Chapter Summaries

Li Qi held a farewell rite for Uncle Liu, then encountered the Jing Household’s caravan while traveling with Shen Shuibi and Old Ma. He reunited with Jing Yan, warned her that she had neglected Martial Way Divine Intent, and left with Shen Shuibi.

• Li Qi performed a rite at Uncle Liu’s tomb, taking his karma upon himself so Uncle Liu could enter reincarnation without suffering in hell.
• Li Qi, Shen Shuibi, and Old Ma spotted the Jing Household’s caravan and waited by the road to see their old acquaintances.
• Shopkeeper Jing recognized Li Qi and Shen Shuibi, learned that Shen Shuibi was now Li Qi’s wife, and sent for Jing Yan.
• Jing Yan tested Li Qi’s qi, then admitted she could not sense his qi mechanism; Li Qi told her that focusing on sword qi had led her down the wrong path because she lacked Martial Way Divine Intent.
• Li Qi and Shen Shuibi bade the caravan farewell and departed on Old Ma.

Li Qi reflected on the uncertainty of the Dao Path and resolved to spend the next several centuries clarifying his future direction and gaining knowledge at Wushen Mountain. He then visited the Sovereign of Lingxiao Kingdom, easing the people’s suffering with a spell before asking her about the Buddhist sect.

• After discussing Jing Yan’s prospects with Shen Shuibi, Li Qi considered how difficult it was to know whether one was following the right Dao Path.
• Li Qi concluded that he needed guidance from teachers and predecessors, and decided to study at Wushen Mountain and strengthen his abilities to support Shen Shuibi.
• When Li Qi reached Lingxiao Kingdom, he cast a spell that would improve the weather and reduce illness across the kingdom.
• The Sovereign of Lingxiao Kingdom arrived to greet Li Qi and Shen Shuibi, and Li Qi declined her banquet invitation.
• Li Qi stopped the Sovereign’s flirtatious remarks and asked her about the Buddhist sect.

Li Qi learned about the Western Heaven from the Sovereign of Lingxiao Kingdom and agreed to cooperate with her in expanding beyond the domain, while rejecting an alliance with Sky Swallowing. After returning to Wushen Mountain, he spent decades studying and settling himself, and Shen Shuibi discovered she was pregnant during their second decade there.

• Li Qi explained that he sought a way to suppress the demonic path and asked the Sovereign of Lingxiao Kingdom for guidance about the Western Heaven.
• The Sovereign of Lingxiao Kingdom asked Li Qi to support her dealings with the clansmen, and he offered her a chance to join his ventures beyond the domain.
• The Sovereign proposed that Li Qi, she, and Sky Swallowing expand their territories together, but Li Qi refused because he distrusted Sky Swallowing and opposed refining worlds.
• The Sovereign shared information and connections concerning the Western Heaven, and Li Qi and Shen Shuibi returned to Wushen Mountain.
• Li Qi spent seventy years studying, cultivating, and tempering himself, becoming calmer during his first decade.
• During their second decade on Wushen Mountain, Shen Shuibi discovered that she was pregnant.

Li Qi and Shen Shuibi chose to let their daughter continue gestating inside a moonlit sphere so she could absorb their Daos, while Li Qi watched the Demon Prince defeat challengers across the world and establish his Dao Foundation. The Demon Prince advanced to sixth rank and fulfilled his promise to teach Li Qi how to seal true knowledge.

• Shen Shuibi gave birth to a sphere containing their daughter, and Zhu Fengdan explained that splitting it open would diminish her talent while waiting could make her exceptionally powerful.
• Shen Shuibi chose to let their daughter absorb the fused Daos of her parents, and Zhu Fengdan protected the sphere with formations in his cave abode.
• Li Qi and Shen Shuibi watched the Demon Prince crush more than a hundred challengers, including Wushen Mountain's Yao Ji, who conceded after he reached her in close combat.
• The Demon Prince defeated opponents from major Dao Lineages over twenty years, established his Dao Foundation, and advanced to sixth rank.
• The Demon Prince fulfilled his promise to Li Qi by teaching him how to seal true knowledge.

