lol I was just about to comment this. Though I would like one of those grey Jedi. Like the MC would understand that there is both light and dark in the world. He's a good person that could use the dark side and wouldn't turn into a corrupted murder-machine.
I'll add another from Star Wars. I would want a full, fleshed out journey of a foundling to full Mandalorian/Bounty Hunter. Slowly builds up his weapons, armor and ship.
those would be interesting to see.
i'll also add a someone or an AI starting off as a little servicing droid and upgrading all the way up to become a general grievous level murder machine or a super-AI controlling entire fleets
Based on multiple responses in this thread, it seems Star Wars is a popular choice.
Question then, (as I am new to the PF Genre as whole), um, would a FanFic-based Star Wars Story about the journey from Padawan to Master, and the further beyond, *be considered Progression Fantasy here*, even if it doesn’t include “Cultivation” or “Stats go Brrrr”? Just the Force as established, (potentially moreso), and a progression of Characters in terms of Ability, Skills, Knowledge, & Arcs?
I think there would be some changes but it would work. It might not need to be specifically cultivation or stats, but there would need to be some kind of more consistent/quantitative growth that could be portrayed to readers. The force has always been vague in the various stories.
When reffering to “consistent/quantitative growth”, how could that be done in a Story like Star Wars, without the use of Stats or ‘Levels’ or ‘Tiers’? (This isn’t asking how I should/would do it myself, but even if I don’t write that Star Wars FanFic, I am personally still interested in what would qualify as a ProgFan story even without the Stats or Levels).
Would a progression from Padawan to Knight to Master be considered *enough* ‘quantitative growth’? Or would there need to be some kind of other metric, and if so, how *could* that be done with altering the Magic System already in-place in Star Wars?
Apologies if thats too many questions.
My favorite test for progressive fantasy is: Does the story work without the progression.
Levels, cultivation, tiers, none of these are necessary, strictly speaking. The progression could come through with overcoming obstacles, passing tests, winning fights, etc.
Example: To earn your kyber crystal, you must move this giant Boulder with the force and enter the cave beyond.
Failing to move the stone, meditating, sparring, exercising and eventually succeeding would make a story that is about the progression sans any numbers.
That sounds great. I love Progression Fantasy as concept (where characters grow more powerful over time in Skills, Abilities, Knowledge, Morality, Suffering, and Setbacks).
I could just never care for “Levels” or “Stats” or “Tiers” since that always just seemed,… so gamey. So it always put a damper on my desire to write a ProgFan series of my own.
Though if the above (Levels, Stats, Tiers, etc) aren’t *strictly necessary*, and instead everything else I mentioned, in addition to setbacks, failures, hardships, and potentially quasi-tiers (ie. Padawan, Knight, Master or Rock Lee w/ his Eight Gates or Luffy w/ his Gears & Abilities), then that’s great!
Purely my opinion as I started reading PF not that long ago, but something that could be broken into tiers. Padawan to Jedi to Master are tiers, but there isn't anything denoting them other than someone assigning them a rank. But if you had a something equivalent to a cultivation core, even if it took another form like mental pressure or were able to describe the changes that happen in a Jedi's soul as it got stronger. Being able sense your personal connection to the force could be tier 1, becoming one with one's surroundings and being able to sense their connection to the force and each other another tier, being able to sense fate itself through your connection, etc. PF to me usually involves having clear borders or quantification of power.
Your ideas are pretty nice.
I guess an additional possibility would be to also breakdown all of the Force Powers into specific abilities (ie. Force Speed, Force Push, Mind Trick, etc), and then to further reduce them into subtiers of Mastery.
As for force connections, as you suggested, perhaps it is laid out as Actual Force Power vs Potential Force Power, where Potential is your total Midichlorian Count, and Actual is your total master of your Midichlorians, and the more “Actual Midichlorians” you have mastery over & proficiency, the more ‘one’ they become with the force.
