Fates Parallel (A Xianxia/Wuxia Inspired Cultivation Story)

So, first off, Fates Parallel is very well written. Very few errors, fluid prose, and no inconcistencies as far as I was able to read.

But I can't continue reading it.

Not because of plot armor or something like that. The coincidences happening to Lee Jia can easily be explained by the story, so that's a non-issue.

Not because it follows cliches. It's actually quite ingenious in its use of the regular xianxia tropes and offer a slightly different, and enjoyable, take on the genre.

Not because of the yuri direction it seems to take. I'm fine with that.

But I have BIG trouble staying invested in the main character. For spoiler reasons.

In the end, it's a personnal shortcomming that is stopping me from reading this fiction, but it is a good story nonetheless.

Read it and make your own opinion.

I started quite sceptical after reading the mixed reviews, but after getting to chapter 118 i have to say that most of the flak thrown at this webnobel is very misguided.

Fates Parallel is excelent, it has an ok start, but after the first arc, it starts to get steam and the writing improves a lot, the author has made an interesting universe of mixed power fantasy elements into a great whole that has a distinct far east aestethic, it has a lot of promise and potential, i'm glued to more updates.

Keep up the ancestors work DarkTechnomancer!

The story is good, 

The story following Jia and Eui is cool, it's well structured and while we can be confused on the mc, it's because the mc themselves are confused. We can follow how they grow and it's pretty fun. The systems of cultivations are pretty good, and their interaction is pretty fun.

Compared to other pure wuxia story this one is more low high level. The author takes its time to properly "level up" it's characters and is not blindly rushing to have an op mc. 

The interpersonal relationship are well done, there is friendshiph, envy, hate and a lot of other emotions. It's not just the classic friend vs enemy.

If you see comments or reviews talking about the cover it's because the first one was reaaaally bad, however as you can see right now the cover changed and is now pretty good. Thanks the author for taking our feedback, it's appreciated.

In spoilers the "old" review, which was essentially talking about the cover.

I've really enjoyed the author's writing and how they've overall pieced together the story.  The world that this story builds is fascinating and I really do enjoy the various factions and how they interact with each other.  And, the reason that I read up to this point, the author really has a way with words that keeps you invested and strikes a good balance between dialogue and narration while having a good sense of when to create action and when to let the pace slow.  And they write a great action scene as well when the pace picks up.

Unfortunately, I'm dropping this because i primarily get invested into a story for the characters and the continued actions of some of the main character's just have gradually turned me off this story.  Primarily, I just really don't enjoy reading about the main supporting character and the way she interacts with the other members of the cast. And the continued rash actions of the protagonist and general suddenness have also been small contributing factors as well.

Ultimately though, like I said earlier, I think this is a great story that deserves at least your consideration and that the author is really fantastic with their prose.  But it just became not for me.

(I know this is a mostly negative and harsh review, but when you told your readers In an author's note mid way through the story that that chapter had almost all negative comments on it and cause many people to drop you should REALLY consider a rewrite or rollback...)

I had great hopes for the story, it has great reviews and was even recommended by a friend.

Now don't get me wrong, the plot is good and very interesting, and the allied character's were all great (except Xin). it's why I've read up to chapter 94 after all! 

But the kicker is that our (main) MC Jia is such a forgiving, trusting and generous saint of stupidity that I considered dropping about 20-30 chapters in. Her personality is a MAJOR mismatch to her background, and it comes off quite rough and jarring at times. But like I said, I really toughed it out for the story and allied character's.

Speaking of other characters, let me explain. Firstly, the rivals/enemies are, with one exception, 100% the  usual insane, self centered, revenge hungry and completely delusional cultivation story enemies. And the one that wasn't (the singing girl to avoid spoilers) was real close and also cause me to put this down and barely come back latter. The friends on the other hand were enjoyable and with good humor, though some were diminished by their acquisition with how damn trusting and forgiving Jia is.

And to wrap it all up up, the author REAL likes to shit on our poor MCs. Like come on man give the poor girls a damn break. It just sad defeat and hollow victories.

Edit: It's been a little while since this review! I thought I better update it.