Seventy years after sealing off True Knowledge, Li Qi had learned to perceive the world without relying on it and had settled into a peaceful life on Xuanjing Mountain. He sent Old Ma to develop a world beyond the realms, just as a surge of spiritual qi signaled that his unborn child’s egg had hatched.

• Li Qi endured years of relearning perception without True Knowledge and began to understand the courage involved in groping along the Dao Path in darkness.
• Seventy years later, Li Qi reflected on the passage of time, checked his still-unhatched child’s egg, and spoke with the aging Old Ma about his stalled path to Seventh Rank.
• Shen Shuibi explained that she was helping Mount Luofu and the Sovereign of Lingxiao Kingdom expand their venture beyond the realms, while Li Qi considered how to help Old Ma advance.
• Li Qi decided to send Old Ma beyond the realms with Mount Luofu, and Old Ma eagerly agreed to develop a world of his own.
• A sudden surge of spiritual qi reached Li Qi and Old Ma, and Li Qi realized that the egg had broken.

Li Qi and Shen Shuibi welcomed their daughter, Li Shiwei, and spent the next half year raising her while Li Qi reflected on courage and the coming conflict. As Li Qi prepared to travel to the Western Heaven, Shen Shuibi warned him that his past ties to the Buddhist and demonic paths might make the journey dangerous, leaving her uneasy despite his confidence.

• Li Qi and Shen Shuibi welcomed their powerful daughter, who eagerly embraced her mother, and later named her Li Shiwei at a lavish full-month banquet.
• Li Qi sent Old Ma beyond the domain and reflected on Zhu Fengdan’s methods, the meaning of courage, and how he should face the coming war.
• Over the next half year, Li Shiwei learned rapidly, became the child king of Xuanjing Mountain’s spirits, and summoned Li Qi to Shen Shuibi.
• Shen Shuibi asked Li Qi about his planned journey to the Western Heaven and warned that his connections to Amitabha Buddha, the Heavenly Demon, Fengde Temple, and the demonic path could attract danger.
• Li Qi argued that the journey should be safe and decided Shen Shuibi should stay with Li Shiwei, while Shen Shuibi remained uneasy about his trip.

Li Qi prepared to leave on a journey to the Western Heaven, but paused to spend time with Li Shiwei and witnessed a stone spirit awaken into Xuanjing Jade after falling and cracking. He left the jade with Niu Huang and departed, while Li Shiwei hoped her part in the event would spare her from her mother's punishment.

• Li Qi reassured Shen Shuibi before preparing to leave, then found Li Shiwei listening to Niu Huang tell stories alongside a stubborn stone.
• Li Qi told Li Shiwei he would be away, and she thought through ways to avoid being left behind or beaten by Shen Shuibi.
• Li Qi questioned Li Shiwei about her reasoning, then refused to take her along and promised to bring her a gift from the Western Heaven.
• Li Shiwei kicked the stone down a cliff after it mocked her, and the fall cracked its outer shell without shattering it.
• The stone suddenly remembered how to write, so Li Qi split it open and revealed a piece of Xuanjing Jade inside.
• Li Qi gave the jade to Niu Huang, told Li Shiwei that Shen Shuibi would decide whether her actions counted as merit, and left for his journey.

Li Qi traveled alone to the Western Heaven, where he examined its harsh landscape and the lives of the ordinary people who lived there. Puzzled that the Buddhist sect had not systematically spread cultivation in its own territory, he learned that Nyingma monks occasionally preached there and decided to seek them out.

• Li Qi left for the Western Heaven after entrusting Shen Shuibi with helping Xuanjing Jade and Li Shiwei control their emotions.
• While traveling, Li Qi reflected on how emotion, experience, and knowledge shaped thought, then decided his journey could help address what he did not know.
• Li Qi crossed from Wushen Mountain into the Western Heaven and found a barren Gobi where water flowed away toward the lower eastern lands.
• Li Qi observed a nomadic settlement around an oasis and found that its residents relied on primitive cultivation practices, with no systematic cultivator among them.
• Li Qi recalled how the Buddhist sect spread teachings elsewhere and wondered why it had not done so among its own people.
• Li Qi learned that Nyingma monks sometimes visited settlements to preach the Dharma and decided to seek them out himself.

