Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

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“Even if this universe is truly nothing more than a brutal bloody shadowy forest, we Cultivators will burn all that we have just to give off a single weak flickering spark in the darkness!

“No matter how weak each spark is, how short-lived, how small… As long as the sparks flow unabated, then one day one of those sparks will light some tinder, and that tinder shall light some fallen branches, and those branches shall set ablaze each and every last tree of the forest!

“In the end, even the smallest sparks will eventually set the shadowy forest ablaze, and illuminate the whole world!”

In a world teeming with cultivators, Li Yao, who makes his living collecting scrap metal, encounters the soul of a titan powerhouse from forty thousand years in the past.

Associated Names
One entry per line
Cuarenta milenios de cultivación
FMC
FMOC
Forty Thousand Years Of Cultivation
Pertapaan 40 Milenium
Xiuzhen Si Wan Nian
Xiu Zhen Si Wan Nian
Xiu Zhen Siwan Nian
Xiū Zhēn Sì Wàn Nián
修真四万年
修真四萬年內
修真四萬年(《星域四萬年》)
星域四万年
星域四萬年
Related Series
N/A
Recommendations
Swallowed Star (7)
Star Rank Hunter (7)
Godly Model Creator (4)
Emperor of The Cosmos (3)
Galactic Dark Net (3)
Miracle Throne (2)
Recommendation Lists
  1. My Gem Collection
  2. Wow there's a manhua version (ML)
  3. Novels i Have Read
  4. Novels that I have read
  5. mix genre of mc

Latest Release

Date Group Release
06/25/10 Webnovel c14
06/25/10 Webnovel c13
06/25/10 Webnovel c12
06/25/10 Webnovel c11
06/25/10 Webnovel c10
06/25/10 Webnovel c9
06/25/10 Webnovel c8
06/25/10 Webnovel c7
06/25/10 Webnovel c6
06/25/10 Webnovel c5
06/25/10 Webnovel c4
06/25/10 Webnovel c3
11/06/19 Webnovel c2
10/04/16 Dreams of Jianghu c1
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s rated it
October 25, 2016
Status: c1209
Spoiler

Hello everyone, this is my first review because I don't normally bother writing them but I was pleasantly surprised when I saw Cultivation of 40, 000 years (as google translated) being translated so I had to write something.

This probably the most logically backed and imaginative sci-fi Xuanhuan. It even explains some of the doubts like how after meditating in a cave for 10 years will make you stronger even though we can't even stay still for some time without body aches let alone years.

This is recommended for those who like clear novels and not those fuzzy logic ones like drink potion and destroy the universe.

The author has also applied the logic of the critically acclaimed Chinese trilogy Remembrance of the Earths past, specifically the dark forest theory.

So I won't give any spoilers but tell you that it is action packed, science packed, adventure packed and a little bit of romance along with humor packed.

enjoy~~.

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mrttao
mrttao rated it
April 14, 2017
Status: --
This started out amazing. One of the better stories around.

But sadly it did not last. The MC has become utterly insufferable, he keeps on setting situations where people rightly do not have faith in him, and then he shatters their views and proves himself vastly superior and justified in his arrogance. The author seems quite clueless as to how silly and petty this is. As well as to the fact that the MC is often in the wrong even though the author insists he is in the right. This has... more>> become bad enough that I dropped it. <<less
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artfulFool
artfulFool rated it
January 14, 2018
Status: c1187
Brilliant novel. Absolutely brilliant.

The three volumes I have read so far can be described by their overarching goal (the following description adapted from the author's words himself - because I completely agree) :

  1. The first volume is a more standard progression, where Li Yao grows from junkyard orphan to a person who has made a name for himself based on his hard work and ability. He faces arrogant rich brats, other similarly talented people who grew up in feeder systems, and other hardened people.
    Spoiler

    He also meets his girlfriend in this volume

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    He grows, experiences major setbacks, but comes back, and declares his vow to exceed something. Things happen, he delivers on what he said, etc., and becomes a major success story.
  2. Unexpected disastrous situation! He is embroiled in an extremely deep plot to overthrow an entire nation of people. While slowly figuring out the true components of the plan, he uses his multiple talents to execute a resistance, and eventually triumphs.
  3. As he solves the previous mess, he realizes an even greater, and more nefarious plot. In an effort to combat this, he formulates plans on what to do - but some twists happen, obviously, and things don't go as planned. As he tries to resolves those little kinks, he starts to realize something - there is no true black or white in this world, and the only way to guide himself is his own belief and opinion.
That description was not the best, because I'm not yet able to fully wrap my feelings for this novel into words yet, and so it may make you feel like it's some hero story - I assure you, it is in no way close to that.

