A Cultivation Tale: The Godly Punisher

Chapter 2: Explaining cultivation

''Morning". His uncle greeted and smiled affectionately when alex came in. Alex greeted back with a lovable smile and took his seat, relaxing himself on a cushion chair.

His uncle, named Houston, was a man in his prime. He had raven-black hair and was handsome, he was quite tall and had an impressive athletic physique.

Dressed in a really expensive outfit, he emanated the grandeur of a giant business tycoon.

"Uncle. I had a dream about that supreme expert again. I have been counting it, this should be the eighty-seventh time. I don't know why I keep dreaming about the man." Alex said.

"I don't know why you keep having dreams about him. Perhaps it's to open your eyes to things you may believe, such as only gods possessing devastating power to turn worlds to ashes." his uncle said with a hint of shock and strangeness in his eyes which he tried concealing from the young boy in front of him.

Alex shook his head disputably, "Uncle, I have asked you to tell me about cultivation, but you always said you would tell me at an appropriate time. Can you tell me now?" Alex asked with a false wrath in his face.

His uncle saw the anger in his face and withheld the urge to laugh, his angry face looked very funny, it was like squashed tomato.

"Alright, I would tell you before you burst." Houston said.

Then he continued "Cultivation is a process of harmonizing oneself with an energy, then absorbing it into one's body and nurturing it. Over time, the energy would grow from a small amount to a large amount."

"Okay, where is the energy stored in the body?" Alex asked.

"The area where this energy is stored in the body is just below the navel. It's in the form of a sphere. We refer to this spherical area as the power-vessel, energy globe, realm orb or energyhouse." Houston replied.

"Hmm. I got that uncle"

Alex said.

Houston nodded.

Then he continued "Cultivation stages can be divided into four phases. The initial-phase, middle-phase, late-phase and peak-phase. While Cultivation realms are grouped into seven. They are, Human realm, Profound Adept realm, Saint realm, Sage realm, Celestial realm, Immortal Realm, Divine Adept realm and Imperishable realm." His uncle said.

Then he looked at Alex with a smile. "Are you following or it is too much for your small brain?" Houston asked with a laugh.

Alex rolled his eyes at him, "Uncle, what do you mean by that? Of course I understand" He said with fake anger.

Haha!

His uncle broke into laughter, he just couldn't restrain the urge to laugh anymore, Alex's face was now looking very funny.

After laughing for a while, he returned to his usual seriousness.

"What a comedian. Of course you are intelligent. I was only teasing you. Now, In the human realm, we have two stages. They are the Flow stage and Condensation stage..."

Like that, Houston began to slowly enumerate the cultivation realms there was to Alex.

In cultivation in this realmverse, there were twenty-eight stages and these stages have different levels of power.

The degree of power of someone in any of these stages skyrockets to astronomical levels when he or she enters the next stage.

Comparing the power of any stage to the power of the next is like comparing a house fly to an elephant, they are usually vastly disproportionate.

In the human realm, there are two stages. They are the Flow stage (also called entry stage) and Condensation stage.

In the Profound Adept realm, there are three stages. They include Earth Adept stage, Skylord stage and Heaven Adept stage.

In the Saint realm, there are four stages. These are Saint stage, Great Saint stage, Saint Emperor stage and Grand Saint Emperor stage.

In the Sage realm, there are five stages. They include Sage stage, Sage Priest stage, Sage General stage, Revered Sage Master stage and Sage Lord stage.

In the celestial realm, there are four stages. They are World Adept stage, Celestial Adept stage, Hallowed Celestial stage and Celestial Ruler stage.

In the Immortal realm, there are five stages. These are the Immortal stage, Great Immortal stage, Immortal Venerate stage (also called Venerable Immortal stage), Immortal Emperor stage (also called Great Immortal King stage) and Lord Immortal Emperor stage (also called Lord Immortal Monarch stage/ High God-emperor stage).

In the Divine Adept realm, there are three stages. They are the Sacred Totem Adept stage, Void Adept stage and Primordial Adept stage.

Lastly, In the Imperishable realm, there are only two stages. These are the Cosmos Great Exalt (also called Great Realmverse Prime) and Supreme Alpha Eternal (also called Omega-Overlord of Sea of Worlds or Guardian of Sea of Life).

When Houston finished listing out the stages there was in cultivation to Alex, he listened patiently to Alex's next question.

"Alright. But is that all about cultivation?" Alex asked with a puzzled expression in his face.

"No. Cultivation as a topic is really vast. Uhmm... Alright, let me tell you about the abilities gained when one first starts cultivation, that's when one enters the entry stage." Houston replied.

"Okay. So what are the abilities gained?" Alex asked.

