Cultivation

In Versatile Mage, a human being can use an Awakening Stone to guide them to awaken a Magic Element within their psyche. Once they awaken their first Magic Element they become a Mage. Becoming a Mage is a very tedious lifelong commitment that will constantly push the person to their physical, mental and spiritual limits. It is to be noted that Magic Society varies between countries, the primary reason that most people's first awakening is Elemental magic attributes to the education system. Magic High Schools are financial by a major family with monopoly in Awakening Stones.

However, it is not realistic to provide tens of thousands of High School with high quality Awakening Stones worth millions of USD and cost tens of thousands of USD to maintain each that have higher chance of awakening specific elements for commoners. Instead they provide the High Schools with the lowest quality Stones which has a lot of impurities, then adding to the fact that Humans are also filled with impurities within themselves made awakening magic types extremely unpredictable. Understandable as China has a larger population than other countries and they cannot afford to provide each Mage with more resources. Mo Fan himself had to go out and wrestle his magic training resources from monsters frequently.

Novice-Tier Mage
Star Dust: 7 Stars -> 1 Star Path

A person is considered Novice Tier Mage once they awaken their 1st Element and possess a Stardust of a Magic Element.

Although exceptions do occur, it is most common for common people in China to awaken their first Element at the age of 16 randomly from the 7 Elemental Magics. They are Lightning, Fire, Ice, Wind, Earth, Water, and Light Elements. This is because the Awakening Stones used in Schools are the poorest quality and have a lot of impurities. Some Awakening Stones might be an Element Awakening Stone with a lot of impurities from other Elements. Very rich families or other countries can afford to use Pure Awakening Stones to greatly increase their chance of awakening an Element of their choosing. Despite of this, there will always be a chance that the person awaken an Element they didn't want because awakening stones react with the balance of elements residing within the body of the one who wants to awaken, which can affect the result one sided-ly.

A Novice Mage's spiritual consciousness will have 1 Stardust, inside their stardust they will have 7 stars. A Mage must go through a meditative training known more commonly as Cultivation in order to control their stars. Once a Novice Mage succeeds in connecting the 7 stars inside their Stardust into a Star Path, they will be able to cast a Novice Magic.

As a Novice Mage's cultivation level increases, their Novice Magic can advance through 3 levels naturally. It was mentioned and hinted throughout the series that each Level of magic is twice as strong as the previous level. Once a mage reached Level 3, they can not advance to level 4 naturally. Instead the mage will be able to perform Breakthroughs to advance their Element into Star Cloud, also known as a Star Nebula.

However, cultivation itself is a semi-complicated process. Cultivation involves creating residue energy and feeding it directly to their element(s) with the base rate being 1 level every year. There are 3 ways to increase the rate of progress.

The first and most simple one is with the use of soul vessels, objects that carry the souls of other creatures and multiplies the cultivation of the mage wielding them by a relative amount.

The second and most powerful method is by using consumables, either directly or cultivating in temples that actively pump said consumables, they can either increase the rate of cultivation or directly promote a level/tier, this is the only known method of breaking through into super tier.

The third and most useful one is through battle. As it has been said in the novel, cultivation and experience are needed for rapid increases. This is because in addition to accepting magical energies, element(s) in the spiritual universe also accept soul energy and ideas from the wielder themselves. These energies and ideas can be created from large scale experiences and ordeals that the mage has gone through.

Once a Mage's Stardust successfully breakthrough into Star Cloud, they are consider a Mid-Tier mage

Mid-Tier Mage
Star Cloud: 49 Stars -> 7 Star Paths -> 1 Star Map -> Cast Mid-Tier magic. Awakens 2nd Element

The benefits of becoming a Mid-Tier Mage is great. Even the weakest Star Cloud has far more Magic energy than the most powerful Stardust can ever provide the mage. In addition, having a Star Cloud will allow the Mage to gain control of his stars more easily.

It was shown that mages who had just reached mid-tier and higher tiers are in fact not much different from expert mages in their respective lower tier with extra stamina. This is because the level of cultivation and training between breaking into a higher tier and actually deploying a spell from the higher tier in combat is not much different from that of awakening and casting a spell from novice tier (excluding magical equipment). This was shown when Mo Fan (who was still mid tier at the time) easily defeated a new high tier mage that wanted to show off.