Here begins the lengthy explanation of its good points :

  • Our MC is known as The Vulture, and for good reason - his personality can be considered cunning at best, and conniving at worst. His fighting style is exceedingly refreshing - rather than the traditional 'Let me yell my move out before/while I do it so everyone knows I can do this', it's far more realistic, and dirty. This is a futuristic world, with guns, bombs, the like, as well as energy, and he makes full use of it.
  • The romance scene here is one of the best, ever, period, full stop. I can't begin to tell you how much I loved it.
    Spoiler

    Li Yao's gf is a fighting maniac - she has had similarly traumatic experiences as him, and was at first an elder sister char., who would beat him up / help him with his combat. They would spend time alone just fighting, and he slowly fell in love - they eventually get together, but they're really busy trying to fight and get stronger, so their dates are literally while beating each other up. This is the kind of mood she has - an absolutely individualistic, powerful, show-no-mercy, amazing kind of character. One of my favorite lines she says goes something like 'What do you mean my position as Li Yao's wife will be lost to Li Yao's apprentice? Why should I be worried? B*tch, I'm gonna be known as Ding Lingding, not somebody's wife, and I'm a boss *ss girl". Ooooooh, she is DOPE.*

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  • The plot's here are ridiculously intense. And it's not something like, 'But wait, there's more!?", but actual plots and hidden plots and sub plots and the ilk. I'm talking super, super, super layered plots. Starting in the second arc, there's a basic plot for him to solve, but as he goes through, he starts to find more and more things happening, and by the time push comes to shove, the villains are no longer villains, heroes are actually just big losers, Li Yao was accidentally fighting for the wrong side for a bit, and the best part? THEY ALL HAVE BACKSTORIES. Side characters, main characters, protagonists, antagonists, even the mob characters get story time. And it's all relevant!
  • The first arc/volume, there is an enemy, and Li Yao is going heavily against them. Not really a spoiler alert - they're demon beasts. In the second volume/arc, you start to get the feel that things aren't black and white in the second arc, but there's still really a 'main kind of enemy' involved, one that clearly violates your feel of morality. But once we hit the third arc, things are flipped upside down. Major spoiler ahead:
    Spoiler

    He comes back to his home region in the third arc (was in a different 'space fragment' in the second arc), but because of a certain problem he brought upon himself unknowingly in the second arc that only blooms now, he is forced to go into the Fiend Clan area. Hoping to stay there till he recovers, and until then, gather some useful intel in hopes of repelling a soon to come horrible calamity, he goes undercover, but starts to discover shocking backstory. The cruelty of human nature (Fiend Clan nature, too) is fully revealed here - no one either can and/or wants to stop a 500 yr long war, and stopping it is the third arc

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    What happens, chapter by chapter, is that Li Yao realizes the complexity of war, of all the factors involved, the horrors it causes, and its repercussions.
  • Lastly, and still importantly, the villains are smart. Very smart. Diabolical at times, but terrifyingly smart. I thought I was good at reading hidden plots, and picking up on possible faults, but I was taking doozy turns on this.
Even now, I feel like I'm missing some important parts, but I'm not a professional novel reviewer, and if I were to go any deeper, I'd just be giving a full on summary. My main point is this - the novel is deep and complicated; maybe not the most thought provoking piece of literature, for sure, but for a web novel, it sure does a fine job.

Lastly, there's a theory in here called the 'Dark Forest' theory, and it has something to do with extra-terrestrial life. It's both extremely intriguing, and absolutely terrifying to think of. And worst of all, there's a high chance it could be true.

If sci-fi meets Chinese fantasy world is your shtick, this is your shtaff, my dudes.
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hero
hero rated it
June 17, 2017
Status: c131
I hadn't even gotten through the first chapter and I was already tired of all the unneeded descriptive / comparative phrases the author kept adding in. Let me write a short paragraph to show how annoying it is.

The author writes a paragraph and adds unneeded descriptive / comparative phrases, just like how Hollywood directors needlessly splits a short book into two movies. It's unbelievably annoying, just like how an unending itch on the skin is. However, every web novel author needs to add words of absolutely no substance in between... more>> those with, else they run out of ideas on how to proceed, just like how Anime makers add filler after filler in order to make sure they don't catch up to the source or to wait for the source to proceed with the actual story...

I mean, obviously the author doesn't do it every paragraph but these phrases stick out just because of how forced they are. This honestly might be the most annoyed I've been due to the authors writing-style. Usually it's because of dumb characters, dumb logic, dumb events etc. Actual components of the story itself, not the author's writing.

As for the story... people are saying it's a breath of fresh air but because I've just read (and dropped) Battle Frenzy, I don't find that to be the case at all. Cultivation system set in the modern world, has a simulation system, MC is not a cultivation genius at the start but is a genius in another aspect which just so happens to be extremely important in the set world, MC started at the bottom of the school, best friend has a lot to say about women, a "b*tchy" girl in school who is called a genius who ends up "despising" the MC, his fat friend, and their kind (b*tchy and despising are enclosed in "" because in BF it is shown that it was a misunderstanding and that the female was actually an extremely good person. Wouldn't be surprised if that turns out to be the case in this novel as well), etc. All these similarities and I only got to chapter 8 of this novel.

