Though I haven't read too much xianxia, Ze Tian Ji flies right to the top on my list of the genre, which I didn't expect a straight-laced example of it would do so easily.
As far as I can tell, Ze tian ji is atypical for xianxia, and breaks a lot of the norms and conventions; the setting is inherently rooted in the political, in empires and sects that exist in a system where normal people actually exist, while usually xianxia ignores normal people. The cultivation aspects of the story are less mechanical than in others, more mystical and religious with a very strong Taoist or Zen Buddhist koans-and-tea flavor. The main characters are not murderhoboes traveling the world and fighting every Tom, Dick and Zhen they encounter for loot, but young teens attending school or the politicians and other adults looking over them.
Our MC, Chen Changshang, is a very calm and very, very, very collected young boy who leaves his master and the small temple they lived in the countryside to go to the capital for two things: to return and break an engagement arranged between him and the supremely talented young lady cultivator of a noble clan, and to attend school in order to gain access to the mystical pillars of enlightenment that fell from the heavens in ages past to bring the Tao to the world... And to find a way to break his fate that threatens to lead to his death before he is twenty years old.
Obviously, this all leads to misunderstanding, hijinx and Overcoming Great Adversity as our straight-faced protagonist gains the ire of everyone he meets, as they believe him to be an evil schemer, fake, or fool. All the while our MC stays a good guy and gathers companions on his journey of Not Dying.
The writing is professional, the translations are all very, very good with very few untranslated terms, but there is a problem with verbosity and pacing. There is not necessarily too much verbatim repetition, but there is quite a lot of filler, quite a lot of rephrasing things and quite a lot things happening that could have stayed unhappened without any issue, BUT these issues happen only at set periods: during the climactic mini-arcs of larger arcs, at the apex of a battle. All other times the pacing and events flow well, though not necessarily quickly, but when things REALLY start to happen things tend to bog down and there's a lot of fluff. I have read up to chapter 370, and this has happened twice (during the tournament arc's last battle and the 'chase sequence' and last battles of the 'treasure hunting' arc), but please also take note that although I say '370' chapters, that is a lot more text than usual, with longer chapters than usual: it's taken me a solid week of reading to get here, and I'm not a slow reader; easily 60-70 hours. A quick napking calculation indicates that the translated text is nearing 700-800 thousand words already; but crucially, it was worth it for me, and I was able to get through the slow bits, and the payoffs are worth it.
(-41)
(+13)
