He Pingsheng

Biodata

Power Progression

Background / History

He Pingsheng was born in the Great Void Sect’s outer settlement to two Outer Disciples. His father, He Sanjie, reportedly died to a demonic beast when He Pingsheng was eight; his mother died less than a month later. Sect cultivators then plundered the family’s cultivation resources, and his father’s friend Jiang Jian took him in. Although his spiritual root awakened at nine, its five-element composition made cultivation prohibitively expensive 1.

At fourteen, he asked Jiang Jian to recommend him for work on Bamboo Peak, hoping that proximity to cultivators would give him access to cultivation methods. Boss Zhang assigned him to carry enough water to fill two enormous vats—at least twenty trips each day. His battered basin began transforming its contents, first changing water and then doubling low-grade spirit rice into golden supreme-grade rice. He concealed the resulting improvement in his strength by deliberately working slowly 1 2 3.

Linglong wrongly accused him of contaminating the mountain spring, and Boss Zhang beat him severely. Linglong’s senior sister cleared him and supplied two Golden Bone Pills, but Boss Zhang demanded one in exchange for supposedly saving his life and arranging lighter work. He Pingsheng subsequently moved to the Alchemy Hall, where he cleaned furnaces, disposed of ash, and chopped firewood under Hao Yun 4 5 6 7.

Hao Yun’s death ended his hopes of safely remaining an Alchemy Hall servant. Jade Virtue declared that Linglong had accidentally killed Hao Yun and ordered He Pingsheng to bury the body. To evade searches, He Pingsheng stitched his valuable bottles and books into Hao Yun’s wounds before carrying him down the mountain. He buried Hao Yun, left Bamboo Peak, and privately vowed to kill Linglong once he became strong enough 18 19.

Appearance

He Pingsheng develops from a thin fourteen-year-old laborer into a taller, sturdier youth with a resolute face 1 4 35.

• Early build: Thin shoulders and insufficient stamina for his daily water-carrying quota 1 2.
• Physical development: Meat, enhanced spirit rice, and daily labor noticeably fill out his body within half a month 4.
• At sixteen: A foot taller than when he first went to Bamboo Peak, with a much less childish face; unfamiliar observers would struggle to recognize him 35.
• Clothing: Wears sect Daoist robes as a disciple, but changes into unmarked clothing for market trips to conceal his affiliation 35 48.

Personality

He Pingsheng is persistent rather than confident in his natural talent. He seeks menial work near cultivators despite its hardships, repeatedly practices even when he makes no progress, and continues searching for ways around his spiritual-root limitations. His willingness to experiment produces practical discoveries about the basin, cultivation manuals, and pill consumption 1 9 17 21 22.

Secrecy governs his decisions. He hides valuable rice and pills, masks medicinal fragrance, tests spells far from the sect, and avoids displaying possessions beyond what his rank should justify. Even after entering the Inner Sect, he plans to limit visible advancement to roughly one level every two years rather than expose his use of supreme-grade pills 3 13 22 25 46 48.

He remains loyal to people who help him. Hao Yun’s death leaves him grieving and determined to seek revenge, while Wang Dun’s death brings no pleasure despite leaving him with an alchemy furnace. He abandons Wang Dun’s unpaid debt and becomes increasingly bitter about the ease with which Inner Disciples can kill their weaker counterparts 19 37.

Abilities & Skills

Five-Element Cultivation

His five spiritual roots correspond to five dantians, allowing him to cultivate multiple elemental reserves rather than a single one 40.

• Fire cultivation: Uses the Lihuo True Method, produced by enhancing the Basic Breathing and Qi-Guiding Method 21 22.
• Wood cultivation: Adopts the Everlasting Spring Qi Circulation Art to develop a second dantian while slowing his visible fire-element advancement 40 48.
• Pill-assisted cultivation: Qi-Gathering Pills supply energy directly to his meridians, bypassing the slow passage through his spiritual roots 22 23.
• Multiple reserves: Cultivating additional dantians offers deeper magic-power reserves; both fire and wood reach the sixth level 40 48.
• Limitations: Dense ambient qi and superior methods do not remove his spiritual-root bottleneck. He remains heavily dependent on cultivation resources 22 25 28.
• Earth cultivation: Purchases an Earth-Attribute Cultivation Method for its defensive potential, but no resulting breakthrough is documented 50.

Divine Sense

He independently cultivates divine sense through the Mysterious Gate Tranquil Mind True Formula, obtained by enhancing an incomplete God-Communion Method 33 34.

