Patriarch Golden Vajra Warrior

Patriarch Golden Vajra Warrior, later calling himself Master Freespirit, is a former sect patriarch whose attempt to eliminate Xu Qing ends with the destruction of his sect and his own desperate transformation into a spirit automaton. He voluntarily makes the iron skewer his vessel to preserve his life. Although Xu Qing controls and carries that physical weapon for much of the story, Master Freespirit is a thinking person with fears, ambitions, opinions, and an increasingly genuine loyalty of his own; he is never merely an item or a piece of property.

Biography

Survival in the ruins and scavenger camp

The patriarch first acts from a mixture of calculation and fear. After hearing about Xu Qing's clashes with his sect, he assesses the youth as the sort of dangerous survivor who could become a “destined protagonist” and eventually return for vengeance. His insight is real, but it leads him to the wrong remedy: rather than ending the conflict, he decides that Xu Qing must be hunted before his growth makes retaliation impossible. (Chapters 40, 43)

His pursuit turns his prediction into a self-fulfilling disaster. Xu Qing refuses to wait for the Golden Vajra Warrior Sect to choose the time and place of the confrontation; he infiltrates its territory, exploits the confusion surrounding the ruins, and systematically destroys the patriarch's foundation. By the end of the campaign, the sect that once gave the patriarch status and safety has been ruined, while the young enemy he tried to preempt has become more determined to finish their feud. (Chapters 43–46)

The collapse establishes the motive that governs much of the patriarch's early development: survival outranks dignity. He is perceptive enough to understand how badly he misjudged Xu Qing, yet too proud and frightened to accept the consequences calmly. His later fawning, evasions, and contingency plans are not a sudden change of personality; they are the methods of a cautious sect leader adapting to a world in which his old position can no longer protect him. (Chapters 40–46)

The iron skewer and spirit-automaton rebirth

Xu Qing eventually returns because leaving an experienced Foundation Establishment enemy alive would be an intolerable risk. Their battle strips away the patriarch's remaining confidence that flight, negotiation, or ordinary submission can save him. Faced with annihilation, he offers service and devises a more radical solution: he separates out his own soul and converts himself into a spirit automaton capable of entering the iron skewer. (Chapters 99–103)

The conversion is the patriarch's own desperate choice, made to continue existing when every safer option has failed. Xu Qing physically possesses the skewer and holds measures that can restrain or destroy its resident spirit, so their early relationship is coercive and deeply unequal. Even so, the intelligence within the weapon remains the patriarch himself. He thinks, speaks, bargains, resents, plans, and chooses; the skewer is his vessel and battlefield form, not a replacement for his personhood. (Chapter 103)

At first Xu Qing keeps the newly formed spirit sealed because its cultivation and intentions are not yet trustworthy. The patriarch responds by making usefulness his shield. Once released, he studies his new state and looks for ways to turn the weapon's material into a route of advancement. This begins the long transformation of their bargain: Xu Qing's caution never disappears, but repeated crises give the patriarch chances to do more than merely plead for another day of life. (Chapters 103–168)

Seven Blood Eyes and the Forbidden Sea

Within the skewer, the patriarch discovers that spirit-automaton cultivation can make both resident and vessel stronger. Soul-cleansing heavenly lightning becomes central to that process. He endures repeated bolts, gathers lightning symbols, and forms a body composed of electrical power; after forty-nine strikes, his projected form and the skewer's killing force have both advanced far beyond the improvised refuge he first entered. (Chapters 168–170)

The ordeals also reveal his competing impulses. He complains, calculates the danger, and searches constantly for signs that Xu Qing may discard him, yet he is intensely ambitious about every chance to improve. Fear therefore becomes productive rather than merely comic. The patriarch volunteers information, studies enemies, and pushes through lightning that might erase him because a stronger spirit is both more difficult to abandon and closer to recovering the autonomy he lost with his body. (Chapters 168–170, 266)

