The Academy of Raya Lucaria is the second so-called Legacy Dungeon in the open world role-playing game Elden Ring by FromSoftware. The academy is located in the sea country of Liurnia. During the first visit, players will notice that the path is blocked with a magical barrier, which they must first break through.
How to get into the Raya Lucaria Academy? Elden Ring, Tips
After players defeat Godrick the Grafted at Storm Veil Castle, they enter a new area of the interlands from his throne room. This is the Liurnia Lakescape and is a vast region centered around a large lake plateau.
Near the starting point, players will see a small ruin, which upon closer inspection turns out to be the Church of Irith. When the players enter the ruined church, an NPC in a purple robe sits against the right wall. He introduces himself to the players as Thops, and was himself once a student at the Academy of Raya Lucaria. However, he was cast out and is now not coming back. Thops tells the players that they need a so-called Glintstone Key from the Academy before they can enter Raya Lucaria. These keys are extremely rare and contain magical energy that can be used to overcome magical barriers.
If the players travel to the academy afterwards, they will find the mentioned barrier sealing the south gate. Right nearby, players will find a corpse from which they can take a note. The note points to a secret meeting place where the players can obtain a Glintstone key.
Finding the Glintstone Key of Raya Lucaria
The clue from the corpse directs players to a small island located southwest of the Raya Lucaria Academy and north of the Temple Quarter. The stained know they are in the right area when they see a group of tear scarabs flying in the air.
Unfortunately, there is no NPC waiting for the players on said island to just kindly hand them the Glintstone Key they are looking for. Instead, they find the sleeping Glintstone Dragon, Smarag, just outside the island. Now the players have two options, and both options are difficult in their own way. They can attack the dragon directly and try to fight it. The dragon has the same attack patterns as the dragon Agheel in Limgrave. However, Smarag deals significantly more damage and its magic attacks can finish off even stains of a higher level in just one hit. The most sensible option is to ride up to the dragon on horseback, give it a quick hit or two, and retreat to get out of range of Smarag’s fire attacks. Spirit summons are of little help, unfortunately, because the dragon can make short work of them.
If players manage to defeat Smarag, they receive his dragon heart and 14000 runes. In addition, the way to the small island is free, where they can take the sought-after Glintstone key for the academy of Raya Lucaria from a corpse.
If you don’t want to fight the dragon, you can also try to sneak past it. This is difficult because the dragon is right in front of the island and it’s easy to accidentally bump into it once, but with a little practice you can get to the corpse with the key without fighting.
What awaits players at the Raya Lucaria Academy? Elden Ring
The Academy of Raya Lucaria is a much more open and expansive legacy dungeon compared to Castle Storm Veil. Among other things, tainted players will have to work their way through the Academy’s antechambers as well as its various study rooms, including minor detours through ruined graveyards or the Academy’s rooftops. The setup is similar to the Duke’s Archives from Dark Souls 1.
The main opponents in Raya Lucaria are wizards, who hurl around a palette of different magic attacks. But zombies crawling out of the ground and puppet warriors also make life difficult for the stained.
At the end of the academy, the Moon Princess Rennala awaits the players in a room full of smaller enemies. As the bearer of a fragment of the Elden Ring, she also possesses correspondingly great powers and will not part with her Great Rune so easily. So players will have to be prepared for a challenging battle before they can complete the Raya Lucaria Academy.