Confucian School

Biodata

Power Progression

The following records changes in the school’s documented fighting strength, rather than an individual cultivation path.

Background

Origins and Historical Dominance

Founded by Master Kong, the Confucian School suffered a catastrophic loss of inherited texts during the Qin dynasty’s burning of books and burying of Confucian scholars. Its surviving institutional heritage derives chiefly from the Western and Eastern Han dynasties, with few pre-Qin texts remaining 223.

The establishment of Confucian teachings as the sole orthodoxy made the school the dominant intellectual and political force in Huaxia. It suppressed competing schools, sometimes destroying their lineages; Tan Buyong identifies the destruction of the True Mohists during the Three Kingdoms era as one such case 54 55 157.

Its power extended beyond scholarship. The school monitored imperial families, suppressed rulers who moved beyond its control, and participated in replacing dynasties. The Li Household’s ancestor described hastening the decay of an exhausted dynasty and establishing a new one as a Confucian duty intended to reduce suffering 115 130.

The school also helped preserve Huaxia’s cultural inheritance. Wang Hao explicitly distinguishes that contribution—and the value of Confucian teachings—from the conduct of an organization increasingly devoted to protecting its own social class 55 153 318.

Control of Cultivation

During the two Han dynasties, the Confucian School modified the prevailing cultivation system, establishing the Internal Force and True Qi System with hidden countermeasures that helped secure its dominance 55.

The reform was not solely malicious: the pre-Qin Qi-refinement path was difficult and had fatal flaws. Nevertheless, the school deliberately used the replacement system to preserve its supremacy, while its own patriarchs largely retained a modified pre-Qin path that made Innate breakthroughs easier without founding a new school of thought 317 318.

Elder Chu attempted to overturn this arrangement through the Body Tempering True Scripture. Despite the Great Ming imperial family’s support, the school suppressed him, knocked him down a realm, and left him unable to advance further 54 55.

Organization and Influence

Internal Structure

Identified Members and Lineages

• Master Kong — Founder and central ancestral authority; the school reveres the Analects as a sacred text 223 329.
• Li Household / Meng School — One of the eight branches, carrying on Mencius’s teachings 130.
• Li Haoran — The Vast Righteousness Sword Saint; derives his sword instruction from Mencius’s writings and later appears among the Early Innate heirs 130 279.
• Li Jishi — Li Haoran’s disciple and a participant in the plots against Wang Hao 130 153.
• Qin Yan — A Xiantian Grandmaster who arranges an attack by seven secluded veterans and later fights among the eight sword-bearing heirs 213 284.
• Wang Yangming — Founder of the School of Mind and eventual recipient of the school’s Fortune Supreme Treasure 428.
• Miaoyin — A young woman brought forward during the patriarchs’ attempt to cultivate ties with “Ximen Chuixue”; she volunteers to follow him despite his warnings 326.

Political and Economic Reach

• Imperial influence: The school can pressure emperors through ministers and has repeatedly intervened in dynastic affairs 115 122.
• Local networks: All clan forces across the realm and more than half its merchants are described as having ties to the school. Their collusion with officials obstructs imperial reforms 345.
• Control of rivals: Its pressure drives powerful martial artists into seclusion or overseas, reducing challenges to its position 285 311.
• Collected knowledge: Successive generations accumulate an enormous martial library through their involvement in government. Wang Hao regards it as an exceptionally valuable source of cultivation inheritances 260 381.

Teachings and Institutional Priorities

• Benevolence: The patriarchs identify benevolence as the central principle running through Confucian thought 381.
• Moral education: Even hostile representatives of other schools acknowledge its excellence in self-cultivation. Wang Hao considers its teachings especially suitable for elementary education and character formation 329 382.
• Engagement with society: Unlike the more withdrawn traditions of the Taoist School, it actively participates in governing the realm 260.
• Preservation of hierarchy: Its monopolization of learning and cultivation protects established interests, but also restricts competition and intellectual development 55 311.
• Neglected educational mission: Wang Hao criticizes the school for preserving martial manuals while losing important philosophical records and failing to make basic education broadly accessible 329 381.

