[Disciple:] Cultivation Satges Explained

In the beginning, there was no 'stages' concept in the Cultivation World. Each level was differentiated according to foundation building, rebirth, inborn, gold core, nascent soul, and other notable symbols for each realm. The concept of rank tier was popularised during the Ancient Antiquity Era.

There is a clear structure and difference between each cultivation stages. Each stage has unique and definitive changes to the body and/or special ability.

The stages are divided further into minor realms. Rather than the usual 1 – 9 layers or primary, intermediate, advanced, and peak stages, the number of minor realms are different for each stage. In order to breakthrough these minor realms, a cultivator must fulfill the prerequisite requirements first.

[Disciple:] First Stage Beyond Mortal:

Beyond Mortal is the first stage of Cultivations. It was only known as the 'First Stage' during the Ancient Antiquity Era.

The First Stage of Cultivation was split into six minor realms.

Opening the Heart Acupoint

Eye Acupoint

Nose Acupoint

Ears Acupoint

Mouth Acupoint

Fish Leaping Through the Dragon Gate

After the Opening of the Heart Acupoint, each minor realm has a small chance of granting a special ability associated with that part of their body to the person. For example, some special form of vision when they open the Eye Acupoint. Most people will gain at least one such power, with only the unluckiest not doing so, though only the most fortunate gain more than one.

Opening Heart Acupoint:

Opening the Heart Acupoint is also known as the Hundred Days of Foundation Building.

The heart's acupoint is where the heart is, but the heart's acupoint isn't the heart, it is an empty acupoint right where the heart is. It cannot be touched, even if a human body was cut open, the heart's acupoint cannot be found, but it exists right there.

When cultivators opened their first acupoint, the Heart Acupoint, they would complete their foundation and start walking on the path of a cultivator.

Eye Acupoint:

After opening the second acupoint of the First Stage, the Eye Acupoint, chances were that the cultivator would be able to develop a talent ability. However, at least half of all cultivators were unable to awaken a talent ability when opening the Eye Acupoint.

The lucky ones would be able to receive a divine skill like 'Heavenly Eye'; those with poorer luck could also receive skills such as 'Long-Distance Vision', 'Clarity Vision', 'Microscopic Vision', etc. They could receive all kinds of skills, and if one's luck were to be horrendous; they might end up with nothing.

Nose Acupoint:

Opening the Nose Acupoint was more difficult than opening the Eye Acupoint. Without any external aid, it would take at least two years.

The bottleneck of the Nose Acupoint can be regarded as a thick iron gate. A cultivator needed to continuously accumulate qi and blood in the aperture, and once it was full, they could rely on the qi and blood energy to smash the gate open. But, under the effects of the strange energy of Way Grasping Stone, the thick iron gate will start to weaken. From an iron gate, it will first changes into a wooden one… then, it will become a paper gate.

When cultivators opened their Nose Acupoint, their sense of smell would be enhanced. But after having the sense of smell enhanced, cultivators will have many things to worry about. Before reaching the Third Stage Realm, cultivators were unable to control their enhanced sense of smell freely.

Aside from enhancing the sense of smell, once a cultivator had opened his Nose Acupoint, after every breath, the cultivator would inhale the wandering 'spiritual qi' in the surrounding area into his body. Part of it would be stored inside his Nose Aperture; another part would integrate with his body, strengthening it.

In other words, after opening the Nose Acupoint, taking a breath was the same as cultivating.

Ears Acupoint:

Mouth Acupoint:

Fish Leaping Through the Dragon Gate

The Sixth Acupoint Realm was known as Fish Leaping Through the Dragon Gate (鱼跃龙门; yú yuè lóng mén). This minor realm is the ridge a practitioner will face in his path of cultivation.

This minor realm's name was taken from the fish that leaped through a dragon gate to become a dragon. Going past it would be akin to a fish transforming into a dragon, advancing to the Second Stage. Once the gate was leaped over, one could turn the body's qi and blood from incorporeal to corporeal and condense it into true qi, breaking away from the mortal realm.

Once eyes, nose, ears, and mouth acupoints have been opened, they will link with the heart acupoint, and then the cultivator will experience the feeling of being a fish stepping through the dragon's gate. Once the cultivator passed this dragon's gate, the cultivator's body of qi and blood will be able to transform from incorporeal to corporeal, from virtual to reality; that would be the Second Stage True Master, where the power of qi and blood transforms into real Qi.

Many cultivators would reach the First Stage Fish Leaping Through the Dragon Gate's realm while 20 – 30 years old. However, after spending the next 30 – 40 years they would still fail to leap through the dragon gate.

