you are not even taking context into consideration. who said we werent better,but that has nothing to do with our strength. the qi body in specific has definitely increased our capability but the true extent of its usability will show AFTER we advance to ns and leave this world. for now we are in a poor world that lacks enough qi. tw himself specifically said just breathing in a qi filled world will give us qi. while here whether you play story mode or not,mc isnt going to be as lucky as they would be in a qi filled world,hence why they would have to find qi stones which are rare,buy artifacts with money which is also rare or kill people and still get tws enlightenment and even then would have to be at cf to beat ruo at full power. and when was your second statement exactly? i can only remember two scenarios and both dont show mc on average being the same level as a level higher. 1st is the sacrifice guy who we meet in the lushu tribe who got a mid houtians strength,neglecting the fact that the mc is meant to be mid houtian here,he got only that a mid houtian strength and on top of that,its been stated numerous times that someone in a heavenly sect can beat someone not from one if they are among the strong ones in the level below. so this doesnt count cus what i meant was fighting a higher than average level of someone who is at the level of heavenly sect factions. the other is the stockpile of the golden seed which the mc used against lc which is basically a one hit attack which renders the mc conscious and still needs ruos pill to even handle using the skill in the first place,and i'm not even including the many advantages the mc had,like lc being distracted by xiwen and ruo for example. so as it stands you havent said anything to refute what i said. now onto what i said, qi mc has the ability to perform a similar feat but even then its only possible for them from maybe mid houtian to strong late houtian. sure a fight with someone like yang gai wouldnt be as hard as with ruo but even then,it would still be hard and that would literally be when mc has prepared as much as possible in ph. so if mc wants to perform this kind of feat as a ph,they would need a bh scenario over again and even then since its a whole entire level i.e xiantian,they would need a more potent poison or nerfer. tho i'll say this i do see mc being able to do this when they are maybe mid to late x,maybe to show how much we've grown or sumn.