Chapter Summaries

Li Qi explored Bailu City in the Immortal Heaven’s mortal world, learning its language and observing its dangerous, fiercely competitive society. After stopping a thief who tried to rob him, he took the thief, Ju Ye, to an inn and asked him to serve as a guide, suspecting he had been forced into robbery.

• Li Qi entered Bailu City, learned the local language, and studied its cultivators, trading customs, and unusually predatory cultivation methods.
• Li Qi observed that the city’s soldiers ignored frequent thefts and robberies, then caught one of three thieves who had tried to rob a stall.
• Li Qi returned the stolen goods to the stall owner and spared the captured thief, Ju Ye, after hearing his plea.
• Li Qi followed Ju Ye to an inn and asked him to become his guide because he suspected Ju Ye had been forced into robbery.
• Ju Ye was startled when Li Qi revealed that suspicion and wondered whether Li Qi could read minds.

Li Qi used True Knowledge to recruit Ju Ye as his guide and learned how Bailu City and Immortal Heaven’s cultivation system worked. After inspecting Ju Ye’s Law Palace, he recognized that Immortal Heaven’s cultivation focused on combat power rather than building a broader foundation, and wondered how its civilization had developed this way.

• Li Qi read Ju Ye’s surface thoughts, learned about his past and his senior sister, and offered to help rescue her if Ju Ye guided him through Bailu City.
• Ju Ye agreed to serve Li Qi, and Li Qi had him pay the entrance costs as they began their tour of the city.
• Ju Ye explained Bailu City’s costly but safe rules and described its ruler, Ming Bailu, as the region’s supreme power.
• Ju Ye outlined Immortal Heaven’s cultivation ranks, and Li Qi questioned the order of its stages and asked Ju Ye to demonstrate his Law Palace.
• Li Qi analyzed Ju Ye’s Law Palace and concluded that it compressed the cultivator’s inner world to increase killing power at the expense of a more complete foundation.
• Li Qi compared Immortal Heaven’s combat-focused cultivation philosophy with other Dao Lineages and wondered what kind of civilization it had become.

Li Qi explored Bailu City with Ju Ye, studying its stark divide between wealthy upper districts and desperate lower ones. After three days, he treated the exhausted Ju Ye to a lavish meal, where Li Qi noticed someone watching him.

• Li Qi and Ju Ye entered Bailu City after Ju Ye paid their admission fee, then spent three days touring its districts.
• Li Qi observed the upper district’s luxury and the lower district’s poverty, gangs, and desperate residents, and he drove off a robber with a casual slap.
• Li Qi realized Ju Ye was exhausted and hungry, restored some of his vigor with vital energy, and invited him to eat at a grand restaurant.
• Li Qi ordered more than four hundred dishes in the restaurant’s rooftop private room, and Ju Ye eagerly ate while Li Qi sampled the food.
• Li Qi noticed that someone was watching him.

Li Qi shared a bowl of noodles with Ou Xianqing, whose taste of the dish revealed that the Dao could be pursued through any craft, including cooking. The chapter left Ou Xianqing newly enlightened as Li Qi began transmitting the Dao in the Immortal Heavens.

• Li Qi finished sampling more than four hundred dishes, then approached Ou Xianqing and discussed their favorite foods.
• Ou Xianqing explained his refined standards for vegetables, and Li Qi asked whether he had made food his Dao.
• Ou Xianqing rejected cultivation for its own sake and introduced himself as the owner of the restaurant.
• Li Qi offered to prepare a dish in exchange for the meal, then served Ou Xianqing a bowl of plain vegetarian noodles from Zhu Fengdan.
• Ou Xianqing tasted the noodles and realized that cooking could reveal the Dao and connect to other disciplines, including battle.
• Li Qi intended to use the meal to transmit the Dao in the Immortal Heavens.

Li Qi took Ju Ye to Tiger Slaying Gate and gave him Ascension Realm power to confront the sect’s cultivators. Ju Ye’s attack overwhelmed the three eighth-rank experts and threatened everyone inside, but Li Qi stepped in to stop the torrent.

• Li Qi left Ou Xianqing in enlightenment and followed Ju Ye from Bailu City to Tiger Slaying Gate.
• Li Qi took control of the sect’s formation, sealed the mountain gate, and summoned a demon bird to guard its entrance.
• When three eighth-rank cultivators attacked, Li Qi gave Ju Ye the power to wield an Ascension Realm mech and urged him to face them.
• Ju Ye charged the cultivators, including the swordsman who had destroyed his former sect, and his crude attacks could not be blocked once he greatly increased his power.
• Ju Ye’s torrent swallowed the three experts and surged toward the sect’s cultivators, so Li Qi appeared in front of it.

