Xianxia or Wuxia?
The Wandering Maiden’s Travel Guide (WMTG) is tagged as both Xianxia and Wuxia and this may be a little confusing. Well, maybe this is actually a really common tag overlap, but I think the in-setting overlap is more authentic here.
WMTG is undoubtedly a Xianxia story and setting. It is of a higlyfantastical nature, features immortals and the pursuit of immortality, and ticks a lot of other boxes. However, I consider it so Wuxia friendly that I do not fear tagging it as such. Since you’ve come this far, you’ve probably noticed that everything feels substantially more Wuxia than Xianxia, and that is by design!
The setting has a much lower power ceiling than many other cultivation stories, especially in the mortal realm. A cultivator, even at the peak of mortal realm accomplishments, is rather underwhelming compared to a similar-tier cultivator in other settings you may be familiar with. They are strong, they can do things that no regular human could ever hope to achieve, but they are not one-man armies capable of leveling mountain ranges.
Cultivators are substantially stronger in large groups, thus they form sects to band together, pool their resources and knowledge, and to make it easier to face various challenges. We see an example of this with the Xueliu Sect in Huiyang in chapters 10 & 11.
Martial Artists, the typical fare of a Wuxia setting, play a major role in the WMTG. While Zhou Ran’s storyline is heavily entrenched in cultivation, Xin Fengxian and his allies will feel like traditional Wuxia heroes. Compared to cultivators, martial artists are, on average, a weaker cultivator. They cannot sense qi and must rely on their innate qi, or inner force, to do things cultivators would normally do.
However, because they can use qi, even if they can’t sense it, they can be considered a sub-type of cultivator. Part of Xin Fengxian’s story will be exploring these similarities and how to push beyond the difficulties they face achieving what their cultivator cousins can.
With this in mind, the scaling between cultivators and martial artists, and the general power ceiling of the setting becomes a bit clearer. A martial artist is effectively a cultivator without magic, though a cultivator will typically advance beyond what a martial artist can achieve. However, there are many more martial artists than there are cultivators, so numbers work in their favor!
Major Characters of the Setting
For the purpose of organization, I will present the characters based on their affiliation to either the Zhou Ran storyline or to Xin Fengxian.
Zhou Ran
Zhou Ran is the intrepid young lady serving as the protagonist, and as an extremely unreliable narrator. She is vaguely aware that she is adopted, but doesn’t know anything regarding that situation, and hasn’t ever put much thought into it. Instead, she has remained content with her family situation. The only thing she wasn’t entirely happy about was the fact that she is not allowed to leave the estate.
She is well-educated, as one would expect of Zhou Xiaoming’s daughter, so she possesses a fairly wide-breadth of knowledge in numerous subjects, and has received various types of training in other fields, including martial arts. However, her martial arts has been more about fundamentals and physical health than practical competition and earnest fighting. This ensures she is a rather clever girl with a diverse skillset, albeit without applicable life skills. For those, she relies on Xiang Jingyi, her friend and maidservant.
Having taken stock of her life on at least one occasion, Zhou Ran believed she was destined for politics, or maybe to be a member of the staff at the academy, but life has a way of surprising even the most certain of individuals. The great dragon, Ruyilong, said otherwise, and shipped her off to the Taiyi Sect to become a cultivator.
In her first few days she has made new friends, learned a bit about what it means to be a cultivator, and also found out that she’s not ideally suited for it. Her time as a daoist will be a difficult one, but not an impossible one! She needs friends, allies, and people who can help her make up for her own deficiencies, and she is already off to a good start — or so she thinks…
Zhou Xiaoming
Zhou Xiaoming is the adoptive father of Zhou Ran and serves as the headmaster of the Taijie, or the Imperial Academy in Tiansheng. He is a standard class, rank five official, putting him firmly in the upper echelons of imperial court political power.
Despite sequestering his daughter, Xiaoming is a very kind and loving father who wishes to keep her safe. While Zhou Ran may not understand why he has kept her under lock and key, she is also unaware of her pre-adoption identity, and it is clear that Xiaoming has quite the secret to hide.
Xiaoming also serves as a fairly early link between the two storylines, as he is the personal mentor of Xin Fengxian. Aside from his link, his place in the power struggle of imperial politics and his numerous secrets will ensure he plays an active role in the future of the empire.
Xiang Jingyi
Xiang Jingyi is the maidservant and best friend of Zhou Ran. They grew up together and have spent most of every day together in some capacity. Their relationship has changed over time, from childhood friends and playmates, to lady and servant, and then back to best friends and roommates.
She is a positive force in Zhou Ran’s life, often giving her the courage to continue and confidence to face everything that makes her feel uncomfortable. Jingyi is also filled with bountiful good cheer, rarely diminishing to anything other than a beacon of joy.
