Then you didn't look hard enough. It is radically different from your code.
If "level" provided by crxranks_user_level_updated() doesn't work then that's a bug with the crxranks plugin. You can easily replace it with crxranks_get_user_level(). If crxranks_user_level_updated() doesn't work as it was designed, that's not my fault. You should report these issues to the author, probably best to create an issue here.
He is using nvault to save users choosen character from menu and load it every map. im not sure though but thats what i understood