In this world, money has less power. Politics are unnecessary. Empathy is rare. In this world, people have the ability to cultivate, and it has always been a part of them. Their ancestors drew in the energy from the void, and that energy gave them power. Over the ages, they developed newer methods, changing the energy they could obtain. Even further down the line, people began to experiment with their energy. The first to achieve an effect with this was unnamed, and he was soon killed for his secrets. Now, if you should have the ability, cultivation is a given. It replaced everything you needed in life. Money? With power, people would beg to give you their possessions. Connections? Through cultivation, empires would fall at your feet, desperate to have a sliver of your attention.

In a world that revolves around power, everyone wants to be someone powerful. However, not every person can achieve their dream. They falter on their path, and have nowhere else to go. They turn to the things that mortals do, and so the next breakthrough was made. Professions, cultivators that focused their time more on the activities considered things that were for the mortals of the world. Weapons could be made far more powerful. Medicine could achieve miraculous results, with just a pinch of powder able to heal grievous wounds and replenish your inner energy. People realized that this energy was behind everything, and some called it qi, after the word that had the same meaning. Others named it as mana, or ki, but they could all agree on the effects. In the rush for more power, professions fell away. Giving up that power for material goods?

People continued living, and becoming more intimate with qi, but years later, another discovery was made. People who cultivated no longer seemed to age. Moreover, everyone seemed to have slightly different methods of cultivation. Some had almost no power after years of hard work, while others could stand at the top of a continent whilst having slacked off for their whole lives.

People now panicked, having no idea whether their cultivation would allow them to grow strong. They worried that society would leave them behind. The people who had already chosen a weak cultivation method were doomed. They didn't know what else to learn, and their current selves had nowhere left to go. It is in this void of purpose that professions rose up again. Everyone admitted that they needed powerful tools, but there weren't many people willing to make them, as taking a profession would all but guarantee the end of their journey to power. It was time consuming, but for the people who had already reached the end of the line, it was hope. their chance to be great again. And so the world moved on, with the strong becoming stronger, and the weaker ones giving up and choosing a job. They worked quietly, behind the scenes, and although everyone knew their strength would be weakened without them, next to nobody wanted to join them, as it would be giving up their path. It remained as a last vestige of hope for the hopeless.

That's why everyone who could would test their talent at an early age. To see if they would live a carefree life, or if they would have to struggle for glory. Generally, people would be able to draw on qi six months after birth. However, it requires you to actively focus. So, parents hold off testing their children until the age of seven, the earliest that their brains could handle. Any younger and the kids would not be able to understand cultivation, and any older, the results of the talent test would be skewed by other events, like injuries, cultivation level, or pills.

Everyone thirsts, hungers for power. The power to take for themselves, the power to control others, the power that could move anything.

They are all exactly the same.