Recaps

Chen Du killed a rampaging Ninth Tier expert with one palm and returned to contemplating the stone stele. Observers from major factions noted his mastery of multiple laws but doubted he would advance far in the Genius Battle.

• A crimson-gold Ninth Tier expert swept through the arena, killing hundreds of thousands of contestants as they fled.
• The expert attacked Chen Du, who swallowed the strike with his [Cangming Abyss] Divine Foundation and crushed his opponent with the combined power of his [Celestial Master] Divine Status and abyss.
• Chen Du killed the Ninth Tier expert with a single palm, then returned to the stone stele while the remaining contestants fled from him.
• The scene spread through the Spirit Realm, where Heavenly Strategy Manor observers identified at least three laws in Chen Du’s attack but questioned whether he would advance.
• An elder of the Martial Ancestor Hall recognized Chen Du’s use of a Lower Second-Level Law and speculated that the stone stele might help him improve.

Chen Du spent three days comprehending a stone stele’s law of suppression while the arena’s contestants dwindled to three hundred. When Luo Chen challenged him, Chen Du effortlessly defeated him, and the spectators realized his comprehension and strength had grown dramatically during his meditation.

• The ninth-tier contestants swept through the arena, reducing the competitors from a hundred million to fewer than ten thousand as the survivors absorbed the energy left behind.
• Chen Du remained seated at the stone stele for three days and formed a complete outline of its suppression law in his sea of consciousness.
• With only three hundred contestants left, Luo Chen approached Chen Du and challenged him, drawing the attention of factions watching outside the spirit realm.
• Luo Chen attacked with his Mighty Force Space-Rending Law, but Chen Du swallowed the palm strike with Cangming Abyss and countered with the Celestial Master position and Cangming Abyss.
• Chen Du shattered Luo Chen’s law and knocked him down with a palm strike, then walked toward his next target.
• The watching factions realized Chen Du had become much stronger through his rapid improvement in law comprehension.

Chen Du pursued and defeated Chu Yunhe, taking the Heart of the Starry Sky and drawing attention from powerful factions in the Spirit Realm. With only a little over two hundred contestants remaining, the arena narrowed to a contest between those holding Hearts and those still seeking them.

• Chen Du sensed a nearby Ninth Tier aura and confronted Chu Yunhe, who challenged him to fight for his Heart of the Starry Sky.
• Chen Du combined Cangming Abyss and the Celestial Master Divine Status to break through Chu Yunhe's attacks, strike him down, and seize the Heart of the Starry Sky.
• The Spirit Realm erupted in discussion after observers saw Chen Du defeat Chu Yunhe in three moves and noted how quickly his mastery of Laws had improved.
• The Xuan Yao Pavilion and Martial Ancestor Hall studied Chen Du's performance, while the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion ordered its observers to keep watching him.
• The field dwindled to a little over two hundred contestants, about half of whom held Hearts of the Starry Sky.

Chen Du defeated attackers seeking his Heart of the Starry Sky and mastered the Nine Nether Mountain-Suppressing True Method, advancing from the first elimination round in 365th place across his Star Domain. Back in his personal space, he prepared to pursue a much higher ranking in the second round.

• A bald, burly contestant attacked Chen Du for his Heart of the Starry Sky, but Chen Du combined the [Celestial Master] Divine Status with Cangming Abyss and drove him away.
• The clash completed Chen Du’s understanding of the Nine Nether Mountain-Suppressing True Method, a law that suppressed his opponents’ power.
• As the first round grew more chaotic, Chen Du repelled several more contestants and deterred others from challenging him.
• The first elimination round ended, and Chen Du advanced among the one hundred contestants holding a Heart of the Starry Sky.
• Chen Du’s results placed him 19th in his arena and 365th among the advancing contestants in his Star Domain.
• In his personal space, Chen Du reviewed his laws and resolved to rank within the top three hundred in the second round.

After Lin Du’s first-round victory, the major factions investigated his age and speculated that he was a reincarnated expert, while Chen Du considered the attention and recruitment offers. The Spirit Realm announced that the youth division’s second elimination round would take place in seven days.

• The major factions reviewed Lin Du’s record and debated whether a seventeen-year-old Ninth Tier martial artist could be a reincarnator or an alien plant.
• Chen Du saw discussions about him and received recruitment messages from smaller factions, mercenary groups, brokers, and families, but ignored their offers.
• Chen Du read messages from Su Yao, Zhao Ge, and other classmates asking about his Ninth Tier breakthrough, then replied, “It clicked. Don’t ask.”
• The Spirit Realm announced that the second elimination round of the youth division would be held in seven days, and Chen Du checked the details.

