Zhanxian

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Gripes have their origins and debts have their debtors. We haven’t crossed each other in days past or present, nor formed any grudges. I am but duty-bound to carry this out, so apologies in advance!

In his past life, Yang Chen was a gentle person who was oppressed for his whole life.

Now that he’s reborn, he chose to become an executioner and severs ties and grudges with his executioner’s blade, killing all that climb onto the Immortal Executioner’s Platform!

Heads will roll! Humans’ in the human realm, demons’ in the demon realm, devils’ in the devil realm and immortals’ in the immortal realm!

Associated Names
One entry per line
Immortal Executioner
Slaying Immortals
ZX
斩仙
Related Series
N/A
Recommendations
Tales of Demons and Gods (10)
The Human Emperor (9)
Transcending the Nine Heavens (6)
The Ruler Of Darkness (5)
Against the Gods (4)
Cheeky Sword God (4)
Recommendation Lists
  1. Novels That I Have Read Over The Years
  2. Op Mc / simulation systems
  3. My Main Novels
  4. what webnovels have to offer, my favorites
  5. KR Novels I'll Read When They Finish (and some CN)...

Latest Release

Date Group Release
08/01/21 Fans Translations c494 part2
07/30/21 Fans Translations c494 part1
07/29/21 Fans Translations c493 part2
07/25/21 Fans Translations c493 part1
07/22/21 Fans Translations c492 part2
07/19/21 Fans Translations c492 part1
07/17/21 Fans Translations c491 part2
07/15/21 Fans Translations c491 part1
07/14/21 Fans Translations c490 part2
07/11/21 Fans Translations c490 part1
07/08/21 Fans Translations c489 part2
07/06/21 Fans Translations c489 part1
07/01/21 Fans Translations c488 part2
06/30/21 Fans Translations c488 part1
06/29/21 Fans Translations c487 part2
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Review
98 Reviews


Ironfist Sect
Ironfist Sec
Apr 08, 2016
Status: --
Very interesting and smart MC.

Start is funny but also his broken stuff isn't just given to him but he takes it. Great potential
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keklel
keklel
Aug 17, 2016
Status: c266
Zhan Xian is a second-rate webnovel. I want to rate this 3.5 stars but I rounded up to 4. It is not that good though. Pros:
Spoiler

- MC is (mostly) not ret*rded. It pains me to list this as a pro, but the fact is that most xianxia MCs are pretty ret*rded. They act on anger and rush in to kill an enemy without thinking things through. They react to events rather than proactively making things happen. They don't plan things out. The MC in this story is mostly not like that. When possible, he tries to find excuses for knowing things he should not know, and if he cannot find excuses then he simply doesn't let other people find out about his knowledge.
- MC is not pe*verted. Again I hate to list this a a pro but in a lot of stories the MC is pe*verted. At least for the first 100 chapters he didn't even have a single le*d thought or comment. None of his actions are ever motivated by lust, at least not initially. Case in point: In chapter 125 an angry female cultivator was chasing him to cripple his cultivation because he accidentally offended her (by unintentionally releasing some killing intent at the entrance of her sect). She wouldn't let him go so he made her fall unconscious with his killing intent. At this point he could easily have r*ped her or done something to her, but the thought didn't even cross his mind. Instead he just lets her go because he doesn't want trouble. Again with the female cultivators whose minds he broke because they tried to kill him. He turned them into puppets but didn't r*pe them or anything. Just ordered them to cultivate instead.
- MC has actual reasons for cultivation i.e not just becoming strong for the sake of becoming strong. Again, this shouldn't be a pro, but the fact that so many xianxia novels have MCs whose entire motivation is just to get strong for the sake of getting strong is quite depressing, though usually this isn't an issue with reincarnation novels. I'd say MC's reason is fairly decent, but the execution is poor.
- Few coincidences. Treasures generally don't fall into his lap, he obtains most of them logically (e.g from his past memories or from the gods he executed). Few if any deus ex machinas (his teacher was saved because one of the goons chasing her was actually a spy and didn't want her to get captured).
- The MC's enemies have actual reasons to oppose the MC and are not just because they're sadistic rapists or something. Their motivations are well explained and make sense, ranging from greed to loyalty to a hostile organization. This is fairly well done.

