Master of the Great Dao

Master of the Great Dao is a long xianxia cultivation web novel by the online author Drifting Cloud. The protagonist, Zhao Shuo, was originally a staff member at the Zijinshan Observatory of the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a master's student in astronomy. He accidentally transmigrates into an otherworldly cultivation world teeming with powerful experts and heroes, and relies on treasures he carries with him—such as the Yin-Yang Rotating Great Millstone—to survive and rise in a perilous cultivation realm. The work revolves around contests for opportunities such as innate secret realms, ancient cave heavens, and supreme dao artifacts, building a multilayered worldview in which the Desolate Ancient and Primordial eras intertwine. Its cultivation system spans more than twenty tiers of realms, from the Opening Aperture stage up to "Master of the Great Dao," and incorporates such concepts as dharma-form avatars and severing the three corpses to prove the dao. Zhao Shuo raises his cultivation through the Northern Darkness Heaven-Devouring Earth-Eclipsing secret art and forms emotional bonds with characters such as Su Qingchan and Bai Jianjia, stirring up storms wherever he goes and ultimately striving for ever-higher dao realms. With a great many chapters and an immense length, the book follows the typical transmigration cultivation power-fantasy route, with a plot centered on secret-realm exploration, contests over treasures, and conflicts among sects and factions; its brisk pacing suits readers who prefer long cultivation leveling stories. This is a web-serialized work, and no formally published Chinese print edition has yet been found; most circulating versions are proofread electronic texts.