Dao Cultivation

Biodata

Feature	Value
Name	Dao Cultivation (道行)
Affiliation	Jiang Yuechu; accessed through her Ancient Scroll/system interface 2
Occupation/Role	Accumulated cultivation resource used to enhance Jiang Yuechu, record and develop demons, cultivate techniques, and power special system functions 2 33 156
Status	Active 1018
First Appearance	Chapter 2

Power Progression

Stage / Realm / Level	Chapter	Notes
Initial acquisition — 20 years	2	Jiang Yuechu gains 20 years after killing Pei Changqing, a String-Hearing Realm cultivator, and immediately expends it for a short-lived increase in combat power. 2
Early reserve — 200 years	6	After advancing Tiger Mountain God and recording Green-Faced Gentleman, her panel lists 200 years. 6
Large reserve — 3,425 years	66	Her stored Dao Cultivation reaches 3,425 years, the largest amount she has held to that point. 66
Ink-Dotting reserve — 4,037 years	156	Upon entering the Ink-Dotting Realm, Jiang Yuechu has 4,037 years available and unlocks the Heavenly Demon Martial Drill. 156
Mountain-Viewing-scale reserve — 43,577 years	299	After recording the Red-Scaled Demon Venerable, she retains 43,577 years before further upgrades. 299
Lamp-Lighting reserve — 498,672 years	337	At Initial Lamp-Lighting, she holds 498,672 years and uses it to develop Silver Bone Demon Venerable. 337
Multi-million reserve — 2,774,300 years	408	Following the defeat of Five Immortals Mountain's True Persons and prior gains, the reserve exceeds 2.7 million years. 408
Eight-figure reserve — 21,449,325 years	564	Jiang Yuechu amasses over 21 million years, then spends 3.77 million to raise the Great Black Heaven Body-Forging Scripture to Supreme. 564
Chess-Player reserve — 18,488,976 years	699	She invests 15.2 million years to bring the Prison-Suppressing Evil-Subduing Chess-Condensing Chapter to Perfection. 699
Thirty-million reserve — 30,780,742 years	722	Slaying Qianyuan Cave demons raises her total beyond 30 million years. 722
Eighty-million reserve — 83,279,315 years	753	After the battle against Little Heavenly General and the Cloud Dream forces, Jiang Yuechu holds over 83 million years. 753
Peak documented years-based reserve — 274,500,000 years	770	Her panel reaches 274.5 million years while travelling through Cloud Dream Haven. 770
Dao Essence / Dao Yuan form	817, 861	At the Flowing Cinnabar level, slain opponents can yield Dao Essence rather than years; Jiang Yuechu later retains 231 Dao Units after recording the Sumeru White Ape. 817 861
Dao Yuan expenditure — 7 Dao Yuan	837	Jiang Yuechu consumes seven Dao Yuan to advance the Mind-Intent Qi Primordial Unity Art to Major Achievement, demonstrating the later resource's use in technique cultivation. 837
Continued Dao Yuan investment	881	Jiang Yuechu uses accumulated Dao Yuan to raise Heavenly Demon Art and Great Mountain Force to Supreme, then records White Horse Venerable into the Myriad Demon Atlas. 881
Myriad Phenomena Heaven reserve — 275 Dao Essence	1005	Jiang Yuechu's panel lists 275 Dao Essence before she spends 213 to bring the Great Netherworld Blood Sea Scripture to Entry. 1005
Renewed reserve — 497 Dao Essence	1018	After recording the Golden-Scaled Ground Lizard, Jiang Yuechu has 497 Dao Essence remaining and plans to invest it in the Great Netherworld Blood Sea Scripture. 1018

History

Dao Cultivation first appears when Jiang Yuechu kills the dying Pei Changqing and receives 20 years from him. She burns the entire amount to survive against Tiger Mountain God, gaining an immediate influx of blade knowledge and physical strength. She later recognizes that direct expenditure only provides a temporary boost and is comparatively inefficient. 2

Its long-term value becomes clear after Jiang Yuechu records Tiger Mountain God as a Shadow Copy. The recording grants her Fierce Tiger Quickblade, while future investment into the recorded demon raises its progress and unlocks further talents, divine abilities, and demonization. 2 6 12