Abilities & Skills

Eight Extremes Sword Formation

A combined formation refined by generations of Confucian experts over more than a thousand years, integrating eight different sword arts into one system 284.

• Allows eight Early Innate practitioners to fight a Late-stage Innate opponent 280.
• Uses the ancient swords’ powers to escape otherwise decisive attacks 283.
• Can be disrupted by repeatedly injuring one participant, as Wang Hao demonstrates against the Giant Gate Heavy Sword’s wielder 375.
• Its workings are eventually deciphered by Wang Hao through his Dao Comprehension Function 284.

Suppress Heaven and Earth

A killing move performed by channeling Innate True Qi into the eight ancient swords 283 284.

• Draws directly on the swords’ accumulated power 283.
• Fails to contain Wang Hao after he studies the formation; he escapes with only a cut in his sleeve 284.

Shatter the Firmament

A combined attack that merges eight streams of Sword Qi into a giant eight-colored blade 284.

• Includes a Divine Sense attack and a target-locking effect, making evasion unusually difficult 285.
• Leaves a scar several dozen zhang long and more than ten zhang deep in a rocky mountain summit 286.
• Consumes substantial strength; the eight heirs retreat after Wang Hao survives it 285.

Ancient-Sword Refinement

The school nurtures its inherited swords with Divine Sense over more than a thousand years, developing extraordinary powers and Acquired Spirituality 215 285.

• Refining and studying these swords rapidly improves Sword Intent 391.
• Wang Hao identifies this benefit as a likely basis for the school’s repeated production of eight Peak Innate experts per generation 391.
• Their fully released power is considered sufficient to kill even an exceptional Peak Innate expert instantly 376.

Vast Righteousness Sword Instruction

Li Haoran’s sword inheritance, comprehended from Mencius’s writings 130.

• Counted among the Half-step Innate martial arts Wang Hao obtains during his conflict with the school 157.

Weapons, Treasures, and Texts

• Eight Ancient Swords / Eight Divine Swords — Branch heirlooms and the school’s strongest defensive assets. Wang Hao later obtains two of them 285 381 391.
• Zhanlu Sword — Entrusted by the Li Household’s ancestor to Li Haoran alongside instructions to reach the Innate realm 130.
• Giant Gate Heavy Sword — Wielded by a patriarch during Wang Hao’s assault on the headquarters; subsequently appears in Wang Hao’s possession 375 391.
• Benevolence Sword — Lent to Linghu Chong for Feng Qingyang’s sake. Linghu Chong acquires its internal inheritance and refuses to return it, prompting a dispute with the school 440.
• Analects bamboo slips — The school’s Fortune Supreme Treasure, fashioned by Wang Hao and entrusted to Wang Yangming rather than the eight patriarchs. It provides a connection to Human Dao Fortune and can grow through its accumulation 427 428.
• Classical and martial collections — An immense archive that Wang Hao reads and is asked to organize; he uses Confucian teachings as the foundation for elementary-school textbooks 381 382.

Major Story Arcs

Conflict with Wang Hao

The school pursues Wang Hao after an earlier capital incident, but losses among its peripheral officials do not seriously weaken it. Its agents watch him on his return to the capital, and a representative recruits Blood Robe Tower members to help lure him into an ambush 111 115 122.

After that attempt fails, the patriarchs decide to make him a whetstone for their younger generation. Their struggle expands into a contest over the Mohist inheritance and an ideological dispute: Li Haoran favors unity under Confucian principles, while Wang Hao advocates reviving the Hundred Schools 130 153.

Wang Hao subsequently creates the Heavenly Demon Sacred Cult as a fabricated external threat to encourage an alliance against the school. His objective is to break its monopoly, not erase Confucian teachings or destroy their cultural legacy 200 248.

