Chapter Summaries

Chen Kong’s fans blamed the Stellaris Production Team for his repeated misfortunes, but Gorn suspected Tiandao had arranged Chen Kong’s latest challenge. Tiandao admitted he was interested in a possibility involving Chen Kong, while Chen Kong began his Martial Arts Emblem challenge unaware of the setup.

• Chen Kong’s fans complained that the Stellaris Production Team kept forcing contrived accidents into his life.
• Gorn suspected Zhang Hao was deliberately provoking Chen Kong and realized Tiandao might be behind it.
• Tiandao said he was interested in a possibility involving Chen Kong, while Caroline showed no concern about his motives.
• The Dimensional Audience speculated that Tiandao had orchestrated Chen Kong’s past misfortunes and was using Zhang Hao as a tool.
• Chen Kong began his Martial Arts Emblem challenge without realizing Tiandao had arranged the confrontation.

Chen Kong challenged Prosperity Martial Tower Guardian Zhang Hao, who used his Rainbow Bubble Star Source to turn invisible and overpower him. After deducing clues about Zhang Hao’s ability, Chen Kong closed his eyes and released a chill like Isabelle’s Absolute Zero.

• Zhang Hao taunted Chen Kong, who fired Mark of the Void bullets that Zhang Hao stopped with an unseen defense.
• Zhang Hao vanished and struck Chen Kong repeatedly, leaving him badly injured and unable to stand.
• The Stellaris Production Team revealed that Zhang Hao’s Star Source was Rainbow Bubble, and that he hid inside an Invisibility Bubble.
• Zhang Hao falsely claimed his Star Source was Shadow Assassin, while Chen Kong considered how to identify the ability.
• Chen Kong closed his eyes and unleashed a chill resembling Isabelle’s Absolute Zero.

Chen Kong defeated Tower Guardian Zhang Hao by exposing his Rainbow Bubble Star Source and using Absolute Zero and Black Iron Clock to set a trap. After Zhang Hao conceded and handed over his golden badge, Tiandao hinted to Gorn that the real show was still to come.

• Chen Kong used Absolute Zero to freeze Zhang Hao’s invisible Rainbow Bubbles and deduced that Zhang Hao’s Star Source created them.
• Zhang Hao revealed his Explosive Bubbles, blasted the arena, and attacked Chen Kong at close range.
• Chen Kong fired ice bullets, then used Black Iron Clock and hidden ice on the floor to trap and stab Zhang Hao’s shoulder.
• Zhang Hao conceded defeat, gave Chen Kong his golden badge, and left the arena.
• Gorn asked Tiandao whether the duel had been the promised good show, and Tiandao said the real show was about to begin.

Mi Yao challenged Chen Kong to a wager for Chen Kong’s Prosperity Martial Emblem, offering six Martial Arts Emblems in return. Chen Kong agreed to fight using only their Star Source Effects, and the game began.

• Mi Yao appeared at the arcade and teased Chen Kong about their childhood, calling him a Reskinned Elite Monster.
• Mi Yao offered Chen Kong six Martial Arts Emblems if he won their game, but demanded Chen Kong’s Prosperity Martial Emblem if he lost.
• Mi Yao revealed his Arcade Master Star Source and selected the Demon Contract ability for their match.
• Chen Kong agreed to the wager on the condition that neither could use Star Core abilities and they could fight only with Star Source Effects.
• Mi Yao started the game, activating Demon Contract as the arcade console flashed with light.

Chen Kong attacked Mi Yao in the Training Arena, believing he could win by draining Mi Yao’s Star Energy. Caroline and Tiandao recognized that Mi Yao was deliberately taking the hits to build up Lucky Star Bond rewards, leaving Chen Kong walking into a trap.

• Mi Yao appeared at Chen Kong’s Martial Arts Emblem challenge, and Tiandao confirmed that this was the show he had mentioned to Gorn.
• Chen Kong copied Liu Ma’s Golden Demon Bull Star Core and charged Mi Yao, who offered no resistance and took a barrage of attacks.
• Caroline analyzed the fighters and declared that Chen Kong had a 0% chance of winning.
• Gorn noticed the Retro Game Console displaying Mi Yao’s six-loss streak and accumulated reward value of 30 gold.
• Tiandao explained that Mi Yao had hidden his Silver Shovel Game Realization Ability, Lucky Star Bond, which rewarded him for losing health and could grant powerful effects.

