Chapter Summaries

Lu PingAn told the Inner Circle that the Courtyard could become an Ark for traveling to Other Worlds and smuggling back valuable things. He left them with the prospect of exploring the Outer Realms together rather than worrying about transaction taxes.

• Lu PingAn revealed that he planned to make the Courtyard the group's strongest support and bring things back from the Other World.
• Guan Xinxian and the others discussed the conventional methods of interworld travel: foreignization and divine power.
• Lu PingAn explained that a divine kingdom, or a god's Ark, was the only known stable and efficient route between worlds.
• Lu PingAn said the Courtyard could let them keep and absorb goods that would otherwise be confiscated by customs.
• Lu PingAn urged Big Cat, also called Chris, to stop focusing on local taxes and consider the greater profits from the Outer Realms.

Lu PingAn and the Special Task Force arrived in Changping for their examinations, where he met with the future employees of his Trading Ground security company and discussed recruiting a talented potion maker. He asked the two women why they wanted to build an independent, locally focused company, and they began to explain.

• Lu PingAn and the Special Task Force reached Changping and completed their paperwork at the newly built Provincial General Bureau of Anomalous Affairs.
• Lu PingAn regrouped with Xia Qin, Cat Cat, and the others before heading to their hotel for preparations and training.
• Guan Xinxian, Miss Lu Lu Lu, and Hua Xuejie discussed the examination and their planned subcontracted Security Company with Lu PingAn.
• Miss Lu Lu Lu gave Lu PingAn the contact information for Rou Lailai, a gifted Potion Department graduate student interested in joining a club.
• Lu PingAn asked Miss Lu Lu Lu and Hua Xuejie why they wanted to remain local and establish an independent Security Company, and the two women began to answer.

Hua Xueyi told Lu PingAn how a Pollution Incident had devastated her hometown and left its surviving residents mutated, impoverished, and ostracized. Lu PingAn decided to visit the town and consider helping resettle its people, while Hua Xueyi and her companions returned to prepare for exams beginning in two days.

• Hua Xueyi explained that cultists had turned her hometown into a secret realm, leaving survivors with lasting injuries and mutations even after Keepers rescued them.
• Hua Xueyi described her efforts to support the isolated survivors, including her family, by starting an association and seeking work for them.
• Lu PingAn learned that the mutated residents struggled to find jobs, faced discrimination, and rarely went to cities or larger towns.
• Lu PingAn said he would visit the town and considered resettling its residents, who might also provide workers for his expanding businesses.
• Hua Xueyi and the others left to handle association matters and prepare for exams scheduled in two days.

Lu PingAn struggled through the first day of the Secret Keeper Qualification Examination, relying on cheating to earn an estimated 120 points while Cat Cat despaired over her own answers. The second day's written exam began with a question forcing examinees to choose between sacrificing a lover and sacrificing thousands of people.

• Lu PingAn found the first day's experience-based exam nearly impossible, though he answered a few questions he recognized.
• Big Cat predicted she could score around 250 points, while Lu PingAn aimed for about 150 and Cat Cat appeared unlikely to answer much at all.
• Lu PingAn used an ability jammer to cheat and left the exam early, estimating that he had earned around 120 points.
• Cat Cat panicked at the hotel after realizing she might have answered almost nothing, and Lu PingAn reassured her that she could still pass through later exams.
• Lu PingAn began the second day's written exam and encountered a scenario asking whether to sacrifice his lover or thousands of people to suppress a sealed evil god.

Lu PingAn used Big Cat and Fang Wen’s expertise to answer the second-day exam’s vague scenarios as practical tests of a Professional Keeper’s judgment and capability. He filled the extra sheets with unconventional but workable plans, and the proctor sealed his answer paper after Spirit Sight revealed it had become a Pollution Item.

• Lu PingAn complained that the exam’s long subjective questions seemed like moral dilemmas, but Big Cat explained that they tested practical ability and helped him answer.
• Big Cat taught Lu PingAn to investigate each threat, assess the extent of corruption, and choose realistic countermeasures rather than get distracted by emotional details.
• Lu PingAn and his advisers developed increasingly elaborate solutions, including using one evil god against another, and filled the extra answer sheets.
• The proctor sensed that Lu PingAn’s exam paper had become a Pollution Item, asked about his Scholar class, and sealed the paper before letting him leave.

After the first stage of the examinations, Lu PingAn assessed his combat readiness and learned that the Explorer Qualification had a high minimum strength requirement. Xia Qin revealed that her master, Silk Domain Sword Saint Kun Ba, had arrived, and Lu PingAn agreed to meet him.

