With this in mind, please enjoy the following guide to legitimately and illegitimately boosting your Skyrim skills.

• One Handed, Two-Handed, Sneak : You can start "cheating" your one-handed, two-handed and sneak skills almost immediately upon entering the world of Skyrim. Once you've escaped the initial dragon attack, your guide (Hadvar or Ralof) will stop along the path when you run into a bear. The dude can't be killed, so feel free to wail away on him with your dagger, sword, axe or mace. He'll complain, but won't be hurt, and you can feel free to boost that score as high as you'd like. You can also stealth out behind him and attack to level your "Sneak" skill too. I probably don't have to tell you how cheap this tactic is, but it works.

• Light armor, Heavy Armor and Block: As far as I know, there's no real way to "cheat" these skills, so you'll have to level them the way the game intends--either through combat, paying trainers or finding training books. When leveling these defensive skills, keep in mind: The amount you move the leveling needle depends on how much damage you take during a hit, not how many times you are hit. So letting yourself be bitten by a mudcrab 8 million times isn't a good way to level up. Instead, it's best to let yourself get pummeled by high level monsters who have high damage outputs. So, get your armor number up as far as possible, then go bother a giant. Make sure you're prepared for some massive blows, though... you don't want to get one-shotted. Alternatively, you can not worry about it. Who wants to get better at getting hit? As for Block, you can tape down the block button and walk away from the controller, no really.

• Sneak: Sneak is fairly easy to level in semi-legitimate ways. My suggestion: Find a crowded urban area, crouch down and skulk around. Skyrim seems to reward you with skill experience every time you are successfully not spotted, so the more people not seeing you, the faster your sneak is leveled, even if the people not seeing you are friends. If you want to get shady, sneak behind a stationary barmaid, walk backwards into the wall, and keep leveling "sneak" until you get bored. Alternatively, you can sneak near the bear at the very beginning of the game.

• Alteration, Restoration: Here's a cool little exploit that takes advantage of Skyrim's dual-spell-wielding mechanic. Set the spell Equilibrium on one hand (you can pick it up from the mage in Whiterun) and a healing spell on the other hand. Equilibrium converts Health to Magicka. Healing converts Magicka to Health. Both skills get leveled up. It doesn't come out exactly even, so you may have to rest occasionally, or mess around with gear that gives Magicka or Health boosts, but the idea is the same.

• Smithing: This is another Skyrim skill that doesn't seem to have a boosting exploit, so you'll have to do the legwork to get this one up to par. The fastest way to get this skill up is to take advantage of the many animals that attack you in Skyrim. Skin 'em. Make the skin into leather and leather straps. Make that into leather armor. Sell. Repeat. The same for iron or steel. Find bars, make daggers.

• Lockpicking: There is no way to cheat this skill up that I've found, although

Skyrim does provide lots of locked cases and doors to level up your skill. There is also the Skeleton Key, an unbreakable lockpick, gained through completing Thieves Guild quests. Once you have that, it's a matter of just finding enough locks to pick. Skyrim's museums are good choices, as the display cases are locked. Try the Dwemer Museum for many, many cases. Personally, I wouldn't spend valuable perk points in th lockpicking tree. Once you get the skeleton key, making lock-picking easier doesn't make much sense.

• Enchanting: Here's a great way to max out enchanting and make money in the process. (Disclosure: I saw it on Gamefaqs.com) 1) Get a ton of cheap weapons. Loot all corpses for dagger, pick them up from vendors, etc. 2) Got to Whiterun and buy every filled soul gem from the wizard. 3) Use his enchanting table to add the "Banish" spell to all your cheap weapons. 4) Sell them back to the Whiterun wizard. 5) When he runs out of money, wait a couple days, then do the whole thing again. Before long, your enchanting and wallet should be fat.

• Alchemy: Here's another awesome tip from Gamefaqs.com. Finding ingredients for potions can be time consuming, so Go to Whiterun, where two enchanting shops are across the street from each other. Buy out every ingredient. Make potions. Sell potions back to shopkeepers -- you should make a good profit here. Wait a few days for the stores to re-stock, then repeat. Alchemy and cash at once! If you want to be really devious, break into Alchemy shops and steal the raw ingredients you need.

