Terms: Yes, these are all mostly capitalized.

Class: The measure of an individual's talent, greater talent typically means faster cultivation speed, greater efficiency with elemental abilities, and fewer/weaker bottlenecks. Is the best measure of how high one can rise. Unfortunately can not be measured directly, Instead can be inferred by elemental affinities, Bloodline Abilities and the like. Has a greater bearing on a given cultivator's actual strength than their Level. It is easier to raise your Level or even Tier with a higher Class, as in the phrase 'twice the results with half the effort', to such a degree that it is THE MOST important factor when choosing a disciple.

elemental affinity: Not to be confused with element. A component of Class. Affects 2 aspects mainly: efficiency when using an ability tied to a particular elemental (earth/ice/light etc.), as well as natural talent when learning/training/cultivating with that elemental. Also slightly increases resistance to damage caused by certain elementals.

the 5 (chinese) element(al)s: The 5 main elements, a staple in many cultivation stories. The diagram is a 5 pointed star made up of direction arrows, with a circle of 5 more direction arrows around that, all pointing clockwise. In order it goes water, wood, fire, earth, metal. Using the circle part of the diagram each of these 5 enhance the next one in the list. While using the star part, each suppresses the one following that. So metal enhances water and suppresses wood, then water enhances wood and suppresses fire etc. There will also be minor elementals which will likely follow something like p*kem*n logic (p*kem*n has logic?)

Tier: Large scale division in cultivation strength, each Tier is made up of 9 Levels. The lowest Tier is one, as specifying Tier zero would simply waste time. Anything lower is made up of 'nobodies', commonly referred to as commoners. I could give names to each Tier, eg. Houtian, Saint, Martial god, etc., But as evidenced by modern society most people wouldn't use such grandiose language anyways. *More importantly it can get confusing with so many terms to remember, especially how with some novels, up to 4 consecutive Tiers are each given a distinct name that all translate into english interchangeably with each other* Each higher Tier has an exponentially higher life expectancy, with every 3 Tiers multiplying it by 10.

Level: Mid scale division in cultivation, each Level is made up of several Stages, usually 4 but can be up to 7 Stages, depending on cultivation technique.

Stage: Small scale division in cultivation. To compare with schooling, Tier refers to several grades together: elementary, middle, high, college then grad school. Then Level is to each of the semesters for that school and Stage for the months in the semester. By contrast Class is more about your GPA.

Grade: The measure of quality for equipment, for a weapon, armor, tool etc. . This is similar to a cultivator's Class. The materials/recipe used determine its Tier, how well it is crafted determines its Grade. For a consumable like a medicinal pill this refers to its potency as compared to others of the same. A high Grade, Tier 1 pill might be as expensive or more, compared to a similar low Grade, Tier 2 pill. For a consumable like a slab of steak or a fruit, this refers both to deliciousness and benefits including, but not limited to boosting/restoring Qi, healing effects and rarely, improving one's elemental affinity or even Class. Lastly, for crafting materials, such that Grade 2 ores and/or ingredients are necessary for Tier 2 items, Grade 3 ores and other ingredients for Tier 3 items and so on.

Purity: As the name suggests, for consumable/ingredient items only, comparable to crossing a parts-per-million rating with the richter scale, first using logarithms (power-of-ten) then doubling the result, such that no more than 10% impurity is a Purity 2 rating, 1% impurity is a Purity 4 rating, 0.1% impurity is a Purity 6 rating, and so on, with odd numbers just over 3X the next higher even rating. A Purity of 1 is considered garbage, while rating zero is just considered poison. Said impurity of course being a type of poison against cultivating.

Unique Ability: Somewhat similar to a Bloodline ability except 1. it is inherent to the individual's soul. 2. it can not be inherited/learned/stolen or in any way taken or used by another. 3. it is very rare. very, very rare. Some Unique Abilities allow you to fight against someone one Tier higher than yourself, but it's unheard of to fight 2 Tiers higher. All of MC's abilities discussed in early chapters are this type.

Unique Physique: somewhere in-between Bloodline ability and Unique ability in usefulness and rarity. Can not be inherited, but can be stolen (usually by devil sects, but sometimes unscrupulous individuals even in a righteous sect). Usually random, but sometimes merely having a high Class soul/Bloodline can cause such a Physique to be born.

Lightning Tribulation: For any cultivator, human or Beast, to increase their Tier past each multiple of 3, they must 'defy the heavens' and thus recieve punishment. In this case, being struck repeatedly by several rounds of lightning bolts, ever-increasing in both number and power. Those who survive this Tribulation become stronger for it, in proportion to how difficult it was. Difficulty can increase based on high Class or plenty of bad karma (evil deeds).

Beast: A Beast (capitalized) is different from a beast (lower-case), is different from an animal. Animal refers to any random creature, eg. bunny, robin, pony. A beast refers to a dangerous animal, but one which does not yet cultivate, eg. gator, boar, tiger, dire wolf. A Beast is any animal or beast which learned to cultive and has gained a Beast core, and thus a Level, some of which have gained elemental powers, eg. Frost Wolf, Wind Horse, Thunder Hare. Beasts can use mindspeak (telepathy) after reaching Tier 1.

beastman: after Lightning Tribulation a Beast can freely shapechange to take human/humanoid form. These individuals are usually referred to as beastmen. But sometimes will marry humans (or just have kids together) due to the relative ease a human has in cultivating compared to an ordinary Beast and thus greater population within higher Tiers. And their children will inherit some of their nature, the first generation (and perhaps several after) being beastkin, and each of these successive generations (even after no longer being beastkin) has a chance to have some ability inherent to their ancestor Beast within their Bloodline. NOTE: if 2 beastmen have a child, it will be born as another beastman.

beastkin: A descendant of human and beastman. Cannot shapechange like their ancestor. Humanoid with some physical traits to match their Beast ancestor: ears+eyes+tail at minimum, can be more. Rarer than you'd think for a beastkin-type novel, mainly due to difficulty in training a Beast up in the first place, but also due to fear/jealousy from the vanilla humans. Typically higher Class than their peers, due to Bloodline so there's a positive trade. Also may have Bloodline Ability, which can be passed down to their further, full human descendants.

Bloodline Ability: In some cases the clan can create a battle technique that at least partially transforms the body into that Beast (dragonscales/wings/huge size, etc.). In others, they can merely use a type of skill/attack, but this can be practically anything.

Pets: Some cultivators can forge pacts with Beasts for mutual benefit, others force pacts to gain slaves. Some even specialize in such techniques. Usually to gain a fighting partner, some for a mount/flying mount, some even for labor.

Powers: Particularly influential organizations, including but not limited to kingdoms, sects, guilds and companies. Which are rated both by the highest Tier of their members, and given a number of Stars based on how many members are at this highest Tier. 1 Star: up to 3. 2 Stars: 4-10. 3 Stars: 11-30. 4 Stars: 31-100. 5 Stars: 101-300. And so on. Though reaching the next higher Tier is much more likely, and prestigious, than passing 5 Stars.

(more will be added as necessary)