The Gathering of Heroes in Where Winds Meet is where the story stops hinting at intrigue and throws you into the middle of it. What starts as a simple attempt to attend a Heroes Assembly quickly turns into a theft investigation, a seven-day death sentence, and a separate infiltration of a high‑official banquet to reach a hidden Heroic Assembly on the upper floors.
Where Gathering of Heroes fits in the main story
Gathering of Heroes is a main quest in Chapter 2: Universal Furnace, set largely in Kaifeng. It begins after the events in Heaven’s Pier, once the Young Hero reaches the city and meets Big Zhao.
| Quest | Chapter | Region | Prerequisites |
|---|---|---|---|
| New Guest in Kaifeng | Chapter 2 | Kaifeng | End of Chapter 1 |
| Gathering of Heroes | Chapter 2 | Kaifeng (Revelry Hall, Entertainment District) | Complete New Guest in Kaifeng, reach around Lv. 41 |
| Reunion | Chapter 2 | Kaifeng and beyond | Finish Gathering of Heroes |
The quest is framed around the Heroes Assembly hosted by the Ember of East in Revelry Hall, but its consequences extend well beyond a single night: the theft of the Gold-Making Vessel, your binding deal with Kaifeng’s Prefect, and the first clear trail toward the Nine Mortal Ways.
Reaching Revelry Hall and sneaking into the Heroes Assembly
The quest starts once you head toward Revelry Hall on the outskirts of Kaifeng and find Big Zhao waiting. He admits he failed to secure an Assembly Ticket but has a backup plan: the same boatman who ferried you to Kaifeng will now smuggle you and your companions to Revelry Hall.
Board the boat by speaking to the boatman next to Zhao. A long sequence plays out as the party approaches the hall, giving a first glimpse of the “heroes of Jianghu” and the sects clustered around Kaifeng and Qinghe.
Inside the outer hallway, Velvet Shade Disciples guard the entrance to the main hall. They’re in the middle of a confrontation with the Joyous Couple, who are trying to crash the event. The dispute escalates until the Ember of East, Wen Wuque, arrives and ends it in a single motion, killing the intruders with a thrown life coin. It’s the first time the Young Hero sees him in person.
While that plays out, Zhao works on a more practical problem: getting you inside without a ticket. Once you regain control, follow Zhao to a side area with a chest of Velvet Shade uniforms. Interact with the chest to change into disciple garments. The disguise fits your character perfectly; Zhao’s is comically tight, but both of you pass as disciples.
On the way back toward the hall, a Velvet Shade Disciple stops you and questions Zhao’s covered face. You get a short dialogue choice; leaning into the “ringworm infection” excuse lets you bluff your way past without a fight. From there, continue following Zhao deeper into the building until the main banquet cutscene begins.
The Gold-Making Vessel demonstration and ensuing chaos
The core of the Assembly is a demonstration of the Gold-Making Vessel, a powerful furnace-like device that can conjure coinage on demand. The Ember of East presents it as a solution to the Song court’s financial strain and invites influential figures to argue for its first use.
Several key characters step forward:
- Dao Lord, who controls Kaifeng’s underground markets and claims he’ll use the vessel’s wealth to feed the poor.
- Shen Yilun, the Ever-Normal Granary official, who insists that only stocked granaries can stabilize the city, so he should get first access.
- Murong Yuan, a military figure focused on finishing a warship project for the empire’s defense.
The argument is cut short when Lord Shi — the imperial representative in charge of Kaifeng’s copper currency — steps in. He asserts the Vessel is a national treasure that must be examined by the court. Under the Ember of East’s gaze, he places his hands into the device, triggering a torrent of coins that rains down over the hall.
The spectacle immediately goes wrong. An explosion shatters the moment; Lord Shi and the Gold-Making Vessel are flung downward. An eagle snatches the Vessel in the confusion, and a scramble breaks out as the gathered powers try to seize it. Dao Lord ends up with the Vessel as people fall and fight across the shattered platforms.
Your character is caught in an illusion and suddenly finds a heavy sack in their hand, believed to be the Vessel. From here, control shifts into a combat segment where you must defend what you think is the treasure.
