Measurements

"First, did any of you manage to start actually cultivating? Don't bother checking your System Menus, you'd know if you did."

"If you put it like that, Elder, I believe I have, though I haven't reached the first breakthrough yet."

Hasegawa's eyebrows raised, and the eyes beneath them looked at the one who had spoken. "Jue Zhu, isn't it? Most impressive. See me later.

The rest of you, don't be hard on yourselves for not being him. Most students at the Academy take around a month to begin cultivating, and that's with the enhanced bodies the Dimension Governors have provided. Totally ordinary people born here usually take a year, or even several, of study before they reach the first breakthrough. Frankly, I've been asking that question as a joke the first day of free practice in my class since I took this post. You may all feel free to continue practicing cultivation each free period until you get it, and frankly, we expect you'll cultivate as much as you can in your off time every chance you get once you can, so obviously we recommend practicing then too.

All right, back to the classroom for Technical Studies, then you'll be released for the evening."

Technical Studies turned out to be my favorite class by far. "Now I'm sure you've all played around with the Dimension Governors System, so I hope you've at least looked at your status screen. For our first Technical Studies lesson, I'll finally be telling you what all those names and datapoints mean.

Your personal status is the simplest section. First, you can think of your Health points as a measure of your overall condition. The higher the number, the greater the injury you can survive, a trait that inevitably increases as a cultivator reaches higher and higher levels. Qi is how much Qi you have available for the use of techniques, and the maximum is the most Qi you've cultivated. The maximum restores over time—once you become a Cultivator, a Qi Restoration rate line will be added. The same goes for a Cultivator's body's self-healing, but that won't happen for quite a few levels.

Now, Physique. Physiques are sort of like special abilities of the body. Most Cultivators have a physique of the Mortal Rank, which usually gives a small bonus to one aspect of cultivation, too small for it to make them talented in that aspect on its own. As students of Outworld Academy, you've been given enhanced bodies, all with the Spirit Rank Physique "Experiential Body." As a Physique two ranks above an ordinary person's, this Physique should serve you all well through your entire cultivation journey, and in ways most of you should find at least somewhat familiar. As for its actual properties, we'll be covering that in a later lesson.

As for Curses and Ailments, well, that means the obvious. If anything is displayed but None there, something is wrong. The System should also alert you if a curse is applied to you or if you fall under an ailment which affects cultivators.

Now, the Cultivation section. That too is fairly obvious. For those who don't know, the levels of cultivation as a whole are broken into different Realms, each with nine Stages. Our System, like most Systems, can track how much Qi you need to cultivate to reach the next sub-realm. However, for breaking through to an entire Realm, rather than a Stage, there can be other requirements. This is never the case for breaking through from the Mortal Realm to the first Earth Realm—or rather, it could be said that successfully cultivating at all is the special requirement in that case. The Highest Rate and Last Rate are simple—they show you how fast you have cultivated under the best conditions you've experienced, and most recently. 

Finally, we have the fun part—Spirit Force. This is a brand new feature, exclusive to the Dimension Governors' System and developed by the greatest minds in the highest Heaven our faction reaches. We have coined Spirit Force as an overall numerical rating of a cultivator's power. It's an experimental metric, but it should be accurate at least for as long as you stay in the First Heaven, and we hope, even the next."

There was a pause in the lecture for questions, then the lesson moved to the part I was looking forward to the most—the Attributes. 

"The Attributes were actually coined and codified by the very first cultivator to make a System. Formally, they are known as the Nine Measurements." I was annoyed by a brief snicker from the back. Hasegawa had noticed too, pointedly clearing his throat before continuing, "The Nine Measurements are divided further into three each of Measures of Body, Measures of Mind, and Measures of Soul. Regarding the Measures of Body, I certainly hope none of you require an explanation. They measure exactly what you would reasonably think they do. The Measures of Mind and Soul, however, are more particular. 

First, there's Comprehension, an extremely important metric. Comprehension measures a Cultivator's ability to understand the numerous methods to manipulate Qi. In other words, Comprehension is vital for learning special techniques, including cultivation techniques. Next is Resolve, which affects the strength of certain types of attacks and techniques. Then there's Reaction, which affects one's ability to defend against those same attacks and techniques. Bear in mind that these are the primary effects of these attributes. There are several other effects of each that manifest in more subtle ways.

Lastly there are the Measures of Soul. The first, Aura, can also be described as "soul strength." That is a vast oversimplification, but cultivators usually have no need to worry about the rest until they near the end of the Earth Realms. Faith is the measure of one's ability to defend against attacks specifically against the soul, and like Aura, there's usually no need to worry about it until one's cultivation has advanced quite a bit, but there are exceptions—certain magical beasts which attack the soul—which is a topic we'll cover later.

Last of all is the most unusual Measure, Purity. Unlike the others, which scale in number more and more as one's Cultivation increases, Purity is measured on a scale of 100, and does not scale with Cultivation.

Even we of the Dimension Governors do not know all that there is to know about this metric. One thing is clear, however, which makes it arguably the most vital Measure of all: the higher a cultivator's Purity, the faster they are able to cultivate. It is not the only factor, but a cultivator somewhat lacking in talent can bridge the gap if they can somehow raise their Purity. However, for most cultivators, especially those lacking talent, this is a near-impossible task.

So, you all might be wondering, where do you stand with the stats you have now, given that you're not yet cultivators? For most of the Nine Measures, it's quite simple. Save for Aura, which is always 1 in mortals, and 0 in magical beasts with only animal intelligence, and Purity, which can vary wildly on its scale even with mortals, a score of 10 is considered average for a mortal without any effort put into raising it, and with training or certain experiences, the usual maximum is around 25. Anything higher than that, and it means you have cultivation talent in that area.