Hmmph... this junior is a good seed [Cultivation Management Quest]

[occipitallobe]

Good Seed and Omake Spreadsheet Rules:

Firstly, if you have questions about Good Seeds and the like please read here. If that doesn't answer your question please ping me in thread, or on Discord.

If you write a new Good Seed, or write an omake, please update the spreadsheet if you have access.

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This is mandatory. If a Good Seed does not record their omake by pinging collabs (or just requesting access and editing things themselves - this is the preferred option), I won't give out awards. If a new Good Seed is not recorded here, they won't advance. By doing this it makes the whole thing manageable for me - it's gotten pretty unwieldy!

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Omake Writer Instructions:

There are four fields you need to fill out.

Omake Link, which is just a link to your first omake for the turn. This makes it easier for me to read them as I do the update - without this it's tough to know off the bat which omake were written this turn, and to properly

Requested Bonus, which is your requested bonus for your omake. You can leave it up to me if you like. You can see more info in the Good Seed infopost here.

Cultivation Aims. For those following unorthodox paths - higher than 9th Heavenstage or later than 7th Dao Pillar paths. Please put in what you are aiming for before you break through. I have left it as 'default'. If you do not edit it, I'll go with that.

Turn Notes - Do you want to do something specific? Enter a Secret Realm? Help the Clan out in some way? If you have something specific you want to accomplish on this turn, put it in turn notes so I can adjust your Fate around it.

All other fields are for QM use to record character information to properly run the flow of the game.

 

[Crunbum]

I think this is the source of the confusion here.

Point of clarification: A Formation of a hundred Cores would not be able to be dispatched with a Great Circle Core with 68 Impact. In fact, if the other Core didn't run, they would inevitably end up dying given some amount of time.

To be more precise, we currently don't know the Impact threshold required to breach into Nascent relevance, and it's this threshold you would need to beat something with the offense/defense (but not speed) of an Early Nascent Soul.

It should be remembered that the ability of Golden Devil Formations to breach Great Realms is an abnormal property only permitted by the Blood of Bronze harmonizing the components.

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Not with 68 Impact because each point of Impact becomes less Impactful in terms of stages worth of power, as you advance further. But there is a finite, theoretically reachable amount of Impact that lets a Core Cultivator fight a Formation of 100 Cores and win.

It has to be easier a gap to cross than Qi Condensation beating up Core Formation too (which happened in story), or else higher realm cultivators would be absolutely useless in a war because only Formations would matter in terms of power projection and a higher realms could only run in the face of them, given the relative differences in cultivator populations at each Realm. But that is not true - the opposite usually happens instead.

 

[Swordomatic]

Do note that Formations aren't perfectly efficient uses of Qi either. The larger a Formation gets, the more you lose to inefficiency.

 

[Crunbum]

Do note that Formations aren't perfectly efficient uses of Qi either. The larger a Formation gets, the more you lose to inefficiency.

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...Which only favors the lone cultivator, making it even easier for them to match the power of a Formation of 100 Cores and thus be able to oppose Nascents in combat and cross the supposedly "Impassable" Realm in a fight. There is nothing stopping said cultivator from both having more Qi and a greater cultivation quality than the entire formation even before its inefficiencies, thus the relative dynamic here does not make sense.

Basically, per Heraclius, if you dumped him into a Great Circle Core Formation body, he would be unable to fight the weakest Nascent Soul and yet he could have swept an essentially infinite amount of fellow Cores, which if they formed Formations would be able to oppose a Nascent - but would still get destroyed just as easily by Heraclius considering how he can casually dispatch cultivators 2 Realms higher.

 

[Alectai]

...Which only favors the lone cultivator, making it even easier for them to match the power of a Formation of 100 Cores and thus be able to oppose Nascents in combat and thus cross the supposedly "Impassable" Realm in a fight.

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It's a qualitiative difference not captured by the Numbers.

A Formation can bundle up enough people that a Nascent Soul can't just Instantly Kill You by attacking your soul, but no individual can do that. But even if a Formation can bundle up enough mass and strength to resist Soul Attacks and strike hard enough to hurt a Nascent Soul, it moves only as fast as its slowest member, which is still well below what a Nascent Soul can do. This isn't to say a Formation is useless, but it has to be supplemented by either a Real Nascent or be defending something the Nascent Soul absolutely has to attack for it to have an impact in a Nascentbowl.

