You sort of need to know basic cultivation tropes to understand what’s going on, but if you do the story opens up to you and offers you something completely refreshing. I’ve sometimes wondered why traditional cultivation novels never go into cultures outside of chinese, why there is no “east meets west”. This story wonderfully goes into an alternate version of cultivation while allowing room other cultures to be added in the future. Also, the audio is really is amazing. The actors/actresses (yes, there are multiple) did a great job.