Xue Ying Ling Zhu

So before starting, I have to mention that I have finished the novel from which this anime is from pretty recently. The story itself is pretty long, which explains why this 1st season is relatively slow-paced.

The story follows Xue Ying, the young lord of a territory after his mother and father has been kidnapped, as well as his attempt to deliver them.
Overall I would say the anime is pretty good. The art is not the best I have seen in donghua by any means, but it's still solid.
The sound itself isn't amazing either, although I really enjoyed the OP.
The fighting is pretty nice to watch, ... and the story is enjoyable.

There are a few problems however. First, the anime skips a lot of background information and explanations which makes the first few episodes really hard to understand. For anyone interested in the novel, the MC actually doesn't unlock his Qi until he is 14-15 years old while his body is abnormaly strong. He later unlocks his Bloodline which is when he starts developping Qi. And since his body is already so strong, he progresses really rapidly.

The second thing, is that Producers really enjoy changing story elements to make them doesn't make sense. It wasn't as bad as in Swallowed star, but I'm afraid of what will happen later. The final enemy at the end is not a demon, but a magical beast which is an important distinction to make because he doesn't come from the abyss. He also wasn't changed by the Sorcerer god blood, but by someone from the Sorcerer Palace. Anyway those are relatively minor, but I'm afraid it's the start of things that absolutely won't make sense as we go into the story.

The story is slow-paced, like really slow-paced. It takes a lot of patience to get through the earlier episodes because the early episodes is more like slice of life than the combat show you are expecting.

Even then the earlier episodes are very confusing since you have no idea why they are fighting other than knowing the parents of the protagonists are held hostage for some unknown reason.

If you are able to get past the boring episodes, the rest of the show is actually alright. To summarize it, it would be like an adventure party anime. Some of the lore in the show confuses me and ... the ranking system is also not clearly structured to me and I don't think they ever clarified it.

Music was non-existent and the animation was inconsistent a few times (like background characters disappearing in different scenes). Main character(s) were not unlikeable, so there's that.

Season one ends with a huge cliffhanger and you pretty much have to watch the subsequent OVA to understand the conclusion being moving onto season two.

This anime is trash. Complete and utter garbage, amazed how this even got such a high overall rating.

This is no “cultivation” anime, any review that says so is talking nonsense. Cultivation existing does not make it a cultivation anime. It’s obvious by how NOTHING is explained in any depth about anything regarding cultivation.

This anime is slow, boring and uninteresting. The graphics are trash so there is no saving grace there and the story is even more trash. Nothing interesting.

You want to watch a cultivation anime this is not it. Wu Shang Shen Di, Soul Land, Against the Sky Supreme, Swallowed Star, Battle ... Through the Heavens, Wanjie Du Zun, Wushen Zu Zai, Peerless Martial Spirit, Spirit Sword Sovereign, Martial Universe, Stellar Transformations, A Record of a Mortals Journey to Immortality, Tales of Demons and Gods, Dubu Xiaoyao, Throne of Seal….and others I’m missing.

These are ACTUAL cultivation anime. Hate when reviewers talk nonsense, no part of this anime can you consider it a cultivation anime.