 

[Crunbum]

It's a qualitiative difference not captured by the Numbers.

A Formation can bundle up enough people that a Nascent Soul can't just Instantly Kill You by attacking your soul, but no individual can do that. But even if a Formation can bundle up enough mass and strength to resist Soul Attacks and strike hard enough to hurt a Nascent Soul, it moves only as fast as its slowest member, which is still well below what a Nascent Soul can do. This isn't to say a Formation is useless, but it has to be supplemented by either a Real Nascent or be defending something the Nascent Soul absolutely has to attack for it to have an impact in a Nascentbowl.

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Except a single Core cultivator can have the same or greater amount of mass and strength and soul resistance as that entire formation. There is no impassable limit on that, they are the same Realm so its just numbers go up, which is why "its about sheer mass/strength" does not make sense as an argument.

 

[TehChron]

There is no impassable limit on that

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Law of Diminishing Returns

 

[Alectai]

Except a single Core cultivator can have the same or greater amount of mass and strength and soul resistance as that entire formation. There is no impassable limit on that, they are the same Realm so its just numbers go up, which is why "its about sheer mass/strength" does not make sense as an argument.

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They can't, Soul Resistance is fundamentally impossible to train on a level meaningful vs a Nascent Soul. At best, you can die slightly slower or require their full attention to one-shot you.

But until you're a Nascent Soul, it is actively impossible to train your soul strength, at best, you can go from a string of twine to a string of steel cable--but it's still not going to survive a pair of bolt-cutters being taken to it.

A Formation can stack enough souls and tie them together conceptually close enough that a Nascent Soul can't just will them dead (Continuing the metaphor, it's making the cable thick enough that you can't wrap the bolt cutters around it), but an individual can never do that. This is why it's an Insurmountable Gap.

Beyond that, yeah, even the best Formation leaks, and the more powerful it is and the more individual Cultivators are in it, the less you get out of each individual. The sweet spot is around a hundred individuals I believe, and after that, you start getting sharply diminishing returns--and eventually it reaches a point where you're losing power out of each extra person added in when you consider the Formation's upkeep.

 

[Crunbum]

Law of Diminish Returns

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Except Impact does not work like that, does it? We know that 68 Impact corresponds to roughly Mid Core Formation because Wei Feng's Mid Foundation Establishment is adding very little to that by itself. Lets say Mid Core Formation = 60 Impact value.

Therefore a Hoplite Formation of 100 Mid Core Formation Cultivators = 6000 Impact if it had no inefficiencies - but it must have them or else Formations of 100+ Qi Condensation would reign supreme on the battlefield and there would be no point in deploying Cores because 100 x 9th Heavenstage in a Formation would have 900 Impact while a Mid Core Formation only has ~60.

Since a Hoplite Formation of 100 Qi Condensation cultivators cannot fight an average Core, it stands to reason that its at best a 900 / 60 = 15x multiplier - which would pin a Hoplite Formation of 100 Mid Cores at around 900 Impact. Essentially meaning it would take ~700 Impact at most, for a cultivator at the Great Circle of Core Formation to stand and fight against an Early Nascent via sheer weight much like a Formation.

 

[Alectai]

Except Impact does not work like that, does it? We know that 68 Impact corresponds to roughly Mid Core Formation because Wei Feng's Mid Foundation Establishment is adding very little to that by itself. Lets say Mid Core Formation = 60 Impact value.

Therefore a Hoplite Formation of 100 Mid Core Formation Cultivators = 6000 Impact if it had no inefficiencies - which it must have them or else Formations of 100+ Qi Condensation would reign supreme on the battlefield and there would be no point in deploying Cores because 100 x 9th Heavenstage in a Formation would have 900 Impact while a Mid Core Formation only has ~60.

Since a Hoplite Formation of 100 Qi Condensation cultivators cannot fight an average Core, it stands to reason that its at most a 900 / 60 = 15x multiplier - which would pin a Hoplite Formation of 100 Mid Cores at around 900 Impact. Essentially meaning a ~700 Impact cultivator at the Great Circle of Core Formation could stand and fight against an Early Nascent via sheer weight.

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Impact Doesn't Work That Way

Most Cultivators have Zero Impact, and 100 x 0 is still zero. Wei Feng is a Literal freak of nature who has so much Impact that he breaches a Great Realm Barrier and has enough left over to just barely inch into mid-core. Nobody gets 100 Wei Fengs and puts them in a Formation because if you had 100 Wei Fengs. you're better off using them to Just Win at 100 Core Missions instead.