Even though it was just a small bottleneck, around 6% of all practitioners failed to pass this hurdle. The main victims were loose practitioners or those from small sects who lacked resources. Some people had tried to break through this bottleneck for their whole lives without success.

If a cultivator fails to leap over, all of the qi and blood in the cultivator's body would be expended and their cultivation level would drop to the mouth acupoint realm. The only thing that could be done is to accumulating enough qi and blood and attempt to leap over that mysterious dragon gate.

Way Grasping Stone:

If a First Stage cultivator is hovering near the Way Grasping Stone, he can easily break through the bottleneck of the acupoints within his body without much difficulty; and the failure rate is almost zero.

[Disciple:] Second Stage True Master:

True Masters can be considered great experts among mortals. At this level, one can control a shadow organization in the secular world and have some prestige there. Usually, they are the younger generation of sects and clans and the strongest among loose practitioners that still lives among mortals.

In this stage, one can use true Qi. From this stage onward, one needs to pass through tribulation to get to the next stage.

Cultivation Speed:

To be considered a genius, a practitioner needs to be promoted to Second Stage True Master before the age of 10. Those who only used four to five years to breakthrough to this stage from Hundred Days of Foundation Building are considered to have a limitless future.

Those who used only several months to breakthrough to this stage from Hundred Days of Foundation Building are legendary geniuses with monstrous talent.

Realms:

This stage is divided into eight minor realms, one for each dantian opening. The dragon dantians corresponding to the minor realms of the Second Stage are as follows:

First Dantian Origin

Second Dantian Dragon Tail

Third Dantian Dragon Claw

Fourth Dantian Dragon Foot

Fifth Dantian Dragon Palm

Sixth Dantian Dragon Neck

Seventh Dantian Dragon Head

Eighth Dantian Dragon Horn

Breaking Through

[Time Taken To Break Through A Minor Realm:] Genius: 2.5 years

[Total Time Taken:] 17.5 years

[Time Taken To Break Through A Minor Realm:] Normal: 5 Years

[Total Time Taken:] 35 years

[Time Taken To Break Through A Minor Realm:] Slow: 10-20 years

[Total Time Taken:] 70-140 years

Whenever a practitioner of the True Master rank wanted to break through a small realm, they had to nourish and accumulate the true qi in their dantian. After the quantity of true Qi in their dantian was enough, they would send it upward along with the practitioner's backbone, opening the second dantian… the rest was analogous. From the Dragon Tail Dantian, the true Qi would go upward until breaking through the third dantian and so on… until reaching the eighth dantian, the Dragon Horn Dantian.

Under a normal circumstance, if a practitioner didn't consume any medicines or obtain any fortuitous encounter, he will need ten to twenty years to gather enough qi to breakthrough a minor realm. However, using five years to open a dantian is considered a normal speed.

Second Dantian Dragon Tail:

There are four checkpoints between a practitioner's sea of Qi dantian and Dragon Tail dantian, and each of them is more difficult to break through than the previous one.

If a practitioner failed to break through the four checkpoints of the Dragon Tail Dantian at once, they could try to break through by stages.

After ten or so years of accumulation, they would break through one checkpoint. Then, after a few months passed to nourish the meridians, they could use the newly accumulated strength to break through another checkpoint.

One only needed time to open the four checkpoints… but the problem was precisely this waste of time. If one were to breakthrough by stages, they would need around a year to do something they could otherwise do in an instant.

The proper method to break through the four checkpoints is to divide the true Qi into four parts, 10%, 20%, 30%, and 40% for each respective checkpoint. These quantities will be more than enough to break through the various checkpoints.

At first, the practitioner needs to use 10% of his true Qi to smash the first checkpoint. Immediately afterward, he needs to gather 20% of true Qi and smash it upwards and smash open the second checkpoint.

After the second checkpoint was smashed open, the practitioner has a minute of break time. During this one-minute interlude, if the practitioner feels the quantity of true Qi isn't enough, he can eat a medicinal pill to recover it. However, he only has a minute to do so.

Continuing, the practitioner then needs to gather 30% of his true Qi to smash the third checkpoint. For the final checkpoint, he must gather all the true Qi he has left and launch the attack at the fourth checkpoint.

Third Dantian Dragon Claw:

Fourth Dantian Dragon Foot:

Fifth Dantian Dragon Palm:

Sixth Dantian Dragon Neck:

Seventh Dantian Dragon Head:

Eighth Dantian Dragon Horn:

Once the eighth dantian was opened, with the first dantian as the starting point and the eighth dantian as the final point, all eight dantians would connect and form an enormous dragon made of true Qi.

