How to Level Up Mastery Rank and Unlock More Upgrades in The First Descendant

Aside from character levels, The First Descendant features the Mastery Rank system. This account-wide upgrading mechanic will dictate some crucial Descendant upgrading features such as weapon and character upgrade slots and unlocking several upgrading kiosks in Albion. However, leveling up the Ranks might feel a bit unintuitive for first-time players. Don’t panic, as we will tell you everything you need to know about leveling up Mastery Rank in The First Descendant here.

[Updated on July 4th – Added more details and images about the upgrade system]

Mastery Rank system in The First Descendant will be unlocked once you accumulate a total of 1,500 EXP from completing quests and defeating enemies. You should have enough EXP for your first level-up after completing the first few tutorial missions. After the notification for ranking up shows up, head back to the main hub town, Albion.

Now go to the Prime Hand NPC, located to the left of Albion’s spawn point. Interact with the small kiosk-looking machine in the Prime Hands area to increase your Mastery Rank in The First Descendant. The gigantic mechanical hand will envelop your Descendant and unleash their Arche energy.

You can raise the Mastery Ranks up to Level 30, unlocking new features and increasing gear and inventory slots for your whole account:

• Descendant Module capacity.
• Descendant Module slots.
• Weapon Module capacity.
• Weapon Module slots.
• Inventory slots.
• Storage slots.
• Consumable Inventory slots.
• Shape Stabilizer Inventory limit.
• Tracking Count slot.
• Unlocks Weapon Level Transmission at Mastery Rank 3.
• Unlocks Weapon Readjustment at Mastery Rank 4.
• Unlocks Unique Ability Enhancement at Mastery Rank 5.
• Unlocks Reactor Enhancement at Mastery Rank 6
• Unlocks Assign Module Socket Type at Mastery Rank 7.
• Unlocks Laboratory at Mastery Rank 8.
• Unlocks Module Combining at Mastery Rank 9.

Higher Mastery Ranks will require you to collect even much more Descendant EXPs; you can check the requirements and bonuses from the Inventory menu. If you’re wondering, yes, it’s a bit inconvenient as you must go back to Albion every time you want to raise your Mastery Rank. Nevertheless, you can increase more than 1 Rank in one go as the total accumulated EXP will always be recorded.

Some Ultimate Weapons are also only available to be researched at Anaise once you reach Mastery Ranks 10 and 15.