The main difference so far really is that, Battle Frenzy was way smoother to read. I'll use what the author of this novel likes using. "Mish mash". The author pretty much "mish mashed" multiple traits of different novels in order to form the setting of this world. The problem is that his writing isn't good enough to smoothly tie it all together. I mean, the whole test question just to bring up the world's history simply felt misplaced. It felt like the author just asked himself, "Hmm, how do I introduce the history of the world?" "Oh, I know, let's just make it an answer in a test so I can literally dump in an info dump which is multiple paragraphs long."

The thought is there, just that the execution just isn't up there. I dropped Battle Frenzy because it turned out to be waaay too drawn out. It's the same here. It's even more noticeable here since the author keeps forcing descriptions in. Not to mention multiple paragraphs full of technological babble / names.

Dropping this as I don't think I've ever been this annoyed at an author's style. Feels like the author decided to write a Sci-Fi novel just to add as much "Sci-fi" bullsh*t as possible. Here's a quote taken from chapter 8 which I'll leave for whoever reads this review.

"Li Yao thought and thought, and nodded his head, "A scraped heatsink is a common breakdown in crystal processors, technically it's not a big issue. The reason why none of the repair shops you went to were unable to repair is primarily because this model number of crystal processors is way too rare. The technology utilized by this processor is also way too obsolete. The heat sink used inside has not been produced in the last hundred years, and modern heatsinks used in modern processors are fundamentally incompatible. Anyways, it doesn't matter."

So much "Sci-fi" bullsh*t "added" in chapters just to make things longer (it's actually the case for fans in PCs). Like I said in a previous review, good authors add details which actually add to the reader's immersion / imagination. Bad authors just dump in details which just end up being utter bullsh*t used to draw chapters out as much as possible. <<less
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Trent
Trent rated it
June 6, 2017
Status: c125
This is a cultivation story which flips off the mass of copy-pasted xianxia and makes its own path. It’s not as exciting as some others, but it’s among the more original and well-written ones.

About its “nationalism” (it doesn’t actually need a spoiler, but whatever) :
Spoiler

When it doesn’t terrify me, I actually like the “nationalism” in this story. Partly, that’s because it’s not nationalism: nations are forgotten, and no area of people seems to think it's better than another area. It's actually humanism. And partly, it’s because it’s reasonable for it to exist, and is a major building block of the story. In the setting, humanity has just recently freed itself from its nonhuman overlords, and is still in the shaky process of establishing its territory and beating back the monsters. Of course the Federation will propagandize how humans must stay united against everything else. The result is that civilians are in awe of militants and soldiers who have gotten injured fighting for humanity, while soldiers in turn are willing to sacrifice themselves to protect the civilians. It makes for some emotive and awesome scenes. But it’s also likely that the MC will someday be forced to realize that non-humans aren’t automatically bad, and that humans aren’t necessarily in the right. We’ve had hints of that all along.

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Worldbuilding: 8.5 / 10. Uncommonly grand and unique, but often dry; the novel isn’t able to smoothly realize its ambition. Basically, there’s lots and lots of background thought up, but too much of it's info-dumped, and characters often speak unnaturally to explain relevant topics.

Plot: 8.5 / 10. One arc in particular has hinged on unbelievable things. The goals of the MC's journey are either too nebulous or easy for him to accomplish. However, each part of the story so far has been original and pushed the plot forward.

Cultivation: 9 / 10. Each stage of cultivation is distinct, follows different rules, and is connected to more than simply greater generic power. The MC power-skips where he should and doesn’t where he shouldn’t. However, disparities between power levels aren’t well defined.

Action: 9.5 / 10. Fight scenes are generally brief and poignant, though the author may sometimes devote too many words to short battles, creating “slow motion” and reaction scenes which are sometimes cool, sometimes annoying. The MC doesn’t fight all that often, but when he does, you can get goosebumps.

Characters: 9.5 / 10. At first they’re mostly bog standard, but they become three-dimensional and impressive like few web novels can do. The MC isn’t the only, or even the most dazzling, “genius” in the world; other people are given their due. And characters don’t have to be powerful cultivators to be awesome. The MC has moments of awesomeness, craziness, and recklessness, but he doesn’t become an arrogant toerag that you can’t empathize with. He can be vengeful, sure, but in a humorously “cruel” way instead of the “massacre everyone who doesn’t give me face!” way. He periodically shows how he’s still, at heart, the guy he was before he got his lucky chance. Like, at one point after he finishes being a solemn heroic badass,
Spoiler

a young female author gives him a pair of novels to read. He forces himself to skim through the Shoujo one. Then he turns to the second, realizes that it's BL, starts sweating, and ‘Nope!’s out of there.

