The Legendary Martial Codex I and II in Where Winds Meet look like overpowered cultivation manuals, but they behave much more like strange medical experiments. They are development materials that deliberately make your character ill, briefly alter your appearance, and then resolve into a small, permanent benefit once the illness is cleared.
What the Legendary Martial Codex items are
| Item | Type | Core behavior |
|---|---|---|
| Legendary Martial Codex I | Development material | On use, plays a practice animation and inflicts the Spellbound illness and Bewilderment debuff. |
| Legendary Martial Codex II | Development material | Functions the same way as Codex I, also inflicting Spellbound and Bewilderment. |
Both Codex I and II are flagged as development materials, meaning they exist to permanently adjust your character’s long-term stats and combat profile rather than to act as regular consumables or gear. Their descriptions frame them as damaged but powerful manuals containing “mysterious martial arts,” with effects that are not spelled out in advance.
In practice, the codices behave similarly to the Ultimate Jianghu Secrets book: you use them once, suffer a strong but short-lived negative status, then remove that status in a specific way to gain a lasting boost to your overall prowess.
Effects: Spellbound illness, Bewilderment, and red eyes
Using either Legendary Martial Codex triggers three visible effects:
| Effect | What happens | Duration |
|---|---|---|
| Practice animation | Your character performs a short martial arts routine, representing cultivation of the codex’s contents. | Single action, ends automatically. |
| Spellbound illness + Bewilderment | You receive the Spellbound illness status and the Bewilderment debuff, reducing your combat effectiveness while it is active. | Until healed (self‑healed or via a healer, unless blocked by other conditions). |
| Red eyes visual change | Your character’s eyes turn a bright red color for as long as Spellbound remains. | Exactly matches the Spellbound duration; reverts on recovery. |
The codices are intentionally punitive on first use. For the price you pay at the merchant, the immediate outcome is negative: a debilitating illness and a jarring cosmetic change. The manuals are designed to surprise players with this “bad bargain” before revealing that the illness can be cleared quickly and may hide a cultivation payoff.
Hidden cultivation hints and the “use it in water” message
After the initial use, trying to read the codices again does not simply reapply Spellbound. Instead, you see flavor text that hints at alternative conditions for practice. Common lines include warnings that further cultivation could be dangerous and notes that the technique “might need to be practiced in water.”
Those hints tie into the broader illness system in Where Winds Meet, where some conditions can be self‑healed by interacting with the environment instead of visiting a healer. For the Legendary Martial Codex line, that interaction is standing in shallow water until your character recovers.
Player reports show mixed behavior: some characters gain a skill or stat boost when Spellbound ends naturally; others only suffer repeated illness without a clear reward. That inconsistency suggests either hidden prerequisites or bugs, but the intended loop is clear: inflict Spellbound through the codex, then deliberately cure it through self‑cultivation rather than professional treatment.
How to heal Spellbound from the Legendary Martial Codex
Heal Spellbound by standing in knee‑high water. The game supports a simple self‑healing method for Spellbound that fits the codex text:
- Find a body of water where your character can stand with water roughly at knee height.
- Walk in until the water reaches that shallow depth.
- Remain still for about two seconds.
After a short pause, Spellbound is removed, the Bewilderment debuff disappears, and your eyes return to normal. This method is fast and does not require coin, items, or a healer profession.
How to obtain Legendary Martial Codex I and II
Buy the codices from Hao Jiu, the Honest Merchant. Both Legendary Martial Codex I and II are sold by Hao Jiu, an NPC labelled “the Honest Merchant,” who operates as a wine merchant. He appears in at least two locations during progression:
| NPC | Role | Locations | Items relevant to codices |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hao Jiu | Honest Merchant (wine merchant) | Blissful Retreat, later Harvestfall Village | Legendary Martial Codex I, Legendary Martial Codex II, and wines tied to the Drunken Poet Mystic Skill |
Hao Jiu’s shop mixes high‑impact development materials with role‑play items such as specialty wines. The Legendary Martial Codex line sits in the expensive development category alongside items like Ultimate Jianghu Secrets, signaling that these manuals are meant to influence long‑term character building rather than short‑term combat.
The codices can be purchased more than once in many players’ experiences, which makes them repeatable entry points into the Spellbound illness loop. Inventory behavior can vary: some players report the books remaining in their bags, others see them disappear once a skill has been earned.
What you actually gain from using the Legendary Martial Codex
The game does not spell out a concrete, named reward in the item description, and the codices are deliberately vague: “mysterious martial arts, effects unknown.” In practice, they fit into a small group of development materials that:
- Grant a permanent increase to an underlying stat or prowess value, or
- Unlock a specific skill on the first successful cultivation, or
- Hook into a broader illness‑removal achievement or hidden progression chain.
Community experimentation indicates that:
- Removing Spellbound after using the codex at least once can grant a skill or stat boost.
- That boost can trigger whether the illness is self‑healed in water or cured by a healer, though the water method is the clearest thematic match.
- The learned benefit seems to be tied to the fact that Spellbound was removed, not strictly to the book’s name itself. Any condition that gives and clears Spellbound in the right way may interact with the same hidden mechanic.
Because of these quirks, the codices act as controlled ways to induce Spellbound on demand, especially for players experimenting with self‑healing and illness‑related progression.
Common problems and why players “keep getting sick”
Many players run into the same pattern:
- Use Legendary Martial Codex I or II.
- Get Spellbound and Bewilderment, with red eyes.
- Stand in water or visit a healer to recover.
- Repeat the process several times and see no obvious new skill or stat notification.
Several factors explain this frustration:
| Issue | What is happening | Impact |
|---|---|---|
| Subtle rewards | The benefit may be a small passive stat increase or a skill added quietly to your lists. | Players may not notice the gain and assume nothing happened. |
| One‑time unlocks | The reward seems to apply only on the first successful cultivation; later uses just reapply illness. | Repeated “practice” runs feel pointless after the initial unlock. |
| Potential bugs or edge cases | Some players report never receiving anything despite multiple clean illness removals. | Progression can desync from expectations for a subset of characters. |
Should you buy and use Legendary Martial Codex I and II?
The codices are expensive relative to early‑game income, and their immediate effect is negative. Whether they are worth the investment depends on what you value:
- Interested in completion, hidden systems, or role‑play? The codices are worth buying at least once each. They showcase the illness and self‑healing mechanics and slot into the broader theme of risky martial cultivation.
- Focused purely on efficient power leveling? Their exact numerical payoff is modest and opaque compared to straightforward weapon or Inner Way upgrades. In that mindset, they are a lower priority than gear, key Mystic Skills, or clearly documented development items.
- Experimenting with healer or scholar professions? The ability to induce and then treat Spellbound on demand makes the codices useful test tools.
No major quest chain is known to hard‑lock behind these manuals, so skipping them does not appear to block story progression. They function more as optional, lore‑appropriate training hazards with a small long‑term upside.
The Legendary Martial Codex line looks like an endgame martial arts bible, but its real purpose is simpler: it is a controlled way to make your character sick, nudge you toward the illness and self‑healing systems, and quietly add another permanent nudge to your overall combat profile. Treat the manuals as experimentation tools rather than direct power spikes, and they fit neatly into Where Winds Meet’s broader obsession with risky cultivation and strange side effects.
