korean/chinese webnovel suggestions

[Traab]

Ok, so for a while now, ive really gotten into this type of story. I mainly go on boxnovel.com and search through them for various stories of a few types. I generally enjoy the cultivation stories where our main character unlocks some broken ability that lets them take what should be a journey of ten thousand years and finish it in ten, or other such things. I wanted to start this subject to both list a few of my favorites and ask for any of yours along these themes. they arent all cultivation, some are gamer system type stories as well.

Global Game: AFK In The Zombie Apocalypse Game. Fang Heng was transmigrated to a parallel world and his soul was forced into the body of a man who had just committed suicide.
Huh? What? Every human here was being forced to join a game? Those who refused would be killed?
Wait? This suicide dude was a pro gamer?
He had the highest S-rank talent sill, the Zombie Clone?
Damn! The S-rank skill evolved! My zombie clones could auto hunt!


I Have Countless Clones: I wont copy the summary, basic gist is, this is a cultivation story where the main character gains clones of himself over time that can be set to cultivate for him, allowing him to progress much faster than normal. Its still ongoing and while it says countless, dude has like 7 clones by this point in the story. The cool thing is, they each have special talents like are faster at cultivating specific types of skills or something. And he can use them in combat so he is a walking squad of equally powerful cultivators which he keeps an absolute secret from everyone.

My Genes Can Evolve Limitlessly: This is a world where technology and the supernatural exist. There are demonic beasts, wars between species, evolution, and danger everywhere. Fortunately, humans aged between 16 to 18 will have the chance to activate certain genes and become gene warriors.
Gene warriors will enter a wonderous World of Origination and begin their adventure there. They will seek treasure and copy extraordinary genes to gain wondrous strength, becoming the main power against danger.
Lu Yuan transmigrated to this world, bringing with him a cube that can evolve genes without limits. This story is complete and I really enjoyed reading it. The one complaint I have is it seems the translation is a bit wonky at times and the various ranks of people get confused but its generally easy enough to figure out. Its probably just a strange issue with words having subtle different meanings in the original language and a generic one in english like, they refer to drop ranks by color and iirc, two of them are green. Obviously one is meant to be, a light green and the other a dark green to differentiate, but the story just says "Oh wow he got a green drop and a GREEN drop!"

Online Game: I Began By Enhancing Endlessly With My SSS Rank Talent: Not sure why it says online as its an isekai story. Basically tens of thousands of people get transported from earth to a new world full of monsters and magic. Everyone gets assigned a skill at random from total trash to of course, our main character who gets the only SSS rank skill there, unlimited enhancement. Basically, he can upgrade gear he loots with points he gets for killing monsters. So he starts with a basic 10 damage rusty sword, upgrades it and now it does 100 damage and can inflict 100 damage per second bleed effect. The story is complete and its a lot of fun as the mc just gets more and more busted strong because the higher quality gear you loot, the further it can be enhanced. The one downside is there is a bit of repetition of "Mc gets confronted by some angry local. Everyone watching goes "Oh no, this guy has no hope of victory" mc casually one shots local. Everyone is amazed, locals boss shows up and the cycle repeats itself. Somehow nobody ever expects him to win despite winning with clear ease every time, barring his companions and even they get nervous from time to time"

The Legendary Mechanic: This is a fun one. Basically a guy wakes up as an experimental subject of the bad guys of a video game world. Its pre launch and our mc is a very experienced player who decides that since he is stuck here, he might as well take advantage to abuse every loophole, secret quest, or skill synergy in the game. He ends up setting himself up as this mysterious super powerful npc so when other players show up they think he is basically the main storyline protagonist they need to follow to get the quest chains from. He proceeds to play through every single expansion of the game getting stronger and stronger as it all goes on. Think a sci fi world of warcraft where you start before the vanilla expansion, know exactly what all the patch notes will be and what class is the best fit for you, and you also know all the secrets, how to level the fastest and how to exploit every bug in the game. And you basically set yourself up to be bigger than Thrall in the storyline.

