Chapter Summaries

Lady Luofu explained to Li Qi that Rank Threes were absolutely unique, meaning a Rank Three whose Dao resonance matched his could revive through his small world. After hearing Li Qi recount his life with Shen Shuibi, Lady Luofu approved his plans for their ceremony and his journey beyond the domain; the chapter ended with her recalling that she and the sect leader had once been like Li Qi and Shen Shuibi.

• Lady Luofu told Li Qi that any matching copy of a Rank Three’s Dao would become part of that Rank Three, and warned that someone could revive through his small world.
• Lady Luofu thanked Li Qi for helping her awaken and accepted his apology for the loss of Mount Luofu’s Great Dao Opportunity.
• Lady Luofu asked about Li Qi and Shen Shuibi’s relationship, and Li Qi recounted their journey from Great Deer Kingdom through Wushen Mountain and their life together.
• Lady Luofu supported Li Qi’s plan to hold a proper ceremony with Shen Shuibi and then travel beyond the domain to seek a breakthrough and protect her.
• After Li Qi left, Yang Ning praised him, and Lady Luofu said she and the sect leader had once shared a bond like Li Qi and Shen Shuibi.

Li Qi went to the Eastern Sea to fish and bought Seventh Rank fishing gear from a shop on East Isle. After casting his line far offshore, he reeled in a living person, leaving him stunned.

• Li Qi returned to Xuanjing Mountain, felt lonely without his family, and decided to go fishing.
• Li Qi traveled to East Isle and bought Seventh Rank fishing gear from a toad spirit shopkeeper, paying with two magic treasures and a pill made by Shen Shuibi.
• Li Qi cast his line far offshore, where the hook sank to the seabed.
• Li Qi felt a bite, reeled in his catch, and discovered that it was a living person.

Li Qi rescued a powerful old man who was collapsing and used shamanic methods to keep him alive. After a Heavenly Patrol Officer suppressed the old man’s rampaging power, he awakened and revealed that he was Shen Yijun, the man who had taught Li Qi how to fish.

• Li Qi pulled an unconscious old man from the sea, bound him for safety, and continued fishing for sixty-five days.
• When the old man began to collapse, Li Qi used shamanic characters and a grass-ash pill to try to save him.
• The old man’s blood and qi erupted, but a passing Heavenly Patrol Officer suppressed it and knocked his cultivation from Subordinate Fifth Rank to sixth rank.
• The old man awakened and recognized Li Qi, explaining that he had taught him how to fish and that his true dragon qi and divine blood had been extracted.

Li Qi rescued Shen Yijun from a curse that had trapped him beneath the East Sea for more than seventy years, then offered him a place at Li Qi’s holdings beyond the realms. Shen Yijun accepted and gave Li Qi a formula connected to Great Fire near Heart Mansion, which might link him to the Star Officials.

• Li Qi brewed wine and shared it with Shen Yijun, who ate heartily before explaining what had happened to him.
• Shen Yijun said Ao Guangxiao had stripped away his true-dragon traits and cursed him to remain sealed underwater until someone fished him up; Li Qi’s hook had finally freed him.
• Li Qi offered Shen Yijun shelter and work at his holdings beyond the realms, and Shen Yijun agreed after recognizing Li Qi’s Wushen Mountain tally.
• Shen Yijun gave Li Qi a formula said to draw upon Great Fire’s true intent near Heart Mansion, and Li Qi accepted it as a possible opportunity to connect with the Star Officials.

Li Qi and Shen Shuibi completed their marriage ceremony, which Zhu Fengdan used to bind their lives together, before Li Qi left to serve as Wushen Mountain’s envoy beyond the domain. He arrived at the Lingchou Realm near Heart Mansion, admired Great Fire, and began gathering information.

