Among them, who wasted the most immortal cultivation resources? Clearly, it was the person with mid-grade aptitude. They were nurtured with great effort but would not achieve much, resulting in twice the effort for half the result.
As a result, the Taihang Mountain Immortal Cultivation Group naturally raised its standards for accepting disciples. Even those with mid-grade immortal cultivation aptitude were not taken as disciples, let alone those with lower grades.
Focusing on an elite policy was evidently better than letting everyone cultivate.
Centuries ago, the Taihang Mountain Immortal Cultivation Group, from top to bottom, adhered to this philosophy.
But after a certain generation of cultivators proposed the "Spirit Net" and "Spirit Root" plans, things became entirely different.
The cultivator group no longer pursued an elite policy. As long as one possessed immortal cultivation aptitude, not only mid-grade but even lower-grade ones were accepted.
Even those with the lowest aptitude, who seemed to have no immortal cultivation potential at all, were brought under the umbrella of the cultivator group.
Teaching without discrimination, imparting immortal techniques without relying on aptitude, truly came into effect only after that generation and the implementation of the Spirit Root. It was only then that cultivators like Quan, with low-grade aptitude close to mid-grade, could join the cultivator group.
Through the knowledge imparted by cultivators, Quan learned about the Spirit Net and Spirit Root plans.
If there were disparities in immortal cultivation aptitude, then those disparities would be compensated for. How to compensate for them? The cultivators of that era proposed two solutions: one was to modify the human body, transforming it into a spiritual body.
The original idea of the cultivators was this: if not for the birth of the immortal path, who would have known that one did not need innate powerful strength, but could gain that power through cultivation in the later stages?
Since strength did not need to be acquired innately, and was not something one had to be born with, but could be obtained through later effort.
Then what about aptitude?
One's thinking could not be rigid.
Was aptitude only something that came from birth, and could not be improved later?
Since there was innate aptitude, cultivators, through researching various secret techniques, also researched the possibility of cultivating aptitude in later stages.
This was the origin of the spirit body, and what was known as the acquired spirit body.
Aptitude was not something that could only be innate, but could also be cultivated in later stages.
By nurturing exotic beasts, one could absorb certain vital energies, blood qi, and divine qi from within their bodies, and finally undergo a metamorphosis of one's own constitution.
Transforming into a certain "Immortal Body," "Divine Body," or "Sacred Body."
Of course, these were just common appellations. In reality, these three types of constitutions, as well as other constitutions, could all be categorized as one type of constitution, namely, the spirit body.
The acquired spirit body.
Through various wondrous secret techniques and immortal path secret methods, one could cultivate an acquired spirit body through prolonged nurturing.
Acquired spirit bodies also had different levels.
Once an acquired spirit body was cultivated, even those with low-grade immortal cultivation aptitude could possess the cultivation speed of mid-grade, or even high-grade immortal cultivation aptitude.
Although this did not directly improve aptitude, it achieved the effect of improving cultivation speed.
From this perspective, the cultivators who created these immortal path secret techniques and wondrous methods were indeed remarkable.
However, some of these cultivation methods and secret techniques had drawbacks: they were time-consuming and consumed a large amount of cultivation resources.
Some acquired spirit bodies required a vast amount of cultivation resources to be cultivated.
While some acquired spirit bodies required time to be cultivated.
To what extent did they require time?
Take the Longevity Dao Body, a constitution that could increase the attraction of wood-element malevolent qi. It required at least a hundred years of nurturing on exotic beasts, plants, or demon corpses to cultivate the first stage.
This directly excluded ordinary civilians and cultivators in the Yin Sha Realm and Yang Gang Realm from cultivating this acquired Dao Body.
Except for cultivators who had advanced to the Core Formation Realm, there was virtually no one who could afford to spend a hundred years solely cultivating the first stage of this Longevity Dao Body.
Even cultivators in the Core Formation Realm needed leisure time, needed to improve their magic power, and needed to enter seclusion for cultivation. How many of them could dedicate a full hundred years to this so-called Longevity Dao Body?
Even if the Longevity Dao Body's functions included doubling the cultivator's lifespan compared to peers, that was only after it was cultivated. If one didn't even have enough time to cultivate it, who would prioritize cultivating this so-called Longevity Dao Body?
Furthermore, this was only the first stage. In the original conception of the cultivator who created this secret technique, the Longevity Dao Body had three stages. The first stage required a hundred years to cultivate, the second stage required a thousand years, and the third stage required ten thousand years.
The sheer length of time required was astonishing, exceeding everyone's imagination. Setting aside whether these hypothetical acquired spirit bodies, without practical application, had any real chance of success, the cultivation requirement of a thousand years for the second stage alone surpassed the history of immortal cultivation, even exceeding the time since the inception of the immortal path.
For this so-called Longevity Dao Body, the Immortal Cultivation Group only had a few cultivators in the Core Formation Realm who had cultivated the first stage of the acquired spirit body. As for the second stage, no one had achieved it.
Other acquired spirit bodies, while not as time-consuming as the Longevity Dao Body, also had strict conditional limitations. For someone like Quan, without any background and from a tribal civilian family, there was simply no time or cultivation resources to cultivate an acquired spirit body.
Therefore, although many cultivators in that era researched various secret methods for cultivating acquired spirit bodies, they discovered that these methods could at most be used by a small number of people. While they could achieve a certain effect, they were insufficient to completely change the phenomenon of cultivators relying on disciples with good aptitude.
Thus, after several decades, a senior cultivator, building upon the foundation of acquired spirit bodies, created another more widely applicable method: the Spirit Root Method.
The Spirit Root Method was fundamentally different from the acquired spirit body.
The acquired spirit body aimed to modify a person's constitution. The human body, not to mention the intricate design and difficulty of alteration, was still a human body.
To attempt modifications on a human body, if successful, it would be fine, but if the modification failed, the mortality rate, disability rate, and insanity rate would be far too high.
In reality, it was a method with extreme danger.
Compared to human body modification, the modification of artifacts was more convenient and safer.
Since it relied on artifacts rather than the human body, even if there were losses, it would not be a cultivator losing their life or suffering irreparable damage to their foundation. It would only be the destruction of a magic artifact or a treasure.
Clearly, compared to modifying the human body, modifying artifacts was more reliable.
The Spirit Root Method was a method of modifying artifacts.
Immortal cultivation aptitude was innate and could not be changed, but cultivation speed could be altered. With various spirit bodies, low-grade aptitude could rival mid-grade or high-grade aptitude.
The Spirit Root Method also adopted this concept. It could not change a cultivator's innate immortal cultivation aptitude, but like the spirit body, it could alter the cultivator's cultivation speed.