I am pretty much liking Genshin Impact so far. Although I do love open-world RPG games, a game like Genshin Impact isn’t to my usual tastes. I prefer more realistic looking graphics over the cartoony, anime-style usually.
Nonetheless, the game does look great and the quests and adventures are holding my interest for now.
In this guide, I’ll show you the steps for the Secret Pirate Treasure quest and how to complete them. It’s a multi-part quest but isn’t too challenging. I’ve not been playing the game too long so this is one of the earlier quests you can take on.
If you can’t be bothered reading, there is a video walkthrough at the bottom of the page.
Secret Pirate Treasure Quest
The quest tasks you with seeking out some hidden treasure, hidden away by a pirate. It is an enjoyable quest and if you’ve just started out in the game it will take you to some new parts of the world.
Onto Part One.
Kaeya’s Troubles
The first part of the quest is called Kaeya’s Troubles. You have to go and meet with Kaeya, who you met earlier in the game, at the Knights of Favonius headquarters in the City of Mondstadt.
The Knights of Favonius headquarters is located in the eastern area of the city. Open the shortcut wheel using L1 then select the map at the bottom. Kaeya’s Troubles is highlighted with the “!” marker.
Enter the Knights of Favonius HQ and speak to Kaeya. Kaeya will tall you that he needs your help and to meet him in the courtyard so he can tell you more. Once you have ended this dialogue, the quest will start in earnest.
Next, you need to go meet Kaeya outside int he courtyard so he can tell you more information. If you go to the map and select the quest/objective icon, you can set a navigation trail. This places gold sparkly breadcrumb things on the ground you can follow.
When you meet Kaeya at the courtyard, he will tell you more about the quest. Basically, his grandfather was a pirate and there’s treasure to be found in the Lost Arcadian Ruins.
After you speak with Kaeya in the courtyard, you now have to go to the Adventurers Guild to find out more about the ruins.
The Adventurers’ Guild
The next step is to speak with someone at the Adventurers’ Guild. The location of the Adventurers’ Guild is shown in the screenshot below. The Adventurers Guild is also located in the City of Mondstadt.
Once you have found the location, speak with Cyrus who is standing outside the building shown in the screenshot below.
Ask Cyrus about the Lost Arcadian Ruins (We’re looking for… dialogue choice), unfortunately, Cyrus has never heard of the ruins but, it seems someone was listening in and are probably trying to get to the treasure before you.
Once the dialogue with Cyrus ends, you now have to go meet with Kaeya again, who will give you some more clues to follow.
Head tot he marker to meet up with Kaeya again. He will tell you about an informant who you need to go and meet in the next step of the quest.
Mystery of the Arcadian Ruins
The next step in the quest is called Mystery of the Arcadian Ruins. You have to go and meet up with the informant Kaeya told you about previously. A marker will be placed on your map so you know where to go.
The informant can be found on a path parallel to Mondstadt, to the left as you exit the city. There is a teleport location just below the marker which you can use to travel a bit faster if you have unlocked it.
When you start to get near to the location, you will see the informant being attacked by some of the Goblin-like enemies you encounter at the start of the game.
You need to defeat the three monsters before talking with the informant. One of the enemies have wooden shields, you can switch to the Amber character and use her Pyro bow and abilities to damage the shield, making the fight a bit easier.
Once you have defeated the monsters, talks with the informant called Vile, to get another clue. The informant will give you a photograph with a riddle, Treasure Clue(I).
Solving the Mystery
The next part of the quest involves solving the riddle and finding the location in the photo that the informant gave you.
Treasure Clue (I) has a riddle that reads:
Three six-armed giants reside
In the city in the lake,
Two guard the statue,
One, the treasure.
You can visit Kaeya again to get a hint about solving the riddle. It’s best to do this as it places a marker on the location you need to find.
Head back to Mondstadt and speak with Kaeaya again. The riddle is referring to the three windmills found in the city. Once you speak with Kaeya to get a hint, a marker will be placed on the windmill you need to go to.