• Scans nearby surroundings and detects cultivation levels 25 35.
• At fourth-level qi cultivation, can discern an eighth-level cultivator’s cultivation after developing his divine sense—something normally beyond a weaker cultivator 36.
• Reaches an eighty-zhang radius at the formula’s fifth level 39.
• Controls his Fire Crow spell and summons or stores the Treasure-Gathering Basin 24.
• Cannot reliably discern every stronger cultivator; probing seniors also risks offending them 25 45.

Fire Crow Technique

An offensive spell that condenses fire spiritual power into a crow directed by divine sense 24.

• Successfully forms his first palm-sized crow after more than twenty days of practice 24.
• Burns through a giant tree and blasts holes into a rock cliff 25.
• Initially controls attacks within ten zhang, matching his divine-sense range at the time 24.
• Exhausts his fire-aspected spiritual energy after twelve successive attacks during testing 25.
• The technique describes nine simultaneous crows at major mastery and 108 at perfection; neither level is shown as attained 24.

Fire Shield Technique

A defensive spell that creates a movable shield from fire-aspected spiritual power 24 40.

• Demonstrates a shield approximately two feet across, sufficient to cover his upper body 40.
• The method describes protection against one strike from an opponent of the same cultivation level, but He Pingsheng has not tested its actual durability in battle 24 40.

Alchemy

He learns furnace work under Hao Yun and later refines first-grade Qi-Gathering Pills himself 13 37 38 41.

• Uses a low-level boiling method to extract herbal essence and form pills 38.
• Enhances ingredients and furnaces before refining, then enhances completed or failed pills afterward 38 39 46.
• Supplies Yu Ning’s branch with five batches of Qi-Gathering Pills each month 46 48.
• Receives fifty portions of ingredients for those five batches, delivering successful pills and retaining enhanced failures for personal cultivation 48.

Treasure-Gathering Basin Operation

His principal advantage is his ability to enhance and duplicate resources through the Treasure-Gathering Basin 9 21.

• Enhancement: Uses it on rice, pills, weapons, manuals, pollen, transport items, spirit stones, and formation materials 3 9 13 21 34 35 44 48.
• Duplication: Commonly turns one item into two during an overnight enhancement involving moonlight essence 9 34.
• Blood binding: Binds the basin with blood, allowing it to enter his dantian and return on command 24.
• Storage: Can place belongings inside it before storing it in his body; expands the basin to a maximum width of three chi 24.
• Restrictions: An already-enhanced object cannot be enhanced again, and enhancement does not change an item’s basic type—ordinary rice does not become spirit rice 9 21.
• Cultivation-dependent ceiling: Its enhancement strength depends on his cultivation and refinement of the basin. His low-grade spirit stone becomes two middle-grade stones rather than supreme-grade stones 44 45 46.

Equipment / Weapons / Items

• Treasure-Gathering Basin — Bound treasure stored in his dantian; provides enhancement, duplication, and concealed storage 24.
• Enhanced Paper Cranes — Two cranes, each with twelve day-long activations and twice its previous flight speed; one later allows him to unknowingly outdistance the Blackwind Three Fiends 34 37.
• Supreme-grade Flying Swords — Two produced from one low-grade sword, each with four restrictions. He keeps the sword intended for sale after other sales cover his expenses 46 50.
• Supreme-grade Greenwood Shield — One of two shields produced by enhancing his original Greenwood Shield; the accompanying Vine Armor Shield is sold for 1,150 spirit stones 46 49.
• Explosive Bomb and Ice Arrow Talismans — Two of each, enhanced from Fireball and Ice Needle Talismans; remain first-grade but gain severalfold greater power 46.
• Alchemy Furnaces — Wang Dun’s low-grade furnace becomes two supreme-grade furnaces, one square and one round. He sells the square furnace for 800 spirit stones 38 49.
• Seclusion Formation materials — Acquires and enhances a first-grade set, later selling formation materials during his market visit. Purchases another low-grade set to avoid attracting attention with a supreme-grade formation 47 48 50.
• Treasure Bag — Given by Yu Ning; used to prepare goods for market without openly retrieving them from the basin 44 48.
• Storage Bag — Purchased at Horsehead Mountain. He intends to enhance it, but no enhancement is shown in the supplied chapters 50.
• Inner Disciple Token — Identifies his sect rank and grants access to facilities such as the Scripture Repository Hall 42 45.
• Cultivation Miscellany — Reference book purchased for ten spirit stones; clarifies spirit-stone grades, values, and expected cultivation speeds 45 46 48.

