Hero Gear is the longest-running resource sink in Kingshot, and the reason most Governors stall is that the cost curve is not smooth — it is flat with cliffs, and the cliffs are not where the community usually says they are.
The publisher's actual model, in four sentences
Mithril is a material used to imbue Gear — not an enhancement currency, and not interchangeable with EXP. Ascension upgrades the level and stats of your existing Gear, and it unlocks once your server has been active for a certain number of days and the piece sits at Enhancement Level 100 and Mastery Level 10. After Ascension the max enhancement level is 100 again — the counter restarts. Imbuement then happens at enhancement levels 20, 40, 60, 80 and 100, spending Mithril plus a required number of Mythic Gear, and a single piece can be imbued up to 5 times. Reforged gear can be fed back in as material.
Why our calculator counts to 200
The calculator on this page runs Lv 1 to Lv 200 on one continuous axis, because that is how the community numbers it. Lv 101 to 200 is the same piece after Ascension — in the game itself that range displays as 1 to 100 all over again. Line the two up and they match exactly. Our Mithril costs land on Lv 120, 140, 160, 180 and 200, which is post-Ascension 20, 40, 60, 80 and 100: the publisher's five imbue points, five of them, against a cap of five imbuements. Lv 101 in the calculator, which costs 2 Mythic Gear and no Mithril, is the Ascension step itself. The numbers are right; only the label on the axis is a community convention rather than the game's.
What that means in practice
Two consequences. EXP is never your real constraint once a piece is ascended — Mithril is, and Mithril arrives at a fixed rate from events, so a plan that ignores the five imbue points is a plan that stops. And because scope multiplies everything, deciding now whether you are gearing one piece, one troop set of four, or all twelve is the difference between a two-week goal and a six-month one. The calculator does that multiplication for you.
One place the publisher contradicts itself
The English article says Mythic Gear is ascended to Legendary Gear. The Korean version of the same article says the reverse — Legendary ascended to Mythic. Both give identical imbue levels and the identical five-imbuement cap, so the mechanic itself is not in doubt; only the rarity naming is. We link both and let your own gear screen settle it rather than picking a side.
Where Mithril comes from
Bear Hunt and the alliance events are the steady sources. That is the practical argument for showing up to every Bear Hunt cycle even when your damage bracket is low — the floor bracket still pays, and it pays roughly fifteen times a month.
Sources: Century Games official English help centre — What is Mithril?, What is Gear Ascension?, How to unlock Gear Ascension?, What is Gear Imbuement?, Max enhancement level after ascension, Can reforged Mythic Gear be used as materials?. Rarity-order discrepancy: the Korean version of the same article. The level-by-level cost table is in-game data, not a publisher release, and our label "Enhancement EXP" is unconfirmed.