• Li Qi accepted Shen Yijun’s Star Official formulas, and Shen Yijun prepared to liquidate his assets before fleeing beyond the domain to recover.
• After Shen Shuibi emerged from seven years of seclusion, Li Qi took her to meet Zhu Fengdan and Lady Luofu, where she spoke privately with Lady Luofu.
• Zhu Fengdan presided over Li Qi and Shen Shuibi’s formal marriage ceremony and secretly linked their lives, then warned Li Qi not to depend on the bond for protection.
• Li Qi handed Shen Shuibi the world containing their daughter and set out beyond the domain as Wushen Mountain’s envoy.
• Li Qi arrived outside the Lingchou Realm, saw Great Fire illuminating the distant world clusters, and went to gather information.

Li Qi arrived at the Lingchou Realm to seek allies against the Human Path and began his first visit to a civilized world beyond the realm. After buying unusual wares from merchants, he reached the checkpoint and asked a Spirit Way inspector to inform the World Lord that an envoy of Wushen Mountain had come.

• Li Qi joined the pedestrian queue at the Lingchou Realm’s World Barrier and listened to travelers discuss trade and news from other worlds.
• When Li Qi said he came from the world, the travelers crowded around him to sell ingenious artifacts and toys, and he bought several.
• Li Qi reached the checkpoint and recognized that its inspection device used the Spirit Way.
• The inspector mistook Li Qi for a fellow Spirit Way cultivator, but Li Qi clarified that he was not one and presented his tally as an envoy of Wushen Mountain.

Li Qi revealed his Wushen Mountain tally in Lingchou Realm and was welcomed as an envoy after triggering its highest alarm. He discovered signs that the Human Path had already influenced the world through industrialized commerce, then secured a secluded grotto-heaven while hinting that Wushen Mountain would support Lingchou Realm.

• Li Qi showed his tally to an inspector, who verified it and halted the inspection line before sounding Lingchou Realm's highest alarm.
• The Lord of Lingchou Realm and other powerful cultivators gathered, and the Lord welcomed Li Qi after his tally identified him as Wushen Mountain's envoy.
• Li Qi entered Lingchou Realm and noticed that its Great Source and Heavenly Path seemed weakened.
• The Lord of Lingchou Realm linked the world's condition to a Human Path invasion, and Li Qi carefully reassured her that Wushen Mountain would not stand aside.
• Li Qi inferred that the Human Path had already gained influence through industrial production and commerce, then requested a secluded grotto-heaven to continue cultivating.

Lord of Lingchou Realm realized her industrialized world had become caught between the Human Path and Shaman Path, while Li Qi sought to prevent a rival envoy from drawing it into the Human Path. Li Qi planned to use a concealed avatar and the merchant association to challenge Lingchou Realm’s artifact assembly lines as he remained in seclusion.

• Lord of Lingchou Realm ordered her attendant to monitor Li Qi, guard against avatars, and investigate espionage.
• Lord of Lingchou Realm reflected on how Lingchou Realm’s textile trade and artifact assembly lines had shifted its society from the Shaman Path toward both the Human Path and Shaman Path.
• Li Qi concluded that Lingchou Realm’s Human Path envoy could imperil Shen Shuibi’s battle line by persuading the realm and its subordinate worlds to switch sides.
• Li Qi decided to remain in the grotto-heaven for two years while secretly acting through a concealed golden-body avatar.
• Li Qi planned to have merchant association civilizations bring Witchcraft Silkworms to compete with Lingchou Realm’s artifact assembly lines, and his golden body descended in a distant region beyond the star charts.

Mo Xiao, a wealthy merchant in Lingchou Realm, struggled to keep his production going as his resource worlds became depleted. Zhang You arrived with Witchcraft Silkworm technology and explained how it could let merchants reduce resource consumption without losing their markets.

• Mo Xiao worried that his worlds were running dry, but feared that reducing production would let rival merchants take his market and jeopardize his son's cultivation.
• Mo Xiao met Zhang You, an Eighth Rank technical envoy from Heart Mansion who had arrived to promote new technology.
• The chapter revealed that Li Qi had manipulated a chain of connections across hundreds of worlds to bring Zhang You and the technology to Lingchou Realm unnoticed.
• Mo Xiao took Zhang You to inspect his production site and asked how Witchcraft Silkworms could resolve the resource crisis.
• Zhang You explained that merchants could either lower output or use resources more efficiently, and said her technology would let them reduce production without surrendering their markets.

