Xiandao Golden Core Cultivation is the Starting Law for any playthrough and most likely the more complex and detailed path to immortality, I'll try to address the core mechanics for it.

TL;DR Use the Manual Pavilion

At its core Xiandao is easy to progress, you just sit down and cultivate until you reach a limit, breakthrough the limit and move on until immortality.
Xiandao Cultivators go through 5 stages:

1. Qi Shaping
   The Starting Phase, as the name suggests you're shaping the Qi to form your Golden Core, there's not much to this phase and it should be over before you're even able to notice it, usually its not even worthwhile to stress over Xiandao mechanics in this phase.
   
2. Core Shaping
   Arguably the most important phase, it precedes Golden Core and is the main factor in achieving a high tier GC, you should focus on raising your Max Qi by studying every manual available for it in the manual pavilion, raising your compatibility with the chosen law, and keeping your mental state high right before forming the core, I'll address this phase in more detail on the Golden Core section of the guide
   
3. Golden Core
   Right after forming Golden Core you get on this phase, from here on breakthroughs will take much longer to reach, this is the best time to raise your base mental state and stamina acquisition rate since your cultivators will be sitting cultivating for a while
   
4. Primordial Spirit
   Could be called the last stage, this is when all the important skills are unlocked and you're at the peak of your power, now is the time to focus on whatever you want out of this cultivator, you should only proceed if you want to ascend this cultivator or have some very specific need for a Demi-God
   
5. Demi-God
   The real last stage, after going through the tribulation from heaven your powers are increased, but you'll have to deal with a tribulation every once in a while, or just consume a lot of elixirs to postpone the coming thunders of tribulation, you can teleport into any location in the map, the skill aint really useful since cultivators get absurdly fast with contracts and knowledge

Every law has a different progression and when choosing one for the cultivator you'll be briefly informed of what that law has in store for you, like the seven slaughtering that has to face multiple tribulations in cultivation, or the reincarnation law that loses its power after the start of each phase
I'll talk a bit more about tribulations and golden core in a later section

When compared to the other Cultivation methods, Xiandao shines because of one thing, sharing knowledge, you can obtain buffs and skills from any other Xiandao Law by using the Manual Pavilion Building (Located in the sect section of the build menu), to use it effectively ensures you get the most of your Xiandao Cultivator, you’ll want to build many of those early, transcribing every Supreme Law you have and hunting down the other Supreme Laws and Primordial Spirit Laws


You start off with only the supreme law chosen on the character creation (pick heaven stealing, hardest to get later), but on the first few events (Secrets) on the game you gain access to the complete 5 supreme laws from the Taiyi Sect:

• Sunflower Refining Law (Earth)
  
• Grand Chariot Wisdom Law (Metal)
  
• Six Paths Reincarnation Law (Wood)
  
• Sixteen Supreme Steps Law (Water)
  
• True Sun Refining Law (Fire)

You can get the Supreme Laws from the Kunlun Competition, which happens roughly yearly on the game, winning it is hard early on but after getting a “Primordial Spirit Cultivator with Max Luck and Maxed out on the Tiered Knowledge (bottom left of Skill Panel)” you’ll be winning those competitions with ease

The other kinds of Law asides from Supreme (Primordial Spirit, Ascension, etc) are also very important on getting a strong Xiandao Cultivator since they bring A LOT of knowledge to learn, most of it being very useful, like the protection and spell knowledge, the extra stat buffing ones and the stamina knowledge

There are 2 major ways to get these Laws, the easier way is to learn from unconscious enemies, every cultivator that attacks your sect has a Law, and almost everytime it will be a Law you’ve never seen before, you can get those Laws from them through two methods, either you take the unconscious enemy into your sect, using the Incantation of Consonance Miracle, raise his Loyalty by keeping his mood up (regrowing lost limbs, giving a weapon and artifact or just spamming panacea on them until the stacks of “A Miracle” work his mood up), when Loyalty reaches 100 the cultivator shares the Law with you, you can then add it to your Manual Pavillon. The other way of getting the Law is on taking a dying enemy to a very bad feng shui room (Hell Gate) and using the Soul Inquiry Miracle, which will likely get you his law and some evil sect reputation

