NovelPantheon

Tian Xie Zi

Master of the Ninth Summitcreator of the Change of Heart Artone of South Morning's three great Berserkers

Tian Xie Zi is the master of the Ninth Summit and the first person to recognize the extraordinary nature of Su Ming's awakened Berserker Mark. His erratic clothes, contradictory claims, and deliberate reputation as a lunatic make him a comic and unsettling figure, but those performances conceal a perceptive teacher, a formidable combatant, and the creator of the Change of Heart Art. He does not give his disciples a single doctrine to repeat. Instead, he puts them in situations that force them to clear their own thoughts and discover the principles on which they are willing to build their lives.

That method makes his influence larger than his direct presence. Tian Xie Zi gives Su Ming a home when the younger Berserker is isolated by secrets and manipulation, guides the four principal disciples of the Ninth Summit along different paths, and repeatedly places himself between them and dangers they cannot yet face. His disappearance after crossing the Dead Sea turns the search for him into one of the bonds holding the scattered disciples together. When he finally returns, the unresolved ninth change of his own Art reveals that even its creator must submit his convictions to the same test he set for his students. His last appearances in Ancient Zang preserve an intentional uncertainty about his exact existence, but not about his role: he remains Su Ming's master through the end of the supplied story.

Biography

Freezing Sky and the Ninth Summit

Tian Xie Zi first takes notice of Su Ming during the latter's Awakening. He recognizes that the apparent Mountain Mark is not an ordinary example of its kind, and his earlier disappointment gives way to intense expectation. When the Sound of Soul Creation follows, Tian Xie Zi is the only observer besides Su Ming powerful enough to hear it. He identifies the phenomenon with the legendary creative capacity of the God of Berserkers and understands that Su Ming's potential cannot be judged by the conventional categories being applied around him. This perception, rather than institutional convenience, motivates him to recruit the young man. (Chapters 203–211)

He introduces himself as someone who belongs to Freezing Sky Clan while practicing none of its Arts. His recruitment is characteristically deceptive: he claims never to have accepted a disciple, promises Su Ming the freedom to choose among many treasures, and calls him his “only disciple.” The supposedly serious second test is to taste Tian Xie Zi's personally brewed wine; Su Ming alone calls it water, which Tian Xie Zi declares to be the answer matching his mood. Su Ming soon discovers Hu Zi, Second Senior Brother, and Eldest Senior Brother, exposing the “only disciple” claim as another part of Tian Xie Zi's eccentric performance. Yet the neglected-looking Ninth Summit provides something his promises did not express directly: a small household whose members accept one another's peculiarities. (Chapters 215–221)

Tian Xie Zi's instruction begins with clearing the mind and understanding Creation, but he refuses to turn that principle into a uniform exercise. Eldest Senior Brother enters isolation, Second Senior Brother tends his plants and divided nature, Hu Zi drinks and enters dreams, while Su Ming repeatedly draws until he reaches his own Picture Creation. Tian Xie Zi watches Su Ming's first change of heart with concern, waits instead of forcing an answer, and then uses questions and lived demonstrations to move him past borrowed conclusions. The result is not merely a combat technique: Su Ming later recognizes that Tian Xie Zi's guidance allowed the potential accumulated through his earlier cultivation to erupt when he reached the Bone Sacrifice Realm. (Chapters 222–254, 358)

The same period shows why Tian Xie Zi can afford to appear ridiculous. His robes change color with his states and moods, and the other disciples treat his daily flights and abrupt changes of direction as familiar habits. In purple, however, he becomes dangerous enough that his disciples immediately grow serious. He takes Su Ming across South Morning through a Creation-based relocation method, challenges a former fellow disciple, and lets Su Ming witness an exchange whose principles exceed the young man's understanding and even fade from his memory. Later, when the Ninth Summit's people confront Phantom Dais Tribe, Tian Xie Zi mixes a farcical insistence that every tribe certify his sanity with precise coercion: a captured expert finds the circulation of all power cut off by Tian Xie Zi's grip, and the tribe's elder addresses him as uncle-master rather than risk escalation. His absurdity is therefore neither helplessness nor ignorance; it is a mode he can discard whenever his disciples require protection. (Chapters 249–256, 292–294)

