Cultivation Novels

[Discount_Blade]

So, I'll be honest and say I'm normally one of those in the front lines ready and willing to talk a lot of shit about the xianxia genre. I used to do the same about Wuxia and Xuanhuan before I realized the subtle differences....though I still find Xuanhuan practically the same as Xianxia and think it absurd it's even considered its own thing. (I mean come on, adding a little western aesthetic and then justifying it getting a brand new genre is just....stupid. It's still Xianxia...just with a little western-ism.)

Anyway, I have two questions, one is, while I've come to understand how Wuxia differs, being less magic-y and more "realistic" in whatever ways, can someone give me a decent description in their own words, what Wuxia is. Also...don't just drop links. If I wanted to look up links explaining the differences, I could do that myself. I wanted someone to say it in their own words.

Also, my next question is about Xianxia. If someone, for example: me but not neccessarily me, wanted to write one, what are THE BIGGEST NO-NO'S in your opinions, for the genre as a whole? I have a few ideas, but what are yours?

Just a few of mine for example, is the piss-poor worldbuilding that usually goes into it. The pitiful antangonists. Oh man I've gotten to where I drop manga if I see "Courting death" in the dialogue even once. That and some of the obnoxious metaphors that seems to be used in pracically every xianxia I've noticed. Apparently a lot of those guys have a sort of metaphor database they all pick and choose lines from. I'd love to peruse such a thing myself. Like "Does the frog know how big the well is?" is a common one I used to see alot. I mean...just stop...

 

[NotaNuffian]

So, I'll be honest and say I'm normally one of those in the front lines ready and willing to talk a lot of shit about the xianxia genre. I used to do the same about Wuxia and Xuanhuan before I realized the subtle differences....though I still find Xuanhuan practically the same as Xianxia and think it absurd it's even considered its own thing. (I mean come on, adding a little western aesthetic and then justifying it getting a brand new genre is just....stupid. It's still Xianxia...just with a little western-ism.)

Anyway, I have two questions, one is, while I've come to understand how Wuxia differs, being less magic-y and more "realistic" in whatever ways, can someone give me a decent description in their own words, what Wuxia is. Also...don't just drop links. If I wanted to look up links explaining the differences, I could do that myself. I wanted someone to say it in their own words.

Also, my next question is about Xianxia. If someone, for example: me but not neccessarily me, wanted to write one, what are THE BIGGEST NO-NO'S in your opinions, for the genre as a whole? I have a few ideas, but what are yours?

Just a few of mine for example, is the piss-poor worldbuilding that usually goes into it. The pitiful antangonists. Oh man I've gotten to where I drop manga if I see "Courting death" in the dialogue even once. That and some of the obnoxious metaphors that seems to be used in pracically every xianxia I've noticed. Apparently a lot of those guys have a sort of metaphor database they all pick and choose lines from. I'd love to peruse such a thing myself. Like "Does the frog know how big the well is?" is a common one I used to see alot. I mean...just stop...

Wuxia is basically in my view, normal street men fighting with a dash of Hadoken. No mystic arts, no shitfucks. Just a simple mana/ ki/ chi system with everyone running on that. That is it. The most simple of examples are sadly in KR manhwa, Breaker, some Spear dude, bla bla bla.

In a lot of lowest level fights in Xianxia, they are like that. Then shit goes sideways when they bring in "immortalhood" and you will see a monk throwing giant Golden Buddha at someone's Ink Dragon Claw. That is when you know the names of the techniques no longer matter, because it is just like Bleach. GETSUGA TENSHO!

You basically pointed out most of the flaws in xianxias, as villains exist as target practice and hatesink. Then there are a lot of common idioms that the chinese writers are drilled into their heads since a young age, so Mount Tai becomes a common place than Everest for me.

You forget the planes of planes of planes of worlds of planes. That is when the authors are just padding their stories for cash. And jade bunnies. And collectable women (JUST LIKE IN ALL TYPES OF NOVELS TO ATTRACT MALE READERS). And a stupid friend (fat is most probably, to showcase how cool MC is. I am fat. I am offended.)

 

[DreamOfRen]

In my mind it's an emphasis on either challenging fate, the heavens or reaching the pinnacle (with vague references of how to go about that).
Usually the main character has to cultivate in order to grow.

There's one I saw that was a bit of a mix between both (Wuxia and Xianxia) and it was pretty interesting though I'm not sure it's still being written.
It's called

Living Spark Cultivation.

The premise is that the MC is betrayed by classmates and ends up in a life or death survival situation. The twist is that somehow he was struck by lightning, causing him to nearly die. However, when he awakens his body has been healed and someone is talking to him. Turns out the lightning energy inside of him is sentient and bonded permanently to him.

