delay the second Nailsmith upgrade until the player has three chunks in the inventory. That gives the player enough material to reach the third tier without an extra trip to the City of Tears, which is the most expensive backtrack in the route by Geo cost alone. The same trick also keeps the player’s charm slots free for the Quick Slash and Fragile Heart setup that most late-game fights reward, because the player does not have to commit to a charm build until the upgrade path is settled.

How pale ore interacts with charms and combat

Pale ore does not stack with charms directly, but the Nail upgrades it enables change the value of several charms in the late game. The most relevant interaction is with the Fragile Heart, Unbreakable Heart, and Quick Slash charms, which scale with the Nail’s base damage. A player who finishes the Nailsmith track before clearing the colosseum will see higher charm damage on every colosseum wave, which shortens the fight and reduces the cost of error.

Combat encounters that change difficulty with the upgrade

• False Knight: noticeably shorter phase two, because the Nail’s per-hit damage is higher.
• Mantis Lords: the aerial phase becomes safer because the player can finish one of the sisters in fewer hits.
• Traitor Lord: the high ledge for the sixth chunk becomes reachable faster, because the player can clear the fight in less real time.
• Radiance: the final boss becomes more forgiving because the Nail’s base damage scales with the upgrade tier.

The practical advice is to prioritise the second Nailsmith upgrade before the Traitor Lord, even if the Geo cost is steep. The upgrade is paid back across every late-game encounter, and the fourth chunk is the most expensive single pickup in the route. The same logic applies to the third tier, which is most useful on the colosseum waves and on the Godhome trials added by the Godmaster update.

What changes in the downloadable content

The four DLC packs released by Team Cherry add new chunks, but the base-game count remains six. The Hidden Dreams pack does not add chunks. The Grimm Troupe adds one new chunk in a late-game location, the Lifeblood adds a chunk in the Godhome area, and the Godmaster update adds the final chunk in a boss-rush context. Each new chunk is consumed by the same Nailsmith track, but the Nailsmith only appears in the City of Tears, so the player must return to the city for each new tier.

How the DLC chunks change the route

The DLC chunks are all gated by late-game traversal abilities, and none of them is reachable before the player has cleared the Colosseum or the Traitor Lord. The implication is that a player who only wants the base-game upgrade track can ignore the DLC chunks entirely. A completionist player, by contrast, should plan for an extra return trip to the City of Tears after each DLC area, because the Nailsmith does not visit the player’s bench.

The Grimm Troupe chunk is the easiest of the three DLC pickups. It sits in a small chamber off the main Troupe route, and the only requirement is a clear path through the Grimmkin fights. The Lifeblood chunk requires the Godhome access charm, which is a late-game unlock in its own right, and the Godmaster chunk is gated by the Pantheon completion, which is a separate save-state goal.

Common pitfalls that cost chunks

The most common reason a player loses a chunk is not a death, but a misread map. The game does not mark the location of picked-up chunks on the in-game map, so a player who picks up a chunk by accident and then dies before resting will still have the chunk, but a player who rests at a bench and then forgets which room the chunk was in will lose the sense of progress. The list below is the practical checklist to avoid the most common losses.

• Do not spend Geo on the first Nailsmith tier until you have at least two chunks in the inventory. The 200 Geo cost is small, but the second tier requires 450 Geo plus a second chunk, and most players regret spending early.
• Do not break the colosseum wall until you have cleared the first wave. The wall is fragile, but the chunk is past the wave, not before it.
• Do not enter the Deepnest passage without the Shade Cloak. The husks will swarm the player, and the chamber has no heal before the chunk.
• Do not skip the Traitor Lord fight to grab the chunk. The chunk is on a ledge above the arena, but the arena is the only safe place to rest, and leaving mid-fight will reset the encounter.
• Do not assume the King’s statue consumes a chunk. The statue in the Ancient Basin is a one-time interaction that does not cost ore.

There is also a soft pitfall in the Charm Notch system. Several players spend their first major Geo pool on charm notches, which leaves them short of the 2,000 Geo needed for the Pure Nail tier. The Pure Nail is the single most expensive upgrade in the base game, and a player who arrives at the Nailsmith with four chunks but only 1,200 Geo will have to make a separate farming run before the final upgrade triggers. The practical fix is to hold the fourth chunk until the Geo reserve is comfortably above 2,000.

Troubleshooting: when a chunk refuses to register

Most pickup bugs in the base game are caused by save corruption, not by a hidden gate. The most reliable test is to rest at any bench, then reload the most recent save. If the chunk is still missing, the player should walk back to the chunk room and check the floor for a visual pickup prompt. If the prompt is absent, the chunk has already been consumed or the save is from before the chunk was added. Players on console can verify the count by checking the inventory UI; the count is shown in the bottom-right corner of the equipment screen.

Edge cases that look like bugs but are not

Three behaviours in the base game confuse new players, but none is a bug. First, the Nailsmith will refuse a chunk if the player does not have enough Geo, even if the player has just picked up the chunk. Second, the King’s statue in the Ancient Basin does not consume a chunk, but the statue’s dialogue will only trigger once per save. Third, the Dreamers’ resting places do not interact with ore at all, but the game will display a “Pale Ore” tooltip if the player stands in the wrong room, which is a tooltip for an adjacent pickup, not the room the player is standing in.