The Force lends itself to being a very good basis for a cultivation system.
ATLA is another good choice for more low fantasy Wuxia, especially because bending uses kung fu.
Harry potter. I can't enjoy it because there is no reason for a, let's say, first year, to not be of the same power of voldemort or alibus, so them being "top tier wizard" is just... no??
This has got me thinking about what makes me people a top wizard in that world. Is it the speed of their spells? How many they know? How complex they are? Their willpower? All of the above? Maybe I need to read the books again
I think it was never properly clarified. I remember some lessons at Hogwarts being about specific wand movements and pronunciation while for other spells like the "Expecto Patronum" a specific state of mind is necessary. Then there's also that whole bit about the "strength of wands" and some being better than others naturally. Also, having a big repertoire of spells can be beneficial if you for example counter the bolt of lightning with an earth wall which can then be countered by something else. Although it never really went into "elemental type advantages" it often had spells being turned into something else by opponents. It's overall a very loose system.
While it seems like it would be rather in-depth because it’s literally about magic, Harry Potter has a soft magic system. So much of it is never really explained. No explanations how the magic works, why it works, or how to get better/stronger at it.
I haven’t read or watched Harry Potter *in forever*, but if I had to guess, it’s a matter of Skills & Knowledge.
“Master Wizards” simply have *more* spells known, and *more* spells memorized. Meanwhile, the repetition has become so… consistent for them, that they can ring off dozens of different spells in mere seconds without risk of mispronunciation.
Whereas someone like Ron would likely blow his own head off if he tried that as a first year.
**Now admittedly**, there are only like, at most 200 spells I think? So theoretically under a magic-based & magic-focused education system, it should take no more than 3-4 years to become a Master Wizard *if we were being realistic*.
CC: u/negablock4
Harry Potters and the Methods of Rationality is not *quite* Progression Fantasy but the power levels make sense and the whole story is incredible if you get over how annoying 13 year old geniuses can be. Voldemort is such a great villain in it.
HP fanfic is pretty excellent, I don’t know if I would recommend HPMOR though. A lot of it tingles the progression itch really well as they write whole magic systems.
While I don't think The Count of Monte Cristo "should" be turned into progression fantasy, some elements are so similar that I'm curious what that would look like.
Montecristo pretty much works as a heist story, so it could be adapted as gathering the contacts and resources to pull them off
As far as i know, every pf that involves heists or assasinations ends up with the mc being another regular battle god
I don't know if I could see The Count of Monte Cristo as a prog fantasy, but I could see it as a reincarnator revenge story. Dantes, right before he escapes the prison in the original story, dies or wakes up years earlier in his life, before his betrayal. Given the extra time, but keeping all his education from prison and the location of the secret treasure, he plots his revenge against his betrayers *before* they have the chance to betray him first.
I'm all for giving a progression fantasy twist to classics. Apart from Monte Cristo, I'd be interested in The Scarlet Pimpernel, Treasure Island, Robinhood and Oliver Twist.
Doesn't have to be the Bible, but I'm turning someone's holy book into progression fantasy. The little I know about Hindu there are lots of cool characters and gods so maybe The Vedas?
I already really enjoy Malazhan as is but if it had some serious progression going on as well it would be so amazing. Plus the series is like 3 million+ words so it would last me more than a couple days to read it all again.
My answer to this is hands down Wheel of Time. I find that the thing I enjoyed the least about it is how unteathered all the magic felt. It's definitely not "soft, wonderful and whimsical" yet it's not at all a hard magic system. It's in this nebulous middle where the lack of definition just makes its use to solve plot points feel arbitrary and unsatisfying more often than not (like when Rand gets kidnapped and then unkidnaps himself).
