Technologies

God of War Ragnarok: Muspelheim Seed Locations

Here’s how to unlock God of War: Ragnarok’s Muspelheim Combat Trials, and what you get for completing them.

Sure, God of War: Ragnarok has recieved plenty of acclaim for its thoughtful story. But really, all God of War games mostly consist of Kratos killing things. Big things, small things, slow things, fast things. Kratos kills ’em all. Just like in its predecessor, Kratos’ killing skills can be put to the test in exchange for valuable resources in Muspelheim’s Combat Trials.

This guide will explain how to unlock the Muspelheim Crucible, as well as go through what rewards you get for completing its many Combat Trials.

Opening the portal to Muspelheim requires Kratos & Co. to find two Muspelheim Seed Halves which, when combined, act as a key, opening passage to the fiery realm. Both Muspelheim Seed Halves can be found in Svartalfhiem, the land of the Dwarves and the first open area that Ragnarok permits you to explore. Unfortunately, you’ll need the Draupnir Spear, a weapon you get well into the story, to get access to the second Muspelheim Seed Half.

How to find the first Muspelheim Seed Half

You can find the first Muspelheim Seed Half by accepting the first side quest (or “favor”, as the game calls them) in God of War: Ragnarok. In the course of the game’s story, Kratos and Atreus seek out Durlin, a Dwarf who famously led a resistance movement against Asgard. Before finding him, you encounter another Dwarf, Raeb, who encourages Kratos to undo some of the harm done by Mimir and Odin years ago.

This unlocks a side quest titled In Service of Asgard, which tasks you with breaking down some old mining rigs that pollute Svartalfhiem Bay. Definitely do this side quest. It nets you an armor set, a Light Runic attack and unlocks several other side quests. Most notable of these is the side quest that gets you into Muspelheim.

As part of In Service of Asgard, you’ll find Modvitnir’s Rig, which you’ll need to destroy. Once you disembark, climb up the wall on the right, jump over the bridge and scale another wall. Atop you’ll find a chest containing a Muspelheim Seed Half.

Where to find the second Muspelheim Seed Half

The second part of the key to Muspelheim is basically around the corner, but you’ll need new equipment to access the area it’s in. This is a no-spoiler guide, so I won’t write about how you get the Draupnir Spear — other than it’s a weapon you get a good way through Ragnarok’s story.

Soon after you get the Draupnir Spear, you’ll encounter a character who embarks you on another side quest called Spirit of Rebellion. To complete that quest, you’ll end up travelling to Dragon’s Beach, which features the notable landmark of a giant Dwarf statue.

After you clear out the enemies on the beachfront, you’ll see a wooden structure you can climb up on the left of the beachfront (you can see it pictured below, directly in front of Kratos’ boat). There you’ll see a hole out of which a gust of air is blowing. Throw the Draupnir Spear into it, and Kratos will be able to swing to the platform above.

Follow the path and you’ll clear out enemies and find the item you need to complete the Spirit of Rebellion favor. Instead of going back the way you came, however, go through the path to the left of the big ol’ Dwarf statue. There you’ll find a family of ogres you’ll need to slaughter.

There’ll be a bunch of debris covering a chest. After you kill the ogres, you can toss a fire bomb from a nearby generator into the debris, allowing you access to the chest. In the picture below you can see where to get the fire bomb and where the chest is. Inside you’ll find the second Muspelheim Seed Half.

Muspelheim’s first Combat Trials

Once you get the Muspelheim Crucible, one of the first things you’ll notice is a Nornir Chest. Unlocking this one is unlike any other in God of War: Ragnarok, however. To remove the three letters from the chest, you’ll have to complete the six different trials immediately available to you.

Each area of the Crucible’s three areas features a sword monument at its center. Interacting with the monument gives you the option between two different combat trials. Completing these trials yields the Undying Pyres Armor Set. The Bracers and Girdle increase how quickly your Permaforst, Immolation and Maelstrom gauge fills up, while the Shoulder Guard offers a perk that sees Kratos gain a shield. That shield prevents the first hit you take from resetting those gauges once filled. You also get Divine Ashes, which are used to craft and upgrade various armor sets and weapon accessories.

