Healing in Where Winds Meet works a lot like a souls-style flask with a twist: you carry a limited number of medicine charges, they refill at boundary stones, and they run dry for good if you never restock. The strength of those charges, and how many you can hold at once, is controlled by a single upgradeable object called the Medicine Chest.
Quick answer: Bring Medicinal Tales to Yao Yaoyao at the Evercare Clinic in Qinghe and pick “Submit Medicinal Tales” to raise your Medicine Chest level.
How to upgrade the Medicine Chest with Yao Yaoyao
All potion improvements are done by a single NPC. While Dr. Yuan is away, Yao Yaoyao works outside the clinic. You first encounter her in Chapter 1 of the campaign after reaching Heaven’s Pier.
Where to get Medicinal Tales
Medicinal Tales are written accounts of medical breakthroughs, and they only drop from content you clear for the first time. There is no daily farm and no vendor, so the supply is tied directly to how much of the world you have finished. Hovering the item in your bag lists its sources in-game.
- Jianghu Legacy quests, tracked under the Exploration menu
- Campaign quest rewards, including chapter-end bosses
- Outpost first-clear rewards, such as the Mysterious Outpost
- World boss eliminations like the Inkpincer Scorpion, worth 3 each
- Divinecraft Dungeons, including the puzzle in Chainbound, worth 2
- Area Exploration reward ladders in Qinghe and Kaifeng
Reaching Level 1 on the Area Exploration reward track pays out 2 Medicinal Tales in Qinghe and 2 more in Kaifeng, for 4 total. Side story dungeon locations typically give 1 apiece, with seven of them in Qinghe plus one that unlocks when you cap Qinghe exploration, and roughly the same count in Kaifeng.
World bosses are the densest source, but they hit hard. Aim for level 30 before tackling the six in Qinghe and level 50 for the three in Kaifeng, and bring a group for the tougher ones.
Medicine Chest levels, costs, and effects
Upgrades alternate between three things: how many medicines you can carry, how much each one restores, and defensive extras that trigger right after you drink. Costs stay small early and climb sharply past level 9.
| Level | Medicinal Tales | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | 1 | Carry limit 2 |
| 3 | 2 | Recovery +10% |
| 4 | 3 | 400 HP per second for 3s |
| 5 | 6 | Carry limit 3 |
| 6 | 8 | Damage taken -10% for 3s |
| 7 | 10 | Recovery +20% |
| 8 | 10 | Carry limit 4 |
| 9 | 10 | 1,400 HP per second for 3s |
| 10 | 12 | Recovery +30% |
| 11 | 12 | Carry limit 5 |
| 12 | 12 | Damage taken -20% for 3s |
| 13 | 24 | Recovery +40% |
The carry-limit levels are the ones worth planning around. Going from one charge to five is the difference between a single mistake ending a boss attempt and having room to recover, so prioritize levels 5, 8, and 11 when you are choosing what to save your Tales for.
How to brew and refill your medicine
Boundary stones top up your flask, but only from stock you already own. Burn through your supply on a few failed boss runs and the stones stop refilling anything, which is why brewing matters as much as the chest upgrades.
Medicine brewing unlocks at character level 13 after you complete the Healer’s Calling quest. You find it in Mercyheart Village by speaking to Mu Ji’an, and it doubles as the tutorial for the healing card minigame.
Once it is unlocked, open your bag and go to Craft > Brew Medicine. You can also work at the physical crafting stations, marked by an anvil icon on the world map, at Heaven’s Pier, Harvest Fall Village, and the Fairgrounds in Kaifeng City. The medicine station is the bronze kettle next to a fireplace.
The list covers the basic vials plus higher-tier recipes like the Carefree Pill and Zhenwu Decoction. Locked entries show their requirement on the tooltip, which is usually a Healer profession rank rather than a material shortage.
Making a regular Hemostatic Powder takes 1 herb, 1 meat scrap, and 4 stamina for each craft. Gather herbs and meat scraps or hunt for them in the open world, or buy them cheaply from town merchants. Merchants also sell completed powders, but producing them yourself costs far less.
Slot whatever you brew into the medicine quick slot under Bag > Develop > Quick Use > Medicine, then touch a boundary stone to fill the charges.
Unlocking better medicine vials through the Healer profession
There are four medicine vials in the base progression, and each one heals for more than the last. Hemostatic Powder is handed to you at the start, and plenty of players never swap it out. The rest are gated behind character level and, for the top two, Healer profession rank.
| Medicine | Character level | Healer rank |
|---|---|---|
| Hemostatic Powder | Start | None |
| Wound Balm | 20 | None |
| Yin-Yang Ointment | 41 | Lv. 2, Tier 5 |
| Ten Wonders Powder | 61 | Lv. 3, Tier 4 |
| Zhenwu Decoction | — | Lv. 5, Tier 5 |
Ranking up the profession happens under Profession > Healer > Upgrade, and the material you need is the Career Notebook. There are two reliable ways to get them.
- Buy them from Offers > Exchange Shop > Season Shop, in the Profession Development tab, at 4 Jade Fish each with a 500 weekly cap
- Heal sick NPCs in the open world, which usually awards 4 notebooks per successful treatment
To find people to treat, open the map, click the POI filter, and switch on Heal the Illness under the Exploration options. Those NPCs appear as a black gourd icon, and using Wind Sense on arrival identifies the ailment before the card minigame starts.
How to confirm the upgrade applied
After you submit Medicinal Tales, the Medicine Chest Upgrade screen refreshes to show the new level along with the requirements for the one after it. Back out and check the medicine slot under Quick Use to see the carry count, which is the fastest way to verify a carry-limit tier went through.
If you cannot afford the next level, the confirm option stays unavailable until you gather more Tales. That is the only gate on the system, so the pace of your potion upgrades tracks almost exactly with how much first-clear content you have left in Qinghe and Kaifeng.
