C Grade

Natural talent for opening and filling an aperture is graded on a four-step scale from A down to D. C grade sits above D grade and below B grade on that scale. Gu Yue clan talk treats a C grade youth as ordinary investment: after about two years of cultivation the youth usually becomes a rank two senior Gu Master and clan backbone. ^{ch. 4}

How the grade is measured

On Qing Mao Mountain, the Awakening Ceremony measures talent by how far a fifteen-year-old walks into the moon orchid flower sea while Hope Gu enter the body. Fang Yuan states the bands used there: below ten steps means no cultivation talent, ten to twenty is D grade, twenty to thirty C grade, thirty to forty B grade, and forty to fifty A grade. ^{ch. 5}

Fang Yuan walks twenty-three steps and returns as a C grade talent. ^{ch. 5} His aperture’s primeval sea sits at forty-four percent of the space, named as the limitation of that grade. ^{ch. 6 ch. 10 ch. 29} The result shocks the watching clan: years of genius talk had pointed at an A grade outcome, and his twin Fang Zheng later takes that A grade place instead. ^{ch. 2 ch. 6}

What C grade governs

The grade governs how much of the aperture the primeval sea fills, and therefore how much essence the Gu Master holds and how fast that essence recovers. ^{ch. 7 ch. 10} The academy elder states that a C grade talent’s primeval sea takes up four to five layers of the aperture. Progress usually stops at rank two, though with luck a small percentage can advance to rank three initial stage. ^{ch. 7}

Natural recovery for Fang Yuan’s C grade sea is about four percent of the aperture store per hour, twenty-four percent in six hours, half the natural rate of an A grade talent like Fang Zheng. ^{ch. 10 ch. 50} That shortfall is why, during the academy’s vital Gu refinement test, a C grade youth must burn primeval stones to hold progress while an A grade youth can keep refining from recovery alone. ^{ch. 8 ch. 10} Chi Lian later states the same gap as time: rising to middle stage on talent alone usually takes a C grade youth twice as long as a B grade, and four times as long as an A grade. ^{ch. 50}

Academy and clan talk

Once Fang Yuan’s C grade is public, academy and household talk downgrade him against Fang Zheng’s A grade. Uncle Gu Yue Dong Tu treats the C grade as luck that the household won the stronger twin; Shen Cui’s attention shifts to Fang Zheng for the same reason. ^{ch. 9} The academy elder decides a C grade who looks broken by the result is not worth heavy fostering beside an A grade sibling. ^{ch. 7} Classmates and branch elders keep calling him a C grade even after he takes first place refining Moonlight Gu, reading the win as luck or a weak Gu will rather than a change of talent. ^{ch. 21} In later clan-hall talk, elders still treat a C grade Fang Yuan as worth investing because of his blood link to A grade Fang Zheng, and Gu Yue Bo’s public reward still names the C grade when granting thirty primeval stones for a first-place result. ^{ch. 78}

Talent grades sit beside the aperture mechanics on aperture and primeval essence. The ceremony that produces the grade is on Awakening Ceremony. The full ladder is on Aptitude.