It says duke long has a dark black hair but I keep seeing this purple haired guy, I know it's reverend insanity and not a stolen one, so who's this guy? It's not purple especially with these horns, so who's this guy?
I don't know why people underestimate the power level of Reverend Insanity so much. Is it because:
It doesn't talk about higher dimensions, or because characters don't casually throw around flashy attacks that destroy everything for no reason?
First of all, the Gu World is extremely vast. Each continent is at least 8 to 10 times the surface area of Earth, and with 5 continents, that would already be around 25.5 billion km². And that's without even using the theory that the Gu World is 50 times larger than Earth.
People say that Gu Masters cannot be compared to characters from other universes because they rely on Dao and Gu. But that's like saying you can't compare the power systems of a universe that uses mana with another that uses ki. The real problem is that many people don't understand what the Dao actually is.
In the xianxia genre, and especially in Reverend Insanity, the Dao (or Dao laws) represents the fundamental laws, essence, and rules governing the universe.
This concept comes directly from real Chinese philosophy, particularly Taoism, where “Dao” literally means “The Way” or “The Path.” In the novel, however, this philosophical concept is materialized in an extremely rigorous form through Dao Marks.
In Reverend Insanity, the Dao is not some invisible abstract force; it is made of physical and measurable fragments called Dao Marks.
Every element, concept, or power possesses its own Dao Marks: Time Path has time Dao marks, Fire Path has fire Dao marks, and so on.
Everything that exists is made from these marks. A rocky mountain is dense with Earth Path Dao marks, while a sacred river is saturated with Water Path Dao marks. In other universes people talk about “concepts,” but then what exactly is the Dao?
In Reverend Insanity, the distinction between a concept and the Dao goes to the very structure of the power system and the construction of the universe itself. The author established a precise top-down logic: a concept is a human abstraction, while the Dao is the physical and fundamental reality of the world.
Here is how they differ and connect:
The Dao (and Dao Marks): These are the objective building blocks of reality. Dao marks exist independently of humanity or any form of life. Even if all living beings in the Gu World disappeared tomorrow, the Dao marks of Time, Space, or Fire would still exist and continue governing the universe. The Dao is essentially the physics of that world.
A concept: A concept is the perception, idea, or abstraction created by living beings. It is a mental construct. For example, concepts such as “Justice” or “Regret” begin as human thoughts before eventually becoming linked to the Dao.
The Dao existed first; humans create new Paths through concepts
This is one of the most fascinating parts of the novel: human concepts can force the Dao to reorganize itself and create entirely new Paths.
At the beginning of the world, only natural Paths existed in the form of raw Dao marks: Time, Space, Earth, Water, Fire, etc. Then great geniuses conceptualized new aspects of existence:
Wisdom Path: Created by the Venerable Star Constellation Immortal Venerable. She took the abstract concepts of thought, will, and emotions, theorized them, and transformed them into a cultivation system. The Dao then manifested these ideas as new physical Dao marks: Wisdom Path Dao marks.
Theft Path: Created by Thieving Heaven Demon Venerable. The concept of “stealing” or “taking what belongs to others” is not a natural law; it is a purely social and moral concept. Yet through his genius, he elevated this concept into a universal law, creating Theft Path Dao marks capable of stealing space, time, or even Gu worms.
One day I was debating with a fan of Lord of the Mysteries about Klein versus a Venerable. He argued that Klein could simply make the Venerable stupid. But with Dao marks, the Venerable would naturally possess resistance because stupidity affects the path of thought and mind, meaning there are defensive methods against it.
He replied that Klein controls the concept of stupidity itself, so he would still win.
But if we assume that concepts are merely fragments of the Great Dao, then every Sequence 0 in Lord of the Mysteries would lose authority over their concepts against a Venerable. After all, becoming a Venerable requires supreme attainment in a Path beyond everyone else. And regarding the refinement of Dao marks in the world itself, a Venerable could theoretically do this in any world because Dao marks are essentially the manifested marks of concepts themselves.
Honestly, out of all the people fang yuan met in his second life, if he instead met them in his first life, the biggest impact on fang yuan life would be shang xin ci.
I can honestly see them or at least shang xin ci falling in love with fy in his first life.
When the webnovel returns I hope she has a good conclusion.
You are reincarnated as Giant Sun with Red Lotus's call of the ancient and support from the future, who are you getting?
