The Five Fold Journeys of Divinity

There are many paths that cultivators follow in pursuit of immortality and godhood. There are hundreds if not thousands of schools that can take them there. However most scholars recognize five major subdivisions among all those different paths. Each of these subdivisions consists of a number of paths that all have a common core of cultivation which differs from one of the other journeys. There are scholars who posit the existence of additional Journey's, but these are so rare and examples so few that they are largely unrecognized.
The Orthodox Journey
The vast majority of the cultivators in the world are Orthodox cultivators. This is essentially anyone who follows one of the Ten Great Schools or Ten Imbalanced Paths as their core pathway to ascension. Although the specifics differ all of these schools have the same basic cultivation style. They take in Qi and use it to mold cores and refine their bodies. This Journey is typically about improving oneself with no outside factors and is thus regarded as the most fundamental journey.
The Unorthodox Journey
Not everyone follows the twenty orthodox schools however. Many minor clans, and even some major ones have more esoteric schools that focus on areas not covered by the main schools or do so in a different way. Many of these are close enough to be labeled as orthodox regardless, but many aren't. The dividing line is that unorthodox cultivators focus on refining something outside themselves. Probably the most common method is choosing a spirit beast companion and forming a soul bond to it. Other common methods are forging lifebound treasures, or the path of the Scholar perfecting various works of literature, art, or music.
The Forbidden Journey
The forbidden journey involves sacrificing others for your own gain. Schools in this path tend to be a mish mash as most orthodox cultivator take great pains to wipe out groups of forbidden cultivators wherever they find them and so practitioners must usually learn everything for themselves. The most basic forbidden path is one of blood. Sacrificing the bodies of other humans in order to fuel the cultivator's own ascension. This is a fairly simple process, and yields powerful results. But is also very obvious and typically leads to mobs of enraged relatives hunting down the blood cultivator soon enough. More insidious is the path of mind. These cultivators subtly invade the minds of their targets and enslave them to their will creating legions of devoted thralls. But the most dangerous of all is the path of soul where a cultivator manages to figure out the secret to stealing other people's very cultivation directly.
The Spirit Journey
Much less controversial is the path of the spirit. This is simply encouraging people to worship you as a god and eventually directly ascending to divinity. This is a relatively benign path, but very hard for anyone besides a spirit to follow. And even for them it is no guaranteed thing as it relies so heavily on other people to impart their energy to you willingly.
The Demonic Journey
The last of the five journeys are the paths of demonhood. Far beneath the earth is the underworld. It is a twisted place that is very hard to survive in as it is filled with a heavy corrupt Qi known as ichor. The animals and plants are strange and disturbing things there mutated to survive in the murky ichor, and it is overall a very dangerous and uninviting place. Still as corrupt as it is cultivators are always on the look out for better Qi sources. And inevitably some learned to absorb and use this ichor for themselves. Doing so makes them extraordinarily powerful, but also mutates them from human or spirit beast into a demon. Eventually they become entirely reliant on ichor. Some retreat to the underworld. This could be tolerated. They are not after all, harvesting other people for their cultivation.
However the problem arises with the demonic cultivators who decide they'd rather bring the underworld to them and open great passages to allow for easy access. Unfortunately there are things sleeping in the underworld. Great behemoths and leviathans known as True Demons. They are the size of mountains and do not particularly like it when people poke holes in their roofs. They usually express their displeasure by climbing to the surface and wreaking havoc across whole regions before returning to the underworld. Given that it takes groups of Venerables or Sages to drive off a True Demon most cultivators prefer to nip the problem in the bud by killing the demonic cultivators first.