After his first-round success in the Cosmic Genius Battle, Chen Du ignored recruitment offers and prepared to grow stronger for the second round. The Lord of the 0771 Star Domain warned him that the next round would be dangerous and hinted that advancing would bring benefits to the whole Star Domain, leaving Chen Du confident the Kema People were no longer a serious threat.

• News of Lin Du’s ranking and Ninth Tier strength spread through Third Middle School, astonishing his classmates and Principal Zhou.
• Chen Du ignored the major factions’ recruitment offers and focused on cultivating his laws for the second elimination round.
• The Lord of the 0771 Star Domain contacted Chen Du, warned that the second round’s 2,300 Ninth Tier contestants made it more dangerous, and urged him to advance.
• The Lord of the 0771 Star Domain hinted that advancing would bring unexpected benefits to Chen Du and the 0771 Star Domain, then ended the call.
• Chen Du concluded that the Kema People were insignificant compared with the Azure Human Alliance’s major factions and could be wiped out with their help.

After realizing that talent and powerful allies could help him protect Blue Star, Chen Du changed his competition goal to seek greater gains. At the second round, he learned it would test comprehension and was delighted, believing his exceptional comprehension would secure him a place among the top 230.

• Chen Du reconsidered the Star Domain Lord’s interest in him and recognized that joining a major power could give him resources and support against the Kema People.
• Chen Du changed his competition goal from “Do my best” to “Go further, gain more.”
• Chen Du entered the Spirit Realm’s competition hall with more than two thousand Ninth Tier contestants from across the 0771 Star Domain.
• The host announced that the comprehension round would eliminate all but the top 230 contestants and explained the immense difficulty of advancing beyond the Ninth Realm.
• Chen Du felt confident because his accumulated abilities and system rewards had made comprehension his greatest strength.

Chen Du began the second elimination round, in which contestants had one month to comprehend simulated law steles and the top 230 would advance. After carefully examining all ninety-nine steles, he found a plain-looking one that stirred memories and emotions from his past lives, then sat down to comprehend it.

• The host explained that the ninety-nine steles simulated the law insights of experts from the fourteenth and fifteenth realms, and announced the one-month contest to advance the top 230 contestants.
• Chen Du surveyed the steles and considered his accumulated comprehension before choosing where to begin.
• Contestants across the star domain watched the round, and betting pools debated whether the seventeen-year-old Lin Du would advance.
• Chen Du passed dozens of steles while sensing their laws, drawing attention for taking his time instead of immediately settling down to comprehend one.
• At the ninety-ninth stele, Chen Du released seven-colored light by sending in his Spiritual Power, and the sight stirred memories and buried emotions from his past lives.
• Chen Du sat before the stele and began comprehending it, ready to use the foundation he had accumulated.

The contestants struggled to comprehend patterns in the Spirit Realm, each carrying the hopes of family or mentors as the Cosmic Genius Battle’s rankings shifted. After a month of relentless mental strain, most of the 2,300 competitors had lost their initial drive, while Chen Du remained immersed before the Seven-Colored Stele.

• Lu Qingxuan struggled with a purple stele while his family watched, and a younger contestant’s progress made his fingers tremble.
• Shen Yan fought to untangle the fire-law fragments at a crimson stele but fell behind as another contestant advanced.
• Zhou Tieshan persisted before an earthy-yellow stele, relying on the determination he had carried from his mining-planet family.
• Ji Yuan failed to complete his ninth pattern, accepted that he had done his best, and his father watched him on the livestream before turning it off and back on.
• A month passed, and the contestants’ repeated failures and mental strain wore down most of their initial drive.

The 2,300 Ninth Tier geniuses struggled through the final days of the Cosmic Genius Battle’s comprehension trial, while Chen Du remained motionless before the Seven-Colored Stele. Bai Wuchen then emerged with 198 figures and rose to fifth place, as Chen Du’s result remained unknown.

• Contestants who could not reach the top 230 gave up and gathered at the edge of the world as the trial neared its end.
• Chen Du continued sitting motionless before the Seven-Colored Stele after a month of comprehension.
• The chapter described how Chen Du compared Blue Star’s short history with the ancient civilizations represented among the contestants.
• Bai Wuchen withdrew his hands from the Formless Heavenly Wind Stele after comprehending 198 figures and rose to fifth place on the leaderboard.
• Contestants at the edge recognized Bai Wuchen and discussed his background and mastery of the Bai family’s ancestral law path.