A fourth edge case appears in the Colosseum. The colosseum’s spectator NPCs will comment on the player’s Nail tier, and the comment text changes after each upgrade. Players sometimes read the comment as a confirmation that a chunk has been consumed, but the comment is tied to the Nail tier, not the chunk count. The two are linked in practice but not in the game’s data, so a player who sees the upgraded comment and an empty chunk slot can be confident the upgrade went through.

How the upgrade affects the late-game economy

The late-game economy in Hallownest is not about Geo, but about time. Each late-game area costs a long traversal, and the player cannot fast-travel back to the Nailsmith. The cost of an extra trip to the City of Tears is therefore not 3,450 Geo, but the time to clear two zones and rest at a bench. A player who finishes the Nailsmith track in one trip will save roughly fifteen to twenty minutes of backtracking in the late game, which is the practical reason to plan the route around the upgrade rather than around the chunks themselves.

Geo income by region

For planning, the rough Geo income per late-game run is:

• City of Tears backtrack: 600-800 Geo per clean run, mostly from husks and civilian NPCs.
• Deepnest backtrack: 200-400 Geo per clean run, mostly from husk drops.
• Queen’s Gardens backtrack: 400-600 Geo per clean run, mostly from the Traitor Lord fight.

These ranges are estimates, not guarantees. A player who clears the zones on the way to the next story beat will net more, because respawning enemies do not reset between zones unless the player rests at a bench. The City of Tears is the most reliable farming zone because the husks respawn quickly and the civilian NPCs drop small but consistent Geo bundles on each pass.

Frequently asked questions

How many pale ore chunks are in the base game?

Six chunks in the base game, with additional chunks added in the four DLC packs. The base-game count is fixed, and the chunks are consumed by the Nailsmith upgrade track in the City of Tears.

Can I get more than four upgrades from six chunks?

No. The Nailsmith track ends at the Pure Nail, which costs four chunks. The remaining two chunks are not consumed by any upgrade and stay in the inventory as a record of completion.

What happens if I spend the Geo but forget the chunk?

The Nailsmith will not start the upgrade, and the chunk stays in the inventory. The player can return to the Nailsmith with the chunk and the Geo together, and the upgrade will trigger on the next interaction.

Is the Pale King statue related to pale ore?

The statue in the Ancient Basin is a one-time lore interaction that does not consume a chunk. The statue’s dialogue is unlocked by reaching the White Palace, which is a separate traversal goal.

Do I need all six chunks to fight the final boss?

No. The final boss is reachable without any pale ore. The Nailsmith track is an optional power curve, and the boss fights are tuned to be possible at the base Nail damage.

Can I see a chunk through a wall?

Some chunks are visible through breakable walls, but the in-game minimap does not mark their position. The most reliable way to find a chunk is to enter the room and look for a visual pickup prompt.

Does the Nailsmith ever leave the City of Tears?

No. The Nailsmith stays in his balcony for the entire game. The player must return to the City of Tears for every upgrade.

Are the DLC chunks required for the Pure Nail?

No. The Pure Nail is reachable with four base-game chunks. The DLC chunks are optional resources that do not unlock any further Nail upgrade.

What is the fastest way to find every chunk in a fresh save?

The fastest route is the geographic one: Crossroads, City of Tears, Royal Waterways, Kingdom’s Edge, Deepnest, Queen’s Gardens. This order minimises backtracking and keeps the player in traversal-ready zones for most of the run.

Do the chunks respawn in a Steel Soul save?

No. Steel Soul is a permadeath mode that does not change the ore count. The chunks are still single-pickup, and a death in Steel Soul does not refresh the resource.

Does the upgrade track change on the Switch or console versions?

No. The base-game upgrade track is identical across platforms, and the chunk count is the same on Switch, PlayStation, Xbox, and PC. The only platform difference is the controller mapping for the Nailsmith dialogue, which does not affect the upgrade cost.

Can two players trade chunks in the local co-op mod?

The official game has no co-op, and the community co-op mods treat pale ore as a per-player inventory item. Chunks picked up by one player stay with that player, and a death drops the chunk in the same way that other currency drops.

Pale ore is a small but visible marker of progress through Hallownest. The chunks are not hidden so much as they are spread across the late-game traversal abilities, and the Nailsmith track is designed so that a focused player can finish the upgrade without touching the highest-risk regions. The cleanest plan is to collect the first two chunks early, delay the second Nailsmith upgrade until three chunks are in hand, and then move outward in geographic order. The remaining two chunks are rewards for the Deepnest and Queen’s Gardens clears, and they are worth picking up on a second pass if the player plans to fight the Traitor Lord or the Radiance. Reviewers of the base game have noted the careful pacing of the upgrade track, which is consistent with the route above.

Related reading

• Jujutsu Odyssey Codes: The Daily Grind on the Tokyo Streets
• Code in Blox Fruit: how redeem codes work in the Roblox experience