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Cons:
Spoiler

- Cultivation scenes are too f*cking long. Early on there was something like 20 chapters describing the refining of the heaven seizing pill. There are cultivation scenes later on as well, which are just as long. These cultivation scenes COMPLETELY POINTLESS AND BORING, describing the control of fire and circulation of spirit power and all the other boring stuff. And this gets repeated over and over. Every time the MC needs to add a flame to his furnace (and he adds a lot of different flames to his furnace) or refines his flying swords (and he has to refine these a lot) you get a multi-chapter long description of how he adds the flame to the furnace or refines the sword (the MC mainly increases his cultivation level by refining pills or treasures so these are equivalent to the cultivation scenes in other cultivation novels). You can skip them without missing anything in the way of plot as none of it is relevant to later developments. It's like reading about someone grinding in a shitty RPG or reading about some kid doing his homework as a reviewer once aptly put it. It is a pretty serious downside because the novel could be maybe 50% shorter without missing anything important or interesting. You could probably fit everything that happens in the first 100 chapters into 40 chapters once you cut away all the pointless cultivation.
- The timeline is f*cked up mostly due to the cultivation scenes taking f*cking years. Refining a pill or furnace takes years at a time. Absorbing a single flame takes years and MC has to absorb hundreds or thousands of flames. Once a Da Cheng cultivator chased him 5 years into the sea literally flying non stop until MC luckily found an even stronger monster to eat that guy. This is pretty f*cking ridiculous. The timeline is messed up due to all of these little events that take months and years adding up without the author keeping track of the time for the audience.
- Lots of random slice-of-life-y moments like brewing alcohol and taking pointless bets and going shopping with his harem. Just as boring if not more so than cultivation scenes. This is actually the reason that I dropped this.
- A lot of major world-shaking events happen without any hints beforehand so makes you think it just came out of the blue. This is because the author didn't ever explain the previous timeline at all so you have no idea what to expect even though the MC knew about it. I don't think this is particularly good writing. It's not like Reincarnator where the MC clearly explains what happened in the previous timeline and how they f*cked up and how he's going to fix it.
- It was mentioned that Sun QingXue had spent 34 YEARS cultivating after being rescued from execution but she still acts like a kid sister in front of him and not at all like a mature adult.
- He lets Sun QingXue enter an unexplored area of an abandoned sect that he knew was going to be dangerous without exploring it himself first, with the result that she was immediately attacked and almost killed by the monsters inside. Her protective treasure was destroyed in 3 hits and one more hit would have killed her. His justification? "I knew there were monsters but didn't think they would attack without asking first". F*cking s*upid.
- Members of the MC's harem appear to have no motivation other than to serve and protect him even though they had other motivations and interests before.
- MC has lived for 10 thousand years and yet acts like a dense harem protag to the extent that he keeps his arms straight down when a girl hugs him. He says "I've lived for 10 thousand years but I've never experienced romance so I don't know what to do when a girl proposes to me". Bull f*cking shit. He has read literally millions of random books and none of them talked about romance? F*ck you for thinking readers are that dumb.
- MC acts irrationally whenever someone badmouths his teacher, going to the extent of killing them (he says in the story that he will not allow anyone who verbally insults his teacher to live). Whenever someone tells him that his teacher got injured, he releases his killing aura regardless of the fact that no enemies are present and he is only hurting his allies. Yet he allowed his teacher to go to the ten-thousand mountains alone to buy ingredients for his flying sword without sending anyone to protect her nor give her any protective treasures, with the result that she got seriously injured. What does he do after he finds her seriously injured and unconscious? He gives her some pills and allows her teacher to take her back, and instead of accompanying them he goes off to avenge her, with the result that by the time he finished his revenge and he gets back his teacher is still unconscious and is almost braindead and would have permanently lost her mind if he didn't come back in time to save her. This is illogical and doesn't make sense. If the MC loves his teacher so much why would he prioritize avenging her over making sure she is recovered first? Secondly why did he even allow her to go out alone in the first place. I just cannot believe someone who has cultivated for 10 thousand years would act like this.
- Unimaginative setting. Most of the treasures seem to be based on Journey to the West. Majority of treasures used are of the physical variety: flying swords and protective treasures that function essentially like armor. Cultivators fight by throwing their flying swords at each other. Up to the chapter 266 the most interesting power described so far was turning braindead people into living puppets, and I don't think even that's particularly interesting. It's very much a vanilla xianxia setting with the typical powerlevels Yuanying, Da Cheng and so on. Nothing new or interesting compared to the powers described in say Reincarnator, or even f*cking Elf Tensei. Hell I think even LSG had more interesting powers than this.
- Excessive repetition. Example:

>The most important thing was that Yang Chen wouldn’t even have been able to comprehend this method, if he hadn’t cultivated to the third layer of layer of Three Purities Secrets, let alone cultivating the method. But fortunately Yang Chen had received the cultivation method of the Three Purities Secrets from the Greatest Supreme Elder, and he had also already cultivated it to the third layer.

