A Voyage Through the World of Spiritual Roots

On the Nine Provinces Continent, where spiritual roots determine everything and bloodlines divide people by status, the fishing village boy Lin Du is seen by everyone as a “rootless child.” When the Spirit-Testing Mirror, which symbolizes a bond with the Immortal Dao, fails to react to him for the third time, he gives up and returns to the rocky shore, where he finds a mysterious black stone fallen from a mirage. He swallows the stone, and the seed takes root, revealing the first signs of shadow escape. Thinking it a heaven-sent opportunity, he is instead branded an “unorthodox heretic” by Zhao Qian, an agent of the Tianyan Sect, and hunted for a thousand miles. He leaps from a sheer cliff into the sea, and as he lies on the brink of death, he is rescued by the Breaking Waves, a ship sailing the Spirit Sea. He enters a completely different world: the Natural Alliance, whose people make their bodies into boats and spiritual seeds into sails. Here, spiritual roots are no longer the only path to greatness. Those who swallow “heaven-given spiritual seeds” gain supernatural abilities capable of shaking the rules themselves. The “Shadow Escape Spiritual Seed” within Lin Du lets him become one with the shadows, but it also seals the savage remnant soul of the ancient beast Nine-Tailed Zheng. With the Tianyan Sect, which holds spiritual roots above all else, closing in on one side, and a vicious beast within him liable to turn on him at any moment on the other, he must find his own course across this boundless Spirit Sea. The Breaking Waves carries him toward unknown waters filled with strange islands and secret treasures, as well as sea monsters and schemes. He meets Su Mo, a bold companion who can transform into rubber, and the mysterious Bai Tong, who bears the “Insight Spiritual Seed.” He also gradually uncovers the ancient secrets behind the spiritual seeds: an unfinished war against the “Demons from Beyond the Domain,” in which the spiritual seeds are the final spark of hope for mortals fighting against fate. From a fishing village boy forced to flee to a wavebreaker steering his own destiny, every time Lin Du escapes into the shadows, he tears apart the darkness of the old order. As the barriers of spiritual roots and the light of spiritual seeds clash fiercely across the vast Spirit Sea,