I've seen a bit over 10 (mostly cultivation) chinese novels this week and they are mostly more of the same Little talent, starts to cultivate, Gets further in cultivation than expected by others in a short time, or some system who gives the MC all the power/spell without he knowing the process or this kinda thing. Is there a cultivation/chinese/korean novel with a more unique way to get stronger?
+1 I would Advise Swallowed Star, this one is very good cause it's sci-fi and a breath of fresh air A Will Eternal, this one is funny af and he also eventually gets his own unique cultivation method. Keyboard Immortal, gets stronger by making people rage. Also funny Also Stellar Transformation, this one is kinda bland but he got the most unique cultivation method of the 4 I recommend them in the order I wrote. Also Lord Of The Mysteries is a must read. Like literally must read, it's the best novel on this website
Read Embers Ad Infinitum, it has also a unique power setting. And if you don't mind Western Novels like Mother of Learning and The Zombie Knight Saga, you can give them a try.
Forty Millenniums of Cultivation. While they do the standard "MC goes from loser to becoming the best at everything", they do at least present the MC getting stronger in a uniquely different way than most other cultivation stories. Training and knowledge is the basis of everything, while rank increases aren't a combat against the heavens as much as they are a refining of the self. Society and research has been used to help with both, but requires everyone to advance to a point where they can get the desired results out of it to attempt, lest they fail and accidentally immolate themselves. It utilises a more biological approach to improvements, rather than the standard levelling rank system - the levelling rank system comes in two flavours, either you improve through 9 levels before you go through a rank up, or you improve through the order of "unstable, low, medium, high, peak" of your rank before you can rank up. This story does neither, rank ups are powerful and beneficial, but can be circumnavigated with sufficient preparation, and a large enough army or explosion can take out someone notably stronger than their opponents. Additionally, MC rarely fights head-on when he can avoid it, especially since he seems to prefer utilising explosives and things he can turn into explosives at a moment's notice as weapons, just in case he's outmatched. If I include English Originals: He Who Fights Monsters. MC gets transported from his home on Earth, to a new world while he's sleeping, waking up butt naked & bald. New world has a unique power-growth system (that the MC needs to utilise to grow in power), where everyone has 4 stats (Power, Speed, Recovery & Spirit) and can bind special solidifications of an element to their stats. You only need to bind 3 to get a 4th made from the combination of the other 3. Each bound element comes with a singular personal spell, ability or power, and can utilise a different solidification of magic to awaken up to 4 additional spells/abilities/powers per element, giving a total of 20 personal skills based on the individual, the four elemental solidifications of magic absorbed, and the 16 subsidiary solidifications of magic absorbed. Binding/absorbing 4 elemental solidifications takes you from Normal Rank to Iron Rank, and if you don't you stay at Normal Rank. After that, you need to have all 20 personal skills to even attempt to increase your rank. If you do have all 20 personal skills, you need to improve all of them until your ability with every skill you have is at the beginning level of the next rank's. So if you have 19 skills at Bronze Rank 0 (bronze rank being the one after Iron), and 1 at Iron Rank 1 (due to just awakening it), you're still Iron Rank and cannot improve your Bronze Rank Skills. This continues on for all the following ranks, with Silver following Iron, Gold following Silver, and Diamond being the highest rank that can be reached through training presented to us in the story. Only problem, the chapters that introduce you to much of this information, between chapter 14 and 189, have been taken down and put onto Amazon Kindle, Kindle Unlimited and Audible, and thus cannot be read online anymore.
That! Was. A . Long. EFFIN. Reply. Thank you for real thanks for the effort. and i'm going to read them too
Library of heavens path. The MC gets a skill called library of heavens path that can see the true heavenly path for all things. The thing is he needs to acquire enough knowledge to compile it before he can take advantage of it so for example if he reads enough books about fist arts he will compile the heavens path fist art which is the literal dao of fist arts.
Throne of Magical Arcana or it's offshoot Greetings Mr. Principal set in a world of magic. I've only read the latter but the cultivation system is to do actual science lab experiments to reach the truth that governs the world.
Immortal Devil Transformation I'll admit that I dropped it even though I was quite close to the end, but I still think its a decent story. Solid writing. Reborn in another world with a unique ability. The ability certainly saves his ass and helps smooth his path, but he also uses it well and it can't solve everything. In later chapters he even makes the effort not to rely on it. This is a cunning, determined, protagonist. Emperor's Domination I.. uh, also dropped this one, but it was pretty cool. I remember finding the official synopsis somewhat misleading but I think you can tell from there that it's gonna be different. The MC doesn't get lucky and stumble upon some ancient cultivation method that propels him to the pinnacle, no, he makes them. Skyfire Avenue I actually finished this one, unfortunately, it's been years so it's fuzzy. The MC is a well known and powerful figure from the very beginning however he's in seclusion, to an extent, and gaining more power isn't really the focus for a while. Douluo Dalu Cultivation was pretty unique in this novel in general. Been years since I read this, and I didn't finish it lol. It's by the same author as Skyfire, he tends to have talented protagonists, tries to switch up and tweak the power systems... and tends to like romantic themes. Protagonist kinda felt like he was built to be perfect from the beginning. Perfect World Protagonist was very fun to follow for a while. The story starts with him as a kid and you pretty much follow him from being a promising, though rambunctious, village boy to a milk plundering menace known throughout the realm. That's about where I ended up dropping it anyway. He has an interesting (and dark) history, revolving around his practically unparalleled talent, that he discovers and has to navigate as he explores the vast and amazing cultivation world. I remember being pretty intrigued by that world it was very epic, very vibrant. In a lot of xianxia/xuanhuan it's implied that the world of cultivation is in a sort of downturn. This is almost the exact opposite. Honestly, there's a lot of stories with talented MCs or ones where they aren't granted systems (I think that's a relatively newer trend that branched off from the gamer type novels) look for older xianxia/xuanhuan or make use of the tags