Fast XP smithing + enchanting technique

Learn how to quickly level your character of any class! Optimal for level 45-80, but around 30 will work as well! Enjoy!

Introduction + Overall

After doing a guide on how to level up a character using a few spells (guide here), I've decided to create a guide with this far more effective way. Notice that this would be best for a level 45-80 character, but might work for a strong level 30.

Now, what you're going to do, is simply craft a bunch of Jewelry, and then enchant them with a strong soul gem and enchantment. I recommend doing this in Whiterun, since there's both a Blacksmith and an Enchanting Table there.

Crafting jewelry

What you want to do is, to get a good amount of Gold Ore/Ingot (more about how below), and preferably also some valuable gems. Then head over to a Smithing Forge or Anvil. Scroll down to the "Jewelry" tab, and craft some Gold Necklaces/Rings with gems. Always craft the most valuable jewelry available (unless you're standing with the choice between Gold Ring (2), and Gold Necklace (without any gems), then craft the 2 Gold Rings, since the values combined (75+75=150) is higher than the Necklace's value of 120. Now on to how to get all this stuff:

Getting gold

Start by heading to Halted Stream Camp north-north-west of Whiterun (beware of bandits). It is the best source of Iron Ore, PLUS it holds a special spell book called Transmute. The Transmute spell lets you transform Iron Ore into Silver Ore, and Silver Ore into Gold Ore. Do NOT turn the Iron Ore into Iron Ingots at a Smelter. The Transmute spell only works on ores, not ingots.

Now you should have a good amount of Gold Ore, ready to Smelt, but if you're in need of more Gold, head to the Iron Breaker Mine in Dawnstar for more Iron to transmute.

Getting gems

When you mine the Iron Ore from Halted Stream Camp, you have a chance of getting gems. That's pretty much it. I believe that the rarer the ore, the better the gems, but I'm not sure, but that doesn't matter anyway, since you're just gonna be mining Iron Ore.

Enchanting

Now that you've crafted a bunch of valuable Gold jewelry, head to an Enchanting table (e.g. the one in Dragonsreach). Here you want to enchant the jewelry with the Sneak bonus. AND with the strongest soul gems (Grand, Black and Greater).
To get the Sneak enchantment unlocked, disenchant another item with it (you might be able to steal one from under Grelka's Stand in Riften).
Simply buy the Soul Gems from Farengar or other Court Wizards around Skyrim (eventually from the College of Winterhold).

Getting souls

Now, all the gems you buy might not be filled with a soul, so to fill up the gems, simply do this:
To fill the Black soul gems (very rare), kill a human or an elf. A bandit would be optimal. The Black soul gems also take any other Grand soul, but they are really hard to get, so a Bandit would be best.
To fill the Grand soul gems, head to Giant's Camps or simply walk around Whiterun Hold looking for Mammoths. A Grand soul gem cannot hold a Human Soul, so Mammoths are the best way of getting them filled.
While fighting and locating the Mammoths, you're bound to meet a hostile Giant or two. Use this opportunity to get some Greater soul gems filled: Giants hold Greater souls. So does bears and other enemies.

Remember that you must put a Soul Trap spell on the Bandits, Giants and Mammoths before killing them to capture their souls.

Conclusion

Just shortly, here's what you need to do again:
Craft valuable Gold jewelry with gems using the Transmute spell. Then enchant them with Sneak bonus, using a strong soul gem (Grand or Black, Greater is accepted). After this, sell the items to Merchants and Wizards around the world of Skyrim.

What this does, is increasing your Smithing, Enchanting, and Speech skills. Remember to make the skills Legendary whenever they reach 100, to keep getting XP.

If your character is not capable of dealing with multiple Giants and Mammoths, don't use this method, unless you have other ways to get Soul gems.

I hope this helped you! Please be nice in the comments!

[necro2607]

You can also farm souls by getting the Conjuration perk "Soul Stealer": "Bound weapons cast Soul Trap on targets". Super useful!

[Deae Luna]

- You said that bears give greater souls; all bear variants actually give common souls.

- As for soul trapping, you don't -have- to use the Soul Trap spell. If you check the merchants, you can actually find a soul steal weapon enchantment weapon. You can either use that itself, or use one of the less powerful souls you've captured to make a lower-duration enchantment on a weapon of your preference, and get hundreds of uses out of it, instead of wasting all your magicka on the spell (if you're not specced into Conjuration).

Keep in mind it'll only last 2-3 seconds for weaker, or more conservative, enchantments, so keep swinging until it dies!

[Ward]

Does enchanting jewelry increase enchanting more? my smithing is already 100 and I don't really care for legendarying it for player xp, I just want my enchanting maxed, so can I use some other cheap item like hide bracers?

[Externalfear]

What a neat and tidy little guide. Love that. Not much more annoying than having to sift through pages to get to the good stuff. Good xp loop have done something like this but not as effencient

[The Hawk]

Unfortunately, when you get to higher levels, this is not nearly as effective. Sometimes spamming the muffle spell is a better choice.

[lord_alderaan]

wow that realy works thanks man'

[Quartich]

Some people go full hardcore main quest instantly, I picked Argronian race because it looked cool to me and reminded me of my long ago days of Dungeons and Dragons. I play for the appeal, not for the hardcoreness. Just wanted to say that to other Elder Scroll Fans

[The Hawk]

The Iron Daggers method was fixed years ago, unfortunately. I was using it recently though, because of some bug making Iron Daggers worth 100 Septims. They fixed that too in Special Edition though.

[bearinark]

excellent guide, will use instead of the iron curtain (iron daggers)

[凯旋哥哥呀]

good