The rare metal the Nailsmith forges into your Nail. Six pieces exist in Hallownest, one per region, and all six together upgrade the Old Nail into the Pure Nail.
Pale Ore is the only Nail upgrade material in Hollow Knight, and exactly six pieces exist across all of Hallownest. The wiki specifies "the first upgrade to the Nail requires no Pale Ore, the second requires one, the third requires two, and the final upgrade requires three Pale Ore, for a total of six." Every piece you skip becomes a damage tier you cannot reach.
The six Pale Ore are not stacked in one cache. Per the wiki, each piece sits behind a different gate: a guarded ledge in Ancient Basin, a Dream Nail essence reward, a platforming run to the top of Crystal Peak, a Deepnest boss kill, a 31-Grub Grubfather payout, and a Colosseum of Fools trial reward. The Nail upgrade chain is the most cross-region scavenger hunt in the game.
The item description reads "Prized by those who craft weapons." According to the wiki, Pale Ore shares a Team Cherry-confirmed connection with the Pale Beings of Hallownest, which is why the Nailsmith calls it "a rare, fine metal" and quietly charges thousands of Geo to forge each piece into your blade.
This guide covers all six Pale Ore locations and their prerequisites, the full Nailsmith upgrade table (Geo cost and ore cost per tier), the Pure Nail capstone moment including the Nailsmith spare-or-cut decision and the Happy Couple achievement, and the questions players ask most about Pale Ore order, refunds, and 112% impact.
Pale Ore, the rare metal the Nailsmith forges into your Nail.
Six pieces total, all required for the final Pure Nail upgrade.
The Seer at 300 Essence and 
Grubfather at 31 Grubs.
You are not chasing 112%; the Coiled Nail at four ore still clears every boss.Pale Ore is the single currency the Nailsmith 
accepts as the upgrade material for the Knight's Nail. Per the wiki, "giving the Nailsmith Pale Ore along with a payment of Geo allows him to upgrade the Knight's Nail." There is no second crafter, no shortcut, and no substitute item.
According to the wiki, the upgrade cost scales sharply. The first upgrade (Old Nail to Sharpened Nail) needs zero Pale Ore and a small Geo payment. The second upgrade needs one piece, the third needs two, and the fourth (the Pure Nail) needs three, for a total of six ore across the full chain. The Geo cost climbs from 250 at the first tier to 4,000 at the Pure Nail.
The wiki specifies the in-game item description as "prized by those who craft weapons." The Nailsmith calls Pale Ore "a rare, fine metal, that." The lore framing matters: per a Team Cherry comment cited on the wiki, Pale Ore "shares some connection with the Pale Beings," which is why a Pale Ore sits inside the pedestal of a Radiance statue at the top of Crystal Peak, where the Pale King's mining operation once ran.
Don't hoard Pale Ore in the inventory. Per the wiki, each piece is consumed the moment the Nailsmith forges an upgrade, so picking up ore 3 and ore 4 before tier 3 still works: he uses the two you owe and leaves the rest for tier 4. In practice, the only "wrong" move is collecting all six before visiting him once, since two trips to the City of Tears smithy still net you the same Nail.
Per the wiki, "a total of six pieces of Pale Ore can be obtained," one per source. The table below lists each piece in the typical pickup order, the region it sits in, and the gate the Knight has to clear to claim it.
| # | Region | Source | Requirement |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ancient Basin | On a ledge west of the tram station | Defeat two Lesser Mawleks guarding it |
| 2 | Resting Grounds | Given by the Seer | Gather 300 Essence with the Dream Nail |
| 3 | Crystal Peak | Embedded in a Radiance statue at Hallownest's Crown | Mantis Claw required; Monarch Wings and Crystal Heart recommended |
| 4 | Deepnest | Inside Nosk's lair, west of the Hot Spring | Break the wall and defeat Nosk |
| 5 | Forgotten Crossroads | Grubfather reward | Rescue 31 Grubs |
| 6 | Kingdom's Edge | Colosseum of Fools reward | Complete the Trial of the Conqueror |
The wiki places the first Pale Ore in Ancient Basin 
, "west of the tram station and the main Ancient Basin entrance." Two Lesser Mawleks guard the ledge. The wiki specifies that nothing else gates the pickup: no charm, no key, just the two enemies and the platforming to reach the ledge. This is usually the first Pale Ore players collect because the path opens as soon as the Tram Pass is in hand.
According to the wiki, the second Pale Ore is "awarded by the Seer in exchange for 300 Essence "gathered with the Dream Nail 
." The 300 mark sits between her Hallownest Seal reward at 200 and her Vessel Fragment reward at 400, so collecting this Pale Ore funds itself: most players cross 300 Essence naturally while mopping up Whispering Roots, Warrior Dreams, and Dream Bosses.
