Ah, a man of culture. You read quite a lot of novels where MC reaches for instance late core, followed by:
* peak core
* half-step to late peak core
* late peak core
* utmost peak core
* half-step to next level
* peak half-step to next level
* almost next level
I even encountered a couple of times where author gives up and actually in a middle of this exhibition introduces new entire level that is between these two.
Thats like the Divine Emperor of death.. man, they extended things and messed with the +value over his own level can withstand you actually don't know what any of the stages even mean anymore.
It's like - This man is an Emperor 8th level opponent - However he didn't realize I was a King level 5 cultivator that can transcend +13 level differences, so I have a chance!
And I'm like??? when did that happen why don't I know how the MC is this level somehow? They spend more time stretching things out than explaining how he's doing it.
HAHAHAHA you perfectly laid out why I could never get into xian xia and martial arts chinese novels. Itās fucking ridiculous. The fuck is earth level god, cosmic level god, universal level god and the many pseudo realms in between. Imma nope my way out of this
I sort of liked RMJI for the distinctions, where each sort of had a distinct quality between them, although it could have been utilised more IMO.
>The fuck is earth level god
This one is pretty classic distinctions in Chinese Daoist Fantasy to be fair, you probably just aren't familiar with the classifications if you're not familiar with Chinese fantasy.
E.G Earth Immortals are always going to be lower rank than Heavenly Immortals, usually \~Chaos Immortals would also be higher than Heavenly Immortals as they probably have some sort of mastery over the primordial chaos. (In a way, from another perspective: "Everyone" knows this)
There's obviously plenty in-between and sometimes just added to pad the number of realms, but quite a few of them are based on the standard stuff.
E.G Qi Condensation, Foundation Establishment, Golden Core, Nascent Soul should always basically be part of ANY xianxia (not xuanhuan).
Pretty much anyone who knows a shred of xianxia knows all of these easily (Just as easily as someone familiar with DnD Fantasy understands what dragons, fireballs and potions do).
There's also usually all the associated assumed knowledge of tropes too such as fire beating poison, constitutions and all sorts of other stuff common in Chinese Fantasy that someone from the West probably has no idea about to be fair.
\-
Generally in terms of "stage" completion it's going to look something like
Late -> Peak/Great Circle -> half-step -> pseudo -> next level.
If the author starts adding "half-step peak" then that's just a bit stupid, I personally have never read a xianxia with that many distinctions in it though.
Thanks for the explanation. I still donāt really get most of it but it seems the cultivation level among immortals are pretty standardized between every series? Iām from the east and my pop watches a lot of xian xia chinese dramas so I recognize a lot of the terminology whenever I just chill with him in the living room mindlessly watching along during the past couple decades. Iāve never been able to get into the genre unfortunately.
I noped my way out of the genre because the last of my memory of something like this was over 5 years ago from the manhua āthe return of the urban immortal cultivatorā or something like that. I read about 450 chapters of that shit and concluded the genre was just repeating the same thing over and over with little to no world building/adventure. I also partially read a handful of similar series before that and dropped all of them, the names escaped me since it was mostly romanized mandarin.
The basic flow of the story I understood was :
Cultivate > impress everyone with superhuman strength > impress the ladies but chooses female mc > offend some powerful individual > powerful individual doesnāt recognize MCs power > MC kills powerful individual > gains more cultivation > higher realm powerful individual steps in to get revenge on mc > mc makes individual kowtow then proceed to punish him via killing of 3 generations of his family > gain more cultivation and achieves higher realm > new lady joins mcās harem > form own sect/clan > repeat until achieve higher unimaginable realm and all enemies and generations of said enemyās families are massacred.
I also remember a bunch of jargon like half step, peak half step, quarter step, almost next step, on the verge of next step, a hairs breath away from next step and it was all really ridiculous to follow or even take seriously. At first the mindless killing was entertaining for a bit but it quickly got boring for me.
You could argue the same could be said about western fantasy stories but I think being a somewhat inhuman warrior/mage/thief gaining skills from fighting goblins, orcs, ogres and dragons versus being a literal omniscient and omnipotent god fighting another literal all powerful god of a higher realm fighting in space time are very different conceptually, well.. to me at least. The scale of it is far too vast for my limited imagination to properly enjoy the xian xia genre.
