Nie Li returns with a lifetime of knowledge locked behind a child's body and a red-rank soul that nobody respects. That gap between what he knows and what he can prove is the real plot, not the power-ups. The Taoist framework means spiritual cultivation feels like a system with rules instead of magic words, and watching him exploit those rules while pretending to be weak keeps the tension honest even when he's winning.

Nie Li's story continues in this third season of Yao Shen Ji, a 40-episode action fantasy ONA. The franchise began with Nie Li, once the mightiest Demon Spiritist, falling in battle against the Sage Emperor alongside six beasts of deity rank and waking as his 13-year-old self, the weakest student in his class. In that earlier entry, he set out to use the knowledge of his first life to grow stronger at an unexpected pace and to help those who died nobly in that life become stronger as well.