Xu Household

Biodata

Power Progression

The following records the household’s developing cultivation strength rather than every breakthrough made by Xu Xuan.

History

Farming Origins and Revival

The Xu Household originally passed down farming and scholarship. When Xu Changgeng awakened Xu Xuan’s memories near death, none of the relatives gathered before him possessed spiritual roots. He transmitted the Grain Garment Art and instructed his descendants to protect the method and preserve their lineage 1.

Over several generations, its practitioners accumulated farmland and wealth, improved their homes, and developed their village into Xu Household Market. A renovated ancestral hall honored Xu Changgeng as the ancestor who had revived the family 1.

Its inherited rules nevertheless discouraged expansion: descendants were to remain in River Sun, farm and study, and avoid the mystic path. Reborn as Xu Daocheng, Xu Xuan began overturning that isolation by improving the family’s cultivation method and preparing it for contact with immortal cultivators 3 4.

Commercial Expansion

Xu Daocheng sent Xu Mingyuan to establish the Xu North-South Trading House in River Sun Prefecture City. Its commercial operations also concealed a search for information about immortals and spiritual objects. When cultivation expenses drew objections from clan elders, Daocheng improved rice seeds, medicinal herbs, farming tools, and looms; increased production eventually covered his expenditures 6.

The Azure Mystery Gang arose to defend the trading house against extortion. Daocheng’s marriage to Liu Yun then connected the household to the Great Dragon Gang and Heyang’s official circles. By the time he completed mourning for Xu Chengye, the family had become one of Heyang Prefecture’s few great lineages, with farmland and shops across the prefecture 7.

Xu Household Market eventually became a town of more than ten thousand people, most belonging to the Xu bloodline. Spiritually rooted members cultivated at North Ridge Mountain, where Daocheng established a rudimentary Spirit-Gathering Formation 8.

Entry into the Cultivation World

After the Azure Wood Sect rejected the household’s juniors, Xu Daocheng secured a different route into cultivation society. Yuan Qiu accepted the household as a vassal lineage, contracting it to cultivate five hundred mu in Hundred Fragrance Valley and granting the Green Grain Art, which supported cultivation through the third level of Qi Refining. One hundred clansmen initially moved to the valley 10.

Daocheng’s lifetime ended without securing lasting prosperity: Xu Xuan witnessed both his cultivation and the household decline before dying at sixty-seven. Reborn as Wang Tong, he later resumed supporting his descendants from Hundred Fragrance Valley and the Azure Wood Sect 13 19 23.

Secret deliveries of manuals, seeds, talismans, pills, and practical knowledge helped the family establish a hidden spiritual-vein base and begin alchemy. Xu An, Xu Ping, and Xu Shun entered the sect’s medicinal garden, creating a reliable channel between Xu Xuan and his descendants 19 21 23.

Founding the Lingyan Xu Lineage

Following Yuan Qiu’s death and threats to Hundred Fragrance Valley, Xu Xuan ordered trusted members to establish a discreet foothold in the Yue Kingdom’s Southern Wilds. He later led most of the household’s core members south to Spiritual Expanse Mountain, named their chosen valley Lingyan, and began building homes, spirit fields, and defensive formations 29 35.

The neighboring Xiao Household demanded tribute and threatened destruction. Xu Xuan first deterred it with an authentic Azure Wood Sect inspector’s token, then obtained Elder Zhou’s intervention. This protection also discouraged the Black Tooth Tribe and gave the new settlement time to develop 36 37 38.

The lineage subsequently gained its own Qi Refining cultivators. By Xu Chen’s return, it had destroyed the Black Tooth Tribe, acquired Azure Mist Peak, and reduced the Xiao Household to a subordinate lineage 39 48.

Great Xu and Regional Expansion

A northern branch founded by Xu Zhiyi acquired military distinction, married into the Chen Yue imperial family, and eventually became the household of the Marquis of Martial Might. Xu Xuan’s fourth incarnation, Xu Chen, was born into this branch and returned to Spiritual Expanse Mountain to recover his earlier inheritance 46 48 49.

The lineage’s position did not make it invulnerable. Chen Tianci killed its Qi Refining elders and threatened to execute one household member each day until Xu Chen appeared. Xu Qingchan’s return from the Jade Dragon Sword Sect prevented Chen Tianyuan from killing him 64.

Xu Chen later founded the Great Xu Immortal Dynasty, with Xu Mingxuan handling court affairs. Its imperial branch developed the strongest aptitude within the wider Xu bloodline, while the dynasty adopted succession by ability rather than automatic inheritance by the eldest son 68 79.

As Xu descendants entered Foundation Establishment, the lineage became one of the foremost families in the Southern Wilds. Members also returned to the Kingdom of Wu to reclaim fields and establish new branches 92.

Destruction and Later Survival

In his subsequent life as Yang Ye, Xu Xuan concluded that Great Xu had been destroyed after his previous death and that surviving imperial descendants had adopted another surname to escape pursuit. The destruction lay more than two hundred years in the past 103.

