Genshin Impact is full of open-world quests that you can initiate via interacting with NPCs or in-game items like ancient tablets. These quests range from just following a dialogue sequence to solving complex puzzles that may take you hours to do so if you are on your own.Â
“In the Mountains’ is a world quest that will take you through challenging places in the area, whether they’re at the bottom of the mountain or the top. You will find yourself fighting ferocious enemies, guiding seelies, unlocking places, and climbing to the top of the mountain. Here’s our In The Mountains Guide with everything there is to know about the quest, as it is an essential quest in the region.
Quest, In the Mountains
In the mountains is a quest that acts as an introduction to the challenges that you will face in Dragonspine. You have to interact with an NPC named Iris. She will inform you about the cold climate that engulfs Dragonspine.
She will tell you about the sub-zero climate conditions and how the sheer cold status will affect your Genshin Impact character‘s well-being. From her interactions, you get to know that there are adventurers who have lost their lives on the mountain, thinking they can withstand the environment.
In the “In the mountain” quest, you have to interact with orbs that will go up in the sky after breaking specific ice shards. Their effect is powerful enough to change the flora around the area and mutate the plants to look navy blue in color.
Eventually, after you manage to melt all of the shards, you have to break them once more on the top of the mountain. Once you are done with that, you have to build up a pillar after interacting with orbs, and it will rise up in the sky.
It seems that this pillar is not of this world. What could be the story behind it? Only the time will tell. But for now, we have to deal with this pillar to be able to access the Peak of Vindagyr domain.
Quest Walkthrough
Dragonspine features a sub-zero climate, and that may pose a danger in certain situations, so it’s better to be prepared before diving into an unknown region by yourself. Now, lets begin the “In the Mountiains” quest.
Head to the waypoint near the adventurer’s camp, set up near the foothills of the Dragonspine, and unlock the teleport point near it. You will find an adventurer named Iris there, and she will be the one you have to interact with so that you can follow the main quest.Â
1. Talk to Iris at the adventurer’s camp in the foothills of Dragonspine. Before ending the dialogues, she mentions a slab of ice on the mountain’s boundaries and wonders what could be inside it.
2. After completing the dialogue with her, head towards the mountain, cross bypass a broken bridge and follow the path to reach a teleport point near a piece of ice around a tree-like structure. You will see a shard of ice that looks different from normal.Â
3. You have to break the ice and investigate the area around it. You will notice a crimson-colored ore that can be broken. After collecting it, your character will have a crimson aura surrounding it. Scarlet quartz is sufficient to break the ice shard in four hits, and you need to collect four of them around the area and attack the shard.Â
4. After the ice melts, a short cutscene will trigger where you will see a crystal ball rapidly going up in the sky and a frost-bearing tree emerging from the ground. You have to offer Crimson agate to this tree to get rewards in return for each level.Â
5. Time for you to head to the statue of the seven and see the cavern from where you can reach the top. You can check the cavern that leads to the summit and notice that you cannot go inside it because of an air current. You can go back to the adventurer’s camp to interact with Iris and learn more about the situation.
She will describe blue plants that are near the city areas, and it might be possible they have to do something with the air current. She thinks that those plants may be related to the ice shards and are found in Starglow cavern and Entombed City outskirts. Eventually, she urges the traveler to check these places so that they can find some clues there to solve this mysterious air current.
6. Just as you did with the orb near the frost-bearing tree, you have to interact with the other two orbs, and they will fly to the top of the mountain. Near the end of the quest, you have to interact with them to put together the broken pillar-like structure, and it will hover up in the sky.
Starglow Cavern
1. Teleport to the location and head inside the cavern towards the ground where you will see a Crimson agate hovering over the ground and some warming seelies.
You will notice another ice-like structure here than can be melted with Scarlet Quartz, and you have to damage the ice with Scarlet quartz boosted attacks four times to completely vanish it.
2. Before that, you will notice that the ice is covered in a transparent barrier, and to remove that shield, you have to complete a challenge.
There will be four waves of enemies consisting of the following enemies: Cryo hilichurl shooters, Cryo hilichurl grenadier, Cryo samachurl, and Cryo Abyss mages.
3. Remember that you have to keep a check on your sheer cold status during this challenge and avoid getting frozen because of the environment.
