The Heavenly Path of Martial Arts

This is an Eastern fantasy web novel set on an alternate continent. The protagonist, Mo Ran, was a university student named Liu Ran on Earth in his previous life. He died pushing a child out of the path of an oncoming car, and his consciousness was carried away by a bolt of lightning wrapped in purple energy, reborn as an infant of the Mo family on the "Continent of Valor." In this life, too, he is not allowed to live in peace: his mother dies early of a strange illness, the family regards him as a "jinx," and before he is even two years old he is expelled from the Mo family and raised single-handedly by his adoptive grandfather, Old Fang. In a village at the foot of Xiaodang Mountain, Mo Ran gathers firewood on the mountain and delivers firewood for neighbors from the age of ten, while Old Fang tempers his physique through what amounts to near-beating, yet after years of hard training he still cannot touch the threshold of "inner qi." The Continent of Valor reveres martial strength; cultivation rises from Postnatal Warrior, Innate Warrior, Martial Guard and Martial Master all the way to Martial Venerable, Martial Madman, Martial Sage and Martial God, each level divided into nine grades, and those who fail to break through may even fall back a grade. By chance, Mo Ran obtains the ancient secret manual the Brahma Heaven Art, and an unexplained purple qi resides within his body; from then on he truly sets out on the path of cultivation. As he leaves Xiaodang Mountain, ventures into Ziyun City, joins mercenaries, refines pills and forges weapons, and contends with various factions, the old blood feud of his parents, the whereabouts of his beloved, and the true origin of the purple qi and the secret manual gradually surface. It turns out that everyone has been schemed into the game by that "Heaven," and the path he has walked from beginning to end is precisely a heaven-defying martial path that calculates "Heaven" into the equation. The book comprises 1,450 chapters and ends with "I Am the Heavenly Lord," the main thread concluding at the moment Mo Ran breaks through to the Heavenly Lord realm and breaks free of Heaven's control.