Cultivation Realms (1)

"Is there really no way for you to cultivate?"

"There are ways. But who would waste the resources necessary on someone like us servants?", although her words may seem disgruntled, he tone only showed her acceptance of the fact.

"So what exactly is the reason for you not being able to cultivate.", Ivan found the topic interesting and since she didn't seem to have a problem talking about it, he curiously continued to ask her questions.

"I'm like most people who can't cultivate. My body can't gather Qi and even if by some chance I absorb some I can't keep it. Instead, it will diffuse into the surrounding. Thus I'm forever stuck at Pathway Refining, unable to enter the Qi Gathering Realm."

"Then is there any way to change that?"

"I'm not sure but I have heard rumors of two ways this has been changed before. One is by transplanting a bloodline into the body of someone unable to cultivate. But I heard that it is hard to find a suitable bloodline and even harder to find the right supplementary materials.", it was clear that she held no hope towards this method. "The other way is for the System to solve the problem. But I don't have any clue as to how to do this."

"So the System can solve it?"

"Of course. It is universally accepted that there is nothing the System can't solve. It is just a question of what would be necessary to get to do it. Or to formulate it in a better way. You have to get the right reward from the System or you will gain nothing."

He had to agree with that. The System was capable of fully controlling the realms, so anything that could be solved with other methods should also be solvable by the System. But he also was aware that the rewards of a quest would depend on the difficulty of the quest. So for something seemingly as difficult as changing a mortal to a cultivator, the quest would surely be highly difficult. So how could someone unable to cultivate successfully finish it?

The other method, transplanting a bloodline, should be something that only big families or powers would do if strictly necessary. The cost should be just too high.

"Then are there any other methods, to get stronger.", this was something he was very interested in. He was currently also unable to absorb Qi, so other methods of strengthening were of huge interest to him.

But her next words were sure to disappoint him, "Not really. Every known method of strengthening oneself requires one to absorb Qi and store it inside the body in one form or another."

"Oh.", he looked disappointed, "So you don't train anymore?"

"No. I continue to use my training skill. Although I reached the limit of how far I can strengthen my body without storing Qi, using the skill will keep my body in the best state."

While talking they had arrived back at his room. He decided to sit in the garden and look through the information he had gotten from the library. That and refining pills were what he planned to do from now on until the competition.

"I'm going to read and practice, so feel free to do whatever you want.", he then told Clara. "Also you can use everything inside this room as you want.", the last sentence was something he told her since he felt that she would be more comfortable if she could just use everything inside the room, instead of only the things inside the small room which had been allocated to her.

He had absorbed a small section about the rules after he had gotten the crystal from the library, so he knew that the servants usually had no right to use anything besides the things in their own small room, except to serve their master. Feeling that it was a waste he gave this offer to Clara, who with this could now relax while he did his own thing.

"Then I'll prepare the ingredients for today's dinner.", she said before leaving the room again.

Ivan let her do her thing and went into the garden. Although it wasn't that big, it contained a terrace which had all the seating opportunities one could wish for. A bench, a couch, chairs, and sunchairs. Everything was positioned in a way that looked surprisingly harmonic and allowed a good view of the small green space, which was surrounded by trees and flowerbeds. They were arranged in a way that made the garden seem larger than it was, which was a great touch.

Lying down on a comfortable chair, he took out the crystal card and started to scan the information contained in it.

He started with the common knowledge, that he didn't know about before or didn't have a clear understanding of.

Starting off with the cultivation realms. Although he knew a bit about them until now he didn't have a comprehensive overview of them. But now, the crystal card contained the information about the Foundation Realm as well as how those Realms above were structured.

The Foundation Realm was as the name said, the first and most basic realm. It also had the most complex structure, consisting of the three basic body refining realms as well as those creating the basics of Qi refining.

The four basic body refining were, in order, the 'Flesh Refining Realm' where one would refine the flesh and improve the cells composing the flesh and muscles. This was also the realm Ivan was currently in. Only upon reaching one thousand in all his stats would he be able to advance into the next realm, the 'Blood Refining Realm'

In the 'Blood Refining Realm', the blood would be refined and improved. The blood would then be able to transport more oxygen and energy to each part of the body, drastically improving stamina. Of course, with the additional energy, the cells would also be able to function better, once again improving all stats.

From the 'Blood Refining Realm', the stats wouldn't be counted in the same way as before, instead, every thousand points would be called a pebble. For example, 1200 points in strength would be 1,2 pebble of strength. Anything less than a hundred wouldn't even appear on the stat window.

After each stat reached a thousand pebble, the 'Blood Refining Realm' would reach perfection and be seen as finished, opening the way to the next level, the 'Pathway Refining Realm'.

The 'Pathway Refining Realm', was the realm where the pathways of the body would be refined. The arteries and the nerves were the focus. Besides once again improving the energy transport through sturdier arteries, the improved nerves would improve reflexes. Now stats were called stones, with a thousand pebbles being one stone.

This muster would continue on with stones becoming boulders, hills, mountains, comets, asteroids, moons, planets, and so on.

After the 'Pathway Refining Realm', the body would be refined and improved to the maximum. The only thing left of where the organs wich couldn't be refined in the same way.

Now with the body fully refined, one would have reached the maximum a mortal could reach. This was a huge threshold at which many would be stuck. Only those that could reach the next realm would be called cultivators.

And the journey of a cultivator would begin in the 'Qi Gathering' realm. During this realm, the cultivator would slowly absorb Qi and gather it inside its dantian. There it would be stored in an invisible, intangible form.

This Qi couldn't be used directly but it could flow through the body to improve its performance drastically.

A cultivator would continue gathering Qi until the dantian would appear to be full. At that step, the Qi had then to be compressed during the 'Qi Condensing Realm'. By compressing the invisible, intangible form, it would slowly condense into something akin to mist. A mist that was basically condensed energy and that could be emitted outside of the body and thus fuel all kinds of spells.

The Qi mist would freely fill the dantian until it reached saturation and would rain down in the form of a liquid that would form a pool at the ground of the dantian. This would mark the entrance into the 'Foundation Building Realm'.

The 'Foundation Building Realm' focused on improving the foundation by increasing the quality of the Qi. For this, the liquid-like Qi in the dantian would go through many cycles of refinement until it was completely free of impurities, making it a clear see-through liquid. At least that was how it was supposed to work in theory. In reality, every cultivation technique would be incapable of filtering out all impurities. Instead, some types of impurities would be left behind, giving the Qi characteristic properties and color, depending on the technique.

The types of impurities and the mixture would determine the class of the cultivation technique. Although there was no universally accepted standard of which color of Qi was the best, gold was always preferred over other colors. It seemed like humans just liked that color.