To ease the challenge a bit, I recommend you collect the three warming seelies before initiating the fight, as you can fight near them to avoid sheer cold status stacking on you.Â
Entombed City Outskirts
1. You will find a challenge here in the place where you have to active five Cryo totems, and there’s a warming seelie hovering over activating mechanism with heat beacons near the area. One tip before doing this challenge is that you better have a good team with you because Ruin guards and Ruin graders will come to attack you once you complete the challenge.
2. Follow the same sequence on the totems that the seelie will follow while hovering over them, and you can activate the totems easily. Remember one of those heat beacons will be active during the fight, so keep an eye on them to position yourself on the battleground.
After both ruin guards are defeated, the Ruin grader will become active, and you can aim at its legs once they become unshielded. A short cutscene will trigger once you are done with the fight, and an opening to the ground below will appear.
3. Enter the cavern, and you will notice that there’s an ice shard there and three scarlet quartz near it with two seelies in the area. Grab that three scarlet quartz, come to the ice shard, and attack it.
Now, only one quartz is remaining, and you can obtain it after going into a chamber that can be unlocked with the help of the two seelies.
The last scarlet quartz is near a ruin guard buried in the ground. Break it, pick it up and attack the ice shard to reveal the orb and interact with it.
4. Now, after you are finished with this, two Ruin graders will wake up. You have two options, fight them or run.Â
5. In the end, after you’re done with the quest, this area will be replaced by cryo hypostasis, and you won’t be able to enter this area from the platform that melted.
Now you have to reach the top of the mountain and teleport to the statue of the seven, and head towards the cave that was blocked earlier. You will notice that the passage has opened up where you will come across two cryo hilichurl shooters. Beware of the falling ice rocks that may throw you in the water while climbing the pillars.
You can collect a crimson agate near the surface of the water in a corner that will appear on your map, climb up and fight a mitachurl near an exquisite chest. Now you can either climb up to the top or collect three wind spirits that will create a current to the top.
Feel free to go whichever way you want and reach the top of the Skyfrost nail where a short cutscene will play, showcasing a pillar that looks like the one you see at the starting of the game.
Thaw all the shards once again
You will notice that you have to thaw all three shards again. Though you may have to climb those broken pillars, you can avoid doing that and just grab the quartz and attack with a bow character to apply its effect.
You have to interact with the orbs again after you break the shards, and the tower will start to come up in a regular shape. I’ll recommend you start interacting with orbs once you have broken all the shards to easily enter the domain. In the end, you have to come to the ground and go to the top again for an achievement.
Related read: Complete “Thaw All The Shards Out” Guide.
First shard
Go to the teleport point near the nail, and you will notice the scarlet quartz near a ruin guard. Once you collect the first quartz, use a bow character to shoot the first shard.
You can interact with this when you are coming down after breaking the third shard.
Second shard
You will notice a path going to a higher elevation with heat beacons. As you walk up a bit, you will see an area where a lawachurl is protecting some chests, and there’s scarlet quartz near it. 
Last shard
You will notice a warming seelie in the area where you have defeated the lawachurl; follow it to the top of a small hilltop adjacent to the area and come across an anemo totem.
Switch out to an anemo character and apply anemo to the totem to glide a wind current to a hilichurl camp on the top.
Defeat the hilichurls before destroying the scarlet ore; otherwise, it will be used up in damaging those hilichurls. After you are finished with the hilichurls, pick up the ore and attack the last shard.
Remember to glide to the lower pillar if you are activating orbs from the top. You need to do that so that you don’t fall to your death. Activate an orb and glide to another part of the pillar to activate another.
After activating all the orbs, a cutscene will play where you will see the pillar coming in its original form and rising above the sky after the ice around it melts. You will observe that the entrance to the domain is open for you to interact with and collect rewards from it. Paimon will say about the melted surface and tell you to check about it, as it may have something in there.
The quest will end when you interact with Iris after putting up the pillar in the sky and unlocking the Peak of Vindagyr domain. Iris will be grateful for your help and tells about sending some adventurers there to investigate further. Iris hopes that their future expeditions may yield better results, and you will receive the quest rewards after that.