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So, 4.5 if we’re taking each part individually, tearing me between a 4 and a 5 (and it’s easily a 5 for the standards of xianxia). But there’s something missing from the story which keeps me from ever really getting into any chapter. And the translation’s really well done, and does a great job carrying across the militant tone! But for whatever reason, the story doesn’t have much of a feel that pulls me into it; the style’s too mechanical. So I’m reading and objectively appreciating the story, but it never comes alive to me as some more poorly written stories can do. So it’s a really good novel, but not a fantastically good story.
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Seregosa
Seregosa rated it
May 31, 2019
Status: c55
Not recommended. The author spends copious amounts of time and effort to info dump and say irrelevant stuff, often several chapters in a row. Ridiculous how much time is wasted for word count. Meanwhile, the author claims that he's trying to take his time to write it properly, which makes it even more unpleasant. Sorry to say this, but I don't find reading about the same thing for chapters in a row only to find out that it will never matter as something great.

There is also a lot of patriotism... more>> and stuff like that going on, like the author going out of his way to praise how peoples' goals are to die for their country and the MC really admiring such people (which makes no sense for a guy who grew up with no help from said country, living in a garbage dump and fighting to even survive, the author is forcing his own ideals onto the mc's personality, warping what it should have been with the settings given). There's also how the demon "beasts" were actually
Spoiler

made by cultivators and abused/exploited for many, many years until they somehow gained intelligence and rebelled and suppressed the cultivators, but there are no indications that these demon beasts are less intelligent than humans or in any way inferior like not being able to be reasoned with, they're just another intelligent race and even had their own kingdoms and technology by no means inferior to humans. Now humans are butthurt about their rightful defeat and wants to erase all the demon beasts without even trying to reason with them and this seems to be seen as perfectly normal. At least it'd be easier to understand and relate to the human cultivators if they didn't freaking start everything, but declaring that all of them are enemies when they were in the wrong first and how they need to fight for their country just annoys me in this circumstance

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Things are way too dragged out and things doesn't hang together properly nor flow nicely. He's just jumping all over the place, going here, going there, with no explanation beforehand. We can be at the end of a competition in one scene, then the next scene he's on a ship to somewhere and witnessing more info-dump scenes and things for no good reason... There're no proper transitions. It makes the novel a pain to read as we never know exactly what is going on, where he's going or what he's doing. We just have to read the text and try to figure it out on our own, but this not only becomes annoying to grasp, it also makes the whole story become severely disconnected.

The MC has "friends" that just aren't likable. I especially hate people like someone introduced properly a few dozen chapters in, some people seem to find him hilarious, but I despise him, he's the type you don't want near your MC, a lecherous pig who just eats, drinks, wastes money and has s*x with girls and gets close to the MC with ulterior motives. That the MC didn't directly tell him off and instead listens to him and interacts with him a lot disgusted me.

The romance is quite bad. The introduction had the author describing the female with more than half an entire chapter, you know, how she's so beautiful that we need to be reminded a hundred times in a row in different ways. The MC is also likely the type that'd become annoying in romance, as is normal in chinese romance but still.. You know, the puppy love type that has his personality changed when dealing with said girl or whenever something is related to her. She became the straw that broke the camel's back and made me drop this.

While the setting is decent, the story just isn't and the author can't write an interesting story even if someone were to give him guidelines, so I just can't recommend this. I usually want to give a novel 100 chapters before I drop it, but I couldn't get that far here, there was too many, far too many, flaws and it all just stacked on top of eachother until I couldn't take it anymore. By the way, did I mention that the MC is immature with a weird personality? Because that's how it is. Dreary and uninteresting. Ugh. <<less
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Yuzu
Yuzu rated it
January 19, 2017
Status: c340
Dropped, logic migraines due to me reading too many xianxia conflicting with this author's logic.

Overall, a decent novel if you're looking for a novel that breaks away from standard cultivation settings and fusing it with more futuristic concepts of sci-fi. Where the focus isn't solely on cultivation practices that time skip years. Instead it's mostly crafting, majority of the novel is crafting related. Be it making formulas, developing new weapons to armr to battle ships, repairs, or inventing new things. That is the main focus of the novel as it... more>> uses 'cultivation' as a premise for how humans grow stronger and their enemies aren't aliens but devils/demons/beasts. This is the MC's path of becoming the best while knocking down those who stand at the top of creating artifacts.

A warning to anyone who does read this, the story is very heavy on the whole patriotism in the story. Many chinese novels are like this with strong military reflection of their culture. One for all. all for humanity, being the main premise of why people cultivate in this novel. Lots of self-sacrificing is done in this novel which makes it quite annoying when it comes to the stereo type path of cultivation.

Thus be warned that the MC will always get a sermon about sacrificing for the weak or for humanity by others or to himself.

Age wise, majority of characters so far in this world of xianxia doesn't seem to go past 120 average. The oldest character read so far is less than 300 that is a yuanying iirc. So many are very young and you won't read up monsters disguising as lolis.

MC is too much of a modern soldier/spy/assassin, majority of all fights in this novel are not like normal xianxia ones where they rely on spiritual energy and their honed skills/techniques. Instead this novel is all about 'technology' he makes, uses and tactics employed that makes it interesting to read but not so much when trying to comprehend.