The second sentence could be cut down to just the first 5 words. The story is full of this kind of repetition. It is not unusual to find the same thing repeated 5 or even 10 times even within the same chapter. Very annoying.
- The crucial plot point of WHY Li QingChen wanted Yang Chen dead was only revealed in chapter 126, when his attempt to kill Yang Chen had started at the very beginning of the story. It would have been nice to know that from the start since the attempts to kill him had covered most of those first 126 chapters. The fact that he did not discover the reason behind it for like 10 years makes me think he's incompetent. You'd think someone who lived for 10 thousand years would probably be able to find out the reason behind all the attempts on his own life right? Nope, it was merely revealed to the MC by accident. If not for that then he might have never found out. F*cking useless.
- Multiple "minor" plot holes. For example in chapter 171, where the corpse of the cultivator that Yang Chen just killed (by cutting in half with his sword) has no blood in it and nobody bothers asking why. I'm pretty sure Yang Chen couldn't have came up with a good excuse for that. And high level cultivators were looking at the corpse so they would have definitely noticed it, but they didn't ask why it was s**ked dry nor get suspicious about it. I think that counts as a plot hole as they definitely should have gotten suspicious and asked about it. There are other places in the story where you would think the other characters must be completely ret*rded to think that he discovered the locations of ancient treasures from browsing the library.
- The achievement roll integer overflow. Apparently even magical tools use bounded integer types. F*cking s*upid.
- The writing isn't great. Entire paragraphs are made out of a single sentence. They don't flow particularly well and aren't sharp or biting. You get the gist of what he's trying to say, but there's not anything memorable or quotable. It just barely passes as functional.

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==============================================================================================
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL
==============================================================================================
Spoiler

Some reviewers have said that they are confused about what happened in the first chapter so here I will clarify what exactly happened:

So, when the chapter began, Yang Chen was in the devil punishing battlefield in the immortal world (I believe it was during the battle between the hundreds of thousands of celestial soldiers and the devil Yi. It was not clear whether Yang Chen was fighting for or against the devil Yi or if he was just passing by or whatever), and was dying (it was not explained why Yang Chen was dying). The Greater Demonic Body Exploding Technique was devil Yi's final suicidal technique that took out hundreds of thousands of celestial troops and also Yang Chen apparently. Before devil Yi exploded himself, the dying Yi told the dying Yang Chen some cultivation techniques. As Yang was dying, he recalled 4 events in his past life (he apparently lived for over ten thousand years), which were Yang Xi's speech, his master's death, being "locked up" by the sect master for thousands of years, and finally his master giving him the sword (the events are clearly not in chronological order). While recalling the fourth memory, which was his master giving him the sword, he was presumably hit by the explosion and suddenly woke up and found himself in the past, standing before the spiritual root test which was probably thousands of years if not over ten thousand years before. It was not explained why exactly Yang Chen was on the battlefield, nor how he got reincarnated thousands of years into the past, neither of these were explained in the first chapter (nor in the first 200 chapters as it happens).

I want to recommend the translation by Blue Silver Translations over the one by LordOfScrubs, at least for chapter 1. LordOfScrubs described the "young master" as female when he was actually male (Blue Silver Translations got that part correct. Well, sometimes the original text will get the character wrong too. Lots of same-pinyin but wrong character typos. For example sometimes Yang Chen is referred to as a "she". But in this instance there's no reason to believe the young master was a female). In another passage where Yang Xi explained that it was him who accused Yang Chen of coveting the fruit, the LordOfScrubs translation got that part completely mangled whereas the Blue Silver Translations got that part correct.

I have a minor issue with how Blue Silver Translations translated that particular sentence though. Whereas they translated it as:

>"I accused you before the Greatest Heaven Sect, said you coveted the young master’s Vermillion Fruit, and assassinated him."

This sentence is ambiguous. One interpretation is that Yang Xi first accused Yang Chen before the sect, and then Yang Xi assassinated the young master after making the accusation. Obviously this is not logical but it is a bit confusing.

I would translate it as:

"I accused you before the Greatest Heaven Sect. I said that you coveted the young master’s Vermillion Fruit, and that you assassinated him [for it]."

A minor nitpick perhaps but I'd support any change that reduces the scope for confusion.

Anyways, between the LordOfScrubs translation and the Blue Silver Translations version I would definitely go with Blue Silver Translations. It is much more accurate and faithful to the original text (though a bit too literal in some places leading to the kind of confusion I described above).

The weletransations translation is also a bit too literal in places (e.g one of the lines was translated as something like "if three people say tiger" - the translators wrote that they didn't know what this meant. It's a well known Chinese idiom https://en. Wikipedia. Org/wiki/Three_men_make_a_tiger). If you had no knowledge of Chinese idioms you might get confused at a lot of the lines since few of them are explained. Otherwise it's a competent translation. You'll just have to live with the unnatural phrases such as “This! This!” which abound in the translation. I'm not sure how best to translate it but it doesn't sound like the kind of thing a native English speaker would say. It does sound a bit s*upid and it's one of the reasons I don't think highly of the writing.

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ArgosYesu
ArgosYesu
Mar 20, 2016
Status: --
Rather nice. I love the long chapters and the development of our main character. The slow backstory is also very nice. Glimpses instead of s*upidly long, 10+ chapters of pure backstory.

