NTE Module Farming Guide: EquipmentUpMaterial Tiers, 300 EXP Breakpoints And The Right Dungeon Per Suit

Don't go hunting for separate Core fodder and Shape fodder — NTE only has one material family called EquipmentUpMaterial, and it's used for both. The in-game use text spells it out directly: it grants EXP to "a Module or a Cartridge", meaning Core and Shape draw from the same pool.

• Lv1 — "Manhole Thug" (Green quality, the weakest): grants 1,000 EXP, costs 20 Beetle Coin per use.
• Lv2 — "Manhole Crook" (Blue quality): grants 5,000 EXP, costs 100 Beetle Coin.
• Lv3 — "Manhole Boss" (Purple quality, the strongest): grants 20,000 EXP, costs 400 Beetle Coin.

Check the gold-per-EXP ratio yourself: 20/1,000 = 0.02, 100/5,000 = 0.02, 400/20,000 = 0.02 — identical across all three. There's no gold-saving trick in picking a lower tier; the only thing that changes is how many items you'll be clicking through, so use whichever tier you're holding. For a full rundown of Beetle Coin and NTE's other currencies, see the NTE currency guide.

The entire strengthening curve fits in exactly 300 rows: 3 rarities (Blue/Purple/Orange) x 5 size groups (Core, plus 4 Shape sizes labeled cell1-cell4) x 20 max levels per module. Cross-checking against the 74 real modules that exist in the game, only Core plus cell2/cell3/cell4 (Type II/III/IV) are ever used — the 60 rows in the "cell1" (Type I) group belong to zero real modules, effectively dormant reserve data. Don't waste time cross-referencing that group.

Total EXP required to push a module all the way to level 20 (max), summed across all 20 breakpoints:

Verify the pattern yourself and it's clean: regardless of Core or Shape size, Orange always costs exactly 3x Blue and 1.5x Purple (e.g. Core: 231,000 x 3 = 693,000, matches exactly). Memorize that single 1-2-3 ratio and you can estimate any module's cost without opening a table. If Console/Core/Shape/Suit basics are still unclear, start with the NTE Drive Module fundamentals guide.

Cores, Shapes, Carrota tickets (used for the Shape gacha) and EquipmentUpMaterial itself all drop from a single entry point: the Rabbit Hole dungeon, split into 6 independent zones: Clock Tricks, Sculpture Gallery, Latitude Loom, Defend the Radish, Mental Map, and Night of the Rails.

• Each zone has 6 difficulty tiers — not 3 like some sources claim — tied to a rising recommended team level (the data field is literally called TeamLevel): 10 · 20 · 30 · 40 · 45 · 50.
• Every difficulty, every zone, costs 40 Stamina per run — the same Stamina you burn sprinting, climbing and dodging in the open world, NOT a separate dungeon-only energy bar like many other gacha games run.
• Max Stamina is 180, auto-regenerating 1 point every 6 minutes — a full refill from empty takes about 18 hours, and a Stamina potion (Stamina_addpotion) tops up 60 points instantly if you're in a hurry.

Because it's the same Stamina pool as everyday exploration, grinding Rabbit Hole is directly competing with every other Stamina-gated activity that day — don't torch the whole bar on modules and leave nothing for climbing or dodging elsewhere. The recommended TeamLevel per tier ties directly into account progression — see the Hunter Level guide.

This is the most important part if you're chasing one specific Suit: each Rabbit Hole zone drops Core for exactly 2 of the 12 Suits, fixed — not a random pull across all 12 like a lot of players assume.

Building around a Cosmos/Chaos team means Clock Tricks is the only zone you need — no reason to rotate through all 6. Pin down which Suit your character actually needs first, then lock onto that one zone; that's the Stamina-efficient way to farm, instead of spreading runs thin across every zone.

Core rarity doesn't depend on which zone you're in — it depends on which difficulty tier you're running. Higher difficulty means better rarity, but a couple of lower rarities actually vanish from the table entirely as you climb:

The key breakpoints: Orange only starts dropping from difficulty 3 onward, and Blue disappears completely from difficulty 5. If your team can already clear difficulty 3+, don't linger at difficulty 1-2 for "safety" — that table has zero Orange in it no matter how many runs you grind.

At the same rarity, Core always costs noticeably more EXP than Shape (Orange Core: 693,000 vs. Orange Type IV Shape: only 554,400) — and that's precisely why Core comes first: Core is what decides which Suit activates and carries the biggest main stat on the whole Console. Shape only fills grid space. Dump materials into the one Core you need before spreading thin across 3-4 Shapes at once — otherwise you end up with a half-finished Console everywhere.

• Step 1: figure out which Suit your character needs, check the zone table above, farm that zone for an Orange Core.
• Step 2: pour every Manhole Boss (lv3, 20,000 EXP each) into that Core first.
• Step 3: only move on to Shape once that Core has hit level 20.

Quick math example: an Orange Core needs exactly 693,000 EXP to reach level 20. Divide by 20,000 (EXP per Manhole Boss) and you get 34.65 — meaning roughly 35 Manhole Boss if you use only that tier (with a small EXP surplus on the last one), costing 35 x 400 = 14,000 Beetle Coin. For a tighter fit, use 34 Manhole Boss (680,000 EXP) and top off the remaining 13,000 EXP with a few Manhole Crook (lv2) or Manhole Thug (lv1) — whichever you have on hand, since the 0.02 gold-per-EXP ratio never changes.