Cultivation

## Ranks

### Levels 1 to 9

There are many cultivators in the world, often belonging to different systems such as Awakened and Warriors. They are classified and ranked from Levels 1 to 9 by the authorities.

* Level 1: Is the essential requirement that one needs to clear to cultivate, and they are only slightly stronger from everyday people. The first few years, when a Warrior started to practice martial arts and when the Awakened just awakened, they often start at Level 1.
* Level 2: Cultivators have achieved some success with their Cultivation. For a warrior who managed to practice till the stage of MingJin or discernable energy, they could easily fight one-on-ten.
* Level 3: Corresponds to the AnJin—or hidden energy—warriors.
* Level 4: The warrior has achieved HuaJin or attainment. Cultivators of the first three levels were still humans whom you can still shoot down with a gun. A Level 4 powerhouse, however, is a tough nut to crack. If you arm them from head to toe with proper gear and put them atop the battlefield, one of them is enough to wipe out an entire special ops team.
* Level 5: Arm a Level 5 powerhouse to the teeth, and he can go up against an entire team of special ops agents. Those who practice martial arts call them Baodan Grandmasters. During the period of the Republic of China, you might not even find one Baodan Grandmaster amongst the many great martial masters. The stage of Core Foundation would be at Level 5, with a foot in the door of Level 6.
* Level 6: Martial Arts Legends Level. What that meant was that all who managed to cultivate to this level belonged to the rank of legendary beings. Such existences cannot be subdued by brute strength alone. If they find someplace in the city with enough space for them to unleash their arts, they would be almost impossible to kill even if the army cornered them.
* Level 7: National Guardian Level. With their strength alone, they could change or guard the fate of an entire nation.
* Level 8: Deity Level. At such a level in one’s cultivation of fighting arts, one was known to be Godlike. He had truly broken through the limitations put on him back at Level 7 National Guardian Level, reaching a surreal state of being.
* Level 9: Invincible Vajra Level. At this level, things would differ from Level Eight Deity, not to mention all the levels that came before, in a fundamental manner. In all the earlier cultivation stages, the cultivator still remained a mortal of flesh and blood at his core. The cultivator was unable to withstand bullet shots with his own body, requiring the use of Shields of Vigor to do so instead. That was because they were still beings of flesh and blood. Regardless of how powerful they became, their bodies remained that of a mortal. However, when a cultivator reached the Invincible Vajra level, things became entirely different. That level dealt mainly with strengthening the body in every single cell, enabling the body to transform on very fundamental levels. That was the very first step of emerging past one’s mortality, and it established a solid foundation for continuing cultivation at further stages. It was also the most important foundation. To cultivate was to wade through suffering, and the body was the vessel that allowed one to do so. The stronger one’s body became, the more capable one would be of making it through the storm. A weak body was like a weak ship, one that a huge wave could easily strike down, and further cultivation would be a waste of time. While there were people who were capable of embarking on other routes to continued training, even after their bodies had broken down altogether, all their methods were seen as heretical, making it near impossible to achieve greatness.

### Celestial Realm

Above the Ninth-tiered Cultivation System was a completely different realm. This realm was called the Celestial Realm. Invincible Vajra experts who called themselves Celestials had done it purely as an expression of pride. But once one’s cultivation reached the Celestial Realm, they would become an actual Celestial. What was a Celestial? It was far beyond ordinary human beings, just like a celestial being. The Ninth-tiered Cultivation System was already considered superhuman in the eyes of ordinary people, especially the Invincible Vajra Level. However, in the eyes of a real Celestial, it was just as fragile as a baby. There was a fundamental difference between the Celestial level and the Invincible Vajra Level. For experts at the Invincible Vajra Level, although they could absorb the spirit qi of the world for their own use, in the end, the energy they were able to use could only be the energy that they had on their own bodies. No matter how amazing a person’s power seemed, even if they were able to easily destroy a small hill, there would always be a limit. However, the Celestial Realm was different. People could attract the power of the world for their own use. This was truly otherworldly.

### Divine Treasure Realm

The Divine Treasure Realm, as its name suggested, was a realm akin to godly treasures in itself. It was not a treasure found externally in the world but instead within oneself. It was a realm where one would develop the latent treasures within oneself. The Divine Treasure Realm is subdivided into 9 Tiers.

* Tier 1: The 1st tier of the Divine Treasure Realm saw little changes in the cultivator at fundamental levels. The tier was known on its own as Spiritual Qi Realm, named such because the Spiritual Qi inherent within the cultivator was still just Spiritual Qi. That meant it was entirely identical to that of those at Celestial Realm and Airborne Realm. It was only when one made a breakthrough into the 2nd Tier Divine Treasure Realm that said Spiritual Qi would solidify into Spiritual Aether.
* Tier 2: The greatest trait of the 2nd Tier of the Divine Treasure Realm was turning one’s inherent physical energy from Spiritual Qi to Spiritual Aether; it was a process of fundamental transformation.
* Tier 3:Turns the Aether into greater Aether