As the cultivation arts matured, cultivators began to explore other avenues to enhance their power and abilities. No longer content with merely harnessing the Qi, they sought to expand their repertoire, delving into the realms of spell-casting and the mastery of specialized weaponry.
No longer confined to a single method or weapon, cultivators began to carve out unique identities and specializations, each with its own strengths, weaknesses, and cultural significance.
1. "Law Cultivators" (法修 Fǎxiū)
At the forefront of this diversification were the "Law Cultivators" (法修 Fǎxiū), cultivators who focused their efforts on mastering the arcane arts of spellcasting over the traditional methods of physical combat, some of author also write this cultivators as 'spellcaster'. Alongside this path, four major weapon types emerged as favored tools of the cultivators:the elegant Sword (剑 jiàn), the heavy and brutal Saber (刀 dāo), the long-reaching Spear (枪 qiāng), and the versatile Staff (棍 gùn).
Sword (剑 Jiàn) – A double-edged, straight sword, favored by many for its versatility and elegance. Even those whose main attacks did not involve the sword often carried one, as it was a reliable and accessible option.
Saber (刀 Dāo) – A single-edged, curved blade, considered somewhat more brutal and direct in its application compared to the refined Sword.
Spear (枪 Qiāng) – A long, tapered weapon with a leaf-shaped head and a flowing tassel, prized for its reach and striking power.
Staff (棍 Gùn) – A sturdy, versatile pole, crafted from wood or iron, favored for its ability to channel Qi and deliver powerful strikes.
Hidden Weapons (暗器 ànqì) – weapons that are concealed in some way (often hidden in the owner's clothing). Their use and effectiveness relies heavily on the element of surprise.
Poisoned projectiles (darts/needles/etc) are an especially popular type of hidden weapon. But in the hands of a hidden weapons expert, almost anything can be lethal – in Wuxia novels, even things like abaci, coins, chopsticks, and musical instruments are used as hidden weapons.
2. Weapon Cultivators (武器修 Wǔqì Xiū).
Weapon Cultivators formed deep spiritual connections with their chosen armaments, transforming them into powerful extensions of their own beings. For the examples are:
Sword Cultivators (剑修 Jiànxiū): Renowned for their grace and precision, Sword Cultivators were often seen as the paragons of cultivation. Their swords became symbols of their indomitable will, often allowing them to fight beyond their rank and station.
Saber Cultivators (刀修 Dāoxiū): In contrast, Saber Cultivators wielded their weapons with a raw, brutal force. Their curved blades were tools of devastation, and they were feared for their direct and overwhelming attacks.
Spear Cultivators (枪修 Qiāngxiū): With their long reach and lethal precision, Spear Cultivators could strike down opponents from a distance, combining elegance with lethal force.
Staff Cultivators (棍修 Gùnxiū): These cultivators used the staff as both a weapon and a conduit for Qi, allowing them to deliver powerful strikes while maintaining flexibility and control in battle.
3. Sound Cultivators (音乐修 Yīnyuè Xiū)
Sound Cultivators are rare and enigmatic figures in the cultivation world, known for harnessing the ethereal power of music and vibration. Through instruments such as the dizi (笛子, bamboo flute), guqin (古琴, seven-string zither), pipa (琵琶, lute), and even voice, they weave melodies that can affect both body and soul. Their cultivation path is rooted not only in spiritual energy, but in harmony, rhythm, and intent.
What sets Sound Cultivators apart is their ability to influence the battlefield without relying on brute force. With a single note, they can calm raging beasts, disrupt an enemy's concentration, or shatter an incoming technique mid-cast. Their music can flow like water, seeping into the minds of those who hear it, inducing confusion, fear, hallucinations, or overwhelming emotion. The most skilled among them can bypass defenses entirely, striking directly at a person's spiritual sea or soul consciousness (神识, shén shí).
