posted a reply but I am not sure if it went trough but here goes again
thanks for playing and your remarks , there is a gem behind the foreground bushes, i put a hit if you talk to Youkai and you do not have enough gems, I agree the signs are are annoying, thankfully there are not many past the first area , here is the thing i was watching my son play ASTRONITE and he kept trying to avoid the signs , that was very annoying to me so made it so that he could not pass mine then I forgot to change it for the final build
you could check out my play trough of the first area if you get stuck again