The First Magician

The First Magician is a Western fantasy novel by the web author Ye Shuihan, serialized from September 2009 on platforms including Xiaoxiang Academy and Qidian, and completed in July 2010. It totals 456 chapters, roughly 1.67 million characters. The story takes place in the author's invented otherworld, a continent where magic and the sword coexist and which has its own social rules and currency system. The protagonist, Molanxiu, comes from the remote village of Algu. Starting as an ordinary youth, he steps onto the path of magic through talent and hard training, entering first one and then another of the kingdom's four great magic academies and rising to prominence amid academy rivalries and the power games of the kingdom. Along the way he trains in the Magic Beast Mountains, undergoes trials on Dragon Island, and explores secret realms such as the Tomb of the Great Emperor. As his power grows, the stage expands from the mortal kingdom to the divine realm, ending in the war of the gods and the chief gods, where the protagonist becomes the chief god of a new generation. The work constructs a coherent hierarchy of magician cultivation, stringing classic fantasy elements such as magic, battle aura, academies, magic beasts, and deities into a complete upward arc of growth. It is one of the representative otherworld leveling fantasies of around 2010; the author also admits in his in-text Q&A that the early writing is rough and that some logic is flawed.