The Road to Level 15

Level 15 unlocks the Travel Agency, and with it the first reliable way for a new player to make money. Before that, cash is hard to come by, so experienced players treat 15 as the first real milestone and push to reach it in days, not weeks.

Travel opens up three things at once:

• Travel runs: buy plushies and flowers abroad cheaply and sell them back home for profit.
• Abroad-only services: five destinations have a special service you can't get in Torn City.
  • Cayman Islands – Offshore Banking: store any amount of cash, safe from muggers, earning a small monthly interest. Muggers often wait there, so don't idle.
  • Hawaii – Suitcases: buy suitcases that let you carry more items home per trip.
  • Switzerland – Rehab Centre: reduces drug addiction (key if you use Xanax) and refills happiness, for a fee of 250k per visit, ATTENTION may require multiple visit to get rid of addiction.
  • China – Fortune Teller: shows how close you are to your next level, for $75,000.
  • South Africa – Hunting: spend 10 energy and $500 per hunt to earn money and build hunting skill.
• Foreign shops everywhere: every country has a General Store (plushies, flowers, souvenirs), an Arms Dealer and a Black Market with items you can't buy at home.

The plan in short: train a little in the gym so you can win fights, then spend almost all your energy attacking weak-for-their-level targets until you hit 15. After that, level stops mattering much and your energy goes back to the gym.

Set up the things that run in the background first, then start spending energy and nerve. Each of these takes a minute and pays off for weeks.

• Finish the tutorial missions. They hand out small amounts of cash and items, and teach you the menus.
• Start your education. Go to the City and open the University. Courses run in real time and you can take one at a time, so always have one going. Follow this order (Biology and Sports Science on the official wiki):

1. Introduction to Biochemistry — $200, 1 week. Unlocks the next course.
2. Intravenous Therapy — $3,500, 3 weeks. Lets you use blood bags.
3. Introduction to Sports Science — $200, 1 week. Unlocks all sports courses.
4. Strength and Conditioning — $1,150, 3 weeks. +1% strength gains.
5. Physiological Testing — $1,200, 3 weeks. +1% speed gains.
6. Nutritional Science — $2,500, 3 weeks. +2% speed and strength.
7. Human Movement Analysis — $1,500, 2 weeks. +1% defense gains.
8. Bio Mechanical Determinants of Skill — $1,750, 3 weeks. +1% dexterity gains.
9. Analysis and Performance — $2,880, 3 weeks. +2% defense and dexterity.
10. Sports Medicine — $2,250, 4 weeks. +10% needle effectiveness.
11. Sports Administration — $400, 1 week. Unlocks the sports shop.
12. Bachelor of Sports Science — $5,000, 6 weeks. +1% to all gym gains.

     You'll only finish the first few before level 15. That's fine: keep studying afterwards.

• Take a basic city job. Pick one of the starter Torn jobs (Army, Grocer, Casino, Medical, Education, Law). They raise your working stats and pay daily. At level 3 you can join a player company instead, but many players stay in a city job until 15.
• Understand your four bars.
  • Energy: spent in the gym and on attacks. This is your main resource for leveling.
  • Nerve: spent on crimes. Use it for small cash and items.
  • Happy: boosts gym gains. It resets to its normal maximum every 15 minutes.
  • Life: drops when you fight. If it hits zero you go to hospital.
• Do your first gym sessions. Train strength and speed first; they matter most for winning early fights.
• Spend nerve on crimes. Commit the easiest crimes you can pass reliably. Failing can send you to jail.

Attacking a player and choosing Leave is by far the fastest way to gain XP. Torn hides your XP bar.

Unlocks along the way 

Determined players reach 15 in well under two weeks, and some report doing it in under one. The route has two phases.

Phase 1 — Train just enough (first few days). Put your energy into the gym until you have roughly 400–600 total battle stats, weighted toward strength and speed. Keep happy high (cheap candy from the Sweet Shop helps). Don't over-invest: training here is only a means to winning fights.

Phase 2 — Attack and leave (until 15). Once you can beat leveling targets comfortably, stop training and spend every bit of energy on attacks.

• Find targets.
• Each attack costs 25 energy. Win, click Leave, move to the next target.
• Xanax gives +250 energy per dose (10 extra attacks), but builds addiction you can only clear at 15.

Daily routine

• Spend energy before the bar fills (gym in phase 1, attacks in phase 2)
• Spend nerve on crimes
• Buy your daily 100 city-shop items and resell them
• Check education is still running; start the next course if not
• Click Upgrade if a level is waiting
• Use any faction perks or free items

Pre-travel income is small, so the goal is a modest war chest for gym costs, candy and your first flight, not wealth. Reported figures are around $50–75k a day from shop flipping alone.

• Shop flipping: you can buy 100 items a day from city shops (beer and basic plushies at Bits 'n' Bobs, lollipops at the Sweet Shop) and resell them on the item market or bazaars.
• City job pay: a steady daily wage plus working-stat gains.
• Crimes: small cash and items from your nerve bar.
• Selling losses: some players pay you to lose a fight against them. Treat it as an occasional boost, since it uses energy you'd otherwise spend leveling.
• City bank: once you have spare cash, investing even a small amount.

• Mugging or hospitalizing while leveling. It cuts your XP per attack by roughly half or more. Always click Leave.
• Forgetting to click Upgrade. Your XP banks silently until you level up manually.
• Over-training before you attack. Get to roughly 400–600 total stats, then switch. Every extra gym day delays travel income.
• Attacking low-level players for XP. A level 30 inactive is worth far more than a level 5 active, and the active one may hit back.
• Wasting energy and nerve. A full bar is lost regeneration. Log in often enough to spend it.
• Ignoring education. Courses take real days to finish, so start one on day one and never let it sit idle.
• Taking Xanax daily with no plan for rehab. Addiction drags down gym gains; you can only clear it in Switzerland after level 15.
• Spending on gear and items you don't need yet. Save money for your first travel run instead.

At 15, open the Travel Agency in the City (West Side) and start with short runs to Mexico, the Cayman Islands or Canada. You can carry 10 items home per trip as a new player without upgrades, so short flights mean more trips per day.

How a run works:

1. Check abroad stock on a community tracker before you fly; shops sell out and restock over time.
2. Fly out, buy plushies or flowers at the General Store, fly back.
3. Sell on the Item Market or in your bazaar. Full sets can be swapped for points, which keeps demand steady.

Things to know before you fly:

• Weapons and armor no longer travel with you. You can be attacked abroad, but not while in the air. 

  When you land you get a 15-second protection window; after that you show up on the country's People list, where muggers wait for travelers. Buy what you need quickly and fly home.

• Capacity grows later with faction perks, suitcases, an airstrip on a private island, certain company jobs and the book Smuggling For Beginners.
• Once you're flying, level stops being a priority: put your energy back into the gym.

• Flying out without enough money. Your inventory and the bank stay home, so you can only spend the cash you carry. Before you book, add up the cost of a full load of items at foreign prices, plus any rehab or hunting fees. Short on cash? About 10 minutes before you land, message your faction banker to send money, so it's in your wallet on arrival and you don't sit abroad waiting where muggers can find you.