Chapter Summaries

At Zheng Fa’s inauguration, Venerable Tongming revealed his ties to the Supreme Dao and tried to bring the Nine Mountains Sect back into the Hundred Immortals Alliance. Zheng Fa refused to rejoin but offered to sell the Alliance spirit talismans, and Tongming then asked whether Alliance disciples could seek shelter in the Nine Mountains Realm.

• Seventh Young Master attended Zheng Fa’s inauguration with Venerable Tongming and the Azure Wood Sect’s Sect Leader.
• Venerable Tongming explained that the Hundred Immortals Alliance was waiting for the right moment to act against the Great Freedom Demon Cult and that he had requested help from the Supreme Dao.
• Venerable Tongming invited Zheng Fa to rejoin the Hundred Immortals Alliance, but Zheng Fa said the Nine Mountains Sect could only defend itself for now.
• Zheng Fa offered to supply the Hundred Immortals Alliance with spirit talismans at a low price, and Venerable Tongming accepted the offer.
• Venerable Tongming asked Zheng Fa whether Hundred Immortals Alliance disciples could seek shelter in the Nine Mountains Realm.

Venerable Tongming negotiated to send Hundred Immortals Alliance disciples and craft practitioners to the Nine Mountains Realm, and Zheng Fa became the Nine Mountains Sect’s new Sect Leader. The ceremony ended with the island’s mortals blessing Zheng Fa, leaving Tongming regretful that the Nine Mountains Sect had left the Alliance.

• Venerable Tongming asked Zheng Fa to accept Hundred Immortals Alliance descendants and disciples in the Nine Mountains Realm as a refuge, and Zheng Fa agreed to consider suitable candidates.
• Zheng Fa asked Tongming to include people skilled in foundational cultivation crafts, and Tongming promised to choose disciples with useful skills or trades.
• Master Yuan led Zheng Fa through the inauguration vows, and Nine Mountains Patriarch approved him as Sect Leader and bestowed the Golden-Thread Dao Robe and Nine Mountains Token.
• The Nine Mountains Sect disciples and visiting cultivators saluted Zheng Fa, while the people of Paradise Island gathered to offer him blessings.
• Senior Sister Yuan transformed into an Azure Luan and flew with the Golden Crow above the Heavenly Palace Nine Isles as the children watched.
• Venerable Tongming sensed the Nine Mountains Sect’s unity, regretted failing to keep it in the Hundred Immortals Alliance, and sighed.

Zheng Fa walked Paradise Island with Zhao Jingfan and Yan Wushuang, whose visit deepened his doubts about Tianhe Sect’s treatment of ordinary people. Yan Wushuang decided to return to Tianhe Sect to gather information for Zheng Fa, believing Zheng Fa could be the way out of an approaching calamity.

• Venerable Tongming learned that Zhao Jingfan had a Dual-Spirit Root and told Azure Wood Sect’s Sect Leader to pay attention to him because of his connection to Zheng Fa.
• Zheng Fa, Zhao Jingfan, and Yan Wushuang explored Paradise Island, and Yan Wushuang reflected on how its people lived more freely than those under Tianhe Sect’s rule.
• Zheng Fa brought Zhao Jingfan to visit his mother and Zheng Shan, where Zhao Jingfan tried to help Zheng Shan with her homework.
• Yan Wushuang told Zheng Fa that Old Han believed the Wushuang Association could help him because he might become the next Patriarch Tianhe.
• Yan Wushuang said he would return to Tianhe Sect to gather information about the Xuanwei Realm for Zheng Fa, while Old Han watched him from a distance.

Zheng Fa accepted Old Han’s offer of intelligence from the Wushuang Association and received a hidden lecture on Life-bound Dharma Treasures. He learned that Yan Wushuang would share information in exchange for Thousand Grain Rice, while Seventh Young Master chose to return to the Zhao Family and take responsibility for it.

• Old Han explained why he trusted Zheng Fa more than Venerable Tianhe and gave him a jade cylinder containing Venerable Tianhe’s Lecture on Natal Treasures.
• Yan Wushuang eagerly ate Thousand Grain Rice and agreed to pass intelligence to Zheng Fa in exchange for more, while Seventh Young Master tried the rice and found his mouth numb.
• Seventh Young Master declined Zheng Fa’s offer to stay in the Nine Mountains Realm and said he needed to return to the Hundred Immortals Alliance to lead the Zhao Family and support his mother and sister.
• After the visitors left, Zheng Fa viewed the inheritance in Old Han’s jade cylinder and heard that a Life-bound Dharma Treasure was born from the body rather than forged through cultivation.

