A Regressor’s Tale of Cultivation

Author's Q&A (2)

Q: What happens if someone with heavenly spiritual roots reaches Five Energies Converging to the Origin?

A: It will be revealed in a few chapters, but it turns their spiritual roots into mixed spiritual roots. Of course, it’s possible to avoid that by researching special methods to filter out spiritual energy, but nearly no cultivator has researched the matter. At least, that’s what I decided for my setting.

Q: Why did Young-hoon abandon Seo Eun-hyun in the first life when he was living miserably after his soap business failed?

A: By the time Seo Eun-hyun was selling soap, Young-hoon was dead.

Q: Is it possible for Young-hoon to ascend within his lifespan?

A: That’s a spoiler… In my initial idea he was beyond what my readers were imagining, but that felt like I was hyping Young-hoon up too much so I am wondering if I should go with my initial idea or…

Q: Why do cultivators of the Cheungmun Clan use steroids when Azure Heaven Creation Sect cultivators are natty?

A: That’s why they were left behind in the lower world.

Q: There will be mecha General Seo rocket punch, right?

A: There will also be dino form.

Q: At this point in the story, “three great figures of Qi Building” seem kind of laughable. Was this meant to be a mocking title before the mass ascension? Or were they respected because it’s like they were running a marathon without legs?

A: The three great figures of Qi Building is not a mocking title, but refers to those with great expertise in their fields despite being in Qi Building. I think this is a misunderstanding due to lack of explanation in the novel. They are each beings that reached great understanding in their respective fields of alchemy, artifact refining, and cultivation method. Elixirs made by Makli Yun-ryeon and artifacts made by Gongmyo Cheon-saek were often bought by those in Core Formation and Nascent Soul realms. Cheungmun Ryeong also had a lot of important guests for his knowledge of cultivation techniques. The only reason they were not brought for ascension was because of their age. If they were all 50 years younger, they would have been squeezed in for ascension.

Q: Yang Su-Jin stated that all Enders are fated to visit Shattered Heaven Peak, but didn’t Kim Yeon die before visiting the place in Eun-hyun’s previous life?

A: Attraction of fate is not absolute. If Kim Yeon and Seo Eun-hyun were strong enough to live their fate, they would have reached Shattered Heaven Peak eventually. But it is possible to die before living out one’s fate.

Q: Are there any plans for the centipede or the fox to gain human form? I just need a yes or no…

A: I already had plans for the centipede to gain human form, and the fox was never going to show up again after being beat up with Formless Sword. However, the previous Q&A showed that there were fans of the fox and the centipede and I decided to give the fox a human form after some thought… But it might be different from what you are imagining.

Q: Have you decided anything about Seo Eun-hyun’s parents or other family? Or is this a spoiler?

A: I have, and this will come up when Eun-hyun reaches Nascent Soul. But Eun-hyun’s parents are just part of his background and not very important in the story.

Q: I have questions about the size of the realms. What is the size of the Head Realm compared to Earth? There were many arguments among the readerbase about how Bright Cold Realm might compare to Jupiter in terms of size, so how big is it? Also, I have a question about Spiritual Roots. Are there many other roots that are not part of the 5 elements such as the Ghostly Yin Transforming Immortal Root? Do you have an example?

A: The Head Realm is about the size of Mars. Bright Cold Realm is about the size of the Milky Way Galaxy. I’m not being weird here, this is just xianxia norms. There used to be a lot of roots like that, but the vast majority disappeared due to spoiler reasons, only leaving the spiritual roots related to the five elements.

Q: Three great sects of the Head Realm are Golden Divine Heavenly Thunder, Azure Heaven Creation, and Black Ghost Valley, right? But Azure Heaven Creation Sect feels like it is at best a sect that has mere 2000 years(...) of history that relies on Asure Tiger Saint, so how was it able to grow so much more powerful than other sects with more history? Was it very lucky???

A: Other sects do not train their disciples by shoving into lava and beating them up, but safely feed them elixirs. This is why Azure Heaven Creation was able to catch up.

