I’ve been getting into some of those action CN novels recently and I’m fairly new so this question has been bugging me a bit. What is the difference between Xianxia, Wuxia and Xuanhuan? I know that sometimes it’s kinda mixed depending on the novel, but what is the general consensus on what the different genre’s elements are? (Eg. Levelling mechanics, naming, powers ect.)
NU has official definitions for all genres listed on the website. That's the definition used for putting genres into the novels listed on NU: https://www.novelupdates.com/genre-explanation/
I think that most of the definitions out there for these terms are either inadvertently misleading or outright wrong. Wuxia is particularly misunderstood because people focus on the martial arts and powers when heroism and the social aspects are far more important. It makes sense as wuxia can be hard to grasp unless you read the books (wuxia TV shows are a good substitute, but wuxia films are terrible at teaching the audience), and since people on NU don't read wuxia barely anyone here understands what it's about. Here's something I wrote up a little while ago about xianxia and xuanhuan:
It wouldn't surprise me if there were plenty of definitions that were misleading and/or wrong, but... Well, we're on NUF, so the NU definitions are the ones that count. For that, the Genre Explanation of NU is the best resource. Though of course, if you think the NU explanations are wrong, you could try PMing Tony about it and seeing if he wants to change it.
My point mainly is that the explanations for the genres aren't horribly useful, and that they can give a false impression of what kind of story a reader should expect to see in it. Take the relationship between wuxia and xianxia for example. Originally, xianxia took the basic ideas of wuxia and just wrote them with ever more fantastical elements. Which would be fine as an explanation if the xianxia genre had stayed static, but that isn't the case and the two genres aren't particularly similar any more. Also, I think that accepting NU definitions of the genres as gospel smacks of misplaced confidence. Even the staff have admitted that nobody really cares about the distinction between yuri or shoujoai and yaoi or shounenai, and that it'd make more sense to just merge them into GL or BL.
for those who kinda familiar with western novel stuff here and here about history of Xia story type albeit general one meh~