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u/DestinedBummer Feb 15 '25
It's really just understanding, refining and manipulating the natural forces of the world.
Intrinsically (body/soul/spirit) and extrinsically (Dao/law/techniques).
Different verses will have different systems but that is the gist of it.
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u/MCFang29 Feb 15 '25
What's the difference between soul and spirit?
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u/Saitama_lol Old Monster Feb 15 '25
Soul is more like an identity. While Spirit usually refers to the energy used by the soul. Not exactly an accurate explanation but the differences between them overlap a lot in most novels
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u/Early_Negotiation_39 Feb 16 '25
Everyone have one soul. Except your cultivation are high then you may have like 3 souls in one body.
Spirit is Spirit energy they are everywhere except some lower realm blackwater that nobody know may not have them.
Most cultivator absorb spirit energy to improve themselves.
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u/arkai25 Please wait while I court death... Feb 15 '25
Suck Qi Dick: Absorb magic energy (Qi) from air, pills, or your enemy’s mom’s grave. More Qi = less dying.
Realm Grind: Levels like “Foundation Establishment” or “Nascent Soul.” Each realm = bigger flex, longer life, better drip (robes glow, probably).
Technique Spam: Learn kung fu moves that make mountains explode or turn your farts into sword beams. The edgier the name, the stronger it is (“Heavenly Butthole Annihilation Palm”).
Tribulation Roulette: Sky zaps you with lightning every time you level up. Survive = god mode. Fail = BBQ cultivator.
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u/Boat_According Dude! I'm literally just a Librarian, PISS OFF! Mar 01 '25
Number 3 made me think of the throngler. Be very afraid of short and concise moves, such as “cut” sometimes those are the most powerful due to their closeness to the dao or smth.
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u/Fluffy_Fan3625 Heroin Alchemist Feb 15 '25
Dao. its that simple. The name that can be named is not the eternal name, and the path that can be spoken is not the eternal path. Go find out yourself
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u/kalibunlegit Feb 15 '25
Arrogant Junior how presumptuous of you to think that we are cultivator fans. Take this qi condensation pills, snort them and reflect on your actions.
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u/Raestloz Supreme Court of Death Feb 15 '25
Basically, the universe works by a set of laws (which really highlights how much the Chinese love them bureaucracy) and you can essentially alter reality by tinkering with these laws. It's sort of like you can evade taxes if you understand tax law
Cultivation, is trying to understand these laws of universe so you can use them to your own benefits
In order to tinker with these laws, you need magical power, ki. It is essentially the exact same thing as west fantasy magic power: you either absorb it from your surroundings and store it in your body, or try to use them directly
This is why in xianxia cultivation is mostly meditating, and higher ranking battles start talking about karma and stuff
The easiest way to understand xianxia cultivation, is by comparing it to internet memes. This is half joking
When you're a layman, you open say reddit for the first time and see all these stupid image macros that make no sense and can't figure out why people find them funny
As you keep cultivating (browsing reddit) you start to notice a pattern. People say "nice" whenever the number 69 comes up. You imitate that and find approval.
As you cultivate further, you now understand that it's not that people are reacting to 69 with "nice", it's that 69 itself is synonymous with "nice" itself. Armed with this understanding, you can manipulate your surroundings (such as say your gas meter) to get the number 69 and post it on reddit to elicit reaction. Doing this takes time and effort
This is, essentially, using ki to alter reality in xianxia
If you keep cultivating, one day you'll start to understand when reddit is active, what sort of content will elicit approval, and you can produce content that matches that and gain a lot of upvotes, far beyond what "normies" can produce.
Thus you have entered a higher cultivation stage, with people baffled how do you even manage to make people laugh by posting a pixelated picture with the letter "E" in it
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u/BalefulRemedy Good! Good! Good! Feb 15 '25
Hmm, nice bait from a mortal, why would we explain anything to the ant?