Rewards & Achievements
Rewards aren’t as remarkable as the quest is but its’ manageable enough as you get to explore the area and collect plenty of chests on the way. You will interact with seelies, complete challenges, and open chests around the area. You can also unlock some exclusive achievements.
In the Mountains
- Adventurer EXP x 500
- Mondstadt Reputation EXP x 20
- Mora x 30,000
- Primogems x 60
- Hero’s Wit x 3
- Mystic Enhancement Ore x 3
Achievements
- Visitors on the Icy Mountain: Skyfrost Nail – Raise the skyfrost nail in the “in the mountains” quest – Primogems x 10
- Sky High – Climb the top of the Skyfrost nail after it has been restored and collect the Crimson agate there – Primogems x 5
Above are the achievements that you can get for completing this world quest and doing the task to climb atop the Skyfrost nail.
The peak of the Vindagyr Domain
After unlocking this domain, you can farm for artifacts like Blizzard strayer and Heart of Depth, which are fantastic artifacts for Cryo and Hydro characters. I used to think that this domain may be under the ground until I completed the quest and figured out it’s actually on the top of the summit.
A Few Questions
Lets’ go over a few questions that you may have after reading this guide.
Question:Â What’s the difference between scarlet quartz and crimson agate?
Answer: Scarlet quartz is like ores that you can break and collect to reduce the rate of sheer cold on your character. Alternatively, you can also use it to deal Pyro damage to enemies or an entity like an ice shard to melt it to reveal items.Â
As for the Crimson agate, though it looks similar to the Scarlet Quartz, it is used as an offering item to the frost-bearing tree, and you can reap the rewards in return. There are a decent amount of rewards that you can obtain after collecting Crimson agates and leveling up the frost-bearing tree. That’s why I highly recommend you to level up your frost-bearing tree for good rewards and invest resources in your characters.
Question:Â When should I start this quest if I’m an early game player?
Answer: My rule of thumb is to do world quests when you are done with the archon and story quests. Why so? Firstly you get to know about the story. You get to level up your characters, as sometimes you have to fight bosses in archon quests, and you need solid characters. Once you are done with that, you can focus on investing in your characters.
When you venture out into an unknown region, you don’t know what kind of enemies you will be facing. It’s highly possible that you will come across a hazardous area with enemies whose levels are higher than your characters. So, make sure you are adequately leveled up before starting this quest.
Question:Â What are some tips you recommend to new players starting out in the Dragonspine area?
Answer: Dragonspine’s cold climate and the sheer cold mechanic are a hurdle while exploring near the water bodies as your chance to freeze increases. From the conversations with Iris, you know that you should always look out for heat sources, whether it’s seelies, heat beacons, or fire torches. Any heat source can reduce your sheer cold accumulation and save you from HP loss while exploring.Â
On top of that, make sure you have plenty of recovery food and attack-boosting dishes because enemies in the Dragonspine area may be difficult for you. I cook plenty of sweet madame most of the time before venturing into an unknown region and consume it periodically if I get into a tough fight. If you want to avoid excessive sheer cold, you should have a pyro character in your team. Having a pyro character in your teams like Amber or Bennett will help you to light up torches and be around a heat source.
Quest Remarks
In the mountains world quest is indeed a fantastic and challanging quest. I was lucky enough to level up my characters before initiating this quest and exploring the Dragonspine region, as the climate there is really a tough nut to deal with sometimes.Â
But there’s one interesting fact about the quest: you get to access the Peak of Vindagyr domain that can help build your Cryo and Hydro characters. Not only that, but there are short cutscenes that will lighten up the quest, and you have to interact with a mysterious pillar that doesn’t sound familiar to the regions you’ve visited so far. I’m sure these pillars have some significance to the lore, which can only be revealed with future updates.
That was all for this guide, and I hope to see you in another exciting guide. There are some fantastic world quests guides like The Chi of Yore and Nine pillars of peace on our site, so double check if you haven’t completed those quests. Feel free to check our other guides on characters, and who knows, you may find one for your favorite one.
Here are other quests we have covered:
- The Chi of Guyun Guide
- The Tree Who Stands Alone Guide
- Nameless Treasure Guide
- Mondstadt and Its Archon Guide
Besides writing about his favourite games, Himanshu prefers to keep himself up-to-date with the latest happenings in the financial world, watching anime, cooking and listening to music from all around the world.
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