Here’s all six trials and the rewards for clearing them.

Population Control: Kill the Bergsra without the the enemy count going above 4. If there are more than 4 enemies, a timer will begin to count you out. This is among the harder Combat Trials, in that it’s particularly difficult to use skill to make up for a lower level or underpowered weapons. If you’re having trouble, come back when you’re strong enough to more quickly take out the grunts. Rewards: Girdle of Undying Pyres, 250 Divine Ashes, 1,000 Hacksilver
King of the Hill: Three highlighted circles will appear throughout the area. You’ll be barraged by three waves of enemies, who will eat away at the trial’s timer if they stand in any of the circles. Like Population Control, this is a difficult one if you’re underpowered. Since you’ll have the option to swing between areas, make use of Kratos’ Death from Above attacks. (Press R1 or R2 while you’re in midair.) Rewards: 250 Divine Ashes, 1,000 Hacksilver.
Weapon Mastery: Kill 16 enemies in 3 minutes. The first wave has frost shields, the second has flame shields. After that, you’ll be met with a couple of waves of enemies with mixed shields, including ones you’ll need to use the Draupnir Spear to break. The hardest wave consists of a Draugr Lord, a Draugr Scout and a flame-shielded Nokken that will heal them both. Rewards: Shoulder Guard of Undying Pyres, 250 Divine Ashes, Hacksilver.
Flawless: Kill 15 enemies without taking damage. This one is most simple, and not as hard as it sounds — until the Dodher Gradungr beast comes out. This bull-like monster can lunge at you from far distances, and is accompanied by enemies launching ranged attacks. Keep that shield up, and make good use of the Draupnir Spear’s ranged detonation ability. Rewards: 250 Divine Ashes, 1,000 Hacksilver.
Ring Out: Kill 21 enemies with recharging health. This is actually one of the easier trials once you figure it out. To kill enemies, you’ll have to knock them into the nearby lava pits. That can be done fairly easily with moves like the Leviathan Axe’s Serpent’s Snare, and its running R2 attack. Rewards: Bracers of Undying Pyres, 250 Divine Ashes, 1,000 Hacksilver.
Feed the Rift: Kill enemies to generate orbs, then throw the orbs into the realm rifts that appear in the arena. This will be familiar if you’ve fought many Ancient Soul Eaters, and is similarly quite easy. Rewards: 250 Divine Ashes, 1,000 Hacksilver.

Once you complete all six of the Combat Trials, you unlock a Nornir chest in the central Muspelheim area which contains a Chaos Flame, which upgrades Kratos’ Blades of Chaos, as well as 10,000 XP for Kratos and 2,500 XP for his companion.

Muspelheim’s Final Challenges trials

As you may have guessed, the first six combat trials are just a warmup. After you complete them, a giant flaming sword monument appears in the central Crucible area, unlocking nine new trials.

If you go back to the three sword monuments, you’ll see that there’s a new trial offered at each. When you complete two of these new trials, lava flows to the sword in the center of Muspelheim, where you can do a “final” trial. Here’s where it gets a touch confusing

What “final” trial you get depends on which combination of two trials you complete. For instance, completing Rampage and Health Steal unlocks the Endurance final trial, but completing Health Steal and then Rampage unlocks Ring of Fire final trial. There are six combinations to complete the below three trials, resulting in six total final trials.

Rampage: Kill 20 enemies in 150 seconds. This one is straightforward, and mostly easy. It gets dicey when an Ogre hits the area about halfway through. Use attacks to stagger him as quickly as possible, which will allow you to ride its shoulders and pummel nearby enemies. Reward: Smouldering Embers, 8 Asgardian Ingots, 250 Divine Ashes and 2,500 Hacksilver.
Health Steal: Your health will be drained, but is replenished by killing enemies. This is also easy if you’re sufficiently leveled. Be aware of the enemies who pop up on ledges and fire ranged attacks at you. You’ll have to deal with a Wight at the outset, but the trickier part is at the end when a Nokken appears and heals a set of Elf Warrior enemies. Reward: Blazing Embers, 3 Luminous Alloy, 250 Divine Ashes, 2,500 Hacksilver.
Kill Fuse: Kratos has 30 seconds to kill 22 enemies, but killing enemies grants extra time. This is also easier than it sounds, as many of the enemies you’re presented with are ranged attackers who can be killed with one or two well-placed Leviathan Axe throws. You might have a slight bit of trouble from the Wulver that apears, but even he’s not too much of an issue. Reward: 4 Petrified Bone, Glowing Embers, 250 Divine Ashes, 2,500 Hacksilver.

