Totem

Totem is a fantasy novel set on another continent by the web novelist Youzha Baozi, completed on Qidian on August 8, 2010, at about 828,000 characters and 275 chapters. The story is set in a world called the Continent of Origin, where people believe power comes from all things in nature—flame, rock, wolves, the twelve-winged golden-eyed dragon king, even humanity itself; any natural phenomenon can be communed with and summoned as one's "faith totem." The power system, called the Path of Totems, is divided into three tiers, nine grades, and eighty-one levels: the first tier is Totem Warrior, the second Totem Master, the third Totem King, and each tier is divided into lower, middle, and upper grades, each grade into nine levels. The protagonist, Jiang Nan, is an anatomy professor on Earth who is transported to this world with his modern anatomical knowledge and a bit of bad luck, taking over the body of Roddy, a pig-keeping slave on Viscount Wester's farm. Cared for by his disabled aunt Elisa, he begins to unravel the mysteries of totems with a meteorite staff that conceals anatomical tools, applying an "anatomical" approach to bloodlines and totems, mastering seven levels of blade craft, and gradually acquiring special totem powers such as the Golden Ghost Butterfly and the Phoenix. He goes on to found the Ghost Butterfly Knights, whose name strikes fear across the continent; probe the secrets of the Undead King Domiel; travel to the City of the Sun for a decisive showdown with Sauron; and in the course of the conflict uncover the connections among his own bloodline, the Golden Ghost Butterfly, and Bruni, rising from the lowest slave to the pinnacle of power. The book's appeal lies in "using scientific thinking to crack the rules of another world," blending biological anatomy with Eastern fantasy, and its ending touches on the truth of the world's origin.