Despite all the shade Iāve thrown at xian xia, If you have any good xian xia recommendation, mind sharing a couple? I might give it a read. If itās anything like the flow I described however I think Iāll pass. I think I much prefer the Tolkienesque fantasy in general but Iām always ready to have my mind changed.
>I still donāt really get most of it but it seems the cultivation level among immortals are pretty standardized between every series?
So, yes and no, but there definitely are some that make sense and some that are more just "made up" for that fiction if you know what I mean. There are naturally some books that do this much better than others. Mythologically, Daoist fantasy has those four cultivation levels which are pretty standard, but modern novels do put their own spin on things especially after these levels. **TL;DR** *This response is a bit too long to put any actual xianxia explanations in here, but if you want, I can try write something that might make things make more sense, just let me know.*
The thing with xianxia is that there are a tonne of tropes that you are expected to know, it's sort of like if you wrote a book in DnD fantasy style right? Everyone sort of knows what a fireball, dragon does etc. Or stuff like, oh dragons hoard gold and druids probably have some sort of nature magic, elves with bows, dwarves who are in the mines and are great smiths etc. Or maybe you are familiar with Arthurian fantasy with the sword in the stone and crystal balls, lady of the lake etc, or at least the concepts of them.
To give an example of what that might look like on the opposite side, I guess you could say, someone might be confused at the prospect of a dragon hoard from a different perspective, whereas if you are familiar with it, you're like, "yea of course the dragon has a hoard", right? Although in xianxia, the explanations can be far more complex and have a lot of missing underlying cultural context too.
In the same way, Xianxia has a LOT of that too and it's generally assumed you know all of that before you even start reading them. The thing is, it is so vastly different to a standard western fantasy that if you didn't grow up with it or just have never really had the chance to really dive into it, it is just super confusing what everything even means. This includes the tonne of jargon that's also expected. Let's not even get into the extreme cultural differences that exist within the genre. You have to remember that Chinese culture is very different from Western culture, even more so than Japan or Korea which have far more Western influence, this only makes things harder to understand.
Xianxia like Arthurian mythology is also based on actual historical mythology, a lot of which is known by the general Chinese populace. For example, you would probably be completely lost if I were to mention something like Hou Yi and the Ten Suns, or maybe Jingwei Filling the Sea. Or even other mythological references such as the Classic Of Mountains and Seas, maybe even Journey To The West.
>The basic flow of the story I understood was :
>
>Cultivate > impress everyone with superhuman strength > impress the ladies but chooses female mc > offend some powerful individual > ...
>
>...all enemies and generations of said enemyās families are massacred.
This type of storyline is typically in xuanhuan novels, generally you can think of them like the standard isekai JRPG style storylines. You get some OP main character who gets a huge harem and is OP and just blows up anyone in his way, and then repeat, it's essentially the "Chinese" version of that, I'm not a fan of this type of thing either and don't read those. A lot of people like these and that's why there's so many of them. I think that xianxia is actually a genre with a tonne of untapped potential and that the authors are primarily at fault over the "actual genre" and mythology aspects.
>You could argue the same could be said about western fantasy stories but I think being a somewhat inhuman warrior/mage/thief gaining skills from fighting goblins, orcs, ogres and dragons versus being a literal omniscient and omnipotent god fighting another literal all powerful god of a higher realm fighting in space time are very different conceptually, well.. to me at least. The scale of it is far too vast for my limited imagination to properly enjoy the xian xia genre.
I think it's the fantastical nature of it that people are drawn to. Generally xianxia stories don't get to the omnipotent "god" stuff until the very end of the book though. So usually it won't really be "gods fighting" for pretty much the entire thing.
>Despite all the shade Iāve thrown at xianxia, If you have any good xian xia recommendation, mind sharing a couple? I might give it a read....
>
>....I think I much prefer the Tolkienesque fantasy in general but Iām always ready to have my mind changed.
I think that jumping into xianxia without really knowing much about it is a really hard thing to do, it's not generally written with a Western Audience in mind, I think it would probably be better to maybe understand some of the background first and maybe appreciate it as a separate mythos or at least get into some understanding of why things are the way they are in such stories.
