"First step? What do you mean by that?" Red asked.

"It's just as it sounds." Eiwin explained. "Opening your Spiritual Sea is merely the initial foundation for cultivation. In fact, Cultivation Sects only consider an individual a real cultivator after they've opened their Spiritual Sea."

What the woman said made sense. The boy had been so focused on the task of opening his Spiritual Sea that he didn't even consider what might come next. Or that there was even a "next" after that.

"What's there to do after you've opened the Spiritual Sea?" The youth followed up with another question. "Can't you already control Spiritual Energy at that point?"

"You give too little credit to cultivators, Red." Eiwin smiled. "Just because they can control Spiritual Energy doesn't mean that there's no longer any room for improvement. For one, their control isn't perfect, and they're limited on how fast and skillfully they can manipulate that energy. And there's also the fact they can only use the energy kept inside their Spiritual Sea. Depending on how much they have, there's a limit to how powerful they can make their Spiritual Arts."

Red understood the principle of improving their control - proficiency came with practice. However, there was still something confusing him.

"You said they use the Spiritual Energy inside their bodies for their Spiritual Arts, right? If that's the case, once they expend everything, won't they have to cultivate all over again?" The boy tried to make sense of her explanation.

"That's a common misunderstanding." Eiwin shook her head. "To understand this, you have to understand what Spiritual Cultivation is in the first place."

The woman headed for a pile of books and picked out a volume that Red recognised. The "Spirit Key."

"So, you already know that once you open your Spiritual Sea, you can both store and control Spiritual Energy, right?" She asked.

Red nodded.

"One thing you need to understand, though, is that the Spiritual Sea is not an unchanging organ." Eiwin explained. "In fact, cultivators have found a way to constantly improve and transform the Spiritual Sea using Spiritual Energy. In doing that, they can increase not only the amount of energy they can store in their bodies but also its quality and density.

"The Spiritual Sea has a limit on how much energy it can contain, and stubbornly trying to absorb more is not only ineffective but also dangerous. As an example, imagine someone just opened their core, and their capacity at that point is 10 strands of Spiritual Energy. Once they spend all that energy, they can still recover their reserves after some time. The true difficulty doesn't lie in replenishing your Spiritual Sea, though, but rather in increasing how much energy your Spiritual Sea can contain.

"Cultivation proper is focused on improving your Spiritual Sea, not merely on accumulating Spiritual Energy. Does that make it clear?"

Red nodded again, but the revelation was still shocking to him.

"Is improving your Spiritual Sea difficult too?" The boy asked.

If opening the Spiritual Sea was already this hard, how challenging would it be to further develop it? The youth couldn't help but feel that he had underestimated cultivation.

"That depends on the way you see it." Eiwin replied after some consideration. "Unlike opening it, improving the Spiritual Sea is a process of accumulation. Your progress will remain after each cultivation session, but it will be quite slow."

"Then it's like opening your Spiritual Veins?" Red's eyes lit up.

"Yes, but much harder and slower." She gave him a feeble smile.

The boy felt some of his sudden enthusiasm be abruptly dampened. If opening all Spiritual Veins could take more than a decade, how long would it take to improve the Spiritual Sea? Red didn't even feel like asking.

"Is there a limit to how much you can improve your Sea?" The youth shifted the topic.

"Technically, no, but there are some hard obstacles you need to cross to progress, and you may need to rely on different cultivation methods." Eiwin explained.

"Are there levels to it like with the Spiritual Veins?"

"Yes, we call them Cultivation Realms." She pointed at the book. "It's what I wanted to show you today, actually."

The woman started to leaf through the pages. She finally came to a stop once she saw a specific figure: the outline of a person sitting cross-legged on the ground. Inside the shape, there was an orb representing the Spiritual Sea, and inside the orb, mist-like strands were floating around.

"This is called the Lesser Ring Realm." Eiwin continued. "It's the first realm one arrives at once they open their Spiritual Sea. The Spiritual Energy at this level is limited and exists inside the Sea in a gaseous state. As you know, at this level, one can control the energy and execute Spiritual Arts."

She changed the page. There was an identical figure there, but the energy inside the Spiritual Sea now looked like water.

"At one point, you will arrive at your first bottleneck after opening your Spiritual Sea. You'll need to force your Sea to undergo a great change, and once you succeed, you'll enter into the second realm." She pointed at the drawing. "The Greater Ring Realm. At this level, you'll be able to condense Spiritual Energy in a liquid state. The amount of energy available to you will increase substantially, and your power will go through a qualitative change."

"Liquid State?" Red frowned. "I thought Spiritual Energy was meant to be intangible."

Every time the boy saw the energy in the past, it was always in this elusive and misty state. A liquid, however, seemed far more substantial than a gas.