• Speech: The easiest way to level speech is through transactions with vendors. Your speech skill is boosted for each individual item sold, so never sell more than one of anything at a time. The best items to sell: Daggers. Go to a blacksmith. Buy the ingredients to make daggers. Craft as many as you can. Then, sell them back one at a time. If you really want to level as many skills as possible, enchant each dagger as well. Money, speech, blacksmithing and enchanting are all leveled up at once!

• Pickpocket: The best way to level this one is to just steal a lot. Keep in mind: The heavier and more valuable an item is, the easier it is to get caught boosting it. Here's another trick: Find the pickpocket trainers--Ahkari Dawnstar in Windhelm (Journeyman), Silda the Unseen in Windhelm (Expert), and Vipir the Fleet of the Thieves Guild (Master) -- and buy some training. Then, immediately use your new pickpocketing skill to steal your own money back. Then, train again. There is truly no honor among thieves.

• Archery: Before you say "Hire the companion who teaches archery, pay him and get your gold back!" this won't work any more, as of the 12/01 patch. But here's another sneaky archery exploit: If you complete the Dark Brotherhood quests, you will be rewarded with a fine horse from hell, Windmere. Windmere has a lot of health, and it regenerates very, very quickly, so you can lay into him with as many arrows as you'd like. Your loyal steed won't even attack you back. This is a terrible thing to do to your horse, but a great way to level your archery.

• Illusion: Buy the spell "Muffle" from basically any magic vendor. Then, cast it a

lot. That's really all you need to do for this one. It works with Clairvoyance as well, but that spell uses a lot more Magicka.

• Conjuration: Get hold of the spell "Soul Trap." Then, kill something. Doesn't matter what. A mudcrab will work. Then, stand over its corpse and case this spell as many times as you can. Wait an hour for the Magicka to refill, and do it again. Easy peasy.

• Destruction: This is a super-double-cheesed out way to max out Destruction, via this Youtube video. It works like this: Early in the "Companions" quest line, you're tasked with fighting a Companion using weapons and not magic. Ignore this request, and load up a destruction spell on each hand. Blast him with magic. He won't pull out a weapon, but still counts as a "hostile," so your skill raises without danger.

• Restoration: Here's a trick you should never try in real life: Find a fire trap in a dungeon. There are a lot of them. Ready a healing spell. Then, stand on the pressure plate and allow the flames to overtake you. Heal yourself as the flames take your health. The only danger is in running out of magicka and accidentally burning to death.

How to level-up your skills very fast using this guide:1. Go to Riverwood and enter Alvor and Sigrid's House. The bug only works if ONLY you and Hadvar are in there, so keep your eyes open. 2. Now change to sneak mode and draw the weapon you want to skill, for example your two-handed axe or one-handed sword. 3. Attack Hadvar. He's immortal and won't react to any attacks and even thecity guards won't notice you leveling your skills using these exploit or bug. Enjoy!

How to level-up your speech skill:1. Go to Riften and look for the Dark Elf named Ungrien. You'll find him at the bunkhouse late at night.2. Talk to him and choose the "Tell me about Maven Black-Briar" option. Thereafter you pick the persuade option.3. After a successful persuasion, the option doesn't disappear and you can keep choosing it. You will level-up with these options. Enjoy your maximum speech skill!

Thanks to multiple sources around the internet and to my own experience I have decided to put together a guide to help level up all your skills in Skyrim.

Smithing, Speech, Alteration, Money-Making (Optional: Enchanting):Neon and I created this one a few hours ago. It's a little complex, but it works like a charm. I'm going to put it into a little step-by-step deal for you:

• Step 1: Get as much Iron Ore as you can; a good number is about 30-50.

• Step 2: Get the spell Transmute.

• Step 3: Equip all gear that gives you faster Magicka Recovery.

• Step 4: Carry all the Iron Ore and cast Transmute until all of your Iron Ore is Gold Ore

• Step 5: Smelt all of the Gold Ore.

• Step 6: Create Gold Ring(2) for each Gold Ore.

• Optional Step: Enchant the rings to boost your Enchanting.

• Step 7: Sell each Gold Ring, one by one, to improve your Speech.

• Step 8: Aquire more Iron Ore.

This essentially creates a Money-Making mass skill leveling device.

