This post will attempt to provide an answer to several questions, including the ages of some of the current peak lords, as well as a rough timeline of events in the extras relative to the current day. A simple, bullet-point timeline will be at the end of this post, with relevant quotes and analysis above.
The timeline of SVSSS isn't particularly easy to piece together, and many fans are unsure of things such as the ages of certain characters, or how long the current generation of peak lords has been in power. As a matter of fact, it seems like even Airplane himself doesn't have a set timeline in mind for the events of PIDW pre-LBH:
“Your ages?”
To tell the truth, Shen Qingqiu didn’t really know the precise age of this body. He raised his head at Shang Qinghua. “Wouldn’t you know better than I do?”
Shang Qinghua twirled the brush in his hand. He’d never thought about this question either, so he figured he might as well just say whatever. Therefore he randomly wrote a number down in a couple of strokes.
(7 Seas, Ch. 31)
It would be easy enough to take this quote and call the timeline a mystery-- however, there are a surprising amount of clues in the text, enough to at least put together a decent idea of when things happened and how old certain characters are, depending on which theories and interpretations one ascribes to.
There are two particular facts which are our most important hints as to the pre-LBH timeline, upon which this entire analysis hinges.
First, we have the spacing of the Immortal Alliance Conferences:
After much difficulty, Luo Binghe managed to turn seventeen, at which point he finally participated in the event the cultivation world held once every four years: the Immortal Alliance Conference.
(7 Seas, Ch. 1)
And next, we have the length of time since Shen Qingqiu began to cultivate:
Before, Shen Qingqiu had thought that this body’s qualifications were already incredible, to have formed a core in only ten or so years when he’d begun cultivation so late.
(7 Seas, Ch. 19)
Notably here, what is translated as "ten or so years" is 十几年， which is more accurately "ten and a few years." This means that at the time Shen Qingqiu formed a golden core, he had been at Cang Qiong Mountain for around 10-15 years, but likely no longer or shorter than that.
This tells us quite a bit already-- because we know that Shen Qingqiu only reached core formation after becoming peak lord, as well as after Luo Binghe had already become a disciple:
Luo Binghe was using the incorrect cultivation manual that Shen Qingqiu had handed him; he should have long since died bleeding from the seven apertures, his body rupturing down to his bones, skin, meridians, tendons, and flesh...
Shen Qingqiu was filled with paranoia; he forever felt like everyone was secretly talking behind his back, discussing how he’d been unable to attain Core Formation even after this long.
(7 Seas, Ch. 24)
So this tells us that it could not have been any longer than around 15 years between Shen Qingqiu and Luo Binghe joining Cang Qiong Mountain, and was likely at least a few years less than that because it has already been awhile since Luo Binghe was given the fake manual, which likely occured shortly after he arrived, and Shen Qingqiu reaches core formation at some point after this scene.
This means that the Qing generation's ascenscion likely occured no more than ten years after Shen Qingqiu joined the sect-- putting the ages for Shen Qingqiu and Yue Qingyuan respectively at roughly twenty-six and twenty-nine when they became peak lords.
The timeline can be clarified further and expanded, however, due to the spacing of the IAC. We know that the IAC occured when Luo Binghe was seventeen, and that it occurs every four years-- meaning that there would have been IAC taking place also when he was thirteen, nine, five, one, and three years before he was born.
However, we also know that it had not actually been fourteen years since Luo Binghe's birth at the start of SVSSS.
In the translation, Luo Binghe says the following when Shen Qingqiu asks his age:
“This disciple is fourteen,” Luo Binghe obediently replied.
(7 Seas, Ch. 1)
However, the original says:
洛冰河乖巧地道：“弟子虚岁十四。”
"虚岁" here would be better translated as "nominal age." In ancient times, a child was one year old on the day of their birth, and aged up by one year with each new year-- so if a child was born the day before the new year, then at two days old he would already be counted as two years old. Sometimes, this would be counted on the spring festival new year, but other times it would be counted on the winter solstice.