Combat segment: defending the Gold-Making Vessel
The fight plays more like a chaotic arena than a boss encounter. Your objective is simply to hold off successive waves of enemies while protecting the sack.
| Phase | Objective | Key Actions |
|---|---|---|
| Wave 1 | Survive initial attackers | Guard with L1, use basic combos with R1, avoid being surrounded. |
| Wave 2 | Control crowds around the “Vessel” | Prioritize enemies closest to the sack, push them away with wide attacks or movement skills. |
| Wave 3 | Finish remaining challengers | Clean up stragglers, conserve health for cutscene transitions. |
Once the waves are cleared, a prompt appears to “Leap,” usually bound to X. Activating it triggers a cutscene where rival heroes corrall you, convinced you’re holding the Vessel.
Big Zhao intervenes before the crowd can tear you apart, just as the Prefect of Kaifeng arrives to take control.
The chamber pot reveal and the Soulbreaker deal
The Prefect demands that the supposed Vessel be examined. The bag in your hands is opened in front of everyone, revealing not a treasure but a chamber pot. Someone swapped the real Vessel for a decoy while the illusion held you in place.
With you and Zhao already outed as gatecrashers, the Prefect pins suspicion on you as the thief. The Young Hero admits to sneaking in, but only to meet the Ember of East, not to steal. Zhao backs your story, yet the Prefect’s response is ruthless rather than sympathetic.
He offers a contract: you will track down the real Gold-Making Vessel and its thief, and in return, he will spare you. To enforce this, he forces you to swallow a Seven-Day Soulbreaker Pill, a venom that will kill you in seven days if you fail to report back with progress. Dialogue options let you verbally resist or agree, but all paths end with the pill ingested and the same ticking clock.
After this, the Prefect takes Zhao away to a private meeting, leaving you seemingly alone in the wrecked hall.
Uncovering family ties and investigating the third floor
Your next move is to find out what happened to Zhao. A waypoint leads you to the back of the hall, where the Prefect and Zhao are speaking in a quieter corner. You cannot interrupt them directly; instead, you step close enough to eavesdrop. The conversation reveals a key twist: Zhao and the Prefect are brothers.
When Zhao is released, control returns fully, and the investigation phase begins. Before leaving Revelry Hall, you are expected to search for clues about the explosion and theft, particularly on the upper floors where the Vessel demonstration took place.
Use the nearby staircase to reach the third floor — the site of the blast. On the way, you can overhear further discussion between the Prefect and the Ember of East about the missing Vessel, adding context to the political stakes.
In the damaged chamber, an interaction marker near the blast site lets you examine the remains. The Young Hero discovers a Broken Mask on the ground. This mask becomes the central lead for the rest of the chapter.
Leave the room, turn right, and speak to Zhao again to share the discovery. Zhao immediately suggests finding Kaifeng’s so‑called Know-It-All, who might recognize which group the mask belongs to.
Trying to see the Ember of East and leaving for the Entertainment District
Before you go, the Young Hero asks Zhao to arrange another meeting with the Ember of East. Zhao takes you to the Ember’s chambers, but government guards have locked everything down. They block the doorway and refuse any access; the Ember of East is now off-limits until the investigation progresses.
With that route closed, Zhao sends you toward the Entertainment District, where the Know-It-All — Master Pu — usually stays. This is the last major objective within Gathering of Heroes.
If you have already activated Boundary Stones in southern Kaifeng, you can teleport close to the district. Otherwise, you’ll have to run through the city streets to reach it. When you arrive, Zhao appears again and leads you through another short walk to Pu.
Meeting Master Pu and learning about the Nine Mortal Ways
In the Entertainment District, Master Pu is introduced not through a dramatic entrance but almost casually: he’s simply there, surrounded by performance and noise, yet known as the person who knows everything worth knowing in Kaifeng.
Before he weighs in on the mask, you first pick up a book lying on the ground, titled “The Analects.” Once you hand it back, Pu takes a look at the Broken Mask you recovered on the third floor of Revelry Hall.
