Core Ideas

“*Life-Death Edgewalkers cannot form a Cultivator's Core because of their contradictory nature*” (Reyna Umbri'Zi, Autarch)

"*If you managed to paint your cyclic path on the wheel, it meant you would be qualified to make a run at Hegemony. But look at you, how could you possibly form a core with such volatile energy? You’d blow up.*” (Yrial, former Monarch)

## Problems for Zac in forming his Cultivator Core

In order to attain D grade, every cultivator needs to form a core, based on their Dao and path. Due to Zac's unconventional cultivation he faces a number of problems with this task.

* Life and Death cannot both be the basis of a Cultivator’s Core. It would lead toward Chaos, the peak that completely refused being categorized by the Apostate of Order. The fundamental stages of cultivation in this era are simply not suited for such a thing, no matter if you're within the System's purview or not.
* Due to being mortal, there was no method to slowly form the foundation of the core like Cultivators did through their **manuals**. Mortals 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.
* Zac's Cultivator Core would be positioned in the same place as his Duality Core.

## Advice and Solutions from Others

### Reyna's solution

“Life-Death Edgewalkers do have one way to break through to Hegemony. They can discard one of their identities and become a singular whole, crippling part of themselves to continue on the road of cultivation.”

### Yrial's advice

* “Never let anyone limit your pursuit.”
* “My only advice is to not get too attached to anything. If your first idea fails, just drop it and start looking for other solutions. ”

### Iz's advice

* A powerful Soul could help stabilize one's breakthrough into Hegemony. [Chapter 919]
* "[Do not] limit yourself by conventional wisdom. My grandpa once said that under the Heavens, anything is possible." [Chapter 930]
* "You are forming a Life Constitution to match your undead half. Balance between Pure Life and Death. Forming a core on a path that converges at the peak… difficult. Are you prepared?" [Chapter 957]

## Items to aid

Zac has been gathering items to help him form his Cultivator Core.

* The **[Hollow Core]** exuded some sort of pressure that would forcibly contain rampant energies as you built up the core, allowing pretty much anyone with the prerequisite Dao Stages to form at least a medium-quality Cultivator’s Core.
* Perennial Vastness Token. “Any peak E-Grade cultivator who enters the Perennial Vastness is essentially guaranteed to emerge with a Cultivator's Core. More importantly, their cores are far sturdier compared to normal, approaching perfection.”
* [Calamity Core] Life-Death Core formation treasure "this thing was almost perfectly aligned with his path" **Ch. 1,005**

## Zac's Concepts

Zac has begun to think of how he can form his Cultivator Core.

* If he could form an “Evolutionary Pattern” and an “Inexorable Pattern”, and then interweave and fuse the two with his understanding of duality, wouldn’t that be a core perfectly suited for him?
* Zac thinks that his Human and Draugr sides need to be balanced. For this reason he has created the Void Vajra Sublimation body tempering method to make his human side life-attuned, complementing his death-attuned Draugr side.
* If he could form a proper avatar around his Specialty Core, he might be able to erect powerful Spiritual Barriers like the ones he used when he opened the last nodes in his head. [Chapter 919]

## Zac's Solution

* Zac couldn't fuse Life and Death in one core, and he couldn't use Two cores. So he would do neither, and he would do both.
* He would create a Quantum Core to contain his Trinity Path, made possible by Void and grasping for Chaos.
* The Void of Death nurtured and completed the Evolutionary Core from within. Similarly, the Void of Life completed the Inexorable Core on the other side.
* When he was in his Human form, the core would look like it did from the vantage of the white marble sphere: Life, Conflict, Void of Death.
* When Draugr, the Cosmic Core would rather be in its other state, where Death and Conflict were supported by Void of Life. [Chapter 969]