Cores

"They were often located in the very same position he found the bead, making it almost seem that he’d formed a Cosmic Core. However, there were some differences from what he’d heard about the topic. A real core was supposedly larger, and while the power contained in his bead was high, it was nothing compared to a real Core.

A real Cosmic Core was the source of energy for a D-Grade powerhouse. He still didn’t really understand what that entailed, but from Ogras it wasn’t only a matter of quantity, but also of quality. The energy a genuine core was of a higher grade than anything he could come in contact with, whereas his core was something else entirely."  **Chapter 175**

Forming a Dao Branch was one of the biggest hurdles to forming a powerful Cosmic Core with some certainty. Without it, you needed some unique opportunity or a good chunk of dumb luck to succeed. But those kinds of people would always be limited in their potential since the Dao was the foundation for all cultivation. **Chapter 728**

You can still awaken your Bloodline as a Hegemon, but I don't think you'd be able to open your Hidden Nodes. Hidden Nodes are like small gateways into another dimension. When you attach a Cultivator's Core to your Pathways, the surge of energy will wipe the slate, destroying or burying these entrances. Opening Hidden Nodes is difficult on its own, but doing it as a Hegemon is too, too difficult. **Chapter 948**

The heavier one's foundations, the more difficult it was to form a High-quality core. The same was true for the complexity of your path. **Chapter 968**

## Half Step D grades and Imperfect Cores

“The trial to reach D-Grade is to successfully form a Cultivator’s Core, also called a Cosmic Core. This is not something that happens naturally. There are various methods to do this, but they all have high requirements, and just a minuscule fraction of all E-Grade warriors manage to take that final step. If you almost succeed in forming the core but fail at the last step you have two options. You can let the core shatter and try again at a later date, but doing this will leave you seriously wounded. Even worse, every following core-forming attempt will be even harder.

The second option is to force your failed core to stay together, which stops the core from completely breaking apart. It will maintain a small part of its original function and you will see a slight boost to your longevity. But if you do that you are still not considered as D-Grade by the System, and you will cut off your path of advancement forever.” **Chapter 249**

"It was actually possible to take that step even with a defective core, but it was far more difficult than forming a core normally. You needed to completely disintegrate your defective core and immediately form a new one. Fail, and you’d blow up from the rampant energies." **Chapter 680**

## Core Formation

* A cultivator would gradually form their core naturally by rotating their manual and making small adjustments. It was almost like a fetus that grew gradually and naturally in harmony with the Heavens. Meanwhile, a mortal's process was more like building a bomb inside your body by cramming more and more energy inside, all while trying to impose your blueprint on it. **Chapter 981**
* 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.
* 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**
* Forming a Cultivator's Core without the stability provided by a Dao Branch was extremely difficult from what Zac had gathered. **Chapter 724**
* Hegemony was similar to the E-grade in that it was divided into Early, Middle, Late, and Peak. 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. At that point, you would have to upgrade your core, which was risky and difficult. A failed attempt would damage and lower the quality of your core, which could waste centuries of cultivation. If you really messed up, you could destroy your core altogether and cripple your cultivation. But if you succeeded, you would break through to Middle D-grade. **Chapter 969**
* 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**
* Every extra skill you added to your pathways would have to be accounted for when forming your core. Creating a skill perfectly suited to your path was one thing; it didn't require a lot of work to incorporate. But a semi-suitable skill not of his own creation? It would create an energy imbalance that could cause problems even for cultivators. **Chapter 1,048**

### Mortals and Core formation

The gist of it was that there was no real method to slowly form the foundation of the core like Cultivators did through their **manuals**.

You had to try to forge it in one go, where part of the process was fuelled by **Dao**, and the other part of it was fuelled by treasures. It was more than ten times harder than it was for cultivators since the Mortal had nothing to build upon. It put even higher requirements on one's Dao as well since it was a more integral part of the process without a Cultivation Manual to do some of the work.

