Skyrim Enchanting guide - Quick leveling walkthrough

Only fools think they can get the strongest weapons and armor by looting chests and corpses as they hack and slash their way through Skyrim. The smart ones enchant their own gear, creating custom masterpieces any Dragonborn would be proud to equip. Of course, only a master Enchanter can really make good on such claims, which is why we’ve written a guide to help you get that skill level up to 100 in no time.

There are three ways to level your Enchanting Skill: disenchanting enchanted items (which also teaches you the associated enchantment), enchanting items, and recharging weapons with souls gems.  We’re going to show you how to boost your skill using the former two methods.

Before you start intentionally boosting your Enchanting skill, however, you should at least seek out The Mage Stone, which is found among the Guardian Stones, southwest of Riverwood. Activating this stone makes leveling Enchanting (among other skills) 20% faster. You should also make sure you have the Well Rested buff for an additional 10% boost or the Lover’s Comfort buff (gained by sleeping with your spouse) for 15%.

Table of Contents

Disenchanting and Soul Gems

Methods of Leveling

Enchanting trainers, book locations and skill boosting quests

Disenchanting

Above: Pretty? Sure. But a small fry compared to what you’ll create as a master Enchanter

Depending on where you are in the game and how much time and effort you’ve put into Enchanting, you may have tons of gear stashed away that is already enchanted. If you haven’t dabbled much in Enchanting yet, chances are you’ll have to disenchant/destroy these items at an Arcane Enchanter in order to learn various enchantments anyway. Fortunately, disenchanting earns you a huge skill boost each time you do it - usually more than enchanting gear yourself.

Soul Gems

Above: Oh, the skulls? Never mind the skulls...

The size of the soul gem (make sure they’re filled) used in the Enchanting process will affect the resulting value and strength of the item being enchanted, but will not affect how much experience you get from the process (nor will the item or enchantment, the skill increase is always the same flat rate). As such, we recommend sticking to petty or lesser soul gems as you grind for experience, as they’re cheaper to buy and easier to find. If you’re looking to make some mad profit, however, feel free to use higher level gems - especially on expensive jewelry.

We don’t recommend going out and filling empty soul gems yourself. Yes, it’s cheaper to do that, but considering the fact that you can sell your enchanted creations for a profit, buying filled petty/lesser gems is the easier route if you’re solely looking to level up. Magic and general goods merchants carry soul gems.

Using What You Already Have (and an Invisible Chest)

Again, depending on what point you’ve reached in the game, you may already have access to lots of useless and cheap weapons and armor. The same goes with soul gems, unless you’ve sold them all off. If you have sold them, there are plenty to simply pick up from the Archmage Quarters in the College of Winterhold, and they’re strewn about dungeons all over Skyrim (especially Dwarven ruins). So, before you start going after the Iron Dagger method detailed in the next section, we recommend enchanting all of the useless equipment you already own and selling or stashing it.

Above: The fabled invisible chest of Dawnstar

In addition to that, we suggest you track down the invisible chest in Dawnstar (see video above) as it is filled to the brim with soul gems, enchanted gear, and non-enchanted gear. This chest belongs to Ahkari, a traveling Khajiit merchant who often appears at the entrance to Dawnstar. The contents reflect her inventory (so, for example, you can get your gold back if you were to buy anything from her). After looting the chest, wait 48 hours and the chest will be filled again with new goodies. If it isn’t, try speaking to Ahkari again.

Above: Little does she know they already are...

Simply disenchanting all the gear you continually find in this chest is a fantastic way to boost your skill, not to mention learn all the enchantments in the game. Just know that once you learn an enchantment, you can no longer disenchant items that have that particular enchantment, therefore disenchanting alone cannot be your sole means of maxing out your Enchanting skill.

This is all assuming, of course, that you are only interested in boosting your Enchanting skill. If you wish to level up your Smithing skills alongside your Enchanting skills, ignore this entire section completely and move on to the Iron Dagger/Gold Ring method.

The Iron Dagger/Gold Ring Method

The following methods have the benefit of not only increasing your Enchanting skills (since you’ll have an abundance of enchantable items), but your Smithing skills as well. Keep in mind while reading that ore can be turned into ingots at a Smelter.

Above: Get used to seeing these

Creating Iron Daggers at a blacksmith forge is extremely easy and cheap. The only required ingredients are one leather strip and one iron ingot. Not only are these ingredients easy to find/create, but blacksmiths such as Alvor in Riverwood sell both of them and have decent stocks. The point of doing this is so that you’ll have plenty of Iron Daggers to enchant at Arcane Enchanters, thus allowing you to easily boost your Enchanting skill.