Ok, last one Global Towers: Starting With The SSS-Rank Talent, God-Tier Extraction: basic gist of this is humanity has to enter these giant towers that appeared mysteriously and farm them for materials to help humanity survive. Everyone awakens a talent from useless to amazing, and just like the endless enhancement, our mc gets a SSS talent that lets him extract from things, he can extract skills from other players, stat points from dead monsters, and somehow extracting from gear makes them more powerful by a rank, i dunno, extracting the weakness from them? Its an ongoing story and its really interesting because the background is still really mysterious. What we know is, every floor of the tower you pass, you get combined with other people. Like, the first floor is just one province of japan lets say, the second floor brings in 5 other provinces. The third floor starts bringing in other nations, eventually its entire alien races from other worlds. And each floor is different in what you have to do. The first few floors are fairly basic survive and kill monsters type things, another involves passing trials, the current floor is literally clash of clans with real people. Thousands of groups of all different species are on this mystery world with their home city they can upgrade to unlock various things like quests, better units, faster cultivation, better defenses, etc. Then they have to pvp against other groups to get stronger and move up the rankings. Only the top ten or so teams can leave the floor after an annual competition, the bottom ten can also leave but its to basically quit on ever ascending the tower again. The further you go, the stronger you get, and the more valuable stuff you can find, so not a lot of people are willing to give up by this point.

So does anyone else have interesting stories along the gamer/cultivation lines they want to suggest?

[endoperez]

Ooh, nice! I've been into these things for years now, and they can be really nice.

If someone arrived in this thread and has no idea what we're talking about, basically, think of the Western fantasy scene, here's the short of it:

Spoiler: The short of it

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Think of the most generic fantasy novel, the ones with an orphan boy, a world of elves with bows and dwarves with axes and a wizard with a staff and a long beard, and the prophecy, and the saving the world, and the etc etc. Now, imagine that there was a website where everyone was sharing stories with all the same generic tropes, but with lots of writers and lots of readers, and they're all copying off of each other all the time, like a weird mix of fanfic sites and comic conventions. There'd be stories about the orphans, and the dwarves, and the elves, and then people would make parodies about the archer dwarf and the warrior elf and so on.

It's like that, but the cliches are very different, so for a Western reader there's even more to discover, since almost all the tropes are fresh for you, or at least come with a small twist. Very entertaining, but don't expect Lord of the Rings. Also, there are some negative tropes, like a reliance on a "love potion" trope except it's an aphrodisiac and leads to sex. I personally have decided to avoid everything with the "harem" tag, but your mileage might very.

Korean novels tend to focus on some sort of game element (levels, character classes, items of varying rarity, controllable pets, skills like double jump or critical hits...), with cultural tropes based on an average Joe (or average Jeong-Hun) rising up to fight on the same level as megacorporations / guilds more powerful than some nation-states.

Chinese novels tend to focus on an imaginary setting inspired by Chinese history and mythology. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon but with Dragonball power levels, basically. The cultural tropes tend to be based on an average Joe (or average Jiang'er) rising up to fight on the same level as centuries-old clans and school-sects that typically monopolize all valuable knowledge and resources.

A Child of Light
A fun romp, and I give it a special mention as a really good introduction to cultivation style novels, since there were many tropes more common in Western fantasy fiction. If I could find it as a physical book, it'd be my go-to "introduction to cultivation fantasy" story. Finished, AND relatively short.


Regular Mortal's Journey to Immortality
Very slow story that goes through the basic power system in the slow way. A regular dude discovers a valuable treasure that lets him make herbs better. Growing herbs takes time, but with herbs and alchemy he can make pills and potions. Cultivation worlds have the equivalent of an XP potion, so basically he has a slow level up cheat as long as he stays alive. He proceeds to make his best attempt at avoiding conflicts and staying alive as long as possible. If you're in a mood for a careful, patient protagonist, this story is fantastic. If not, it's probably too slow (and long). Another decent introduction to the genre. It interestingly varies between the protagonist being weak and in hiding, or super OP in his local area and making everyone aware of it. Finished, there's a sequel but I decided I'm fine not reading it.


