Unintended Cultivator - A Xianxia-inspired Cultivation Novel

Unintended Cultivator - A Xianxia-inspired Cultivation Novel - V13 Chapter 80 – The Defense of Heaven’s Garden, Part 2

Mon, 21 Sep 2026 17:08:12 GMT

Sen grimaced as he observed the fighting happening at the wall from his qi platform. The spirit beasts had been rushing the wall like they didn’t care if they lived or died. It supported his belief that the lower-level spirit beasts could be controlled by the more powerful, sapient spirit beasts. It was the only explanation for what he was seeing. Nothing with any desire to preserve its own life would willingly throw itself into that churning mass of death. Especially when it had been so one-sided so far. Ever since he’d relented on his lightning spell, the cultivators on the wall had been raining down techniques and cracked cores. The sheer number of dead was appalling, and he could almost feel the negative karma building up around him. This wasn’t entirely on him, but he bore some indirect responsibility for everyone who was in this battle, on both sides. Shaking his head, he sent a flurry of small vermilion blades down into the mass of spirit beasts.

The only consolation he had in all of this was that the fight at this outer wall was truly nothing but a holding action. It had already served its intended function, which was to let the formation masters and talisman masters finish their preparations across the half mile between the outer wall and the true city wall. Not that Sen intended to relinquish the outer wall before he had to. The longer it held, the more spirit beasts died. The problem was that it was cultivators holding that wall. Even with the cracked cores, they were all burning through their qi at an alarming rate. He’d already cycled out the first batch with fresh cultivators just to try to preserve some of their qi reserves. Unless things went very differently than he expected, this siege wasn’t going to be over in a day.

He didn’t want the whole thing to descend into melee combat if that could be avoided. Melee favored the spirit beasts, especially against the mortal troops. If the cultivators ran themselves dry of qi, though, that’s (...)

Unintended Cultivator - A Xianxia-inspired Cultivation Novel - V13 Chapter 79 – Bloodier Opportunity

Fri, 18 Sep 2026 17:08:13 GMT

Swift Wind ground his teeth in barely suppressed fury as he finally understood what the damnable human had been up to. As the lightning crashed down on the first wave of the assault, the water that the old monster, Feng Ming, had hurled back at them carried that lightning from one victim to the next. The way that water and lightning mixed that way was something that Swift Wind had known about. He just hadn’t remembered it in time for this battle. It was a mistake he would never make again, but that didn’t change the fact that his soldiers were dying by the thousands. Granted, most of them weren’t sapient, but they might have become sapient one day. That door was now closed to them until their next lives. Of course, their souls might return in human bodies next time. A fate that Swift Wind considered even worse than death.

The tiger spirit beast glared at the sky, and his hands closed into fists. He wished they were closing around the throat of Lu Sen. He could feel the thing that the human had built up there, but he couldn’t reach it. The humans had been clever, sending the old monster to cull the flying spirit beasts. They were the ones who would have been best able to disrupt that terrible working. Even now, it was turning his juniors into charred husks out on the battlefield. The smell of it was overwhelming, sickening, and inescapable. If not for the tenuous control that sapient spirit beasts could exert over their non-sapient kin, that smell alone might have ended this battle. The non-sapient spirit beasts would have fled from it in open terror.

Nor had the tiger expected that wall to simply appear out of nowhere. He knew the human cultivators could manipulate stone and earth, but never in his dreams had he expected something on that scale. Not with so little time to prepare. It had not been in his plans. That was why he’d been forced to use the water working, only to have it used against them. He had underestimated the humans. He’d assumed (...)

Unintended Cultivator - A Xianxia-inspired Cultivation Novel - V13 Chapter 78 – The Defense of Heaven’s Garden, Part 1

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 17:08:02 GMT

“What is the name of this city anyway?” Sen asked.

Falling Leaf glanced at him before returning her gaze to the approaching spirit beasts. The pair stood on the wall he’d raised with his formation, while the talisman masters and formation masters worked frantically below to finish setting up their traps. The ghost panther shrugged.

“I think I heard someone call it Heaven’s Garden.”

Sen snorted and said, “Well, that’s just about grandiose enough to be real.”

“Are we ready?”

“I suppose we’re as ready as we can be for this.”

“But we’re not ready,” she said.

