Welcome to Elderfield axe upgrade guide

Upgrade your axe at Molly's forge, using the Upgrade tab, and keep both the Rusty Axe and Basic Axe. The Basic Axe comes through Adrian's Tentacle Cleanup progression; it is not a replacement you should use as a reason to discard the rusty tool. Rusty tools are needed for higher-tier upgrades and cannot be sold.

Start with the missing part of your upgrade

There are three different early blocks: you have no axe, you have an axe but cannot cut a particular tree, or you cannot find an upgrade in Molly's shop. Each points to a different part of progression. Buying a starting tool, completing Adrian's task, and opening the forge interface are not the same action.

If you already have both early axes and access to the forge, go directly to the anvil and open Upgrade. If you only have the Rusty Axe, follow the Basic Axe task route below. If Molly's workshop is still locked, complete her Copper Ore request first.

The key early distinction is the word “forge.” Molly has a shop counter and an anvil with equipment functions. Repeatedly browsing the shop's stock will not reveal the upgrade interface you are looking for.

Obtain the Rusty Axe

Crawford's farming shop sells the Rusty Axe during early farm progression. Hans introduces the farming service after you begin working on the farm, and Crawford offers the basic tools and seeds needed for the field. If the shop is not available, return to Hans's introductory farming tasks before looking for a late-game tool vendor.

The Rusty Axe is an early woodcutting tool. It can be useful before the upgrade, but it does not cut every tree you encounter. A tree that asks for a stronger axe is signaling a tool requirement, not necessarily a missing combat weapon or a failure to interact correctly.

Keep the rusty tool when you receive a Basic Axe. The two tools belong to the next upgrade's requirements, so the older one still has a purpose. The September 2026 behavior also prevents selling rusty tools; a sell-value field from older item information is not a route to recover money from them.

If storage is your immediate problem, check the tools required by the recipe before reorganizing anything. Do not delete or otherwise dispose of a prerequisite just to clear a slot. Having both named axes available is more useful than assuming that the newest tool completely replaces the older item in crafting.

Open Molly's workshop

Tanner opens the gate leading to Molly during the early progression toward better equipment. Speak to Molly when you reach her workshop. She has locked herself out and needs Copper Ore to make a key.

Her introductory request supplies a Rusty Pickaxe and directs you to the mine east of the workshop. The ore request is a mining task even though your longer-term objective is an axe upgrade. The pickaxe is the tool used to collect the requested ore; it is not an alternate name for the axe.

Enter the nearby mine, obtain Copper Ore, and return to Molly. The introductory dialogue asks for one Copper Ore. Bring the raw ore she requests rather than smelting it first and assuming a Copper Bar will satisfy the same task.

Molly opens the workshop after the delivery and allows you to use the forge. She also gives you a Furnace and introduces the anvil's forging, combining, and upgrading functions. This is the point where the relevant equipment menus become part of your available facilities.

The mine can produce dangers while you gather material. Take recovery items if you need them and leave room for the ore before entering. For this first visit, a focused trip to satisfy the workshop request is a sensible plan; there is no need to clear every resource node before returning with the item Molly needs.

Use the anvil rather than the shop counter

Inside the workshop, interact with the anvil beside Molly. Her assistants operate the shop, while the anvil provides the equipment actions. Open the Upgrade tab and find the axe recipe by its complete output name.

This matters when you can buy ores but cannot see a tool upgrade for sale. The missing option may simply be in another interaction. You do not have to wait for a shop restock to make the forge menu appear.

The workshop also has spaces above the anvil for forge upgrade objects. Those expand forge capabilities as you progress. Their existence does not remove the need to obtain the tools and materials shown by an individual axe recipe.

If an upgrade is visible but cannot be made, read each missing requirement in its own row. A recipe requiring Basic Axe is not satisfied by owning only Rusty Axe, even if you have enough bars. Likewise, extra ore does not replace a bar until you have processed the metal into the required form.

Get the Basic Axe from Adrian

The Basic Axe is the reward associated with Adrian's Tentacle Cleanup task. Speak to Adrian at his apartment in Town South and follow the problem with the tentacles coming through his wall. The task sends you toward the Mall's back hallways, through a door in the food court.

Adrian provides the Mall F1 Hallway Key when the task begins. That key gives you the route into the relevant back-office area. Receiving access is the start of the task, not the same as receiving the Basic Axe reward.

In the back hallways, follow the Office Worker's Fishing in the Mall..? request. This asks you to catch a Stalktopus from the Mall F1 Hallway pool. The task leads to the Mall Administrator, whose defeat clears the tentacles associated with Adrian's problem.

Return to Adrian after clearing the task and complete the conversation. That return is important: defeating the boss and collecting a task reward are separate steps. If you have finished the encounter but cannot find a Basic Axe, checking Adrian's remaining dialogue is the appropriate next action.