The Shamans and the World of Nine Yin

Tian Xie Zi brings Su Ming into Shaman territory while wearing purple, ostensibly to show him what it means to fight with Arts and to hunt. The journey is also a lesson in changes of heart. Rather than explain conflict abstractly, Tian Xie Zi presents different answers through action—meeting an opponent, pursuing a conflict to its source, severing that source, or letting it go—and leaves Su Ming to decide which response can genuinely clear his own thoughts. Su Ming later compares his insight into the fusion of ice and fire to the months he spent contemplating Tian Xie Zi's words on the Ninth Summit, showing that the lesson continues to work only because it requires the disciple's own epiphany. (Chapters 253–264, 465)

After Su Ming disappears, Tian Xie Zi enters the land of the Shamans repeatedly to search for him. The search makes his later absence especially painful: the master who would not abandon a missing disciple himself crosses the Dead Sea alone and heads for the Eastern Wastelands when the continental calamity approaches. Zong Ze can report only that Tian Xie Zi apparently intended to prevent the disaster, that he never returned, and that the calamity was nevertheless delayed considerably. This is not confirmation that he died. It is the beginning of a long disappearance in which his family has evidence of sacrifice but no body, explanation, or farewell. (Chapters 519, 526, 1350)

The consequences are borne by the household he had protected. Eldest Senior Brother leaves to search, while Hu Zi remains at the Ninth Summit so that Tian Xie Zi and the others will still have a home if they return. Once the master and the elder disciples are missing, Heaven Gate dares demand treasures from Tian Xie Zi's sealed cave abode and threatens the summit itself. Su Ming's discovery of a bone necklace that had belonged to Tian Xie Zi turns his response toward the people carrying it into a personal reckoning. Even apparently minor memories—such as the small tribe Su Ming had first visited with his master—survive as markers of the route Tian Xie Zi opened for him beyond Freezing Sky. The master is absent, but the places, obligations, and loyalties he created continue to direct all four disciples. (Chapters 540–578)

South Morning and the Immortal conflict

Tian Xie Zi's instruction remains active in Su Ming when South Morning's conflicts broaden beyond the world of the early Ninth Summit. While attempting to reach the Berserker Soul Realm, Su Ming recalls his master's explanation that the realm's core lies in the soul, the completion and manifestation of the Berserker Mark, and communication with the power of the world. Su Ming names Dark Mountain as his soul and the Ninth Summit as his spirit; Tian Xie Zi and the three senior brothers appear within that manifestation. The choice makes the master's teaching part of Su Ming's own realm insight without reducing it to an inherited formula. (Chapter 639)

Later recollections establish that Tian Xie Zi had also fought directly in the struggle around South Morning. Alongside Su Ming and Guru Li Long, he faced the Shamans' Great Patriarch, an enemy whose Life of Nine Deaths allowed repeated returns. Tian Xie Zi cast an Art that linked the allies' powers and used a talisman to kill the Great Patriarch four times in rapid succession, forcing the opponent into sleep rather than securing a simple permanent death. The feat demonstrates both tactical coordination and a clear limit: the result depended on allied power and an external talisman, while the Great Patriarch's unusual survival method prevented an ordinary decisive victory. (Chapters 686, 730–731)

His standing as one of South Morning's three great Berserkers explains why rivals had once hesitated to move against the Ninth Summit and why the household becomes vulnerable after he vanishes. Yet rank is not the main legacy Su Ming carries forward. Tian Xie Zi and the senior brothers had perceived the terrifying murderous aura hidden in Su Ming long before later reincarnations made it monstrous, but the master still taught him to locate an internal foundation rather than define him by that violence. Thus the Immortal conflict does not develop Tian Xie Zi through a documented new realm; it reveals the durability of his earlier judgment and instruction across battles in which he is no longer continuously present. (Chapters 533, 759)

The Fifth Furnace and Morning Dao

The search eventually reaches Divine Essence Star Ocean, where Tian Xie Zi has left signs rather than a clear trail. Su Ming learns that his master had been pursued by the four great alien races, as well as other races and ferocious beasts, because he possessed a fifth stone. When Su Ming encounters the stone's distinctive power, he finally understands why it could provoke a pursuit on that scale. A statue in the wasteland of the former Ninth Tribe and evidence connected with the fifth ocean convince him that Tian Xie Zi had spent a long period there, but the disciple repeatedly arrives after the decisive movements and initially misreads the messages left in the traces. (Chapters 919–923, 1023–1032)