Smithing:Create Iron Daggers; that's all. The best method I have found (other than just running around and mining all the iron you can find) is to buy all the leather, leather straps, and iron ingot/ore from all the blacksmiths that you see. Create a bunch of Iron Daggers, and keep them for yourself for a later skill.

An alternative to creating Iron Daggers is to create Leather Bracers. If you have some leather to spare these are great for leveling up quickly. They use 2 leather strips and 1 piece of leather which translates to 1.5 leather per bracer. Not bad.

Enchanting: Check out this new guide as wellGet a weapon that enables you to Soul Trap things that you kill. This amazing little weapon that you have is now a great tool for helping you level up your enchanting. What I did was buy as many soul gems as I could find (empty ones) and then I went out into the wild and killed off a bunch of wolves, deer, and elk with this axe, absorbing their souls in the process. Once you are satisfied with how many souls you have to go an enchantment table. Remember those Iron Daggers? Good. Now enchant as many as you can.

Speech: Sell those daggers. One transaction at a time.

Restoration and Alteration Dual:Use Equilibrium (lowers your HP and turns it into Magicka) in one hand.Heal it back up with any Restoration spell in the other hand.Caution: Don't kill yourself. Note: Watch this video to find out how to get the Equilibrium spell:

Sneak:Reach White Run, and go east. Move toward the mountain until you find White River Watch. Kill the two bandits outside, and enter. The blind guy inside will ask if you are Ralph. Say yes, and then keep walking into the wall in the shadows while sneaking to easily keep leveling up your Sneak skill. You can also place a rubber band around the Analog-stick and controller and leave it for a few hours to keep leveling up while you are away.

Illusion:You can do the above, and also cast Muffle; a lot. Or you can just cast Muffle while you walk around town. I've been told that it only takes about an hour or 2 of casting muffle to reach level 100. To help you along with this I recommend equipping all the Magicka Regen equipment that you can.

Conjuration: Dual wield the "Bound Blade" summoning spell and find a spot where there is an enemy, but they are unable to attack you. As soon as you cast the spell, sheath the blades (You don't even have to wait for the blades to appear and you still get exp as long as there is an enemy nearby).

Blocking:For Block try and find a wolf on its own, if you follow the path from Riverwood towards Bleak Falls Barrow you will come to a bend in the path with a hollowed tree, position yourself in the tree facing out with shield raised and allow the wolf (also found there) to attack you (they attack very quickly which is better for leveling) the tree will stop the wolf from circling you and avoiding your shield. You may need to heal a little between attacks but once you reach level 30ish in block the wolf won't be able to do further damageAlso;Wielded a Shield, mana regen equipment, and the "Fast Heal" spell go out and find a giant. Yup, you read that correctly, a giant. Let him hit you shield once, and then run off and run, repeat this over and over until you are satisfied with your level. Giants will massively level your block skill, giving you about 1 level each hit. It's fast leveling, but it's dangerous, so make sure to save often.

Speech (Exploit in the game; be warned):To get your speech to level 100 in less than 15 minutes go to Black Briar Meadery in Riften and ask Ungrien about Maven Black Briar. After he talks for a second there is a persuade option that never goes away. All you have to do is keep tapping X to skip his speech and your speech goes up really rapidly. I went from 15-100 and gained five levels in less than 15 minutes.

Archery (Exploit in the game; be warned):

Do you have an ideas of your own? Let me know and I'll add it to the list! Full credit will be given!

Any of these that I didn't come up with I found on these sites:http://www.gamersheroes.com/elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-fast-leveling-guidehttp://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/615804-the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim/61004505?page=1

[1.0] DISCLAIMER

If your aim is to max out EVERY skill, then I strongly suggest getting ENCHANTING to level 100 first and getting the first perk in the tree fully upgraded, this gives you the option to create enchanted sets that will make other skills easier to level eg, when levelling any of the magic schools you can enchant a robe/armor, a hood, a necklace and a ring with 25% magicka cost reduction each (100% in total) meaning no magicka will be used when casting, making the levelling process much quicker.

I also strongly suggest buying the house in WHITERUN (Breezehome) as it is close to all the merchants you need aswell as an alchemy station and an enchanting station in the castle, It also gives you somewhere to store any enchanted equipment you create for future use rather than carrying it everywhere with you.

