wait does higher cycles mean you can get abilities quicker but enemies are considerably stronger?
Yeah being in a "higher cycle" pretty much rolls 1-cycle # on a few of the enemy's attributes when it spawns, and on the glory you gain when you kill an enemy, and multiplies the attribute / glory by that much
So in the Third Cycle, a rat-man will have x1-3 max life, and you'll gain x1-3 glory when you kill it