Xianxia Encompassing the World! (Xianxia Rec Discussion and Idea thread)

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So an unrelated idea I've been bouncing around might give some inspiration.

Every once in a while you'll come across some super high ranking sect throwing a banquet, showing off by serving High Quality Spiritual Rice That No One Can Ever Get.
Where does the sect get that rice?
After all, you could have some rando stumbling on some 5,000 year old ginseng, and if you have enough randos, then you have lots of ginseng.
But rice?
That takes planning.
And yet, it also seems weird to have the super high ranking sect that never touches the ground to have a bunch of farms.


The Great Cultivator Sect is not a standard sect.
Instead of choosing daring, talented disciples, they choose patient, attentive disciples.
Instead of a small, heavily fortified compound in the mountains with high spiritual energy, they occupy a vast farmland, with middling spiritual energy.
Instead of defending themselves from other cultivators, they routinely fight off spiritual beasts, since cultivators generally aren't looking for bulk dry goods.
The sect gets by with diplomacy, size, and the fact that most cultivators don't actually want what they have all that much.
After all, if someone robbed them, they'd have a lot of rice once, but then they'd have to grow their own!


However, all sects have a secret edge, and The Great Cultivator Sect is no exception.

For most cultivators, the density of spiritual energy is simply a constant.
They might find denser areas, they might build formations to shift it around, but why a given location has more or less naturally?
Perhaps there's a spiritual vein, but why it flows there?
No clue.
If the spiritual energy around their sect happened to shift, they'd be helpless to stop it.

The Great Cultivator Sect knows the secret.
By careful curation of the farms and surrounding land, they have managed to generally increase the spiritual energy of the entire region from low to mid.
They conceal this by having thousands of "irrigation tools" holding spiritual stones all over their farms.
Other sects consider this wasteful and inefficient, which they leverage when negotiating their rice sales.
The truth is the stones are purely decorative, the land is enriching itself naturally.

Only the elders of the sect know that the innermost parts of the sect has recently upgraded to high spiritual energy.
 
Most of these had been brought in other cultivation stories actually. Cultivator at certain level can alter the entire geography. In case of World of Cultivation for example, a Yuanying is supposed to be world-altering.

(Not particularly in practice. Yuanying fights were some of the lamest one in the story)

But yeah, having the knowledge HOW to alter it properly takes science/secret arts.
 
It's also a matter of perspective.
Maybe some upper divinity level cultivator can recreate an entire world out of random junk in their pockets, but they also don't benefit from it since it's made from random junk they don't need.

This would be people improving the land at or above their own level.
 
On the farmer cultivator idea, he could have the approval/blessing/good relations with the land deity but he doesn't know they're a deity.
 
Yama951 said:
On the farmer cultivator idea, he could have the approval/blessing/good relations with the land deity but he doesn't know they're a deity.
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Hopefully it's neither a waifu nor an old bearded man, but more like a friendly middle-aged farmer who's built like a brick shithouse.
I don't think I've seen that sort of character as the xianxia protag's mentor.
 
Yama951 said:
On the farmer cultivator idea, he could have the approval/blessing/good relations with the land deity but he doesn't know they're a deity.
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That was actually my idea for second arc or third arc, after MC did something good for the environment. Not really a cheat but more like a guardian spirit.
kinglugia said:
Hopefully it's neither a waifu nor an old bearded man, but more like a friendly middle-aged farmer who's built like a brick shithouse.
I don't think I've seen that sort of character as the xianxia protag's mentor.
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I like Shinto as inspiration despite writing Chinese fiction, so the Earth Gods (basically spirits born from places on earth) will all be animals or fairies.
 
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Yama951 said:
On the farmer cultivator idea, he could have the approval/blessing/good relations with the land deity but he doesn't know they're a deity.
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Hello Beware of Chicken?

Blaflaix said:
The Great Cultivator Sect is not a standard sect.
Instead of choosing daring, talented disciples, they choose patient, attentive disciples.
Instead of a small, heavily fortified compound in the mountains with high spiritual energy, they occupy a vast farmland, with middling spiritual energy.
Instead of defending themselves from other cultivators, they routinely fight off spiritual beasts, since cultivators generally aren't looking for bulk dry goods.
The sect gets by with diplomacy, size, and the fact that most cultivators don't actually want what they have all that much.
After all, if someone robbed them, they'd have a lot of rice once, but then they'd have to grow their own!
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If they have impossibly expensive rice, though, that's a high-value item. There are going to be sects in the mid-to-high range (able to beat up the Great Cultivator Sect, but not able to afford the rice) who'd be inclined to take it by force. So how do they deal with that?

