How to raise your stats

More Divinity, more HP, more Stamina, more Stance...
Your guide to personal improvement!

In the very beginning...

Choose
First:
+3 Divinity: you will get a slightly better chance at better drops and crops from the start

Second:
+10 Hitpoints: you will last noticeably longer fighting
or +5 Stamina: if you want slightly more energy for your workday
Know that if you don't take the Stamina, you won't get another chance at those 5 points.

Check your Mailbox

Yang and Mengqing will occasionally send you scrolls, letters, notes, whatever... that will directly improve your stats. So use them!
Be careful with those when you have reached your maximum potential, however (so, after you have taken classes). These items don't raise your stats higher than your max unless they specifically tell you they do.
When in doubt, save, use, check and you can always reload...

Lingzhi

Eat the Lingzhi (Fire, Water...). Right away.

The Water Lingzhi will increase your maximum MP by 30 points.

The Fire Lingzhi will increase your Stamina
by 40 points.

Recruit Tingfeng

Before, you need to prioritize building
a) the Main Hall and
b) the Lecture Hall

You can unlock teachers, or lecturers, through the ageless Tingfeng.
She'll arrive after the Main Hall is finished.
Tingfeng will be staying at the Inn, in the upstairs room on the far right.
She will agree to be your first teacher and help you with recruiting other Lecturers after you finish the Quest "Gesture of Sincerity":

For the dish, you'll need bellpepper. Bellpepper seeds aren't always for sale.
However, you can find some bellpepper seeds in town: Just go towards the alley all the way to the back; they are hidden behind the last house on the left (fetch with E).
Alternatively, you can just pay her 3000 Spirit Shards (3 Spirit Stones).

For each lecture taken, you gain stat points, or attribute points, and cultivation points.

How to book a sect course

Go to the big board to the left of the Lecture Hall. Interact with F.
In order to recruit Tingfeng, go to Lecturer Management (on the bottom right) and press "Recruit" for Tingfeng. You need to pay the 500 Spirit Shards, too, of course.
Tingfeng will now be available in the Course Reservation list.

Click on "Schedule" first and then on "Complete course scheduling". The course will be booked for the first slot on that day (if it's not yet 11 o'clock) or on the following day. The board should then look like this:
Good to know:
You can't book a course late on the last day of a solar cycle, because you can only book a course for the current solar cycle.
30 minutes before the class starts, a paper crane will alert you and take you directly to the classroom, wherever you are.
Be alert if you are fishing at the time, since you might miss the paper crane and therefore, the class!

Invite more lecturers

After your first lecture with Tingfeng, there will be more lecturers you can hire.
Btw, if you are late to recruit Tinfeng (because you can't deliver the food or the frog), you will still unlock lecturers through sect advancement.
They will at first cost you 500 Spirit Shards and teach only one subject. Later, you will have access to teachers who will cost 1000 Spirit Shards to hire and teach two subjects, which means you can raise two stats with one class.

They differ by the number of points they allow you to acquire in their skill(s) and they also differ by the amount of cultivation points they give: for instance, 75-115 compared to 160-240 with just one skill, and 100-145 compared to 220-320 with two skills.
I haven't seen it yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if there would later be teachers with even better stats and higher cost.
Don’t try to unlock all the lecturers (unless there will be an achievement for that, eventually); just make sure you have teachers for all the stats.

While some Lecturers will come to the sect regardless/ because of the sect development (i.e. buildings repaired), some lecturers have to be wooed with special gifts.
Check out the list with Tingfeng:
After you have brought her whatever will entice them to pay a visit to the sect, you can click on "Invite" and they will simply be added to the hiring screen.

Advancement in the sect (more sect buildings, trade routes) will unlock further lecturers.

Optimize your learning schedule

Don’t be fooled by the loading screen, and brother Yang, telling you that you can only take one course per solar cycle!
This is, in fact, wrong.
You can only attend lectures on one day per solar cycle (i.e. three days), but you can take up to three classes in a row on that one day !
Just book courses with three teachers and the three time slots will fill up:

Priorities

I would advise prioritizing
Divinity (better crops, better drops, more luminous sand),
HP (less fainting),
MP (more spells) and
Stance (take less hurt, kill them faster).