As for Luo Binghe's precise chronological age, that is up for some determination. We know roughly the time of year he was born:
Immediately after birth, Luo Binghe was abandoned by his parents, swaddled in white cloth, and put in a wooden basin that was lowered into the Luo River. This occurred on the coldest days of the year...
(7 Seas, Ch. 1)
The "coldest days of the year" here is 数九寒天, which refers to the nine periods of nine days each following the winter solstice. The winter solstice typically occurs on December 20-21, meaning that Luo Binghe's birth date is somewhere between December 20-March 12. If nominal age is being counted by winter solstice in this world, then that makes him chronologically thirteen at the start of SVSSS, but if it is calculated by the spring festival, then he is chronologically either twelve or thirteen at the start of SVSSS, as the Chinese new year can fall anywhere between January 21 - February 21, meaning that LBH could have been born either before or after this time.
So, let's just say that LBH's chronological age, for the purposes here, is thirteen, and then adjust our IAC timeline as follows：
There was one when he was chronologically sixteen, twelve, eight, four, the year he was born, and four years before he was born.
Now, how does this help us determine a timeline?
Well, we have the following statement:
Yue Qingyuan’s knuckles slowly brushed along Xuan Su’s hilt. “I was able to meet Senior Su Xiyan once at an Immortal Alliance Conference, many years ago."
(7 Seas, Ch. 18)
Because we know that Su Xiyan died when Luo Binghe was born, we know that this meeting could not have occured at any conferences after his birth. It also would be unlikely that they met the same year Luo Binghe was born, as Su Xiyan would likely already be dead at that point if LBH was born after the new year. So, the latest that Yue Qingyuan could have met Su Xiyan would be twenty years before Luo Binghe was thrown into the Abyss.
We now combine this with the earlier discussion of the ages of Shen Qingqiu and Yue Qingyuan, and here I will note the following:
Yue Qingyuan slowly said, “At age fifteen, I entered Qiong Ding Peak."
(7 Seas, Ch. 21)
This puts Yue Qingyuan roughly three years older than Shen Jiu:
“When [Shen Jiu] was twelve years old, he was but a slave my family had purchased from traveling child traffickers. "
(7 Seas, Ch. 6)
Shen Jiu joined Cang Qiong Mountain at sixteen:
Liu Qingge didn’t even grace him with a sideways glance. “But certainly more success than a nobody who only began proper cultivation at age sixteen.”
(7 Seas, Ch. 19)
This happened most likely directly after reuniting with Yue Qingyuan at an Immortal Alliance Conference. This puts Yue Qingyuan's age at nineteen during that conference, at which point he is head disciple, and has already gained some fame. However, this reunion has to occur before Luo Binghe's birth, Su Xiyan's death, and Tianlang-jun's defeat. This is because at this point, Yue Qingyuan has only been in Cang Qiong Mountain for four years-- thus, this particular conference is almost certainly the first one he has taken part in, and likely the first one he has attended at all, since a brand-new disciple in early stages of training most likely wouldn't have gone, therefore if Tianlang-jun had already been sealed by this point, Yue Qingyuan would not have had the chance to meet Su Xiyan.
So, the latest Shen Qingqiu could have joined Cang Qiong Mountain, at age 16, is twenty years before the Abyss, which would put him at age thirty-six at the youngest at that time.
Now, what about additional conference cycles?
It's possible that the conference in which Yue Qingyuan met Su Xiyan and/or after which Shen Qingqiu joined CQM may have been the one before this-- but that would also add four additional years to the time SQQ had been cultivating.
The earliest that Luo Binghe could have joined CQM would be when he was a little over ten years old, as that is when his mother dies:
On the bed lay a haggard old woman. With great effort, she tried to prop herself up, but from beginning to end, she was unable to do so. A small figure rushed in from outside. A tender-faced Luo Binghe, only a little over ten years old, supported the woman. Around his neck hung that jade pendant.
(7 Seas, Ch. 3)
Shen Qingqiu had not reached core formation when Luo Binghe joined the sect. This means that if the IAC where SQQ joined the sect was four years before Luo Binghe's birth, then by the time Luo Binghe joins the sect it has been about fourteen to fifteen years since SQQ began cultivating.