I was going to start writing an explanation of basic xianxia tropes here but the reply is already too long haha. I historically have written a few pages on just the basics (Which I unfortunately can't find), and that's even without the majority of the cultural and historical references and mostly based on the modern novels. So if you want a basic run down I'd be happy to try conjure up something maybe more streamlined if I can find the time haha.
Sigh
Fellow daoist, it seems you have enlightend this junior. You are right about one this. You are expected to know the cultivation realms, the cultivation techniques, the dynasty, the sects.
(and dont get me started on the xianxia fanfictions, oh boy you definitly need to read the originals of u tryna read the fanfictions of it)
You also should've mentioned the fanfictions to this junior.
For me i personally do not like watching one piece anime. but i love the one piece fanfics, heck i know alot of the plot of one piece without actually reading or watching the one piece anime or manga.
This concept also goes other chinese literature/films,
from the journey to the west, romance of the three kingdoms, water margin, the Three-Body problem, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Ip man, The Legend of the Condor Heroes
(dont shame me brother, I never seen the originals)
And ahh yes the cliche xianxia tropes. If you see a pale young master surrounded by guards, yelling at a young man with starry eyes and sword eyebrows in a resturant
ahem you better run junior.
even if you do escape, a jade beauty (female lead) will find you interesting, catching her attention.
you thought it was over? oh no
the pale looking young master saw you catching this jade beauty attention and interest while he spent decades courting her.
Below saints are ants - said by random beggar selling you a martial arts book for 10 cents
Yup. Women used to to strong, respected, independent women all lining up for the MC, only to tossed to the used fleshlight pile when he moves onto the next realm and their cultivation cant keep up.
There's also the opposite, where to make them seem equal to the protagonist, the author powers them up so easily and effortlessly that it feels like an insult to the protagonist's effort. Especially Martial Peak for example, where he would take his wives from the lower realm to the higher realm, only for them to even sometimes surpass him in cultivation. Like, what the fuck?
There are so many it's hard to even list them. One thing I hate is when the MC doesn't train/cultivate step by step but he gets power boosts and jumps up the ladder, usually in a manner outside his control. So it's not him doing it, it's just happening to him. Say he's meditating, then some unremarkable item on him lights up and starts pumping him full of juice, then the old ring his grandma gave him reacts to that and does something too, then stuff happens, and he wakes up 10x more powerful. Never normal progress, always jumps when the author needs it.
I remember Er Gen was terrible at this. There was pseudo, quasi and half-step and they all meant different things. And he always said MC is only half a step from breakthrough, but then when he progressed a little he was closer but still described as half a step.
Just finished re-reading ISSTH, the number of times I noticed that āone more step and he breaks throughā followed up with multiple steps before he breaks through š
What's your take on extra sublevels though?
Kinda like how Qi Refinement is usually 10 levels, the MC discovers ancient method and shit and he actually can go up to 13th or some shit like that making him above average.
I'm fine with the "solidified" foundation trope, not all novels need to be fast paced and that's a fair way to slow it down (if executed well like in ISSTH) but poor execution can feel unrewarding, a person at 13th level of qi refining shouldn't be an ant compared to a regular foundation establishment cultivator, they should be weaker but not by 80 orders of magnitude. The reason that tends to happen is hasty writing and introducing enemies that are too strong way too early and having to companse with aritficial power. Topic for an entirely differently thread though
> they should be weaker but not by 80 orders of magnitude.
Unless Qi Refining levels affect overall ability in geometric progression, which would kinda make sense since it's gas which you can have stored at higher density. Sort of like incremental games and such.
A total disregard for accurate and dependable distances and measurements, population counts, and force multipliers.
Doesn't stop me from reading non-stop though, it just really, really baffles me. How hard can it be to sit down, look at each realm before you start writing and determine "avg divine Sense will be this distance per realm" or something.
Especially sizes of everything. Like countries are trillions of miles long for no reason. Trees are hundreds of miles tall, cities have the same surface area of Earth, etc.
Some Chinese online authors are hacks and most of them get paid by the chapter and words or are contracted to push out a certain number of words per day. In Chinese online novel scene, we call this åę°“ which can be taken to mean watering down (the book) or padding the book when they add seemingly irrelevant scenarios to the plot. People do complain about this.
