How would the body of a cultivator decompose?

[Inedible]

I can somewhat understand how the body of a cultivator in "Mortal Realm" would decompose, (My thought is their Qi, Ki, or Chi (Or whatever) supplies rich "Mystical" nutrients to the soil whenever they die, thus creating useful cultivation resources like spiritual grass or ginsengs, or maybe just an area with richer Qi), but what about the body of a cultivator above "Mortal Realm"? How would they decompose?

Curious, I binged it on bing, unfortunately all I found were forensic stuff on the decomposition of an actual corpse, cool, but not exactly what I was looking for.

I'm sure someone has asked my same exact question, but if I can't find it with a quick Bing search, then what's the point.

Someone please, just tell me how the body of a godly-powered cultivator decomposes.

Does it vanish like glittering dust?

Does it combust?

Does it fuse with whomever or whatever killed them?

I really want your thoughts on this matter, I could drop dead if no one answers.

 

[Anon2024]

Depends on the established lore.
I've read that they don't decompose and instead are made into corpse weapons which hold a lot of power.
There has been lore where they fade into nothingness
There is lore that they explode.

Depends on the lore.

 

[Zirrboy]

What is "not in the mortal realm" for you? An immortal dying kind of defeats the purpose, no?
And if it is supposed to be immortality in soul or what have you, the body would have little reason to behave differently imo.

 

[aimless]

What I had planned for my cultivation novel(now dropped) was for them to dissolve and seep into the earth, done by the will of ‘Heavenly Dao’, returning what was made by it to it, and that area would start to be a gold mine for ores, rare plants etc

 

[happypanda]

Heaven defying bacterias and Earth conquering fungi I guess.

 

[Inedible]

What is "not in the mortal realm" for you? An immortal dying kind of defeats the purpose, no?
And if it is supposed to be immortality in soul or what have you, the body would have little reason to behave differently imo.

I'm not referring to true immortals, more like the ones that are stupid hard to kill, like Goku or someone like that.

 

[TotallyHuman]

In my cultivation story, the further along one cultivates, the less actual matter is involved, and the physical reality itself is but a small layer in a very huge metaphysical system. After a while a cultivator doesn't passively exist physically as much as he is willed by the Universe (or wills himself if you look at it from a different angle) into the physical reality like a specter of sorts, but only they are physically there. Its like as you progress your existence, that's largely defined from the physical initially and where the physical supports the spiritual, gets reversed and your spiritual becomes larger than your physical and begins to support the physical instead.
Unless they die a violent death, cultivators don't die immediately, but go through a very long process of fading out of existence, and that's why ancestors are locked in specific places to cultivate and hopefully break through, as those places allow them to collect their spiritual existence more easily. They have physical bodies but those are more like very hard statues or idols that kind of are there, and the cultivator in question is more like "everywhere around", dispersed in consciousness. Those bodies can turn into whatever depending on the technique of the cultivator. If you want glitter and fireworks, why not? If you want rot, that can also happen. They can even gain a life of their own again.
If they die a violent death, the body will typically blink out of existence, bringing about a rejection force of the world as an opposing reaction that is very destructive.

 

[Nihilism]

It's the dao of the universe! All immortals will return back to Earth! They nourish the earth! It's like Co2! They will be recycled and turned back into earthly energy!

 

[Zirrboy]

I'm not referring to true immortals, more like the ones that are stupid hard to kill, like Goku or someone like that.

Then they'd probably do what the mortal ones do, but more extreme. Longer decomposition and more Qi spread.
Or depending on the story tone, corpses in sealed spaces can enrich their surroundings with death energy and turn into corpse spirits.

Different cultivations might also have different effects.
Someone with control over magic flames might combust with loss of the restraining sentience.

 

[SakeVision]

cultivators are not liches, nor are they undead, most of the time it decomposes like everyone's

unless the body belongs to mc's dead mother or something, then it stays young and beautiful even after death

 

[FallingLeaf]

I've seen some novels have it where cultivators decompose normally, but the super tier ones can basically be immune to decay and always look like they just died a few minutes ago. Others have it where only the 'specially cultivated' parts stay intact through the passage of time, like hardened bones or special ligaments or muscles

 

[PancakesWitch]

I remember most stories had them slowly dissolve into the main elemental energies and merge with the area where their corpse was left, turning that surrounding area into a resource rich zone. Sometimes when they have internal spaces, the internal space becomes a small pocket dimension where people can enter ocassionally (by most of the itme finding them accidentaly), being able to get the resources inside

 

[Chaos_Sinner777]

The energies unravel and explode outwards, if they're strong enough, nothing remains.

 

[Plantorsomething]

I can somewhat understand how the body of a cultivator in "Mortal Realm" would decompose, (My thought is their Qi, Ki, or Chi (Or whatever) supplies rich "Mystical" nutrients to the soil whenever they die, thus creating useful cultivation resources like spiritual grass or ginsengs, or maybe just an area with richer Qi), but what about the body of a cultivator above "Mortal Realm"? How would they decompose?

Curious, I binged it on bing, unfortunately all I found were forensic stuff on the decomposition of an actual corpse, cool, but not exactly what I was looking for.

I'm sure someone has asked my same exact question, but if I can't find it with a quick Bing search, then what's the point.

Someone please, just tell me how the body of a godly-powered cultivator decomposes.

Does it vanish like glittering dust?

Does it combust?

Does it fuse with whomever or whatever killed them?

I really want your thoughts on this matter, I could drop dead if no one answers.

Magic fossil fuels

 

[Jemini]

Depends on the established lore.

You can basically stop after saying this. The question was pretty much already answered from the start. Cultivation is a trope in fiction, handled differently by every author who writes in the genre.

That said, cultivation is roughly based off of Chinese lore dating back which bottle-necks through a story called "Journey to the West" in much the same way that western-based fantasy (and Japanese fantasy by extension, because their fiction is highly westernized,) bottle-necks through Lord of the Rings.

(By bottle necks, what I mean is that the trope/genre existed before these works, but pretty much everything that came after referenced back to these works as their inspirational source material, or referenced to a work that had in-turn been based off them.)

As such, we can establish a few things. 1. Cultivation is highly inspired by Chinese culture and Tibetan Buddhist practices. 2. If we draw things back to Tibetan Buddhists, they in the real world have a practice of living self-mummification in which you eat and live in a very specific way and plan for your own death. It demands a very high degree of discipline and dedication, and is viewed as one of the heights of the religious practice. Anyone who manages to self-mummify in this way is pretty much regarded as a saint. In fact, it is to the extent that the ascension tropes in cultivation novels can very likely trace their origin back to this very practice.

These self-mummified people do not decompose when they die. And I don't even mean in the sense of how Egyptian mummies are preserved. These Tibetan Buddhist self-mummified mummies actually look like they are still alive and just fell asleep for a while aside from their ashen and somewhat dehydrated skin. (Think the Shika Mummies from Zelda Breath of the Wild. Those were actually based off these Tibetan Buddhist mummies.)

So, if we look at the real-world parallels, the answer should most certainly be "no." Any cultivation lore that is trying to represent itself with accurate historical connection to the traditional lore should have it that the bodies of the highest tier cultivators do not decompose.

 

[Mephi]

Maybe it would never decompose. Maybe it would always be harvested for materials or eaten by demonic beasts.

 

[InceTagn]

The answer will depend of many things, like the setting of the world, the cultivation technics and the way they died.