"You know, as time passed, the combat power of Modern Dharma Cultivators at every stage kept increasing. For example, today's Qi Refining Cultivator could defeat a cultivator of the same rank from a hundred years ago with absolute certainty. The same went for the Free and Unfettered Stage. The earliest Free and Unfettered Cultivators were merely equivalent to Mahayana, while today's Free and Unfettered Cultivators could contend with immortals." Feng Luoyi began recounting the history of humanity's cultivation methods.
"But there is a little secret here. By today's standards, every Free and Unfettered Cultivator before Lord of Yuanli's ascension could not be considered a Free and Unfettered Cultivator at all."
Wang Qi blinked. "What... what did you just say?"
"By today's standards, the so-called 'Free and Unfettered Stage' first created by Tianze Shenjun was actually equivalent to today's 'Nirvana Stage' and 'half-step Free and Unfettered Stage,'" Feng Luoyi said. "And the Nirvana Stage of that time was equivalent to today's late Void Refining and perfected Void Refining. The Void Refining Stage of that time, meanwhile, was equivalent to today's early and middle Void Refining."
Wang Qi was completely dumbfounded.
What Feng Luoyi meant was not that modern cultivators' "combat power" was equivalent to a certain realm of ancient cultivators, but their "essence."
What was essence? It was how Qi Refining Cultivators refined Dharma power and thereby transcended the mundane; how Foundation Establishment Cultivators built a Foundation Base and expanded the limits of the flesh; how Golden Core Cultivators formed Golden Cores and established the hub of their Dharma power; how Primordial Spirit cultivators connected every system into one and became Primordial Spirits.
If a cultivator had no Foundation Base within their body, then no matter how strong their combat power was, the essence of their life was still only that