Each "division" was more painful than the last, as purifying one's blood was as painful as one could imagine.
Then, the seventh, eight and ninth levels were part of the Bone Refining stage, which was seen by many as the last stage before officially becoming a cultivator.
By this point, most people were happy to get out of this torturous process that had lasted for decades and finally begin the sweet process of cultivating with one's legs crossed, and more importantly, without any agony.
And this, again, to the best of Gaston's knowledge, was the same regardless of where one was from.
Because it was a requirement that a human has to reach their physical limit before even stepping into Stage 0, the minimum age of entry was 18.
The biggest benefits of entering this stage, aside from power, was the immediate increase in one's lifespan, going from a maximum of 70 years for regular civilians, to 100 years for those at Stage 0.
From then on, as long as one could break through into Stage 1 and become a Qi Refining cultivator before the age of 70, then they could consider themselves qualified to look forwards and aim to eventually break through into the next stage.
As for those who enter Stage 1, and become Qi Cultivators after they are 70 years old or older, then whilst their lifespans might have increased to 120 years, as befitting of a Qi cultivator, they no longer had any hope of progressing further.
This wasn't due to some hard rule of nature, but because one's physical condition would begin deteriorating after Age 70 whilst in Stage 0.
This made it so that older cultivators that broke through whilst out of their physical prime, lacked the necessary physical potential to develop further all the way into the next stage.
Gaston had entered the Poisoned Continent through the wormhole in his lab when he was 32 years old, so he was immediately 14 years behind those that started as soon as they could.
Thankfully for him, this world immediately recognized his body as that of someone at their physical limit, and he instantly entered the first level of Stage 0.
In large part his memory of the following period was quite fuzzy, but what was important for him right now, was that 30 years later, at the ripe age of 62, whilst still in his physical prime thanks to the unique nature of this magical world, he had broken through to Stage 1 and had officially become a Qi Refining cultivator by introducing his first strand of magical energy into his body!
Gaston was sure that the 3 decades he had spent in Stage 0 were hugely important when it came to building his foundations for cultivation, but there was also something else.
Even back in the Poisoned Continent, level 9 of Stage 0 was not the end for those that were willing to persevere, think, or just outright had an exercise that told them about the existence of the "10th level" of Stage 0.
Whilst not officially a level, it was referred to as the 10th level by those that figured it out by themselves.
After tempering the skin in the first three levels, then purifying their blood in the following three levels, and finally refining their bones in the last three levels, people with access to special exercises or people deranged enough to figure it out by themselves, began the process of Organ Refining!
After all, everything that they had done whilst in Stage 0 was not in order to become stronger, that was just a byproduct of progress.
The aim was to temper the body so that it can contain magical energy!
Naturally, in the process of tempering one's body, one can't skip out on tempering their organs and then go on to say that they had done everything in their power to temper their bodies.
Stage 0 was not a place where talent shone through, but the only place in the cultivation path where grit and determination played the main role.
Refining one's own organs was naturally not only the most painful stage yet, but also the most life threatening, which was another reason for people to skip this step.
For better or for worse however, the inhabitants of the Poisoned Continent didn't have the option of skipping this step, not if they wanted to become Qi cultivators anyway.
Due to the extreme scarcity of magical energy in the air, one's body truly needed to have been tempered to near perfection in order to successfully introduce a strand of magical energy into it.
And because they had been isolated from the outside world for thousands of years, they weren't even aware of the fact that there were several exercises spread amongst the public that would be considered as perfect inheritances even in the modern cultivation world.
Because Stage 0 was the starting point of transforming from a human into a cultivator, there were a lot of complete exercises that were readily available that one could follow to successfully step foot into Stage 1 with.
What made perfect inheritances different however, was their successive nature.
Each part of Skin Tempering to Blood Purifying to Bone Refining and to Organ Refining, built upon themselves and by the time one was done with Stage 0, because of the continuity of the exercises, they had far better foundations than most.
This was why Gaston didn't think it was by luck or coincidence that all 5 of them that came from the Poisoned Continent had such good foundations.
And whilst they still hadn't gotten tested for the exact quality and nature of their spiritual roots, Gaston ventured to guess that each of them had at least three-colored spiritual roots, if not better.
After all, whilst Gaston was by far the oldest of the bunch to have reached the Qi Refining stage, at the ripe age of 62, in reality it had only taken him 30 years, which nearly put him on par with Ruben, who had started at age 18 and was now 47 years old, putting him just one year ahead of Gaston.
Gaston was sure that he had at least three-colored spiritual roots, with the Earth one probably being his main one, given the glow of his magical energy.
What he was looking forward to discovering however, were his other types, or type, singular, if he was lucky enough to have a two-colored spiritual root.