John's quick divine sense inspection of Russell's cultivation revealed him to be at the Half-Step Core Formation Realm. Although not an official realm, the half-step realm was when a cultivator was in the middle of breaking through to the next realm, but had not broken through all the way.
In Russell's case, his dantian was beginning to solidify from a liquid to a solid Core, but his comprehensions towards the Core Formation realm were just slightly lacking. After this fight however, Russell would most likely break through to the Core Formation Realm.
Those in the half step realm were not as strong as those who had completely broken through to the next realm, but were also much stronger than late stage cultivators in the same realm. In this particular case, Russell was much stronger than a Late Qi Condensation cultivator.
'I thought this might be an easy fight with my recent break through, but it seems like Russell's gone and made that quite difficult.'
