Also known as "Protest: Even a cultivation-world extra has rights!"
"The Immortal Venerable Rules Without Lifting a Finger"
A traditional, long-form cultivation progression fantasy with a slow build, focused mainly on the protagonist's career.
Synopsis:
[Short Version]
Good news: I didn't die. I transmigrated, and even became a prince in a feudal dynasty.
Bad news: This is the cultivation world. The feudal dynasty can just disband. (Go on, disband already.)
[Serious Version]
How long does a mortal live?
Fifty? Sixty? Or perhaps seventy?
Zhao Jikai, who was born into the final years of a feudal dynasty, has an answer:
Not even forty!
[These are the worst of times.
The Dao has fallen into decline and chaos. The court is crumbling and weak. The feudal lords control their own territories and live in luxury, while powerful clans stand by and watch. The lofty immortal sects look on from across the river, as annual tributes pile up like mountains.
On top of that, powerful relatives meddle in government, eunuchs slaughter one another, and monsters roam unchecked. Everywhere you look, people are suffering!
Countless commoners have no food to eat or clothes to wear.
A minor clash between immortals can turn an entire county's population into bones!
The world knows immortals, but not its emperor!
The realm is now in turmoil, its great edifice on the verge of collapse!
[These are the best of times.
Spiritual energy suddenly surges forth. Confucianism, Buddhism, Daoism, and a hundred other schools contend. Immortal sects, long in hiding, spring up everywhere like mushrooms after rain. Even a Golden Core ancestor, who had long been on the verge of death, suddenly "ascends," breaking through the shackles of the Heavenly Dao!
A life that begins at dawn and ends at dusk is a thing of the past. Cultivating immortality and seeking eternal life is the great way!
Born into a short-lived imperial family and judged in childhood not to live past twenty, Zhao Jikai gives a cold laugh.
So what if fate has decided my lot?
Fate is the one thing he refuses to believe in!
[Giving-Up Version]
As the sixth prince of a feudal dynasty who is looked down upon, Zhao Jikai originally only wanted to stay out of trouble and live quietly, pursuing the path of cultivation to seek eternal life as the storm clouds gathered.
After all, as he saw it, as long as he could escape, there was no point in saving this tottering feudal dynasty. It was backward and feudal to its very roots, riddled with deep-seated problems. Why risk his life struggling in this swamp of a mess?
Could any dynasty last forever?
The world divides after a long period of unity. Why not surrender the throne early and seek immortality on the great path?
But a man's position determines his perspective.
This time, what he saw were not immortals splitting mountains and filling seas with a casual wave, as the storybooks claimed.
He saw mortal villages buried beneath the earth by battles between monsters.
He saw prosperous cities submerged by seawater displaced by land reclamation.
He saw countless ordinary people die in their sleep, unaware of what was happening!
After his iron cavalry had swept across the realm, Zhao Jikai only wanted to ask:
Why?!
Why are mortals born with lives so cheap that anyone can trample them?!
There is no reason for immortals to fight while mortals suffer!
[Wherever the sword points, there the Great Zhao emperor's decree shall reach!]
Cultivation stages: Qi Refining - Foundation Establishment - Golden Core - Nascent Soul - Deification - Body Integration - Void Refining - Tribulation Transcendence - Ascension
Theme: Equality for all, harmony and friendship
