Understanding Masters: what progresses and what you gain

A Master is not another hero to place in your formation. It is a character who improves certain activities on your account, through automatic Expertise, skills and progression based stats.

The screen can be confusing because several things progress at once. Let us separate them.

First, meet a Master and have them settle

The system becomes available once your kingdom has reached the required age and your Town Center is at least level 25. Your kingdom's schedule is what matters: the arrival of a new hero generation is not, on its own, an officially stated requirement.

Realm Journey lets you meet Masters. A Master can settle in your Town at 1,000 Affinity points. The Master Academy supports their progression once your first Master has settled.

You can already benefit from that Master's Expertise at this stage. You do not have to pay for every future upgrade to make them useful.

Relationship: unlocking more options

Affinity measures relationship progress. After a Master settles, it can rise to level 100.

At every tenth level, an advancement requires that Master's Emblems. Affinity gets you to the milestone; Emblems let you pass it. A full progress bar therefore does not always mean the milestone has been completed.

Relationship progress unlocks skills, improves Expertise and adds stats. At their maximum, the relationship tables for the initial three Masters show:

These are stat bonuses in their Expedition context. They are neither a guarantee of extra damage in every battle nor the research bonuses earned after level 100. You need not pick a Master solely for these maximum values, but you should know they exist.

Expertise: the automatic ability

The Expertise tab under Master Details shows a Master's ability. Once unlocked, it takes effect without manual activation and improves as the Master progresses.

Valora increases your personal points in Bear Hunt. Pan grants chests through gathering. Roman can add chests after your Arena battles.

Manuscripts do not upgrade Expertise. Look at the relationship and its advancements when you want to improve it.

Skills: what you choose to learn

Each of the three Masters has four skills. Choose what to develop based on what it actually provides: capacity, equipment, missions, stamina, shop benefits or Arena benefits.

Skills gain their own learning XP, and their levels are then advanced with Manuscripts. Some also require a certain relationship level or enough progress in other skills.

All Masters share one learning queue. Raising Pan's Affinity does not prevent you from learning a Valora skill, however: those are separate decisions.

After Affinity level 100

Once the final relationship stage has been completed, Master Research opens another progression path. Emblems remain useful, this time for Mastery and research stats.

You do not need to memorize its full cost today. Just remember that reaching relationship level 100 is not the end of that Master.

The mental map to keep

Next step: Learn how journeys feed this progression.