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The Ascension Trial is one of AION 2's two solo dungeons, alongside Nightmare. NCsoft's 2025 previews called it the Awakening Battle, and its Korean name is 각성전. It existed from the launch of the Korean and Taiwanese service: a November 26, 2025 patch cut its weekly attempts from seven to three and doubled the rewards to compensate.
Global service: the global client's game data, as of its September 18, 2026 snapshot, contains all six trial dungeons and their difficulties. NCsoft has not published the global rules, so the rest of this page describes the Korean and Taiwanese service.
How the Trial Works
The official guidebook describes the Ascension Trial as a one-player dungeon run against a time limit: the player clears the monsters in every zone and then kills the final boss. Each zone also has an extra objective, and completing it either grants a helpful buff or puts a debuff on the final boss. The difficulty chosen sets the multiplier on the score, and the list of available trial dungeons changes every week. After entry there is a short preparation time with no control, and since April 8, 2026 the trial starts the moment it ends.
Rule | Detail |
|---|---|
Players | One (solo) |
Weekly attempts | Three since November 26, 2025, cut from seven with rewards doubled to compensate |
Retry | Since April 1, 2026 a retry re-enters the same difficulty if tickets remain |
After the trial | Since June 17, 2026 skill cooldowns reset and health and mana refill when the trial ends |
Cooldown buff | Cooldown reduction picked up in the trial is capped at 60% (fixed July 15, 2026) |
Dungeons
Dungeon | Korean name | Added (KR/TW) |
|---|---|---|
Nightmare Altar | 악몽의 제단 | Before Season 2 |
Sanctum of Loathing | 증오의 성소 | Before Season 2 |
Tyrant's Hideout | 폭군의 은신처 | January 21, 2026 |
Depository of Fates | 궤적 보관소 | January 21, 2026 |
Chamber of the Dead | 죽은 자의 침실 | July 1, 2026 |
Forgotten Repository | 잊힌 저장소 | July 1, 2026 |
Tyrant's Hideout and Depository of Fates are NCsoft's English names. The other four are the game client's English data.
Difficulties
The ladder starts at Easy, Normal and Hard and climbs through Extreme, Insane and Hell. Season 2 added Insane and Hell on January 21, 2026, trimming some rewards on Extreme at the same time. Chapter 1 added Doom on July 1, 2026, open from item level 4,000. Not every dungeon offers every tier.
Difficulty | Korean name | Entry item level |
|---|---|---|
Easy | 쉬움 | 1,000 |
Normal | 보통 | 1,500 |
Hard | 어려움 | 2,000 |
Extreme | 극한 | 2,500 |
Insane | 절망 | 3,000 |
Hell | 지옥 | 3,500 |
Doom | 파멸 | 4,000 |
The Doom requirement of 4,000 is NCsoft's own figure; the lower item levels are the values in the game client's data. That data lists Doom only for Chamber of the Dead and Forgotten Repository, and Insane and Hell for all six dungeons. Since January 21, 2026 the trial menu remembers the difficulty last picked.
Scores and Rewards
Rewards are paid by score band. The Season 2 patch lowered the Extreme rewards at two bands: at 5,000 points Silentium (Bound) went from 80 to 70, and at 6,000 points Silentium went from 100 to 80 and Fragment: Ariel's Trace from 40 to 38. Other changes to the reward list:
Korean players describe the score as a clear bonus plus the seconds left on the timer multiplied by a difficulty bonus, so fast, deathless runs score highest. The Void Spiral (공허의 나선체) appears in the early rooms for a limited time; breaking it, which takes a set number of hits, debuffs the final boss, and breaking more of them stacks the effect, which matches the guidebook's description of zone objectives.
January 7, 2026: the Silentium reward became bound.
March 11, 2026: the weekly season mission for trial and Raid clears added Daevanion Crystal: Ariel (Bound).
March 25, 2026: fewer engraving boxes and new Unstable Stigma Shards.
April 8, 2026: Fragment: Ariel's Trace and Enhancement Stones added.
Changes
Date (KR/TW) | Change |
|---|---|
November 26, 2025 | Weekly attempts cut from seven to three, rewards doubled, and trial mission counts lowered |
December 3, 2025 | Monster stats lowered and fewer hits needed to destroy the Void Spiral (공허의 나선체) |
January 21, 2026 | Insane and Hell added; Tyrant's Hideout and Depository of Fates added; Extreme rewards trimmed; the chosen difficulty is remembered |
March 25, 2026 | Clear rewards gained Unstable Stigma Shards while the number of engraving boxes was reduced |
April 1, 2026 | A retry option that re-enters the same difficulty if tickets remain; a fix stopped players skipping the Hideout barrier in Tyrant's Hideout |
April 8, 2026 | Fragment: Ariel's Trace and Enhancement Stones added to the rewards; the trial starts as soon as the preparation time ends; the ranking moved to a class-based system; Season 2 ranking rewards replaced by a title box sold for 2 Quna |
June 17, 2026 | Skill cooldowns reset and health and mana refill when the trial ends; ranking points on Hell scale with completion time |
July 1, 2026 | Doom difficulty; Chamber of the Dead and Forgotten Repository added |
July 15, 2026 | Cooldown reduction from the trial capped at 60% |
August 26, 2026 | Boss direction markers shown in the trial |
Related Pages
Nightmare