How to beat Elder Jinchi in Black Myth: Wukong
Monkey vs monk.
If you’ve been following the Three Bells quest in Chapter 1 of Black Myth: Wukong, you’ll encounter Elder Jinchi, an old monk who’s also a secret Yaoguai King boss, who has more than a passing resemblance to Wandering Wight, but in gold.
While there are numerous bosses in Black Myth: Wukong, Elder Jinchi is located in a secret area that you can only reach after finding and interacting with the three bells in Black Wind Mountain. But despite being a secret optional boss, the reward you get will be extremely useful for the fight against the final boss of Chapter 1: Black Bear Guai. So it’s definitely recommended that you defeat Elder Jinchi before completing the chapter.
This guide will provide all the information you need on how to beat Elder Jinchi in Black Myth: Wukong.
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How to prepare for Elder Jinchi
The secret area that you fight Elder Jinchi is called Secret: Ancient Guanyin Temple, which will probably remind you of the Guanyin Temple where you fought Lingxuzi, albeit from a seemingly different time or realm altogether. There is a shrine for the area called Grand Chamber. It’s a pretty small self-contained area though you can still find a few chests to open, including one that contains the Curio 'Guanyin's Prayer Beads'. Otherwise, it’s just a case of opening the main gate that takes you to the boss arena.
If you’ve reached Elder Jinchi, then you should already be quite well prepared for this fight, as you will have already defeated optional bosses Guangzhi and Guangmou in order to advance the Three Bells quest. In any case, it’s worth ensuring you’ve defeated all bosses in Chapter 1 aside from Black Bear Guai before braving this fight.
Of course, also remember to spend any Spark points you have acquired from levelling up and that you have crafted the latest gear. You should also equip Wandering Wight as your Spirit to increase your defence.
How to beat Elder Jinchi
If you already fought Wandering Wight earlier, then Elder Jinchi shares a lot of similarities, not just in appearance but also in attack patterns. So attacks to watch out for include his arm swipes, which he can do as a combo, slamming his head forward to crush you, as well as coming at you with a fly kick.
His most damaging attacks have more range. There’s his palm blast, which he charges up by pulling his arm back as it glows and then releases, which can hit from long range - though at least appears to be an attack he does on its own rather than at the end of a combo as with Wandering Wight.
Then there’s his ground-based AOE where he slams his hand down on the ground, and then keeps it there to charge up a couple of follow-up AOE blasts. Immobilize or Cloud Step (if you have already fought Black Wind King) will be useful spells to interrupt him while a focused heavy attack can also stun him out of these attacks momentarily or even knock him on his back.
The main difference is that Elder Jinchi also has disciples milling about in the arena, who start off not much of a threat, and which you can easily dispatch with just a single hit. At the early stage then, you should just remain locked onto the big-headed monk. Where you have to worry is that he may command them to attack you. He’ll say, “Bully an old man? Curse you!” and shortly after, the disciples will start glowing gold, chasing you until they explode when they’re within proximity. You’ll have to ignore Elder Jinchi and just run away from them for a while but it’s not too much of an issue.
Once Elder Jinchi is down to half of his health, he’ll levitate high up in the air where he’s unreachable. In any case, your priority isn’t attacking him here. Instead, you should attack his disciples. More of them will start spawning from the shadows around the temple as they slowly walk towards their monk. If they get close to Elder Jinchi, he will absorb them and regain health, so you must stop them from advancing unless you want to fight him at full health again.
It’s hard to see where these disicples will start appearing from given the low visibility of the outer parts of the arena, and you may have to run from one side to the other. We found that, towards the end, they appear one after the other in an anticlockwise fashion, and since they die in one hit, it’s easy to move swiftly from one to another. The upside is that you will also absorb their lifeforce and regain health as well, so if you took heavy damage in the first phase of the fight, save your gourds and get heals from the disciples instead.
Although Elder Jinchi may still recover some health from the disicples, that’s about the only trick he has up his sleeve, although he may still send them after you again afterwards. Otherwise, he’ll repeat the same attacks as before so just watch out for these and steer clear when he goes for his AOE attack, and don’t be tempted to rush in until he’s taken his fist out of the ground. If you’re short on health or gourds, also don’t forget that you can transform into Guangzhi temporarily, so save this as a last-ditch move if you need it.
Elder Jinchi rewards
After defeating Elder Jinchi, you’ll be transported out of the area, and placed back where you were on Black Wind Mountain, next to the bell you rang after the fight with Whiteclad Noble. Interact with the wolf skin that’s hanging on the tree and it will disappear and you will receive your reward: your first Vessel in the game, the Fireproof Mantle.
This will make you immune to fire for a short while and be integral against Black Bear Guai. A new icon for this mechanic will also appear at the bottom of the screen next to for spirit transformation.
While you’ll curiously not earn any XP from this fight, you’ll nonetheless earn 2000 Will. If you return to a shrine, you’ll also discover that you can now craft the Bronze armour set, which will not only improve your defence but also increase your fire resistance, again very useful for this chapter’s final challenge.
Well done for clearing Black Myth: Wukong’s first secret area, but there are still other secrets to discover!