'Elden Ring': The Fastest Way To Level Up In The Game

Leveling up in the early part of “Elden Ring” isn’t exactly difficult to achieve. Everything in the first major area is somewhat balanced around low-level players, though the risk of losing Runes after every other death does complicate things a bit.

Players can grind nearby enemies for runes, explore hidden dungeons for boss fights or explore the rest of Limgrave for those precious Golden Runes. These are all viable methods of leveling up, and they’re probably FromSoft’s intended way of leveling. However, some players have already found a way to speed things up a bit by exploiting a high-level area.

At the east part of Limgrave is Caelid, a hellish region with red skies and a gory vibe filled with powerful monsters. This part of the map is dedicated to high-level endgame content, although players can abuse this for some quick Rune farming.

Instead of riding toward Caelid, there’s a secret portal located north of the Third Church of Marika that will send players to the northern edge of the rot-infested region. Scour the bushes north of the church to find it. After taking the portal, players will find themselves at the Bestial Sanctum, which houses an Incantation NPC guarded by a winged giant boss.

From here, hug either edge of the building’s platform and drop down to the ground, avoiding the boss along the way. Then, head down the road and grab the free Golden Seed while riding toward the bridge at the distance, where a Site of Grace lies.

Along the hill in front of the Sanctum are several tiny enemies wielding polearms. They aren’t terribly hard to beat, but they can kill low-level players in one hit, so be careful. These enemies drop 1,000 Runes each, and there are about eight or so of them scattered about.

Deal with them in whichever way is most effective. Try to sweep the hill in a counter-clockwise manner starting from the Site of Grace, and try not to get the attention of the field boss.

This method will net players thousands of Runes per hour as long as they don’t mind the menial grind. There are other locations in Caelid with higher enemy densities, but this is arguably the safest place to farm for Runes early in the game.