As Jiang Yuechu's enemies and cultivation realm rise, Dao Cultivation becomes the central constraint on her development. Individual upgrades grow from tens or hundreds of years to millions, forcing her to choose between improving existing techniques, recording powerful demons, refining Dao Chess Pieces, or retaining an emergency reserve. 33 275 564 619 699

After Jiang Yuechu reaches the later Flowing Cinnabar stages, the system begins presenting high-level rewards and expenditures in Dao Essence or Dao Yuan rather than years. She continues to use this evolved resource for advanced body-tempering methods, cultivation arts, Myriad Demon Atlas development, and divine abilities. 817 837 881 967

At Myriad Phenomena Heaven, Jiang Yuechu spends 213 Dao Essence to bring the Great Netherworld Blood Sea Scripture to Entry, strengthening her Myriad Phenomena World. She later spends Dao Cultivation to record the Golden-Scaled Ground Lizard, gaining the Supreme Merit Scripture, while reserving her remaining Dao Essence for further cultivation of the blood sea method. 1005 1018

Acquisition

Slaying cultivators and demons

Dao Cultivation is primarily awarded when Jiang Yuechu kills a cultivator, demon, or other qualifying creature. Its yield appears to reflect both the target's realm and total time spent cultivating. 2 104

• Demons generally provide more Dao Cultivation than humans of the same realm because of their longer lifespans and cultivation histories. 104
• Human cultivators remain a viable source because they are more numerous than demons. 104
• Not every slain creature can be recorded; the String-Hearing pig demons in Liangzhou provided Dao Cultivation but triggered no collection prompt. 11
• High-level human cultivators can eventually become extraordinarily profitable. Jiang Yuechu notes that one human opponent provided the equivalent of roughly 47 million years of Dao Cultivation; she attributes the exceptional yield to cultivation accelerated by merit and incense offerings. 819
• At the Flowing Cinnabar level and beyond, slain opponents may provide Dao Essence or Dao Yuan rather than a years-based quantity. 817 837
• Yields from high-level humans still vary. A Roaming Void Sea Realm cultivator killed later provides 42 Dao Essence, and Jiang Yuechu judges the combined rewards from that cultivator and an Initial Myriad Phenomena Heaven Realm opponent to be little more than 100 Dao Essence. 994

Sacrificial sources

Jiang Yuechu also identifies sacrifices as a potential source of Dao Cultivation. Following the Jeweled Temple case, she orders the execution of guilty monks and intends to use their heads in a sacrifice to obtain additional Dao Cultivation. 233

Representative yields and costs

Event	Dao Cultivation change	Notes
Killing Pei Changqing	+20 years	The first recorded gain; Pei Changqing was a String-Hearing Realm cultivator. 2
Killing two pig demons	+60 years	Each String-Hearing Realm pig demon yields 30 years. 11
Killing a Core Formation Flood Dragon	+645 years	Recording the same demon immediately costs 1,100 years, exceeding the kill reward. 86
Killing Demon King Qiankun	+3,200 years	Recording its Shadow Copy costs 8,600 years. 251
Killing Great Sage Huiyue	+148,921 years	Jiang Yuechu spends 84,320 years to record Huiyue afterward. 307
Defeating Five Immortals Mountain's True Persons	+2.6 million years or more	The combined reward gives Jiang Yuechu a multi-million-year reserve. 408
Killing the Seven-Child Great Demon	+1.9 million years or more	Jiang Yuechu obtains over 1.9 million years after eliminating the demon in Yellow Mountain City. 631
Killing Little Heavenly General	+4,723,655 years	The corpse disintegrates, preventing its use as a Heaven-Grade Dao Chess Piece. 748
Killing a Flowing Cinnabar lifeform	+37 Dao Essence	Later-stage rewards are presented as Dao Essence rather than years. 817
Advancing Mind-Intent Qi Primordial Unity Art	-7 Dao Yuan	Jiang Yuechu spends seven Dao Yuan to reach Major Achievement in the Sumeru Sect body-tempering art. 837
Killing a Roaming Void Sea cultivator	+42 Dao Essence	One of two human cultivators whose combined deaths yield little more than 100 Dao Essence. 994
Advancing Great Netherworld Blood Sea Scripture	-213 Dao Essence	Jiang Yuechu raises the Myriad Phenomena Heaven Realm cultivation method to Entry. 1005
Recording the Golden-Scaled Ground Lizard	Cost unspecified	Creating its Shadow Copy consumes Dao Cultivation and grants the Supreme Merit Scripture at Perfected. 1018