“No, but as someone told me once, there’s no such thing as too much time for training. I suspect the same holds for preparing for a battle. We haven’t had nearly enough time, but the army is far more experienced and disciplined than it was the last time we faced a siege. The same might even be true for the cultivators. Well, the experienced part anyway. That’s going to make a big difference.”

“Enough of a difference?” asked Falling Leaf.

“Maybe. I hope so. Why? Are you worried?”

The transformed ghost panther was silent for a long moment before she said, “I will die before I let them take me prisoner.”

“It won’t come to that!” said Sen.

He’d said it too fast. He knew he had, but the very idea she was suggesting made everything inside of him clench up. Knowing that what she was saying was the sane choice didn’t make it any easier. If the spirit beasts managed to capture her, they would carry her away to the Beast King. He would make her death something beyond hideous. Sen forced calm on himself, even if it was a tenuous calm. The truth of the matter was that he would face a similarly terrible end if the spirit beasts managed to capture him. Put in that position, he would choose a death of his own making. Could he deny Falling Leaf the same choice? Did he have the right? Even though the words made him want to scream, he said (...)

Unintended Cultivator - A Xianxia-inspired Cultivation Novel - V13 Chapter 77 – Let Me Show You

Wed, 16 Sep 2026 20:05:44 GMT

Feeling confident that the generals could handle organizing the soldiers, Sen turned his attention to the formation and talisman masters. While none of them said anything to him about it, he could see the resentment in their eyes. We’ll see how long that lasts once the fighting truly starts, thought Sen. Most of these people weren’t there for the last battle like this. He supposed that was both an advantage and a disadvantage. It was an advantage in that they weren’t likely to lean too heavily on what had worked there. Given how little time they had, that was a good thing. A lot of the tricks Sen had used in that battle simply weren’t possible without a degree of preparation that was impossible here.

It was a disadvantage in that they didn’t truly understand what it was going to be like to face down tens of thousands of spirit beasts. Not that Sen could really say he understood it that well, either. He’d been unconscious for a lot of that battle, but he had talked to many of the people who had survived it. Most of them had been more than forthcoming, almost eager, to tell him what it had been like for them. That had struck him as odd at first. He’d thought they would be reticent to revisit those experiences. However, talking about it seemed to unburden them in some way. The most important thing he’d learned from them was about how despair seemed to grow as the battle wore on from one day to the next. How it felt to them like the fighting would never end. While some of that was probably unavoidable, it was something he’d need to guard against.

A swift, decisive victory over an army that size simply wasn’t feasible. There were just too many spirit beasts. Even if all the nascent soul cultivators acted in unison and delivered a crushing blow, they couldn’t kill all of the spirit beasts. Not without doing things that would also kill all of the mortals and most of the lower-stage cultivators. The sheer pressure from their massed killing (...)

Unintended Cultivator - A Xianxia-inspired Cultivation Novel - V13 Chapter 76 – You Can’t Save Them All

Wed, 16 Sep 2026 02:54:33 GMT

Sen looked around briefly after he walked through the city gate. He was not impressed by what he saw. The people in view all looked haggard and underfed. That went as much for the soldiers as it did for the common people. His eyes flicked for a moment to an alleyway. The mortals wouldn’t have noticed it, but his enhanced vision made it all-too-easy to see the starved faces of street rats. Beaten by the world as they were, they were still children. And children are curious, thought Sen. They were trying to get a look at the cultivators and soldiers the same way he’d once hidden in an alley and tried to get a look at Master Feng. Much like him with Master Feng, they had little chance of escaping his notice. There were priorities to attend to first, though.

“Chou Dai Lu,” he said.

Though she did her best to disappear into the background, she knew the role of a good disciple in situations like this. It was simple enough if not always easy. Her role was to be nearby and serve as a willing set of hands for his will. She appeared next to him almost instantly.

“Yes, patriarch.”

“I don’t want the former king to start getting ideas above his station. It could lead to confusion during the battle. Take a few of my guards, Xu Xiao Dan, and some soldiers to the castle. Help the king find his way off that throne and to a nice, quiet room.”

“Me?” asked the startled woman.

Sen gave her a level look and asked, “Is this task beyond your abilities?”

Chou Dai Lu paled but shook her head fiercely.

“No, Lord Lu!”

“Then be about it,” he said before looking at the cultivators who served as his guard. “Three of you, go with her. I expect her to be returned to me without a scratch. Xu Xiao Dan.”

“Yes, Lord Lu?” said the elder cultivator.