Mostly, I think, they work on commission - at least for the pricier stuff. The rice in a field is already spoken for and paid for when it starts sprouting. It already belongs to the Overpowering Phoenix Mountain Sect (or whatever). Stealing the rice would be an offense against them.
 
Sirrocco said:
If they have impossibly expensive rice, though, that's a high-value item. There are going to be sects in the mid-to-high range (able to beat up the Great Cultivator Sect, but not able to afford the rice) who'd be inclined to take it by force. So how do they deal with that?

Mostly, I think, they work on commission - at least for the pricier stuff. The rice in a field is already spoken for and paid for when it starts sprouting. It already belongs to the Overpowering Phoenix Mountain Sect (or whatever). Stealing the rice would be an offense against them.
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Perhaps those other sects also send a couple of rotating low level disciples over as well as a token "guard force". As one of those menial chore sect missions for outer disciples. Not strong enough to actually be expected to stop a determined attack, but would also make it very obvious that stealing the rice will offend their sect.
 
kinglugia said:
No human form? Hmm, I suppose that's fine too.
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I like the prevailing theory of humans are alien/humans are unnatural which people in fictional universe either agree or disagree with.
Sirrocco said:
not able to afford the rice
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More like unwilling lol
I haven't see any Xianxia works where market disagreement between sects were resolved in peaceful way
Not a single one
I've seen blood feud and revenge hatchet being buried more often
 
TriGayatri said:
It might be well praised but referencing it like this is about as fun as looking at Jojo fans
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It was a bit pithy, but it's not really possible to talk about writing a farming xianxia in English without acknowledging the chicken in the room. Maybe in a few years it won't be as big of a deal, but right now 'how can I make my story distinct from Beware of Chicken while also attracting readers?' and 'what cool ideas from BoC can I actually get away with taking inspiration from?' are questions that need to be answered.

The MC contracting with an earth spirit like in BoC is something you'd want to carefully consider, if you take too much inspiration you might as well write BoC fanfic, it's not like it'd be the first.
 
memoryofglory said:
The MC contracting with an earth spirit like in BoC is something you'd want to carefully consider, if you take too much inspiration you might as well write BoC fanfic, it's not like it'd be the first.
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I don't write a fanfic of something I didn't watch/read, if there are similarities it would be coincidence, as nothing new under the sun
Earth Spirit is something I often take from JRPG and magical/religious themed anime and manga. That's why I said Shinto.
 
Just make sure the MC doesn't look like some namby pansy ass scholar- skin like white jade, black hair long and silky, and slim like a woman.
It's just so... boring. Ancient China masculine standards are so overrated.
 
kinglugia said:
Just make sure the MC doesn't look like some namby pansy ass scholar- skin like white jade, black hair long and silky, and slim like a woman.
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jade skin is unfortunately part of the genre, unless he start some esoteric body cultivation technique that is.
Here's how I would describe him: average height, short hair, toned but not musclebound, his face is a bit childish for his body and everyone often remarked him about this. (Many call him "big eyes" or "baby")
He look closer to generic Japanese harem MC than xianxia MC.

Usually use peasant garb, but always mistaken for a fuckboy if he wear fancy clothes.
Often being topless just because he's insecure about his face, to show his muscles.

Wears a pair of moon-shaped earrings which are family heirloom. (They later turned into flying blade weapons after he started cultivating and undone the seals)
 
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So I'm trying to read some novels again and I realize there's Shen Mu/Tomb of Fallen Gods
Holy shit, the STARK difference between the donghua and the novel is like heaven and earth

In the novel, bratty princess is a lot less sympathetic. She's brutal and bitchy to him and he can comes of as masochistic sometimes. Also, his power progression is incredibly slow and arduous. Legit painful to read.

The donghua took a lot of moderation pill and instead framed it more like an anime (including the whole 'bath encounter' sequence). The princess is a huge tsundere (twin tails included) and was harsh in the beginning, but he also gives back equal humiliation to her later, and she mellowed a whole lot after he helped to save her life by sacrificing his cultivation.