Zheng Fa reconsidered the Celestial River Method after studying Venerable Tianhe’s treasure-refining lecture, then worked with Senior Sister Zhang to establish a Merit system for the Nine Mountains Sect. The chapter ended with disciples discovering the new Hall of Worthies and hoping their own achievements would be remembered there.

• Zheng Fa concluded that Venerable Tianhe’s Life-bound Dharma Treasure method relied on the cultivator alone, and wondered whether Tianhe had sought to become something like a Heavenly Stele Realm.
• Zheng Fa visited Senior Sister Zhang and saw her and Nine Mountains Patriarch complete the Mountain-River Seal’s automated task and Merit system.
• Sun Daoyu checked the new Merit Hall and found that the sect had credited him for past work, while disciples discussed the new rules against privately granting resources.
• Sun Daoyu entered the renamed Hall of Worthies and saw statues honoring Li Nuo and Qian Zheng’s groups for inventing Talisman Seals and Thousand Grain Rice.
• Sun Daoyu and the other disciples, encouraged by the honored inventors’ lasting recognition, wanted to earn places in the Hall of Worthies.

Zheng Fa reorganized the Nine Mountains Sect’s leadership and assigned Old Yuan to run a publicity bureau that would share news and guide opinion across the Nine Mountains Realm. Old Yuan embraced the task and immediately demonstrated a talent for stirring up dramatic headlines.

• Old Yuan praised Zheng Fa’s leadership after seeing how the Hall of Worthies inspired the disciples, while Senior Sister Zhang and Uncle-Master Pang explained the hope it gave those with little talent or background.
• Zheng Fa enlisted Old Yuan as a Taishang Elder, then appointed Uncle-Master Pang to oversee the laboratory and Aunt-Master Huang to lead the Enforcement Pavilion.
• Zheng Fa gave Old Yuan Communication Talismans from Seventh Young Master and Yan Wushuang and explained that they would provide news about the Nine Mountains Realm and the wider Xuanwei Realm.
• Zheng Fa tasked Old Yuan with publishing regular issues through the World Within the Hut method, covering sect developments, new creations, and outside events.
• Old Yuan grasped the publicity bureau’s purpose and pitched a sensational opening headline about the flourishing Nine Mountains Sect and the Xuanwei Realm’s war.

Zheng Fa explained that he wanted honest news to help Nine Mountains cultivators learn from other realms and become comrades, not to consolidate his power. As he prepared to form his Golden Core, he decided to rely on Golden Core Engineering to create a method for developing Golden Core methods, and the Hundred Immortals Alliance’s disciples arrived to support the work.

• Zheng Fa told Old Yuan and the others that the news should stick to facts and compare the Nine Mountains Realm with the Xuanwei Realm honestly.
• Old Yuan and Uncle-Master Pang left to carry out their assignments, and Old Yuan headed to Myriad Immortals Island to produce the first issue of the news.
• Zheng Fa asked Senior Sister Zhang to manage the General Affairs Hall while he prepared to form his Golden Core.
• Zheng Fa told Senior Sister Zhang that he would use Golden Core Engineering to create a method capable of creating Golden Core methods.
• A little over a month later, a flying shuttle carrying dozens of Hundred Immortals Alliance disciples entered the Nine Mountains Realm.

Zheng Fa welcomed the Hundred Immortals Alliance disciples and learned about Mu Qingyan, a young alchemist carrying a Nascent Soul grandmaster’s inheritance. Mu Qingyan reached the Nine Mountains Realm to escape her enemies, but wondered how to leave and why the Nine Mountains Sect still existed when she remembered it being destroyed in her previous life.

• Zheng Fa welcomed Sect Master Song and the Hundred Immortals Alliance disciples, then asked whether any were skilled in alchemy or artifact refinement.
• Sect Master Song delivered letters from children who knew Zheng Fa’s younger sister, along with medicinal pills from Zhao Jingfan.
• Sect Master Song told Zheng Fa that Mu Qingyan possessed a Nascent Soul alchemy grandmaster’s inheritance and had faced danger from the elder’s enemies.
• Sect Master Song explained that Mu Qingyan had presented her inheritance to Venerable Tongming and him, and that he brought her to the Nine Mountains Sect.
• Mu Qingyan settled into her guest room and wondered why the Nine Mountains Sect still existed, recalling that it had been destroyed in her previous life.

