Modern Cultivation Manhua: 5 Set in Today's World, Ranked

Modern cultivation manhua put qi, sword flight and thousand-year-old masters into dorm rooms, high schools and city streets, and the best one to start with is Cultivation Chat Group. Its first chapter does the whole trick in one afternoon: a sick university student scrolls a group chat full of people who call themselves "fellow daoists," and the reader realizes before he does that they mean it.

Three manhua covers side by side: a student in a yellow jacket leaping out of a phone screen with doves, a high school crowd under a giant green toad, and a girl in red robes below a flying swordsman

Pick by tone first. If you want comedy, read Cultivation Chat Group, The Daily Life of Immortal King or I Might Be A Fake Cultivator. If you want a modern world under attack, read Your Talent Is Mine. Every pick has an English edition linked from its AniList page, and every one is tagged on AniList as both cultivation and urban fantasy. That tag pair was our starting filter, since it keeps out the many cultivation manhua that only borrow a modern prologue. This is a selection, not a ranking: on October 23, 2026 the same AniList filter returned 28 Chinese titles, including Sword King In A Women's World and Formless Form, which this page doesn't cover.

This page is Chinese manhua only. For Korean murim series, our best cultivation manhwa list is the better fit, and if you want a game-style system on top of the cultivation, see cultivation manhua with system.

Modern cultivation manhua at a glance

Manhua	Modern setting	Status (AniList)	English edition	Count on that edition
Cultivation Chat Group	A university dorm and an online chat group	Still releasing	Webnovel	696 chapters, marked completed
The Daily Life of Immortal King	An ordinary high school	Finished, 246 chapters	Webnovel, WebComics	148 chapters on Webnovel
Your Talent Is Mine	Earth during an alien-beast invasion	Finished, 106 chapters	Webnovel, WebComics, MangaToon	95 chapters on Webnovel, completed
I Might Be A Fake Cultivator	A cultivation university	Finished, 315 chapters	Webnovel	315 chapters, completed
Strongest Abandoned Son	A school and a family that cast him out	Releasing per AniList; cancelled at 180 per MangaUpdates	Webnovel	178 chapters, marked completed

1. Cultivation Chat Group

Cultivation Chat Group cover: a young man in a yellow jacket holding an open red book leaps out of a smartphone screen among white doves, with a small bunny-eared girl and chibi characters around him Cultivation Chat Group (cover via AniList).

The best pick, because the joke and the premise are the same thing. Webnovel's synopsis puts it plainly: Song Shuhang "accidentally joined an online chat group filled with Xianxia-obsessed chuunis," and some time later realizes "the other members of the group were actually real-life cultivators."

We read chapter 1 on Webnovel. It opens on a blue sky and a caption, "I'm just an ordinary student at Jiangnan University." Shuhang has a cold, has taken the day off and is half asleep in his dorm in front of a horror movie he "can't get into." Then the laptop beeps. Someone called True Monarch Yellow Mountain has added him to the "Nine Provinces Number One Group," and the chat scrolls past in user names: Thrice Reckless Mad Saber, Su Clan's Seven, Northern River's Loose Cultivator, Medicine Master. Mad Saber threatens anyone who crosses him with his "Seventy-Two Slashes," a splash page announces he has "Reached the Later Phase of the Fifth Stage Spiritual Emperor Realm," and Su Clan's Seven wants to know when their duel is. Shuhang decides these aren't "your regular everyday posers. These guys are next level," types "Not bad, I like it," and the chapter closes on: "From that afternoon on, nothing was ever normal again."

That gap between what Shuhang thinks he is reading and what the reader can see is the engine of the series. Webnovel lists its English edition as completed at 696 chapters, by far the longest here, while AniList still lists the Chinese comic as releasing. One caveat: a reviewer on the Webnovel page asked why they "raise the price to unlock future chapters," so check the unlock cost before you plan to read all of it.

2. The Daily Life of Immortal King

The Daily Life of Immortal King (cover via AniList).

The pick if you want to watch as well as read. Webnovel's synopsis describes an era when everyone works "to fly on their swords and become immortals," except Wang Ling, whose "cultivation level was soaring abnormally." He wants to lie low, but "his plan did not work out in an ordinary high school!" It is a comedy about hiding overwhelming power in a school uniform, not a power climb.

AniList lists the manhua as finished at 246 chapters, running from January 2020 to April 2023. The Webnovel English edition, published there as a Bilibili Comics title, lists 148 chapters, so the English run is shorter than the Chinese one. There is also an animated series: AniList lists a Haoliners Animation adaptation that started in 2020, with Crunchyroll and Netflix among its streaming links and a second season after it.

In one r/Donghua thread titled "Is there not a donghua like swallowed star with a modern cultivation world," the top reply pointed to it: "Daily Life of Immortal King. Pretty much as close as you're gonna get, it's standard Cultivation type, but it's anime style, and basically a comedy." AniList scores the manhua 61.

3. Your Talent Is Mine

Your Talent Is Mine cover: an armored swordsman with a long red blade faces snarling alien beasts on a dark battlefield Your Talent Is Mine (cover via AniList).

The action pick, and the best-rated on this list by AniList's score of 70. Here the modern world isn't a backdrop for jokes; it is under attack. Per Webnovel, Ye Tian "gained the ability to copy the talents of others" and fights "to survive and protect his sister from the invasion of alien beasts." AniList tags it more as a super-power story than a pure cultivation one, so expect fights and copied abilities before qi theory.

