Xue Ren's lips curved upward as he flipped through the pages of this book with utmost joy.
From it, he learned that Spiritual Energy was everywhere in the world. It was in the atmosphere, in the items one used day to day; it was even in the food you ate!
And through Qi Absorption, one could pull in and absorb the Spiritual Energy particles in the atmosphere—an act which, after a full cycle, was termed "Cultivation."
By cultivating, you could improve your strength, increase the maximum reserves of your Spiritual Energy, and even fly!
At the higher levels, splitting mountains and parting seas were no longer impossible!
"Such power…"
This was what Xue Ren had been looking for!
It was what his previous life was missing!
Cultivation!
"Ah, so Spiritual Roots are what I thought they were," Xue Ren mused. "They're conduits for talent in Cultivation, affecting both the speed at which you absorb the Spiritual Energy in the atmosphere as well as the upper limits of your cultivation potential. Elements, on the other hand, are something akin to Augmenters, as they determine what power type you have the most affinity for."
Elements were graded as such:
Basic Elements: (Water, Fire, Earth, and Wind, etc…)
Advanced Elements: (Metal, Ice, Inferno, various other fusion elements, etc…)
And lastly—
Ultimate Elements: (Extremely rare and extremely powerful Elements like Death, Space, Time, Doom, and Annihilation)
What Element you had the most affinity with was the one that the majority of upcoming Cultivators would choose to focus their builds around. However, there were those who went for higher-rank Elements that they had less affinity for, simply because the rank was higher.
Of course, above all else, the Grade of your Spiritual Root was what determined how far you'd go in your life. Outside of external resources, this was the aspect you relied on most.
From worst to best, Spiritual Roots were graded as such:
Lowest (75% of Cultivators)
Low (18% of Cultivators)
Mid (5% of Cultivators)
High (1% of Cultivators)
Top (0.01% of Cultivators)
Holy (0.00001% of Cultivators)
There were rumored to be Spiritual Roots above the Holy Grade, but those were merely rumors.
"The likelihood of discovering a Mortal with even the smallest bit of talent in Cultivation is roughly 1 in every 100," said Xue Ren. "This means that only 1 in every 10,000,000 Mortals will awaken with Holy Grade Spiritual Roots…"
This truly put into perspective just how much of a monster his sister was.
"And that's without even taking into consideration the probability of obtaining a super high affinity with the Ultimate Space Element, which surely makes my sister a once-in-a-billion talent."
An entire Kingdom might not have so many people!
"I hope the Spiritual Roots and Element I awaken with are pretty good as well…"
Xue Ren wasn't even one year old, yet was already drooling over cultivation and its various extremities.
"Curiously enough, the Cultivation Realms which separate the weak from the strong appear to be missing a lot of development." He stroked his baby chin in thought. "The first Realm is the Body Refinement Realm, and it's split up into the Skin, Flesh, Bone, Viscera, and Marrow Refinement Stages.
The goal of the Body Refinement Realm is to harden, strengthen, and temper the parts of your body to tremendously improve physical strength. Your average Marrow Refinement Cultivator will possess strength more than two dozen times that of a mortal.
To break through to the next major realm—the Qi Condensation Realm—you have to fully nourish yourself and your Qi Meridians in Spiritual Energy. Completing this act to a point of overfill and a qualitative transformation will be brought about, with which you'll obtain the ability to utilize Spiritual Energy to the most basic degree."
The Qi Condensation Realm reminded Xue Ren a lot of the Techno-Mancers in his previous life.
They'd enhance their strength with electrical power, and even outwardly project that electrical power after gaining more proficiency with their equipment.
It was the same as the Qi Condensation Realm, where in the later Layers—of which there were 12 total—you'd go from limited physical enhancement to Outward Energy Projection to Full Energy Manifestation and finally, complete control.
Respectively, these benchmarks of advancement correlated with the Low, Mid, Late, and Peak stages of the Qi Condensation Realm. Each stage had 3 Layers to progress through, and they were good ways to categorize how generally strong you were.
"Qi Condensation Realm Cultivators, in the 10th through 12th Layers, can demolish buildings with a wave of their hands, capable of conjuring small storms or spells." Xue Ren read on, finding this world and its power system more interesting the more he did.
"After the Qi Condensation Realm is the…"
— Next time on Spamming Fireball: Foundation Establishment Realm, and the Four Cultivation Paths —