History Literature / ReverendInsanity

* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: Once Fang Yuan [[spoiler:destroys Fate Gu, the Venerable's arrangements that helped Fang Yuan succeed begin to conspire to get rid of Fang Yuan, such as Red Lotus Demon Venerable giving Fang Yuan an abundance of Heaven Path Dao Marks that wreck havoc on his immortal aperture and leaving him severely weakened or Spectral Soul beginning to hunt down Fang Yuan to use him as Gu refinement material so he can fully revive using the Sovereign Immortal Fetus Gu.]]

* TooAwesomeToUse: Consumable Immortal Gu. Given how costly refining Immortal Gu is, refining a consumable Immortal Gu is seen as too impractical to bother with it. The only upsides to consumable Immortal Gu is that many of them do not require Immortal Essence to be used and their effects are usually stronger because they have a limited number of usages.

* GenreDeconstruction: The entire novel is based upon subverting traditional cultivation novel cliches and character archtypes. Fang is the the epitome of this- Even though he is a VillainProtagonist, he does not operate based on bloodlust or act foolishly brutal. It does have some common tropes and struggles, but potrays them in a unique manner.

* GenreDeconstruction: The entire novel is based upon subverting traditional cultivation novel cliches and character archtypes. Fang is the the epitome of this- Even though he is a VillainProtagonist, he does not operate based on bloodlust or act foolishly brutal. It does have some common tropes and struggles, but potrays them in a unique manner.

* AnnoyingYoungerSibling: Fang Yuan's younger brother, Fang Zheng.

* BannedInChina: The entire novel explicitly criticizes authoritarianism, and one faction can be read as a critique of the Chinese Communist Party. At some point the novel caught official notice and while the author escaped official punishment and was allowed to begin a new work, the final chapters of Reverend Insanity are not allowed to be published.

* BugCatching: This is literally how people gain magic powers in the setting.

* DoomedHometown: When Fang Yuan first rebirths, he is in his small hometown, which he knows from his time traveling is doomed to be destroyed, limiting the time he has in which to train before he needs to escape. Subverted as Fang Yuan's plans change and [[spoiler: he ends up [[{{WhereIWasBornAndRazed}} destroying it himself for power]]]].

* EnlightenedSelfInterest: A popular ethic in the world in which Fang Yuan finds himself in and grows to despise.

* GenderBender: Bai Ning Bing, following the FirstLawOfGenderBending. Bai Ning Bing is very angry about the outcome and reversing it becomes a driving obsession for them. [[spoiler:Becoming a Gu Immortal usually undoes any mortal gu effect on the individual but because of the special way Bai Ning Bing uses to become a Gu Immortal, it instead turns them female and now that they're an Immortal, only a Immortal Gu level version of the Yang Gu can turn Bai Ning Bing male again.]]

* IJustWantToBeFree: Most of what motivates Fang Yuan is his desire to live life according to his feelings, regardless of society's rules or any outside influence. Only this way does he feel like he's alive.

* MoralEventHorizon: Fang Yuan is implied to have crossed this before the novel begins, but swiftly passes this for readers early on [[spoiler: by performing an elaborate [[{{CruelAndUnusualDeath}} human sacrifice]] for greater power]] and then following it up with [[spoiler: FamilyExtermination for even more]].

* ThePowerOfLove: Love exists literally as an aware force embodied in Love Gu, which gives the owner of it enormous powers, but can also exact a huge cost while also being random in what it gives its user. [[spoiler: Perhaps the greatest use of Love Gu is when Red Lotus Demon Venerable used it to gravely injure Fate Gu, only failing to destroy it because he wasn't a complete otherworldly demon.]]

* IRegretNothing: Fang Yuan's overall goal is to attain eternal life but if he perishes along the way, he is ultimately fine with that and will die with no regrets as he lived his life the way he wanted. [[spoiler: The proof he has no regrets comes when he is warned against touching Regret Gu before refining it, as it will cause him thousands of years of pain if he has regrets when touching it. Fang Yuan grabs the Gu and refines it immediately, proving he doesn't regret a single action he ever took.]]
* SoulPower: Soul Path, created by Spectral Soul Demon Venerable, is this.

* TimeTravel: With Fang Yuan owning the Spring-Autumn Cicada, he time travels to the past at multiple points during the story in an attempt to change history, which leads to him and other characters wrestling with subsequent tropes such as:
** YouCantFightFate: Fate is revealed to be an active force opposing Fang Yuan, and he isn't the first one to attempt to escape its control.
** BecauseDestinySaysSo: Literally and frequently by pro-Fate factions.
** StableTimeLoop: Red Lotus Demon Venerable, the original creator of the Spring-Autumn Cicada wanted to [[spoiler: save his dead wife from her fated death]] and failed repeatedly, leading him to be trapped in one of these, forced to [[spoiler: watch his wife be killed many thousands of times]] eventually throwing him over a DespairEventHorizon.
** ScrewDestiny: Red Lotus Demon Venerable, and Fang Yuan.
** ImmuneToFate: Eventually, [[spoiler: Fang Yuan]] manages to become this.
* StandardEvilOrganizationSquad: Shadow Sect.
* StraightEdgeEvil: The ephemeral pleasures of the flesh count for nothing next to Fang Yuan's goal of eternal life.