Chen Du remained far behind in the second round while he studied the Seven-Colored Stele and realized his abilities had long been connected to the Emotional Dao. As his existing diagrams lit up, he finally grasped some of the Dao’s fundamentals.

• Bai Wuchen calmly accepted fifth place after comprehending 198 diagrams and went to the edge of the world.
• An unidentified young man comprehended 189 diagrams, reached seventh place, and left the crowd baffled about his origins.
• Other geniuses from powerful forces revealed their rankings, while Chen Du remained around the thirteen hundreds with only a little over forty diagrams.
• Chen Du connected the Emotional Dao’s seven emotions to his past talents and breakthroughs as he continued studying the stele.
• Chen Du’s diagrams lit up in a surge of seven-colored light, and he realized he had finally grasped some fundamentals of the Emotional Dao.

Chen Du fused seven emotion laws into a complete flower by rebuilding their underlying patterns, and his diagrams and ranking began to rise rapidly. As new diagrams continued to emerge, his name climbed past 200th place and kept rising.

• Chen Du recognized that his forty-odd diagrams formed a seven-colored flower, with each petal representing one of seven emotion laws he had comprehended.
• Chen Du focused on the crimson anger petal and found a broken pattern that could connect the seven laws.
• Chen Du dismantled the petals into primordial law fragments and rebuilt them around the pattern, forming one complete flower.
• The stele lit up as the flower’s power produced new diagrams, and Chen Du’s total began climbing beyond forty.
• Chen Du’s ranking rose from 1,300th to 200th place and continued to rise.

Chen Du unleashed the system’s twentyfold comprehension boost and rapidly deciphered the Seven-Colored Stele, surging past Bai Wuchen to third place. The star domain lord realized Chen Du had spent the month uncovering the inscription’s foundations rather than chasing rank and praised the 0771 Star Domain’s new genius.

• Chen Du combined his comprehension talents with the stored twentyfold boost and began producing diagrams from the Seven-Colored Stele at explosive speed.
• The star domain contestants and major powers watched Chen Du climb the leaderboard, while Bai Wuchen doubted he could overcome the inscription’s difficulty in the remaining time.
• Chen Du passed 150 diagrams without slowing, then exceeded 200 and rose to third place, surpassing Bai Wuchen’s 198.
• Bai Wuchen was stunned and wondered whether the inscription he had comprehended had been fake, then recognized Chen Du could not be judged by ordinary reasoning.
• The star domain lord laughed at Chen Du’s rise and concluded that he had focused on uncovering the inscription’s roots rather than pursuing rankings.

Chen Du surged to first place in the comprehension competition, leaving every other contestant far behind. He stopped at 340 diagrams after hitting a barrier beyond his current ability, then left the competition ground with his lead secure.

• Chen Du continued comprehending diagrams as the difficulty sharply increased after the 150th, while his combined talents and system amplification kept his progress fast.
• Chen Du passed 250 diagrams and took first place, stunning observers across the Star Domain as Bai Wuchen and the other contestants reacted to his result.
• Chen Du continued to 340 diagrams, finishing more than a hundred ahead of the second-place contestant.
• Chen Du’s five flowers struck an immense barrier beyond the 340th diagram, and he judged that further progress was beyond his current comprehension.
• Chen Du accepted 340 diagrams as his limit, stood up, and walked toward the edge of the world with his name still atop the leaderboard.

Chen Du took first place in the second elimination round and learned that the main competition would pit him against the strongest young geniuses across the Azure Human Alliance. The Star Domain Lord explained the advantages enjoyed by leading Star Domains, urged Chen Du to aim for a high ranking, and offered him a reward.

• The host announced that Chen Du had placed first with 340 diagrams and named the 230 qualifiers who would advance to the main competition.
• The host said the main competition would begin in three months, bring together about two million contestants, and award qualifying places to the top ten thousand.
• Chen Du received invitations from factions seeking to recruit him, then accepted a high-priority call from the Star Domain Lord.
• The Star Domain Lord described 0771 as a remote, below-average Star Domain and urged Chen Du to aim for the top one thousand, explaining the better faction status and benefits available at higher ranks.
• The Star Domain Lord sent Chen Du information about the three major factions' resources and cultivation methods, then offered him a reward and asked what he wanted.

Chen Du borrowed the Return to the Ruins One, a powerful annihilation machine, from the Star Domain Lord and carried it back to Blue Star through reincarnation. He ordered it to destroy the Kema People, then learned its mission was complete and prepared to return to the Cosmic Genius Battle.

