CRK Trials of the Nether Realm Guide: Nodes, AP and Rewards

Trials of the Nether Realm is the mode Devsisters points you to for Legendary Topping Tarts, and Hard Mode hands them out in a fixed order. Per the reward table cookierun.wiki recorded during Season 6, each of Hard's first ten zones pays one Legendary Tart of a set type the first time you clear it that season: Searing Raspberry at Zone 1, Swift Chocolate at Zone 8, Fresh Kiwi at Zone 10, and a Legendary Topping Tart Choice Chest at Zone 11. So the real question this mode asks is how deep your expedition can get before its Cookies run out of Activity Points.

This guide covers how a run works: tickets, the one-high-rarity rule, the season's elements, Activity Points and the five node types. Then it covers what Easy and Hard pay zone by zone, and what the September 23 update changed about Time Jumpers. Devsisters' July 29 update notice is the rulebook here. Where a number comes from cookierun.wiki's page on the mode (created October 10, still flagged as a stub) or from the screenshots in Devsisters' notice, the sentence says so. What a Legendary Tart does once you have one is in our Topping Tarts guide.

How a run works

Trials of the Nether Realm arrived in v7.7, Tartrus of Oblivion, on July 29, 2026, the same update as Nether Queen Cookie, Asphodel Cookie and Legendary Topping Tarts. Devsisters calls it "a seasonal endless exploration mode": you pick an expedition of Cookies, then walk it down a branching map of nodes, zone by zone, choosing a path at each fork.

The basics:

• Unlock: cookierun.wiki puts it at Cookie Castle Lv.7.
• Entry: each run costs one Trial Ticket, per The Cookie Book's guide to the mode. cookierun.wiki's Currencies page says the tickets refill each Wednesday at midnight GMT+9 and can be bought up to twice a week, and that each refill adds four.
• One high-rarity Cookie per run. Devsisters' rule: only one WITCH, BEAST, LEGENDARY, ANCIENT, DRAGON or SUPER EPIC Cookie can be placed per run. Our Nether Queen build and Asphodel build both work through what that does to a roster.

There are two difficulties, and per cookierun.wiki each one tracks its own expedition slots and its own rewards:

Zone counts are Devsisters'; the score and slot rows are cookierun.wiki's. The wiki adds that a high Hard score doesn't pay any reward at the moment. Devsisters' notice says Time Jumper rewards don't count toward score either. So play Hard for zone clears, not points.

Seasons, elements and Season Cookies

Devsisters' rules: each season features three elements, and expeditions are formed with Cookies using those elements. Each season also names Season Cookies, who "receive powerful special effects" inside the mode. cookierun.wiki lists all six seasons so far:

Devsisters' own launch screenshots back up Season 1's row: the lobby shows Grass, Light and Water as the season's elements, and the selection screen above shows Asphodel, Cream Soda and Madeleine as Season Cookies. Each season's start date on the wiki falls within a day of an update day (July 29, August 12, August 26, September 9, September 23, October 7), so read a season as running from one update to the next. Season 6 is running now. The wiki's countdown runs to midnight GMT+9 at the end of October 20.

Three patterns fall out of that table once you check each Cookie's cookierun.wiki infobox:

• All 18 Season Cookies so far are Epics. None of them spends your one high-rarity slot.
• They usually cover one element each. In five of the six seasons, the three Season Cookies split the three featured elements one apiece. The exception is Season 5: Mogra has no element on her infobox, so none of that season's Season Cookies was a Water Cookie.
• Ice and Wind haven't been featured yet. Across six seasons, the 18 element slots have gone to the other ten elements.

For Season 6, that means a Steel front-liner, a Poison support and a Darkness archer. Salt Cellar is a Defense Cookie in the Front. Black Sapphire is a Support in the Middle; our Black Sapphire build covers his Poison kit. Caramel Arrow is a Ranged Cookie positioned in the Front; see our Caramel Arrow build.

Building the expedition

Slots grow by clearing zones. The first clear of each zone adds one Expedition slot, and it applies from your next run, not the current one. Devsisters' Zone 1 screenshot, further down, shows that line, and cookierun.wiki says the same. The Nether Realm Mini-Pass added two more slots and +20% Activity Points through its passive effects, per Devsisters' July 29 notice, which also says those passives only apply to runs started after you buy it. cookierun.wiki lists two runs of that pass, July 28 to August 25 and August 25 to September 22. Neither the September 23 nor the October 7 notice mentions it. Since September 23, your Expedition Cookie list is saved when a run ends instead of resetting.