Loyalty and opening up to the Law

About Inspiration XP, the cost of learning something will rise for each thing you learn, its connected to a number called “Attainment”, viewable on the cultivator stat panel, while high attainment is needed for some events its usually not desirable to have since anything will cost absurd numbers of XP, to avoid high Attainment don’t acquire knowledge that is marked with COUNTERACTIVE when you hover over it, you’ll notice that the attainment increase is much higher than it should be, which knowledge will carry this tag is related to the cultivation law, to easily obtain a lot of inspiration XP work with the power tab and offices in other locations, I’ll go over this in another guide, without these XP is very hard to come by

Counteractive, avoid

There are other methods for obtaining supreme laws, such as ancient caskets obtainable through mining, I would consider caskets farmable because of the Mountain shaping miracle, that spawns ores back on the map so you can mine them, you can also obtain supreme laws through the event “Manifesting Mandate”, the event is rare and you’ll obtain the law if you’re compatible with it, choose the second option and spam it with different cultivators until you obtain it, or just have a “jack of all trades” cultivator get it. the only supreme law not obtainable through the kunlun festival (Heaven Stealing Law, which develops around lifespan), can be found in these methods


The Supreme Laws

You can also directly teach someone some manuals and spend less inspiration XP, but usually it doesn't matter that much, it only starts bothering you when Attainment comes to get you

The highlight of cultivation progression is the creation of the Golden Core, its importance is connected to the importance of a high Max Qi pool, since Qi is essentially a Xiandao Cultivator HP and MP stat, a high tier Golden Core carries a far higher base Qi which turns into a very large ammount of Qi after every Max Qi buff you carry

While molding the core the cultivator uses all its available Qi to the best of its skill to create a better core, usually the best result you can get is a GC Tier-1, but the process keeps going after tier 1 so there's not much of a clear limit, however Tier-1 is still the best you can get without minmaxing way too much

Before anything boost the Max Qi of your cultivator to the highest you can, the easiest way to increase is through Manuals from the Manual Pavilion (use the search function, IT WORKS just type "Max Qi" there) and use certain elixirs, some easily available and some not, detailed bellow

All of these items have their performance increased when Spectre Refined (Spectre Refining Miracle, uses Anguish Soul Gem), but this usually costs too much and takes a lot of time, you might not want to minmax that much

The performance of Golden Core creation is determined by the following factors

• Mental State
  Straightforward, the cultivator's mental state, easy to Max, set your cultivator focus on "Mind" and wait until he reaches 100, it should max out around 95
  
  
• Weather
  Whether the weather element feeds the cultivator's law, obeying the classic element order, might be harder to achieve if you have no cultivators that have achieved Golden Core earlier, since some of the miracles could be behind a Golden Core knowledge wall, all of the weather miracles are available in the starting supreme laws, use the manual pavilion to get access to them. Bellow is the recommended weather for each cultivation element
  
  Element of the Law

  Weather Miracle

  Metal

  Dust Devil

  Water

  Thunderstorm

  Wood

  Rainstorm

  Fire

  Noxious Air

  Earth

  Foehn Wind
  
  
• Yin Yang
  Whether the time of day is favorable to the cultivators Law, Water and Metal are Yin and are in advantage through the Night, Fire and Wood are Yang and are in advantage through the Day, Earth is abount balance, transition times. Bellow recommended time for breakthrough start
  
