|| A Day Later ||

Hank, Scrifo and Elder Dwight were returning to the village after having sold the equipment at the city. Scrifo was laying down in the now empty carriage while Hank and Elder Dwight were in the front.

‘Ow! My legs! My shoulders! Ow! My whole body is hurting so bad…’

Scrifo exclaimed in his head as he rubbed his sore body.

“You okay there, shithead?” Hank asked as he looked towards Scrifo.

“Humph! I’m not talking to you, you crooked old man!”

Scrifo said as he looked away from Hank with attitude.

“Fine. Fine. We are not talking. What I’m going to do now is to put on a one man show. I am going to talk to air now and going to pick it up from where I stopped talking yesterday.”

Hank said as he internally laughed at Scrifo’s childlike behaviour.

As he heard Hank saying that, Scrifo’s ears perked up.

“Okay so let’s keep talking about the cultivation world. Let’s start with the base on who can become a Cultivator.

Anyone can cultivate and there are no criteria that needs to be fulfilled for just starting out, but the key is that the cultivator needs to have enough resources and cultivation scriptures. This is one of the biggest problems that any non-cultivator will face when trying to start on the path of becoming a cultivator.

If you have reached a certain age let’s say 40 and have not cultivated till now and don’t have any unique abilities, innate or otherwise, it is not highly probable that the various organizations, sects, clans or even the empire itself will be willing to use their precious cultivation resources and scripture on you.

So, what do you do now?

Well, you would now need to gather your own resources and find cultivation scriptures from somewhere to even get started as there is no one to support you on the quest that you’re now on. This cultivation resources are not something that can be gathered cheaply.

That’s why starting the training at the early age is extremely important. By doing so, you are increasing your chances of entering one of these various powerhouses and would no longer need to think about the resources and scriptures you would need as they would be supplied to you directly. Other point is that, it would be much easier to gather extra resources for yourself, if you are part of one of these powerhouses.

That does it for that question, so let’s talk about Cultivation.

Cultivation can be taught to you when you're starting out but is not something that can be taught once you reach higher levels, as cultivation at its core is all about that cultivator’s own understanding. Something that he had understood and accepted.

If the cultivator just accepts what someone, maybe his teacher or elder, says without thinking and comprehending the reasons and consequences behind it, it will lead to a point where understanding the higher realms will just be a daydream for that cultivator. Cultivators who do not think for themselves, will never break the barriers to higher realms.

This is the reason why, what most cultivation sects, clans, organization and empires search for are hardworking young men and women with enough intelligence, who have common sense and basic knowledge of the world, cause if they don’t even have these things, it will be a miracle to be able to reach higher cultivation levels in the future even after they nurture them.

The young men and women might have unique abilities that can be called heaven defying but If they don't have common sense and basic level of intelligence, they might by a miracle become powerful because of some lucky encounters, but they will definitely die quickly once they enter the cultivation world.

This is also the reason why Sects, Clans, or whatever other organization we are talking about take a long time before they accept someone in their ranks. Aptitude is an abstract concept that needs a lot of input from the accessor's side before they come to a decision of whether a person has good aptitude or not.

The Scripture is an inanimate object that is a way to cultivate and become powerful, but all in all it is still an object without life. It all depends on the cultivator, his mindset and what he understands.

As the saying goes 'Beauty is in the eyes of the Beholder', this also works for cultivators. If the cultivator doesn't understand the beauty of the cultivation scripture or understand and perceive them incorrectly because of his mindset, then no one can help him.

Another concept that comes in the play is, whether the cultivator is even someone suitable to become part of the accessor’s Organization, Empire, Sect or Clan as they all have different reasons of accepting and discarding people.

It all depends on the times and situations. Some might not be in a need for goody two shoes cultivator but someone who is sinister and filled with shady tricks. Some might have a completely opposite outlook where they might not tolerate a shady person at all. Everything depends on the organization and situation they are in.

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Do you understand till now?”

Hank said as he looked towards Scrifo.

“Hmm…” Scrifo mindlessly hummed and then as if shocked his mouth fell down and he moved back pointing his finger at Hank as he shouted.

“Yo-You! You dirty old man you tricked me!”

“Why are shouting shithead?! Who was talking to you?! Huh! I am talking to air.”

Hank said as he smirked.

“Whatever. Whatever. This old man is already used to being tortured for no reason at all.”

Hank continued as he waved his hand.

Looking at the interaction between these duo Elder Dwight could not help but laugh.

“Well air, you continue listening.

Now let me give a bit more detailed overview about the first 5 levels of cultivation that I told you about yesterday. Each of the level as you already know are divided into 9 sublevels. Let’s start with the

1) 1st Level: The Body Tempering

In the Body Tempering Level, the cultivator’s main aim is to create a tempered body, strong enough to contain enormous amounts of energy. If flaws are left at this level then the capacity of storing energy will be drastically reduced, leading to the cultivator facing bottlenecks when trying to break through to the Core Formation Level, because of not having enough energy reserves to break through the barrier between the levels.