This is important as an extremely skilled Mid-Tier Mage can achieve Instant formation of a Star Path. This is crucial in casting Mid-Tier Magic more quickly as a Star Map is created by joining 7 Star Paths into 1, being able to form Star Paths instantaneously means the Mid-Tier Mage can forgo formation of Stars to Star Paths and jump straight to joining the Star Paths into the Star Map. This can sometimes means life and death in fights against the much more powerful warrior level monsters.

In addition, everyone except Mo Fan and a few other rare cases, gets to awaken their 2nd Element. It is to be noted that all Elements' cultivation is independent from each other. Meaning a mage can have their 1st Element be at Mid-Tier Level 3 but his 2nd Element still unable to connect 7 stars together.

Breakthrough becomes significantly harder for Mid-Tier. Very few instance, mages have been able to advance their Star Clouds into Star River without any external help. Even Mo Fan and Mu Ning Xue who are consider prodigal Mages of their generations requires help from a very expensive item called Star River Veins to get their Star Clouds to breakthrough into Star River.

High-Tier Mage
Star River: 343 stars -> 49 Star Paths -> 7 Star Maps -> 1 Constellation -> Cast High Tier Magic. Awakens 3rd Element Just like a Stardust cannot measure up to a Star Cloud in terms of the amount of magic energy, a Star River offers magic energy so much that a Star Cloud cannot compare. In addition, Mo Fan notes that upon reaching High Tier Mage, not just his reflexes and alertness to surroundings has improved, his physical abilities has increased as well. A High Tier Mage benefits even more from magic control, awakening their 3rd Element. At this point, a High Tier Mage can start exploring different styled or ways of using magic to fit their style. As a result, two mages with same Element can fight rather differently. At this point, it is very common to see people with higher Grade Elements and as more people stay at lower tiers all their lives, the same goes for many High Tier Mages.

t was also shown that some high tier mages could create an element sphere. An element sphere is where a mage uses their magic subconsciously to change the concentrations of magic around them in regards to the elements they use. This in turn increases the effectiveness of their magic and decreases the effectiveness of others. But this often requires a soul grade element or similar.

This is why the difference between High-Tier Mages are even wider as a result of the possible vast gap in cultivation between High-Tier Mages. It is entirely possible for a High-Tier mage to be so skilled that they can single-handed take on a dozen or two High Tier Mages and win!

The biggest reason why this is often called Natural limit of Mages is because to achieve Super Tier Mages, it was stated on multiple occasions that it is impossible to breakthrough Star River without external help and they requires priceless Artifacts that can astonish the world to do so or cultivate in unique places. Those unique places are often holy places that is out of bounds to other people.

A Mage can use the extremely rare Star Ocean Vein to greatly increase their chances of raising one High Tier Level 3 element to Super Tier Level 0. However, every mage can only use Star Ocean Vein once in their lifetime. The Star Ocean Vein is so rare that being paid a fraction of a Star Ocean Vein for a super difficult Hunter Mission warrants people guessing that their employer might be a Forbidden Curse Mage.

Although it is still possible to buy entry into Super Tier, that will not make the Mage a real Super Tier Mage. There is a vast difference between a Mage who only know how to cast magic taught in textbooks or by others and those who creates their own Super Tier magic.

Super-Tier Mage
Star Ocean: 2401 Stars -> 343 Star Paths -> 49 Star Maps -> 7 Constellations -> 1 Star Palace -> Cast Super Tier Magic: Awakens 4th Element

The path to become a Super Tier Mage is extremely tedious and rigorous without exception, but the benefits of becoming one is simply so much that it vastly outweighs the difficulties. Not only they can awaken their 4th Element, gain unprecedented skill and control over their Stars. A Super Tier mage was described explicitly as no longer needing to spend half a year to connect 7 stars but can instantly form a Star Path. Upon listening to this, Mo Fan was able to immediately cast a Novice Tier Magic of a newly awakened Element barely 5 minutes after awakening it.