  Element of the Law

  Time of Day

  Water and Metal

  ~21:00-4:00

  Fire and Wood

  ~06:00-18:00

  Earth

  ~19:00-20:00
  
  
• Season
  Much like the last two, the element of the season should also feed the cultivator's law, with Spring being Wood, Summer being Fire, Autumn being Metal, Winter being Water and transition times (end of each season) being Earth. The seasons are at their strongest right before day 15, you should breakthrough around day 12, with the exception of Earth that is at peak right before day 28. Because the Metal Miracle can only be cast in Winter and Spring you shouldnt breakthrough Metal in Summer and Autumn. Bellow recommended season for breakthrough
  
  Element of the Law

  Day and Season

  Metal

  ~Day 25 of Winter or Spring

  Water

  ~Day 12 of Autumn

  Wood

  ~Day 12 of Winter

  Fire

  ~Day 12 of Spring

  Earth

  ~Day 12 of Summer
  
  
• Law
  When you're choosing which law the cultivator will follow you are presented with a stat table that compared the cultivator's stats and the law required stats, this Golden Core requirement is all about being above the requirements of your Law, to do this you can:
  
  • Use the manual pavilion with the knowledge that can increase stats (PER and CON are easier to increase)
    
  • Use alchemy elixirs like Eternity Pill and Bane Pill (their recipes and ingredients are harder to come by early on
    
  • Use stat buffing items like Yaoguai treasures (bought from merchants or other sects), or certain craftable items like the bracelets from the handcraft station
  
  
• Qi Bonus
  This is about the location you choose to perform the breakthrough, the optimal cultivation and breakthrough room features many items that grant the Gather Qi stat, early on some laws have it harder to find matching element items but there is usually a cheaper alternative, this stat is considerably buffed by the outer diamond spiritwood layout which is a cheap and affordable item. Bellow is an example of a cultivation room
  
  • The outer diamond is filled with spiritwood, a cheap item with a "Gather Qi" stat
    
  • The inner diamond is filled with Fire Essence Bar, since this room is meant for an Earth Cultivator
    
  • In the corners of the room there are temperature regulating items, since Fire items raise the temperature
    
  • The Qi Cushion (Unlocked at 500 sect reputation) is made of earth, so it can be fed from surrounding items
    
  • The flooring in the inner diamond is made of igneocopper (Fire)
    
  • Everything else is made of spirit stone block, a somewhat high grade material so it can raise the Room Quality and Room Attractiveness
    
  • Something harder to notice on the picture, bellow the Qi Cushion there's a banned item, you can do this by removing the cushion, dropping the item there and banning it, and placing the cushion back, this allows you to squeeze in an extra item right at the center
  
  Here goes a bit over a few possible resources for cultivation
  
  Just use whatever you can of the element that has a "Gather Qi" Stat, if you can't find anything just use something of the right feeding element
  
  The Gather Qi Range is mostly about interlapping the Gather Qi effect with others.
  
  
• Element
  This is mostly explained in the previous section, just pick elements compatible with the cultivator's law for the inner diamond displays and the same element of the Law for the Qi Cushion (or regular cushion if you haven't unlocked it yet) (Sect tab on building panel)

There's also some sort of glitch to get a bit extra Qi on your cultivator WHILE he's going through golden core shaping. by keeping the banned spiritwood in the positions shown in the room example above they naturally gather Qi, when you start the golden core forming you'll wait one hour from the start and place a Tictactoe building right on top of ONE banned spiritwood, you should do this every hour until the 4 spiritwood have "jumped" (you'll notice the little jump when you place the Tic-tac-toe), the Qi from the spiritwood will hop through the room and your cultivator will benefit from it, you might get a T1 from an estimated T2 this way

The easy part, cultivation is simply sitting down for a long while and filling the required Qi, there's just a few mechanics that you should be mindful of

• Mental State
  Early on will be the thing that hinders you the most, Mental state is the middle bar on a cultivators panel, the higher the mental state, the faster you'll gain cultivation, if it goes too low you'll be far too slow to even consider it progress, early on you should keep the balance manually by switching it on the character panel from practice to mind, try keeping it between 50 and 80 or just get to ~95 and cultivate the fast way, later on you shouldn't have this problem, there are many manuals that improve your base mental state (meaning your mental state shouldnt go lower than X value), build the manual pavilion as soon as possible and get those to avoid the trouble of keeping an eye on that
  
