Cultivation

## Essence and Inspirations

Essence is cultivated. Delvers rely on essence from rift monsters to progress. While people can cultivate ambient mana, it is considered "sand to the bricks of the essence of rift monsters" and would ruin your foundation. Rifts sometimes drop Essence Stones which can be used to cultivate as well.

Crafters can get essence through getting rare breakthroughs:

> The theory I heard is that there’s a resonance with the world, the item, and the crafter. The three of them being in harmony creates essence, and it’s perfectly matched to the person. That essence gets bestowed to the person, and I’ve heard rumors that it can even fix foundations if they weren’t perfect.
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There are two branches cultivate into: Physical and Mana. Baring special talents, all cultivators allocate essence into two both branches, though they use different ratios.

> Even Melee fighters dedicated at least 30% of their Essence to their mana, just so they could use skills in battle. The most aggressive ratio he had heard of, from an actually successful rift delver, was 80% Essence cultivation to physical and 20% to mana. And that was only possible because this particular delver had a Tier 3 Talent that let him negate the cost of used skills based on his physical abilities.
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Each new tier takes 10 times the amount of essence as the last tier to tier up, which is why cultivators don't grind lower tiers

Every 5 tiers the amount of essence needed to tier up spikes.

##### Allocated Essence

Essence that has been allocated by a cultivator is unique to the person. Even if it is unaspected, it can be used as identification. After tier 15 you can use allocated essence in attacks. This damages and eventually destroys the skill and also hurts your cultivation.

## Directed Cultivation

##### Mana Directed Cultivation

Mana Directed Cultivation is divided into three sections: Maximum Mana, Mana Regeneration, and Mana Concentration. You can start directed Mana cultivation at tier one, and it's recommended that you don't start Directing Mana Concentration until tier 5. The goal of directed mana Cultivation to tier 3 is to have 1000 mana and regenerate it at 1 mana every 2.5 minutes. This is contradicted by Liz who knows more about higher tiers, she says it's better to get 800 mana at tier 3 because you have diminishing returns on maximum mana if you do not cultivate mana concentration.

The equation for mana concentration to effective power is

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{\displaystyle \log\_{10}([Concentration]) + 1}

 You should never ever try to fill your core with mana from a rift mana stone. It has a base mana concentration and will delude your own concentration, ruining your foundation. Using any rift mana stone should only be on equipment never let it go into your core.

there are several examples of people using rapid mana converters to refill their mana pools with mana stones. So ruining your foundation without using mana stones is contradicted throughout the books.

##### Physical Directed Cultivation

It is not recommended to do Physical Directed Cultivation until after tier 3 and an introductory class.

Physical Directed Cultivation is divided into 7 sections: strength, durability, proprioception/dexterity, flexibility, senses, mind, and regeneration. It is recommended to do at most 50% Directed cultivation to stay balanced.

Mind allows you to think and process faster. Regeneration boosts the body's natural recovery time and allows you to maintain muscle mass. Strength cultivation only multiples your physical strength which is why working out is still necessary

##### Cultivation Aids

There exists ways to increase all types of cultivation per tier. Matt needs things that increase mana concentration because his talent doesn't allow him to increase it the usual way.

## Concept

A concept is required to reach Tier 5. A concept is a deep understanding about something, it can be anything. It "should always involve a core idea that they can identify with, down to their very spirit". If you have a concept that doesn't match you, then you must either change your concept or change yourself. With a self-made concept, you can manipulate your surroundings a bit.

a concept's growth changes the user's essence in their core. That's why taking essence from a dead cultivator is bad. To do so, the cultivator's concept has to fight the dead cultivator's will to cleanse it of it's concept before use, or risk crippling their advancement.

