Chương 87: A Murim World (2) - 85

//...aaaannnnnd we're back! Welcome back every to... <Bella>

//Just continue, will you? <Ruiki>

//Okay, okay, now, where did we leave off last time... Oh yeah! The ways SLMR is different from all other cultivation novels.

//Get to the point.

//It seems like little Ruiki never learned his lesson...

//I'm sorry! I'm sorry!

//That's more like it, anyways, onto SLMR. Let me explain the power structure... Don't do it.

//What?

//You were about to say something, weren't you?

//No...

//Hmm... Dear Reader, sorry for that distraction, back to SLMR, you see, the cultivation in SLMR was very different.

First, one's talent for cultivation depended on their dao beast, a beast that was bound to one's soul, and, the more powerful the beast, the greater one's talent for cultivation.

About 60% of people are born with no dao beast and are destined to never be cultivators in their life.

As for the remaining 40%, 39.999% of the 40% will be born with their dao beast in their soul, whilst the remaining 0.001% are those that somehow meet a fortuitous encounter and somehow bond with a wild dao beast. Usually, those that bond with a wild dao beast are able to break through all norms in cultivation no matter how powerful their dao beast is, and they are often the ones who's stories are passed down through the generations.

It's like the cheat item in those "author reborn in their own novel" genre novels, where the MC often has this seed or something that they ingest to gain a talent that has no limit. In this world, bonding with a wild dao beast had the same effect.

Of course, due to this fact being well known, many cultivators who were reborn using this method were immediately killed after being found out, as the other cultivators feared the changes that they could bring to the world of Murim.

Anyways, continuing with our discussion about the power levels, dao beasts, both wild and in one's soul, were ranked on a scale of 8 levels:

"Earth Sprouts" were first level beasts that could be killed by a normal human with both sides sustaining heavy injuries. As their name suggests, these dao beasts could only walk on land, and they weren't able to use any qi in their attacks.

"Water Skippers" were second level beasts that could be killed by a team of, well, these levels would be explained a little later in the chapter, but, because this is already here, I'll just say that these second level beasts were usually killed by a team of expert body tempering scribes. As their name suggests, these dao beasts were able to walk on land, with some of the more speed oriented beasts being able to walk on water.

"Sky Sentinels" were third level beasts that could be killed by a team of master stage earth gathering scribes. As their name suggests, these dao beasts were definitely able to walk on both land and water, with some of them being able to walk on air.

//Oh yeah, a note of caution, these rules are only considered relevant for land mammal-like dao beasts. Dao beasts that look like fish can obviously swim, and dao beasts that look like birds can obviously fly.

//Did you just interrupt me again?

//Come on! Your, "Dear Readers", needed to know this!

//They're smart, they probably could've figured it out as they went!

"..."

(The author has entered the discussion)

A/N: Let's just put this here so that they don't come back and nag me later on over how an Earth Sprout could swim when it was explicitly stated that it was a fish.

//Okay!

//Okay...

A/N: You guys can decide which "okay" was attributed to which person.

(The author has left the discussion)

//Anyways, continuing:

Heavenly Carapaces were fourth level beasts that could be killed by a team of acolyte stage golden dantian scribes. As their name suggests, these dao beasts were definitely able to walk on land, water, and air, with some of them being able to break through the earthly barrier to the heavenly realm.

//That's probably all the reader needs to know about right now.

//Yeah, I was thinking of stopping it anyways. Alright! Dear Readers, it's time for your crash course on the first four, out of eight, levels of human cultivators.

The first step in cultivation is the "Body Tempering" foothold, where cultivators remake their human bodies into ones that can be the future structure for heavenly bodies. The Body Tempering foothold is split into 4 different parts and is the only foothold that is actually split up into parts instead of stages. Once these 4 parts are all complete, the Body Tempering Scribe will now be considered a expert stage Body Tempering Scribe.

"Earth Gathering" is the second foothold in cultivation. To get to this stage from the Body Tempering foothold, one must absorb qi into their bodies until they are able to create a dantian. Afterwards, the cultivator should spend a few years absorbing the qi from the Earth until they have enough to break through the walls of their own dantian.

And, bam! After they are able to break through the walls of their dantian to form a bigger one, whilst using the excess to form a pillar in the middle of their dantian to channel their energy better, one could finally be considered a Novice Stage Golden Dantian scribe. In this stage, a cultivator would focus more on absorbing the qi from the sky until the amount of qi from the sky and the amount of qi from the earth in their dantian reaches an equilibrium, in which, afterwards, they will attempt to expend all this qi to form a second pillar. This process would repeat over and over again until a cultivator forms 9 pillars.

Finally, at the peak of the earthly realm, there were the Nascent Soul scribes, in which, after a Golden Dantian scribe finished creating a 10th pillar in their dantian, they would try to connect their dantian to their own soul, and, once these two forces of power became one, they would officially be considered Nascent Soul scribes. After one reaches the Nascent Soul stage, one would often just focus on their cultivation, trying to gain as much earth and sky qi as possible into their dantian, all of it to initiate their heavenly tribulation, in which, if they survived, they would be given access to heavenly qi, and they would finally ascend to the heavenly realm.

//Welp, that's the end of this chapter. The next chapter will contain more, unique, world building stuff, and then an explanation of the plot of the original novel.

//You...!

//No, wait! I was only following the author's instructions!

//Does it look like I care?

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH...!"

(A/N: The scene was then deemed too violent for me to describe...)