Onimusha: Way of the Sword Materials

What each upgrade actually costs

Three pieces of equipment take enhancement, each with a base level and five proficiency tiers on top. The material list changes as you climb, which is why a stock of Leather that felt endless in Chapter 4 runs dry later — the tiers stop asking for it and start asking for things you cannot pick up off a corpse.

Equipment	Levels	Materials	What it raises
Sword	Base plus 5 proficiency tiers, 10 levels each	Whetstone and Iron at base; Tempered Iron and Tamahagane from the proficiency tiers up — the top tier costs 2 Whetstone + 2 Iron + 2 Tempered Iron + 1 Tamahagane per level	Attack power, Issen power and Oni Armament power — all three at once
Clothing	Base plus 5 proficiency tiers, 10 levels each	Hempen Cloth, Cotton Cloth and Leather at base; Fine Silk Cloth from the higher tiers, 1 to 4 per tier	Health and stamina
Gauntlet	Base plus 5 proficiency tiers, 5 levels each	Malicite, Malicite Mass, Byakue’s Talisman and Dohatsu-ten’s Horn — peaking at 5 Malicite + 2 Byakue’s Talisman + 2 Dohatsu-ten’s Horn + 3 Malicite Mass	Soul absorption speed and range

The sword is the upgrade with the best return, because enhancing it raises attack power, Issen power and Oni Armament power together — one material spend that lifts your katana, your counters and every summon on the weapons page at once.

Where every material comes from

Material	Source	Notes
Hempen Cloth · Cotton Cloth · Iron · Whetstone	Common enemy drops and chests	The basic tier. These fall out of ordinary play faster than you spend them; nobody needs a farming route for these.
Leather	Mission encounters and mission chests	The one people search for. It comes from playing missions rather than free-roaming the hub — open every chest on the mission map and kill the tougher Genma on the way. Also stocked by the merchant from mid-game.
Tempered Iron	Enemy drops, chests, and the merchant	The better-quality iron that replaces plain Iron in the proficiency tiers.
Fine Silk Cloth	25 fixed world locations, plus merchant stock	A counted collectible — see the collectibles page. Feeds the Dressed to Kill trophy as well as clothing upgrades.
Tamahagane	25 fixed world locations, plus some merchant stock	Same deal as Fine Silk Cloth: finite, counted, and part of Dressed to Kill.
Malicite · Malicite Mass · Byakue’s Talisman · Dohatsu-ten’s Horn	Rift rewards only — including two rifts that spawn after the final mission	The gauntlet materials, and the exception to everything above: the merchant does not sell them, and PowerPyx says the reliable farm is two randomly spawning rifts available after you finish the story.

Two of these rows are also collectibles: the 25 Fine Silk Cloths and 25 Tamahagane are counted, fixed pickups that feed the Dressed to Kill trophy. Everything else in the table is a drop or a purchase.

Yorimasa: the answer to most farming questions

The single most useful thing to know about this system is that a shop exists and a lot of players never find it. Yorimasa is a spirit merchant who sets up at the Yasui Konpiragu shrine after you purify it — he is not a boss, despite turning up in boss-list searches (see the boss list) — and he trades red souls for upgrade materials.

His stock grows with the story. PC Gamer reports the inventory expands several times as you complete major story missions, so higher-tier materials appear mid- to late-game rather than from the moment you meet him. Checking him once and writing him off is the mistake.
By mid-game he carries Iron, Tempered Iron, Cotton Cloth and Leather, plus some Tamahagane and Fine Silk Cloth.
But the supply is finite. PC Gamer’s wording is precise: you can “supplement your findings with some stock bought from Yorimasa’s finite supply.” He is a way to top up, not an infinite tap — so do not skip world pickups on the assumption you can buy your way to a maxed sword ⚠ single source on the finite stock; nobody has published his full inventory or per-visit limits.
He does not sell gauntlet materials. Malicite, Malicite Mass, Byakue’s Talisman and Dohatsu-ten’s Horn are rift rewards, full stop.