Spoiler

Especially nice was our MC on the Immortal Executioner Stage. Very unique when I read it and slowly made me love the development...

Here’s hoping our MC manages to become his master’s disciple again...

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Avald
Avald
Aug 09, 2016
Status: v37c1330
Warning: This is based mostly on the MTL version, because I got to impatient waiting for an update for one of my favorite stories. So there are walls of text incoming. I tried to break it up, but it is a really long text, so please be patient.

There are a lot of things that I like about this novel. Be it the fact that there are reasons for every OP thing the MC or his harem get. The fact that he doesn't just "breakthrough" at lighting speed, but is rather... more>> as fast as any other more genius cultivator. In fact his wives are even faster. Of course he can still kill people above his level, but there are scenes, where he has to run for his life. He doesn't get a powerful backer for no reason until near the end of the novel. He isn't offending everyone left and right, rather he has ties to every major sect in the novel through his harem. He is more of a political animal rather than a brute savage despite being an executioner. He has such a big reputation for being polite and forgiving and being weaker than his wives (because he usually has a lower cultivation level and keeps his strength hidden), that he keeps attracting troublemakers, who he usually has to kill. That something that you don't find in your usual xanxia/wuxia story.

There are negatives as well. Like his harem members listening to his every word. Be it demon cultivators or from the more traditional sects. They never disobey him, not even once, partly because his foreknowledge from traveling back in time allows him to know things they could never imagine, but also because he is their "lord husband". That was a minor problem that I had, as it forced them to be somewhat one dimensional imo.
Spoiler

It is so bad that I didn't even remember the first names of the quintuplets he was married to, partly because they were always described as one group and also because they never separated in the novel and so their always referred to as the murong sisters.

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I'm now going to talk about some story elements that either frustrated or delighted me, but I'll try to avoid names:
Spoiler

Positives: MC doesn't return to superweak after having to lose his cultivation in order to save his wife's life. It rather becomes a way to consolidate his knowledge and cultivate from the beginning, and it still takes him 300 years to return to his previous cultivation level. Speaking of his wives, I liked that MC's spend a lot of time and effort on having them keep up with him and have their own individual and special weapon, that fit them. He also spend a lot of time just being with them, rather than retreating into solo cultivation like a lot of other xanxias.

MC is also rather smart about his revenge and rather than trying to 1v1 an entire sect, who chased him down for millennia in his previous life, he went for the sneaky route and made them in the 1st realm, public enemy Nr.1, and in the second realm he infiltrated them and absorbed them into his own sect. In the 3rd realm, the immortal realm, he continued with his hidden spy persona and managed to kill the leader of that sect as well. Of course there isn't just personal revenge at stake for him, but another enemy as well, that could cost the lives of millions of mortals and cultivators as well as the control of all 3 realms. The zhao family is the unaccountable factor, that he never knew about in his previous life and so they provide for some unexpected events, from the MC's perspective.

Another great thing is that his sect, that was only a mere mortal realm only, 2nd rate sect, isn't forgotten but with the MC's help gets to grow to become a powerhouse in all 3 realms. Which reminds me of another good thing, that other usual xanxia's don't have. A sect can be in multiple realms. What a welcome surprise to see that people don't become part of another sect, somehow after ascending.

But there is also some things that I didn't like. The small amount of screen time for his disciples. He spends centuries with his harem, just cultivating but doesn't do anything for his disciples beyond just recruiting them and making their cultivation process smoother than in his previous life. They were all famous in his previous life but there is barely any indication of this being the case in this life.


The end felt forced, with the random guy (demon Yi) coming out of nowhere helping him take down the profound sect (personal enemy) and the zhao family at the same time. He has several superstrong backers out of nowhere as well, and his wives who usually got a lot of screentime were almost forgotten if not for the supermap that wasn't MC's but rather gongsun ling's. Speaking of the map, it went from getting all those anti realms and "building them up" into the map to control all three realms rather quick.
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While the last 150 chapters or so dropped in quality to the point where I could take a break without feeling the need to continue reading, it still ended on an ok ending. It wasn't great but which xanxia has a great ending?

Overall I would recommed the novel to anyone who likes timetravel, and mastermind rather than goon MC in their story. An MC devoted to his harem as they are to him is also a great bonus. <<less
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Stark3
Stark3
Jun 11, 2016
Status: c1100
Reviewing as of c278 in the RAWs.

Typical xianxia fare, though at least it avoids the pattern of ad infinitum arrogant opponents. There are plenty of development directions the MC can take, so there's always something to look forward to.

Just be prepared to fast read through quite a bit of stuff, as there's a lot of repetition in the writing style.