My Girlfriend From Turquoise Pond Requests My Help After My Millennium Seclusion
(no really, these titles can be like that)
It's in the subgenre of "I'm powerful, but pretend to be weak". The protagonist has a way to become powerful, but he's overly cautious and does his best to be unnoticed. He almost succeeds, but every now and then he has to go out and save someone. A fellow student of the sect, or an innocent mortal, or a fellow cultivator, or a girl that's starting to get very suspicious about this "ninth disciple" who does the Clark Kent thing of never being around when a mysterious someone just happens to save her, etc. The ending was original, if a bit esoteric, and that's honestly better than how these stories usually go. Finished.


Beware of Chicken
An affectionate parody and pastiche of the cultivation genre, by a westerner. Basically, it's cultivation, but wholesome.
A modern person's soul ends up in a young cultivator's body (after getting beaten up by an overzealous young master, in a sect his mysterious adopted father brought him into, etc). He knows the genre, knows he is likely destined to a series of extravagant incidental powerups, and runs away as far as he can as fast as he can and becomes a farmer.
His chicken starts cultivating. His pigs start cultivating. His cat starts cultivating. Meanwhile, he's found a nice local girl and thinks of proposing.
Rumors start going around of a sagely master who has made a powerful secret realm in the outlands. Meanwhile, he's trying to figure out where to sell his outrageous yield of rice.
Others cultivate, to fight against the heavens. He cultivates, but just the land, and while there are no heavens for him to reach, there are other rewards. Ongoing.


King's Avatar
It's based not on mystical magical stuff becoming real, but on a VR esport that's a mix between League of Legends and Overwatch and a generic MMO becoming really REALLY big. The protagonist is part of a big esport team, but is kicked out, and proceeds to create a new character that revives a micro-intensive and very demanding playstyle from a forgotten meta, that's only possible because he has a limited edition unique item. Very heavy on actual game aspects, stuff like metagaming, builds, meta knowledge, raids, LoL style team rivalries, esport pros being professionals whose actions are limited by contracts, etc. There's a Chinese animated series for this. Completed, but I haven't read all of it.

World of Cultivation
A novel that's an interesting mix of the protagonist becoming more powerful personally, and gathering a band of misfits that create a sect, and a clan, and a faction that's also growing ever more powerful and discovering all sorts of ancient mysteries and political intricacies. The protagonist is a young disfigured man whose face is uncapable of showing emotion, and compared to a zombie's. His mindset is fully focused on earning money and penny-pinching, so he does all the odd-jobs, including farming. He trains his sword skills by using minute strands of qi to exterminate parasites from herbs, his favourite spell creates a plant-nourishing rain or mist, and he refuses multiple calls to action and would refuse even more if he wasn't forced.




There's a bunch of others I've read, but they're either very long, or not exactly what you asked, or both.

I Shall Seal the Heavens - the power-up takes very long, and there were some extremely good arcs, but also some parts wouldn't be quite good enough for a full reread so I'm not sure if I want to fully recommend it. The good arcs are really good and memorable though. Some highlights - repeatedly recovering and reinterpreting a poem (a set of seals) left by the sect's ancestors. A man slowly forging bonds with his fellow students, with adopted family, with weird mascot companions, etc. The author has a gift for coming up with statements of catchphrases that go beyond "dragon ball BEAAM" and actually work to emphasize the powers being used. Finished, and the translation is great.

Legendary Moonlight Sculptor - perhaps the OG Korean gamer story. At least it was my introduction to the genre. Again, it's a massive story, some of the good parts are really good, but the weaker parts don't quite stand strong enough for a reread or a 100% heartful recommendation. The highlights of the story are definitely in the vein of "the effort put into art touches upon the hearts of your fellow humans", in various ways. As fas as the action and game mechanics go, it's also in the imaginative ways the protagonist's "sculptor" class breaks down MMO tropes. Imagine unlocking a class that gives buffs to other classes, an entirely separate buff that isn't overwritten by any other class's buffs and would fully synchronize with everything... and deciding to go solo despite it, and succeeding. And then your OP, overleveled self leaves behind some random sculpture and some shmuck gets a permanent stat buff just for discovering it. It's a pity the story takes too long before it gets anywhere, the good bits are a bit too sparsely spaced. Finished.