Author seems to stuff too many ideas from all over the place to make the novel seem more complex and interesting but for some may find it very confusing and simply making the MC appear too OP at all times. He really needs another setback, last one was after the first 60 chapters. Barely any failures.

Spoiler

Sci-fi and mech are the main parts of this novel. Enjoyable but very confusing. Especially in the medical aspects. They can 'cure' broken bones that are smashed to dust or mutilated body parts but can't come up with regenerative medicine to repair body parts or even throw in bionic eyes for the blind?

Being xianxia, there isn't one possible way to like you know, regrow a limb or two?

Funniest thing yet is that when it comes to xianxia, the thing that pops up into my head first is 'ALCHEMY'. Sure there is artifact creating which is literally crafting and refining but blown up together with modern manufacturing and sci-fi fusion. Probably since the author emphasizes resources are not enough, things like pill concocting probably got replaced or is simply nonexistent.

Too much logic problems and logic armour throughout that it becomes really mind boggling when the author adds more information or brings up new concepts that are used in the weirdest ways.
E.g. those 5 types of cultivations... zzz

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Don't try matching xianxia standards to this novel as you read and you'll be fine. Don't understand, just read and enjoy. <<less
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Reindeer
Reindeer rated it
March 11, 2017
Status: c81
WARNING!!!

ONCE YOU'VE READ PAST CHAPTER 12, YOU WON'T WANT TO STOP!

Ahh, so good. What a shame I've caught up to translations. I WANT MORE!!!!

Well anyway, the story is pretty much what happens if sci-fi and xianxia had a child. You can really say that this novel is really good since, first, sci-fi novels are a f*cking pain in the ass to read for, which was quite true in the first few chapters, like 1-6 or so, but after that, it's pretty much easy to understand and is actually quite... more>> intriguing; second is that, even though I read a lot action novels, very few make me 'love' the battle scenes, and a good example of this is Lord Xue Ying, where the enjoyable part is the training part, seeing him get stronger and actually understand just how much he got stronger, which I think this novel is about the same if not better in this aspect.

World-building is one of the best I've seen. The universe is somewhat similar to The Desolate Era's, having 3000 Major Worlds and Pangu. Pretty much roughly 45 thousand years have passed since the start of the history of Cultivation, and 40 thousand years have passed ever since the Ancient Cultivation Age ended. I'll only give you that since the history of Cultivation is somewhat a spoiler in itself, although not that much of a spoiler, it will still be more enjoyable to know about it yourself in the novel. So pretty much, in the Modern Age, cultivators have developed high technology. Now the best thing about this is that they used this technology for Cultivation, having high efficiency drugs, electricity powered flying swords, flying shuttles, flying battleships, arrays powered by CPU, and whatnot. I like this part the most because it's pretty much the same with other novels, just that they are powered by technology, so 80 chapters in and we still haven't seen guns. Banzai!!! Meh, it probably won't be long before we see guns and mechas.

The MC, Li Yao, is not the best MC that I have seen, but he is surely among the better ones. What I like the most is his decisions which makes sense, and not just make sense, but actually was better than the answers I thought of. He has a sharp mind and easily understands situations, which saves us the trouble of waiting a few chapters before finding sh*t out. Well, this might be because of his cultivation, but there's not just one MC out there who, despite being some kind of top expert, is a f*cking no-brainer. He's pretty leans on the lucky side, but at least he has backbone, has skill, and his strength doesn't come from his lucky encounters.... uhh, at least not entirely.

The side characters are pretty well fleshed out. Not really the best, but is definitely better than most. At least we don't see the MC sitting inside a cave for a few millennium (how about 40? Cuz, you know, the title, pfft!.... nvm), or have chapters explaining how a punch works. Well, we do have chapters explaoning the history, but at least they are enjoyable, and that they are cut into parts, feeding it to us slowly, only appearing when we need it, or when the characters talk about it. The other characters really play a major role in explaining how the world works. We don't need wall of texts about how important the vibration of the spear is, and then explain how this skill's vibration is special, and then comparing it to the rest! Yep, luckily, they don't explain how this ancient punch technique is used, or how the flame-attribute axe works and how it's made. We won't see how those... umm.. damn, I forgot their names already... those, uhh, high-tech blacksmith, which our MC is one of them btw, make some special options in the weapons they make that only they or those better than them know, we only see why they have this, and just explain how this thing came to be.

Antagonists- I have to say, this is one of the ones I enjoy the most among all the novels I've read. We pretty much have these intelligent fiend beasts and demons. Well, as well as some few conflicts among humans I guess, but the place they live in is pretty much upright. Although we still have an arrogant young master as an antagonist, at least he's used properly, and not excessively, since he's pretty much cannon fodder to the MC right now, even though their conflict isn't done yet. Well, I mean we still have the father. And probably the grandfather, who knows, we haven't seen him yet.

