Chapter Summaries

Lu Ping arrived in Yi Wood City, was swindled by a scam-prevention seller, then stocked up on supplies and settled into a rented cave abode. After hearing that many sect leaders and elders from the Border Regions had gathered in the city, he examined the mysterious token that had brought him there.

• Lu Ping escaped Qingyang City through the Teleportation Array as Zhao Qingsu and the City Lord's Manor guards were blocked from pursuing him.
• Lu Ping arrived in Yi Wood City, bought a scam-prevention Jade Slip from a swindler, and discovered its warning described the seller himself.
• Lu Ping shopped at the Azure Dragon Merchant Association, spending over three hundred thousand Low-Grade Spirit Stones on materials and talismans, but learned Random Teleportation Talismans were sold out.
• Qiu Wanchuan told Lu Ping that about a hundred sect masters and elders from the Border Regions had arrived in Yi Wood City over the past month.
• Lu Ping bought a map, rented an A-Class Cave Abode, checked its formations, laid Spirit-Winding Thread, and examined the mysterious token that was his main reason for coming to Yi Wood City.

Lu Ping traced the massacre of Sunset Glow Village to an abandoned village near the Border Region and Savage Wilderness Expanse, hoping to uncover the Thousand Mechanisms Sect’s connection to the crime. He found signs of a similar attack and weighed whether to hide or prepare an ambush as he waited for the person responsible.

• Lu Ping cultivated, refined pills, advanced his Thousand Mechanisms Falling Blossoms Instruction, and awakened the Red-Feather Fire Crow.
• After learning that Ye Zhi of the Thousand Mechanisms Sect would visit the Border Region, Lu Ping chose to search for the site Ji Chengfeng had described instead of following Ye Zhi.
• Lu Ping left Yi Wood City and used Ji Chengfeng’s account, maps, and the Red-Feather Fire Crow’s scouting to find an abandoned village near Barren Ridge.
• Lu Ping found burned houses and Sword Qi marks in the village, which had been abandoned for at least three months and bore signs similar to the Sunset Glow Village massacre.
• Lu Ping considered hiding from the powerful culprit or preparing the village as a battlefield where he could try to keep the mastermind from escaping.

Lu Ping concealed a trap in the ruined village and waited for Ye Zhi's Thousand Mechanisms Sect party to arrive. When black-clad attackers ambushed them, Lu Ping stayed hidden as Ye Zhi struck back, leaving the battle poised at the black-clad leader's attack.

• Lu Ping spread Spirit-Eroding Powder and Mind-Erasing Powder through the village, hid himself, and used the Red-Feather Fire Crow to watch the barren hills.
• Three days later, Ye Zhi led Ji Chengfeng and other Thousand Mechanisms Sect disciples into the village, where he identified the poisonous powders and found no survivors.
• Six black-clad cultivators ambushed the party, and five Golden Core attackers quickly incapacitated the disciples, including Ji Chengfeng.
• Lu Ping chose to remain hidden while Ye Zhi summoned a bronze Mechanism Beast and blasted the five attackers with azure-gold blades.
• The black-clad leader seized his opening and formed a Ghost Claw that lunged toward Ye Zhi's chest.

Lu Ping watched Ye Zhi and the black-clad leader battle while his poison slowly affected them, and Ye Zhi unleashed a dangerous forbidden technique that badly wounded his opponent. With the black-clad leader injured and both experts still fighting, Lu Ping faced a choice about whether to intervene.

• The black-clad leader ambushed Ye Zhi, breaking his array shields and injuring him.
• Lu Ping's poison began to affect both Nascent Soul experts, though neither realized its source.
• Ye Zhi formed a pair of mechanical arms from his bronze beast fragments and attacked the black-clad leader.
• After the leader struck Ye Zhi in the chest, Ye Zhi used Thousand Mechanisms · Blood Release and exploded his left arm into fragments that wounded the leader.
• Options appeared, asking Lu Ping whether to stay hidden, help Ye Zhi kill the leader, or interrupt the fight with a Rainmaking Art.

