The Hidden Ones Gear and Progression Guide

The upgrade order: weapon, ring, amulet

Upgrade the weapon first, then the ring, then the amulet. The weapon carries the largest share of your damage, and every clear check in the game is ultimately a damage check with mechanics attached. Push the main weapon to +15 before you spread materials. Armor only needs +10; past that point the returns do not justify delaying the weapon.

The common mistake is treating the forge as a queue. Players upgrade every slot to +6, then every slot to +8, and end up with a character who is uniformly mediocre. The final test rewards concentration: one +15 weapon on your main DPS changes clear times in a way that four balanced +8 pieces never do. If you are still choosing a main, the beginner's guide covers the opening roster and the first-hours route.

Do not chase a full set before level 25. Low-level set bonuses are real, but the stats you give up to complete them are larger. Use two attack-oriented pieces and two crit-oriented pieces as a transition, keep the best substats you find, and replace them when the replacement is genuinely better rather than merely higher in level. Set completion is a late step, not a starting goal.

Inscriptions: sets, substats and why level lies

Inscriptions are the rune-like gear layer. The named types are Fury for melee skills, Iron Wall for damage reduction, Sharp for crit rate, and Swift Shadow for basic-attack chaining. Each type supports a different plan rather than a different power tier. A Fury piece on a basic-attack character is not "worse" than a Sharp piece; it is aimed at a rotation that character does not use.

The one set worth naming outright is Flame Sky. Its three-piece bonus gives +20% skill damage, and the five-piece adds +15% crit damage. That is a genuine damage package for skill-heavy characters, and it is the set to plan around once your account can afford a real five-piece. Before that, the honest advice is two attack pieces plus two crit pieces, chosen for substats rather than set completion.

Substats beat item level. An item with the right attack percentage and crit rolls will outdamage a higher-level item with flat defensive stats, because percentage stats scale with the character while flat values do not. This is the same logic that governs artifact and doppelganger substats: percentage first, useful trigger second, flat defense last. The final test puts substats explicitly above raw level, so read the rolls before you read the item level.

• Damage dealers: attack percentage, crit rate, crit damage, then the appropriate elemental or skill damage.
• Supports: cooldown reduction, max qi, healing received, then survivability.
• Trigger pieces: Pager leans toward life-recovery substats, while Mountain Ghost Coin needs basic-attack hits to start its window. Match the substats to the trigger, not to the item's rarity.

Do not reroll everything early. A purple pair with correct substats is a fine bridge, and burning rare reroll materials to perfect a piece you will replace at level 30 is a net loss. Save the locks and the rare materials for the piece you intend to keep.

Artifact Spirit: one chest a day, one priority order

Artifact Spirit (Qiling) is a separate PvE growth system that adds damage and attributes independently of the character's own level. It is easy to forget because it does not appear in the normal gear screen, and easy to overinvest because it looks like a second character. The daily routine is simple: one Secret Realm clear gives one Artifact Spirit treasure chest. That is the gate; there is no reason to leave it unopened.

Spend in the order main DPS, then support, then sub-DPS. The main DPS is the character whose damage decides whether a timer is met. The support is the character whose cooldowns and healing keep the run alive. The sub-DPS comes last because a second damage dealer benefits least from a marginal upgrade. This is the same priority the doppelganger system uses, and for the same reason: resources are scarce and the account only needs one character who can carry a check.

One character-specific note: the Heavenly Master prefers damage-boosting barrier types and ultimate-cycle types, because his kit is built around a summon and a large ultimate rather than a long basic string. That does not make those types universal; it makes them correct for him. For everyone else, take the general damage and attribute lines that match the character's element. The dungeon guide covers the Secret Realm floors and affixes that surround the daily chest.

The weekly gates that actually matter

Most progression is time-gated, and the gates do not all pay the same. The table below is the short list worth scheduling; everything else is optional once these are cleared.

Two scheduling notes. Luotian Dajiao is the main Xuanhuang Yu source, so it is not optional if you are saving for a limited banner; the currency guide explains why that matters. Luotian Night and Disaster Train share a three-per-week budget, so choose the one whose loot you actually need instead of splitting runs for the sake of completion.

Bizarre Commission is the quiet Lingxu Coin engine: three runs a day at 30 stamina each, about 2,000 coins a week. Pick the pure-dialogue and item-delivery commissions, clear the timed dungeons first, and do not switch characters mid-run expecting a reset. Fishing is the other daily habit: five fish gives five normal treasure maps, fixed gold and activity, and the maps feed the daily loop. The dragon maps need four beast fragments and are not worth forcing.

Guild timers and the 240-stamina budget

The two guild timers are not flavor. Refinement runs 12:00–14:00 and feeds the main weapon; the 19:30 escort supplies chips for the amulet slot. If you can only log in once, log in for the refinement window and accept a missed escort. If you can log in twice, take both and move the amulet slot forward a week.

You get 240 stamina per day. Spend it on main-story progress first, because story unlocks are permanent and cannot be bought back. Keep 60 in reserve for Luotian Dajiao on its open days. Three Bizarre Commissions cost 90, which fits comfortably beside the reserve; the mistake is spending the reserve on a farming loop and then missing the weekly gate that actually produces a limited currency.

Do not use stamina to compensate for a bad build. If a stage is failing, the answer is usually a missing shield break, a missed cancel, or an unleveled weapon, not another ten runs of the same dungeon. The combat system explains the defensive answers that turn a failed run into a clear.

The three-character rule

Never develop more than three characters at once. The final test's resource curve makes a wide roster a trap: the fourth character gets the leftovers, which is not enough to pass any check. Pick a main DPS, a support who enables them, and one sub-DPS or counterpick. On day one, the main is Zhang Chulan or Feng Baobao; the Zhang Chulan and Feng Baobao build pages show what each one needs.

Before you commit to a fourth, test the plan on Path of Conflict. It is the low-cost validation mode: you can check whether a skill setup actually works before spending ascension materials on it. That is cheaper than discovering the problem in Train No.7. Once the core three are stable, a fourth character is a luxury, not a requirement.

A first-week order of operations

1. Day 1: pick one main from the starting trio, push the weapon toward +15, and ignore the other slots until the weapon stalls.
2. Day 2–3: fill ring and amulet, then armor to +10. Do not complete a set; take the best substats.
3. Daily: one Secret Realm chest, three Bizarre Commissions, five fish, and the Squad Raid runs.
4. Guild: refinement at 12:00–14:00, escort at 19:30 when you can make it.
5. Weekly: Luotian Dajiao on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday; Luotian Night or Disaster Train three times.
6. Before level 25: no full-set chase, no wide roster, no rare rerolls on temporary gear.

That order will not produce a spectacular account in seven days. It will produce one character who can clear the content that gates everything else, which is the only kind of progress that compounds.