Disclaimer: I just finished my first playthrough. Feel free to correct me.

In a normal playthrough, the Winterland is probably going to be the last area you unlocked, and in turn, the water aspect and the turtle pet.

Let's talk a bit about how you typically would get into the area in a normal playthrough.

1. You have to complete the Archeology quest line which unlocks red night events that allows farming for Red Eyes
2. Completing Recigide and Redeye Hunt
3. Now you explore Herbaland & Swampland to meet Calypso & Herbalist who will give you a quest to speak with the bandit leader & get into the cave
4. By then Eve starts selling the recipe to the potion of Light which you require to go into the cave.
5. Prepare potion of light, jump, lightness and warming
6. Get through the cave, which is a dark maze/platforming section. Should be completed with only mild difficulties.

Now, why am I making this guide, since the it seems like the solution is straightforward, simple & linear?

By now the cave is pretty playable and I appreciate the devs working to make it so. And I understand that difficulty is what make games fun. However, I, myself, am terrible at platforming. I also didn't figure out the potion of Light early, since the recipe is locked behind the above sequence and the red night event triggers is a bit buggy in my game.

So after stumbling in the dark for days, I suddenly remembered. I am not an adventurer. I am an alchemist. I need to solve this problem the alchemist way.

- 4-5 Potion of Floating
- 4-5 Potion of Jumping
- 1 Warming Potion.

Depend on your ability to Skyrim Horse around, you might need more. By now, you should have an idea of what we are going to do with all of these potions.

Recipe: Purchased from Eve.

Aspects: Gentleness, Lightness and Motion.

Ingredients I used: Sunflowers x 3

Tools I used: Wooden Mortar, Copper Mortar, Dilution Station, Alembic.


- Grind one Sunflower in the Wooden Mortar, then Dilute it into the Motion aspect.
- Grind the other 2 Sunflower in the Copper Mortar.
- Dilute 1 Sunflower Powder into the Lightness aspect.
- Put the remaining Sunflower Powder into the Alembic to destroy the lesser Earth aspect and gain the Gentleness aspect.
- Put the 3 Sunflower Liquid into the cauldron. Brew.

- If you have a better way to get Gentleness aspect without buying the Alembic, feel free to comment. I used the Alembic because it allows me to use Sunflowers which we can forage.

Recipe: Purchased from Eve.

Aspects: Gravity, Lightness and Motion.

Ingredients I used: Calendula x 1, Forget-me-not x 1

Tools I used: Copper Mortar, Wooden Mortar


- Grind one Calendula in the Wooden Mortar to get the Gravity aspect.
- Grind one Forget-me-not in the Copper Mortar to get the Lightness & Motion aspects.
- Put the 2 Powders into the cauldron. Brew

- Feel free to use other ingredients that are available. This recipe feels optimal enough to me, since they don't use high-tier tools. Forget-me-not can be foraged in the town graveyards, and Calendula can be found near your home & the town. Both can be planted with seeds from the goat farmer in the Farmland.

Recipe: Purchased from Eve

Aspects: Heat, Warmth.

Ingredients I used: - Apple x 2 or Red Slime x 2
-You can substitute one Apple with a Rotten Apple for the Heat aspect.


Tools I used: Copper Mortar, Wooden Mortar, Athanor, Retort

- Grind Apple/Rotten Apple/Red Slime in Copper/Wooden Mortar to obtain the respective aspects. (always press TAB to preview your result)
- If you use Apples, put the Apple Powders in the Athanor with the Fire/Water switch on to purify the unwanted aspects, keeping only the Fire aspects.
- If you use Red Slimes, put the Red Slime Powders in the Retort to keep the lower aspects.
- Brew.

I haven't figured out this potion yet. Feel free to leave a comment & I'll edit the guide.

Apples can be bought and Rotten Apple can be farmed from Green Slime, but the number is few. Red Slime can be decently farmed, if you have Fire Shield, Heal or ranged combat potions like Lightning since the health tick is quite large.

Now that we have all those potions, it's time to do some non-cave exploring.



- Start from the Town Portal, go to this section of the map & walk up on the mountain in this direction as far as possible until you begin sliding off (the red circle is the highest point you can reach without any potion)

- Drink a Floating Potion & a Jump Potion, then keep walking towards the area.

- When you collide with a surface/wall, jump to reach higher ground, and continue walking until you can jump again.

-If you slide off and Floating or Jump don't help, that means the section is not passable, walk left. You will know when you are going the right way.

- Keep floating & jumping until you pass over the mountain and went into the Winterlands.

- If the portal does not activate, come closer, and remember to drink the Warming Potion.

Now you have relatively early access to high-tier water ingredients, a late-game trader, a chance to complete Toxic Botanist & the secret alchemy tool if you use the exact same method I did.

It is advisable that you DO NOT kill any NPCs, just in case it breaks the game/quest line. Either run or make Invisibility/Affection potions to use.

Normally, if you don't follow the quest line, you still cannot get the turtle & identify the water aspects.

The herbalist & witch's quest lines requires you entering the cave and making a potion of light. So what I did is unlock the portal early via the above method, progress the quest as normal, entered the cave, used the potion, then warp home, use the portal & walk backwards into the cave to progress with the quest. This might help prevent sequence-breaking the game? Need more testing to find out.

There you go, you can now keep playing your chill potion-making adventure without ever going into the deep, dark, scary cave!

(Of course, there is 2 treasure chests inside the cave, but that's not mandatory unless you are a completionist.)

I loved Alchemist Simulator and thanks to that game I found and love this game. I love the charming world the devs have created and the fun puzzle system they made. It made me remember Eastshade, a lovely walking sim where you can pick up plants, brew teas to give the world a colored filter, then paint pictures and give them to the locals to make a living.

Walking around picking up plants and then coming back home to work out potion recipes is an amazing cozy gameplay loop, and I really hope the devs are aware of the potential of their work.

That said, I really hope they don't patch this out. Since the entire questline is very accessible already, this is just a fun extra path that we can take to explore the world, and I think that's very nice.

IMO this guide is entirely unnecessary if Potion of Light is more accessible (which is good because I always find night very dark and an early light source might be helpful)