Chapter Summaries

Chen Guan accepted Shu Tianhe’s inheritance and became his disciple, receiving the Heaven Puppet Sect’s Puppet Mastery techniques and Spirit Nourishing Dust. Shu Tianhe revealed that Chen Guan had to become a Fourth Tier Puppeteer to escape the Stone Chamber, and began preparing to teach him before his soul disappeared.

• Shu Tianhe praised Chen Guan’s talent and explained the history and abilities of Puppeteers and the Heaven Puppet Sect.
• Shu Tianhe offered to pass on his Puppet Mastery inheritance, and Chen Guan bowed to become his disciple.
• Shu Tianhe transferred his inheritance and gave Chen Guan his storage ring, which contained Spirit Nourishing Dust.
• Shu Tianhe explained that his fragile soul could not be saved, then told Chen Guan to learn Puppet Mastery while he could still guide him.
• Shu Tianhe revealed that his old test sealed the Stone Chamber until Chen Guan reached Fourth Tier Puppeteer, and said the chamber could not be broken by force.

After spending a year in the mountains, Chen Guan returned to the Jia Ma Empire and hurried toward Yaoye’s Coming-of-Age Ceremony. He arrived outside the imperial capital with his powerful Tier 6 Puppet, Iron Egg, while Yaoye still wondered whether he was alive.

• Yaoye worried that Chen Guan had died and felt no joy about her approaching Coming-of-Age Ceremony.
• Chen Guan left the lake after completing his Tier 3 Crimson Ice Snake Puppet and set it to guard the Stone Chamber.
• Chen Guan headed for the Ten Thousand Medicine Hall, learned its business with the imperial family had prospered, and left Xiao Yi Xian two Fire Foxes and a cookbook.
• Xiao Yi Xian returned to find the strangely posed Fire Foxes and stayed awake all night wondering what Chen Guan meant.
• Chen Guan traveled day and night on his Tier 6 Puppet and reached the outskirts of the imperial capital, naming the puppet Iron Egg.

At Yaoye’s coming-of-age ceremony, the Ninth Prince of the Chu Yun Empire proposed marriage with an insulting gift, prompting Yaoye to challenge him to a fight against a sixteen-year-old opponent. The Ninth Prince accepted, unaware that the young man waiting to face him had Yaoye’s confidence.

• Yaoye completed her coming-of-age ceremony before the Jia Ma Imperial Family, Misty Cloud Sect representatives, and guests from the Chu Yun Empire.
• The Ninth Prince asked the Jia Ma Emperor for Yaoye’s hand in marriage and offered one million gold coins and ten Fifth-Grade Pills, humiliating the Imperial Family.
• Yaoye stopped the Emperor from retaliating and challenged the Ninth Prince to defeat a sixteen-year-old opponent before she would agree to marry him.
• The Ninth Prince demanded permission to use pills and proposed a fight to the death; Yaoye agreed after the young man nodded.
• Seeing the young man, the Ninth Prince grew confident that he would win.

Chen Guan returned to the Imperial Palace and defeated the Ninth Prince in a public duel, crippling him before killing him when he ignored a warning. He reunited with Yaoye, who welcomed him but still demanded an explanation for his year-long absence.

• Yaoye told Chen Guan to spare a life before he faced the Ninth Prince in the cleared square.
• The Ninth Prince attacked Chen Guan, but Chen Guan revealed that he was a Da Dou Shi and defeated him in one move.
• The Ninth Prince swallowed two pills and launched his Mysterious Heaven Ice Wheel, which Chen Guan shattered with his sword technique.
• Chen Guan caught the Ninth Prince despite his boosted speed and destroyed his foundation, then killed him when he kept advancing after a warning.
• A black shadow stopped the Ninth Prince's guard from intervening, and Chen Guan returned to Yaoye, who refused to let him avoid explaining his absence.

