Very few cultivators within the Shinayin Empire chose the Qi cultivation path.

Perhaps only drifting cultivators with no better cultivation techniques practiced Qi cultivation as a secondary path.

This was not a distinct cultivation path but something that still depended on a cultivator’s Spirit cultivation base. It merely mimicked the process of body refinement through various methods, allowing the practitioner to manifest Qi.

Usually, drifters who cultivated this secondary path could tap into their bodies’ dormant potential to enhance their close-combat abilities.

After all, although a Spirit cultivator’s body was not as strong as that of a body cultivator at the same realm, it was still far stronger than that of a mortal.

Instead of merely using the body’s dormant potential to withstand elemental attacks and physical impacts, they could use this secondary path to unleash Qi-powered strikes that were more effective than many close-range Spirit Spells. The surprise factor of using such techniques could play a decisive role in some cases.

However, the drifters who practiced body cultivation as a secondary path were simply not strong enough in a true sense, and their techniques were nothing more than flashy tricks meant to catch other drifters off guard.

Such techniques could never work against a Spirit cultivator with sufficient background and experience.

In fact, Kalina had never personally met a true Qi Practitioner before today.

Even throughout the unimaginably vast Eternal Sea, the number of people who truly cultivated the body should have been extremely small.

It was not because the path of Spirit Essence cultivation was necessarily superior. Rather, the path of body cultivation demanded an absurd amount of precious resources and time.

It was usually far better to remain on the Spirit cultivation path and use Spirit Essence to refine the body instead. Even that was not truly necessary in the eyes of most Spirit cultivators, and rightfully so.

As long as a Spirit cultivator continued advancing through the cultivation realms, their body would naturally become sturdier through the baptism of heavenly tribulations.

Compared to the Spirit cultivation path, every breakthrough in the body cultivation path consumed terrifying quantities of rare materials.

Oftentimes, those rare materials would not appear for long periods, causing true body cultivators to experience stagnation that could not be avoided, no matter how much wealth or influence they possessed.

Every increase in strength required resources that ordinary cultivators could hardly imagine.

Even talented Spirit cultivators with powerful backgrounds constantly struggled to obtain enough resources for their own cultivation, especially after reaching the Core Formation Realm. Every step forward demanded enormous wealth.

Poor cultivators had their own struggles, but rich cultivators with powerful backgrounds were not spared either. Small fish struggled in the pond, while big fish struggled in the ocean.

At least no Spirit cultivator from the Shinayin Empire would walk two distinct cultivation paths at the same time. Not even those rare geniuses from the imperial factions who far surpassed Kalina in terms of wealth, background, and talent.

The reason was simple.

Trying to cultivate both Spirit Essence and Qi simultaneously would only divide those already limited resources.

Being from the Shinayin Empire, which regularly traded with various merchant organizations connected to the Eternal Sea, Kalina naturally knew far more than any late-stage native Lord of the subcontinent. The fact that she could identify Aksai as a true body cultivator with a glance right after his demonstration was proof of that.

After all, no Spirit cultivator from the subcontinent had ever managed to identify Aksai’s progress in the body cultivation path and immediately understand its strengths and weaknesses with a single glance. At least, not in the way Kalina did. She was probably the first.

Kalina also knew that, for most cultivators, the decision to cultivate both Qi and Spirit Essence was not merely impractical but outright harmful. If a cultivator walked two distinct cultivation paths simultaneously, they would likely encounter bottlenecks in both because of insufficient resources.

Unless one possessed truly unimaginable wealth, cultivating both paths at the same time was almost impossible.

Furthermore, one also had to consider the compatibility of the two cultivation techniques. If the techniques were incompatible, then even if the practitioner had sufficient resources and talent to cultivate both paths, they would suffer backlash and only end up injuring themselves.

In short, the Qi cultivation path in the Dadangar World was impractical for the vast majority of cultivators. Unless someone had a way to travel through the void and reach a world with a rich Qi cultivation heritage, the path of Qi cultivation was reserved only for the elites among the elites living in the core regions of the Eternal Sea.

But how could a mere Lord possess the ability to travel to other worlds? Only truly powerful beings from the Eternal Sea dared to venture into such worlds and claim their inheritances.

That was why Kalina found this situation so unbelievable.

The Dadangar Subcontinent was widely known as a remote and resource-starved land. Even Spirit cultivation there faced countless obstacles because of the broken inheritances left behind after the Mad Immortal’s catastrophe.

And yet, from such a barren place, a true Qi Practitioner had emerged.

A cultivator following a path famous for devouring precious resources like a thirsty traveler gulping down water in the middle of a desert.

The contradiction left Kalina genuinely speechless.

Of course, Kalina did not believe that Aksai had access to other worlds, even with an unknown spatial treasure in his possession. After all, a treasure capable of crossing such spatial boundaries would definitely not be a mere 4th Order treasure.

She was more inclined to believe that Aksai had somehow gotten his hands on a lost inheritance from one of the Eternal Sea’s core regions through the acquisition of that spatial treasure.

After all, even though this subcontinent had remained disconnected from the rest of the Dadangar World for a long period because of the Mad Immortal’s deeds, Kalina knew from the historical records that it had once been home to rich and prosperous sects.

For example, she vaguely knew about the existence of the Heavenly Poison Sect and the Holy Land Torel, both of which had been considered powerful even in the eyes of the core cultivators from the Eternal Sea in ancient times.

Thus, Kalina came to the conclusion that Aksai had gained access to the relics left behind by one of those ancient organizations.