After being born from a magic stone, Monkey beame the King of the monkeys after leading them to a waterfall shelter. Then he journeyed all over the world trying to become immortal. He learned great and powerful magic from an Immortal after ten years of searching, and became a Sage. Then he returned home and found a demon king had taken over the waterfall, forcing his monkeys to flee. He quickly destroys this demon with his new powers, and all the minor demons with him. Then he visits the dragon kings of the seas, demanding a magical weapon. He is shown a giant pillar, which he makes smaller magically and uses as a staff. Then death tries to take him, but he fights his way through the city, the guards of Hell being no match for his power. The dragon King and the Kings of Hell complain to the Jade Emperor about him, and he decides to invite him to the Jade Palace, giving him a rubbish job in heaven. Wukong leaves, and fights off the gods they send after him for his arrest in great battles. He is then granted the title Great Sage Equal of Heaven. Once again he is allowed into heaven, but after disrupting the peach banquet he has to leave again. The Jade Emperor sends down an army of one hundred thousand to take him down. With his army of monkeys and demons Wukong fights them off, Duelling many famous and powerful gods, and beating each one of them until he meets his equal, Erlang. After being hit on the head by a weapon thrown from heaven, Erlang and all the gods dive on Wukong, pinning him to the ground and capturing him. He is then sealed into a mountain until the story of Journey to the West.

There was once a stone which had existed since the beginning of time, which over the centuries had been worked on, shaped, and influenced by the wind and moonlight. One day it split open, revealing a stone egg, from which came a monkey. As he bowed to the four corners of the earth his eyes flashed a great light, seen even by the Jade Emperor. Monkey meets and befriends the local wildlife, and one day he leads the monkeys to this great sanctuary behind a waterfall, for which they make him their king, and so he becomes the Monkey King.

They live there happily for many years, but one day Monkey becomes worried about death. He asks if there is any way to never die. A gibbon piques up, saying "there are three types of creature not governed by the King of Hell: Immortals, Buddhas, and Sages." Monkey learns that they all live in the human world, and so he decides to travel, seeking them out. When he finds the humans he learns to walk upright like them, even learning their language. But still he does not find them. After ten years of travelling, and crossing oceans on rafts, he hears a woodcutter singing in the forest of a temple in the mountains where an immortal lives. He goes there immediately, and once he learns of Monkey's origin, being a child of Heaven and Earth, the patriarch accepts him as a student, to laern the Way, and names him "Sun Wukong" meaning Monkey, aware of emptiness.

After several years of meditation, caligraphy, reading scriptures and burning incence the patriarch comes up to Sun Wukong and asks him which of the entrances of the Way he would like to learn, of which there are three hundred and sixty, each ending with the True Result. With each suggestion Wukong asks "will this make me Immortal" and each time the patriarch answers "no it will not" and so Monkey declines. Eventually the master gets frustrated, hits Wukong on the head three times then storms out. The young, naturally born Immortals also studying under him got angry, blaming Monkey for annoying the patriarch. But Wukong smiled; he understood the secret message. For as he had walked out the patriarch had given Wukong a key, and by hitting him on the head three times he had instructed him to come at the third watch, via the back door, to learn the secret Way.

The Patriarch teaches Sun Wukong "After learning the spells necessary to become Immortal, you have to then contend with the Three Disasters. In 500 years Heaven will send down a lighting bolt. If you avoid this then 500 years later they will send a fire. Not an ordinary fire but one that will burn you from the soles of your feet to the crown of your head. In another 500 years they will send a wind, one that blows through your body crushing your entrails and limbs." Wukong learns that to avoid these he needs to learn the seventy two transformations. As time goes by he practices and masters these, he can take the shape of any animal or creature, and somersault through the air on a magic cloud, covering thousands of kilometers and miles at a time. He casts spells which protect him from every sort of injury, be it from weapons or from disease. One day Wukong is with the other Immmortals, who ask him to show them a demonstration. "Turn into a pine tree!" They shout. And he does. Just then the Master comes out, and seeing this he shouts at Monkey "do you not think if you show others your power they will ask how you learned it and to teach them?!" And so Monkey is banished from the temple, forced to return home to his waterfall with his monkeys, returning as a Sage, one who cheats death with magics.

