Bonus Chapter: Monsters, Potential, and Enlightenment
Power is not determined by cultivation alone.
Talent, monsters, magic, and Enlightenment all follow their own laws.
Potential
Potential represents a person's natural capacity for growth.
There are four Potential grades:
Low Potential
Medium Potential
High Potential
Peak Potential
Potential does not determine how powerful someone will become.
Someone with Low Potential can still become powerful through effort, resources, experience, and opportunity. However, those with higher Potential generally learn faster, develop techniques more easily, and have an easier time overcoming barriers.
Potential and Body Type are separate.
A person can possess an exceptional body while having poor Potential, or possess an ordinary body while having extraordinary Potential.
Monster Grades
Monsters and beasts are classified by grade.
The grades are:
E – Weakest
D
C
B
A
S
SS
SSS – Strongest
The difference between grades becomes increasingly greater at the higher levels.
A higher-grade monster should never be underestimated simply because it appears young or inexperienced.
Beasts and Magical Beasts
Keeping beasts as pets or familiars is common throughout the world.
However, Magical Beasts are much rarer.
The main difference is the presence of a Magic Core.
Beasts of A Grade or lower are normally born without one. For them to become true Magical Beasts, they must eventually form a Magic Core.
Higher-grade beasts can be naturally born with Magic Cores already inside their bodies.
Because of this, discovering a young beast with a naturally formed Magic Core can reveal that the creature possesses extraordinary potential.
Basic Magical Elements
There are six basic magical elements:
Light
Dark
Water
Fire
Earth
Air
These six elements form the foundation of most magic practiced throughout the world.
There are also rarer forces and elements that exist outside the six basic elements.
Among them are:
Space
Time
Such powers are far less common and usually much harder to understand or control.
Elements can also be channeled through martial arts, allowing martial artists to create techniques based around elemental forces instead of relying entirely on traditional spellcasting.
Enlightenment
Enlightenment is one of the greatest opportunities a cultivator, mage, or warrior can experience.
Enlightenment grades range from:
E → D → C → B → A → S
Most people who experience Enlightenment will only experience it once in their lifetime.
However, there are rare individuals capable of experiencing Double Enlightenment.
Double Enlightenment allows someone to experience the phenomenon twice, giving them another opportunity to develop something completely their own.
Enlightenment cannot simply be forced through training.
It comes from understanding.
Experience.
Combat.
Failure.
Emotion.
Study.
And sometimes a single realization that changes how someone understands their path forever.
Enlightenment Abilities
The greatest abilities are often born through Enlightenment.
To create an ability ranked S, SS, or SSS, a person must experience Enlightenment.
An Enlightenment ability is special because it originates from the individual's own understanding and path.
It belongs to them.
That does not mean another person can never learn it.
An Enlightenment ability can be taught, but a learned version will always be two grades lower than the original ability.
For example:
An SSS Grade Enlightenment ability learned by another person becomes S Grade.
An SS Grade Enlightenment ability becomes A Grade.
An S Grade Enlightenment ability becomes B Grade.
Even then, learning another person's Enlightenment ability is extremely difficult.
The learner must possess high aptitude with the skill, art, weapon, element, or path connected to that ability.
Without sufficient aptitude, they may fail to understand it entirely.
Because of this, the original creator of an Enlightenment ability will almost always possess the strongest and most complete version.
An imitation may copy the technique.
But it cannot completely copy the understanding that created it.
Power can be inherited.
Techniques can be taught.
But true Enlightenment belongs first to the person who discovered it.