After publicly revealing his strength and killing the Ninth Prince, Chen Guan reunited with Yaoye and explained his year away, including his gains as a puppet master. He left Yaoye ready to manage the empire’s growing military advantage and promised gifts for Yaoyue and Yaoye.

• Yaoye led Chen Guan to a storeroom full of Yellow Lotus Essence and questioned him about buying it in bulk.
• Chen Guan explained that he had been searching for rare Blood Lotus Essence, and Yaoye agreed to have the stock checked and the rest sent to the treasury or auction house.
• Chen Guan recounted his year away and described the puppets, cultivation resources, and puppet-refining knowledge he had gained.
• Yaoye recognized the military potential of Chen Guan’s puppets and told him to focus on cultivation while she handled relations with the other empires.
• Yaoye told Chen Guan that Yaoyue was angry about his year of silence, and Chen Guan said he had prepared gifts for both sisters.

Chen Guan gave Yaoye Spirit Nourishing Dust and a powerful puppet, and Yaoye suggested using another grain to help Fama advance as an alchemist. Yaoye realized how much Chen Guan’s return had strengthened the royal family and joked that she was the Empire’s Foremost Investor, before he teased her about Elder Jia bringing him back.

• Chen Guan explained Spirit Nourishing Dust’s benefits and gave a grain to Yaoye, who absorbed it.
• Yaoye suggested giving a grain to Fama to help him advance to Sixth Grade Alchemist, and Chen Guan agreed.
• Chen Guan gave Yaoye a Fifth Tier Puppet capable of Six Star Dou King strength and revealed his collection of powerful puppets.
• Yaoye joked that her investment in Chen Guan made her the Empire’s Foremost Investor.
• Chen Guan reminded Yaoye that Elder Jia had brought him back, leaving her speechless.

Chen Guan learned that Yaoye’s group had found a cave containing Purple Cloud Wings, the Seven-Colored Poison Scripture, Mad Lion's Roar, and a damaged map fragment, and he asked her to copy the scripture for Xiao Yi Xian. After leaving Yaoye, Chen Guan noticed a suspicious guard and approached him, remembering that the man had been involved in his premature death in the Second Will.

• Yaoye told Chen Guan that a mountain search after his disappearance had uncovered a cave left by a Dou Wang or Dou Huang Expert.
• Yaoye explained how Purple Cloud Wings, Mad Lion's Roar, the Seven-Colored Poison Scripture, and a damaged map fragment had been divided among the imperial family, Misty Cloud Sect, and Mittel Family.
• Yaoye offered Purple Cloud Wings to Chen Guan, but he declined and encouraged her to cultivate it herself because his puppets could protect him.
• Chen Guan asked Yaoye to have the Seven-Colored Poison Scripture copied for Xiao Yi Xian, and Yaoye teased him about his friend from Qingshan Town.
• After leaving Yaoye, Chen Guan spotted a suspicious guard outside the palace residence and walked toward him while recalling the man's role in his premature death in the Second Will.

Chen Guan discovered that Yaoyue had gone to the Alchemist Guild and visited her there, where he met President Fama. After listening to Fama teach Yaoyue alchemy, Chen Guan was left in a harmonious scene as two people conversed in a secret chamber on the Misty Cloud Sect's Back Mountain.

• Chen Guan learned that Yaoyue had sent a palace guard to pace outside First Princess Yaoye's residence as punishment and had forbidden him from revealing that she went to the Alchemist Guild.
• Chen Guan crossed the Holy City and went to the Alchemist Guild, where Yaoyue came downstairs to meet him.
• Yaoyue led Chen Guan to President Fama and introduced him as her sister's good friend.
• Fama welcomed Chen Guan and let him listen as he taught Yaoyue the Way of Alchemy.
• Two people spoke in a secret chamber on the Misty Cloud Sect's Back Mountain, making strange, inhuman sounds.

