Huang Lu was happily munching on his pork bun when he felt the heavenly Qi accumulate. It's as if it just crossed a finish line, and he felt power surge through his body. Now, he was in the 2nd step of the 2nd realm. More power!

[You've gathered 2,096 heavenly Qi and crossed the 1,800 threshold! You are now 2nd step of the 2nd realm]

[You've received 35 Heavenly Coins]

Oh. What a weird number, why 35? Maybe because the heavenly spirits gave their coins in denominations of 5? But he had only seen 50 coins max so far. Could they even exceed that? Anyway, after the recent incidents with the Wild Blood Sect, he decided it was probably a good idea to learn a bit more about cultivators.

"Hey, shop uncle, tell me about cultivators."

"I'm just a shop uncle. Why would I know shit about cultivators? All I care about is not to mess with them."

Huang Lu frowned. That was true. Why would the regular folk even know about the intricacies of cultivators if they were not one. Not just that, it's not as if cultivators have a friendly relationship with commoners and frequently exchange discourse. If he wanted to know about cultivators, he should ask an expert.

But he didn't know anyone. Maybe except the Town Lord, who was supposedly in the 6th realm. He went and talked to some guards of the Town Lords. The guards of the Town Lord were usually cultivators, though he didn't know how strong.

"Hey you. You're the dude that pinned Lady Qian down." The guards seemed happy to see him. "She was getting too haughty anyway, she deserved the beating."

The other guard ribbed the guy. "I've never heard you say that. All this while you said she's a genius and so forth."

"Eh."

Huang Lu smiled and offered a pork bun. "Sirs, I have some questions, do you mind if I asked?"

"Sure sure. I'm more than happy to have some of Bao auntie's buns."

It's mostly simple. Most of the world's soldiers at in the 1st realm, and if someone was in a 2nd realm, they would get promoted to a captain. Generals were usually 4th realm. This, of course, if a sect member leaves the sect to work for the empire or the kingdom, or was trained in the kingdom's official military cultivation methods.

The same goes for Sects. In smaller local sects like the Wild Blood Sect, outer disciples were usually in the 1st realm, and once they made it to 2nd realm, they would get promoted to inner disciple. Elders were usually at the peak of the 3rd realm, and the sect leader of the Wild Blood Sect was in the 5th realm. The Town Lord, was a 6th realm cultivator, and was formerly from the Black Stick Sect.

The Prince, similarly, was apparently already in the 5th realm. Despite the title as a prince, he's apparently already 300 years old. His father, the King, had lived for 1,800 years and was well in the peak of the 7th realm. Age was a wonky thing when someone was a cultivator at that level of power. It's probably really weird to live so old where people who look old are actually younger than you, and gorgeous jade beauties are probably older than actual mortal grandmas.

He also learned, from the guards, that each realm ascension or breakthrough came with a bodily renewal, which was way they all looked younger.

The math was quite simple. Each ascension reduced physical age and appearance, but do not reverse the benefits of adulthood. Essentially the youngest they can appear was when they are in their 18s to 20s. Each ascension also slows down aging. The longer one individual stays in a particular realm, the older he appears, since the renewal happened only during the ascension. Aging, apparently, stopped entirely once someone reached the 6th realm.

That was entirely gibberish that Huang Lu didn't understand. All he knew was, cultivators could appear like anyone and anything and whatever fuck the heavens wanted the cultivators to look like, and if he reached the 6th realm he won't ever get old. Unless if he was already old then he would look the way he looked then.

"You're already in the 2nd realm. If you join the guards, you'll get a captain position immediately."

"But why would I join the guards?"

"You get state sponsored housing, all you do is lounge about and wait for shit to happen.... You can quit too, though the state tries to make it hard for you to quit." The guard laughed.

"Huh."

"You might die, of course, if the sects start fighting or someone wants to do stupid shit. And yknow, if your full of justice and doing the right thing, the guard's pretty fucking corrupt." The guards laughed. "We can even get some benefits and cheaper prices at you-know-where."

Huang Lu had no idea. "Where?"

"The brothels, stupid. Some girls there serve only soldiers."

"Seriously?" He was aware of the building that everyone said there were ladies providing special services, but he was too much of a broke ass to ever visit.

"Yeah! Pretty sure the town lord subsidies the brothels to keep us soldiers happy." The guards laughed.

Huang Lu realised this entire world was fucked. Still, what should he do now? He may be a cultivator, but strangely, he felt aimless.

That night he prayed to the Heavenly Spirits again, and attempted to seek their guidance.