Glossary · Cultivation

Cultivation borrows its vocabulary from Xianxia — Chinese immortal-hero fiction — and then gives several of those words a specific mechanical meaning. This is what each one means here.

The Path

Term	Meaning
Qi 氣	Spirit energy, and the currency of all progression. Every advancement and breakthrough is bought with banked Qi.
Cultivation 修仙	The practice of refining Qi to climb toward immortality. Literally "cultivating immortality".
Realm	One of the seven great tiers of power, from Body Refinement to Void Refinement. See Realms & Stages.
Sub-stage	The four rungs inside each realm — Early, Middle, Late, Peak. Twenty-eight rungs in total.
Advancement	The short ritual that moves you one sub-stage. Needs 200 chunk Qi and 8 seconds at the bottom of the ladder.
Breakthrough	The far bigger ritual that carries you from Peak into the next realm. Needs 750 chunk Qi, 24+ seconds, and draws tribulation lightning.
Tribulation 天劫	The heavens' answer to a breakthrough: lightning that lands every 6 seconds of ritual progress, and can kill you.
Heart-Devil Trial 心魔劫	What replaces lightning for a cultivator leaned far into Yin or Yang. It attacks composure rather than health.
Composure 道心	The pool the Heart-Devil drains. Armed fresh each attempt; if it empties, the ritual fails.
Qi Deviation 走火入魔	What happens when composure breaks: the ritual fails, you are demoted a sub-stage, and since 0.8.0 a lingering affliction follows — 15 minutes of −35% meditation Qi and a 50% fiercer next demon. See Qi Deviation.
Death penalty 死亡惩罚	v0.11.2 Part of your banked Qi scatters every time you die: 20% of your current stage's Qi requirement for the first death in a 30-minute window, then 40, 60, 80 and 100. A loss bigger than what you hold drops you a stage; you never drop out of your realm. On by default. See Death Penalty.
Death-penalty strike	v0.11.2 One death still counting against you. A strike stops counting 30 minutes after it happened, logged in or not, and the same killer can only add two strikes per window. Each death message says how many are live and when the oldest fades. See the ladder.
Auto-Breakthrough	v0.11.2 The setting that starts your breakthrough or stage advancement by itself the moment a meditation is full. Turn it off to wait, then start it yourself with `/cultivation breakthrough`. See Suppressing a Breakthrough.
Karma	A ledger written by the cultivators you kill. The heavens collect it at your next tribulation, as deeper and more frequent bolts.
Merit 功德	Karma's mirror: a virtue ledger earned by teaching, serving your sect and showing restraint. It never decays, and crossing its thresholds grants arts that nothing else can teach. See Merit.
Aura 氣息	The visible Qi a cultivator gives off — realm sets its color and density, sub-stage its size. A second, inward-converging aura marks a fruitful meditation. See Auras.
Title 稱號	An earned, purely cosmetic epithet worn above your head, in chat and on the boards. See Titles.
Ascension 飛升	The capstone trial past Void Refinement Peak — 15 minutes under escalating crimson lightning on 4,500 chunk Qi. See Ascension.
Prestige	The Ascension ending that returns you to Body Refinement with 0 Qi and keeps everything else, for a permanent +4% Qi per loop. Off by default.
Heavenly Realm 天界	A permanent, shared sky archipelago past Void Refinement — floating isles, nine island realms and the Southern Heavenly Gate. Your first Ascension opens the way in for good. See Heavenly Realm.
Sea of Consciousness 识海	A private world that mirrors you, rebuilt from your realm, stage, banked Qi and Dao every time you open it, from a forty-block pond to an open sea. Nobody else can visit yours. See Sea of Consciousness.
Lifespan 寿元	An optional budget of online play hours set by the highest realm you have ever reached. Spend it all and you begin to wither. Off by default. See Lifespan.
Closed-Door Retreat 闭关苦修	A timed sit you start anywhere with `/cultivation retreat`. It pays a large lump of Qi, Heavenly Dao insight and a chance at a technique — and pays nothing if you are interrupted. See Closed-Door Retreat.
Profile 存檔	One of up to three separate cultivators kept on one account. Realm, race, dao, skills and arts travel with it; sect, abode, formations and marriage stay with the account. See Profiles.

