Leveling in Soul’s Remnant is a monster grind, but the raw number of kills matters far less than what is running on your character while you make them. The game hands out several separate EXP boosts, and they all apply to the same corpse. Line them up and a fifteen-minute window is worth an hour of solo swinging.
Quick answer: Grind monsters in a party with players within 10 levels of you, with a 2x EXP coupon from the daily quest active, monster research at level 3 on the enemy you are farming, and a Darkness Crystal EXP blessing up. Stay on one channel for the full 15 minutes of the coupon, and never fight solo in a zone that is above your level.
Where Player EXP comes from
Killing monsters is the main faucet, but it is not the only one. Dungeons, quests, party quests, and minigames all pay Player EXP as well, and most of them involve killing monsters anyway, so time spent learning a grind rotation carries over into everything else.
Each level up also feeds your skill point pool, which is what lets you slot more skills at once. Combat skills level separately through use, so the skill you actually press keeps growing while your character level climbs.
Stack every EXP multiplier before you start grinding
The boosts do not compete with each other. Get them all running, then commit to a long session instead of burning a coupon while you walk to a zone.
| Boost | Effect | How you get it |
|---|---|---|
| Party bonus | Bonus Party EXP on top of your normal Player EXP | Group up with players in the same area |
| 2x EXP coupon | Double EXP for 15 minutes | Daily quest from the Quest Master in Spawn |
| Monster research Lv 3 | +5% Player EXP from that specific monster | Collect 10 Research Essence for it |
| Darkness Crystal blessing | 10-minute map-wide buff, one option is +10% EXP | Clear the crystal when it spawns |
| Dungeon Pass modifier | Higher-tier passes can roll an EXP bonus | Farm passes, run them with a party |
Research is the one people skip, and it is per monster type. Press B to open the Research window. Monsters and gathering nodes drop Research Essence, and hitting 1, 5, 10, and 20 essences on an entry unlocks compounding perks. Level 3, at 10 essences, is the one you want, since it adds the +5% EXP bonus and reveals the full drop table with rates. Level 4, at 20, tacks on a +10% drop chance while you hunt that monster.
Darkness Crystals show up on any map where monsters are being killed steadily. Interacting with one asks for two arrow-key inputs, and a success gives every player on the map a random 10-minute buff: +7% global damage, +10% EXP, +10% skill EXP, +10% item drops, or +10% soul crystal find. Clearing them is not optional, either, which we will get to.
Party rules: the 10-level gap that zeroes your EXP
EXP from a monster kill is split between party members based on how much damage each person dealt, and the party itself adds bonus EXP on top of that split. Faster clears also trigger the map’s spawn rate boost, which scales with how quickly monsters are being wiped out, so a group keeps the treadmill moving in a way solo play cannot.
The catch is the level gap. Once you are more than 10 levels apart from a party member, the free Player EXP you get from their kills starts shrinking, and if the gap gets wide enough you earn nothing from them at all, bonus party EXP included. Being carried by a level 60 while you sit at level 25 does not work. Party with people near your own level.
Tip: If a starter map is empty, walk into a higher-level zone and look for an active group. You will get a warning prompt, and monsters there will aggro you on sight, but you can join the party and hit things from a distance with ranged skills as long as the level gap stays inside the limit.
Best grind spots by level
Picking the right monster beats grinding longer. The official wiki’s Grinding table lists every enemy with a Player Ratio, which is simply the EXP it gives divided by its hitpoints. A high-ratio monster dies fast for what it pays. Higher-level monsters also roll more and better Echoes, so your gear improves as you move up the list.
| Monster | Lv | HP | Maps |
|---|---|---|---|
| Slime | 1 | 20 | Outskirts maps, Secret Garden, Sheep Beach |
| Jel | 5 | 83 | Most Outskirts maps, Caves 1-3 |
| Hopper | 9 | 307 | Outskirts South, Southeast, Southwest |
| Cloudsheep | 12 | 622 | Beach Hunting Grounds, Plains 1-2, Sheep Beach |
| Black Cloudsheep | 16 | 1,056 | Plains 3, Plains 4 |
| Troppo | 22 | 2,618 | Seashell Cove, Beach Cave |
| Citruslime | 25 | 3,425 | Windy Savannah, Savannah 2-3 |
| Stinky Sheep | 30 | 6,070 | Sulfuric Planes 1-2 |
| Ferni | 40 | 21,223 | Forest 1, Forest 3 |
| Soultree | 42 | 25,543 | Forest 2, Forest 3 |
Early on, the Shepherd gates the exit from the starter area until level 10, so clear the Outskirts quest chain rather than wandering. After that, unlock the Plains as soon as you can and camp it until level 20 before rotating out. Beyond that, keep moving to whatever matches your level instead of fighting other players for starter-zone spawns.
Movement matters more than it sounds. Pushing the magic line to level 10 unlocks Blink, a short teleport dash that goes through walls and works vertically, which cuts the walking time between platforms and spawn clusters.
Mighty and Shiny monsters are the big EXP spikes
Mighty Monsters are oversized, tougher versions of a map’s normal enemies. They give increased EXP, have better drop chances, and count as boss monsters. Shiny Monsters are much rarer than Mighty spawns, drop loot at a hugely increased rate, and in some cases hand over 87 times the usual Player EXP.
Shinies can also appear inside dungeons. Rolling a Dungeon Pass with an EXP-boosting modifier, bringing a party, and running it while your coupon is live is the single biggest EXP window in the game if a Shiny shows up.
Why your EXP stops or drops
A few specific things quietly wipe out progress. If your bar is not moving, it is almost always one of these.
- An uncleared Darkness Crystal. If the darkness on a map is not dealt with within 50 monster kills, all EXP and item drops on that map are blocked until someone clears it.
- Changing channels with a coupon running. Players report the 2x EXP buff is lost when you swap channels. This was a known bug at launch with a hotfix in progress, and there is no confirmation it has shipped, so stay put for the full 15 minutes.
- Too big a level gap in your party. Past 10 levels, other players’ kills start paying you less, and eventually nothing.
- Dying. Death costs a small chunk of EXP, which stings more at higher levels. Aggro sticks to the last player who hit an enemy, and low-level characters get auto-aggroed by tougher monsters, so do not solo above your level.
- Overcrowded starter maps. On launch day, players in packed early zones were seeing roughly 0.1% of a level per kill. Spread out.
You can confirm your stack is working before you commit: the buff icons for the coupon and the Darkness Crystal blessing sit on your status bar with their own timers, and the research entry for your target monster should read level 3 or higher in the Research window.
Max level and how long the grind actually is
The Steam achievement list puts the cap at level 99. Getting there is a long haul by design. Players who tested earlier builds say leveling was slowed down for the Steam launch to roughly a quarter of the old playtest rate, so if the pacing feels heavier than clips you have seen, that is the reason.
None of that changes the plan. Party with people your own level, research the monsters you intend to farm before you farm them, save the coupon for a spot you can hold for a full fifteen minutes, and clear every Darkness Crystal you see. The game is free to play on Steam in Early Access, and the developer has said balance will keep shifting, so expect numbers to move as patches land.