Li Qi absorbed Ju Ye’s devastating attack, questioned Mo Zhanhu about the Heavenly Gate and the mortal realm’s beliefs about the True World, then watched Ju Ye judge Tiger Slaying Gate’s people. After the judgment, Ju Ye sat beside his senior sister, and Li Qi appeared beside them.

• Li Qi devoured Ju Ye’s energy torrent and found that Mo Zhanhu had survived while the other two eighth-rank cultivators had died.
• Li Qi took Mo Zhanhu aside and questioned him about the True World, the Heavenly Gate, and the three heavenly tribulations.
• Li Qi let Mo Zhanhu leave through a crack in the formation, while Ju Ye punished his enemies, rewarded some former helpers, and judged Tiger Slaying Gate’s groups according to their deeds.
• Ju Ye finished his judgment and sat beside his senior sister, who had borne three children and was pregnant again.
• Li Qi appeared beside Ju Ye and his senior sister, and Ju Ye stood up when he saw him.

Li Qi corrected Ju Ye’s judgments at Tiger Slaying Gate and urged him to develop his own principles for distinguishing good and evil. He helped Ju Ye’s pregnant senior sister leave so Ju Ye could decide what he wanted without pressure, then waited as Ju Ye reflected and gained insight.

• Li Qi identified thousands of people Ju Ye had wrongly spared or punished, healed one innocent disciple, and told Ju Ye he had done well despite his mistakes.
• Li Qi questioned Ju Ye’s ideas of good and evil and urged him to form his own Dao and principles for judging the world.
• Li Qi advised Ju Ye’s pregnant senior sister to leave and let Ju Ye choose whether to seek her out, and she departed with several children.
• Li Qi opened an exit for those judged innocent, while he and the accused evildoers stayed behind with Ju Ye.
• After about half a Chen, Ju Ye emerged from meditation with unchanged cultivation but having comprehended something.

Li Qi taught Ju Ye to establish his own standards and left him an introductory Daoist cultivation method before departing to guide other people across Immortal Heaven’s mortal realm. More than five hundred years later, the True Dao Sect founded by those he had taught had become a regional superpower, and Li Qi arrived at its mountain gate as its patriarch prepared to ascend.

• Li Qi explained his approach to Dao and cognition to Ju Ye, then left him a strand of Literary Qi containing an introductory Daoist cultivation method.
• Li Qi left Tiger Slaying Gate and spent more than five hundred years traveling through the mortal realm, guiding people like Ju Ye while observing Immortal Heaven’s stagnant society.
• People Li Qi had taught founded the True Dao Sect, which grew through cooperation and shared pursuit of Dao despite strong opposition.
• After more than five hundred years, True Dao Sect had become a regional superpower, and Li Qi traveled to its mountain gate to see what had grown from his teachings.
• Li Qi discovered that many visitors had gathered because the patriarch of True Dao Sect was about to ascend.

Li Qi explored the True Dao Sect’s city and schools, observing how its culture of debate favored abstract speculation over practical cultivation, then climbed the mountain to witness a Supreme Ancestor’s heavenly tribulation. As he waited at the summit, the innate True World sent down a communication technique, indicating that someone had noticed him.

• Li Qi entered the city beneath the True Dao Sect and listened to mortals debate the world, then visited a school where young cultivators argued about metaphysics instead of practical cultivation.
• Li Qi met the isolated student Chang You, who rejected abstract discussion and focused on studying a basic cultivation method.
• Li Qi toured the True Dao Sect’s several mountain gates and observed their early disputes over the Dao.
• Li Qi reached the summit and learned that a Supreme Ancestor was poised to ascend to the seventh rank; he confirmed the cultivator was not Ju Ye and wondered what had happened to Ju Ye and Senior Sister.
• Li Qi waited for the heavenly tribulation, but the innate True World sent down a communication technique, revealing that someone had seen him.

Li Qi observed the True Dao Sect Supreme Patriarch's ascension trials and briefly glimpsed the True World before the Heavenly Gate closed. He then watched the sect for a century, until it fell and Chang You arrived at its ruins.

• Li Qi concealed himself from a sixth ranker of the Immortal Heavens, planted a demonic thought in him, and learned how the ascension selection worked.
• The True Dao Sect Supreme Patriarch endured a lightning tribulation and defeated an identical opponent during the Self Tribulation by breaking through in battle.
• The Supreme Patriarch passed the Red Dust Tribulation by remaining conscious and still for ninety-nine days, while Li Qi studied the spiritual qi and the trials.
• The Heavenly Gate opened, and Li Qi glimpsed the True World before a force dragged the Supreme Patriarch through and the gate shut.
• Li Qi watched the True Dao Sect's fortunes for a hundred years until the sect was destroyed, and Chang You climbed its mountain and entered its former gate.

