Divine Martial Splendor

Divine Martial Splendor is an Eastern fantasy novel by the web author Xuanyu, serialized on Qidian from January 4, 2013, and completed three years later, totaling about 4.07 million Chinese characters. The protagonist, Shen Fei, is at first an insignificant nobody in an ordinary mortal world, running with local gangs and carrying the streetwise swagger and cunning of a young man from the alleys. By a stroke of luck, he obtains a mysterious detector left behind by a higher civilization. This device can not only identify friend and foe and probe others' intentions but also locate treasures containing primal-energy gems. With this nearly all-powerful tool, Shen Fei rapidly amasses enormous wealth, countless manuals and treasures, and his cultivation and influence climb steadily, completely changing the course of his life. Yet the detector brings more than gains. Because of this treasure, rival gangs covet him, and his sister is once kidnapped; family, friends, sect, power, and wealth successively slip away from his life. To stop bringing trouble to his loved ones, the youth leaves the gang and ventures alone into the Great Qin world and the world of cultivation, starting by taking over a sect, going on to build his own Martian civilization, and finally being drawn into a cross-star-domain war with the Yin Demon Legion. The work centers on the "primal-energy gem" cultivation system, linking gangland, sect cultivation, and interstellar war, and tells how the protagonist, from a naive youth wandering alone, through loss and rebirth, gradually grows into someone who can affect the fate of countless worlds. The book moves at a brisk pace with a clear progression line, another long, satisfying work with a distinct personal style from Xuanyu after Legend of a Soldier and Dream Space.