Your First Steps — Ancients Wiki

You arrive in the tutorial, the Harvest Tree: a giant autumn tree in a river valley. The road runs from The Lost Miner past three storytellers and a practice yard to Echidna's altar, and out through a door in the trunk. Talk to the Lost Miner to take your first pickaxe, then mine the ore around you. Every block earns XP and Ancient Energy, the server's main mining currency.

Your opening quest line, First Light, walks you through all of it: take the pickaxe, break 25 blocks, reach level 10, hear the storytellers, extract your energy, the practice hunt, Echidna, and the exit. Each step pays Ancient Energy the moment you finish it.

Mining to level 10

Tutorial ore gives the same mining XP as coal in the coal mine. The tutorial mine stops breaking blocks at level 10, and from then on a guide wisp leads you along the road to each storyteller and stop you haven't visited.

You can't die in the tutorial. Fall in the water and you are launched back up with no fall damage.

The storytellers

Three storytellers stand along the road. Each explains one part of the game and gives you a once-per-account gift:

Storyteller	Teaches	Gift
The Enchanter	The wormhole at spawn	50,000 Ancient Energy
The Prospector	`/mines`, selling and `/extract`	A 30 minute x1.25 Ore Booster
The Quartermaster	`/pv` and gangs	The Quartermaster's Boots

The boots are ordinary chainmail boots: they enchant and level like any other pair and need mining level 10 to wear.

The practice yard and Echidna

At level 10 the practice yard hands you a Practice Wand. Kill its three practice shades to collect their essence, which forms a practice key. Use the key at the altar to wake Echidna for a short fight of about 30 seconds. She can't kill you. Beating her pays a Hunter XP Booster (x1.5 for 30 minutes) for your first trip into the Polis.

The practice wand, essence and key only work in the tutorial.

Leaving the tutorial

Walk out through the door in the trunk, or type /skip twice to leave from anywhere in the tutorial. You can leave at any level. If you skip early, /tutorial takes you back any time to finish the storytellers and claim what you missed, though the tutorial mine only works below level 10.

Leaving finishes First Light. Its finale pays Ancient Energy, the Miner title, a Simple Contraband and an Enchanting Supply Box, and opens The Descent, the next quest line.

You land on the spawn plaza a few steps from the wormhole. Your first enchant happens there: hold your pickaxe, stand in the wormhole and drop it in. See Wormholes.

Spawn and the guides

For Halloween, spawn is a floating harvest town with a building for every guide and vendor. Seven quest guides stand around the plaza, and the Meet the Spawn Guides step asks you to talk to all of them. The ones you haven't met glow. Each gives a once-per-account gift:

Guide	Gift
Huntmaster Vael	First Fang, a golden sword with Monster Hunter V (needs mining level 30)
Dusty	2 Simple Jewels
Surtr	100,000 Ancient Energy
Zephyr	250,000 Ancient Energy
Hypnos	250 AFK points and a Tracker Lootbox
Nyx	500,000 Ancient Energy and an Elite Contraband
Midas	A money note, Ancient Energy and a Simple Clue Scroll

A guide gift is one per connection: if another account on your IP already took it, yours is refused. See Quests.

The Rift Keeper at spawn gives a welcome and 7,500 starter Rift Marks. See The Tartarus Rift.

New-player PvP protection

For your first 30 minutes of play you can't attack or be attacked by other players. Time in the tutorial doesn't count. Duels, Skywars, KOTH and raids ignore the protection. /pvp shows how long you have left, and /pvp on ends it early.

Social kits

Saw a number on one of our videos? Type /kit and that number to claim the matching kit, or /kit tiktok, /kit youtube or /kit instagram. You get one social kit per player, claimable after you leave the tutorial. It is a small starter box with 3 rolls of early-game items plus a jackpot roll.

The mines

The heart of the prison is its mines. Type /mines or open /warp to see them all. They run in order, with deeper mines unlocking as your level grows:

Coal → Iron → Lapis → Redstone → Gold → Diamond → Emerald → Netherite

The same /warp menu lists the other destinations:

Destination	Notes
The Pit of Erebus	Unlocks once the Community Fund reaches Fund III
Calcite Caverns	A late-game mining area
KOTH	King of the Hill event grounds
The Asphodel Meadows	The AFK area, where you idle for points to spend in the AFK Shop
The Sacred Way	Prestige II, level 102 PvP road (`/warp sacred`)

The overworld

For Halloween the overworld sits at a permanent sunset on autumn ground, with new landmarks near the warps. St. Mary's Basilica west of the Redstone mine and Christ the King over the Iron mine are no-PvP sanctuaries. The magma pools and molten river in the volcanic east don't burn you.

Helpers for newcomers

/daily hands out first-of-the-day bonuses: bonus drops plus boosted XP and Ancient Energy on your early kills and first blocks. You get a chat reminder on login if you still have daily bonuses to claim.
In-game tips broadcast every 6 minutes. Mute them with the Chat Tips toggle in /toggles.
Timezone note: clock times the server shows (resets, KOTH, payouts) display in your local timezone if you run the client mod, or in Pacific time without it.

When you want a deeper guide on any system, run /help to open this wiki. The mining and levels pages are the natural next reads.

Version history

v4.0.0 (Map 4)

The tutorial is a new world, the Harvest Tree, with three storytellers (the Enchanter, the Prospector and the Quartermaster), a practice yard with a Practice Wand, and a short Echidna fight that can't kill you.
You can't die in the tutorial. Leave through the door in the trunk or with /skip, at any level. /tutorial takes you back any time.
Tutorial ore gives the same mining XP as coal in the coal mine.
Your first enchant is at the wormhole at spawn. The tutorial no longer has one.
Meet the Spawn Guides asks you to talk to the 7 guides at spawn. Surtr gives 100,000 Ancient Energy, Dusty gives 2 Simple Jewels instead of Calcified Dust, and Midas adds a Simple Clue Scroll.
The Rift Keeper's welcome and 7,500 starter Rift Marks are given again after a season reset.
New players get 30 minutes of PvP protection. /pvp shows it, /pvp on ends it.
The social kit boxes are now a small starter box, and /kit <number> claims the kit from a video.
For Halloween, spawn is a floating harvest town, and the overworld has two no-PvP sanctuaries.

v3.0.0

The walkthrough opened on a Your Pickaxe stop at The Lost Miner, and /tourstart replayed it.
The first mining quest became Mine 25 Coal Ore, up from 10.
First Fang and the starter boots lost their own level caps and level like any other gear of their material.
Chat tips now show every 6 minutes instead of every 2.

v2.0.0

Added /daily bonuses, with a login reminder when you still have daily bonuses left to use.
Added around 60 new in-game tips.
In-game clock times now show in your local timezone with the client mod, or Pacific time without it.