### Creation Aids

You can have an artificial or "bottled" concept to break into tier 5, but they are prosthetic. You need a stronger bottled concept at tier 10 and to break tier 15 you must have your own unique concept. It's better to gain your unique concept earlier so that it can grow with you. It takes a tier 25 or higher to make a tier 5 bottled concept and a tier 35 or higher to make a tier 10 bottled concept.

rift beasts can have auras which a cultivator can absorb to try to understand and create your own concept. Auras should be at most the same tier as the cultivator or so that "it won't pop their spirit because it's too strong"

### Creation

Forming a concept makes it difficult to remember it while it's happening. A concept contains a phrase and an image. Once you have one or the other, the memory issues stop. The mind protects itself until either the cultivator has the strength to brute force it, or finds a perfect image or phrase at which point it snaps into place. The cultivator needs to be at peak Tier 4 to manifest it though. The phrase narrows down what your concept is, the image determines the usage

Putting yourself in the concept image is very difficult, and you must be sure that your image encompasses both who you are now, and who you will be in the future, otherwise you'll accidentally force yourself to stagnate to match your image. It must be capable of growth. Doing this gives you a lot of power, and that power is focused inward.

The larger the concept, the more will it takes to use it and the more powerful the effect can be. Will increases with usage so people with larger concepts generally have larger will pools.

### Usage

All concepts in addition to their primary function can slightly influence reality to restrain people by pitting their wills against each other. It is more difficult to restrain someone than to prevent yourself from being restrained because "spirit had sovereignty in the body".

It is possible to harden the space around you into a platform to stand on. This technique is usually done at tier 10. Internal Concepts struggle to do this, and Colonel Throne has only heard of it done twice.

## Intent and Aspect

You cannot begin to find your Intent until both of your cores are fully converted to your concept's aspect. No one can direct you on finding your intent because it's very personal.

Intents and aspects are larger more broad versions of your concept. Aspect is basically embodying your concept.

Intents and Aspects are much harder to form than Concepts. You need a large amount of time with the previous steps to find one. "Most take four hundred [years], bare minimum." The path is only 200 years at most, so it's considered the last hurtle on the Path of ascension.

An intent is required to break tier 25 and an aspect to break tier 50.

> “That’s why you hear about high Tiered people with weird personalities or quirks. They themselves are manifestations of their Concepts and Intents trying to become Aspects. To create an Aspect of water, you have to be water. It’s not just understanding water. It’s going into a pool and becoming one with it.”
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An aspect is required to Ascend.

## Life Expectancy

A tier 5 lives around twice as long as an unawakened would. approximately 180 years.

A tier 10 lives 700 years. A tier 15 is immortal. A tier 14 has a life expectance of 1440 years. and a tier 4 has a life expectancy of 130 years.

At tier 15 the amount of essence a cultivator has allows them to become completely self sustaining. At tier 15 you have complete control of how your body looks. the further they progress the further they can deviate from humanity.

## Aspecting Mana

It is possible to aspect your mana to a particular type. That lowers the cost of using skills and spells of that type but increases the cost for other types.

One way to aspect your mana is by taking potions. An example is the tier 8 Flower of Miraculous Life which gives nature aspected mana to whoever consumes it. It can also be processed into a potion to get Life aspect mana. There are 5 ways you can aspect mana, according to Kelley, Innate bloodlines, talents, carefully cycling ambient mana, special techniques involving cycling mana and essence through materials, and natural treasures like the Flower of Miraculous Life.

Concepts aspect a person's mana further giving them a secondary property that Kelley calls a sub-aspect.

##### Void Aspected Beings

Void beasts are rare. Void eats away at everything. When under tier 15, void mana users need special healing to keep themselves from burning out from the inside. Void users tend to have questionable personality traits to channel the destructive forces inside them. Luna is void aspected.

Few skills can survive their structure changing to void, so pure void skills are very rare.

## References

1. ↑ Chapter 13
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Chapter 31
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Chapter 1
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Chapter 3
5. ↑ Chapter 109
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Chapter 71
7. ↑ Chapter 102
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Chapter 27
9. ↑ Chapter 73
10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Chapter 10
11. ↑ Chapter 35
12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 12.4 12.5 12.6 Chapter 17
13. ↑ Chapter 25
14. ↑ The Concept of Death 7
15. ↑ Chapter 24
16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 Chapter 26
17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 Chapter 40
18. ↑ Chapter 42
19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 Chapter 48
20. ↑ Chapter 74
21. ↑ Chapter 75
22. ↑ Chapter 99
23. ↑ Chapter 30
24. ↑ Chapter 8
25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 25.2 Chapter 87
26. ↑ Chapter 50
27. ↑ Chapter 79
28. ↑ Chapter 77
29. ↑ Chapter 105