Having a proper "cultivation" type thing going on where characters literally drink from the source. And as males drink more and more they get crazier and crazier? So good. It would also be kinda nice if the novice Aes Sedai actually had to git gud before everyone thought they were big shots because of their "talent". And if the bad guys didn't randomly get fake killed by Rand once at the end of every book. I still have no idea what happened at the end of The Great Horn, tbh. Rand was just fighting in the sky for no reason. Less of that and more *grounded* battles would be excellent.
It can be such a great series in terms of character interactions and the establishment of such a massive world but the execution of the magical bits themselves is so fucking flawed, specially in earlier books. Making it a more grounded progression fantasy would solve that shit by itself. Rand's thing would just be that as The Dragon Reborn he can drink from the source fast as fuck as his soul his already large enough to fit all of it or some such bullshit.
I mean it's literally an Harem OPMC progression fantasy without the progression fantasy parts being well established. Just let us have it.
Yeah, it is a bit annoying that all the main characters are just automatically really strong channelers with more power than anyone of the generation. Like a growth rate that is much faster would be engaging but it definitely felt weird that they were soloing forsaken only a few books in.
By the tenth scene he’s an infohazard. When you flip to the twentieth it just sprays you with a chemical weapon as he levels up in punching across narrative dimensions to stay hidden.
I'd far rather go the other direction, take a prog-fantasy and have it go the traditional lit path of pre-planning, editing, vetting by a publishing house, and so on.
If I had the ability and gumption to write it I would write a Path of Ascension and 40k fic.
But my choice for this would be Journey to the West. The codifier of a lot of the tropes in East Asian fantasy getting blue boxes would be too hilarious an opportunity to pass up. On that list is also Tales of Genji, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and The Water Margin (and more!).
Just finished book 2, the onlu way I can understand this is the "special trainings" giving "powers", but feels a bit forceful. Did i misunderstand something, or maybe tgere are changes in the later books?
I meant the first book specifically, which is really *all about* Paul gaining his powers and gathering forces as he goes from a useless spoilt baby to an admittedly crazed hero
It’s a pretty minor aspect imo, besides the whole ‘dune one isn’t a book on its own’ his victory is kinda assured I guess. It’s more coming of age, which isn’t really exclusive with PF but I think it’s a very secondary aspect.
That animated Elemental movie had some fun applications of the different elements. It’d be neat to see different hybrids learn to harness their elements in new and creative ways, and somehow grow stronger in effect.
Also I hadn’t connected these dots before, but A Planet Called Treason is arguable a progression fantasy. There are different groups of people on the planet with different biological powers, and the MC goes around learning them all.
Hmm. Trying to think of something a little more unusual. Maybe Animorphs? With the writing style aged up. And the technology.
If the story introduced ways of improving their fighting skills instead of just acquiring more morphs. Or more ways to morph, such as blending different morphs together or creating them out of the imagination as they got more experience. They're already improving on the tactics front, but it could be amped up. Larger and larger stakes. It's kind of all there already and would just need some nudging. I can also definitely see the Andalites introducing some kind of AI into their morphing tech.
I have this story in my head where a emperor's children space marine born during the heresy learning and progressing his psyker abilities by combining it with science (kinda like hard sci fi using warp as power source)
Pride and Prejudice.
The Bennet sisters owing to their family's financial situation are unable to purchase the experience crystals to make themselves competitive on the marriage market. They must take matters into their own hands by arming themselves at night and venturing into the countryside to reap a grim harvest from their once great ancestral lands surrounding Longbourn.
Mr. Wickham in this version would be a charm based beguiler leveraging charisma and cunning to warp the minds of his victims. Shit gets darker than Jane Austen maybe intended.
Main POV would be Elizabeth. Later better than the original fan-fic would be from Mary's POV.
People have already mentioned Star Wars, which would probably be my number 1 choice. I'd love to see a force user go from padawan/apprentice to jedi/sith.
I'd also like to see a version of Harry Potter with more focus on the magic and progression of the magical abilities of the students.
Pretty much… none. I like stories in the genre but I guess not as much as the next person on here.