Lord of Lingchou Realm weighed competing offers from the Human Path and the Shaman Path as Lingchou Realm faced resource depletion and pressure to choose a Dao Lineage. The chapter left her reviewing a report about new technology that might ease the crisis.

• Zhang You showed Mo Xiao how Witchcraft Silkworms could use agricultural waste and produce higher-quality magic treasures, potentially preserving Lingchou Realm’s niche market.
• The Human Dao envoy offered Lord of Lingchou Realm a powerful new magic treasure assembly line that could fuel expansion by converting plundered worlds into treasures.
• Lord of Lingchou Realm recognized that accepting the assembly line could push her world into a cycle of conquest and force it to abandon its Shaman Path foundations, so she asked for time to consider.
• The Human Dao envoy revealed that he had arrived years earlier and quietly encouraged Lingchou Realm’s shift toward Dao conflict before the Shaman Path envoy made his own arrival public.
• Lord of Lingchou Realm returned to her office, reflected on the pressure of keeping her civilization alive, and read a report claiming new technology might solve the world’s resource depletion problem.

Lord of Lingchou Realm investigated the Witchcraft Silkworm, confirmed it came from Human Path, and used it to ease her realm’s resource crisis. Just as she hoped to delay choosing between Human Path and the Shaman Path, she learned that Fu Cao Yi Realm was preparing to attack.

• Lord of Lingchou Realm traced the Witchcraft Silkworm’s origins and, after consulting Lian Qing, learned that Liu Shenzhi, son of a prominent Human Path official, had developed it.
• Lian Qing’s son warned his father that changes were coming near their home around the Great Fire of Heart Mansion.
• After three years of experiments, Lingchou Realm used the Witchcraft Silkworm to slow the exhaustion of resources across seventy worlds while increasing production profits.
• Lord of Lingchou Realm chose to postpone adopting Human Path’s magical-treasure assembly line and avoid committing to either side.
• Lord of Lingchou Realm received reports that Fu Cao Yi Realm was preparing to wage war over Lingchou Realm’s production strategy and expansion.

Li Qi and Human Path’s Envoy Pang maneuvered through the world cluster, trying to shape Lingchou Realm’s response to the growing conflict. As covert schemes spread and factions chose sides, the Lord of Lingchou Realm realized her subordinates were slipping beyond her control and that war was approaching.

• Li Qi learned that Fu Cao Yi Realm had received intelligence about Lingchou Realm’s magical treasure assembly line and urged it to halt its war preparations.
• Li Qi suspected Human Path had leaked the information to provoke Lingchou Realm into using the assembly line and decided to test Envoy Pang.
• Envoy Pang inferred that Li Qi had influenced Fu Cao Yi Realm to retreat and ordered a plan to have void pirates seize seventeen Lingchou Realm cargo ships.
• Envoy Pang ordered an investigation into how the Witchcraft Silkworm technology had reached Lingchou Realm, focusing on Liu Shenzhi.
• The covert struggle spread through the world cluster as people and organizations took sides, while the Lord of Lingchou Realm saw her local Sixth-Rank subordinates becoming disobedient.
• The Lord of Lingchou Realm concluded that her realm was sliding toward either foreign war or civil war.

Envoy Pang’s campaign to push Lingchou Realm into war advanced as a clash killed Mo Xiao and the opposing faction’s leader, while Lord of Lingchou Realm’s crackdown intensified public anger. Just as Envoy Pang learned that Li Qi was likely the opposing envoy, the preserved ecosystem around him suddenly exploded.