When Wukong returns he finds the monkeys in their old home, not in the waterfall. When asked they tell him of a demon who, when Monkey left, occupied their home, killing and brutalizing the monkeys and forcing them to flee. Furious, wukong went to the cave immediately, demanding of the minor demons to see the Demon King. They tell the demon king "there is a monkey outside claiming to be the true King of the waterfall, and though he wears no armour but simple clothing, and is unarmed, he demands to meet you now." The demon king laughs, and upon donning his armour and taking up his sword, he goes outside to kill this monkey king. When he sees Wukong he says "how come you challenge me with no weapon?" to which he replies cheekily, but truthfully, "I could grow to a giant, and with my own two arms bring down the moon to crush you. But I do not even need to." Outraged, the demon king charges, swing his sword wildly. Wukong dodges, punching back, his fists magically rock solid. Then he removes hudnreds of his hairs, turning them into smaller clones, each too small to be hit by the sword, who rush at the demon king, pulling him down, swarming over him, beating him to a pulp. Then Monkey goes into the sanctuary and exterminates the remaining demons, reclaiming his home.

All was well again, but Monkey was worried that if he were to leave again, a similar thing might happen. So he goes about creating a military within his thousands of monkeys. However they had no weapons. One monkey tells Wukong about a nearby city who might have an armory, for which they could trade and negotiate a price for. When Wukong lands in the city on his magical storm, the people are frightened, and run. Seeing the armory there for his taking, Wukong and his clones take the weapons they need, and fly them back to the water curtain. As his army becomes more drilled and practiced, the beasts from the whole province come to pay homage to him, including the monster kings, and all life. They all pay tribute, sending armour weapons and supplies to the mountain, all accepting his rule. But he did not like using his sword. "You are an Immortal Sage, this is but a mortal's weapon, you will never like it." Says one monkey. "Should you be able to, you could visit the Dragon King of the ocean, but his palace is far away and under water." Wukong smiles, and with one jump he makes the distance, and because he can not drown, sinks underwater making himself heavier, and enters the palace.

Upon meeting the Dragon King Ao Guang, Wukong begs him for a magical weapon. Acknowledging Wukong's power, the Dragon King respects his wishes, and sends his commander Eel to fetch a magical sword. Monkey swings it, but remarks that it is far too light. Next he is brought a spear, then finally a halberd. Each time he says it is too light. Terrified, the dragon king shouts "that halberd is the heaviest weapon we have! It is seven thousand two hundred pounds!" Wukong smiles cheekily, "too light, far too light." The dragon king flustered, for although Monkey did not believe him he really did have nothing else. Then his wife interuppted saying "By the look of this sage he must be powerful. The piece of iron which anchors the mikly way in place has been glowing the last few days, perhaps it desires to meet him." Ao Guang replies "That piece of miraculous iron is one of the nails that Yu the Great used to fix the depths of rivers and seas when he brought the waters under control, what use could it be?" But anyway they take Wukong to see it, standing tall and huge in the center of the treasury. When he touches it, and speaks aloud "I wish it were smaller and thininer, then it would be perfect" the Pillar shrinks, turning into the size of a staff, but with the same weight and bearing of a giant column. "Perfect." Wukong remarks.

Then Wukong realised he was still wearing simple clothes, and demanded some armour from the Dragon King. He refused, saying he had none, and then Monkey threatened to try out his new weapon on him. Terrified the Dragon King summoned his brothers, the kings from the other seas in the world. Together they discussed; "To arms! Let us arrest this criminal" one said. "No!" Ao guang replied "with but a brush of his staff your bones will shatter and your sinews will melt. With a proper hit you would be crushed." And so they decide to just give him some armour, and complain to the jade emperor about him, to have him sort Wukong out.

Returning home in his magical armour and shoes, the monkeys asked for him to show them his new weapon. He shrunk it to a tiny needle, stuck it behind his ear, and jumped about, then when they wanted "more, more!" he grew to a giant, as tall as the mountain itself, the staff growing with him. He stood there, as tall as the clouds, his eyes flashing with lighting, his teeth swords, swinging his magic cudgel around with graceful ease. All bowed, every creature and animal, for miles around, to his presence.

One day Wukong woke up in a strange place, he felt two sets of hands dragging him somewhere. He asked the strange spirits who they were and they replied "we are the messengers of death, delivering you to the land of darkness." Wukong was outraged, for he thought he had avoided death, and plucked his staff from behind his ear, bringing it down on the two spirits, destroying them. He charged through the city of Hell, destroying any resistance. The spirits were shouting "Help, help! An angry thunder god is attacking the city!" When Wukong reached the palace, he found the ten Kings, and demanded to know why he was there. "Great sage we apologise, we made a mistake, for you were counted as an animal we mistakenly brought you here." And so Wukong brushed them aside, and forcibly brushed out his name, and his monkeys' names in the great books. "Now everything is right again." He said, and just like that he found himself waking up in the real world again. He told his monkeys "I have crossed out our names in the great books, we no longer come under the jurisdiction of those idiots again, we are free."

