The Realms of Cultivation of our protagonist's world are divided into three realms the Mortal Realm, the Demigod Realm and the Divine Realm which are then subdivided into Stages which are further subdivided into Ranks.

  Each Realm denotes a Cultivators Mastery over a certain aspect of reality.

  The Mortal Realm and its Stages are where a Cultivator Masters the Material Plain and prepares both body and mind for the journey their soul will partake.

  The Demigod Realm is where a Cultivator begins to delve into their soul, acquire Mastery over the Metaphysical Plains and consider their Dao.

  The Divine Realm is where a Cultivator begins to combine Mastery of both Physical and Metaphysical. Where they abandon Mortality and become truly Immortal. The Dao is Law. None may stand as Equal.

  These are not the only Realms of Cultivation.

  There is always more.

  But these are the ones that are known and understood. The Realms beyond are well… just that. Beyond. If one wants to see them they would have to go there themselves.

  ~*~

  The Mortal Realm is both the weakest Realm of the Three and often considered the most important Realm of the Three.

  Much of a Cultivator's potential growth and power are dependent entirely on the decisions and resources acquired during this period in their lives as going beyond it the resources that may benefit a Cultivator in the Demigod Realm (The Divine Realm does not bear mentioning) are extremely dangerous to acquire, extremely rare to find, guarded jealousy by powerful sects or all of the above.

  It has the most stages of the three as well as ranks having 7 stages with 7 ranks each:

  - The Copper Adept Stage

  - Every living thing in this world Cultivates at some level. Not everything is destined however to cultivate anything worthy of the name of "Cultivator". All living things however sentient or not by virtue of being alive are immediately born into the Copper Stage regardless.

  - Life Expectancy: 250 - 300 years

  - The Iron Body Stage

  - One may begin to harness and use their qi for more than being a little stronger than average, a littler faster than average, and leap slightly taller buildings than average.

  - The Average Mortal reaches this stage and goes no further down the path for a variety of reasons.

  - The most common reason being that the Average Mortal just isn't crazy enough to try.

  - Those that are usually die trying.

  - The more practical reason is lacking access to appropriate resources or knowledge of what those resources are and how to utilize them to begin their journey.

  - also not having a convenient teacher around to tell you how to harness all your qi is a big bummer.

  - Life Expectancy: 700 - 900 years

  - The Bronze Foundation Stage

  - One is actually considered a Cultivator once making it to this stage. Provided you are the lowest on the totem pole and may be considered even lower than the Iron Body Stage Individuals despite being stronger than them politically speaking to other Cultivators.

  - If you are a child of a Mortal Realm Cultivator Family you will more likely be born in to this Rank by virtue of your parents own Cultivation levels rubbing off on you… because magic.

  - If a full grown adult in the Iron Body Stage tried to fight a 2 year old in the Bronze Foundation Stage the Adult would be lucky to walk out of it alive.

  - Life Expectancy: 1,100 - 1,300 years

  - The Silver Core Stage

  - Where a Majority of Mortal Realm Cultivators exist within. It is also where most journeys end either being incapable of overcoming a bottleneck for some reason or because Cultivator Worlds are awful.

  - Our Protagonist World is not much different if you weren't picking up on that just in case.

  - This is often the Stage considered the most important in a Cultivators life if they want any future beyond the Mortal Realm.

  - A difference in Rank before this Stage didn't really matter to much if you were skilled or lucky enough. This stops being true once you enter this stage.

  - Property Damage ranges from entire city blocks to entire Island chains on a whim.

  - Life Expectancy: 4,000 - 4,500 years

  - The Jade Color Stage

  - You are now one of the Elite. A carefully sought after strategic resource in the Modern Age.

  - You have the capacity to deal unspeakable amounts of damage without doing permanent damage to the world around you.

  - Your voice will shake the earth but they will not echo beyond the wind

  - The waves will rise at your command but will recede in time.

  - You are in a manner of speaking an artist that has not yet found their muse. Able to perform great works but nothing that will truly last.

