Hi I'm pretty new to wuxia/xianxia and I was wandering if anyone had any recommendations for learning more about cultivation 'types'. So far, the only 'types' I know are demonic cultivation and cultivation based on asceticism. And also demonic cultivation usually involves techniques that have the cultivator absorb some life source but what about the others? Like for ascetic cultivation, would there be specific techniques that only they could do/not do?
Rather than use a generalized term like 'asceticism', I would prefer to sort them into the Taoist, Buddhist and Confucianist schools of thought.
Types? That's a hard one I think I vaguely recall some with two and three main ones and other minor ones but the minor ones aren't given a lot of screen time or explained a lot generally they focus on two main systems plus the beast system. There are those with magic and douqi and outliers like douluo dalu and most of TJSS (?) other works with unique cultivation systems aka the only reason I bother reading most of them despite the sh*tty mcs and plots although Heavenly Jewel Change is pretty good. There's also reverend insanity and a few others with unique cultivation systems.
I think there might be a tag that links them all together so check for it on douluo dalu (1-4) have the same unique cultivation system.
It depends on the author. In many novels, the only difference between them is philosophical or even just based on their reputation. Certain martial arts or cultivation techniques that can quickly make its user grow stronger are categorized as "demonic"(usually so that the "good guys" can use it as an excuse to openly attack the user and obtain the techniques for themselves).
There aren't really any stories that define cultivation techniques in that kind of way, it's more the reader eventually gets their own understanding from different stories. Very generally, daoist techniques are based on breathing in qi while demonic techniques are blood or people related in some way. The nascent soul portion of I Shall Seal The Heavens is the only real place that describes the mc's self created technique on a philosophical level, and it's a pretty unique one. I'd call it kind of a go between the two but still more a daoist technique.
Thanks! But then I'm a little confused about the common thing of sects being secretive and protective of their techniques and not letting others learn them. Like if they all follow daoism, wouldn't they all develop (roughly) the same techniques if they're at the same skill level? Thanks! I'll have to take a look into I Shall Seal The Heavens too!
It really depends on the story being written. Let's say that there's three stories, each claiming to have "Traditional", "Demonic", "Buddhist" and "Body" Cultivation Techniques & Methodologies. Story 1: Spoiler: To Shorten - Traditional - Absorbs natural energy into self and circulates to enhance the body, gaining mystical techniques in the process, at the cost of time, dedication and innate talent, in order to become immortal & gain power beyond that. - Demonic - Rapidly absorbs energy from others utilising emotions and/or pain as a medium to rapidly grow and develop in a similar manner to "Traditional", using less time, dedication and innate talent, in order to become immortal and gain power beyond that. - Buddhist - Attempts to follow the virtues of Buddhist belief, giving up on their sense of self through meditative practices and body training techniques in order to become immortal and otherwise remove themselves from the cycle of reincarnation. - Body - Trains their body to extreme lengths in order to have it naturally incorporate mystical energy into itself naturally, in order to strengthen itself and become immortal, at the cost of following literally torturous training techniques. Story 2: Spoiler: To Shorten - Traditional - Circulates Mystical Energy in manner A, to become powerful & immortal. Typically two-faced, who, if they believe that they are the most powerful in an area, will abuse their authority while trying to uphold a veil of sacrosanctity, hiding their more murderous training methodologies under concepts like "inter-sect training exercises" and "demonic beast hunts". - Demonic - Circulates Mystical Energy in manner B (which may or may not be seen as bad simply due to it being associated with Demonic cultivation), to become powerful & immortal. Publically wild and aggressive, typically straightforward and outright with their emotions. Usually have outright brutal, if not murderous, training methodologies that they do not even attempt to hide. - Buddhist - Circulates Mystical Energy in manner C, to become powerful & immortal. May act pretentious due to their origins for no real reason, and act worse than Traditional if they feel like they have a reason to. - Body - Circulates Mystical Energy in manner D, to become powerful & immortal, primarily by enhancing their physical body. Sects that follow this path aren't really seen all that much, beyond what's needed to sufficiently explain the basics. Story 3: Spoiler: To Shorten - Traditional - Absorbs Elemental Energy based on the 5 elements (Fire, Water, Metal, Earth & Wood) into their body and circulate them in order to gain mystical techniques and immortality. Usually strongest when innately specialised in 1 element, but innate specialisation in something outside of the 5 elements, like lightning, ice or wind, is as strong, if not stronger, than the 1 element specialisation, but harder to train due to lacking reference material. - Demonic - Utilises techniques and attitudes based on animal cultivation methodologies (aka, imitating "Demonic Beasts") to absorb mystical energy in order to gain mystical techniques and immortality. Usually seen as cruel, evil, or simply barbaric by outsiders, to the point where hunting them down for no reason is considered acceptable, if not praiseworthy, behaviour. Part of the true reason for "Demonic" Cultivators being hunted is likely due to utilising similar, if not the same, resources as "Traditional" cultivators, sometimes in the same manner and sometimes in a different manner. - Buddhist - Cuts