Mi Yao revealed that he had endured Chen Kong’s attacks to build a 12-loss streak for his Lucky Star Bond, while Demon Contract kept him sustained. After the bond restored and amplified him, Mi Yao struck Chen Kong down and explained that the wager had been a trap from the start.

• Chen Kong stopped beating Mi Yao after noticing the Retro Game Console had unlocked Lucky Star Bond.
• Mi Yao revealed he had built a 12-loss Losing Streak and punched Chen Kong to trigger its reward.
• The Lucky Star Bond fully healed Mi Yao and tripled his Star Energy and basic attributes.
• Mi Yao moved faster than Chen Kong could follow and slapped him into the Training Arena wall.
• Mi Yao told the injured Chen Kong that his apparent advantage had been a Newbie Bonus and taunted him for failing to get up.

Pang Hu announced October’s update schedule, monthly ticket rewards, and an unrelated basketball side story, then reflected on September’s slow updates and the challenges of keeping a web novel fresh. He ended by declaring he was ready to work hard again in October.

• Pang Hu announced that the monthly ticket side story, “Monstrous Athletic Talent,” would follow Tiandao leading his elementary school basketball team to a regional championship and would be released on October 1.
• Pang Hu scheduled five updates each day from September 30 through October 2, with the side story as an additional October 1 chapter, and promised one extra chapter for every thousand October monthly tickets.
• Pang Hu announced a lottery with thirty Crazy Thursday prizes for readers who voted with monthly tickets by 9:00 PM on October 9, with winners required to verify by October 16.
• Pang Hu said September’s updates had been uneven because he lacked compelling plot ideas and discussed the challenges web novelists faced in maintaining freshness, characterization, and immersion.
• Pang Hu noted that he had taken only one day off in September and urged himself to work hard in October.

After Mi Yao defeated Chen Kong, Tiandao challenged him to a card game for the Prosperity Martial Emblem. Mi Yao wagered all of Tiandao’s Martial Arts Emblems, and the chapter ended with Mi Yao revealing a Little Joker while Caroline predicted Tiandao would still win.

• Mi Yao defeated Chen Kong, took his Prosperity Martial Emblem, and prepared to leave the Training Arena.
• Tiandao arrived with Caroline and Gorn, then challenged Mi Yao to draw cards and wagered Chen Kong’s emblem.
• Mi Yao demanded all of Tiandao’s Martial Arts Emblems if Tiandao lost, so Tiandao produced ninety-nine emblems from a Subspace node.
• Mi Yao drew the Little Joker, while Caroline calculated that Tiandao had almost no chance of winning but trusted her intuition that he would.

Tiandao won Mi Yao’s card game because his unwavering confidence made any card he chose become the Big Joker. As Tiandao and Caroline left, he claimed that only the world he chose was real, leaving Caroline to wonder at the meaning behind his words.

• Tiandao asked Caroline to choose a card, and she picked the thirteenth from the right; Mi Yao presented it while Tiandao left without looking at it.
• Gorn told Chen Kong the card had to be the Big Joker, and Chen Kong flipped it to reveal that it was.
• Mi Yao revealed that every remaining card was also a Big Joker and explained that his game cards changed according to the players’ confidence.
• Gorn told Chen Kong that Tiandao had not chosen the Big Joker; any card Tiandao chose would become it because he believed victory was certain.
• Caroline asked whether Tiandao had anticipated Mi Yao’s game, and Tiandao said he would have won even with ordinary cards because only the world he chose was real.

Three months after Chen Kong challenged the Prosperity Martial Tower, Tiandao and Caroline arrived at Martial Arts Heavenly Capital for the Starry Sky Ladder qualification selection. Tiandao presented himself to a reporter as an ordinary civilian, while Hannah and Jing discussed the Association’s plan to bring him in and the resistance it might face.

• Tiandao and Caroline traveled to the Qilin District, where thousands of Rank 2 and Rank 3 Star Envoys had gathered for the selection.
• Caroline assessed the crowd and reported that attendance was roughly a third higher than expected, but Tiandao said the fixed number of tower places would make the outcome unchanged.
• Reporter Hannah and Camera Envoy Jing interviewed Tiandao, who described himself as a lucky civilian with no particular goal.
• Tiandao ended the interview as the assessment approached, and Hannah told Jing that Tiandao’s performance was convincing.
• Hannah said Tiandao suited the General President’s God-Making Plan and that the Association needed fresh blood, while Jing warned that those holding power would resist.

