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In a Cultivation World with a Cheat System (Xianxia inspired quest).

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So, we've got the typical trope of "kid from a big-name local clan has crippled cultivation," only with the twist that they're not treating him like sh*t because of it, since they're not a bunch of sociopaths who devote themselves to obsessively victimizing anyone who can't beat them in a fight.

But it seems to me that what typically follows from the above trope is "pretty girl from some other clan/sect with above-average prospects who got engaged to the MC when they were born comes to break off the engagement with the cripple." And then usually of course the loss of oh-so-precious face drives the MC to get stronger, come back and humiliate her for having the temerity of not wanting to marry a guy who basically provides nothing to a marriage that she as a cultivator is interested in and whom she's never met.

@Kolarthecool Does Zhang Tian know of any arrangements for his future marriage?
 
Leingod said:
So, we've got the typical trope of "kid from a big-name local clan has crippled cultivation," only with the twist that they're not treating him like sh*t because of it, since they're not a bunch of sociopaths who devote themselves to obsessively victimizing anyone who can't beat them in a fight.

But it seems to me that what typically follows from the above trope is "pretty girl from some other clan/sect with above-average prospects who got engaged to the MC when they were born comes to break off the engagement with the cripple." And then usually of course the loss of oh-so-precious face drives the MC to get stronger, come back and humiliate her for having the temerity of not wanting to marry a guy who basically provides nothing to a marriage that she as a cultivator is interested in and whom she's never met.

@Kolarthecool Does Zhang Tian know of any arrangements for his future marriage?
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Nah I think you got the trope wrong. Most of the time it's super genius child gets engaged to other super genius child. Super genius child then suddenly stops being able to cultivate for some reason. This leads to everyone hating on him because the new top genius of the clan had a inferiority complex to super genius child.
 
Leingod said:
But it seems to me that what typically follows from the above trope is "pretty girl from some other clan/sect with above-average prospects who got engaged to the MC when they were born comes to break off the engagement with the cripple." And then usually of course the loss of oh-so-precious face drives the MC to get stronger, come back and humiliate her for having the temerity of not wanting to marry a guy who basically provides nothing to a marriage that she as a cultivator is interested in and whom she's never met.
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...Actually, it may be because I haven't read many series yet... (They're frakking long!), But the one with this trope I saw had the fiance actually go through and marry him. Against The gods, for the record.
 
Alanek said:
...Actually, it may be because I haven't read many series yet... (They're frakking long!), But the one with this trope I saw had the fiance actually go through and marry him. Against The gods, for the record.
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I'm reading it right now, actually, which was why it came to mind. Xia Qingyue is seeming like a breath of fresh air so far.
 
Here is something I just thought up.

[ ] [Item] iDAO Gen 1. A innovation from the far flung distant future of the 40th Era. An natural treasure artificially created through the mastery of the Origin of Heaven and Earth, this crystalline creation is born with the innate ability to calculate the Great Dao. Stumped by the Dao of the devil? Just ask Xi're: "Xire'er, I'm having trouble cultivating the next level of the Law of the Devil?" Then just let your iDao do all the work, sit back and reap the enlightenment. This year, get the best present for your sect's Chosen's that have everything. 0.1% Financing option available. Contact your local Taoist Costco for terms and conditions.
Taoist Costco Rating: 4.5/5 Stars
Toys of Cultivators: Rank #1
Cultivator Resources: Rank #1337
Click here for detailed iDao Revews:
The Froggy Ninja said:
That's silly. Everyone knows that Qi energy makes native species too stupid to progress passed the medieval age of technological development. Otherwise by the time the first fourth dan cultivator died of old age, they'd be in space. Xianxia timescales don't work unless technological development just stopped at some point.
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Reckless_Sun said:
iDAO Gen 1. A innovation from the far flung distant future of the 40th Era. An natural treasure artificially created through the mastery of the Origin of Heaven and Earth, this crystalline creation is born with the innate ability to calculate the Great Dao. Let your iDao do all the work, just set back and reap the enlightenment. 0.1% Financing option available. Contact your local Taoist Costco for terms and conditions.
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That's silly. Everyone knows that Qi energy makes native species too stupid to progress passed the medieval age of technological development. Otherwise by the time the first fourth dan cultivator died of old age, they'd be in space. Xianxia timescales don't work unless technological development just stopped at some point.
 
Hey @Kolarthecool is the full body and soul repair way better than using the separate full body and full sould repairs?

Because it costing over three times as much as the individual options combined does not make sense
 
DarknessSmiles said:
Hey @Kolarthecool is the full body and soul repair way better than using the separate full body and full sould repairs?

Because it costing over three times as much as the individual options combined does not make sense
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I think it's a time thing. Like, the totally full repair takes the same amount of time as one or the other so if time isn't a big issue you might as well take them separately.
 