Junior here has shit wisdom path attainment and wants to get some insight based off emotion path because I am genuinely getting slimed out by my wisdom path seniors rn
Just watched the 1st episode and I can’t lie they did quite well with the adaption. If they kept the same quality with RI it would be crazy.
Yes I know I’m being delusional
You, unfortunately, are transported in to the Gu World as an otherworldly demon. Fortunately for you, you have been born into the second best region to live in and you get to pick your clan! Which clan do you pick?
I've recently started reading RI and am loving it so far. I'm currently in chapter 469. I was confused about a small thing. When Fang Yuan travelled from the central continent to the northern continent (meeting Ge Yao) using fixed immortal travel gu, his cultivation was suppressed by a realm and we were told this happens when travelling between regions.
But when Fang Yuan travelled from the southern continent (three king's inheritance) to central, it didn't happen. Did I miss something or is there an explanation for it?
Why do people even hate heavenly court? It’s literally the first sect and the backbone of humanity. On top of that, its members are genuinely well-written and have actual depth: Duke Long, the refinement path immortal who gave up his life for Fate Gu, and so many others.
Yet somehow people still act like Heavenly Court is trash. How one-dimensional do you have to be to hate the faction that has repeatedly protected the human race? They’re one of the reasons the story is so good in the first place.Sure, they’re not perfectly righteous, and they’ve done questionable things, but their ultimate goal has always been the survival and benefit of humanity.
i know y'all and come up with some brilliant ideas
Hi, I’m reading RI for the first time and I’m over 400 chapters in. I just got to this passage when Fang Yuan is dealing with the Man tribe and the description of Man Duo has me side eyeing the author.. maybe it was a translation error. I really hope not because I’m enjoying this book and don’t want to find out after so many chapters in that author is racist because why would you describe someone as dark and skinny so they look like a monkey? Maybe I’m overthinking it and if that’s the case I truly apologise but the way it was described..🫤 I’m really not intending to offend anyone and regardless I’ll probably still finish the book because Fang Yuan! But it might put a lot into perspective..🤔
In this hypothetical scenario you are a Peak Rank 3 Gu Master of any mainstream path and have to choose who you are fighting in a life or death scenario. After you make your choice, your opponent has two weeks to prepare, they know only your name and your path, and during the preparation phase they cannot interact/harm you in any way.
They are also not allowed to increase their cultivation level, and they are both peak stage of their respective level. Everything else IS allowed.
So, who are you choosing? Fang Zheng or Fang Yuan (second life)?
Well ...... at first I was hearing that the MC was bad, as in fully automated perpetual robots as bottomless big devils, and simply curious about how bad he can be, you know, when mention to the villainous MC Gu Yue Fang Yuan must be on the list. In fact, after finishing the book (not really finished, after all, the end is far away), my feelings are summed up as - very moved. This is not only from the plot or characters in the book, but also from the author himself. I'm typing off the top of my head, and what I think and say might be a bit messy, and there's a lot of glass bead nonsense. Just personal opinion, mainly for the character of Gu Yue Fang Yuan. If mentioned to the plot itself, then it will be too much ...... In addition to containing an understanding of the role of the plot, there are a lot of the author's own intention of some ideas (after feeling the author's sentiment and effort, the book must contain a lot of the author's philosophy, out of this point want to try to understand the author's intention).
As Fang Yuan's perseverance and determination are all clichés, after all that his perseverance and determination are very intuitively demonstrated in this book, so I will mainly talk about the ‘love’ part.
The character of Fang Yuan is so surprising, in the past I would always be attracted to characters that are broken and full of regrets and even resentment, but I never thought I would like someone who is complete and whole. Yes, my view of Gu Yue Fang Yuan is: in the group of humans he is terrible, but as an individual human, he is perfect. He's logically self-contained and closed, with no flaws in his personality, and nothing from the outside world can shake him.
At that time to see Fang Yuan has reach the top of the world and when he do business with other clans the conditions he give are especially loose and give benefit many more times, not to mention the characters in the book suspect that he is playing another ghost idea, even I this God's perspective readers will also think so. He has been fighting all the way to snatch, bully and kill and this almost become his habit, and now after become the top of the Gu world suddenly he start to do really fair deals, so twisted, you really is the Fang Yuan? Aren't you supposed to bullying weak? Now that you've become the strongest, shouldn't you bully the weak even more? Go directly rob ah!