Li Qi watched the True Dao Sect decline and collapse, then saw its pursuit of the Dao take root in a new generation of cultivators. After a thousand years of guiding the mortal world, he shattered Heaven’s Gate and confronted the powers of the True World, ending the chapter as his Star Official punched through their palace complex.

• The True Dao Sect squandered its wealth, fractured in a civil war, and was destroyed, while Chang You survived its fall and reached the Ascension Realm.
• Chang You met Li Qi at the ruined mountain gate, and Li Qi later observed the seeds of the True Dao Sect’s pursuit of the Dao flourish among a new generation of geniuses.
• After a thousand years, Li Qi left his village, shattered Heaven’s Gate, and seized the Heaven’s Gate Controller as he entered the True World.
• The True World’s forces unleashed demons and a sword that destroyed Li Qi’s Dharma Aspect, but Li Qi restored it using his inner world.
• Li Qi expanded his Dharma Aspect and Star Official, broke the formation above the palace complex, and punched through the palaces.

Li Qi fought a swordsman defending a palace complex, using his inner world, Buddhist Dharma, karma, and a death substitute to survive the swordsman’s devastating attacks. After the swordsman split Li Qi’s body and inner world, Li Qi healed and countered in close combat, ending with invisible karmic threads piercing the swordsman’s back.

• Li Qi isolated the palace complex inside his Buddhist inner world, suppressing the swordsman’s access to heaven-and-earth power and preparing to reverse the realms if needed.
• The swordsman’s Martial Way Divine Intent cleaved through Li Qi’s inner world, but Li Qi used karmic threads to select a reality in which the sword draw caused disordered qi circulation.
• The swordsman drew his treasured blade and split Li Qi, his inner world, and the surrounding sea, but Li Qi survived by substituting demonic remains he had prepared earlier.
• Li Qi condensed his power into his body and struck with a star-engulfing torrent, which the swordsman cut apart with a single sword stroke.
• Li Qi told the swordsman to look behind him, revealing invisible simulated karmic threads piercing his back; the swordsman’s attacks could not affect them.

Li Qi fought Sword Lord Cai Mo for three days, using his vast mana and a battlefield-spanning web of techniques to counter Cai Mo’s superior swordsmanship. As more than twenty Heaven-Piercing Realm cultivators gathered to seize Li Qi and learn about Outer Heaven, Li Qi’s body and inner world suddenly collapsed, triggering their rush toward him.

• Li Qi used his knowledge of the battlefield and threads of causality as he fought Sword Lord Cai Mo, sustaining a stalemate despite spending far more mana.
• Observers near the Six Ink Sea discussed Li Qi’s strange dharma manifestation and speculated that he came from Outer Heaven.
• Brother Yuan explained that Outer Heaven cultivators could use Minor Dao Integration, which the others recognized as a rare chance to gain knowledge.
• More than twenty Heaven-Piercing Realm cultivators formed an encirclement, intending to capture Li Qi after Cai Mo defeated him.
• Li Qi silently assessed the gathered cultivators, then his physical body and inner world abruptly collapsed, prompting them to rush forward.

Li Qi used his inner world to lure Sword Lord Cai Mo and more than twenty Heaven-Piercing Realm cultivators into Dao Integration, absorbing them and their cultivation. After fleeing for five years, he hid in an Immortal Stone mine to study Immortal Heaven’s cultivation system before entering its True World.

• Li Qi merged his inner world with Immortal Heaven, tempting the watching cultivators with what appeared to be an opportunity for Dao Integration.
• More than twenty Heaven-Piercing Realm cultivators, including Sword Lord Cai Mo, integrated with Li Qi’s Heavenly Path and vanished into his inner world.
• Li Qi escaped while the lower-ranked spectators were left baffled by the disappearances.
• Li Qi spent five years erasing his tracks before finding a hidden mine tunnel in Immortal Heaven’s True World.
• Li Qi hid from the miners and began studying the cultivation paths of the Fifth Rank cultivators he had absorbed.

After spending more than a century studying the cultivation of the Heaven-Piercing Realm cultivators he had devoured, Li Qi concluded that the Immortal Heavens pursued their own world's Heavenly Path rather than the broader Dao sought in the realm. He entered a nearby city openly to learn about the Immortal Heavens' True World, leaving the city under Ling Xiao's guidance and unimpressed by its scenery.

• Li Qi spent over a hundred years devouring Heaven-Piercing Realm cultivators and studying the conflicts between their cultivation methods and his own.
• Li Qi recognized that Immortal Heavens cultivators comprehended their world's Heavenly Path, while cultivators of the realm sought principles underlying all worlds.
• Li Qi decided he needed to find a way into the Immortal Heavens and rose from the mine shaft after more than a century.
• Li Qi flew openly to a nearby city, where the city lord and hundreds of cultivators welcomed him and assigned Ling Xiao to guide him.
• Li Qi asked Ling Xiao not to clear the streets and followed her to a lavish building's rooftop, where he found the city's scenery no different from the mortal realm.

