Realm of Corporeal
• Mortal
An ordinary person with no awakened spiritual sense. Flesh rots, bones break, and lifespan is as short as any farmer's.
• Breath Tempering
The first step into cultivation. The body learns to drink in heaven and earth qi with each breath, toughening muscles, bones, and organs. A Breath Tempering cultivator is faster, stronger, and harder to kill than any normal soldier.
• Cornerstone Setting
The stage of building a stable foundation. Meridians are cleared, dantian is strengthened, and the "cornerstones" of future cultivation are laid. A shaky cornerstone means a lifetime of limits.
• Gilded Core
Qi is refined into a solid core within the dantian. The body becomes a half-treasure furnace. This stage may also be the manifestation of natal/ inborn treasure.
• Nascent Embryo
The core cracks and gives birth to a tiny "embryo" of spirit within. This is the first hint of a true, independent spiritual self. Killing a Nascent Embryo cultivator is far harder, their will does not die easily as the "embryo" can run far.
• Spirit Transfiguration
Spirit and flesh begin to reshape one another. A cultivator's presence can suppress a crowd; their aura twists the air and stirs omens. Some gain strange, inhuman traits as their soul bleeds through.
• True Unity
Body, qi, and spirit act as a single blade. At this stage, every thought can become a technique, and every breath carries power. Wounds that would maim others can be re-woven.
• Mortal Apotheosis
The peak of what the mortal shell can endure. One step short of godhood, yet still shackled to the world. Their very existence bends fortune around them; nations rise or fall when such people move.
• Aether Crossing
The cultivator learns to step partly out of the coarse mortal world and into subtler currents of the void. Their senses can roam far, and distance begins to lose meaning. Most people never see someone at this level.
• Dao Epitome
A sliver of a single Dao (path/principle) is grasped and branded into the soul. Their techniques carry the flavor of that Dao. Which could be sword, fire, knowledge, music, etc.
• Transcendence
Transcendents walk on the edge of the world's rules. This stage is the most precarious stage as the heavenly dao will want to assimilate you as a part of the world.
• Ascension
A brief yet decisive stage where the full weight of one's mortal karma descends. It is the true end of the Realm of Corporeal. To ascend is to sever every mortal shackle and step into a higher existence. Or be crushed and vanish instead.
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Realm of Immortals - Coming soon...