It's a narrative approximation of "How much more valuable are you than a generic Cultivator of equivalent Cultivation Level", not an objective statement of Power Level, which is generally why Impact that takes you higher than your Realm's training cap is largely wasted unless you're a freak like Wei Feng who has more than two or three of his closest peers of it.

 

[TehChron]

Except Impact does not work like that, does it?

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You're conflating Impact with Formations, when I was very clearly referencing the latter to address what I had quoted.

 

[Crunbum]

Impact Doesn't Work That Way
Most Cultivators have Zero Impact, and 100 x 0 is still zero.

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They have their cultivation base. Which has an Impact Equivalent.
1 Impact = 1 Stage in Qi Condensation
3 Impact = 1 Stage in Foundation Establishment
6 Impact = 1 Stage in Core Formation

Wei Feng's 5-Pillar (Late) Foundation Establishment is the 6th Stage of it. Assuming he advanced from the 9th Heavenstage of Qi Condensation, he would have 6 * 3 + 9 * 1 = Base Impact 27 on top of his listed Impact 68, for a total of 95. This corresponds to Core (10th = Great Circle + 1).

A Core Formation (5th Stage) that went through the standard Great Circle Foundation (9th Stage) and the 9th Heavenstage and has a +0 Impact bonus would have 9 + 27 + 30 = 66 Impact, while one in Great Circle Core (9th Stage) would have 90.

A Formation of 100 Qi Condensation (Heavenstage 9) cultivators has 100 * 9 = 900 Impact if it were additive, but it cannot be due to how it matches up against higher Realms - assuming its equal to a Core Formation (3rd Stage), it could be estimated as a 54 / 9 = 6x multiplier. We don't know if it is that strong, but we do know it is not stronger than that. This means a Hoplite Formation of 100 Cores (3rd / 9th Stage) would have 8 x (54 or 90) = 432-720 Impact, which is able to fight a Nascent. A Great Circle Core could match it with an Impact bonus of 342-630.

Advancing to Early Nascent is likely +600 Impact by these numbers since they are a little stronger than a Hoplite Formation of 100 Mid Cores.

For whoever is reading this, do note take this math as gospel, its just an estimate which could be completely wrong - working the numbers out is just a fun exercise and it appears to track at least somewhat with what we have been told about Wei Feng and stuff in story.

 

[TehChron]

Impact is "relevance beyond baseline cultivation". It's a deliberately nebulous, catch all term.

By design.

 

[ReaderOfFate]

? Impact = 1 Stage in Core Formation

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As a brief heads up, we already know 6 Impact is equal to a small realm in Core.

Also, the gap between FE1 and QC9 is 30, and the gap between FE9 and Core 1 is 50.

As a final point, Impact is not a linear quantity. It scales in a multiplicative fashion. Someone in Mid Nascent Soul can reasonably fight two average Early Nascent Souls, and so on. Multiplying and adding total Impact values as you've been doing is not how it works.

As a point of analogy, rather than giving a formula: log(20) is not log(10) + log(10), it's log(10) + log(2).

EDIT: I would generally recommend you head on to Discord so you can be given information in a more efficient manner.

 

[Swordomatic]

They have their cultivation base. Which has an Impact Equivalent.
1 Impact = 1 Stage in Qi Condensation
3 Impact = 1 Stage in Foundation Establishment
? Impact = 1 Stage in Core Formation
? Impact = 1 Stage in Nascent Soul

Wei Feng's 5-Pillar (Late) Foundation Establishment is the 6th Stage of it. Assuming he advanced from the 9th Heavenstage of Qi Condensation, he would have 6 * 3 + 9 * 1 = Base Impact 27 on top of his listed Impact 68, for a total of 95.

He has been mentioned as equal to a Mid Core Formation cultivator. Assuming that is the 4th Stage of it, Pressurized Core, this represents a Base Impact of 95 (Wei Feng) - 9 * 1 (9th Heavenstage) + 9 * 3 (Great Circle of Foundation Establishment - 7 Pillar) = 36, split across 4 stages, so 9.

This means 9 Impact per Stage in Core Formation. Notice how neatly it fits a 1 / 3 / 9 Impact progression.

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This is called a correlation, not a causation. Please stop trying to frame narrative elements in a mathematical lens in so flagrantly utilitarian a manner because it will not end well for you.