Lu Ping and Ye Zhi killed the leader of the men in black and the other attackers, but the leader’s soul-searching restriction destroyed his Nascent Soul before Lu Ping could learn much. With the fight over, Ye Zhi confronted Lu Ping about his use of a secret Thousand Mechanisms Sect technique, and Lu Ping faced a choice about how to respond.

• Lu Ping ambushed the wounded leader of the men in black with the Thousand Mechanisms Falling Blossoms Instruction and killed him with Ye Zhi’s help.
• Lu Ping searched the leader’s Nascent Soul, but a hidden restriction caused it to self-destruct before he could uncover more than fragments about the Dark Hall, the Heavenly Secrets Turmoil, and Shenjizi.
• Lu Ping and Ye Zhi hunted down the five fleeing Golden Core attackers, killing them despite another self-destruct restriction triggered during Lu Ping’s soul search.
• After the battle, Ye Zhi recognized the Thousand Mechanisms Sect technique Lu Ping had used and regarded him with suspicion as they stood among the fallen disciples.
• Lu Ping considered whether to leave immediately, build ties with the Thousand Mechanisms Sect, or jokingly praise Ye Zhi for his performance.

Lu Ping accepted Ye Zhi’s claim that he had once guided him, turning their encounter into a temporary alliance with the Thousand Mechanisms Sect. The chapter ended with Ye Zhi introducing Lu Ping to his disciples as their Martial Uncle, while Lu Ping considered how to respond.

• Lu Ping gave Ye Zhi high-grade Detoxification Pills and claimed his cultivation method came from a mysterious senior he had met as a child.
• Ye Zhi claimed to be that senior and said he had once guided Lu Ping in the Thousand Mechanisms Falling Blossoms Instruction.
• Lu Ping played along with Ye Zhi’s story and expressed gratitude for his past guidance.
• Ye Zhi told his disciples, including Ji Chengfeng, to greet Lu Ping as their Martial Uncle for saving them.
• Ji Chengfeng and the other disciples bowed to Lu Ping, who weighed his options for responding to the new title.

Lu Ping shared clues about the Dark Hall and Shenjizi with Ye Zhi, then learned that Ye Zhi wanted to recruit him as a Guest Elder of the Thousand Mechanisms Sect. The chapter ended with Lu Ping weighing Ye Zhi’s offer of the Star River Myriad Blades refinement method against the obligations of the position.

• Lu Ping helped Ji Chengfeng and the other disciples rise, defusing tensions over the Thousand Mechanisms Sect’s Secret Method.
• Ye Zhi privately told Lu Ping that clues from massacred mortal villages pointed to the black-clad group, and Lu Ping shared fragments from his soul search about the Dark Hall and Shenjizi.
• Ye Zhi praised Lu Ping’s mastery of the Thousand Mechanisms Falling Blossoms Instruction and introduced the Thousand Mechanisms Sect’s Star River Myriad Blades treasures.
• Lu Ping took out the black-clad leader’s Storage Ring, but Ye Zhi ignored it and invited him to become a Guest Elder, offering the Star River Myriad Blades refinement method.
• Lu Ping learned that the Guest Elder role was free of sect rules but could involve helping the sect and exchanging alchemy knowledge, then considered whether to accept.

Lu Ping accepted the Thousand Mechanisms Sect’s guest elder position and received the difficult-to-refine Star River Myriad Blades method from Ye Zhi. After two days traveling together, they arrived at the sect’s vast mechanical headquarters, where Lu Ping faced another choice about how to react.