Fates Parallel is one of my favourite pieces of writing. Admittedly, I don't read as much as I used to, but FP has so much thought and detail in every character, in the setting and execution. The worldbuilding is really interesting and gets more love as the story goes on. Each character has flesh to them, even the 'background' characters. Xianxia tropes are used and subverted in fun ways.

Lee Jia, the protagonist of our story, starts with nothing but a hunger to survive. As she grows stronger and grows as a person, she makes lots of discoveries about herself, changing her attitude to one of not just mere survival, but of thriving. Jia goes from a lonely, miserable kitten to a tiger in her own right, who knows the importance of striving for success and caring for her friends. She experiences set-backs, some her own fault, but works tirelessly to overcome them. Does she always make the right choices? No! But that's what makes her human. For every failure, she dusts herself off and comes back twice as hard. Also she has a girlfriend and that's great. Good for Jia! Good for me!

If you like xianxia/wuxia stories, if you like girls who take a long time to realise they're in love, if you like sick fight scenes and careful introspection, you'll like Fates Parallel! I hope you enjoy this story even slightly as much as I do.

Coincidentally, I am the writer of the first (and, at time of writing, only-- greatest!) Fates Parallel fanfiction ... is that an indicator that it's well loved!? Only you can be the judge!

EDIT: I've now finished reading chapter 144—which means volume 3 has ended—and boy, what a great ending. The story has gotten better, and I'm sure it will still improve by quite a lot. I'm more than excited for volume 4.

As of this moment, I've read all 123 chapters (besides the interludes), which brings me to around half of volume 3.

A great story with an interesting plot and some innovative ideas on the cultivation settings. However, that is not to say the story is without flaws. On the contrary, there were several moments in which I got visibly angry at some of the character's decisions, especially Jia's. Most of the story's flaws revolve around Jia. It was mostly her dumb decisions and/or her child-like attitude that even let those problems escalate or become problems at all. Still, I like Jia and I like where the story is going. Although volume 2 was rather... strange, the author has realized that and already addressed some of those issues in the following chapters. Also, it should be noted that almost everything good about the story is because of Jia, too. Sure, she wasn't exactly the smartest at first, but she is still young. And she hasn't stopped learning. Character development is real.

If you find the beginning of the story interesting, I ask you to keep reading, even if you think the story has been going downhill. Volume 3 (the most recent for me) is better than the first two, and I am sure it will not be the best when future volumes come into play. The author is improving with each chapter, given Fates Parallel is their first serious attempt at writing.

It should also be noted that Jia is currently in a relationship with another woman. The story may also shift to a poly relationship in the future. However, romance is not the focus of the story, at least not at first. Still, even if you're not comfortable with that (polyamory, lesbian romance, or just romance), I would recommend at least giving this story a try. The grammar is superb, and the characters, in general, are more mature than what you may find in other cultivation stories. The author also excels at writing dialogue and descriptions.

Sidenote: Most of the problems that I describe don't dramatically affect the first 50 chapters due to the lack of length for them all to matter, so the first half I would rate as 4.5/5 and the second half as the current rating.

Overall I found that I enjoyed reading this, but some minor and major moments really bothered me.

I didn't notice any errors.

While overall everything was written well, I feel as though most fights are missing some element that makes them exciting. I probably would not have even noticed this if all the fights were missing this, but some of them had it and it made all the fights without that element stand out as kind of boring and unexciting.

With characters, it is difficult to measure progress and growth, so maybe others will see this differently. I will try to talk about them without spoiling anything.

First, there is a way too long "will they/won't they" plot that fails to resolve properly... In hindsight, it feels like a giant useless filler plotline that gets brought up when there needs to be some kind of internal conflict in the character, but the author can't think of anything meaningful.

To describe the situation using a metaphor, it feels like playing golf in a giant sand-trap, you can clearly see where everything is going but you just have to keep moving that ball one painful meter at a time, and once you get to the hole, watching it fall in just as you foresaw it 2 hours ago doesn't feel fulfilling.

Secondly, it feels as though there is almost no growth from most characters, instead of growing and learning from each conflict that they go through, they get bent out of shape and for a time have some reaction about said event, and then just return to being exactly the same way that they have always been.

