Green Mountain

Biodata

Geography and Layout

• Extent: Green Mountain stretches across thousands of li, encompassing the Nine Peaks and numerous secluded mountains beyond them 63.
• Terrain: Its peaks range from graceful slopes to precipitous cliffs with mirror-smooth rock faces. Some apparently inaccessible summits nevertheless contain dwellings 7.
• Cloud cover: Clouds and mist ordinarily conceal the Nine Peaks. During Jingyang’s ascension, their dispersal exposes all nine to the world simultaneously 2 3.
• Approach: A bluestone mountain path leads through the fog to a stone gate. South Pine Pavilion and a tower displaying ancestral portraits stand along the route into the sect 7 481.
• Surroundings: Yunji Town lies close enough that Jing Jiu considers it the safest place to settle after leaving the mountain 572.

The Nine Peaks

Other Important Sites

Formations and Defenses

Green Mountain Grand Array

The mountain’s protective array is connected to the mist circulating among its peaks 412.

• It can disperse the cloud sea, expose concealed visitors, and regulate entry into the mountain 3 286 412.
• For major events, the sect activates the formation and announces an exclusion zone. Unauthorized entry or departure within the declared distance is punishable by death 2.
• The distance of a ban signals the seriousness of the occasion. Jingyang’s ascension prompts a Three-Thousand-Li Forbidden Zone 2.
• Under extreme strain, the array manifests as an immense blue-green glow over the peaks, while violent weather erupts around Jade Lake and Shangde Peak 669.

Green Mountain Sword Formation

The sect’s foremost military formation is founded on the Heaven-Bearing Sword Technique. Its central core is the Heaven-Bearing Sword, explaining the rule that only its holder qualifies to become sect master 491 496 669.

• Coordinated attacks: Multiple disciples combine their flying swords into formations powerful enough to defeat opponents beyond their individual cultivation realms 576.
• Formation-breaking: During the Western Sea campaign, a sword net destroys the Heaven-Calculating Pavilion’s defensive formation 491.
• Movement restriction: Interlocking sword intent makes Nan Qu’s Sword Ghost teleportation more difficult 496.
• Destruction: The struggle between Jing Jiu and Taiping carries the formation into Hidden Peak. The Heaven-Bearing Sword is subsequently reduced to fragments, bringing the formation’s demise 686 687.

Sword-Washing Creek

Sword-Washing Creek is actually a whip-shaped mountain-guarding Law Treasure left by the Green Mountain Patriarch 696.

• It can strike or bind an immortal-level intruder 696.
• Its true nature is revealed during the confrontation with Bairen Immortal, whom it leaves injured and enraged 696.

Resident Protectors

• Corpse Dog — Guards the Sword Prison and warns Jing Jiu and Taiping against destroying Green Mountain during their struggle 482 684.
• White Ghost / Liu A’da — The white cat associated with Jing Jiu; its meow transforms sunlight over Green Mountain into sunset clouds during the disputed succession 66 639.
• Yin Phoenix — A Green Mountain Guardian whose claws rival the flying swords of Sea-Breaking Realm cultivators 517.
• Origin Turtle — Rests at Heavenly Light Peak’s summit, awakening when the Heaven-Bearing Sword returns to its stele 469.

Cultivation and Traditions

Training and Sword Inheritance

Sword Culture

• “A sword rises with its wielder”: A flying sword’s strength depends on its cultivator, rather than providing power independently. A sufficiently accomplished disciple’s sword can become a peak’s principal sword 20 453.
• Speed and killing power: The Nine Peaks’ sword arts emphasize these two qualities. Fellow disciples are ordinarily forbidden to aim directly at one another’s bodies outside designated competitions 38.
• Few Law Treasures: Green Mountain’s long-standing preference for swords leaves it with comparatively few conventional Law Treasures 453.
• Returning swords: Cultivators nearing death often return their flying swords to Sword Peak for later generations. This is voluntary; they may instead take their swords to the grave 21 22.
• Limited interest in the arts: The sect generally disdains qin, chess, calligraphy, and painting as methods of nurturing the Dao heart. Nan Wang’s victorious Qin Dao appearance at the Plum Gathering is a notable exception 121.

Administration

• Sect master: Traditionally resides on Heavenly Light Peak and holds the Heaven-Bearing Sword Scabbard 2 567.
• Shangde Peak: Oversees discipline and the assessment of the peaks’ merits 287 578.
• Green Mountain Summit: Peak masters and elders may attend. Meetings in the hall below Past Arrival Peak avoid making participants ascend another peak as guests 286.
• Resource suppliers: Merchant households grow wealthy supplying the sect. The Fang Household dominates for centuries, while the Gu Household becomes especially prominent during Gu Qing’s rise 579.

