How To Upgrade Character In Conquest Dark

Conquest Dark has four different currencies, and each one plays a unique role in helping you grow stronger in its dark, gritty world. Every run in this ARPG is different, but there are also permanent upgrades you can unlock between runs to make future attempts easier.

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed at first. But don’t worry. In this guide, you’ll find a complete breakdown of every currency in the game, upgrade systems, and world nodes. You’ll also learn how to get them, what you can use them for, and how they can help you grow stronger between runs.

Types Of Nodes

Before taking a look at the currencies and how and where to spend them, you first need to understand how nodes work. When you open the world map, you’ll see different nodes. Each node is a location you can visit.

There are two types of nodes. Some are combat zones where you’ll fight off hordes and bosses to earn currencies, while others are upgrade hubs where you can spend your hard-earned currency to power up:

• You can get currencies from Dark Rituals and Faction Reputation.
• You can spend currencies to unlock upgrades at the Altars, Obelisks, and The Stygian Archive.

How To Get Currencies

Completing Dark Rituals and increasing your Faction Reputation will reward you with Corrupted Soul Fragments, Soul Coins, Primordial Soul Coins, and Shards of the Black Planet.

Dark Rituals

• Type of currency: Corrupted Soul Fragments, Soul Coins, Primordial Soul Coins, Shards of the Black Planet.

Dark Rituals are the game’s main missions. During these rituals, you’ll fight waves of enemies, elite foes, and powerful bosses. Your performance directly impacts how quickly you can level up and unlock upgrades.

The longer you survive and the more bosses you defeat, the higher the ritual tier becomes. Higher tiers offer significantly better rewards, including higher drop rates and larger quantities of currencies.

You also receive Faction Experience for completing Dark Rituals.

Faction Reputation

• Type of currency: Soul Coins, Primordial Soul Coins

Each playable class in Conquest Dark is tied to a unique Faction. As you use that class in Dark Rituals, you automatically earn Faction Experience. This XP builds up over time and tracks your loyalty to that faction, unlocking permanent rewards along the way.

Each faction has a 25-level reputation track, and reaching key milestones at levels 5, 10, 15, and 20 grants valuable rewards. These rewards include:

• Soul Coins and Primordial Soul Coins
• Passive stat bonuses such as increased critical chance, bleed resistance, or cooldown reduction.
• New weapons and abilities specific to that faction.

Many of the upgrades you unlock are account-wide, meaning they’re not tied to a single class. For example, reaching Level 20 with the Barbarian’s faction, Band of the Lion, grants a 25% bleed damage reduction for all classes, not just the Barbarian. This makes progressing through Factions highly beneficial, even if you prefer playing other characters.

Each class in Conquest Dark is tied to a unique faction: Barbarian, Hunter, Thief, Oathkeeper, and Acolyte of Kuu. By playing all classes and leveling up their respective factions, you’ll unlock bonuses that apply to every character. Over time, this builds a shared foundation of strength that buffs every run, no matter which class you choose to play.

Spend Currencies To Upgrade Your Character

You can spend Corrupted Soul Fragments, Shards of the Black Planet, Soul Coins, and Primordial Soul Coins at the Altars, Obelisks, and The Stygian Archives.

Altars

• Type of currency: Corrupted Soul Fragments.
• Function: Increase your base stats permanently.

Altars are one of the most important progression systems in Conquest Dark. Each Altar in Conquest Dark focuses on upgrading a specific stat, including damage, health, movement speed, cooldown reduction, projectile speed, and pickup radius.

These upgrades are permanent and stack over time, benefiting every class and run. However, the cost of each upgrade increases as you progress. After level 7, the required amount of Corrupted Soul Fragments increases sharply. To avoid heavy grinding later, be sure to make smart upgrade choices early on.

Not all stat upgrades are equal. Most altars offer small boosts per level, typically around +0.25% to +0.5%. However, some stand out as much more efficient. One of the best early-game investments is the Altar of Power, which grants +2% damage per level. This bonus scales with each upgrade and has a direct impact on both survivability and clear speed.

Because of the scaling cost and diminishing returns of low-impact stats, it’s a good idea to focus your early Corrupted Soul Fragments on the upgrades that really boost your damage or survivability. Expand to secondary stats once your primary damage and survivability are stable.

Obelisks

• Type of currency: Shards of the Black Planet.
• Function: Let you make your next ritual harder in exchange for better rewards.

