Shuchong Kenshu
Today I recommend five cultivation fantasy epics from male-oriented web fiction. Every one of them will wake you up, and as you read, time seems to be stolen away without your noticing.
1. The Immortal Clan of the Mysterious Mirror (Xuanjian Xianzu; Author: Ji Yueren)
I really read the opening of this novel many times; each time I read a little, couldn't get into it, and gave up. After a while so many people were recommending it that I opened it again. I was determined to see what magic this novel had. When it was first promoted, the author was said to be a college student or something; I clicked in and read it through, and recently it has reached the milestone of 100,000 average subscriptions.
The novel really has a great many characters—it is clan-based immortal cultivation—so be patient when reading it.
Unlike the novels I used to read, this one does not have a single protagonist with lucky encounters and cheat-like advantages. Instead, it takes the whole Li clan as its backdrop to show the cruelty of the cultivation world.
The novel mainly tells how Lu Jiangxian, a modern office drone, dies suddenly, and his remnant soul accidentally attaches itself to a mirror covered in cracks. Lu Jiangxian becomes the artifact spirit of this mirror, and together they fall into a river in a world of immortal cultivation. While slumbering in the river, he unexpectedly discovers that he can cultivate by absorbing and exhaling moonlight. Later he is found by a member of the Li family and taken home.
As the artifact spirit, Lu Jiangxian begins to assist the Li family, helping them set out on the path of cultivating immortality, providing them with cultivation formulas, and becoming the Li family's treasure. But possessing the mirror does not make the Li family's road to immortality smooth. All along the way people sacrifice themselves, trading their own flesh and blood for room for the clan to survive.
Lu Jiangxian witnesses all of this, moving from passive observer to active protector. The power of the Mysterious Mirror rises and falls with the fortunes of the Li family, and his lost memories gradually revive through his bond with them—it turns out he was once a great power who founded an immortal mansion and debated the Tao with a demon lord, and only took refuge in the Mysterious Mirror after failing in his quest for the Tao.
There are quite a few characters, the style is half classical and half vernacular, and the language is very distinctive.
2. The Comeback System Only Arrives at the Great Ascension Stage (Dacheng Qi Cai You Nixi Xitong; Author: Zuibai de Wuya)
For a while, anti-formula and anti-system stories were very popular, and this book is of that type.
After the modern transmigrator Jiang Li transmigrates to the Nine Provinces continent, unlike other transmigrating protagonists, he does not awaken any golden-finger system. With no other option, he devotes himself to cultivation. Over several hundred years, he goes from a marginalized outsider in his clan to the Human Emperor, cultivated to the Great Ascension stage at the very summit of this world. But he has long been stuck on the verge of ascension, because this world's passage to the Immortal Realm has been cut off.
Just when Jiang Li is utterly baffled, his system suddenly activates, and its first mission is for him to defeat his “cousin at the sixth level of Qi Refining.” Jiang Li: ??? That's some serious system lag. He hides his identity and slips back into his clan, only to find clan members doing evil in his name. He discovers that the system's missions are actually helping the male lead find and fix what has gone wrong.
Although it is male-oriented fiction from Qidian, the protagonist has no real romance line, which makes it quite friendly to female readers too, since many women dislike harem novels. Overall, the style is cheerful, the protagonist is very funny, and the plot is exciting. I recommend giving it a read.
3. My Senior Brother Is Too Steady (Author: Yangui Zhengzhuan)
I came across the anime first and then went to read the novel. I just searched and it seems a live-action drama is on the way too. It feels like so many films and TV shows these days are adapted from novels and anime.
This one is a harem novel—I'm putting that up front so those who don't like the genre can steer clear.
The story begins in the primordial age of high antiquity. The protagonist Li Changshou is reborn, memories intact, as a disciple of an immortal sect. He knows that a great calamity is about to descend and that the slightest slip could destroy both his body and his path. So, to save his life, he carries the word “steady” to the extreme.