Also it's 6 Impact for 1 Small Realm in Core Formation.

 

[ShiningBright]

I want to point out that owning a newspaper company is also a form of Impact

 

[ReaderOfFate]

To be honest, this isn't even a problem of bringing math into things. The problem is that the math being used here is just plain wrong.

I think the source of the confusion is an attempt to correlate Impact quantities to power differences between realms, when we've already had sources on the exact numbers needed for Formations to bridge one or even two great realm gaps in the past. I will note, Impact differences weren't fine tuned with the stat-gaps in mind, but rather for the purposes of gameplay, so even after accounting for how Impact points scale multiplicatively and just adding the effective Impact of the constituents won't get you the Impact of the resulting Formation, you won't get a decisive answer by puzzling out the differences that way because it's left intentionally vague.

Instead, I'll just grab a quote on Occi talking about the matter.

I would say, though, that 100 Qi Condensation cultivators could in theory equal maybe 1 mid stage Foundation Building expert if the formation was made very efficient. Assuming a perfect formation with zero Qi loss, you'd need maybe 10,000 Qi Condensation cultivators to launch a Core Formation strike. For a very, very good formation at the edge of the Clan's abilities to create over a century or two, you could probably get away with around 200,000 or so.

Fighting across a single great realm - even with formations - is exceptionally hard, and the Clan's ability to do so is unparalleled by any other power in the region. Two great realms is unheard of.

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Also, I think speed is being dismissed far too quickly, tbqh.

Even as early as the Foundation to Core gap, we notice a significant gap in unenhanced speed and an enormous gap in terms of Qi, which can be leveraged towards burst speed arts.

Offensive and defensive power is good, but if one party is swifter than the other and able to attack from outside of their range, that means zilch. If you're ever concerned, just dart away to recover.

At Nascent Soul, this gets enormously worse, as Occi has said on Discord that the true bodily strength of a Nascent Soul is effectively magnitudes higher than what the spreadsheet indicates because they follow the Laws that govern Soul more than they follow the Laws that govern the Body. It's that reason why Nascents can fly so cheaply compared to Core Formation, and move at such swift speeds.

There's a reason why Heraclius deems it vital to have a baseline of Nascent Soul cultivation in order to fight Nascent Souls, Spirit Severing, and Law Creation level opponents, even with his insane levels of comprehension of natural laws.

 

[Crunbum]

To be honest, this isn't even a problem of bringing math into things. The problem is that the math being used here is just plain wrong.

I think the source of the confusion is an attempt to correlate Impact quantities to power differences between realms, when we've already had sources on the exact numbers needed for Formations to bridge one or even two great realm gaps in the past. I will note, Impact differences weren't fine tuned with the stat-gaps in mind, but rather for the purposes of gameplay, so even after accounting for how Impact points scale multiplicatively and just adding the effective Impact of the constituents won't get you the Impact of the resulting Formation, you won't get a decisive answer by puzzling out the differences that way because it's left intentionally vague.

Instead, I'll just grab a quote on Occi talking about the matter.

Also, I think speed is being dismissed far too quickly, tbqh.

Even as early as the Foundation to Core gap, we notice a significant gap in unenhanced speed and an enormous gap in terms of Qi, which can be leveraged towards burst speed arts.

Offensive and defensive power is good, but if one party is swifter than the other and able to attack from outside of their range, that means zilch. If you're ever concerned, just dart away to recover.

At Nascent Soul, this gets enormously worse, as Occi has said on Discord that the true bodily strength of a Nascent Soul is effectively magnitudes higher than what the spreadsheet indicates because they follow the Laws that govern Soul more than they follow the Laws that govern the Body. It's that reason why Nascents can fly so cheaply compared to Core Formation, and move at such swift speeds.

There's a reason why Heraclius deems it vital to have a baseline of Nascent Soul cultivation in order to fight Nascent Souls, Spirit Severing, and Law Creation level opponents, even with his insane levels of comprehension of natural laws.

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Well, I am clearly stumbling in the dark with the numbers, but its fun figuring them out. Thanks for the information.

 

[Resonant]

Altar Lord having to work with people he detests - just on the off-chance a third party (the Clan) completes his goal - is always such a mood. There's no camaraderie or hope fueling him, it's just raw inertia to make all this suffering be worth it.

@occipitallobe Some typos in the update:

He was slower and weaker and simply less skilled. Staying alive was taking everything he had, and

This... this was bad. He had to hold out a little longer!

