“For example, a few million years ago, cultivators of that era would create the Core - what we nowadays are used to associate with the Advanced Stage - after reaching the Ageless Realm! Only later did some people who actually had some brains realize just how hard of a task it was to condense a Core with the high density of the Qi and Spiritual Energy at the second of the Three Big Realms, and how cultivators could make it that much easier on themselves if they just condensed a Core in the first Realm, the Mortal Realm, instead. Thus, the condensation of the Core became the first stage of the Mortal Realm! With that one, minuscule change, the cultivation world was turned upside down as cultivation became that much faster, and what would take tens of thousands of years could be accomplished in mere centuries!”

“With a slight leap in the future, another slightly less dumb guy came around. He announced that instead of crafting the Core out of the Spiritual Energy and Qi outside of one’s body, if one were to store a stable amount of those within one’s body in advance and condense that instead then it would once again diminish the time required to fully condense it! With that, the creation of the Core was pushed forward one stage, and became the second Stage of the Mortal Realm, preceded by the creation of a River of Qi strands and Spiritual Energy– The Qi River. This cut away a great deal off those remaining centuries that cultivators would need before they could effectively even begin cultivating. Yes, you heard me correctly: before these two slightly above average guys came around, only Primordial Beasts and such beasts could even hope of becoming cultivators thanks to their natural endowment of a quasi-eternal life. Humans could not even begin, as a single sitting in meditation would take up most of their lifespan. Now however, the addition of a stage before the creation of the Core allowed some particularly talented humans to try their hand at cultivation, with the creation of a Core taking up roughly fifty to sixty years of their life.”

“Then, another guy whose brain still held a bit of worth noticed that the more Stages before Core condensation one added up to a certain point, the faster cultivation would be! So, he researched and found that a Qi River that unconditionally absorbed different kinds of Qi would be much more inefficient than one that only absorbed just one or a few more types. He soon figured out a method to separate the Qi and allow the cultivator to focus on one kind alone. Before, the only way of accomplishing that would have been to cultivate in some special places that possessed only certain types of Qi Strands. Once again, another stage pushed the others up by one, and the Inferior stage, the Qi Sensing stage, was established! With this stage, one’s Qi would be stabilized and the cultivator would be able to ignore all other kinds of Qi that were not his own, shaving away a few more decades from those centuries I mentioned earlier.”

Cheng Hao finally fell silent. He drank a mouthful from the gourd and let out a loud sigh. Meanwhile, Xiao Wu was gaping in utter disbelief, unsure whether she had heard him right: what he had just told her had sent her knowledge of this world and the history of cultivators right down the drain. “This… This can’t be… If what you say about cultivation methods changing just like that is the truth, then why did my Clan’s Seniors say otherwise?” Xiao Wu shook her head as she eyed the youth unsure of what to believe anymore.

“He’s right though, you know?” Goldy’s voice startled her. With a yawn, the dragon added, “I was surprised at first, ‘cause I did not remember telling him anything about those old days, and it had just come out of nowhere. Turns out this guy is not just full of himself, he’s also a true Expert in this kind of stuff. According to him, at some point in his life, he had spent two months reading a few books in some roaming tower. That’s also kinda how he has knowledge on at least more than half of the stuff he knows, by the way. Unfortunately, it’s all also one hundred percent correct. I say you just shut up, trust him, and reap the benefits.”

Xiao Wu frowned, “What-“

Blindlight immediately regretted saying that: to explain the situation would take way too much time… and he was a lazy bum by nature. “Oh, on second thought, don’t mind that. Just some random ramblings from a very old snake, please pay attention to the lecture.”

Cheng Hao smiled, “Thank you professor Mc. Goldy-“

“M-Mc Go-!” Blindlight was enraged, “What did you bastard just call me??? I will gladly snap your spine in half!”

The golden dragon was ruthlessly ignored as the golden-eyed youth proceeded unperturbed, “I’m indeed not just a normal child, and have quite some stuff up my sleeve, which include knowledge about our world the likes you could never possibly comprehend. What I said earlier about things such as the Core and Qi River being freely switched around was the truth, and the list of such changes throughout history goes on and on. This is because, as I said before, the order of such ‘Landmarks’ indicating the Stages is trivial! There is only one thing that stays the same no matter how much one tries to switch stuff around…” Cheng Hao’s eyes glinted, “And that is the PURITY of one's Qi, which increases with each stage!"