By the end of the Forbidden Sea period he has become part of Xu Qing's working arsenal and traveling circle. This is not yet a comfortable friendship: Xu Qing still treats the skewer as a controlled weapon, while the patriarch frequently frames obedience as the safest available course. Nevertheless, their repeated survival creates practical trust. Xu Qing relies on his awareness and attacks, and the patriarch learns that his host will sometimes take risks to preserve him rather than consume him as an expendable resource. (Chapters 168–266)

Coalition years and becoming Master Freespirit

The patriarch's next breakthrough arrives under a red lightning tribulation that threatens to extinguish him. His resentment at being trapped in a subordinate role erupts alongside despair and a fierce desire to live freely. When Xu Qing moves to save him rather than watching from safety, the collision of terror, grievance, gratitude, and hope resonates with the tribulation and carries him from spirit automaton to soul automaton. (Chapters 343–345)

Afterward he embraces the name Master Freespirit, a grandiose declaration that is also a sincere claim to identity. He remains bound to the iron skewer and still fears Xu Qing's control, so the title does not magically erase the imbalance between them. It does, however, mark an internal change: the former patriarch no longer thinks only of recovering his old sect position, but of becoming a powerful independent existence through the path his forced circumstances opened. (Chapter 345)

His specialist senses become valuable during the Swordsage period. When the group encounters Qing Qiu, he can perceive the intelligent spirit connected to her scythe, recognizing another form of sentient weapon existence. Such moments give him a function no ordinary projectile can fulfill. He interprets spiritual phenomena, warns Xu Qing, and applies experience accumulated both as a human cultivator and as a resident soul. (Chapter 442)

War in Sea-Sealing County

During the county war, Master Freespirit remains an adviser as well as a combatant. His appetite for palace-intrigue and cultivation novels, originally an escape from fear and confinement, supplies a peculiar store of political scenarios. He uses those stories to warn Xu Qing about courtly motives and possible betrayals. The advice can be melodramatic, but Xu Qing listens because the old patriarch's anxious imagination sometimes notices risks that more straightforward fighters overlook. (Chapters 454, 521)

His role in the group also grows more familiar. He still flatters Xu Qing and loudly advertises his own contributions, yet the performance now coexists with real concern for the people around him. Danger repeatedly forces him to choose whether to hide or act, and he continues acting. The pattern does not make him fearless; it shows a man whose loyalty is meaningful precisely because fear remains one of his strongest emotions. (Chapters 521–550)

The war further separates control of the weapon from control of the person. Xu Qing decides when and where to deploy the iron skewer because he carries it, but Master Freespirit provides judgment, spiritual power, and commentary from within. Their combined attacks depend on both roles. Describing the skewer as Xu Qing's weapon is therefore accurate, while describing its resident soul as an owned object would erase the continuing agency on which that partnership relies. (Chapters 454–550)

Moonrite, the imperial capital, and the Firemoon Great Hunt

In the Moonrite campaign, Master Freespirit's reading habit again becomes a source of morale and interpretation. He compares apparently hopeless circumstances with the villains and reversals of his favorite stories, using their logic to insist that Xu Qing still has paths forward. The comparison is comic, but the impulse behind it is loyal: he tries to give his companion confidence in a region dominated by a god's authority and centuries of despair. (Chapters 551–687)

Periods of separation make the relationship's change visible. When Master Freespirit is not beside him, Xu Qing notices the absence and misses his chatter. That response would be inexplicable if the patriarch had remained only a replaceable tool. Years of complaints, warnings, boasts, and interventions have made his voice part of Xu Qing's daily life, even though neither man expresses the attachment in openly sentimental terms. (Chapter 727)

The Firemoon Great Hunt tests the combat side of the bond. Master Freespirit joins attacks against opponents far above the level of the sect patriarch he once was, driving the skewer into Crown Prince Brightsouth's forehead and later confronting the finger of a god. His shouted command to halt the finger is both audacious and revealing: the survivor who once begged for existence now takes pride in interposing his vessel and cultivation before divine power. (Chapters 837, 872)

God-Exterminating Thorn and guardianship

Master Seventh secretly refines the skewer before the imperial-capital conflict, allowing its later form as a God-Exterminating Thorn to reveal a much greater killing potential. Master Freespirit guides that power rather than disappearing inside it. During the struggle around Zi Qing, his precision and the refined weapon's force combine in attacks capable of threatening beings far beyond his original Foundation Establishment limits. (Chapters 965–966)