His power also returned near instantly, and instead he smartly tried to hide as low key scholar (didn't last long but hey)
 
Hm. Any of you ever try The Martial Unity? The author hangs around in the discord of The Mech Touch, so I eventually got convinced to give it a try.

Transmigrator who on Earth was a martial arts/combat sports analyst with several degrees he applied towards his work. Unfortunately was born with some pretty shit lungs that prevented him from ever getting into it himself.

In Martial Arts land, it starts off being more of a wuxia. No qi or other esoteric energies. Tries to give "reasonable" sciencish explanations for techniques. Of course I'm now in the interschool tournament and one of these fuckers is breathing fire, another one has lungs so powerful she's shooting sonic bullet roars, and another is managing a technique of the next realm where you can step on air. So in the end, this is basically still a xianxia, just everyone is technically a body cultivator who uses their absurd superhuman physiques to accomplish their techniques instead of directly manipulating energy.
 
Sounds interesting, though I hope the MC of The Martial Unity gets to be able to git gud and become fist wizard instead of remaining a feeble civilian.
 
kinglugia said:
Sounds interesting, though I hope the MC of The Martial Unity gets to be able to git gud and become fist wizard instead of remaining a feeble civilian.
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Yeah, post-transmigration reincarnation his new body is perfectly healthy. Average is a vast improvement from his old asthmatic self. He's also able to apply his old knowledge for more optimal training from a young age, although his 59 years of muscle memory from his old life trip him up initially.

His brainchild from his old life was a fighting style that was basically just hyper analyzing his opponent and then a big fat flowchart/algorithm to figure out optimal counters to the opponent's fighting style. On Earth, it was deemed completely impractical because an MMA fighter both isn't going to manage to memorize all that and the supporting information in the first place, and their brain isn't going to work fast enough to crunch through it all mid-fight. In his second life he is planning to use it himself as his own martial art style, aided by how much faster martial artists of this new world are capable of thinking.

So MC is a very analytical fighter that tailors his fighting style to his opponent. Works best if he can gather information on his opponent beforehand, and will grow stronger as a fight continues.

Starting off the MC is from an orphanage, so starting point is behind all the legacy martial art family kids. But even then, with his past life knowledge he's able to get himself at a fairly decent starting position, managing to get into the martial arts school with some notice. And once there he has the resources to actually blossom. Doesn't perpetually stay as an underdog, actually gets noted as a prodigy. Most of the rich kids also are actually decent and become friends. They respect strength.

I do also like the MC's temperament all-around. Fairly rational guy most of the time, since he was a well educated adult in his past life. But still appropriately emotional when it makes sense, cares for friends/family(orphanage he grew up in), and has the amount of love/dedication for martial arts you would expect from a guy who spent a lifetime obsessing over it but unable to participate. If anything, he might have a lack of obvious flaws so far I suppose.
 
TriGayatri said:
Ah yes, Baki's school of martial bullshit lol
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Yeah. When I was talking to somebody and asking them to sell me on the novel they kept saying:

"A lot of power progression is learning new techniques which is learning to do things which require superhuman precision to do something that is technically possible"

To which my response was:

"How much heavy lifting is "technically possible" doing in this sentence?"

It's not too outlandish for like the first half of the Apprentice realm. But uh, yeah. Then people start breathing fire.

Mortal/No realm -> Martial Apprentice -> Martial Squire -> Martial Senior -> Martial Master -> Martial Sage -> Martial Transcendent

Martial Apprentices are technically physically "peak human" in the way Captain America is peak human, and their active techniques go a bit beyond that. Their brains however are superhuman, allowing them to think and react to things at superhuman speeds (works only in combat or similar situations, they have apparently tested for this, and the average Martial Apprentice is not any better at math tests) as well as control individual parts of their body with extreme precision.

Martial Squires have actually superhuman bodies greater than that of Apprentices by at least a magnitude. Though of course individual feats don't exactly take exact math into account, like the MC at this realm running in a way that apparently breaks the sound barrier.

Haven't seen anybody at higher realms flex yet. (Though I did skip ahead to look at a much further chapter and saw a Sage doing some real bullshit that may as well be straight up magic. Kinda like to see how they try and justify it physically later.)
 
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