Qi & the Land

Term	Meaning
Meditation	Sitting cross-legged to draw ambient Qi from the chunk beneath you. Move more than 0.35 blocks and any ritual in progress is forfeit.
Spirit Vein	A real per-chunk pool of Qi that depletes as you draw on it and regenerates over time. Seeded deterministically from the world seed.
Rich vein	A chunk that rolled a larger pool — roughly 3% of chunks. Regenerates ×1.25. v0.11.2 No longer required for a sect hall; it is still the only ground a hall's vein can ascend from.
Dragon vein	The rarest tier, roughly 0.3% of chunks. Regenerates ×1.6. The land people fight sect wars over. v0.11.2 A sect can also grow one under its own hall - see Dragon vein grade below.
Cultivation core	Spirit, Profound or Divine — dropped by creatures, absorbed for an instant lump of Qi. At most one per kill.
Qi Gathering Talisman	A carried item that raises your vein absorption rate while meditating. It only needs to be in your hotbar.
Spirit Stone 灵石	The upkeep currency. Drops from kills and from surviving tribulation bolts; pays for a Cave Abode. v0.11.2 The plain stone is now the Low grade. See Spirit Stones.
Spirit Stone grade 灵石品阶	v0.11.2 Low, Mid, High and Supreme, holding 30, 300, 3,000 and 30,000 Qi. Absorbing a Mid stone needs Foundation Establishment, a High one Nascent Soul and a Supreme one Void Refinement. Low stays the coin of every shop. See the grades.
Condensing 凝石	v0.11.2 Turning your own banked Qi into a Spirit Stone (`/cultivation stone condense`). It costs 1.5 times the Qi the stone holds, and a daily cap of 100 Low stones' worth keeps it from becoming unlimited coin. See Condensing.
Dragon vein grade 龙脉品阶	v0.11.2 The depth a Dragon vein under a sect hall reaches as the sect holds it, one grade every two days, each denser than the last. A sect's own doing: it vanishes if the hall is lost or moved. See Dragon Veins.
Sect vein enrichment	v0.11.2 The extra Qi density every chunk a sect holds slowly gathers from the sect's level and members, up to +35%. Never written into the world. See Sect Veins.
Weather resonance	A meditation multiplier from active weather — ×1.5 when it matches your dao's element, ×1.15 otherwise.
Secret Realm 祕境	A timed, chunk-anchored site that opens on its own and seals itself after 45 minutes. ×1.75 Qi inside. See Secret Realms.
Realm Map Fragment	A rare drop from any creature kill. Using it tears a Secret Realm open where you stand.
Celestial Event 天象	A server-wide timed phenomenon — Spirit Tide, Meteor Shower, Blood Moon, Starfall Convergence or Heavenly Schism — with a sky and a rule of its own. Beast Tide and the Calamity Beast's omen borrow the same sky. See Celestial Events.
Spirit Herb	Grown in a Spirit Field plot in your Cave Abode, stamped with a quality by the vein it grew over. The Pill Cauldron's input.

Events & Trials

Term	Meaning
Beast Tide 兽潮	A siege of corrupted beasts against a sect hall or Cave Abode, announced by a warning sky. The defenders win by breaking the crimson beacon the beasts are fighting for. See Beast Tide.
Calamity Beast 灾劫兽	A wandering world boss that arrives under an ashen omen sky. It holds no ground, belongs to whoever challenges it, and pays by how much damage you dealt. See Calamity Beast.
Void Rift 虚空裂隙	A world event that tears open in neutral wilderness every hour or two: five waves of Void creatures, then a Warden boss, paid out by contribution. See Void Rift.
Trial Pagoda 试炼塔	A tower you climb alone, one floor at a time. No cost, no cooldown, and your highest floor never resets. See Trial Pagoda.
Rogue Cultivator 散修客	A hostile, ownerless wanderer with a realm, a Dao element and real arts of its own, drawn to rich veins and lone travelers. See Rogue Cultivators.
Rare place	v0.11.2 One of five generated structures with a secret of its own: the Spirit Stone Mine, Sword Tomb, Fallen Cultivator's Cave, Tribulation Crater and Ancient Pill Furnace Ruins. No sect hall, territory or Cave Abode can be claimed over one. See Rare Places.
Spirit Stone Mine 灵石矿	v0.11.2 A rare place with a glowing seam of Spirit Crystals around a Mine Heart. Mining draws on a Qi reserve that refills slowly; mine it dry and the whole mine collapses. A sect can claim it at the heart. See Spirit Stone Mine.
Divination 占卜	`/divine`: paying Spirit Stones to read your next tribulation, the next celestial event or an online rival. Only a real answer is ever charged. See Divination.