Xu Qing protects him during the same crisis by storing the original skewer and resident soul in a hidden dimensional space before a self-detonation, then retrieving him afterward. Xu Qing subsequently places the skewer with Arch-Immortal Plumdark so Master Freespirit can guard her. This changes physical custody and assigns a protective duty; it does not transfer ownership of Master Freespirit as though he were an inert possession. (Chapters 965–967)

Guarding Plumdark proves unusually congenial to him. He appears from her palace roof to greet Xu Qing, remains alert while she cultivates, and candidly admits that he prefers a post where he can be useful without constantly entering suicidal battles. His honesty about that preference is consistent with the survivor he has always been, while his sustained attention to Plumdark's safety shows that cautious service can still be dependable service. (Chapters 1015, 1088, 1181)

Corporeal restoration and Mount Daybreak

The narrative later makes clear that two distinct iron skewers exist. The original in Revered Ancient still contains Master Freespirit's spiritual soul and remains near Plumdark; a second skewer encountered in the Fifth Star Ring has a different origin and must not be treated as his body or identity. This distinction confirms that the character is the resident consciousness of one specific vessel, not every weapon sharing its form. (Chapter 1236)

When Xu Qing and Chen Erniu return to Revered Ancient, Master Freespirit emerges in Sea-Sealing County to witness their arrival. His presence reconnects the returning travelers with the companions and institutions they left behind. He is no longer merely following Xu Qing from battlefield to battlefield; he has maintained responsibilities, relationships, and a place within the human domain during their long absence. (Chapters 1314, 1339)

By the later era he has gained a corporeal body and serves as steward of Mount Daybreak. He writes novels of his own, turning the stories that once distracted and instructed him into a creative vocation, and holds authority there rivaled only by Little Shadow. His worry as Xu Qing and Plumdark depart shows the final balance of his personality: still anxious, still expressive, but now rooted in a community and openly concerned for people whose safety matters to him. (Chapter 1339)

Appearance and personality

The patriarch begins as an older human cultivator whose authority rests on his sect and Foundation Establishment cultivation. After entering the iron skewer, he commonly manifests as a projected face or a semitransparent spiritual figure amid lightning, with his changing electrical form reflecting each automaton breakthrough. By the time he becomes steward of Mount Daybreak, he has left the purely spiritual state and once again possesses a corporeal body. (Chapters 40, 103, 168–170, 1339)

He is cautious, verbose, proud, imaginative, and exceptionally committed to staying alive. His flattery can be shameless, and his rivalry with Little Shadow often turns the pair's attempts to prove usefulness into comedy. At the same time, he is perceptive about danger, widely read, and capable of acting despite terror. The loyalty he develops toward Xu Qing and Plumdark does not replace self-preservation; it grows beside it, making his brave choices more deliberate. (Chapters 40, 521, 687, 1088, 1339)

Master Freespirit is also fiercely conscious of status and identity. His new name, his boasts after breakthroughs, and his delight in the God-Exterminating Thorn all answer the humiliation of losing his sect and body. Yet his later authority is not a restoration of the old patriarchal order. As steward and novelist, he builds a different life from the sentient being he became, carrying the memory of his vessel without being reducible to it. (Chapters 345, 872, 965–966, 1339)

Abilities and cultivation

Foundation Establishment patriarch

Before his defeat, the patriarch is an experienced Foundation Establishment cultivator and the strongest authority of the Golden Vajra Warrior Sect. His physical cultivation, sect techniques, and accumulated combat judgment make him dangerous enough that Xu Qing refuses to leave their feud unresolved. His greatest early weakness is strategic rather than technical: he correctly perceives Xu Qing's potential but underestimates the youth's speed, preparation, and willingness to attack first. (Chapters 40–46, 99–103)

Spirit-automaton transformation

To survive defeat, he extracts and restructures his soul as a spirit automaton, then enters the iron skewer as its resident intelligence. This gives him a vessel capable of flight, piercing attacks, and continued cultivation without an ordinary body. Xu Qing can direct the skewer's deployment, but Master Freespirit can perceive, speak, reason, and channel his own spiritual power from within it. (Chapter 103)