A recurring theme in explaining the above trials is that they’re all relatively easy. That’s good, because you’ll be doing them a bunch of times. Below are the final trials, and the combinations that unlock them. By finishing all six final trials, you’ll assemble Surtr’s Scorched Armor Set and collect a trio of Muspelheim amulet enchantments.

Surtr’s Scorched Armor reduces the damage Kratos takes and increases his stagger resistance, while the amulet enchantments offer the perk of increasing Kratos’ melee damage when Permafrost, Immolation or Maelstrom are fully charged. Below is a full breakdown of the six “final” trials and their rewards.

Endurance: Kill 99 enemies without dying. Unlock Endurance Challenge by completing Rampage and then Health Steal. Rewards: Blazing Embers, 3 Smouldering Embers, 1,000 Divine Ashes, 20,000 Hacksilver and Surtr’s Scorched Curass.
Ring of Fire: Kill all enemies while staying within the safety of the fire ring. Unlock Ring of Fire by completing Health Steal and then Rampage. Rewards: Blazing Embers, 2 Smouldering Embers, Glowing Embers, 1,000 Divine Ashes, 20,000 Hacksilver, Surtr’s Scorched Arm.
Boss Rush: Kill five powerful enemies back to back (to back to back to back). You’ll face a Traveller, a Fierce Stalker, a Dark Elf Lord, a Light Elf Warrior and an Einherjar Brute. Unlock Boss Rush by completing Kill Fuse and then Health Steal. Rewards: Smouldering Embers, 2 Glowing Embers, 3 Blazing Embers, 1,000 Divine Ashes, 20,000 Hacksilver, Surtr’s Scorched Girdle.
Phantom: Kill a Flame Phantom. Unlock the Phantom challenge by completing Kill Fuse and then Rampage. Rewards: Glowing Embers, 2 Smouldering Embers, Blazing Embers, 1,000 Divine Ashes, 20,000 Hacksilver Muspelheim’s Essence amulet enchantment.
Shield Breaker: Defeat grunts to break the boss’ shield. The first boss is an Einherjar Champion, followed by a Stalker. Unlock Shield Breaker by completing Rampage and then Kill Fuse. Rewards: Glowing Embers, 2 Blazing Embers, 3 Smouldering Embers, 1,000 Divine Ashes, 20,000 Hacksilver, Muspelheim’s Force amulet enchantment.
Onslaught: Stay alive for 5 minutes. Unlock Onslaught by completing Health Steal and then Kill Fuse. Rewards: Smouldering Embers, 2 Blazing Embers, 3 Glowing Embers, 1,000 Divine Ashes, 20,000 Hacksilver, Muspelheim’s Endurance amulet enchantment.

Whichever trial you complete last will give you 100,000 Hacksilver instead of 20,000. There’s no additional treasure chest that presents itself after you finish all trials, but you will get 3,500 XP for Kratos and 1,500 XP for his companion. And, just as importantly, a sweet Trophy.

Technologies

China indicates rare earths will keep flowing to EU, regardless of U.S. trade deal expiration

European trade commissioner Maroš Sefčovič met with Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao in Beijing last week.

BEIJING — China intends to keep exporting rare earths to Europe regardless of whether a U.S. trade deal with Beijing gets extended past January.

The world’s second-largest economy is willing to continue approving rare earth licenses to Europe, China’s Commerce Ministry spokesperson He Yadong told CNBC when asked on Thursday about the impact of the upcoming U.S. deadline.