  - Major Sects often requires you to be this tall to be considered eligible to become a Core Disciple (Ranks 1 - 4) or a Elder (Ranks 4 - 7)

  - The Gold Shape Stage

  - You may now consider yourself strong.

  - for a mortal at least.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  - The Average Sect Patriarch/Matriarch has to at least be in this stage to be taken seriously. A Sect Master below this is often just a regional power or a really good scam artist which is a skill all it's own so shouldn't be underestimated.

  - One begins to subconsciously shape and form their Dao.

  - Being on the same Continent as two Gold Shape Cultivators about to go at it is considered a bad idea.

  - Oceans will be emptied.

  - The Shape of the Earth will be made to resemble Modern Art.

  - Day will become Night.

  - At least one Dragonball Reference will be made.

  - Life Expectancy: 16,000 - 17,000 years

  - The Platinum Ascendant Stage

  - Become a Demigod or Die.

  Following the Mortal Realm is the Demigod Realm.

  Where the Mortal Realm seeks mastery over the Physical Plane the Demigod Realm is where a Cultivator starts to really dip into the Metaphysical Plane. The part of a Cultivators journey where they move from casual generational trauma abuse of reality to professional domestic abuse of reality.

  The Laws of Physics don't matter because absolutely none of these assholes ever opened a book that wasn't about crushing your enemies seeing them driven before you and hearing the lamentations of their women.

  Unless of course you're Dao is tied to making people learn… which is bullshit of course I didn't become an ultimate punch wizard to learn about why I shouldn't be able to punch a star out of orbit!

  Which leads us into the Dao.

  The Dao is the generally the most important part of a Cultivators journey in Xianxia at least from my experience. It is the utter distillation of a Cultivator's very being and the ultimate expression of how their power is used to tell reality how it should be.

  The Dao is the path that leads a Cultivator to the ultimate prize of Immortality. Demigod Realm Cultivators are ageless (so I am not going to bother with age averages) and generally immune to all forms of natural disease and sickness, they are only barely anchored to the physical plane and are thus mostly free from its consequences.

  The Demigod Realm features 6 stages and thus 6 ranks each:

  - The Cloud Follower Stage

  - Considered unofficially as "The Final Mortal Coil" Stage as this is the only stage at which one may safely interact with the Mortal Realm, but only barely and only with a massive amount of restraint, and probably with aid of at least a few dozen artifacts to siphon off your excess qi.

  - Otherwise your footsteps will cause earthquakes and tsunamis, your heartbeat will release sonic booms strong enough to shatter buildings and cause organ failure if you weren't close enough to be squished and you unironically can kill someone with a glance.

  - At this stage your understanding of the Dao is rudimentary. You are still connecting yourself to the more standard forms of the shape of the universe like "fire", "water", "light", "darkness", "shadow", etc etc etc and this isn't actually a bad thing. The Dao is not measured by word count but by how closely it defines you and you it.

  - It is absolutely possible to figure your Dao out at the first step as it is to figure it out at the last.

  - Heavenly Tribulation begins to take note of you and every rank and stage after the first will feature its judgement falling upon you and if you wish to progress further you must overcome them. But fear not Tribulation at this level is simple. The Heavens will just keep throwing varying levels of bigatons of explosives at you starting at the Death Star and ending at the Halo Rings. After that… it gets difficult.

  - Storm Lord Stage

  - The Mortal Realm is now softer than jelly to you and it can tolerate your existence no longer. If we were a Fate series Alaya would drop every Counter Guardian they could to kick you out before you sneezed and sent the moon to Jupiter.

  - Most Worlds that cultivate life do actually regularly feature such entities and those entities all form a collective consciousness that functionally works together to tell any Cultivator that doesn't get the message to fuck off. This doesn't work sometimes though as the grand web of Mother Nature's universe means that there is only so much power to go around to protect every world.

  - But Cultivator beware Mother Nature never forgives and never forgets.

