Levels & The Level Cap
Your mining level is the backbone of progression on Ancients. You earn mining XP for every ore you break — higher-tier ores give far more XP — and your XP bar fills toward the next level. Open /levels to see the milestone track, your rewards, and what unlocks next.
Levels run from 1 to 100, and player prestige can push your personal max as high as 103. This section also covers the day-by-day server-wide level cap that paces the whole season.
Earning XP
You level up by mining — the better the ore, the more XP per block. XP boosters (from the tutorial, booster boxes, events and more) multiply your gains.
In Season 2, XP is no longer something you can drain out of your own levels. The old /xpextract command has been removed, so you can't bottle your levels into a tradeable XP Bottle anymore. XP Bottles now come only from Clue Scrolls (clue caskets) — and the per-tier extraction tax, plus the Scholar outpost perk that reduced it, are gone with it.
Level-up rewards
Every single level-up pays out 3–8 shards, with the shard rarity matching your level bracket:
| Levels | Shard rarity |
|---|---|
| 1–9 | Simple |
| 10–29 | Uncommon |
| 30–49 | Elite |
| 50–69 | Ultimate |
| 70–89 | Legendary |
| 90+ | Godly |
Every 10th level also awards a contraband, one rarity tier below your shard bracket. The final stretch pays out more: level 101 gives 2 contrabands, level 102 gives 3, and level 103 gives 3–5.
What levels unlock
Mines open up as you level (the /warps menu shows each requirement):
| Level | Mine |
|---|---|
| 1 | Coal Mine |
| 10 | Iron Mine |
| 25 | Lapis Mine |
| 45 | Redstone Mine |
| 60 | The Pit |
| 65 | Gold Mine |
| 85 | Diamond Mine |
| 100 | Emerald Mine & Calcite Caverns |
| 102 | Netherite Mine (also requires Prestige II) |
Gear and tools also unlock by level — chainmail armour at 10, stone weapons at 15, gold gear and the stone pickaxe at 30, the golden pickaxe at 50, iron gear at 60, the iron pickaxe at 70, the diamond pickaxe at 90, diamond gear and emerald mining at 100, and /fly at 103 (with Prestige III). The full list lives in /levels. For everything about the tool itself, see Your Pickaxe.
The level cap
The level cap is shared by the whole server and rises once per day, so nobody can rush to the endgame in week one. When you're sitting at the cap, extra XP is paused until it climbs — a good time to chase Shades, events, or pickaxe prestige. Check the full schedule any time from the /levelcap menu.
| Season day | Level cap |
|---|---|
| 1 | 45 |
| 2–7 | 50 → 85 (50, 60, 65, 75, 80, 85) |
| 8 | 90 |
| 9–11 | 92, 95, 97 |
| 12–14 | 100 |
| 15–17 | 101 |
| 18–22 | 102 |
| 23 | 103 (final) |
Prestige and the cap: prestige opens from day 8 onward, and each tier also needs the cap to have risen far enough to allow it — 101 for Prestige I, 102 for Prestige II, 103 for Prestige III. By day 23 the cap is fully open and all three prestiges are reachable.
Version history
v2.0.0
/xpextracthas been removed — XP Bottles now drop only from Clue Scrolls, so you can no longer bottle your own levels.- The level-cap schedule was lengthened: the cap now climbs to level 103 on day 23, and
/levelcapshows the full schedule. - Each prestige run now needs more XP per level — Prestige I is 1.5×, Prestige II 2×, and Prestige III 3× the base level requirements.