Adding an additional four years would bump that to eighteen to nineteen years, which exceeds the "ten and some" years that SQQ took to reach core formation.
In my opinion, this also tells me that LBH joined CQM when he was absolutely no older than ten or eleven, and likely went to join immediately after his mother's death, because pushing LBH's join date later would also stretch the timeline of SQQ's cultivation. Now, this part does not specify whether the ten years old is nominal age or chronological age-- but because LBH's age of seventeen at the conference is referenced to his nominal age of fourteen, with a distance between of three years, then I am considering all age-numbers to be nominal age rather than chronological. This only really matters in regards to Luo Binghe for this analysis, though, as his birth year is the only one which has bearing on the timeline in regards to Su Xiyan's status.
With all of this information, we can determine with good confidence that the conference in which Yue Qingyuan met Su Xiyan was the same conference during which he reunited with Shen Qingqiu, which occured four years before Luo Binghe was born and twenty years before the Endless Abyss.
So because of this, we actually do have a relatively precise timeline of characters' ages, as well as events in the cultivation world.
This short timeline is also supported by the fact that Ming Fan is the most senior of Shen Qingqiu's disciples, and he is only sixteen, about 2-3 years older than Luo Binghe:
A youth around sixteen years old, tall and thin, promptly ran in through the door. “This disciple is here. What instructions does Shifu have?”
(7 Seas, Ch. 1)
Had the Qing generation ascended too many years prior to Luo Binghe's joining the sect, it would be strange that the most senior disciple of Shen Qingqiu's was only sixteen, as in xianxia a disciple typically will not "graduate" at a certain age or cultivation stage, meaning that older disciples will maintain their role well into adulthood.
As for the rest of the peak lords, we have little to no information regarding the ages of Wei Qingwei, Qi Qingqi, or Mu Qingfang. However, we do know that Liu Qingge is quite young, and joined the sect both at an optimal age and a significant length of time before Shen Qingqiu:
At this point, Liu Qingge’s formal ascension to Bai Zhan Peak Lord, too, had likely only happened a couple years ago. There was a visible air of immaturity about his features, his gaze fierce and sharp, and within his every action was a young man’s spirited vigor.
(7 Seas, Ch. 19)
and
Therefore, even though he’d entered the sect quite some time after Liu Qingge, because Qing Jing Peak was ranked second—only below Qiong Ding Peak—while Bai Zhan Peak was ranked seventh, Liu Qingge still had to address Shen Qingqiu as “Shixiong,” if through gritted teeth.
(7 Seas, Ch. 24)
So, Liu Qingge is likely a year or two younger than Shen Qingqiu, but not by too much, since they still behave very much like contemporaries as teenagers-- let's say that Liu Qingge is likely around 14-15 when Shen Qingqiu joins the sect at age 16.
The other peak lord we know a bit about the age of is Shang Qinghua:
The older-than-average outer disciple Shang Qinghua, who currently occupied a seventeen-year-old body, looked around in all directions as he trailed behind the main team, who were unloading goods from the ship onto the docks.
(7 Seas, Ch. 26)
He is seventeen here, and an outer disciple of An Ding Peak. We can place this a bit more definitively on the timeline by the fact that Shen Qingqiu is already a head disciple at this point in time:
“What I don’t know is how Shen Qingqiu got chosen as head disciple after starting cultivation so late,” said another outer disciple who’d joined Cang Qiong Mountain at an older age, his expression sour.
(7 Seas, Ch. 26)
Unfortunately, we cannot place the exact point in time where Shen Qingqiu became head disciple-- one possibility is that it couldn't have happened until after Tianlang-jun's defeat, which occured about four years after he joined the sect, since he did not participate in the battle. But that is a weak argument, since none of the current generation besides Yue Qingyuan participated in that battle:
Of the current peak lords, only Yue Qingyuan had participated in that battle, as the head disciple of Qiong Ding Peak.
(7 Seas, Ch. 17)
If using this argument, then that would mean that aside from Yue Qingyuan, none of the other peak lords had been chosen as head disciples at that time-- while that is a possibility, I think that a more feasible explanation would be that Yue Qingyuan was an exception, and participated in the battle specifically because of his wielding Xuan Su.
