Mu Xunzhen

Biodata

Power Progression

Mu Xunzhen’s youthful cultivation and her present-day power are separated by a long, largely undocumented interval 27 35.

Background / History

Youth in the Wondrous God Sect

Mu Xunzhen was the seventh junior disciple on the Wondrous God Sect’s main peak. Her honesty and willingness to work made her easy to exploit: fellow disciples assigned her exhausting tasks, borrowed her possessions, and took her assistance for granted. When this failed to slow her cultivation, their suppression escalated to the Essence-Draining Incantation 3 15 20.

Her fellow disciples dismissed her complaint despite sensing that she had been cursed. After she recovered her cultivation and injured Sixth Senior Brother Zhao Qiming through backlash, Eldest Senior Brother demanded her precious Essence-Nurturing Grass to treat him. She had nearly died obtaining the herb, while Eldest Senior Brother possessed his own supply 3 6.

Through a jade pendant, she sought advice from Qi Yan, whom she initially mistook for an experienced senior cultivator. He helped her recognize that Eldest Senior Brother—not merely Zhao Qiming—was suppressing a potential rival. At his suggestion, she obtained a seven-day mission from Grandpa Wu and left the sect legally, avoiding the demand for her herb 3 7.

Golden Core and Open Resistance

Mu Xunzhen returned from her python-slaying mission at Golden Core and refused Eldest Senior Brother’s attempt to reprimand her for leaving. She cited the sect’s rules and slipped past him when he tried to block her path 14 15.

Zhao Qiming subsequently arrived with his uncle, Zhao Hong, accusing her of casting a harmful curse and demanding her Azure Nether Sword. With Qi Yan advising her through the pendant, she resisted being taken away as an accused suspect, wounded Zhao Hong, seized his shield, and publicly exposed their attempt to rob her. The disturbance forced the elders to summon both men to the Law Enforcement Hall; Zhao Qiming was later expelled 20 26.

During her Golden Core trial, she used two attackers’ momentum to send them into venomous beasts and escaped without obtaining the Heart-Nourishing Lotus. Eldest Senior Brother accused her of endangering him and Third Senior Brother, and the elders sentenced her to one month of confinement on Chaotic Spirit Mountain 48.

She later secured permission to travel with Elder Wu’s support, on the condition that she return before her master emerged from seclusion 50.

Founding the Heavenly Evolution Sect

Mu Xunzhen eventually founded the Heavenly Evolution Sect, bringing powerful cultivators into the undertaking. Daoqing recalls that the battles over its spirit mountains and mineral veins were so bloody that mountain springs stopped flowing; figures such as Wan Changqing acknowledged her leadership afterward 23 37.

The sect developed into a wealthy, self-sufficient regional power, possessing mineral deposits and spirit-stone veins and administering surrounding settlements. Although it generally avoided contests for supremacy, Mu Xunzhen’s strength made it an unavoidable regional overlord 29.

The Search for Brother A-Yan

Mu Xunzhen eventually confessed her feelings to Brother A-Yan, but regretted not arranging a meeting sooner: by the time she wanted to see him, she could no longer find him. Her search continued for over ten thousand years 27 48.

In the present, she investigates Qi Yan as a possible lead. His name, voice, manner, and connection to ancient witchcraft suggest a resemblance, but she initially considers explanations such as reincarnation or unawakened memories. Neither she nor Qi Yan recognizes that his pendant conversations with Little Crybaby cross the boundary between her youth and his present 19 27 35.

Appearance

Present-day Mu Xunzhen is renowned as a peerlessly beautiful immortal maiden, with white hair that contrasts with the glossy black hair of her youth 19 35.

• Hair: White in the present; black in her younger days 19.
• Clothing: Blue-and-white vestments during her confrontation with the Azure Cloud Sect 36.
• Eyes and aura: Her gaze is compared to lightning. During periods of intense killing intent, her eyes and surrounding aura appear blood-colored 19 36 47.