From there he has to figure out how to escape the ravine he fell into.

What impressed me was the unique story and also the unique system to the cultivation, which was unlike most things I'd ever seen before. I really wish the author would finish it tbh, the story was great to me if you can overlook a few errors here and there.

 

[DreamOfRen]

Oh man I've gotten to where I drop manga if I see "Courting death" in the dialogue even once. That and some of the obnoxious metaphors that seems to be used in pracically every xianxia I've noticed. Apparently a lot of those guys have a sort of metaphor database they all pick and choose lines from. I'd love to peruse such a thing myself. Like "Does the frog know how big the well is?" is a common one I used to see alot. I mean...just stop...

Btw those phrases are common in Mandarin language. They are like expressions of "wassup" and "wtf?" to americans. In other words it's part of the genre I believe. It's like kawaii, tsundere to japanese culture in fact.

 

[Discount_Blade]

In my mind it's an emphasis on either challenging fate, the heavens or reaching the pinnacle (with vague references of how to go about that).
Usually the main character has to cultivate in order to grow.

There's one I saw that was a bit of a mix between both (Wuxia and Xianxia) and it was pretty interesting though I'm not sure it's still being written.
It's called

Living Spark Cultivation.

The premise is that the MC is betrayed by classmates and ends up in a life or death survival situation. The twist is that somehow he was struck by lightning, causing him to nearly die. However, when he awakens his body has been healed and someone is talking to him. Turns out the lightning energy inside of him is sentient and bonded permanently to him.

From there he has to figure out how to escape the ravine he fell into.

What impressed me was the unique story and also the unique system to the cultivation, which was unlike most things I'd ever seen before. I really wish the author would finish it tbh, the story was great to me if you can overlook a few errors here and there.

the cultivation system was unique? how so?

 

[Discount_Blade]

Wuxia is basically in my view, normal street men fighting with a dash of Hadoken. No mystic arts, no shitfucks. Just a simple mana/ ki/ chi system with everyone running on that. That is it. The most simple of examples are sadly in KR manhwa, Breaker, some Spear dude, bla bla bla.

In a lot of lowest level fights in Xianxia, they are like that. Then shit goes sideways when they bring in "immortalhood" and you will see a monk throwing giant Golden Buddha at someone's Ink Dragon Claw. That is when you know the names of the techniques no longer matter, because it is just like Bleach. GETSUGA TENSHO!

You basically pointed out most of the flaws in xianxias, as villains exist as target practice and hatesink. Then there are a lot of common idioms that the chinese writers are drilled into their heads since a young age, so Mount Tai becomes a common place than Everest for me.

You forget the planes of planes of planes of worlds of planes. That is when the authors are just padding their stories for cash. And jade bunnies. And collectable women (JUST LIKE IN ALL TYPES OF NOVELS TO ATTRACT MALE READERS). And a stupid friend (fat is most probably, to showcase how cool MC is. I am fat. I am offended.)

God I loved Breaker. Not really anything like Hadoken though in it. It was just absurdly powerful martial arts attacks that were realistic enough, the only difference being sometimes a dude would put his fist through a brick wall and apparently was unbothered it. No one was throwing spheres of energy balls or whatever in Breaker. Not that I remember anyway. I mean even the strongest dude in the manga, Dragon of the 9 Arts, his special thing was something like the Black Heaven & Hell state or something similarly named, and all it was pretty much was a berserk state where his strength and speed skyrocketed and he was practially impervious to physical harm for a certain amount of time.

I think the most unnatural thing I saw in Breaker was one guy who had the ability to use a "tiger style" martial art where he clawed with his fingers, all the way through a concrete support beam while fighting in a parking garage. I call it Tiger Style since the hand movements resembled what I've seen people do when practicing said martial style. You can learn practically any martial art style imaginable if you grew up in NYC and knew where to look.

 

[NotaNuffian]

God I loved Breaker. Not really anything like Hadoken though in it. It was just absurdly powerful martial arts attacks that were realistic enough, the only difference being sometimes a dude would put his fist through a brick wall and apparently was unbothered it. No one was throwing spheres of energy balls or whatever in Breaker. Not that I remember anyway......

It is an analogy, I mean I recalled in Dragon Tiger Gate, old hong kong comic, there are martial artists capable of doing that shit. How you use the ki is up to you, Breakers use them to do crazy manuveurs, strong punches (fyi I love the claw guy in S1, shame that he had to die to show how badass the teacher is) and then there is the Spec Ops guy with his Dragon Spiral technique that supposed to dismember a person, all he gave to the schoolboy MC (ffs he is never the MC in my heart) some rope burnmarks resembling of a finished BDSM session.