Li Qi studied how Immortal Heaven’s True World operated while Ling Xiao tried to paint his spiritual charm. After fifteen days, Li Qi questioned why the world’s labor, cultivation, and social hierarchies worked as they did, leaving Ling Xiao stunned.

• Li Qi praised the paintings outside, and Ling Xiao revealed that she had painted them.
• Li Qi asked Ling Xiao to paint him, but she could not find a way to capture his presence and asked to observe him longer.
• Li Qi watched the city’s transport and mining systems to understand how Immortal Heaven’s True World operated.
• Over fifteen days, Ling Xiao observed Li Qi but found she could not understand the thoughts behind his expressions.
• At a mine, Li Qi asked Ling Xiao why laborers had to mine, why higher realms had different duties, and how Immortal Heaven’s social order had formed.

Li Qi explained to Ling Xiao his theory that social oppression and distrust came from people struggling to claim subjectivity and define one another, rather than competing for scarce resources. After observing the miners for several more days, he decided to examine Ling Xiao’s side of society by holding a banquet.

• Li Qi asked Ling Xiao whether distrust arose because people could not understand one another, then connected that distrust to the crowded, impoverished mining district despite plentiful land and resources.
• Li Qi proposed that people fought to make their own sense of self dominate others, while authority and prestige let some define and objectify the rest.
• Ling Xiao was stunned by Li Qi’s reasoning, sketched him while he contemplated society, and tore up the drawing because it failed to capture his bearing.
• Li Qi continued observing the miners for several days and then asked Ling Xiao to send invitations for a banquet so he could see her side of society.

Li Qi arranged a banquet to observe Immortal Heaven’s people and stir up the city’s hidden tensions, while refusing to interfere directly in its suffering. As Ling Xiao faced probing questions from the city’s powerful figures, she began to suspect her uncle had plans for her, and Li Qi prepared to host the feast.

• Li Qi decided that changing Immortal Heaven’s existing order was unnecessary and focused on winning it over to the Shaman Path.
• Li Qi sent invitations to the city’s notable people and arranged an unlimited public feast, while Ling Xiao faced a crowd demanding information about him.
• Ling Xiao explained that Li Qi was observing everyone in the city, and the city lord expelled a man who questioned Li Qi’s cultivation.
• The city lord asked whether Ling Xiao had grasped Li Qi’s bearing, and she grew uneasy that her uncle might exploit her connection to him.
• Li Qi watched from the wilderness, acknowledging that he had deliberately stirred the city’s ambitions and tensions, then rose to prepare the banquet.

Ling Xiao returned exhausted after the anonymous invitations sparked a violent scramble, and Li Qi explained that he had left their choices to them while seeking answers from their actions. At the banquet, Li Qi transported the guests to a real bamboo world filled with extraordinary qi and twenty divine mountains bearing the auras of Heaven-Piercing Realm cultivators.

• Li Qi replenished Ling Xiao's energy and explained that he knew the possible outcomes of the invitation scramble but had not chosen for anyone.
• Ling Xiao asked to continue painting Li Qi's portrait, and he agreed.
• Ling Xiao led more than three thousand invitation holders to the banquet in the wilderness outside the city.
• Li Qi greeted City Lord Ling Hezhou and transformed the barren venue into a bamboo world.
• The guests discovered the world and its twenty divine mountains were real, with pure qi and auras left by Heaven-Piercing Realm cultivators.

Li Qi hosted a banquet for invited elites inside his inner world and offered abundant resources for everyone to take, while commoners gathered at a free feast outside. He watched both groups turn to violence, reflected on Immortal Heaven’s competitive order, and saw Ling Xiao’s painting depict an unseen figure observing the two classes.

• Li Qi welcomed his invited guests to a lavish banquet and listened as they tried to gain his favor or ask for help.
• Li Qi pointed the guests toward his sacred mountains and other resources, told them to take what they wanted, and left them to explore.
• A lower-realm laborer climbed a sacred mountain, comprehended its Dao charm, and broke through, prompting the other guests to rush for resources.
• The invited elites began fighting and killing to secure resources for their own factions, while commoners outside beat a man to death for trying to take food away.
• Li Qi watched both groups and considered how the Way of Evolution shaped Immortal Heaven’s pursuit of status and power.
• Li Qi summoned Ling Xiao and saw her painting of elites and commoners in conflict beneath a blurred shadow with clear, indifferent eyes.