Primeval Sea

Before the Awakening Ceremony, Fang Yuan names opening the Primeval Sea as the step that turns a mortal into a Gu Master. ^{ch. 2} Once the aperture opens, that sea is what the novel shows when a cultivator looks inward.

Shape and contents

The aperture that holds the sea is also called the Primeval Sea Aperture. Its shell is spherical and coated in thin white light after Hope Gu explodes during the Gu Yue ceremony. Inside, the seawater is smooth, greenish blue with a copper luster: rank one Gu Masters form this green coppery primeval essence, called the green copper sea. Every drop is pure primeval essence, the condensation of the owner’s essence, vitality, and soul. ^{ch. 6 ch. 10}

The sea is the reservoir Gu Masters spend. They rely on it to refine and use Gu. ^{ch. 7 ch. 10} Gu that already belong to the owner can live in it: after Fang Yuan refines the Liquor worm, it plunges into his aperture and enters the green copper primeval sea. ^{ch. 20} Narration later calls the aperture’s primeval sea the foundation and roots of a Gu Master’s cultivation. ^{ch. 50}

How the aperture itself opens, and how talent grades map onto sea height, are covered on aperture and primeval essence.

Height, talent, and recovery

Talent sets how high the sea stands. Fang Yuan’s C grade result leaves the surface at forty-four percent of the aperture, named as the limit of that grade. ^{ch. 6} The academy elder restates the same scale by layers: D grade fills about two to three layers, C grade four to five, B grade six to seven, and A grade eight to nine. ^{ch. 7}

Essence recovers on its own and can also be restored from outside. For a C grade talent, natural recovery is about four percent of the aperture’s store per hour, or about twenty-four percent in six hours. An A grade talent recovers about eight percent per hour, forty-eight percent in six hours. Absorbing a primeval stone raises the water level until it hits the talent ceiling again; Fang Yuan cannot store past forty-four percent even when the aperture still has empty space above the sea. ^{ch. 10}

Color by rank

The seawater changes character as the Gu Master advances. Essence at rank one is green copper, at rank two red iron, and at rank three white silver. ^{ch. 22} Density rises with rank: one portion of red iron equals ten of green copper, and one portion of white silver equals ten of red iron. ^{ch. 26} Essence at rank four is yellow gold. ^{ch. 55}

Rank five essence