Not much of a romance, but there one or two love interests, or make it three, since there was the girl who sang the song. We still haven't met her yet though. I have a very good feeling about this though.

Now I know some elitists might disagree with me, but please do forgive me, this is my first sci-fi novel that I took seriously. Maybe I just have the wrong image about sci-fi novels..... still not reading them without the xianxia/xuanhuan tag though. Pretty much power levels in general.

So far we've only seen a drop of the ocean of the entire univers of the novel, and this novel just makes you want to know more of it. I really look forward to the MC's adventures, and I think that's all, thank you! Peeeeaaaace out. <<less
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kkgoh
kkgoh rated it
February 4, 2018
Status: c1175
Xianxia evolution + Lost in Space + MechWarrior/Battlestar Galactica.
That's probably the best description I can think of... and it keeps changing!
Highly recommended for readers who are bored with generic xianxia novels.

PREMISE
Logical progression of what happens to a cultivation universe after millennia of advancement. The integration of xianxia with modern culture (kind of like Cultivation Chat Group) is fascinating.
... more>>
Spoiler

Just because you're a top fighter doesn't make you a good sect leader. The solution... admin-focused cultivators as CEOs for hire!
When your sect has been around thousands of years and you have many critically injured/disabled vets... you get a pension/healthcare problem!

[collapse]

Humanity (at least within MC's world) more or less banded together with a common sense of destiny. Not everyone is a selfish prick out to scheme/crawl their way to the top like typical xianxia novels. Seems like a nod to "Swallowed Star", so at least it's a little more uplifting to read. The purpose of cultivation isn't for antiquated thoughts of immortality, but to live a fulfilling life. That resonates with a lot of modern thinking.

STRUCTURE
Divided into multiple volumes/arcs.
Vol 1 from c1 to 400, Vol 2 from c400 to 800, Vol 3 from c800 to 1175, Vol 4 from C1175 to ????
Spoiler

Vol 1: MC is still within his star system.
Vol 2: MC is forced out during an epic fight, makes contact with multiple new civ, from space-farers to steampunk.
Vol 3: MC returns to his star system, origin story of demons.

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CHARACTERS
Characters have real depth, MC is not OP (relies on his wits, and his knowledge advantage isn't overblown). No deus-ex machina. Female leads are pretty interesting as well. The stories of many different side characters that MC meets are pretty amazing. Several chapters are devoted to them at times.
Spoiler

His buddy from high school, a non-cultivator, slowly works his way to realize his dreams, and refuses to accept any hand-outs from MC.
A refining-master competitor, doesn't just want to follow the norm of developing his sect, but make his own journey of discovery.
Random cultivators give their lives just to ensure MC/team lives on and carry on the survival of humanity.
A reserve military commander lives through multiple millennia as a disabled robot just to carry on his last mission.
Hardened criminals are not pure evil, black or white. They have relatable shades of grey, maybe not fifty.

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NEGATIVES
- I agree with some reviewers, there's a LOT of unnecessary info-dump and summaries to make up the word count (these can go for whole chapters). A lot of unnecessary complexity added, mostly filler. Like MC's plan A counters Enemy plan B, whose plan C counteracts MC's plan D. Which all ends up being a complete waste of the readers' time. Can be pretty annoying.
Thankfully it's relatively easy to skim through it, not a deal-breaker.
- Lots of ideological clashes, repeated over and over. Again, more filler.

OVERALL
Would rate it a 4.5 rather than 5, but don't have the option.
I don't agree with reviewers that blast it after reading less than a dozen chapters, or blasting it after 1000+ chapters. That's pretty decent staying power. It's expected there are inconsistencies and occasional writer's block. These are web authors, not NY Times best selling authors. It's a free online novel, stop whining. Plenty of top novels crashed after a marathon of chapters (think ISSTH, Swallowed Star, Coiling Dragon, etc). <<less
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PrinceSilk
PrinceSilk rated it
August 10, 2021
Status: c2637
5/5

Concepts of Interest:

* Generic first arc - The first arc (400 chapters) is mediocre. It's not necessarily, "bad", but it's not amazing and 400 chapters is a lot of mediocrity to slug through before reaching the point where most people will say the novel really comes into it's own.

* Constant long winded passages - This novel is 1/3rd the story, 1/3rd the worldbuilding and 1/3rd philosophical ramblings. All three parts are amazing, but if you can't handle the third, this story will tire you. If you're the type of person... more>> who likes monologues from the hero, villians and side characters about things like the point of life, good vs evil, pragmatism and the value of humanity then you will absolutely love this novel. If the idea of that bores you to death, I can't say that the story and the worldbuilding will be enough to keep you engaged. Philosophical ramblings are such a core part of this novel that even though the story and worldbuilding is miles ahead of most novels, if you can't enjoy the monologuing the novel will still probably tire you.