The Froggy Ninja said:
That's silly. Everyone knows that Qi energy makes native species too stupid to progress passed the medieval age of technological development. Otherwise by the time the first fourth dan cultivator died of old age, they'd be in space. Xianxia timescales don't work unless technological development just stopped at some point.
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Technological development happens, it just takes the form of dao and art development, which is the technology of the cultivation world.
Somehow this also impacts the mortals who live in the asia-sized gaps between cultivator settlements.
 
Umi-san said:
Technological development happens, it just takes the form of dao and art development, which is the technology of the cultivation world.
Somehow this also impacts the mortals who live in the asia-sized gaps between cultivator settlements.
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If anything Dao and artifact creation knowledge decreased over time. Otherwise all these literally millions year old items and techniques would be garbage. And even then, there isn't mass production which is just too efficient for any civilization that isn't stupid to ignore. There isn't widespread education which seems like a logical choice, even if it doesn't include education on the Dao, there's basically nothing mortals can use to improve quality of life. Any sane society would have conquered the entire world tippy style within a few generations if not for the few ubermench with high cutlivation and if the one who wised up was one of those so called geniuses then it'd be over and done with.
 
The Froggy Ninja said:
That's silly. Everyone knows that Qi energy makes native species too stupid to progress passed the medieval age of technological development. Otherwise by the time the first fourth dan cultivator died of old age, they'd be in space. Xianxia timescales don't work unless technological development just stopped at some point.
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Are there criteria for not adding stuff in the order form to Taoist Costco other than being a blatant attempt to cheese the shop (i.e. buying discounts/extra points on the shop's currency)?

The Froggy Ninja said:
And even then, there isn't mass production which is just too efficient for any civilization that isn't stupid to ignore.
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The Song Dynasty would disagree.
 
Leingod said:
Are there criteria for not adding stuff in the order form to Taoist Costco other than being a blatant attempt to cheese the shop (i.e. buying discounts/extra points on the shop's currency)?
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Not to my knowledge.
Leingod said:
The Song Dynasty would disagree.
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The Song Dynasty didn't even start until at least five hundred years after the era Xianxia settings have apparently been in for the past several Epochs.
 
The Froggy Ninja said:
Any sane society
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Xianxia civs aren't sane at all.
The sects are basically paranoid, information-hogging guilds.
The clans are basically paranoid, antique-hogging nobles.

No one cares about mortals because they're obviously inferior; why uplift them if you can just take what you want when you want it?

Etc.

Dao and etc. development is still happening; ancient techniques being superior seems to be framed as knowledge being lost, bloodlines being diluted, and resources being used up rather than people not developing new stuff. Though admittedly people do seem more fond of finding and using (and hoarding) powerful techniques than developing new ones. Still performed by sect founders often, though.
 
The Froggy Ninja said:
The Song Dynasty didn't even start until at least five hundred years after the era Xianxia settings have apparently been in for the past several Epochs.
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Well, I think most xianxia writers are exactly as knowledgeable about what their "middle ages" looked like as most Western fantasy writers, so that's probably not the result of intentionally being placed somewhere before the Song Dynasty so much as just not knowing a damn thing about their own history.
 
Umi-san said:
Technological development happens, it just takes the form of dao and art development, which is the technology of the cultivation world.
Somehow this also impacts the mortals who live in the asia-sized gaps between cultivator settlements.
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Then there is the Dao of the Drug Lord. Alchemy techniques advances over time.

Then there are your noob amchemists that mass produce low level pills for the general population.

So yes there is tech just not the way we are used to.
 
Reckless_Sun said:
Then there are your noob amchemists that mass produce low level pills for the general population.

So yes there is tech just not the way we are used to.
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They really don't. Most stories I see say that kingdoms have maybe fifty people who can even make the lowest level pills and even then it takes over an hour per batch of 1-5.
Umi-san said:
Xianxia civs aren't sane at all.
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That's what I said. I can only make the same assumption as that Naruto fic did and assume that some quality of Qi makes people who use it or are exposed to it insane.
Leingod said:
Well, I think most xianxia writers are exactly as knowledgeable about what their "middle ages" looked like as most Western fantasy writers, so that's probably not the result of intentionally being placed somewhere before the Song Dynasty so much as just not knowing a damn thing about their own history.
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I was honestly basing it more around he tech level of the few mortals we see and when Taoism became an actual major religion.
 
Umi-san said:
Xianxia civs aren't sane at all.
The sects are basically paranoid, information-hogging guilds.
The clans are basically paranoid, antique-hogging nobles.

No one cares about mortals because they're obviously inferior; why uplift them if you can just take what you want when you want it?

