Check out the latest beta.
You will need to modify your variable modifier string.
Give this a try:
=$level&^r-1,2, ^$=
The ‘-1’ subtracts one from the level value, converting a 1 into a zero.
The following ‘2’ multiples the value by two, so that the repeating string will be repeated twice for each level above 1.
The following string, then, only needs to contain one non-breaking space.
Let me know how this works for you.
Thanks!