Where Winds Meet treats Tai Chi as more than a stylish throw. It is one of the earliest Mystic Skills you learn, a key to several puzzles, and a powerful way to strip defenses and reposition enemies throughout the game.
What Tai Chi is in Where Winds Meet
Tai Chi is an Offensive “Puzzle” Mystic Skill. In game terms, that means it sits on a cooldown, costs no Vitality, and can both damage enemies and interact with specific environmental objects.
Mechanically, Tai Chi pulls in a target, spins them around you, and then lets you manually choose a direction before hurling them. The throw can:
- Deal very serious damage when the target hits a wall, rocks, or the ground from a height.
- Crush destructible terrain, such as fragile stone piles.
- Apply serious shield-breaking damage and, at higher tiers, defense debuffs.
Out of combat, Tai Chi can swirl leaves to solve small “leaf circle” puzzles and disturb water to pull fish straight into your inventory in places where fishing is normally allowed.
How to unlock Tai Chi
Tai Chi is obtained near the beginning of the Qinghe chapter as part of the main progression. The first encounter is deliberately hard to miss because it is tied to a bear.
| Step | Action | What to look for |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Open your world map after reaching Qinghe for the first time. | A large golden flame icon on the map. |
| 2 | Travel to the area just west of that golden flame. | A large bear pawing at a beehive. |
| 3 | Approach the bear to start a learning event (skill theft-style mini-game). | Gold rings that close in toward a button prompt. |
| 4 | Press the prompted button in time with each glowing ring to “comprehend” the technique. | Successful inputs fill the comprehension progress. |
| 5 | Complete the sequence to learn Tai Chi, then immediately use it to throw the bear into nearby rocks. | The game asks you to apply the skill to finish the scene. |
That bear encounter is part of a main quest often titled “A Bear of a Time” on the way to General’s Shrine in Qinghe. The same skill theft timing mini-game appears elsewhere in the world, including a noisy goose that teaches a separate combat skill.
Basic Tai Chi controls
Once unlocked, Tai Chi occupies a Mystic Skill slot with a roughly 12-second cooldown. Exact button mapping depends on platform and your control layout, but its behavior is consistent:
| Phase | What happens | Player control |
|---|---|---|
| Activation | You target a nearby enemy or valid object. | Press the bound Mystic Skill button when the target is in range. |
| Dragging / Spin | The target is pulled in and spins around you. | Rotate the camera to choose the throw direction. |
| Release | The target is hurled and takes impact damage, with extra effects on shields and weak points. | Confirm the throw (same button) or let the brief window auto-release. |
Tai Chi uses in exploration
Tai Chi is classed as a “Puzzle” Mystic Skill for a reason. Several environmental interactions depend on it.
Tai Chi and bears, rocks, and hidden chests
Bears are more than dangerous wildlife in Where Winds Meet; they are also physics projectiles. Tai Chi deals exceptional damage to bears and interacts with rock formations that are designed to be broken only by a bear slam.
- When you see a bear in the wild, scan the area for stacks of rubble-like rocks near it.
- Use Tai Chi to grab and throw the bear directly into those rocks.
- The impact often shatters the formation and can reveal a hidden chest or secret passage behind it.
Regular weapon attacks against bears in these scenes are inefficient compared with a single well-placed Tai Chi throw.
Leaf circles and Tai Chi “leaf swirl” spots
On the ground in various locations, you may notice circular patches covered by dense piles of leaves. These are small Tai Chi puzzle nodes.
- Stand close to the leaf-covered circle.
- Activate Tai Chi targeting the circle.
- The skill will gather and swirl away the leaves.
Clearing a leaf circle grants a small amount of EXP and may tie into minor exploration objectives that track how many you have found.
Using Tai Chi for fish instead of rod fishing
Fishing in Where Winds Meet is a full mini-game with rods, bait, and contests, but Tai Chi gives access to fish without touching a line.
- Walk into knee-deep water where fish are present and where you would normally be able to fish.
- Trigger Tai Chi while standing in that water.
- The skill creates ripples that stir up the fish and send them leaping.
In these spots, the effect is more than cosmetic: fish are granted directly to your inventory, contributing to cooking supplies and fishing-related achievements without playing the rod mini-game each time.