He identifies it as belonging to the Nine Mortal Ways, a secretive sect that prefers to operate out of sight. Pu doesn’t offer deep lore here; instead, he focuses on how to find them. The next lead is the Ghost Market, an underground gathering that opens only under specific conditions.
Getting into the Ghost Market requires help from yet another shadowy figure, the Ferryman. Pu describes the Ferryman’s domain as the Forsaken Quarter, to the southeast of Kaifeng, and gives you a single identifying motto to work with: “Born at dawn, dead by dusk.” That line becomes your key phrase for picking out the right contact when the time comes.
After a short exchange about the show and a plan to find the Ferryman the following morning, the quest comes to a natural pause. Gathering of Heroes ends here, and the next main quest, usually titled along the lines of Reunion or the next Chapter 2 entry, picks up the Ghost Market trail.
How the Vernal Umbrella quest intersects with the Heroic Assembly
Separate from the main story, Where Winds Meet ties a complex side path into the same Velvet Shade / Revelry Hall location: the basic martial arts questline that unlocks the Vernal Umbrella weapon. This path uses the same broader setting but focuses on a different “Heroic Assembly” — a private banquet on the third floor reached through deduction puzzles, stealth, and mystic abilities.
| Feature | Main Quest: Gathering of Heroes | Side Path: Vernal Umbrella / Heroic Assembly |
|---|---|---|
| Primary goal | Recover the Gold-Making Vessel, clear your name | Infiltrate a high official banquet and learn umbrella martial arts |
| Entry point | Story marker near Revelry Hall | Develop > Weapons > Vernal Umbrella, then travel to Temporal Pavilion |
| Key mechanic | Cinematic combat and light clue gathering | Clue collection, deduction mini-game, Celestial Seas pickpocketing, Skill Theft |
| Final payoff | Leads toward Nine Mortal Ways and Ghost Market | Unlocks Vernal Umbrella and its combat style |
The Vernal Umbrella chain begins in the Develop menu, under Weapons. Selecting Vernal Umbrella opens its martial arts quest, which points you to Temporal Pavilion near Velvet Shade. Even if the map area looks unexplored, you can still ride there — the zone is unlocked for travel even if its fog of war hasn’t been cleared by a Wayfarer yet.
At the Pavilion, the quest text directs you to “visit the Velvet Shade and partake in the Heroic Assembly.” Guards at the banquet entrance refuse you, resetting you back if you try to slip past. Progress requires a different angle: speaking to a character by the riverside in the nearby courtyard. This person quietly knows a way into the third floor and starts a sub-quest about entering the banquet.
Clue hunting and deduction: getting to the hidden Heroic Assembly
Once the banquet infiltration quest is active, you return to the door guards. Staying silent during their questioning nudges the scenario forward into a more investigative phase. The game introduces a clue system tied directly to the Heroic Assembly upstairs.
The first clue is obtained in that initial conversation at the top of the stairs. From there, you have to track down more clues around the building and its courtyard, each described in vague terms in the quest interface. A full set for this sequence is six clues, distributed across the Pavilion interior and the surrounding grounds.
The distribution is roughly:
- Clue 1: From the initial conversation with the guard at the top of the stairs.
- Clue 2: From noticing the man trying to peer through the gate like a would‑be spectator near the stairs on the first floor.
- Clue 3: By climbing onto the balcony outside and finding an eavesdropping spot overlooking a conversation.
- Clue 4: From interacting with a tabby cat near a tree on the west side of the building, closer to the river.
- Clue 5: By listening in on a chess game at the rear of the courtyard, from a particular angle outside their pavilion.
- Clue 6: From a hidden room on the first floor inside the building, accessed by eavesdropping or quietly listening at the door.
Each time you find one, the clue list fills out in the dedicated quest panel (opened using the touchpad and then the relevant quest tab on controllers). Every clue has a title and short text that hints at its pair. After you have all six, a “start deduction” option appears in the quest view.
The deduction mini-game asks you to match pairs of clues that logically connect. Failure has no harsh penalty; you can experiment until the pairs lock in. Once all pairings are correct, the path forward reveals itself: you hear a suspicious sound and are automatically moved into the stairwell that hides the way to the private Heroic Assembly.