• Lu Ping accepted Ye Zhi’s offer of a guest elder position and received the sect token and the Star River Myriad Blades refining method.
• Ye Zhi admitted that the method required rare materials found mainly in the distant Ancient Battlefield Ruins of the Far Western White Tiger Domain.
• Lu Ping traveled with Ye Zhi and the injured disciples toward the Thousand Mechanisms Sect, while Ye Zhi healed his severed arm and explained the sect and the Yi Wood Middle Domain.
• Ji Chengfeng watched Lu Ping speak with Ye Zhi and became awed by his apparent standing with their master.
• After two days, Lu Ping and the others reached the Thousand Mechanisms Sect and saw its vast mechanical city and flying bridges.

Lu Ping joined the Thousand Mechanisms Sect as a Guest Elder and agreed to stop investigating the Dark Hall after meeting Sect Master Gongshu Ke. Ye Zhi brought him to the Alchemy Hall, where Hall Master Yi challenged his qualifications.

• Lu Ping chose to greet Gongshu Ke respectfully, and Ye Zhi explained how Lu Ping had helped expose the Dark Hall's ambush and save him and his disciples.
• Gongshu Ke ordered Lu Ping and Ye Zhi to end their investigation of the Dark Hall, and both agreed.
• Gongshu Ke told Ye Zhi to arrange Lu Ping's treatment as a new Guest Elder, so Ye Zhi took Lu Ping to the Alchemy Hall.
• Hall Master Yi questioned Lu Ping's appointment and alchemy skills while the other Alchemists watched, and Lu Ping faced options for proving himself.

Lu Ping presented his Third-Grade Alchemist certificate and joined the Thousand Mechanisms Sect’s Alchemy Hall as a Guest Elder. Ye Zhi escorted him to his new cave abode, where Lu Ping secured the premises and prepared to settle in.

• Lu Ping showed Hall Master Yi his Third-Grade Alchemist certificate, earning respect and qualification to affiliate with the Alchemy Hall.
• Lu Ping registered as a Guest Elder specializing in poisons and detoxification, and Hall Master Yi granted him a Third-Grade Alchemist’s stipend and limited access to herbs and earthfire.
• Ye Zhi took Lu Ping to a spacious cave abode on a side peak before leaving to recover from his injuries.
• Lu Ping explored the cave abode, activated its protective formations, and spread poison netting through its hidden corners.
• Lu Ping sat on the meditation cushion and considered whether to cultivate, review his spoils, or rent out the cave abode.

Lu Ping discovered that the black-clad leader had survived by hiding a remnant soul in his Storage Ring and tried to possess him. Lu Ping and the Fire Crow Seed devoured the remnant soul, but the memories he gained revealed how far the leader had gone to escape the Dark Hall.

• Lu Ping chose to inspect the black-clad leader's Storage Ring and found its Divine Sense Mark was still active, proving its owner was alive.
• The black-clad leader's remnant soul entered Lu Ping's sea of consciousness and attempted to take over his body.
• Lu Ping chose to eradicate the remnant soul, and he and the Fire Crow Seed devoured it.
• Lu Ping learned from the leader's memories that he had slaughtered mortals to nourish a hidden soul and faked his death to escape the Dark Hall.
• The black-clad leader's soul vanished completely, strengthening Lu Ping's soul and the Fire Crow Seed, while a complete stream of information imprinted itself in Lu Ping's sea of consciousness.

After obtaining useful cultivation methods and materials from the black-clad leader, Lu tried to buy what he needed to refine the Star River Myriad Blades, only to discover the Thousand Mechanisms Sect’s prices and contribution requirements were steep. The chapter left him considering how to obtain the three thousand contribution points needed for the materials available.

• Lu found the Spirit Refining Technique, artifact-refining materials, and the As-If-Original Seal among the black-clad leader’s spoils, though the Storage Ring held fewer Spirit Stones than he expected.
• Lu studied the Star River Myriad Blades and learned its three stages required 108, 1,080, or 10,800 flying blades.
• Lu brought a materials list to the Thousand Mechanisms Sect’s Myriad Treasures Hall and learned his Spirit Stones could not cover even half the cost.
• The deacon told Lu that several core materials required Sect Contribution Points and that the treasury held only one-third of the materials for the Hundred-Blade Ring.
• Lu asked about exchanging for the available materials, and the deacon estimated they would cost three thousand contribution points.

