Difficulty, and the two elements that set it

All twenty-five pairings

Read down for your Personal Element — the individual half of your chart — and across for your Spirit Guardian Element, the one your birth year carries. The diagonal, where the two match, is Easy; every level appears exactly once in every row and every column.

Because every level appears once per column, all five starting levels reach all five Spirit Guardian Elements — so a birth year on its own never decides a level. It settles one axis of the table and the birth hour and month settle the other. The five relations are graded Excellent, Very Good, Draining, Challenging and Very Adverse — the board's own scale for how well any two elements adapt.

The seven levels

Which Spirit Guardian Element your birth year carries

This is the half of the reading a birth year decides, taken from the year's own pillar rather than from its community. It is not the same as the element listed beside your community — that one is the community's branch element. The Personal Element on the other axis is what moves with your hour and month.

The five Phantoms

Markers read from the lunar month, day, birth hour and year community. Four add one level each and Chaos Lord adds two, so a chart carrying all five would climb 6 levels — past the top of the ladder, which is why the total is capped. They are also the only route to Extremely Hard and Hell Mode.

Watcher+1

For souls hesitant to fully enter the physical realm. Often linked to children at risk of being lost immediately after birth. Survivors are often frail, sickly, stubborn, or rebellious. They carry a silent imprint of unfinished agreements, living in a half-present, half-absent state.

Escaper+1

For souls carrying the burden of regret before re-entering life. Children are easily startled and have unstable nervous systems. Persistent fears, obsessions, or panic dominate childhood. They live with an instinct to flee reality, as if their soul remembers a prison they once escaped.

Nightmarer+1

For souls traumatized by terrifying memories of the past. Infants often cry throughout the night, unable to find rest. Blood circulation issues or chronic fatigue may appear. Their aura carries echoes of old horrors, manifesting as hyper-vigilance or chronic unease.

Slayer+1

For souls imprinted with cycles of violence and destruction. Children are often sickly, fussy, and demanding in the early years. Upon maturing, they can become strong, stubborn, and defiant. Their soul carries the heavy memory of countless wars, manifesting as both courage and cruelty.

Chaos Lord+2

For hardcore souls daring to test fate itself. This is the most dangerous Chaos Avatar. Children born in the hour of this Avatar face the greatest risk: survival is uncertain before age 13. Repeated illness, encounters with death, or precarious vitality dominate the early years. If they survive, they often emerge with extraordinary resilience-but the process of growing up is filled with hardship and trials.

Difficulty becomes readable at Bond Level 2, alongside Motivation, Karma Credits and Vessel Stats. Chaos Lord is read against birth gender, so that one Phantom arrives a rung later at Bond Level 3 and can move an already-visible level up a step.

Frequently asked

What are the difficulty levels?

Seven, in order: Tutorial Mode, Easy, Normal, Hard, Very Hard, Extremely Hard, Hell Mode. A chart starts on one of the first five, decided by how well its Personal Element adapts to its Spirit Guardian Element, and Phantoms can push it up from there. The last two are reachable only by escalation.

How is a starting difficulty worked out?

Two elements meet. Your Spirit Guardian Element comes from your birth year and stands for the surroundings — everyone born that year shares it. Your Personal Element is the individual half, cast from the lunar month, the birth hour and the year stem. Whichever way those two sit in the five-element cycle names the level, so a difficulty is really a measure of how well a person adapts to their surroundings: being fed by them is the easiest reading and being pressed on by them is the hardest, with matching elements in between.

Why are there twenty-five combinations but only five starting levels?

Because the five elements meet in exactly five ways and every element can meet every other. Each starting level therefore owns five of the twenty-five pairings, one for each Spirit Guardian Element a birth year can carry, and no pairing belongs to two levels.

Does this need my full birth date?

It needs the year for one element and the month and hour for the other, which is exactly what Bond Level 2 asks for — so Difficulty is a Bond Level 2 reading. One of the five Phantoms is read against birth gender, so Bond Level 3 can raise a level that is already showing.