The Dao

Term	Meaning
Dao 道	"The Way." Mechanically, the page holding your elemental affinity and your Yin-Yang balance.
Wu Xing 五行	The five classical elements — Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, Earth — arranged in a ring where each overcomes the next.
Shadow ring	The five darker elements forming a second counter-cycle. Cross-ring matchups are neutral.
Yin-Yang balance	A drifting axis written by your deeds, the ground you meditate on, and your race's bias. Sitting near the middle pays a bonus to Qi and damage.
Lean	How far from the middle your balance sits, as a 0–1 fraction. At 0.5 you face the Heart-Devil instead of lightning.
Devil Path 魔道	The formal path of a deeply Yin cultivator, with its own combat perks and the ability to harvest Qi from players you kill.
Righteous Path 正道	The Yang counterpart, with its own edge against the Devil Path.

Arts & Treasures

Term	Meaning
Technique / Art	An active ability — sword flight, a thunder palm, a dash — gated behind a realm, a Qi cost and a cooldown.
Manual	A lootable book that teaches a technique or a skill-tree node. Since 0.7.4 every built-in art sets `Requires-Unlock`, so the realm alone is never enough — a manual is one of the five ways an art is come by.
Skill tree	A nine-branch radial tree of 117 nodes. Points come from every rank-up: +1 per advancement, +3 per breakthrough.
Transcendence	The skill tree's eighth tier — dual-prerequisite capstone nodes at the ends of the branches.
Life-Bound Treasure	A weapon or armor piece bound to you personally, which levels up from use. Weapons gain XP from hits landed, armor from hits survived.
Alchemy 丹道	Refining Spirit Herbs into pills at a Pill Cauldron — wards against tribulation and the inner demon, and aids to a stubborn breakthrough. Since 0.8.0 pills carry a grade and are no longer craftable at a workbench.
Pill grade	Low, Mid, High or Perfect, rolled from herb quality and the alchemist's own mastery. Grade multiplies a pill's duration or charges, never its raw strength.
Alchemy mastery 丹道境界	A 50-level ladder climbed only by refining, entirely separate from your realm. It feeds back into grades and failure chance.
Technique fusion 合道	Combining two arts carried to Pinnacle into one stronger art that did not exist before. Consumes both parents. See Fusion.
Refinement 煉器	Tempering a weapon in tribulation lightning to give it a Dao element and a tier from I to IX. A failed tempering can shatter the blade.
Spirit beast 靈獸	A tamed or hatched companion that cultivates its own realm beside you, as a Guardian, Warden or Spirit-Gatherer.
Technique Menu 功法菜单	v0.11.2 The page `/cultivation techniques` opens: every art you know, grouped by kind, with its cost, cooldown, mastery and keybind. See Technique Menu.
Soul art	v0.11.2 An art that strikes the sea of consciousness rather than the body: Soul Piercing Needle 神魂刺 (Foundation Establishment) and Divine Sense Assault 神识冲击 (Nascent Soul). See Soul Arts.
Aura Sight 神识探查	v0.11.2 A toggle that reads the cultivator under your crosshair by rank gap: exact realm and stage for the weaker, the realm for an equal, only "stronger" for one realm above, and a mortal for two or more above. See Aura Sight.
Concealing	v0.11.2 Switching your aura off (`/cultivation aura`) so you read as a mortal to anyone who is not at least a realm above you. See Concealing.
Pressure 威压	v0.11.2 Your aura let fall as weight on everything weaker nearby, from Qi Condensation. It drains Qi while held and never touches your party, sect or allies. See Pressure.
Pressure tiers	v0.11.2 The four weights Pressure lays on a target by the rank gap: Uneasy 不安, Oppressed 压抑, Crushed 碾压 and Kneeling 跪伏. The heaviest tier a target earns is the only one it feels. See the tiers.
Pressure Burst	v0.11.2 The shout that throws weaker targets back and staggers them, on a 30-second cooldown. See the burst.
Dao Seal 道印	v0.11.1 A rune bound into one of Hytale's ability slots and cast with Qi. It marks a target with one of ten elements, and a strike of the element that overcomes the mark detonates it. See Dao Seals.
Dao Domain 道域	v0.11.1 An anchored aura a Nascent Soul cultivator unfolds from a Domain Heart rune: enemies inside are slowed and suffer an effect of the caster's element, allies deal more damage, and it collapses when the caster steps outside. See Dao Domains.
Domain clash	v0.11.1 What happens when two hostile Dao Domains overlap: the higher clash power wins and the loser's domain shatters. See Domain Clashes.
Vein-Seeking Sinan 寻脉司南	v0.11.1 A craftable held compass that points at the nearest rich or dragon spirit vein. See Spirit Vein Compass.
Heaven-Seeking Luopan 寻天罗盘	v0.11.1 The Sinan's upgrade: a held item with four dials (Spirit Veins, Secret Realms, Spirit Dens, Calamities). Left-click turns, right-click divines. See the Luopan.
Vein-Tapping Array 引脉阵	v0.11.1 A flag planted on a rich or dragon vein that gathers Spirit Stones and Qi for you or your sect, and that rivals can raid. See Vein-Tapping Arrays.
Domain resonance 共鸣	v0.11.1 Allied Dao Domains whose elements feed each other (Wood feeds Fire, and so on) strengthen everyone where they overlap. See Domain resonance.
Boss domain	v0.11.1 A Dao Domain a Calamity Beast, event boss, Void Rift Warden or high-realm Rogue Cultivator unfolds mid-fight; a player's domain can clash with it and stagger the foe. See Boss and NPC domains.

