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Sword Hunter Sword Progression: Merge Path from LV.1 Stick to Rank 999

How Sword Hunter sword progression works: merge Swords at your Base to climb from the LV.1 stick to the Rank 999 sword, with acquisition routes from purchases, codes, and chests, plus when to merge, farm, or park your blade.

Quick answer

Sword Hunter sword progression runs on merging: you advance by merging Swords to unlock stronger ones, and the upgrading and merging happen at your Base. The visible ladder starts at the LV.1 stick every hunter begins with, climbs through steel or gold blades, a cave gem sword, and rainbow crystal LV.999, and ends at the huge blue Rank 999 sword.

  • The rule comes from the game's own description: “Merge Swords to unlock stronger ones,” with “Return to your Base to upgrade and merge your Swords!” as the where and how.
  • Swords enter your collection through the starting stick, base purchases and merges paid with cash, and codes or chests — merging sits inside a loop of defeating monsters, turning Loot into Cash, and hatching Pets.
  • F is the Select Sword control: a merge does not auto-equip the new blade, and the equipped sword is what collects Loot offline.

How to get swords: the starting stick, then the base economy

Every hunter starts with the LV.1 stick on the tropical islands — it is the sword in your hands, “a LV.1 stick until you merge.” From there, swords come through the base economy: a first-session gameplay video shows arriving at your Base, buying a sword with cash (“We have a base. Buy a sword… let's buy another sword”), and combining purchases into a better blade (“Merge three to for better sword”), with F switching between your blades. Base purchases and merges are the default acquisition route before any code or chest swords enter your inventory — and that video's “merge three” moment is observed play, not a documented merge formula.

Sword codes and chests: reported rewards and pitfalls

Codes add swords and sword-bearing items outside the base economy. These are the reported rewards and the mistakes to avoid around them:

Mistakes to avoid

Problem
Letting sword codes expire
Fix
Claim the free sword from the Store box via codes early — the wiki directs new hunters to do this before codes expire, and typical first-hour code rewards are cash, luck, eggs, or a free sword.
Problem
Trusting any single code table as exact
Fix
Reward reports currently disagree: SWORD is reported as a Valor Sword on some code tables and only as a generic new sword on others. Redeem the code and check what actually lands in your inventory.
Problem
Skipping the chest codes
Fix
2KCCU and 1KCCU give a Demon Chest plus 2,000,000 Cash, and the Demon Chest can be opened to receive a random Sword. UPDATE gives an Imperial Chest plus a 3x Money Boost (30 Minutes).
Problem
Treating SORRYGUYS as a blade drop
Fix
It is reported as boosts, 2M Coins, 2M Cash, and an Admin Sword Skin — a cosmetic, not a new sword, and its exact contents are reported differently across code lists.
Problem
Assuming code swords slot into the merge ladder
Fix
PICKLE is reported as a Pickle Sword and SWORD as a Valor Sword, but neither code sword has documented stats or a ladder position — where they sit against the steel/gold blades or the cave gem sword is not established.

The progression order: five rungs to Rank 999

Guides consistently describe the same five-rung ladder visible in game:

Tips

LV.1 stick

The start of every new hunter. Fine for the first packs on tropical islands — not fine for the volcano or the giant gorilla.

Steel or gold blades

The first real merge off the stick, and the upgrade beginner guides want in hour one.

Cave gem sword

The jungle cave reward on the ladder. You feel the jump when packs that ignored the stick start falling over.

Rainbow crystal LV.999

A long mid ladder, not a single click — expect to farm, merge, farm, merge.

Huge blue Rank 999 sword

The end goal players chase: large, obvious, and expensive in time even though the game is free to play.

Treat this as the visible in-game path, not datamined data — the wiki's own tier list is explicitly a snapshot from official art, not datamined DPS. No exact merge requirement per rung (how many swords or how much cash each merge needs) has been documented, and the rainbow crystal LV.999 → Rank 999 stretch is described only qualitatively as farm-and-merge cycles.

The loop that funds every merge

Loot becomes cash, and “cash is what merges cost” — this repeatable loop is what advances the ladder:

Roadmap

  1. 1

    Select your sword

    • Select your current sword with F
  2. 2

    Pick a pack you can kill

    • Walk into a pack your blade can actually kill
  3. 3

    Toggle auto-attack

    • Turn auto-attack on with R
  4. 4

    Stay in the pack

    Let the loot pile up

    • Stay inside the pack until loot piles up
  5. 5

    Convert loot to cash

    Cash is what merges cost

  6. 6

    Merge or park

    Advance the ladder or bank offline loot

    • Merge at base
    • Park the sword for offline loot

Merge decisions: merge, farm, or park

The concrete decision points reported along the path:

Failure reasons

Problem
Waiting too long to leave the stick
Fix
When cash looks like enough to leave the stick behind, return to base and merge — and remember the first merge is the first rung, not Rank 999.
Problem
Taking the stick into boss-tier content
Fix
A LV.1 twig is not a boss plan. Merge off the stick before boss content.
Problem
Dumping cash into a dead merge
Fix
Check the sword tier list before spending merge cash.
Problem
Farming the wrong packs
Fix
Loot becomes cash and cash merges swords at base. If the farm is wrong, the merge ladder stalls even when you know the Rank 999 goal by name.
Problem
Expecting group content to replace merges
Fix
Merge first — co-op does not lower the blade requirement. If the boss deletes you, you are early.
Problem
Ending a farm loop without deciding
Fix
After each loop, either merge at base or park the sword for offline loot.

What your equipped sword does

F selects the equipped sword — the official controls list “F - Select Sword” — and a merge does not automatically equip the new blade. Guides warn that if you merge and forget F, you can spend a whole farm looking like you still have a stick; swapping blades after a merge is described as one of the three actions that cover everything in the game, and co-op routing starts every loop with “select a sword with F.”

Offline, the equipped blade is what works: the game's description states “Your Swords collect Loot offline,” and the farm loop ends either in a merge or in parking the sword for offline loot. The equipped sword also gates content — in one first-session video, the player met level 60+ boars with an early sword, concluded “I don't think I stand a chance against them,” and turned back to cash and a better sword instead.

Updates add new rungs to the ladder

The progression order is not frozen at launch. Sword Hunter released on July 31, 2026, and updates so far have added a new sword tier and a New Area Adventure, plus codes in the description. In progression terms: a new sword tier is another merge rung, a new area is another farm, and a new code is cash, luck, an egg, or a blade that makes the rung cheaper. Because the ladder grows patch by patch and code rewards are reported inconsistently between lists, recheck version-sensitive rungs, codes, and named swords after major Sword Hunter updates.

Related Guides

Swords

Named swords and how to get them: code rewards, chest drops, the five-stage merge ladder, and Base rules.

Sword Merging

Merge swords at your Base to unlock stronger ones and climb the chain from the LV.1 stick toward Rank 999.

Offline Loot

Park your sword before logging off, why the equipped blade decides the haul, and how payouts fund merges.