Dream King

Dream King is the second full-length novel by the web novelist Cangtian Baihe. Serialization began on Qidian Chinese Network on August 18, 2007, and concluded on May 23, 2008. The book runs to roughly 1.8961 million characters across more than 600 chapters in twenty-three volumes, with volume titles stretching from "Parting in the Dust" and "The White-Robed Fairy" through "The Tribulation of the Five Elements," "The Volume of Divine Artifacts," and "Spirit of the Middle Earth" to "Master of the Artifact Way," "God of a Hundred Treasures," "Ancestor of the Divine Wood," and "First Battle Against the Demons," before finally reaching the immortal and divine realms. The story opens in the modern city: young Xiao Wenbing works at Lucky Express Delivery, a dependable and level-headed employee who possesses a rare ability called "Making Something from Nothing"—once he has scanned an object, he can conjure a duplicate out of thin air. One day, entrusted by the mysterious cultivator Lu Jun with delivering a sealed safe and a dark yellow talisman to Xiaoputuo on Dongqian Lake, he is drawn against his will into the world of cultivation hidden beneath the city and joins the Secret Talisman Sect, where the sect leader, the idle Daoist Xianyun, teaches him the Natal Golden Talisman. From there he rises from urban superhuman to Daoist initiate, condenses an inner core, forges a flying sword, and repeatedly resolves crises with his golden talisman and his ability under the protection of fellow disciples and elders, getting caught up in the Tribulation of the Five Elements, the Ten Thousand Treasures Assembly, and battles over divine artifacts, while his combination of superpower and cultivation resources sets him on a path unlike that of traditional cultivators. The work blends classical cultivation settings with modern urban life, technological creations, and cosmic planes, and is classified as "Xianxia·Fantasy Cultivation"; its real pleasure lies not in combat but in "making"—artifacts, formations, magical treasures, and spirit plants can all be assembled by hand. The book also incorporates real places familiar to the author, such as Dongqian Lake in Ningbo, details readers relish.