Review Of Murim/Xianxia/Cultivation Dimension

If I had to sum up the people of the Murim in one word, pretentious would probably be the most accurate.

Everybody there is their own little emperor/ess, and think way to highly of themselves.

I found that the only people with decent character are the beggars of the slums and the farmers, conditioned to become the most humble and selfless people imaginable, grateful for any form of generosity they receive.

I got to the Murim dimension through reincarnation, apart of the Race Skill: Unbound Traveller that I had managed to snag in the pervious dimension. I was also still able to access my powers from the Iseaki world thanks to one of my other Race Skill: Power Bank Sorter.

It was surprising, finding out the fact that I got reincarnated on top of being Isekai'd, but attributed the phenomenon to magic, as you do.

There is no status board, or equivalent that the Murim people have access to. Every thing is done through feeling, instinct, practice and enlightenment.

The powers of the Murim dimension are somewhat interesting as they use a different fundamental energy than Mp, skills and levels. This energy is derived from their "Dantian" - what I ended up just thinking about as an energy core - and cultivators build up their Dantain through, as the name implies, cultivation, which is basically meditation.

A breakthrough refers to the successful condensing of the energy inside the Dantian, thus removing impurities from the body, generally allowing a cultivator preform techniques and any outbursts of energy that require more energy.

From my understanding, the energy that cultivators absorb acts as nourishment for the cultivators cells, greatly extending their lifespan.

Being that I or at least my mind would have been considered foreign to the Murim ways I personally had a really difficult time settling in and understanding the people along with their thought process and moral compass. It seems relatively primitive and barbaric.

They always think they're so cool being called the Black-Gold-Thousand-Year-Emperor-Demon-Dragon-God-Lotus etc etc etc. NO ONE CARES. How do they even memorise such a long name?

Surely they would understand, especially since they make so many weapons and armour, that gold is flashy but weak and lowkey garbage. Its all bark and no bite. Wouldn't being described as gold - which is all bark no bite - in a place where strength is everything be an insult? I guess not for them.

This dimension is the most time consuming but straightforward amongst all that I have been to. Life consists of cultivate, breakthrough, get to peak of cultivation for that realm, ascend to a higher realm, rinse and repeat. Pretty similar to my isekai dimension in that its a cycle that continues over and over again until you reach the top.

But where is the top, you might ask? What are you spending all of this time trying to get to. NO ONE KNOWS! You are chasing Infinity as far as the cultivators understand.

One thing to note is that the food there is terrible. You would think that with all the realms they have access to, some miracle flavour herb or spice exists, and you wouldn't be wrong, but because no one cares about food and they only care about getting stronger, the miracle plant gets turned into a pill. Absolute monsters.

No one appreciates the joy of eating as they can survive off the energy they absorb, which I guess is convenient but that's not the point.

Clothing is a problem and I ended up going commando the whole time. Elastics? Doesn't exist. Anything besides silk? Doesn't exist. Have some damn variation.

Some pros of This dimension would be that the power cap is as far as you can make it before you die, which as cultivating makes you live longer so that you can cultivate more, is essentially unlimited. Compare this to the isekai construct with which levels cap at 100, the only downside is that cultivating is, as I said before, time consuming.

Another pro I found is that people are very easy to manipulate, as they don't tend to be very smart. Or maybe they are and they just don't think or worry about anything going wrong as most of them are blinded by their arrogance, thinking they can handle everything that comes their way. This dumbness lead to me being able to live off free food, get into any city and sect i wanted, and eventually to marring a royal and living carefree for a while, then out-cultivating them, moving up a realm and doing the something. It was like a superpower I picked up, only I hadn't been to a superpower dimension.

Would I live through this again? Maybe. I think if I had a nicer spawn then I would have enjoyed my time there more. The food was bad everywhere I went - yes even the royal places -, and my balls were cold ever single day, but I learned a lot from that place and got very powerful. There is no doubt in my mind that the potential strength found in that place is the greatest of all dimensions i have been to (so far) and the dao fundamentals I learned through different practices will always be something I can take inspiration from, now and in the future.

[4/5 Stars]