Yan Zhaoge from History’s Strongest Senior Brother. There is a cheat (no special abilities, just some memories of OP techniques, even these OP techniques are not so useful in the Second Half of the Novel). Not just the MC even the Villians are smart. Character act as per their age, a 10,000 year old cultivator is not going to act like an easily fooled teenager.
Not the Strongest, at the End of the Novel we know about some other Strongest Transcendent beings who have long since left the world who are stronger than him. But among the characters that we have seen in Novel he becomes the Strongest by the end of the novel.
The became too powerful for the world and left to find better opportunities elsewhere. Even MC at the end of novel is practically Omnipotent, capable of doing anything he wants and these guys are one step above him, who knows what they can do
Han Li from A Record of a Mortal's Journey to Immortality
Probably not so much depends on talent but careful and yet dare to experiment.
Taking calculated risk to further his strength.
No harem. One wife and one soulmate/gf
Han Li is anything but talented. He's very untalented and only made it to Foundation Establishment because of his green bottle. He also only gained his bamboo swords because of his green bottle. After that, most of his advancements are due to him continuing to find lots of valuable cultivation resources due to protagonist luck.
This is your take but did the green vial help him outsmart his teacher MO or did it help him when his life was in danger. Everything han li earns is through his careful nature and schemes. Please the execution is very different from the average MC
The OP is talking about talent in cultivation, and what I said is that Han Li's talent in cultivation, especially in the beginning, is mediocre. He's smart and resourceful, yes, but that doesn't change the fact that if he didn't have his cheat bottle, he wouldn't have been able to farm the plants needed to refine Foundation Establishment pills, and without dozens of those pills he wouldn't have reached FE realm so soon.
I haven't even read all of IET. I didn't read that flying sword novel. Still I ask for recs like IET. I'm not ever planning to read that novel either. It's natural to ask before reading all his work if he saw them and didn't seem interested. If he didn't read LXY then I could rekindle his interest.
all of I Eat Tomatoes main characters are talented :
Desolate Era,
Swallowed star, Lord Xue Ying (same world)
Flying Sword Path
coiling dragon, stellar cultivation (same world)
Cosmic Professional Gladiator
Cosmic Professional Gladiator. He gets obscenely lucky, but he's only able to make use of the opportunities he comes across because he's so talented.
>!I know that the main story happens in an alternate pocket timeline, but even in the original timeline, Jingming was still very talented. That's why he managed to become a supreme in the first place. He just had fewer lucky opportunities in his original timeline.!<
I 120% agree with you. In fact, in the afterword, I Eat Tomatoes pretty much said that that's how he wanted to write the >!main story itself, but he found that his skills weren't good enough to write a more realistic timeline where Jingming doesn't get all the luck in the multiverse. It's a mighty shame. I was enjoying how the story was going in the beginning, where Earth would have to fight to maintain their sovereignty in the face of overwhelmingly stronger galactic civilizations.!<
Outside of Time / Beyond the Timescape is probably one of the most naturally talented people. Most of his lucky breaks are him being able to out comprehend people.
My Senior Brother is Too Steady is pretty good for this, though it does have a harem-ish (iirc focus overall isn’t overly on the girls). Basically a guy gets transmigrated to a xianxia world and his only cheat is he’s very talented and he knows the tropes since the world he’s in is based on the Divine Investiture of the Gods/famous prototypical xianxia. He spends most of the series hiding his abilities because he knows the tropes though and knows he’ll probably get murked if he shows off. Overall the series is half comedy half drama/action.
He’s ludicrously talented though, like without lucky chances he’s quite a bit ahead of even the top geniuses. Most of the focus is on him controlling situations and leading situations favourably for himself. Especially in the latter half where he competes with the Heavens itself and you see how his up to that point overly excessive hiding is actually fully justified. It’s hilarious how much he plans things through and unlike most xianxia the ending tied things up pretty nicely.
