XP & Leveling

Kills per level to 99, the over/under-level rule, Resonance and Scholar bonuses, and what a kill is really worth.

Every kill feeds a single XP pool. The rule behind it is simple: every level costs a set number of kills of enemies at your own level. The XP numbers grow with the level, but the kill count stays the same, so levelling speed stays steady from region to region. This page shows the numbers exactly as the engine computes them.

The level cap

The hero cap is level 99 (HERO_MAX_LEVEL). Once you hit it, XP stops accumulating entirely: over-cap kills award nothing. Every attribute point you will ever have is already assigned by that level (5 per level via your class), so 99 is a hard ceiling on raw character power.

What an enemy is worth

A common enemy of level L is worth 10 × 1.1^(L − 1) XP: 10 XP at level 1, and +10% for every level above that. Rarity multiplies it (×2 rare, ×4 special). XP is never rounded: a kill can be worth 0.4 XP, and every fraction counts toward your bar.

Enemy level	Common	Rare	Special
1	10	20	40
10	23.6	47.2	94.3
25	98.5	197	394
50	1,067	2,134	4,269
75	11,563	23,125	46,251
100	125,278	250,557	501,113

Kills per level

The XP to go from level L to L+1 is that level’s kill count times what an enemy at your own level pays (averaged over the spawn mix: 98.2% common, 1.5% rare, 0.3% special, about 1.024× a common kill).

Levels	Kills per level	Notes
1 → 20	30 → 600	Ramps up smoothly: 30 kills for level 2, 124 for level 11, 600 for level 21
20 → 86	600	Flat through the first four regions
86 → 90	7,000	The Dark Citadel slows the last levels before 90
90 → 99	15,034 → 26,125	The endgame, counted at enemies 10 levels above you (Resonance tiles)

From level 90 on, the kill count assumes you fight enemies 10 levels above you, as on Resonance tiles: the cost is priced at an enemy of level L + 10. Fighting enemies at your own level there takes about 2.6× as many kills.

To reach level	Kills	XP for that step
2	30	307
11	124	2,994
21	600	37,576
26	600	60,517
51	600	655,681
86	600	18,426,242
87	7,000	236,470,100
90	7,000	314,741,703
91	15,034	1,928,636,285
99	26,125	7,184,119,830

Reaching level 90 takes about 1.3 billion XP in total; the nine levels from 90 to 99 take about 36.6 billion. In kills: about 181,000 at Resonance I from 90 to 99, and close to half that at Resonance X (see below).

The level-gap rule

Your level and the enemy’s level decide how much of its XP you get:

Enemy at or below your level: −10% per level below you (0.9^gap). An enemy 5 levels below pays 59%, 10 levels below 35%, 20 levels below 12%.
Enemy above your level: you get its own XP, up to 10 levels above you. An enemy further up pays what an enemy exactly 10 levels above you would.

Enemy vs. you	Share of its XP	Example (you are level 40)
20 levels above	capped at +10	a level-60 common pays 1,067 (what a level-50 pays)
5 levels above	100%	a level-45 common pays 663
same level	100%	a level-40 common pays 411
1 below	90%
5 below	59%
10 below	35%
20 below	12%

Practical takeaway: fighting up to 10 levels above you pays much more per kill (each level above is +10%), fighting down costs you quickly. Auto-explore follows the same window: it never walks to a tile more than 10 ranks above your level.

XP bonuses

Every bonus multiplies each kill’s XP, with no rounding:

awardedXp = enemyXp × levelGap × (1 + expGain) × resonance

Source	Bonus	Notes
Scholar exploration skill	up to +100%	+1% per skill level; counts in full on every kill
Sage’s Mead (barkeeper drink)	+10%	Timed buff while active; adds to Scholar
Region Resonance	+10% per level above I	+0% at Resonance I, +90% at Resonance X; only on that region’s combat tiles

Resonance multiplies separately from Scholar and the Mead. The Region Resonance card on the world map and the raise dialog show the bonus.

Tile-clear XP

Clearing a tile for the first time pays the XP of 3 special kills of that tile’s level, through the same level-gap rule. Scholar and the Mead do not apply to it.

Worked example: a level-40 enemy at hero level 60

You are level 60 and kill a level-40 common enemy (worth 411 XP), with no bonus:

Gap = 20 levels below you → 0.9^20 = 0.122.
Awarded = 411 × 0.122 = 50.0 XP.

A level-60 common pays 2,768 XP, so that kill is worth under 2% of an on-level one. A level-55 enemy pays 1,015 XP (0.9^5 of 1,719), twenty times more for a target only fifteen levels higher. Staying near your level, or up to 10 levels above it, is the difference between real progress and scraps.