Now usually I wouldn't think of this as an issue on the time scale of what we see, about a year, as in most writing in this genre character development is not a priority and if anything noticeable changes within 100 chapters then it would be a miracle, but unlike in most stories here, the two MCs do intense soul searching every 20 chapters that supposedly results in major trauma and problem resolution with almost no noticeable character growth.

I think that it has one major problem that has a ripple effect over everything story related, the characters have "almost" no goal, almost because they do establish very early on "that they want to be strong enough to be free", but then it just never gets brought up again.

Additionally, even if that is their real goal and the author just doesn't feel the need to bring it up again then it has two problems: first, there is no one keeping them down, so they have no opposition but time and any enemies that they stupidly make on their path to acquiring their goal, and secondly the lack of a solid finishing point in their goal, due to that them literally doing anything would be advancing towards their goal and this results in them not needing to ever consider if a decision is detrimental towards their goal.

And so without a goal, the characters are just existing aimlessly and getting pushed around by the world.

This is the part that bothers me the most, the longer the story goes on the less the world makes sense, and not in a good way.

First, let us take a look at the academy and why does it exist? The academy's main purpose is to see, for the first time, what happens when a person learns all 3 of the different arts at the same time. The first problem is here, in the story it is never established why no one has ever, in the entire history of the world, tried to learn or make a person learn all 3 at the same time.

The author does try to offhandedly explain that the 3 nations have been at war for a long time, but then later undermines this by saying that all the techniques have long been leaked from each of the nations, and this results in a situation where you have to ask yourself why hasn't anybody tried to get a person to learn all 3 of the arts, because judging by the difficulty that the characters we see go through to learn all 3, it isn't that hard.

Secondly, the major element that bothers me greatly is that the overall power system isn't established well. Now there is the elemental side of the power system that is done amazingly, truly the best thought out complicated concept that I have read in this genre, but everything around it is lacking.

Currently, in the story, we have not yet had a "demonstration of power", a moment where the MC gets to compare their current power level with someone who is multiple stages above him in such a way that we the readers get to understand how much each step that the MC takes brings them closer to that level.

Usually in this genre, this is done via pure strength, for example, the MC starts out being able to lift 50kg with one hand and we know that that number doubles every time that the MC breaks through to the next realm, so when the MC sees the instructor casually carrying 1000kg, not only does the MC understand the magnitude of the strength difference but we the readers also get to. But in this story, nothing resembling this ever happens, leaving the gap between realms nebulas and not very clear.

Thirdly, there are a couple of minor elements, knowledge-wise like point one, that when our MCs stumble upon and everyone is surprised, it doesn't make sense that it hasn't been discovered already.

Fourthly, time. It seems that the author doesn't have a firm grasp on how long a character has to work to attain each achievement. For example, we have characters that claim that it would take too long for them to restart their cultivation from the second stage, because it took them their whole life of ~15 years to get there, which makes sense, but then we have characters who restart and get to the second stage in 3 months, and that really bothers me.
 

Mental trauma and Mind control of a nasty type plays a relevant role in parts of this Story.  Otherwise a good, (apart from the occasional trauma) surprisingly lighthearted Western xianxia with some compelling mystery and worldbuilding. Characters are fine if a bit overly friendly to the mc. Rushed beginnings that you will have to look past but it improves quickly towards the end of the first arc. 

First arc was great. Second completely lost me and characters/story really started to lose it. I cant stand Jia anymore and how utterly trusting she is and how she just throws everything away to get to someone and in the end forgives them anyway. Utterly infuriating.

The xianxia/wuxia system is a very common one if you are familiar with the genre but it is don't pretty well, something was done well at least, even if it was all a bit normal and predictable 

Grammar is fine and the style is as well but the new people who were introduced in arc two are just some of the worst I've ever read. Wouldn't recommend anything past the first book. Maybe if things didn't go how they did in chapter 50 I would have kept reading on, but from the point her future is sealed and for an absurd reason. I am honestly a bit sad because I was invested in certain aspects of the story which I'll never be able to figure out, maybe I can ask someone who's suffered through the whole thing. I tried skipping forward a bit and skimming to see if any justice is done and I'm pretty sure it isn't. Some just don't deserve forgiveness. Goodbye and good riddance.