How to level up weapons in The First Descendant

Published by Finn o n September 5, 2025, 5:53 am

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Contents hide How to level up a weapon How to get Phase Exchangers How to level up an ultimate weapon How to improve a weapon’s unique ability ✓ At a glance

Use Phase Exchangers and a higher-level weapon to level up a gun at a workbench.
These can be created by Magister Anais and cost Superalloy and Gold.
Ultimate weapons need Precision versions of this item that cost Liquid Metal and Gold.

While you get a trickle of higher-level weapons over time in The First Descendant, you’ll want to keep some old guns in your inventory. That’s because you can upgrade them to a higher level, enhancing their stats and capabilities in combat. While it isn’t as simple as pressing a button, the process is fairly straightforward and involves sacrificing a weapon and some Phase Exchangers at a workbench. Here’s how you can raise your weapons’ levels in-game.

How to level up a weapon

Level up weapons at repair station workbenches by using Phase Exchangers. There’s a workbench in Albion and they can be found in safe zones and outposts across the regions you encounter as a part of the main campaign. You’ll need a resource for this process but you can create them at a nearby spot.

Here’s where you can get the materials needed to level up and the location where you level up gear. Image captured by VideoGamer.

Here’s what the workbench in Albion looks like. Image captured by VideoGamer.

Pick this option to level up guns. Image captured by VideoGamer.

Pick the weapon you want to improve, one to sacrifice, and then the final transmission button. Image captured by VideoGamer.

Here’s your improved gun. Image captured by VideoGamer.

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Here’s how you level up weapons:

Prepare normal or Precision Phase Exchangers at Magister Anais.
Have a higher-level gun that you don’t mind sacrificing. For instance, if you want to turn a level 25 gun into a level 30 one, you need another level 30 weapon to sacrifice.
Now head to a workbench and pick the Weapon Level Transmission option. Pick the weapon you want to level up first. And then pick the higher-level gun you want to lose in order to raise the level of the first weapon. Scroll through the images for a clear idea of how to pick which gun to upgrade. You can raise them to a max level of 100 to take on Void Intercept bosses.
If you have enough exchangers, press the Weapon Level Transmission option and level up your weapon. If you do it correctly, you’ll be presented with the final image in the gallery above.

✓ Antony’s tip

Don’t level up every weapon you find in the early game. After the first Kingston region, The Sterile Land and Vespers regions will offer better gear.

Use this to improve your guns. Image captured by VideoGamer.

How to get Phase Exchangers

These items cost 50 Superalloy and 2500 Gold to create in 2.5 minutes at Magister Anais’ location. You can also create them in sets of four or 16 if you have enough resources for them. Superalloy is created by scrapping weapons and you don’t need to be at a workbench to dismantle them. You can use this resource to level up common and rare weapons. Trying out different weapons as you level them up will also let you earn weapon proficiency faster, helping you boost your Mastery Rank. In turn, this will let you use more modules for your characters.

This item will let you level up ultimate weapons. Image captured by VideoGamer.

How to level up an ultimate weapon

While the process of levelling guns up is the same for ultimate weapons, you need Precision Phase Exchangers instead for levelling them up. They cost 250 Liquid Metal and 50,000 Gold at Magisters Anais to research in 10 minutes. Just like Superalloy, you can get Liquid Metal by dismantling weapons you don’t need. Since ultimate weapons like the Thunder Cage start out at level one, you need to raise their level by Weapon Level Transmission to make them viable in combat. By using one of these items and a high-level weapon, you will be able to take on all sorts of missions and bosses with unique weapon abilities.

Use weapon readjustment to improve your gun’s stats. Image captured by VideoGamer.

How to improve a weapon’s unique ability

You can enhance an ultimate weapon’s unique ability by using a duplicate of the same weapon alongside some Gold. For example, the Overcharge AoE electric attack on an enemy kill can be improved to hit enemies that are farther away. Unique abilities can be enhanced four times. This is done at a workbench.

In addition to simply levelling guns up, you can also reroll key affixes like Firearm ATK, elemental damage, accuracy, and critical hit rate on rare and ultimate weapons. You can only do this when the weapon is at the max weapon level of 100 and doing so resets its level, acting as a prestige of sorts. This feature is unlocked at Mastery Rank level 4. Use Fine Adjustment Control Axes for ultimate weapons and regular Adjustment Control Axes for rare weapons in addition to some Gold to use weapon readjustment. These cost a fair bit of Liquid Metal.

About the Author

Antony Terence

Antony Terence is a Guides Writer for VideoGamer. While he is particularly fond of city-builders, shooters, and strategy titles, he won’t turn down a good JRPG or a turn-based roguelike.

The First Descendant

Platform(s): PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X
Genre(s): Action, Adventure, RPG

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