Celestial Seas and the warehouse key: infiltrating from within
Inside the stairwell, you meet an NPC tucked away behind the central structure and can loot a chest nearby. The next step is to open a warehouse gate deeper in the stairwell, but the key is on someone else’s person. Here, the quest asks you to use the Celestial Seas mystic skill — part of the “puzzle magic” category — as a pickpocket tool.
If Celestial Seas is not already equipped, you have to:
- Open the Develop menu.
- Go to Mystic Skills.
- Select the puzzle-type category and highlight Celestial Seas.
- Equip and activate it.
With Celestial Seas active, target the right character in the stairwell and trigger the ability to lift the warehouse key from their pocket. Use the key on the nearby gate; beyond it lies a longer, linear corridor that eventually leads to a small room with a keepsake — usually a hairpin — on the ground. That item becomes your entry token into the true Heroic Assembly on the third floor.
Return upstairs to the guarded door. Presenting the keepsake satisfies the gatekeeper and finally grants access to the private meeting.
Skill Theft and learning the umbrella style
Inside the assembly room, the Vernal Umbrella storyline intersects with Where Winds Meet’s Skill Theft system. A martial artist is demonstrating their umbrella technique, and your objective is to copy it rather than simply watch.
The Skill Theft mini-game is timing-based. A bar at the bottom of the screen fills as you successfully observe moves. Colored circles appear on the character at key moments:
| Circle Color | Action | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Yellow | Press the confirm button (often X) |
Progress bar increases; technique observation succeeds. |
| Red or white | Do not press anything | Pressing here reduces progress and can cost time. |
There are long stretches where you need to simply watch and wait. Pressing too often, or at the wrong color, drains your progress. The goal is to fill the bar within the time limit, effectively memorizing the sequence of umbrella movements.
Once the bar is full and the mini-game completes, the Vernal Umbrella unlocks as a usable martial arts weapon. From that point, you can upgrade and equip it like other weapons without suffering the initial debuffs tied to unlearned styles.
Exploring the “Heroic Assembly” inside Revelry Hall
Beyond the Vernal Umbrella path, Revelry Hall and the surrounding Velvet Shade area contain another dense pocket of activity that also centers on a Heroic Assembly — this time as part of a quest that asks you to “explore the Heroic Assembly” by tracking down seven scattered clues.
These clues are spread across three floors and frequently locked behind mini-games, social interactions, or subtle uses of mystic skills. The structure encourages you to read the clue descriptions in the quest UI: each one hints at both what you’re looking for and how to trigger it.
Typical clue types include:
- First floor social games: A Pitch Pots darts-style mini-game with drinks, a performance list board that hides gossip, and a Pipa music session where mashing all buttons can be more effective than playing perfectly.
- Second floor debates and vices: A “Gift of Gab” card battle in a red poetry room, where reading card text and picking damage cards matters, plus a suspicious private room where accepting a poisoned drink and looting the chest might silently flip a hidden objective.
- Dance and brawling threads: Learning a dance from a character in a smaller room (which can be tricky to trigger if you rush text), and observing or intervening in the movements of recurring NPCs — including using Celestial Seas to slip a clue from someone’s pocket.
- Third floor anticipation: Groups of people fixated on identical flower arrangements near privacy screens, where eavesdropping behind one set of flowers changes the crowd’s behavior elsewhere and pushes the final clue to completion.
Because some of these events trigger only after you’ve spoken to specific characters or walked away and returned, the Assembly can easily turn into a loop of re-checking rooms, testing every new interaction prompt, and watching for the quest log’s progress markers to change. The design rewards patience: nearly every NPC, chest, or emote opportunity in those rooms exists for a reason, even if that reason only becomes obvious when a green checkmark finally appears next to a stubborn clue.
Together, Gathering of Heroes, the Vernal Umbrella martial arts route, and the multi-floor Heroic Assembly make Kaifeng’s Revelry Hall one of Where Winds Meet’s densest spaces. It’s where the narrative sharpens, where deduction systems and social mini-games come to the foreground, and where the game quietly teaches how far it’s willing to go with layered quests that play out across the same few rooms from different angles.