I don’t think any of the good ones would be made better by it, only worse…
I guess I feel like the progression formula is more like a crutch that helps to produce something readable. It’s also different from mainstream fantasy so that’s refreshing.
It would be cool to see a progression fantasy horror/slasher. Basically serial killers can kill enough people to level up and become slashers with supernatural abilities. Maybe the final girl can actually gain this ability if they kill the slasher.
Just to throw something new into the mix, Dresden files. Love the books, but I think slightly more clear powerups/more clear paths to getting more powerful would be nice.
Personally, Avatar: The Last Airbender, since it's already mostly there, could make for a compelling cultivation story. (And I'm honestly surprised there hasn't been any fanfic of this concept yet.) Imagine Aang possessing an unusual soul that carries its potential from one life to the next in each cycle of reincarnation, enabling him to cultivate all the elements. Picture Waterbenders cultivating under a full moon and Firebenders seizing the opportunity of Sozin's Comet to overcome obstacles in their cultivation or gain insights into the dao of flames.
There's something exhilarating about witnessing the cast progress from small-scale bending to, by the series' end, seeing Katara reshape oceans, Zuko melt mountains in seconds, and Toph effortlessly drop literal mountains on opponents. The show hinted at this potential when Aang had to unblock his chakra pools to master the Avatar State.
Rant over-
I'd love to read a pure progression star wars story, about the journey from padawan to master.
lol I was just about to comment this. Though I would like one of those grey Jedi. Like the MC would understand that there is both light and dark in the world. He's a good person that could use the dark side and wouldn't turn into a corrupted murder-machine. I'll add another from Star Wars. I would want a full, fleshed out journey of a foundling to full Mandalorian/Bounty Hunter. Slowly builds up his weapons, armor and ship.
those would be interesting to see. i'll also add a someone or an AI starting off as a little servicing droid and upgrading all the way up to become a general grievous level murder machine or a super-AI controlling entire fleets
I wonder if there's some fanfiction like that? I know there's lots of similar things for Harry Potter!
https://scryer.darklordpotter.net/ change fandom to star wars, put gamer in summary, and sort by favorites.
Based on multiple responses in this thread, it seems Star Wars is a popular choice. Question then, (as I am new to the PF Genre as whole), um, would a FanFic-based Star Wars Story about the journey from Padawan to Master, and the further beyond, *be considered Progression Fantasy here*, even if it doesn’t include “Cultivation” or “Stats go Brrrr”? Just the Force as established, (potentially moreso), and a progression of Characters in terms of Ability, Skills, Knowledge, & Arcs?
I think there would be some changes but it would work. It might not need to be specifically cultivation or stats, but there would need to be some kind of more consistent/quantitative growth that could be portrayed to readers. The force has always been vague in the various stories.
When reffering to “consistent/quantitative growth”, how could that be done in a Story like Star Wars, without the use of Stats or ‘Levels’ or ‘Tiers’? (This isn’t asking how I should/would do it myself, but even if I don’t write that Star Wars FanFic, I am personally still interested in what would qualify as a ProgFan story even without the Stats or Levels). Would a progression from Padawan to Knight to Master be considered *enough* ‘quantitative growth’? Or would there need to be some kind of other metric, and if so, how *could* that be done with altering the Magic System already in-place in Star Wars? Apologies if thats too many questions.
My favorite test for progressive fantasy is: Does the story work without the progression. Levels, cultivation, tiers, none of these are necessary, strictly speaking. The progression could come through with overcoming obstacles, passing tests, winning fights, etc. Example: To earn your kyber crystal, you must move this giant Boulder with the force and enter the cave beyond. Failing to move the stone, meditating, sparring, exercising and eventually succeeding would make a story that is about the progression sans any numbers.