Abilities & Functions

Direct enhancement

Directly consuming Dao Cultivation can grant immediate power, martial insight, and physical strength. Jiang Yuechu's first 20 years give her enough blade comprehension and strength to confront Tiger Mountain God, but the effect is treated as a short-term and inefficient use of the resource. 2

• Can rapidly increase combat capacity in an emergency. 2 748
• Can be burned in enormous quantities for a single decisive strike. Jiang Yuechu spends tens of millions of years to kill Little Heavenly General in one blow. 748
• Jiang Yuechu also burns 200,000 years to create a momentary display of overwhelming combat power during the Five Immortals Mountain conflict. 413
• Does not replace permanent cultivation, recorded demons, or technique development. 2 33

Demon recording and progression

Dao Cultivation pays the cost of recording demon Shadow Copies and advancing them through their internal progress tiers. Successful upgrades can grant martial arts, talents, divine abilities, demonization, and technique upgrades. 2 6 12

• Raising Tiger Mountain God to Vermilion-Dyeing costs 102 years and grants Tiger Dharma Heaven-Bestowed, Tiger Sha Blood Boil, and Supreme Fierce Tiger Quickblade. 6
• Raising Tiger Mountain God further through Eye-Dotting unlocks Tiger Demonization. 12 18
• Advancing Black Mountain Bear Lord to Heavenly Completion evolves the Mouth-Sealing Qi-Solidifying Method into the Primordial One-Qi Technique and grants Strength of Ten Thousand Jun. 123
• Jiang Yuechu spends 912,193 years to advance the Yellow Flood Dragon Dragon King to Heaven-Made, completing the Precious Dragon-Transformation Scripture's integration. 367
• Recording Demon Emperor Tianzhu costs 1,320,000 years and grants the Demonic Self-Freedom talent. 558
• Advancing demons can be far more expensive than the reward gained from killing them, especially at higher realms. 86 251 413
• Recording the Golden-Scaled Ground Lizard's corpse as a Shadow Copy consumes Dao Cultivation and grants its Perfected Supreme Merit Scripture. 1018

Technique infusion

After Jiang Yuechu becomes an eighth-rank Team Leader, Dao Cultivation can be infused into martial arts and cultivation methods to raise their mastery directly. 33

• Jiang Yuechu uses Dao Cultivation to raise the Myriad Ravines Origin-Returning Scripture to Supreme before forming her Martial Golden Core. 68
• Tiger Roar Demon Suppression Blade reaches Supreme after consuming 260 years. 77
• Golden Lion Overlord Blade, Yin-Yang Vertical and Horizontal Hand, and Spring Leg Ground-Shrinking can all be learned through infusion; their initial study costs a combined 275 years. 92
• The Ten Thousand Demon Heaven-Swallowing Technique requires 3,200 years merely to reach Proficient. 203
• Costs rise sharply with the technique's realm and depth. The Perfect Unbreakable Method requires 5,200 years to reach Supreme. 278
• The Great Black Heaven Body-Forging Scripture requires 3,770,000 years for its final documented rise to Supreme. 564
• The Six-Turn Heavenly Moat's rapid advancement to Supreme leaves Jiang Yuechu with only 1,767,048 years from a reserve that had previously exceeded 15 million. 619
• Wind-Fire True Form Art requires an investment of over 6.36 million years for its advancement to Major Achievement, then requires further multi-million-year investments to reach Perfection and Supreme. 723 735
• Raising the Yin-Yang Fish to Supreme costs 18 million years and produces the incomplete Immortal Technique Yin-Yang Vault-Sweeping. 758
• In the Dao Yuan stage, seven Dao Yuan raise Mind-Intent Qi Primordial Unity Art to Major Achievement, while later accumulated Dao Yuan raise it to Supreme and improve other cultivation arts. 837 847 881
• At Myriad Phenomena Heaven, 213 Dao Essence raises the Great Netherworld Blood Sea Scripture to Entry. The resulting improvement expands Jiang Yuechu's Myriad Phenomena World to forty-three meters and strengthens its blood sea. 1005

Heavenly Demon Martial Drill

Unlocked upon Jiang Yuechu's entry into the Ink-Dotting Realm, the Heavenly Demon Martial Drill creates a separate internal world in which compatible recorded demons can deduce and cultivate designated techniques. 156