Those traces deepen the mystery rather than resolve it. Su Ming comes to believe that Tian Xie Zi was present near the fifth ocean without being noticed and learns that his master had taken a fifth disciple. He tells Eldest Senior Brother both discoveries when they reunite, reopening the family's old wound: they now have reason to believe Tian Xie Zi survived far beyond the Dead Sea crossing, but still cannot bring him home. The gap between evidence and reunion also feeds Su Ming's darkest suspicions. For a time, he concludes that Tian Xie Zi, like Lie Shan Xiu, may have become a piece in Su Xuan Yi's design. That is Su Ming's inference during a period when many of his foundational relationships appear false, not a settled account of Tian Xie Zi's motives. (Chapters 1030–1032, 1115, 1168)

Morning Dao provides one piece of Tian Xie Zi's earlier history. The disciples know that he once left Yin Death Region and was accepted by a Sect Elder of Morning Dao Sect, placing him somewhere in the outer network surrounding the Sect Elder Chamber without making him a practitioner of Freezing Sky's Arts. Another revelation shows how far his methods could reach: Hu Zi was originally a spirit born from the vast Rune surrounding Yin Death Region, and Tian Xie Zi used an unspecified ingenious method to extract him, give him human form, and accept him as a disciple. Because the method is not explained, its mechanism cannot be treated as a general power he can freely reproduce. Its consequence is nevertheless central—the most carefree member of the Ninth Summit owes both his human life and the space to develop his dream and Rune talents to Tian Xie Zi. (Chapters 920–923, 1051, 1088, 1171)

Arid Triad and the dying aeon

After restoring the Ninth Summit for a time, Su Ming leaves again partly to search Dark Dawn for Tian Xie Zi. The clues draw him into Old Man Extermination's preparations, where he fears finding his master among stored corpses and cocoons. Instead, he learns that Tian Xie Zi and Lie Shan Xiu are alive and numbered among the four Apostles of Happiness, Anger, Grief, and Resentment associated with Old Man Extermination. That association confirms survival but does not amount to uncomplicated loyalty. Old Man Extermination privately remembers that Change of Heart began with Tian Xie Zi and that destiny had marked him to become the strongest of the aeon before Extermination interfered and caused his change to fail. (Chapters 1305–1335)

When master and disciple finally meet, Tian Xie Zi's manner is neither that of a captive nor a converted subordinate. He is kind, proud of Su Ming's growth, and amused by his old argument with Lie Shan Xiu over whether Su Ming belongs to the Berserkers or specifically to the Ninth Summit. Su Ming, in turn, recognizes him as his truest master: the man who taught him to clear his mind, exposed him to changes of heart, gave him the warmth of a home, and searched Shaman lands after his disappearance. Their reunion confirms that the care expressed through Tian Xie Zi's eccentric teaching was real even though his wider history and connections had remained concealed. (Chapter 1350)

Tian Xie Zi also explains the crisis created by his own Art. Old Man Extermination approached during his ninth change of heart, destabilized the ideals gained through the earlier changes, and planted doubt that they could be fused. Tian Xie Zi therefore returns to the source of that doubt to determine whether Extermination is correct. Either answer will clear his thoughts and complete his Dao, but he insists the confrontation belongs to him: he will cut Extermination down or be cut down, and Su Ming must not interfere. Only if Tian Xie Zi has failed after three hundred years should the disciple avenge him. This choice applies his pedagogy to himself—he cannot borrow Su Ming's overwhelming strength to settle a question whose answer must become his own conviction. (Chapter 1350)

He departs apparently free of his burdens, but not before returning to his old habit of affectionate scolding. He sends advice tailored to each senior brother, tells Hu Zi to sleep, drink, and enter dreams instead of covering himself in blood, and even reappears for a final complaint about Lu Ya. The humor restores the emotional texture of the early Ninth Summit for a moment. It also makes his next disappearance sharper. Su Ming later reaches the opening toward the Vast Expanse without finding Tian Xie Zi or sensing his presence; only Old Man Extermination's ancient ship remains. Su Ming can still use the first divine ability Tian Xie Zi taught him—copying what he sees once his thoughts are clear—to reproduce Extermination's octagonal locating Rune, but the technique provides no answer to his master's fate. (Chapters 1350, 1374–1375)