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u/adamtheskill Feb 15 '25
Every cultivator actually has an invisible midget assigned to them that runs around making their powers work. They do stuff like light flames and run at the opponent, carry swords so it looks like they're flying and various other things. Increasing their cultivation level actually only increases the amount of midgets a cultivator has assigned to them.
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u/EclipsedBooger 1 in a Ten-duotrigintillion Genius Feb 15 '25
I believe there's this funny ball of energy a few inches above my balls, and that energy became real (I convinced myself it did). Now I imagine myself collecting more of that energy and stuffing it in my ball, which makes me stronger for some reason.
Since I'm, not allowed to do that, heaven throws lightning at me every time I'm about to upgrade my ball. If I survive, my ball gets to get upgraded. Eventually my ball becomes so strong that I live forever as a little schizzo venerable who does what he wants since my ball is so strong.
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u/lore_whore_more Junior Feb 15 '25
So cultivation works exactly like calculus - first some ancient master was like ‘what if we divide by zero but like, spiritually?’ and now we have cultivation realms that are just infinity plus one. You gather qi by integrating your meridians over a closed loop of enlightenment, which is basically just π but for your soul. Trust me, it makes perfect sense if you spend 10,000 years meditating on why imaginary numbers are real but only when you believe in them.
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u/Pedang_Katana Gardener Feb 15 '25
This one favorite would be "Fishing the Moon in the Well" from Renegade Immortal. Don't ask me how to explain how that works fellow Daoist! As my mere mortal self couldn't comprehend the vast realm beyond ours.
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u/Arafell9162 Old Monster Feb 15 '25
The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth.
The named is the mother of ten thousand things.
Ever desireless, one can see the mystery.
Ever desiring, one can see the manifestations.
These two spring from the same source but differ in name;
this appears as darkness.
Darkness within darkness.
The gate to all mystery.
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u/No_Proposal_4692 Feb 15 '25
Here's what I understand, Dao is another word for "the way" hence sword Dao, dragon fist dao and what not. It refers to the individuals fighting style or their life focus such as medicine Dao, Poison Dao and so on.
Cultivation is basically the process of strengthening one's dao, cultivation can be done through training, meditation and so on. It's essentially gaining power through doing something, however you have to actively collect the energy to do it. If someone is a farmer he can do become a farming daoist but if he doesn't cultivate while farming he won't get any power boost. Heavenly beast, pills and scriptures are meant to aid in the energy collect process.
Typically when a Daoist cultivates they impower their core. This core shows how powerful they are from a the core making, condensed core, ascendant soul etc. It depends on the novel itself. So essentially, Dao refers to the power they use, cultivation is how they gain power, core is their level marker.
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Feb 15 '25
Incest, drugs, sex, bestiality, cannibalism, genocide, adultery, fashion, reading, writing, diet/excercise, boot licking, nepotism, rizz, eugenics, infantilism, appreciating fine art, listening to music, homosexuality, mukbang,hypothermia, hyperthermia, and eating cosmic radiation, or qi.
That’s how you become immortal, junior! Do all of these things, and the Heavens will favour you!
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u/FancyFeller Feb 15 '25
I've had ideas based on the hundreds of trash novels I've reZd for the lulz. Qi go brrrrrr. But don't do Dao because to me it's a bit boring.
You strengthen every part of your body with qi in the mortal realm. With cultivation manual that give poor decent good or amazing skills to draw the qi to the specified body part.
First you cultivate skin deep as qi washes your skin, the largest organ and enhances it's durability so you take punches better and dish out stronger impacts so the blow back from impacts don't rattle your muscles as much
Then you cultivate your muscles. Stronger faster. Washed with qi endurance builds you could run for hours of fight all day. More stout.
Then you cultivate your tendons and ligaments. Gotta be flexible so you can start practicing actual martial arts.
Then you cultivate your organs making you need less food less sleep your energy levels are more efficient
Then you cultivate your blood and bones and marrow strengthening your natural bloodline. The more powerful your forefathers were the more you'll be or the more powerful you are the more bloodline awakening your kids will have.