Relationships

• He Sanjie — Father and former Outer Disciple; reportedly killed by a demonic beast when He Pingsheng was eight 1 10.
• Unnamed mother — Former Outer Disciple who died shortly after his father. Her death is initially described as mysterious; Jiang Jian’s account says she died trying to avenge He Sanjie 1 10.
• Jiang Jian — His father’s friend and guardian after his parents’ deaths; arranges his entry into Bamboo Peak’s servant workforce 1.
• Boss Zhang — Abusive supervisor who beats him and takes a compensation pill; also arranges his transfer to the Alchemy Hall 4 5 6.
• Hao Yun — Alchemy Hall superior and early mentor. Helps him practice qi sense and offers instruction in furnace heat control; his death motivates He Pingsheng’s vow of revenge 13 16 19.
• Linglong — Hostile Inner Disciple who falsely accuses and humiliates him. Named by Jade Virtue as Hao Yun’s killer and becomes He Pingsheng’s revenge target 4 11 18 19.
• Jade Virtue — Linglong’s master; delivers Hao Yun’s corpse and treats the killing as settled by the Grand Ancestor’s judgment 18 44.
• True Person Yuxuan — Recognizes He Sanjie’s name and warns He Pingsheng not to tell others that He Sanjie was his father 10.
• Wang Dun — Spirit Medicine Valley colleague and market guide. Borrows spirit stones and leaves a furnace as security; He Pingsheng forgives the debt after learning of his death 31 35 37.
• Withered Wood True Person — Employs him to tend Blazing Sun Flowers and collect pollen; praises his completed work but dismisses him until the next planting season 30 34.
• True Person Yu Ning — Master who accepts him as her ninth true disciple, provides resources and accommodation, and assigns monthly pill production 42 46.
• Zhao Ling’er — Senior sister and guide to Inner Sect life. Explains sect facilities and formations, warns him about spying, and vouches for his alchemy income 41 44 47.
• Blackwind Three Fiends — Robbers whose first pursuit fails against his enhanced crane; pursue him again with a Flying Boat after his later purchases 37 50.

Story Role / Major Arcs

Independent Cultivation

• Returns to his inherited courtyard in the outer settlement and retrieves the resources hidden near Hao Yun’s grave 20.
• Enhances his basic cultivation manual into separate wood- and fire-aspect methods, overcoming his initial lack of progress 21 22.
• Reaches fourth-level Qi Refining, learns his first offensive spell, and binds the basin for secure storage 23 24 25.

Spirit Medicine Valley and Horsehead Mountain

• Applies for a fire-attribute job tending Blazing Sun Flowers, advertised at 200 contribution points per month 27.
• Supplies fire power to the growing apparatus and learns pollen collection and grinding; secretly retains a bottle of the harvest 29 30.
• Travels to Horsehead Mountain with Wang Dun, acquires a used Paper Crane, and begins developing his divine sense 31 32 33 34.
• Enhances fading pollen, then prepares for independent alchemy after learning that Wang Dun has been killed by a Bamboo Peak Inner Disciple 35 37.

Return to Bamboo Peak

• Joins the Inner Sect selection at seventeen with fifth-level cultivation, explaining his unusual progress through pill-assisted cultivation 39 40.
• Returns to Bamboo Peak as a disciple rather than a servant and becomes Yu Ning’s ninth true disciple 41 42.
• Gains monthly benefits, a residence, and access to sect facilities, while continuing to conceal the basin and his best resources 42 44 45 46.
• Seeks formation protection because the fragrance of supreme-grade pills could expose him to neighboring disciples 47.

Concealed Advancement and Renewed Pursuit

• Raises his fire and wood dantians and divine-refining method to the sixth level, then plans to slow further visible breakthroughs to avoid suspicion 48.
• Returns to Horsehead Mountain to sell enhanced equipment and buy a Storage Bag; the furnace and Vine Armor Shield alone earn 1,950 spirit stones 48 49.
• Purchases an earth cultivation method and a low-grade Seclusion Formation before departing. The Blackwind Three Fiends follow with a Flying Boat, leaving the pursuit unresolved 50.

Notable Quotes

“From now on, I’ll have to rely on myself!” 20

“Senior Brother Wang borrowed a few spirit stones from me earlier... never mind. Death wipes the debt clean.” 37

“Boys need to protect themselves too!” 47