Shangguan Xiu

Shangguan Xiu is a senior Reliance Sect cultivator whose fear of missing Foundation Establishment turns into obsession with Meng Hao's rapid advancement. He progresses from covert institutional pressure to pursuit, hostage-taking, and mass blood sacrifice, becoming one of Meng Hao's earliest enemies to infer the copper mirror's duplication power.

Biography

Reliance Sect authority

Shangguan Xiu presides over the sect's Pill Distribution ceremonies. He awards contested Dry Spirit Pills first to Meng Hao and later to Li Fugui, exercising the kind of resource authority that determines which Outer Sect disciples can advance. He also supports Wang Tengfei's Black Mountain operation against the demonic python, aligning himself with the sect's favored prodigy. (Chapters 4–5, 19 and 23)

Meng Hao's advancement soon violates everything Shangguan expects from a poor junior. He summons Meng Hao, uses a flying needle to steal blood, seizes his bags, and searches for heavenly materials. The first examination finds nothing because Meng Hao has hidden his resources with Fatty, but dried blood reveals qi from hundreds of low-level Demonic Cores. Shangguan concludes that Meng Hao possesses a secret capable of funding impossible cultivation and immediately gives chase. (Chapters 27–28)

Meng Hao flees into the Inner Sect promotion registration square, where Grand Elder Ouyang's authority prevents a direct attack. Shangguan responds indirectly: he gives Han Zong a prepared banner and influences other competitors to kill Meng Hao during the tournament. The proxy plan fails, Meng Hao wins promotion, and institutional protection temporarily forces Shangguan into seclusion. (Chapters 28–34)

Pursuit after the sect's collapse

When the Reliance Sect dissolves, Shangguan is the first senior member to flee, using a teleportation preparation established in advance. Without sect rules or Ouyang's oversight, he waits near Mount Daqing because he knows Xu Qing originally found Meng Hao there. He intercepts Meng Hao at the ninth level of Qi Condensation and pursues with a movement talisman. (Chapters 41 and 47–49)

The chase exposes the difference between higher cultivation and adaptability. Shangguan's Five Radiances Mist Spirit should overwhelm a seventh-level opponent, but Meng Hao uses water and fire to create obscuring mist, wounds him with the paired wooden swords, and keeps replenishing himself with Demonic Cores. Shangguan detonates the Mist Spirit to save his hand, then follows Meng Hao into Eccentric Song's beast trial. Attacks from the mountain's creatures finally force him to abandon the pursuit in order to preserve his life and a secret medicinal-herb plot. (Chapters 49–52)

The Mount Daqing blood trap

Shangguan studies ten identical flying swords covertly taken after Meng Hao's fight with Wang Tengfei. Their perfectly matching manufacture convinces him that Meng Hao owns a treasure that duplicates items. To force him out, Shangguan surrounds the three mortal counties near Mount Daqing with a blood spell for two months. Publicly, the formation is explained as gathering Blood Spirit Pills for Foundation Establishment; privately, the counties are hostages and bait. (Chapters 72–73)

Meng Hao enters despite recognizing the trap, kills the cultivators maintaining it, and climbs the mountain carrying their heads. Shangguan threatens to detonate a Blood Globe and kill the counties if Meng Hao flees, ensuring the confrontation cannot become another long chase. He then uses Five-colored Death and draws a strand of ancient Demon Sealing qi from Mount Daqing, sacrificing ten years of longevity for an attack that immediately wounds Meng Hao. (Chapters 72–73)

Meng Hao has prepared his own reversal. A toxic scorpion hidden among the severed remains injects poison into Shangguan's channels. Forced to divide attention between antidote, net, arrows, and incantations, Shangguan sacrifices his right arm to survive seven arrows. Because the poison cannot be expelled at Qi Condensation, he consumes a Foundation Establishment Pill before he can pursue his intended Perfect Foundation route. (Chapter 73)

The forced breakthrough traps him between realms and leaves only a narrow defensive gap. Little Tiger's life-force pearl temporarily raises Meng Hao to the legendary tenth level of Qi Condensation, granting body strength and rudimentary Spiritual Sense. Meng Hao drives the paired wooden swords through the gap, repeatedly pierces Shangguan's chest, and rejects every bargain. Shangguan dies in Chapter 76 while trying to reveal the Perfect Foundation secret he can no longer use. (Chapters 74–76)

His death has consequences beyond the feud. Meng Hao destroys the hostage Blood Globe, recovers Shangguan's turtle-shell recipes for the Perfect Foundation and Perfect Gold Core Pills, and learns the path that will define his next realm. Shangguan's obsession fails to acquire the copper mirror but unintentionally hands its owner a more important cultivation direction. (Chapter 76)

Appearance and personality

Shangguan Xiu is a wizened older man in a gold robe with an authoritative voice and cold eyes. Using Mount Daqing's Demon Sealing qi ages him visibly by ten years, and poison later blackens his face and blood before the failed breakthrough.

