After the Defense arc's floor is built, the question changes — from am I safe? to am I building? and finally what is it for? Levels 6–9 run as parallel side-quests: unlike Defense, you can make progress on several at once.
Level 6 — Accelerate
Criterion: 3-month average savings rate ≥ 15%. The rolling average is the honesty mechanism — a single windfall month doesn't clear it; a steady habit does. Your savings rate comes from your real monthly summaries (income minus expenses, over income).
Level 7 — Compound
Criterion: 3-month average savings rate ≥ 25%, with at least 3 complete months of data. At this rate, time starts doing the heavy lifting — and your Future Self projections are live by construction, showing exactly what the rate is buying you at ten, twenty, and thirty years.
Level 8 — Fund the Future
Criterion: at least one funded legacy goal. A legacy goal is one you mark as being for the people and moments beyond yourself — education, family, giving. "Funded" means it has a target and real money allocated against it (see Goals and funding). Purpose, with a balance.
Level 9 — Financial Independence
Criterion: passive income ≥ total expenses for 12 consecutive months. Passive income is whatever lands in categories you've marked as passive (investment income, rent, royalties). Twelve consecutive months is deliberately demanding — FI is a state, not a good quarter. When the ratio holds for a year, work is officially a choice.