This was my first experience with the Cultivation Genre, which I never knew was a thing until I started reading this book and looking up some of the concepts in this book. The blurb says that fans of wuxia and xianxia would love this, but I’m not familiar with those genres either. But I decided to give this a listen because of the narrator, Travis Baldree, who came highly recommended, and I enjoy dabbling in unfamiliar genres to learn and experience something new! From what I can tell, this is an excellent example of the genre. The author does a good job of explaining the day-to-day life of a cultivator, as well as how their life fits into the greater world as a whole (good and bad). I have no idea how authentic all of this is, but Tao Wong really does a good job of explaining the intricacies of the cultivation practice and the choices the practitioners need to make at every step of their journey. In many ways, this novel reminded me of the martial arts movies I’ve seen, with Wu Ying being the focus of this series. I’m still not sure I understand everything that happened with this novel, but the narration made this story work for me. I’m not sure if I will be reading/listening to all nine novels (plus 7 short stories), but I will at least give the first three novels a try.
