Faster shards

[Stinkiest Cheese :0]

I just got to the black leaf hole without realizing I need to pay 250 shards to get to the sacred nebula. Is there any way to get shards faster in the leaf galaxy that isn't just reclaiming shards from crafted leaves and brewing more shards?

[Stinkiest Cheese :0]

Should I be making a WEM set for more essence from the witch?

[Elementus]

Farm the witch for essences to brew shards.

[TheChemicalCat]

Basically just farm the witch for essences (respec for Witch Essence drop) and grind her out until you get the 250 shards. You might want to have crafted leaves for witch drops and some for crit brews. After you pay this price you can recover them pretty quickly in the next area.

Farm enough Biotite leaves to unlock Malachite leaves. Malachite leaves unlock Shardify Artifacts which let you convert 1000 artifacts into 10 shards (you should be able to stockpile thousands from offline skips). Try getting some Shardify++s (each level increases the number or shards you get per shardify by 1). Do this until you get enough shards to get your leaves back up to snuff to kill the Centaur and then later the vile creature. both of these drop shards as rewards (you'll want to get their card drops too which increase shard drops), enough to max out your crafted ancient leaves' stats, make at least a couple sets of them for various things and then start working on Relics

[Stinkiest Cheese :0]

Thank you, I'm in sacred nebula now and getting about 1000 shards per kill on centaur or vile creature now.