Q: Seo Eun-hyun seems like he was incompetent back on Earth, so how did he do such a good job as the chief strategist of the Wulin Alliance? Did he just try very hard?

A: Seo Eun-hyun might seem like someone incompetent from what has been shown, but he only made a lot of mistakes when he first joined the company and usually did not make the same mistake again. If he spilled coffee repeatedly, even Oh Hyun-seok would not have been able to stand it.

Q: I don’t know about xianxia too much, but what’s the difference between what the MC is training and what martial artists do to train their body? Is it the difference between using spiritual energy and internal energy? Also, now that Eun-hyun is in the Middle Realm, will he ever visit the Minor Realm? Will there be other savepoints?

A: The difference between body refining method and what martial artists are doing in RToC is that martial artists are expressing and training the potential that is within the human body, and body refining cultivators use the heaven and earth spiritual energy to modify the human body. There are more stories to tell about the Minor Realm even outside of the Head Realm such as the Astral Realm, so we will see more than you expect. Savepoint stuff is spoilers.

Q: Since you draw inspiration from Reincarnated Swordmaster, I wanted to ask if True Immortals at the top can become as strong as Outer Gods of RS?

A: While RToC has influences from RS, the true immortals of RToC do not draw inspiration from RS. Just comparing power, the most powerful true immortals are comparable to the RS Outer Gods.

Q: What’s Buk Hyang-hwa’s concept if she ascends? Giant robots? Ironman?

A: Napoleon Bonaparte

Q: I’ve heard that Bright Cold Realm and Blood Yin Realm are the strongest Middle Realms from other readers. Is this official?

A: Both of them are special realms with a lot of relation to the true immortals. However, it’s not quite right to call them the strongest, just special.

Q: Why is Cheungmun Ryeong at the first constellation of Qi Building when Core Formation and Nascent Soul cultivators come to him for his advice on Understanding before Breakthrough? Is his talent at Seo Eun-hyun level?

A: He was born with weak spiritual meridians. More specifically, he was so weak that he was fated to die in the womb, but he miraculously survived his birth.

Q: It seems like there are so few Star Shattering and Sacred Vessel cultivators in the Middle Realms, so I was wondering if Entering Nirvana is a realm that you can actually reach in the Middle Realms. Is it like the Tribulation Transcendence Stage of A Record of a Mortal’s Journey to Immortality, where you can immediately reach True Immortality?

A: While it is a special stage, it is not like the Tribulation Transcendence Stage, which only exists in technicality. Specifics are spoilers.

Q: I love you author, I hope you live a long and healthy life. Will we see stuff like Obsidian memory?

A: I love you too, readers. Obsidian was a mechanism that I did not like while reading Reincarnated Swordmaster, so it will probably not appear, and only very close to the end of the story if it does appear.

BlueMangoAde’s Note: Obsidian memory refers to a technique in Reincarnated Swordmaster that allowed the transference of others’ memory across time loops.

Q: It took Kim Yeon 10 years to reach Nascent Soul, but Oh Hyun-seok is still at the later stage of Core Formation. Is there a difference between talents among Enders? I was wondering if the Enders taken by the Heavenly Beings later have higher potential.

A: Most things related to Enders are spoilers. However, the difference between Kim Yeon and Oh Hyun-seok comes from the fact that Kim Yeon’s Four-Axis level consciousness gave her an advantage at reaching Nascent Soul and that the Mad Lord’s consciousness compression techniques allowed her to train faster, which was very effective for her.

Q: Do you like kimchi-jjigae or doenjang-jjigae more?

A: Doenjang-jjigae

Q: Will going back to a Minor Realm create a new savepoint? Will we visit other Middle Realms? Is Seo Eun-hyun a virgin?

A: We will visit other Middle Realms. The condition that changes savepoint is a spoiler. As for whether Seo Eun-hyun is a virgin… I will stay silent for Seo Eun-Hyeon’s dignity.

