In the thirteenth year of the Republic, spiritual qi revival swept across the land. Demons and ghosts ran rampant, and supernaturals awakened.
Some were born with skin as hard as iron, while others could seize souls from afar. Westerners used machinery to alter supernaturals, warlords kept troops of sorcerers, and cursed magic, gu techniques, vampires, shikigami, immortal clans, and zombies returned to the human world.
Shen Xuanxiao spent twelve years cultivating in seclusion on Mount Mao, yet his narrow meridians kept him at only the second level of Qi Refining, even at nineteen.
Then his master mysteriously vanished, leaving him with half of a bloodstained bronze token. After he descended the mountain and killed an evil spirit for the first time, a [Heavenly Dao Merit Panel] appeared before his eyes.
Save a life, and gain merit.
Slay a demon, and gain merit.
Break an evil formation, deliver a departed soul, or subdue mountains and rivers: all earn merit!
Talismans could be upgraded, incomplete Daoist arts deduced, and lost thunder techniques brought back into the world.
And so, beginning in a town plagued by zombies, Shen Xuanxiao journeyed through cities besieged by Corpse Kings, blood pools in the Miao borderlands, nights of a hundred ghosts, the Five Immortals of the Northeast, the Nine Chrysanthemum Evil Formation, the Heavenly Demon of Kunlun...
From a young Daoist of Mount Mao, to a Pure Yang Celestial Master, and finally to a saint made flesh.
Many years later, someone asked why he still descended the mountain.
Shen Xuanxiao slung his old cloth pack over his shoulder and said only:
"There are still demons and ghosts in this world."
"Someone has to go see for themselves."
The AI article was withdrawn immediately
Very strong AI flavor