The High Tier's Star River offers its mages abilities to explore new ways to use their magic cannot hope to compare to the possibility offered by a Star Ocean. At higher level of the Super Tier Mage's cultivation, it is a common trend to see the same Super Tier mage have the same level and tier magic take multiple different forms.

A Super Tier Mage's athletic abilities are also describe as comparable to an average Warrior Level Monster or can at least keep up with a Warrior Level monster. This was made very clear when Mo Fan ran down a street with barely any use of magic and was able to keep a Warrior Level monster from catching him.

At this point, it was shown very obviously that the gap between each level is astronomical. Even at same level of 3, two different Super Tier Mages can have a difference as wide as a High Tier level 3 Mage with Novice level 1 Mage.

Every Super Tier Mage is considered worth an army of thousand Mages. However, this only applies to those with experience fighting at Super Tier level with their last Super Tier level combat taking place less than 1 year ago. Many Super Tier Mages' actual combat abilities are not up to standard.

Mo Fan notes both life and actual combat experience is just as crucial for Mages as the power level. After stepping into the Super Tier realm of power, he discovers that there are many Super Tier Mages who stopped being active in combat scenes and choose power play behind scenes. In this case, Mo Fan states he is confident in taking them down especially if they only have 1 element reaching Super Tier. This is not an indication that these Mages are fools or incompetent. They simply choose to have an easier life behind scenes and allow their combat skills and senses to become dull.

It was revealed that completing a Star Palace and casting the basic given Super Tier Magic are just the Entry level of Super Tier Magic. Two Super Tier Mages after experimenting can have two completely different Star Palaces even though they have the same Element and some of the more powerful Super Tier Spells can be more taxing than forming 10 Star Palaces.

However, there are some mages that have transcendental powers at Super Tier. Transcendental powers allow a mage to release Super Tier magic without the use of star palaces, as they release energy directly from their bodies. Most super tier mages only achieve Transcendental powers by absorbing large quantities of individual elements and raising their Super tier elements to level 2 (Mo Fan has transcendental Shadow magic at Super tier level 1). However, each mage has different transcendental power for example, Zhu Meng has a Super Tier Lightning Spear and armor which grants him extraordinary combat abilities both offensively and defensively. It isn't a surprise as he is in charge of safety and is frequently in the front lines dunking out with Monarchs. (A highly skilled Super Tier Mage is stated to need at least 5 to 7 seconds to finish a Star Palace)

It has recently been revealed that the origin of transcendental powers are the mages themselves. Although mages have awakened elements in their spiritual universe, they rely on the elements outside themselves to power the magic. This in turn forces them to follow the rules of magic through the use of star dusts, star maps etc. At high tier, mages start to awaken small amounts of innate element within themselves, which in turn gives the mage subconsciously more control over their magic. At super tier, mages gain more innate element, at which point their magic is modified and tailor made to the mage themselves. When they reach the level of forbidden curse, the mage becomes a near infinite spring of magical energy, which allows them to ignore the rules of the magical elements around them and cast magic as they see fit up to a certain degree.

Forbidden Curse Mage
Star Heavens: tens of thousands of stars

16807 Stars -> 2401 Star Paths -> 343 Star Maps -> 49 Constellations -> 7 Star Palaces -> 1 Star Manifestation.: Awakens 5th element

Forbidden Curse: The Mage needs to do 3 things. Calling the Forbidden Curse down from higher realm. Opening an Abyssal Gate to let the Forbidden Curse come through to the lesser mortal realm. Using Star Universe spells to act as a beacon for the Forbidden Curse to land on the world.

So far, it has been revealed that at least 10 Star manifestations are needed simultaneously to accurately guide down a forbidden curse.

It is revealed by Zhao Jing, a mage who has reached the pinnacle of Super Tier. In order for a mage to gain entry to the gateway of Forbidden Curse, one needs an Essence Stamen of Earth that is brimming with magic power plus an unknown number of other requirements that has not been disclosed.

It has been implied by the Joint Chief of the Chinese military that a specialized core of the earth can also be used to elevate a half forbidden curse mage to full forbidden.