Lu Ping cleared the Alchemy Hall’s neglected high-level missions with supreme-grade pills, then agreed to teach the hall’s Alchemists for contribution points. His first exam-focused lesson won the students’ enthusiastic praise.

• Lu Ping took more than a dozen high-level missions from the Alchemy Hall’s mission board and completed them all in less than ten days.
• Lu Ping cleared the remaining high-level missions within a month, earning a little over a hundred contribution points before the board ran out of work.
• Hall Master Yi offered Lu Ping one hundred contribution points per class for three monthly lessons, and Lu Ping agreed to teach.
• Lu Ping taught more than three hundred Alchemists practical techniques for the Heavenly Certification Alliance’s exam.
• The Alchemists cheered Lu Ping’s clear, useful lesson and praised him as a savior of the Dao of Alchemy.

Lu Ping settled into his role as a Guest Elder, saved contribution points for flying-blade materials, and sought Ye Zhi’s guidance on refining Star River Myriad Blades. Ye Zhi taught him despite warning that forty sets were insufficient, while rumors spread among the disciples that Lu Ping was the Peak Master’s illegitimate son.

• Lu Ping learned that the Alchemy Hall had charged students two contribution points each for his lecture, then continued refining pills, teaching, and cultivating for seven months.
• Lu Ping exchanged his savings for forty sets of flying-blade materials and went to Weizhao Peak to ask Ye Zhi for guidance.
• Ye Zhi warned that forty sets could not complete the Hundred-Blade Ring, but relented when Lu Ping insisted on trying.
• Lu Ping visited Ye Zhi daily for a month and learned how to refine Star River Myriad Blades, inscribe miniature Array Patterns, and practice the sect’s Artifact Refining Technique and Mechanism Arts.
• Weizhao Peak disciples speculated that Lu Ping was either Ye Zhi’s long-lost brother or illegitimate son.

Lu Ping refined 108 flying blades into the low-grade Law Treasure Hundred-Blade Ring after enduring two months of engraving and tempering his Divine Sense. The successful refinement left him confident in his strength, but he promptly fainted from exhaustion.

• A young disciple speculated that Peak Master Ye and Elder Lu might be more than brothers or father and son, and his senior brothers silenced him in alarm.
• Lu Ping used the Moon Palace Fire-Devouring Furnace and forty portions of materials to form 108 flying-blade blanks.
• Lu Ping chose to keep engraving the blades while circulating the Spirit Refining Technique, pushing his Divine Sense beyond its limits.
• After two months, Lu Ping completed the Array Patterns on all 108 blades, linked them into a unified Restriction, and branded them with his Divine Sense.
• Lu Ping refined the blades with Essence Blood, completing the low-grade Law Treasure Hundred-Blade Ring and drawing it into his Dantian.
• Lu Ping felt confident he could face other Golden Core cultivators, then fainted from exhaustion.

After recovering from refining the Hundred-Blade Ring, Lu Ping left the Thousand Mechanisms Sect to seek a fortuitous opportunity and returned to the valley where Jiang Mutian had fought a brutal battle. He offered her an antidote for Severed-Fate Hehuan Powder, but her suspicion and killing intent remained as he faced a choice about how to explain himself.

• Lu Ping gained the Company Invisible Person Trait but chose not to replace any of his equipped Traits.
• After waking three days later, Lu Ping packed his belongings, erased his traces, and told Ye Zhi he was traveling because his cultivation had reached a bottleneck.
• Lu Ping left the Thousand Mechanisms Sect, paid for a transportation array, and returned to the valley in the Qingling Border Region.
• After waiting three days, Lu Ping sensed a brief, violent battle at roughly the Body Integration Realm level and approached its battlefield.
• Lu Ping found the wounded Jiang Mutian beside three corpses and offered her a bottle of antidote for Severed-Fate Hehuan Powder.
• Jiang Mutian grew more suspicious and concentrated her Sword Qi as Lu Ping considered how to answer her.

