A Thousand Li Reading Order: All 12 Books, Series Complete
8 min readBy LevelUpShelf EditorialLast reviewed
TL;DR: Twelve books, read by number; the titles go First, Second, Third, Fourth in groups of three. The series is complete: book 12, The Fourth Wall, came out July 1, 2025 and the author calls it the final book. Travis Baldree narrates all twelve, 129 h 17 m in total.
Read the twelve numbered books in order, and you get an ending: the A Thousand Li reading order runs from The First Step to The Fourth Wall, which Tao Wong calls "the twelfth and final book". On Audible all twelve are read by Travis Baldree and add up to 129 hours 17 minutes. That makes it one of the shorter finished cultivation listens: five hours less than Cradle. Below: the order, audio lengths, the side stories you can skip, and the 2026 Ace hardcovers.
Key Takeaways
- Twelve main books, complete since July 2025.
- One narrator: Travis Baldree on all twelve audiobooks.
- Short books: 8 h 27 m to 14 h 3 m each, 10 h 46 m on average.
- Side stories are optional: Goodreads lists nine extra works numbered 0.1 to 5.5.
- Ace hardcovers in 2026 cover books 1 to 3 only; the audiobooks are not affected.
A Thousand Li Reading Order at a Glance
The year is the first-published year on the Goodreads series page.
- The First Step (2019)
- The First Stop (2019)
- The First War (2020)
- The Second Expedition (2020)
- The Second Sect (2021)
- The Second Storm (2021)
- The Third Kingdom (2022)
- The Third Realm (2023)
- The Third Cut (2023)
- The Fourth Stage (2024)
- The Fourth Fall (2024)
- The Fourth Wall (2025)
Overview
A Thousand Li is a xianxia cultivation series by Tao Wong, published by Starlit Publishing. Audible's subtitle for book 1 is "A Xianxia Cultivation Series". Starlit's page for the last book describes the whole run as "a twelve-book xianxia progression fantasy series."
It is cultivation, not a game-system LitRPG: one reader calls it fitting a "classical cultivation, human MC, standard method" brief. If you came from Cradle, that is the closer comparison than Dungeon Crawler Carl.
Desk note: A Thousand Li and Cradle are both finished, both twelve main books and both read by Travis Baldree. Cradle's twelve volumes run 134 h 25 m; A Thousand Li's run 129 h 17 m, 5 h 8 m less.
Cover: Audible product page
Every A Thousand Li Book in Order
"Year" is the first-published year on Goodreads. "Length" and "Audio publisher" come from each book's Audible listing. Audible ratings were read on our check date and will drift.
| # | Title | Year | Length | Audio publisher | Audible rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The First Step | 2019 | 8 h 27 m | Audible Studios | 4.6 (3,431) |
| 2 | The First Stop | 2019 | 8 h 55 m | Audible Studios | 4.6 (2,402) |
| 3 | The First War | 2020 | 8 h 51 m | Tantor Media | 4.5 (1,605) |
| 4 | The Second Expedition | 2020 | 11 h 1 m | Audible Studios | 4.7 (1,496) |
| 5 | The Second Sect | 2021 | 11 h 51 m | Audible Studios | 4.7 (1,324) |
| 6 | The Second Storm | 2021 | 9 h 36 m | Audible Studios | 4.8 (1,109) |
| 7 | The Third Kingdom | 2022 | 10 h 37 m | Audible Studios | 4.7 (1,002) |
| 8 | The Third Realm | 2023 | 14 h 3 m | Audible Studios | 4.8 (628) |
| 9 | The Third Cut | 2023 | 11 h 35 m | Audible Studios | 4.7 (477) |
| 10 | The Fourth Stage | 2024 | 11 h 9 m | Audible Studios | 4.7 (532) |
| 11 | The Fourth Fall | 2024 | 12 h 14 m | Audible Studios | 4.6 (361) |
| 12 | The Fourth Wall | 2025 | 10 h 58 m | Audible Studios | 4.6 (225) |
Two oddities in Audible's listings. Books 1 and 2 are dated 2024 there, years after their 2019 first publication, because the current Audible Studios editions came later. Book 3 is still a Tantor Media edition from 2020. Travis Baldree is the narrator on every one.
On Goodreads, The First Step has 4.09 from 7,381 ratings. Later books score higher, but they are rated by readers who stayed.
Cover: Audible product page
Step-by-Step: How to Read A Thousand Li
1. Start with The First Step: 8 hours 27 minutes on Audible, the shortest book in the series.
2. Read in groups of three. First Step, First Stop, First War; then the Second, Third and Fourth sets. The numbering on Audible and Goodreads matches.
3. Skip the decimals for now. Goodreads numbers nine side works between 0.1 and 5.5, such as The Favored Son (2.5), Imperial March (2.6) and On Gods and Demons (5.5). Audible also has short Starlit recordings under an hour. None of them is a main book.
4. Finish with The Fourth Wall. There is no book 13 to wait for.
Is A Thousand Li Finished?