Whenever you play through the game, its a good idea to always pick up any ingredients, jewellery, precious stone (amethyst, emerald etc) and soul gems aswell any ingots or crafting parts, Every few mission just dump them in one of the containers in your house, this will save hassles with trying to find merchants to sell required items to you later on.

Many skills like enchanting, alchemy and smithing, involve a LOT of waitng aroundfor stores to replenish there stock.If you are on xbox, then as soon as you hit 'A' to start waiting, press the middle Xbox button, the xbox window will popup but you will the timer clicking over faintly in the background, it ticks over much faster than normal, saving you a bit of time (trust me its worth getting the hang of).

There will also be a lot of stuff you want to sell after crafting, mixing potions, enchantingetc, If you have finished the thieves guild then I recommend going there as TONILLIAhas a high amount of gold and when youve restored the guild there will be extra fencesavailable to sell too.

Now that thats said and done, lets move on to the skills.

[1.1] ENCHANTMENT & SMITHING

These skills are best levelled at the same time and will also earn you a TONNE of money.The only problem is that you will need a few thousand to invest at the start.

It goes like this.First off, try and find or buy an enchanted weapon that paralyses, or at least does fire damage or something, you will need to then disenchant it at an enchanting station (there is one in the castle at whiterun, its in a room to the right of the Jarls throne) to learn its enchanment, paralyse is one of the better ones as it will make you more gold. You will need a follower, Lydia would be the best choice as she will probably already be at your breezehome house or if you havent purchased that she should be just wandering around the castle somewhere, if you dont have lydia, then you should really play a little longer before trying to max your skills anyway.

Once you have some sort of enchantment you can use on a weapon, go to Whiterun, see Adrianne (the female blacksmith at the city entrance) and buy all of her iron ingots and leather.Take the leather to the tanning rack and turn it into leather strips (this is cheaper than buying the strips, its all about saving!)Now, you will need to repeat this process until you cant carry any more, so just keep waiting for 48 hours and she will replenish her stock.

Once you have a fair amount of iron ingots and leather strips (basically stock up until you are at max carry capacity) walk over to the forge and create as many iron daggers as you can.This should increase your smithing skill quite a lot (but youll probably have to reapeat all of this a few times before you get to level 100, it wll be worth it though).The unfortunate thing is that the daggers will weigh more than the ingots and leather did, so now you will be over encumbered, so get your follower to share the burden just like sam and frodo did, talk to her while she is following you and tell her you want to trade some items, you will be able to place items into her inventory, just do the same thing to take them back off her.

OK, thats smithing taken care of, now you need to go to DRAGONSREACH, the castle in whiterun, find the enchanting station. Theres is a wizard (forgot his name) in robes who reminds me of john malkovich, he will sell you soul gems which you will need for enchanting. DO NOT waste your money on the GRAND and GREATER soul gems, just buy the PETTY and LESSER gems, they will still earn you a good profit. if your lazy, buy the ones that have souls in them, if you want to save even more money, then buy the empty ones and go fill them yourself. Either way, stock up the same way as before, waiting 48 hours each time to replenish his stock.Dont worry about becoming over encumbered at this stage because the enchanting station is right next to you.

Now its as simple as going to the table, enchanting all your iron daggers with paralyse or whatever you have.TAKE NOTE, when you enchant a weapon, most enchantments have a slider, you can move the slider left for a more powerful effect that doesnt last as long or has less uses, or move it to the right for a weaker effect that lasts longer or has more uses, ALWAYS push the slider all the way to left, when calculating the value of the piece the game only looks

at the power of the enchantment, not the amount of uses, so the stronger the effect the better. Dont forget to enchant all the daggers yoor follower is carrying, then give them back to her so you can run.Now head off to whichever merchant you like best and start selling, remembering that you can wait 48 hours after selling to someone and their gold will be reset aswell.The best place IMO is the THIEVES GUILD if youve restored it as theres a few extra fences there and Tonilia has a gold stash of 4000+.

Repeat this whole process until you have level 100 in smithing and enchanting, aswell as a hefty collection of gold septims.

[1.2] HEAVY ARMOR & LIGHT ARMOR

This ones pretty simple really, set yourself with a full set of either heavy or light armor depending on which you want to level up, or a mixture of both if you want to do both of them. Now the only way to level these skills up is to be hit, a lot. You can go and find any enemy and just let them pummel you, the stronger they are the more the skill will go up, but its better to go the safer option, so go find yourself a mudcrab or a sluaghterfish.