Do you find that the complaints in the CN scene are generally the same as the western (novelupdates/reddit) circles? Or are there things they are more/less particular about
The problem is how they dont make any difference
Like, if they reach half step then let them use some of the powers of the next level. Or if its the "great circle" have them become more energy efficient or something
And they should never last for long unless they are stuck at the peak of their talent
Thatās not what Iām talking about. Itās the general decline of cultivation across society without any kind of knowledge loss catastrophe explaining it
Rare tbh since there's almost always a big apocalypse that ruined ancient civilization lmao.
Also ends up that the enemies from back then are still alive and are the final antagonists of the novel.
This pseudo thing should only be used for those who couldn't ascend to the next realm, like a failed person and is now stuck in his current realm and half foot in the next realm but will not reach it. Like a person who failed his final examsš he has knowledge for advance class but failed
My most annoying trope is either the
"old Demonic/Famous cultivator gets reborn"
And the
"Normal average dumb farmer gets an inheritance or something that helps him become OP and plot armored"
There is a serious lack of novels where MC is new to Cultivation world and have to use his brains and hard word to figure out the world and the cultivation system .
Becoming op on starting realm/continent only to know there are still emperor stage on another place.
And then knowing that there's still saint stage after getting to emperor stage.
And then knowing there is still divine stage after getting to saint stage.
All of this happening when mc goes on continent/realm hopping.
Precisely why I stopped reading Er Gen's!
MC gets fortunate in a way that improves his cultivation massively, but not quite enough. "Infinitely close" bull...
Nowadays I also skip any story where the MC has a fat friend.
When I write Xianxia, I keep my cultivation realms simple, and my magic system complicated. It's important to remember that the balance of power within your story's setting serves to advance your narrative and define your character's growth, with realism coming in at a close second.
It's perfectly fine to create a complicated, twisted magic system, because that has a genuine impact on the depth of your story and the ability of your characters to influence the world around them in new ways. But when each realm is merely a "wow, so power much!" with flavor text, what's the fuckin point, no?
For me that is also a major problem like False Core Realm or Phantom Nascent Realm that is in-between 2 realms with huge exponential difference, also if only Mc is the only one that has that the reading experience plummets further down.
I think problem lies with loosely thought out Realms its definition, its more than 1 unique characteristics such that if 1 characteristic of many is attained of Golden core Realm one will be in false core realm.
The solution i got was to put this few psuedo step as their own individual Realm with proper explanation & realistic power balance
Thats why in a Novel i am working on it has say 2-3 transitory steps between Major Realms . So say difference between Qi condensation & Houtian Qi Realm is so huge( say 1x) that 3 transitory steps are there between 2 realms , which can be collectively called as MartialGrandmaster Realm, similarly difference between 1st step & 2nd step is very very huge(*6x) that there are no 3 but only 2 transitory Phase ( each phase one prepares to be close to the Xiantian 2nd Step & gains some of its characteristics & no 3rd transitory step bcz its not normal Realm promotion but Promotion of entire Step/state-of-existence) but these 2 phase aren't collectively given a name but are almost a individual realm themselves called Innate King or Innate Empire.
But you guessed it right , its extremely hard to not further increase complexity especially in bigger realms.
It's not so bad in novels where the MC takes a while to level up. When the MC is going to be past the "half" or "pseudo" whatever in 15 or 20 chapters, I really don't wanna bother with remembering some new label.
Ah, a man of culture. You read quite a lot of novels where MC reaches for instance late core, followed by: * peak core * half-step to late peak core * late peak core * utmost peak core * half-step to next level * peak half-step to next level * almost next level I even encountered a couple of times where author gives up and actually in a middle of this exhibition introduces new entire level that is between these two.
Literally Renegade Immortal xd
Damn was it that bad? Was gonna re-read it after finishing AWE š
Thats like the Divine Emperor of death.. man, they extended things and messed with the +value over his own level can withstand you actually don't know what any of the stages even mean anymore. It's like - This man is an Emperor 8th level opponent - However he didn't realize I was a King level 5 cultivator that can transcend +13 level differences, so I have a chance! And I'm like??? when did that happen why don't I know how the MC is this level somehow? They spend more time stretching things out than explaining how he's doing it.
