Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (), or MDZS, is a danmei novel written by Chinese author Mo Xiang Tong Xiu, also known as MXTX. The story is set in a fictional xianxia world where humans known as "cultivators" specialize in spiritual, physical, and paranormal pursuits to achieve transcendence from mortality. It tells the tale of the eponymous Wei Wuxian, who diverged from conventional practices and invented an unorthodox path of cultivation.
Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation follows several interwoven stories: two parallel tales recounting the events of Wei Wuxian's past and present lives, the investigation of the mystery behind a fierce dismembered entity presently terrorizing the cultivation world, and the development of the novel's central love story between Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji, his former classmate and fellow cultivator.
Within the world of Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, issues concerning loyalty, classism, power and corruption, perception vs. reality, and ethics of violence frequently come about. The story is littered with true magical elements and supernatural beings, but the focus is on human characters in grounded conflicts.
The novel originated as a serialized fiction on the Chinese online platform Jinjiang Literature City from 2015 to 2016. , it has been officially translated into 11 different languages. The first two volumes of the ongoing official English translation reached The New York Times Best Seller list upon their release.
Among its official multimedia adaptations are a webcomic, an audio drama, an animated series and its spin-off, an audiobook, a live action web series, and an upcoming mobile game.
Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation is noted for the vast popularity and proliferation of its same-sex romantic couple Wangxian, and for its intensely devoted fan community both within China and abroad.
Synopsis Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation is the story of the rise, death, and rebirth of Wei Wuxian (), a man who made a name for himself as a cultivator with unconventional and forbidden methods to control the undead. Renowned as the founder of the 'Demonic Path', he is eventually killed during an attack by the Four Great Clans.
Thirteen years later, Wei Wuxian's spirit is forcefully summoned during a self-sacrificial ritual and he incarnates into the body of a man named Mo Xuanyu (). Wei Wuxian soon becomes embroiled in an investigation of a series of attacks by a feral dismembered corpse. With a new and unrecognizable face, he attempts to hide his return from the familiar faces he reunites with along his journey. But the stoic Lan Wangji () of the Gusu Lan clan may suspect more than he lets on, and Wei Wuxian may have to face the truth of his resurrection in a world changed by his thirteen-year absence, along with his true feelings for Lan Wangji.
The Wangxian () storyline tells of the deep connection between two men who see past surface distractions to recognize the similarities in the way they live their lives, the values they uphold, their sense of purpose, strength, and self-worth, and of the potential for profound happiness that may result from such.
Story overview
Setting Set in a fictional xianxia world reminiscent of ancient China, where human civilization consists of ordinary commoners and people who belong in the cultivation world, around which the story revolves. Cultivators train and work to accomplish superhuman feats in their attempt to reach transcendence from the mortal realm. Those with sufficient control over their spiritual energy undertake fantastical tasks such as liberating spirits, fighting malevolent ghosts and fierce corpses, exorcising haunted places or objects, and hunting down yaoguai and powerful lawless individuals. Their powers may be channeled through spiritual weapons, musical instruments, arrays, talismans, alchemy, and various other forms of cultivation tools.
The Golden Core () is a cultivated orb materialized from concentrated qi—fundamental energy that constitutes overall health—within the body of a living person and functions as storage for their spiritual power. Once formed, the golden core may escalate the user's cultivation level, resulting in faster skill development and increased longevity. It is a crucial aspect of being a cultivator, as there are certain feats, techniques, and defensive methods that can only be performed with the help of a well-developed golden core. Core formation and development can be achieved through years of diligent routine practices such as meditation and general martial arts training. A person's golden core is impossible to restore if destroyed or removed. Humans who do not possess one, or those who form it late in life, never develop a strong cultivation base and must rely on tools, techniques, or other 'paths' that do not require extensive use of their own spiritual energy.
The cultivation world is made up of numerous clans big and small. In the recent past, the most prominent of these were the Five Great Clans: Qishan Wen clan (), Yunmeng Jiang clan (), Gusu Lan clan (), Lanling Jin clan (), and Qinghe Nie clan (). Each clan is situated at their respective region wherein disciples are trained in their specific clan-oriented 'cultivation path', which they use in practice to protect citizens under their jurisdiction from physical and paranormal threats, to gain glory for their clan, and to improve their personal cultivation level. These pursuits are called Night Hunts, due to mostly being carried out at night as it is the likeliest time of day that supernatural creatures come about.
Aside from their capacity to perform superhuman feats, most cultivators are presented as gentry scholars who train and may become proficient in the Chinese Six Arts, which places them at the top of the social hierarchy. Meanwhile, there are also those who exist as "rogue cultivators", ones who do not belong in any clan, sect, or organization due to them abandoning it, never being in one, being expelled, or their clan/sect being destroyed.