Once you have located the windmill, you’ll need to climb up it. You probably won’t be able to jump climb up it as your stamina will run out too quickly. It is best to slowly climb up to a wooden ledge/box that is underneath the wooden balconies.
Then, slowly climb round onto one of the wooden balconies then go around and climb the ladder.
Once you are on the top balcony, you will find a chest that you can open. Opening the chest will give you another clue, Treasure Clue (II). This clue is again another map and riddle.
Once you have the new clue, you can go to Kaeya again for a hint. I didn’t do this and it probably made the quest a bit longer with trying to find the location hinted at in the riddle.
Finding the location in the second clue
Before we have a look at the riddle, we need to find the location marked by the red X on the map. Depending on how long you’ve been playing the game when you start this quest, the location might be in an area of the map that is yet undiscovered. Shown in the screenshot below.
The area we need to go to is called Springvale and it’s south of Mondstadt. There is a Statue of The Seven in this area (circled) which you can activate to clear the map and uncover the area.
If you haven’t uncovered this area already it is recommended to activate the Statue of The Seven just to uncover the area. There is a mini-boss fight before you can activate it though.
Once you have the map uncovered, head to the area shown in the screenshot below.
The location is a small lake with a waterfall and a teleport waypoint on a rock in the middle of the lake. Now we have to solve the riddle to find out what to do next.
I had no idea how to solve the riddle and I just managed to find where to go by exploring this area around and above the lake. When facing the waterfall, climb up the cliffs to get to higher ground, then find the area shown in the screenshot below.
The location above is a grassy area with three statues/monument things that you need to activate. Since the riddle mentions “when she’s cold and alone, her true heart is revealed”, I figured switching characters to Kaeya might help.
Switch to Kaeya and use his Cryo (freezing) skill by pressing R2 when you are near the statues. Using the Cryos skill will activate the statues. Activate the statues on at a time until they have a blue glow as shown above.
Once the statues are activated, a chest will appear. Open the chest to get another map to the final location you need to head to.
Use the map to find the buried treasure
The map you get from the chest in the previous step is useless but, you don’t need it anyway. A new quest marker will appear on the map at Falcon Coast.
Head to this location on the map. You will eventually head along a beach and towards a cave opening, which is the entrance to the Arcadian Ruins.
Once you enter, this will start a Domain (kind of like a dungeon). You will need to choose your characters and stuff like other dungeons before you start.
Once you enter the Domain, make your way through past any enemies and obstacles. you can use Kaeya’s Cryo skill to stop the things that spit out fire.
You will then get to a challenge part where you have to defeat six enemies within 60 seconds. The enemies are those blobs of fire, your main character, the traveller, has the Anemo (wind) elemental power which is useful against these enemies.
Once you have completed the challenge, a door will open up in this area.
When you enter this door there will be a cutscene/dialogue section where you talk with some guy called Izzard. Turns out he’s looking for the treasure too. Once you have spoken with Izzard, you will now have to defeat a boss called a Ruin Guard.
Ruin Guard Boss Fight
The Ruin Guard boss fight isn’t too difficult. The boss has two weak spots, one in the centre of its face and one of its back.
I wasn’t dealing a great amount of damage with other characters so I switched to Amber to use the bow shots on the boss’s weak points. The Ruin Guard boss has a few attacks which mostly involve spinning melee attacks and slamming area of effect attacks.
They are not particularly difficult to avoid. Just keep hitting its weak points with the bow and the boss will eventually go down.
The end of the quest
Once you have defeated the boss there will be another cutscene. Kaeya will appear with his Knights of Fovonius and you will find out there was no treasure at all. It was just a ruse to capture Izzard.
Nonetheless, you will be rewarded for your efforts, so open the chest that appears and that’s it. Quest is done. You can now leave the domain and get on with the rest of the game.