The Starry Sky Ladder qualifying assessment began, transporting 3,460 participants to the Flowing Light Grassland to compete for Tears of Stars. Chen Kong discovered he was a Seed Player, making him a public target as the scramble started.

• Hannah and the Camera Envoy entered the crowded selection square as qualifying participants.
• Chen Kong, Liu Ma, Isabelle, and Vivian assessed the powerful competitors before spatial turbulence shook the square.
• Tiandao protected Caroline, Jing Liuli assembled the Frostsound Family around herself, and Chen Xing led the Blazing Sun Family through the disturbance.
• A blue light transported all participants from the square to the Flowing Light Grassland.
• The rules announced that participants had three hours to hold a Tear of Stars, and Chen Kong realized his Seed Player status exposed his location and partial information.

Chen Kong abandoned his Tear of Stars and fled after sensing approaching contestants, while Tiandao kept his own Tear and eliminated three attackers with Vector Lock. The Qualifying Selection continued with the weak seeking safety in numbers and Tiandao showing how easily the strong could defend themselves.

• Chen Kong sensed several contestants closing in and threw his Tear of Stars into the Fluorescent Grass before hiding nearby.
• Three contestants found the Tear but agreed to ally against other competitors instead of taking it, and Chen Kong slipped away to find Liu Ma and the others.
• Contestants elsewhere also hid or discarded their Tears of Stars to avoid becoming targets.
• Tiandao played with his Tear of Stars beneath a tree after eliminating three contestants who had attacked him.
• The Dimensional Audience identified Tiandao's Vector Lock as the special effect of Vector Control's Secondary Awakening.

Tiandao explained how his newly awakened Vector Lock enabled him to create devastating Vector Field Meteors, then decided to make the qualification assessment more exciting. Meanwhile, Chen Kong found Isabelle surrounded and badly wounded, and began preparing a stealthy plan to help her.

• Tiandao described Vector Lock’s ability to freeze and compress vectors, which let him store punch force, create Vector Field Meteors, or suspend his own bodily functions.
• Tiandao examined the participants’ locations and realized that Tear of Stars holders were forming alliances, potentially turning the hunt into a counter-hunt.
• Tiandao told Caroline he wanted to give the assessment a surprise, and she agreed to support him as they left the Fluorescent Tree.
• Chen Kong used the Mark of the Void to approach Isabelle, whom four participants had surrounded while her shield weakened and she bled from an arm wound.
• Chen Kong decided not to reveal himself and began stealthily approaching the powerful Rank 3 Upper Star Envoy, planning to use patience and surprise to help Isabelle.

Isabelle fought Tavis and his three Rank 2 Star Envoy allies, who used coordinated attacks and Tavis’s Magic Hot Pot to trap her. Chen Kong ambushed Tavis with illusionary clones and eliminated him, leaving the battle unresolved for Isabelle.

• Tavis confronted Isabelle over the Tear of Stars and activated his nine-grid Magic Hot Pot formation.
• Tavis’s Spicy Hell attack broke Isabelle’s ice shield, but she froze part of the formation and tried to retreat.
• Tavis’s three Rank 2 Star Envoys blocked Isabelle’s escape and coordinated attacks to restrict her movement.
• Chen Kong appeared to stab Tavis, but struck a phantom; Tavis then counterattacked Chen Kong and hit another phantom.
• Chen Kong struck Tavis’s vital point with his Silver-white rapier, shattering Tavis’s wristwatch and teleporting him away after his elimination.

Chen Kong defeated Tavis and reunited with Isabelle, Vivian, and Liu Ma, while Tiandao began hunting contestants to make the assessment more exciting. Tiandao collected another Tear of Stars and set out to find his next target.

• Chen Kong used a clone to trick Tavis, then eliminated him and caused the other three Rank 2 Star Envoys to flee.
• Isabelle explained that she had kept her Tear of Stars as a signal so Vivian and Liu Ma could locate the group.
• Vivian and Liu Ma followed the Tear of Stars coordinates and reunited with Chen Kong and Isabelle.
• Tiandao cornered a contestant and demanded his Tear of Stars, saying he wanted to make the assessment more lively.
• Tiandao eliminated the contestant, took his Tear of Stars, and looked for someone else to hunt.

