Xiao Yan

Biodata

Power Progression

• Temporary power is distinct from cultivation: Su Bai’s spiritual-power vessel granted Xiao Yan Epoch King-level power for a battle; Xiao Yan explicitly recognized it as far beyond his true Immortal King cultivation 1084.
• Later realm comparison: By his rematch with Di Cang, the text states that they had reached the same cultivation level, removing Di Cang’s former realm advantage, but does not name Xiao Yan’s realm in that passage 1221.

Background / History

Xiao Yan came from the well-off Xiao Household of Cloudwater City, where he was known as its Third Young Master. Despite his family’s resources, he could not retain spiritual energy. His inability to cultivate made him a target of public ridicule and contempt within his lineage; he later recalled his father’s disappointment and his mother’s daily tears 11 37 1194.

His fiancée, Liu Yanran, publicly ended their engagement after becoming the Cloud Heaven Sect master’s disciple. Humiliated by her insistence that he would always remain beneath her, Xiao Yan challenged her to a duel three years later. Su Bai approached him afterward, rejected the idea that anyone was born useless, and offered him a chance to find another cultivation path 10 11.

Accompanied by his younger clanswoman Xiao Xier, Xiao Yan entered the Heavenly Dao Sect and became Su Bai’s third personal disciple. In the Immortal Arts Pavilion, the Guardian Spirit explained that his dantian could not currently be repaired but that body cultivation remained possible. He accepted the Primordial Chaos Body-Refining Art despite its punishing requirements 15 16 17.

Appearance

• Build: Sturdy and heavily muscled; Cloud Heaven Sect disciples remarked on his solid physique and visibly defined abdominal muscles 29 132.
• Face and hair: Described as handsome, with long hair; his later appearance includes slightly disheveled hair and exceptionally bright eyes 132 231 1430.
• Habitual manner: Often carries a blade of grass between his lips and rests his heavy ruler on his shoulder 1052 1430.
• Bearing: Develops from an openly distressed youth into a composed, elegant young man, while retaining a languid, roguish manner 10 229 1219.

Personality

Xiao Yan’s original drive is wounded pride: he wants to prove that he is not useless. He willingly endures severe physical training because he considers Liu Yanran’s humiliation more painful than bodily suffering. Even much later, he identifies his reason for cultivation as “a single breath of pride” 17 18 1194.

His confidence grows with experience. Before the three-year duel, he acknowledges that his original challenge was youthful and unrealistic without the Heavenly Dao Sect’s intervention. By the duel itself, he seeks closure rather than Liu Yanran’s approval, and defeating her allows him to make peace with his past 131 133 134.

He relishes difficult battles, frequently volunteers to fight multiple opponents, and greets powerful rivals with excitement. His apparent recklessness is not entirely impulsive: his fellow disciples recognize that he normally evaluates his own strength and his opponent’s before acting 152 156 1055 1174.

His loyalty to Su Bai and the sect is firm. He credits his master with changing his destiny, refuses offers from other major sects, and rejects the Eighth Divine General’s recruitment because he already has a master 158 229 1079.

Abilities & Skills

Primordial Chaos Body-Refining Art

• Provides a cultivation route despite his inability to practice ordinary Qi Refining 16 17.
• Initial conditioning: Requires a ten-li run carrying one hundred jin within a quarter-hour, one hundred weighted push-ups, and one hundred whip lashes before formal cultivation can begin 17.
• Physical defense: Liu Yanran’s sword attacks fail to damage even a strand of his hair; their rebound injures her instead 134.
• Cross-realm strength: At Golden Core Sixth Layer, he matches a Nascent Soul genius’s physical power. His apparent speed disadvantage disappears after he removes his training weights 156 157.
• Later durability: Survives Di Cang’s devastating spear strike with only minor injuries, despite being hurled countless billions of miles away 1162.

Flame Cultivation and Fusion

• Collects powerful flames from across the heavens. By one documented stage, he has gathered several hundred thousand flames from one hundred thousand worlds and fused them together, gaining enough power to burn an entire great world 441.
• Fused flames: Kill an Eighth Transformation Golden Immortal patriarch during the assault on Azurewood Immortal Sect 530.
• Lotus of Ten Thousand Flames: Condenses fused flames into a lotus to oppose Lina’s Demon King’s Claw 658.
• Ultimate Path of Fire: Overwhelms the sword domain of the First Immortal King’s Consciousness-Shard Doppelgangers; Xiao Yan also becomes a giant of flame to resist their sealing chains 897.
• Calamity Fire: Burns an Immortal King during the battle against Heaven Gate 1007.
• Myriad Flames Burn Heaven: Used to meet Di Cang’s spear attack. He subsequently compresses Myriad Flames into a Chaos-colored fireball that Di Cang recognizes as a genuine threat 1162.
• Emperor Art: Displays an Emperor Art while still described as an Immortal King. With his Heavenly Fire Origin burning at full strength, he contracts a sea of flames into a dragon against the Creation Furnace 1455.
• Documented limit: The First Slaughter Formation’s coordinated attacks and Heaven-Binding Dao Lock initially hold him in check despite his flame transformation 897.