Then in Gosu, we have local deforestator swordsman, mountain tunnelling spearman and the MC, coolest fatfuck I ever seen. I still dunno why or how I downloaded a bunch of the webcomics into my Gallery, fucking up my own space.

 

[Discount_Blade]

It is an analogy, I mean I recalled in Dragon Tiger Gate, old hong kong comic, there are martial artists capable of doing that shit. How you use the ki is up to you, Breakers use them to do crazy manuveurs, strong punches (fyi I love the claw guy in S1, shame that he had to die to show how badass the teacher is).

Yeah it was a pity. He was only doing it to avenge his teacher, which in all respects towards their culture, was an honorable thing to do. So technically, his only fault was he just so happened to be pitted against the one guy that he never had a chance in hell against.

 

[Discount_Blade]

It is an analogy, I mean I recalled in Dragon Tiger Gate, old hong kong comic, there are martial artists capable of doing that shit. How you use the ki is up to you, Breakers use them to do crazy manuveurs, strong punches (fyi I love the claw guy in S1, shame that he had to die to show how badass the teacher is).

Then in Gosu, we have local deforestator swordsman, mountain tunnelling spearman and the MC, coolest fatfuck I ever seen. I still dunno why or how I downloaded a bunch of the webcomics into my Gallery, fucking up my own space.

Gosu?

 

[NotaNuffian]

Gosu?

GOSU

When his master dies, Gang Yong pledges to avenge his teacher at all costs. After training his martial arts skills in seclusion, Gang Yong sets off to hunt down the traitors and make them pay! But when he gets to town, he discovers they're... already dead? Well, what's he supposed to do now?!

m.webtoons.com

Yeah it was a pity. He was only doing it to avenge his teacher, which in all respects towards their culture, was an honorable thing to do. So technically, his only fault was he just so happened to be pitted against the one guy that he never had a chance in hell against.

Nah, he knew the cool guy is low on steam and forced him to fight in a building rigged with bombs knowing that high chances he cannot kill him by himself, but at least with his claw techniques that,will cripple him for life, he can stall until the building kills them both.

Then Seismic Step is introduced and fuck me all the way, it is the stomp version of Inner Ki Strike.

 

[DreamOfRen]

the cultivation system was unique? how so?

It was clearly explained, for one. Most are just weird scaling descriptions that are needlessly confusing.I don't want to share too much because the system closely ties in with his survival at a certain point.

It explained the process as outer and inner cultivation, going from skin to bones to enhance the body. It gave a bit of depth to the elements. You know how normally people just throw fire around willy nilly? in this one you had to sort of consider the nature of the element itself to use it properly.

He also had a crafting system which allowed him to make weapons , normally they make a huge deal about finding legendary weapons in most fics but not necessarily the ability to make custom ones.

It even went so far as to explain how, when meditating one could pick the elements out of the atmosphere to speed up the process.

Just tiny details like that.

 

[NotaNuffian]

It was clearly explained, for one. Most are just weird scaling descriptions that are needlessly confusing.I don't want to share too much because the system closely ties in with his survival at a certain point.

It explained the process as outer and inner cultivation, going from skin to bones to enhance the body. It gave a bit of depth to the elements. You know how normally people just throw fire around willy nilly? in this one you had to sort of consider the nature of the element itself to use it properly.

He also had a crafting system which allowed him to make weapons , normally they make a huge deal about finding legendary weapons in most fics but not necessarily the ability to make custom ones.

It even went so far as to explain how, when meditating one could pick the elements out of the atmosphere to speed up the process.

Just tiny details like that.

I sadly also notice it only has 20 chapters and 0 release per week. And that guy has a patreon, does that mean that I need to pay to read the rest?

 

[Discount_Blade]

It was clearly explained, for one. Most are just weird scaling descriptions that are needlessly confusing.I don't want to share too much because the system closely ties in with his survival at a certain point.

It explained the process as outer and inner cultivation, going from skin to bones to enhance the body. It gave a bit of depth to the elements. You know how normally people just throw fire around willy nilly? in this one you had to sort of consider the nature of the element itself to use it properly.

He also had a crafting system which allowed him to make weapons , normally they make a huge deal about finding legendary weapons in most fics but not necessarily the ability to make custom ones.

It even went so far as to explain how, when meditating one could pick the elements out of the atmosphere to speed up the process.

Just tiny details like that.

reminds me of Storm King. Not the weapons crafting of the picking elements out of the atmosphere but the descriptions to cultivating. In that one, the author made sure you knew which parts of the body were affected by which level of cultivation. for example, not exact but close enough, the First Rank of cultivation after you broke through, effected your skin. It basically made it easier for atmospheric-something-something to enter your body which in the process helped you continue cultivating. Like it widened the pores on your skin or something. It got slightly scientific but not overly so. It was also explained that while you could still break through in rank one, there were things like "imperfect breakthroughs", where you could pass, but not fully. Having an imperfect breakthrough in Rank one was detrimental to future cultivation. While you could continue ranking up, you would be stalling your future potential.

