At each ascent, you'll earn an emblem according to the God you chose. Each emblem bestows a permanent bonus on you. A NPC of your Caos will be created as well (we'll name champion in the rest of the guide) with the stuff he had on him. If your champion (which will be AI controlled) kills players, you'll earn crusade points. We'll see how we can earn more of it later. Just know it's those points which are used for the main leaderboard.

The champion that will be created will be at the same level as you at the moment of the ascent. You'll lose 20% of the level you had. For instance, an ascent at level 5 will push you back to level 3 and your champion will be level 5. One at level 26 will push you back to level 20, with a champion level 26.

The first ascent can occur at the earliest at level 5. Then next ones will have to wait 5 more levels than the level where you were before and while the ascent. Example : If you ascend at level 26, you'll have to wait level 31 for the next ascent, knowing you're back to level 20.

You can choose a different God each time you'll ascend. This can be useful to get one or several spells you're interested in, but also to obtain others emblems with specific bonuses related to the selected God.

Your spells are by default legacy items, you'll conserve them until an eventual transcendence. For the rest, it's up to you if some items are good enough to be kept. If yes, know the first legacy pillar is free, and the cost of the following is growing : 1 000, 2 000, 4 000, 8 000, etc. If you want to keep a full set (5 items), you'll need 15 000 souls, pillars get by transcendence excluded.
Patch 8 : You keep your spells and your stuff at each ascent. Furthermore, you'll be able to choose a free new piece of gear among the ones presented on pillars.

• Make sure you equip your best stuff before eventually place items on legacy pillars. This way, even when you'll have placed items on the pillars to get them back after the ascent, the NPC which will be created will have them on it to fight against others players.
  
• The more you ascend, the more emblems you get. That's why it's often advised to ascent as soon as you can. The more you wait, the more time you'll need to get a maximum of emblems, knowing there are 45 in all (15 / God).
  
• Sell the stuff you'll not put on legacy pillars. You'll get some souls instead of lose it uselessly.
  
• When you chose a new God, if you take a different one than the one you had, you can reconquest all the altars and shrines of the map. It's not quite rewarding but it's still a substantial quantity of souls and experience.

Transcendence is the ultimate ascent form you'll be able to do once you reach level 60. Some benefits are similar : a NPC which will fight for you (lvl 60 here) and an emblem. You'll get also a legacy pillar as a free permanent bonus (10 max. and 1 per transcendence).

Some tradeoffs are however to be considered :

• You go back to level 1.
  
• You lose all your stuff, legacy items included. No more spells, nothing except your souls and emblems.
  
• Your progress throught the campaign is cleared, you start all over again.
  
• The difficulty is increased : Mobs have 1 additional level / transcendence.

To earn those points, only the quality of your equipment and equipped spells at the moment of the ascent will be taken into account (source[www.signalstudios.net]). Note you can have an equipment up to 4 levels above yours and more it's upgraded, more you'll get points. Prefer items of "rank V", and with best rarity. Tests are still in progress but it seems the priority order is like this : Number of upgrades > Rarity (white, blue, gold, etc.) > Level > Number of runes > Type of runes.

About spells to equip, the more their base cost is expensive, better it is. And obviously it's better with a maximum of upgrades (12 max / spell). The best spells to equip in order of their base cost :

• Transmutate (60 000 souls)
  
• Confuse (50 000 souls)
  
• Lightning chains, Meteor storm, Black hole (40 000 souls)

To get the total cost you had this source[www.signalstudios.net], or the official wiki[ascendhandofkul.gamepedia.com].

For information purposes, a perfect transcendence costs 6 078 178 souls (source[docs.google.com] - "Useful costs") and it'll give you 1 048 283 crusade points. And the 5 spells named totally upgraded cost 2 656 500 souls. They'll earn 552 000 crusade points (source[www.signalstudios.net]) :