Lu Ping convinced Jiang Mutian that he had returned to settle debts from a past life, and she accepted his antidote and recovered in the cave. She rewarded him with Golden Core resources and a powerful sword talisman before disappearing, leaving Lu Ping alone beneath the moonlight.

• Lu Ping chose to claim that memories of a past life had led him to repay two life-saving debts, and Jiang Mutian believed him and withdrew her Sword Qi.
• Jiang Mutian drank Lu Ping’s antidote, led him to her cave, and began healing while Lu Ping stood guard outside.
• After two hours, Jiang Mutian gave Lu Ping a Storage Ring filled with Golden Core resources and a single-use sword talisman that could kill anyone below Spirit Transformation.
• Jiang Mutian vanished without another word, and Lu Ping accepted that her distance was a form of protection before leaving the cave.

After returning to the Greenwood Sect, Lu Ping strengthened its cultivation methods and watched it grow more stable before traveling to Qingyang City to seek passage to the Azure Dragon Upper Domain. The Heavenly Certification Alliance rejected his application, leaving him to choose how to respond.

• Lu Ping gave Qi Cangshu a completed Golden Core-stage Greenwood Art and alchemical knowledge, helping him break through a cultivation bottleneck.
• Lu Ping chose to have Crow Daoist put on a show for Wuming, who received three jade bottles before the crow vanished in flames.
• The Greenwood Sect recruited 226 of 312 Probationary Disciples without any fatal accidents, and Qi Cangshu named Xu Qingshi his Personal Disciple.
• Lu Ping left for Qingyang City to obtain Sha Soul Crystal and found the city under heavier guard than before.
• The Heavenly Certification Alliance Deacon rejected Lu Ping's application to enter the Azure Dragon Upper Domain, and new options appeared before him.

Lu Ping secured a route to the Azure Dragon Upper Domain by accepting a specially appointed alchemist position with the Azure Dragon Merchant Association, but Shen Yuerong recruited him for a dangerous trade fair tied to the Zhao Household’s inheritance. The chapter ended with Lu Ping facing options for how to respond.

• Lu Ping rejected the steward’s suggestion to force his way into the Upper Domain and learned he needed an employment certificate to obtain a travel permit.
• Lu Ping asked Shen Yuerong for help, and she offered him a specially appointed alchemist position in exchange for competing in an upcoming alchemy competition.
• Shen Yuerong asked Lu Ping to attend a trade fair at the Zhao Household as her accompanying pill appraiser.
• Shen Yuerong revealed that Qingyang City’s Nascent Soul factions believed the Zhao Household Ancestor had left behind a Spirit Transformation opportunity and planned to divide the household’s inheritance.
• Lu Ping recognized the trade fair as a dangerous gathering of powerful cultivators, and options appeared for how he would respond.

Lu Ping agreed to accompany Shen Yuerong to the Zhao Household trade fair after realizing she had recruited him as a possible hidden trump card. At the gathering, Han Shishan recognized him, and Lu Ping faced a choice about how to respond.

• Shen Yuerong explained that Lu Ping’s ability to produce two hundred Top-Quality Qi-Gathering Pills made her suspect he was far stronger than his Foundation Establishment Late Stage cultivation suggested.
• Lu Ping realized Shen Yuerong had been testing and maneuvering him, then agreed to attend the trade fair with her.
• Lu Ping and Shen Yuerong traveled under curfew to the Zhao Household, where Qingyang Guards stood watch and three Nascent Soul cultivators awaited them.
• The Jin Household Ancestor challenged Shen Yuerong’s arrival without Shen Silan, and she introduced Lu Ping as the merchant association’s newly hired appraiser.
• Han Shishan recognized Lu Ping from their encounter a year earlier, concealed his reaction, and prompted Lu Ping to choose how to deal with him.