Now I look back and realize that what has changed is actually my mindset as a reader, all the way to see how he schemes others how he kills people and does so many bad things that I've almost forgotten who he is. He has always been Gu Yue Fang Yuan, too complete and too logical self-consistent a real person. In the length of six or seven million words he did not grow or change a bit, I should say that this guy does not need to grow, does not need to get any from the outside world, the outside world will not affect him in any way, even if his feet stand on the earth, he is floating. From the all beginning, he is complete.
Of course when I say that he is closed and does not grow, I don't mean that he is cut off from his emotions and does not respond to the outside world, or that he doesn't learn from his experiences, both successes and failures, but rather his personality, which doesn't need to grow, no longer needs to be nourished by experience. Even when he is firmly on the path to immortality, he is still full of emotion, and reacts with normal emotions to what happens in the outside world, but these emotions come from the ‘inside’ and are not really connected to the outside world, and therefore he is also apathetic.
For example, if a person who is in a lot of pain and suffering is saved by someone who is as warm as the sun, and because the warmth of the sun heals his inner wounds, he also wants to move closer to that sun-like person, and his personality begins to change to a more sound one, this is the kind of ‘growth’ that I am referring to. This kind of growth is what Fang Yuan doesn't need. Because his personality was already complete, he knew too well what he was and what he wanted, and did not need to think or change or be understood by others.
Because of the complete self-referential closure, Fang Yuan in the second life would not and could not make a real connection with people. Why called it second life, because there is still the first life, and in the early part of his first life he had not yet reached the level of closure to really put on the mask on, which by the way leads me to think that the structure of Fang Yuan's character is a sphere divided into layers, and that the pursuit for immortality is just a shell that is set on the outermost layer.
To mention a sort of obscure comparison between Xie Han Mo and Shang Xin Ci, XHM was able to get inside his heart in his last life, allowing him to have a real connection with XHM that he still retains even in his second life, so it can be said that XHM got inside his personality, but SXC didn't. Instead, SXC and XHM happen to be two very similar characters, with passion and gentleness and kindness and courage, and they even both have similar lines, both have said things that can see into the depths of Fang Yuan's heart, and both believe that Fang Yuan is essentially a good person.
Although I've seen a lot of people say that SXC is just a love brain rotted who was fooled by Fang Yuan so she foolishly thought he was a good person, and in the mid to late stages even though she knew that Fang Yuan was a murderous devil doing bad things everywhere, SXC still firmly believed that Fang Yuan was not inherently evil, and was just like the XHM in his previous life: sadness, helplessness, fatigue and so on, hidden in the depths of his heart.
Actually, when you look at it in conjunction with many details of the whole text, you will find that the author is not simply setting up a love brain, that she has a silly love brain so that she made a wrong and ridiculous judgement about Fang Yuan, but rather, people like Xie Han Mo or Shang Xin Ci who are equivalent to the existence of true goodness in Gu world are indeed able to see through his heart, just like when XHM said that "Fang Yuan, you're a good person", and playfully winked at him so that he would look at him in a daze (which is a true performance of hitting the heart straight on).
That little girl in Qing Mao mountain who inadvertently bumped into Fang Yuan, was not a threat to him, and did not exist to block his path to eternality, and did not need to snatch anything from her, even though it was not necessary for him, he still stopped the father who wanted to beat the little girl, and gave her a small consolation, and also the little fox fairy, because of the simplicity of the earth spirit, after recognizing the master she would be absolutely his own person, and would not get in his way, and Fang Yuan had always been gentle with the little fox fairy, as well. As long as he was free he would also respond to the little fox's pampering, and not only the little fox, like the duck earth spirit formed by Liu Qing Yu, quacking noisily and telling Fang Yuan about how he miss him, Fang Yuan would also give comfort to him, these tenderness were quite unnecessary, the earth spirit as long as they claimed the master even if you were mean to them, due to their own nature they would still work well and do their job properly, but Fang Yuan still showed his tender side, that because this was his true nature, his true nature could only be revealed at such times and occasions.