Ancient Zang and the final truth

After the destruction of Harmonious Morus Alba and Su Ming's awakening in Ancient Zang, an old man identical to Tian Xie Zi travels with him. His appearance, voice, and intonation match Su Ming's memories, and Su Ming follows him for ten years. The text preserves uncertainty about how this figure relates to the Tian Xie Zi who vanished during the confrontation with Old Man Extermination: Su Ming cannot decide whether he is seeing past or present, and later recognizes a number of altered familiar people in the strange world. What is certain is Su Ming's judgment. Regardless of who the old man is in that life and world, his heart recognizes Tian Xie Zi, whose fate remained entangled with Mie Sheng after the disruption of the ninth change. (Chapters 1378–1391)

The Ancient Zang master again teaches through a journey rather than a lecture. He gives Su Ming guidance about fusing with the Seven Lives Art and promises to wait outside the royal capital so that, when Su Ming returns after three thousand years, he can give a final lesson. At the appointed time, Tian Xie Zi stands in a straw cape and hat outside the city gate. His proposed answer is not a cosmological explanation but a choice: Su Ming can turn back, stop distinguishing reality from falsehood, put down his burdens, and live with those he longs to restore. Tian Xie Zi urges this because he has seen the exhaustion and desolation of Su Ming's entire life and still regards the immensely powerful cultivator as a child he wishes to protect. (Chapters 1412, 1436, 1461, 1471–1472)

Su Ming nevertheless chooses to continue into the city and pursue the truth bound to his memories. Tian Xie Zi does not punish or disown him for rejecting the offered peace. He accepts that forgetting is not Su Ming's path and tells him, in effect, that those who enter his life may be determined by destiny, but he decides whom to keep. His sigh holds compassion, complicated feeling, and pride. When Su Ming later crosses the thirty-three Skies, Tian Xie Zi watches from outside the capital with a smile containing reluctance, farewell, and blessing. The final lesson therefore completes the pattern established on the Ninth Summit: the master can present the cost of a path and urge caution, but the disciple must make the choice himself. (Chapters 1472–1477)

At the end, after Su Ming is submerged in the vortex of life and death and can no longer be found, Tian Xie Zi's initially illusory figure becomes corporeal beside the place of disappearance. Grieving, he chooses to keep Su Ming company and walks into the same vortex. The act reverses their long separation: earlier, the disciples crossed worlds to search for their missing master; now the master follows the disciple into an unknown fate. The supplied corpus does not establish either a recoverable destination or a confirmed death, so Tian Xie Zi's final status is disappearance rather than a definitive end. (Chapter 1481)

Appearance and personality

Tian Xie Zi is an old man whose most conspicuous feature is his constantly changing clothing. He appears in white, black, red, green, and especially purple robes; his direction of travel and apparent mood can be so closely associated with those colors that his disciples casually predict his movements from them. In the dangerous purple state, his hair also becomes purple, an illusory sea of blood and a stone statue may appear behind him, and his presence takes on a brutality absent from his ordinary presentation. Much later in Ancient Zang, the corresponding figure waits outside the capital in a straw cape and hat with a wooden staff. (Chapters 209, 249, 253–256, 1472)

Outwardly, he is contradictory, shameless, and theatrical. He lies to every new disciple about being the only one, devises a recruitment test around whether wine tastes like water, changes his assertions in the middle of an argument, and amasses written declarations from tribes certifying that he is not a lunatic. His disciples respond with headaches, resigned familiarity, or affectionate mockery. The performance can also be menacing: enemies cannot know when the ridiculous quarrel will become lethal, and Tian Xie Zi is perfectly willing to exploit that uncertainty. (Chapters 215–220, 249, 292–294)

Beneath that behavior, Tian Xie Zi is observant, protective, and philosophically demanding. He detects phenomena others cannot perceive, notices the different psychological needs of his disciples, and cares more about the foundation of their convictions than outward conformity. He searches for Su Ming, preserves the Ninth Summit as a home, and remains tender toward him after the disciple surpasses the scale of power Tian once represented. His love does not become control: even when he wants Su Ming to turn back, he ultimately respects the choice to continue. The same independence makes him refuse Su Ming's help with the ninth change, because accepting rescue would evade the question his Dao requires him to answer. (Chapters 210–222, 1350, 1472–1481)

Abilities and cultivation

The corpus identifies Tian Xie Zi as one of South Morning's three great Berserkers and repeatedly portrays him at an established, overwhelming level, but it does not give a complete, source-confirmed sequence of formal realm advancements. His abilities are therefore best understood by origin and use rather than by assigning undocumented progression stages.

