MDZS/The Untamed Cultural Annotation Thread 3: How much of the magic system is based on real folk religion beliefs?

WELL, Daoists/Taoists really do believe that you could achieve superhuman feats through hard work and "cultivation" of qi, the lifeforce of all things

even nowadays, there are frequently reports in the Chinese media of people who can do impossible things such as pulling cars with their mouths, thanks to "qigong," the art of cultivating qi

qi/chi is a concept of Life Force that is central to so much of Chinese culture, such as Daoism and traditional Chinese medicine. we believe it's the energy that links everything in the world and runs through us in a network of "meridians," kind of like veins

so Cultivation is when you learn to become closer to the universe via meditation and martial arts until you can control that qi. this is the basis of all wuxia powers like running up walls or flying through the air

AND ALSO, DRAGON BALL Z POWERS

DRAGON BALL Z IS A WUXIA ANIME

so the magic in wuxia stories like mdzs/the untamed can be understood as "WOW HE'S SO ENLIGHTENED AND CONNECTED TO THE UNIVERSE HE CAN BEND IT TO HIS WILL!!!"

golden cores? a real thing. they stem from the alchemy side of Daoism that believes you can fast track your cultivation by making pills/elixirs out of mystical ingredients such as mercury, which captivated Daoists because of its ability to transform into cinnabar and back

you have Daoists to thank for gunpowder, btw. one day about a thousand years ago some Daoists put the exact combo of sulfur, charcoal, and saltpeter into a cauldron and BLEW THE FUCK UP

then i assume their peers were like HOLY SHIT WRITE THAT FORMULA DOWN

so that's EXTERNAL alchemy. INTERNAL alchemy became a thing when some Daoists were like "y'all do you think mercury is poisonous actually bc a lot of us are sure dying early deaths..."

then some genius was like "u know what? fuck dangerous experiments, my body IS the cauldron!!"

so instead of concentrating mystical energy from shit like mercury and saltpeter, internal alchemy focused on concentrating ambient qi to a focal point at your Dantian

think of it like gathering mana inside yourself to use for later

you get a Golden Core when you get SO GOOD at doing this that a whole ball of concentrated qi forms inside you

also idk if y'all knew this but this core is held near your ass

sidenote but i highly suspect this to be the origin of "shirikodama" in Japanese belief, which is that everyone has a magical soul ball stored in their ass that kappas will try and hustle out of you

so why does wei wuxian have to turn to demonic cultivation after giving his golden anus ball to jiang cheng?

bc he lost his own storage of qi, duh

it gave him no choice but to draw on the qi of the dead to do his bidding

and why does this have to be dead spirits? because Chinese people believe that those who died wrongful deaths won't be able to rest and their souls will linger until the injustice is righted

is this not a belief common across most cultures?? idk

anyway that concludes this thread for now. i could go on, but i'm trying not to turn every thread into a ramble fest

if you got more cultural questions about MDZS/The Untamed, I have a question box on my website now: http://xiranjayzhao.com/index.php/chinese-history-culture-question-box/