Puzzle use in “Cries In The Distance” (Tai Chi mysteries)
Tai Chi is also baked into at least one larger puzzle, framed as “unraveling the Tai Chi mysteries” during the “Cries In The Distance” side quest.
| Quest phase | Location and action | How Tai Chi concepts show up |
|---|---|---|
| Finding the cave | Head to Peace Bell Tower southwest of Heaven’s Pier, then drop from the mountain top to a hatch leading into an underground cave. | Sets up a themed Tai Chi mechanism puzzle tied to Yin-Yang and four elements. |
| Freeing Feng Jisheng | Burn tree roots with a fire arrow, open a chest, then stand on a pressure plate opposite Feng to raise a Yin-Yang Dial in the center. | Feng explains how the contraptions around you correspond to earth, heaven, fire, and water. |
| Solving the “Tai Chi mysteries” | Rotate elemental contraptions and the central Yin-Yang Dial so earth and heaven face opposite directions and fire and water face toward each other. | Emulates Tai Chi’s balance: opposing forces (heaven/earth) and mutually interacting ones (fire/water). |
| Bear training ground | Drop down with Mighty Drop into the unlocked area, investigate, then fight a Thick-Skinned Albino Black Bear that ignores normal damage. | Tai Chi becomes the only way to defeat the bear by throwing it into rocks on different sides of the arena. |
For the contraption phase, the key conditions are:
- Heaven and earth devices must end up facing away from each other (back-to-back toward opposite walls).
- Fire and water devices must end up facing each other directly.
The Yin-Yang Dial in the center can be rotated to change which pairs move together, letting you decouple fire and water briefly while you set their alignment. Once the devices match the intended pattern, rotating the Dial again unlocks a path downward.
Using Tai Chi in combat
While the bear intro is memorable, Tai Chi is far more than a one-off gimmick. In general encounters, it is one of the most reliable ways to break through shields and control crowds.
Breaking shields and guards
Shield-bearing enemies often shrug off regular attacks until their guard is broken. Tai Chi is tuned to punish them:
- Target a shield enemy with Tai Chi when they are in range.
- Use the spin to aim them into a nearby wall, another enemy, or the ground from a ledge.
- Each throw applies significant “Shield Breaker” damage and can eventually shatter their guard and their shield.
This may not happen on the very first use, especially at low tiers, so expect to throw them multiple times in longer fights. Once the shield breaks, their stance is opened up for normal martial arts combos.
Crowd control and terrain kills
Tai Chi also doubles as lightweight crowd control:
- When surrounded, grab one target and hurl it as far away as possible to thin the front line.
- If you are fighting near a cliff, bridge, or rooftop edge, angle the throw to send enemies over it for fall damage or instant kills.
- Use throws to line enemies up into explosive barrels or environmental hazards when present.
Because Tai Chi costs no Vitality and works on a moderate cooldown, it can be used frequently to create breathing room in chaotic skirmishes.
Limitations remain: Mighty Enemies and main bosses cannot be dragged or thrown. Against them, Tai Chi’s shield-breaking and debuff potential only matters if the game explicitly allows it on specific weak phases; otherwise, it will whiff or be resisted.
How Tai Chi ranks and tiers work
Tai Chi can be upgraded several times, boosting its damage and adding extra effects at higher tiers. Mystic Skills generally share a common structure of Ranks and Tiers.
| Level type | What it does for Tai Chi | Resources used |
|---|---|---|
| Rank (within a Tier) | Gradually increases the basic effectiveness of the art, such as Dragging Damage and Shield Breaker Damage. | Consumes Ebon Iron per upgrade up to a Breakthrough checkpoint. |
| Tier 2 – Damage Enhancement | Boosts Phase-Two Shield Breaker Damage by 20% when you trigger a Weak Point Break. | Breakthrough consumes Ebon Iron and Vicious Fruit. |
| Tier 3 – Strategy Enhancement | Reduces the target’s defense by 20% for 10 seconds after a Weak Point Break. | Higher-grade resource costs at this Breakthrough. |
| Tier 4 – Damage Enhancement | Further increases Phase-Two Shield Breaker Damage by 30% on Weak Point Break. | Most expensive Breakthrough—aim for this when you rely heavily on Tai Chi. |
Most Mystic Skills have four Tiers broken into nine smaller Ranks in total. As you climb, both the Dragging Damage (the spin/throw impact) and Shield Breaker Damage scale noticeably, which is why even late-game shield bearers can still be dismantled with Tai Chi if it is properly developed.
Where to upgrade Tai Chi
All of Tai Chi’s progression is handled through the character development menus.
- Open the main menu and go to the Develop tab.
- Scroll down to the Mystic Skills section.
- Highlight Tai Chi and select View to open its detail page.
- Choose Upgrade to spend materials and increase its Rank, progressing toward the next Tier Breakthrough.
Early Ranks usually cost 2 Ebon Iron each until you reach the Breakthrough node for that Tier. Beyond the first Tier, Breakthroughs for Tai Chi start requiring both Ebon Iron and Vicious Fruit, making it a material sink you should plan around if you want it to be one of your main Mystic Skills.
Used consistently, Tai Chi becomes a core part of Where Winds Meet’s combat rhythm and exploration flow: it opens hidden chests with bear-assisted demolition, clears leaf swirls for small rewards, quietly stocks your pantry with fish, and tears down some of the toughest shields in the game. Investing in its upgrades early pays off for a long stretch of the adventure.
