The nine skills and what feeds them
Higher levels unlock crafting recipes and perks. Nothing here requires a dedicated grinding day; the table is mostly useful for spotting the skill you have been ignoring.
| Skill | What raises it |
|---|---|
| Farming | Planting and watering crops and flowers, then harvesting them |
| Fishing | Catching fish with a rod, or by diving |
| Mining | Breaking rocks and mineables with a pickaxe in the mines |
| Archaeology | Digging up artifacts at dig spots with a shovel or pickaxe |
| Cooking | Preparing dishes at a kitchen |
| Ranching | Feeding and petting livestock daily, and letting them outside in good weather |
| Woodcrafting | Crafting furniture and decorative items at crafting stations |
| Blacksmithing | Crafting tools, equipment or weapons at a forge |
| Combat | Attacking and defeating monsters in the mines |
Skills that level themselves, and skills that do not
Farming, Fishing, Mining, Combat and Ranching all rise from routine play. Cooking, Woodcrafting and Blacksmithing only move when you deliberately stand at a station and craft, which is why they are usually the three lagging skills by the end of year one.
Milestones that gate real progress
Blacksmithing is the skill most likely to block you, because every tool tier has a level requirement as well as a material cost.
| Tier | Blacksmithing level |
|---|---|
| Copper | 4 |
| Iron | 10 |
| Silver | 16 |
| Gold | 26 |
| Mistril | 28 |
Cooking levels gate kitchens, not the reverse
A Beginner Kitchen covers cooking levels 0–19 and 1–2 star recipes, a Cozy Kitchen covers 0–39 and up to 3 stars, and an Adept Kitchen handles 1–5 star recipes. The Inn’s kitchen starts at Beginner level and becomes Adept after the “Upgrade The Inn” story quest, which is the cheapest route to high-star cooking.
What we do not publish
Exact XP-per-action values are not published in a form we can verify against the live build, so this page does not invent them. If you need a number to plan around, use the level requirements above — those are checkable in game.
Primary sources
Checked against these public pages. Official sources define confirmed features and status; community sources are labelled as such and used for game data that the developer does not publish directly.