Count your damage dealers per element, not in total. In Devsisters' screenshots, the info card for each Battle, Fierce Battle and Boss node lists a recommended element and an applied effect marked with that element. cookierun.wiki spells out the effect: enemies on Battle, Fierce Battle and Boss nodes take 90% less damage from anything that isn't that node's element. Devsisters' notice doesn't give that number. But if it holds, a damage dealer of the wrong element is close to dead weight on that node. Spread your damage dealers across all three of the season's elements rather than stacking your best one.

Recruits are free bodies. When a Cookie enemy appears at a Fierce Battle node, you can recruit it. Recruited Cookies don't take up slots and leave before the next expedition (Devsisters). Per cookierun.wiki, some Fierce Battle nodes feature a Season Cookie. Devsisters' screenshot of a recruit says meeting a Cookie who has already joined restores all of its Activity instead.

Activity Points are the real clock

Devsisters' rules: Cookies that take part in a battle lose Activity Points (AP) after it ends. A Cookie with 0 AP sits out every battle until the run ends, unless a Healing node or a lucky Rift of Oblivion restores it. Most Cookies in the launch screenshots show a 100-point AP bar.

cookierun.wiki and The Cookie Book's guide to the mode describe the drain the same way. Every battle costs a base amount, plus more for clearing new waves or for a longer fight, up to a per-battle cap. Two practical reads:

• Fast clears are cheaper. A long battle costs more AP than a short one, so burst damage saves AP as well as time.
• A loss isn't free. Progress is saved, but AP comes off after every battle, win or lose.

The five node types

Rules are from Devsisters' July 29 notice unless marked.

The Healing node choice is arithmetic. Devsisters' screenshot and cookierun.wiki give the same two options: +10 AP to every Cookie, or +30 AP to three Cookies you pick. The panel also notes that it restores Activity only, not HP. Heal All is guaranteed to restore more total AP once ten or more of your Cookies are each missing at least 10 AP (10 × 10 = 100, against at most 3 × 30 = 90). The +30 option is the one that puts specific Cookies back in the fight, so take it when the three Cookies the next node needs are the ones running dry.

The Rift is a gamble you can see coming. Devsisters' screenshot of its info card lists the four outcomes and says the expected reward can't be known in advance. Take it when you can afford a surprise fight, not when your expedition is one battle from empty.

What each zone pays

Devsisters' notice sets the rules. Each zone's Area Clear Reward is a first-clear reward you earn once per season by beating that zone's Boss node. Node Rewards are milestones inside a zone, also once per season. Battle Rewards come with every win. The amounts below are cookierun.wiki's, added on October 11, during Season 6, by the editor building the page. Treat them as this season's record, not a permanent table.

Easy, Zones 1 to 5

Easy looks stable. Devsisters' Season 1 screenshots, taken on a development build, show the same Zone 1 reward (90 Tart Cores, 50,000 Coins, 5 Purple Fossils, above) and the same 360 Tart Cores and 8 Epic Topping Choice Chests on the lobby's reward panel that the wiki records now.

Hard, Zones 1 to 11

Main stats are from cookierun.wiki's Toppings page. The wiki's reward table stops at Zone 11 and is marked as unfinished, so what deeper zones pay isn't recorded yet.

Add up Zones 1 to 11 and one season of Hard pays 10 typed Legendary Tarts plus a Choice Chest, 2,500 Tart Cores, 150 Butter Cream, 2,000 Crystals and 1.3 million Coins. Even Hard's first five zones out-pay Easy's whole run on the headline items: 5 Legendary Tarts to 2, 1,200 Tart Cores to 360, 50 Butter Cream to 15, and 520,000 Coins to 240,000.

