This was where Darius and Co were in terms of cultivation. They had reached Peak Golden Core and cultivated the spirituality into their core as it cracked and formed miniature versions of themselves. The only thing was that Darius' Nascent Soul was a miniature Dragon that swam in his heart and abdomen, Gunner's was a small green tree, Xela's had three Nascent Souls which were small versions of herself and Luna's Nascent Soul was the Moon.
The above was for Qi Cultivation only. Boyd Refinement's version was slightly different at this stage.
[Nascent Soul Technique - Manual
Durability: 200/200
Grade: Basic
Description: Contained within is the required knowledge to obtain the Nascent Soul skill. Due to the high quality of the material and the penmanship, the success chance of learning the skill is increased by 100% while its effectiveness is increased by 500%.]
[Sarira Technique - Manual
Durability: 200/200
Grade: Basic
Description: Contained within is the required knowledge to obtain the Sarira skill. Due to the high quality of the material and the penmanship, the success chance of learning the skill is increased by 100% while its effectiveness is increased by 500%.]
Nascent Soul's cultivation after breakthrough was essentially to add more and more spirituality to your budding soul to give it more life and power. It was like a newborn baby, and you had to feed it milk in order to survive.
The Nascent Soul came with a slew of great powers that were quite shocking. Firstly, a Nascent Soul granted a cultivator almost ten times more Qi storage than Golden Core Peak and your Qi was a bit different now as it contained hints of spirituality.
So its quality in use during battle, during auxiliary things like alchemy or forging, was much better. Of course, the downside was that it left a taint that was unique to you, so if anyone wanted to track you, they could do so easier now.
Secondly, the Nascent Soul retained all of the Golden Core's abilities but significantly magnified them. It could completely cultivate on its own at all times, and unlike the Golden Core which required the rotational force to drag in Spiritual Energy, your Nascent Soul used your own talent as it was born from your dantian, spirit root, and core evolving to this level.
Its cultivation speed was 1x yours and the extra benefit was that it could fully cultivate auxiliary abilities! Your core could only absorb Spirit Energy and convert it to your Qi, but your Nascent Soul could do that AND learn techniques like martial arts and whatnot while you did something else.
Alongside that, it could double your cultivation speed if you cultivated along with it. You sucked Qi twice as fast based on your talent and you learned cultivation skills twice as fast.
Thirdly, the Nascent Soul could not grant pseudo-reincarnation. If you died but did not have your Nascent Soul destroyed, it would be able to flee and exist in the outside world for a short while, allowing you to seize a new body to continue living for a while.
These were the main powers of the Nascent Soul, but there were many smaller ones like physically assisting in battle or in auxiliary work, and more. Its cultivation was even simpler, one had to feed it Qi to strengthen its newly formed body and spirituality to increase its wisdom.
Now for Body Refinement, it was quite different from this stage going forward. This wasn't a watershed for just Qi Cultivators, but for Body Refiners as well.
The Sarira realm was not about shattering the Golden Core formed in the heart, that was too dangerous. One, the Body Refiner used his sheer physical might to squeeze the Golden Core one more time without actually compressing the Qi inside.
While reducing its size into a small bead, the Body Refiner has to endure the pain and call his actual soul over into the bead. It would then entire this marble-sized bead called a sarira and enjoy the protection.
After all, the Body Refiner's biggest weakness was their soul. So the predecessors pondered how to protect it while also looking at the context of the Nascent Soul devised by the Qi Cultivators. Nascent Soul did not require your full actual soul, just created a new one that was split from it and then nurtured.
So even if you were dual cultivating, what to do with the remainder? It was still a liability, so one could protect it. After all, it was impossible for a Body Refiner to create a Nascent Soul for the body because they did not have a dantian similar to the Qi Cultivators.
So the goal was to squeeze the Golden Core into a small orb that was extremely sturdy beyond measure using physical force and then guide your soul into it. This was naturally dangerous and failure had severe consequences that were too deep to bear.
To be honest, 90% of dual cultivators of Qi and Body stopped here, not willing to risk it. They had already had their Nascent Soul, what was the point of putting the remainder in a sarira and risking depleting the rest of their actual soul?
Once in the sarira, the soul would be nurtured by the pure Qi inside. The Body Refiner would then begin to carve esoteric symbols onto the body of the sarira which would feedback to the soul inside, making it stronger and more resilient, which was something akin to granting spirituality that Qi Cultivators did.
The Sarira also had all the abilities and powers of the Nascent Soul.
So for Darius, his Sarira was blood red with a dragon swimming inside, Gunner's was a green sarira with a tree digging roots within, Xela's was a white sarira with three souls inside and Luna's was a dark grey sarira with a moon revolving within.
[Nascent Soul Technique - Level 1000 (1) Skill
Grade: Intermediate
Cost: None
Description: This is a sub-technique within Qi Cultivation that specifically aims at splitting pieces of the soul into small bits to feed the Nascent Soul in order to grow its spirituality while also strengthening its power by infusing Qi. The better the quality of spirituality and the more diverse it was as well as the better the Qi you infuse, the faster the wisdom born in the Nascent Soul grows and the stronger its power becomes. By using this skill, your soul is untouched while spirituality is organically born into your Nascent Soul on its own while its form becomes far stronger using Qi. Currently, this skill adds 1000% (1%) extra spirituality and power to your Nascent Soul.]
[Sarira Technique - Level 1000 (1) Skill
Grade: Intermediate
Cost: None
Description: This is a sub-technique within Body Refinement that specifically aims at using physical power to turn the core into a sarira and guiding the remnant soul into it then carving esoteric symbols on its body. The more condensed the sarira and the more skillfully you carve the symbols on it, the better the nurturing your soul receives. By using this skill, your Sarira is perfectly carved with the best esoteric symbols, granting your soul the best possible nurturing. Currently, this skill adds 1000% (1%) extra perfection to your Sarira's functionality.]
After learning the required cultivation technique themselves, Darius and Co did not have much difficulty in actually cultivating because of the high level of the techniques, not to mention how perfect they were.
The Nascent Soul stage had different unique traits for each of them due to their special characteristics and bloodlines, and Xela's situation was the strangest of them all. Darius actually paused their cultivation to research their uniqueness and discover what made them different from the average cultivators.
The answer was quite obvious and expected, due to their bloodlines first and foremost, and then due to Xela having two Elven Divine Concepts which formed her extra two souls. So she had three in total, a normal one representing herself, one that was split from the 'soul' of the Divine Concept of Life and another that was split from the Divine Concept of Light.
Luna was the progenitor of the Moon Elves and the future Goddess of the Moon, almost being an avatar of it in the mortal world. It was natural for her Nascent Soul to be the moon.
Gunner was even more direct. Due to his half-giant bloodline and his absurdly high Earth's Guardian, he was practically Gaia's favorite son, hugging the earth mother by her neck while other giants were still in the nursery playing.
As for Darius, it was obviously due to his affiliation with Yuliann Castoro, the Dragon Ancestor. As such, his soul had morphed from that of a human to that of a pureblooded Dragon, but only an Omni-Elemental one.
For some reason, Darius felt there was more to the Dragon Ancestor's bloodline that he was blocked from because he did not have the qualifications to touch upon it.
However, Darius was not bothered by this nor did he fret. He knew that in due time,m the secrets of this bloodline would be revealed to him, so he focused on his cultivation once more.
