Sword Ancestor

Sword Ancestor is a classical xianxia web novel by Shi Bu Xing, serialized on Qidian from August 20, 2011, and completed on April 15, 2012, with about 433 chapters and 1,207,200 characters. The story is set in a xianxia world where the way of the sword has declined: the last Dao Ancestor, the Jade Emperor, died on the road to heaven, and the sword-cultivation lineage fell with him. The world is divided into five lands: the Eastern Shenzhou, the Western Buddhist Land, the Southern Wilds of demons, the Northern Sea of demons, and the Central Ghost Capital (the realm of ghosts). Qi Tian, a modern young man and a Wudang disciple devoted to the sword, is visiting Qintong Town when an earthquake strikes; in an underground sword tomb he sees one hundred and eight ancient swords, is pierced through the chest by ten thousand rays of sword light, and wakes reborn in the ancient past at the foot of the Qingyun Sect in Eastern Shenzhou. Qi Tian then joins the Sword Peak of the Qingyun Sect and cultivates from the Dao Foundation, Divine Consciousness, Cloud-Soaring, and Fetal Delivery stages, through tribulation lightning that tempers his body, breaking through the sword-immortal realms of Sword Fetus and Sword Soul; in an age when the way of the sword is declining, he contends with the favored talents of all sides with the long sword in his hand, passing through trials in the Demon Prison, the Pangu Clan, and the Ascending Dragon Ranking, and finally revives the way of the sword through the source of the yin-yang great Dao. The work sets up its own systems, including the nine realms of immortal cultivation (Dao Foundation, Divine Consciousness, Cloud-Soaring, Fetal Delivery, Bone Exchange, Dragon Gate, True Man, Dao Venerable, Dao Ancestor) and the five realms of the sword immortal (Sword Fetus, Sword Soul, Sword Spirit, Sword Infant, Sword Heart); it is one of the most representative long works on sword cultivation from Shi Bu Xing's early rise to fame.