“If any nascent soul cultivators at the palace start getting the idea that they have anything to say, correct that thinking.”

“It will be as you say, Lord Lu.”

(...)

Unintended Cultivator - A Xianxia-inspired Cultivation Novel - V13 Chapter 75 – Open the Gates

Wed, 16 Sep 2026 02:46:19 GMT

“Take your army and leave, conqueror! You aren’t welcome here!” shouted an obese man.

Sen thought that the man wasn’t as obese as he might once have been, from the loose way his robes hung on him. The bellowing man had identified himself as some kind of messenger from the king. Sen had mostly stopped listening once the posturing began. He’d let the generals handle the conversation for now. He was far more interested in what was happening in the city. He let a bit of his spiritual sense spread out. What he found was, unfortunately, about what he expected to find. There were plenty of mortals alive in the city, along with a comparatively small number of cultivators. It took a moment before the realization set in. The spirit beasts had probably killed most of the cultivators. Since it was someone from the court talking and not a general, most of the soldiers here had probably also been killed.

Even if we do take this city and fend off the spirit beasts, the army will gain nothing, thought Sen. Not that keeping the rest of the people in the city alive was a bad thing. His growing empire would need those people to be merchants, run noodle shops, or do countless other things. That didn’t make the immediate aftermath any better for him. While he could sense people in the city, he couldn’t sense any of the animal life he was used to feeling. There were no chickens, pigs, or even oxen. Either that, or they were so few and far between that they were being obscured. Sen was sure that they had all been slaughtered for food in what had probably been a long siege. He couldn’t blame the people in the city. You ate what was available when times got hard. He knew that better than anyone.

But, no matter how he looked at it, this would end up bleeding his army. First, he’d lose people in the battle to come. Then, he’d lose people to the ongoing defense and governing of this place. Then, there was the problem of food. The army could probably (...)

Unintended Cultivator - A Xianxia-inspired Cultivation Novel - V13 Chapter 74 – What Would You Do?

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 06:43:29 GMT

Sen expected the general to disagree, but the man surprised him.

“You saw that very swiftly,” observed the general.

“It’s pretty obvious if you’re looking for it,” said Sen.

He gestured at the intact city and all of the signs of life in it. Sen’s enhanced eyes could even pick out some human beings up on the walls. He didn’t know if they were cultivators. Extending his spiritual sense that far might alert something or someone that hadn’t noticed them yet. However, he suspected at least some of the figures on the wall were cultivators. They almost had to be.

“It’s a good trap,” said the general.

“The best kind for an enemy,” agreed Sen. “The kind where it doesn’t matter if you know it’s a trap, because the bait is simply too compelling. Even if I were willing to bypass this city, the army would never stand for it, would they?”

“No,” said General Hu. “Not after seeing all of those empty towns and villages. There are living, breathing human beings right there. If we abandon them—”

“The army’s morale dissolves overnight,” finished Sen. “Even if there isn’t an immediate mutiny, the soldiers would never trust me again.”

The general looked very uncomfortable, but he didn’t deny it. He couldn’t deny it in good faith. Sen wanted to curse whichever spirit beast came up with this strategy because it was so damned smart. They had come up with a plan that used the humans’ empathy against them. The soldiers might be hardened to violence, but just leaving an entire city to die down to the last man, woman, and child? It was asking too much of them. Especially after the haunting sight of all those abandoned settlements. More importantly, it was clear that this entire strategy was meant to work against Sen specifically.

This approach would have failed against Master Feng. As soon as he recognized the trap, the elder cultivator would dismiss the lives of everyone in that city. If there was dissent, he would (...)

Unintended Cultivator - A Xianxia-inspired Cultivation Novel - V13 Chapter 73 – Deceptive Calm

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 06:36:04 GMT

The next two weeks of marching passed in what someone unobservant might have described as calm. The calm was deceptive. As with most deception, it showed in the details. The wary looks that the soldiers directed at their surroundings as they came across more empty villages and no spirit beasts. The increasingly tense exchanges between the cultivators traveling with the army. For Sen, though, it was most obvious in the faces of the generals who had previously been happy simply to avoid skirmishes. The truth was settling on them. The trap was too obvious to ignore anymore. The spirit beasts were gathering. They were also killing anyone and everyone who might have supplied the army with support of any kind.