Prepare the Mall fishing prerequisite

The Mall fishing task uses Bugs as bait. Worms and Leeches from the Lakefront do not replace Bugs at that pool. If you have reached this step without learning to fish, follow the fishing tutorial for the rod and bait controls before returning to the Mall.

Herb gives you the Old Fishing Rod when you agree to try fishing at the Lakefront. The Lakefront route passes through the sewers, while the Mall's fishing water is a different location with different bait. An early rod can serve both areas, but you need to load the bait appropriate to the destination.

Bait Packs from the General Store can provide Bugs if you need additional supplies. The result is random, so buying a pack is not a guarantee that every opening provides the exact Mall bait you want. Keep useful bait you receive for later tasks rather than assuming it is useless because it does not fit your current pool.

After catching the Stalktopus and progressing the Office Worker's task, be ready for the Mall Administrator encounter. This is a combat step in the tool's acquisition chain. Obtaining a better axe does not bypass the need to complete that quest progression.

Check the Sturdy Axe recipe

The Sturdy Axe combines the Rusty Axe and Basic Axe with metal bars. The early recorded recipe uses 10 Copper Bars and 8 Iron Bars alongside both axes. The exact release-build material counts have not been independently confirmed, so compare this reference with the recipe displayed at your forge before gathering a full batch.

The two-axe prerequisite is the useful firm starting point. The forge's current material list should decide your remaining gathering trip. If the screen gives a different quantity, work from that screen rather than treating an older table as a reason to keep searching for a missing unlock.

Use the Furnace to make the bars needed by your displayed recipe. Copper Ore used for Molly's initial key request and Copper Bars used in the upgrade belong to different steps. Check your actual bar totals after processing instead of counting every piece of raw ore as a finished upgrade ingredient.

If a mine is depleted, sleeping once is not a dependable reset method. Use the mine reset guide to understand the relevant regeneration rules and triggers. Waiting for an assumed overnight refill can make a straightforward materials shortage look like broken progression.

Continue toward Quality Axe

The next recorded tier is Quality Axe, using Sturdy Axe as its tool prerequisite. The earlier recipe combines it with Hardwood, Void Crystal Bars, Verdite Bars, and Green Crystals. This is a separate gathering stage from the copper-and-iron upgrade.

As with Sturdy Axe, treat these quantities as an earlier recipe reference and verify the forge's current list. Raw crystals and named metal bars are not all the same material type. Match both the item name and the processed form instead of collecting anything with “crystal” in its name.

The materials point beyond the starting farming area. If your immediate obstruction is access to a new region, use the Old Woods access walkthrough to check the task chain. Owning a recipe does not by itself mean every region containing its ingredients is already open.

Keep the Sturdy Axe while preparing this tier. The pattern of retaining prerequisite tools continues in the recorded recipe. There is no benefit to removing it before checking how the next upgrade uses it.

Later tiers and similarly named equipment

Superior Axe follows Quality Axe in the recorded tool progression. An earlier recipe lists Quality Axe, a Crafting Pattern, 2 Steel Bars, a Gold Plate, and 5 Bone Ingots. These are later materials; confirm the current recipe and your access to them before planning around the list.

Tool descriptions associate Rusty, Basic, Sturdy, Quality, and Superior axes with increasing woodcutting capability. That does not provide a verified tree-by-tree map of what every tier can remove in the release build. Use the interaction message on the actual obstacle to decide whether another upgrade is necessary.

A combat weapon with “axe” in its name should not be substituted for a woodcutting tool. The equipment combination list also contains weapons such as Cursed Axe, which belongs to a different recipe path. Selecting a weapon because its name sounds stronger will not establish that it satisfies a tree's tool requirement.

Pickaxe recipes are another easy source of confusion because they appear in the same workshop. Their metal quantities can differ from axe recipes. Always check the output name before treating a screenshot, menu row, or remembered material total as your axe shopping list.

Resolve an upgrade that still appears blocked

If there is no upgrade menu, recheck that you are using the anvil's Upgrade tab. If the Sturdy Axe cannot be made, check for both Rusty Axe and Basic Axe, then compare every bar count with the visible requirements. If Basic Axe is missing, return to Adrian and confirm that Tentacle Cleanup has actually been turned in.

If processing materials is the problem, carry the raw inputs and load the Furnace rather than expecting it to collect every ore from storage. Processing distinguishes fuel access from ingredient loading. Once the bars are complete, reopen the forge recipe to see which requirement remains.

If the upgrade succeeds but the target tree still refuses the tool, read the new message rather than repeatedly attempting the same interaction. The obstacle may need a higher tier than the one you just created. Resume the next recipe or task requirement indicated by your current equipment and region access.

The reliable route is to keep the early tools, open Molly's workshop, finish Adrian's reward chain, and craft through the forge. A sudden tool jump caused by an unexplained event is not part of that route. Use the named tasks and recipe requirements to make your next step predictable.