beginner
Xianxia vs Wuxia vs Xuanhuan
A plain-English guide to the three labels readers see most often in Chinese fantasy recommendations.
Xianxia usually means immortal cultivation, dao comprehension, heavenly tribulations, sects, and a road toward transcendence.
Wuxia is lower-fantasy martial hero fiction: jianghu politics, schools, honor, revenge, and human-scale mastery.
Xuanhuan is broader Chinese high fantasy. It may use cultivation, but it freely mixes original power systems, beasts, empires, magic, and non-Daoist cosmologies.
If you want sects and immortality, start with xianxia. If you want martial heroes and moral drama, try wuxia. If you want big fantasy worlds with ranked powers, xuanhuan is usually the shelf.