At that even Xiao Wu's eyes widened: that was true! Some conversations with her Clan’s elders also acknowledged that, with each breakthrough to the following stage, there would be a difference of purity in the Spiritual Energy and Qi one would gather and utilize! This was also the reason there was such a difference in strength between cultivations of different stages: the mediums used were simply on completely different levels!

Cheng Hao sat down in a chair and took another sip.

"You asked me earlier… to enter the Inferior stage, one would only need to sense one’s personal Qi and then absorb the Spiritual Energy of their Qi’s attribute. Indeed, that would be the case, but you see…” He smiled, “There is a reason the Core was placed as the first stage a long time ago. And that is because the Core is the basis of all cultivators, and the whole system of cultivation we use nowadays all take into account the presence of the Core: this should be enough to illustrate just how precious it is to a cultivator, and just how great its potential really is!”

“The only reason it was moved forward and the Basic and Inferior Stage were added before the third, Advanced Stage was because one’s cultivation would become very chaotic with all the different types of Qi’s that would be absorbed. But well… in this case, wouldn’t it be great if we could, in some way, somehow skip the first two stages and start out as Inferior stage cultivators while still having a Core, or at least, a disposable copy of the true Core we would build when we step into the Advanced stage? Wouldn’t this grant us an edge against cultivators that have yet to enter the Advanced stage?”

“So I ask you this question: is it really, absolutely, certainly impossible to form the Qi River and the Core given the fact we would not be actually breaking through the stages?" Cheng Hao grinned, "Of course… NOT. Even if we were to make a Core, the purity of the Qi would still count as Inferior Stage Qi! That is why we won't enter the Basic or Advanced stage by creating a Qi River and a Core right now…”

“Because our Qi won't be pure enough!”

“And exactly because of that we can just build a temporary Core that we will be using until we get our hands on the real thing! With it, although it would not measure up with the real deal, a Core still remains a Core: unless we encounter cultivators at the actual Advanced Stage or above, we will be able to easily defeat them even by relying solely on the innate suppression that our cultivation base will have over theirs!”

Interrupt, lift gourd, sip, lower gourd, resume.

“Finally, I’ll also answer the other question you had at the start: why did I mention a Qi ‘Sea’ instead of a Qi ‘River’. This is because, while the River of Qi we create in our consciousness might appear to be stable, a few problems emerge when it comes to condensing the Core. It is not a minor, but a major problem, and I still wonder up to this date why those ‘Experts’ have yet to take care of it. Since they still seem to have yet to change anything, I’ll take matters upon my own hands and do it my way…”

Xiao Wu’s green eyes had not blinked once during the whole length of this conversation. Although her gaze had never left the golden-eyed youth’s face, her hands had still unconsciously jotted down a few notes. She was so shocked however, that she had yet to notice how her eyes had begun hurting from not blinking for so long.

Cheng Hao on the other hand had been leisurely going on with his lecture, barely stopping at times and taking the occasional sip from the bottle of alcohol to refresh his throat.

“Alright; let’s think outside the box for a minute: the problem with the Qi River is that, being an actual, flowing river of Spiritual Energy and Qi, it is really difficult to condense for the average person- hence one amongst many reasons the Advanced Stage is such a vicious and unforgiving bottleneck among many others. But if that is the reason, then wouldn’t changing things up a little get rid of the problem?”

“If, instead of forming the Qi River, we were to make something that works similarly, as a storage of Qi and Spiritual Energy, but is much more stable; more efficient in its supposed goal of easing the Core’s condensation process? As for what… I will now ask you a simple question: in a cold and harsh winter, which is more likely to freeze first; a lake or a river? Mind that the water mass we're interested in is the same, thus the question could also be worded as, ‘which is easier/takes less effort to freeze: moving water or Still water?’ Fire (lol) away!"

"Of course,” Xiao Wu's eyes glinted as she came to the realization that… “The waters of the Lake would freeze first! And so we are not making the River exactly because a single, moving current of Spiritual Energy would be harder to condense into a Core. However, if we make a Lake, what you called the Qi Sea, instead... it will become much easier, simply because it will be easier to freeze, or in our case condense, Qi and Spiritual Energy that is already still! This… this is…"