"They immediately gain two passive abilities. These are 'Self-Percipience' and 'Stage Awareness Sense' also called 'Cultivation Perception Sense.'" Houston replied.

"Hmm. What are the abilities used for?" Alex asked.

"The former allows us to see within ourselves while the latter allows us to discern the cultivation realm of others or the strength of their attacks. Through their aura, the cultivation stages they are in surfaces in our mind. With it, we would be able to recognize their cultivation levels." His uncle replied.

"So I would be able to see within myself with the Self-percipience ability? Uncle, It's so cool! See what you have been denying me all this while, it's not fair." Alex said unhappily with surprise in his eyes.

After pausing for a while to think of what to ask, he questioned "People who cultivates are called what? Let me guess, cultivators?"

"Correct, people who cultivate are either called cultivation experts or cultivators. They are split into four classes. These include Energy cultivators, Soul cultivators, Body cultivators and Bloodline cultivators." Houston replied.

"What do they cultivate?" Alex asked in a puzzled tone. He didn't quite understand this part.

"Okay. Energy cultivators are the commonest. This set of people cultivate energies. Soul cultivators whom are quite rare cultivate soul. These group of people only possess soul-based abilities, like illusion, mind-compel, hypnosis, soul-ripping attacks. Body cultivators cultivate body. They absorb a type of realm-energy from the world into their flesh, muscles, organs, bone and blood. This is done to strengthen and toughen their bodies. But they undergo extremely agonizing pains for hours, days or months just to make their bodies become as hard as nigh-indestructible treasure-artifacts. These experts' bodies can be extremely strong and hard to the point of easily crushing sapphirstones, the hardest substance in our world with their teeth or effortlessly ripping extremely thick metallic sheets with their hands. Being the hardest and most torturous form of cultivation, people who practice this kind of cultivation are very rare. Lastly, bloodline cultivators simply cultivates their bloodline powers, they awaken lineage-based powers and nurture them by comprehending their mysteries. These people are descendants of extremely powerful experts, they are from ancient human, beast and non-human lineages. The humans in this group are dual-cultivators, that is they can cultivate both energy and bloodine. Their bloodline powers manifest as ultra-physiques, a form of super-powered body in which they can transform their fleshy bodies into. For example, a male with a bluefire blazegod physique and activating it would have his normal body transform. His hair would turn bright blue and burn like it's on fire. His eyes would turn intense blue and one would see raging blue flames in them. Targets will spontaneously burn with a gaze. He would breath out bright blue mist which is extremely toxic and extremely corrosive. His entire skin gets covered in highly-resilient, blue armor-scales. Immense, bright blue, extreme-temperature flame would endlessly discharge from his body." Houston replied.

Wow!

Alex's eyes sparkled.

Houston looked at him and shook his head with a smile. Then he continued "But they need to awaken this physique first before they can cultivate it to such terrifying levels."

"Huh! How?" Alex asked in an astonished tone.

"This is simply unlocking every stages of their powers by comprehending the profound mysteries of their physiques." Houston replied.

"Okay. Uncle, you mentioned descendants of beasts and non-humans. Can you explain that?" Alex asked.

"They are progenies of beasts and non-humans. Now, about the beast progenies. They are dual-cultivators, especially the ones produced from the union of female divine beasts and human experts. Possessing both human and beast characteristics, they can cultivate energies and bloodline. Then coupled with their extremely durable body, they make for the strongest cultivators in the world. They have insane cultivation speeds in which that of human geniuses would only be able to match the lazy ones. So because of these, they are proud as hell. I have aversion to them. Haughty bastards. While the non-humans, as their name implies are not humans. They are other races aside from us and are really vast in numbers. They are also dual-cultivators as they can cultivate soul and bloodline. These beings are extremely terrific. Their powers are much more than humans and can only rival beasts. Only epic human geniuses can be called in the same tone as them." Alex's uncle detailedly explained.

"Hmm. But these beasts and non-humans would sideline us, they would see us as weaklings. That's bad news for us. I am sure they are rulers in places populated by human cultivators." Alex said feeling down. He wasn't happy with the strength-status of the humans.

"Boy, you are right. They are majestic rulers in many places but don't think we humans are weak. We are in fact the strongest. I am not trying to lie to raise your spirit but it's true. We are quad-cultivators, we can cultivate energy, soul, body and bloodline. Although this reduces our cultivation speed, we are still extremely powerful in any level we are. But only extremely talented human geniuses can become quad-cultivators and they are very rare." Alex's uncle replied in a sincere tone.

Alex then shook his head with an admirable, triumphant smile hung on his face.

He was happy that although the extremely strong human geniuses were rare, at least humans could cultivate all. They were not limited to one form of cultivation or the other.

