Sovereign Fan

The Sovereign Fan is Zhou Chen's legacy treasure, an immense fan created around the Dao Essence of Life and Death and left drifting through the void after its sovereign owner died. It reaches the Eternal Immortal Domains in a damaged half-state, chooses challengers through a sequence of trials, and eventually accepts Bai Xiaochun as Zhou Chen's successor. After its missing half returns, it becomes a complete mobile refuge, cultivation site, transport, and arsenal whose strongest functions still depend on its owner's cultivation. (Chapters 1077–1085, 1115–1118, 1182–1185, and 1197–1202)

History

Arrival at the Eternal Immortal Domains

The fan has traveled ownerless through the void since the death of the unnamed sovereign later identified as Zhou Chen, the Worldly Daoist. Bai's celestial breakthrough produces a vortex that changes its trajectory, and the massive damaged treasure eventually strikes the sealed giant's hand above the Eternal Immortal Domains. A piece of flesh and stone is knocked loose in the collision. The fan then draws a limited group of cultivators onto its surface and raises a barrier, preventing the Saint-Emperor and Vile-Emperor from entering while its internal legacy competition proceeds. (Chapters 1077–1084 and 1149)

The initial competition uses numbered challenge levels within the fan ribs. Success earns rewards and authority, while the fan's spirit automaton can alter or weaponize trials against candidates it dislikes. Celestial Virūpākṣa becomes an early top contender, but Bai uses the Turtle-Wok to perform a spirit enhancement on the fan itself. The process erases part of its old branding and gives him control over roughly twenty percent of the treasure, enough to interfere with teleportation, perceive more of its systems, and secretly outmaneuver other challengers. The fan resists him through its automaton, so this partial authority is not yet full succession. (Chapters 1083–1098)

The command medallion and legacy trials

A command medallion taken from the fan initially appears to be a cultivation resource, but once Bai absorbs its energy he discovers that it is also a key. It lets him teleport from the Eternal Lands to the fan even after the original expedition has ended. He repeatedly returns to challenge levels, gather rewards, seek enlightenment, or evade danger, while the automaton alternates between sleeping and trying to stop him. Distance prevents ordinary transmitted messages from reaching him on the fan, and local interference such as the sovereign clone's spiderweb can obstruct or endanger the teleportation connection. (Chapters 1103–1118, 1124–1132, and 1139–1173)

The trials contain constructed worlds, powerful opponents, stores of medicine and souls, and rewards tailored to cultivation progress. Their contents are not uniformly illusory: inhabitants such as the Dark Concocters persist within their worlds, and the fan's dead souls can be removed. Bai uses the fan as a place of secluded cultivation and eventually clears successive challenges through the ninety-ninth level. The inherited system can inflict real injuries and death; neither candidate status nor partial authority makes the levels safe. (Chapters 1084–1098, 1124–1132, 1146–1182)

Zhou Chen's succession and the complete fan

The hundredth level presents a projection of Zhou Chen and asks whether the challenger is ready. When Bai finally answers affirmatively, Zhou Chen identifies himself as a sovereign of the Immortal World, names Bai his successor, and asks him to treat the spirit automaton Xiao Chi well. The projection then disappears, all levels unlock, and Bai gains complete control over the damaged half. Xiao Chi is compelled to recognize Bai as master and is renamed Bai Xiaochi; he remains the fan's resident automaton and operator rather than its owner. (Chapters 1182–1184)

Bai Xiaochi explains that the fan is a starry-sky treasure with 108 fan ribs and a fan face containing its greatest powers. The landscape in that picture includes a Dao Essence mountain, a mighty river, a world-treasure boat, two archaean servants playing Go, and a sovereign arm. Bai can enter or draw upon these elements only to the degree his cultivation permits. The nine-story Daoist Tower of Life and Death, for example, accelerates his cultivation, but he cannot initially enter its upper floors or freely project the fan face's strongest contents. (Chapters 1184–1185)

Full ownership reveals that another damaged half is approaching. A separate automaton guards it and initially opposes Bai, but the halves reunite, restoring the treasure to a complete fan. Its teleportation thereafter is no longer restricted to returning Bai to one fixed point; he can arrive at widely separated locations in the Eternal Immortal Domains. Later references continue to call it the “damaged fan” out of habit, but the physical reunion itself is explicit. The corpus does not narrate a later loss of ownership or destruction. (Chapters 1184, 1197–1202, 1205–1209, and 1231–1257)

Abilities and properties

• Void travel and protection: The fan can cross the void for vast periods, change trajectory, resist pressure outside the Eternal worlds, and automatically repel attacks directed at it. Its great size and durability do not prevent collisions from dislodging matter from other sovereign bodies. (Chapters 1077–1084, 1124–1125, and 1149)

• Trials, rewards, and persistent worlds: Its ribs contain numbered legacy challenges, treasures, medicines, souls, constructed environments, and surviving peoples. Failure can injure or kill challengers, while success grants rewards and increasing authority. The automaton has substantial control over trials but remains subordinate to the rightful owner after succession. (Chapters 1083–1118 and 1124–1184)

• Teleportation and refuge: The command medallion allows Bai to enter the fan from afar and return. Before restoration, the route has a fixed return point and can be disrupted by unusual barriers; once the two halves reunite, the fan can teleport him to almost any location in the world. The fan also carries other people and provides a potential refuge, although enemies at sovereign level could still locate and destroy it. (Chapters 1110–1118, 1139–1140, 1156, 1192–1202, and 1259–1281)

• Dao Essence cultivation: The fan is forged around the Dao Essence of Life and Death. Its tower dramatically accelerates Bai's cultivation, with higher floors requiring higher cultivation realms. Its mountain is formed from Dao Essence, its river can project mighty waters from a single drop, and the fan's creator uses its legacy to teach concepts of Essence. (Chapters 1124, 1182–1185, and 1231–1233)

• Fan-face projections and servants: The fan face contains a world-treasure boat, two archaean servants, a sovereign arm, a mountain, a river, and other images that can become functional projections. Bai initially cannot move the largest elements, and even full ownership does not bypass the cultivation requirements for their strongest use. (Chapters 1180–1185)

• Limits of communication and control: Normal messages do not reach Bai when the fan is far out in the void. Before full succession, its automaton can oppose him and its old branding limits authority. Even after succession, stronger functions remain cultivation-gated, and unusual external formations can interfere with entry. (Chapters 1090–1098, 1115–1118, 1156, and 1184–1185)

Ownership and custody