If you go west from riverwood, just near the GUARDIAN STONES (the 3 standing stones you first encounter at the beginning of the game) youll see a large lake on the map, at the very top edge of that lake and a little to the left there is a single mudcrab that almost always spawns for me. There is also a slaughterfish which can attack you in shallow waters so you can still heal with restoration magic.

TIP: If you've alreday maxxed enchanting first like I said, then you can enchant your armor and your helmet, along with a necklace and a ring, with 25% reduced cost for restoration magic, now dual cast HEALING and you should be recovering 16-20 pts of health a second, even on higher difficulties that should be enough to keep you alive against a single mudcrab or slaughterfish, also increasing your restoration skill. You could probably just use a rubber band on the controller and go do something else but it would pay to stay closeby and just check, the last thing you want is to come back 3 hours later to find your rubber band slipped off and the mudcrab got the better of you.

Once your done, kill the mudcrab, throw it on the BBQ and invite some friends around for sunday lunch!

[1.3] BLOCK

Block is pretty much the same as above except that you cannot use restoration magic at the same time as blocking.You still want to find a mudcrab, but this time try and corner it, rubber band your

controller so your constantly blocking but make sure the mudcrab cant get around the side of you, mudcrabs usually hang around rocks so this shouldnt be too difficult.Instead of using restoration magic just bring a few potions, even while blocking you will still take some damage especially on higher difficulties.

If you have a decent shield (deadric, enhanced) then you should have no worries setting it master difficulty, whenever your health drops down you can just backpedal and let your health regenerate to save on potions, mudcrabs arent exactly nimble creatures so its quite easy to avoid attacks until your health is full again. Unfortunately I havent yet figured out an easier way to improve this skill.

[1.4] TWO-HANDED, ONE-HANDED & ARCHERY

Pretty simple ones but they are time consuming, which is a shame considering they are the ones most people will want to level up first.

Buy a horse (or steal one if your so inclined), Find a quiet spot and run your horse into a corner, get out your weapon of choice and start hacking/shooting.If your trying to improve ARCHERY then be sure to stock up on arrows, and you will need A LOT!Set the difficulty to MASTER, that way your horse can take more of a beating, use a weak weapon, this will mean you wont earn as much EXP but you also wont kill the horse as quickly meaning you dont have to stop and WAIT as often.

Whenever your horse gets low on health, either heal it with your magic or just wait 1 hour and it will be fully healed.

For ARCHERY, I suggest using trainers if you have the coin as this is a much slower skill to level.You can also SNEAK attack the horse to gain EXP in sneak aswell, but you will need to wait in between attacks to become hidden again.

[1.5] SNEAK

The sneak skill is one of the easiest skills to level, offering two easy ways to do it.The first way, which is better for lower levels, is to steal/buy a horse (this horse will go through hell before we're done here).I usually fast travel to the whiterun stables, buy a horse there, then go to wall of the castle directly behind the stables, there is some rocks against the wall making a good place to corner your horse in.

Now set the difficulty to MASTER, this makes the horse able to take much more damage from you.Dismount, go into sneak mode and go behind your horse, then smack the living crap out

of it. After each hit, wait until you go hidden again (only takes a second or two usually) then hit it again.

At lower levels this should increase your level after every hit well up until the 50's.At any stage if your horse gets low on health, simply 'wait' one hour and it will be fully recovered.It will probably pay off to only use a basic iron dagger, and to not activate the 15x sneak damage perk at this stage.

Once it starts taking awhile to gain levels, move to OPTION TWO.

This second way can be used from the start, but I just find it quicker to get to level 50ish by doing the sneak attack way first then finishing off with this way.Find a guard that is stationed somewhere, not one that roams around (theres one in whiterun just outside of Belethors General Goods), Go into sneak mode, find a corner or a wall that you can run into that is still close to the guard, then wrap a rubber band around your controller keeping the joystick pushed up so that you just keep sneak-running into the wall.The game registers this as a valid sneak and will slowly level you up. Go find something else to do, make some lunch, have some tea, or do what I do, write a tutorial (illusions at level 57 so I have a little while to go yet).