Perception and personal foundation

Tian Xie Zi can perceive the Sound of Soul Creation when everyone present except Su Ming lacks the power to hear it, and he recognizes the abnormal complexity and promise of Su Ming's Berserker Mark. This sensitivity is an established part of his own cultivation and judgment, not an item effect. His underlying doctrine is Creation: he criticizes copying the paths of other peoples without transforming them into one's own foundation, while also acknowledging that he himself used other skills to create a personal way. The limit is philosophical as well as practical—Creation cannot simply be transmitted as a finished answer, so his disciples must obtain their own epiphanies. (Chapters 203–211, 222, 256)

Change of Heart

Change of Heart is an Art Tian Xie Zi created. It tests and alters the practitioner's ideals through successive changes, requiring conflicting understandings to be faced and ultimately fused until the practitioner's thoughts and Dao become clear. Tian Xie Zi teaches it indirectly through questions, demonstrations, and situations chosen to provoke a genuine response; its successful use helps a disciple keep a stable internal root even when techniques, appearances, and circumstances change. It is learned cultivation, not an innate trait or an object-derived effect. (Chapters 253–264, 920, 1333, 1350)

The Art carries a severe vulnerability: another person can interfere with the convictions being tested. Old Man Extermination disrupts Tian Xie Zi's ninth change by destabilizing the ideals from his previous changes and planting doubt about their fusion. Tian Xie Zi cannot clear that failure merely by overpowering the interferer or accepting Su Ming's answer; he must determine the truth himself, at the possible cost of his life. The creator's incomplete ninth change is thus the clearest stated limit of the Art. (Chapters 1333, 1350, 1379)

Creation Arts, relocation, and copying

Tian Xie Zi uses Creation Arts to relocate to places he has previously visited when he possesses an item from the destination and the distance is not too great. He explicitly says he cannot perform the unrestricted step of a peak Berserker Soul cultivator, and that his version requires him to be dressed in purple. These are concrete conditions, not cosmetic details. His purple fog can also cover Su Ming, changing the disciple's clothes and hair to purple and amplifying the murderous aura already present in him. (Chapters 255–256)

The first divine ability he teaches Su Ming is to copy what he sees once his thoughts are clear. Su Ming later applies that principle to reproduce Old Man Extermination's octagonal Rune. The ability is learned through Tian Xie Zi's pedagogy and depends on observation and a cleared mind; the corpus does not show it granting automatic comprehension of every technique. Old Man Extermination, for example, still argues that copying alone cannot reproduce an unlearned defensive Art. (Chapter 1375)

Combat, restraint, and linked techniques

In direct combat, Tian Xie Zi can strike with a stomp whose principles exceed early Su Ming's understanding and resist his attempt to remember it. He can seize an expert by the throat and cut off all circulation of power, making resistance impossible, and his pressure is sufficient to force powerful tribes to negotiate around his demands. In the purple state he manifests a blood-sea image and stone figure, relocates rapidly, and confronts opponents whose exchanges distort a weaker observer's senses. These feats belong to Tian Xie Zi's own cultivation, although the text does not attach each one to a named formal realm. (Chapters 256, 292–294)

He can also connect his power with allies. Against the Great Patriarch, Tian Xie Zi links the powers of the group and activates a talisman to kill the opponent four consecutive times. This is partly item-derived and partly cooperative: the talisman is the activating object, and the combined power is not presented as Tian Xie Zi's unaided output. The Great Patriarch only falls asleep because the Life of Nine Deaths allows renewed life, showing that repeated lethal force does not automatically defeat revival-based Arts. (Chapters 730–731)