themselves off from the world in order to learn defensive techniques and methods to circulate mystical energy in order to become immortal and cut themselves off from the cycle of reincarnation. When interacting outside of their sects, regularly shows just as much greed as everyone else, though it's often pointed at items that non-Buddhists don't want, at least until after reaching immortality. - Body - Literally tortures self in order to enhance their body, so to support them on their path to immortality. No real details about this path is known, beyond giving insane strength and durability, and MC coming up with a personalised method to torture themselves in order to develop their own body cultivation method to enhance themselves beyond their limits and fight beyond their level. - All have a different path of progression to immortality than the others, though few, if any, details are given for the Buddhist path of progression, while Traditional & Demonic Cultivation run parallel to each other, and Body is only explained after MC's immortal and using it to enhance their body. Traditional Cultivators typically have allies in Buddhist and Body Cultivators, while Demonic Cultivators are displayed as something that has to hide from true society and is hunted by all three groups, to differing levels of enthusiasm (with Traditional Cultivators being the most enthusiastic). Shorter Version: Story 1 has 4 "styles", but really it's just 4 flavours of a single path. Story 2 pretends to have 4 "styles", but they're all effectively the same beyond being different "colours", sorry, being called different names. Story 3 actually gives reasons and explanations to the differences between the types, and why there's conflict between the groups. That's taken from Chinese Martial Arts History. For a LONG time, in order to prevent "commoners" from being able to defend themselves from their family techniques, the families that developed Martial Arts Techniques did MANY weird things to keep their techniques and ways to use them secret. It's part of why some techniques in martial arts forms are hard to interpret. Sometimes it's because it's an action that can be 4 things depending on the situation, other's it's because it is one specific thing that has been purposefully obscured to the point where you can only tell if you interpret the associated poem correctly at the correct time in the form. And yes, many techniques in real-world marital arts do develop in the same manner, given sufficient time. To the point where someone who grew up learning his family's Martial Arts went to a judo class and discovered that one of their family's "secret techniques" was considered a basic technique of judo. Now imagine that, but everyone has access to mystical energy that allows one to have 10 variations of a simple, basic jab, based purely on the how energy is utilised in the jab, and you will easily make 10,000 punching forms, even before entering individual's differing ways of utilising the same techniques (which cultivation novels typically ignore for making the techniques more easily recognisable).
Other than what @Darius Drake mentioned, keeping your techniques secret also prevents your enemies from developing a counter for it especially if you're a one-trick pony. It's the reason why a lot of martial arts duels back then took place in secret, other than preventing your enemies from ambushing you after the duel.
I am also interested in this discussion. I know that most general cultivation ranks have 9 levels but what are the most common stages? As a westerner that read countless cultivation novels I can't understand this. Like I see Body building, qi gathering and golden core/ formation levels but that's about it. What would be an acceptable 5 level cultivation system if I were to add it to my novel?
Assuming the common "Cultivation Levels" that I have seen, I would say that the most acceptable 5 level cultivation system would be "Foundation Building, Qi Gathering, Core Formation/Golden Core, Nascent Soul & Immortal" Levels. - Foundation Building is the "mortal" level, building up your body and adapting it to Qi so that it can advance through the levels without issue. - Qi Gathering is the "beginner" level, absorbing Qi into your Meridians/Spirit Roots/Other Name for Qi Channels to clear them and get Qi running through your body's in a similar way to how oxygen and other nutrients is carried through the body in the bloodstream. - Core Formation, also known as Golden Core, is the "intermediate" level, having completed the clearing of one's meridians, one forms a core, near always in their Diantian (the Solar Plexus in English), to store greater levels of Qi while simultaneously concentrating or purifying the Qi one has. Many stories consider this to the the "true" start of cultivation, but that doesn't work in a 5 level cultivation system. May or may not also gain the ability to put objects into the Core, usually limited to an item spiritually bound during the early stages if it is allowed. - Nascent Soul is the "advanced" level, forming a spiritual body of oneself in the Golden Core, which can be utilized to escape death and/or develop an additional clone body. Basically the level where one is a pseudo-immortal, but can still die of old age. - Immortal is the "master" level, transforming the body into an ageless existence, usually having the being in question enter a "higher" realm simultaneously in order to explain why the mortal realms aren't overflowing with immortals after 200,000 years, let alone the 2,000,000+ years of history among the sentient races occasionally mentioned in these stories. At which point the "ranking up" starts again in the higher realms. If you don't want to go higher than "immortal" in the ranking, then "immortals" can differ in their capabilities due to mastery. Older immortals have more time to master more things to a greater extent, while younger immortals likely have better foundations due to the wisdom granted by those who came before, and thus have better base physical "stats", before taking into consideration individual differences & unique traits.
