Now that Unsheathed (aka Sword of Coming, aka Swords, Come!)《劍來》has launched an official translation on Wuxiaworld, I thought I’d translate the cultivation realm tables on the Chinese wiki (Baike) for the novel. Keep in mind that these are my own translations based on my own knowledge, research, and translation preferences. These are not the official translations of these terms, as the novel has not gotten far enough along for those translated terms to be published yet. So the translations here are unofficial and tentative. I have kept the original Chinese text here to make it easier for those who can read Chinese to compare and understand for themselves (and correct whatever mistakes I’ve made) and to make it easier for someone to locate a term if needed.

I have also included some footnotes explaining some of the concepts and terms as many of these exist in real life Daoist practice. I encourage you to read them if you’d like to better understand the underlying concepts behind Daoist cultivation.

修行 Cultivation Realms

武道 Martial Path¹⁵

1. 元, primal, primordial, origin. Refers to the Dao, the point in which the universe had not yet been formed, when yin and yang were not yet differentiated. This is the “one” the “dao” that cultivators are trying to get back to, the perfect state when nothing yet existed but there was the potential for everything to exist. So anything with “primal” before it, anything that uses 元, is talking about this state. Primal qi is the qi that existed before you were born, before heaven and earth were created. This is also called 先天 xiantian, which means “before heaven”. As in, before heaven was created. Translators often use too modern terminology in rendering this as “innate” or even worse, “connate”. After we are born, the qi we breathe and use is 後天 houtian, “after heaven”. After heaven was created. Cultivators in real life and in these webnovels, are trying to draw in primal qi rather than “after heaven” qi, because they want to essentially reverse time (figuratively) and go back to the beginning, back to the origin (元), back when the Dao was one. To do that they need to convert themselves into a being of pure yang-qi, because yang is associated with heaven and yin is associated with earth (earth in these contexts means the netherworld, not the ground we’re standing on). So they need to refine (煉 lian) their bodies, remove the yin impurities as one refines metal in a forge, removing the dross. Because it is said that when the Dao differentiated into qi, it formed yang qi, which being light, ascended and formed the heavens. Yin qi, being heavy, sank and formed the “earth” (netherworld). Later, in between them the qi mingled and mixed together to form the myriad things (including mankind). So heven, earth, and mankind in the middle. If you are a being of pure yin qi, you die and become a ghost. A being of pure yang qi ascends to the heavens.
2. Transcendent translates 仙 (xian). This is usually rendered by webnovel translators as “immortal”, but actually in the Chinese cosmogony/worldview there is no such thing as “forever” since eventually the universe will all collapse back into the undifferentiated Dao and the cyle will start anew. Transcendents are like transhumans (and the higher level ones like posthumans) in a way, still human but a rung higher on the ladder. They do not live forever. The best they can achieve is to live as long as heaven and earth (the universe), meaning live until the universe collapses back into the undifferentiated Dao. If their cultivation is sufficiently high, they will have merged with the Dao by this point and will endure, but not in the same corporeal or spiritual form as before. Anyway, when I say “transcendent”, I mean “immortals”.
3. “Grotto Abode” is a term for the dwellings of transcendents
4. Numinous translates 靈, which is usually translated “spirit”, but spirit is used for many terms. Scholars and writers on Daoism tend to use “numinous” to differentiate it from others. This is the vital principle, the life principle, spiritual power of potency.
5. 丹田 is dantian, literally “cinnabar field”. Also called “elixir field” because 丹, which is cinnabar, by synecdoche means elixir because cinnabar is one of the most important ingredients in making elixirs. Webnovel translators often translate 丹 as “pill”, but that is incorrect. It’s not a “pill furnace”, it’s an “elixir furnace”. A pill is just the form that the elixir is usually made into after it’s made. When alchemists made elixirs, then did so in an egg-shaped reaction vessel heated in a furnace for a prescribed amount of time and at certain temperatures. It was an elaborat ritual. When the elixir was finished, they opened the egg and the elixir would be stuck to the upper “ceiling” of the egg, the rocks and metal ingredients having sublimated in the reaction vessel. the efflorescences stuck to the ceiling, which were then scooped out with a spoon. You could eat it off the spoon directly, but often they were made into pills for convenience. The word for pill is 丸. Now, having said that, it is possible given certain contexts for 丹 to refer specifically to a pill, but the word itself does not mean pill. It refers to the elixir as a whole, but literally means “cinnabar”. It’s like when you say “hey man, nice wheels”, you don’t just mean the wheels, you mean the whole car. So cinnabar means elixir here. Not pill.