The gauntlet is post-game work

If you are hunting Dohatsu-ten’s Horn or Byakue’s Talisman mid-story and finding nothing, that is the system, not your luck. All four gauntlet materials come from rifts, and PowerPyx names the reliable farm as “two rifts that spawn randomly after completing the final mission.” Since the gauntlet’s top tier alone wants 5 Malicite + 2 Byakue’s Talisman + 2 Dohatsu-ten’s Horn + 3 Malicite Mass per level, a fully enhanced gauntlet is something you finish after the credits — the same shape as the Oni Stone shortfall documented on the collectibles page.

A naming warning, because it will cost you a search: PowerPyx spells it Malicite, IGN spells it Malacite. We have not matched either against an in-game item screen ⚠ spelling conflict between two trusted guides, so treat them as the same material and search both.

Red souls are the real bottleneck

Once you know the merchant exists, the question stops being “where is leather” and becomes “how do I afford it” — red souls buy skills and materials, so everything competes for the same pool. PC Gamer’s four levers, in the order they pay off:

Spend early skill points on the red-soul reward nodes. Compounding beats hoarding — the earlier the multiplier is on, the more of the game it applies to.
Use Soul Sucker items before big fights, when the payout per kill is highest.
Finish enemies with the Flashing Void Oni Armament for bonus souls. This is the same armament whose Break Issen upgrade Maxroll calls a red-soul farm, so the two stack into a deliberate farming build.
Equip the Reaper’s Charm the moment you get it — a standing 15% increase, and charms are free to swap.

None of this is a grind route in the traditional sense, and that is the point: the sites telling you to farm a specific enemy for leather are solving a problem the merchant already solves.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where do you find Leather in Onimusha: Way of the Sword?

From mission content rather than the open hub: run missions, open every chest on the mission map, and kill the heavier Genma you meet along the way. You can also buy it — Yorimasa, the red-soul merchant at the Yasui Konpiragu shrine, stocks Leather from the mid-game onward, and PC Gamer's advice is exactly that: supplement what you find rather than grinding for it. Leather feeds clothing upgrades, which raise health and stamina.

How do you farm Iron and Tempered Iron?

Plain Iron and Whetstone drop commonly enough from enemies and chests that farming them is rarely necessary. Tempered Iron, the better-quality version the sword's proficiency tiers demand, is the one that runs short — and again the merchant is the answer before the grind is: Yorimasa stocks both Iron and Tempered Iron by mid-game, paid for in red souls.

Where do you get Dohatsu-ten’s Horn?

Rifts, and nowhere else — it is one of the four gauntlet materials, alongside Malicite, Malicite Mass and Byakue's Talisman. The merchant does not sell any of them. PowerPyx points at two rifts that spawn randomly after you complete the final mission as the place to farm all four, which means fully upgrading the Oni Gauntlet is post-story work by design.

How do you farm red souls?

Four methods, from PC Gamer: put early skill points into the tree nodes that increase red soul rewards; use Soul Sucker items before big fights; finish enemies with the Flashing Void Oni Armament, which pays a bonus; and equip the Reaper's Charm as soon as you have it for a standing 15% increase. Red souls are the real currency of the upgrade system, since they buy materials as well as skills.

Can you sell items in Onimusha: Way of the Sword?

Not as far as any player has found. Yorimasa sells materials for red souls, but nobody has turned up a vendor that buys them back. In an October Steam thread asking exactly this, three players, one of them on a third playthrough, say they know of no buyer, and the player who asked decided they had misremembered one. There is no official statement either way, so treat this as "none found" rather than "none exists". If you are short of red souls, the farming methods above are the answer.

Is it Malicite or Malacite?

Both spellings are in circulation and we cannot tell you which matches the in-game text. PowerPyx writes "Malicite" and "Malicite Mass"; IGN's materials coverage writes "Malacite" and "Malacite Masses". It is the same gauntlet material either way, so search with whichever spelling and do not assume a guide using the other one is describing something different.

Do equipment upgrades carry into New Game Plus?

No. Skills you bought carry over, but sword, clothing and gauntlet enhancements reset, and your red souls are wiped — so spend them before you start the second run. That is the same rule the trophy and weapons pages cover, and it is why the 54 Oni Stones matter more across two playthroughs than any material does.

Onimusha: Way of the Sword Materials — Buy, Don’t Grind