Personality

As Little Crybaby, Mu Xunzhen is honest, tearful, and inexperienced in handling manipulation. Even after striking back against Zhao Qiming, she deliberately stops short of killing him and becomes frightened by what she has done. Her attachment to Qi Yan initially centers on the reassurance of having someone to rely on, rather than fully understood romantic love 3 6 40.

Qi Yan’s guidance draws out a more defiant side. After confronting Zhao Hong, she realizes that resisting an elder is both frightening and exhilarating—and that she is not as meek as she believed. His insistence on courage and self-reliance becomes an important influence on her later conduct 20.

Present-day Mu Xunzhen is cold, authoritative, and capable of extreme ruthlessness, but she is explicitly neither a demonic cultivator nor a follower of the demonic path. She teaches gratitude, loyalty, and keeping one’s word, and particularly despises fellow disciples killing one another 8 47.

Her severity coexists with attentive care. She prepares cultivation resources specifically for Qi Yan, recognizes that she overlooked Jiang Jinyue’s loneliness, and wants her disciples to avoid her own romantic regrets. Her search for Brother A-Yan remains her greatest emotional vulnerability: an apparent lead can displace almost every other concern 19 25 47 48.

Abilities & Skills

Witchcraft and Dao Arts

Mu Xunzhen understands and teaches both systems, explaining that Dao Arts fathom and wield universal principles, while witchcraft seeks dominion over them 10 11.

• Interprets obscure witchcraft characters and terminology for Qi Yan 7 10.
• Distinguishes witchcraft’s cultivation of both the body and magical power from more specialized Daoist or martial approaches 25.
• Plans for Jiang Jinyue to inherit her Dao Arts and Qi Yan to preserve her witchcraft 24.
• Warns that witchcraft brings social hostility, demands additional effort to conceal through Dao cultivation, and offers comparatively limited longevity at lower stages 25.

Incantation Modification

Even in her youth, Mu Xunzhen can modify incantations herself 6.

• Tribulation-Transferring Incantation: Her modified version allows Qi Yan to transfer poison and pain to an attacker 3.
• Practical limitation: The modified incantation requires physical contact and roughly ten seconds of chanting, making it difficult to use in ordinary combat 6.
• Essence-Draining Incantation: Uses it to recover stolen cultivation and turn Zhao Qiming’s attack against him 3 6.

Swordsmanship and Combat

Mu Xunzhen combines sword techniques, mobility, and overwhelming present-day power 15 20 36.

• Wounds the middle-Golden-Core Zhao Hong despite having lower raw cultivation, exploiting his surprise at her resistance 20.
• Forcibly takes control of Zhao Hong’s shield after their exchange 20.
• Defeats Daoqing in one strike, destroying his horsetail-whisk treasure without visibly raising a hand 36 37.
• Recommends swords to dual witchcraft–Dao cultivators because they can conceal witchcraft foundations while also serving as spellcasting implements 35.

Divination and the Arbiter of Fate

Her search leads her to cultivate heavenly-secret divination and study the numbers of the Great Expansion, unintentionally aligning her with the path of the Arbiter of Fate 35.

• Detects that heavenly secrets have become increasingly obscure, suggesting an approaching upheaval 26.
• Recognizes Qi Yan’s unusual fate as a pivotal point connecting wider events 35.
• Unattained status: She has not become the Arbiter of Fate. Resolving her obsession and completing her cultivation might allow her to attain that divine station, but the outcome remains uncertain 35.

Alchemy and Artifact Refining

Mu Xunzhen creates resources suited to a disciple’s actual cultivation rather than simply granting overpowering equipment 25 35.

• Refines pills specifically tailored to Qi Yan’s witchcraft cultivation, sufficient for his progress toward Foundation Establishment 25.
• Forges a sword blank in midair using green flames, then requires Qi Yan to gather materials and develop it himself 35.
• Embeds a deceptive energy attack in the blank: its apparent flying-sword strike can explode against an opponent attempting to parry it 41.