Etc.
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I actually posted a funny thought about how you could interpret why that happens on the Xianxia thread:

Leingod said:
So I'm reading Against the Gods right now, and when the entire Xiao clan is sh*tting on the MC at his wedding because of his crippled cultivation (that he's going to fix inside the next week, probably, since he's actually a reincarnated medical master with a magic pearl that can make any medicine or poison), only bothering to even pretend to be subtle about it because his grandpa could kick their asses. During that scene, there's this line here that got me to thinking:

His Profound Vein was disabled so it was a fact that he would not achieve any greatness during his entire lifetime because of that. So they don't have to be friends or be polite with Xiao Che. They did not care if they offend him because even if he got offended, he could not do anything against them with his disabled Profound Vein. Before this wastrel they could be unscrupulous and not care, readily dripping in the show of their superiority. They felt strong as they look down on this person who would never become anything but one who was weaker than them.

That is the ugly reality of human nature.
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Specifically, it got me to thinking that this is a very Confucian statement in some ways, which is funny because xianxia sometimes feels very anti-Confucian.

Specifically, it's Confucian in the sense that it proves the antithesis. You see, Confucianism has a very top-down view of morality; a society (or any social grouping, really) is only as moral as its ruler, because people look to the ones at the top for their values and seek to emulate them, either because they're moved by such virtue or simply to receive the favor of their superiors, depending on how cynical the Confucianist you're asking is (i.e. are you asking Confucius himself, or his student Mencius). In addition, the job of the ruler is to appoint those below him, who then do the same; when the ruler is a man of virtue and wisdom, so will those he appoints, and they will do the same.

In other words, when the people at the top are cruel, selfish and small-minded, the structures of power will inevitably self-select for people like that, as such people will always support those willing to support them in perpetuating a corrupt system and suppress those who don't.

Further, Confucianism believes that morality comes from mutual social obligations to each other. Through needing to depend on a complex web of relationships of superiors and inferiors, we learn how to treat each other with respect and altruism. In other words, a person who doesn't feel the need to depend on others can't be trusted to treat others with respect.

In most settings, cultivators are almost completely split off from ordinary society, and most cultivators don't feel a whit of obligation toward non-cultivators, and only grudgingly toward their lessers in the cultivation world. Those who reach the top of the heap almost inevitably do so by valuing nothing but things that further their own power, and so the majority of them are power-hungry, greedy and cruel, and their students in turn will be as well, perpetuating this attitude and lionizing it as "virtue." As the "way things are and ought to be." As "the way it's always been."

And that is why most xianxia settings are full of petty, selfish, callous, self-obsessed douchebags. Or alternatively, you could go with, say, the Legalist argument that people can only be kept in line when the highest authority in all the land is an equal and inflexible code of law that punishes all crimes harshly but equally, and say that because cultivators believe themselves above "lesser" authorities they're simply free to exercise the cruel, selfish nature that is intrinsic to humanity.
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Reckless_Sun said:
Then there is the Dao of the Drug Lord. Alchemy techniques advances over time.

Then there are your noob amchemists that mass produce low level pills for the general population.

So yes there is tech just not the way we are used to.
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What seems to happen is that every time a society advances to a certain point (very, very slowly, even by the standards of fictional portrayals of a Chinese-inspired civilization), some asshole shows up out of nowhere and wrecks the place up until everyone forgets how everything works, and then they rebuild until that cycle repeats itself.

The Froggy Ninja said:
They really don't. Most stories I see say that kingdoms have maybe fifty people who can even make the lowest level pills and even then it takes over an hour per batch of 1-5.
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Well, sometimes there's some dedicated alchemist organization working for the local king, which is usually his main source of leverage when it comes to sects unless the royal family are also really powerful cultivators (usually they're inferior to the sects, though).

I was honestly basing it more around he tech level of the few mortals we see and when Taoism became an actual major religion.
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Technically, Daoism has been a guiding religion since at least the Han Dynasty. The official guiding religion and philosophy during Han was a fusion of Confucianism and Daoism called "Huang-Lao."
 
Umi-san said:
Xianxia civs aren't sane at all.
The sects are basically paranoid, information-hogging guilds.
The clans are basically paranoid, antique-hogging nobles.

No one cares about mortals because they're obviously inferior; why uplift them if you can just take what you want when you want it?

Etc.

Dao and etc. development is still happening; ancient techniques being superior seems to be framed as knowledge being lost, bloodlines being diluted, and resources being used up rather than people not developing new stuff. Though admittedly people do seem more fond of finding and using (and hoarding) powerful techniques than developing new ones. Still performed by sect founders often, though.
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I mean who wants to pay the r and d cost? This is Asia after all, everyone just act like pirates.
 
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