Mage Joan

Mage Joan is a long-form web novel by Cheng Jianxin, serialized on Qidian from February 23, 2019 to its conclusion in August 2024, totaling roughly 6.44 million words across more than 3,000 chapters. The story is set in the fictional world of Vares, a time analogous to the 1620s: arcane steam engines have set an industrial revolution in motion, Enlightenment thought is eroding the foundations of feudal monarchy, the empires of the Old Continent are in decline, and colonists in the New World harbor grand ambitions. The old order built over sixteen centuries on "sword and sorcery" is being replaced by an entirely new order. The protagonist, Joan Vida, is an orphan from the frontier colonial town of Delin, raised by his grandfather. Largely self-taught in letters through scattered books from the church and the general store, he opens the door to magic with a fragmentary elven spell scroll and a self-learned cantrip, Mage Hand, and gains admission to Leighton Academy as a mage apprentice. Thereafter he studies spell theory, alchemy, and enchanting at the academy while being drawn into colonial conflicts, cult conspiracies, and planar disputes, growing step by step from a country boy into a true spellcaster. Framed by the line "All men are born free, but spellcasters are freer," the work is both a tale of magic and adventure and the coming-of-age story of a youth shaping himself amid the currents of his age. The setting blends Pathfinder and Dungeons & Dragons 5E rules with the author's original "Vares Skyscape" house rules.