Seeking Understanding of Cultural Terms (Sincere Question Please)

[LoneTree]

Hi.
Posted in the 'howaya' thread will briefly say again here -
Am older, visually impaired Artist who is new-ish to
Manga/Manhwa/Manhua hoping to better understand
what I'm reading.
Can someone explain (or drop me a linky to a site that explains)

What is a Cultivator?
Like a Wizard, or more like a Necromancer?
Are 'fictional' Cultivators little to nothing like Daoist Cultivators?
Are there others? Spiritual Discipline Cultivators, I mean?

Seeking context, reliable reference material, etc.
Wikipedia is ... unreliable, IMO.
Sites I'm finding are contradictory, etc.
Not a fan of Google's sneaky ways. Bone weary of the clickbait, hidden crap,
advertised bullshit-first-show-me-the-$- agenda, etc. (to name a few things)

Thanks for your time & attention,
LT

 

[DemonHide]

Hey there bud. Saw your post in the introduction thread, glad you're doing a little better than in previous years. I'd like to ask a question in return: What context is this "Cultivator" that you're wondering about? Where'd you see it? New to me too, I'm afraid.

 

[Wizardrone]

"Cultivation" is the believe of improvement of inner energy (Chi, Ki, Qi, life force, etc), with the purpose of incrementing that life force, thus empowering their physical, mental and soul power/energy. Albeit it looks similar is not magic but can do similar things to them, probably one of the best similar example to understand "Cultivation" could be "Nen" from HunterX.
http://hunterxhunter.wikia.com/wiki/Nen

Now, improvements leads to physical results in form of elemental, objects, mind, body manipulation, etc, telekinesis, weapon, mind and soul skills, life force of one like healing or super strength, life force of others like drain life, enslavement or Chinese necromancy.

Daoist, Spiritual an other types of cultivator it could refer to two things:
-Cultivator who belong to a certain faction
or
-Cultivator specialized on a certain improvement like spiritual cultivator who often works on "spirits/soul" or mental skills or prowess.

Also, cultivation can lead to get better luck or improvement of all kind of craftsmanship or work related skill.

At this point it seems that cultivation can improve any kind of condition, skill or attributes, but it depends on the "manga" since the term is most often used in battle manga (increase of attributes and skill), following the crafting of items (weapon/armor) and pills(alchemy).

I think there some things left or that could be expanded but I hope this suffice to answer some questions.