Thanks again!! I'd never heard about storing objects in the core or even how in the nascent soul level you can escape death and/or develop a clone body! That's pretty damn cool!
It depends on the story. Specifically, most cultivation stories that have Nascent Soul have a Wandering Spirit of a deceased Nascent Soul or Higher cultivator, trying to get themselves a new body. It can be the MC's Spirit Grandpa Cheat, or it can be a starter villain who wants to steal the MC's body to start cultivating again, or it can be a villain who steals bodies as a part of their cultivation. And that's ignoring when the story gets to the MC reaching Nascent Soul & Above themselves, and thus need to catch or otherwise prevent the enemies they kill's Nascent Souls from escaping and reviving themselves or warning their enemies to their location. The item storage at Golden Core is common/universal, but still pops up regularly enough for it to be mentioned. Basically, either before or after one completes their Golden Core, they gain the ability to create bonds with Spirit Tools and/or Spirit Beasts, and can store them in their Dantian or Golden Core. The specifics vary wildly, but there needs to be a connection, and the connection causes the tools to grow with them, while Beasts need to grow alongside the cultivator for them to continue to grow. For obvious reasons (there are few true Beast Training Focused Cultivation Novel Stories out there), the second one isn't overly explored. It also helps that each level of this 5 level minimalistic system has a point of difference. - Foundation Building - Limited to physical & tools everyone can use - Qi Gathering - Can learn/use simple spells/Qi Techniques. May bond with Spirit Beasts & Tools here, but they're external. - Golden Core - Can utilise objects to fly. Can usually bond with Spirit Tools & Beasts here and store them in the Dantian/Core if done so. - Nascent Soul - Can fly without an object holding them up (without flying tool/beast), and utilise Nascent Soul to avoid certain death situations, if it isn't caught. Will be more powerful is Nascent Soul is stored internally, but safer if stored externally. - Immortal - Topmost rank, ageless to the point of being able to control your own age but can still be killed by external factors (usually only other cultivators). Alternatively, it's actually the lowest rank of a new realm/set of spatial dimensions occupied solely by immortal cultivators.
Awesome, thanks! I'd heard of bonding with weapons before but I'd never read about how they could be stored within the dantian - does this mean that they materialize when called upon? I was actually also debating on whether or not to have one of my higher level characters be in the nascent soul stage but I think it would work out well after your explanation!
i think the most extreme i read in that aspect was bringing the farm to live in another world where its more or less always the same circles of being supressed, growing , kicking ass ,ascending just to be at the bottom again and being immortal soon isnt immortal anymore pretty confusing made worse by rather bad translations and a rather forgetful author and thats just at about chapter 2200 of hmm did he reach 15k yet ... to me it seems the stages are wider spread among the stories than the individual spin to get there (teachers like:grandpa ghost, self from the future, dieing master needing a last disciple... shortcuts like:cheat system, pills, scrolls skills mostly looking like plot armor combined with different amounts of talent, dedication and time spend on cultivation)
Wow! Thanks to the Nuffians here, I learner alot about cultivation just now. Btw currently I am reading a xianxia novel and it included cultivators in some 'types' like demon cultivator, sword cultivator, array cultivator and medical cultivators.
If the stories you are reading don't show you or tell you what these terms mean, that's a failure on the author's part. While authors in the fantasy genre also assume readers know generally what a apothecary is, or the powers a priest might have, usually they will also have characters demonstrate their abilities at some point. Also, xianxia authors are lifting these ideas directly from Chinese folklore, Buddhism, and Taoist theories(as well as foundational novels). They repurpose them to fit their stories and while, for example, cultivation terms can be similar across novels, authors take a lot of liberties with them (and in different ways from one another). The difference between a devil, demon, and demonic cultivator can vary wildly between novels. My point being, if an alchemist/arraymaster/talisman creator is introduced and their purpose, powers, and limitations aren't shown through their actions or explained by an info dump, the author has failed in storytelling. Because power-scaling in the xianxia webnovel space is a joke, worrying about realms of cultivation is not that important. In general, take what the author says at face value rather than trying understand what the particular terms mean. Eastern Mysticism is an extremely esoteric subject which modern day xianxia authors bastardized to create their cultivation systems. There are no real consistent rules when it comes to Daoist magic other than those laid out by the author. P.S. OP what xianxia novel are you going to read? Even the most popular xianxia novels tend to info-dump about everything.