As the starting point to author Tao Wong’s 12-piece A Thousand Li series, book one—suitably titled THE FIRST STEP—is officially being published on March 10, 2026. This new edition of the novel features additional world-building details, and even a map of protagonist Long Wu Ying’s world, helping establish the foundation for his journey through life, war, and learning the art and craft of cultivation.
A Thousand Li is a series that follows Long Wu Ying, a farmer’s son who never imagined he could be a cultivator. Growing up a peasant, Wu Ying did not have the resources to receive private lessons or additional tutoring. Instead, his experience with cultivation, or the art of gathering, storing, and refining your body’s qi, came from what has been provided as basic training to the community. When he’s selected to join the army during the ongoing war, he finds himself in a hard spot. Wen Yin Xue, his local village lord’s son and bully, is conscripted alongside him, thus allowing the nobleman to continue tormenting Wu Ying even while enlisted.
On their first journey towards the army’s base, Yin Xue severely injures Wu Ying when he challenges him to a spar. Still, Wu Ying must continue marching on. When they eventually reached the base camp, Wu Ying is riddled with infection and on the brink of death, leading to his long stay in the infirmary. It is here that Wu Ying, by pure fate, meets Elder Cheng and Fairy Yang, two Inner Sect members of the Verdant Green Waters Sect, a group of cultivators. Thanks to his chance observation of a potential ambush saved the base from attack, Wu Ying is invited by Elder Cheng to join his Sect as an Outer Sect member.
This invitation opens a new chapter in Wu Ying’s life. He works hard in his training alongside Tao He, a new friend from the Sect, and works to surpass Yin Xue, who is also recruited into the Sect. After being sent on an outside assignment by another Sect Elder, gaining real life combat experience, and battling through the Sect’s annual tournament to become an Inner Sect member, this novel ends at the beginning of Wu Ying’s next adventure.
With a focus on world-building in this first installment, author Wong does a great job introducing each place, person, and part of the cultivation process. The amount of detail and descriptors that went into each paragraph made visualizing each scene quite easy for the audiences. Whether it was a nose wrinkling in disgust or the grotesque details about putrid infections and discharged blood during the cultivation process, each moment is vividly clear through striking descriptions.
Wong also excelled in developing his characters, particularly with the relatable protagonist Wu Ying. He is strong-willed and determined to improve himself, with a strong sense of perseverance. Each trial showed the different ways Wu Ying was growing. Not only was this obvious through his actions, but also his inner thoughts, which were shared as he narrates his own story. Moments like his battle against the bandits even spiked worry and anxiety within readers as they grew emotionally invested.
What this story did best, however, was build anticipation. As Wu Ying journeyed deeper into cultivation and his training, it became clearer there was much to look forward to as he progressed through the Body Cleansing stages, as well as the Sect tournament and his results. Overall, THE FIRST STEPS was exactly what an introductory novel needed to be. It laid out the geographical world, the main character’s background, the skills he needed to hone, and what his goal was—to become a true cultivator and find immortality.
