Shuchong Kenshu
For those who love reading monumental cultivation fantasy epics, today's roundup is a reading list for you: eight excellent epic-length cultivation fantasy novels. Only at great length can a worldview be explored thoroughly, a plot rise and fall dramatically, and characters be drawn in full—and only then is following along truly satisfying! Readers in a book drought can bookmark this now and work through them at leisure!
1. The Immortal Clan of the Mysterious Mirror (Xuanjian Xianzu), by Ji Yueren (4.94 Million Characters So Far / Ongoing)
A heavyweight work of ensemble cultivation fiction.
At its core it follows the survival and rise of ten generations of the Li clan.
The first clan head, Li Xuanqing, leads his four sons to gain a foothold in a wild world of cultivating immortality. To seize territory rich in spiritual qi, the eldest son dies on the battlefield, the second son is hunted for protecting the clan's records, the third son makes a pact with the demon race, trading his life for another's, and the fourth son stays behind to hold the home front. The tragic heroism of the first generation lays the clan's foundation. In the second generation, Li Yan takes over as clan head. Facing oppression by the sects and a shortage of resources, he leads the clan in reclaiming spirit fields and refining low-grade magic artifacts to trade for supplies, while hiding the family secret: the bronze mirror, their heirloom, houses the artifact spirit Lu Jiangxian, who can guide descendants in their cultivation.
In the generations that follow, some of the Li descendants devote themselves to cultivation and to breaking through realms, some excel at trade and accumulate wealth for the clan, and some specialize in formations to guard their territory. Every generation has its own mission and predicament, and family love, friendship, and devotion to home and country are woven together. The worldview is vast yet logically consistent, and the great length lets the plot build layer upon layer—the more you read, the more hooked you get.
2. A Chess Game Beyond Time (Lanke Qiyuan), by Zhen Feishi (3,303,700 Characters / Completed, Including Side Stories)
An anti-formula, feel-good xianxia novel.
After transmigrating, the protagonist Ji Yuan becomes a blind beggar, and the moment he arrives he runs into a tiger demon out hunting for food. Without a shred of cultivation, he can only brazen it out by pretending to be a master beyond the world, stalling for time by reading faces and uttering a few ambiguous words—and unexpectedly triggers his golden finger, the “Chessboard of Heaven and Earth” he carries with him.
This chessboard can calculate good and ill fortune and see through illusions, and Ji Yuan relies on it to escape danger again and again. Passing through a mountain village, he uses it to work out that the villagers have been bewitched by a mountain spirit, and pretends to perform a ritual to lure the spirit out; when he runs into cultivators fighting, he avoids the fray by the route the chessboard calculates, picking up a few dropped magic artifacts along the way. As he uses it more, he gradually comes to perceive the laws of heaven and earth through the chessboard and slowly masters extraordinary power. Yet rather than getting hooked on fighting monsters and leveling up, he prefers to wander far and wide, helping ordinary people with their troubles. From “a pretend master” at the start, he gradually becomes a genuine master beyond the world—free, easygoing, and sincere with others. The book has both the gratification of playing the pig to eat the tiger and the immortal air of free-spirited chivalry; its pacing balances tension and ease, making it a light and relaxing read.
3. The Gods and Buddhas Turned Out to Be Me (Shenfo Jing Shi Wo Ziji), by Dugu Huan (2.11 Million Characters / Completed)
A unique work combining mythology and cultivation.
The protagonist Zhang Jiuyang transmigrates to a world full of the strange and the mythical. The moment he wakes, he encounters a hanged ghost causing mischief. At the critical moment, the phantom image of Zhong Kui suddenly appears in his mind; instinctively imitating the phantom's movements, he actually drives the hanged ghost away. Only later does he discover that his golden finger is “beholding the gods of all the heavens”: whenever he encounters a phantom image of a god, or sees a god's likeness in ancient books or murals, he can observe their divine powers and make them his own. He learns demon-subduing arts from Zhong Kui's phantom, resists evil with the powers of Marshal Wang Lingguan, and uses the magic of Ji Gong to resolve calamities among the people.
Along the way, he gains experience subduing demons and vanquishing evil while exploring the secrets of this world: why do the phantom images of gods keep appearing? What is the ultimate truth of this world? The book is rich in mythological elements; each god's abilities and stories are well developed, the battle scenes are grand, and the sense of immersion is powerful.
4. The Book of the Strange (Zhiguai Shu), by Jinse Molihua (2.07 Million Characters / Completed)
A superb cultivation adventure of “learning as you go.”
After transmigrating to another world, the protagonist loses his parents early and has to live with his mean-spirited uncle, scraping a living by chopping firewood and herding cattle every day. One day, while chopping wood on the mountain, he happens to pick up a battered “Book of Myriad Methods.” Opening it, he finds that the book automatically records every spell cast by practitioners around him and can even break down their cultivation methods for him to learn.
