Martial Emperor and Alchemy God

Martial Emperor and Alchemy God is an Eastern fantasy novel by the web author Yese Fangzhe. It began serialization on Qidian in 2015 and was completed in early 2016, running about 1.976 million Chinese characters across more than nine hundred chapters. The story opens in Jingyun City on the Eternal Continent: fifteen-year-old Wei Changfeng, having failed in alchemy and died in the alchemy chamber, has his body seized by an undying true soul a thousand years old—the soul of Wei Changfeng, grandmaster of alchemy from a previous life. In that life his alchemy was unsurpassed on the continent, and he could recite from memory the signature arts of every sect, yet a severed martial vein kept him confined to alchemy all his days. While refining the Nine Tribulations Life-and-Death Pill, his chamber was breached by a powerful enemy, and he could only detonate his cauldron to perish together with his foe, a trace of his true soul merging into the earth-fire veins and surviving. Reborn, he finds that this same-named boy's body has fully open martial veins, making martial cultivation twice as effective, and he vows to make good on the regrets of his past life, reclaim the seat of Alchemy God, and attain the rank of Martial Emperor. The book's throughline is "alchemy as the foundation of martial arts, martial arts as the aid to alchemy." Starting from the position of a concubine's son in a small city, the protagonist draws on memories of his past life to retrain in alchemical methods such as the Taixu Nine Heavens True Yang Heart Formula and arts such as the Qianyang True Flame. From alchemy contests and prize duels, punishing a troublesome servant, and passing the entry-level alchemist examination, to trials and conflicts within and beyond the sect, he passes through landmarks such as the White Deer Spirit Cavern, the Yan Emperor's Tomb, Cloudsea Mountain, and the Five Peaks Sect, breaking through one after another the realms of body refining, qi condensation, innateness, spirit transformation, and void stepping. The setting is fairly complete: martial arts are divided into the five realms of body refining, qi condensation, innateness, spirit transformation, and void stepping, each with nine heavens; alchemy into the five tiers of alchemy apprentice, alchemist, grand alchemist, master, and grandmaster; and cultivation arts into the six grades of Heaven, Earth, Mystic, Yellow, Spirit, and Feather, each with three ranks. At the end, Wei Changfeng travels east to Linzi with his beloved, strikes down a powerful enemy with thunder, and points his sword toward wider horizons, closing the whole work with the line "The road ahead is long; I walk it with my sword."