The wiki specifies that the third Pale Ore is "found in Hallownest's Crown at the very top of Crystal Peak 
, embedded in the pedestal of a statue of the Radiance." Mantis Claw is required; Monarch Wings and Crystal Heart are listed as "recommended." This is the most lore-heavy Pale Ore in the game: a Pale-Being-linked metal sitting inside a statue of the Radiance, the Pale King's rival.
Per the wiki, the fourth Pale Ore is "inside Nosk's lair in Deepnest, accessed by breaking a wall in the room just west of the Hot Spring." The pickup requires defeating Nosk 
, the Knight-mimicking flesh boss in Deepnest 
. There is no other reward in the room; the entire arena pays out a single Pale Ore.
According to the wiki, the fifth Pale Ore is "given by Grubfather " as the milestone reward for rescuing 31 Grubs. Grubfather's Pale Ore is the most "passive" of the six: it lands in the inventory the next time the Knight visits the Grubhome after the 31st jar breaks, with no additional fight or pickup interaction.
The wiki specifies that the sixth and final Pale Ore is a "reward in the Colosseum of Fools 
" for completing the Trial of the Conqueror, the second of the three Colosseum trials. This is the hardest gate in the chain: it sits behind a longer combat gauntlet than any of the other five Pale Ore.
The Nailsmith's upgrade chain takes four payments and six Pale Ore total. Per the wiki, the Nail damage values climb from 5 on the Old Nail to 21 on the Pure Nail, a flat doubling-plus across the full sequence.
| Tier | Nail | Damage | Pale Ore | Geo cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | Old Nail | 5 | 0 | 0 (starter) |
| 1 |  Sharpened Nail | 9 | 0 | 250 Geo |
| 2 | Channelled Nail | 13 | 1 | 800 Geo |
| 3 |  Coiled Nail | 17 | 2 | 2,000 Geo |
| 4 | Pure Nail | 21 | 3 | 4,000 Geo |
The wiki notes that "the second upgrade requires one piece, the third requires two, and the final upgrade requires three Pale Ore." Geo totals to 7,050 across the four upgrades, all paid to the Nailsmith in the City of Tears smithy. According to the wiki, his dialogue confirms the gate is strict: "if you bring me three pieces of Pale Ore, I can forge it into your nail and make it stronger still."
The wiki specifies that Fragile Strength, Unbreakable Strength, and Fury of the Fallen all multiply on top of the base Nail damage. In actual play, the Pure Nail with Unbreakable Strength sits at 33 damage per swing, which is the standard reference point for late-game DPS math.
Spend Geo before each Pale Ore find. Per the wiki, the Nailsmith's prices are flat and the smithy never closes during Act 1 or Act 2. In practice, banking 4,000 Geo in your wallet around the Crystal Peak climb means you can grab Pale Ore 3, walk straight to the City of Tears, and finalise the Coiled Nail without an extra Geo-farming detour.
The Pure Nail forge triggers the most unusual NPC moment in the game. Per the wiki, "after having him forge the Pure Nail, the Nailsmith steps outside and asks the Knight to cut him down." The Knight is given a clean fork: spare him, or strike him with the freshly forged Pure Nail.
According to the wiki, striking him "sends him plummeting down to the waters below and awards the Purity achievement." Sparing him triggers the Happy Couple storyline: he leaves the smithy permanently, joins Nailmaster Sheo at his Greenpath hut, and the two are found together for the rest of the run. The Happy Couple achievement rewards the spare; Purity rewards the kill.
The wiki specifies that the Nailsmith's corpse from the kill route can be found later: "his corpse can be found in the Junk Pit after completing two Pantheons and speaking to the Godseeker." The Junk Pit corpse is the permanent in-game receipt for the Purity choice. Sparing leaves no such receipt; only the Sheo hut interaction and the achievement confirm the path.
Neither path changes the Pure Nail itself. In practice, across multiple runs the spare path is the cleaner completion choice because Happy Couple is one of two mutually exclusive achievements in the chain. Players chasing every achievement on a single save have to do one path on this file and the other on a fresh save.
The fastest viable order pairs each Pale Ore with the ability the Knight already has when that region opens. In practice, this is the order most players follow on a first-time 112% run.
Per the wiki, "the second Nail upgrade is recommended after Greenpath, the third after Mantis Lords, and the Pure Nail before the late-game Pantheon push." After a few runs, the cleanest pattern is one upgrade per major milestone: Sharpened on first Nailsmith visit, Channelled after Greenpath, Coiled after Crystal Peak, Pure before the Black Egg.
Pale Ore touches the Nailsmith chain, the Grubfather rescue arc, and the Colosseum gauntlets. These spokes pick up the connected threads.
Game data and screenshots adapted from hollowknight.fandom.com, used under CC BY-SA 3.0. Original content remains the property of the wiki contributors and Team Cherry.