Review update :
Would like to change my review to 5 stars if I could. This novel is an absolute gem! Especially when compared to most of the webnovels currently available,... more>> the story is refreshing even until the much later chapters. A must read IMO. <<less
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alenotbeer
alenotbeer
Sep 25, 2016
Status: c1100
Spoiler

The beginning of story started out well enough, but as it moves further and further, it falls apart, but I suppose most of you won't need to worry about that until like chapter 700 or so.


Minus the ones that were kind of thrown in, most of the love interests were well done. I like how the MC actually marries his love interest, with a ceremony and all that. That's kind of rare with these kind of story. There are a lot of big moments here and there. If you like seeing an MC who consistently find extraordinary treasures and expand his immense wealth with the spoils of his fallen enemy, then you'll like this one. However, that said, there's very little excitement in the story.
After the first few hundred or so chapters, you'll realize that there's very little in the world that can actually threaten MC. In fact, most villains are either terrible with their jobs or have been schemed into destruction by our MC. Later, you'll find out that he was never in any danger in the first place cause there's a certain desu-ex character who's literally behind most of MC's success and prevents him from actually dying before he's supposed to. So, even when MC destroys his greatest foes or finding an incredible bank of treasure, it doesn't feel very satisfying.
After a while, I started to become jaded cause the story was no longer fun to read. By 1, 100 chapters, I personally found it hard root for the MC at all so I dropped it there.
Also, let me name off a couple of deal breakers that the story has that very few people have mentioned.
MC has to destroy his power and restart his cultivation from the start around chapter 900 so take note of that.
Yang Xi, the man who destroyed his MC's first life, doesn't die until near the end of the story. So a sin for stretching out a plot point that should've been solved in the first three hundred chapters. Yang Xi is a very annoying character.
The Mortal Realm and the Spirit Realm takes up about 90% of the story, which I assume leaves about 10% to the Immortal Realm. When I stopped reading (1100/1300), MC was still pretty low in the official power heirarchy, as in he's still at least five level of reaching the end. So I'm going to assume he never reach the final ranks.
Also, MC becomes quite an ass later on.
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Otaakuu27
Otaakuu27
Dec 19, 2019
Status: --
I thought at first that this novel was good, so this novel is one of my most must read novels. But when I started reading this? Im disappointed. Man, he was a great golden immortal with 10000 years of experience, but he became afraid when he was being tracked by a divine sense of a little girl in late foundation realm, and being nervous when he was being checked for his spiritual roots in entrance to his master's school, to him being impatient to immediately meet his master to the... more>> point of being too showy so that he could make his cultivation sped up. Man, is that a man with 10000 years of experience would do?? Ha!! Worst reincarnated immortal for me.

And the way he stole the fortunes of other people, or stole the achievements of other people in his past life so casually, Im really disgusted man. For example, the pill that he 'first' created that a person in his past life created, but now he stole the credits? What a bast*rd!! And the way he greedily absorb all of the fortune that he could get to the point that he did not even consider the rightful owner of that fortune, sighh..

And his obsessiveness to his master really ruined this for me. The way he became limited in just a little sect even though with his knowledge and experience he could already travel the world and cultivate at the same time. Im sure that he could protect his master even more if he did not join any sect, but cultivate by himself so that he did not to sneakily cultivate like he did in his sect. Im sure that the MC did not love his master as a master, but rather as a woman. So he did not really need to become under his master again if he just wanted to protect, in fact he even limit himself because of his choices

And most of all, I cant find the demeanor of a ten thousand years old monster in him. Man, a person that old, even if he or she is s*upid would have an air that seems that he have everything in his palm. But here? I could not find it. The MC just have a powerful will and thats it. He was not smart for me, why? If youre a smart person, and you were reincarnated, would you show your heaven defying abilities to others when you are still weak? Of course not, because you will easily become an easy target to others, but here? The way this MC show his miraculous pill concocting ability even though for others this was his first time concocting, was utterly stupppid, or rather freaking hellish stuuuppidd. Man, its your first time concocting and you could already concoct one and even create your 'own' significant formula. Sigh.. Is that a ten thousand years old monster would do? Being reckless? I did not find it strange that he was captured and played in his past life because he was stuppidd. Ha!! And the way he was impatient on meeting his master was too freaking annoying, what are you? A teen ager lovestreaken fool? Man, youre already a 10000 years old monster but your still that love fool? At least have some patience. And at the same time, he was being showoff, he knew that catching the attention of others and being known as genius was dangerous, but he was still showoff, killing many assassins and even issued a challenge to a disciple who have cultivation higher than him with many levels. The MC knew that being too showoff was stupiiiid and dangerous, but he still did it, so we could say that he was worse than stuppiidd right? Where's the freaking 10000 years of experience there? Sigh..