• Chen Du asked the Star Domain Lord for a weapon capable of destroying a civilization, and the Star Domain Lord agreed to send one because the Kema People were outside the Azure Human Alliance.
• A week later, Chen Du received and bound the Return to the Ruins One, a combat machine capable of reaching the middle stage of the Eleventh Tier.
• Chen Du killed himself, took the robot with him through Hundred-Lifetime Reincarnation, and returned to Mount Tai on Blue Star.
• Chen Du ordered the Return to the Ruins One to destroy the Kema fleet and civilization, and it flew into space to carry out the command.
• The Return to the Ruins One destroyed the Kema fleet and homeworld, while Imhotep and the other Kema leaders failed to identify or resist their attacker.
• Chen Du sensed that the mission was complete and prepared to return to the Cosmic Genius Battle.

Chen Du sent a second clone into the tier-eleven Divine Prison Realm, where it took over the body of Qin Dong, a weak new jailer in the Heavenly Dragon Divine Dynasty's prison. After awakening three talents tied to the world's opposing forces, Chen Du began learning the realm's Martial Dao system, leaving himself at the start of a long climb from the Body Tempering Realm.

• Chen Du created a second clone at Mount Tai so it could explore a new world while his other selves advanced elsewhere.
• The clone entered the Divine Prison Realm, a dangerous tier-eleven world ruled by the Heavenly Dragon Divine Dynasty.
• Chen Du awoke in the body of Qin Dong, a frail jailer whose body had barely entered the First Realm.
• The world's rules awakened Heaven's Way of Righteousness, Heaven's Way of Evil, and Heaven's Way's Gift in Chen Du.
• Chen Du reviewed the world's eleven Martial Dao realms and recognized that Qin Dong had yet to establish himself in the Body Tempering Realm.

Chen Du learned that both righteous and evil deeds earned tokens he could exchange for strength, then began working as a jailer in the Divine Prison. After discovering the first level’s prisoners and accumulated power, he decided to lie low and grow stronger while investigating the prison’s rules.

• Chen Du realized that his three talents let him earn rewards from Heaven's Way through either good or evil deeds.
• Old Zhou warned Chen Du that the Divine Prison was ancient, dangerous, and full of prisoners whose power could kill careless jailers.
• Chen Du questioned how the prison’s rules related to Heaven’s Way’s rules and resolved to learn more.
• Chen Du patrolled the first level with Old Zhou and sensed the immense power left by prisoners, formations, and guards.
• Chen Du spotted a pair of golden eyes watching the patrol and continued on, choosing to take his time and grow stronger.

Chen Du secretly gathered Dao resonance from the first floor of the Divine Prison and discovered that it could yield powerful cultivation arts. After obtaining four ninth-tier arts with lower-grade second-level laws, he returned to his room while golden pupils watched him from the darkness.

• Chen Du listened as the young jailers warned one another about the monsters imprisoned on the first floor and the dangers of their baleful qi.
• At night, Chen Du used his abilities on a corridor wall and condensed the ninth-tier Dragon-Tiger Netherworld Prison Art, which contained the Netherworld Prison Soul Lock law.
• Over the next few nights, Chen Du found three strong sources of Dao resonance and obtained the Netherworld Prison Dragon Python Art, the Prison-Suppressing Qi-Breaking Scripture, and the Resentful Soul Spirit-Devouring Art.
• Chen Du realized the Divine Prison held many more cultivation arts beyond the outer first floor, while golden vertical pupils repeatedly watched him in the dark.

Chen Du executed the prisoners on the roster and received a five-hundred-year wisp of black qi from the only prisoner who had truly been wronged. He used the accumulated qi to claim three treasures from Heaven's Way's Gift, then spent three years struggling to study and refine them.

• Old Zhou ordered Chen Du to execute the prisoners on the roster with the Divine Prison Blade.
• Chen Du executed the prisoners, gaining white qi from them, until he killed the calm Ninth Realm young man and received a five-hundred-year wisp of black qi.
• Chen Du fed the white and black qi to Heaven's Way's Gift, which produced a Ninth-Tier pill, a law-bearing blade, and a Prison-Splitting cultivation technique.
• Chen Du spent three years studying Prison-Splitting and its law while slowly refining the pill, but made little progress with any of the three treasures.

Chen Du learned that Shen Xing had been framed and executed for defending a wrongly accused commander, then built him a grave in the Divine Prison. As more prisoners arrived, Chen Du used the prison’s Dao resonance to gain three powerful Ninth Tier arts, leaving him with six such arts from the first level alone.