Yun Shan weighed Protector Wu’s offer to make the Misty Cloud Sect a Soul Hall informant against one last attempt to break through to Dou Zong. Meanwhile, Fama praised Chen Guan’s talent and cautiously suggested that he become an alchemist, leaving Chen Guan’s response unresolved.

• Yun Shan asked Protector Wu for time to consider joining the Soul Hall while planning to make a final attempt at breaking through to Dou Zong.
• Protector Wu warned Yun Shan that the imperial family had a fifteen-year-old Da Dou Shi genius and gave him three months to decide.
• Yun Shan was shaken by Protector Wu’s claims about the Soul Hall’s power and grew more suspicious of its hidden purpose.
• After Yaoyue finished her lesson, Fama sent her to refine Energy Accumulation Pills and spoke privately with Chen Guan.
• Fama lamented the Alchemist Guild’s lack of successors, then suggested Chen Guan’s strong Soul Strength made him suited to alchemy.

Chen Guan refused Fama’s offer to become his alchemy disciple, explaining that cultivation and Puppet Mastery had to come first. He asked Fama to purify contaminated Ice Spirit Cold Spring and paid him with Spirit Nourishing Dust, leaving Fama eager to accept the valuable favor.

• Chen Guan told Fama that he would study alchemy but could spare at most one day each month, and he declined Fama’s offer to become his disciple.
• Fama angrily scolded Chen Guan for wasting his talent, then asked why he had come to the Alchemist Guild.
• Chen Guan gave Fama contaminated Ice Spirit Cold Spring and asked him to purify it, learning that only two or three bottles would remain.
• Chen Guan offered Fama a grain of Spirit Nourishing Dust as payment and clarified that it was his own, not the imperial family’s.
• Fama accepted the Spirit Nourishing Dust and told Chen Guan to collect the purified Ice Spirit Cold Spring the next afternoon.

Chen Guan gave Yaoyue gifts and continued his cultivation and puppet studies before presenting Jia Xingtian with the Earth Tier Middle Grade Dou Technique Great Desolate Starfall. Jia Xingtian invited him to the Misty Cloud Sect’s Disciple Grand Competition next month to find out whether Yun Shan was still alive.

• Chen Guan left Fama, laughed when Yaoyue burned her pill ingredients, and took her back to the Imperial Palace with gifts.
• The next day, Chen Guan studied Puppet Mastery until Yaoye told him that his Yellow Lotus Essence had yielded six pieces of Blood Lotus Essence.
• Chen Guan went to the Back Mountain and found Jia Xingtian looking younger after taking the Spirit Nourishing Dust.
• Chen Guan gave Jia Xingtian the Great Desolate Starfall, an Earth Tier Middle Grade Dou Technique.
• Jia Xingtian asked Chen Guan to attend next month’s Misty Cloud Sect Disciple Grand Competition with him so they could see whether Yun Shan was dead.

Chen Guan obtained the Abyssal Sea Flood Dragon’s Beast Flame and learned that the imperial family had the ingredients and formula for a pill that could heal its old injuries. He then attended an auction at the Mitel Auction House, where Ya Fei presented a map fragment that had already sparked a fight among the bidders.

• Chen Guan asked Jia Xingtian for the Abyssal Sea Flood Dragon’s Beast Flame so he could prepare for retrieving the Ice Spirit Cold Spring.
• Jia Xingtian woke the injured Abyssal Sea Flood Dragon, and Chen Guan promised that an alchemist he knew could refine a Sixth Grade Middle Grade pill to heal it.
• Jia Xingtian gave Chen Guan three sets of ingredients and the formula for the Primordial Bone Sculpting Pill, and Chen Guan refined the beast’s ink-blue flame with their help.
• Chen Guan went to the Mitel Auction House and watched Ya Fei auction a map fragment found in a Strong Cultivator’s Cave Mansion.
• A bidder mocked the map’s previous buyer, and the buyer punched him in the face and admitted he was the idiot being mocked.

