Valor Mortis Ferrofluid Upgrades: Costs and Locations

The Ferrofluid Flask in Valor Mortis is upgraded at any Lantern with two items: Power Upgrades raise how much each sip heals, from 50 up to 140, and Empty Ferrofluid Flasks add one extra charge each to the 3 you start with. It takes 24 Power Upgrades to max the healing and all 9 Empty Flasks to reach 12 charges. This page covers the menu, the full cost table and where every upgrade is hidden, as of November 2026.

We checked this against All Things How's flask stats and Empty Flask guides, PowerPyx's list of every Ferrofluid upgrade location, the metabot.gg mechanics and Amber data, the update 1.005 patch notes and Steam's achievement list in November 2026.

How Upgrading the Flask Works

Flask upgrades are not done in the inventory or at a merchant. You rest at a Lantern and choose UPGRADE FERROFLUID FLASK from the Lantern menu, which sits next to LEVEL UP, TRAVEL and LEAVE. On PC you press E at the REST prompt, pick that option and then hold the left mouse button on the upgrade icon to spend the item. The screen has two tracks:

• Upgrade Ferrofluid Potency spends Power Upgrades. Each step adds 10 healing per sip.
• Increase Maximum Flask Charges spends one Empty Ferrofluid Flask per step and adds one charge.

The two tracks use separate items, so you never have to choose between more sips and stronger sips. A fresh character has 3 charges that each restore 50 Health. That is half of your starting 100 Health per sip, which feels generous early on but falls behind fast once bosses start landing 50-damage unblockables. On PC the flask is drunk with F.

Potency Costs: 50 to 140 Healing

Potency climbs in nine steps of 10 healing each, and the price per step rises as you go. All Things How recorded the exact costs from the Lantern screen:

1. 50 to 60: 1 Power Upgrade
2. 60 to 70: 2 Power Upgrades
3. 70 to 80: 2 Power Upgrades
4. 80 to 90: 2 Power Upgrades
5. 90 to 100: 3 Power Upgrades
6. 100 to 110: 3 Power Upgrades
7. 110 to 120: 3 Power Upgrades
8. 120 to 130: 4 Power Upgrades
9. 130 to 140: 4 Power Upgrades

That adds up to 24. PowerPyx counts 25 Power Upgrades in the game: 21 in chests, one from a side quest and three sold by Louis. So you have exactly one spare, which means you can miss a single Power Upgrade and still reach 140, but not two. The first few steps are cheap, so spend them as soon as you find them: going from 50 to 80 healing costs only five upgrades and makes a big difference to the early bosses.

Charges: Every Empty Ferrofluid Flask

There are 9 Empty Ferrofluid Flasks. Eight sit in chests across eight regions and one is sold by Louis's Laboratoire at the Abandoned Church for 5,000 Catalysts. With all nine you go from 3 charges to 12, which matches the metabot.gg game data. One note on conflicting numbers: PowerPyx's page describes the cap as 11 usages, while All Things How's Lantern screens show 3 starting charges and metabot.gg counts 9 additions, so 12 is the figure the other two sources point to.

The Empty Flask locations, in the order PowerPyx lists them:

1. Valley of Ashes, The Climb: a chest left of the next Lantern after the bridge platforming.
2. Fallen Village, Marketplace: a chest to the right of the second plague pillar with grapple points.
3. Abandoned Church: bought from Louis from Chapter 4 onward.
4. Caverns, Old Mine: a chest on a spinning platform past the first left turn.
5. Vale of Wrath, Under the Bridge: a chest beside the tree with hanging bodies in the fishing village.
6. Cursed Hollow, Village Church: a chest left of the shortcut back to the previous Lantern.
7. The Outskirts, Market Square: a chest on the top floor of the larger house, entered through a hole in the wall.
8. University, Main Hall: a chest behind the statue after pulling a switch.
9. Fortress, Courtyard: a chest in the room opened by finishing The Oathbound side quest.

That last one is easy to miss because it depends on a side quest. Our Eternal Guard locations guide walks through all seven duels you need for The Oathbound before the Fortress chamber opens.