That alone was what stopped almost all mortals from ever taking that step. Simply gaining a Dao Fragment in the E-grade was almost impossible with the extremely low affinities Mortals had for the Dao. How would they possibly manage to form a Dao Branch that could help stabilize the process? **Chapter 728**

The biggest problem for mortals when it came to Core Formation was the need to use a large number of treasures and materials as a foundation. It made the cores heterogenous and poisoned them with external Daos. **Chapter 1,042**

Galvarion, the mortal Monarch, had tackled the issue by only focusing on the Dao of Water and being as weak as possible for his grade. The smaller and more condensed the foundation, the fewer treasures Galvarion had needed to use. That allowed him to slowly and arduously make his way through Hegemony and eventually form an inner world. **Chapter 1,042**

### Toll of Hegemony

Creation of a cosmic core will release a Toll of Hegemony.

## Core Advancement

* The only way to upgrade one's core was through a process of breaking down and rebuilding. Pathways needed to be multiplied and expanded, and schematics needed to be upgraded to accommodate higher energy levels and loftier Dao. **Ch 1,180**
* Tackling the minor bottlenecks of Hegemony could be broken down into three stages: ignition, ascension, and formation. **Ch 1,180**

### Ignition

* The fuel for the process was already stored within the core. It was the spirituality you'd infused into your somewhat barren Cosmic Core during the first twenty-five levels of Hegemony. Ignition meant unleashing those accumulations to return the core to a malleable state. **Ch 1,180**
* A cultivator's Cosmic Core had natural fault lines that allowed for a controlled release, lessening the risk of damage or death from the ignition. Even then, the forces involved were far to great for the core to withstand. Like a tree bending with the winds instead of forcibly enduring, the core would actually collapse into a set number of pieces. Ascension meant upgrading those pieces individually, while formation was to put it all back together. **Ch 1,180**
* Mortals, true to form, were even worse off. Their cores were mashed together with foreign materials. They absolutely had faultlines, though they were rarely planned. Beyond the imperfections they shared with cultivators, they also had to deal with the seams of improperly fused materials and sequelae from the crude Core Formation Method used—a far cry from the natural breakpoints formed by the Dao. **Ch 1,180**

## Specialty Cores

"From what I understand the names come from the fact that they are created with a specific purpose in mind. Adding an element is just one example" **Chapter 202**

“Modifier-cores are Specialty Cores that directly interact with a Cosmic Core in various ways. The most common example is the Specialty Core called ‘Shield’, which simply acts as a shield around a Cosmic Cores to protect it from attacks.

“But they can be much more integrated than that, I’ve heard about one from my master that had the Cosmic Core grow inside it. The purpose of the Specialty Core was to extract energy faster than normally possible. It resulted in extraordinary firepower, but also hurt the cultivator’s body.” **Chapter 207**

He breathed out in relief when he read that Specialty Cores could only be upgraded to a higher rank after one had upgraded one’s class. **Book 4, Chapter 69**

### Examples of Specialty Cores

* Duplicity
* Planur - Chapter 1,083

### Unique Cores

Cultivators who spent too long in the areas affected by the Undead Empire incursion would begin to develop Cores made from Miasma during the zombification process; once the Core was complete, they would die and become a zombie. These types of Cores were also noted to be present within the bodies of the more powerful Zombies under the control of the incursion. **Chapter 166**

## Core related titles

* Core
* Pathbound Core

## Core Evaluations by the Perennial Vastness

* **Design**: 87% unique.
**Imperfections**: Low (10-100).
**Evaluation**: Middle Quality, S-grade Energy Capacity, S-grade Potential, S-grade level of Innovation. **Ch 1,059** *Zac's Core*
* **Design**: 11% unique.
**Imperfections**: Flawless (3-9).
**Evaluation**: High Quality, B-grade Energy Capacity, A-grade Potential, A-grade level of Innovation. **Ch 1,115** *Ogras' Core*