The method of breaking through into half forbidden is much different compared to other breakthroughs. In order to breakthrough, a mage must use all of their 2401 stars to build a bridge to the location of the star heavens, outside of their own spiritual universe, and subsequently walk that bridge.

Also, when a mage breaks through into half forbidden, they awaken a talent. This one however is considered a god given power and other forbidden curse mages use it to consider the potential of one another. Most Forbidden Curse Mages have a separate Title as a form of honor.

Difference between Half and Full Forbidden Curse Mages can be wider than Novice Mages and Super Tier Mages.

Mages who steps into High and Super Tier are known to began developing an origin within themselves. Typically blossoms during Super Tier. Mages whose Magic Origins blossoms are known as Extraordinary Super Tier Mages. But this is nothing compared to Mages whose Magic Origins reaching their Prime at Forbidden Curse Level. This origin is the Forbidden Curse Mages' trump card and the reason why they are able to ignore all standard rules of magic. Hence the Magic Origins are sometimes call Mastery of Control. Being able to wield magic with such control that is impossible for any lesser mages to understand.

It was stated that a Half Forbidden Curse Mage can ignore the rules of Star paths, Star Maps, Constellation and Star Palaces to wield Magic power of 5 different Elements at the same time are much stronger than super tier mages. As it has been shown on multiple occasions that entire mobs of super tier mages couldn't deal much damage to supreme monarchs and even the best super tier mages have difficulty against great monarchs, while on separate occasions, the half forbidden curse mage Wentai managed to get within an inch of a supreme monarchs heart while another half forbidden curse mage managed to defeat a supreme monarch at the cost of her life.

It has been explicitly stated by a Forbidden Curse Mage that on average they need 10 Mages to beat an equivalent level monster. Albeit Minion needs 10 Novices, Warriors needs 10 Mid-Tier, Commander needs 10 High Tier, Monarchs needs 10 Super Tier and Emperors needs 10 Forbidden Curse Mages to contend with. Half Forbidden Curse Mages are mages who has stepped into the realm of Forbidden Curse but has not been able to cast a Forbidden Curse. Not all Forbidden Curse Mages can cast a Forbidden Curse on their own. Su Lu had hundreds of Super Tier Mages and recently revealed a Forbidden Curse Mage to help him complete his Forbidden Curse to capture the Black Dragon and in another situation, over 3,000 additional mages were required to properly guide down a curse. But in addition to this, other sources of energy are required, mainly in the form of elemental diamonds to provide the energy necessary for the initial connection to the source of the curse. It has been revealed that Half and Full Forbidden Curse Mages can fire Super Tier Magic without following the standard rules. However, most of them had to follow Magic Rules to use Forbidden Curse Level magic by combining at least 7 Star Palaces into a Star Manifestation or as translated in Wiki as Star Universe. (At least a total of 16807 stars) It was revealed by the Author while it is possible to reach the point where the Forbidden Curse Mage can create a Star Universe without following the magic rules, less than 5 Mages in history of mankind has succeeded. A Magic created from Star Universe shows unprecedented power evident when Mo Fan's Devil Element had been able to overwhelm Magic at a Full Tier higher than him, Mo Fan can only gain an edge over a Forbidden Curse Mage's Star Universe with Devil Element and Combination Magic. A Forbidden Curse requires at least 10 Star Universes to act as guiding Beacons for the Curse to descend. In recent Chapters it was revealed that while Forbidden Curse Magic has unparalleled immediate destructive power or special effect. This resulted in the formation of the International Convention of Forbidden Curses. Mages who have been publicly acknowledged as having achieved Forbidden Curse Level are under extremely strict supervision. It is stated that all known Forbidden Curse Mages are not only under strict supervision 24/7, for their "protection" and their families have to move into allocated places and come under the same kind of "protect". Furthermore they must always this disclose their location to the appropriate authorities and always keep them informed of their travel plans. Furthermore, all Forbidden Curse mages aren't allowed to discuss or disclose the nature of Forbidden Curses except with other Full Forbidden Curse mages.