Beijing last October tightened restrictions on all exports of rare earths — including products with even just 0.1% of China-sourced rare earths. The move followed a new U.S. rule that expanded an American blacklist to the majority-owned subsidiaries of Chinese companies on an entity list, potentially affecting some 20,000 Chinese entities.

However, both the U.S. and China agreed to suspend those measures for one year at a meeting in late October 2025 between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump. Ahead of the leaders’ latest summit last month, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the truce was extended by two months to January.

Trade tensions between the EU and Beijing cooled last week after European trade commissioner Maroš Sefčovič met with Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao in Beijing. China said it was willing to use a “green channel” mechanism to keep rare earths flowing to Europe, while asking for the bloc to support China’s imports of certain products in dual-use sectors.

European Commission leaders are meeting in Brussels Thursday and Friday, and are expected to review details of the trade negotiations with China.

Technologies

Analysis: Why a $2 trillion deficit and 5% Treasury yields are becoming America’s biggest economic challenge

Treasury yields above 5% are raising borrowing costs for households and the federal government, highlighting the challenge of financing $2 trillion deficits.

Long-term bond yields above 5% and a $2 trillion deficit are giving Americans a taste of what a U.S. debt crisis would be like. A true emergency would hurt much more, and isn’t baked in. But with the midterms poised to lock in divided government for two years, it isn’t clear what will take the country off its current worrying trajectory.

Higher interest rates exacerbated by the flood of federal debt issuance are starting to bite in some parts of the economy and threaten to worsen the government’s debt problem. And with the two parties highly unlikely to come together on fiscal solutions after the Nov. 3 midterms, any fixes are years off in the future.

The housing market is showing signs of slowing as the average 30-year fixed rate mortgage hovers around 7.5%. Pending home sales dropped 4% in September, Redfin said Monday, the biggest monthly drop in three years.

Mortgage rates track the 10-year Treasury yield

Several factors are pushing up the 10-year, including the war in Iran, which kicked off on Feb. 28 and precipitated the rise in long-term yields. Oil and diesel prices are up sharply, and that has bond traders asking for more yield to account for the possibility that central banks such as the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates.

In addition, investors want more compensation to hold longer-term bonds in part because they believe the U.S. government will continue to flood the market with them. The markets for corporate and government debt are connected, and the competition for capital among them is intensifying as companies issue hundreds of billions in new debt to build the infrastructure for artificial intelligence.

Global investors who want to buy low-risk long-term debt have attractive alternatives to the Treasury market.

If the U.S. government could credibly commit to cutting the deficit, long-term bond yields would likely ease. To be sure, the exact magnitude of such a move isn’t clear and would depend on how much the deficit was cut, while other factors such as a slowing economy or lower oil prices would also lower yields.

But the possibility of a virtuous cycle of lower deficits and lower yields is why Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has argued that the U.S. ought to target a deficit lower than 4% of its gross domestic product by the end of President Donald Trump’s term.

There is almost no way the U.S. will hit that target. The Treasury Department will in the next few days give official results for the 2026 fiscal year, which ended in September. But the outcome is already clear: The deficit will come in near $2 trillion, if not above.

That is likely to put the deficit in the range of 6.0-6.2% of gross domestic product for the year, based on the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate of a $1.993 trillion deficit and a projection of third quarter GDP.

Higher rates make debt reduction tougher. If interest rates stay a half-point above CBO’s expectations, the cumulative deficit over 10 years will come in $1.9 trillion higher, the agency estimates. If rates overshoot by 1.5 points, that adds $6 trillion in deficits.

CBO expects the 10-year Treasury to average 4.3% over that period, compared to 5.3% today. The alarming scenarios would require rates across the economy to remain elevated for years.

“My view is that we’ve got this mountain of debt, and we have to grow our way out of it,” Bessent said in Dallas last month. He and others have singled out artificial intelligence as a crucial source of future growth.

AI could help but can’t fix the problem entirely. It would take a decade of 7.2% growth to balance the budget with growth alone, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a research group that advocates for balanced budgets.