But that’s just my opinion.

There is no class that will help you raise your Stamina.
Stamina can be raised through Alchemy.

Breakthroughs (WIP)

These are beginner's stats:

If you hover over them with your mouse, you can see the maximum potential (here: for HP) that you can attain.
Now, reading Yang's notes and taking courses will raise your stats, but of course, only up to the maximum potential.
The breakthroughs will raise your potential higher.
The developers tell us to wait until we've attended a few lectures before we attempt our first breakthrough. Make of that what you will, but keep in mind that losing those cultivation points will hurt. And why raise your potential if you don't take classes?

Good to know: The numbers you are shown after breakthrough are NOT the new limit, but show how much higher you can now go (add to your limit before the breakthrough).

Fun fact: Everybody will be all over you after your first breakthrough.
After the second, nobody bats an eye.

Tips:
Buff yourself before the breakthrough. There's food that will help a lot.
And don't forget to go through with the breakthroughs, as they will significantly increase your potential and thus, allow you to further raise all your stats by taking more courses!
Plus, you'll look really silly if everybody in the sect has done them and you don't...

Tranquility Elixir

You can first get it at the Wandering Vendor, Mei. It will increase your maximum stamina by 20.
Cost: 250 special coins.

Mei initially sells a batch of 3. One other I found hidden.
Later on, you can craft them yourself with Alchemy.

Superior Enhancing Elixirs

There are a health enhancing elixir and a magic enhancing elixir as quest rewards in spring/ summer in the second year. Later on, you have a chance to make them yourself with Alchemy.
Their description is contradictory:

So i tested them and what they do is similar to taking classes: If you're not at your current maximum for your Qi level, they give you those points.

Epilogue

This is a work in progress.
What will the next breakthroughs hold in store for our avatars?
I held back playing until release. I'll now update this further.

Meanwhile, I found it worthwhile to explain what the first breakthrough really means and spell out the details of course reservation because I had found that confusing myself, at first.
And the rest just, er, piled up...
Plus, I wasn't amused to find out I had wasted weeks because the game explicitly told me (or so I thought, but maybe my english simply isn't good enough) that only one class per solar cycle can be taken... So read my guide and don't make my mistakes.

Thanks, as always, for reading!

[glitzerpaillette]

I've observed that the items you get gifted that won't raise your max potential are most abundant in the beginning, when you can't take classes yet and you max potential is well above you current stat. So mostly, if you use the items right when you get them, you should be fine. That's what I tried to indicate above.
Later on, you need to be careful, but almost all of the later items try to indicate whether they will raise the max or not... just not always in a perfectly clear language

[glitzerpaillette]

Good thing saving, testing and reloading is no big hassle if you know the issue is there!

[Reianor]

Actually depends on the item, it seems, even though that info is not in the description (ARGH!!!).
I've observed 4 items.
Water Lingzhi, Yang Ziquin's Note, and Scroll of Wind Chasing actually increase both your stats AND your potential by the same value.
So, for example, if you eat Water Lingzhi when your max mp is 45 and your potential is 65 you'll end up with max mp 75 and potential 95. Meaning it should be "safe" to use whenever.
Tattered book however doesn't raise your divinity potential at all. Only the current divinity,
Which, I suspect, means that it WOULD be wasted if used at max divinity.

[glitzerpaillette]

Don't use them if you are already at full potential, as the points will be wasted..

[Reianor]

I mean the ones that DON'T say that they can't take you past the limit. Like "Tattered book" or "Scroll of Wind Chasing".

[Reianor]

What happens if you use a permanent stat increasing item while at full potential?
Is it wasted or does it rise the stat beyond the limit?

[glitzerpaillette]

The maximum will always rise the same, no matter what your stats are

[Edbi]

I did first break when i got my cult full but I had no lecturers yet(farmed, mined, fought and cooked a lot) did I screw my stats or break will always rise max potential same regardless if you amxed it before breaking? I am now near to fill my last two stats to max before 2nd break and I am six days to end of 1st year(winter).

[glitzerpaillette]

Great :-)

[Kalgalus]

looks very good and understandable. thanks