His behavior in the three circle of life is the more obvious evidence, when temporarily erased his memory, with external force to suppress his pursuit of eternal life, he will become similar to the last life just came to the Gu world of the gentle, kind and courageous Gu Yue Fang Yuan, his qualities are enough to make his nemesis Shu family young master convinced, even if the second script is a demon dominated by hatred, he still has love in his heart, will be in pain and will be lost as long as no obsession of eternal life. He is obviously a good person whose moral standard exceeds that of many people, but his obsession is something that cannot be forgotten or wiped clean, and when he finally can't suppress his obsession, those experiences will be transformed into a mockery: it's all just boring, meaningless stuff! (Even though many people who have seen this episode still think that he is just a brute with no positive feelings, but I think it's already explicitly written here, what kind of person would he be if he didn't have the obsession of immortality, even if he was given a script where his whole family was wiped out to become an avenger, and his whole body was flooded with hatred, and even though it's such a miserable life didn't make him completely bad, he still feels pain and confused and tangled up, and isn't all these proof of the goodness and gentleness within him).
Another thing that shows this in a more intuitive way, aside from the dialogue of the characters in the book or what they say about him, is the Supreme Immortal Fetus Gu. Though it's always been joked to be a hobby of the SSDV to pinch the face, the text actually says that the Supreme Immortal Body is the body generated by the Supreme Immortal Fetus Gu according to the soul of the ‘user’, and that the body generated by the Supreme Immortal Fetus Gu is beautiful and gentle! Just one look at the beauty that makes the heart feel good, not the beauty that is bewitching or chilling or scary.
Because the Supreme Immortal Fetus Gu is really ‘born from the heart’ thing, so Fang Yuan has a biological sex, but the beauty of the male and female indistinguishable body. And I think after Fang Yuan become Supreme Immortal Body author are intentionally blurring his gender, because Gu Yue Fang Yuan is a ‘perfect’ ‘person’, this perfect person is more symbolic, the symbol of the perfect person does not need to have a gender, this role is actually very neutral! Therefore, in the author's view, the ‘soul’ of Fang Yuan, that is, the essence, is beautiful, gentle and perfect.
That is, what said in Buddhism: ‘no self, no one, no living beings, no longevity, red powdered skulls, white bones and flesh.’ He still retains an unnecessary gentleness, and still understands many people, what they do and why they do it.
But in order to pursue eternal life he had to put on a shell, this shell is the most intuitive to show on the outside: ‘darkness, evil, cruelty, unscrupulous, treachery, no bottom line, just a crazy pursuit of eternal life’. The next layer is that he is not paranoid, just doing what he wants to do, he enjoys the process of pursuing immortality, optimistic, always full of passion, his perseverance is unstoppable, never stop. And his deeper part is actually sad, why pursue eternal life, because eternal life is the meaning of the existence of Gu Yue Fang Yuan, only on the road of pursuit of eternal life he can feel himself alive. Because the world of all kinds, beautiful or ugly... everything, as long as not have eternal life will always be faded to nothing, so everything in the world has no meaning, Fang Yuan's understanding of the world in terms of our reality is a nihilist. There is no possibility of eternal life on Earth, but there is a slight possibility in a metaphysical world like Gu world.
So he is at the same time fragile because he pursues eternal life to the extreme degree, and his body and mind are extremely devoted to this path, thus corresponding to the fact that as long as he gives up the goal of eternal life, even if nobody touches him, he himself will be destroyed, and this is one of the reasons why his incomparably frantic cultivation borders on oppressing himself, like the footless bird that will die if it doesn't fly. This destruction was not just the destruction of his physical body, not just the pressure or the threats from the outside world that would put him in danger or even death if he didn't progress, but the destruction of his spirit from himself. As long as Fang Yuan loses the goal to pursuit eternal life, he loses ‘existence’ itself. But the most wonderful thing is that he will never, ever give up on that, the balance between fragility and solidity has been reached, only one point is needed to make him collapse, but that point will never exist.
The role of Xie Han Mo is not only to enrich Fang Yuan's experience, not just as a lover who exists in his memories, I think it is also symbolic. When Fang Yuan decided to abandon all the masks and met the best girl in the Gu world, but even though Fang Yuan seemed enthusiastic and energetic at that time, XHM could see his tiredness and disappointment in her eyes. At that time, Fang Yuan not only felt that everything did not matter, he only wanted to live according to his own heart, and even had serious self-destructive tendencies, because he saw through everything, and felt that everything was meaningless, and he was satisfied with his own life in repaying XHM, he does not care about his own life, and he wanted to sacrifice himself for the sake of XHM.