Heavy-Ruler Techniques

• Combines the Mystic Iron Ruler’s immense weight with his body-cultivation strength 132 156.
• Heaven-Overturning Ruler: Clashes with Southern Heaven Gate’s formation phantom, whose power approaches Nascent Soul Peak 205.
• Space-Rending Ruler: Shatters the fused first three arrows of Lin Tian’ao’s Nine Arrows Shooting the Sun 231.
• Mountains-and-Rivers Ruler: Meets Lin Tian’ao’s Fourth Arrow 231.
• Eternal Heaven-Opening Ruler: Breaks the blood-essence-powered Life-Seizing Arrow and cleaves Lin Tian’ao’s bow in two 231.
• Unarmed fighting: Remains dangerous without the ruler. Setting it aside increases his speed, allowing him to overwhelm Lin Tian’ao with punches and kicks 232.

Movement and Spatial Power

• Divine Movement Step: Used while fighting Lin Tian’ao 231.
• Spatial Power: Mastered by the age of twenty, before reaching Spirit Transformation. Against Lin Tian’ao, their shared command of space cancels out that advantage 229 230.
• Movement under pressure: Teleports freely on the Heavenly Ladder’s 4,999th step, where other prodigies struggle to move 1183.

Heavenly Dao Spear Arts

• Creates the Heavenly Dao Thirteen Spears after studying the thirteen spear attacks used by Di Cang’s avatar 1221.
• Documented forms include Questioning the Dao, Questioning the Heart, Questioning Fate, and Questioning the Law 1221.
• Overpowers all twelve of Di Cang’s documented spear attacks during their direct contest, with residual Spear Intent cracking Di Cang’s armor 1221.
• Later perfects a nameless fifteenth spear, combining Reincarnation, enduring ancient ages, and an invincible intent defined by refusing retreat, fear, or regret 1226.

Alchemy

• Produces pills of consistently exceptional quality and becomes a prominent alchemist within the Heavenly Dao Sect 292.
• His pills transform the Xiao Household’s finances, bringing its annual earnings to more than 120,000 High-Grade Spirit Stones and helping it become a top-tier continental power 290.
• Uses the Extreme Frost Ice Flame to refine one hundred crystal-clear Spirit Transformation Pills in the first Pill Assembly 295.
• Defeats Lu Tong and wins the assembly. An eighth-grade alchemist acknowledges that Xiao Yan has reached the pinnacle of that particular feat, without claiming that his overall alchemy surpasses the elder’s 295.

Instruction

• Teaches Tuoba Xiong an Immortal Art that corrects flaws in his cultivation, prompting Tuoba to pledge himself to the Heavenly Dao Immortal Sect 906.
• Participates in guiding the Primordial Era guests alongside Su Bai’s other disciples 906.

Equipment / Weapons / Items

• Mystic Iron Ruler / Dark Iron Heavy Ruler — His signature weapon. Its resting weight damages Cloud Heaven Sect’s plaza, and Lin Tian’ao cannot lift it when attempting to steal it. Its exact artifact rank is not established in the supplied passages 132 232 1430.
• Weighted plates — Used to suppress his physical performance during training and combat; removing them dramatically increases his speed against Wu Yong 157.
• Primordial Chaos Body-Refining Art scroll — Received from the Immortal Arts Pavilion’s Guardian Spirit and used to begin his alternative cultivation path 16 17.
• Spear — Wielded for his Heavenly Dao spear techniques against Di Cang 1221 1226.
• Extreme Frost Ice Flame — A named flame used in his competition-winning pill refinement 295.

Relationships

• Su Bai — Master and benefactor. Offers him a path beyond his defective dantian, accepts him as his third personal disciple, and supports his later visit to the Ancient Clan 11 15 295.
• Xiao Xier — Younger clanswoman and protective companion. Supports his decision to join the sect, accompanies him there, and initially distrusts Su Bai’s ability to help him 14 15 16.
• Liu Yanran — Former fiancée and original rival. Her public rejection inspires the three-year pact; defeating her resolves his longstanding humiliation. She later watches his rise under the name Ruyan and questions whether she regrets abandoning him 10 134 229.
• Zhuge Feng — Senior brother. Offers to accompany him to Cloud Heaven Sect, volunteers to face Wu Yong in his place, and later steps forward to assist against the First Slaughter Formation 131 156 897.
• Xiao Lingxi — Senior sister. Welcomes him into the sect, supports the three-year challenge, and coordinates with him against Azurewood Immortal Sect’s patriarchs 15 131 530.
• Ye Qingyao — Junior sister whose success, alongside his own, demonstrates that the Heavenly Dao Sect can cultivate people dismissed as untalented. He takes her place against the Cloud Heaven Sect challenger 37.
• Han Feiyu — Junior brother who admires his courage in declaring the three-year pact before he had any reliable route to cultivation 131.
• Gu Xuan — Ancient Clan patriarch who publicly introduces Xiao Yan as his future son-in-law 297.
• Chen Fan — Fellow disciple whose name Xiao Yan borrows during his fight with Di Cang, leaving the actual Chen Fan exasperated 1220.
• Su Qingyun — Fellow disciple introduced to Xiao Yan after their battle; Xiao Yan invites him to address him as Third Senior Brother 1111.
• Di Cang — Major opponent. Initially overwhelms him through superior cultivation; their later rematch ends in Xiao Yan’s victory 1162 1221 1231.
• Eighth Divine General — Attempts to recruit him into the Celestial Court and take him as a disciple. Xiao Yan repeatedly refuses 1079.