This way does take some time, but requires no effort from you, just be careful on Xbox, the controllers shut off after awhile if you dont move them, not sure if that feature can be turned off (i used a wired controller so it doesnt happen to me), if not, just go in and pause/unpause every now and then.

[1.6] LOCKPICKING

This one is a bit time consuming but relatively easy to do.Start by going to the thieves guild fence TONILIA, or any other merchant who sells lockpicks (preferably in lots of 30 not just a few).Buy all of them, then wait 48 hours, then buy more, so on and so forth til you have about a thousand (youll probably still need more).

Now find a master lock that hasnt been picked (the training chests in the thieves guild are perfect, if you have already opened it then you will need to find another or wait for it to reset, I think it takes a little over 30 game days but im not sure on that).

Once youve found a MASTER lock, go into the lockpicking minigame, make sure the starting position is NOT going to open it, you want it to be in a position where the lock doesnt move at all. Now simply put a rubber band around the right joystick and go spend some time with your girlfriend while your character breaks all their lockpicks.When you break a lockpick you net a small amount of EXP, its not nearly as much as successful lockpicks but this way you dont have to go finding new locks all the time, and

you can automate the process with a rubberband while you do something else.

The reason I say to use a master lock is so that the lockpicks break quicker, the same reason for being in a position where the tumbler doesnt move, its quicker, I wouldnt want you spending TOO much time with the missus when theres dragons about.

When you run out of lockpicks, buy more until your at level 100.Just remember to refill your supply before you go crawling through dungeons, you dont want to miss out on yet another elven dagger of sapping for your collection all because you forgot to bring your lockpicks.

[1.7] PICKPOCKET

This one im really not too sure on.I had read that you could plant arrows on a person then pickpocket them back, since they have no weight they are easy to get back, but since theres so many of them its supposed to give a massive increase to EXP, this however, has not worked for me, either that was wrong, or im doing it wrong, or an update fixed that, Im not sure.So Id be happy to hear others methods for this one.

My method however, is as follows.If youve already got your enchanting to level 100, then make a set of gear that increases your pickpocketing.That should be a necklace, a ring, gloves/gauntlets, and I cant remember the last piece (helmet?). Now just cruise around a town and pickpocket people. Most items should have a 90% chance to steal, I found that even when my pickpocket level was very low and no perks were assigned to that tree, that I would still get a 90% success chance for many valuable items, rings, necklaces, even some weapons.Gold however, is not so great, the chances of getting away with it are usually 0% unless its a small amount (there is a formula but I do not know it).

This one might be good for trainers to help with.I will get back to you if i find a better method.

[1.8] SPEECH

Very easy skill to get up!Go to RIFTEN, go to the black briar meadery and speak with UNGRIEN.Ask him what he thinks of MAVEN BLACK BRIAR and then choose 'Come on, get the truth off your chest" [PERSUADE].This option will only come up if you are over level 25 in speech already, if you are not however, you can bribe him for a small sum, this will also increase your speech, and you should be able to pickpocket the gold back off him as its only a low amount.

After you do this, speak to him again, and the same options will come up, you can keep repeating this, reaching level 100 in about half an hour.If you are under level 25 in speech and dont have the gold to bribe, you can also give a gold coin to a beggar, this will give you the "GIFT OF CHARITY" bonus for a short time, which adds +10 to speech, that should get you over the 25 mark.

[1.9] ALCHEMY

Alchemy is a great skill to get up if you want to be ridiculously overpowered, so it may be one that you do early on along with SMITHING and ENCHANTING.I wont go into all of that here but theres plenty of tutorials on getting the maximum damage from weapons.

As far as leveling ALCHEMY up, its as simple as make potions.So head off to good ol' WHITERUN again, and this time go to the alchemy shop, I cant remember the name but it's the next shop over from BELETHORS GENERAL GOODS.Make sure youve got some cash (If you did the ENCHANTING and SMITHING leveling then you should have plenty to spare).Buy ALL the ingredients from the lady merchant, then wait 48 hours (you can do this in the store, it doesnt count as trespassing so long as its trading hours when you start and finish waiting. Use the xbox fast wait technique I mentioned at the beginning to speed this up).