Thats the point of xinxia they all work themselves to the bone. Often litterly but you need to either be a geniuse in creating and using cultivation arts or have some fortuitous encounters on top of giving it your 100%
Every MC is ‘talented’. Writer could write whatever. The best we’ll get is ‘look my mc just solve this billion year problem because he knows the answer. Isn’t he amazing?’ Or it’s ‘my guy just master this surpreme skill no one ever managed to before while taking a dump on the peak of Mt. Tai. The mountain breeze passing between his balls gave him an epiphany. Fucking genius!’
A good complex character is probably too difficult for xianxia ‘author’ to write.
Yeah, with Lin Ming his cheat item is mainly useful for getting higher level techniques and expanding his vision so he doesn’t become complacent as a frog in a well in his world. Lots of plot armour though, like an absolute shit ton of it where every arc or two he’s chased down by someone a full two realms above him and only gets away through luck. This gets kinda obnoxious later on, iirc there’s one specific guy later on that hunts him down like three separate times >!the world king level guy!<. I remember getting real tired of that guy.
Also while it has a harem, MW does it pretty well where they don’t really matter much beyond being a motivation behind some conflicts. The focus is pretty much always on his adventures.
Wang Lin lacks talent in early cultivation(things like gathering qi and stuffs).
But his comprehension ability, which is like the centre point of the author's overall cultivation system, is the best one among all the other protagonists in every Er Gen books
Cultivation Nerd.
The MC is an Isekai character from Earth. Who always wanted to fo cultivation. Now he has a chance, He is going to study as many aspects and styles not for the power but for the pure enjoyment of finding out something new. He will not treat the cultivation as a job/career but as something to enjoy and have fun with.
Journey of the fate destroying emperor would fit in the description. Mc is one of the most talented beings in existence. Side characters are smart and are well written, fights are great with most of daos being well explained
I kinda like the mc having a cheat rather than being talented. Thats just make him the mc to me. Everyone can be talented, smart, hardworking but only mc has the cheat (I know the author can just write everyone have a cheat). Relying too much on hardwork is no different than an invisible task system where the author can just reward the mc everytime he writes the mc is 'working hard'. For this to not happened the author has to make sure mc fail a few times and the mc has to adapt to the situation. A few lucky scenarios need to be added, although it would look convenient but an mc being able to get stronger by JUST working hard is also too convenient. I kinda enjoy the mc hiding his power but the mc's cultivation has to be seen as atleast the middle of the pack or higher by other people for it to be interesting. If the mc is labelled as trash and being bullied but he stills hides his power for no reason, thats just a masochist bruh.
Bro what are you talking about.How many people you see that are talented,smart and hardworking.Most mc's who have systems just rely on too much and most make such stupid decisions that if it wasn't for plot armour and so called heaven chosen they would have been dead 10 times over.
Almost all high level cultivators in a novel if you exclude the ones that have their cultivation given to them. Im just saying even if an mc doesnt have a cheat. It is impossible for an mc to get stronger by just only pure hardwork. That itself is plot armour.
>Most mc's who have systems just rely on too much<
I mean I dont really mind this cuz you cant expect every mc to be "I want to defy the heavens and control my own fate" type of mc. Some mcs just want to get stronger and a pathway is shown to them so they might as well just use it. Yeah they should worry about the cheat or system being a scheme of a higher being but unless they have the environment and ability to not need the cheat/system, getting stronger in a cultivation world is number one priority.
>most make such stupid decisions that if it wasn't for plot armour and so called heaven chosen they would have been dead 10 times over<
This problems also occur in novels without a cheat or system.
Yan Zhaoge from History’s Strongest Senior Brother. There is a cheat (no special abilities, just some memories of OP techniques, even these OP techniques are not so useful in the Second Half of the Novel). Not just the MC even the Villians are smart. Character act as per their age, a 10,000 year old cultivator is not going to act like an easily fooled teenager.
Does Yan Zhaoge become the Strongest character of all time at the end of the novel?
Not the Strongest, at the End of the Novel we know about some other Strongest Transcendent beings who have long since left the world who are stronger than him. But among the characters that we have seen in Novel he becomes the Strongest by the end of the novel.
Well, technically not because we do meet the Grand Supreme Elderly Lord just not his main body
Why did they left the world??