Despite their offensive potential, Sound Cultivators are more widely revered for their supportive and healing roles. Their melodies can stabilize a fellow cultivator's qi, suppress inner demons, or soothe the pain of grievous wounds. During group battles, they often stand at the rear, enhancing allies' focus, clearing mental interference, or bolstering morale through rhythm and resonance. In sects or clans, they are often entrusted with leading meditation, guiding heart demons during breakthroughs, or supporting alchemists and formation masters with tranquil harmonies.
However, their role is never fixed. As with all paths in cultivation, the direction a Sound Cultivator takes depends entirely on their own comprehension, temperament, and intent.
The strength of a Sound Cultivator does not lie in raw power alone, but in control, refinement, and the ability to touch the unseen layers of existence. To face one in battle is to risk losing not just the fight, but your sense of self — undone by a single haunting melody.
4. Side-Arts based Cultivators
This group of cultivators using their side-arts speciality as the main attack.
4.1 Beast Tamers (驯兽修士 Xùnshòu Xiūshì):
Forming deep bonds with spiritual beasts and mythical creatures, Beast Tamers fought alongside their animal companions. These creatures were not merely pets but powerful allies that could enhance their master's combat abilities and protect them in battle.
4.2 Formations Masters (阵法修士 Zhènfǎ Xiūshì)
Experts in arranging spiritual energies, Formations Masters created complex arrays that could trap enemies, bolster allies, or even alter the laws of nature within a defined area. Their power lay in preparation and strategy, allowing them to control the battlefield and dictate the flow of combat.
4.3. Alchemists (丹药师 Dānyào Shī)
Alchemists delved into the mysteries of elixirs, pills, and poisons. Their craft was both revered and feared for its power to dramatically alter one's cultivation.
The duality of alchemy is well-known in the cultivation world. As the saying goes, "医毒不分家" (Yī dú bù fēnjiā), meaning "medicine and poison are from the same family." A Skilled alchemist can use their knowledge to save lives or end them, depending on their intent and the situation at hand. There were several specializations within alchemy:
Dan Masters (炼丹师 Liàndān Shī): Specialists in creating medicinal pills, these alchemists could concoct elixirs that boosted cultivation, healed injuries, or even extended lifespan. Their creations were highly sought after by cultivators of all paths.
Poison Experts (毒医 Dú Yī): Understanding that the line between medicine and poison is often blurred, these alchemists created potent venoms and insidious poisons. Their creations could cripple enemies, create area-denial effects, or be used for covert assassinations.
Pill-Poison Fusion Masters (丹毒双修 Dān Dú Shuāngxiū): These rare alchemists mastered both medicinal and toxic arts, creating complex concoctions with multiple stages of effects, such as pills that initially boost power but later inflict poison damage.
Combat Alchemists (战斗炼丹师 Zhàndòu Liàndān Shī): Blending alchemy with martial arts, these practitioners used specially crafted pills to enhance their combat abilities mid-battle, from swallowing strength-boosting elixirs to throwing poison bombs at their foes.
5. Based on the cultivator's chosen "exercises" or foundational cultivation methods
Further divisions emerged based on the cultivator's chosen "exercises" or foundational cultivation methods.
5.1. Dao (道修 Dàoxiū) and Demon (魔修 móxiū) cultivators
The Dao Cultivators (道修 Dàoxiū) and Demon Cultivators (魔修 Móxiū) are often painted as opposites, their paths diverging like light and shadow. Yet at their core, both are simply cultivators walking different roads toward power, enlightenment, or survival. The true distinction lies not in what they cultivate, but in how — and why.
Those who walk the path of the Dao seek harmony with the heavens. They cultivate pure spiritual energy, drawing upon celestial laws, natural order, and inner clarity to ascend. Dao Cultivators often align themselves with principles such as righteousness, compassion, and self-restraint. In public perception, they are paragons of virtue, guardians of balance, and inheritors of ancient orthodoxy.