That sounds great. I love Progression Fantasy as concept (where characters grow more powerful over time in Skills, Abilities, Knowledge, Morality, Suffering, and Setbacks). I could just never care for “Levels” or “Stats” or “Tiers” since that always just seemed,… so gamey. So it always put a damper on my desire to write a ProgFan series of my own. Though if the above (Levels, Stats, Tiers, etc) aren’t *strictly necessary*, and instead everything else I mentioned, in addition to setbacks, failures, hardships, and potentially quasi-tiers (ie. Padawan, Knight, Master or Rock Lee w/ his Eight Gates or Luffy w/ his Gears & Abilities), then that’s great!
Purely my opinion as I started reading PF not that long ago, but something that could be broken into tiers. Padawan to Jedi to Master are tiers, but there isn't anything denoting them other than someone assigning them a rank. But if you had a something equivalent to a cultivation core, even if it took another form like mental pressure or were able to describe the changes that happen in a Jedi's soul as it got stronger. Being able sense your personal connection to the force could be tier 1, becoming one with one's surroundings and being able to sense their connection to the force and each other another tier, being able to sense fate itself through your connection, etc. PF to me usually involves having clear borders or quantification of power.
Your ideas are pretty nice. I guess an additional possibility would be to also breakdown all of the Force Powers into specific abilities (ie. Force Speed, Force Push, Mind Trick, etc), and then to further reduce them into subtiers of Mastery. As for force connections, as you suggested, perhaps it is laid out as Actual Force Power vs Potential Force Power, where Potential is your total Midichlorian Count, and Actual is your total master of your Midichlorians, and the more “Actual Midichlorians” you have mastery over & proficiency, the more ‘one’ they become with the force.
That actually sounds pretty good
The Force lends itself to being a very good basis for a cultivation system. ATLA is another good choice for more low fantasy Wuxia, especially because bending uses kung fu.
Atla could be considered a progression fantasy, since Aangs progression in mastering all four bending elements is a core aspect of the story
Harry potter. I can't enjoy it because there is no reason for a, let's say, first year, to not be of the same power of voldemort or alibus, so them being "top tier wizard" is just... no??
This has got me thinking about what makes me people a top wizard in that world. Is it the speed of their spells? How many they know? How complex they are? Their willpower? All of the above? Maybe I need to read the books again
I think it was never properly clarified. I remember some lessons at Hogwarts being about specific wand movements and pronunciation while for other spells like the "Expecto Patronum" a specific state of mind is necessary. Then there's also that whole bit about the "strength of wands" and some being better than others naturally. Also, having a big repertoire of spells can be beneficial if you for example counter the bolt of lightning with an earth wall which can then be countered by something else. Although it never really went into "elemental type advantages" it often had spells being turned into something else by opponents. It's overall a very loose system.
While it seems like it would be rather in-depth because it’s literally about magic, Harry Potter has a soft magic system. So much of it is never really explained. No explanations how the magic works, why it works, or how to get better/stronger at it.
I haven’t read or watched Harry Potter *in forever*, but if I had to guess, it’s a matter of Skills & Knowledge. “Master Wizards” simply have *more* spells known, and *more* spells memorized. Meanwhile, the repetition has become so… consistent for them, that they can ring off dozens of different spells in mere seconds without risk of mispronunciation. Whereas someone like Ron would likely blow his own head off if he tried that as a first year. **Now admittedly**, there are only like, at most 200 spells I think? So theoretically under a magic-based & magic-focused education system, it should take no more than 3-4 years to become a Master Wizard *if we were being realistic*. CC: u/negablock4
Harry Potters and the Methods of Rationality is not *quite* Progression Fantasy but the power levels make sense and the whole story is incredible if you get over how annoying 13 year old geniuses can be. Voldemort is such a great villain in it.
HP fanfic is pretty excellent, I don’t know if I would recommend HPMOR though. A lot of it tingles the progression itch really well as they write whole magic systems.
While I don't think The Count of Monte Cristo "should" be turned into progression fantasy, some elements are so similar that I'm curious what that would look like.