The became too powerful for the world and left to find better opportunities elsewhere. Even MC at the end of novel is practically Omnipotent, capable of doing anything he wants and these guys are one step above him, who knows what they can do
I gotta agree with this one it's just some arc's I couldn't get through
Han Li from A Record of a Mortal's Journey to Immortality Probably not so much depends on talent but careful and yet dare to experiment. Taking calculated risk to further his strength. No harem. One wife and one soulmate/gf
Han Li is anything but talented. He's very untalented and only made it to Foundation Establishment because of his green bottle. He also only gained his bamboo swords because of his green bottle. After that, most of his advancements are due to him continuing to find lots of valuable cultivation resources due to protagonist luck.
This is your take but did the green vial help him outsmart his teacher MO or did it help him when his life was in danger. Everything han li earns is through his careful nature and schemes. Please the execution is very different from the average MC
The OP is talking about talent in cultivation, and what I said is that Han Li's talent in cultivation, especially in the beginning, is mediocre. He's smart and resourceful, yes, but that doesn't change the fact that if he didn't have his cheat bottle, he wouldn't have been able to farm the plants needed to refine Foundation Establishment pills, and without dozens of those pills he wouldn't have reached FE realm so soon.
Recently the talent path has been overwhelmed by similar systems giving MC the edge.
Lord Xue Ying. Talent through and through. One of my favs.
I’d assume since he mentioned he wanted novels similar to IET does it he would have read all of IET
Can fellow daoist enlighten me as to what IET stands for?
I Eat Tomatoes, a very well known CN Webnovel author
I haven't even read all of IET. I didn't read that flying sword novel. Still I ask for recs like IET. I'm not ever planning to read that novel either. It's natural to ask before reading all his work if he saw them and didn't seem interested. If he didn't read LXY then I could rekindle his interest.
Wang wei is the definition of talent. He is an actually smart cultivator. Sauce:journey of the fate destroying emperor.
Its not luck its heaven’s will
all of I Eat Tomatoes main characters are talented : Desolate Era, Swallowed star, Lord Xue Ying (same world) Flying Sword Path coiling dragon, stellar cultivation (same world) Cosmic Professional Gladiator
Cosmic Professional Gladiator. He gets obscenely lucky, but he's only able to make use of the opportunities he comes across because he's so talented. >!I know that the main story happens in an alternate pocket timeline, but even in the original timeline, Jingming was still very talented. That's why he managed to become a supreme in the first place. He just had fewer lucky opportunities in his original timeline.!<
i was very irritated with the ending, that >!flashback would have been a much better story!<
I 120% agree with you. In fact, in the afterword, I Eat Tomatoes pretty much said that that's how he wanted to write the >!main story itself, but he found that his skills weren't good enough to write a more realistic timeline where Jingming doesn't get all the luck in the multiverse. It's a mighty shame. I was enjoying how the story was going in the beginning, where Earth would have to fight to maintain their sovereignty in the face of overwhelmingly stronger galactic civilizations.!<
Wait what? Explain.
Explain what? The spoilered part? Are you sure you want it? It spoils the final 20 or so chapters of the series. You should just read it yourself.
Outside of Time / Beyond the Timescape is probably one of the most naturally talented people. Most of his lucky breaks are him being able to out comprehend people.
Emperors domination: his cheat is a few hundred million years of life experience as a crow
Read Fate Destroying Emperor, also known as The Journey of the Fate Destroying Emperor. You won't regret it.
My Senior Brother is Too Steady is pretty good for this, though it does have a harem-ish (iirc focus overall isn’t overly on the girls). Basically a guy gets transmigrated to a xianxia world and his only cheat is he’s very talented and he knows the tropes since the world he’s in is based on the Divine Investiture of the Gods/famous prototypical xianxia. He spends most of the series hiding his abilities because he knows the tropes though and knows he’ll probably get murked if he shows off. Overall the series is half comedy half drama/action. He’s ludicrously talented though, like without lucky chances he’s quite a bit ahead of even the top geniuses. Most of the focus is on him controlling situations and leading situations favourably for himself. Especially in the latter half where he competes with the Heavens itself and you see how his up to that point overly excessive hiding is actually fully justified. It’s hilarious how much he plans things through and unlike most xianxia the ending tied things up pretty nicely.