  
• Stamina
  This will likely go unnoticed by some on the early stages, but cultivators use stamina while cultivating, this is manily recovered by eating and since they don't really eat while cultivating it just goes down, if it goes bellow 30 they stop cultivating, if you have a lot of stamina its not a pressing issue, but it becomes hard to recover stamina for cultivators, learn a few manuals about recovering stamina naturally on the manual pavilion when possible, these manuals are mainly obtainable from primordial spirit and ascension laws so do keep an eye out for any converted enemies, if you need stamina fast try eating an earth flux, they're easily farmable by a primordial spirit cultivator with high luck that goes to Gemspring Cave (found by exploring Mt.Shu)
  
  
• Aid
  This is in short a free bonus for anyone who's not the master, just pick someone that has reached golden core to be the cultivator's mentor and you'll have your easy 3+ faster cultivation
  
  
  
• Mood
  Easy to increase, just check the mood tab on the cultivation panel and deal with their needs like weapon and artifact needs, should prove to be the easier thing to increase since most mood statuses are positive

The other cultivation buffs are mostly explained in the Golden Core part, so do check it out.

There's not much of a "best law" to focus on, you should make your cultivators "diverse", ranging across the element table

But there are ideal laws for certain aspects of the game, I'll list a few of them


I would Like to remind you that which Law you pick doesn't have that much influence on what you can achieve, go with what you want/has better compatibility and supplement the rest with the manual pavilion

You shouldn't worry too much about the heavenly tribulations, what you will see is a thunderstorm hitting your cultivator a few times and then its gone, but in order to not lose the cultivator you should do a few things


The Skills, bottom-left of the manual inspiration menu

• Level your protection
  Tribulations don't do that much damage if they're not repeated tribulations, having level 20 in protection should be able to withstand tribulations, if possible also learn a few manuals from the Pavilion about protection, just to be sure
  
• Unequip your artifact
  I know this will sound stupid, but it sure helped me many times, most of the Qi you lose from a tribulation is actually from the cultivator recharging his artifact, which will lose all that Qi really fast if you haven't levelled anything from the artifact mastery manuals
  
• Raise your Max Qi
  Can't stress this enough, Max Qi is everything to Xiandao Survival, do what you can to raise your Max Qi if you're struggling, manuals are a must have for anything, alchemy can save you, take a look at Sun Pills
  
• Learn a few Spells
  Having a full deck of spells might not be the best, you waste a lot of attainment on spells you wont ever use, learn 2 or 3 great healing spells, 2 or 3 great damage spells and 2 or 3 great buffing spells, my personal preference is Reversa Cycle for Healing (absurd Healing), Candid Time for Damage (Solid Damage), one buffing spell for artifacts and one for protection. Also level your Spell Level and learn a few manuals if needed.

I'm sure you came here trying to find an answer on how to gain access to X elixir, depending on the elixir there's no clear answer, sometimes its easier to get lucky and find it on the merchant than to find the recipe and ingredients yourself, I'll do my best in listing a few of the easy elixirs though

Kept this part for last because its going to be long

Starting Knowledge (Some might be behind rep barrier)

• Forming Pill
  
• Nourish Pill
  
• Spirit Crystal
  
• Stamina Pill
  
• Ginseng Pill
  
• Qi Regen Pill
  
• Heal Powder
  
• Spirit Powder
  
• Cure Powder
  
• Sedation Pill
  
• Fitness Pill
  
• Power Pill
  
• Fixing Pill
  
• Truth Pill
  
• Child Face Drug
  
• Adult Face Drug
  
• Elder Face Drug

Primordial Alchemy Law (Obtainable from winning in the kunlun alchemy competition)