Soul-cleansing lightning body

Soul-cleansing heavenly lightning tempers both spirit and skewer. By surviving successive strikes and accumulating forty-nine lightning symbols, Master Freespirit forms an electrical body and pushes his automaton state toward profound-radiance power. The process raises his speed and lethality while making lightning a durable part of his spiritual constitution, rather than a single borrowed attack. (Chapters 168–170)

Soul-automaton breakthrough

Red tribulation lightning drives his evolution from spirit automaton to soul automaton. The decisive factor is not endurance alone: extreme emotions produced by his desire for freedom, fear of death, resentment, and Xu Qing's attempt to save him resonate with the tribulation. The resulting breakthrough strengthens his independent soul and provides the basis for his identity as Master Freespirit. (Chapters 343–345)

Spiritual perception and counsel

His existence as a resident soul makes him sensitive to other sentient spirits and unusual weapon phenomena, as shown when he detects the being associated with Qing Qiu's scythe. He also contributes noncombat knowledge, drawing on old experience, anxious inference, and a large body of fictional reading to identify political patterns. The quality of his predictions varies, but the group repeatedly treats his warnings as meaningful intelligence rather than background chatter. (Chapters 442, 521, 687)

God-Exterminating Thorn

After Master Seventh's refinement, the iron skewer can reveal the force of a God-Exterminating Thorn. Master Freespirit supplies guidance and intent to that transformed weapon, enabling precise attacks with power far beyond its original state. He can strike elite Firemoon opponents, resist divine pressure, and participate in the attack on Zi Qing, though the greatest feats depend on the refined vessel and the power Xu Qing brings to its deployment. (Chapters 837, 872, 965–966)

Corporeal existence

Master Freespirit eventually obtains a physical body again. The corpus does not detail every step of that restoration, so it should not be treated as a named technique with known mechanics. Its result is nevertheless explicit: by the Mount Daybreak era he is no longer confined to soul form, can serve as a corporeal steward, and continues the same personal identity formed across his human and automaton lives. (Chapter 1339)

Power progression

Relationships

• Xu Qing: They begin as mortal enemies. Master Freespirit chooses automaton existence to survive Xu Qing's vengeance, and their early arrangement is controlled by fear and safeguards. Repeated battles turn it into a resident-spirit partnership in which Xu Qing protects him and misses his presence, while Master Freespirit supplies attacks, counsel, and increasingly sincere loyalty. (Chapters 40–46, 99–103, 345, 727, 965–967)
• Arch-Immortal Plumdark: Xu Qing entrusts the original skewer to Plumdark's vicinity and asks Master Freespirit to protect her. He remains on guard through her cultivation and later shares the community at Mount Daybreak. Plumdark's physical custody of his vessel does not make the sentient guardian her property. (Chapters 967, 1015, 1088, 1181, 1339)
• Little Shadow: Master Freespirit treats Little Shadow as both a comrade and rival for Xu Qing's approval. Their competition drives ostentatious displays of usefulness, but both repeatedly protect the same people; at Mount Daybreak, their authority is presented as nearly equal. (Chapters 168–170, 1088, 1339)
• Master Seventh: Master Seventh refines the skewer into a far more dangerous form before the imperial-capital conflict, giving Master Freespirit a vessel capable of expressing God-Exterminating Thorn power. (Chapters 965–966)
• Chen Erniu: The Captain's schemes repeatedly expose Master Freespirit to absurd danger, while his scale of ambition gives the patriarch endless material for fearful commentary and later novels. They nevertheless fight within the same trusted circle. (Chapters 521, 687, 837)

Items

• Iron skewer: Master Freespirit voluntarily entered the original iron skewer as a spirit automaton to survive. Xu Qing physically carried, controlled, protected, and upgraded that weapon before placing it near Plumdark for her defense. The skewer is a held and transferable object; its resident soul is a sentient person, not property. A later, second skewer in the Fifth Star Ring is distinct and does not contain him. (Chapters 103, 168–170, 965–967, 1236)