D-Grade

## Requirements

* Uncommon E-Grade Class
	+ But an E-ranked class needs to be at least Uncommon rank to be able to advance further. **Book 1, Page 473**
* Dao
	+ Even among those who had the talent to accomplish something like that, most simply stopped at an Early Branch or even Peak Dao Fragment before evolving. **Book 8, Chapter 26**
* Successfully form your **Cosmic Core**

## Focus

* He wasn’t sure about how the higher grades worked, but it seemed like D-Grade was the only rank where you could perfect your Cultivator Core. **Book 6, Page 3**
* ... everything in the D-grade circulated around the Cultivator's Core, or rather the Cosmic Core. Successfully forming the Cosmic Core was just the first step. The whole D-grade was spent strengthening and perfecting it. That’s why so many considered the first step the most important one as well. One could gradually improve a core through hard work and various opportunities, but you would obviously save a huge amount of effort if you started with a sturdy foundation. **Chapter 698**
* If you started with a low-quality Core, you might exhaust all your momentum perfecting it over millennia, if you ever reached perfection at all. After all, the main goal of the D-Grade was to elevate one’s core to the point that it could withstand the formation of an inner world of the C-Grade." **Chapter 698**

## Core Power

* A Middle-stage core would hold roughly five times the energy of an Early-stage one, and the same was true further down the road. In other words, a Peak Hegemon wielded over 100 times the Cosmic Energy as an Early Hegemon. **Chapter 1,059**
* That was an important distinction between Hegemony and the lower grades. Skills and equipment were linked to your core. You normally needed a Middle-stage Cosmic Core to power a Middle-proficiency skill, and the same was true for War Regalia. In return, these skills and tools would channel far more energy, which meant greater offensive and defensive power. **Chapter 1,059**

## Levels

* 150 - 225
	+ Dependent on Core Quality and Core Grade.
	+ Half-step Hegemon has created a failed cultivator core.
* Hegemony was similar to the E-grade in that it was divided into Early, Middle, Late, and Peak. **Chapter 969**
* Upgrading your core from Early to Middle-stage ... your level limit would increase by another 25 levels, where each level provided more attributes than the Early stage. **Chapter 969**
* Hegemony wasn't like the E-grade. The stage couldn't be brute forced, even if you had pills and treasures at your beck and call. **Chapter 1,047**

## Race

* Your lifespan was more related to your core than your Race in the D-grade. **Chapter 969**
	+ In contrast, reaching Peak Hegemony was enough to live a life of abundance and luxury for nearly 100,000 years. **Chapter 1,161**
* Your Race would reach C-grade upon passing the final bottleneck, upgrading a Late-Stage Cosmic Core to Peak. **Chapter 969**
* Each breakthrough before then would also add roughly ten thousand years of lifespan ... **Chapter 969**

## Bottlenecks

* But while the E-grade had 75 minor bottlenecks, D-grade had three major ones. After breaking through, you'd have an Early-stage Cosmic Core, which would last you until the first bottleneck at level 175. **Chapter 969**
* The fundamental requirement to pass each bottleneck was the quality of your core. If you managed to form a Middle-quality Cosmic Core from the get-go, you had the qualifications to assault the first bottleneck the moment you were level-capped. **Chapter 969**

### Breaking Through

* Cultivators could use their manuals to accomplish this. A Middle-quality D-grade Cultivation Manual could gradually refine compatible cores to Middle-quality without any risk, though it took centuries to millennia of cultivation. Mortals such as himself didn't have that luxury. They needed to use treasures or risk everything by simultaneously upgrading the stage and quality. **Chapter 969**

## Commentary

* Intelligence-based mages weren't as common since they only hit their stride in the D-grade. **Chapter 986**
* Cultivators gain the ability to fly at D-Grade.
	+ "Flying was akin to turning yourself into a Cosmic Energy magnet, generating a repulsing force to the ambient energy" ... "In reality, it was slightly more complicated, where you used your Dao to connect with the environment and weaken your earthly shackles. But it was fundamentally impossible without a core and the ability to channel those levels of energy". **Chapter 1,065**
* The leap of strength between E-grade and Hegemony wasn't nearly as pronounced, and you had to get your hands on things like War Regalia and D-grade skills if you wanted to bully people with your levels. That wasn't the case at C-grade, where every strike and every skill was imbued with the power of a world. **Chapter 1,092**