Ch. 0.1 - Cultivation Stages

Before you proceed, I warn you that this contains spoilers!

You've been warned!

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The main character's Way of Immortal Cultivation is different from the way of the universes he has visited/will visit.

There are only three stages of cultivation: Dao Body, Dao Spirit, and Transcendent.

Dao Body and Dao Spirit have three sub-stages consisting of Initial Stage, Half Completion, and True Completion. On the other hand, Transcendent has 9 layers.

Below are the details of each stage:

1st Stage: Dao Body

- Initial Stage: cleansing meridians and opening the dantian.

This is perfected upon cleansing all impurities in meridians and opening all three dantian.

By perfecting the Initial Stage, your condition has been improved a lot, and your aging has become slower. You can live for ±250 years.

Opening each of the three dantian gives you the following abilities:

Opening the lower dantian gives you a metaphysical energy container that stores your refined Qi. The uses of this energy include but are not limited to strengthening your body's strength and endurance and acting as energy to activate basic spells or formation arrays.

Opening the middle dantian improves your base parameters to the peak of the human condition, gives you a minor healing ability (not enough to regenerate missing limbs), and improves your organs to the optimum capacity; you can live with only one serving of food for 21 days, can survive with a glass of mineral water once in 3 days, and can safely neglect sleep for a long time; the caveat is that you don't overexert yourself.

Unlocking the upper dantian increases your mental abilities a lot, gives you eidetic memory with instant perfect recall, and gives you supernatural abilities including but not limited to basic telekinesis, empathy, telepathy, and extrasensory perception/Divine Sense/Spiritual Sense.

- Half Completion: reforming the body with Qi so that it will be more suitable to cultivate Dao.

This is the most dangerous stage in Dao Body. You have to destroy your own body and reform the new one with Qi.

You can reform your body gradually. The sequence is tissue (skin, muscles, and flesh), internal organs, and bones. If you're confident of your chance of success, you can reform your body at once.

There are two types of Dao Body: False Dao Body and True Dao Body.

False Dao Body is reforming Dao Body without Dao Seed. Ordinary cultivators often choose this because they have yet to pick their main Dao to cultivate. This won't affect your cultivation adversely, but you have to plant Dao Seed in your body when you enter a certain sub-stage of Dao Spirit.

True Dao Body contains the Root of True Dao. This body is stronger than the False one because of the Dao it contained. The other advantages are certain unique abilities related to your chosen Dao and the smooth progress when entering a certain sub-stage of the Dao Spirit.

Only Cultivators who are certain of the main Dao they are going to cultivate dare plant Dao Seed early at this stage.

Once you form your Dao Body, your lifespan extends to ±1000 years, you gain supernatural charm, your parameters rise up to the supernatural level, you can regenerate missing limbs as long as you have energy in lower dantian, and you can sustain yourself with Qi.

- True Completion: fusing three dantian into one core.

After fusing three dantian into one core, you gain the ability to produce refined Qi that passively supports your body. This extends your lifespan to 10,000 years and makes you strong enough to take a nuclear bomb head-on.

2nd Stage: Dao Spirit

- Initial Stage: transforming soul into an infant, putting the Infant Spirit into the core, and planting the Dao Seed into the Infant Spirit.

If you have chosen False Dao Body, you get unique abilities related to your chosen Dao.

If you have chosen a certain Dao when forming True Dao Body, you have to choose that Dao to plant into the Infant Spirit, or else you hinder your growth. Your unique abilities related to your chosen Dao will improve.

At this stage, your lifespan isn't counted by years; you become ageless. However, if your core is destroyed before your Infant Spirit fully matures, your future is limited unless you consume Treasures or get help from a more powerful cultivator to mature your Infant Spirit.

- Half Completion: freeing your Dao Spirit from the core like the birth of Dragon and Phoenix and then developing Dao Spirit to full maturation.

If you have chosen False Dao Body, your Dao Spirit will affect your Dao Body with its innate Dao after getting out of the core, but this will slow the maturation of the Dao Spirit.

If you have chosen True Dao Body, your development will be fast.