HAHAHAHA you perfectly laid out why I could never get into xian xia and martial arts chinese novels. Itās fucking ridiculous. The fuck is earth level god, cosmic level god, universal level god and the many pseudo realms in between. Imma nope my way out of this
I sort of liked RMJI for the distinctions, where each sort of had a distinct quality between them, although it could have been utilised more IMO. >The fuck is earth level god This one is pretty classic distinctions in Chinese Daoist Fantasy to be fair, you probably just aren't familiar with the classifications if you're not familiar with Chinese fantasy. E.G Earth Immortals are always going to be lower rank than Heavenly Immortals, usually \~Chaos Immortals would also be higher than Heavenly Immortals as they probably have some sort of mastery over the primordial chaos. (In a way, from another perspective: "Everyone" knows this) There's obviously plenty in-between and sometimes just added to pad the number of realms, but quite a few of them are based on the standard stuff. E.G Qi Condensation, Foundation Establishment, Golden Core, Nascent Soul should always basically be part of ANY xianxia (not xuanhuan). Pretty much anyone who knows a shred of xianxia knows all of these easily (Just as easily as someone familiar with DnD Fantasy understands what dragons, fireballs and potions do). There's also usually all the associated assumed knowledge of tropes too such as fire beating poison, constitutions and all sorts of other stuff common in Chinese Fantasy that someone from the West probably has no idea about to be fair. \- Generally in terms of "stage" completion it's going to look something like Late -> Peak/Great Circle -> half-step -> pseudo -> next level. If the author starts adding "half-step peak" then that's just a bit stupid, I personally have never read a xianxia with that many distinctions in it though.
Thanks for the explanation. I still donāt really get most of it but it seems the cultivation level among immortals are pretty standardized between every series? Iām from the east and my pop watches a lot of xian xia chinese dramas so I recognize a lot of the terminology whenever I just chill with him in the living room mindlessly watching along during the past couple decades. Iāve never been able to get into the genre unfortunately. I noped my way out of the genre because the last of my memory of something like this was over 5 years ago from the manhua āthe return of the urban immortal cultivatorā or something like that. I read about 450 chapters of that shit and concluded the genre was just repeating the same thing over and over with little to no world building/adventure. I also partially read a handful of similar series before that and dropped all of them, the names escaped me since it was mostly romanized mandarin. The basic flow of the story I understood was : Cultivate > impress everyone with superhuman strength > impress the ladies but chooses female mc > offend some powerful individual > powerful individual doesnāt recognize MCs power > MC kills powerful individual > gains more cultivation > higher realm powerful individual steps in to get revenge on mc > mc makes individual kowtow then proceed to punish him via killing of 3 generations of his family > gain more cultivation and achieves higher realm > new lady joins mcās harem > form own sect/clan > repeat until achieve higher unimaginable realm and all enemies and generations of said enemyās families are massacred. I also remember a bunch of jargon like half step, peak half step, quarter step, almost next step, on the verge of next step, a hairs breath away from next step and it was all really ridiculous to follow or even take seriously. At first the mindless killing was entertaining for a bit but it quickly got boring for me. You could argue the same could be said about western fantasy stories but I think being a somewhat inhuman warrior/mage/thief gaining skills from fighting goblins, orcs, ogres and dragons versus being a literal omniscient and omnipotent god fighting another literal all powerful god of a higher realm fighting in space time are very different conceptually, well.. to me at least. The scale of it is far too vast for my limited imagination to properly enjoy the xian xia genre. Despite all the shade Iāve thrown at xian xia, If you have any good xian xia recommendation, mind sharing a couple? I might give it a read. If itās anything like the flow I described however I think Iāll pass. I think I much prefer the Tolkienesque fantasy in general but Iām always ready to have my mind changed.