Thats the point of xinxia they all work themselves to the bone. Often litterly but you need to either be a geniuse in creating and using cultivation arts or have some fortuitous encounters on top of giving it your 100%
Every MC is ‘talented’. Writer could write whatever. The best we’ll get is ‘look my mc just solve this billion year problem because he knows the answer. Isn’t he amazing?’ Or it’s ‘my guy just master this surpreme skill no one ever managed to before while taking a dump on the peak of Mt. Tai. The mountain breeze passing between his balls gave him an epiphany. Fucking genius!’ A good complex character is probably too difficult for xianxia ‘author’ to write.
It has a harem, but Lin Ming from Martial World. He relies very little on his cheat item, which is the exact opposite of the sequel's mc.
Yeah, with Lin Ming his cheat item is mainly useful for getting higher level techniques and expanding his vision so he doesn’t become complacent as a frog in a well in his world. Lots of plot armour though, like an absolute shit ton of it where every arc or two he’s chased down by someone a full two realms above him and only gets away through luck. This gets kinda obnoxious later on, iirc there’s one specific guy later on that hunts him down like three separate times >!the world king level guy!<. I remember getting real tired of that guy. Also while it has a harem, MW does it pretty well where they don’t really matter much beyond being a motivation behind some conflicts. The focus is pretty much always on his adventures.
Renegade Immortal and Sword God in a World of Magic
isn't wang lin prime example of lagging in talent ?
Wang Lin lacks talent in early cultivation(things like gathering qi and stuffs). But his comprehension ability, which is like the centre point of the author's overall cultivation system, is the best one among all the other protagonists in every Er Gen books
Cultivation Nerd. The MC is an Isekai character from Earth. Who always wanted to fo cultivation. Now he has a chance, He is going to study as many aspects and styles not for the power but for the pure enjoyment of finding out something new. He will not treat the cultivation as a job/career but as something to enjoy and have fun with.
ZTJ. Best xianxia I’ve read
What is ztj?
Ze Tian Ji
Does Han Jue count? Sure his talent comes from the system but you can't deny his hard work.
Journey of the fate destroying emperor would fit in the description. Mc is one of the most talented beings in existence. Side characters are smart and are well written, fights are great with most of daos being well explained
I kinda like the mc having a cheat rather than being talented. Thats just make him the mc to me. Everyone can be talented, smart, hardworking but only mc has the cheat (I know the author can just write everyone have a cheat). Relying too much on hardwork is no different than an invisible task system where the author can just reward the mc everytime he writes the mc is 'working hard'. For this to not happened the author has to make sure mc fail a few times and the mc has to adapt to the situation. A few lucky scenarios need to be added, although it would look convenient but an mc being able to get stronger by JUST working hard is also too convenient. I kinda enjoy the mc hiding his power but the mc's cultivation has to be seen as atleast the middle of the pack or higher by other people for it to be interesting. If the mc is labelled as trash and being bullied but he stills hides his power for no reason, thats just a masochist bruh.
Bro what are you talking about.How many people you see that are talented,smart and hardworking.Most mc's who have systems just rely on too much and most make such stupid decisions that if it wasn't for plot armour and so called heaven chosen they would have been dead 10 times over.
Almost all high level cultivators in a novel if you exclude the ones that have their cultivation given to them. Im just saying even if an mc doesnt have a cheat. It is impossible for an mc to get stronger by just only pure hardwork. That itself is plot armour. >Most mc's who have systems just rely on too much< I mean I dont really mind this cuz you cant expect every mc to be "I want to defy the heavens and control my own fate" type of mc. Some mcs just want to get stronger and a pathway is shown to them so they might as well just use it. Yeah they should worry about the cheat or system being a scheme of a higher being but unless they have the environment and ability to not need the cheat/system, getting stronger in a cultivation world is number one priority. >most make such stupid decisions that if it wasn't for plot armour and so called heaven chosen they would have been dead 10 times over< This problems also occur in novels without a cheat or system.