One thing we can extrapolate, however, is that Shang Qinghua was most likely an inner disciple for at least three years before the Qing generation's ascension. This is because of the following:
One day, Shang Qinghua’s concise Great System delivered a new command: Become the An Ding Peak head disciple within three years.
(7 Seas, Ch. 26)
Now, it is somewhat loose evidence, as there is nothing to say that "three years" means for certain that the ascension would occur three years from that point, but it does mean that it occured no earlier than that. By now, Shang Qinghua has already been an inner disciple for some time, long enough to have been assisted by Mobei-jun a few times and to have gone on several missions-- most likely around a few months to a year or so at minimum.
Of course, how long has passed between Shen Qingqiu joining the sect and this point? Well, since Shen Qingqiu is still described as a youth:
Shang Qinghua suddenly heard the tinkling of sword tassel pendants, and a youth wearing Qing Jing Peak’s uniform slowly approached him.
(7 Seas, Ch. 26)
Because of this description, I would say that Shen Qingqiu is most likely between seventeen and his early twenties, since it isn't particularly likely that he would become head disciple in less than a year after joining the sect. Of course, within this age range, there is one important event that occurs-- the battle of Bai Lu mountain, which would have occured when Shen Qingqiu was twenty and Yue Qingyuan was twenty-three.
Now, this gets into more of a speculation than anything else-- just before this point, Mobei-jun attacked Huan Hua Palace and the An Ding Peak disciples. If the battle of Bai Lu Mountain had already occured, it would have happened no more than a few years earlier. We also know that there is a tentative truce between the demon realm and the cultivation world:
This suggestion was solid. For many years, the Human and Demon Realms had maintained an uneasy balance and had yet to drop the pretense of peace. Eliminating Sha Hualing and her mob wouldn’t be impossible, but it would likely light a fuse. The demons definitely wouldn’t let her death go unanswered, and it wouldn’t be worth it if they stirred up an even greater conflict.
(7 Seas, Ch. 3)
I suspect that this pretense of peace was likely set in place after the battle of Bai Lu Mountain, when the demon realm had just lost their ruler.
Since just a short time had happened since the demons' defeat and a likely truce between the realms, I find it unlikely that Mobei-jun, a prominent member of demonic nobility, at this time would be actively antagonizing the cultivation world by attacking Huan Hua Palace and Cang Qiong Mountain. Now, of course, there is a potential alternate storyline that this is exactly what happened, and Mobei-jun went rogue as an act of lashing out, and that interpretation would be perfectly valid on its own.
Personally, though, I believe that Shang Qinghua's meeting with Mobei-jun occured before the battle of Bai Lu Mountain, while the cultivation world and demon world were in the tense state on the edge of war. This means that Shang Qinghua most likely became an inner disciple when Shen Qingqiu was around 17-19 years old.
With this information, we can determine some relative ages:
Yue Qingyuan is three years older than Shen Qingqiu, who is a little older than Liu Qingge. Because Shang Qinghua was seventeen when Shen Qingqiu was already head disciple, it is most likely that he is around Liu Qingge's age, give or take a few years, as it is not particularly likely (though potentially possible) for Shen Qingqiu to have gone from new disciple to head disciple in the space of a single year.
Aside from these four, there are no other ages that can be determined for the peak lords.
With all of this information, a fairly decent timeline can be created. Characters' ages will be listed with each notable year.
《 THE TIMELINE 》
*counted up to the start of SVSSS.
If using this timeline, keep in mind that the earliest and latest notes for date ranges can overlap-- do not accidentally have a disciple join the sect before the current peak lords ascend, or have SQH become head disciple after ascension! Dates with ranges are colored green (earliest) and red (latest).
This timeline operates under the following conditions. For some of these conditions, alternatives are discussed in the post above-- if you wish to use any of the alternative calculations, then you're more than welcome to adjust the timeline as applicable for your own use!
"Years" are counted from the first day of the spring festival/Chinese new year, rather than January 1
All character ages are nominal ages, so they were born in the year they are counted as age "1"
Luo Binghe was born after the new year, and so his nominal age is only about one year higher than chronological.
