Because of his Blind Cat Stance: Shadow, Xia Mao was temporarily in an ethereal state which he passed through objects with ease. However, that stance consumed chi like flowing water from the tap, and it meant that Xia Mao only had one shot at making it right.
But the Blind Cat Cultivator was not an assault based cultivation style and more of a support type cultivation. That was also the reason why he adopted the use of Mechatronics and infused it with chi (i.e. His Cat Head Arrows) to fight against the Valgs. Xia Mao had shamelessly admitted to his dungeon group that when he was younger, he did use his cultivation knowledge to break into secure locations or big companies to pick their company safes.