Three reads from that:

• The Tart you want sets how deep you need to go. Searing Raspberry is one boss away. Swift Chocolate, the Cooldown Tart, waits at Zone 8, and the Choice Chest that lets you pick a type is deeper still, at Zone 11.
• Butter Cream is the scarce line. cookierun.wiki's Currencies page says Butter Cream comes only from this mode and from certain time-limited events, and it's what promotes an Epic Tart to Legendary. Hard's three Butter Cream zones (3, 7 and 11) pay 150 a season. Easy pays 15. Devsisters hasn't stated the promotion cost; the Topping Tarts guide covers what's known.
• The Tart Cores feed the Tarts. Upgrading, changing the effect and resetting a Legendary Tart all spend Tart Cores, and Hard's zone rewards pay 2,500 a season before you count battle and node rewards.

The Fossils pay out through the Appraiser, covered in our Into the Depths guide. For the 100 Radiant Beascuit Dough at Zone 10, see our Beascuit Dough costs guide.

What battles pay along the way

cookierun.wiki's Easy-mode node rewards. Devsisters' screenshots match its Tart Core and Kingdom EXP figures for Battle and Fierce Battle nodes:

The map also marks milestone rewards between rows of nodes: the Node Rewards that Devsisters' notice says you claim once per season. Its screenshots show 30 Tart Cores at one marker and 10 Butter Cream at another.

Time Jumpers and fast-forward since September 23

Once you've played a difficulty and ended the expedition, Time Jumpers can pay out its battle rewards again without a run. The September 23 update changed how much:

• Before: rewards were based on the farthest zone you cleared.
• After: rewards are based on the farthest node you cleared, and only Battle Node rewards can still be obtained this way. Devsisters' own warning: "Clearing fewer Battle Nodes may result in fewer rewards."

That one line should shape your manual run. If you plan to Time Jumper a difficulty for the rest of the season, a route through Healing and Rift nodes can lower that payout. Take Battle nodes where your AP allows. Time Jumper rewards also don't count toward score. Our Today's Bounties guide covers where Time Jumpers come from.

The same update added:

• Fast-forward on nodes you've cleared manually at least once. The battle resolves instantly from your team setup. You can still lose, and AP is deducted based on the result.
• Six battle team slots instead of three.
• Floor display in node info, not just the zone.

Our v7.9 update guide lists these with the rest of that patch. One more link from the October 7 update: a win in Trials of the Nether Realm is one of the results that can trigger Desert Raid.

What the sources do not settle

• Whether you must own your Expedition Cookies. cookierun.wiki says they can be picked whether you own them or not. Devsisters' notices don't say either way, and every Cookie on the Expedition screen in the launch screenshots is Level 100. That came from a development build, so it doesn't settle anything. Check your own Expedition screen.
• The Healing node's single-target option. The notice's text says you restore "one Cookie or the entire expedition". Devsisters' own screenshot and cookierun.wiki both show three Cookies at +30 each.
• The Mini-Pass slot bonus. The notice says +2 Expedition slots; cookierun.wiki's pass page lists +1. The notice is the one to trust.
• The reward tables are one season's record. One editor added them on October 11, during Season 6. Easy's Zone 1 line and its 360 Tart Core and 8 Epic Chest totals match Devsisters' Season 1 screenshots; the Hard table has no second source yet.
• Season dates by a day. The Cookie Book lists Season 4 as September 9 to 22 and Season 5 as September 23 to October 6, a day off cookierun.wiki's dates.

Quick Action Checklist

1. Check the season's three elements before you build. Season 6 is Steel, Poison and Darkness, listed through October 20.
2. Spend your one high-rarity slot on purpose. Only one Witch, Beast, Legendary, Ancient, Dragon or Super Epic Cookie can go on a run. All 18 Season Cookies so far are Epics, so they don't use it.
3. Stack damage dealers by element. cookierun.wiki says enemies take 90% less damage from any element but their node's.
4. Win fast. Longer battles and new waves cost more Activity.
5. Pick the Healing option by the numbers. Heal All is a sure win on total AP once ten or more Cookies are each missing 10+; otherwise put +30 on the three Cookies the next node needs.
6. Push Hard toward the Tart you want. Searing Raspberry is Zone 1, Swift Chocolate is Zone 8, and Zone 11 is a Legendary Tart Choice Chest.
7. Clear Battle nodes on your manual run if you plan to Time Jumper the difficulty later. Since September 23, only Battle Node rewards carry over.
8. Clear a node by hand once to unlock fast-forward on it.