• Forming Pill
  
• Curative Pill
  
• Cure Powder
  
• Euphoria Pill
  
• Inedia Pill
  
• Purity Pill
  
• Metallic Pill
  
• Earth Pill
  
• Fire Powder
  
• Metal Pill
  
• Water Pill
  
• Sun Pill
  
• Thought Pill
  
• Sprout Pill
  
• Resin Essence Powder
  
• Life Pill
  
• Vitata Elixir
  
• Samsara Pill
  
• Divine Powder

Demi-God (Any) or Learn from Nature World Wonder

• Eureka Pill

Seven Slaughtering Sword

• Blade Pill

Sunflower Refining Law

• Anguish Pill
  
• Soulrend Pill
  
• Serene Pill
  
• Scorch Pill

Other Elixirs recipe are mostly obtainable from the event (secret) Lost Manual
I'll try to elaborate on some of the materials on a later guide

Artifact Crafting doesn't present many complex mechanics, to put it simply you turn an item into a flying weapon, the higher the rarity, the better the artifact and the harder it is to craft

To make truly great artifacts dedicate a cultivator to it, preferably in the Myriad Artifact Law or Grand Chariot Wisdom Law, they should learn every knowledge gained from kidnapping attackers that boosts artifact crafting, spectre refine the item the higher tier you can while maintaining an acceptable chance of success (~60% should work)

If you're not making cool artifacts like flying phallus and rickrolling music sheets you should use weapons, they are, usually, more effective in combat than other things

On the crafting tab there's also something called legacy artifacts, these are unlocked through some specific Laws Knowledge or knowledge acquired through other methods, like baiting an ancient cultivator into your death trap of a sect to loot him (they are strong, don't do this if you dont think you can handle it, ~3-8mi Qi). You can also get their recipes through manuals on cultivation laws. They have a few different mechanics such as Incubation period which will likely be an issue depending on the artifact, check the wiki on legacy artifacts to evaluate whether it's worthwhile or not.

Lastly there's primordial spirit attachment, which I barely know anything, you should level your primordial spirit through a plethora of methods which include:

• Waiting
  
• Sketchy Exchanges Qi-Primordial Spirit
  
• Taking Rare Elixirs
  
• Passing Attainment or Lifespan Tribulations

Overall I don't bother with it too much, might be helpful to make a minmaxed character though

My favorite way of getting artifacts is getting them from the map (I'll make a guide later), I found my favorite Artifact there, right in the middle of the Otherworld Rift (just make sure you have a strong cultivator). My treasured Leonardus Sword, the sword of the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ that ascended through sheer luck, it causes retardation through earth Qi on the attack, my favorite way of expanding my ever growing collection of incapacitated invaders

Talismans gain importance very quickly in the game, in short its a free permanent buff that you gain from MSPainting your way into power, the starting talismans are useful, but most of the complex talismans come from the Primordial Symbols Law, which is obtainable from inviting He Zudao from Skydome Palace (gain her trust by giving her talisman paper) and when she's in your sect give her even more talisman papers and she'll let you into her secret law (it will drop a scroll somewhere on the map, not directly add to your knowledge)

I wont list the guaranteed talismans from laws and default since it would serve no purpose, unlike elixirs which are requirements for some breakthroughs and quests, there's no real requirement to talismans, for now just be sure that most are useful, if you need a list let me know

Asides from the starting talismans and the ones from Supreme Laws, the other kinds come from the event (secret) "Lost Book", whenever possible go for these events, the emperor's books are particularly useful

You can also draw whatever you want into a piece of paper and have it grant a buff, theres some fun situations to be found from this and no harm from doing it, I chose to drew a viagra pill and got myself a potential increasing talisman

I'll be developing more guides and adding more to the ones already here, bought the steam version just for this, if you have any questions feel free to add me and ask, the game sure leaves a lot to be found