Their techniques often reflect serenity and brilliance. Many Dao cultivators pursue immortality not just in body, but in spirit, seeking to transcend mortal attachments and return to the great cycle in harmony.
Yet this idealized image often masks reality. Not all who wear the robes of righteousness walk a righteous path. Some hide ambition behind virtue, weaponizing the banner of orthodoxy to suppress rivals, seize resources, or maintain power. Cultivation is, at its heart, still a competition — and even among Dao Cultivators, there are those who twist the Dao to serve their own ends.
In contrast, Demon Cultivators those who turn their gaze inward and embrace the chaotic, emotional, and often turbulent forces within and around them. Rather than denying anger, desire, hatred, or fear, they harness these emotions to fuel their breakthroughs. Demon Cultivators typically refine demonic qi (魔气 mó qì).
This path is often seen as wild, unorthodox, and dangerous — not because it is inherently evil, but because it embraces freedom over rules, passion over restraint, and personal truth over collective order. Their techniques are raw and intense. But so too are unparalleled drive, self-discipline, and clarity of purpose.
Demon Cultivators were known for their fierce determination and willingness to embrace the darker aspects of existence.
In most novel, Demon Cultivators are deliberately portrayed as the enemy by the Author— especially in stories where there is no greater foreign threat. In such narratives, they are often shown as having strayed too far from balance, descending into cruelty, madness, or carnage.
These portrayals conflate Demon Cultivators with evil cultivators (邪修 xié xiū) — those who sacrifice others, manipulate souls, or desecrate life itself for personal gain. While some Demon Cultivators do take that path, it is not the default.
This misconception has led to generations of mistrust and conflict. Righteous sects brand all Demon Cultivators as threats to peace and order, while Demon Cultivators view the orthodox world as hypocritical, oppressive, and unwilling to acknowledge its own shadows. In truth, both paths can lead to greatness or ruin — what matters is not the energy they use, but the heart with which they use it.
5.2. Evil cultivators (邪修 xiéxiū)
Among all paths in the cultivation world, none inspire more dread and disgust than that of the Evil Cultivators (邪修 xiéxiū). These individuals abandon restraint and moral principle in pursuit of unchecked power, choosing the fastest, darkest roads to ascend — no matter the cost to others.
Unlike Demon Cultivators, who embrace chaos, emotion, or taboo elements of nature, Evil Cultivators are defined not by what kind of energy they use, but how they obtain it. Their methods are built upon sacrifice, desecration, and exploitation. They plunder life force from mortals and cultivators alike, harvest souls to refine pills or artifacts, and carry out blood rituals to twist the laws of cultivation to their favor.
To them, human life is currency. Compassion is weakness. The Path is not a road to enlightenment, but a staircase made from the broken bodies of others.
But Evil Cultivators are not a separate class by birth. They are not a sect, nor a bloodline, nor a defined lineage. Rather, any cultivator — whether they began on the righteous Dao path, the passionate Demon path, or even rare sub-paths like Physical Cultivator or Alchemy — can fall and become an Evil Cultivator. All it takes is a single step too far: a forbidden technique, a desperate decision, a moment of cruelty justified in the name of survival or revenge.
This is why they are feared — not just for what they do, but for what they represent: the darkness within all cultivators. The temptation of power at any cost.
Heaven itself does not look kindly upon them. Evil Cultivators are frequently subjected to harsher and more violent heavenly tribulations (天劫 tiān jié), as if the very cosmos seeks to erase them. And yet, the most cunning among them find ways to survive even that. Hidden realms, cursed artifacts, stolen fates — their craft is built on defiance of both morality and destiny.
Many righteous sects dedicate entire divisions or branches to tracking down and eliminating Evil Cultivators. Yet paradoxically, some sects secretly employ or tolerate them, using them as assassins, spies, or tools of war — only to later disavow them when convenient.
The line between righteous and evil is often thinner than it seems. Some Evil Cultivators were once noble, kind-hearted individuals who were betrayed, abandoned, or cornered by fate. In time, hatred hardened them, and survival demanded they become monsters to destroy other monsters.
