One of the most important things for Elden Ring players to do is collect as many runes as possible and use those runes to level up their character. There are certain spots in the game where Elden Ring players can farm for a ton of runes quickly, amassing a small fortune in the process. However, there is a maximum number of runes that players can hold, which one fan figured out the hard way.
Elden Ring player FSFreeman wanted to hit 1 billion runes in the game, and they took to one of the community's most popular farming spots to do it. For those who may not be aware, there is a cliff side in the Mohgwyn Palace area that has a bunch of easily-killable enemies that all give out a decent number of runes. Using area of effect attacks, Elden Ring players can make short work of these creatures, then quickly rest at the nearby Site of Grace or teleport to make them all respawn.
There are ways that Elden Ring players can make rune farming in the game even more efficient. For example, players can utilize Gold-Pickled Fowl Feet to increase the number of runes they're earning at a time, and they can also equip the Gold Scarab talisman to up their rune intake even further. FSFreeman wasn't consuming any Gold-Pickled Fowl Feet, but they were using the Gold Scarab in their quest to hit 1 billion runes in the game.
FSFreeman claims to have spent 55 hours rune farming in Elden Ring while trying to hit their goal of 1 billion runes. Unfortunately, they found out that the game doesn't actually let players hold 1 billion runes at a time. As FSFreeman discovered, Elden Ring players can only hold a max of 999,999,999 runes. They reacted to this revelation by collapsing on the ground in-game.
After recovering from their shock and disappointment, FSFreeman spent their hard-earned runes upgrading their stats. According to FSFreeman, the 999,999,999 runes they spent on their Elden Ring character allowed them to level from 321 all the way to 634. However, this was still shy of the Elden Ring max level cap. The max level in Elden Ring is 713, which players reach when they raise all their skills to 99. However, doing this requires over 1.6 billion runes, so it will take anyone interested in hitting the cap a significant amount of time, to say the least.
Elden Ring is out now for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.