Chinese fantasy fiction where characters cultivate spiritual and physical power to ascend toward immortality, blending Taoist mythology with epic adventure.
Xianxia (literally 'immortal heroes') takes wuxia's martial arts foundation and adds Taoist cultivation, supernatural powers, and a cosmology of heavenly realms. Characters don't just train in kung fu; they cultivate spiritual energy (qi) through meditation, alchemy, and combat, ascending through power tiers toward godhood. The genre draws from Chinese mythology, Buddhism, and Taoism, creating multi-level power systems that have heavily influenced Western progression fantasy.
Xianxia is the source material for a huge wave of web fiction and self-published fantasy in English. Its cultivation-based power systems directly inspired the progression fantasy genre. If you're writing any kind of power-scaling fantasy, understanding xianxia's conventions helps you engage with the tradition you're building on.
A dark xianxia where the protagonist is genuinely ruthless, pushing the genre's moral boundaries.
English-language fiction directly inspired by xianxia cultivation mechanics, bridging the genre to Western readers.
A cultivation romance set in a heavenly bureaucracy, showing xianxia's range beyond pure combat.
Design a cultivation system with three tiers. For each tier, define what the practitioner can do, what it costs them, and what they must sacrifice to advance. Write a short scene of someone attempting the breakthrough from tier one to tier two. Make the effort and risk feel real.