* Warhammer 40k "inspo" - The story takes heavily from Warhammer 40k. Things like mechas, the fallen Emperor, Soul sucking demons, ect are all ripped off. That said, the author does fuse these concepts with a lot of their own original thinking and traditional cultivation aspects that the story is it's own. That said the story does fall on the edge of being a warhammer 40k fanfiction so take that as you will.

* 3 dimensional characters - One of the best part of this novel is that character's that aren't the MC aren't props for the story. Characters have their own motivations, dreams and goals. They act in pursuit of them and when these actions of some of these side characters fall in contrast to the MC's goals do these side characters become, villian characters. Very few villains in this novel are actual generic monsters. Most are people with different perspectives on how things should be. This is why nearly every villain confrontation includes is at least a dozen chapters of back and forth debate monologue between the MC and villain explaining their perspective, motivations and philosophy.

Galactic Mysteries: As the story goes on the MC becomes more and more OP, leading to the point where the OP's strength is enough to solve many strength related problems. The author does a great job of making it so that the story is more about the the solving of different galactic mysteries where strength helps, but isn't enough. Some of the best parts of the story are when you learn about the history of the universe that caused the world we are shown in the story.

Humor: The author does a great job of giving Li Yao a personality that is an absolute joy to read even if it gets frustrating at times.

On the whole great novel, highly recommend if things mentioned in the above concepts list appeal to you. <<less
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Gaelas
Gaelas rated it
January 4, 2017
Status: c53
This is a fun, excellently translated story. I'm only a few chapters in, and even if the story follows a gradual path of improvement, this will be great. From what I read on Reddit, though, this novel is leagues beyond typical xianxia. I'm looking forward to catching up and writing a proper review.

EDIT c53: All caught up
... more>>
Spoiler

and the competition arc is starting to pick up. Unlike normal Xianxia, 40MC has the protag being looked upon favorably by some major powers, and one of the cliche "I'm better than you, you tr*sh" characters is getting her eyes opened.

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This is a good development that is not like the usual examples found in this genre. Keep it up, translators! <<less
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NauthizAnsuz
NauthizAnsuz rated it
April 12, 2021
Status: --
I'm honestly shocked by how high of a rating this novel has. This has got to be one of the worst offenders for how often the main character gets showered in adoration and praise. You literally can't go five chapters without someone jerking off to something the main character did. The protagonist's every action, regardless of how seemingly meaningless to the reader, will no doubt blow someone's mind in the story.

Also, there must be a universe news station that is completely dedicated to broadcasting everything the main character does. It... more>> seems like by the next day every character in the story knows exactly how heroic the main character was in whatever struggle he participated in. The main character solved this highly difficult puzzle in a ruin? Well, not only will everyone know this somehow, but they will know exactly how difficult this puzzle was in order to properly praise the protagonist.

So yea, if it wasn't clear I wasn't a big fan of this novel. I don't recommend, especially with how much of a commitment this novel ends up being with over 2000 chapters. <<less
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Antrone
Antrone rated it
December 21, 2020
Status: c80
A cliche filled boring mess of a novel. Nothing about the story is at any time anything more than predictable generic tr*sh. Seriously at every turn the author just chucks out another cliche (MC is very poor and works hard, MC receives huge inheritance from ancient cultivator, MC get's "crippled" and then abandoned but wait he's stronger than ever, etc...) Do not listen to these people talking about how amazing it is and find something else to read instead of wasting your time on this tr*sh.
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Timid
Timid rated it
April 7, 2018
Status: c149
It started out pretty good, but gets worse the more you read.

Frankly the cheese is strong in this one. It wants to be one of those face-slapping novels, but the author can't manage it so it all gets done in a cartoonish way. There's also a lot of unnecessary details all over the place. Not worldbuilding, more like 'why has the author bothered to include that scene?'

It's all done better elsewhere.
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dniv
dniv rated it
May 9, 2017
Status: c108
This novel is amazing. It's honestly a breath of fresh air.

It takes a few chapters to establish itself. At first it seems as if it's not sticking to one major theme and was a bit all over the place... but it came through. Masterfully executed, volume 1 was quite strong, and I'm also enjoying volume 2.

The thing that stands out the most about this novel is that it actually puts forth a deep message for the reader rather than appealing to all this shallow, poorly handled destiny crap like most... more>> other Xianxia do. The side-characters are definitely a strength of this novel, and the MC is also great. I really find the world-building and the overarching storyline quite interesting.

The only perceived weakness in the storytelling is that we sometimes get short info-dumps (though they're relatively rare and they they're well-incorporated into the story flow). There is a LOT of attention to detail in this novel. It's refreshing. This is the sort of novel that seems to be getting much better the farther it gets along, and I find that to be a wonderful strength.