Defeat of the Eight Heirs

Eight Early Innate heirs confront Wang Hao’s Zhu Yanzu persona with the ancient swords and Eight Extremes Sword Formation. Empowered by the Ten Directions Certain Kill Great Formation, he studies their techniques, forces them onto the defensive, and survives Shatter the Firmament 279 284 285.

Their retreat damages the school’s reputation for invincibility. Wang Hao nevertheless refuses to pursue them because the aging Peak Xiantian patriarchs remain a potentially suicidal threat 285.

Manipulation Through Fortune and Karma

Disguised as Ximen Chuixue, Wang Hao claims the school’s karmic burden threatens its cultivation prospects. The patriarchs become increasingly alarmed after finding no record that any of their eight branches has produced a Celestial Person Realm expert 318 321.

He combines genuine knowledge of Fortune Supreme Treasures with fabricated claims about overseas powers, lost inheritances, and impending catastrophe. The patriarchs surrender valuable treasures, seek his advice, and endure public challenges from rival schools 327 329 332.

As Chunyangzi, he further isolates them by portraying their Karma as dangerous to associated factions. Zhang Sanfeng sends them down Mount Wudang, while the patriarchs eventually kneel and ask for a way to save their school 346 356.

Headquarters Battle and Educational Redirection

After further hostage-taking, Wang Hao travels to the school’s headquarters. He breaks the patriarchs’ formation by repeatedly targeting the Giant Gate Heavy Sword’s wielder, forcing them to reveal more of the ancient swords’ power 374 375 376.

He later persuades them to reconsider education as their institutional mission and proposes cooperation with Zhu Yanzu’s education department to obtain Human Dao Fortune. The school supplies its texts for his guidance and organization 381 382.

Reform and the Fortune Supreme Treasure

The school eventually relinquishes almost all its peripheral factions and uses its own strength to force their cooperation with nationwide martial-arts reforms. It also supplies teachers for schools intended to give every school-age child a basic education 422.

Its reform remains incomplete. Wang Hao reveals that the patriarchs’ efforts to preserve private benefits have left their Fortune darkened by Karmic Cause and Effect. He therefore entrusts the Analects bamboo slips to Wang Yangming, whose missing hands and condition suggest prolonged imprisonment following his conflict with the eight branches 428.

Benevolence Sword Dispute

At Mount Hua, Wang Hao exposes Linghu Chong’s possession of the Benevolence Sword’s inheritance and warns that losing the sword could drain the school’s Fortune. Its Celestial Person experts demand an explanation and eventual repayment, but postpone infighting because of the approaching calamity 440.

Relationships

• Wang Hao — Enemy, manipulator, and eventual driver of institutional reform. His various personas let him fight the school while simultaneously posing as its adviser 200 318 381.
• Great Ming imperial family / Old Zhu Household — Longstanding political rival and target of suppression; later a partner in spreading martial arts and basic education 115 345 422.
• Elder Chu — Former challenger whose cultivation and freedom were severely curtailed by the school 54 115.
• Mohist School — Victim of historical suppression; the Confucians also seek its surviving inheritance 153 157.
• Taoist School — Rival with a longer heritage, but also an occasional collaborator. Their ties become a vulnerability during Wang Hao’s campaign of karmic intimidation 260 346.
• Sword Demon — Fought the patriarchs from two generations earlier to a draw using power later identified as Celestial Person Momentum 325.
• Little Sage Manor — Presented by Wang Hao as an overseas tradition sharing the school’s origins. The patriarchs search for its supposed successor, but this lead forms part of his deception 346 356 380.
• Net Trap — Subject of suspicions encouraged by Wang Hao’s fabricated history. His claim that its infiltrators caused the school’s division is not established as genuine history 319 354.
• Linghu Chong and Ren Yingying — Become adversaries over Linghu Chong’s refusal to surrender the Benevolence Sword 440.