While she still fills the role of Zhou Ran’s caretaker since her friend has few basic life skills and she very much enjoys things like cooking and cleaning, Jingyi has found herself without an official job since they joined the Taiyi Sect. His Excellency, Bai Xujun, a three-legged raven accompanying Bai Lingfei claims she has been forgotten by fate, and thus possesses limitless potential. She has begun exploring her interests, such as sewing and embroidery, and discovered that mastery comes suspiciously easy…
Ban Shuyi & Ban Xiuyi
The Ban twins are two rather rough-and-tumble girls with equally coarse personalities that sets them apart from the prim-and-proper highborn ladies they’ve been surrounded by. Ban Shuyi, the first introduced, fought in the opening tournament, and despite being defeated by Han Zhiran, she returned as his champion for the final fight and claimed victory on his behalf. She was pleased with the victory, because she was certain it would draw the attention of someone or something. However, she has disappeared without a trace since then.
Ban Xiuyi is an initiate of the Taiyi Sect in Zhou Ran’s class, and was mistaken for her sister at first. She explained that Shuyi went missing, and Zhou Ran promised to help her find the girl who inspired her with a tremendous victory in the tournament. In exchange, Xiuyi agreed to be her roommate, even though she expressed disdain towards Bai Lingfei, the third in their group.
Her search for her sister and Zhou Ran’s investment into the investigation will serve as a major bonding point for the two girls. However, will two young girls be able to locate the missing sister, and if they find her, what dangers will they face?
Bai Lingfei
Bai Lingfei is an initiate of the Taiyi Sect and lives with Zhou Ran and Ban Xiuyi. She has established herself as a bit of a mystery for Zhou Ran, because Xiuyi divulged a distaste for her, and suggested that others may dislike her even more than she does. Furthermore, she seems to be far more advanced than any other initiate that Zhou Ran has encountered thus far.
Aside from her personal mysteries, Bai Lingfei is accompanied by a three-legged raven whose claims are as impressive as they are dubious. Together, these two have aided Zhou Ran with some of her troubles, answered questions, and even served as a temporary tutor when available.
Her connections to the vaunted Bai clan and the cold reception by other initiates will be important going forward, but so will her suggested connection to Bai Xiyun, the wife of Xin Fengxian, which marks her as the second noteworthy connection between storylines.
Song Ling
Song Ling is an initiate of the Taiyi Sect and the first non-roommate friend of Zhou Ran since initiation. She is remarkably beautiful, even by Zhou Ran’s standards, and our scrawny and petite protagonist feels that the curvaceous woman renders her invisible while in her presence. She may not be wrong…
Since their meeting, Song Ling has shown a supportive spirit, though slightly tinged by competitiveness with Zhou Ran who she views as a friendly rival. Little is known about who she is at this time, but soon enough we will discover the stain on her clan’s honor and the stigma hanging over her head.
Xin Fengxian
Xin Fengxian, the third prince of the Xi’an empire, is otherwise known as Prince Lanxi, is the second protagonist, or major perspective-bearer in WMTG. Despite being a county administrator, he holds a substantially higher rank as a rank three official, putting him in equal standing with the highest non-cabinet ministers of Da Xi’an.
As one of many princes, as one closest to the top, Fengxian bears a lot of responsibility. He is a close ally to the crown prince and a major foe for his elder brother’s primary competition. However, he abandons this role for a greater purpose: an investigation tour of the empire. He believes that sentiment in the empire has become so negative that a rebellion looms overhead and the only way to offset the damage is to begin figuring out the root causes.
While Fengxian certainly expected something, he soon finds himself embroiled in dangerous provincial politicking and uncovers a dark truth: he’s more right than he’d have ever believed! A rebellion is definitely forming in the heart of the empire, but he can’t tell if it is too late, or if there is still time to fix everything before they risk losing it all.
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Bai Xiyun
Bai Xiyun is the loving wife of Xin Fengxian and serves as a connection between plotlines via her familiar relationship with Bai Lingfei. Thus far, she has shown to be clever, calm, and collected — perhaps a bit too much of all three! After Xin Fengxian departs on his tour, she is left behind with a rather peculiar bodyguard: the world’s strongest fighter!
This quickly proves valuable, as assassins target her soon after. They do not immediately reveal their employer, but there is a good chance they are affiliated with a certain provincial governor who has a prince-sized thorn in his side.
Her twin cousins, Bai Chuanyu and Bai Chuanyun, serve as bodyguards for her husband, but are they more loyal to him or their clan? And whose interests does Xiyun serve?
Dong Peishao
This venerable “general” is one of Xin Fengxian’s most trusted and valued retainers. Peishao hints at military service, but also suggests that the empire has remained secure and without external threat for hundreds of years, so his military pedigree is certainly in question.
