Realms & Stages
Every player starts at Body Refinement, Early-Stage and climbs toward immortality through seven realms, each split into four sub-stages: Early, Middle, Late and Peak. Twenty-eight rungs in all.
The seven realms, in order
The Ladder
Within each realm you advance Early → Middle → Late → Peak, then break through into the next realm's Early-Stage. Higher realms and stages grant additive max health and a percentage damage bonus, both tuned in Config.json.
Since 0.8.0 the twenty-eighth rung is a door rather than a wall. Ascension is a capstone trial run from Void Refinement Peak — and the cultivator who survives it chooses between remaining at the summit and returning to Body Refinement to climb again, permanently stronger for every loop.
Advancements vs. Breakthroughs
Both are real, timed meditation rituals. Bank enough Qi, sit down in a chunk whose Spirit Vein holds enough energy, and the ritual progresses for as long as you keep meditating.
The chunk-Qi requirement is a presence check, not a drain — the vein is not consumed by the ritual — but a vein that falls below the bar will pause the ritual until it regenerates.
| Sub-Stage Advancement | Realm Breakthrough | |
|---|---|---|
| When | Early → Middle → Late → Peak | Peak → next realm's Early-Stage |
| Minimum chunk Qi | 200 Advancement-Min-Chunk-Qi | 750 Breakthrough-Min-Chunk-Qi |
| Base duration | 8s Advancement-Base-Seconds | 24s Breakthrough-Base-Seconds |
| Duration scaling | ×1.3 per realm reached | ×1.35 per realm reached |
| Tribulation lightning | off by default | on, and lethal |
| Skill points | +1 Points-Per-Advancement | +1, plus 2 more Points-Per-Breakthrough |
Cancelling a ritual — by drifting away from where you sat down, or by standing up manually — demotes you one sub-stage, wipes your banked Qi, and revokes the skill points that stage originally granted. You are never demoted below Early-Stage of your current realm, so a failed breakthrough can never cost you a whole realm.
Ritual Flow
What a breakthrough attempt actually runs through
Breakthrough lightning is genuinely lethal — it can kill you outright at low health. A cultivator who has leaned far enough into Yin or Yang faces the Heart-Devil Trial instead, which tests composure rather than hit points. Both are tunable, and advancement tribulations are off by default.
v0.10.1 Surviving the ritual is only half the story now. Breakthrough Quality covers the six factors — Qi Purity, Difficulty, and four more — that decide how strong the realm you land in actually turns out to be.
Tuning the Curve
Nothing here is hardcoded. The realm/stage curve and its stat rewards live in Config.json; the ritual requirements above live in BreakthroughConfig.json. Both can be edited live in-game through /cultivation admin without touching a file or restarting the server.
| Command | Does |
|---|---|
/cultivation | Open the stats page — realm, stage, Qi progress |
/cultivation info | Print the same readout to chat |
/cultivation meditate | Begin the ritual (alias /cultivation cultivate) |
/cultivation admin setrealm <player> <realm> | Set a realm directly admin |
/cultivation admin setstage <player> <stage> | Set a sub-stage directly admin |