Keep buying as much ingredients as you can, when you play through missions, pick up any ingredients you find, keep them in a container in your house and just keep stock piling until you have heaps.Now you just find an alchemy station, plenty of them around, there is one in BREEZEHOME, your house in WHITERUN if you've purchased this upgrade (There is a way to purchase houses and upgrades and keeping the money you spent, search for 'buy house for free, or free house glitch')At this stage, its probably a good idea to jump on google or search these forums for a 'VALUABLE POTIONS LIST' as not every combination of ingredients will work.

Potions work like this:Each ingredient has 4 effects. One can be found out by eating the ingredient, the rest can only be found by making potions and discovering their effect.So start by eating a bunch of different ingredients to reveal some of their effects, be careful though, many can damage your health.Once you have a few revealed, start making potions by matching up similar effects, so if two ingredients both have an effect of paralysis, then combining those two in a potion will create a potion of paralysis. By combining a third with these could make a more advanced potion if that hird ingredient shares a different effect with one of the first two.for example:

Ingredient A has paralysis, fortify health, frost resist, and fire resist.Ingredient B has Paralysis, Fortify Smithing, invisibility and damage staminaIngredient C has Invisibility, Fortify magicka, fortify destriction and damage health.

A and B both share paralysis, whereas B and C share Invisibility.So this would create a potion that causes paralysis AND inivisibility, which is not much use to you, but would probably sell for a lot, more to the point, any unknown effects that are now used will be unlocked (so if you didnt know that ingredient C and B had invisibility, it would now be unlocked). Any effects that you unlock will appear in the panel to your left and will show all te ingredients you have that have that effect (so long as youve unlocked it).

Combining two known effect ingredients will guarantee you a potion, and by combining them with a third ingredient gives a chance that youll unlock another effect, if it doesnt, you still get the original potion, then just try again with another ingredient, it doesnt take long before you have most of the effects unlocked.

Once you have most of the effects unlocked, just make as many potions as you can, trying to create the more valuable ones first (advanced potions with multiple effects generally sell much better).By doing this you can make an incredible amount of cash very quickly.

If this has all been too confusing for you, dont stress, as I said earlier you can always just search the forums for a potions list (theres plenty out there), this will guarantee more potent and valuable potions and reduce the amount of failed creations.You can also buy potion recipes from most alchemy vendors, but these will often be basic potions, useful for unlocking effects but not as lucrative for money making.

Im not sure if more valuable potions will net you more EXP or not, but either way, just keep making potions, buying ingredients, and repeating until you get to level 100.Very well worth it if you want quick cash or if you want to massively overpower your daedric weapons!

And that brings me to the last section...

[2.0] MAGIC SCHOOLS (Destruction, Restoration, Alteration, Conjuration & Illusion)

All the magic schools are pretty much the same when it comes to leveling up, you need to use that school of magic to gain exp. However, certain spells will not give you EXP unless they hit a target, others will not work unless you are in combat, others (like equilibirum) will not give any EXP at all.But basically, you want to create magic "suits"; sets of armor or robes that will reduce the cost of magic casting to 0, that way you do not have to recharge your magicka, or take potions, or wait.

First you'll need the following.Enchanting must be on level 100 already with the first perk fully upgraded.You also need 1 of each of the following for each school you want to level up.

1x ring1x necklace1x helmet/hood1x armor/robes

If you want to level up every school then you will need 5 of each, one for each school (unless you have the enchantment perk that allows two enchantments, if you do you will only need 3 of each of the above, 2 of those will double up)

Next you want to go to the enchanting table at DRAGONSREACH, thats the castle at the top of WHITERUN. speak to the wizard there and buy any grand soul gems filled with a grand soul. you will need 1 for each item, so you may need to wait 48 hours for him to replenish his stock (again, see the top disclaimer for tips on fast waiting for xbox).You will also need to have already disenchanted an item that has fortify whatever magic school your leveling. If you havent, check around the shops for rings or gauntlets that have it, Adrianne often has armor pieces with these enchantments.

NOTE: Make sure the enchantment is the single enchantment, and not the double that you see on mage robes.EG: A pair of NOVICE ROBES OF DESTRUCTION will show an enchantment of % fortify destruction and %magicka regeneration.A pair of LEATHER GAUNTLETS OF DESTRUCTION will only show the % fortify destruction.You need the second one, the reason being is that the first one is classed as one enchantment when you disenchant it, but it enchants weaker, so without potions you will only get 15% fortify destruction whereas the second one will give 25%, we want the 25% so that when all 4 pieces are worn you have 100% fortify, meaning it costs nothing to cast.I hope that made sense.

