To all my readers: my new novel, "Incense Ancestor," is now online. You can find it on Qidian by opening my "Other Works" page. Please give it your support.
The title, Incense Ancestor, originally refers to orchids, with their refined, delicate fragrance. This book, however, takes the words literally: becoming a supreme master and founding ancestor of the Incense Dao.
This book tells a story in which incense culture inspires the development of cultivation methods, but its spiritual core is that worshipping yourself is better than worshipping gods. When you burn incense and light candles, believing that faith makes them efficacious, it is really only that the thoughts in your own heart are sincere and upright, and the Heavenly Dao rewards diligence. The Great Dao can be passed on but cannot be received, attained but not seen. In the end, it still comes down to human effort.
Overall, it is a story of old wine in a new bottle. The new bottle is the material drawn from incense culture, much like the Artifact Dao, spirit beasts, and Mechanism Puppets I wrote about before, though this seems more novel. The old wine is the leveling and growth of the mortal-style cultivation genre. This time, the setting leans toward divine abilities and great power residing within oneself: the protagonist consumes incense to refine his soul, with a greater emphasis on transformations involving the primordial spirit and dharma forms.
I cannot reveal too much else, so I will just say: start with one wife, fight for the rest of your harem (advertising copy), and cash in all your gold ingots... Come give it a try. Incidentally, if you want to invest in the new book, hurry.
Here is the book's synopsis:
Those who eat meat are brave, those who eat grain are wise,