Kuye Temple Prayer Beads Guide - Phantom Blade Zero Summons

Overview

The Kuye Temple Prayer Beads are a Summoning-type Phantom Edge — the first of their class you can earn in the game. The card reads: “An ancient string of prayer beads left behind by Master Bi Hai of Kuye Temple. Unadorned, yet bearing the weight of countless years. When invoked, it summons the long-departed disciples of Kuye Temple to fight by your side.” At level 1 the summons bring 1,236 Summon Health and 22 Summon Damage, and rather than hurting enemies directly, the beads call allies who hold aggro, juggle crowds, and — once tempered — break enemy Sha-Chi just by being hit.

How to Get It: The Smuggler’s Tunnel Route

Rest at the Smuggler’s Tunnel Entrance bell in the Village of Lu, then walk through the pink fog beside it. Master Bi Hai waits in a paved arena past the dying Wounded Thief, meditating inside a giant golden bell — our Master Bi Hai boss guide walks the fight, the bell, and his bronze monks. Win and the reward card appears immediately: the beads plus 15,600 Remnant Dust, with an “Equip now?” prompt. The victory also strips the second thread seal from the village well and opens the tunnel as your back-door route into Pangzhen, so this edge pays out in routing as much as in combat. AllThingsHow clocks him at 37,520 HP on Pathbreaker; heavy, shield-breaking swings — the Dread Axe’s charged cleave or the Tianxuan Bronze Sword — crack his bell fastest.

How the Summons Work

Summoning follows four strict rules, per Game8, Fextralife and GameHelpBase:

1. Location-gated. The summon only works “in areas dense with Sha-Chi” — the Phantom Edge icon glows when the local density allows it. Dead zones exist, so check the icon before counting on your monks.
2. Paid in Sparks. Each cast costs 2 Remnant Sparks, refilled at Bells like every other Phantom Edge use.
3. Fifteen seconds, three monks. Three Fist Bronze Men appear and fight for up to 15 seconds. They leave early if killed, so treat their health as a budget you spend to buy space.
4. No stacking. Summons cannot stack — casting again replaces the current trio. Re-summon on your terms, not out of panic, or you waste the Sparks.

Traits: Golden Body to Backlash

The level track is a summoner build in miniature:

• Golden Body (Lv.5) — Bronze Men can use the Golden Body technique to become invulnerable.
• Enduring Presence Lv.1–3 (Lv.10/20/30) — slightly, then moderately, then greatly increases summon duration.
• Bronze Formation (Lv.15) — when all three Bronze Men stand on the field at once, they form a battle formation and fight coordinated.
• Backlash (Lv.25) — enemies that attack a Bronze Man in the Golden Body state lose Sha-Chi, turning your summons into a resource-denial engine.

Soul Tempering: The Golden Formation

Soul Tempering the beads costs 5,000 Remnant Dust and one Kuye Temple Sutra, the material taken from Master Bi Hai himself, and like all tempers it is irreversible — confirm the build before you commit at Myst in Pangzhen, as the Soul Tempering guide stresses. The payoff is Golden Formation: the three Bronze Men permanently upgrade into a Fist Gold Man, a Staff Gold Man, and a Blade Gold Man, each keeping every weapon upgrade previously applied to the Bronze Men. Where the base beads field three identical brawlers, the Golden Formation fields a real squad — a striker, a reach weapon, and a blade — which is why veteran summoners treat the temper as mandatory rather than optional.

Playing the Summoner

The beads change your pacing: let the trio engage first, fight beside them rather than instead of them, and re-cast only when the icon glows and the field has shifted. Their fifteen-second lifespan is long enough to stagger-lock a mid-tier enemy together, so treat the trio as combo extenders, not just decoys. Bronze Formation at Lv.15 rewards you for keeping all three alive, and Backlash at Lv.25 punishes bosses that ignore your monks. Two more Summoning edges follow later — Dusk, the Puppeteer drops the Puppeteer’s Bell in the same region’s depths, and the Swordsman’s Summon waits in the Mandate Encampment — but the Prayer Beads remain the only summon line whose members hard-counter Sha-Chi through Backlash. For where this edge sits among all secondaries, see the Phantom Edge catalog.

Verdict

The Kuye Temple Prayer Beads are the gentlest on-ramp to Phantom Blade Zero’s summoning class: cheap to cast, self-replacing, and front-loaded with utility from the moment the card appears. Temper them the moment you can afford the Sutra — the Golden Formation is the difference between three helpers and a squad, and it is the only irreversible temper most players never regret.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you get the Kuye Temple Prayer Beads in Phantom Blade Zero? Beat Master Bi Hai of Kuye Temple through the pink fog beside the Smuggler’s Tunnel Entrance bell in the Village of Lu; the beads drop with 15,600 Remnant Dust.

Where do the Prayer Beads work — why won’t my summon fire? Only in areas dense with Sha-Chi, indicated by the Phantom Edge icon glowing. If the icon is dim, the cast is unavailable no matter how many Remnant Sparks you hold.

Do the summoned Bronze Men scale with weapon upgrades? Yes. All upgrades applied to the Bronze Men carry over when Soul Tempering converts them into the Golden Formation’s Fist, Staff and Blade Gold Men.

Are the Prayer Beads better than the Puppeteer’s Bell? Different jobs: the Bell specializes in puppet crowd-control, while the Prayer Beads front three durable martial monks whose Backlash trait drains boss Sha-Chi. Most summoners keep both once Dusk falls.

Sources

• AllThingsHow — How to Get Kuye Temple Prayer Beads in Phantom Blade Zero
• G2A News — Phantom Blade Zero guide: weapons, bosses, endings, quests
• Phantom Blade Atlas — Phantom Blade Zero map & weapons guide
• GameHelpBase — Kuye Temple Prayer Beads: acquisition, operation and upgrades

Source note: summon rules and trait levels cross-checked across Game8, Fextralife, GameHelpBase and AllThingsHow; boss HP and Dust payout per AllThingsHow launch-week capture. Exact summon scaling past level 30: community mapping in progress.