He thinks everything through before acting and even uses divination in advance, terrified of getting entangled in cause and effect. To avoid karmic ties, he hides his trump cards and practices escape arts, even burning every strand of cut hair so as not to give himself away. Before facing a tribulation he picks the site three months in advance, sets up multiple layers of great arrays, and even disguises himself as a mortal tomb-keeper to throw others off; he handles all his troubles through paper-Taoist puppets, always keeping a low profile and staying hidden himself.
When he first joins the immortal sect, he “humors” his muddle-headed master Qi Yuan while secretly setting up defensive arrays for him and preparing treasures for his tribulation. After taking in his junior sister Lan Ling'e, he makes her copy the Classic of Steadiness as a punishment to set the rules, while quietly paving the way for her and protecting her through her tribulation; their interactions are full of charming contrasts. His wine-loving uncle-master Jiu Jiu is also won over with “Immortal's Intoxication” and becomes a “handy helper” for building arrays. Daily life on Little Qiong Peak is full of warmth.
The male lead's steady character lays the foundation for goofy comedy, so overall it is a rather fun read.
4. The Sword Unsheathed (Jian Chu Qiao; Author: Chen Xiaozhi)
This is a novel in which past and present lives interweave.
In her past life the heroine was a prodigy of the way of the sword, but her background was tragic: as a child she was blinded by someone's malice. Fortunately her fourth uncle appeared to help her and brought her into the school of the strongest Sword Venerable of the age. There she met her extraordinarily gifted senior brother.
When she was young, the heroine thought she would marry her senior brother. But the day after the wedding, he told her it had only been a welcome banquet the school had arranged because she seemed timid on joining.
But times changed. One day their master fell, the senior brother vanished, and on all of Mount Qingxing only the heroine was left, leading the disciples to guard the school. When the immortal sects came to attack, she activated the mountain-protecting great array by her strength alone, but collapsed exhausted in a pool of blood. From beginning to end, she never saw her senior brother return.
Twenty years later she is reborn as the good-for-nothing third young lady of the Jiang family of an immortal sect, outwardly forbearing but secretly sharp. During a trial she stumbles on a shard of “Suhuang,” the baleful mirror that brought about the destruction of Mount Qingxing. Seizing the opportunity, she forms an alliance with the male lead, and together they collect the shards of Suhuang through investigations and trials while fighting various factions. In the process she uncovers the vast conspiracy behind the destruction of her school.
5. Contending for the Great Way (Dadao Zhengfeng; Author: Wudaozhe)
A male-oriented immortal cultivation novel with no romantic pairing.
The male lead, struggling to survive at the end of the world, has his soul transmigrate into a world of immortal cultivation, where he becomes Zhang Yan, a registered disciple of the lower academy of the Mingcang Sect who has the same name as he does. His past life struggling to survive in the apocalypse leaves him with a burning desire for the way of longevity.
He accidentally obtains a “Broken Jade” that lets him cultivate ten days inside the jade for every day that passes outside. With his gift for the eroded script and the golden finger of the “Broken Jade,” Zhang Yan makes his name at the Xuanwen Assembly and becomes an inner-gate disciple. By deciphering the eroded script and taking part in sect affairs, he accumulates resources and gradually rises to become a true-transmission disciple.
After becoming one of the Ten Great Disciples, Zhang Yan uses the Mingcang Sect's power to lay his plans, taking part in struggles between sects and against outside enemies, such as the contests among the orthodox clans and conflicts with the demonic sects. With his wits and strength he breaks through the limits of rank and becomes a core figure of the sect.
Zhang Yan becomes involved in the Mingcang Sect's grand plan for the whole sect to ascend, turning from a pawn into the one in control. He leads the sect beyond the bounds of the Nine Provinces into the Mountain-and-Sea Realm, fights forces from beyond the heavens, and finally, by his own strength, defeats the Spirit of Creation, opening a new heaven for all living beings.
The core of the whole novel, like its title, embodies one word: contend. Contend for opportunities, contend for treasures, contend over who can survive and live the longest.