• Mo Xiao’s supporters clashed with the faction favoring the artifact assembly line, and an assassin stabbed Mo Xiao during the confrontation.
• Mo Xiao and the opposing faction’s leader died, more than eighty people were killed or injured, and Lord of Lingchou Realm forcibly silenced public debate.
• Envoy Pang concluded that either civil or foreign war would drive Lingchou Realm to arm itself and rely on the artifact assembly line.
• Envoy Pang’s team prepared to meet Lord of Lingchou Realm while he reflected on Human Path’s view of Lingchou Realm as a natural resource rather than a civilization.
• Envoy Pang received intelligence that three people had developed the Witchcraft Silkworms and that Li Qi was likely the opposing envoy’s true body.
• The ecosystem outside Envoy Pang’s office suddenly exploded.

Li Qi ambushed Envoy Pang’s Human Path team, revealing that he had secretly refined Lingchou Realm’s Heavenly Path and used it to overwhelm the Sixth-Rank cultivators. Envoy Pang escaped by invoking Fourth-Rank Lü Lü Qi, while Li Qi withdrew with several captured true spirits and left Envoy Pang wondering how the refinement had gone unnoticed.

• Envoy Pang used his Legalist Small World and standards and measures to repel the Shaman Path’s attack, then recognized Li Qi outside and agreed to talk.
• Li Qi challenged Envoy Pang’s view of their ideological struggle and abruptly launched an attack with his Dharma Aspect, which contained Lingchou Realm’s Heavenly Path.
• Li Qi’s Fifth-Rank Heavenly Path and Buddhist Heavens crushed the Human Path team’s defenses, while Shen Yijun closed in and battered more than a dozen cultivators with his fists.
• Envoy Pang invoked a Fourth-Rank aura and Lü Lü Qi, forcing Li Qi and Shen Yijun to retreat after Li Qi seized the true spirits of four or five cultivators.
• Envoy Pang admitted defeat and asked how Li Qi had refined the Heavenly Path without anyone noticing.

Li Qi explained how he defeated Envoy Pang by weakening Lingchou Realm’s Heavenly Path, exploiting a trap involving Witchcraft Silkworms, and recognizing Pang’s Legalist foundations through his own knowledge. Envoy Pang surrendered and withdrew, while Shen Yijun challenged the rules that kept the aristocratic conflict from becoming a fight to the death.

• Envoy Pang admitted defeat and asked Li Qi to explain how he had exposed Pang’s foundations before returning his captured companions.
• Li Qi revealed that both sides’ manipulation of thought currents, along with species extinctions and environmental changes, had weakened Lingchou Realm’s Heavenly Path enough for him to refine it over six years.
• Li Qi explained that Witchcraft Silkworms carrying concealed Demonic Path methods had triggered demonic thoughts in Envoy Pang’s team, exposing Pang’s people through the terminal communications they had sent to Chang’an.
• Li Qi identified Envoy Pang’s Legalist foundations from his knowledge of the lineage, and Pang conceded, resigned his position, and yielded the world cluster.
• Li Qi returned the captured true spirits, and Envoy Pang’s team departed; Shen Yijun then criticized Li Qi for sparing them and questioned the rules of aristocratic warfare.
• Li Qi said the conflict was still a contest for favorable terrain and that sparing prisoners prevented retaliation, but he noted that etiquette would end once the battle lines were set.

After settling Lingchou Realm, Li Qi traveled to Great Fire to contact a Star Official and learn about the orthodox Divine Path. His sacrifice summoned a Star Official whose body was formed from a constellation of worlds, and it asked Li Qi why he had summoned it.

• Li Qi told the Lord of Lingchou Realm that he would return the refined Heavenly Way and would not force her to join the Shaman Path, then left for the extraterritorial dock.
• Li Qi traveled by Ghost Chariot to Liesu, transferred through a Liesu branch, and reached a Divine Path world near Great Fire.
• Li Qi found the Divine Path's territory eerily lifeless, with sealed worlds and no beings or vessels outside them, and searched for months without finding anyone to speak with.
• Li Qi performed a Shamanic sacrifice in the void to contact a god, and the surrounding worlds assembled into a vast, pale-blue constellation-shaped Star Official.
• Li Qi recognized that the Star Official's body consisted of worlds and that its inner world and Dao were Heaven and Earth themselves, before it asked why he had summoned it.

