Even though they had no inheritance past the Qi Refining stage of cultivation back in their home continent, they still possessed a lot of the common knowledge from that time.
Thinking about it that way, maybe enough time had passed that what they knew now was no longer common knowledge today.
Regardless, the only way to find out if even that part of their inheritance was outdated, was by stepping foot into the modern cultivation world.
Before then, Gaston decided to just regard what he had discovered as true.
Cultivators were not all equal even within the same level of the same stage, this was something anyone could guess, but what surprised him was there were actually official titles that separated them.
The highest-ranking title, Monster, was a title given to a cultivator with a magical energy purity above 95%.
Right after that, and the reason behind the extraordinary power that Gaston and his crew of desperados that left everything behind to sail for unknown lands possessed, was the Elite title, given to those with a magical energy purity of at least 90%!
Next was the Superior title, given to all beneath the 90th percentile all the way down to the 70th percentile.
Forget the differences across titles, there was a clear divide between people with the Superior title alone, as it acompassed too big of a range.
Gaston couldn't make sense of whoever designed these titles, but it wasn't his position to judge.
Below Superior, there was the Standard title, given to those below the 70th percentile, but at least at or above the 60th.
Typically, this was the lowest given title that a cultivator would hear in their lifetime, as cultivators given the following title, most often didn't take the initiative to bring their title up, to say the least.
The Trash title, was given to all those with a magical energy purity of below 60%, as they were deemed to have flawed foundations and no hope to progress further.
The title was so harsh however, that if somebody ever referred to a Trash cultivator by their official title, it would most likely result in the beginning of a fight.
Which, was by no means a reason for people in the cultivation world to avoid using the title.
On the contrary, because of how weak Trash cultivators were, it was said that you could often hear the title being used in order to provoke weak cultivators so that those stronger than them could legally kill them in retaliation without repercussions.
Whilst the weaker the cultivator, the more likely it was that they had little to nothing in terms of wealth, to some people, even a little bit was reason enough.
As a popular rapper once famously said, "It's hot out this bitch, that's a good enough reason."
Gaston could do nothing but shake his head at this realization, as perhaps some things were the same even across different worlds.
Upon first glance at this knowledge, Gaston thought that the ancestors who recorded this knowledge all those years ago must have been people who did these kinds of things themselves in order to be so familiar with the topic.
After mulling it over a little however, it was not difficult to recognize that this was actually meant to serve as a lesson to their descendants, of the brutality of the cultivation world.
Gaston was far from afraid from the seemingly harsh civilization that he was going to eventually enter.
After all, when it came to the purity of one's magical energy, Gaston and the other four that survived the trip, all had at least 90%, and could rightfully refer to themselves as Elite early-division Qi cultivators.
There was no way for Gaston to know if in today's world it was rare for someone to possess the title of Elite, but according to the only source of information he had, that came from thousands of years ago, the title of Elite for a cultivator was just as rare as a cultivator with two-colored spiritual roots!
If that was still true in the modern day, then the future was looking far brighter than he could've ever hoped for when he first awakened.
As for the fact that all five of them had the Elite title, Gaston didn't think it was luck or coincidence.
There was a very famous saying from back on Earth that went something along the lines of, "when one door closes, another one opens."
A saying that Gaston found to be perfectly applicable here.
The Poisoned Continent limited all of it's inhabitants to never enter the 2nd Stage of Cultivation, the Foundation Building stage, due to the scarcity of the magical energy in the air.
Let alone the 2nd stage of cultivation, even entering the 1st stage required abnormal conditions, which was why there were so few Qi Refining stage cultivators.
This however, has led to the inhabitants treating Stage 0, which was the stage where cultivators were supposed to lay the groundwork for their future life as cultivators, with far more seriousness than those that lived in the cultivation world.
To them, it was a stage that merely laid the groundwork for their future.
For the inhabitants of the Poisoned Continent however, Stage 0 wasn't just a stage to get out of as quickly as they could so they could start cultivating as soon as possible, but a stage that they'd remain in for the rest of their lives.
A Stage where even the slightest difference in division would lead to a completely different lifestyle.
Entering into Stage 0 was seen as a privilege in and of itself, as only humans that had reached their physical limit could meet the requirements to enter the first level of Stage 0.
Whether it was the same in the modern cultivation world, Gaston didn't know, but in the Poisoned Continent, Stage 0 wasn't separated into the standard divisions that the rest of the cultivation stages were.
The first three levels of Stage 0 weren't a part of the early division, but were instead referred to as being a part of the Skin Tempering stage.
In order to progress from a human into a cultivator, the process was not as simple as simply introducing the magical energy in the air into one's body.
The process was far more gruelling than that, as the human body was far too weak to contain magical energy.
The Skin Tempering stage was just the beginning into the painful transformation required in order to change.
Starting from the fourth and through to the sixth level of Stage 0, the process of Blood Purification began, hence the name of this stage.