Xuanwu Heavenly Craft

Xuanwu Heavenly Craft is an early fantasy novel by Bu Feiyan, published by New World Press in 2007. The story is set in a secondary world sustained jointly by gods and humans: in remote antiquity, the Xuanwu imperial house made a covenant with the Earth Mother Goddess—she would lend humans her magic, and in return the eldest son of every generation of the imperial line must, upon coming of age, undergo a rite of union with the Earth Mother Goddess, with the child born of her succeeding to the throne. Under the gods' protection, the Xuanwu Empire of Xuanwu flourished in magic, and its magical civilization reached extraordinary heights. Across the water, the magic-immune city of Heavenly Craft, though its land was barren, developed its own singular "heavenly craft arts"; the two states contended through magic on one side and ingenious mechanisms on the other, in endless war. The surface calm is abruptly broken by the disappearance of the crown prince of Dragon City in the Xuanwu Empire. The prince's evasion of the covenant casts a shadow over both the dynastic succession and the empire's magical future, and humankind seems about to fall back into a primeval age. To find the prince and save the empire, Xuanwu's elite set out one after another, clashing once more with their old enemy, Heavenly Craft. The truth turns over layer by layer as the pursuit unfolds: the one who has been biding his time close at hand turns out to be the prince himself, and Heavenly Craft, seemingly an implacable foe, has an inextricable bond with the Xuanwu clan. In the end, the selfish and cruel Earth Mother Goddess, jealous and resentful, is defeated by humans fighting together; humankind, freed from the gods' manipulation, begins truly to hold its own fate.