Glossary / Grades and Measures / Earth Rank
Earth Rank (地阶)
The Earth Rank is the second of the four common grades in cultivation fiction. It sits one step below heaven, and it is what a working sect teaches and a competent character carries.
- Chinese
- 地阶
- English
- Earth Rank
- Literally
- The earth rank.
- Section
- Grades and Measures
| What kind of thing it is | A grading scale, not an object |
|---|---|
| Also called | Dark Rank |
| Do not confuse it with | Heaven Rank; Scripture Pavilion |
What the Earth Rank is
The grade sits directly below heaven in the four-tier ladder, and the four names come from the opening of the Thousand Character Classic. The line describes the sky as dark and the earth as yellow, and read as a ladder the second word is the second rank.
It is not a colour grade. 地 is the ground, and the yellow in the line is the yellow of soil, which is why the English earth is defensible. The colour names a substance rather than ranking a hue.
It is the marker of a solid but unremarkable sect. A sect whose core techniques are earth-grade has real history and rivals, and the grade separates it from village schools and elites.
Why the second grade is the one most characters actually hold
Earth Rank is the standard translation, and some versions use terrestrial grade or ground tier. The English earth is one sense of 地, and the character here means the ground and its colour.
It is not the same as the dark rank, which is below it. The two get confused because both are ordinary grades and both words describe the sky and the earth. The difference is one step.
Some translations render this as earthly, which sounds like a comment on taste. The sequence ranks power, and the word for ground does not make the items humble.
How the grade marks a sect's level
It is the grade of the teaching curriculum. A sect that teaches earth-grade techniques produces competent disciples, and the grade sets expectations before a fight. The disciples taught less are not shown fighting at all.
It is the ceiling a protagonist has to break. Advancing from earth-grade to heaven-grade is a visible mid-arc milestone. It is usually marked by acquiring the object, not by a change in cultivation.
It is the market grade. Earth-grade pills and weapons are the ones with stable prices and reliable supply, and the genre uses them as the baseline of the item economy.
Characters used above
The prose on this page names these in English. Here they are written out, in the order they came up.
| 地阶 | Below heaven rank |
What readers confuse it with
- Heaven Rank
- The tier above, and the grade that marks a sect as elite. The gap between the two is the most commonly staged difference in the whole tiering system.
- Dark Rank
- The tier below, and the grade of ordinary techniques. The full ladder is heaven, earth, dark and yellow, and this is second from the top rather than the middle of four.
- Scripture Pavilion
- Where the grade lives in a sect. The pavilion's holdings are graded, and the earth-grade floor is where most disciples spend their careers.
Common questions
Is earth rank good?
Heaven above and dark below, with yellow last. The ladder is heaven, earth, dark, yellow, taken from the opening line of the Thousand Character Classic and read as four descending ranks.
What is above it?
Heaven rank, and then immortal-grade objects above that. The ladder has heaven at the top and this as the second rung. Objects are also graded one to nine, and the scales are not converted.
Why is it the most common grade?
Because rarity is the point of the higher grades. If heaven-grade techniques were common the grade would mean nothing, and the genre prices them accordingly.
What does the rank apply to?
Techniques, pills, weapons, formations — anything the setting can grade. The rank is a property of the object, not of the person holding it.
More in Grades and Measures
Source: cultivationnovel.com · Cultivation Glossary