• Old Zhou told Chen Du that Shen Xing had been a respected Northern Border deputy general who was framed after pleading for an old commander's innocence.
• Chen Du realized the Divine Prison held the wrongfully accused alongside the guilty and saw their growing numbers as opportunities to test his talents.
• Chen Du carved Shen Xing's name into a secluded wall, made a grave for him, and offered illusory incense and Qin Dong's liquor.
• Chen Du activated Become a Sage on the Spot at an old execution platform and acquired the Ninth Tier Xingtian Prison-Suppressing Art.
• Chen Du used Dao resonance from an abandoned formation and a sealed cell to acquire the Ninth Tier Nine Serenities Prison-Cage Scripture and Nether Breath Soul-Devouring Record.
• Chen Du arranged the three new arts with his existing ones and noted that he had gained six Ninth Tier arts from the Divine Prison's first level.

Chen Du spent months executing prisoners and cultivating in the Divine Prison, greatly advancing his laws and techniques. After Old Zhou told him that the Ninth Realm physician Gu Changqing had been imprisoned for saving a condemned man, Chen Du decided he wanted to meet him.

• Chen Du used the qi gained from executions to obtain a Ninth Tier pill and concentrated insights that strengthened his six Ninth Tier techniques.
• After a year of patrols and cultivation, Chen Du advanced several laws, including his Tianshi Law, Law of Anger, Law of Sorrow, and Soul Devouring Law.
• Chen Du continued exploiting the Divine Prison’s formations and executions to deepen his cultivation.
• Old Zhou told Chen Du that Gu Changqing, a Ninth Realm physician famed for treating the poor and stopping a plague, had been imprisoned for treating an exiled official accused of treason.
• Chen Du looked toward Gu Changqing’s cell and decided he wanted to meet him, believing a man who had saved so many people should not be left in prison.

Chen Du visited the imprisoned physician Gu Changqing and offered him food and a chance to leave, while deciding to build up his strength against the Heavenly Dragon Divine Dynasty. Months later, Chen Du prepared to descend into the Divine Prison’s lower levels after Old Zhou said they had orders to open the second and third levels.

• Chen Du visited Gu Changqing’s cell, left him food and wine, and gave his name as Qin Dong when Gu asked.
• Chen Du returned daily for eleven days until Gu Changqing opened his eyes and asked what he wanted.
• Gu Changqing explained that he had lost hope after saving many people but being unable to prevent the Northern Border famine, and asked Chen Du to kill him.
• Chen Du refused to kill or force Gu Changqing to leave, telling him he could go whenever he wished.
• After several months, Old Zhou told Chen Du to accompany the staff as they opened the Divine Prison’s second and third levels.

Chen Du followed Old Zhou to the deepest part of the Divine Prison’s third level and executed Tu Wanshan, a Tenth Realm prisoner who recounted how he had turned from a physician and righteous cultivator into a mass murderer. The execution gave Chen Du two thousand years of Black Qi, which he chose to save, but Tu Wanshan’s story left him questioning whether his own choices had been right.

• Chen Du followed Old Zhou through the increasingly oppressive second and third levels of the Divine Prison, where the dense Dao Resonance made him anticipate stronger gains.
• Old Zhou introduced Tu Wanshan as a Tenth Realm, First Martial Law Realm prisoner sentenced to death for slaughtering three cities.
• Tu Wanshan told Chen Du how his family’s ruin and his revenge led him from medicine and the righteous path to demonic cultivation and mass murder.
• Chen Du beheaded Tu Wanshan and gained an estimated two thousand years of Black Qi, which he decided to keep for future use.
• Back in his stone room, Chen Du compared Tu Wanshan’s path with Gu Changqing’s and questioned whether his own choices had been right.

Chen Du used a thousand years of insight and a Ninth Tier pill to raise his Soul Devouring Law to the fifth Domain layer and his Law of Anger to the fourth, then compiled two new Martial Canon volumes and created a powerful combined technique. Old Zhou summoned him to attend to a new prisoner, whom Chen Du found in an unusually comfortable cell.

• Chen Du absorbed a predecessor’s thousand years of insight into the Soul Devouring Law and used a Ninth Tier pill to advance it to the fifth Domain layer and the Law of Anger to the fourth.
• Chen Du reviewed his progress across several laws and recognized that he still had a long way to go before reaching the Tenth Realm.
• Chen Du completed the Martial Canon: Eighth-Tier Chapter and Martial Canon: Ninth-Tier Chapter by combining his insights into laws and cultivation techniques.
• Chen Du created a technique called Soul Devouring’s Wrath, which used anger to burn a divine soul and Soul Devouring to consume what remained.
• Old Zhou brought Chen Du to meet a new prisoner, a plump middle-aged man sitting angrily in a lavishly furnished cell.