Teng Shan delayed Ya Fei’s departure after noticing Chen Guan’s interest in her and the auction’s fragmentary map. Chen Guan retrieved the Ice Spirit Cold Spring and Blood Lotus Pill from Fama, then concluded that he needed to obtain Spirit Absorption from the Misty Cloud Sect before attempting to refine a Heavenly Flame.

• Teng Shan noticed Chen Guan buying every magic core and the fragmentary map, then postponed Ya Fei’s departure by two months and ordered the elders to watch their juniors.
• Chen Guan left the Auction House to retrieve his Ice Spirit Cold Spring from the Alchemist Guild.
• Fama made Chen Guan visit each afternoon for ten days, hoping to interest him in alchemy while gradually purifying the Ice Spirit Cold Spring.
• Fama gave Chen Guan the Ice Spirit Cold Spring and Blood Lotus Pill, and Chen Guan stored them away.
• Chen Guan reviewed the factors and supplies needed to refine a Heavenly Flame, learned that the Misty Cloud Sect had Spirit Absorption, and decided he could not avoid going there.

Chen Guan and Jia Xingtian attended the Misty Cloud Sect’s Disciple Grand Competition, where Chen Guan hoped to arrange an exchange for Spirit Absorption and see Yun Yun again. After meeting Yun Yun and taking his seat beside the younger disciples, Chen Guan sensed someone watching him and turned around.

• Chen Guan persuaded Jia Xingtian to avoid provoking the Misty Cloud Sect because he wanted to obtain Spirit Absorption, and Jia Xingtian agreed to postpone confronting Yun Shan.
• At the army camp, Yaoye explained that the Jia Ma Empire had uncovered numerous spies from neighboring empires while preparing a transfer to the Imperial Capital.
• Chen Guan and Jia Xingtian arrived at the Misty Cloud Sect as the competition was about to begin, and Yun Yun welcomed Jia Xingtian.
• Jia Xingtian took a seat beside Fama, while Yun Yun directed Chen Guan to sit with Nalan Yanran, Liu Ling, and the other younger disciples.
• Nalan Yanran and Liu Ling examined Chen Guan, and Chen Guan turned around after sensing someone staring at him.

Chen Guan attended the Misty Cloud Sect's Disciple Grand Competition, where Nalan Yanran distinguished herself before clashing with him over his praise. The chapter ended with Chen Guan leaving to speak with Yun Yun while Nalan Yanran grew resentful of him.

• Chen Guan noticed Yun Leng and Mo Cheng watching him, while Mo Cheng mistook Chen Guan's powerful Spiritual Power for Mystical Eyes and coveted them.
• Nalan Yanran introduced Yun Leng and Mo Cheng to Chen Guan as the sect's competition began.
• The Outer Sect and Inner Sect contests concluded, and Nalan Yanran defeated six same-level Core Disciples before withdrawing from exhaustion.
• Nalan Yanran asked Chen Guan for his evaluation, but his praise angered her, and he left to speak with Yun Yun.
• Nalan Yanran heard Chen Guan call her an idiot and added him to the list of people she wanted to teach a lesson.

Chen Guan negotiated with Yun Yun to exchange puppets for the Misty Cloud Sect’s Spirit Absorption and completed the trade. Their conversation was interrupted by Jia Xingtian challenging Yun Shan to a match, despite his earlier assurance that he understood courtesy.

• Yun Yun confirmed that the Misty Cloud Sect possessed Spirit Absorption and asked Chen Guan what he would offer for it.
• Chen Guan offered pills, then proposed a Dou Wang puppet and a Dou Ling puppet after Yun Yun questioned his claims about the puppets he owned.
• Yun Yun accepted the two puppets in exchange for Spirit Absorption, and Chen Guan helped her make the Dou Wang puppet recognize her as its master.
• Jia Xingtian’s laughter rang through the Misty Cloud Sect as he called out to Yun Shan and challenged him to a match.