Society

Term	Meaning
Sect 宗	A player guild with four ranks, join policies, a motto and a unique 3–6 character tag. Capped at 12 members by default.
Contribution points	A member's personal standing inside their sect, earned by donating, winning vein wars, finishing missions or taking a tournament — and spent at the pavilion.
Pavilion	A sect's own shelf, stocked and priced by its Patriarch, selling items and one-time hall-inscription rights for contribution.
Mission board	Server-tuned repeatable tasks that pay contribution. Three accrue passively; gather missions are turned in by hand.
Tournament 論道大會	A single-elimination bracket among a sect's online members, run as real duels at a 0 Qi wager.
Dao Sermon 讲道	A sect member's lecture at their sect's hall. Juniors who sit meditating and listen comprehend Heavenly Dao, and the lecturer earns Merit. See Dao Sermon.
Master-Disciple bond 師徒	A consensual bond across a 2-realm gap: shared meditation lifts both, the master may teach an art, and a disciple's breakthrough pays the master. See Master & Disciple.
Sect hall	A sect's claimed chunk. v0.11.2 Any land will do; a hall on a rich or dragon vein earns the sect-wide Qi bonus, and a hall on plain ground gets none. No hall can be raised near a world's spawn or in a protected area.
Protected area	v0.11.2 Land an admin has closed to sect halls and territory (`/cultivation admin sectprotect`), beside the 3-chunk radius around every world's spawn. See Spawn and Protected Land.
Retainer 门客	v0.11.2 A cultivator your sect hall lets you hire: they follow you and fight beside you, grow, go on expeditions and hold posts on sect ground. They draw a wage in Spirit Stones. See Retainers.
Retinue	v0.11.2 The page that lists your retainers and each day's recruits (`/sect retainer`).
Wage purse	v0.11.2 The Spirit Stones you top up for a retainer's daily wage. Leave it empty and the retainer turns discontent, then leaves. See Wages.
Post 岗位	v0.11.2 A job a retainer holds on sect land: Hall Guard 护殿, Scripture Scribe 抄经, Seclusion 闭关 or Vein Tender 守脉. It holds only while the sect holds that land. See Posts.
Inscription	A technique manual carved into a hall, lending that art to every member for as long as the sect holds the hall.
Hall beacon	The standing column of light over a claimed hall, visible to anyone. Defaults to the vein's own color unless a banner flies.
Banner 旗幟	The color a sect flies over its hall — the Four Symbols, Golden Court or Jade Terrace — chosen by the leader or an elder, and tinting the hall's map pin. See Sects.
Formation 陣	A placed, chunk-anchored array — amplifying allied meditation, choking outsiders' Qi, or rooting and wounding trespassers.
Cave Abode 洞府	A personal claimed dwelling whose Spirit Spring accrues Qi in real time, online or not. Collected on site.
Spirit Spring	The Abode's pool. Fills every real-world hour up to a cap that grows with your realm.
Seclusion	Retreating into an Abode to convert time into Qi, capped at 24 hours per retreat.
Sect war	A declared siege to take a rival sect's hall — hold the ground long enough inside the window and the vein is yours.
Array Domain 宗门大阵	v0.11.1 The defensive aura a besieged sect can raise over all of its territory: defenders take less damage, attackers are slowed. Not the Warding formation (护山大阵). See Sect Array Domains.
Duel	A consensual fight for a wager of banked Qi. Works even on worlds with PvP switched off.
Non-lethal duel	v0.11.2 A duel the challenger set as `nonlethal`: the blow that would kill either duelist ends it instead, and the one struck down yields and is spared. See Lethal and non-lethal.

A note on the Chinese

The characters shown are the terms Xianxia fiction conventionally uses, included because the mod is fully localized in Simplified Chinese. You never need to read or type them to play.