Tiandao’s collection of more than fifty Tears of Stars reshaped the assessment, pushing contestants into alliances and fights for the remaining tokens. Mi Yao’s group cornered Chen Kong and demanded he help them rob Tiandao, leaving Chen Kong facing a choice between two dangerous battles.

• After Tiandao gathered more than fifty Tears of Stars, contestants across the grassland joined alliances or hunted isolated holders.
• Chen Xing led the Blazing Sun Family’s Star Envoys west to target lone contestants carrying Tears of Stars.
• Chen Kong and his companions encountered Mi Yao’s alliance, which had more than ten members and three Tears of Stars.
• Mi Yao proposed that Chen Kong’s group join them in taking Tears of Stars from Tiandao, but Chen Kong refused.
• Mi Yao’s alliance surrounded Chen Kong and threatened to take his Tears of Stars, forcing him to prepare to fight.

Chen Kong agreed to join Mi Yao's Avengers Alliance, while he and his companions secretly planned to steal Tears of Stars from fellow members. The alliance gathered to confront Tiandao, but Tiandao effortlessly knocked Mi Yao unconscious and took his Tear of Stars.

• Chen Kong agreed to join Mi Yao's Avengers Alliance after Liu Ma and Vivian advised him to accept.
• The alliance grew by recruiting or robbing contestants, and Chen Kong, Liu Ma, Vivian, and Isabelle plotted to steal Tears of Stars from three members during the coming clash.
• Jing Liuli and Danika watched Tiandao wait beneath a tree as the Avengers Alliance approached with more than a hundred people; the Blazing Sun and Moonshadow families observed from nearby.
• Mi Yao challenged Tiandao, claiming the alliance could overwhelm him, but Tiandao appeared in front of him and knocked him unconscious with a touch.
• Mi Yao's Tear of Stars detached and flew into Tiandao's hand, and Tiandao asked the alliance to repeat Mi Yao's threat.

Tiandao overwhelmed the Avengers Alliance, then lifted the ground into a floating island and forced the remaining competitors to fight until only fifty remained within ten minutes. He watched their reactions as the island’s collapse loomed, having staged the spectacle for interested observers.

• After Mi Yao fell unconscious, Tiandao challenged the Avengers Alliance to attack him or be eliminated.
• Chen Kong urged the alliance to attack together while retreating behind the others, but Tiandao caught their Star Energy attacks with his Vector Field and sent them back, eliminating more than twenty people.
• Tiandao raised the ground within a one-kilometer radius into a floating island, with Caroline setting a ten-minute hourglass.
• Tiandao announced that only the last fifty competitors would receive the remaining Tears of Stars and warned that the island would collapse when time ran out.
• The competitors realized they had to fight or risk falling, while Tiandao watched their reactions and revealed that he had staged the scene for interested observers.

Tiandao forced the contestants into a deadly fight by making the floating island collapse a little more each minute, while Chen Kong’s group stole a Tear of Stars from a fleeing contestant. As eliminations mounted, Tiandao used his Vector Field to intensify the chaos and continued watching for the oddities among the contestants to reveal their flaws.

• Tiandao warned the contestants that the floating island would keep collapsing, and the crowd broke into a battle over the Tears of Stars.
• Chen Kong’s group chose a Rank 2 Star Envoy wearing ice skates as their target and planned an ambush.
• Chen Kong drew the skating Star Envoy into Isabelle’s ice crystals, allowing Liu Ma to take his Tear of Stars.
• Vivian selected a Rank 3 Star Envoy with two tears as their next target, and Chen Kong’s group hid to wait for an opening.
• Caroline reported that 47 contestants had been eliminated and 98 remained, while Tiandao blasted the crowd with a Vector Field to increase the chaos.

Tiandao used the Battle Royale to identify Star Beast infiltrators among the competition participants, uncovering five suspicious people. He ordered Caroline to secretly record them and planned to trace their network while the competition continued.

• Tiandao recalled that An Qin was a human raised to side with Star Beasts and that the Fallen Zones had produced other human infiltrators.
• Caroline identified a black-haired man and a blue-haired woman whose Star Energy and techniques showed suspicious abnormalities.
• Caroline found three more people with traces of Star Beast aura, bringing the number of suspected infiltrators to five.
• Tiandao told Caroline to archive the five people's information without confronting them, so they could follow the trail to the wider network.
• Tiandao tossed more than fifty Tears of Stars into the melee, intensifying the fight, then descended to the grassland with Caroline.