He provides a calm and reflective mentorship for Fengxian, and leads the White River Cavalry, Fengxian’s personal military retinue of well-trained, well-equipped cavalry named after their white horses.
Dong Peishao eventually has a chance to live up to his title as general when he leads an attack against bandits in Fuzhou. He reports minor casualties and a sound defeat of their foe, but is the report too good to be true, or is Peishao’s suggestion that the untrained leaders of such a movement will be susceptible to trickery and guile accurate?
Song Xinqi
Song Xinqi is a young, spritely woman in the service of Xin Fengxian who leads an organization known as the Twilight Pavilion. As the Twilight Pavilion’s master, she functions as the prince’s spymaster and is using the inspection tour to expand their network of operatives around the empire, rather than just the capital province.
By all accounts she is as skilled and clever as she is beautiful, but like all others, she fell to the mighty Hua Xuan, so she has yet to prove these claims. However, her fiery nature and dedication to her prince suggest that she may go to great lengths to prove her worth and cement herself as his most useful and loyal pawn.
The Da Xi’an Empire
The mortal realm is vast and populous, but the bulk of the story, or maybe the entirety of it, will take place in the great Xi’an empire. For the most part, Xi’an is based on the latter Han empire, so just leading up to the collapse of the Han around the year 220. I pull some cultural elements backwards from later dynasties when I have trouble finding anything relevant to my needs, but so far it is working out well.
Despite pulling these real world elements into my story, I have gone through quite a bit of work to make the empire unique in its own ways. There will definitely be parallels, but as we go along we’ll deviate more and more.
The Xin Dynasty
The empire is ruled by an emperor who is selected from the Xin dynasty. In most cases, the emperor chooses the crown prince who eventually takes over as emperor upon their retirement or death. There are some instances of an emeritus emperor, but most don’t make it to retirement for one reason or another. In the event of a death before a crown prince is chosen, the Minister of the Imperial Clan is in charge of sorting the mess out. This usually results in selecting the prince with the bulk of noble clan support, but other methods of choosing can be used.
The Xin Dynasty has been the sole ruling dynasty of the Xi’an empire since its foundation. The great ancestor, the first emperor, entreated with Ruyilong and made a wish. This wish formed the Mandate of Heaven and ensured the dominance and safety of the Xi’an empire in perpetuity. However, all things can come to an end, and the Mandate of Heaven is not without its vulnerabilities. If it were to fall, a new dynasty could be established.
Political Breakdown
The empire is divided into a number of political entities starting with provinces. There are thirteen provinces including the capital province of Sizhou and the special province of Longzhou. Provinces are broken down into commanderies, and most provinces have 4-6 commanderies, but some may have more. Commanderies are further divided into counties and there are a lot of those!
Thus far, WMTG has featured Sizhou, Longzhou, and Fuzhou. So, three of the provinces! We have a few more to go before we see them all, and I don’t know if we ever will. They'll likely be referenced a lot later on, though.
We’ve met some people in charge of these political entities, too! A province is supervised by a governor while a commandery is supervised by an administrator. Counties vary a little bit, but they typically have a magistrate. A governor tends to be a standard class, rank five official, while an administrator is usually a secondary class, rank five official, so not much of a difference. Magistrates vary more, with a large county being as high as a secondary class, rank six official, or a smaller county being as low as a standard class, rank eight, upper grade official! That’s way down there!
While these ranks may not come up too often in the actual story, I do have a lot of this sorted out on the back-end. As mentioned in the chapter notes of uh… one of the chapters, this is based on the nine-rank system implemented in the post-Han times of the Three Kingdoms, but I did blend it with the salary system of the Han Empire and made my own which was a lot more work than I thought it’d be going into it. Whew!
The Cabinet and Ministers
I’m going to keep this section pretty short since it’d be rather expansive just on its own. Suffice to say, the imperial court is split into three groups: the cabinet, the upper ranks, and the lower ranks. I gave the upper and lower ranks an actual name somewhere and I don’t think it was upper/lower, but I can’t figure out where I stashed it!
The cabinet is made up of a small group called the three excellencies. Which is actually six! Each cabinet position is split into the right and left, with the left acting as the deputy minister, just because we like a little added bureaucracy with our bureaucracy! So, you have the Grand Chancellor, the Imperial Counselor, and the Grand Commandant. These six are the cabinet and are quite important!
The rest of the ministers are organized by whether they are required to attend the morning conferences or not. Those that do are considered the upper officials and those that don’t are basically trash, aka the lower officials! There’s… a lot of upper officials, so suffice to say they include the nine ministers and their ministries, plus some additional ones. I think there’s around eighty or so actual ranks, character names, and positions spread across a dozen or so ministries with sub-departments and wooo… it took a while to compile all of that!