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This seems like a interrupted sentence?

Fleeing slowly enough to draw Wei Ning after her, spending enough Qi to make it worth her while to burn down his strength even if she did expect a trap.

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Typo: draw Wei Ning after (him)

"Hu Ai, give me a reason that you think is true, and one is false. Don't tell me which."

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Grammar: one (that's) false

 

[Crunbum]

Formation Realm Effects
Formation of 100 : +1 Realm
Formation of 10 000 : +2 Realms

Base Impact Benchmarks
Qi Condensation (Stage 5) = 5
Foundation Establishment (Stage 5) = 24
Core Formation (Stage 5) = 66
Core Formation (Stage 9) = 90

Formation Impact Multipliers
Estimates : 1 = 1.0, 100 = 4.8, 10k = 13.2
Curve Fit = 2^(Log (10) Size)

Nascent Soul Estimate
Early Nascent = 4 (Size 100) x 90 (Great Circle Core) = 360
This assumes an Early Nascent is as powerful as a Hoplite Formation of 100 Great Circle Cores. 360 Impact would mean +270 for breakthrough.
Its probably a little weaker since most Cores making up these Formations are not in the Great Circle and yet they fight rather evenly.

Estimated Base Impact
+1 Impact per Stage in Qi Condensation
+3 Impact per Stage in Foundation Establishment
+6 Impact per Stage in Core Formation
+250 Impact for Early Nascent breakthrough

A cultivator in Core Formation (Great Circle) has 90 Base Impact and would need an Impact Bonus of +270 to match an Early Nascent (360).
That is rather difficult to achieve. I don't know about impossible though, especially with better quality cultivation routes.

 

[Resonant]

Also I am wondering about Bloodhammer's status - Wei Princess believed that Bloodhammer joined up with Old Cannibal in this Year 260 interlude, but Old Cannibal has never met him before? Sounds like she got out-intrigued hard - maybe he joined up with Altar Lord instead? Or did he just never leave the mountains lol.

 

[Timewarriors]

Also I am wondering about Bloodhammer's status - Wei Princess believed that Bloodhammer joined up with Old Cannibal in this Year 260 interlude, but Old Cannibal has never met him before? Sounds like she got out-intrigued hard - maybe he joined up with Altar Lord instead? Or did he just never leave the mountains lol.

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Would be hilarious if he was independent because everyone thought he would have join a side.

 

[Crunbum]

How do combat rolls work anyway? Mostly I'm wondering what kind of dice system has the very small Impact differences between Foundation and Core lead to decisive outcomes that make formation use the preferred way of combat despite their diminishing returns?

Is it something like an opposed 2d(Impact) roll, where the loser suffers the difference as damage and takes a wound for each multiple of their Impact in damage sustained? Its probably nothing like that but surely it can't use fixed-sized dice, right?.

 

[GlassOlive]

Except Impact does not work like that, does it? We know that 68 Impact corresponds to roughly Mid Core Formation because Wei Feng's Mid Foundation Establishment is adding very little to that by itself. Lets say Mid Core Formation = 60 Impact value.

Therefore a Hoplite Formation of 100 Mid Core Formation Cultivators = 6000 Impact if it had no inefficiencies - but it must have them or else Formations of 100+ Qi Condensation would reign supreme on the battlefield and there would be no point in deploying Cores because 100 x 9th Heavenstage in a Formation would have 900 Impact while a Mid Core Formation only has ~60.

Since a Hoplite Formation of 100 Qi Condensation cultivators cannot fight an average Core, it stands to reason that its at best a 900 / 60 = 15x multiplier - which would pin a Hoplite Formation of 100 Mid Cores at around 900 Impact. Essentially meaning it would take ~700 Impact at most, for a cultivator at the Great Circle of Core Formation to stand and fight against an Early Nascent via sheer weight much like a Formation.

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You are conflating Impact with Narrative. How the world here actually works is how Heraclius states it (or as far as he knows - at least unless you get to unfathomable Autokrator levels). Impact is simply a translation from the abstraction to hard game mechanics to quantify good seeds. You cannot analyze the world like a math problem.

If you insist on viewing it quantitatively, you should think of Impact as less like an overall number and more as separately affecting multiple base parameters. Let's say, hypothetically, Offense, Defense, Qi, and Speed.

