Cultivation might seem like a luxurious term to any human, especially at such an early stage as we have now.
Compared to other races, humans had long forgotten the heritage of cultivation. I once read through the records that the heritage of cultivation ceased to exist at some point in ancient human history.
But prior to that, talking about a few thousand years before the time of the apocalypse, it was rumoured that humans knew cultivation in many ancient civilisations across the planet.
Some even linked these with the gods we currently had for the human race. After many attempts to revive this heritage, few people managed to discover a secret way to start long forgotten human cultivation.
But to be honest, the records were void of anything talking about how to cultivate. Also the records of the old man and the stories he told me before were all empty of such info.