Street Cultivation - a modern wuxia/litrpg hybrid

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

In the modern world, qi is money.

The days of traveling martial artists and mountaintop masters are over. Power is controlled by corporations, modernized martial arts sects, and governments. Those at the bottom of society struggle as second class citizens in a world in which power is a commodity.

Rick is a young fighter in this world. He doesn't dream of immortality or becoming the strongest, just of building a better life for himself and his sister, who suffers from a spiritual illness. Unfortunately, life isn't that easy...

(Author's Note: After the first book's successful run on Amazon, I'm posting the sequel chapter by chapter here as well for all the fans who supported me.)

Information

Status: Ongoing
Year: 2019
Author: SarahLin

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.5/ 5.0
Followers: 1,956
Views: 213,275

Chapters(18 total)

Reviews

No reviews yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!

Community Reviews(10)

LordofthepiesRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
It's only at 13 chapters so far, but hopefully it goes for many more. So far I haven't noticed any egregious grammar errors, which is actually hightly unusual for this site. The story so far is good - the 'orphan with sick sister' trope is a little overdone, but it works as motivation. I only hope that his sister becomes more badass or that her personality at least progresses past just being motivation for the main character. Same with the 'wealthy rival' character. However, this is very early in the story and there is plenty of time for character development. Pacing/flow is good too, and I like that the background information and world details are naturally given out through the story rather than in paragraphs of exposition.
Anyway, you should read it.
Arcane_PozharRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
First, to be 100% clear, I thoroughly enjoy this story. Now let me address some of the crazy reviews I've seen. Yes, sometimes the packing feels a bit slow, but the upside of that is, that gives you more time to get to know the character a bit better. It's a trade off, and it seems like some people aren't happy with the balace of it, but even the slow moments still feel important to me.
Yes, the MC gets shit on, a lot. If bad things didn't happen, then the ending would be less satisfying (and I think the ending was very satisfying, which is NOT something I can say a lot of the time). Honest to goodness, I feel like somehow this book has attracted negative attention from some reviewers for the SUPIDEST of reasons. The amount of thumbs downs on positive reviews on this series blows my mind. Where did the hate campaign come from?
Everyone, just because a book doesn't suit your tastes, doesn't make it bad. Please learn this, it will make you a wiser, more understanding person. Have a good one.
And if you're on the fence about this book, I would strongly suggest it, it's well written with some exciting ups and downs, and fun character moments. Melissa in particular is awesome.
shykarnRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Still early in the novel but this is an excellent take on the cultivation novel. Even the mentor bestowing a legacy on the MC has an interesting spin on it. Keep up the good work and keep it original and this could be one of the best stories on the site.
loregramRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
One of the most enjoyable cultivation stories I have read in a long time.
This story takes a different approach to the generic cultivation novel and tropes. It focuses more on character growth and realizes that character growth does not equal just larger numbers.
The story follows Rick upon is adventure from a downtrod dreg of society, crushed under its boot, to an man who has found his direction in life. Through his trials and tribulations he grows stronger in body (i.e. cultivation) as well in spirit (character growth outside of numbers). The side characters he meets along the way, while not as fleshed out as they could be, have a decent amount of depth to them and add to the overall story, i.e., they make the story feel more alive and don't feel generic.
The story slows down on occasion, and while some may find those sections to be boring, they give perspective to the hectic parts. In other words, because there are changes of pace, the story doesn't feel rote or repetitive.
The story is now over, and I find that the story ended at an apropriate place. The author didn't reach a point, as is common in cultivation novels, where the MC is all powerful and the story turns into MC fights...MC wins...rinse and repeat ad nauseam. No need to drag it out for 1000's of chapters.
Congrats to the author and I look forward to your future works!
Jangofet54Royal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Really like the story. The whole idea that lucrima is basically bottled up and used as currency is a neat twist on this. Looking forwards to where this goes.
4rchRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
Let me preface this review with the fact that I Usually love hard LitRPG and Xianxia Systems, this novel however is surprisingly light on these elements, instead using them as the backdrop for the tale of a man dragged into a world of streetfighting in a surprisngly deep and interesting interpretation of a xianxia world.
The Magic