  - All that in mind the Storm Lord Stage is considered a tumultuous part of a Cultivator's life as your mortal form can no longer contain your existence let alone anchor yourself to observable reality. Your time in this stage is spent trying to get your existence in order.

  - Early comprehension of your Dao can actually be a detriment to your progression in this stage as the Dao can be not only the expression of yourself but of everyone who has ever walked a similar, a branching an adjacent path and their footsteps echo beyond time and space and may attempt to influence your journey.

  - Tribulation at this level is where Heaven can be considered the most "assholish". Bombs are no longer just bigger and bigger… though they are still getting bigger, they are also gaining esoteric effects. They start approaching you from different dimensions, from another time line, they even go after you when you were a baby, or when you're parents are going at it.

  - Dawn Born Stage

  - The creation of a form able to stabilize your Cultivation begins as a Storm Lord but is completed in the bosom of the Dawn Born Stage. Now your task is to go over it with a fine tooth comb and essentially bug fix, patch and what not. Constantly seeking imperfections and weaknesses in the code of your system. Even the slightest imperfection in your new body could be detrimental to your future in Divinity if you should choose to go further. Forms are not limited to what was possible before you became a Demigod. You need not be limited to the shape of your humanity, and in many ways your new form can be away to establish your growth from such limited beings. Forms sizes can sometimes bridge into other Universes as one is no longer able to hold you but that is purely dependent on how big your ego is... or you just like being tall. No judge.

  - Where the Iron Body Stage is the stop gap between Mortal and Cultivator the Dawn Born Stage is the gap between those who truly covet Divinity and those who have reached the limits of their abilities.

  - Tribulations of this stage feature less explosives albeit they continue to grow bigger and your quite certain that you have face tanked the Big Bang several times. But the Heavens are now attempting subtly influencing you into killing yourself. They now whisper into your ear questioning the proficiency in which you build your new form. Are you really going to use that color? You forgot to carry the one! That dress makes you're but look big!

  - It is in this stage that one begins to question the nature of the Dao and sometimes their place in the Universe. Whether the "Fire" they cultivate is all devouring or if it is warmth for the traveler and the poor, whether the "Ice" they shape is that of a careful snowflake or a endless blizzard. This is a stage of self reflection and possibly epiphany. Your time spent considering the Dao during this Stage is often considered the most important. For it is in this time that one truly unleashes it on creation.

  - Primal Dusk Stage

  - Your new form requires that you simply become it, no that's not accurate. It is within this stage that you become what you were always meant to be. That you achieve truth.

  - You have earned the gaze of the Divine and there judgements will be harsh. Your trials will be you and only you. You shall find the measure of your strength of will of arms and of intelligence.

  - You are no longer able to turn back once you have entered this stage. There is nothing left to turn back to. The path is open. Divinity or Death.

  - Twilight Ancient

  - Why did you want to be a Divinity anyway?

  - What makes you more worthy?

  - Where do you find the guts to declare yourself so great!?

  - You aren't special. You are no Legend or Myth made flesh!

  - Die! Die! Die! Die! Die!

  - The Heavens Reject You! The Heavens Despise You! The Heavens Will Destroy You!

  - The Mortal Realm is on the verge of losing another of it's children. The Mortal Realm does not enjoy it's children's flight, for once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return. It cannot know your fate in the sky, for you become free of the natural scale of reincarnation. What parent would not worry?

  - Sky Lord Stage

  - You have cut away everything. You sit now where so few have sat. You are ego and ego death made manifest. Everything before you reduced to the Dao.

  - Creation is an Illusion. The Wheel of Karma turns and turns, but whose hand turns it? Perhaps it is yours? Perhaps it is no one's? The difference is impossible to tell as likely the answer is unimportant the wheel turns all the same

  - Regardless of the truth of the matter it no longer concerns you the matters of this story. It is a very sad story and you would like to read something else. Perhaps you should give your own hands a chance at the wheel. You will surely be better at it.

  - The Heavens remain silent.

  - Tori would be ranked at Sky Lord 1