This is because once a Forbidden Curse Magic has been cast, it will cause all traces of life to vanish from an extremely wide area and won't be able to sustain natural life for decades. However, there is in fact no official range of a Forbidden Curse, one can have a 12 nautical mile radius while in another case, as a city was shown to suffer a total of 4 forbidden curses plus numerous attacks from an emperor but didn't loose its ability to maintain life due to proper measures being taken. According to Nine Spectral Empress, one of the 8 Strongest Supreme Monarch in China and the only Undead who retained all of her human intelligence, states that even Undeads are disgusted by a place that was caught by a Forbidden Curse's blast. Again, this is not the case for all Forbidden Curses.

It is to be noted that though all Mages who achieved Forbidden Curse Level are considered gods among humans, there are astronomical gap in power and capabilities between Forbidden Curse Mages.

One example is an Ice Forbidden Curse Mage backed by thousands of Super Tier Mages couldn't do anything to an Emperor Level monster while the Emperor monster was in extreme disadvantageous situation (He was an Undead standing in holy grounds imbued with beyond Super Tier level Undead killing Holy Aura magic which severely hinders his abilities while damaging the monster)

The said Ice Forbidden Curse Mage couldn't stop the Emperor monster from slaughtering Super Tier Mages, not only that, he had his strongest Ice magic shattered in an instant by the Emperor, the Mage himself was captured and kept levitating beside the Emperor monster like a trophy as a show of power and a form of psychological warfare.

Yet another Forbidden Curse Mage was able to provide a far more decent challenge to the same Emperor monster while covering the retreat of the demoralized army of Super Tier Mages.

The same applies to Half Forbidden Curse mages, where one half forbidden curse mage was killed by a relatively weak supreme monarch and another was able to injure and force the strongest Supreme Monarch seen up till that point to retreat with just 2 other Half Forbidden Curse Mages supporting him

Furthermore, forbidden cursed magic appears to have gravitational force barrier that can trap all creatures and matter in a certain area in order to prevent enemies escaping from it, the gravitational pull also appears to be large enough to pull almost all super tier mage and monarch.In addition, the gravitational affected area seems to be blurred,unclear like it is another dimension.

Elemental Spirits
The quickest and most efficient way to raise the power of existing magic is to upgrade your Element's Grade by absorbing corresponding Elemental Spirits into your Magic Element.

It was explained by Tang Yue during an early arc that sometimes Elemental Spirits maybe born in the world. These spirits are very rare and beneficial to Mages as absorbing matching Spirits to their Magic Element can greatly enhance the magic potency of the mage's element. (Aka a Mage with Fire Element absorbing a Fire Elemental Spirit).

Magic Element was then divided into 4 Types. Mortal, Spirit, Soul and Heaven Types. (Misconceptions: 凡,灵,魂,天种 Due to the word 种, it is easy to misinterpret the whole thing as Seed and It isn't a big deal but please bear in mind calling it seed is wrong and for a Chinese it is as glaringly wrong as telling them 1+2x3 = 9).

Mortal Grade Element
This is the base form of everyone's Elements. They have no increase in power. On a very rare occasion where a Super Tier Mage has a very good foundation in their magic cultivation and good luck, their newly awakened Element will receive  A dded Effects. Unlike Potency increase, this added effect can be just a bonus to spells cast from this element. Normally you can only obtain added Effect by upgrading your Element grade to Spirit, Soul and Heaven Grade.

With exception to Natural born Spirit Element and stronger instances of the talent, everyone else including Mo Fan needs to absorb Elemental Spirits into their corresponding Magic element to become stronger. The Elemental Spirits have been divided into 3 different Classes, Spirit, Soul and Heaven

Spirit Grade Element
With exception of Mu Ning Xue, everyone else so far have to spend a lot of money or risk their lives to obtain an elemental spirit or item containing a spirit of the Spirit Grade/Type to raise their Element to Spirit Grade. The benefits of Spirit grade is vast and can make a Mid-Tier Mage almost invincible in their level. A Spirit Grade Element means spells cast from this Element gains a 2~3.99 times increase in potency. They will gain added effects to their Element such as increase area of effect of the blue flame on Fire Element or an increase in projectile count for lightning element etc. These additional effects have shown to persist even when combated with another spirit species. Spirit species also offer a large amount of protection from damage from the same element, this was shown when Mo fan suffered a flame attack, that was known to take out entire scores of monsters, only to suffer burns, the spirit species also allowed him to survive being drowned in lava. Once a Mage absorbs a Spirit Grade Elemental Spirit, their Element will be known as Spirit Type.

