Sword Supreme Under Heaven

Sword Supreme Under Heaven is an otherworld fantasy novel by the Zhejiang Taizhou web novelist Shikoujin. Serialized on Qidian.com from 2014 and completed on August 31, 2015, it runs to 1,519 chapters. Opening with the declaration "One lifetime, one sword, roaming the world with blade in hand," it follows the martial growth of Fang Tiannan, a youth of mediocre talent. Three years before the story opens, Fang Tiannan arrives at Qingyun Town and joins the Qingyun Sect, starting as an outer disciple. By sect rules, only those who reach the Huajin realm before turning twenty can become outer disciples; he must earn enough contribution points and complete missions merely to hold his ground. To that end he painstakingly accumulates contribution points, slowly building his stock through trades in pills, ores, and monster materials, and gradually awakens a special perception through sect trials, secret-realm expeditions, and life-and-death tests in the Star Refining Arena, step by step uncovering the mysteries of his own dantian and an ancient inheritance. As his cultivation rises, he masters sword techniques and the essence of dharma forms, his footprints reaching training grounds such as Icefire Island and the Holy Land of the Demon Race, maneuvering among sect rivalries, monster crises, and clashes with the Star Hall's forces as he breaks through to the Tianyuan realm; later, through alchemy, puppet arts, and training in the Void Secret Realm, he touches the peak of the Sage Emperor realm. The book expands from a corner of Qingyun Town to a vast otherworld spanning multiple domains, with a cultivation system centered on sword techniques and the Four Symbols Art and settings such as passage through spatial channels. It is a typical long-form "ordinary man" power-fantasy of grinding monsters and leveling up, and of a sword cultivator's rise.