• Costs 10 years of Dao Cultivation per hour of deduction. 156
• Only Heaven-Made-progress demon souls can initially be used. 156
• A demon's compatibility with the assigned technique affects whether it can participate. 156
• Demons can reach an impasse if Jiang Yuechu cannot provide enough relevant cultivation material for further deductions. 258

Furnace smelting

The Martial Arts Arena later develops a Bronze Giant Cauldron that can consume Dao Cultivation together with existing talents or divine abilities to produce a new result. 442 443

• Smelting Mountain-Moving and Sea-Filling and Wide Learning and Strong Memory for 500,000 years produces the Source-Returning Demon Heart. 443
• The process is not reliably efficient: consuming Silver Bone Glazed Body, Taiyin Chain-Form, and another 500,000 years produces only the Sturdy Physique talent. 443
• Smelted abilities are removed from Jiang Yuechu after being used as ingredients. 443

Dao Chess Pieces

In the Chess-Player Realm, Dao Cultivation supports the cultivation methods and demon-body processing involved in Dao Chess Pieces, but cannot replace the required foundational materials. 631 662

• Dao Chess Pieces ordinarily require either Five-Qi Treasure Lands or Dao-Integration Materials as their base. 597 631
• Jiang Yuechu cannot create a Dao Chess Piece from nothing merely by spending Dao Cultivation. 631
• Improving the Chess-Condensing Method before condensation raises the initial quality of the resulting piece. 662 699
• The Prison-Suppressing Evil-Subduing Chess-Condensing Chapter consumes 15.2 million years to reach Perfection and a further seven million to reach Supreme. 699 734
• Upgrading the Chess-Condensing Method and condensing three further demon-based Dao Chess Pieces costs over eight million years in total. 735
• Three-Three Spirit Transformation consumes ten million years to create a Spirit Body, which Jiang Yuechu uses to upgrade the Sword-Holding Toad from Spirit-Grade to Immortal-Grade. 753

Dao Essence and Dao Yuan applications

At higher stages, Dao Essence and Dao Yuan fulfill the same role as years-based Dao Cultivation while supporting more advanced arts and abilities. 817 837

• Dao Yuan can be spent to improve high-level cultivation methods, including the Mind-Intent Qi Primordial Unity Art. 837 847
• Accumulated Dao Yuan raises Heavenly Demon Art and Great Mountain Force to Supreme. 881
• Jiang Yuechu can use the evolved resource to continue enhancing her Myriad Demon Atlas and record high-level demon essences. 881
• The divine ability Three Origins, Nine Escapes: Heaven and Earth Transformation consumes a substantial amount of Dao Essence even at Entry, making its continued deduction a major resource commitment. 967
• Dao Essence can advance Myriad Phenomena Heaven Realm cultivation methods: bringing the Great Netherworld Blood Sea Scripture to Entry costs 213 Dao Essence. 1005
• Dao Cultivation remains necessary for high-level Shadow Copies, including the Golden-Scaled Ground Lizard. The Supreme Merit Scripture gained from that recording consumes Merit for its own cultivation; Merit is a separate resource from the Dao Essence Jiang Yuechu retains for improving the blood sea method. 1018

Limitations

• Dao Cultivation is finite and must be allocated among survival, technique mastery, demon recording, deductions, and Dao Chess Piece development. 47 92 413
• Costs escalate dramatically at higher realms; even multi-million-year reserves can be insufficient for major upgrades. 413 564 619
• Recording a demon may cost more than its death yields. 86 251
• Jiang Yuechu cannot continue an infusion once her reserve is exhausted. 92
• Direct expenditure can create immense short-term strength but risks leaving Jiang Yuechu without a reserve for later threats. 275 413
• The Heavenly Demon Martial Drill requires both compatible demon souls and sufficient relevant cultivation material; Dao Cultivation alone cannot resolve every deduction bottleneck. 156 258
• Dao Chess Piece formation still requires a Five-Qi Treasure Land or Dao-Integration Material as a foundation. 631
• High-level Dao Essence and Dao Yuan deductions can consume enormous resources even before an ability's practical value is established. 967
• Dao Cultivation does not replace other resources required by certain methods. Advancing the Mind-Intent Qi Primordial Unity Art depends on Merit as well as Dao Yuan, while the Supreme Merit Scripture consumes Merit to expand Jiang Yuechu's Myriad Phenomena World. 837 1018