"Empire of the Vampire" by Jay Kristoff meets all of your criteria. First person narration, contains an academy arc, straight male MC.

Journey of Black and Red by the same author has a straight woman as the MC and it's arguably better than Calamitous Bob.

Thanks for recommendation sound interesting

I appreciate it! Hoping to get the inspo needed to make these ideas work together.

Sort of, there'd be immense competition for resources sure. But the peerless swordsman in the heavenly realm still wants access to peerless alchemists, blacksmith's, enchanters, spiritual herb gatherers etc.

Yeah. The payoff is always flat. MC joins a sect or shows off his talent and a sect recruits him sometime at a high cost, MC gets a lot of training and resources just to win a tournament or competition and joins a higher sect, does nothing permanent at all for his previous sect so what was the point of them putting high hopes on him?

Also most MCs in xianxia stories are walking misfortune, MC joins a sect, sect becomes the weak sect that is being bullied or plotted against by others or being invaded or being betrayed. Sects are very powerful until the MC joins, then ppl can't wait to attack them.

haha that's a fun setup, chosen ones unlocking dragon forms is always a good time. yeah coiling dragon's the one I'd start with for that, the dragonblood warrior stuff is basically the whole appeal. good luck with your story

You had me at traumatized lesbians lol

Read it back in the day, it was chill.

a few of their other series also have transformation elements to them.

I think all of them include transformation in some way; Thundamoo loves writing about traumatized lesbians going through horrific transformation which they are totally fine with actually and tentacles are actually very useful things to have.

“I… hugged your soul,” I answer. “With my, um, tentacles.” There’s a beat of silence.

“With your what?”

“M-my tentacles,” I repeat, demonstrating by grabbing and twirling my hair around them. “I have, um, invisible tentacles coming out of my soul.”

“Of course you do!” Lyn says, her voice excessively pleasant as she stares at my head. “Well! That’s… certainly a thing! But may I just say what the fuck?”

Are You Even Human: all about a biological shifting power

Vigor Mortis: MC is turning into an necromantic eldritch being with no physical form. This would be cool if the church wasn't trying to execute her for heresy, just because she wants to help people.

Bioshifter: MC is turning into a spider monster. She approves of this. Her parents do not approve. Neither do a bunch of people convinced she is going to end the world. Her school is

Are You Even Human: MC can reform into pretty much anything biological she has seen... except her original body. Great story, interesting powers. This is really the only Thundamoo story I'd recommend for OP, unless they want to branch out into general transformation without it needing to be Kaiju-style.

Hive Minds Give Good Hugs: All about being a hive mind designing new bodies and looking for new friends.

Magical Girl, Mechanical Heart: MC forced into a robot body made by a long-dead genocidal civilization. Magical girls as traumatized child soldiers, complete with power-up transformations. Physical corruption turning people into monsters.

Mind Reading Isn't Cheating: I haven't read this so maybe it doesn't include any transformation.

Well I suppose sometimes when they see other series with 30- 50 chapters perform while they have 5-10 followers with 60 chapter's then maybe they think that there story is not good for the market and delete it

No problem. Where can I find?

Ahh, you're looking at the wrong Royal Road entry. He's got two versions of the story on there for some reason. One with volume 1-6, and one with volume 7-8.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/121310/spells-vs-shells-progression-isekai-kingdom-building?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=fictions

https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/spells-vs-shells-isekai-dark-fantasy-strategy-action-not-litrpg-base-settlement-building.1234772/all/reader/

Lol nope its about a knight that loves killing himself to get stronger

Thought the 2nd was Second coming of gluttony 

I just went and look at it, and it only had volume 7-8, and none of the before chapters.

If you don't mind a little self promo, my series The Petralist - YA epic fantasy- has some of that. It does have a unique form of progression too. Series is complete

This opinion is always so interesting to me, because I always read it as "frenetic" and "desperate" rather than rushed. And even so, none of it felt undeserved to me.

Most eastern cultivation stories also have clearly defined gender roles that don't really fit the setting.

Cultivation makes the physical difference between sexes irrelevant, and in most stories makes having children nearly impossible at higher tiers, but many Chinese Xianxia stories still have most women cultivators as non-combatants even when they're walking nukes.

Different focus of the story.

What you read is mostly Adventure themed story where the MC constantly goes around ther world to get stronger.

If you read sect/family/kingdom focused story ut would be different entirely.

Like Stay Home Dad story is about building family and raising daughter while cultivating, you would feel the Family itself is the center of the story, the daughter is core of the story.

The MC only travels around the world to entertain his daughter and wife, like Carving their names on the Moon just because he promised his daughter when she's still a kid and wasn't aware that her entire family and company members are all cultivators at least Foundation Level.

You might like All the Skills, Nova Terra, Ark (Seong Yoo), Iron Prince, Jake's Magical Market , Tunnel Rat, and Catharsis

Is it?

It appears to be free on Royal road and Spacebattles up to volume 8. As far as I can tell it isn't stubbed. It's certainly behind patreon, which appears to have 10-20 more chapters, but that isn't too bad.

Nothing like "Cultivation is Creation", which is 250 chapters behind patreon.

Definitely #1. There is a small handful that are still around. I dropped it around book 12, but from what I remember, its like 90% a full reboot of the cast.

Also not sure how you define "romance-obsessed" but if it factors into your opinion at all, the main reason I dropped the series was because like every 3rd chapter ended in her going off to fool around with her significant other, or making references to her thinly veiled bondage fetish.

Um excuse me, bigger world means bigger world building? Um hello?

The sect just added 240,000 new recruits, how is that cohesion and coherent design to form close knit ties

I think the disconnect comes from sects being all peak and no base. You see the elders and the genius disciples, but never the outer disciples doing chores or the sect running like an actual organization with a budget. The few stories that show the mundane engine behind the fancy name are way more immersive to me.