The only downside was doing this would drastically lower their cultivation speed. But it was still something to be very proud of. He thought.

Houston saw Alex's elated smile and shook his head.

"Jealous" He uttered in his mind.

Then he continued to lecture Alex about cultivation.

"Now, cultivation have certain boundaries, when you accumulate energy to the extent of going beyond the threshold of a certain boundary, one is said to have broken through. This is a system every cultivator is subjected to. It's a process that we can't control. But there are people who have defied this system."

"Really? Who are those?" Alex asked.

"We generally call these people heaven deviants. They simply defy the rules of the heavens. The ones that defy cultivation rule are called cultivation deviants. Another called life deviants defy life span-rule, these life-deviants live far longer than they are supposed to. About cultivation-deviants, they possess more quantities of energy than are supposed. An expert's accumulation may be fifty times theirs. Their degree of accumulation to enter the next cultivation stage could be a dozen to a thousand fold that of their peers. Although, this make their cultivation speed extremely slow, they have vastly more energy to spare. This could be very useful in battles, where it would seem their energies was boundless. Depending on the amounts of energy they possess at a stage, they could go on in combats for weeks, months or years. This is an unequalled advantage in battles. This aberration in their cultivation can be caused by peerless-rank god-pills that alter the function of their energyhouses, enhancing its capacity to accumulate energies to astronomical degrees before they can enter the next cultivation realm." Houston replied. 

"Cool" Alex said. 

Then he continued as he questioned "So, about the energy cultivators, what energy do they cultivate?"

"Not what, how many. There are infinite number of energies around us which we could attune to and absorb. These energies can phase between insubstantiality and tangibility." Houston replied.

"Huh! Uncle, how do you mean?" Alex asked.

"They are incorporeal like a ghost when uncultivated and can become solid matter that can be felt and grasped when cultivated." Houston replied.

Alex nodded his head in understanding.

Then Houston continued. "But these myriad of energies make up the ultimate energy we call 'genesis realmforce energy'. 

Alex's eyes shone with a light of comprehension.

Seeing that Alex took in what he was saying without having a confused look, Houston continued.

"This energy is an all-encompassing energy. It is the essence of all the worlds and everything found in them. By entering attunement with this energy, we can draw it for our utilization. But no expert have cultivated this energy since the inception of cultivation. It has been hypothesized that only someone who has blended with all the vastly diverse energies in the world, both in records and not, could sense this energy and tune their awareness to it. This energy is seen as all energies. Only when someone has cultivated all the energies in the world could one be said to have cultivated this supreme energy. Once all the energies are cultivated, they would merge and transform into this energy. It's this ultimate energy every experts thirsts for, regardless of the tribulations that follow. But no one has ever accomplished this feat. It's just theoretically and practically impossible. A reason is because they are restrained by their lifespans, even life-deviants, no matter how long they live can't reach this level and the large number of energies we have in records are inconsequential in relation to the ones that haven't been discovered and recorded yet. That's why people go into seclusion to develop methods to sense these unknown energies and how to cultivate them"

Alex shook his head in great awe.

Everything his uncle had said were extremely astounding.

Now, he knew gods were once humans just like him. Through cultivation they had transcended into a realm they could be called gods.

"Uncle, how do I cultivate an energy?" Alex asked.

"There are thousands of methods that describe how to cultivate diverse and variant forms of energies. We call these cultivation methodologies and are recorded in books called cultivation manuals. We only need to understand the essence of the energies we want to cultivate. Once we understand them, we activate our percipience of these energies. We then harmonize with them and absorb them. Apart from cultivation methodologies, we also have battle-class methodologies and movement-class methodologies. Then we have duality methodologies and trinity methodologies." Houston said.

"Okay. What are those two you mentioned last? Uncle, I don't quite get them" Alex asked.

"Duality methodologies consists of any two of the three methodologies, a cultivation methodology and battle methodology or cultivation methodology and movement methodology while trinity methodologies consists of the three methodologies." Houston replied.

He took a pause, then he continued

"Unlike cultivation methodologies, battle-class methodologies and movement-class methodologies are graded. For battle-class methodologies, we have the A-grade, B-grade, C-grade, D-grade, E-grade and F-grade. These grades correspond to the Supernal Battle Entity-grade, Phenomenal Warring King-grade, Epic Warrior grade, Heavenly Warrior grade, Rare-Warrior grade and Mortal Warrior-grade, while for movement-class methodologies, we have Peerless Divine Speedster grade, World-speedster grade, Void-speedster grade, Spectre-Speedster grade, Rare Speedster grade and Mortal speedster grade. These grades still fall in different ranks, they include low-rank, average-rank, high-rank, supreme-rank and zenith-rank." His uncle said.

Alex's mind reeled in amazement.