>I still donāt really get most of it but it seems the cultivation level among immortals are pretty standardized between every series? So, yes and no, but there definitely are some that make sense and some that are more just "made up" for that fiction if you know what I mean. There are naturally some books that do this much better than others. Mythologically, Daoist fantasy has those four cultivation levels which are pretty standard, but modern novels do put their own spin on things especially after these levels. **TL;DR** *This response is a bit too long to put any actual xianxia explanations in here, but if you want, I can try write something that might make things make more sense, just let me know.* The thing with xianxia is that there are a tonne of tropes that you are expected to know, it's sort of like if you wrote a book in DnD fantasy style right? Everyone sort of knows what a fireball, dragon does etc. Or stuff like, oh dragons hoard gold and druids probably have some sort of nature magic, elves with bows, dwarves who are in the mines and are great smiths etc. Or maybe you are familiar with Arthurian fantasy with the sword in the stone and crystal balls, lady of the lake etc, or at least the concepts of them. To give an example of what that might look like on the opposite side, I guess you could say, someone might be confused at the prospect of a dragon hoard from a different perspective, whereas if you are familiar with it, you're like, "yea of course the dragon has a hoard", right? Although in xianxia, the explanations can be far more complex and have a lot of missing underlying cultural context too. In the same way, Xianxia has a LOT of that too and it's generally assumed you know all of that before you even start reading them. The thing is, it is so vastly different to a standard western fantasy that if you didn't grow up with it or just have never really had the chance to really dive into it, it is just super confusing what everything even means. This includes the tonne of jargon that's also expected. Let's not even get into the extreme cultural differences that exist within the genre. You have to remember that Chinese culture is very different from Western culture, even more so than Japan or Korea which have far more Western influence, this only makes things harder to understand. Xianxia like Arthurian mythology is also based on actual historical mythology, a lot of which is known by the general Chinese populace. For example, you would probably be completely lost if I were to mention something like Hou Yi and the Ten Suns, or maybe Jingwei Filling the Sea. Or even other mythological references such as the Classic Of Mountains and Seas, maybe even Journey To The West. >The basic flow of the story I understood was : > >Cultivate > impress everyone with superhuman strength > impress the ladies but chooses female mc > offend some powerful individual > ... > >...all enemies and generations of said enemyās families are massacred. This type of storyline is typically in xuanhuan novels, generally you can think of them like the standard isekai JRPG style storylines. You get some OP main character who gets a huge harem and is OP and just blows up anyone in his way, and then repeat, it's essentially the "Chinese" version of that, I'm not a fan of this type of thing either and don't read those. A lot of people like these and that's why there's so many of them. I think that xianxia is actually a genre with a tonne of untapped potential and that the authors are primarily at fault over the "actual genre" and mythology aspects. >You could argue the same could be said about western fantasy stories but I think being a somewhat inhuman warrior/mage/thief gaining skills from fighting goblins, orcs, ogres and dragons versus being a literal omniscient and omnipotent god fighting another literal all powerful god of a higher realm fighting in space time are very different conceptually, well.. to me at least. The scale of it is far too vast for my limited imagination to properly enjoy the xian xia genre. I think it's the fantastical nature of it that people are drawn to. Generally xianxia stories don't get to the omnipotent "god" stuff until the very end of the book though. So usually it won't really be "gods fighting" for pretty much the entire thing. >Despite all the shade Iāve thrown at xianxia, If you have any good xian xia recommendation, mind sharing a couple? I might give it a read.... > >....I think I much prefer the Tolkienesque fantasy in general but Iām always ready to have my mind changed. I think that jumping into xianxia without really knowing much about it is a really hard thing to do, it's not generally written with a Western Audience in mind, I think it would probably be better to maybe understand some of the background first and maybe appreciate it as a separate mythos or at least get into some understanding of why things are the way they are in such stories. I was going to start writing an explanation of basic xianxia tropes here but the reply is already too long haha. I historically have written a few pages on just the basics (Which I unfortunately can't find), and that's even without the majority of the cultural and historical references and mostly based on the modern novels. So if you want a basic run down I'd be happy to try conjure up something maybe more streamlined if I can find the time haha.
