The Dao Reveals the Sacred

The Founder is alive, and so is the guiding beacon. When he cultivates, the system thrives; when he declines, his disciples wither; when he dies, the earth’s magnetic field releases its energy, and demons surge from the ruins. In this world, human-created cultivation systems account for seventy percent, while systems rooted in heaven and nature account for thirty. Seventy percent of people are bound to the Founder: they advance quickly, but are fragile. The other thirty percent follow the way of heaven and earth: they advance slowly, but steadily. The natural system has a genius path, one in ten thousand, and an ordinary path, built up day by day. But both require foundational elixirs, which are monopolized by the Daoist sects, the imperial court, and the great Founders. Most people cannot even reach the threshold. Those who cannot cultivate take up martial arts. Martial artists cannot defeat great demons, but they can fight lesser ones, save the common people, and hold out for cultivators to arrive. They are the stabilizers of this world, and the last line of defense for ordinary people. The protagonist is a disciple at a certain Daoist temple. The Founder begins to decline, and his senior brothers and sisters lose their magic one by one. Some go mad, some flee, and some betray them. Demons probe the temple from outside, while the guiding beacon wavers precariously in the Founder’s hands. He can either take up the beacon and stake his life on it; switch to the way of heaven and earth, despite his damaged foundations; or create a system of his own, taking a piece of everyone’s pie. What the Founder left behind was not a legacy, but demons. And on the ruins, he must make a choice: let the Dao break apart, or make it manifest its divine power.