Nine Immortals Painting

The story follows Ling Xian, a branch-family member of the Ling clan who was orphaned in childhood and once served as an apprentice to Master Fang, an alchemist at the Qingcheng Fang family's elixir pavilion. He carries the ancient blood of Pangu Tianzun, yet the heavenly dao has placed a "Heavenly Prohibition" upon him: spiritual qi disperses the moment it enters his body, making cultivation impossible, and he is regarded as a cripple. On a visit to the Pavilion of Rare Treasures, an ancient painting shimmering with nine-colored divine radiance flies out on its own and draws him into the world within—the Nine Immortals Scroll, which houses the remnant souls of nine immortals. Ling Xian takes the alchemist immortal Lian Cangqiong as his master and receives divine fire, an alchemical heart, and the alchemical legacy, setting foot on the path of cultivation and advancing from scratch to the consummate Qi Refining stage in one year and one month.

After leaving the Nine Immortals Scroll, he is besieged by tens of thousands of demonic beasts at the secret realm's exit. From there he rises step by step, mastering alchemy, formations, artifact crafting, and talisman arts alike, awakening the heavenly eye "Punish the World," refining the ancient blood of Tianzun and nine great immortal bones, and cultivating an indestructible body. He ascends from the mortal realm to the immortal world, ultimately opening heaven and earth to become the Creator Heavenly Emperor, while the nine immortals are reborn. Built around the throughline of "legacy plus counterattack," the novel's world spans the nine great provinces of the cultivation world, the thirty-six overseas islands, and the six domains of eternal life, with cultivation realms ranging from Qi Refining all the way to the Dao Attainment realm, Immortal King, and Tianzun. With its vast map and satisfying power progression, it stands as one of the longer and more consistently well-regarded works in the xianxia power-fantasy genre.