[b] The story is set in a fictional xianxia world where humans known as "cultivators" specialize in spiritual, physical, and paranormal pursuits to achieve transcendence from mortality.

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation is noted for the vast popularity and proliferation of its same-sex romantic couple Wangxian,[d] and for its intensely devoted fan community both within China and abroad.

Thirteen years later, Wei Wuxian's spirit is forcefully summoned during a self-sacrificial ritual and he incarnates into the body of a man named Mo Xuanyu (莫玄羽).

Those with sufficient control over their spiritual energy undertake fantastical tasks such as liberating spirits, fighting malevolent ghosts and fierce corpses, exorcising haunted places or objects, and hunting down yaoguai and powerful lawless individuals.

The Golden Core (金丹, Jīn Dān) is a cultivated orb materialized from concentrated Qi—fundamental energy that constitutes overall health—within the body of a living person and functions as storage for their spiritual power.

Humans who do not possess one, or those who form it late in life, never develop a strong cultivation base and must rely on tools, techniques, or other 'paths' that do not require extensive use of their own spiritual energy.

[14] Aside from their capacity to perform superhuman feats, most cultivators are presented as gentry scholars who train and may become proficient in the Chinese Six Arts, which places them at the top of the social hierarchy.

The principal storyline begins thirteen years after the death of Wei Wuxian, the Yiling Patriarch (夷陵老祖; Yílíng Lǎozǔ), as he is summoned back to life by Mo Xuanyu through a self-sacrificial ritual.

As they travel to unravel the case, Wei Wuxian re-lives previously encountered struggles and trials, and attempts to deal with the hatred of the cultivation world once more, along with the changes in his relationship with Lan Wangji.

While the main narrative covers the present timeline, it is intermingled with intermittent flashbacks recounting Wei Wuxian's previous life, from his glory days as a promising young cultivator until his death as the reviled Yiling Patriarch.

As the 15-year-old senior disciple of the Yunmeng Jiang Clan, Wei Wuxian was a highly charismatic, willful, intelligent young man possessing a strong cultivation base and exceptional skills.

With this use of unorthodox methods to overthrow the tyrannical Qishan Wen Clan during the Sunshot Campaign, the cultivation world hailed Wei Wuxian as a war hero for his significant efforts and contributions that led to their victory.

Trapped between incompatible duties, he took it upon himself to rescue the Wen refugees and become their sole protector at the Burial Mounds in Yiling, willingly taking on people's anger and distrust with unshakeable conviction.

Rumors and conspiracies arose, leading to more deaths and devastation, and with the fallout of morals and priorities colliding, it all came to a head at the First Siege of the Burial Mounds by the Four Great Clans, during which Wei Wuxian and the people he was protecting met their inglorious and bloody demise, and the world rejoiced.

The first chapter was released on the Chinese web novel platform Jinjiang Literature City (晋江文学城) on October 31, 2015, and serialization continued until the main story's completion on March 1, 2016.

[3] In August 2019, Pinsin Studio released a four-volume Collector Edition, featuring new cover art for each volume illustrated by Qian Er Bai (千二百).

[g] Before licenses had been secured for the official release of foreign editions, fan-made translations of the novel had been instrumental in spreading Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation's fame internationally.

As of July 2024[update], Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation has been officially translated into Vietnamese, Thai, Korean, Burmese, Hungarian, Russian, Japanese, German, English, Brazilian Portuguese, French, Italian and Spanish.

[23] Taiwan's Pinsin Studio handles the currently ongoing publication of the Traditional uncensored print version, using its original title (“魔道祖師”; Mó Dào Zǔ Shī), starting with the release of Volume 1 in September 2021.

On November 19, 2021, all the chapters were removed due to WeComics finalizing its migration as Webnovel, which does not hold licenses for several manhua titles, including The Master of Diabolism.

The audio drama features unique cover art for each episode, officially illustrated by various artists within the Mo Dao Zu Shi fandom.

The audio drama was a critical and financial success, praised for its storyline, faithfulness to the source material, production value, and the voice actors' performances.

The deluxe edition came with various merchandise, including: two official soundtrack CDs, an artbook featuring all the illustrated artworks produced for the show, a lyrics book, an autograph booklet with the staff members' personalized notes and signatures, a music box playing the audio drama version of the Wangxian theme song, postcards, badges, and a USB flash drive containing video and audio recordings of behind-the-scenes moments and voice performers' messages for fans.

[42] An official Mo Dao Zu Shi audiobook was released by Ximalaya FM (喜马拉雅FM) from July to November 2019, consisting of 175 episodes with a total listening length of 47 hours and 16 minutes.

Performance artist Zhang Zhen (张震), who also voices the character Jiang Fengmian in the Chinese audio drama, was specially invited to serve as the narrator.

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation has attracted a record readership on Jinjiang Literature City and in print, and the series as a whole with its various adaptations has drawn in a devoted and international fan base.

Upon the first volume's English release in December 2021, Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation debuted at #9 on The New York Times Best Seller list for Paperback Trade Fiction.

Its success among the audience was built on the solid foundation of its plot and worldbuilding, the moral standards and messages it tries to promote, its themes, the complexities of its characters, and the appeal of its featured main couple 'Wangxian', based on their personality traits, relationship history, motifs surrounding their love story, and their romantic and sexual dynamics.

[attribution needed] Fans create discourse, cosplay photoshoots, fanarts, and fanfictions—one of which gained enormous popularity and became the basis for the widespread fanon about Lan Wangji's "Thirteen Years of Inquiry," also later implied to be absorbed by some adaptations like the donghua and live action drama.

For the year 2020, the romantic relationship between Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian was ranked #1 on fanfiction site Archive of Our Own's Top 100 list of pairings with the most newly written works.