Thus, Evil Cultivators are not born. They are made — by desperation, by pain, by choice.
In the end, their cultivation path may lead to incredible power, but it is a road littered with blood and haunted by karma. And once taken, few ever find the way back.
5.3. Ghost Cultivators (鬼修 Guǐxiū)
Ghost Cultivators (鬼修 Guǐxiū) were those who, even after death, continued their pursuit of power. Trapped between the living world and the Underworld (地狱 Dìyù), these spectral cultivators harnessed the yin energies of the afterlife. Their existence was sustained by devouring other ghosts, and souls, or absorbing "yin" and "ghost" Qi. However, their powers were limited by their inherent weaknesses, particularly against yang energy and thunder techniques, which could shatter their ghostly forms. Ghost cultivators who reached the yuan infant period or above, developed methods to mitigate these vulnerabilities, often making them formidable adversaries. These powerful specters were rare and were feared both in the Underworld and among the living for their relentless pursuit of power.
5.4. Buddha (佛修 Fóxiū)
Lastly, the Buddha (佛修 Fóxiū) cultivators stood apart. Their way is one of meditation, scripture, and detachment, seeking not dominance over the world, but transcendence beyond it. Or so they claim.
At the heart of their practice lies a pursuit of inner peace, the awakening of Buddha-nature, and the unraveling of worldly attachments. Their cultivation focuses not on manipulating external qi, but on cleansing the heart, refining the soul, and awakening clarity through introspection and chant. Mantras, mudras, and prayer beads replace swords and talismans. Sacred sutras are treated as divine laws, guiding their every step toward a state of so-called enlightenment.
In theory, Buddha Cultivators do not chase power for personal gain. They cultivate compassion, equanimity, and wisdom. They claim to transcend the cycle of karma, standing beyond desire, hatred, and ignorance — the so-called Three Poisons. For this reason, they are often said to be exempt from Heavenly Tribulations (天劫 Tiān Jié), for the heavens cannot punish one who claims to have let go of ambition.
They are also unique in that their path does not require spiritual roots — making it one of the few forms of cultivation theoretically accessible to all. Even the rootless, crippled, or broken may embark on the Buddha path, so long as their heart is sincere and their resolve unmoved.
But behind this serene façade lies a deeper complexity — and often, deep hypocrisy.
In many stories, Buddha Cultivators are depicted as the most shameless of all. Masters of wordplay and debate, they twist logic and scripture to suit their actions, cloaking ambition in the language of detachment. If a monk steals a spirit herb, he may call it "liberating it from worldly suffering." If he kills an enemy, he may claim it was to help them reincarnate more swiftly. They speak of letting go of desire, even as they compete for resources, territories, and inheritances with a fervor rivaling any sect or demon.
Where Dao Cultivators hide ambition behind righteousness, Buddha Cultivators often mask it with emptiness. They wear the robes of compassion while playing the same games of influence and power as any other cultivator — only with cleaner hands and more clever excuses.
Still, one must not dismiss the entire path as deceit. There are those rare few among the Buddha Cultivators who truly walk the Way — ascetics who renounce all possessions, who offer healing and shelter without expectation, who cultivate in silence for centuries without ever drawing a blade. Their presence brings calm, their aura radiates peace, and their words can still the hearts of those burning with rage. To meet such a Buddha Cultivator is to glimpse what the path was meant to be: not a tool for power, but a bridge to release.
Thus, the Buddha path is a paradox. It preaches detachment, yet exists within a world that demands struggle. It promises clarity, yet is easily clouded by ego. It welcomes all, yet few can walk it without straying.
Each of these cultivation paths offered unique challenges and opportunities, shaping the practitioners' abilities, temperaments, and perspectives. The diversification of the cultivation arts transformed the landscape, creating a tapestry of conflicting ideologies, alliances, and rivalries that would echo across the realms.