6. 金丹, golden elixir, is often translated “golden core” for some reason. Because of its central importance I guess. But there’s no need to use the word “core” and thus obscure the terms. I’ve already explained 丹 above and why it means elixir. This term can also be thought of as “gold and cinnabar”. Gold is highly valued in Chinese alchemy because it does not react much to other things, therefore symbolizing immortality. A test was performed on a completed elixir, and if the test portion turned to gold, the elixir was a success.
7. 元嬰, primal or primordial or original infant, is usually translated “nascent soul”. However, such a translation annihilates the imagery from the term, and the infant imagery is very important in Daoism. Imagery in general is very important in Daoism since visualization when meditating is one of the chief practices. The notion of forming a child within yourself that is you, is a concept very old in real life Daoism, though the term “primal infant” was popularized in the 1932 wuxia/xianxia novel Sword Xia of the Shu Mountains by Huanzhu Louzhu. In real life the term is usually called “transcendent embryo” or “Dao embryo/fetus”, etc. “Nascent” is all wrong. Because nascent means coming into existence or emerging, but that is the opposite of what “primal” means here. I explained 元 above already. It is the Dao, that is the perfect, fully formed (though formless) Dao. It is not just coming into being, It is the complete, perfect thing one wants to go back to. So nascent is simply inaccurate. Soul instead of infant or baby is misleading. It’s not just some intangible soul, but you. It can fly and interact corporeally (is that a word?) with other beings. It can divide itself, “clone itself” if you will, and be in multiple places at once. Please translators, stop destroying Daoist imagery! Retain the infant!Don’t reduce cool, real life Daoist concepts to generic fantasy terms.
8. I wrote “an yin” instead of “a yin” because yin 陰 is pronounced “in” or “een” depending on your accent. It’s not actually a “y” sound at the beginning. Yang 陽 is pronounced “yahng”, the vowel sound the same as in “yawn”.
9. Great Veil, 大羅, can also be translated as Great Net or Great Canopy. It refers to the highest heaven in certain Daoist schools that is above and encompasses all others, like a veil or net draped over the other heavens.
10. Or fate? Not really sure what this refers to.
11. aka Heavenly Law, Will of Heaven, Dao of Heaven, etc. It’s important to remember here that this is not some person or deity who is like hey now, you can’t be doing that. I’m going to punish you. No, there is no consciousness here, it is just the natural way of things. When you “defy” heaven, you are not going against a ruler, you are violating the natural way of things.
12. 魂 is cloudsoul and 魄 is whitesoul, so named by scholars because of the cloud and white radicals used in the characters, respectively. In the Chinese view, a person has multiple “souls”. The cloudsoul is the spiritual soul; in death, it disperses to the heavens. Said to be three in number. The whitesoul is the carnal soul, which returns to the earth when one dies. Said to be seven in number. The death mentioned here is a permanent one.
13. Turtles are long-lived, but calling someone a turtle is calling them a cuck or a bastard.
14. Remember how I said earlier that there’s no such thing as forever? Note here it says as long as heaven and earth. Eventually even the heavens and the earth/netherworld will revert back to the undifferentiated Dao, the “one”.
15. aka Martial Dao, Martial Way, etc. It just means the way of cultivating martial arts.
16. Or body tempering. Technically tempering means hardening, but it’s not just hardening the body but refining it as well. But the sense of strengthening the body is certainly appropriate here, so many translators prefer to use body tempering.
17. Literally clay embryo”, the unformed substance you start with when making something out of clay.
18. literally “wooden fetus”, this is a lacquerware term that refers to the wooden base material to which lacquer is then applied.
19. I haven’t thought of a better translation for this at the moment, but it literally means Dipper, as in the Big Dipper. It reders here to strong, high altitude winds. So it means strong forcewind. Very strong qi, when one strikes the qi is like a gust of wind coming out of the body.
20. A unit of measure equal to about 3.33 meters. The character, 丈 is cognate with 仗, which means walking stick, staff, stave, etc, thus the translation. I feel that since Chinese has its own unique system of measurement, it’s appropriate for it to have its own translations as well, rather than always being forced to wear Western terminology.