For many cultivators who had begun cultivating way before everyone else did, they believed that they should have been given a status far above ordinary people. In many places, the Awakened even saw themselves as some kind of deity.
Since they were supposedly gods, they naturally could not be put on the same as ordinary people. Many cultivators were even secretly advocating to put aside national and racial prejudices and form a united force.
They wanted to replace the present secular government with a government of cultivators.
In other words, the government and civilians would have no longer been divided by the original set of classes. Instead, different classes would be divided according to cultivators and civilians.
