This guide will show you content after shard 5

it is highly recommendet to at least beat shard 5 before reading this!

if you want to figure the secret out on your own, why did you click on this guide...?

The first step of this journey is discovered on the alternate version of area 2, Hollow Hives. If you have no clue how to get to Hollow Hives, then just look for beehives.
Three beehives are scattered around Gazing Grove, one in the secret room, one on a random floor later in the area, and one right after the boss fight. Breaking all three of these beehives allows you to progress to the Hollow Hives, but remember to find the secret room or else the key is impossible to obtain.
Once in the Hollow Hives, in one of the first three rooms you can see a crystal door in the wall like this one:

















The door opens only when you are playing on shard 5 or higher, so you need to be playing on the highest shard level to get the full key.
Inside the room is a glass heart structure and a riddle tablet that displays the following:


Most of this riddle is for flavor, but the "healthy" part is important! Healthy here means you have to enter the room with filled heart containers. The amount does not matter
Once you enter this room with your full hearts, Walk towards the crystalline heart up above and it will give you a key piece.










This is only the first part of the puzzle though, as you need another piece to make a whole key.

You have successfully recieved Key Piece 1
now what you need to do is wander into the Calm Caldarium.
(The two small snow statues in Arid Athenaeum will have already have filled in shields if you have the first key piece)

You will see the same door here

















It will also be unlocked at Shard 5.
When entering, a shadowy heart will greet you and yet another riddle that goes as follows



You have to have 1 heart or less. It doesn't matter how many shields or empty max hp you have, as long as you have 1 filled heart or less.









You'll recieve yet another key piece which when collected with the other one will give you a full key.







This Full key is required for one last thing...

You have probably seen the mysterious door in Ticking Tower Top throughout your past few runs, but now it's finally time to put it to good use!
As the name of this section implies, simply walk up to the door and open it as you would any other.




















Once this door is open, congrats! You will not have to do this quest anymore to open the door as the door will remain permanently open throughout any runs on shard 5 and up.
Inside the door is a item lying on the ground. Picking up this item is necessary to collect any more shards past shard 5.







After picking it up, continue your run like normal.
You will find that your journey is long not over after finding this.

This section is an extension of the last section so if you want to figure this part out by yourself, do not read the spoilers!

Once you are inside the mysterious room behind the door, you will find a chest sitting on the ground next to the item.






This chest can be opened by doing the entire process of getting a key again in a separate run. The reward for opening this chest does not substantially affect the game, so if this task seems like too much, do not feel pressured to complete it.
We will not spoil what the surprise is though, so if you are curious, go ahead and see if you can do it!

Thank you for Torturing yourself through this guide.

it was a rather easy secret but still special thanks to the Revita community and Discord
for helping discover this rather important secret.

Enjoy your Photo