After your body has been fully cultivated you finally have full control of your body mobility and sensation and can then locate each of your meridians. You awaken them one by one through your body and the final step is to link them up to your dantian and awaken it to finally have internal to that allows you to do basic baby cultivation skills.
On you have qi you concentrate it in your dantian then you rotate it around your entire body in cycles. You want to strengthen the meridians. The WI running through them makes them widen and grow stronger to handle more qi and as you rotate it you draw more qi to your dantian through meditation cultivation. Consuming beast cores that might create impurities in your body. Or consuming pills that might create impurities in your body depending on how high the quality is.
With enough win your body. The next stage is a qualitative transformation to the point where it's not a multitude of specks of qi but rather you have liquid flowing sea of qi to finally evolve and practice your martial arts now you can shoot fireballs slash your sword and have the attack hit enemies 100 feet from you and whatnot. Run 10 miles in a few seconds.
With enough Qi you build a control palace in your dantian the goal is to effectively condense your power to concentrate it. And let your body start sensing laws in nature.
Knowing one law or knowing them all doesn't matter. In fact knowing them all might waste a lot of time. It's better to concentrate on what you have the strongest connection with. And with gaining up to 10 layers of world laws in whatever natural element you want to focus with you can start practicing the domain of it.
Once you master the Domain if you didn't before you have to start focusing on merging your soul with your flesh and bring them to unity. This will build up your golden core and it will attain the element of your domain.
Then you have to evolve it qualitatively. Only then can you attain immortality as a low level god.
Now that you're a low level god your dantian can hold a world in it. Created from your Qi. You have to slowly incorporate natural laws into it and slowly it should develop life. The more developed and stronger the inner world is the higher realm of a god you are.
To evolve to a universal deity you have to expand it into a universe. You are the universe. Take a 100 chapter break to focus on miscellaneous characters inside your world. Hell they might one day escape your inner universe and enter the real universe.
Once someone is able to break out from your universe it finally detached from you and you have become a sanctified independent being. A core a dantian? Nah dawg you are pure power. And you have to find out revelations about what your power means to you and your journey if you want to unchain it and evolve said power qualitatively.
Now youre a ancestral being. And you want to grow stronger by purifying your essence. You must remember your original goal and either embrace it or let it go and stop being chained by it. A trial of your hearts conviction. If you do not make the right choice you cease to exist. If you succeed you can go further.
I'd rather not get too philosophical. And I cannot think of anything original anyways. Fuck it. Random bullshit go. Qi go brrrr. Evolve it into other bullshit or something who the fuck knows we're 3,000 chapters in most people already dropped it anyone still reading will swallow whatever slop comes next.
Or make a new story with a similar power leveling but make it obvious this is in a different universe that's linked and so the cultivation layers are similar but also different enough. Maybe broski cultivated his soul as well this time and they stay separYe things. Or you focus on body. Or Da- sike bitch. Harem time.
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u/CouchPotatoID Heroin Alchemist Feb 15 '25
Ask your own butthole fellow daoist.
All power every MC has shown is created fresh from their respective author's butthole, thus called "Dao of Author Asspull"
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u/bhavy111 Feb 15 '25
current ones is bascially just dragon ball ki.
you have like an alternate set of blood vessels for qi, you collect qi and store it in those vessels then release it whenever you want. at lower realms you pressurize it till it's solid (and maybe even straighten your vessels using qi so it can actually hold), at higher levels you tweak your body to find alternative ways to store qi anf different types of it.
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u/OrdinaryGuy2101 Ancient Hermit Feb 15 '25
Based from the information that i've gathered, in order to cultivate, you must have spirit roots first. These spirit roots behave similarly to the roots of plants, which absorb water and nutrients. Likewise, the spirit roots allows the cultivator to absorb the Qi from the environment. But this must done actively.
