Ahh, yeah I see this happen a lot when writers don't understand why the thing they're copying works well, and they end up just superficially doing something similar. I'm a bit spoiled from older Hong Kong films where they usually try to out-do the stuff they copy from other films and put a new spin on it, but it doesn't always happen like that. Agree, and most of the time the author can't even develop the first relationship well and just keeps throwing in new ones when they don't know what to do with the previous ones anymore. Also when they're supposed to be super geniuses from big sects, but somehow don't have too many close friends or relationships of their own despite being super important and famous, and just dropping everything to follow the MC and not mind wasting their time to support him with little or no attention paid to their own cultivation goals anymore. This is one of the series I'm most interested to try, although I haven't started it because it seems like the translation isn't complete yet, and I usually read series straight through. Might start going through if I can figure out MTL, then I can finish with that and my partial understanding of the mandarin audiobook.
There’s actually an arc that makes fun of this in Cannon Fodder’s Record of Counterattacks. This novel actually does make fun of the cliched nonsensical plots a lot. One of the few QT that make sense and have depth. Sadly I’ve already caught up and the translation quality is truly really good that reading MTL makes one want to cry. It’s really good and MTL isn’t that bad but I had to stop when it came to a major plot point. The translator does upload daily but there is atleast half the book that is untranslated. I’ve become half tempted to learn mandarin so that I could read those rare good books that are either dropped or are translated painfully slowly but with high quality. Unfortunately mandarin isn’t such an easy language to learn and read *sigh*
Its a very big time investment and long term project, but it can be done pretty casually if you use materials that progress gradually enough, and especially if you only focus on comprehension at first. There's also ways to study through reading as a beginner so you don't have to put all our time into study on its own except when first starting. There's a digital flashcard program called Anki, and a really well made deck called Spoonfed Chinese, which has a bunch of sentence cards that introduce at most 1 new character at a time, so its never too complicated, and you're constantly reviewing / building on the words you know already so your understanding of them becomes more automatic, and you can set the new cards per day to a small number if you don't want to spend too much time each day on it and you'll slowly build a foundation (long term consistency is much better than short bursts of interest). The cards can quickly reformatted to just test listening or reading, so you can start by just focusing on one. The most common words make up the bulk of most sentences, so when you have a minimal foundation you can usually listen to Mandarin audiobooks while reading along with an English translation, and you'll start picking up some vocabulary that gets repeated a lot. As a beginner you won't acquire vocabulary too fast this way so I recommend keeping up with flashcards or some other form of study, but finding words you learn elsewhere while reading books helps make them easier to remember and your recognition more automatic. Then to transition out of using translations you can try re-listening or re-reading books you've read before and use your background knowledge of the story to help guess words you hadn't picked up yet, then try reading new books in similar genres that use similar vocab. Or you can just stick with partial understanding and use it to improve on bad or machine translations. That said there are some tradeoffs, most audiobooks are slower than people read (you can speed them up but some find this weird), and you can't control the pace of reading as easily so its harder to use it with books that require concentration, and using audiobooks usually restrict you to more popular books (though there's a surprisingly big selection of Mandarin audiobooks, I've found tons of recordings for webnovels). And there's additional risks of not liking the narrator's voice or their interpretation of certain characters. Might not be for everyone, but I've found it an enjoyable way to absorb languages slowly and casually with reading and some minimal study.
hi ! this one is really nice and not too long : Gu Fang Bu Zi Shang there is no transmigration or cultivation but we have a wise fl, militar strategy in ancient times, a poetic lovestory (at least, not childish, for me). I like it!
Joy of Life - For politics and plans- there is drama too for first few arcs Grandmaster Strategist Nirvana In Fire- for politics and there drama for full novel Tales of Herding Gods- for worldbuiling and throughout humor Godsfall Chronicle - although it has its own share of cliche moments but overall story is quite good. Author is also not afraid of deaths unlike other novels where minimal friend of MC survives and becomes lord something.+ Its already Finished.One of Best novels at Wuxiaworld . Dragon King's Son in Law- quite good modern cultivation novel with calm and not murderous mc with good pace & slice of life moments. Elixir Supplier-Good slice of life novel. MC becomes traditional pharmacist with system but system just provide very limited quantity of herbs seed and knowledge and no other assistance. MC is very down to earth like farmer. Good change from regular novels Pivot of Sky-one of the best but only 50 chapters translated although it is of only 400 chapter Mulburry Song- only 4 chapter long .can read in between binge sessions Epilouge- on RRL Lonely Light - On RRL
Advent of Archmage: harem: 2 women, both have character development starts at literally level 0 you will be BLOWN by the smarts of the mc (basically has limited magic but uses it with IQ = 1000) Super gene: no harem mc weak af at the beginning mc basically has to kill monsters he cant even penetrate the skin of, so yeah uses smarts
For Joy of Life , I have only watch drama and there was no harem but it is ancient china setting and have harem tag so it must have usual benefits marriages. Also in one of the review , there is very unsettling spoiler about harem member. For Tales of Herding Gods , there were 3 member till I read but no obvious lovey dovey scene as MC is little dense and is in teens.they are just friends with each other. MC is married to one of harem member but is casual about it. Harem
Umm, hi, these might not exactly be cultivation novels, but I really enjoyed reading these. Lol I hope I didn't repeat anyone. Douluo Dalu (this is 1v1, and it's cultivation-ish, training spiritual rings/ability is the setting for this novel) I absolutely love this *-* The First Order (don't give up when you read the first volume, kinda shallow, but trust me, it's all worth it for volume 2/3> highly recommend)
History’s Strongest Senior Brother got picked up!! Also this is NOTHING like History’s number one founder. I think the latter’s wayyy better. The former has more of the usual Wuxia/Xianxia? (Idk) plot holes, plot armour but it’s still wayy better then the usual cookie cutter trash. I like the fact that there are side characters too but again it’s just that the MC is wayyyyy too OP so we can’t really enjoy them that much. I think my favourite is Yan Wudi. He’s simply awesome. I think if he had the same resources as MC he’d be wayyy cooler.