To escape his uncle's control and to grow stronger, he leaves his hometown with the Book of Myriad Methods on his back and begins a life of traveling the world. Passing through a small town, he records a Taoist priest's wind-riding art and uses it to escape pursuing beasts; exploring a secret realm, he records a cultivator's fire-quenching incantation and helps his companions defuse a flame trap. While gaining combat experience subduing demons and vanquishing evil, he collects all kinds of rare spells, growing from a naive youth into a cultivation powerhouse. The wondrous encounters and battles of wits on his travels are thrilling throughout; the plot is light and rousing, and the great length keeps the road of adventure full of freshness.
5. The True Lord of Manifest Spirits (Lingxian Zhenjun), by Yiyu Po Chunfeng (1.4 Million Characters / Completed)
A healing cultivation novel set in a chaotic world of demons.
The protagonist Chen Yuan transmigrates to a cultivation world overrun by demons and becomes a woodcarver in a humble little troupe, scraping by carving statues of gods. One day a fox demon wreaks havoc in a small town, and the cultivators the villagers have called in are helpless. Looking at the Earth God statue he has just carved, Chen Yuan silently wishes, “If only the statue could manifest its power,” and to his surprise the statue suddenly glows: the Earth God's consciousness has entered the wooden puppet, and it drives off the fox demon at once.
From then on he discovers his golden finger, “gods entering puppets”: any statue he carves can draw in the consciousness of a god from his past life and reproduce that god's mighty powers. He builds an ox cart and, carrying all kinds of puppet statues of gods, travels in every direction: in a village suffering severe drought he has a Dragon King puppet bring rain; in a town plagued by evil spirits he calls on a puppet of Lord Guan to vanquish demons.
Along the way he witnesses the joys and sorrows, partings and reunions of ordinary people in a chaotic world, always kindhearted but never a naive saint. Rousing battles interweave with delicate emotional portrayal, and the ensemble of a chaotic world blends perfectly with a healing story.
6. Commanding the Sha (Yu Sha), by Xunchun Xuzhou (3.31 Million Characters / Completed)
A fine work of classical xianxia with unconventional cultivation.
The protagonist starts as a mine slave of a small cultivation sect, mining ore charged with sha qi (malign energy). Long exposure to sha qi has made his meridians unusual, so that he cannot practice the orthodox mind methods the sect teaches, and he is mocked and bullied by the other disciples.
One day the mine collapses and he is trapped deep inside, where he unwittingly absorbs the dense sha qi of the ore—and discovers that he can control it. To survive, and to escape his status as a mine slave, he secretly studies the use of sha qi: blending it into his fists and feet, he develops a unique way of attacking; infusing it into weapons, he lets ordinary iron unleash tremendous power. He practices in secret, out of the sect's sight, and after escaping from the mine he evades the sect's pursuit while exploring the true meaning of sha-qi cultivation.
The novel leans toward classical xianxia; its pacing is a slow burn but its plot is solid, and its descriptions of sect struggles, secret-realm expeditions, and the use of sha qi are packed with detail. The great length makes both the protagonist's growth and the advancement of his techniques feel gradual and logically rigorous.
7. The Lord Who Devours Immortals (Shi Xian Zhu), by Yingwu Yaoshe (2.98 Million Characters / Ongoing)
A superb classical xianxia work centered on “chivalry and loyalty.”
The protagonist is a wandering knight-errant who has spent years trying to break through to a higher realm, only to fail at the critical moment and see his cultivation plummet. Disheartened, he drifts from place to place—only to be picked out by an evil sect as a sacrifice to awaken an Immortal Lord.
On the way to the altar, he sees the evil sect harming innocent people to prepare its sacrifices, and the chivalry in his heart is rekindled. Abandoning any thought of merely clinging to life, he breaks free under cover of night and begins to contend with the evil sect. He has no elaborate golden finger; relying entirely on years of combat experience, sheer perseverance, and his gradually recovering fighting strength, and joining forces with other righteous people he meets along the way, he closes in step by step on the heart of the evil sect and exposes the shocking plot behind the Immortal Lord's descent—the Immortal Lord intends to absorb the life force of the world's people to increase his own power.
The book's style is simple and archaic and full of chivalric spirit; its grudges of the martial world and its battles between good and evil are portrayed in full, making it both rousing and tragic to read.
8. Ancestor of the Myriad Demons of Shushan (Shushan Wanyao zhi Zu), by Peng Guogong (2.6 Million Characters / Completed)
A feel-good comeback story of the demon race in the world of Shushan.
The protagonist transmigrates to the world of Shushan and becomes a weak demon dragon in the Dinghu branch. In this world where everyone wants the demon race dead, he has no innate aura of invincibility and is often suppressed and hunted by human cultivators.
To survive, he must be cautious and plan carefully: seizing spiritual treasures left behind while cultivators fight each other; joining with other oppressed small demons to take on powerful enemies; venturing deep into dangerous secret realms in search of rare heavenly and earthly treasures that can raise his strength. Starting as the lowliest of small demons, he builds up his strength step by step, wins over like-minded demon companions, and establishes his own power. In the process he must face not only the encirclement of human cultivators but also power struggles within the demon race, and every step is extraordinarily hard.
The book's scheming and stratagems are brilliant, the conflict between demons and humans is portrayed with depth, and the great length fills the demon race's rise with twists and gratifying moments—a thoroughly satisfying underdog comeback.