Mu Qingyan, a reincarnated cultivator, tried to fail the Nine Mountains Sect’s placement exam so she could leave, but the results placed her in a foundation class instead. She arrived at the classroom to find Zheng Fa waiting for her, convinced he was her bane.

• Mu Qingyan reflected on the future calamity and decided she could not stay in the unfamiliar Nine Mountains Realm.
• After a fellow Azure Wood Sect disciple told her about the placement test, Mu Qingyan saw a chance to leave and resolved to hide her abilities.
• Zheng Fa watched the Hundred Immortals Alliance disciples take a mathematics exam, while Mu Qingyan found the later questions beyond her grasp.
• Mu Qingyan ranked in the lower middle with a low score, then learned that the results determined class placement rather than whether anyone would be sent away.
• A Nine Mountains Sect senior brother led Mu Qingyan and the other low scorers to a foundation class, where Zheng Fa greeted them.

Zheng Fa taught mathematics to disciples from the Nine Mountains Sect and Hundred Immortals Alliance, then recruited them for a Golden Core Engineering research group. In modern times, Elder Hou’s health had improved through the Farmer Stance, and Zheng Fa asked him to record his training experience as he explored how different martial arts could be combined.

• Zheng Fa explained that mathematics, especially topology, underpinned powerful techniques in Talisman Arts and could help cultivators seek the Dao.
• Zheng Fa used an illusion to show a recorded mathematics lesson, and Mu Qingyan nervously answered questions when the teacher called on her.
• Zheng Fa announced a Golden Core Engineering research group and offered Merit subsidies and positions for contributions, prompting Mu Qingyan and other disciples to register.
• Sun Daoyu told the Hundred Immortals Alliance disciples they could withdraw their registrations if they did not want to join, explaining that Zheng Fa had instructed him to make the offer.
• In modern times, Team Leader Yang reported that Elder Hou could live another twenty years, and Zheng Fa asked him to write about cultivating the Farmer Stance so Zheng Fa could compare martial arts.

Zheng Fa worked on beginner martial arts and plans for a particle accelerator to study spiritual materials, while Tang Lingwu worried about the launch of Nine Mountains No. 1 rice. The rice became a bestseller after rumors that it boosted virility, and Elder Hou revealed that the Spirit Plant Protoplast Fusion experiment had succeeded.

• Zheng Fa collected Elder Hou's and others' physical data to develop simple, standardized martial arts, and told Team Leader Yang that he could try making a version that worked without spiritual energy.
• Zheng Fa proposed building a particle accelerator to study spiritual materials and eventually produce them through Golden Core-based reactors, and Team Leader Yang secured approval for construction at Rainbow Mountain.
• Tang Lingwu anxiously watched the slow initial sales of Nine Mountains No. 1, while Cheng Yun bought bags of the rice for his parents.
• Nine Mountains No. 1 became a bestseller after online posts claimed it boosted virility, easing Tang Lingwu's worries about the company.
• Elder Hou told Zheng Fa that the Spirit Plant Protoplast Fusion experiment had succeeded, and Zheng Fa reacted with surprise.

Zheng Fa learned that modern protoplast fusion had produced stable spiritual-energy tomatoes, a technique that could expand Spirit Plant agriculture in the Nine Mountains Realm. Cheng Yun’s analysis also suggested the Divine Firmament Golden Core’s forty-one reactions might be reduced to about twelve, leaving Old Yuan to reckon with how much harder his own Core Formation had been.

• Elder Hou showed Zheng Fa, Old Man Bai, and the others tomatoes created by fusing Spirit Plant peas with ordinary crops, and explained that the tomatoes carried spiritual-energy organelles.
• Zheng Fa realized protoplast fusion could help cultivate new Spirit Plants suited to the Nine Mountains Realm, including staple crops and useful vegetables.
• Cheng Yun presented his analysis of the Divine Firmament Golden Core, calculating that its forty-one reactions might be replaced by twelve while producing the same particles.
• Zheng Fa praised Cheng Yun’s work, and Cheng Yun asked to buy more Nine Mountains No. 1 from the Nursing Home to take home.
• Zheng Fa told Old Yuan that the Divine Firmament Golden Core might require far fewer reactions than its inherited method prescribed, prompting Old Yuan to resent the century he had spent forming his core.