Sigh, the concept was excellent but the way the author creates the MC was too.. Sigh

A ten thousand years old who did not even have patience, also reckless, somewhat showoff and s*upid. Sigh. <<less
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MaceTheDon
MaceTheDon
Jul 30, 2018
Status: c225
Picked this up after seeing that it was one of the top recommendations for something similar to ED & what with there only being around 250 chapters released, I figured it'd be a good novel to pass the time with. Now during the initial stages it was rather enjoyable considering the summary of the story with MC actually being an executioner... ... more>>
Spoiler

as a mortal, yet executing a bunch of immortals in the heavenly court execution grounds, which made for an interesting & unique plot device, but as soon as the MC ends up joining the sect from his previous life, that's when this story goes downhill & pretty much completely moves away from the execution aspect of the story, what with the MC getting bogged down in all of the sect politics & what not.

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1 major problem I have with this novel is people easily accepting his unheard of reasoning without any relative proof, other than claiming he's a mere bookworm, which stops any further questioning from literally every other character, which in turn doesn't make for any interesting interactions, so it becomes very stale when this is a very regular occurrence in the novel.

Romance/harem is very lazily done with all female characters feeling umcomfortable about MC's interaction with other female characters other than themselves & not being able to explain it... & in all of this MC is like he's only got the utmost love for 1 person, yet very wishy washy (indecisive) with the other female characters, which I simply can't stand from supposed confident MC archetypes.

Also action wise this isn't very engaging when most engagements end within 1-2 moves (seems author doesn't have much knowledge how to write these as evidenced by the long ass chapters spent on cultivation/pill concocting/verbal "warfare").

Only good thing about this is when MC is travelling on his own & his interactions with the outside world, which is very few & far between what with all the Sect Politics which this novel is plagued by.

(I've dropped this btw) <<less
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ZhaWarudo
ZhaWarudo
Jun 13, 2016
Status: c79
Some say this is a hidden gem and underrated. Not only is it not underrated but it is overrated, they probably meant unpopular.. This is a regular xianxia with the only difference MC being an executioner. It is very repetitive, half of the chapters could be these few words "Great Five Phase Yin Yan Secrets, Five phase yin yan". Cultivation descriptions are long and boring, clearly this author abuses pay per word system (more than others). I've had it after reading more than 4 chapters about conconting a single pill... more>> and the chapters are long - about double of other xianxia's. The only good things are the executioner style and that MC is trying to hide his abilites to the point of wasting time and pretending to be a beginner, still he cannot help his OPness so I don't know really what's the point? If you will still read Zhanxian then start with weletranslations, beware of the LordofScrubs. <<less
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DeadOpossum
DeadOpossum
May 15, 2021
Status: c100
90% of the text are explanations, 9% are when somebody in a doubt or disbelief, and only 1% when something happens.

This is a typical Chinese boilerplate novel how a guy goes back in time and amazes everyone with pill concocting skills.

I wonder if it is OK for me to copy-paste my reviews the way Chinese "authors" copy-paste their masterpieces.
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quarkrj
quarkrj
Jan 13, 2017
Status: c40
And..... dropped.

The novel had an interesting start, but that's all I can say which is good about it. There are entire chapters without dialogue, and the rest have only about 20% as dialogue which is extremely annoying and time consuming to read. Other novels have at least the MC talking to himself which makes them more interesting (didn't realize that until I read this). Author keeps on repeating the same things, and writes big-ass explanations which I just gloss over.

One more big minus is the show -off hypocritical nature... more>> of MC. Author tries to make us believe that MC is hiding is true knowledge and abilities, and at the same time wants to show how awesome he is. Author fails. Miserably. That's all I am saying. Find the rest on your own. <<less
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NovelMania
NovelMania
Oct 10, 2016
Status: c48
This Novel had a very good and unique start, which in turn attracted me to reading it. Unfortunately it just kept letting me down.

I dropped this novel at ch 48 so my review is only on those chapters.

what made me drop the Novel.
... more>>
Spoiler

1) The MC is an immortal with 10 thousand years of experience, he knows the future, slayed thousands of immortals and absorbed their life essence.
Not only that, but before those immortals were slayed about half of them taught him many secrets and all kinds of overpowered cultivation techniques.

Normally what would you expect to get is a super overpowered MC. But no that's not what you get. instead the MC actually chose to cultivate in a super difficult Technique, which is also not complete, making him halt 1.5 years in the 1st level of cultivation because he is missing some parts and actually needs to enter a small sects library to complete it.

and keeps getting more irritating the more you read....

2) The author tries to make a big deal out of everything just to make the MC look awesome (Heavenly stairs are a very good example)

3) The MC is hotblooded and not smart at all. only good at killing

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alphaGulp
alphaGulp
Oct 01, 2016
Status: c157
For a generic xianxia, it's pretty enjoyable, except that the romance is a big fail for me, and the MC is just so psychotic it becomes very creepy sometimes.

The karma bit is very interesting and fun (with the MC always communicating certain facts before he mu*ders), and I liked how the MC has at least *some* moral bearing in life.

