Dao (天道)

Open with /cultivation dao — or the The Way (天道) button on the menu bar, sitting between Spiritual Root and the Codex; the in-game button kept its original name even as this page's own title changed. It is one page, three sections, no tabs: the ledger your deeds already write, the heavens' own opinion of you, and the private Ways you choose to walk.

Yin-Yang, Path, and Karma

These three used to share the Spiritual Root page. They moved here because none of them are about which element you cultivate — they are about who you are becoming while you do it, and that belongs beside Heavenly Dao's own judgment of you rather than beside an elemental choice.

Yin-Yang Balance

Every cultivator carries a Yin-Yang balance that moves with what they do:

• Meditation shifts it by Meditation-Alignment-Shift-Per-Tick (0.2) per drain tick - toward Yang on a good chunk, toward Yin on an evil one. 5% of chunks (Chunk-Evil-Qi-Chance) carry evil qi.
• Your race skews that shift by its own Qi-Alignment-Yin-Bias-Percent - a Demon at +50% darkens even good qi, a Deity at -30% purifies dark qi. See Races.
• Killing adds Kill-Yin-Amount (1) Yin per kill, multiplied by Night-Kill-Yin-Multiplier (2) when the world is in its night phase. Slaughter under darkness stains deepest.

Where you sit on that scale decides what you get:

Balance and lean are mutually exclusive by construction: you cannot be both perfectly centred and deeply leaned. Choosing which to chase is the real decision of the system.

The Devil and Righteous Paths

Lean far enough and the balance stops being a stat and becomes a path. Path is never chosen - it follows the deeds, and it shifts back when they do. This page shows the one you currently walk, and you are told in chat when it changes.

A deep lean in either direction also changes what a breakthrough looks like: past HeartDevil-Lean-Threshold (0.5) you face the Heart-Devil Trial (心魔劫) instead of tribulation lightning.

Karma

A farmed kill is not merely unrewarded - it charges more karma than an honest one, and a Devil accrues karma faster than anyone. Karma has its own page: what charges it, how it decays, and how the heavens collect it at your next tribulation. It is not duplicated here — this section only exists to say that Path and Karma are two readings of the same deeds, and this page is where both of them, and the balance underneath them, live together.

Heavenly Dao (天道)

Where Yin-Yang measures what kind of cultivator you are, Heavenly Dao measures how much the heavens have actually noticed you. It is a single meter, 0 up to a configured maximum, and it only moves when you have genuinely earned it:

• Meditation — but only the productive kind. The meter grows per second of meditation while Qi is actually being drawn, not for sitting on empty ground.
• Surviving a tribulation.
• An advancement — crossing a sub-stage.
• A full realm breakthrough.

Rank

Your fraction of the meter computes a rank, and every rank-up is announced to you. In order, from empty to full:

What a higher fill buys you

• Softer tribulations. A percentage reduction to bolt damage that scales up toward a configured value as the meter fills, plus extra tribulation strikes survived once you reach Heaven-Aligned.
• Faster Qi. A bonus percentage to Qi gain that composes as a genuine payback multiplier - it stacks alongside the Yin-Yang balance bonus in the Qi-gain formula rather than replacing it.
• A better shot at Dao Enlightenment. At maximum fill, the roll chance behind Dao Enlightenment below gets its own multiplier.

Dao Enlightenment (悟道)

Dao Enlightenment is a linked but distinct mechanic from the meter above. Any comprehension gain - Heavenly Dao's own, or a Personal Dao's, from any source - has a chance to trigger a bonus roll. That roll is gated three ways:

• Realm - locked until a configurable unlock realm.
• Cooldown - a real-world-hours cooldown between rolls.
• Chance - rolled per comprehension point gained, and that chance itself is boosted at maximum Heavenly Dao fill.

A successful roll grants bonus comprehension - a percentage of whatever subject's maximum was being grown at the time - and a Qi reward: a percentage of your current breakthrough Qi requirement, itself capped at a fraction of that requirement. At your own maximum cultivation level the Qi grant is skipped entirely rather than paid as zero, because there is no breakthrough requirement left to grant a percentage of.

Dao Enlightenment is built to feel like a rare, exciting moment rather than a background tick - it fires a title and subtitle to the player and a chat line, presented the same dramatic way the mod already announces other significant moments like breakthroughs and Ascension.

Personal Daos

Where Heavenly Dao is one meter everyone shares, a Personal Dao is a Way you walk on purpose. It is an open registry - three ship with the mod, and an add-on may register its own alongside them.

Manifesting

Each Personal Dao has its own comprehension threshold - a fraction of its own maximum - that, once crossed, manifests it. Manifesting is a real milestone: it is announced to you with a title and subtitle, and broadcast to the server as a chat line naming you and the Dao.

A manifested Dao grants a genuine payoff while it is active:

• Sword Dao and Slaughter Dao grant a damage-multiplier bonus in a fight.
• Space Dao grants a Qi and cooldown discount specifically on One Step, a Thousand Li instead - a utility payoff rather than a combat one, matching its character as the path less obviously about fighting.

The cap, Set Aside, and Take Up

Only a small handful of manifested Daos can be active at once - 2 by default, a config value a server owner can move. Comprehending a third Dao past the cap does not auto-manifest it; you are simply told you are at the cap.

A manifested Dao can be set aside at any time, voluntarily, freeing its slot - there is no cooldown on setting one aside. Taking a different Way back up - whether re-taking the one you just set aside, or manifesting a new one into the freed slot - is what carries the cost: a real-world-hours cooldown, shared globally across every Way rather than tracked per Dao. In practice that means you may take up a Way again in N hours, once, regardless of which Way it is.

The Personal Daos section of this page is where you manage all of this: a row per known or visible Personal Dao, showing its comprehension progress, its state - comprehending, manifested, or set aside - and Set-Aside or Take-Up buttons where they apply.

Dao Mastery Leaderboard

v0.10.1 A second ranking sits alongside realm-and-Qi on the Rankings page: Dao Mastery, scored on your Heavenly Dao comprehension and the depth and breadth of every Personal Dao you have manifested. /cultivation top dao shows it from chat.

Standing in the top ranks now shows. A quiet violet aura marks anyone currently there, visible to others the same way a realm aura is, and toggled off separately in Settings if you would rather it not follow you.