I'm not entirely sure how the adept enters the first cultivation realm but i'm assuming that the adept just needed to meditate. It could just be that the adept purposely relax themselves so that their bodies will automatically do what it's supposed to do, absorbing Qi.
After the first realm is achieved, the adept would then have to refine Qi, transform it, etc. This is done through the Visualization method, a foundational technique alongside meditation. With the Visualization method, the cultivator can actively change and refine themselves. Cultivators after the first realm (Qi Condensation according to most scriptures) will continue to practice Visualization and Meditation. The only difference would be how the Qi is used and the steps needed to break through.
After the cultivator breaks through the next realm, it's advised that they meditate upon the enlightenment they have gained so far and the changes they experiences rather continuing to visualize to break through the next realm immediately. This is called solidifying one's own foundation.
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u/humanperson1677 Please wait while I court death... Feb 15 '25
I'm not entirely sure how the adept enters the first cultivation realm but i'm assuming that the adept just needed to meditate. It could just be that the adept purposely relax themselves so that their bodies will automatically do what it's supposed to do, absorbing Qi.
Well, in Renegade Immortal the orthodox method seems to be breathing techniques (like you breathe in a certain rhythm) to absorb qi, at least that's how Wang Lin does it when he starts cultivating. Can't say for other novels
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u/Fit-Veterinarian-848 Feb 15 '25
Thats only in xianxia
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u/OrdinaryGuy2101 Ancient Hermit Feb 15 '25
Well, Yeah.
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u/Fit-Veterinarian-848 Feb 15 '25
Cultivation exist in Xuanhuan too but more creative and unique eg:ED,Novels of IET, ergen verse, Chen dong Trilogy etc
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u/OrdinaryGuy2101 Ancient Hermit Feb 15 '25
Spellcasting and other crafts is also done with the Visualization method. But the cultivator must first understand how the elements work. And eventually as the cultivator gains new powers from their own cultivation as well as enlightenment about themselves, the world, and The Dao, they'll be able to wield cosmic authorities and concepts.
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u/BlazingCanary42069 Feb 15 '25
It seems that it's the attempt to turn ones in body into a type of elixir. This would be done through tempering the body and mind as to accumulate inner energy which combine with the outside energies being added to the body( 100 year old herbs and elixirs and such) can be added to this pool through cultivation to make the perfect vessel for their internal elixir. Cultivation in this sense is manipulating the energy within the body to empower both your physical and spiritual essence which reside in your meridians and dantain. But then again this is the ramblings of a junior disciple. I got no idea what I'm saying.
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u/Fun_Wait_4657 Heart Demon Feb 15 '25
Take energy, reinforce body, build and expand storage space, enhance level of existence, use processed energy to kill and pillage
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u/Positive_Curve_8435 Feb 15 '25
Do drugs, take a nap, wipe the filth off, and shoot sword lazers from eyes. Not enough power? More drugs longer nap.
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u/Dude1116 Feb 15 '25
In some novels cultivation does make sense-they go from body,energy,soul refinement to later even condensing inner worlds or smth in that fashion,while in other novels higher cultivation levels are bananas.For example,I read a novel where some fat monk adopted an orphan,raised him like a son and passed his skills to him all in order to later kill him so that through profound sadness or some b.s he could breakthrough high level realm lol.Or even worse,in another novel,you cant make this up,mc has dao discussion which is basically cultivation novel' s rap battle with some op saints that hate him.And bro says something like your dao is trash and is superficial and opponent coughs up blood and he falls from immortal saint to absolute trash.And this reincarnated mc has super op dao because he read some chinese taoist book on earth,and if that isn t bonkers enough authour keeps dragging this female charachter who realises some stupid shit like-everything has love including rocks and trees and my "loveless sword art" can use that as a weak point and after saying that schizo stuff she powers up on the spot and starts disdaining mc.
