Cultivating the Divine

Xiu Shen is a long classical xianxia web novel by Fengqi Xianyun, serialized on Qidian from November 12, 2010, and completed in May 2016. It runs to roughly 2.87 million Chinese characters across more than seven hundred chapters. The protagonist, Chu Yi, was originally an architect on Earth and secretly a tomb raider. Drawn by an ancestral stone bead—said to have come from Bai Qi’s tomb—he is transported across the distant stars and lands on Xuanyuan Star, a planet ruled by cultivators. There are nine great nations and, above them, nine great sects; for ordinary mortals, the only way to change their fate is to set foot on the path of cultivation. With no power or connections, Chu Yi becomes the lowest-ranked miner in the spirit-stone mines of the Supreme Yuanyang Sect, earning mine currency through excavation and slowly accumulating resources. His architectural and prospecting skills make his work in the mines far more efficient, and within half a year he saves several thousand units of mine currency. Guided by the old shopkeeper, he purchases the fire-attribute technique San Yuan Lie Huo Jue and painfully enters the Xiantian realm. After that, he joins the sect, ventures into the savage outer domains, and makes a name for himself in grand competitions. Along the way he refines treasures, concocts pills, battles with magic, seizes treasures, and becomes entangled in sect conflicts, gradually coming into contact with the unique methods of the path of “cultivating the divine.” Unlike mainstream Chinese cultivation fiction, the novel proclaims the banner of “cultivating ancient gods rather than true immortals”; its protagonist follows the ancient-god path of proving the Dao through force and tempering his own body. Against a backdrop interwoven with interstellar and primordial elements, he rises step by step from a petty miner in a mine shaft to the pinnacle of heaven and earth.