Yes. Three official lines agree:
- Tao Wong's blog announced The Fourth Wall as "the twelfth and final book in the A Thousand Li series".
- Starlit Publishing calls it "the epic conclusion of A Thousand Li, a twelve-book xianxia progression fantasy series."
- The release post: "The Fourth Wall, the final book in the A Thousand Li series, is officially available on Amazon and Audible!" (July 1, 2025).
As of our check, Audible's series list stops at book 12 and Starlit shows no new numbered book. Starlit does sell a standalone, The Blade That Remains, but that is not book 13. Our list of completed LitRPG series covers the other finished runs we track.
Cover: Audible product page
The Audiobooks: Travis Baldree
All twelve audiobooks are read by Travis Baldree. They are short by genre standards: 10 hours 46 minutes on average, and no book passes 14 hours 3 minutes (book 8, The Third Realm). The longest A Thousand Li book is still shorter than book 1 of He Who Fights with Monsters alone (28 hours 56 minutes).
Listeners notice the narrator first. u/Interesting_Point_26, planning a queue in October 2026, noticed it was "ANOTHER series narrated by Travis the Goat Baldree" (comment). His other LitRPG work is in our Travis Baldree audiobooks guide.
The 2026 Ace Hardcovers
In 2026 Ace Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House, began republishing the first books in print. Tao Wong's Amazon author page says: "In 2026, the first three books in the A Thousand Li series will be republished in hardcover by Ace Books." The Ace edition of The First Step came out on March 10, 2026.
Starlit's FAQ adds two limits. "Right now, the deal with Ace is only for the first 3 books." And: "The deal with Ace doesn't affect the audiobooks". Signed Starlit copies of books 4 to 12 stay on sale.
What Readers Say
Readers split over the pace. u/Important-Lemon-2460 likes it as background listening: "I've been enjoying A Thousand Li as a driving book. Things happen but you don't really need 100% attention." (comment, October 22, 2026).
I've been enjoying A Thousand Li as a driving book. Things happen but you don't really need 100% attention.
u/fandango237 dropped it over a slow stretch mid-series: it "made me DnF a Thousand Li. It felt, dragged out." (comment). u/Negative-Pea6372 recommends it for the opposite reason: "Worth a shot if you want something that reads like a proper old-school xianxia." (comment).
Cover: Audible product page
Tips Before You Start
- Expect traditional cultivation. Readers describe sect and realm progression, not game screens.
- Use it as a commute series. The books are short; one reader calls it a book that does not need full attention.
- Mid-series slowdowns are the common complaint. One reader quit during a slow patch; decide at the end of a three-book set.
- Spoilers: later blurbs give away earlier events. Read only the next blurb.
Our take
Our pick: start A Thousand Li if you want a finished cultivation series on audio. It ends at book 12 by the author's own word, and the whole run is 129 hours 17 minutes, five hours shorter than Cradle.
Skip it (for now) if: you want LitRPG stat screens or a fast plot every book; readers describe a slower, old-school xianxia.
What we don't know yet: whether the Ace hardcovers go past book 3. As of October 24, 2026, Starlit's FAQ said the deal covers only the first three.
How we checked this
On October 24, 2026 we read Audible's catalog data for all twelve audiobooks (narrator, length, publisher, rating) and the series list, the Goodreads series page (years, side works, book 1 rating), Starlit Publishing's book 12 page, Tao Wong collection and re-release FAQ, Tao Wong's blog and his Amazon author page. Amazon's Kindle pages did not load for this check, so the table has no Kindle dates or page counts. Reader quotes come from r/ProgressionFantasy and r/litrpg comments of October 2026, read through the Arctic Shift archive. Totals are our arithmetic. We have not read the series ourselves.
Related Reading
- Beware of Chicken reading order: another cultivation series read by Travis Baldree.
- Books like Cradle: what Cradle fans read next, ranked by reader picks.
- Mother of Learning audiobook: another finished series, four arcs.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the A Thousand Li reading order? The twelve numbered books, The First Step to The Fourth Wall.
Is A Thousand Li finished? Yes, at twelve books; the author calls book 12 the final one.
Will there be an A Thousand Li book 13? None is listed; the author calls book 12 final.
Who narrates the A Thousand Li audiobooks? Travis Baldree, all twelve.
Are the short A Thousand Li stories part of the reading order? No, they are optional extras.
References
We may earn a commission if you buy through a store link on this page. It never decides what we list or how we rank it. How affiliate links work here. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
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The LevelUpShelf desk reads the store pages and the reader threads so you can pick book 1 with the numbers in front of you. Every count is dated and linked.
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About this article
LevelUpShelf is independent: no ads, no sponsored posts, and nobody pays to be on a list. Some store links are affiliate links: we may earn a commission if you buy through one, and it never decides what we list (affiliate links). As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Book counts, release dates, audiobook lengths and ratings are snapshots from the date we checked them; publishers and stores change listings, so check the store page before you buy. Recommendations come from cited reader discussions, not from reading we claim to have done. Articles are researched and written with AI tools, and every fact is checked against its source before publishing. See how the desk works and how we use AI.