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u/Audiozone Feb 15 '25
The Dao works in profound ways that cannot be represented by mere words, junior
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u/wreckland Feb 15 '25
A for Dummies explanation: a small percentage of people are born with an organ that is pure energy. Allowing them to interact with, and absorb the energy that organ is made of from the air around them. More simply if alien hippies(insane reliance on drugs and glowing crystals) were murder hobos, and low grade reality warpers.
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u/ninedamnation Feb 15 '25
In simple terms, it’s similar to Ki-gathering from Dragonball but the attacks are completely different. You gather more, you become more powerful. It’s that simple.
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u/WiseFatBoi Mysterious Benefactor Feb 15 '25
Eat pills, meditate (hallucinate) to comprehend the dao (delusion), cu"R"e jade beauties, inherit (plunder) immortal legacies.
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u/Ajunadeeps Feb 15 '25
Lucky ancient heritage that was used 3 chaos cycles ago but people still know exactly what it is in a single move. Antagonists play it off as luck right up until the point they die from arrogance.
What do I win?
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u/creampielegacy Heart Demon Feb 15 '25
I’m pretty sure this whole question is the pursuit of cultivation.
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u/TheActualBranchTree Feb 15 '25
It's the power of FOMO.
"I have developed the power to break boulders with a hip thrust by meditating for a thousand years."
So anyone that wants that immediately starts doing it because they're "behind" by so many years.
But then obviously the MC gets to skip the FOMO by finding that special boogie elixir atop of the twisty mountains that will boost the imbiber with the power of a thousand years of medidation.
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u/7aBshKl You fight your inner demons, I ride mine Feb 15 '25
Junior this seat will only explain it once, cultivation is understanding your own Dao simple
Now kowtow three thousand times as gratitude or I shall cripple all 18 generations of your ancestors
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u/Nine-LifedEnchanter Feb 15 '25
It depends. But in general, it is that a cultivator shapes their body, mind, and spirit to become something more. Turning your energy into fire is difficult, so if it is fire from the beginning, your technique will be stronger.
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u/ExtensionInformal911 Feb 15 '25 edited Feb 15 '25
Body = battery
Chi = electricity
Techniques = electronic devices
Only they can upgrade the battery and do the things themselves, so they are basically superpowers.
Upgrades also improve the physical performance of the body and sometime.give it new features. So imagine you swap the lead acid battery in a gas or diesel vehicle for a Lithium, and now it becomes a hybrid. That's basically breaking through to a new major realm.
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u/shadowmonarch1616 Dao Venerable Feb 15 '25
There are basically these rules of reality and shape and influence everything and anything just like law of nature in real life but alot more versatile where after understanding these laws we can apply or change them and they have steroids for everything called pills and like our electric devices the have arrays that are circuits of energy the help in archiving desired effect through energy manipulation
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u/Flashnooby Feb 15 '25
It is essentially the meditation and its effects like make you live long, resistant to disease, fast, strong , clear minded, no need of water and food ( allegedly these and more). Make them to ridiculous level of million times and you got cultivator. In actual they would be unhealthily skinny, unclean, weak, piss poor just sitting all the time, saying bulshit ( at least some thing does not change). Maybe not requiring food and water because your body has already given up so are the diseases and you do not care about the world or relatives.
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u/TheReturneD_0 Urban Cultivator Feb 15 '25
Sit down and meditate for months possibly years for only 0.001% heavenly powers or power's to break heavens will
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u/GodlyDaoEmperor Feb 15 '25
YOU DARE?!?!?! Wasting this venerable sect's time with demands!?! Using a mortal weapon to demand an explanation form this sect!?!?! Truly a frog in a well!!!
You are not qualified to know about the vast heavens and wide earth! I will consider letting you off for wasting this sect's time after you sever your right arm, break all three of your legs and kowtow to the sound of three dongs!
Dong! Dong! Dong!
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u/Anon-4020 Feb 15 '25
By increasing the potency of the bacteria in his body the masters of the Dao of flatulence poison their enemies with the silent but deadly technique
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u/hiding-from-the-web In seclusion. Feb 15 '25
There's a core and there's dao. It's like putting fuel in a tank.