In this case, a single cultivator has a limit to defense. Below Nascent Soul, they are capped to be unable to resist Soul attacks. They also have a limit as to how much Qi they can contain (the capacity of their core, which cannot grow infinitely), which in turn limits their speed, and so on.

A group of cultivators, however, may have a boost to defense that allows them to split the Soul attack evenly between them.

From a raw parameter point, then, the formation, Nascent, and boosted Core could have the exact same amount of Qi, Offensive capability, Speed, Durability, and so forth. But the Nascent can deliver Soul Attacks, the formation can take them, and the boosted Core instantly dies to them.

Furthemore, keep in mind that most Impact is actually given as a situtational boost, such as being able to control all birds weaker than you (from a Cloud Caves run). Cultivators have at the least narrative constraints on their personal power/stats/parameters.

In a sense, you are correct - if you counted a Heavenly Star or a Spirit Severing Will as Impact, then it would be possible to cross Impassable Realms. However, Heraclius is referring to winning using base parameters - pure comprehension, Qi, speed, etc. Those are a measure of talent and understanding, as opposed to backing.

In this case the core just insta-loses to the Nascent because Impact cannot give resistance to the Nascent auto-kill Soul attack.

 

[Alectai]

Anything times zero is still zero.

A Formation full of Cores still is irrelevant to Nascent Souls as anything else, they can tilt the odds in a Nascentbowl, but individually can't do more than slow a Nascent down.

Rather than tell us the writer is wrong and insist on it, it would be better to treat Nascents as "Reduce all opposing rolls to zero, unless contested by a Nascent level asset"

Because this isn't "Personal Opinion" anymore, you are directly contesting a Fact given by the one who made this setting. "It doesn't matter how good you are, or how much bullshit you bring into play, without bringing external help, you cannot defeat a Nascent Soul as anything below Nascent Soul yourself." The very utmost you can do is mildly frustrate them if you're Just That Good and have enough toys to buy time, or in the case of the hypothetical 300 man Wei Feng formation (Which is in itself ludicrous--because it doesn't matter how much you try to ignore the way the game works to try and Quantify it, Impact is not Power Levels and even then, Wei Feng is Not the Standard), you can deny a single small area by making it too expensive for that Nascent Soul to attack, at the cost of conceding every other front in order to bundle that many Cores in one place.

 

[Crunbum]

Anything times zero is still zero.

A Formation full of Cores still is irrelevant to Nascent Souls as anything else, they can tilt the odds in a Nascentbowl, but individually can't do more than slow a Nascent down.

Rather than tell us the writer is wrong and insist on it, it would be better to treat Nascents as "Reduce all opposing rolls to zero, unless contested by a Nascent level asset"

Because this isn't "Personal Opinion" anymore, you are directly contesting a Fact given by the one who made this setting. "It doesn't matter how good you are, or how much bullshit you bring into play, without bringing external help, you cannot defeat a Nascent Soul as anything below Nascent Soul yourself." The very utmost you can do is mildly frustrate them if you're Just That Good and have enough toys to buy time, or in the case of the hypothetical 300 man Wei Feng formation (Which is in itself ludicrous--because it doesn't matter how much you try to ignore the way the game works to try and Quantify it, Impact is not Power Levels and even then, Wei Feng is Not the Standard), you can deny a single small area by making it too expensive for that Nascent Soul to attack, at the cost of conceding every other front in order to bundle that many Cores in one place.

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Well, to be fair I was mostly just musing on the mechanics because I was baffled by the interactions between Formations and individual higher Realm cultivators, all while operating on faulty Impact numbers. The adjusted ones actually put a Nascent Soul / Formation of 100 Cores sufficiently high up relative to a single Core Formation (Great Circle) cultivator that the latter stacking enough Impact to be able to win a fight is almost impossible, as they have a base of 90 Impact while an Early Nascent has ~360.

Plus the higher up you go, the greater the chance that your opponents will have some extra impact of their own, so the gulf to cross is even wider. It would be very rare indeed for any cultivator that got to Nascent Soul to have no bonuses at all. So it ends up being wide enough a gap that it could very well be that no Core Formation cultivator in the story's world was ever broken enough to cross it. Maybe some protagonist-like cultivators could do it if they had infinite time and never ascended past Core - but their lifespan is limited and they do, so yeah.

Anyway, I am not and never were contradicting the author, I just like thinking out loud by writing my thoughts out. The best way to learn something is to confidently speak in error after all, because people will jump to correct you.