Shang Qinghua met Mobei-jun before the battle of Bai Lu Mountain
The system's time limit for SQH does reference the time of the Qing generation's ascension
The Immortal Alliance Conference takes place roughly in the middle of the year. Based on the fact that it is warm enough for the disciples to dip their feet into a stream and find that pleasant, it would make sense for the IAC to occur in a warmer season (Ch. 4)
Further References and Footnotes:
*Yue Qi was in the Lingxi Caves for more than one year and Qiu Manor had already been destroyed by the time he got out (Ch. 21)
**The birth of Luo Binghe occured a few days after the battle of Bai Lu Mountain. Depending on when LBH was born, it could be at the end of year -14 or the first few days of year -13 (Ch. 21)
***We do not know the earliest a child can join Cang Qiong Mountain, even though the appropriate age for cultivation most likely cuts off somewhere around 15 (due to YQY joining at that age and no comments about him being "too old"). For the purposes of this timeline, I am setting the absolute youngest to age 5, but more realistically a disciple wouldn't join until age 8-10 at the earliest.
****It is unknown whether the only time that disciples can join Cang Qiong Mountain is during the recruitment trials. Therefore, there remains a possibility for Ning Yingying to have joined the sect in the same year as Luo Binghe, but at some point before the recruitment trials due to connections. This can potentially be supported by Shen Jiu joining after the IAC, but at the same time, it is not confirmed that SJ joined CQM immediately, or if he had to wait until the next recruitment trial, so there is no clear canon precedent-- nonetheless, it is still possible. Note that Ning Yingying can only join at this late point if Luo Binghe joins at age 11, and after her. The only hard requirement is that NYY joined at some point before LBH.
*****I have placed this as the absolute latest time SQQ could have formed a golden core because this puts him at having been cultivating for sixteen years. It is a bit of a stretch already , but I don't think that "ten and a few" years could really be any longer than this. It is also worth noting that by the time SQQ reaches core formation, every other peak lord has already done so, with Yue Qingyuan first, Liu Qingge and Qi Qingqi next, and Shang Qinghua most likely last (Ch. 24)
--
Please let me know if you notice any errors in calculation, formatting, or missing details! This was quite substantial so there's a good chance I may have missed something.
Some of the points in this analysis and timeline calculations were brainstormed with the help of @zykamiliah , @cum-villain , @furbygoblinxiv . Many thanks!
"It occurred to Shang Qinghua, not at all for the first time, but for the first time that the words of the thought rang as clearly as a bell, that this person was not only his ideal man. Mobei-Jun was also just a man. This author didn't know him at all.
"...And yet you became a cultivator," Mobei-Jun said, "rather than a farmer."
"Well, even being the world's worst cultivator is generally better than not being one," Shang Qinghua replied. "Honestly, it's a little terrifying being human in this world sometimes, especially in the heart of the Demon Realm." He bit his lip, immediately regretting this revelation, and his desperation to cover up the last sentence led to something even bolder: "Do you ever wish that you could have been something else? Besides the Northern King...?"
Mobei-Jun blinked tiredly at him.
"...I shouldn't be keeping you up this late," Shang Qinghua muttered. "We have a long day of someone maybe trying to kill me again tomorrow. Maybe. It's been a few days, hasn't it?"
Art for chapter 6 of Tossawary's fic "Servant to a Different King" art of the moshang big bang!
Shen Yuan should transmigrate as Qiu Haitang!
He *could* break himself and SJ out of the horrible Qiu household, but Qiu Haitang showing up “early” only to kidnap SQQ’s littlest disciple would also be funny.
"Why are you here?" Shen Qingqiu asks flatly, as he leaves the bamboo house with Ming Fan in tow.
"I heard that you took on a new disciple," says the woman before him.
Qiu Haitang does not meet his eyes. She has not looked him in the eye for the better part of twenty years—not since that first murder on the road, when she came to bring him a basket of food and found Shen Qingqiu and Wu Yanzi with blood still dripping from their hands—but even so, her avoidance of him has never grown easier to bear.
