Progression
The Three Trees
Your build and your deadline draw from the same account.
| Tree | Works | What a level costs |
|---|---|---|
| Swordmastery | any time tagged ☼☾ ANYTIME✓ | Skill points, plus 1 time segment on any level whose price line prints an hourglass.✓ |
| Witchcraft | day only tagged ☼ DAY ONLY✓ | Skill points, and the same hourglass rule. No level bought on my save yet. |
| Vampirism | night only tagged ☾ NIGHT ONLY✓ | Skill points, and the levels are gated behind Corruption thresholds.✓ No level bought on my save yet. |
How buying works
You cannot spend points wherever you're standing. Perks are bought at shrines. A shrine's menu is Perks / Fast Travel / Storage / Wait ⌛, and the first one I reached, at Laslea, was usable on arrival.✓ The map card for one says you can "spend Skill Points, fast-forward time or travel to any other previously discovered fast travel point".✓ Not all of them are standing: restoring a destroyed shrine cost me one segment.✓
The currency is skill points, and a level-up awards one.✓ Perks have up to four levels. Each tree has one ultimate perk, unlocked after 35 skill points spent in that tree.✓ Manuals are books you find and read; until you've read one, the perk it unlocks won't even appear for purchase.
The part people keep missing
Many perk levels cost a time segment on top of the skill points, and the rule turns out to be simple: a level costs one segment exactly when its price line prints an hourglass, and nothing when it doesn't.✓ Read the price line, not the prompt — the confirm prompt says HOLD ✕ TO LEARN FOR 1 ⚙ and never mentions the time at all.✓ It can cost you a day, too: a purchase made at Evening 7/8 rolled the bar over to Moonrise 0/8, and one made with the night already spent charged the first hour of the next day.✓ Past the basics, levelling up spends the same resource as rescuing your family. Each tree also ends in an ultimate perk you have to commit to, so you are not getting all of them.
What each ultimate perk does, and what it costs, I haven't seen. All three trees are visible now, but every level I've bought so far is Swordmastery, so what a Witchcraft or Vampirism level costs on the day is still unpaid. Deeper levels need a manual before they will appear at all. I haven't used fast travel yet either, so I don't know whether it charges.✓
Practical
Pick your tree before you start spending. Three trees, one budget, and the game is built on the assumption you won't fill them.
Confirmed
Two sources, every row labelled. official is published by Rebel Wolves or Bandai Namco. ✓ my save is something I saw on my own PS5, with the date I confirmed it. If something isn't here, I haven't seen it myself yet.