History

Foundation and Early Conflicts

A young woodcutter surnamed Shen discovered the demon sword Oneness of All Things among the green mountains and attained the Dao. Taking the title True Person Qingshan, he forged the Heaven-Bearing Scabbard to restrain the sword’s developing spirit and founded the Green Mountain Sect 567 882.

Two thousand years before the opening events, Green Mountain’s True Person Chunyang joined the reigning Divine Emperor to defeat the Nether Master’s army at Great Marsh. Their victory was followed by a long period without major war between humanity and the Nether Department 2.

Nan Qu later became one of Green Mountain’s greatest enemies. After Daoyuan refused to accept him as a disciple, he left, obtained a Sword Immortal’s legacy, and returned for revenge. His ambush ruined Daoyuan’s ascension; Daoyuan severed Nan Qu’s Dao Tree and turned Green Mountain’s grand array against him 259.

Rise of the Shangde Lineage

After their elders died, Taiping and Jingyang struggled on Shangde Peak. Taiping recruited Yuan Qijing and Liu Ci, while Jingyang concentrated on cultivation. Their growing faction challenged the other peaks in a bloody upheaval that renewed Green Mountain’s ruling lineage 481.

Jingyang later stopped Taiping’s attempt to possess the Previous Divine Emperor and imprisoned him in the Sword Prison. Liu Ci succeeded as sect master, taking the chair on Heavenly Light Peak approximately three hundred years before Jing Jiu’s succession 432 520.

Jingyang’s Ascension and Jing Jiu’s Return

Jingyang’s ascension was treated as Green Mountain’s most important event in a thousand years. The sect imposed its Three-Thousand-Li Forbidden Zone, while the ascending sword light cleared the clouds from all Nine Peaks 2 3.

Jing Jiu subsequently entered the mountain with Liu S sui under Master Lü’s guidance. Divine End Peak eventually reopened, creating the awkward situation in which Zhao Layue and Jing Jiu, formerly third-generation disciples, stood as peers of senior peak masters 7 52.

Western Sea Campaign and Succession

Green Mountain deployed seventeen Sword Boats against the Western Sea Sword Sect. Ordinary disciples supplied the main attacks, coordinated formations broke fortified positions, and senior cultivators intervened against difficult targets. Liu Ci publicly declared that the expedition had come to bring Taiping back to Green Mountain 491 492.

After Liu Ci’s death, his Heaven-Bearing Sword Scabbard returned to Heavenly Light Peak. The sect mourned him before proceeding to the succession, which ultimately made Jing Jiu sect master 519 520 525.

Jing Jiu then prohibited Twofold Forgetting Peak disciples below Sea-Breaking from leaving the mountains. He opposed sending promising young cultivators into deadly battles while their stronger elders remained in seclusion 529 530.

Division and the Loss of the Sword Formation

Disagreement over whether Jing Jiu was Jingyang or the demon sword Oneness of All Things divided the sect. Jing Jiu departed with Zhao Layue, Yuan Qu, Gu Qing, and Zhuo Rusui, taking the Heaven-Bearing Sword and Nether Emperor’s Seal. Despite the rupture, he settled near Yunji Town because he still trusted Green Mountain most 572.

Fang Jingtian subsequently reversed several of Jing Jiu’s rules. Over the following century without a sect master, the peaks increasingly acted independently, while the eventual succession remained contested 578 623 639.

Jing Jiu and Taiping’s later struggle over the Heaven-Bearing Sword destabilized the mountain’s defenses and ended with the destruction of the Green Mountain Sword Formation 669 684 686 687.

Bairen Immortal and the Heavenly Access Grand Formation

Bairen Immortal descended on Green Mountain and sealed the Sword Prison, claiming that Jing Jiu’s ascension would endanger the world. The ensuing conflict exposed Sword-Washing Creek’s true nature. During Bairen’s battle with Snow Ji, Shangde Peak was destroyed, leaving a black jade disc 692 696 955.

Centuries later, Green Mountain gathered resources from Chaotian and the Other Continents to build the Heavenly Access Grand Formation on Shangde Peak’s former site. Que Niang directed disciples from multiple sects in its design and construction. When the formation was complete, Ping Yongjia asked who wished to ascend first 956.

Simulated Green Mountain

• The game Great Dao Toward Heaven contains a simulated Green Mountain, including Sword Peak and the mountain dwellings associated with Jing Jiu, Zhao Layue, and Ping Yongjia 829.
• Jing Jiu uses the game and Starfield Network to search for Ascension Ones from Chaotian, narrowing thousands of suspicious accounts to more than thirty candidates with Ran Handong’s help 829.
• At the simulated mountain, a mysterious girl agrees to cooperate in exchange for the Azure Sky Mirror. General Li later emerges from the Thatched Hut to meet Jing Jiu 829.