Above: “I hope Lydia says yes!”

Now, creating Iron Daggers does slightly increase your Smithing skill and adds up given how many you can easily forge. However, if you have the Transmute spell, you can easily turn iron ore into silver ore or silver ore into gold ore. If you don’t have it, a Transmute spell tome is most easily found inside the caves of the Halted Stream Camp. The spell can be found on a table next to a mammoth corpse and a grindstone. The camp should only take a few minutes to clear out and is a short walk north from Whiterun.

Gold ore can be used to create gold ingots that are the only required ingredients to make gold rings, which of course can be enchanted. If you have the Transmute spell, this process is almost as easy as creating Iron Daggers, but gives your Smiting skill a much larger boost and a much more valuable end product.

Enchanting Skill Trainer Locations

You can also pay coin to have your skill leveled up for you. There are two Enchanting trainers in Skyrim:

Sergius Turrianus

Sergius teaches Enchanting inside the College of Winterhold. You can find him in the Hall of Elements or the Hall of Countenance. He is an Expert-level trainer.

Hamal

Hamal can be found inside the Inner Sanctum of the Temple of Dibella in Markarth. You’ll either need to pick the lock on the door (expert or master level) or pickpocket the key from Senna, who keeps watch nearby. You’ll also have to complete Hamal’s quest, “The Heart of Dibella,” before she will offer her training services. She is a Master-level trainer.

Enchanting Book Locations

There are five books to be found throughout Skyrim that enhance your Enchanting skill upon reading. Below you’ll find the locations for said books, though you only get the boost upon your first read.

Catalogue of Weapon Enchantments

• Leaning against the treasure chest in the center of the Roadside Ruins, just northwest of Falkreath
• On an upstairs table in Emporer’s Tower of Castle Dour in Solitude
• Between two barrels inside The White Hall of Dawnstar
• Quest reward from Urag gro-Shrub of the College of Winterhold for completing “Hitting the Books”
• On an Arcane Enchanter in Darkwater Pass

Catalog of Armor Enchantments

• On a shelf in Falion’s House in Morthal
• Next to the Arcane Enchanter in Fort Amol, southwest of Windhelm
• At the Shrine of Mehrunes Dagon, a Daedric shrine on the mountain east of Morthal
• Below deck of the Brinehammer shipwreck, west of Dawnstar
• On a table inside Steamscorch Mine of Kynesgrove, just south of Windhelm

Enchanter’s Primer

• On the floor of Carlotta Valentia’s House in Whiterun
• On the Arcane Enchanter inside Hob’s Fall Cave, at the midway point between Dawnstar and Winterhold
• Inside Honeyside (a purchasable home) in Riften
• In a cart next to some corpses just west of Whistling Mine, southwest of Winterhold
• Next to a shrine just northwest of Valthume, a location far southeast of Markarth

Twin Secrets

• In Calcelmo’s Lab in Markarth
• On the Arcane Enchanter in Serpent’s Bluff Redoubt, a Forswron camp just southwest of Rorisktead, southwest of Dawnstar
• In a basket on a barrel in a room inside Jarl’s Longhouse of Winterhold
• Near the Shrine of Stendarr, southeast of Swindler’s Den, south of Dawnstar and east of Rorisktead
• In the bandit chief’s room of Treva’s Watch, far west of Riften

A Tragedy in Black

• In the room with the Arcane Enchanter in Ilinalta’s Deep, directly north of Falkreath
• On a bookshelf in Bruca’s Leap Redoubt, a Forsworn camp west of Dragon Bridge
• Near the Arcane Enchanter in Glenmoril Coven, a cave northwest of Falkreath
• At the Shrine of Akatosh, northeast of Twilight Sepulcher, directly west of Falkreath
• On a crate just east of Eldergleam Sanctuary, northeast of Ivarstead

Enchanting Quests

There are a small number of quests that, upon completion, boost your Enchanting skill. They are as follows:

Discerning the Transmundane (+5 to Enchanting upon completion)

To begin this quest, seek out Septimus Signus in his outpost north of the College of Winterhold (pictured above). The quest is lengthy, but at the end, choose the ‘path of the mage’ for your stat boost.

Find Pantea’s Flute Quest (+1 to Enchanting upon completion)

To take on this quest, speak to Pantea in the Bard’s College (or the Winking Skeever inn) of Solitude. The flute is in Hob’s Fall Cave.