The Lord of Divine Elegance

The Lord of Divine Elegance is a myriad-worlds cultivation web novel by the Yuewen author Wenchao Gong. It began serialization on Qidian on October 15, 2020, and concluded in July 2021, with the main text ending at Chapter 971, totaling roughly 2.0388 million characters. It belongs to the "Game · Game Otherworld" category and has not been published in print in simplified Chinese. The protagonist Zhong Shenxiu's name means "born a show-off, brilliant all the way, showing off even in death." The story opens with him starting out from Tianxiu Manor on the Nine Dragons Continent, bearing a cheat nicknamed the "Xiu'er System" that lets him travel across myriad worlds, gain feedback from others' "shock," and convert it into resources for deducing techniques and strengthening himself. The main world is called Seven Luminaries Heaven, with an Eastern cultivation system progressing from Postnatal, Innate, Gangsha, Divine Power, Yuan Core, Primordial Spirit, Dharma Body, and Corpse-Release Immortal all the way to True God, yet the rules of the many worlds in this void have all been distorted by some indescribable force, and "cultivation" itself harbors hidden dangers. To find an unpolluted ancient path to longevity, Zhong Shenxiu struggles to survive in the main world's "Yanhan" Empire, clears his family's wrongful grievances, and bluffs his way into Mount Longhu to seek the Dao, while also traveling among various distinctive instance worlds—modern martial arts, Cthulhu-esque jianghu, horror worlds, steampunk, and more. As Eastern and Western civilizations clash and wars of faith erupt, he is passively drawn into a grand chessboard, impersonating Western deities, setting up rituals, and placing pieces in secret, ultimately transforming from a pawn into a chess player, pursuing the mystery of longevity and becoming lord of the myriad worlds.