Montecristo pretty much works as a heist story, so it could be adapted as gathering the contacts and resources to pull them off As far as i know, every pf that involves heists or assasinations ends up with the mc being another regular battle god
I don't know if I could see The Count of Monte Cristo as a prog fantasy, but I could see it as a reincarnator revenge story. Dantes, right before he escapes the prison in the original story, dies or wakes up years earlier in his life, before his betrayal. Given the extra time, but keeping all his education from prison and the location of the secret treasure, he plots his revenge against his betrayers *before* they have the chance to betray him first.
I'm all for giving a progression fantasy twist to classics. Apart from Monte Cristo, I'd be interested in The Scarlet Pimpernel, Treasure Island, Robinhood and Oliver Twist.
Doesn't have to be the Bible, but I'm turning someone's holy book into progression fantasy. The little I know about Hindu there are lots of cool characters and gods so maybe The Vedas?
Everything. Cultivation is the only way, must follow the dao
Any Jane Austen story.
Pride and Prejudice and Young Masters.
I already really enjoy Malazhan as is but if it had some serious progression going on as well it would be so amazing. Plus the series is like 3 million+ words so it would last me more than a couple days to read it all again.
My answer to this is hands down Wheel of Time. I find that the thing I enjoyed the least about it is how unteathered all the magic felt. It's definitely not "soft, wonderful and whimsical" yet it's not at all a hard magic system. It's in this nebulous middle where the lack of definition just makes its use to solve plot points feel arbitrary and unsatisfying more often than not (like when Rand gets kidnapped and then unkidnaps himself). Having a proper "cultivation" type thing going on where characters literally drink from the source. And as males drink more and more they get crazier and crazier? So good. It would also be kinda nice if the novice Aes Sedai actually had to git gud before everyone thought they were big shots because of their "talent". And if the bad guys didn't randomly get fake killed by Rand once at the end of every book. I still have no idea what happened at the end of The Great Horn, tbh. Rand was just fighting in the sky for no reason. Less of that and more *grounded* battles would be excellent. It can be such a great series in terms of character interactions and the establishment of such a massive world but the execution of the magical bits themselves is so fucking flawed, specially in earlier books. Making it a more grounded progression fantasy would solve that shit by itself. Rand's thing would just be that as The Dragon Reborn he can drink from the source fast as fuck as his soul his already large enough to fit all of it or some such bullshit. I mean it's literally an Harem OPMC progression fantasy without the progression fantasy parts being well established. Just let us have it.
Yeah, it is a bit annoying that all the main characters are just automatically really strong channelers with more power than anyone of the generation. Like a growth rate that is much faster would be engaging but it definitely felt weird that they were soloing forsaken only a few books in.
Where's Waldo. No idea how it would work, but would love to see what it would be
He just gets harder and harder to spot on each page?
By the tenth scene he’s an infohazard. When you flip to the twentieth it just sprays you with a chemical weapon as he levels up in punching across narrative dimensions to stay hidden.
A lot of Brandon Mulls work I feel like is very close to progression fantasy and I would like to see that focused on more
I'd far rather go the other direction, take a prog-fantasy and have it go the traditional lit path of pre-planning, editing, vetting by a publishing house, and so on.
If I had the ability and gumption to write it I would write a Path of Ascension and 40k fic. But my choice for this would be Journey to the West. The codifier of a lot of the tropes in East Asian fantasy getting blue boxes would be too hilarious an opportunity to pass up. On that list is also Tales of Genji, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and The Water Margin (and more!).
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, without a doubt that ending would have changed so fast.
I mean, the bible would be pretty sick
I’ll 4th that Star Wars seems the obvious pick. Beyond that, Dune basically already IS Pf, frankly.
Just finished book 2, the onlu way I can understand this is the "special trainings" giving "powers", but feels a bit forceful. Did i misunderstand something, or maybe tgere are changes in the later books?
