Heavenbound
Nine Chapters · Three Realms · One DM

You start as a porter.Not a cultivator.

道阻且长The road is hard, and long

The caravan burns behind you on the first night and you walk into Greywillow carrying a dead guard's sword. Everything after that is earned: a name the registry will write down, a path, a manual you were never meant to read.

0Chapters Written
0Paths
0Realms Open
0Things That Sell Power
The Story

A road that remembers what you did on it.

Choices are kept and paid off chapters later. The man you spared at the Pass has opinions about you in the sect hall, and the ledger you refused to falsify is read aloud at your trial.

Ash On The Road
Ash On The RoadThe caravan burns behind you, and you are the one who ran.
Greywillow Smoke
Greywillow SmokeA city that will sell you a name, if you can pay for it.
Under Azure Banners
Under Azure BannersTaken in as an outer disciple, on sufferance.
Moonwell Whispers
Moonwell WhispersSomething has been done to the forest, and it is recent.
Blades At Red Gravel Pass
Blades At Red Gravel PassThe road was sold. The question is who signed.
Trial Of Breath And Bone
Trial Of Breath And BoneThe trial lane, Jin Myeong, and a foundation.
The Shattered Archive
The Shattered ArchiveWhat the sect keeps, and what it burned.
Red Veins Beneath Stone
Red Veins Beneath StoneUnder the mountain, where the ore is wrong.
The First Breakthrough
The First BreakthroughThe end of Act One, and the way you choose.

Drag, or scroll sideways. Nine written, more being written.

How it Plays

Everything happens in a message.

No app, no download, no tab left open. Add the bot, send /start, and the road begins.

Combat

Fights You Can Read

Three distance bands, and the enemy always shows you its next move. Losing is something you did, not something that happened to you.

Cultivation

Meditation, and Patience

Qi gathers while you are away and faster while you sit. Nothing carries you across a realm on its own: a breakthrough is a scene somebody wrote.

Techniques

Forged, Not Unlocked

Techniques are built from parts your manuals actually permit, named by you, and they fail in ways that make sense when you push them too far.

Professions

An Anvil Worth Standing At

Mine, gather, brew and smith. The best weapon in the world is one a player made, not one a shop sells.

Together

Sects, Oaths and Duels

Ranked duels, three-person expeditions, clans with a name to keep, and a marriage that is a household rather than a stat.

Beasts

Something to Tame

Contracts with spirit beasts, a stable to keep them in, and a bestiary that fills in as you meet what lives out there.

The Ladder

Three realms open. The rest are written and waiting.

Ten rungs in canon, and a realm joins the game when the continent that holds it is finished — a ceiling with nothing behind it is a waiting room.

Body TemperingEarly · Mid · Late — before any of it is qi.
Qi CondensationThe first breath you hold on purpose.
Foundation EstablishmentOpened by Chapter 6, on the trial lane.
Core FormationWith the Jade Basin, the second continent.
Golden CoreSized, costed, and waiting on the writing.
Nascent SoulFurther up than anyone has been.

The Bestiary

Fifty species, and every one of them painted.

What lives out there can be hunted, contracted, stabled and grown. A beast keeps the name you give it through every stage it passes into.

Vermilion Crane
Vermilion CraneFlame
Marsh Salamander
Marsh SalamanderFlame
Iron-Crown Eagle
Iron-Crown EagleIron
Mail-Backed Crocodile
Mail-Backed CrocodileIron
Hillback Ox
Hillback OxStone
Ridge Pangolin
Ridge PangolinStone
Reed Jiao
Reed JiaoWater
Great Snapping Turtle
Great Snapping TurtleWater
Whistling Swan
Whistling SwanWind
Gale Lynx
Gale LynxWind
Heartwood Stag
Heartwood StagWood
Willow Fox
Willow FoxWood

Who You Meet

They remember what you said the last time.

Faces change with what is being said rather than sitting on one expression forever. Everyone here has an opinion about you by Chapter 6.

Clerk Mirae
Clerk MiraeKeeps the registry, and remembers every name in it.
Captain Do-Hyun
Captain Do-HyunRan the convoy. Will tell you what it cost.
Deputy Kang
Deputy KangThe law at Greywillow, such as it is.
Merchant Seorin
Merchant SeorinSells what you need at what you can bear.
Scholar Yun
Scholar YunReads what nobody else will admit to reading.
Elder Haneul
Elder HaneulAzure Cloud's elder. Decides whether you stay.

Starting

Add the bot, send /start.

That is the whole of it. The story runs in your direct messages, so nobody watches you make your first mistakes.

Add Heavenbound on Discord

Plainly

What money does not buy here.

Not Spirit StonesThe currency is earned. It is not for sale at any price, and it never will be.
Not ManualsThey pass from master to disciple, or out of a sect library. No shop has ever held one.
Not the StoryEvery chapter is free, including the ones that are not written yet.
Not a FightNothing sold touches damage, a breakthrough, or a place on a leaderboard.