Then Xie Han Mo tells him not to die, no matter how tired and disappointed you are, it can't change the fact that you are a good person, he wants to use his life to show his value, but Xie Han Mo tells him not to die, she won't give up on him. Xie Han Mo actually symbolizes truth, goodness, beauty and hope, a person who are disappointed and tired of both the world and himself meet the beauty and hope in this moment.
This beauty and hope has even been preserved to his second life who has already set foot on the road to immortality, it is obvious that Fang Yuan's heart is still full of yearning when he remembers XHM. When recalling XHM, he also used the phrase ‘her face seems to be blurred, but also seems to be clear.’ This is another meaning of XHM's character, as a symbol of truth, goodness, beauty and hope, she has always been hidden in Fang Yuan's heart, she is a shadow that represents beauty. Therefore, she also echoes Shang Xin Ci's belief that Fang Yuan is not inherently evil when she sees the ‘truth, goodness and beauty’ in his heart.
Then why does a disappointed and tired person who has perceived beauty and hope instead do many things contrary to beauty and hope in pursuit of eternal life?
It can only be said that Fang Yuan's evaluation and view of things are often completely classic nihilists, but why should nihilists pursue ‘immortality’ as it is a collection of all ‘meaningful’ things?
If everything is meaningless why Fang Yuan didn't kill himself, or just enjoy his life, but try his best to live, if everything is meaningless then why does Fang Yuan have to pursue the highest meaning of life, ‘eternal life’, a bit hollow, a bit contradiction?
Perhaps if we look back at what he did with this question in mind, and look at the details that run throughout the text, we might get an answer - what if there really is ‘love’? ‘Love can fill this hollow, love is the greatest and most passionate and ultimate thing in human beings.
Eternal life is a collection of all meanings, as long as one gets eternal life, as long as one exists forever, one can break through the nothingness ...... This is actually a sad and disappointed nihilist searching for hope, searching for meanings in the nothingness. A person who does not want to dominate, to gain power to enjoy himself, or who is just afraid of death, but who is willing to firmly set his goal to find meaning in nothingness and suppresses the truer feelings of his heart, must be full of ‘love’. It is because there is ‘love’, so must be in the nothingness to find the real meaning, even if he has to do a lot of contradictory to his own nature, even if he has to pay an incredibly heavy price, he is willing to do it, he will not regret it.
I feel that the author has always conceived of such a character, even if it is a very dark and tiny clue, but it has been throughout the whole text, spanning millions of words - Gu Yue Fang Yuan not only has normal feelings, and even inside is gentle and ‘love’.
You can find in him the most shining things of human kind, but also can see the dirt and darkness that can not be summed up enough with countless vicious words, he contains too many things, even contradictory things. Fragile and solid to the extreme, even if the inside is sad and disappointed and tired, but still let the reader directly see and feel is his perseverance his perseverance his spontaneity his passion, even if the inside is love and tenderness, but the reader can directly see and feel is cruelty, is bottomless, is cold-blooded, is unscrupulous.
Disappointment and hope, coldness and passion, gentleness and cruelty, love and ruthlessness all of these seemingly opposing words are not conflicting when placed on him alone because he is a perfect person wrapped in layer after layer, and all of these contradictions extend from the same nucleus, thus they melt together. Because he knew so well what he was and what he wanted, even though he was gentle at heart, doing many cruel things for immortality didn't make him hesitate or regret, even enjoying what he went through in his quest for immortality. He has put on many layers of shells, but he is still very clear about what he is pursuing, even if he puts on a lot of masks, he still knows what ‘he’ is, both twisted and harmonious, both contradictory and harmonious. A man so full of life, the embodiment of an ideal! Compared to him, I feel more like a dead thing, he is an ideal living on paper.
He has already on his way, never regret even if he dies.
After finishing the book I deeply feel the author's passion and love, but Gu world is fundamentally calm and rational and primitive barbaric place, even if the order is barely maintained by the clans and sects, but the the setting that individual power can override the collective, doomed that Gu world will only calmly worship the rule of "Strong eat Weak". Since it is so full of ideals full of love why the author set up a world so cruel, but only in such a world characters can play to the fullest, their stories can be written to the fullest, I think it is because of the rational and calm world, love and ideals will grow like wildfire.
Fang Yuan is over two centuries old and he's only now having his teenage love story bruh, I love it.