He is suspicious, patient, acquisitive, and increasingly desperate. His impending loss of the chance to establish a foundation explains the obsession without excusing it: he searches blood, manipulates juniors, sacrifices longevity, and drains mortal lifespans because every delayed year makes his ambitions less attainable. He is perceptive enough to infer duplication from identical swords, but greed repeatedly makes him underestimate Meng Hao's preparation.

Abilities and cultivation

Peak ninth-level Qi Condensation

Shangguan stands at the peak of the conventional Qi Condensation path and claims he could have established his Foundation decades earlier. His greater pressure, speed, and reserves initially force Meng Hao to flee. The realm still has strict limits: he lacks true Spiritual Sense, cannot expel the scorpion poison, and cannot simultaneously maintain every defense under Meng Hao's layered attack. (Chapters 47–49 and 73–75)

Five Radiances Mist Spirits

A five-colored banner releases mist that becomes five several-meter-tall spirits. Five-colored Death drives them as a coordinated killing attack, and related prepared banners can be lent to proxies such as Han Zong. Shangguan can detonate a spirit to intercept the wooden swords, but doing so consumes the manifestation; water-and-fire mist can also confuse its target tracking. (Chapters 30, 49 and 73)

Mount Daqing Demon Sealing qi

By stamping the mountain and invoking the Reliance Sect's former identity as the Demon Sealing Sect, Shangguan extracts one strand of ancient qi that carries the weight of Heaven and Earth. It cracks Meng Hao's scroll defense and damages his feather fan with one blow. The power is borrowed rather than his own: using it consumes roughly ten years of longevity and leaves him visibly aged, making repetition ruinous. (Chapter 73)

Blood formation and hostage globe

The formation gathers Blood qi and lifespan from three counties over two months. Shangguan condenses part of it into a head-sized Blood Globe that can supposedly reduce the hostage population to ash if detonated. The technique requires multiple cultivators to maintain its perimeter and leaves the victims weakened; killing the operators destabilizes the field, while destroying the globe returns the accumulated Blood qi rather than restoring the roughly five years already lost from mortal lifespans. (Chapters 72 and 76)

Milky Way Sea pearl

A violet pearl hidden in his blood contains a seething wind mass. When invoked as Milky Way Sea, it raises a gale that destroys incoming arrows and can return into his body afterward. It gives strong emergency defense but does not cure poison or complete his interrupted Foundation Establishment. (Chapters 73–75)

Forced Foundation Establishment

After poisoning, Shangguan consumes a Foundation Establishment Pill because reaching the next realm is the only available way to expel the toxin. The process begins increasing his power but abandons the carefully timed Perfect Foundation plan recorded on his turtle shell. Before stabilization, his defenses retain a three-inch vulnerability that Meng Hao's tenth-level strength and wooden swords exploit. (Chapters 74–76)

Blood analysis and treasure inference

His needle-blood test detects the residue of consumed Demonic Cores after drying. Separately, comparing ten stolen swords reveals identical material and manufacturing details, leading him to infer an item-duplication treasure. Both deductions are accurate in direction, but neither lets him identify or operate the copper mirror before his death. (Chapters 28 and 73)

Relationships

• Meng Hao: Begins as a suspicious junior and becomes the prey Shangguan believes can unlock his Foundation path. The pursuit ends with Shangguan's death and Meng Hao inheriting his recipes.
• Wang Tengfei: Favored disciple whose Black Mountain project Shangguan supports; swords lost in Wang's duel later give Shangguan evidence of duplication.
• Han Zong: Proxy armed with a Five Radiances banner to kill Meng Hao during the promotion trial.
• Grand Elder Ouyang: Senior authority whose protection prevents Shangguan from attacking Meng Hao openly inside the sect.
• Little Tiger: Mount Daqing youth whose family is endangered by the blood formation and whose pearl enables Meng Hao's temporary tenth-level state.

Items

• Five-colored banner: Focus for the Five Radiances Mist Spirits and Five-colored Death.
• Milky Way Sea pearl: Blood-hidden defensive treasure that releases destructive wind.
• Turtle-shell recipes: Records methods for the Perfect Foundation Pill and Perfect Gold Core Pill. Meng Hao takes them after Shangguan's death.
• Translucent green pill furnace and medicinal herbs: Materials Shangguan assembled for his planned Perfect Foundation path.