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u/watermelonseed01 Feb 15 '25
To begin cultivation, you basically have to prepare your body to store qi. You're absorbing energy into your body but you're not keeping it in. That's why body tempering cultivators usually can't use qi. Once your body is ready for qi, you use all the qi you currently have circulating in your body and form a dantian in your lower abdomen.
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u/SubstantialCamel9313 Feb 15 '25
It depends, they basically all have energy absorption and the more they absorb the stronger they become kinda like Superman with his solar radiation, and when they run out of energy or lose their cultivation then they become like ordinary humans except if they are body cultivator in which they train their body so much that they continuously break their limits, for some reasons the body of cultivator don’t have a real limit. There is so much to be said for instance martial arts, spells and Taoist techniques are like mechanics to make use of the absorbed energy.
Let’s talk about the stages of cultivation, the first stage is usually body tempering which means to workout a lot and then qi sensing then absorbing the energy then you compress the energy into some kind of gaseous state then compress further into a liquid state, it’s strange cus this is basically liquid energy but I have a suspicion it’s just fusing the energy into your blood which is probably where blood qi comes but ignore that for now it might not be the case any way compress the liquid energy further to make your golden core basically an energy dense solid sphere, by this point you have already gained something called spiritual sense which is a way to sense the surrounding without the 5 senses you are basically one with your energy and you use that energy to see, feel, taste, touch, sense etc, then fuse your soul with the core so that you no long need a physical body to survive then you start trying to understand other forms of energy/ concept by making use of your spiritual sense, then whatever you comprehend you had to you soul/core fusion at this point your body is basically a puppet except if you are body cultivator but those guys are barbaric so I’m ignoring them. So you are basically an energy based life form, but yet somehow you can still die due to how fast your soul would dissipate without a body but as you keep incorporating certain aspects of the world into your soul it gets better and you might see yourself living for millions of years depending on how far you go before then you would have comprehended space time making you a pseudo 4d existence maybe even 4d, but you will be restricted by the world after all it is where you absorbed your energy from, so it’s basically your boss to an extent.I m tired of typing so I’ll leave it at that. This is my head canon on certain aspects of cultivation I could go into more details but I wanna sleep so… if I’m reaching tell me so.
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u/Either-Anybody-4641 Feb 15 '25
Transformations of heaven and earth/redefing the world around them. Using special tools to generate types of energy and direct energy to power the system. Manifesting the elements. Being strong enough to destroy space. Being the law creators unto themselves. Merging with heaven to use its abilities. Creation of matter/constructs.
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u/Dear-Tank2728 Toad Lusting After Swan Meat Feb 16 '25
There Innate Qi, Cultivated Qi, and Understanding/enlightenment.
Innate Qi is Lifeforce. Can be expanded or not depending on story/cultivation method/Medicine Quality etc.
Cultivated Qi is usually breathing in natural qi from your surroundings and exhaling impurities. Maybe you move it in patterns in your body, maybe you recite a saying, it varies.
Enlightenment is a Deus Ex Machina that can do pretty much anything. Break a limit in cultivation? Enlightenment. Heal a serious injury? Enlightenment. Have a new energy entirely like "sword intent"? Enlightenment.
Those are the things make the majority of all cultivation. Some exceptions apply like this one story I read about the Heavenly Demon being sealed for 2000 years and everyone has impalnted Qi cores made out of tech.
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u/IntrepidYou7781 Feb 16 '25
They sit for 4 bajillion years and get hemorrhoids to increase their qi circulation idk
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u/ShakePsychological13 Feb 16 '25
You have anal gay sex on Tuesdays after ingesting the meat of 1000 mystical demons and pissing on the sacred tribute statue of the young masters revered ancestors
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u/Galrentv Feb 15 '25
You use some form of energy in an action that resonates with the Dao, influencing or manifesting an effect