At this stage, your Dao-related unique abilities will improve significantly. You can also reform your destroyed body as long as your Dao Spirit isn't extinguished.

- True Completion: fusing Dao Body and Dao Spirit into one; your Dao Seed will sprout roots that will root in your existence.

After entering this stage, you will become an immortal but not an eternal being. Even if your existence (body and soul) is destroyed, as long as your Dao Seed isn't extinguished or stolen, you can resurrect.

Your affinity for your chosen Dao will reach the peak but not enough to use your unique Dao-related abilities without consuming your Qi. The consumption gets reduced infinitesimally (just like how Six Eyes of Gojo Satoru from Jujitsu Kaisen reduces the energy consumption of the otherwise energy-demanding abilities).

3rd Stage: Transcendent

Entering this stage means that you have evolved from a mortal to a transcendent being. You can start to freely influence and control the fundamental concept in the universe, create or destroy a universe, and even survive living in the true void.

- 1st Layer - Celestial Ascension

To enter this layer, you have to trigger and survive a test from the true void. A pitch black-colored lighting will try to destroy your Body, Spirit, and Dao to stop your Ascension. Mortals are destined to stay as a mortal until the end of their short existence, so this happens because you defy your fate and destiny.

After surviving the tribulation, your Dao Seed will sprout a Dao Bud and grow slightly. After your Dao Seed sprouted a bud, you don't need to consume your energy to use simple Dao-related abilities.

If someone else has sprouted the same Dao Bud, you won't be able to have a top-quality Dao Bud, only the degraded version. You can try to steal the top-quality Dao Bud from others if you have guts and aren't afraid of a fate worse than death in the hands of the Dao Bud's owner.

- 2nd Layer - True Celestial

Trigger and survive the tribulation from the true void. This tribulation is ten times stronger than the one at the Celestial Ascension stage. If you survive, your Dao Bud matures into a young tree. You don't need to consume your energy to use higher leveled abilities related to your Dao.

- 3rd Layer - Celestial Lord

Trigger and survive the tribulation from the true void. This tribulation is ten times stronger than the one at the True Celestial stage.

Your Dao Tree grows up into a mighty tree. You become a powerful celestial being, and your understanding and control over your chosen Dao are perfected; you can control and influence phenomena related to your Dao with nothing but a thought.

4th Layer - Celestial King

Trigger and survive the tribulation from the true void. This tribulation is ten times stronger than the one at the Celestial Lord stage.

You can start comprehending and mastering other fundamental concepts of the universe.

5th Layer - Celestial Emperor:

Trigger and survive the tribulation from the true void. This tribulation is ten times stronger than the one at the Celestial King stage.

You can create and destroy a galaxy.

6th Layer - Celestial God

Trigger and survive the tribulation from the true void. This tribulation is ten times stronger than the one at the Celestial Emperor stage.

You can destroy a universe.

7th Layer - True God

Trigger and survive the tribulation from the true void. This tribulation is ten times stronger than the one at the Celestial God stage.

You can create a small universe.

Destroying is easier than creating.

8th Layer - Primordial God

Trigger and survive the tribulation from the true void. This tribulation is ten times stronger than the one at the True God stage.

You can create a perfect universe and can survive the encroachment of the true void but not freely live and move in the true void yet.

9th Layer - Outer God

Trigger and survive the tribulation from the true void. This tribulation is ten times stronger than the one at the Primordial God stage.

You can freely live and move in the vast multiverse. Encroachment of the true void won't affect you anymore.

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Above is the detail of the main character's Dao of Immortality. On the other hand, below is the degraded version that he teaches to his harem and followers.

There are three minor stages for each level: Low, Middle, and Late. There is also a bottleneck that's called the Peak stage or Half-Step to the next level.

Initial Stage of the Dao Body = Acquired/Houtian

Half Completion of the Dao Body = Innate/Xiantian

True Completing of the Dao Body = Core Formation

Initial Stage of the Dao Spirit = Nascent Soul

Half Completion of the Dao Spirit = Soul Formation

True Completion of the Dao Spirit = Void Transformation

The next stage and the rest are similar to above.