Lord of the Mysteries - a horror mystery based on a Victorian English steampunk-horror setting, with a mix of that, Cthulhu mythos, power leveling with vaguely Jekyll and Hyde inspired potion system, Frankenstein, horror movies and descriptions of society where the truly powerful have little regard for the masses. Very good, but not at all what Traab asked for. Finished. There's a sequel, and an upcoming animated series.

[Traab]

The tropes thing is so real. I can almost turn it into a drinking game. But im afraid if I take a shot every time I hear a variation of "do you even know how to spell death?" I will be dead in a dozen chapters of some of these stories. :p The threats are some of the more hilarious things in these stories. A bit gruesome at times, but some are just great. One thing i dont love so much is how so many of them take the sudden swerve into cosmic crazy. Like there is one where out of nowhere the main character learns there is a cosmic threat going on and the entire point of the system he has been working with is to train people strong enough to fight them. And that just shows up a few chapters before the end of the fic. There is no indication of it before this. And its generally ended in some absurdly rushed and glossed over faction. The mechanic story i included does something close to this but instead its a LOT of complicated talk for a number of chapters then suddenly there is the twist ending I wont spoil but its actually pretty cool.

The other trope is one I dont mind generally, the constant expansion of the ranks of power. As a random example, lets say you are reading a story where you are told there are a few ranks of cultivation, initiate, expert, adept, master, grandmaster. Ok, fine. 600 chapters later, the mc hits master and we learn "Oh wait, thats just the start of the climb, once your each grandmaster you qualify to start working on this system that ends in being a god!" 1200 chapters in, your mc is a demigod, and suddenly we learn there are ranks of gods, from planetary, to multiversal and they all need this special thing to cultivate you can only learn about when you become a god. 1800 chapters in and the multiversal mc learns there is a cosmic threat trying to devour all of creation and the multiversal gods need to fight it and its minions. /sob :p

One recommendation, "Solo Play, Only I Level Up." Its all about a version of earth where these dungeon portals open up. If they arent cleared and the boss inside killed in like a week the monsters can break out. Special people have been born with powers, they are called Hunters. Its their job to clear these dungeons, forming guilds to do it. Our mc is the weakest hunter ever, like he is BARELY better than a normal human at killing monsters. A big thing happens, he unlocks a simplified gamer system that lets him level up which boosts his stats, he can learn skills, and unlike normal hunters who awaken to a specific power level and stay there, he just keeps getting stronger. Its a finished story and a lot of fun and yes it does do that cosmic swerve thing eventually but at least there is a lot more lead up to it and it isnt just kinda dropped on you at the second to last chapter.

[endoperez]

Re: tropes

Yeah, the way the power levels in many stories go up is like playing an MMO where leveling up unlocks the next area, where all the goblins are red instead of green and 30 levels higher.

The cosmic horror stuff can work in stories that lean into it, but if it comes out of the left field, it can be very disappointing. Many series have bad and/or uninteresting endings, in general. Or just were never finished, like Tales of Demons and Gods.


Speaking of cosmic stuff, there's an... interesting series called 40 Millenniums of Cultivation. It's cultivators IN SPACE cross-over with Warhammer 40k. And Star Wars. And a bunch of other scifi stories. It plays many tropes straight, but also flips many in their heads, and plays around with the others.

For example, it's a sort of post-apocalyptic scifi set after the collapse of an intergalactic empire. It collapsed because ancient cultivators drained too many limited, non-renewable resources, which set them up for an inevitable civil war. The humanoid demons rose up during the war and won, enslaving the cultivators and humanity. The humanity was saved when the emperor of humanity rose and blatant 40k loregrab ensued. Now the small rural colony of humanity has TVs and computers running on carved qi crystals, with AI-controlled flying swords used to deliver messages, etc etc.

It's... well, it's interesting, and parts of it are very good, but I run out of interest around half-way in. It probably is still worth a read, tbh, but don't expect to enjoy it enough to finish all of it.



"Solo Play, Only I Level Up."

Solo Leveling is getting an anime this season, it's on episode 6 or 7 right now.