Or rather, since karma does allow one to answer harm with harm (ie: when someone seeks to harm you, the best strategy is not to just flee and be a passive... more>> victim, but rather typically involves some form of poetic justice, or 'harm' being done to the abuser), the MC has some merit in following a part of the idea, but in practice he seems to be abusing this angle too much (ie: he is min/max'ing this idea to get the best loot from the most reverse-victims possible).

Or rather, it just seems like his plan is lacking in obvious depth: he wishes to have power to defeat some grand future enemy - FOR WHAT, after he wins? As always, his goals past 'winning at all costs' are NIL.

So obviously, after a while, you inevitably get tired of his long-ass path to what will assuredly be a Pyrrhic victory.

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Anyhow, the battles are usually well set up, but then they fail visually: most of the time, I can't visualize how his simplistic executioner's chop would win him the battle against his magician opponent with a flying sword. But whatever: everyone is happy he wins, since at least it feels like the stakes and the danger were real.

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The romance is terrible, because it never works when you idealize things (or people) too much, or when you fail to realize that each and every person out there has enormous potential (ie: there are a lot of great alternatives, so don't get too hung up on anyone).

Then, it also gets hugely annoying for me how the MC loses his cool whenever his love interest is threatened or affected by anything. It ALWAYS works out for him to lose his cool (due to plot armor), but it feels very dumb to me, each time.

Clearly, the author is trying to make the chick be a huge part of the MC's life and motivation, but that only highlights how empty the MC's life is: he has nothing other than 'winning' and 'pleasing his girl'. Only, he doesn't seem to understand that he is being hugely over-attentive and lame, most of the time he is with her.

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Where the psychotic MC goes over the top (IMO) :
Spoiler

When he is trying to rope in psychotic beasts, he cynically explains to them how they just have to learn how to BS properly and they'll be able to kill PLENTY of people in society, *just like the MC*.

Clearly, the MC doesn't mind that these creatures that lust, want and need for the frequent mu*der of humans (innocent and otherwise) will be in the community...

The MC does not seem to have to fear unintended consequences (due to plot armor), but to me it was extremely creepy - very much like watching some revolting opportunist invite a pe*ophile into a community, and even help him hide his nature from his inevitable victims!

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We'll see how long it lasts, but even with all these negatives, the story is still enough fun for me to continue reading (as pulp fiction). <<less
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unwashed heathen
unwashed hea
May 20, 2016
Status: c1330
I've read the entire story and it's pretty good. It has a lot of flaws that are common in the Xianxia genre, but it avoids the really major ones. Most importantly, the story doesn't go to sh*t halfway through because the author is forcing himself to drag it out, which is unfortunately common in a lot of CN novels. It also isn't one of those stories where the setting just gets broader and broader to accommodate for the main character's limitless power level growth. There were some "twists" in the story that were blatantly obvious hundreds of chapters before they end up being revealed canonically. Along with that, the ending felt uninspired.
Spoiler

I'm not going to give details, but it was the ultra-standard "I am the strongest evar" ending. Where our MC flies majestically into the sunset, with his harem and buckets of loot. This is in spoiler tags for people who don't read a lot of CN novels, since this is a painfully typical conclusion. It's better to judge them by the journey and not the destination if you don't want this to drive you nuts.

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I also didn't like how the fight scenes were written, but that's not what Zhanxian is about so it can be overlooked. Although I've just been naming flaws, there's a lot of good stuff about Zhanxian that I can't be bothered to go into detail about. Anyone who enjoys the Xianxia genre should give it a try.
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Llamia
Llamia
May 17, 2016
Status: c89
For all those who do not like excessive luck and things being given to the MC like candy, you most likely won't like this. However, a logical reasoning (reason) is given for MOST, while the rest is just plain luck, golden luck. The reasoning is like a pass to give him a bunch of good items and knowledge about where items are the world. He need cultivation plants, why not a whole transportable garden? He needs a special technique. Well, he was the great executioner who gathered a lot of information from the most powerful people in the immortal realm. Of course, he has that special technique and much much more.

While I'm more than a bit critical of his shit-ton of luck, I still like to read it. Its not bad. But:

I kept the review below in the spoiler tab very vague. It only gives a character name, gender, and an unspecific overview? Of the character's interaction with the MC that I did not like much.

Spoiler

The female Gosung Ling or whatever. Her development unsettles me a bit. It seems a little too smooth. A little too simple. The MC gave her advice to go through a competition and she passed it well b/c of it. Ever since then, things went a little "uhh what?" for me. B/c of the advice, she gains an immense amount of trust in him to the point where she doesn't question him much even if he says he wants to do the "seemingly impossible task for a person of his level". Way too fast.

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If I had to say what draws me to this story, it would be the MC's ruthlessness, his loyalty, and, to some extent, his immense amount of "rewards". He is a reincarnated time-traveler given a second chance. I am a fan of this combination, so I won't leave this alone anytime soon. Will update after I catch up.
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Draeghe
Draeghe
Sep 12, 2016
Status: c142
I've decided to be brief. Hope I can manage, for once. So I'll start off with pro and cons!

