Getting started with Masters
How the Master Academy works — journeys, affinity, the two materials, and the KvK timing rule that makes this system different.
Masters are named characters you recruit into your Town who provide always-on bonuses plus a set of unlockable skills, each tuned to a specific system or event. They aren’t a march roster like heroes — they’re a background power layer closer in feel to pets or academy tech. The Master Academy unlocks at Town Center 25 once your kingdom reaches Generation 3 (around server day 100–115).
The one thing that makes Masters different from every other progression system: two of the materials that power them are also scored in Kingdom vs Kingdom. So when you spend matters as much as what you spend on. That timing rule is the thread running through this whole guide.
TL;DR
- Masters are a slow, free economy compounder. The gap between players who work this system daily and those who ignore it widens over months.
- Spend all your free Journey Supplies every day. You get 20 free (10 at 08:00 and 10 at 16:00 UTC). Skipping them is the only real way to fall behind here.
- Build Pan first for economy, Valora early for free Bear Hunt loot. Both pay out cheaply. The roster covers what each Master does.
- Send gifts freely — they never cost you anything elsewhere. Copper Horns, Silver Goblets, and Elite Spices only raise affinity and are not KvK-scored.
- Bank Master Emblems and Manuscripts for KvK. They score points there, so releasing them into skill upgrades during a KvK window makes the same spend pay twice.
TL;DR
- Masters are a combat-power and event-ranking lever. Capacity and combat skills raise your scores in the events you push.
- Recruit Valora and Pan first, then branch by playstyle — Cassia if you lead rallies, Roman if Arena is your daily grind, Guinevere for Swordland, Wilson for alliance-event ranking.
- Send gifts freely to settle masters fast — gifts aren’t KvK-scored, so there’s no reason to hold them.
- Time your Emblem and Manuscript spending around KvK. Both score there. Dumping them the week before a scoring phase wastes points you could have banked.
- Master Research is the long-tail — a deep, Emblem-hungry endgame tree that only opens at max relationship. Worth it, but last.
How a Master joins you
Every Master follows the same arc:
- Meet them on a Journey. Journeys are the engine of the whole system (below). You encounter Masters as you travel.
- Build Affinity. Affinity is your relationship with a Master. It climbs through 11 stages — Stranger up to Kindred Soul, 100 levels in total. Journeys raise it, and you can also send gifts to raise it directly.
- They settle in your Town. Once you’ve built enough affinity, the Master moves in and their bonuses go live. Your first Master settling is what makes the Master Academy building appear.
- Keep raising the relationship to unlock skills. Each Master has one Expertise (an always-on passive that scales automatically as the relationship grows) and four sub-skills, each of which unlocks at a specific relationship stage and is then leveled separately.
The two Journey types
Journeys are how you meet Masters and build affinity. There are two modes.
Realm Journey — the free daily engine.
- Runs on Journey Supplies. You get 20 free per day: 10 at 08:00 UTC and 10 at 16:00 UTC.
- You can buy up to 20 more per day in increments of 5 supplies for 1,000 gems. For F2P this is rarely worth the gems.
- After enough encounters, Auto Journey unlocks (so you’re not tapping through every step), and then Lostlands opens up.
Lostlands Journey — targeted and premium.
- Runs on Adventure Supplies, a separate currency that doesn’t refill daily — you stockpile it.
- The payoff: you choose which Master to travel with, so you can aim affinity at a specific Master instead of taking whoever the Realm gives you. This is the lever for deciding which Master to recruit next.
The two materials
Setting gifts aside, Masters run on exactly two upgrade materials — there are no speed-ups in this system.
| Material | What it does | KvK-scored? |
|---|---|---|
| Gifts — Copper Horns, Silver Goblets, Elite Spices | Raise affinity, to recruit a Master and level the relationship | No — spend freely, any time |
| Master Emblems | Push the relationship past its breakthrough gates (every 10 levels) and fund the endgame Master Research | Yes — bank for KvK |
| Master’s Manuscripts | Level a Master’s individual skills | Yes — bank for KvK |
Gifts scale in value: Copper Horns give a little affinity, Silver Goblets more, and an Elite Spice is a big jump. Because gifts are never scored anywhere else, there’s no reason to hoard them — feed them to whichever Master you’re recruiting.
Two things you’re leveling
“Leveling a Master” means two separate tracks, and it’s easy to conflate them:
- Relationship level (1–100) — raised with Master Emblems (plus journeys and gifts), climbing the 11 stages from Stranger to Kindred Soul, with a breakthrough gate every 10 levels. Relationship level unlocks each sub-skill at its stage and auto-scales the Expertise passive. This is your “how far do I take this Master overall” meter.
- Skill level (per sub-skill) — each of the four sub-skills is leveled separately, with Master’s Manuscripts, up to its own cap (some cap low, some high). This is your “which skill do I pour Manuscripts into” meter.
So raising the relationship unlocks and scales things broadly; leveling an individual skill is a separate, targeted spend. Each Master’s roster entry lists the order to level its four skills.
The KvK timing rule
This is the part generic Master lists skip, and it’s the most important habit to build.
Master Emblems and Master’s Manuscripts count toward your Kingdom vs Kingdom score. That means every Emblem and Manuscript is worth points twice — once as KvK score, once as permanent Master power — but only if you spend it during a KvK scoring window.
Recruit and settle Masters freely with gifts whenever you like — gifts don’t score, so there’s no cost to moving fast. But hold your Emblems and Manuscripts and release them into relationship breakthroughs and skill levels during a KvK phase. As a F2P account your Emblem income is slow, so making each one count for KvK points too is a meaningful edge.
Settle Masters aggressively with gifts — nothing is lost. Where discipline pays off is Emblems and Manuscripts: bank them between KvK cycles and dump them during scoring windows. You’ll be spending far more of both than a F2P account, so the KvK points from timing your spend add up fast across a season.
A sensible daily routine
- Claim and spend your 20 free Journey Supplies (10 land at 08:00 UTC, 10 at 16:00). This is the non-negotiable habit.
- Send gifts to the Master you’re currently recruiting or leveling.
- Gather with troops to keep Pan’s passive earning (once you’ve recruited him).
- Bank Emblems and Manuscripts unless a KvK scoring window is open.
Everything else — which Master to chase, how far to push each skill — is on the other two pages.
The six MastersWhat each Master does, their skills, the event they serve, and the order to level their skills.