Li Qi summoned Star Lord Xin Zhao and learned that orthodox Star Officials were living Heavenly Paths whose vast true bodies housed worlds, while golden bodies let them act across the void. Xin Zhao guided Li Qi toward Great Fire for three and a half years, and they reached its outskirts as its immense pressure began dispersing Xin Zhao’s avatar.

• Li Qi summoned a Star Official, and Xin Zhao answered, asking why the Shaman had called him.
• Li Qi explained his Wushen Mountain lineage and asked Xin Zhao for directions to Great Fire; Xin Zhao tested his knowledge, accepted his answer, and formed a golden-body avatar.
• Xin Zhao guided Li Qi through the void for three and a half years, while Li Qi observed the Star Officials’ worlds and the lives sheltered within them.
• Li Qi and Xin Zhao drew within tens of thousands of miles of Great Fire, whose pressure began to disperse Xin Zhao’s Dharma body while Li Qi remained unaffected.

Li Qi reached Great Fire and used Shen Yijun’s incantation to enter it, where he met Xinluo, a god still gestating within the star. The encounter ended when another god’s immense power descended, and Li Qi realized Martial Dao Inner Qi imitated the breathing of Ziwei Heavenly Court gods.

• Star Lord Xin Zhao brought Li Qi to Great Fire, then left him to explore the star’s surface.
• Li Qi activated Shen Yijun’s incantation, causing Great Fire’s gravity to return and draw him inside.
• Li Qi spoke with a mysterious voice about the taste and consumption of qi, then learned the speaker was named Xinluo.
• Xinluo said she was a god from Great Fire who had not yet been born, and Li Qi identified her as belonging to the Ziwei Heavenly Court lineage.
• Xinluo suddenly vanished as a terrifying power from another god descended upon Li Qi.

Li Qi endured a series of escalating attacks from a powerful Ziwei Heavenly Court deity, whose chaotic energy threatened to consume his body and inner world. After activating the True Knowledge Dao Charm, he uncovered the nature of the attack and began to suspect that Martial Dao Inner Qi was a degraded form of Primordial Chaos Qi.

• A descending deity struck Li Qi with immense chaotic energy, shattering his body and ravaging his inner world.
• Li Qi rebuilt his body and expelled the first attack’s energy, then used his Dharma manifestation and other techniques to repel further strikes.
• The deity’s attacks grew more powerful and ordered, overwhelming Li Qi’s defenses and leaving him near death.
• Li Qi released the restrictions on his bodily microcosm and unsealed the True Knowledge Dao Charm.
• The Dao Charm revealed that the so-called Martial Dao Inner Qi consisted of tiny crystals that devoured matter and qi, leading Li Qi to wonder whether martial arts imitated the Heavenly Court’s beginning and Martial Dao Inner Qi was degraded Primordial Chaos Qi.

Li Qi transformed his inner heaven and earth into Chaos Qi and reached the threshold of the fifth rank while communicating with a god. He learned that the god was a Fire Official and discovered that the unborn god Xinluo could be a tempting source of nourishment.

• Li Qi recognized the descending Chaos Qi as the origin of all Qi and used it to evolve his circulation method.
• Li Qi collapsed his inner heaven and earth into Chaos Qi, gaining a more natural foundation and touching the barrier of the fifth rank.
• The god's attack merged with Li Qi and transmitted information, allowing them to communicate through synchronized thoughts.
• The god introduced himself as a Fire Official and warned Li Qi that contacting an unborn god without authorization was taboo.
• The Fire Official explained that unborn gods were fragile and effective tonics, and Li Qi realized Xinluo had seemed delicious to him.