Legend of the Assassin Mage

Legend of the Assassin Mage is a fantasy novel set in an alternate continent by the web novelist Zhuangpo Nanqiang. It was serialized on Qidian Chinese Network and is complete, running to roughly two million characters. The protagonist is a modern assassin of extraordinary skill and extraordinarily bad luck: while eating grilled meat by the roadside, he is pierced through the throat by a skewer rod used for threading meat, then struck by a toppled pushcart, and dies in this bizarre fashion. After death his soul is summoned by an evil archmage from another world and attached to a youth being used as an experimental subject, thereby breaking the curse of misfortune that had clung to him. Relying on his outstanding skills and years of accumulated experience and judgment, he seizes the opportunity to kill the evil mage who summoned him, stands on the corpse's back to gain a foothold in the strange world, and then uses clever words and scheming to obtain the protection of the powerful, becoming the disciple of a magister and a grand swordsman. He is gradually drawn into the rebellions and conflicts of the kingdom where he resides, improving his strength while maneuvering among various factions in a world of swords and magic. The book unfolds its otherworld adventure from the perspective of a time traveler; the prose is concise and the pace brisk, focusing on how the protagonist wins while at a disadvantage in strength by relying on strategy and experience. Note: This is a web-serialized work with no verified print publication information; the data here is based on the online serial version.