Where the Power Upgrades Are

PowerPyx's list puts the 25 Power Upgrades in nine areas plus Louis's shop. Grouped by region, so you can sweep each one in a single visit:

• Valley of Ashes (2): a dead-end chest behind an enemy at the Guidepost, left of the path before the swing pole, and a chest by the zipline on the upper level of the Quarry after the grapple points.
• Fallen Village (2): a chest by a well in the large house in the Fields, and one in the corner house down the first left path in the Marketplace.
• Caverns (2): both in the Old Mine, one on a platform corner past a freezable lever box and one at the bottom of an elevator shaft behind a Volunteer, after you have the Mining Shaft Key.
• Vale of Wrath (2): inside a building beside gears you freeze with Stasis at Under the Bridge, and under the deck near three enemies in the Ship Graveyard.
• Cursed Hollow (3): two upper-floor chests near the Village Church, one reached by jumping from stairs and one by climbing a carriage, plus the reward for The Curious Case of Seamus Diggory at Silent Cannons.
• The Outskirts (1): a chest on the slope after the Justicar Aurelius arena.
• City of Orphans (3): a courtyard chest after a miniboss and an open-area chest before the tower in Tribunal Square, and a room in the Sewers reached by grappling from the exploding enemy.
• University (3): behind the library statue in the Main Hall once the vines are cleared, and two explosive chests at the ends of the gas and poison hallways in the Lift Shaft.
• Fortress (4): behind boxes past the Traverse Lantern, behind the Armoury Key door in the Chapel, near a dead end past the ladder to the cannon enemies on the Ramparts, and inside the building opened with the Captain's Key in the Traverse.
• Louis's Laboratoire (3): one each from Chapters 4, 5 and 9, at 3,000 Catalysts apiece.

Louis's stock is worth buying as soon as it appears. Nine thousand Catalysts for three Power Upgrades plus five thousand for the Empty Flask is cheap next to the cost of leveling, and our Catalyst farming guide shows how quickly you can raise that amount if you are short.

Ambers and Skills That Change the Flask

Four Ambers in the Ferrofluid Flask family stack on top of your upgrades, and a few others interfere with them:

• Iron Grip makes flask use 50% faster and stops enemies interrupting it, which matters more than raw healing against fast bosses.
• Tomorrow's Promise adds a 10-second regeneration to each sip and raises total healing by 10%, 20% or 30% by rank.
• Potent Concoction makes each sip refill 20% to 40% Nephtoglobin as well, fuel for your Transmutations.
• Limit Break turns overhealing into temporary bonus Health for 15 seconds.
• Butcher's Carnage stops the flask healing you at all, and Life Diverted turns flask healing into Nephtoglobin. Do not slot either with a flask-focused setup.

On the skill board, the Healing Effectiveness node adds 5% per purchase, up to 20% with all four. The Amber guide explains slots and ranks, and our breakdown of how defense works without armor shows how flask healing fits next to Health and resistance upgrades.

When to Prioritize the Flask

A simple rule: spend every Power Upgrade the moment you find it until you reach 100 healing, because those steps are cheap, and always grab Empty Flasks on sight. The boss Health pools in our full boss order climb from 1,800 for Lothaire to 5,000 for Entity, and longer fights mean more sips. A 12-charge, 140-potency flask restores 1,680 Health over a full bar of charges, more than enough to absorb a bad phase.

Two small things to know. Update 1.005 on 23 October 2026 fixed a bug where Ferrofluid Flask upgrades did not save correctly, so if you spent upgrades on launch week and the count looks wrong, check it again on the current patch. And yes, there is an achievement for panicking: Rookie Mistake unlocks when you try to drink with no charges left, and 70.9% of Steam players have it as of November 2026. Its cousin, In the Nick of Time, pops when you reach a Lantern below 20% Health with no flasks remaining, and 59.6% of players have that one too. Both numbers say the same thing: most people run dry on healing at some point, and every Empty Flask you find pushes that moment further back.

Starting With a Maxed Flask

Tracking down 24 Power Upgrades and 9 Empty Flasks takes most of a playthrough. The store's Mega Modded Save starts with the Ferrofluid Flask already fully upgraded to 12 charges and 140 potency, alongside a level 264 character, 999,999 Catalysts and every material at 9,999. You begin at the first Lantern of Chapter I, so the whole map is still ahead of you.

It is for PS5 and PC, not Xbox, and the game itself is not included. More options for this game are on the Valor Mortis store page.

Frequently Asked Questions