Plot summary (The novel has a non-linear narrative structure with several intertwining plots. Below is a per storyline summary of events.)
The principal storyline begins thirteen years after the death of Wei Wuxian, the Yiling Patriarch (), as he is summoned back to life by Mo Xuanyu through a self-sacrificial ritual. Wei Wuxian is reborn and awakens in the body of a homosexual lunatic, while fully cognizant of his own identity. He finds himself in Mo Village, where he is to fulfill the ritual's condition—to take revenge on Mo Xuanyu's behalf and exterminate the Mo family for abusing him—or else Wei Wuxian's own soul will be forever annihilated. He is freed from this condition when a vicious entity appears and goes on a murder spree that kills every one of Mo Xuanyu's abusers. While exploring the new world he finds himself in, he stumbles into people from his past and ends up accompanying Lan Wangji, his former classmate and a highly esteemed cultivator. The two become embroiled in the mystery of the evil entity, which left in its path a series of clues all seemingly leading back to Wei Wuxian's past. As they travel to unravel the case, Wei Wuxian re-lives previously encountered struggles and trials, and attempts to deal with the hatred of the cultivation world once more, along with the changes in his relationship with Lan Wangji.
While the main narrative covers the present timeline, it is intermingled with intermittent flashbacks recounting Wei Wuxian's previous life, from his glory days as a promising young cultivator until his death as the reviled Yiling Patriarch. As the 15-year-old senior disciple of the Yunmeng Jiang Clan, Wei Wuxian was a highly charismatic, willful, intelligent young man possessing a strong cultivation base and exceptional skills. He had a close relationship with his clan siblings, Jiang Yanli () and Jiang Cheng (). While in Cloud Recesses, he met the stern and aloof Lan Wangji, one of the Twin Jades of the Gusu Lan Clan. The two would maintain an ambiguous relationship throughout their years of acquaintance prior to Wei Wuxian's death.
At a crucial point in the story, Wei Wuxian invented the Ghost Path () of cultivation which, unlike other paths, functions by harvesting and manipulating the resentful energy emitted by fierce ghosts and corpses. With this use of unorthodox methods to overthrow the tyrannical Qishan Wen Clan during the Sunshot Campaign, the cultivation world hailed Wei Wuxian as a war hero for his significant efforts and contributions that led to their victory. However, the fickle nature of society soon reared its head as the clans began to perceive him as a dangerous threat—someone willful and powerful enough to break out from the confines of society's rules, or someone who suffered from moral decay due to walking down the crooked path—while they coveted his powerful inventions all the same. Tensions escalated as Wei Wuxian kept up his objections to the Lanling Jin Clan's inhumane treatment of prisoners of war. Trapped between incompatible duties, he took it upon himself to rescue the Wen refugees and become their sole protector at the Burial Mounds in Yiling, willingly taking on people's anger and distrust with unshakeable conviction. He thus gained the title of Yiling Patriarch and was vilified as a traitor to the Jiangs and declared an "enemy of the cultivation world." Rumors and conspiracies arose, leading to more deaths and devastation, and with the fallout of morals and priorities colliding, it all came to a head at the First Siege of the Burial Mounds by the Four Great Clans, during which Wei Wuxian and the people he was protecting met their inglorious and bloody demise, and the world rejoiced.
The overarching story is a romantic arc that deals with the development of the novel's central love story between Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji. Focalized through Wei Wuxian's limited point of view, it tells of their carefree, flirtatious days as teens—with the irreverent, mischievous Wei Wuxian juxtaposed against the somber, stickler-for-rules Lan Wangji; of the tentative bond they developed as young adults navigating the contentious issue of Wei Wuxian's cultivation path and the conflicts and struggles they're confronted with; and of their reunion thirteen years later when their dynamic swiftly turns into an emotionally intense mixture of extreme dedication, and overwhelming mutual romantic and sexual desire. It is eventually revealed that Lan Wangji had been secretly yearning for Wei Wuxian the whole time they'd known each other, and that his love and devotion never faltered in all the years the latter had been dead.
Publication history
Overview
The first chapter was released on the Chinese web novel platform Jinjiang Literature City () on October 31, 2015, and serialization continued until the main story's completion on March 1, 2016. The next several months were spent revising the main chapters, while side stories (or "extra chapters") were released sporadically. Revision of the main story was posted on August 11, 2016, and the last four extra chapters were added between December 22, 2017, and January 1, 2018. Overall, the novel's online version had a total of 113 main chapters and seven extra chapters, most of which occur after the story's main events (also known as "post-canon").
The Taiwan first print edition was published by Pinsin Studio () in December 2016 in Traditional Chinese. It consists of four volumes containing the uncensored main story and four extra chapters, one of which is an exclusive extra ("From Dawn to Dusk") that was never published on the Jinjiang site.