"I did," Shen Qingqiu replies. "What of it?"
"I told you not to," Qiu Haitang says, her hands curling into fists. "That—Li Haoran was to be the last. You promised me."
"Ning Yingying wanted a shidi."
"I don't give a damn what Ning Yingying wanted," she says sharply. "You swore you would never take in another boy."
Silence.
"If I go into the house," Qiu Haitang continues, her voice deceptively calm, "tell me, Shen Jiu—what will I find?"
At this, Ming Fan steps forward and stretches out his hands in supplication. "Shiniang—"
"Be silent," she snaps. "Your shifu is a lost cause, and that can't be helped; but if Disciple Ming cannot learn from his mistakes, then you don't need to speak in front of me. Did you even think of coming to fetch me when you saw that he had picked up another little shidi to bully?"
With that, Qiu Haitang snorts and sweeps past him into the bamboo house, where Luo Binghe is still kneeling in the middle of the front room with tea trickling down his tearstained cheeks.
"There, don't cry," Shen Qingqiu hears her whisper. "You didn't do anything wrong. Can you look up so that jiejie can dry your face?"
"Shizun—shizun told me to kneel," the little wretch in the house replies, half-sobbing. "It's this lowly one's fault. I offended him, so of course this disciple should stay here and reflect."
"You didn't offend anyone," Qiu Haitang says gently. "He has a terrible temper, and he never learned how to control it. It's not your fault."
"But—!"
Qiu Haitang hushes Luo Binghe again, after which Shen Qingqiu hears nothing further: for at that moment, his wife seemed to have recalled the existence of the bamboo house's privacy wards—but later that evening, she returns to house with a sheaf of papers and flings them down on Shen Qingqiu's desk.
"Sign these," she tells him.
Shen Qingqiu glances at the first page in bemusement. "What are they?"
"Dissolution papers for Luo Binghe's discipleship. What else?" Qiu Haitang's lip curls. "From now on, I'll be his Shizun instead."
He lifts an eyebrow. "Did Yue Qingyuan give you these? He approved when I asked for that little beast, you know."
"He must have thought you'd wait at least a week before doing something to the child," Haitang says coldly. "I told him that he could either give Binghe to me or send him to Bai Zhan; and he was determined to save face for you, so he chose me."
And then, when Shen Qingqiu does not reply:
"Sign them, Shen Jiu. You don't want to know what I'll do to you otherwise."
At this, Shen Qingqiu picks up a brush and signs his name at the bottom of the dissolution form: for the last time he and Qiu Haitang fought in earnest, she fed him a cursed tonic that had him babbling in tongues before a hundred-odd dignitaries at Huan Hua.
"Thank you," she bites out: and with that, she turns on her heel and blows out of the bamboo house like a gust of chill wind.
Not for the first time, Shen Qingqiu finds himself wishing that he had left Qiu Haitang behind at the Qiu estate when he fled with Wu Yanzi. But her father and brother were dead, and she believed that she was betrothed to him; and when he saw her great brown eyes staring at him through the flames of her home, some power beyond Shen Qingqiu's own had prevented him from turning his back on her.
She was not meant to accept when I offered to take responsibility for her, he thinks dully, watching through the open window as his wife strides towards the women's compound on the other side of the mountain. She hated me then, and she hates me now—so what was it all for?
Shen Qingqiu has pondered upon that question night and day since he and Qiu Haitang first bowed to one another, not long after his instatement as Qing Jing's head disciple; and he is no nearer to the answer by the morning he is widowed, nearly a decade later.
What point was there in saving her? he wonders, as a grown Luo Binghe weeps in the streets of Hua Yue with Qiu Haitang's still body cradled to his breast. Would it not have been better for her to die after the first betrayal, rather than live to be betrayed twice?
"Why are you all just standing there?" he hears Ming Fan roar. "That's our Shiniang! What are you afraid of? At most, that white-eyed wolf she raised will just beat us all to death!"
"Leave it."
Ming Fan stares at Shen Qingqiu in dismay, his eyes so swollen with tears that he scarcely seems able to see through them. "What is Shizun saying? What do you mean, leave her? She's our only Shiniang—she's your wife!"