Li Qi questioned the Nyingma monk Shakya Zaba about why Buddhism let the people of the Western Heaven live in hardship instead of spreading the Dharma. Shakya Zaba explained that Buddhism viewed death differently, leaving Li Qi to realize that the mortals’ lives continued through endless reincarnation.

• Li Qi found Shakya Zaba, an Eighth Rank Nyingma monk, and watched his rituals and teachings before approaching him.
• Shakya Zaba welcomed Li Qi into his residence after recognizing him as a powerful, long-lived senior.
• Li Qi asked why the Western Heaven remained so backward and why its Buddhas did not ease the people’s suffering by spreading the Dharma.
• Shakya Zaba asked whether hardship could be an expression of compassion, then identified Li Qi as a Shaman.
• Shakya Zaba said death was not the end, and Li Qi realized the mortals endured endless reincarnations.

Li Qi learned from Shakya Zaba how Buddhist reincarnation, awakened consciousness, and the First Fruit shaped life in the Western Heaven, while questioning whether repeated rebirth could preserve the self. He continued his journey through several Buddhist lands and landmarks, then left Sinhala Kingdom after seeing beggars beneath its lavish Buddha Statue.

• Shakya Zaba explained that all living beings were one through reincarnation and could awaken consciousness by joining the wisdom of past lives.
• Shakya Zaba said that he had attained Rank Nine in a previous life, could recall ten past lives, and could sense where he would be reborn.
• Li Qi reflected on the Buddhist idea of true nature and questioned whether reincarnation could preserve identity, while Shakya Zaba called their meeting a good cause.
• Li Qi traveled through Magadha Kingdom, saw Rank Seven monks who had obtained the First Fruit, and visited the Tathagata's Footprint Stone without gaining insight.
• Li Qi visited Malaya Mountain, failed to communicate with its prophetic snakes, and continued to Sinhala Kingdom.
• Li Qi saw the king's lavishly adorned Buddha Statue and the beggars beneath it, then left.

After half a year of travel, Li Qi reached Dakini Heaven and entered a temple, where a vision led him into the Celestial Host’s splendid realm. He recognized that the celestials’ pleasures were temporary, ending in the Five Signs of Demise and potentially a fall into hell.

• Li Qi traveled through twelve countries, killed groups who practiced blood sacrifice and Buddha-Demon Dual Cultivation, and questioned the practice’s connection to Buddhism and the demonic path.
• Li Qi arrived at Dakini Heaven, the realm governed by White Chen Fox King Bodhisattva, and learned more about her past and the temple contact introduced by the Sovereign of Lingxiao Kingdom.
• Li Qi entered a temple in Udyana Country and meditated before a statue of White Chen Fox King Bodhisattva until the temple vanished into darkness.
• The temple returned without its other visitors, and the Bodhisattva statue changed into a strikingly seductive form.
• Li Qi opened the temple door and found himself in the lavish realm of the Celestial Host, where he reflected on the celestials’ eventual demise and the suffering that could follow.

Li Qi arrived in Dakini Heaven to study Buddhism’s methods for resisting heavenly demons and prepare for the Outer Domain Battlefield. After White Chen Fox King Bodhisattva summoned him, he recognized that her interest in him might be tied to her old hatred of the Human Path.

• Li Qi considered the Buddhist undertaking of Awakening the World and how different Dao lineages used reincarnation.
• Two cultivated heavenly beings escorted Li Qi through Dakini Heaven and showed him passages connecting its various heavens and Pure Lands.
• The heavenly beings brought Li Qi to the luxurious residence arranged for him by the Sovereign of Lingxiao Kingdom, then departed.
• Li Qi left his palace to pursue his plans to study Buddhism and prepare hidden contingencies before going to the Outer Domain Battlefield.
• A fox-eared Heavenly Maiden told Li Qi that her lecture master, White Chen Fox King Bodhisattva, wanted to speak with him.
• Li Qi suspected White Chen Fox King Bodhisattva’s invitation was connected to her history with the Human Path and the war between humans and shamans.