I recommend this to anyone looking for a high quality novel. <<less
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puffiness123
puffiness123 rated it
December 23, 2016
Status: c35
Took me a long time (weeks) to give this story a chance. I am currently at chapter 35 and I read it all in one go this evening. The first chapter was a bit difficult to get through in the beginning, but it got a lot better after that. The main character is a poor orphan who basically got lucky. He also perseveres during hard times. There is a lot of conflict situations in the story. It is pretty interesting. I personally enjoyed it.
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Kilian
Kilian rated it
December 21, 2016
Status: c35
This is my first time writing a review for a novel so please bear with me through this poor excuse of a review.

I would like summarise this novel shortly with the following sentence: "A story with boundless potential when it comes to rational worldbuilding, interesting details, character development with some humor to top it off". Furthermore I will give my opinion on why I think this novel is so refreshing in the webnovel genre.

First of all you won't find plot holes and vague descriptions to smooth out logical errors in... more>> this story as you would find in "normal" novels *glares at Qing Shui*. Every little detail in this novel has been carefully thought over and been reviewed by the author to make sure you don't have to accept that something just "magically" works that way without making any sense at all with regards to energy usage or some other form of common sense.

Secondly the MC is a smart and sly person but doesn't take himself too serious in his pursuit to become a Master Artificer. He has some fortunate encounters in the beginning but he certainly isn't overpowered in any way.
For example:

Spoiler

He survives an attempt from a ghost of an expert cultivator to spiritually possess him and has spiritually grown a lot because of this. Not nearly enough to be a genius but simply to have the ability to eventually bridge the gap between him and the geniuses, which is far more logical than to become a genius amongst geniuses just because of one simple fortunate encouter.

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Thirdly the technology in this novel is in fact deeply entwined with cultivation resources and it creates a completely new way of looking at the Wuxia webnovels which I find incredibly intriguing as the MC is a talented combination between an engineer and a magical item refiner. For example:

Spoiler

Technological items such as a 3D hologram projector which fuctions as a 3D television to watch the news and other entertainment has a lot of small technical parts and is powered by cultivation resources such as Glyphs and Runes.

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To end this review I would like to explain a bit of the rationality and worldbuilding which makes this novel so incredibly detailed and logical:

Spoiler

There is a whole market system based on the development of new technology/magical items where for example the stock prices of certain armor refiner sects goes down because a new improved flying sword has been released by a flying sword refining sect. This type of detail for economics and global market workings you will find reoccuring in almost every other aspect of this world and is in my honest opinion praiseworthy.

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The only question which bothers me is why it took so long for someone to pick up this great novel, since it already has more than 1500 raw chapters. With the current constantly changing translation speed of approximately 3 chapters a week it will take a very long time for this webnovel to catch up to the raws. It is therefor my wish that this novel eventually will be picked up by Wuxiaworld so that donations and other forms of encouragement will make sure that a bigger team of translators will be working on this novel so that the translation speed will stabilize and increase.

I wish everyone who decides to read this novel a very happy reading experience. <<less
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BlackHat88
BlackHat88 rated it
November 5, 2016
Status: c11
Interesting concept, it's a modern type society based on cultivation. I find it refreshing and new and highly recommend to give it a try. They use technology based on magic glyphs and the society seems to be driven by money. People wants to be cultivator in order to get money and you have to go through school and university in order to enter a sect.

MC is a poor orphan student in one of those high school and he's struggling to become a cultivator and an artifact builder despite the discrimination... more>> the poor students gets from the school and his lack of money. <<less
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Ab991
Ab991 rated it
January 18, 2018
Status: c1950
Spoiler

The first 900 chapters were really good I give it 4.5/5.

after chapter 1000 the author mastered the art of “ Too-Much-Bulls*ting-but- No-action”. We get alot of explanations and stories form the past. We get alot and alot of pointless conversations. We get way too much details about plots that make no sense. The story became too much complicated and hard to read.

The author is a mere human, so he should have keept it low. He kept talking non sense about illogical things, thus, things got out his hands. I love it when author knows his limit and end his book, not keeping writing nonsense.

When you read the second part of this story, you would think that it is very profound and you’re not smart enough to understand. But the truth is that the author is trying to write as many chapters as he could without any regard to logic or profoundness.

Read but don’t take seriously because you will definitely drop later on.

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NaM
NaM rated it
February 5, 2017
Status: c99
Great Novel! Awesome plot!! Amazing story

This novel gave a totally newface in the xianxia genre.

A story set 40, 000 years later after the usual cultivation world (ancient cultivation civilization but in my opinion similar to the Desolate era). Its kinda like technically the "Information era" of the cultivation world. But way more advance and also instead of Magitech or full science tech. The technology used here is a combination/Mixture of science, magic and cultivation commonsense.

Story gave a somewhat different vibe compared from the usual scifi xuanhuan such as "emperor of... more>> the cosmos" and "swallowed star" Which was overly futuristic and had their own troupes

Compared to those, This story was more inclined on xianxia troupe such as sects, immortal thingys and etc (i know you know what I mean). Anyway a pretty good read if you like both sci-fi and xianxia so recommended for both Sci-Fi and Xianxia Fans <<less
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