The Glorious Insanity of Xianxia (And how it accidentally relate to D&D)

EDIT: The following is reposted from my comments off Deathblade's video response:
"Hey, that IS my post and the last damn place I ever expected to see it referenced. You have to understand that these were my thoughts as a newcomer to Xianxia and finding it interesting where it did relate to the experience and worldbuilding of modern Dungeons & Dragons. This is in NO WAY an in depth thought process, for one thing I am not that smart secondly these were just my thoughts following a binge of a few novels early chapters and reading up on what would happen later, as I wasn't feeling ready to fully binge a 1000+ chapter novel. That's why I ended up reading your novel, Legends of Ogre Gate, because it was shorter and seemed more approachable. The 'murder hobo' thing relate to some, not all characters.

This was not an in depth analysis, more of an odd moment of realization that the two had more similarities to it than I initially thought. It was not, in any way, shape or form an assessment that D&D or basic western fantasy is Wuxia/Xianxia and never was. Simply some thoughts that D&D's more absurd end game power level of recent editions is somewhat closer to it than other works of western fantasy, such as LOTR or Conan."

And the other comment:

"Look man, in all honestly I did not even remotely expect this to fall under your radar.
My blog is a very small blog that primarily post things related to the indie RPG scenes of the so-called 'Old School Renaissance' meaning generally I'm posting things in circles which involve people older than me. These people are generally more into older western fantasy, such as Conan, Elric or the work of Jack Vance. Anything from Asia is, often to them, completely alien or called 'anime' because these are people who are really not into anything else. I'm a bit of an outlier, being not even in my thirties yet but quite the fan of that RPG style and scene. This was basically a nobody making a small post of 'Hey, this genre I'm getting into is kind of neat' and talking about that subject to a very small audience. In fact, barring a few good posts, I barely can reach 40+ views on minor posts. I am an absolute nobody and never expected this minor post I did for shit and/or giggles to get noticed by a major translator of Chinese web novels."

Artist unknown.

The concept of Wuxia and Xianxia (two overlapping genre of 'Chinese Fantasy') is one which I've mentioned here and there in some shape or for on this blog. Generally speaking, all this stuff has always existed at the periphery of Western pop culture: always present enough to leave an influence but never enough to ever hit big in the mainstream. For example, its no surprise if I mention how the entire Monk class is pure Wuxia and martial art concepts. It's been a genre which is slowly creeping to my headspace as I turn into more and more of a hipster every day.

Oh did I mention how fucking insane this Chinese stuff is?

What, you thought 'wire fu' and revenge tales of kung fu and swordplay was all there was to it? I thought that to too, but going into Xianxia more than Wuxia. This stuff is completely and utterly absurd and even more so its completely shameless in how insane it is. Interestingly, a lot of the core ideas found in D&D, especially more modern editions, seem more out of Xianxia than any Western fantasy:

• Xianxia Protagonists aren't 'heroes' in the traditional sense and, in many ways, are the archetypal 'murder hobo' given a in universe justification. The world of Cultivation is an absolute banana dog-eat-dog world where every power source exist in a limited amount and every fights over whatever scrap of magic bullshit which can be used to boost their kung fu and magical powers. It is a world with a lot of stratification of power, rule of might and limited resources making it the logical, if slightly demented, conclusion to the adventurer paradigm. This is the ultimate power-driven sandboxing experience where every other antagonist could arguably the main character in their own right, carving up their own kingdoms or grinding away all the XP and hoarding magical treasures for themselves.
• In many ways, the higher end of the 'power level' of Dungeons & Dragons especially the more one goes into later editions the more it resemble something out of Xianxia. In modern D&D editions, a high level Fighter has so many HP, such a high attack and such good saves that he is basically superhuman to some truly bullshit level which fly under the radar due to everyone focusing on spellcasters. Yet compare a high level Fighter to the average human and you can see he has long utterly surpassed any kind of realistic human limitation. In Xianxia, this is not an accident of mechanics or an afterthought, it is the entire basis of the world.
• In many ways, the D&D concept of a Wizard is a lot closer to a Cultivator than any historical and folkloric perception of magic. The D&D Wizard, at least when presented out of the box, is a being who can learn to bend reality to his will through sheer perseverance, training, learning and acquisition of magical artifacts and secret techniques. They are basically Cultivators without the Daoist and Buddhist bent and without the martial and physical prowess.
• It was generally expected that D&D characters would one day 'tire' of the Material Plane and that higher level play was truly intended to take place in other dimensions. Xianxia is full of different 'tiers' of reality, different Heavens and Hells...which are basically more of the same when you boil it down but with bigger numbers. Doesn't that sound familiar?

Of course there are even more stupid and/or crazy things in Xianxia, especially in the Chinese web novel scene which is basically the equivalent to 'Chinese Pulp fantasy' with the same intended demographics. I've barely scratched the surface and only just gotten into this insanity.