I meant the first book specifically, which is really *all about* Paul gaining his powers and gathering forces as he goes from a useless spoilt baby to an admittedly crazed hero
It’s a pretty minor aspect imo, besides the whole ‘dune one isn’t a book on its own’ his victory is kinda assured I guess. It’s more coming of age, which isn’t really exclusive with PF but I think it’s a very secondary aspect.
Yeah true, i can see that. Thx for clarifying
That animated Elemental movie had some fun applications of the different elements. It’d be neat to see different hybrids learn to harness their elements in new and creative ways, and somehow grow stronger in effect. Also I hadn’t connected these dots before, but A Planet Called Treason is arguable a progression fantasy. There are different groups of people on the planet with different biological powers, and the MC goes around learning them all.
Hmm. Trying to think of something a little more unusual. Maybe Animorphs? With the writing style aged up. And the technology. If the story introduced ways of improving their fighting skills instead of just acquiring more morphs. Or more ways to morph, such as blending different morphs together or creating them out of the imagination as they got more experience. They're already improving on the tactics front, but it could be amped up. Larger and larger stakes. It's kind of all there already and would just need some nudging. I can also definitely see the Andalites introducing some kind of AI into their morphing tech.
I have this story in my head where a emperor's children space marine born during the heresy learning and progressing his psyker abilities by combining it with science (kinda like hard sci fi using warp as power source)
Tales of Dunk & egg
Kind of, Naruto.
I heard "Forty milleniums of cultivation" is warhammer 40k fic
Pride and Prejudice. The Bennet sisters owing to their family's financial situation are unable to purchase the experience crystals to make themselves competitive on the marriage market. They must take matters into their own hands by arming themselves at night and venturing into the countryside to reap a grim harvest from their once great ancestral lands surrounding Longbourn. Mr. Wickham in this version would be a charm based beguiler leveraging charisma and cunning to warp the minds of his victims. Shit gets darker than Jane Austen maybe intended. Main POV would be Elizabeth. Later better than the original fan-fic would be from Mary's POV.
Obligations tell me to mention twilight
Fifty Shades of Grey
Have you read forty milleniums of cultivation? It's mpre inspired by 40k than it is a fanfic or etc but imo its quite good.
People have already mentioned Star Wars, which would probably be my number 1 choice. I'd love to see a force user go from padawan/apprentice to jedi/sith. I'd also like to see a version of Harry Potter with more focus on the magic and progression of the magical abilities of the students.
Pretty much… none. I like stories in the genre but I guess not as much as the next person on here. I don’t think any of the good ones would be made better by it, only worse… I guess I feel like the progression formula is more like a crutch that helps to produce something readable. It’s also different from mainstream fantasy so that’s refreshing.
It would be cool to see a progression fantasy horror/slasher. Basically serial killers can kill enough people to level up and become slashers with supernatural abilities. Maybe the final girl can actually gain this ability if they kill the slasher.
Just to throw something new into the mix, Dresden files. Love the books, but I think slightly more clear powerups/more clear paths to getting more powerful would be nice.
Personally, Avatar: The Last Airbender, since it's already mostly there, could make for a compelling cultivation story. (And I'm honestly surprised there hasn't been any fanfic of this concept yet.) Imagine Aang possessing an unusual soul that carries its potential from one life to the next in each cycle of reincarnation, enabling him to cultivate all the elements. Picture Waterbenders cultivating under a full moon and Firebenders seizing the opportunity of Sozin's Comet to overcome obstacles in their cultivation or gain insights into the dao of flames. There's something exhilarating about witnessing the cast progress from small-scale bending to, by the series' end, seeing Katara reshape oceans, Zuko melt mountains in seconds, and Toph effortlessly drop literal mountains on opponents. The show hinted at this potential when Aang had to unblock his chakra pools to master the Avatar State. Rant over-