Skyrim: How To Make Gold With The Transmute Spell?

Learn how to make many by using the Transmute Spell in Skyrim!

If there’s one thing that fans of Skyrim know all too well, it’s the struggle of never having quite enough gold to purchase that next big house or powerful piece of gear. So every player knows that if you intend to make a big purchase, you have to constantly be looting enemy corpses for items to sell. But it doesn’t always have to be this way. We’ll show you How to make Gold with the Skyrim Transmute spell.

Key Takeaways
  • In Skyrim, players often struggle with insufficient gold to buy houses or powerful gear.
  • The Transmute Spell is a unique ability allowing players to transform ore, such as Iron Ore into Silver Ore, then into Gold Ore.
  • Locations to find the Transmute Spell include Halted Stream Camp, Ansilvund tomb, or purchasing from Telfair at the College of Winterhold.

How To Get Gold With Transmute In Skyrim?

Skyrim Transmute
The Transmute Spell [Screenshot by eXputer]
The Transmute Mineral Ore spell is an extremely unique ability in Skyrim that allows players to turn ores from one form to another.

So for example, if you have a piece of Iron Ore, you can cast this spell to turn it into Silver Ore. Casting the spell a second time will then turn that Silver Ore into Gold Ore. All it takes is two different uses of this ability to increase the value of Iron Ore by 250%.

Players can use this final valuable product to craft gold accessories like rings and necklaces and sell them for even more money than what the raw material itself costs. Those who are willing to devote a few hours to this process will eventually find themselves swimming in gold coins.

How To Find The Spell

Skyrim Transmute.
Halted Stream Camp [Screenshot by eXputer]
Now there are three main sources through which you can get your hands on the Transmute spell.

The first of these is a bandit hideout to the north of Whiterun known as the Halted Stream Camp. Players can kill a few different enemies in the external area of this location, to then gain access to the mineshaft built into the hillside on the back.

There are a few more foes inside the mine, including a particularly tough Bandit Chief, but clearing them out should be your first priority. Once the dust has settled, you can locate the Spell Tome on a table right next to where the enemy leader was standing.

One Spell Tome can also be found inside the Ansilvund tomb to the north of Riften. You visit this location as part of a few different quests, but one in particular, ‘A Love Beyond Death,’ automatically starts when players are halfway through the area.

See this quest through to the end, after which you can locate the spell on a table next to another important quest item.

Skyrim Transmute
A Transmute Spell Tome [Screenshot by eXputer]
A final Skyrim Transmute Tome can be purchased from the NPC Tolfdir at the College of Winterhold after you have gained access to the institution and reached at least skill level 50 in Alteration.

We personally recommend that you go for the Spell Tome located at the Halted Stream Camp because it is the one you have access to the earliest. The hideout is also fairly close to the first major city you visit in the game, and it has a bunch of ore veins from which you can mine Iron.

In the off chance that you are unable to get this one in particular, then you should resort to the other two sources.

How To Make Money

Skyrim Transmute
Mining Iron Ore [Screenshot by eXputer]
The Transmute spell is an adept level spell, that has a base cost of 88 Magicka. This is not a particularly high requirement, but players who are not focused on mage builds may find that they can only cast this spell once every minute or so. This is an extremely slow rate of conversion.

  • To speed this process up quite a bit, purchase a set of Novice Robes of Alteration for your character. Equipping this will increase your Magicka regeneration by 50%, and Alteration spells will cost 12% less to cast.
  • If you find that you’re still running out of Magicka quickly, an instant way to reset the meter is to use the ‘Wait’ function to skip time forward an hour.
  • Next, make sure that you are carrying a bunch of Iron Ore in your inventory because this is not a spell that you cast onto an object. Using it automatically changes the state of an ore without any direct interaction from the player.
  • Once you have accumulated a ton of Gold Ore, use a Smelter to turn two pieces of it into one Gold Ingot. Then use this ingot to craft either one Gold Necklace or two Gold Rings.
  • If you have some precious stones with you such as Diamonds or Rubies, you can incorporate them to craft even more valuable variations of these accessories.

Now, you can finally sell these items to merchants to earn a bunch of gold. In fact, this entire process of using magic, crafting items, and then selling them, creates a chain of sequences that also level up your Alteration, Smithing, and Speech skills.

This has been our Skyrim Transmute gold guide. If you’re short on money, then this article should help you out.

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Feedback From Our Fellow Gamers

Your hard work is appreciated! Great info

Didn\'t know I could change iron ore to silver ore Thanks.

Very informative article. Thank you for doing all the research.

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Huzaifa is eXputer's Review Editor, who’s all about RPG games. He’s got several years of experience critically judging games and writing his unbiased thoughts on them. You can also find his content published on sites like Twinfinite & GearNuke. Huzaifa has been gaming for 23+ years, during which he managed to amass 400+ hours on Elden Ring! You can follow his gaming activity on his Xbox and Steam Profiles.

Experience: 5+ years || Previously Worked At GearNuke & Twinfinite || Mainly Covers RPG Guides & Latest Games Reviews || Education: Bachelors in Hospitality.

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