Regular cultivation was slow.
In most cases, the most correct and reliable methods of gaining strength and longevity was to remain patient and build up a strong foundation over time.
The problem was that it was too damn slow!
One of the flaws of phase lord cultivation was that it regularly took the aliens thousands if not hundreds of thousands of years to grow their phasewater concentration over time.
Entire civilizations rose and fell in such timeframes, so much so that a phase lord may end up becoming the only surviving member of his race by the time he got anywhere!
Mech pilots and mech designers advanced remarkably faster than that, but they still became accustomed to measuring their progress over decades and centuries.
The higher their ranks, the more time it took to reach the next one. For god pilots, Ves would not be surprised if it took at least half a millennium for them to come close to advancing to the hypothetical rank of god king pilot.