Story Role / Major Arcs

Early Battles and the Three-Year Pact

• Black Wolf Stronghold: Joins his senior disciples in attacking bandits who have harassed Xiao Household caravans. His first documented ruler strike kills a First-Level Qi Refinement cultivator 28 29.
• Sect recruitment demonstration: Defeats a Second-Level Qi Refinement disciple of Cloud Heaven Sect with one blow. His victory and Ye Qingyao’s successful cultivation drive spectators to seek entry into the Heavenly Dao Sect 37.
• Return to Cloud Heaven Sect: Arrives with Su Bai and his fellow disciples to fulfill the pact. Liu Yanran’s attacks cannot harm him, and her defeat allows him to lay his past humiliation to rest 131 132 134.
• Yun Kong’s intervention: The former Cloud Heaven Sect master demands that Xiao Yan kneel, call himself trash, and accept him as master, while also demanding the Heavenly Dao Sect’s submission 136.

Immortal Alliance Assembly

• Challenges the Sacred Tiger Sect’s remaining contestants to fight him together, then insists on personally facing its Nascent Soul genius Wu Yong 152 156.
• Overcomes his apparent speed disadvantage by revealing that he has been fighting under enormous training weights 157.
• Defeats Zhang Kuang after breaking through during Southern Heaven Gate’s coordinated assault; later volunteers when Zhang Kuang returns with an eighty-nine-person supporting lineup 205 206 215.
• Faces Lin Tian’ao, one of Heavenly Palace’s Four Great Heavenly Kings. After destroying his bow, Xiao Yan accepts an unarmed fight and kills him, recalling the ninety young geniuses Lin Tian’ao had slain 229 231 232.

Alchemy and the Ancient Clan

• Enters an alchemy contest against Pill Sect’s foremost true disciple, Lu Tong, before an audience of several million 292.
• Wins the first Pill Assembly and uses his reward request to ask Su Bai to accompany him to the Ancient Clan 295.
• Is accepted by Gu Xuan as his future son-in-law during the Ancient Clan’s submission to the Heavenly Dao Sect 297.

Immortal Realm and Primordial Era Conflicts

• Helps eliminate Azurewood Immortal Sect’s patriarchs, first killing one with fused flames and then assisting Xiao Lingxi 530.
• Battles Lina and counters her awakened Demon King Bloodline with the Lotus of Ten Thousand Flames; the supplied account ends at their attacks’ collision 658.
• Annihilates ten Devil Race prodigies and challenges the Great Devil King to face twelve of Su Bai’s disciples together 806.
• Erases Patriarch Nangong inside his Time Domain. The subsequent Spacetime Backlash targets Shi Huang and Ah Hu, not Xiao Yan 848.
• Becomes the First Immortal King’s intended vessel and resists sixteen Consciousness-Shard Doppelgangers before Zhuge Feng joins him 897.

Eternal Immortal Realm and Human Realm Tournaments

• Fights Heaven Gate’s Immortal Kings during his own tribulation, then later defeats the Black Prison Saint Son’s Dao Protector and captures the fleeing Saint Son 1007 1058.
• Battles the mysterious “Wu Wushuang,” later introduced as Su Qingyun, and refuses the Eighth Divine General’s attempts to claim him for the Celestial Court 1070 1079 1111.
• Reaches the summit of the Ten-Thousand-Level Heavenly Ladder. During the ascent, he kills three threatening prodigies by throwing them onto a step whose pressure crushes them 1183 1219.
• Uses Chen Fan’s name for his rematch with Di Cang, counters Di Cang’s spear art with his own creation, and returns victorious to the Human Realm seats 1220 1221 1231.

Six Realms Battles

• Enters the twelfth round as the Human Realm’s next fighter, still publicly recognized as “Chen Fan,” the man who defeated Di Cang 1430.
• Cooperates with a black-robed swordsman to suppress the Immortal Realm’s hooded fighter through heavy-ruler attacks, heavenly fire, and destruction sword intent 1452.
• Displays an Emperor Art against the Creation Furnace 1455.
• Identifies the First Divine General’s desire to study four Human Realm prodigies’ Emperor Arts and probe their realm’s hidden strength, then accepts his challenge 1471.

Notable Quotes

“In this world, some people are destined to be geniuses, but no one is born destined to be trash!” 134

“Sorry, I already have a sect. I will never join another force in this lifetime!” 158

“I don’t have any hobbies besides studying the moves other people use to beat me.” 1221

“My flames need no acknowledgment from creation!” 1455