Pandora Unchained
Patrick Laplante
When Sorin's parents mysteriously die, he begs the Eighth Evil, Hope, for help and is made a Poison Cultivator — a rare Class shunned by high society. Cast out of his medical practice, he turns to adventuring with a ragtag crew of outcasts (an armored polar bear, a stern archer, a sleep-deprived pyromancer, a peeping-tom rogue, and a loot-eating rat familiar) while his ancestors' forbidden medical research notes pull him toward the coming Demon Tide. Gods are dead, the Seven Evils reign, and Sorin's regained cultivation, Delphi's God Seeds, and the corruption of Hope drive a three-book completed cultivation-progression epic from the bestselling author of Painting the Mists.
Progression: Explicit cultivation-plus-Class ladder, publisher-marketed as 'Cultivation Progression Fantasy'. Sorin is made a Poison Cultivator, a rare shunned Class, after begging the Eighth Evil (Hope) for power; his cultivation can be lost and regained (book 2 opens with his cultivation restored). Advancement runs through cultivation growth, clan forbidden-research techniques, God Seeds, and corruption mechanics tied to Hope and the Seven Evils — power progression, dungeons, loot and crafting are the marketed core of every volume.
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