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.
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.
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 |