Divine Sense, Soul Searching, and Healing

• Privately receives Qi Yan’s pendant-transmitted voice through divine sense so others cannot hear him 20.
• Heals Qi Yan’s injured knees without leaving scars 24.
• Monitors disciples remotely and transmits instructions directly to them 26 27.
• Searches Ye Jingshan’s soul to identify the Azure Cloud Sect as his patron 35.

Equipment / Weapons / Items

• Jade pendant — Connects her younger self with Qi Yan. Calls can be interrupted by his insufficient Law Power 3 7 35.
• Azure Nether Sword — Her sword during the Wondrous God Sect period and the weapon associated with her bloody reputation. She later explains that her early natal sword was half destroyed and lost in a major battle, after which she stopped using swords 20 30 35.
• Essence-Nurturing Grass — A scarce medicinal herb she obtained at great personal risk and refused to surrender for Zhao Qiming’s treatment 3 6.
• Storage ring — Holds her belongings when she empties her cave abode before leaving on a mission 7.
• Zhao Hong’s shield — Seized and retained as collateral after he tried to take her away by force 20.

Relationships

• Qi Yan / Brother A-Yan — Her youthful confidant and adviser, whom she assists with witchcraft knowledge. In the present, she accepts him as her second direct disciple while investigating his possible connection to the man she has spent millennia seeking 7 23 27 35.
• Jiang Jinyue — Her first disciple and intended Dao Arts successor. Mu Xunzhen is strict with her but recognizes her loneliness and encourages closer companionship with Qi Yan 24 25 47.
• Grandpa Wu / Elder Wu — A sympathetic Wondrous God Sect elder who grants her an exceptional mission and later supports her request to travel 7 50.
• Eldest Senior Brother — A rival who suppresses her talent and seeks to undermine her position. Qi Yan helps her recognize his role behind the hostility of her fellow disciples 7 15.
• Zhao Qiming — Sixth Senior Brother, whose Essence-Draining Incantation steals her cultivation. His backlash injuries become the pretext for further attempts to seize her possessions 3 20.
• Elder Wan / Wan Changqing — A surviving contemporary from the Heavenly Evolution Sect’s founding generation; she leaves instructions with him before departing for Tianliang Continent 23 27 37.
• Perfected Daoqing — An Azure Cloud Sect opponent. After she humiliates and injures him, he seeks allies and orders rumors about her bloody past spread 36 37.

Story Role / Major Arcs

Qi Yan’s Admission and Training

• Recognizes that Qi Yan’s mixed spiritual root is not a fatal obstacle and requires him to undergo the sect’s entrance assessment 19.
• Claims him as her second disciple after he completes the pressure trial, preventing the competing elders—or Jiang Jinyue—from taking him 23.
• Provides the Heavenly Evolution Art, witchcraft pills, and cultivation guidance, then challenges him to reach late Qi Refinement within a month 25 26.
• Rewards achievement while discouraging dependence on equipment above his level 35 36.

Demon Realm Investigation

• Investigates demonic qi contaminating the seabed and suspects arrays, a coordinating figure, and possible Yun Clan involvement 26.
• Sends Jiang Jinyue to investigate the Yun Clan secretly and personally travels to Tianliang Continent to discuss the demonic threat with the Resounding Sword Sect 26 27.

Conflict with the Azure Cloud Sect

• Praises Qi Yan for exposing Ye Jingshan, then orders the Ye Clan’s properties seized and its members arrested, with resistance met by lethal force 34.
• Discovers the Azure Cloud Sect’s involvement through soul searching and confronts Daoqing at his sect 35 36.
• Faces growing opposition from powers wary of her possible attainment as the Arbiter of Fate 30 35 37.

Notable Quotes

“This is fate.” 7

“You cannot overcome every difficulty simply by saying, ‘I want to grow stronger.’ That is very childish.” 25

“Keep testing our sect, and today’s azure clouds will be tomorrow’s fading sunset clouds. Do not say you were not warned.” 36