Zheng Fa discussed Golden Core Engineering with Old Yuan and Uncle-Master Pang, who were stunned by the prospect of simplifying core formation for Nine Mountains Sect disciples. Mu Qingyan struggled with memories of the ruined future she had lived through and rejected her senior sister’s suggestion that she missed home, ending the chapter by crushing a flower crown from the children she taught.

• Old Yuan lamented that Golden Core Engineering would let future Nine Mountains disciples form cores more easily than he had, then reviewed the project’s participants with Zheng Fa and Uncle-Master Pang.
• Zheng Fa explained that thirteen Foundation Establishment Perfection disciples would join the project and said the Hundred Immortals Alliance disciples would build their skills gradually, provoking Old Yuan to call him a rebellious disciple.
• Mu Qingyan woke from another nightmare about her thousand years in the devastated Xuanwei Realm and told her senior sister that she did not like life in the Nine Mountains Realm.
• Mu Qingyan attended Supreme Elder Pang’s Talisman Arts class, then listened as her senior sister praised the Nine Mountains Realm’s generosity and asked why she disliked it.
• Mu Qingyan told her senior sister she had gone to great lengths to leave the Hundred Immortals Alliance, then crushed the flower crown given to her by the children she taught and thought that everything she had liked was gone.

Zheng Fa introduced a strict confidentiality agreement for Golden Core Engineering, enforced by a Heart-Demon Oath, and explained how clear rules could protect research while encouraging cooperation. Mu Qingyan signed the agreement after arguing that its explicit terms were lenient compared with unpredictable secrecy.

• Zheng Fa presented the Golden Core Engineering Confidentiality Agreement to Senior Sister Zhang and asked Lin Bufan to check its Heart-Demon Oath.
• Lin Bufan confirmed that the oath had no apparent loopholes, though he noted that Heart-Demon Oaths were not usually used this way.
• Zheng Fa said the agreement would protect sensitive research and clarify what disciples could discuss, and asked Uncle-Master Pang to help improve the Enforcement Pavilion's regulations.
• Senior Sister Zhang explained that Zheng Fa's methods aimed to encourage and safeguard research in the Nine Mountains Realm.
• Mu Qingyan told her senior sister that the agreement was lenient because its rules and consequences were clear, then wrote her name on it.

Zheng Fa launched Golden Core Engineering, revealing a simplified Divine Firmament Golden Core method and assigning disciples to research its principles and the External Core Method. Mu Qingyan was shaken by the implications for Core Formation and considered studying an External Core technique before being invited to watch Yuan Taishang’s new news broadcast.

• Zheng Fa introduced Golden Core Engineering and presented a revised Divine Firmament secret art intended to reduce the resources needed to form an Upper-Grade Golden Core.
• Zheng Fa assigned the Talisman Arts Group to master the methods, while the Artifact Forging Group and Alchemy Group began investigating pill cauldrons and External Cores.
• Mu Qingyan reflected on how the new method contrasted with her dangerous, resource-intensive Core Formation in her previous life.
• Mu Qingyan considered the Vast Sea External Alchemy method and wondered whether Golden Core Engineering could help her form a Golden Core faster.
• Mu Qingyan’s senior sister invited her to join everyone watching a new broadcast made by Yuan Taishang.

The first Nine Mountains News broadcast revealed that Zheng Fa’s intervention had changed the Hundred Immortals Alliance’s fate and exposed the Azure Cloud Immortal Abode, a treasure Mu Qingyan had planned to pursue. Mu Qingyan asked to leave the Nine Mountains Realm for secret realms, but Xiao Yuying arrived seeking to study electromagnetism and offered the Azure Cloud Immortal Fruit, leaving Mu Qingyan bewildered by their opposite priorities.

• Senior Sister Yuan anchored the first Nine Mountains News broadcast, which reported on the Hundred Immortals Alliance, the Great Freedom Demon Cult, and the emerging Azure Cloud Immortal Abode.
• Mu Qingyan realized Zheng Fa’s actions had altered events in the Xuanwei Realm and decided that she needed to pursue opportunities beyond the Nine Mountains Realm.
• Mu Qingyan offered Zheng Fa a copied Vast Sea External Alchemy and asked permission to leave the Nine Mountains Realm to seek treasures and secret realms.
• Xiao Yuying arrived, offered Zheng Fa an Azure Cloud Immortal Fruit as tuition, and asked to study more electromagnetism in the Nine Mountains Realm.
• Zheng Fa explained Mu Qingyan’s request to Xiao Yuying, and the two women regarded each other with confusion over their opposite choices.