"They are still intangible." She clarified. "It's hard to find liquid Spiritual Energy in nature. But using our Spiritual Sea, we can condense that energy into a liquid state. In fact, the first three realms are all based on the three physical states of matter. Are you familiar with them?"

Red shook his head.

"Well, the three states are gaseous, liquid, and solid. The matter is denser in each following state. You can think of it as..." Eiwin struggled to find the right words. "More matter occupying a smaller space. Does that make sense?"

The youth understood the principle, but he still felt confused by the specifics. In the end, though, he just nodded.

"Good." The woman smiled. "The same principle applies to Spiritual Energy. As a comparison, we could say that 1 strand of liquid Spiritual Energy is equivalent to 10 strands of gaseous Spiritual Energy in power. In this case, though, one liquid and one gaseous strand occupy the same space inside the Spiritual Sea. So you can see how it would be more efficient to store Spiritual Energy as a liquid, right?"

Red felt the principle becoming clearer.

"Then does that mean someone at the Greater Ring would have ten times as much energy as someone in the Lesser Ring?" He asked.

"That measurement depends on a lot of things, but you're more or less correct." Eiwin nodded.

"That means the third realm must have to do with solid Spiritual Energy, right?" Red followed her logic.

"Exactly!" She smiled, turning the page again.

The youth looked down and saw another similar figure on the next page. This time though, there was a small sphere inside its Spiritual Sea.

"It's called the Spirit Core Realm." Eiwin continued. "However, the principle for transforming Spiritual Energy into a solid-state is far more complicated than the previous ones. You need to form something called a core inside your Spiritual Sea, and for that, you will need special methods and rituals. In some cases, you may even need to use some rare ingredients to induce the transformation!"

"Is it harder than opening the Spiritual Sea?" Red frowned.

"Much harder." She explained. "However, once you progress to that stage you'll also be better equipped to deal with such challenges. Once you reach the third realm, for instance, you'll even be capable of flying!"

'Flying?'

Red remembered some of his dreams. Weren't there people flying in them? Had they all reached that realm? For some reason, the boy didn't think it was as simple as that.

"Is that the limit for cultivation?" The youth asked.

"Not at all." Eiwin shook her head. "There are realms above that, but information on them is scarce and not available in this book. In those realms, though, the focus on cultivation shifts quite heavily. One will start cultivating things like their soul and spirit too, but unfortunately, even I don't know the specifics."

Red was momentarily disappointed, but he could do nothing but let that go.

"What realm is Hector in?" He followed up with another question.

"He's in the Lesser Ring Realm, but even within the same realm, there are different levels. Master Hector is at the peak of the first realm, while the experts under Gustav are in the initial and middle stages. They can't measure up to our Grand Elder's strength. In fact, no one in our town is stronger than Master Hector." The woman looked proud as she said this.

Red could now understand the confidence behind the Sect's actions. Though they may have few members, the ones they did have were stronger than the average cultivator.

However, there was still another topic that was puzzling the boy.

"I was wondering..." Red spoke up. "You told me how humans cultivate but aren't monsters also capable of opening their Spiritual Sea? How do they cultivate?"

"Well..." Eiwin scratched her head. "Monsters actually don't cultivate at all."

"What do you mean?" The youth frowned.

"Monsters don't need to cultivate to get stronger. They simply inherit their strength through their progenitors." She explained. "We call this phenomenon bloodline power. Basically, the strength of a monster is defined by how strong its parents were. It grows in power naturally as it ages without having to do anything, until it finally hits maturity."

"Isn't that much easier than cultivation?" Red was confused. It hardly seemed fair how much struggle humans had to go through compared to these beasts.

"It is, but it has its downsides too." Eiwin responded. "A monster's power is defined by its bloodline, but it is also limited by it. Other than some rare mutations, it's exceedingly difficult for a monster to grow stronger than what its lineage allows. As such, it's not so much they don't need to cultivate, but even if they wanted to, it wouldn't be possible."

"Aren't humans limited by their talent too?" The boy asked.

"Well..." The woman looked taken aback. "They are, but they can surpass it. There are plenty of untalented people who managed to advance further than what their talent would normally allow."

Her words seemed genuine, but Red could tell that there was something that was left unsaid. For every person that succeeded, how many others had failed? And even for those that had succeeded, didn't they eventually hit their limit too? The boy didn't voice these doubts, though.

"So do monsters have realms too?" He followed up on the topic.

"They do." Eiwin nodded. "These realms are more or less equivalent to cultivation realms, but they are defined by something other than Spiritual Energy density."

"Like what?"

"These monsters still use their Spiritual Sea as their center of power." She replied. "But once a monster opens their Spiritual sea, the bloodline power naturally accumulates Spiritual Energy inside their body into a crystalline shape."

Red felt her description sounded familiar.

"These things are called monster cores, and they are some of the most sought-after goods for cultivators!"

The boy suddenly recalled the crystal he had taken from the insectoid's head.