Soul Grade Element
A Soul grade Element is much more potent than a spirit grade, their increased potency usually ranges from 4~6.99 times. In addition, it is common for a Soul Grade Element to have an added Effect from the spells cast from this Element. It was implied that when one possess a Spirit Grade and Soul Grade Elemental Spirit in their Element, they can stack their  Added Effects. This means it is possible for a Mage with Soul Grade Element to cast spells with 4 to 6 times increase power and have 2 additional effects attached to them. Soul Grade Elements can also benefit from Domain effect. Which is to bring the specific element in the surrounding under the Mage's control. This will allow the mage to cast spells of that particular element at higher speed and with greater power. But this also weakens the concentration of other elements present, weakening all other elements including the other elements available to the wielder. But it is possible for multiple domains to be present at one locations, all the domain elements will be weaker but still stronger compared to normal soul grade elements. If more than 1 mage uses domain abilities in the same element(s), the bonus power bonus will only go to the stronger mage.

Domain abilities work by creating a field of increased elemental concentration of the element of the soul species while decreasing the concentration of other traditional elements. For soul cores this can yield up to a 50% in increased power and decrease the power of other elemental magic by up to 20%. However Mu ning xue and the rain master are an exception, since they have natural souls species that evolved from natural spirit species, their elemental domains can suppress any other domain of the same element and can weaken other elemental magic by up to 40%.

Once a Mage absorbs a Soul Grade Elemental Spirit, their Element will be called Soul Type Element.

Heaven Grade Element
Heaven Grade is exceptionally rare simply because of the degree of purity required in the special spirit or item. Every Spirit or Soul Elements bound to have other elements mixed into it. For example, there might be fire inside Lightning Spirit or Soul, Wind inside Ice spirit because there is virtually no such thing as a place with pure element. It's power is still a mystery but Mo Fan states that at Super Tier where everyone has at least 1 or 2 Soul Grade Elements, obtaining a Heaven Grade Element for a new Super Tier Mage like him will make him invincible when facing any other Super Tier Mages who has not reached Super Tier level 3 in all their Elements. It was recently stated that a Heaven Grade Element is several times stronger than Soul Grade, putting it likely between 3 to 5 times stronger than Soul Grade, which is between 12 to 30 times stronger than Mortal Grade. It was explicitly stated by the author that even with the weakest Heaven Grade, the increase in power alone would be sufficient for a Mid-Tier Heaven Grade to overcome a High-Tier Soul Grade Mage or a High Tier Heaven Grade to overcome a Super Tier Soul Grade. It has been revealed recently that Heavenly Spirits provides at least a boost of 10 times to base power.

Heaven Grade Element possess a higher level kind of Domain ability called Forbidden Domain Rule. This will grant the mage more than just increased control and power over the element. One example was given as "Forbidden Domain Rule: Ban formation of Star Palaces" This will effectively render the Mage's opponents incapable of using Super Tier Magic and confirms that with the necessary tools and Domain Rules, a Mid or High Tier Mage with Heaven Grade Element can defeat a fully maxed out Super Tier Mage.

Once a mage absorbs a Heaven Class Spirit, their Element will be considered Heaven Type Element with exception for Yu Shishi, the Moth Girl who has the ability to use multiple Soul Type Spirits to attempt to create a Heaven Type Spirit for Mo Fan.

In the latest chapters, it has been revealed that the Magic Governments are going to reveal new Element Grade categorization by dividing every Grade from Spirit onward into multiple sub-grades. In addition to the Mortal, Spirit, Soul and Heaven Grades there will be Fake, Demi, Small and Large. Meaning there will be

Fake Spirit, Demi/lesser Spirit, Small Spirit and Large Spirit Grade.

Fake Soul, Demi/lesser Soul, Small Soul and Large Soul Grade

Fake Heaven, Demi/lesser Heaven, Small Heaven and Large Heaven Grade