Pro:
- Interesting Main Character
- Plenty of Scheming opponents
- Scheming MC.
- Interesting world. (though not that different from other xianxia)

Con:
- Cultivation drabble is often too long and fills chapter after chapter endlessly
- MC cultivation method is overly complicated, even if it's what sets him apart from others. I somehow doubt it was needed to that extent.
- There's some logic issues in regards to the MC's... more>> behaviour and his opponents. As well as how he acts towards females (and his female master). Nothing worth getting a headache over though.

Yet... I'm still reading, so that means I can bare with the often long times of filler material.

Give the novel a try, to see if you can stand the authors method of writing. There are definitely some interesting and well-done parts, but sometimes 'even I' glare angrily at my screen trying to fathom what the author was thinking... crap, I'm writing too much again...
Just see for yourself.

The 4 rating will stay until I've actually grown tired of this, then it's probably a 3 instead, ;p.
I don't expect anyone to like this review, I just wanted to get my annoyance with the cultivation method off my chest. lol <<less
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Eriht
Eriht
Aug 22, 2019
Status: c139
It was all and fun, until protagonist become fully re***ded.

One sect repeatedly trampled upon his dignity. So MC decided to fly off on his magic sword. Then *bah* few lvls higher cultivator A didn't liked it and stared chasing him. Then after about quarter of ocean said cultivator tried to kill him repeatedly. MC survived showing ALL his cards in process. Then he somehow captured said cultivator.

Other sect is very friendly. They are allies. One of them, cultivator B try to use hypnosis (no harm) on MC, so he will... more>> stay NEUTRAL in their in-sect fight. Hypnosis fail, see rest of the story below.

So now lets compare destinies of cultivator A and cultivator B.:

Cultivator A get off scot free, after "promise" to not do it again. No contract or ban, just "promise".

Cultivator B is killed then refined into moving corpse. In case, when ever using it will destroy ALL relations with all his allied sects, as it is very evil act, not to mention performed on their sect members.

0/5 <<less
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umair
umair
Sep 16, 2018
Status: c232
Disclaimer: I am the editor of this series at Xianxia Novels.

A great novel, if you can ignore its many flaws.

The biggest one being that only the MC is the intelligent one, all others are just cannon fodder and lack even basic common sense. Very quickly, he becomes the leader in the true sense and all others, including his peers and elders are reduced to mere puppets. Unlike other novels, this one, only has the MC and hordes of 1D characters.

Cultivation detail is deep but as always because cultivation in... more>> its true sense is a very weak concept even after thousands of years of literary evolution, it can never take off as something interesting.

This author employs a very clever way of filling a chapter with needless repetitions. The repetitive content is presented in a very tasteful way, thus, only now, after 200 chapters, that I discovered that nothing much really happens in the confines of a single chapter. My reading pattern has devolved into the paragraph skimming technique. Still much better than the chapter skipping technique, I utilize for ED.

The romance is rubbish, you will have to read it to believe and hate it. In this world, even having emotions is termed as being inappropriate... Though this logic gets routinely thrown out the window. MC being the biggest criminal.

The only saving graces of this novel are the matters MC takes up outside his sect and to an extent, the pill concocting. I guess, when he ascends to the upper world, things may have a chance at saving but currently its only going to go down further. <<less
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clowred
clowred
Apr 23, 2017
Status: c196
Incredible novel with one of the best world building I've ever seen, not only in Xianxia but in any other fantasy novel. But this great attention to details also brought a high quantity of unnecessary details of things that were quite evident. So as someone else already said, to be able to keep the same outlook towards this novel, I skipped a few parts of the chapters that were clearly fillers. Even so, the author never uses something only to discard everything. Because of this, skipping too much also means... more>> losing sight of the true face of the protagonist and his purpose. This story is at least in my opinion a great work of art, even though it doesn't reach the same level as ISSTH, it has its deal of charm that sadly because of the low attention it received remains unknown to many. Overall, I can give this novel 4.5 stars. But because recently most xianxia follows the same cliche formula like anime does, I can give an increase of 0, 5 for originality. My advice is, of course, read it. You won't regret it. It's going to be annoying at fist as the chapters need to accessed through different means until chapter 55 I think, but after that it's going to be a smooth ride. <<less
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kossboss
kossboss
Jul 28, 2016
Status: c120
Great novel, not sure how any people who read novels on the top 100 list on this site could rate this lower than a 4 star. Some people compared this to TDG, honestly not sure how you do that, besides the premise of someone going back in time, everything is different. The character also is great in the fact that he does not let others get away with screw with him, and very much fallows the motto of cutting of the issue at the root; but while saying that he... more>> is not excessive. <<less
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