Rune and life-form manipulation

Tian Xie Zi uses an unknown method to extract Hu Zi, a spirit born from the vast Rune surrounding Yin Death Region, and give him human form. He then guides Hu Zi toward dreams while allowing his innate affinity with Runes to develop. This is the largest life-form transformation directly attributed to Tian Xie Zi, but its method, cost, and repeatability are not supplied; it should not be generalized into unrestricted creation of life. (Chapters 1088, 1171)

Relationships

  • Su Ming: Tian Xie Zi's fourth disciple and the person who most fully carries his teaching forward. Tian Xie Zi recognizes Su Ming's potential, gives him the Ninth Summit as a home, searches for him in Shaman territory, and teaches him clear thought, Change of Heart, and copying. Su Ming regards him as his truest master. Their bond culminates when Tian Xie Zi accepts Su Ming's refusal to turn back and then follows him into the final vortex. (Chapters 209–215, 253–264, 1350, 1472–1481)

  • Eldest Senior Brother: Tian Xie Zi's eldest principal disciple follows a path of isolation and remains one of the pillars of the Ninth Summit. Tian Xie Zi's disappearance drives him to search, while their later reunion is mediated by Su Ming's report of traces from Divine Essence Star Ocean. Tian's parting advice urges him to reconcile with himself rather than mistake his physical appearance for the symbol of his aspirations. (Chapters 222, 519–526, 1168, 1350)

  • Second Senior Brother: Tian Xie Zi allows his second disciple's plant cultivation, divided personality, and concern with beauty to become an individual route toward Creation. Their relationship is comfortable enough for the disciple to predict and mock his master's colored-robed moods, but Tian Xie Zi's final message still addresses the unresolved shape of his path rather than demanding conformity. (Chapters 222, 249, 1350)

  • Hu Zi: Tian Xie Zi extracts the Rune-born spirit from around Yin Death Region, gives him human form, and makes him his disciple. He recognizes that Hu Zi's Dao lies in dreams and treats drinking and sleeping as parts of that path. Hu Zi, in return, guards the Ninth Summit through decades of absence so that his master and brothers will have a home to which they can return. (Chapters 219–222, 540, 1088, 1171, 1350)

  • Dijiu Mo Sha: Dijiu Mo Sha is identified as Tian Xie Zi's disciple-in-name rather than one of the four principal disciples. The relationship is only sparsely shown, and Su Ming even wonders whether Tian Xie Zi remembered the determined teenager, but Su Ming still honors him as a junior brother when he dies. (Chapter 1360)

  • Old Man Extermination: Tian Xie Zi becomes one of the four Apostles associated with Old Man Extermination, but their relationship is ultimately adversarial. Extermination interferes with the ninth change of heart and creates the doubt Tian must resolve. Tian Xie Zi refuses Su Ming's intervention and returns to determine the matter himself, prepared either to kill Extermination or die in the attempt. (Chapters 1333–1350)

  • Lie Shan Xiu: Tian Xie Zi and the first God of Berserkers are fellow Apostles with roots in Yin Death Region, yet they retain distinct priorities. They privately debate whether Su Ming belongs to the Berserkers as a whole or to the Ninth Summit, and Tian Xie Zi understands that Lie Shan Xiu's cooperation with Extermination is driven by the need to preserve the Berserker bloodline. (Chapters 1032, 1335, 1350)

Items

  • Fifth stone: Its distinctive power draws pursuit from the four great alien races, other races, and ferocious beasts. Tian Xie Zi's possession of it becomes one of the principal clues Su Ming follows through Divine Essence Star Ocean and toward the fifth ocean. (Chapters 1023–1032)

  • Linked killing talisman: Tian Xie Zi activates this unnamed talisman after connecting his power with Su Ming and Guru Li Long, killing the Great Patriarch four times in succession and forcing him into sleep. Its feat depends on the linked group and does not bypass the Great Patriarch's Life of Nine Deaths. (Chapters 730–731)

  • Freezing Sky status plate: A dark-purple plate bearing Tian Xie Zi's status within Freezing Sky carries authority equivalent to the Clan Master's. It functions as institutional identification rather than a source of Tian Xie Zi's cultivation. (Chapters 228–229)

  • Bone necklace: One of Tian Xie Zi's personal belongings later appears around an enemy's neck. Su Ming recognizes it immediately, and its possession turns the encounter into evidence connected with his missing master. No special power is attributed to the necklace. (Chapter 544)