Li Qi visited White Chen Fox King Bodhisattva, whose extraordinary beauty inspired him to devise a way to strengthen his body by turning its cells into components of a formation. After she recognized his sincere devotion to his wife and brought him inside, she asked whether he knew a characteristic of Human Emperors.

• Li Qi followed the Heavenly Maiden across the Giant Wheel and through the wheat field to White Chen Fox King Bodhisattva’s house.
• White Chen Fox King Bodhisattva appeared, and Li Qi realized her beauty came from a face functioning like a vast formation.
• Li Qi imagined reorganizing his body’s cells into formations to increase his combat strength.
• White Chen Fox King Bodhisattva teased Li Qi about his calm reaction, and he sincerely told her that his wife was more beautiful.
• White Chen Fox King Bodhisattva brought Li Qi into the house and asked whether he knew a characteristic of Human Emperors.

Li Qi negotiated an alliance with White Chen Fox King Bodhisattva, explaining that he would oppose the Human Path to protect Shen Shuibi. He learned that Human Emperors died young because they bore the immense burden of the Human Path, then prepared to travel through the heavens.

• White Chen Fox King Bodhisattva questioned Li Qi about his aims and whether he had the resolve to oppose the Human Path.
• Li Qi explained that he sought Buddhist methods to suppress the Heavenly Demon and an ally who could help protect Shen Shuibi.
• Li Qi told White Chen Fox King Bodhisattva that his decision came from years of reasoned planning, and challenged her to share the risk if he ever fled.
• White Chen Fox King Bodhisattva agreed to bear the consequences, and she and Li Qi formally entered into cooperation.
• White Chen Fox King Bodhisattva revealed that the previous Human Emperor had died from shouldering the Human Path’s immense burdens and intervening in history’s choices.
• Li Qi exchanged intelligence with White Chen Fox King Bodhisattva and prepared to travel through the heavens.

After spending two years studying and reproducing parts of the Buddhist Heavens within his body, Li Qi returned to the mortal world and began traveling home. Two Tsongkhapa lamas intercepted him, questioned him about killing their disciples, and asked whether he knew their missing junior brother Jing Bu Yan and grand-disciple Chanzhi.

• Li Qi surveyed the Buddhist Heavens and carved imperfect copies of them into the little world within his body.
• After completing his survey, Li Qi returned to the mortal world and left the temple to travel toward Wushen Mountain.
• A dark-skinned lama in a rooster-comb hat spotted Li Qi, then joined another lama to intercept him in the wilderness.
• The lamas accused Li Qi of killing their juniors, and Li Qi argued that the disciples had provoked him and tried to ambush him.
• The lama carrying a skull bowl asked Li Qi whether he knew his missing junior brother Jing Bu Yan and grand-disciple Chanzhi, noting traces of his sect's methods on Li Qi.

Li Qi realized the fifth-rank lama had used his words to complete Jing Bu Yan’s death and absorb his cultivation, then endured the resulting backlash. Though injured, Li Qi fought the lama’s disciple by invoking the Buddhist Heavens and their mountain-and-water gods, killing him at the cost of further wounds.

• Li Qi told the fifth-rank lama that Chanzhi and Jing Bu Yan were dead, triggering a power that let the lama consume Jing Bu Yan’s remaining life and cultivation.
• The lama left, while Li Qi suffered Jing Bu Yan’s backlash and began treating his injuries; the sixth-rank lama then returned to attack him.
• The sixth-rank lama used demonic fire against Li Qi, but Li Qi held fast to his mind and resisted its torment.
• When the local Earthly Deities refused Li Qi’s call, he manifested the Buddhist Heavens and commanded their mountain-and-water gods to bless him.
• Li Qi endured the lama’s close-range attack and struck him with a Buddhist hand seal, shattering his head and crushing his soul; Li Qi was badly wounded in the exchange.

