A Mortal's Path to Breaking Through the Heavens

I was an ordinary mortal, with no spiritual roots, no connections, and no legacy. In a world teeming with prodigies, where immortals and mortals followed separate paths, I believed in just one thing: the road is made by those who walk it. Lin Yuan, a boy with a four-element pseudo-spiritual root from a collateral branch of the Lin family in Qingshi Town, was branded a “good-for-nothing.” But under the guidance of Old Huang, a mortal blacksmith, he used mortal ingenuity to step onto the path of immortality. To protect his family, he patiently laid his plans, killing a Zhao family guardian at the fifth level of Qi Refining despite his own third-level cultivation. In a secret realm, he joined forces with Su Qing, the Holy Maiden of the Heavenly Sword Sect, to outwit their rivals and seize Mystic Yellow Grass for a Foundation Establishment Pill. During his Foundation Establishment tribulation, sheer resolve let him break through his inner demons, form a Nine-Turn Golden Core, and shake the sect. From cutthroat dealings in the markets of rogue cultivators to dazzling the crowd at the Heavenly Sword Sect’s alchemy tournament; from setting formations to ambush and kill Shadow Hall elders in the war between righteous and demonic factions, to breaking out of prison in the spirit realm to save his mentor… he advances one careful step at a time, outwits his rivals, and endures his way through desperate straits. The Shadow Hall’s schemes, his rival with an innate sword physique, and the pursuit of an Immortal Realm Dao Ancestor all become stepping stones beneath his feet. Without a heaven-defying bloodline, he tempers his body with pills. Without an ancient legacy, he creates his own formations to slay his enemies. Without benefactors to help him, he turns his foes into resources. This is the story of an ordinary mortal defying fate and changing his destiny. He rises from the mortal world to reach the pinnacle of the Dao: my fate is mine to command, not Heaven’s!