GDP growth was recently revised up for the second quarter from 1.5% to 2.2% at an annualized rate. The acceleration that quickly would get us to 7.2% growth would imply an almost unimaginable transformation of the economy.

Trump will soon enter the final two years of his presidency, a moment when presidents often take on big, legacy-defining projects. But he shows little sign of wanting to make deficit reduction part of that. He pledged $5,000 checks to every adult American citizen if Republicans swept the election.

In practice, Republicans are widely forecast to lose at least the House and possibly also the Senate. Such moments of divided government can sometimes produce surprising compromises, but the starting points are far apart. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, Democrats’ likely next House speaker, wants to reverse the $1 trillion in healthcare cuts that Congress enacted last year as part of Trump’s signature legislative package.

And that’s leaving aside the deep animosity between the parties.

The overall U.S. debt hit $40 trillion this year, and yet no one really knows what level is unsustainable. A full-on debt crisis likely remains much farther out in the future. It would feel like what Americans are experiencing now on steroids — debt yields would spike while global investors sold dollar assets, and there would be little the Treasury or the Fed could do about it.

For now, though higher yields are also attracting investors to U.S. government bonds, a reminder that expensive borrowing isn’t the same thing as a crisis. But the bottom line is that economics alone can’t solve the problem. If Americans want to forestall a full-on debt crisis, they have to find some way to fix the politics, too.

Technologies

Key Details on Starshield, SpaceX’s Defense-Oriented Starlink Network

Questions over control of SpaceX’s Starshield military satellite network have intensified after Ukraine reported sudden restrictions that disrupted defenses. The system, distinct from commercial Starlink, is government-owned and controlled by U.S. authorities.

Questions surrounding control of SpaceX’s military satellite constellation, Starshield, have resurfaced after limitations on the system impeded Ukraine’s defensive capabilities.

Kyiv has leveled accusations against SpaceX

Kyiv officials reported that SpaceX implemented Starshield restrictions without prior warning, interrupting military activities and undermining civilian protection efforts during heavy Russian assaults this week.

Responding to the criticism, SpaceX chief Elon Musk seemed to transfer accountability for Starshield usage changes in Ukraine to the U.S. government and President Donald Trump. Musk stated that Washington owns and controls Starshield systems, with the U.S. military and ultimately the president setting any usage boundaries. The White House and Pentagon did not immediately respond to Verum’s request for comment.

Here’s an overview of Starshield and its distinctions from Starlink.

What is Starshield and how does it function?

Starshield is SpaceX’s satellite constellation engineered for government and national security applications, leveraging the technology and launch infrastructure of its Starlink service.

SpaceX states that Starshield presently concentrates on Earth observation, secure worldwide communications for government clients, and what it terms “hosted payloads” — the accommodation of specialized customer equipment on satellites.

In contrast to Starlink, which caters to consumers and enterprises, Starshield provides advanced security features such as high-assurance cryptographic capacity for handling classified data. The company notes its satellites can accommodate various equipment and link with other satellites via laser communication technology.

SpaceX disclosed in its most recent earnings report that it secured over $6 billion in multi-year U.S. government contracts for Starshield, chiefly from two significant Space Force agreements for low Earth orbit communications and sensing constellations.

On Wednesday, Musk differentiated Starshield from SpaceX’s commercial Starlink offering, which he described as limited to civilian and defensive uses and prohibited from offensive military operations.

How does Starshield contrast with Starlink?

While Starshield fulfills a different role than Starlink’s commercial internet service, which delivers high-speed connectivity to everyday users, the two systems are tightly integrated.

Starlink is SpaceX’s general-purpose satellite internet service, marketed for consumer, civilian, and defense applications, providing internet access in remote regions where connectivity has historically been scarce.

Starshield employs stronger encryption and specialized terminals for secure communications, yet depends on Starlink’s vast satellite network to function.

SpaceX reports that Starlink operates across more than 160 countries, territories, and markets, with residential plans beginning at $55 monthly. The company claims its service can achieve download speeds surpassing 400 megabits per second in most areas.