Forty Millenniums of Cultivation: Pseudo Sci-Fi Wearing a Xuanhuan Skin

Preface

Ever since I caught COVID around New Year's, I've been too lazy to update the blog.

Recently I sorted through my notes and came across some reading reflections I'd written before. I feel like I think less and less these days. I used to pick famous classics to read, or at the very least Jin Yong and Gu Long. Now I've degenerated into spending all my scraps of free time on web novels that don't require any thinking.

I have to say, web novels may not be great in quality, but they really are a blast to read. Maybe that's what tittytainment is...

After reading a particularly dumbed-down novel last time, I started a new reading journey. This time it's Wo Niu Zhenren's Forty Millenniums of Cultivation.

The reason: Chinese animation has been doing pretty well these past few years, and I occasionally check out new anime. After binge-watching more than a dozen episodes of Swallowed Star that I'd been saving up, the comments led me to another anime, Forty Millenniums of the Star Domain.

In Swallowed Star's Earth arc, the protagonist Luo Feng has an enemy named Li Yao, nicknamed Vulture. And that's exactly the protagonist of Forty Millenniums of Cultivation, even the nickname is identical. No wonder netizens keep flooding the comments with how after Li Yao was killed by Luo Feng he was reborn as the protagonist of another novel, hahaha~

About the Anime and the Novel

This anime is called Forty Millenniums of the Star Domain. It's new, only updated to a dozen or so episodes. I binge-watched it and thought it was pretty good, left wanting more, so I went straight to the original novel Forty Millenniums of Cultivation.

Actually I think the anime's name is more fitting. This novel feels like pseudo sci-fi wearing a xuanhuan skin. There's quite a lot of description of the universe and civilizations. The author has probably read Liu Cixin's The Three-Body Problem—the "dark forest" concept appears multiple times in the novel. So although it's a cultivation world, and all the science is magically modified and fictionalized from reality, I think it can count as pseudo sci-fi.

Compared to Swallowed Star mentioned above, I finished that novel in 2020. It's very long, with a huge world-building. The author likewise positions it as sci-fi, but I think Swallowed Star is a xuanhuan novel wearing a sci-fi skin. After all, the whole thing is just constantly cultivating, constantly changing maps, power units constantly inflating, a super huge world, but reading it always leaves a hollow feeling. You can only say it qualifies as a power fantasy; don't make things hard for the author by demanding that web novels be written with depth.

I'll find time later to write a post about Swallowed Star~ That novel's world-building is huge and pretty interesting too.

Reading Progress

I've currently read more than six hundred chapters. The protagonist is making a name for himself in another star system. I feel the author's writing style improves as he writes. When the protagonist was still in his hometown, there weren't very complex schemes yet. Now in this "Flying Star Sector" star system, the villains start having a series of interlocking conspiracies, which the protagonist then cracks one by one through all kinds of life-or-death extreme maneuvers. Following along with the author's train of thought is pretty satisfying.

There may be some logical sloppiness, but if you don't nitpick it's not a big problem. As for whether it'll fall apart later, I'll wait until I get further to say. At least up through chapter 700 so far it's still okay, much better than The Great Recasting of the Apocalypse I mentioned last time, not as dumbed-down.

So novels that can be adapted into anime probably aren't too bad, at least.

Spoilers

After thinking about it, I still ought to record the plot.

The following is heavy spoilers. Anyone who wants to read this novel can skip this section.

The novel's setting is a vast universe. Forty to fifty thousand years ago, in the ancient cultivation world, humanity had almost conquered the entire universe, but they each went their own way and civil war broke out. During that time someone also developed the technology to use animals as battle pets; later it got out of control, these animals gained intelligence, evolved into the demon race, and in turn ruled over humans. Humans were oppressed for many years. Later a big shot appeared, humanity finally turned things around, almost able to unify the universe again, a scene of prosperity—yet then demon cultivators appeared, humanity fell into internal strife, and the once-unified universe became various star systems each going their own way.

The Heaven's Origin Sector where the protagonist lives is one of those star systems, with only the planet Heaven's Origin Star (calling it a star system doesn't seem quite accurate; it should be called a planetary system, haha)

It starts with ordinary campus life. The protagonist is an orphan from the slums, buffs stacked to the max. Though poor, though talentless, he has a fateful encounter. After that he keeps meeting all kinds of very good people who help him. Teacher Sun, Senior Brother Peng Hai, Ding Lingdang (his wife) are all very good people.

I feel this novel's world-building was something the author perfected as he wrote. At first in the Heaven's Origin Sector, the only enemies were the demon beasts of another star system, the Blood Demon Sector. These two star systems aren't together, but wormholes often connect them, and wars frequently break out. Before all-out war erupted, the protagonist joined a dangerous outer-space exploration program, then ran into a big boss. To kill the big boss, the protagonist risked flying a spaceship through with the big boss, then the big boss died, the protagonist lived, and arrived in another star system, the Flying Star Sector.

Straight-up changing maps to grind levels.

The author starts hitting his stride here. In the Flying Star Sector, humanity's main threat is star pirates (similar to pirates). People in the Flying Star Sector all live on spaceships; planets seem to be forbidden zones. Here the author left a hook. Later, as the star pirates' and demon cultivators' conspiracies unfolded step by step, the secrets on the planets were revealed.

Actually there are people on these planets too, but due to a disaster several thousand years ago, humanity split into two factions with deep misunderstandings between them, hostile toward each other, until the protagonist arrived and resolved the villains' conspiracy. Then relations between the humans on the planets and those on the ships started to ease. The protagonist had a relatively comfortable stretch of time, being a visiting scholar doing research, taking on disciples, but before long the villains came to cause trouble again, this time terrorist attacks targeting civilians, hit and run. The protagonist followed them to the villains' nest, preparing to pull off something big...

OK, that's as far as I've read. If I want to write more later, I'll update with the subsequent plot.

Strengths

This book is pretty decent. The first point is that the character portrayal is quite good. The main characters' personalities all come through. The author also often uses various details to show characters' psychology. Sometimes it's too exaggerated, but overall it's comfortable to read.

The protagonist's wife Ding Lingdang, his disciple Xie An'an, Iron Origin Mad Bear Tribe chieftain Xiong Wuji—I won't list them all later—are all pretty interesting.

Didn't expect the female lead of this book to actually be a tough woman. But then, tough women in novels all have a wounded, fragile heart, otherwise how would you show the protagonist's protective role, hahaha.

But until protagonist Li Yao opened the new map, the female lead's combat power was stronger than his. This writing approach is relatively fresh. Don't know if he'll overtake her after this trip back. We'll wait and see.

There's also the author's views on the universe and civilizations, which seem to be that playbook from Liu Cixin's The Three-Body Problem: "survival is the first priority," so civilizations fight and kill each other, they even came up with body-snatching between civilizations. For a Liu Cixin fan like me, this counts as a plus, hahaha.

Due to time constraints, that's all for now~

I'll update later.