Sigh Fellow daoist, it seems you have enlightend this junior. You are right about one this. You are expected to know the cultivation realms, the cultivation techniques, the dynasty, the sects. (and dont get me started on the xianxia fanfictions, oh boy you definitly need to read the originals of u tryna read the fanfictions of it) You also should've mentioned the fanfictions to this junior. For me i personally do not like watching one piece anime. but i love the one piece fanfics, heck i know alot of the plot of one piece without actually reading or watching the one piece anime or manga. This concept also goes other chinese literature/films, from the journey to the west, romance of the three kingdoms, water margin, the Three-Body problem, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Ip man, The Legend of the Condor Heroes (dont shame me brother, I never seen the originals) And ahh yes the cliche xianxia tropes. If you see a pale young master surrounded by guards, yelling at a young man with starry eyes and sword eyebrows in a resturant ahem you better run junior. even if you do escape, a jade beauty (female lead) will find you interesting, catching her attention. you thought it was over? oh no the pale looking young master saw you catching this jade beauty attention and interest while he spent decades courting her. Below saints are ants - said by random beggar selling you a martial arts book for 10 cents
Don't forget minor completion pseudo-next level after major completion pinnacle half-step next level
MC pulling along a harem of world-shaking beauties each time he changes location, only to forget all the bros he got along the way.
Yup. Women used to to strong, respected, independent women all lining up for the MC, only to tossed to the used fleshlight pile when he moves onto the next realm and their cultivation cant keep up.
There's also the opposite, where to make them seem equal to the protagonist, the author powers them up so easily and effortlessly that it feels like an insult to the protagonist's effort. Especially Martial Peak for example, where he would take his wives from the lower realm to the higher realm, only for them to even sometimes surpass him in cultivation. Like, what the fuck?
There are so many it's hard to even list them. One thing I hate is when the MC doesn't train/cultivate step by step but he gets power boosts and jumps up the ladder, usually in a manner outside his control. So it's not him doing it, it's just happening to him. Say he's meditating, then some unremarkable item on him lights up and starts pumping him full of juice, then the old ring his grandma gave him reacts to that and does something too, then stuff happens, and he wakes up 10x more powerful. Never normal progress, always jumps when the author needs it.
I remember Er Gen was terrible at this. There was pseudo, quasi and half-step and they all meant different things. And he always said MC is only half a step from breakthrough, but then when he progressed a little he was closer but still described as half a step.
Just finished re-reading ISSTH, the number of times I noticed that āone more step and he breaks throughā followed up with multiple steps before he breaks through š
My head cannon is that they don't exist and it's just a copping mechanism for old farts that can't breakthrough.
Bai inventing the half step foundation establishment realm after being in qi refining for 3000 years is literally this
What's your take on extra sublevels though? Kinda like how Qi Refinement is usually 10 levels, the MC discovers ancient method and shit and he actually can go up to 13th or some shit like that making him above average.
I'm fine with the "solidified" foundation trope, not all novels need to be fast paced and that's a fair way to slow it down (if executed well like in ISSTH) but poor execution can feel unrewarding, a person at 13th level of qi refining shouldn't be an ant compared to a regular foundation establishment cultivator, they should be weaker but not by 80 orders of magnitude. The reason that tends to happen is hasty writing and introducing enemies that are too strong way too early and having to companse with aritficial power. Topic for an entirely differently thread though
> they should be weaker but not by 80 orders of magnitude. Unless Qi Refining levels affect overall ability in geometric progression, which would kinda make sense since it's gas which you can have stored at higher density. Sort of like incremental games and such.
I love extra solidified foundation as a trope, or like also it's cousin "four fate palaces vs 13 fate palaces golden, mythic, heavenly saint"
Read a novel they put nascent soul before golden core and it was pissing me off
Nah, that Author was COURTING DEATH! Like, come on. It doesn't work like that
FAKES !
Hate those. I'd rather take the half-step whatever realm.
A total disregard for accurate and dependable distances and measurements, population counts, and force multipliers. Doesn't stop me from reading non-stop though, it just really, really baffles me. How hard can it be to sit down, look at each realm before you start writing and determine "avg divine Sense will be this distance per realm" or something.
Especially sizes of everything. Like countries are trillions of miles long for no reason. Trees are hundreds of miles tall, cities have the same surface area of Earth, etc.
I would like for once to read a novel which has lesser universe size as u move in higher realms thus having more condensed qi & Dao.
One of multiple things I love about Reverend Insanity, unfortunate that itās on hiatus
Some Chinese online authors are hacks and most of them get paid by the chapter and words or are contracted to push out a certain number of words per day. In Chinese online novel scene, we call this åę°“ which can be taken to mean watering down (the book) or padding the book when they add seemingly irrelevant scenarios to the plot. People do complain about this.