Q: Seo Eun-hyun was romantically as dense as he is back on Earth, right?

A: Yes.

Q: Will Kim Young-hoon and the fox be a couple?

A: lmao

Q: Is there a reason Cheongmun Ryeong did not get trained by Azure Tiger Saint? I think he could totally crush Yuan Li if he did. Or receive elixirs to become more healthier?

A: Cheongmun Ryeon might kill himself if he was trained by the Azure Tiger Saint…

Q: How many chapters do you expect?

A: I am aiming for 700, but I am not sure. There might be more or less.

Q: In the recent chapter, Seo Eun-Hyeon was able to cultivate quite fast despite only having reached early Core Formation in his past lives. Is this because of the abundance of heaven and earth spiritual energy in the middle realm?

A: The plenty of energy and because his experience of being Four-Axis stage General Seo is not completely trash. However, Nascent Soul and beyond cannot be passed so easily with experience of wielding external items.

Q: I was disappointed that growth beyond the Deity Transformation stage in A Record of a Mortal’s Journey to Immortality was just numerical. Will there be qualitative growth in the Middle Boundary stages in this novel?

A: Nascent soul is the beginning of qualitative growth.

A: Were all the relationships with the colleagues good? Will there be trouble with Kang Min-hee and Jeon Myeong-hoon?

Q: It’s as it has been shown in this work. Young-hoon was nice but distant. Hyun-seok took good care of Eun-hyun. Kim Yeon had a crush on him. Jeon Myeong-hoon obviously bullied him… I will leave the rest for the joy of speculation.

Q: It was stated that everybody in the company knew Kim Yeon had a crush on Seo Eun-Hyun. What did the other five think of this?

A: Kim Young-hoon - Ugh, you dense bastard.

Oh Hyun-seok - Ugh, you dense bastard. But you will accept it some day, right?

Kang Min-hee - Ugh, you retarded bastard.

Oh Hye-seo - Ugh, you dense bastard.

Jeon Myeong-hoon - Ugh, you retarded bastard.

Q: Is Kim Yeon beautiful? I am curious you did not describe her looks much.

A: Her heart for Eun-hyeon is very beautiful.

BlueMangoAde’s note: Some Korean readers used this answer to meme that Kim Yeon is ugly. (Because the answer seemed like refusing to describe how she physically looks.) Tremendous later clarified that they were subtly hinting that her breasts are big (thus, beautiful heart).

Q: 1. Is there a being like the Martial Arts God of Reincarnated Swordmaster? 2. Can you attain eternal life by reaching the equivalent of the Great Boundary with martial arts?

A: 1. Not sure what to say… There is something, but I’m not sure if I should call it Martial Arts God. 2. Theoretically possible.

Q: How big was Seo Eun-hyeon’s company? Was it small?

A: It was a mid-sized company.

Q: RToC lacks description for how characters look, so I am having a hard time imagining them. I think the reason there are a lot of fans for the centipede and the fox is because it’s easy to imagine what they will look like as humans, intuitively.

A: Umm… To tell the truth, I dislike describing what characters look like. I think their true nature matters more than what they look like. I will think about adding character descriptions.

Q: Is Heart Path Method martial arts?

A: There will be an explanation later. Also, Heart Path Method is a name arbitrarily given to the technique used by Heart Tribe by the Heaven Tribe and Earth Tribe, rather than an official designation.

Q: Do cultivators get buffs to their looks as they reach higher stages?

A: Some do and some do not.

Q: Is the Heart Tribe an evil cult?

A: They are like revolutionaries. If I have to find a metaphor, they are like Communists during the industrial age.

Q: Does a Longevity Fruit only increase lifespan once or every time you eat one?

A: It increases it once, and every time you eat it afterwards reduces the lifespan increasing effect because of the resistance(?). 100 years from the first fruit, 50 years from the second, 25 years from the third etc…

TranslatingNovice: Napoleon Bonaparte rofl. Q&A was once again translated by BlueMangoAde!