City Tycoon is the life-sim backbone of Neverness to Everness, and your level in it gates nearly everything worth having: passive income streams, new activities, free characters, and more. Rushing it early pays dividends for the rest of your account. Here's exactly how to push those levels as fast as possible, based on what the system actually rewards.
Play Neverness to Everness Now
Jump in today and start your adventure with the latest rewards and bonuses available at launch.
Download Neverness to Everness
How does the City Tycoon level system work?
Your City Tycoon level advances when you satisfy two conditions simultaneously: hit the Fons requirement for the next level and complete all City Tycoon Objectives tied to your current level. Neither condition alone is enough. You need both.
Each level comes with up to 4 objectives. These range from completing feature tutorials to spending a set amount of City Stamina to hitting milestones in the Exploration Guide. Think of them as the checklist that forces you to actually engage with each new system before the game lets you move on.
Fons, meanwhile, is NTE's in-game currency tied specifically to City Tycoon progression. You earn it through cafes, hobbies, combat, exploration, and even direct purchase. The objectives and Fons grind run in parallel, so the faster you knock out both, the faster you level.
City Tycoon level objectives
Completing objectives without meeting the Fons threshold does nothing, and hitting the Fons cap without finishing objectives does nothing either. Always track both at the same time.
What are the fastest ways to raise your City Tycoon level?
Unlock The Cafe by Origen at City Tycoon level 4
The single best long-term investment you can make early on is getting The Cafe by Origen running as soon as it unlocks at City Tycoon level 4. The cafe generates Fons passively by the hour, which means every hour you delay setting it up is passive income you are never getting back.
Upgrading the cafe requires raising your management level, investing in new cafe locations, and slotting in better items over time. The earlier you start, the higher your hourly Fons output climbs before you even need the currency for later progression.
One cost trap to avoid: paying delivery fees for cafe ingredients. Go out of your way to buy ingredients yourself rather than using delivery. The delivery fee stacks on top of ingredient costs and quietly eats into your margins.
Which characters should you hire at the cafe?
Two employees can be assigned to each cafe location, and the right picks make a real difference. Characters split into two useful categories for cafe staffing:
- Price boosters (raise dish prices): Mint and Adler
- Traffic boosters (increase customer volume): Skia and Aurelia
Neither approach is strictly better. If you have multiple cafe locations running, mixing price and traffic boosters across them tends to produce more total Fons than stacking one type everywhere.
Do Hethereau Hobbies for Fons and City Stamina
Hobbies are your main active source of Fons outside the cafe, and two of them stand out as genuinely efficient:
City Delivery unlocks at City Tycoon level 8. You run deliveries across Hethereau under a time limit while keeping cargo damage low. It beats the Swift Driver and Racing hobbies on pure Fons efficiency because those two require you to spend Fons on a good car first, then absorb repair costs when the car takes damage. City Delivery sidesteps all of that.
Owner's Selection unlocks once you invest in The Cafe by Origen Fiscus Avenue location. You fulfill customer orders against a timer. Beyond the Fons it pays out, it is one of the quickest ways to burn through City Stamina, which you need to spend anyway as part of certain level objectives.
Prioritize Owner's Selection when you need to drain City Stamina for an objective. It doubles as both a Fons source and a stamina sink, making it time-efficient in a way most other hobbies are not.
Do Pink Paws Bank Heists at City Tycoon level 11
At City Tycoon level 11, the Pink Paws Bank Heist opens up. This is a timed stealth mission where you sneak through the Pink Paws Bank at night and collect Fons before the clock runs out. Play it well and you can walk away with hundreds of thousands of Fons per run, plus bonus items on top.
The heist resets on a two-week cycle, so missing a reset is a meaningful loss. Set a reminder and run it the moment it refreshes.
The heist's two-week reset means you only get a limited number of runs across the early game. Missing even one cycle sets your Fons farming back considerably at a stage when every bit counts.
Use Chiz once you unlock her at City Tycoon level 18
Chiz is an S Class character who becomes available at City Tycoon level 18, with additional copies unlockable by pushing your level further. She is a solid DPS on her own, but her real value for City Tycoon progression is a passive that generates Fons whenever she defeats an enemy with her basic attack.
This passive has a cap. At City Tycoon level 18, the total Fons she can generate is capped at 250,000 Fons. Reaching City Tycoon level 25 raises that cap to 500,000 Fons. Run her in your combat team consistently and she turns regular exploration and combat into a steady Fons trickle without you doing anything extra.
Explore Hethereau, run dailies, and buy Fons if needed
Beyond the major systems above, Fons trickles in from several other sources: daily missions, open-world city exploration, Anomaly Commissions, and main story questing. None of these match the output of cafes or heists, but they add up and should not be ignored, especially in the early game when every thousand Fons matters.
For players who want to skip the grind entirely, the in-game Mall sells Fons directly. The Diversified Assets Pack is the most notable option, granting 1,000,000 Fons and 1,000,000 Beetle Coins in a single purchase. That is a significant chunk of early-game progression for players willing to spend.
What City Tycoon level should you prioritize in the early game?
Here are the specific milestones worth targeting as fast as possible:
- Level 4: Cafe by Origen unlocks. Get here quickly and start the passive income engine.
- Level 8: City Delivery hobby unlocks. Your most Fons-efficient active grind becomes available.
- Level 11: Pink Paws Bank Heist unlocks. Major Fons injection every two weeks.
- Level 18: Chiz joins your roster. Combat Fons generation begins.
- Level 25: Chiz's Fons cap doubles from 250,000 to 500,000.
Think of each milestone as a gear shift. The game's Fons economy scales up noticeably at each one, so the faster you reach the next threshold, the faster your entire income loop accelerates.
For more NTE strategies and the latest on what's worth your time in Hethereau, browse more guides on GAMES.GG.