So after harmonized village, am I supposed to just spend like 200+ lives cultivating? Because at the rate of Affinity gain I have, that's about how many getting 9% all (technique give around 1%) would take, and I don't see anything else I can be doing yet.
This is multiple actual days worth of doing nothing but cultivating in this, and automation does not account for beast tides, so it needs to be babysitted more than once every half hour. And this is the rate with the best cultivation I have
And that 200+ estimate was based on harmonized village cultivation which you can't spend a whole life doing, unlike other methods. For those you can spend a whole life on, willowbrook cultivation would take about 4x as long, getting progress in an individual element about 2.5x as fast, but needing to be done to all elements individually, and cave cultivation is 1/16x the speed or so