Breakthrough & Leveling Guide: Ascension Steps and Their Materials

Each hero grows on three tracks. Levels raise the base stats and unlock skill levels. Ascension is a ladder of steps, each costing gold plus specific materials, and it gates the higher skill levels and the apply-and-consume effects that make chains work. Transcendence is a separate track that repeats with its own material (the published data shows Stigma Awaken Stones at each step). The full ladder for every hero is in the hero database /heroes, and the counts are the source of truth for any plan.

The common midgame wall is ascension, because its materials are specific. Lute's early steps, for example, need Lowest-Grade Monster Bone Fragments, then Low-Grade Monster Bone Fragments, Fruit of Vitality, and a faction insignia. The step names and counts are per-hero, so the plan starts with reading the exact ladder of the hero you are leveling.

The ascension materials in the current catalog fall into a few families: monster parts in grade tiers (Claws, Bone Fragments, Essences), region and faction items (Fruits of Vitality, Insignias, herbs), and higher-tier rarities for later steps. The grade tier of a monster part (Lowest, Low, Intermediate) tells you roughly where it drops—lower tiers from earlier enemies, higher tiers from stronger content—but the exact source should be checked per item in the item database /items rather than assumed.

Transcendence runs on a single material family, Stigma Awaken Stones, which makes it simpler to plan but no cheaper: the step counts multiply quickly. Before starting a transcendence push, count the total stones for the target step and compare against your current supply in the material planner /material-planner.

A ladder plan is a supply chain: for each material in the next step, find the documented source, then group nearby work into one route. The item database /items shows the sources the current catalog records, and the Orbis map /map shows where the regions and their enemies are. When a material's source is not documented, treat the drop as an in-game check and keep a fallback material in the plan.

The same hunt can feed several heroes, because many ascension steps share monster-part families. If two heroes both need Intermediate Monster Claws, farm the source once and split the plan, rather than running two separate routes. The material planner /material-planner merges every active target into one shortage ledger, which is where the overlap becomes visible.

Ascension materials are scarce enough that the ladder should follow the team, not the roster. Confirm which skill level unlocks the apply or consume effect your chain is missing, find which ascension step gates it, and plan to that step and stop. The hero database /heroes shows the skill levels per ascension step, and the team builder /team-build shows what the chain is waiting for, so the milestone is specific rather than "level everyone".

When two heroes compete for the same materials, the milestone that completes a working chain wins. Keep the bench at unlock state and re-evaluate after every major roster or patch change, because a step that was low priority can become urgent when a new route appears.

After spending the materials, verify the effect in combat: the new skill level should change the Signal behavior or the apply window. Then update the ledger and choose the next step. The material planner /material-planner keeps the shortage list current, and the hero database /heroes and and team builder /team-build keep the ladder and chain facts current. If a material shortage stalls the plan, revisit the source route on the keep the ladder and chain facts current. If a material shortage stalls the plan, revisit the source route on the map /map and and item database /items before farming the same spot twice.

Batch the gathering around the ledger instead of around a single hero. When two heroes share the same monster-part family, farm the source once and split the yield, and when a region holds several shortage materials, run it as one route rather than three. The Orbis map /map layers make the grouping visible, and the material planner /material-planner shows which shortages share a region, so the farming session is planned against the whole roster instead of one ladder at a time.