14 The road of cultivation

The sun was rising and in the, now, familiar grasslands, Doko and Drake were standing facing each other.

"You better sit down, because this will take time kiddo" Doko suggested.

"No need," Drake replied.

"I know you are anxious to start training already, but unfortunately you have to hear the theory first before we proceed to the practical training. Cultivating is not something to been taken lightly. Since it gives a person the chance of defying fate and challenging the gods, the road of cultivation is bound to be difficult. The slightest misstep can cause a person to lose all his chances and become crippled." Doko warned. "Today I will be teaching you about cultivation realms and then the process of cultivating in the first realm, the Body Refinement realm.

Cultivation is separated into seven major realms, and each major realm is being separated in ten stages. The Body Refinement, which is the first major realm, focuses on refining the body of the cultivator. The Soul Refinement realm comes second and focuses on refining the soul. The third one is the Dantian Opening realm, and as the name implies, a cultivator opens up the dantian, which allows him to store Ki and use it in times of need.

After that comes the Merging Realm and it is one of the most important realms since the strength of the cultivator undergoes a qualitative change. Each realm after Merging realm is also considered a significant change for the cultivator. In this realm, one needs to merge his body and soul and the peak of the realm is when a cultivator has completely merged them together. If a cultivator succeeds in merging them, in order to kill him, one has to destroy both his body and soul. Otherwise, he can regenerate even the worst of injuries. It is also the strength of the peak of Merging Realm that is required in order to break the damn seal on this village.

The fifth realm is the Enlightenment realm and that it when a cultivator gets enlightenment regarding the elements of the world and he is able to use them freely.

The sixth realm, the Fate realm. In the Fate realm, the heavens themselves are against the cultivator and try to stop his progress. The reason for the name is that it is considered the period in the life of a cultivator that he is actively going against fate.

The last realm is being called the Godhood realm and one that reaches it is being considered a God already by all mortal men. I am not familiar with the last three realms since the only one who had reached them from our race is our ancestor Sun Wukong."

Drake, when listening to the Doko's explanation, was trying to imagine the cultivation realm of the others in the village. It wasn't' long until his question got answered.

"In order for you to realise how weak you are to the eyes of the world, you need to understand that me and your father, even though we are the strongest in our village, we have only achieved the peak of the Soul Refinement realm, and we haven't manage to break through for at least fifty years. We might look young, but we are already way over two hundred years old. Oh, your grandmother is also quite strong, only one stage behind us.

Right now, you are in the first stage of the body Refinement realm. Each stage of every realm measures the percentage of completion for that realm. For example, right now your body is about ninety per cent away from being completely refined. So each stage represents another ten per cent completion. The only exception is the Dantian opening realm, where the dantian is fully opened as soon as you break through and the stages represent the percentage of it that you filled with Ki. "

Even though Drake was receiving an influx of new information, he was excited to learn more about cultivation. Therefore his attention hasn't wavered even for a moment.

"While this is the basic theory that everything follows, be that beasts or humans, during the road of cultivation, there are some beasts that are exceptions. You will probably never meet one of them during your whole life. These beasts are considered as the embodiment of elements and their cultivation process is only about absorbing the natural energy around them into a magical core that exists in their body. They do not face any bottlenecks, but their cultivation is slower than regular cultivators. The magical core they have is extremely useful for a cultivator since it contains pure natural energy. If you ever meet one be sure to kill it and consume its core. It will certainly be very beneficial for you, and it will probably help you instantly break through some stages.

I can't highlight the importance of each stage and realm has. Usually, the ones able to fight a stage higher cultivator are the exception, while those able to fight against a higher realm opponent, are one in a million. They are considered extreme geniuses that will leave their mark in history except if they die in the process.

Lucky for you, we have a racial trait that allows us to be on par with all the geniuses. That is our bloodline. Every being that is a descendant of a god, has hidden, in their bloodline, the powers of its ancestor. The purer the bloodline is, the more powers one can unlock. All the beings with powerful bloodlines, instead of solely focusing on their cultivation, they are also trying to refine their bloodline. That is an extremely hard thing to do since every refinement has the potential of unlocking extremely useful powers. Take, for example, our bloodlust. Even though our bloodlust makes us go berserk and lose control of ourselves when we go berserk our powers are increasing by at least thirty per cent. You have a purer bloodline, so your powers are increasing by at least fifty per cent. I assume you understand that such an increase in power, when you are facing an opponent in the same stage of cultivation as you, can be the difference between life and death.

We also have other hidden powers, yet none of us has unlocked any of them. Other examples of bloodline powers are the extreme heat, able to burn everything, that a vermillion bird can emit, the majestic roar the white tiger can make, that disorients everyone who hears it, the extreme hardness of their body a black turtle descendant has or the eye beam an azure dragon can produce."

Doko gave a few minutes to Drake, so he can digest what he just heard. Seeing Drake asking no questions he then proceeded to explain the cultivation technique used by their race.

"Now, I am going to explain to you our cultivation technique for the Body Refinement realm. Keep in mind that in each realm the process changes so after you break through to the Soul Refinement realm, I or your father will teach you the new process.

You have to sit down in lotus position first because it makes the gathering of the Ki easier." As soon as Drake sat down in the mentioned position, Doko continued. " Now I want you to absorb as much Ki as you can using our breathing technique and then I want you to circulate it. Since it starts from your soul, I want you to circulate it first to your left arm, then your left leg, then your right leg, then right arm and after passing it once again through your chest area, make it head to your head. Then keep repeating the process until I tell you to stop."

Drake started cultivating following Doko's instructions. Since he was already familiar, due to the communication technique, with the manipulation of Ki, the process was pretty easy. With each circulation, he was feeling his body growing stronger at an alarming rate. He kept cultivating for at least two hours before Doko stopping him.

"That's enough for now, even though you will spend a lot of time cultivating from now on, you should not neglect what you learnt so far. Starting tomorrow, you will be cultivating for four hours here with me, then we will be doing body movements for another two hours, then combat training for three hours and lastly, you will cultivate at least another two hours before falling asleep. You should get used to this schedule since the only time you are going to change it, will be when your father takes you out of the array to teach you to control your bloodlust.

Is that understood?" Doko questioned Drake.

"Yeah" Drake replied earnestly.

"Then we will start now with the schedule I just mentioned."

The rest of the day went by pretty fast, and so did the next few days. Drake was faithful to his schedule, and he also added a few extra hours of cultivation each night.

A morning that was the same as every other, he woke up and got out of the house ready to move to the usual spot but today instead of Doko, it was Darth waiting for him.

"Kiddo, there will be no training for you today. We will be going outside the array so you can go berserk" Darth said with a small grin on his face.