Very reminiscent to the settings of Cultist Simulator and Lord of the Mysteries. A big improvement over the author's last work (The Righteous Players) which also shared the occult style of power. Protag is in a game he previously played but for the most part doesn't have an obnoxious amount of meta knowledge (he skipped the story). Has a system that doesn't take too much attention. Smooth flow with the power system being conceptually deep between the mix of paths/classes/aspects/equipment/skills+spells.

931-4137 should now be all Gemini 2.5 (minus a stretch in the 2000s somewhere where the retranslate was branding redone chapters as still being Gemini 2.0). Honestly the LLM translation is probably better than the fan one (pre 931) so if anyone wants to use their retranslates there it won't be wasted.

It's generic xianxia but not too generic. No system. Protag's cheat is strong but not spammable. Explanation for why he has it is fits the setting. Some sect building stuff. Has multiple lovers but those relationships are mostly transactional and they are in the background. The real romance is a pretty bittersweet one that only resolves after 200 years apart. Slowish progression with more time spent on preparing for realm breakthroughs than actually cultivating it seems.