That’s content for another time, though.
The Taiyi Sect
You might find it difficult to believe, but the Taiyi Sect is going to be pretty important going forward. Shocked, right? I know! I can’t believe it either!
Anyway, let’s learn some things about it.
The Taiyi Sect is one of the Five Great Sects of Longzhou. The people in this setting (aka me) like to put things on lists for some reason. I definitely do not have tons and tons of lists and tables stashed away…
This means they are pretty important in a way or two. Each of these sects is situated on one of the mountain peaks in Longzhou, which is a way of saying they have some status. They might not be on the actual peak itself, but their territory claims it. They are also in possession of one of the Five Wonders of Longzhou, and the Taiyi Sect has the Miniature Universe. This wonder has been hinted at thus far, but it seems to possess an ability to warp reality on a grand scale, or to cordon off a section of its own, such as within the walls of the Red Dust Pavilion, and create a much larger space than would otherwise be there. This is very useful due to the Taiyi Sect’s headquarters being in close proximity to a major population center like Nangao. Less critical if they are out in the middle of nowhere and have the space to grow on their own.
We’ll keep things punctual for now, but I’ll introduce the important staff and maybe a few extra details. In order of importance we have…
Sect Master Yu Meizhen ♀ (Yú Mèizhēn — 于昧真), 4th Layer of Origin Transformation
Grand Elder Wei Yukou ♀ (Wěi Yùkòu — 委御寇), 2nd Layer of Origin Transformation
Second Elder Cui Tianxue ♀ (Cuī Tiānxuě — 崔天雪), 9th Layer Golden Core
Third Elder Cai Lingxian ♀ (Cài Língxián — 蔡绫娴), 7th Layer Golden Core
Fourth Elder Zhang Junbao ♂ (Zhāng Jūnbǎo — 章君寶), 5th Layer Golden Core
Fifth Elder He Wangyan ♂ (Hé Wángyàn — 和王焰), 5th Layer Golden Core
Inheritance Elder Wu Tianyun ♀ (Wú Tiānyún — 吾天云). 3rd Layer Golden Core
Arsenal Elder Shangguan Luan ♂ (Shàngguān Luán — 上官鸾), 5th layer Golden Core
Treasury Elder Bi Yuntian ♀ (Bì Yùntián — 毕韵恬), 2nd Layer of Golden Core
Discipline Elder Han Mingyue ♂ (Hán Míngyuè — 韩明月), 4th Layer Golden Core
Aside from ranks and names, you’re seeing some stuff here that might not make immediate sense to you. The good ol’ Golden Core rears its pretty little head, but what in the world is Origin Transformation? What are layers? Hmm… Good question! More will be along in due time, but I’ll tease a quick breakdown of what these things mean right here.
You might also have noticed that that the bulk of elders are women. Do I just like women or something? Yes! No, not necessarily! We'll learn some more about the Taiyi Sect's history down the road, maybe sooner than I expect, but the short of it is that the Taiyi Sect was founded by women, for women. For a long time it was a purely "yin" sect, but eventually branched out. This will be an important detail later on!
The Five Realms of Mortal Ascension
Realm One — Houtian (Precelestial)
The precelestial realm is an all-or-nothing realm. You’re either in, or you’re not. It contains all living beings that do not have an awakened Divine Sense (ability to sense qi)
Realm Two — Xiantian (Postcelestial)
The postcelestial realm is achieved upon awakening the divine sense. It is divided into thirteen layers which are traditionally divided into two sub-realms. Layers one through six are commonly referred to as either the Gathering Phase while the remaining layers are typically referred to as the Foundation Establishment phase.
Realm Three — Jindan (Golden Core)
The third realm, Jindan, is all about forming the Jindan, or golden core. It has nine layers, with the first three known as the Core Forming phase and the latter six as the Awakening Phase.
Realm Four — Benzhi Dianhua (Origin Transformation)
The Chinese name is a work in progress on this one…
This realm shares a lot of similarities with the typical Nascent Soul realm. It has layers, but I think I deleted the overview I had on them so I can’t really say how many. Probably around six.
Realm Five — Zhenren (True Person)
This is the final stop on the road of cultivation before ascending to the heavens! Woohoo! It doesn’t have layers. You’re here. At this point you either succeed or stay here until you die.
The one thing to keep in mind about this breakdown, and further presentations of it, is that it is merely a guide used by the sects of Da Xi’an and is not a firm system like in a LitRPG or something of that nature. This is also the most common system used, but it is not the only one. Some sects deviate because they are weird or something. Realms and layers pertain to stages of advancement so they do have measurable checkpoints to pursue, but it doesn’t necessarily do the best job of comparing two cultivators in terms of power or skill.
In closing!
