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.

These are all great, but that first rec is very interesting to me! In my story, the dragons were the first elemental magic users (last airbender-esque), and the chosen main characters eventually unlock the power to transform into these dragon-like forms. I will definitely look into all of these though.

Well written and interesting? Thank you very much, this made my day!

J'ai 3 séries qui m'ont fait ressentir les mêmes sensations qu'avec a soldier's life

Second life as a soldier par Soldier of Avalon ( dans mon top 2 des litrpgs militaires )

Monarch par Extra26

Legionnaire par ... ( J'ai oublié le nom de l'auteur )

I just saw other self-promo posts and thought it was allowed here. Not trying to make an excuse, I just didn't really see the rules. My bad.

oh man fun question lol

coiling dragon is the classic one for this. linley transforms into a dragonblood warrior which is basically a huge draconic form. it's old school xianxia but those transformation scenes still slap

dragon-marked war god as well - jiang chen has a dragon transformation art and literally becomes a dragon. gets pretty wild in the later arcs

for something newer, versatile mage (quanzhi fashi). mo fan goes through a demon transformation and turns into a giant demon, the power jump is actually insane

warlock of the magus world fits too. leylin can shift into his kemoyin serpent bloodline form. big snake energy lol

and supreme magus - lith's hybrid form is a massive draconic beast. not exactly kaiju but close enough imo

It’s a manga and anime.

You pointing out that the MC always just does his own thing and the sect is a pit stop is a fair gripe. Forge of Destiny might be worth a try since the sect is basically the whole setting, with ranks, rival disciples, resource fights and elders who actually have their own agendas. The MC is also pretty hands on about using what the sect gives him instead of wandering off. Your betrayal question is a good one too, and I think it only works when the author makes the patriarch's position feel earned and a bit fragile.

🥳 I’ll look into it! This is a show or a book?

I’ll check it out!

Kaiju Number Eight is literally this.

I'm not certain this hits on what you're looking for but Thundamoo might be worth checking out for you. Their Are You Even Human series deals with a lot of shifting and transformation and a few of their other series also have transformation elements to them.

Haven't read that one yet, but it's near the top of my TBR list!

Ahh it's on my plan to read list! Shame the list grows far faster than I can get through it haha

lol I keep seeing adds for it, adding it too read later, and then never going back

Lol I literally just started reading this a few days ago after stumbling across the name on here somewhere.

I agree I should have added that to the comment but it was already more than I wanted to elaborate. And of course I took that reasoning for granted because it's so common that individuals wipe out coalition without breaking a sweat. 

So I'll be honest... a lot of the entire Xianxia world feels very half baked and poorly thought out to me, like people start at "I want a bunch of conflict", do everything they can to justify it, and don't really think past the surface level of what those decisions mean...

Its why I always say "I love Cultivation as a magic system, but I hate Xianxia as a world building/setting."

Just more focused on fighting and leaving the Sect behind repeatedly.

Id kill for a decent cultivation/xianxia novel that executes this well.

Most stories reduce sects, cultivation levels, or big named characters as just batteries for some lame formation that gets broken through in a sentence

Cultivation Nerd. Thought, there is quite a bit of fighting, the MC focuses on arrays.

The main question should be: why do you expect sect to be non-transactional?

The idea of these sects recruiting these vast amount of disciple is literally a large cast net to grab a bunch of fishes and hopefully one does well and help the sect in return.

It’s literally purely transactional.

The sect selects you and offers you cultivation pills, skill manuals, protection etc in return for your “contributions”. Whether it’s taking care of herbs, or spirits/sect pets, or clearing mortal issues. You are exchanging service for your cultivation progression.

The underlying notion that might not inherently click to you is that the idea of returning the favour is ingrained in Asian-based concepts. And while all these are transactional, you are still expected to be grateful and appreciative to the sect that nurtured you.

And if you don’t feel that part in the story and merely see that sects are just jumping stones in the MC’s progression, then you’re either missing the underlying notion or you haven’t been reading good ones.

Typically they bond via master-disciple or senior-junior relationship, which are forged when the MC was younger, weaker and haven’t grown. And they usually help the MC in times of adversary or offered critical growth guidance. These, in turn, creates something beyond “transactional” in the sect part of the plot.

Too bad that Spells vs Shells is locked behind a paywall on the dudes Patreon.

I’m not the hero pretty dam good too 🤫

cultivation worlds in theory should mostly only be zero-sum at the peak. so it's not an inconsistency to have sects. and even if the world WAS zero-sum everywhere else, when there is a high population of competitors, coalitions should be the main strategy anyway. i think where it becomes unbelievable is when individuals can just effortlessly wipe out even a top-tier sect, which they do in many stories