Civilization is not measured by the weapons it forges,
but by the light it loses… and dares to regain."
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The First Age — The Age of Cultivation
Before steel and data, before cities of glass and iron, there was a world drenched in spirit. Mountains floated, seas shimmered with divine beasts, and the skies were thick with clouds of spiritual essence. Humans cultivated energy from the heavens and the earth, transcending the limits of flesh.
Sect wars raged between immortals and demons. Empires rose, guided by celestial laws. The mortal body was a vessel for infinite potential, and even the weakest farmer could dream of reaching the heavens through sheer will.
But nothing eternal lasts without consequence. The flow of spiritual energy—the Qi of all creation—began to thin. The heavens grew silent, the beasts perished, and cultivation arts faded like dying embers.
No one knew whether it was the wrath of the heavens or the corruption of humankind that drained the spirit veins dry. But as the last cultivators turned to dust, the world fell into silence.
And thus ended the Age of Cultivation.
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The Second Age — The Age of Guns and Bombs
When the world forgot Qi, humans turned to gunpowder.
Science replaced spirit. Factories replaced temples. Faith gave way to formulas and war machines. Humanity's thirst for dominance, once tempered by divine power, now ran unchecked.
Guns were forged by the millions. Armies clashed in thunderous wars that shattered nations. The invention of nuclear fire marked mankind's greatest triumph—and its greatest sin.
The skies turned black with ash. The ground cracked open, poisoned by radiation. Countless cities were swallowed by flames, and vast wastelands were born.
In desperation, the surviving nations built Fortress Cities—steel sanctuaries protected by towering walls and nuclear shields. These fortresses became the last bastions of civilization amid a dead, burning world.
Humanity had survived, but at the cost of its soul.
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The Third Age — The Age of High-Tech Evolution
From the ruins, a new form of progress rose.
With the earth too toxic to sustain crops and beasts mutated beyond recognition, humans turned entirely to machines. Artificial intelligence replaced intuition. Cybernetics replaced the weak flesh of man.
Energy reactors, mech suits, and quantum cores became the new foundation of survival. People no longer cultivated the spirit within—they engineered the body without.
Humanity built sprawling Fortress Megacities interconnected by orbital satellites and subterranean rails. Drones patrolled the skies, AI governed economies, and soldiers merged with machinery to fight the mechanical horrors that now roamed the forbidden wastelands.
This was an age of logic and metal, of invention without restraint. Yet, deep beneath the data streams and reactors, something ancient stirred once more.
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The Fourth Age — The Age of Fusion
It began subtly—unexplainable fluctuations in energy grids, invisible waves that made reactors hum with unnatural frequency. Scientists called it a "quantum anomaly."
But cultivators, those few who still clung to forgotten scriptures, recognized it for what it was: the return of spiritual energy.
The energy did not return pure. It had merged with the radiation that had once nearly destroyed the planet. This new force—half divine, half atomic—was unlike anything humanity had ever known. It was named Etherion.
Etherion seeped into the atmosphere, into the oceans, into human DNA. Children began to display psychic phenomena: telekinesis, heightened senses, mind-links with machines. For the first time in millennia, the spirit within mankind awoke once more.
But this time, cultivation was no longer a matter of faith or raw meditation. To channel Etherion safely, the human nervous system needed reinforcement. Thus, the Neural Core was created—a bio-tech implant that allowed mortals to withstand the flow of hybrid energy without burning from the inside out.
Every child at the age of fourteen would undergo Core Fusion, a procedure marking the beginning of their cultivation journey. Those who succeeded became Ascendants, walking the path between man and machine.
The strong could reshape matter, command weapons with thought, and shatter steel with bare hands. The weak could only serve—or perish beyond the fortress walls.
As Etherion spread, the world entered its newest and perhaps final chapter—a civilization of flesh and metal, of spirit and data, balanced on the edge of transcendence and extinction.
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The Realms of Etherion Cultivation
When cultivation returned, it evolved into a hybrid system that fused spiritual growth with the precision of science.
1. The Neural Foundation Realm – The beginner's realm, focused on strengthening the five vital body systems: nerves, heart, bones, blood, and spirit.
At the peak, a cultivator's body becomes perfectly synchronized with the Neural Core.
2. The Ether Vein Realm – Where one learns to circulate Etherion freely through the meridians and merge it with their thoughts.
3. The Fusion Soul Realm – The cultivator begins to merge spirit and technology, capable of controlling external constructs or psychic weapons with pure intent.
4. The Ascendant Realm – A being whose mind, core, and body act as one—a living reactor of Etherion energy.
5. The Transcendence Realm – The rumored final stage, where the boundary between human and cosmic consciousness fades entirely.
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Now, thousands of years after the world's first cultivators vanished, humanity stands at the dawn of its fourth rebirth. Fortress Cities gleam under eternal night skies. Beyond their walls, mechanical beasts roam wastelands of metal and bone.
In one such fortress, a pale, violet-haired orphan prepares for his Core Fusion ceremony.