Recommendations Wuxia/xianxia/xuanhuan protagonist that isn't a "lone wolf"

City of Sin
Douluo Dalu

 

Only half way through reading it myself so idk if it stays this way till the end, but Ze Tian Ji fits all of your conditions perfectly imo

 

yea World of Cultivation was .u wish the mc wasnt the main protognist but instead his ...

 

Nightfall

 

Warning, both of my recommendations are on Webnovel.com, and thus have many of their chapters hidden behind a gating system.

Once Upon A Time, There Was A Spirit Sword Mountain. MC in this is rarely alone for any great length of time, but calling those he's working with as "friends" is... not exactly correct. MC is basically a master manipulator type MC, and the story's set in a Cultivation World. MC is not "me against the world", but rather "how to best manipulate my allies and enemies into the situation I desire based on current knowledge". Not sure if this would suit you, but MC does often travel with allies in order to cover his and his allies weaknesses (his being offensive strength, the most common ally's being intelligence and planning ability).

Commanding Wind and Cloud. Again, the MC in this rarely travels alone, and builds up a posse of friends to travel and train with throughout the series. It takes a little bit, but the MC eventually picks up some companions who grow in power only slightly slower than he does (varies depending on the individual). Warning however, MC is "Godly Skilled MC" archetype, where he's skilled in everything he can do. And the only thing he can't do is Magic.

 

World of Cultivation
Ascending, Do Not Disturb
My Master Disconnected Again

 

Avalon of the Five Elements
Commanding Wind and Cloud

 

Daouluo Dalu Series, Jiu Shen, Shen Yi Wang Zhuo, and the rest of Tang Ji San Shao novels
Five Way Heaven
All novel by Yu Wo

On Royaldroadl
The Red Lands

 

There are a ton of wuxia novels out there that aren't about advancing in ability so there are quite a lot of these stories out there. The most common story construction is the protagonist having to overcome challenges with the help of his friends, and the characters' camaraderie is as important as the martial arts. The protagonist is usually the strongest combatant among the group of friends, but generally not by a vast amount. Given how social the wuxia genre is I wouldn't be surprised if these stories are even more common than the lone wolf ones.

 

Human Emperor???

 

That... based on my experience with translated Cultivation Novels, that's true for the beginning, and possibly the end. There is, however, regularly a large chunk either in the middle, or for most of the last quarter, where the MC is constantly an entire realm in front of his friends/lovers/other, and they're thus off doing their own thing while the MC is slapping faces and "achieving unheard of levels of power and skill" (until they reach the next realm and visit somewhere else, where the people in authority regularly have equivalent power to the MC). Near the VERY end, the MC's friends might catch up to the MC's realm (unless it's an Ultimate Realm situation, which means that it's either near impossible to reach, or only a single person in the Universe can reach it at a time), but they'll still be weaker than the MC.

 

Well that's exactly it - I'm talking about wuxia novels and you're talking about novels that aren't wuxia novels. The reality is that these are very different kinds of stories so what might apply for the one may not matter at all for the other. A lot of wuxia novels out there take place over a short period of time and involve characters who have already mastered their martial arts. There's no real growth in these kinds of stories because that's not what they're about. You can read all sorts of Gu Long or Liang Yusheng novels to see this in action.

 

A Martial Odyssey is a party story. Sometimes the MC isn't strong and the party helps each other to survive.