196 Cultivation Realms 1 (2/2)
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.