It is also the shortest commitment. AniList lists it as finished at 106 chapters; the Webnovel English edition, from Kuaikan, is marked completed at 95. Know what that ending is, though. One Webnovel reviewer called it "a good short read" but noted the source novel "has 3600+ chapters and this only has 95 chapters." Read it as a tight adaptation of the opening of a much longer story. Our best completed manhua list covers it alongside other finished Chinese series.

4. I Might Be A Fake Cultivator

I Might Be A Fake Cultivator cover: a long-haired girl in red and pink robes in front of a blue sky, a young man in white flying above her, large Chinese title calligraphy on the left I Might Be A Fake Cultivator (cover via AniList).

The campus comedy. Webnovel's synopsis has An Lin, "a mortal who was heavily in debt and was pursued by loan sharks," rescued by "a True God" and sent to cultivate at "the Immortal Cultivation United University," where it seems he "was trolled by the True God." The joke is in the title: he may not be learning real cultivation at all.

It is finished, and both editions agree on the length: AniList lists 315 chapters (2019 to 2023), and Webnovel marks its English edition completed at 315. AniList scores it 59, the lowest of the four main picks, so read it for the premise and the school setting rather than for the plotting.

5. Strongest Abandoned Son (read the caveat first)

Strongest Abandoned Son cover: a close-up of a black-haired young man with red eyes and a high black collar against a red background Strongest Abandoned Son (cover via AniList).

A familiar humiliation setup, and the pick that needs the clearest warning. Per Webnovel's synopsis, Ye Mo wakes up abandoned by his family and publicly humiliated over a love letter, then remembers "another terrible thing that didn't belong to him." AniList tags it with bullying and isekai on top of cultivation and urban fantasy.

The problem is the ending of the English edition. Webnovel marks it completed at 178 chapters, but AniList still lists the Chinese comic as releasing (MangaUpdates lists it as "180 Chapters (Cancelled)"), and a Webnovel reviewer wrote: "It kinda ended somewhere in the middle. Nothing has been resolved and the last chapter tries to be a cliffhanger." AniList scores it 57. Start it only if you're fine stopping without an ending.

One to skip: Let Me Game in Peace

Webnovel lists Let Me Game in Peace as completed at 129 chapters, and AniList tags it with cultivation and urban fantasy: dimensional rifts open across Earth, and the realms behind them turn into dungeons in a mobile game. A reviewer on its Webnovel page says the label misleads: "Don't be misled by the completed tag," because "the manhua was cancelled, not completed," and it "doesn't even reach a good narrative stopping point, instead ending abruptly mid-arc." We left it off the ranking for that reason.

Our take: which modern cultivation manhua to start

Start with Cultivation Chat Group. Its first chapter is the clearest version of what people mean by modern cultivation: ordinary life, a phone, and immortals one notification away. It is also the longest English read here by a wide margin. If you want to watch before you read, The Daily Life of Immortal King has the anime, and the manhua tells the same school-comedy story. If you want something finished this week, Your Talent Is Mine is the quickest route, as long as you accept that it adapts only the start of its novel.

The genre's weak spot is endings. AniList lists two of the five main picks as still releasing in Chinese, though MangaUpdates lists one of them, Strongest Abandoned Son, as cancelled at 180 chapters, and Webnovel reviewers say two titles marked "completed" in English stop mid-story. Check AniList's status before you trust a "completed" label.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best modern cultivation manhua?

Cultivation Chat Group. A university student gets added to a chat group of people who call each other fellow daoists, and they turn out to be real cultivators. Webnovel's English edition lists 696 chapters, the longest run on this list.

Which modern cultivation manhua are finished?

The Daily Life of Immortal King, Your Talent Is Mine and I Might Be A Fake Cultivator are all finished on AniList. Your Talent Is Mine is the shortest, at 95 chapters in its Webnovel English edition.

Is The Daily Life of Immortal King a manhua or an anime?

Both. AniList lists a manhua that finished at 246 chapters and an animated series from Haoliners Animation that started in 2020, with Crunchyroll and Netflix among its streaming links.

What Is Cultivation Manhua?: qi, realms and sects, explained with chapter quotes.
Cultivation Manhua With System: five cultivation manhua built around a game-style system.
Best Cultivation Manhwa: the Korean murim side of the genre.
Best Completed Manhua: finished Chinese series, including Your Talent Is Mine.
Best Manhua 2026: Chinese comics beyond cultivation.
Manga vs Manhwa vs Manhua: what makes a comic a manhua.

How we checked this

Picks come from AniList's Chinese titles tagged both Cultivation and Urban Fantasy with an English edition linked on AniList. That tag filter returned 28 Chinese titles on October 23, 2026; this page covers a selection of them and is not a popularity ranking. Status, chapter counts, dates, tags, scores, staff and the anime adaptation are from AniList's API on October 23, 2026. Edition counts, completion labels, publishers, synopses and reader reviews were read from each series' Webnovel page the same day. We read chapter 1 of Cultivation Chat Group on Webnovel on October 23, 2026. On October 29, 2026, after an independent check, we corrected how the picks were chosen and added MangaUpdates' cancelled status for Strongest Abandoned Son.

Last reviewed: October 29, 2026