Later, operating as Daoist Xuanchen, he cultivated promising members of the Xu Household in the Azure Waves region. His advice helped it repel a Liu Household attack on its mine. He declined an invitation to become guest elder, insisting that the family needed strength of its own rather than permanent dependence on an outsider 128 129.

Leadership and Governance

Principal Leaders

Factions under Xu Mingxuan

By Xu Mingxuan’s tenure, control of resources and armed forces had produced competing elder factions 50 51.

Xu Mingxuan’s relative lack of seniority and cultivation forced him to balance these interests, particularly over resource allocation and external policy 51.

Territory and Resources

The ancestral settlement did not prosper indefinitely. When Xu Xuan revisited Xu Household Market in the Great Xu era, he found few Xu relatives, mostly elderly or frail, and an ancestral residence with peeling paint, weeds, and rotting pillars 82.

Cultivation and Inheritance

Foundational Methods

• Grain Garment Art — The household’s original foundation. Its physical benefits supported farming, martial training, and the endurance of later sect menial workers 1 23.
• Improved breathing method — Xu Daocheng’s revision accelerated essence cultivation and raised the strength of the broader clan 4.
• Green Grain Art — Granted by Yuan Qiu under the vassal agreement; provided a method reaching the third level of Qi Refining 10.
• Xu Lineage Qi Refining Art — Compiled by Xu Xuan before the end of his Wang Tong lifetime as part of a broader system of schools and cultivation rewards 43.

Specialist Crafts

• Spiritual agriculture — Improved grain and medicinal plants financed early expansion; later generations cultivated spiritual fields and medicinal gardens 6 23 38.
• Alchemy — The household first achieved low-rate production of Grain Abstinence Pills, then stabilized that craft and attempted Qi-Restoring Powder 21 23.
• Workshops — Spiritual Expanse Mountain’s ironwood and red copper supported implement refining and armament forging, with surplus goods sold outside the lineage 38.
• Formation knowledge — Secretly supplied manuals helped develop the household’s knowledge base; defensive formations protected its southern settlement 19 35 36.

Talent Development and Safeguards

• Spiritual-root screening — Eligible children were repeatedly tested. Early discoveries were generally impure or false spiritual roots, but even faint-rooted children were brought into the core and nurtured 10 23.
• Marriage arrangements — Xu Ziyu sought spiritually rooted outsiders and arranged marriages with Xu members, including marriages into other families 30.
• Branch preservation — Bloodlines were deliberately retained at Xu Household Market and Hundred Fragrance Valley even after Lingyan became the main seat 43.
• Restricted inheritance — Opening the Spiritual Expanse vault required direct-line Xu blood and a specific method. Xu Chen succeeded where generations of outstanding descendants had failed 49.
• Dispersed caches — Xu Xuan hid resources in multiple cave abodes rather than concentrating everything within the lineage. He continued preparing new caches as insurance for future lives 43 92 103.

Associated Organizations

• Xu North-South Trading House — Founded by Xu Mingyuan in River Sun Prefecture City; sold the household’s produce and manufactured goods while gathering intelligence about cultivation 6.
• Azure Mystery Gang — Formed to protect the trading house. Its core consisted of Xu children, selected collateral relatives, and household-born servants trained in the modified Grain Garment Art and coordinated combat 7.
• Secret Hall — Covert organization commanded by Xu Huai’en, alongside the gang’s hidden forces 11.
• Cloud Arrival Trading House — Established in Cloudmist Market as a discreet outlet for household goods, a source of cultivation supplies and intelligence, and cover for Xu members near the Azure Wood Sect 30.
• Great Xu Immortal Dynasty — Founded by Xu Chen and supported by the wider lineage. It opened imperial succession to any sufficiently capable member of the Xu bloodline 68 79.
• Azure Mystery Sect — Later accepted spiritually rooted Xu descendants in the Kingdom of Wu, alongside the alternative of studying at Great Xu’s academy 92.

External Relationships

• Yuan Qiu and the Yuan Household — Early patrons who provided spiritual farmland, the Green Grain Art, and limited access to sect supplies. Xu Xuan maintained Yuan Qiu’s favor through gifts and private assistance 10 11.
• Azure Wood Sect — A source of employment, knowledge, resources, and political protection. Xu descendants eventually served in numerous branch institutions 23 37 43.
• Great Dragon Gang — Protected the household’s early commercial interests after Xu Daocheng married Liu Yun and the Azure Mystery Gang became its affiliate 7.
• Xiao Household — Initially demanded tribute and threatened the Lingyan settlement; later surrendered wealth and inherited methods, acknowledged Xu as its parent lineage, and farmed and raised livestock for it 36 48.
• Black Tooth Tribe — Rival claimant to Spiritual Expanse Mountain’s hunting grounds; initially deterred by sect backing and eventually destroyed by the Xu Lineage 35 38 48.
• Liu Household — Later overseas rival that threatened Xu ancestral property and attacked its mine. Xu defenders used Xu Xuan’s material-corrosion scheme to disable the attackers’ artifacts and disrupt their magical power 128 129.
• Azure Wave Water Mansion — Developed closer trade ties with the later Xu Lineage. Intelligence suggested its founder was half human and half demon, with strength estimated between peak Foundation Establishment and Purple Mansion 129.