All sentient creatures have stable souls.
stable enough to trigger thoughts.
all intelligent creatures have thoughts
- numerous enough to have a true consciousness
But souls are so stable yet equally as weak to outside forces
that's because it's slumbering.
a soul in a mortal's life ,have no need for baing awake other than reducing it's life span.
because an awakened soul would of course be a slight pressure on the body even though it is also of the same origin.
so like many potential strengths of the physical body souls are always slumbering.
But-
cultivators are different
why?
because they are constantly bringing in energy from outside their body into their depth
their souls would breakdown if it's not awake
--so almost all if not all
cultivators start by waking up their souls
there are three stages of awakening
partial -
where the soul stays awake when bringing energy from outside
constant -
soul stays awake even when the body is asleep
( a very uncomfortable and awkward state that'll last 2-3 days on average to pass)
seamless-
awake when the body is awake , and awake when the body is asleep if need be.(in cases where body is asleep but energy is being injested)
awakening a soul isn't hard
it just needs something of a trigger- a catalyst
in Lin Ming's case ; Elle
and the 3 stages of soul awakening is a work of time to complete.
Lin Ming's soul awakened 3 seconds after he was born so his soul and body had perfect synergy like most other geniuses of major clans.
And even though awakening a soul doesn't make someone stronger but they do make their senses a bit sharper.
and synergy of perfection made it more than just a bit.
even though not animalistic levels for humans.
that is the first step of cultivation--
Awakening Realm
Then--
after that ;they start accumumating the energy of the divine tree to their bodies through special accumulation methods to their center of gravity.
for a human-
just an inch below their naval
or simply called a 'Depth'
they accumulate until it reaches a certain saturation ;and starts to spread the energy throughout their bodies; leaving more space in the previously full 'Depth' to accumulate more ;
and do the same repeatedly until the body and 'Depth' are equally full
and due to having an awakened soul; energy that had entered the depth would never leave your body without permission
and this process was the second step of cultivation--
The cycles of Body forming.
The more stronger the body of an individual; the more cycles they'll have.
For example the weakest of fleshy beasts like rabbits will have 1 cycle of revolutions while an above average human could do 4-6 cycles but whatever their strength 9 was like an absolute limit due to their souls being mere mortal ones as they couldn't handle such energy anymore.
But Lin Ming was different!!
He had his Elle !!
He literally had two souls !
so he took the risk of exploding and secretle completed his 10th cycle even while surrounded by the Lin clan sweeping gazes.
His first steps of rebellion or rather fight for freedom.
and that was the limit even for him.
and unlike the awakening Realm,
each cycles increased a creature's strength based on the accumulation methods they used
and there were only two general methods agreed upon equally by every top clans
and they were the
Lightness method and the Heaviness method;
One making them highly fast yet not so strong but still strong while the other made the direct opposite
and he had practiced the lightness method making him as fast as ten cheetas combined.
yet almost having the strength of a 9 cycle heaviness Methodist due to the extreme tenth cycle.
and now that one had a Real cultivator's body
it was time to take in all their elements.
for example an ordinary fish if cultivated will mostly only have a water element or probably an extra wind one rarely.
but most humans had the four Basic elements if they were not particularly blessed in a certain special element or crippled in certain areas.
And Lin Ming especially had All possible elements under the vast heavens because he had the All elemental fairy as his Spirit Fairy.
and this was his Hardest roadblock in cultivation as of yet.
having stayed in the easiest foundation realm as the inner sect desciples says.