Chen Guan left the Imperial Capital to seek experience after reaching Three-Star Da Dou Shi, while Yaoye arranged for the Wang brothers to accompany him. His departure prompted the factions to take notice, and Yun Yun discovered he had broken his promise to stay for several years.

• Jia Xingtian returned from the Back Mountain after fighting Yun Shan, while Gu He gave Mo Cheng a Blood Burning Pill as part of Yun Leng's arrangement.
• Chen Guan asked Yaoye for permission to leave, and she agreed on the condition that he reach Three-Star Da Dou Shi; he returned less than half an hour later at that rank.
• Yaoye told Chen Guan to take Wang Yan and Wang Dalang with him, and he agreed to write her every half month.
• Chen Guan asked Yaoye to wipe out the Mo Family in Salt City, then bid farewell to Yaoyue and Fama before leaving with the Wang brothers.
• The major factions learned Chen Guan had left the Imperial Capital, and Yun Yun angrily called him a little liar after receiving the news.

Chen Guan waited for an attacker at a mountain camp and effortlessly turned Mo Cheng’s surprise assault into a one-sided fight using seven puppets. After Mo Cheng died, Chen Guan concluded that someone had sent him and suspected Yun Leng, Yun Yun, or Gu He.

• Chen Guan camped with Wang Dalang and Wang Yan on Clear Wind Mountain and waited for Mo Cheng to attack.
• Mo Cheng used a Blood Burning Pill and his Mountain Breaking Arm to launch a nighttime assault on Chen Guan’s tent.
• Chen Guan’s seven puppets surrounded Mo Cheng and beat him until he died, while Chen Guan and the Wang brothers watched.
• Chen Guan reasoned that Mo Cheng had likely been sent by someone else and suspected Yun Leng, Yun Yun, or Gu He of providing the pill.

After the Mo Family was purged, Chen Guan traveled to Qingshan Town to visit Xiao Yi Xian before heading for the Tagor Desert. He shared Fire Fox meat with her, explained that he was seeking an opportunity in the desert, and told her that Yaoye was like a sister to him.

• The imperial family purged the Mo Family, and Yun Leng publicly backed Yun Yun’s response to Yaoye.
• Chen Guan arrived at the Magical Beast Mountain Range with the Wang brothers, then sent them to buy supplies while he went to Ten Thousand Medicine Hall.
• Wang Dalang asked Wang Yan whether he regretted giving up Xiaowu, and Wang Yan said he thought she had become more charming.
• Chen Guan ended his Yellow Lotus Essence purchasing arrangement with Steward Chang and waited outside Xiao Yi Xian’s crowded consultation room while reading the Seven-Colored Poison Scripture.
• Xiao Yi Xian greeted Chen Guan warmly, shared the Fire Fox meat he had brought, and asked why he was going to the Tagor Desert.
• Chen Guan said he was going to seize an opportunity and explained that Yaoye was not his biological sister but was closer than one.

Chen Guan gave Xiao Yi Xian a scroll of poison scriptures and revealed that she possessed the Poison Body of Misfortune, whose eventual awakening could kill her and destroy everything around her. He promised that the Poison Pill Method could control it, leaving Xiao Yi Xian hopeful but doubtful as she learned how rare its ingredients were.

• Chen Guan gave Xiao Yi Xian the poison scriptures he had found and urged her to read the final page.
• Xiao Yi Xian learned that her Poison Body of Misfortune would eventually cause her agonizing suffering and could kill anyone who touched her before erupting catastrophically.
• Chen Guan said a Poison Pill Method could control the poison body and admitted he wanted Xiao Yi Xian as a powerful future companion.
• Xiao Yi Xian asked what the method required, and Chen Guan listed a Seventh Tier Heavenly Poison Scorpion Dragon Beast magic core, Bodhi Body Transformation Saliva, and three Heavenly Flames.
• Xiao Yi Xian doubted that such rare ingredients could be obtained.