Shen Qingqiu gazes at the cooling corpse in Luo Binghe's arms for a little while longer; and then, at length, he turns away.
"Your Shiniang's end was of her own making, Ming Fan," Shen Qingqiu says, already starting towards the group of screeching cultivators trapped behind the wards at the other end of the street.
10 years ago I figured out how this hell app worked to find Hannigram content and then CQL gifsets led me to Danmei. Thank you, perverts, for giving me community 🥰
translations: wuxia 武俠, xianxia 仙俠, and cultivation 修真/修仙 (xīuzhēn/xīuxiān)
think i've seen posts on this eons ago, and i'm pretty sure there are tons of these online, but since this has been written up already let's just have another one.
wuxia 武俠
wuxia and xianxia sound similar, but basically for wuxia it is about the pugilistic world (江湖 jiānghú). It is relatively more down-to-earth, and people practice martial arts ("kungfu") in their current life -- they do not do it to become xians (仙) and gods (神) however.
Like Thousand Autumns and Faraway Wanderers/Word of Honor, it has more historical background and ties to the current court and kingdoms, because people are living in the moment and concern themselves with worldly issues.
Martial arts may seem unrealistic, but in view of chinese fantasy it would be considered "real". It consists of fighting moves and internal energy, which they call qi or nèigōng (內功), and at times you see people flying around, climbing hills and jumping across rooftops which is qīnggōng (輕功).
xianxia 仙俠
A level up would be xianxia, where characters in the story cultivate to become xians (and gods, like in the heaven official's blessing). They don't really care about earthly issues here now, because their ambitions lie beyond the current world, and cultivation, getting stronger, and an immortal life are majorly all their goals.
You may not always see them working towards that purpose, such as in mdzs they are considered a lower-xianxia society (低魔), meaning people don't go through all the steps of cultivation and only stay at the stage before the "golden core" stage.
In xianxia, characters still learn basic fighting moves aka. martial arts, but to direct the internal energy they use línglì (灵力), zhēnqì (真气), and fǎlì (法力), all xianxia terms you commonly see. "neigong" is practically nonexistent in this genre. That's why people building up their "neigong" instead of "lingli" are likely never going to be able to cultivate.
cultivation 修真/修仙
A subgenre in the xianxia category would be cultivation. Characters actively go through the stages of cultivation, and likely for the MC, because they are the main character, they successfully become a xian and exit the world at the end of the novel.
There are many stages of cultivation, usually defined at the beginning of the novel in the synopsis, and a typical example of the different levels would be this:
练气，筑基，金丹，元婴，化神，炼虚，合体，大乘，渡劫
And with a cursory search, an English translation would be something like this, albeit not with all the cultivation ranks identified.
Qi condensation (练气), Foundation establishment (筑基), Core Formation (金丹), Nascent Soul (元婴), and the names after that vary too greatly with translation and fandom so I'll jump straight to Immortal Ascension
extra info: getting into the philosophy of it all
It'd be interesting to note that the word "xiá" (俠) permeates all these genres. This is something akin to the concept of "hero", but not at all also, and I'd love to speak more on this but this post has already gone way longer than I hoped it would be, so perhaps another day.
Regardless, it is interesting to note that wuxia has a greater emphasis on "xia" than xianxia. (some joke that cultivation doesn't have the word "xia" in it, and much of that is because characters have foregone heroism and focused on gaining powers and working towards ascension instead). As a result, wuxia is more confucianism-oriented, though not without its taoism and buddhism influences.
xianxia, on the other hand, is mainly derived from "dào" (道), from taoism, which is another lengthy concept if I ever get to it.
And some may have heard of the "farming" genre, 种田 (zhòngtián). This has to do with golden fingers (mary sues) in imperialistic china, earning a wealth of money, and all that. It has nothing to do with cultivation, alike they sound in english.
that's it for now, hmu if you wish to ask/discuss!
(and apologies for the pinyin translations, hope it's understandable still! formally writing pinyin they are supposed to be two separate words not one.)
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