In the Jade Palace in Heaven the Emperor had two guests. The Dragon King Ao Guang, and a King of Hell. Each complained to him about the same troublesome monkey, telling him of how he ordered them around, showed no respect, and had great power. So the Jade Emperor decided to send down his generals to the water curtain, with great heavenly armies, and arrest the criminal. But then he changes his mind, knowing such a battle would be costly, and decides upon another approach; to give him a job in heaven as a heavenly Immortal, then he could keep an eye on him. And so Wukong was summoned to heaven and looked after the horses. This job, he quickly realised, was far beneath him, and he saw the job for what it was, an imprisonment.

Once again back at the water curtain, he meets with some local demon kings, who want to serve under him too. When he tells them of how he was made a meer "protector of horses" they laughed, saying "for someone with your great magical powers you should have been made "Great Sage Equal of Heaven." Wukong liked this title, he liked it so much he had banners made reading it, and it became his official title from then on.

When the Jade Emperor found out that the Monkey King had left, he sent down one of his chieftan generals, y General Mighty Miracle, the commander of the vanguard for Heavenly King Li. When Wukong emerged, fully armoured, staff in hand, refusing to be arrested, they fought. Although Miracle was legendary and famed for his magical power, and his axe like a phoenix amongst the blossom, he was no match for Wukong, staff like a dragon rising from the depths, with one touch he paralyzed the General, axe shattered, he struggled away on a magical wind. As he fled Wukong shouted, "I spare you so you may send the Emperor my message. I am the Great Sage, Equal of Heaven, and he will show me respect!"

The Mighty Miracle God returned to the camp the heavenly host had set up near the mountain. Upon learning of his defeat, Prince Nezha stood, assuring King Li that if the General was not powerful enough, he was, and he could bring the Monkey to justice. "Kill him" King Li said, "there is no arrest now." And so Prince Nezha fought the Monkey King. Prince Nezha grew to a giant, with three heads and six arms and swords. Wukong grew too, grwoing the extra heads and arms, and his staff turned into three staffs. They clashed again and again, neither one gaining the upper hand. Prince Nezha throws his swords at Wukong, creating more and more, and in their thousands Wukong parries them aside. Finally Wukong creates a clone of himself, without Nezha seeing, and using the clone to distract him he makes himself small and sneaks behind the Prince. Then growing to the mountainous size, he strikes Nezha down, who saw him too late to react. The Prince flees, allowed to live too, wounded.

"Father I have failed" says Nezha to King Li, "he is too powerful. There is a sign reading Great Sage Equal to Heaven, he says if the Emperor grants him this title he will back down, otherwise he will attack the great Halls of Heaven themselves." King Li decidees to retreat, and the army returns to heaven, seeking reinforcements. "How could a mere monkey have such great powers that you actually need more troops?" The Emperor was hysterical. But instead of sending more armies, the Emperor decides to give him the title, although with it he would grant no extra power, just as a hollow title. Some more time went by with the Great Sage living in Heaven, now commanding more respect from the Gods, until he ate from a forbidden peach tree. Then he had to leave Heaven again, after wrecking part of the Hall on his way out. Back on Earth the monkey's prepared for battle.

The Nine Bright Shiners Smashed through the gate, a hundred thousand soldiers behind them. Wukong's Demon army broke before the nine, and the monkeys were being forced back. Then Wukong entered the fray, the nine no match for him. And as day turned to night, Prince Nezha and more reinforcements joined. The Great Sage created thousands of clones, and forced them back, outside the gate. Back inside their home Monkey's generals cried three times and laughed three times. They cried that the demon army was captured, and laguhed that Monkey was unharmed, and drove back the heavenly army.

Several more gods and deities try unsuccessfully to bring down Wukong. Until he meets his equal, Erlang. They fight in hundreds of boughts, each to a standstill. But then Wukong notices his monkeys fleeing at the oncoming host of heavenly soldiers, and decides to flee himself. As he transforms into one animal to escape, Erlang transforms after him. Wukong becomes a sparrow, Erlang an Eagle. Wukong becomes a fish, trying to swim away in the stream, Erland turns into a fish-hawk. And so it continues, with the evasive Monkey cornered but un-capturable. Until a great Lord in Heaven throws down a Jade weapon, which strikes wukong on the head. And in that moment Erlang and his army jump on him, holding him down and capturing him.

After they try to kill him in various ways, including boiling him in a cauldron for forty nine days, they decide to just seal him into a mountain, magically unable to move, forever. This is the story of Monkey, of how he became to be the Great Sage.