The Dao

Open your Dao page with /cultivation dao. It holds two tracks that run side by side: the Elemental Dao (五行道) you deliberately choose, and the Yin-Yang balance your deeds quietly write for you.

The elemental half unlocks at Foundation Establishment (Dao-Unlock-Realm). Your first choice is free. The Yin-Yang half is live from the very start unless a server sets YinYang-Endgame-Only, which hides and suspends it until YinYang-Unlock-Realm (Nascent Soul).

The Ten Elements

Five classic Wu Xing elements form one ring, and five shadow elements form another. Each element overcomes the next in its own ring, wrapping around. Cross-ring matchups are neutral - a Fire cultivator has no elemental edge over a Poison one either way.

flowchart LR;
    subgraph Classic["Wu Xing ring"];
        Wood["Wood"] --> Earth["Earth"];
        Earth --> Water["Water"];
        Water --> Fire["Fire"];
        Fire --> Metal["Metal"];
        Metal --> Wood;
    end;
    subgraph Shadow["Shadow ring"];
        Ice["Ice"] --> Wind["Wind"];
        Wind --> Poison["Poison"];
        Poison --> Lightning["Lightning"];
        Lightning --> Void["Void"];
        Void --> Ice;
    end;

An arrow reads “overcomes”. Wood overcomes Earth, Earth overcomes Water, and so on around the ring; Ice overcomes Wind, Wind overcomes Poison, and so on around the shadow ring.

Every element maps to a real damage type. Fire, Ice and Poison use vanilla causes; Wood, Earth, Water, Metal, Wind, Lightning and Void are damage assets this mod ships, all inheriting the engine’s Elemental cause.

Damage Conversion and the Counter Cycle

Once you walk a dao, your outgoing melee damage is converted to that element’s damage type and adjusted:

Variable Name:	Default Value:	Description:
`Dao-Damage-Bonus-Percent`	10	Flat bonus on any converted strike.
`Dao-Counter-Bonus-Percent`	15	Extra damage against a defender whose element yours overcomes.
`Dao-Counter-Penalty-Percent`	10	Less damage against the element that overcomes yours.
`Dao-Wood-Heal-Percent-Of-Damage`	20	Wood’s alternative to the flat bonus.

Wood is the healing path. It takes no flat damage bonus at all - instead you are healed for 20% of the damage you deal. The counter bonuses still apply normally.

A cultivator with no dao at all is not left out: a refined weapon supplies its own element for conversion and the counter cycle, and when that element matches its wielder’s own dao it adds a resonance bonus on top. Techniques that deal damage route through the same filter, so Sword Qi Slash and Nine Heavens Thunder Palm are recoloured by your dao for free.

Switching, and Drift

Switching dao deliberately costs banked Qi and honours a real-time cooldown:

Variable Name:	Default Value:	Description:
`Dao-Switch-Base-Qi-Cost`	500	Base Qi cost of a switch.
`Dao-Switch-Qi-Cost-Realm-Multiplier`	1.6	Multiplied per realm reached.
`Dao-Switch-Cooldown-Hours`	24	Real-world hours between deliberate switches.

Your dao can also drift on its own. Every elemental kill feeds Dao-Affinity-Per-Elemental-Kill (1) into the hidden affinity of the killing blow’s element, and your race’s alignment bias feeds it too. When another element’s affinity exceeds your chosen dao’s by Dao-Drift-Margin (25) you get a warning; if it keeps growing past twice the margin, your dao converts on its own - no Qi cost, no cooldown. Set Dao-Drift-Enabled false to freeze daos to deliberate choices only.

Yin-Yang Balance

Every cultivator carries a Yin-Yang balance that moves with what they do:

Meditation shifts it by Meditation-Alignment-Shift-Per-Tick (0.2) per drain tick - toward Yang on a good chunk, toward Yin on an evil one. 5% of chunks (Chunk-Evil-Qi-Chance) carry evil qi.
Your race skews that shift by its own Qi-Alignment-Yin-Bias-Percent - a Demon at +50% darkens even good qi, a Deity at -30% purifies dark qi. See Races.
Killing adds Kill-Yin-Amount (1) Yin per kill, multiplied by Night-Kill-Yin-Multiplier (2) when the world is in its night phase. Slaughter under darkness stains deepest.

Where you sit on that scale decides what you get:

State:	Effect:
Balanced - within `Balance-Window-Percent` (15%) of a 50/50 split	`Balance-Bonus-Percent` (10%) to all Qi gain and damage, fading linearly toward the window’s edge.
Deep Yin - past `Lean-Threshold-Percent` (70%) Yin share	`Yin-Power-Damage-Percent` (+10%) damage and `Yin-Lifedrain-Percent` (5%) of damage dealt returned as health.
Deep Yang - past the same threshold of Yang share	`Yang-Defense-Percent` (10%) incoming-damage reduction and `Yang-Heal-Bonus-Percent` (+25%) to healing you receive, Wood strikes included.

Balance and lean are mutually exclusive by construction: you cannot be both perfectly centred and deeply leaned. Choosing which to chase is the real decision of the system.

The Devil and Righteous Paths

Lean far enough and the balance stops being a stat and becomes a path. Path is never chosen - it follows the deeds, and it shifts back when they do. Your Dao page shows the one you currently walk, and you are told in chat when it changes.

Path:	Trigger:	Perks:
Devil Path (魔道)	Yin lean fraction at or past `Path-Lean-Fraction-Threshold` (0.5)	`Path-Devil-Damage-Vs-Righteous-Percent` (+15%) against Righteous cultivators, and `Path-Devil-PK-Qi-Reward` (100) banked Qi harvested for slaying any player.
Righteous Path (正道)	Yang lean fraction at or past the same threshold	`Path-Righteous-Damage-Vs-Devil-Percent` (+15%) against Devils, and `Path-Righteous-Defense-Vs-Devil-Percent` (15%) less damage taken from them.
Unaligned	anything short of the threshold	The mortal middle road - no path perks, but the balance bonus is easiest to hold here.

The Devil Path’s Qi harvest is rate-limited so it cannot be farmed. Killing the same victim again within Pk-Same-Victim-Cooldown-Seconds (900) pays nothing, and killing anyone whose realm index is below Pk-Min-Victim-Realm (1) pays nothing regardless. Both gates cover the dao deeds and the manual drop roll as well as the Qi. Normal PvP is untouched - only the cultivation spoils are gated.

A farmed kill is not merely unrewarded: it charges more karma than an honest one, and a Devil accrues karma faster than anyone. The heavens collect at your next tribulation.

A deep lean in either direction also changes what a breakthrough looks like: past HeartDevil-Lean-Threshold (0.5) you face the Heart-Devil Trial (心魔劫) instead of tribulation lightning.

Command:	Description:	Permission:
`/cultivation dao`	Open the Dao page - element, affinities, balance, path and karma.	`cultivation`
`/cultivation bonuses`	Every bonus currently applying to you, dao included.	`cultivation`

Every value on this page lives in the Dao config - see Config - and the commands are on the Commands page.