Cultivation fantasy, progression fantasy, and similar stories come with a built-in hard limit. The plot is predicated on the main character becoming increasingly stronger. Many stories explicitly call it out as a selling point. Once the MC hits the hard limit imposed by the setting the story must end, or become stagnant. And because the story is built on the MC becoming stronger, it locks itself into a defined trajectory, unable to explore other, deeper, themes.
In this regard, these stories have much in common with modern-day role-playing games. Many stories explicitly make this connection evident by incorporating RPG-style statistics systems. It’s obvious that the authors are trying to tap into a specific audience. It’s also obvious that they gloss over the essential differences between books and RPGs.
In an RPG, when characters hit the level cap, they can progress no further. Fights with lesser enemies become trivial. This usually isn’t a problem, because by the time they do, the player has reached the endgame. The only challenge left is the final boss. Hitting the level cap represents ultimate mastery of the game mechanics, in time to face the ultimate challenge in the game. Defeat the final boss and the game is over.
This isn’t a problem if the story has a clearly-defined beginning, middle and end. But what if it doesn’t?
Video games have ways around this. For example, Nioh has multiple NG+ options, steadily increasing the level cap. New areas are unlocked, testing the player’s mettle. Enemies also become increasingly deadly, forcing the player to up their game. Similarly, other games have post-endgame content, DLCs, and higher difficulty levels to maintain the player's interest.
This isn’t an option for books.
Cultivation fiction is built on a well-established story loop. The MC fights bad guys, grows more powerful, fights even more powerful bad guys, ad infinitum. When he hits the level cap, he fights one last opponent, and the story ends. The various tiers and stats are a convenient shorthand to track the MC’s progress. That is the true marker of the story’s progression, not the plot or character development.
This is boring and predictable. It follows the story beats of an RPG, without the engagement of an RPG. With games, players can engage different mechanics, immerse themselves in lore, explore variations of character relationships, trigger a variety of events, experience different stories. RPGs may belong to the same genre, but there is a great deal of differentiation between individual games.
With cultivation fiction, you already know how it goes: MC rises to become the most powerful in the world, beat up everyone in his way, and (optionally) seduce every woman he encounters.
This journey speaks to the male fantasy. What red-blooded man doesn’t want to be the strongest, richest, most famous and most-desirable person he knows? Who doesn’t recognize the inherently ennobling enterprise of struggling against all odds? That’s why the genre is so popular.
Yet it’s a trap.
So what if you’re the strongest, richest, most famous and most-desirable person in existence? Beyond your ability to master the mechanics and cultural norms of the setting, what does it say about you? What is the purpose of strength, wealth, fame? Why attach so much importance to the pleasures of the mortal world?
You, too, will die.
Sic transit gloria mundi. Thus passes the glory of the world. Whatever pleasure and satisfaction you have gained from the pursuit of power will end. Obsession with pleasure will leave you broken and hollow in your latter days, forever chasing after something you once had and never will grasp again.
That makes for depressive reading. It’s why modern-day written-to-market stories always end at the apex, and never chart the decline.
Power isn’t important. Status isn’t important. What is important is how it is used. How a man chooses to live his life, and make use of his gifts. How a man makes meaning out of his existence. How he defines himself in relation to others—and how, in turn, others relate to him. Stories like these are infinitely more interesting than simply stories about how generic MC becomes the strongest being of all time, like all other generic MCs becoming the strongest beings of all time in their respective worlds.
More to the point, a story that is not coupled to power mechanics makes for more interesting plots.
In Book 3 of Saga of the Swordbreaker, the antagonist is a martial cultivator with virtually unlimited power. In a conventional cultivation story, the MC will undergo harsh training from hell to gain even more unlimited power so that he can overpower the antagonist. You already know the outcome of the fight from the moment the antagonist is introduced; the only question is how the MC gets to the inevitable ending.
In my story, the solution is strategy. Most fights in fiction are contests of power, with both sides seeking to overpower the other. That’s not possible here. The heroes will never be powerful enough to outfight the villain. They have to outthink him. They need to neutralize his overwhelming advantages, or they will never stand a chance.
But the villain is an intelligent man, too, and is not bound by morality. Give him an opening and he will use his overwhelming power to destroy all in his path. This creates a game of cat and mouse, each side seeking to outmaneuver the other, maintaining suspense to the end. Strategy is a deeper and more involved process than simply overpowering the other guy.
And the way to develop strategy is cultivation.
True cultivation doesn’t trap you. It frees you. It rids you of the red dust of the mundane world so that you can see clearly what needs to be done. It purifies you of obsessions and delusions that would otherwise lead you astray. That is an essential component of strategy.
Going back to the example of the book, someone obsessed with status and glory will try to duel the antagonist, in the hopes of gaining even more fame and recognition. Such a battle can only end in tragedy. The strategic approach would be to lead the antagonist into a trap and strike him at a moment of maximum disadvantage. There is no glory in this—but it does minimize risk to yourself while ensuring the enemy’s defeat. And that’s what needs to be done.
Power? Wealth? Status? That’s just an afterthought.
When you free yourself from the need to define cultivation fiction by the central desire to become more powerful, when you set aside the idea that every struggle is at heart a contest of power and wills, you are free to explore many more story ideas.
What is the purpose of power? What is a moral life? Whose approach to cultivation is aligned with reality? Whose vision is moral? Should you seek to aggressively pursue your own desires at all costs, or should you strive to be of service to all?
These ideas will be explored in Saga of the Swordbreaker: Invincible Under Heaven. Check it out here!