On the one hand, Sen was surprised that it had taken the spirit beast so long to decide on that course of action. It was a brutal but obvious method to slow down any normal army. After all, the soldiers couldn’t take from fields that weren’t tended or had never been planted in the first place. They could take livestock that had wandered off into the wilds or been eaten by the spirit beasts. If not for the many storage rings filled with excess food, it might well have ground his army to a halt. All of that death also brought the spirit beasts one step closer to the ultimate goals.

On the other hand, Sen had the sense that there were many spirit beasts who wanted to drag the conquest out. It seemed that it wasn’t enough for them to simply kill the humans. They wanted to take revenge for slights, maybe real and maybe imagined. Grudges were like that, and there was very little satisfaction to be found in a swift, efficient slaughter. The army’s successes so far had more than likely pushed the spirit beasts to take this more drastic step. It was a small thing, but any fracture in their leadership was a potential weakness that Sen might find a way to exploit. He was sure how he would accomplish that, but he tried to keep it in mind. Not that he had (...)

Unintended Cultivator - A Xianxia-inspired Cultivation Novel - V13 Chapter 72 – Exploitable Flaw

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 06:30:52 GMT

“To be fair, I didn’t say he was a god. He said he was a god. I don’t know if it’s true,” cautioned Sen.

“You don’t seem very skeptical,” countered Master Feng.

“Well, he did drag me into his mind and prevented me from sensing anything at all about him. That’s suggestive. Also, there wasn’t a tribulation. Even I know that there should have been one after two advancements coming back-to-back like that.”

“True,” said the elder cultivator with a deep frown.

“For that matter, I can’t even be sure that he was a god and not a goddess, or even just an incredibly powerful cultivator that none of us know about.”

“I can tell you that last idea is very unlikely. Anyone that powerful would have been forced to ascend long before now.”

“Probably, but everything I know is based on what he told me. It’s hard to take that as reliable information without someone else to vouch for them.”

Master Feng rubbed a thumb across his chin several times before he nodded.

“That is also true. If he did intervene to prevent a tribulation, though, it’s hard to imagine that he was anything else but a god.”

“I agree,” said Sen. “I’m just trying to be cautious. It’s awfully easy to take assumptions as facts when they come from your own mind.”

“I would like to know what you talked about, if you don’t mind sharing,” prompted Master Feng.

Sen shrugged and related the conversation more or less word-for-word. While the encounter had felt like it took a long time, the retelling was brief. Recounting the event also made Sen realize that his mind may have been more influenced than he’d first imagined. He’d never even asked for a name. While Sen routinely neglected to learn people’s names, he wouldn’t overlook something like that when faced with someone who might well be a god. Assuming he did one day ascend, it would have been useful to have a god’s name as a bargaining chip or even for a bluff. Master Feng’s dour expression said that (...)

Unintended Cultivator - A Xianxia-inspired Cultivation Novel - V13 Chapter 71 – Indispensable

Thu, 03 Sep 2026 02:40:38 GMT

“Lord Lu, our scouts continue to report no meaningful sightings of spirit beasts,” said General Hu.

That prompted an almost even split in the expressions on the faces of the people occupying the tent. Half of the military leaders looked exceedingly pleased at this news. The other half, including General Hu, did not look happy. Sen found his opinion of those latter officers instantly improved. After all, Sen had explained why he wasn’t happy that they’d seen so little spirit beast activity. Yet, it seemed that some of the generals and their underlings could only see today’s good tidings. They either didn’t or wouldn’t recognize that the same news could mean ill tidings tomorrow. If they didn’t recognize it, that made them terrible strategists. Not something that a smart leader looked for in their generals. If they wouldn’t recognize it, that made them fools who wished to hide from unpleasant possibilities. Also not something that smart leaders looked for in their generals.

Sen once more found himself frustrated by the fact that so many generals acquired their position courtesy of their families, rather than their talent. As he’d been doing more and more often, he added that problem to a list of things he would need to change after the war. He understood that nothing he did could ever fix corruption entirely. Some people would keep being corrupt even in the face of annihilation, to say nothing of when the world was at peace. It was also inevitable that some level of questionable patronage would wield influence in the military. Superiors were going to play favorites sometimes. Sen did it, so it only stood to reason that others would too. However, he was damn sure going to do away with giving command of armies to people based solely on coming from the right, meaning noble, families. There were too many lives at risk to treat merit as anything less than the main reason for promotion to general. Of course, that was a problem for later. He (...)