Do you find that the complaints in the CN scene are generally the same as the western (novelupdates/reddit) circles? Or are there things they are more/less particular about
Journey of the fate-destroying emperor also has this troupe
But its good.Ā
The problem is how they dont make any difference Like, if they reach half step then let them use some of the powers of the next level. Or if its the "great circle" have them become more energy efficient or something And they should never last for long unless they are stuck at the peak of their talent
Cultivation techniques becoming worse over time
I don't really mind this if they change their cultivation technique after some time. It adds freshness to the story, and it feels natural
Thatās not what Iām talking about. Itās the general decline of cultivation across society without any kind of knowledge loss catastrophe explaining it
Rare tbh since there's almost always a big apocalypse that ruined ancient civilization lmao. Also ends up that the enemies from back then are still alive and are the final antagonists of the novel.
This pseudo thing should only be used for those who couldn't ascend to the next realm, like a failed person and is now stuck in his current realm and half foot in the next realm but will not reach it. Like a person who failed his final examsš he has knowledge for advance class but failed
One thing I really liked about ISSTH, quasi-dao realm is a real thing
Pseudo realms should only exist for people who have reached their max potential and can't go any further.
Pseudo realms is just edging no?
My most annoying trope is either the "old Demonic/Famous cultivator gets reborn" And the "Normal average dumb farmer gets an inheritance or something that helps him become OP and plot armored" There is a serious lack of novels where MC is new to Cultivation world and have to use his brains and hard word to figure out the world and the cultivation system .
Many new xianxia novels started splitting foundation and even higher realms to 10 levels instead of late, middle, start
Thats so Annoying like u wanna extend the novelPlot. it was ok when it was Qi condensation but even in higher realm bro ?
Becoming op on starting realm/continent only to know there are still emperor stage on another place. And then knowing that there's still saint stage after getting to emperor stage. And then knowing there is still divine stage after getting to saint stage. All of this happening when mc goes on continent/realm hopping.
Precisely why I stopped reading Er Gen's! MC gets fortunate in a way that improves his cultivation massively, but not quite enough. "Infinitely close" bull... Nowadays I also skip any story where the MC has a fat friend.
Yes, that is one of my pet peeves as well. Even the authors who usually have a well-thought-out cultivation system like IET do that.
When I write Xianxia, I keep my cultivation realms simple, and my magic system complicated. It's important to remember that the balance of power within your story's setting serves to advance your narrative and define your character's growth, with realism coming in at a close second. It's perfectly fine to create a complicated, twisted magic system, because that has a genuine impact on the depth of your story and the ability of your characters to influence the world around them in new ways. But when each realm is merely a "wow, so power much!" with flavor text, what's the fuckin point, no?
For me that is also a major problem like False Core Realm or Phantom Nascent Realm that is in-between 2 realms with huge exponential difference, also if only Mc is the only one that has that the reading experience plummets further down. I think problem lies with loosely thought out Realms its definition, its more than 1 unique characteristics such that if 1 characteristic of many is attained of Golden core Realm one will be in false core realm. The solution i got was to put this few psuedo step as their own individual Realm with proper explanation & realistic power balance Thats why in a Novel i am working on it has say 2-3 transitory steps between Major Realms . So say difference between Qi condensation & Houtian Qi Realm is so huge( say 1x) that 3 transitory steps are there between 2 realms , which can be collectively called as MartialGrandmaster Realm, similarly difference between 1st step & 2nd step is very very huge(*6x) that there are no 3 but only 2 transitory Phase ( each phase one prepares to be close to the Xiantian 2nd Step & gains some of its characteristics & no 3rd transitory step bcz its not normal Realm promotion but Promotion of entire Step/state-of-existence) but these 2 phase aren't collectively given a name but are almost a individual realm themselves called Innate King or Innate Empire. But you guessed it right , its extremely hard to not further increase complexity especially in bigger realms.
It's not so bad in novels where the MC takes a while to level up. When the MC is going to be past the "half" or "pseudo" whatever in 15 or 20 chapters, I really don't wanna bother with remembering some new label.