Anyway, once you have the required armor pieces, the soul gems, and the disenchant items, go ahead and create a full set.NOTE: Its best to have the enchantment perk that allows two enchantments on one item, this is essential, when making your destruction set, pair each destruction enchantment with restoration, this will be explained shortly.

So lets say were focusing on alterationYou should end up with:

1x Leather Helmet with 25% fortify alteration1x Leather Armor with 25% fortify alteration1x Silver Necklace with 25% fortify alteration

1x Silver Ring with 25% fortify alteration

congratulation, you can now cast ANY alteration spell and it wont cost ANY magicka.Now, you just need to know which spells to cast and where to cast them, ill start with the easiest.

DESTRUCTION AND RESTORATION.Now I mentioned just before that when making your set of armor to combine restoration and destruction together so that you can cast both for no magicka, the reason should be pretty obvious, destruction kills, restoration heals, they cancel each other out.

So we're going to grab our trusty steed (horse) and find somewhere quiet. make sure you are wearing the armor you just created, equip FROSTBITE (8 frost damage per second) on one hand and HEALING HANDS (8 pts heal per second), then use our good old rubber bands to keep both magics going, make sure you are actually hitting your horse with it though, sometimes it does glitch up and even though your right in front of the horse it doesnt hit it, wasted a good couple of hours and didnt realise.

Now just leave it an go study calculus for awhile, you should come back to a nice level 100 in restoration and destruction.This does take some time as you are using very low level spells, its good practice to check on it every now and then if possible as rubber bands can slip off and youll end up just killing the horse, or controllers auto turn off (I think this can be turned off from the xbox dashboard).

ALTERATIONThis ones pretty easy too but takes the longest, you actually have a choice here, you can sit there and cast your highest spell over and over but your fingers will get sore, or just get DETECT LIFE. This is an ADEPT spell so it wont become available until your alteration level is higher, or if you get lucky and find it in a chest, it can also be obtained from completing the quest "INFILTRATION".

If you do get it, then its as simple as fast travelling to a town and using rubber bands to constantly dual cast it while wearing your fortify alteration armor.If you dont have it, then just use whatever armor spells you have (oakflesh, stoneflesh) until your at a sufficient level to buy it from the mages college.

The reason I say detect life is best is because you can walk away and let it constantly cast.DESPITE what some people say, EQUILIBRIUM does not give any EXP, it can be paired with a restoration spell but you will only gain exp in restoration, your better off pairing restoration with destruction and dual casting detect life for alteration.

ILLUSION & CONJURATIONRemember to equip your fortified set of armor first.Illusion and conjuration are a little bit tougher, at least with the spells I had anyway.

They require you to be there constantly holding and releasing the triggers as theres no spells that can be cast constantly unlike healing hands or detect life from other schools.

For illusion use COURAGE against your horse, its a novice spell and it doesnt require you to be in combat, also your horse will not run away or flee from its use.As you gain levels check the college Illusion trainer for better spells, I switched to PACIFY and continued using that near my horse. Dual casting will double the exp gain speeding up the process. It only took about 15-20 minutes to get to level 20 to level 100 doing this.CLAIRVOYANCE is a constant cast spell but it didnt seem to give any EXP, or if it did then it was so minute that I didnt notice.

For conjuration I did the same thing but I used SOUL TRAP, you can use this against your horse constantly and it will net you big EXP, at early level you gain a level with every dual cast, this one was much quicker than Illusion, I didnt swicth spells at all an was done in ten minutes. DO NOT use soul trap against an NPC, even though it does no damage, they will attack you.You can also use bound sword/axe however these will only give you EXP during combat.One way around this is to find animals in the wild and jump on rocks out of reach to them, or find slaughterfish in lakes but stand just out of the water.There is also a place north of WHITERUN called SILENT MOON CAMP, if you clear the bandits first then look south you should see some mammoths, attack one then find the small shack back at the camp, you can stand inside there and the mammoths cannot attack you but you will still be in combat, then just cast your bound sword/axe etc spells to gain EXP.