Obelisks are special nodes on the world map that allow you to apply Corruption to your next Dark Ritual by inserting Shards of the Black Planet. These shards provide valuable bonuses to resource gains and progression, making Obelisks one of the most efficient ways to boost rewards across all your runs.

Each shard grants a percentage-based bonus that applies during your next ritual. When you insert multiple shards into different Obelisks, their effects stack, allowing you to increase the potential gain across multiple currencies at once.

Typical Corruption bonuses include:

• +X% Faction Experience gained.
• +X% chance to gain extra Soul Coins.
• +X% chance to gain additional Corrupted Soul Fragments.

X stands for the exact value of the bonus, which depends on the shard. It’s not fixed, and effects can vary widely between shards. One shard might grant +18% Soul Coin drop chance, while another could boost Faction XP by +52%.

It’s worth checking your shard inventory and planning ahead to maximize your gains for a specific goal, like leveling a faction or farming coins.

If the ritual has no modifier, the game will apply a Corruption penalty as explained above. If you choose a ritual that already has a built-in difficulty modifier, like increased enemy health or damage, then Obelisks won’t add any extra penalty. You’ll still get the full corruption bonuses, but the ritual won’t become harder than it already is.

This makes the system extremely flexible. You can apply Corruption to clean rituals for fast, efficient farming with added challenge, or use it on modified rituals to earn extra rewards without increasing difficulty. In both cases, Corruption bonuses are always activated, and your shards are never wasted.

The Stygian Archive

• Type of currency: Soul Coins, Primordial Soul Coins.
• Function: Upgrade your weapons and abilities.

The Stygian Archive is your main hub for upgrading weapons and abilities in Conquest Dark. It’s also where you can review all the weapons, skills, and upgrades you’ve unlocked in your journey.

Each weapon or ability can be upgraded up to level 10, with every level granting a +5% damage increase, for a total of +50% at max level. Upgrades cost Soul Coins, with prices rising at each level.

Primordial Soul Coins are needed for key milestones at levels 5 and 10. Since Primordial Soul Coins are rare, you’ll want to spend them on your most-used weapons and abilities.

Leveling up not only increases damage but also unlocks Rune Slots at levels 1, 5, and 10, letting you customize your abilities with special effects. This adds depth to your build and can significantly change how you play.

Some progression tips to help you out:

• Start with Damage at the Altar of Power since it’s the best early upgrade: +2% per level.
• Use Corruption on modified rituals for bonus rewards with no extra risk.
• Level all factions over time. Their global bonuses are too good to ignore.
• Save Soul Coins and use them only for skills and weapons you really plan to max out.
• Once you’ve settled on a main class or build, focus your coins and upgrade investments around it for more efficient progression.
• Level multiple factions for stacking global bonuses

All Currency Types Explained

Each currency can help improve world nodes and unlock permanent character upgrades in Conquest Dark. Some currencies are common and easy to earn, while others are rare and tied to specific challenges. Let’s take a look.

Corrupted Soul Fragments

Corrupted Soul Fragments are the red crystals. They are your main currency for upgrading core stats in Conquest Dark. They drop from almost all enemies, but you’ll get a lot more of them by defeating elite enemies and bosses, especially in higher-tier Dark Rituals.

You can spend them at Altars to unlock permanent stat boosts like increased damage, health, and movement speed. The higher your upgrade level, the more fragments each upgrade costs, so you’ll want to stockpile them for long-term progression.

Soul Coins

Soul Coins are a common silver currency you can earn from Dark Rituals and Faction rewards. Also known as Silver Coins, they’re essential for upgrading weapons and abilities in the Stygian Archive.

Silver Soul Coins are required for every upgrade from level 1 to 10, with the cost increasing at each step. While easy to farm early on, they become more valuable over time as you unlock more abilities and begin spreading upgrades across multiple builds.

Primordial Soul Coins

Primordial Soul Coins are rare gold coins mainly obtained from high-tier Dark Rituals and Faction reputation rewards. Also known as Gold Coins, they’re required for milestone upgrades at level 5 and level 10 in the Stygian Archive, used to improve weapons and skills.

Primordial Soul Coins are limited. So, prioritize your favorite weapons or most-used abilities to get the best value out of each upgrade.

Shards of the Black Planet

Shards of the Black Planet are earned by completing specific rituals. These shards are socketed into Obelisks to apply Corruption, granting randomized percentage-based bonuses during your next ritual. For example, you could receive boosts like +X% Faction XP or +X% Soul Coin chance.