After killing the lama’s disciple, Li Qi faced the fifth-rank lama while gravely wounded and unable to escape. The lama explained how he transformed foul things into cultivation, giving Li Qi an insight that resolved the Dao conflict within his body and brought him to the threshold of the fifth rank; the lama then left, claiming Li Qi owed him a life and a favor.

• Li Qi recovered enough to face the returning fifth-rank lama, who fed his dead disciple’s corpse to a Human-skin Thangka and threatened to eat Li Qi.
• Li Qi warned that killing him would earn Dakini Heaven’s enmity, but the lama decided his cultivation was worth the risk and prepared to consume him.
• Li Qi asked how eating people increased the lama’s cultivation, and the lama explained that visualization transformed the Five Meats and Five Nectars and that purity and filth were distinctions of perspective.
• Li Qi realized that a true God’s-eye view meant switching among perspectives rather than relying on one supreme viewpoint, then cultivated while treating the lama as his Dharma protector.
• Two months later, Li Qi had resolved the Dao conflict in his body and touched the threshold of the fifth rank.
• The lama departed after telling Li Qi that he owed him a life and a great favor.

Li Qi returned to Xuanjing Mountain after resolving the confrontation with the lamas, bringing new karmic debts and a breakthrough in his cultivation. He reunited with Shen Shuibi, Li Shiwei, and Yang Ning, and the chapter ended with the household feeling more like a home as Yang Ning offered to accompany him if he had to go to the front lines.

• Li Qi concluded that the lama had deliberately arranged matters so that saving him and helping his breakthrough would create a debt of gratitude, then left to return home.
• Cultivators gathered at the battlefield to inspect the traces of the fight after Li Qi departed.
• Li Qi returned to Xuanjing Mountain, where Shen Shuibi treated his injuries and noticed his fused inner heaven and earth and breakthrough.
• Li Shiwei greeted Li Qi and revealed that Yang Ning had moved in and influenced her lively behavior.
• Li Qi asked Yang Ning to rein in her influence on Li Shiwei, and Yang Ning agreed before offering to accompany him if he had to go to the front lines.

After fifteen years of quiet family life, Li Qi and Shen Shuibi let their seventeen-year-old daughter Li Shiwei leave home to join Mount Luofu’s expedition beyond the domain and seek her own Dao Path. Li Shiwei eagerly set off with Stone, while Li Qi reflected on immortality and watched her go; the chapter ended with Stone warning that her recklessness could put them in danger.

• Fifteen years passed, and Li Shiwei reached the peak of the Eighth Rank while studying Mount Luofu’s methods under Yang Ning.
• Li Qi agreed to let Li Shiwei join Mount Luofu’s expedition to the developing world clusters and visit Old Ma.
• Li Shiwei said goodbye to Li Qi and Shen Shuibi, then left with Stone as Li Qi watched her go and reflected on the nature of immortality.
• After running a thousand li from home, Li Shiwei asked Stone whether her parents could still see her, and Stone explained that they had chosen to let her go.
• Stone warned Li Shiwei that he was valuable beyond the domain, but she drew her sword and eagerly anticipated fighting anyone who tried to rob them.

Li Shiwei joined Yang Ning’s team and boarded the Treasure Gourd, a transport artifact carrying workers to Liesu. Inside its cavern-heaven, she and Stone debated how its encrypted runes worked until a young girl offered an explanation that reconciled their theories.

• Li Shiwei joined Yang Ning’s team and prepared to travel onward to the Sea Hunting Realm.
• Li Shiwei queued for the Treasure Gourd and was sucked inside, while Stone was frightened and she enjoyed the ride.
• Li Shiwei found a tower to stay in and explored the gourd’s miniature city and its runes.
• Stone told Li Shiwei the runes were too difficult for her, and they argued over how the cavern-heaven operated.
• A young girl told Li Shiwei and Stone that each of their explanations was partly correct and described how the principles fit together.