Then rank two effected the bones or something and then more details on that. It was like a mixture of eastern fantasy cultivation and hard science.

 

[DreamOfRen]

I sadly also notice it only has 20 chapters and 0 release per week. And that guy has a patreon, does that mean that I need to pay to read the rest?

To my knowledge he stopped working on all of his fictions but one.
I believe that's why there's only that many chapters.

 

[NotaNuffian]

reminds me of Storm King. Not the weapons crafting of the picking elements out of the atmosphere but the descriptions to cultivating. In that one, the author made sure you knew which parts of the body were affected by which level of cultivation. for example, not exact but close enough, the First Rank of cultivation after you broke through, effected your skin. It basically made it easier for atmospheric-something-something to enter your body which in the process helped you continue cultivating. Like it widened the pores on your skin or something. It got slightly scientific but not overly so. It was also explained that while you could still break through in rank one, there were things like "imperfect breakthroughs", where you could pass, but not fully. Having an imperfect breakthrough in Rank one was detrimental to future cultivation. While you could continue ranking up, you would be stalling your future potential.

Then rank two effected the bones or something and then more details on that. It was like a mixture of eastern fantasy cultivation and hard science.

At least some works try to point out the difference between 煉气vs煉体 (Qi Cultivation vs Body Tempering) and why it works and what not. For instance, the most common analogy is that Qi acts as a force multiplier cum body refiner cum universal lubricant and the equation is like this. Output = Qi*Body.

Qi is also a lot easier to cultivate than body plus there is a limit of how much you can cultivate your own body (NOT MC).

And the body tempering thing? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yijin_Jing

In the history, they have a bloody manual to tell you how to properly temper your own body.

Also the atmospheric breathing through your skin is... okay, cuz the last time I read is to close your pores so as to:
A. Don't let the Qi escape.
B. Don't let foreign harmful substance in.

 

[DreamOfRen]

reminds me of Storm King. Not the weapons crafting of the picking elements out of the atmosphere but the descriptions to cultivating. In that one, the author made sure you knew which parts of the body were affected by which level of cultivation. for example, not exact but close enough, the First Rank of cultivation after you broke through, effected your skin. It basically made it easier for atmospheric-something-something to enter your body which in the process helped you continue cultivating. Like it widened the pores on your skin or something. It got slightly scientific but not overly so. It was also explained that while you could still break through in rank one, there were things like "imperfect breakthroughs", where you could pass, but not fully. Having an imperfect breakthrough in Rank one was detrimental to future cultivation. While you could continue ranking up, you would be stalling your future potential.

Then rank two effected the bones or something and then more details on that. It was like a mixture of eastern fantasy cultivation and hard science.

I see. This one was different in the aspect that the "ranks" as you call them weren't dependent on body tempering or enhancement. Those were just steps you could do at any time, and they also helped the amount of energy you could contain safely in your body.

So for example, once the person reaches the first rank, they can then begin to store excess lightning in their body provided they have tempered their body enough to do so. This extra energy can then be used instantly rather than needing to pull it from the atmosphere for example.

Ranks acted more of a growth spurt after having a break through . This story described breakthroughs more like, anyone could have them provided they fulfilled the requirements before hand. The most easy way to do it was to have a mass of energy too big for one's body, then acclimate to it.

For certain reasons I won't spoil, the MC didn't have to worry about the gathering pure energy part.

 

[Discount_Blade]

@NotaNuffian @DreamOfRen

So is there an issue with how I explained Storm King does it?

 

[NotaNuffian]

@NotaNuffian @DreamOfRen

So is there an issue with how I explained Storm King does it?

I need to google what series you are talking about. Because different author different style of cultivation.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/16476/the-storm-king#toc

This it?

 

[DreamOfRen]

@NotaNuffian @DreamOfRen

So is there an issue with how I explained Storm King does it?

I've never read that fic, so I wouldn't know.
The most obvious one for me was that skin didn't necessarily improve absorbtion, but rather the body overall became tougher.
More resistant to damage, piercing, etc.
By the end of the body temperament process it would take an extremely strong force to hurt someone as an example. Normal weapons would be obsolete unless they were of high enough quality and even then, it might not be enough to even inflict a mortal wound.

As for the qi cultivation aspects, it never got around to going too deep into that.

 

[Discount_Blade]

I need to google what series you are talking about. Because different author different style of cultivation.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/16476/the-storm-king#toc

This it?

Yep.