* EvilVirtues: Fang Yuan has several; ambition, decisiveness, flexibility, and determination are the most obvious, but he also has a less prejudiced mindset than most of the other people in his setting, partially out of objective recognition of threats and potential and partially because of his experiences as a transmigrator from Earth. He notes that women are as dangerous as men, and he specifically rejects the ideology of racial superiority most humans have towards variant humans [[spoiler:(even having fallen in love with a mermaid at some time in his previous life)]], thinking to himself that he would happily give up his humanity to achieve his goals - as far as he's concerned, the only thing that matters is whether someone is a threat to his quest for immortality or not.

* WorldsStrongestMan: In all of history, only ten individuals have reached Rank 9 and with it, a level of power no Gu Immortal of a lower rank can ever hope to compete against. They were all given the title Venerable and they each ruled uncontested over the world during their eras until they inevitably ran out of lifespan.

* RedemptionRejection: Lu Wei Yin attempts to redeem Fang Yuan by trapping him in a DreamEpisode which attempts to convince him to be good. It doesn't work.

* ThereCanOnlyBeOne: Every Immortal Gu in the world is unique and only one can exist at a time. If an Immortal Gu already exists, then any attempts to refine it will always fail even if the recipe is executed perfectly.

* WorldsStrongestMan: In all of history, only ten individuals have reached Rank 9 and with it, a level of power no Gu Immortal can ever hope to compete against. They were all given the title Venerable and they each ruled uncontested over the world during their eras until they inevitably ran out of lifespan.

* TheChosenOne: The prophesied Great Dream Immortal Venerable, [[spoiler: Feng Jin Huang]].

* EnlightenedSelfInterest: A popular ethic in the world in which Fang Yuan finds himself in and grows to despise it.

* IRegretNothing: Fang Yuan's overall goal is to attain eternal life but if he perishes along the way, he is ultimately fine with that and will die with no regrets as he lived his life the way he wanted.

* EvilVirtues: Fang Yuan has several; ambition, decisiveness, flexibility, and determination are the most obvious, but he also has a less prejudiced mindset than most of the other people in his setting, partially out of objective recognition of threats and potential and partially because of his experiences as a transmigrator from Earth. He notes that women are as dangerous as men, and he specifically rejects the ideology of racial superiority most humans have towards variant humans, thinking to himself that he would happily give up his humanity to achieve his goals - as far as he's concerned, the only thing that matters is whether someone is a threat to his quest for immortality or not.

* ThePowerOfLove: Love exists literally as an aware force embodied in Love Gu, which gives the owner of it enormous powers, but can also exact a huge cost while also being random in what it gives its user.

* BlessedWithSuck: The Ten Extreme Physiques grant you incredible power - having one is the only way to have 100% mortal aperture capacity, and they each grant unbelievable capabilities in one specific field, strong enough to fight people a rank above you. Unfortunately, they overburden the mortal body, meaning that they can explode and kill you at any time; this chance increases as you grow more powerful, and having one ''forces you'' to steadily become more powerful even if you actively try to improve your cultivation until it near-inevitably kills you, usually within a few years of starting cultivating. You can avoid this if you manage to reach rank 6 and become an immortal... but in addition to the already sky-high one-in-ten-thousand difficulty everyone else faces when trying to become an immortal, anyone with one of the Ten Extreme Physiques also requires an Immortal Gu to accomplish it, which are so rare that even most immortals don't have one.

* ImmortalitySeeker: Fang Yuan will do anything to obtain immortality. ''Anything''.

* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: Ren Zu's tale details the life of Ren Zu but is obviously dramatized to tell a story [[spoiler:while also hiding the fact it's Ren Zu's true inheritance]]. Fang Yuan is even disappointed when he meets Wisdom Gu and it's unable to talk back despite being shown to converse and even trick Ren Zu in the story.

* WeUsedToBeFriends: Duke Long and Red Lotus Demon Venerable, formerly master and apprentice.

* ThePowerOfLove: Love exists literally as an aware force embodied in Love Gu, which gives the owner of it enormous powers, but can also exact a huge cost.

* SoulPower: Soul Path is this.

* DoomMagnet: The side effect of using Spring Autun Cicada is turning the user into one. Every time Spring Autumn Cicada is used, the user's luck goes to rock bottom levels, making it likely for the user to be killed by their bad luck or fail to activate Spring Autumn Cicada the next time it's used.

* EnlightenedSelfInterest: A popular ethic in the world in which Fang Yuan finds himself, he grows to despise it.

* GenderBender: Bai Ning Bing, following the FirstLawOfGenderBending. Bai Ning Bing is very angry about the outcome and reversing it becomes a driving obsession for them.

* {{Determinator}}: Fang Yuan has extremely strong willpower which allows him to do anything necessary for his goal and avoid distractions;be they negative traits like greed and addiction, or positive traits like sympathy and kindness. He has the ability to withstand any sort of pain without external aid and does not back down when insulted.