The Depths hide in total darkness, where flickers of light mean the difference between progress and being lost forever. Here’s how to brighten the underground world of Hyrule and reveal what waits beneath its shadowed surface.
But there are a few ways to drive back the darkness, something that’s especially important in the various caves you’ll encounter and in Hyrule’s deep, dark subterranean area, the Depths. There’s always an old, reliable torch, but Tears of the Kingdom gives you a couple new options for dealing with darkness: lightroots, brightbloom seeds, glow elixirs, and a whole armor set that’s covered in lightbulbs – the Miner’s Armor set.
We’ll discuss them all below.
Permanently light up large areas with lightroots
Lightroots act as permanent beacons in the Depths, restoring wide areas to visibility once activated. Each Lightroot corresponds to a Shrine on the surface, so finding one below often points to a known location above. Activating them not only clears the surrounding gloom but also creates safe zones for exploration and travel. Their glow remains active indefinitely, letting you build a bright network of landmarks across the underground.
Lightroots are, effectively, the underside of shrines – and each lightroot’s name is the corresponding shrine’s name spelled backward. When you interact with a lightroot, it’ll activate the big glowing bulb on its top, removing the fog from the map and illuminating the surrounding area.
How to light the Depths using brightbloom seeds
Brightbloom seeds provide reliable light in the Depths. Throw them at walls, ceilings, or the ground to scatter glowing plants that illuminate surroundings and reveal nearby enemies or resources. Equip them from your key items menu, aim with ZL, and release with ZR for quick deployment. Plant multiple seeds to cover larger areas, and they last until you leave the region or manually remove them. Combine with other light sources like Zonai lightroots for full visibility.
Brightbloom seeds are seeds you plant that, well, bloom brightly. The simplest way to use brightbloom seeds is to just hold and throw them. Once they hit the ground, they’ll bloom and light up a small area. You can also Fuse brightbloom seeds to your arrows and fire them. Wherever that arrow hits – the ground, a tree, the ceiling – it’ll bloom and light up in the same way as throwing them.
Where to find brightbloom seeds
We’ve found brightbloom seeds within caves on the Surface or the Sky Islands – but never in the Depths themselves.
An easy cave to get to is the Passeri Greenbelt Cave just west of the Lookout Landing Skyview Tower at (-0510, 0125, 022), where you’ll find about 15 brightbloom seeds.
For 10 easy brightbloom seeds, talk to Josha and Robbie in Lookout Landing to start the “Camerawork in the Depths” quest.
Cook a bright elixir with deep fireflies
Gather Brightbloom Seeds and cook them with glowing cave fish to craft an elixir that radiates faint light in the Depths. The brew acts as a gentle beacon, helping you spot hazards and locate paths through the gloom. Combine stronger materials for brighter or longer-lasting effects, making your exploration safer as you search for Lightroots or rare treasures hidden in the dark.
You can also brew up some bright elixir that applies the glow status to Link. The recipe for bright elixir is deep fireflies and monster parts.
Deep fireflies, as the name implies, live in the Depths. According to your Hyrule Compendium, they’re most common around the Great Abandoned Central Mine and Lanayru Wetlands Depths. We found that there’s usually a swarm or two just southwest of the Hyrule Field Chasm around (-0344, -0387, -0478).
Adding more deep fireflies to your elixir’s recipe will increase both the strength of the glow and the effect’s duration. One deep firefly and one monster part (like Chuchu jelly or a Bokoblin horn) will get you a little over three minutes of glow, while four deep fireflies and a monster part will get you nine minutes of a much brighter glow.
Find the Miner’s Armor set
The Miner’s Armor set greatly helps brighten your surroundings in the Depths. Each piece emits its own glow, reducing how much Brightbloom you need to place. You can find the parts in separate chests scattered across different regions of the Depths, often hidden in mining areas or along old ruins. Collecting the full set increases the light radius around Link, making exploration safer and easier against lurking enemies and deep chasms.
Where to find Brightbloom Seeds and Giant Brightbloom Seeds
Brightbloom Seeds and Giant Brightbloom Seeds mainly come from caves, wells, and a few especially rich farming spots.
Common sources (anytime)
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Caves everywhere in Hyrule: Almost every cave you enter has clusters of Brightbloom plants on the ground or along walls; each plant usually gives three Brightbloom Seeds.
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Wells across the surface: Dropping into wells often puts you in small cave-like areas with several Brightbloom plants and an occasional Giant Brightbloom plant mixed in.
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Underground walls: Giant Brightbloom plants tend to grow low on subterranean walls, especially in larger caves and wells; each of these plants gives one Giant Brightbloom Seed.
Great early-game farming spots
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Rauru Settlement Ruins Well: At coordinates roughly 0661, 1266, 0022 (just west of Woodland Stable), you can repeatedly farm around 27 Brightbloom Seeds and 6 Giant Brightbloom Seeds per run; placing a Travel Medallion here makes restocking easy.
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Joniu Shrine cave entrance: The cave behind Joniu Shrine (southeast of Upland Zorana Skyview Tower) has a dense stash of Brightblooms you can grab every Blood Moon.
Extra ways to stock up
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Great Sky Island caves: Early sky-island caves also contain both regular and Giant Brightbloom plants, so it is worth fully clearing them when you start the game.
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Buying from Beetle: At Woodland Stable, Beetle’s inventory can include Brightbloom Seeds for sale, letting you top up if you are short before a Depths run.
How to farm Brightbloom Seeds efficiently at Rauru Settlement Ruins Well
You can run a very fast, repeatable loop at Rauru Settlement Ruins Well by treating it as a fixed “route” you clear every Blood Moon.
Finding and entering the well
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Go to Rauru Settlement Ruins in Central Hyrule; the well is on the west side of the ruins and is marked as “Rauru Settlement Ruins Well” when you stand near the opening.
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Drop down, then immediately light the area (torch, Brightbloom, or Miner’s gear) so you can see all the plants clearly as you make your loop.
Optimal farming route inside
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Do a full clockwise sweep of the interior, hugging the walls and checking every corner; this picks up roughly 27 Brightbloom Seeds plus several Giant Brightbloom Seeds and a few Sticky Lizards in a single run.
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Look along the lower parts of the walls and around rock outcrops for the larger green-leaf plants that give Giant Brightbloom Seeds, then clear the floor plants for regular seeds before heading back to the center.
Resetting and repeating the farm
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When you have collected everything, use Ascend from the central area to pop back up to the surface rather than climbing, which makes each cycle faster.
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Place a Travel Medallion just outside the well so that after each Blood Moon you can warp straight there, drop in, do one fast loop, Ascend out, and repeat over the course of the game whenever you need a refill.