In the 1st to 3rd Sublevels, the cultivator learns to absorb spiritual energy of the world inside their body and incorporate it into their flesh and muscles.

In the 4th to 6th Sublevels, the cultivator refines the energy channels and bones unclogging the energy channels as much as possible and strengthening the bones with spiritual energy.

In the 7th to 9th Sublevels, the cultivator refines the inner organs with the spiritual energy and strengthens them.

2) 2nd Level: Core Formation

In the Core Formation level the cultivator absorbs enormous amounts of energy from the world inside his body and consolidates it at the core of his body just below the navel.

This energy can be thought of as the storehouse of energy that the cultivator can use. The amount of energy that they can store will be different for every cultivator and will depend on how strong their foundation at the Body Tempering Level was. The stronger the cultivator’s body the more energy it will be able to hold and the more advantage the cultivator has in a fight of attrition.

This is also why in the lifetime of a cultivator, the most important level is actually the 1St Level Body Tempering. If the foundation is weak, the whole tower that stands on it will be weak no matter how heaven defying the materials used to build the tower are.

3) 3rd Level: Spiritual Seed Creation

The Spiritual Seed Level is extremely important and will determine the direction of cultivation that the cultivator will follow throughout his lifetime.

At this Level the cultivator consolidates a Spiritual Seed besides the Core that he formed at the Core Formation Level. This Spiritual Seed will decide what the primary focus of the cultivator’s cultivation will be.

There are innumerable paths of cultivations and this decision will make a huge impact on whether he will reach the peak of the world or not.

There are people who have innate constitutions and after their innate constitutions have emerged, they control elemental powers like Fire, Wind, Lightning, Earth, Water, Ice, Darkness, Light, Wood, Metal. These people, well for most part, will definitely select to follow the path that prioritizes their innate element. This type of people with innate elemental constitutions are usually just called Elemental Cultivators.

Then there are Orthodox Cultivators that follow the path of gaining mastery over weapons like swords, spears, lance, axes, Halberds, Bow and Arrows etc. and follow the path of warlords. You might think that how can they even fight against elemental cultivators, who can control nature itself but you are definitely wrong if you believe so. The mastery they have over Intents can be used to fight and destroy anything, even elementals.

Then there is the weird bunch, The Unorthodox Cultivators that follow the path of things like Music, Dance, Beast Taming, Poison, Love, Death, Blood, Dream Reality. This bunch may sometimes seem non-lethal compared to the others but wait till they start using their extraordinary prowess in their field. Some of Them can calm a raging army of millions while the others might not even need to move from where they stood to destroy an army of millions.

Then there are Body Cultivators. They use pills and concoctions to undergo extreme tempering of their bodies. Their strong bodies can withstand things a lot more than the other cultivators. When they become powerful enough, they can transform their bodies, for a certain period of time into different things like, transforming into another person completely, into an animal, a bird, a spiritual beast, a plant, etc. Though these transformations can put their bodies under an extreme amount of stress and they can’t withstand them for a long time, these transformations can be extremely powerful and helpful in a lot of scenarios like espionage and infiltration. This ability makes Body Cultivators extremely lethal. But not a lot of people have the guts to follow this path as the death ratio for a Body Cultivator is exponentially higher than any other type of cultivator.

4) 4th Level: Origin Core

The Breakthrough to the Origin Core Level is extremely difficult and most of the cultivators are not able to pass through it. To get to the Origin Core Level, the cultivator needs to self-mutilate and destroy the Core they formed during Core Formation Level.

The destroyed core will then be used as the ground to plant the Spiritual Seed. This process will integrate the path of cultivation you have chosen into your Core’s Energy, making it so that the spiritual energy inside you will now have your path of cultivation completely integrated with it.

5) 5th Level: Origin Tree

The 5th Level is the Origin Tree Level, where the Spiritual Seed that had been planted finally starts sprouting and slowly as the cultivator grows through the sublevels, it grows into a unique Origin Tree that is the representation of who the cultivator actually is at his core. This Origin Tree will be at the centre of the world that the cultivator will possibly create in the future.

Finally, its over!

This was a lot of information to take in but it is necessary to understand how these Cultivation Levels work.”

Hank spoke as he explained the information regarding how the Cultivation Levels work.

“Scrifo, you need to know all these information as they are the basic knowledge you will need to survive in the world of cultivators. After you have thought things through, if you have any questions, ask me later.”

Hank said to Scrifo seriously.

“Hmm” Scrifo nodded and hummed in affirmation.

“We’ll be reaching the village soon. Your real training as a cultivator will start from tomorrow. Get ready cause it is not going to be easy and I’ll show no mercy.”

Hank spoke and then went silent.

Soon the carriage slowly reached the village in silence as everyone’s heads were filled with their own thoughts.