About 90% of RRL fictions usually set out the rules to the magic and such within the first dozen chapters, this novel does not do that, preferring to interlace these details throughout the storytelling akin to a traditional novel, this is done well although certain aspects do recieve subpar explanations this is amended in the optional apendix she provides.
Style
The Authors style is polished and professional, the pacing is good and the storytelling is done well, although I will say the style of the story is much more suited to a novel format rather than as a webserial, as such i reccomend reading chapters in bursts instead of on release.
Grammar
Grammar is exceptional, I am yet to notice a mistake, dialogue is fluid and natural also.
Characters
Yeah... This is definitely where the novel suffers, almost nobody in this novel has any major defining traits, there were several times while i was reading where I had literally forgotten the main characters name, or gotten 2 side characters mixed up, although the novel doesnt suffer majorly for this as I personally believe its plot is its strongest point even the MC doesnt have anything that really makes him special, although that is very much what this story is about, an average Joe dragged into a world of streetfighting.
World
This is probably the second strongest Element of the story, this interpretation of a non dystopian world which is depressingly dark at times, but also disturbingly close to the real world in a lot of ways is a real surprise, the author clearly has some fantastic ideas and comparison of xianxia tropes and their real world equivalents such as demons working like loan sharks o
FuujinSamaRoyal Road
★★★★ 3.5
Street Cultivation is a modern day, westernized adaptation of the Cultivation genre. In this world, all of the Qi in the world is harvested by giant corporations and used as currency. These are used as pretty straight forward financial analogies. There's a credit score analog. Demonic bonds substitute credit cards. There's "investment" cores. All in a cutthroat capitalist world where the poor get taken advantage off.
The analogies are interesting but not subtle. Even as a giant critic of capitalist society the metaphors were so obvious that I could flinch at the unsubtle political subtext. The same applies to the style of the prose. It's utilitarian and curt. It avoids the pitfalls of overly purple prose by being overly restrained and direct. This stylistic choice is one I applaud, for it completely sets the tone shift from traditional Chinese Wuxia, filled with beautiful introspection in search for one's Dao to the "by the numbers" capitalist bastardiation depicted in this novel. Yet boring, even when poignant, is still boring.
To this point we get to the characters and the story. Here too, this story steps aside from genre conventions. In Easter fantasy, the protagonist usually has a set goal, traditionally set by a journey, and improves himself along the way. This story falls more in the usual western archetype where the villains decide the plot while the protagonists merely react and go with the flow. Personal taste plays a part here: the reason I so enjoy progression fantasy, be it cultivation or leveling systems, is that they tend towards protagonist agency. In this, Street Cultivation disappoints.
Richard, the main character, combines an overly bleak view of everything at complete odds with his rapidly improving circumstances with an incredibly dogmatic point of view. If there are too axis, where one has "sense of adventure" and the other has "rationality", Richard would fall squarely in the third quadrant (both negatives). The plot only happens because he's
BenubirdRoyal Road
★★★ 3.0
The writing is excellent; definitely professional quality, and the world building is fantastic. It's a joy to read, and I'd love to see more stories set on this world.
Just be aware that the protagonist starts in a bad place, and his life gets worse... and worse... and worse...
No happy ending here, folks.
viewlessRoyal Road
★★★ 2.5
This story failed in several ways at keeping my attention, but what ultimately led me to drop it was the handling of the "mystery core" that Rick finds within himself in the very beginning of the story.
It was set up as a stereotypical xianxia/wuxia "cheat", by which I mean the advantage or shortcut or insight that allows the protagonist to advance faster or to beat much stronger opponents, that will serve to elevate the otherwise unremarkable main character above the rest of the herd. But no, it was just a red herring that took 18 chapters(180+ pages) to reveal as such, and very anti-climactically.
I think it's fine to subvert a trope; some of my favourite stories are deconstructions/subversions. The problem is that besides skillfull writing, it requires great familiarity with the ins and outs of the genre, which I don't feel this author has with wuxia, and maybe not even with litrpg.
johnangelRoyal Road
★★ 1.5
This is the first time that I am reading a novel and wondering how the hell the MC managed to survive birth with his luck.
Orphan. In debt. No real family. Except a sister. She suffers from an incurable disease. At least he works. As a punching bag. He has his health. Not really.
This is the Chinese novels Mc luck but reversed and imo more retarded.
To summarize retarded bad luck Brian for MC, convoluted and boring cultivation and the worst luck since Dostoyevsky.
The only saving grace of the tnovel are the fighting scenes which are well done.