Mu Qingyan agreed to contribute the Vast Sea External Alchemy to Golden Core Engineering, while Zheng Fa accepted Xiao Yuying’s proposal in principle and planned a broader archaeological partnership. The chapter ended with Zheng Fa considering how to recruit Xiao Yuying to study ancient inheritances, though Senior Sister Zhang doubted she would agree.

• Zheng Fa offered Mu Qingyan project contributions and rewards if she stayed, and she chose to remain with the Nine Mountains Sect.
• Zheng Fa told Xiao Yuying he agreed in principle to her proposal and said he needed to discuss it with the elders.
• Zheng Fa and Senior Sister Zhang agreed that the Nine Mountains Sect should judge Mu Qingyan by her actions and reward her contributions rather than suspect her motives.
• Zheng Fa and Senior Sister Zhang found that Vast Sea External Alchemy required a special cauldron modeled on the cultivator’s body, and Zheng Fa proposed testing it and developing other External Alchemy methods.
• Zheng Fa planned to ask Xiao Yuying for additional External Alchemy inheritances and hire her as an Archaeology professor to study ancient legacies.
• Senior Sister Zhang warned that Xiao Yuying might refuse to become a tool for the Nine Mountains Realm’s research.

Zheng Fa tried to recruit Xiao Yuying as an archaeology teacher by offering access to Electromagnetism, while negotiating for her External Core Method. Xiao Yuying agreed to teach until she finished learning the subject, and Zheng Fa planned to raise cooperative archaeology with her later.

• Zheng Fa and the Nine Mountains Sect elders decided Xiao Yuying was their best choice for sharing her Secret Realm and ancient inheritance expertise, despite the need to disclose confidential research.
• Zheng Fa offered Xiao Yuying an archaeology-teacher position and said she could exchange two External Core Methods for Electromagnetism classes; she returned the Azure Cloud Immortal Fruit and offered other treasures.
• Zheng Fa showed Xiao Yuying a recorded Electromagnetism lecture, but she understood only a few sentences and accused him of choosing an unsuitable class on purpose.
• Zheng Fa explained that learning Electromagnetism would take time, and Xiao Yuying agreed to try teaching until she finished studying it.
• After Xiao Yuying left, Zheng Fa told Senior Sister Zhang he would bring up cooperative archaeology later, after Golden Core Engineering.

Zheng Fa explored how to build External Core pill furnaces by recording Senior Sister Zhang’s Primordial Spirit Dao Body as it practiced different methods. Xiao Yuying’s popular Archaeology lecture and her insight into Communication Talismans’ possible electromagnetic principles opened new possibilities for the Nine Mountains Realm.

• Zheng Fa and the others concluded that External Core refinement depended on pill furnace design and technique, while Senior Sister Zhang offered to test the three cultivation methods.
• Zheng Fa recorded how Senior Sister Zhang’s body changed as she circulated spiritual power according to the Vast Sea True Scripture.
• Xiao Yuying taught a packed Archaeology class by describing how rune styles and cave-abode layouts helped identify a Secret Realm’s age, restrictions, and hidden treasures.
• The students enthusiastically asked Xiao Yuying to teach again, and her growing popularity improved her mood.
• While Zheng Fa tutored Xiao Yuying in Electromagnetism, she suggested that Communication Talismans produced electromagnetic-like fluctuations, prompting Zheng Fa to consider their use for long-distance signals and future technology.

Zheng Fa shared his archaeological findings about the Tianhe disciple's Copper Pagoda with Xiao Yuying and proposed that they work together exploring Secret Realms and analyzing discoveries. Xiao Yuying accepted the partnership and left with the report, while Mu Qingyan and other cultivators began training for the Universal Health Checkup.

• Xiao Yuying taught her popular classes diligently because she had promised Zheng Fa and wanted her students to gain useful knowledge.
• Zheng Fa showed Xiao Yuying his report on the Copper Pagoda and proposed that they cooperate on Secret Realm archaeology.
• Xiao Yuying agreed to cooperate after Zheng Fa spoke frankly, then studied his findings about the Immortal-Slaying Method, Life-bound Dharma Treasures, and sword cultivators.
• Xiao Yuying took the report to read and left feeling dismayed that she might have overlooked more valuable discoveries in the Copper Pagoda.
• Mu Qingyan and several cultivators accepted the Universal Health Checkup assignment, and Zheng Fa offered to teach them what to measure and record.