During this period, when true Qi was channeled into the eighth dantian, it would not return to the first dantian, because the Second Stage practitioner's body could only accumulate this amount of true Qi at most. The additional true qi would leak out of the eighth dantian, the transforming Dragon Horn, triggering changes in the external world, leading to the tribulation.

Immortal Body:

After a practitioner reaches the Second Stage, they can strengthen their body via certain means, refining it into an 'immortal body' (仙身;xiān shēn) that can have various attributes. According to the rumors, there are more than a dozen different immortal bodies. Likewise, demonic practitioners have their demon physique (魔体; mó tǐ), Buddhism practitioners their seed of Buddhahood (佛种; fú zhǒng), Ruism has their Ru root (儒根; Rú gēn), and monster practitioners their monster bodies (妖躯; yāo qū). Moreover, they all yield different characteristics. However, it is hard to attain an immortal body. The consumption is very great and the failure rate is more than 90%.

[Disciple:] Third Stage Battle King:

Battle Kings are the strongest among the younger generation, and somewhat rare to find in the secular world. If a member of a sect they generally will be allowed to leave the sect for extended periods of time.

This stage is notable for its strong mortal body and for being capable of using liquid true Qi.

A newly promoted Battle King has twenty times the energy when compared to a Second Stage True Master.

[Type of Influences:] Small influences

[Rank / Position:] Patriarch

[Type of Influences:] Medium influences

[Rank / Position:] Expert

[Type of Influences:] Major influences

[Rank / Position:] High Disciple

Second Promotes Third:

Second Promotes Third is the first tribulation a cultivator will face.

Third Stage's Heavenly Tribulation is mainly primarily pure Thunder Tribulation (雷劫; léi jié), with a small chance of Fire Tribulation (火劫; huǒ jié) and other attributes.

Heavenly Thunder Tribulation:

Normally, there are between five to ten waves of Heavenly Thunder during the tribulation, with each wave being stronger and scarier than the previous one.

The number of the waves was different for each practitioner based on the practitioner's moral behavior. If the practitioner's luck was good, the heavenly tribulation would disappear after five waves, and they would advance to the Third Stage Battle King Realm. If the practitioner's luck wasn't good, the practitioner would have to face ten waves.

The number of waves also an indication of a cultivator's talent. A cultivator with a higher number of waves will be considered more talented than a cultivator with a lower number of waves.

A 1 in 100 trillion Second Promotes Third Heavenly Tribulation will have more than ten waves of Heavenly Thunder. The eleventh wave was considered a legend by cultivators due to its rarity.

Heart Demon Tribulation:

It's common knowledge that there is no Heart Demon Tribulation in the Second to Third Stage Tribulation. However, due to Heavenly Way Departure Countdown, tribulation transcenders will face the dreaded Heart Demon Tribulation.

Realms

Third Stage Battle King has four minor realms, each one corresponding to unlocking one the Great Extraordinary Meridians (四奇脉; sì qí mài):

Star Bright Meridian (星辉脉; xīng huī mài)

Moon Yin Meridian (月阴脉; yuè yīn mài)

Yang Flame Meridian (阳炎脉; yáng yán mài)

Void King Meridian (空王脉; kōng wáng mài)

Body of the Battle King:

The physical body of a cultivator of the Third Stage Battle King Realm was very powerful. The Body of the Battle King (战王之躯; Zhàn Wáng zhī Qū) was the distinctive trait of cultivators of the Third Stage, and also part of their path of cultivation.

The 'Body of the Battle King' referred to the inner part of the body of a practitioner. To be more precise, to the Four Extraordinary Meridians (四奇脉; sì qí mài) that spread everywhere inside the body of a practitioner.

The first meridian, Star Bright Meridian; the second meridian, Moon Yin Meridian; the third meridian, Yang Flame Meridian; the fourth meridian, Void King Meridian. In other words, these four meridians were the full form and manifestation of the Body of the Battle King.

After slowly opening these Four Great Extraordinary Meridians, cultivators of the Third Stage could activate them during their battles to instantaneously receive a big boost in strength. With each meridian opened, the boost in strength would also increase.

After opening all the Four Extraordinary Meridians, practitioners of the Third Stage could display the full strength of the Body of the Battle King, attracting the heavenly tribulation and impacting the bottleneck to the Fourth Stage Inborn Realm.

[A/N: There is more information on the stages, but I will put those later on as the MC progresses and breakthrough. The next will be [Expert]

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