• During the day off, Cat Cat believed she had failed the moral test, though Lu PingAn thought the remaining examinations might suit her better.
• Xia Qin sparred with Lu PingAn and judged that he had enough combat strength for the Professional Keeper Qualification, but warned him to avoid using Little Flame unless necessary.
• Over drinks, Xia Qin told Lu PingAn that the Explorer Qualification required at least Tier 4 combat strength, though the exam itself remained tightly guarded.
• Lu PingAn noted that the qualification examinations were drawing powerful Professionals to the prefectural capital and could bring together fighters ranging from Tier 3s to Rule-level experts.
• Xia Qin found a message saying her master had arrived, and Lu PingAn agreed to meet Silk Domain Sword Saint Kun Ba.

Lu PingAn visited Sword Saint Kun Ba with Xia Qin and received a chance to test his abilities against him. Kun Ba overwhelmed Lu PingAn in a spar, but praised his talent and offered to introduce him to combat profession schools.

• Kun Ba assessed Xia Qin's rapid progress and said he might teach her more advanced techniques if she kept improving.
• Kun Ba explained that Sword Saints used vows and Self-Curses to forge their bodies and minds into weapons, inspiring Lu PingAn to consider his own path.
• At Xia Qin's request, Kun Ba agreed to give Lu PingAn pointers and moved them to a training Demi-Plane.
• Lu PingAn unleashed his abilities and attacked Kun Ba, but Kun Ba easily defeated him and left Zhi Xi, Little Flame, and the battlefield tree incapacitated.
• Kun Ba praised Lu PingAn's talent and offered to introduce him to combat schools after learning that Lu PingAn had become a Professional only recently.

Lu PingAn and Xia Qin discussed Kun Ba’s abilities and why he had not shared his plans with them. Lu PingAn decided they should explore Twilight Hour despite its danger, convinced the dying world would bring him a great harvest.

• Xia Qin explained that Kun Ba’s Softening Rune and innate ability let him soften objects for defense and movement.
• Lu PingAn realized Kun Ba had not intended to share information with them because he saw them as newcomers outside his circle.
• Xia Qin warned that exploring the same world as powerful figures would reduce their chance of survival.
• Lu PingAn said they were likely to meet those figures in Twilight Hour and argued that its rewards were too great to miss.
• Lu PingAn described Twilight Hour as a world nearing destruction, where demons and powerful outsiders would gather for a final feast.
• Lu PingAn concluded that arriving in the doomed world would bring him a bountiful harvest.

After Kun Ba assessed Lu PingAn’s combat strengths and weaknesses, he gave him extensive advice on improving his army and personal fighting skills. Zhi Xi found a possible path to becoming a Sword Saint, while Xia Qin resolved to train harder so she could guide her.

• Lu PingAn returned to the Gymnasium and intensified his practical combat training after meeting Kun Ba.
• Kun Ba identified weaknesses in Lu PingAn’s mobility, martial techniques, army composition, and tactics, and recommended ways to strengthen them.
• Kun Ba offered to provide names of Black Markets and vendors where Lu PingAn could seek rare magic plants and abilities.
• Zhi Xi asked if she could become a Sword Saint, and Lu PingAn recognized that her body and mental strength suited the path.
• Kun Ba agreed to guide Zhi Xi after she gained a Rank 2 Swordsman Profession and learned the required specialties, Combat Skills, and ability combinations.
• Xia Qin decided to train harder so she could guide Zhi Xi and maintain her seniority over Lu PingAn’s Construct.

Lu PingAn took the first practical skills test, enduring a sealed source of contamination without difficulty. His Spirit Sight intensified the pressure on the other examinees, and the proctors sent him out with full marks as the next batch prepared to enter.

• Cat Cat arrived at the exam in high spirits, while the other examinees doubted she could pass.
• The examinees entered a room with a mechanically modified eyeball that tested their resistance to contamination, and several were disqualified after mutating or losing focus.
• Lu PingAn used Spirit Sight to study the eye, drawing the proctors’ attention as it began outputting more contamination than intended.
• The proctors told Lu PingAn to leave and awarded him full marks, warning him not to harm the other examinees.
• After Lu PingAn left, the pressure eased, and several examinees chose to withdraw rather than risk their later tests.

Lu PingAn excelled in the Secret Keeper Practical Skill Test by using his abilities and helpers to solve cases and pass varied challenges. He returned to the inn with the struggling Cat Cat, confident that only the final combat examination remained.

• Lu PingAn solved three murder cases and a lie-detector test, using logic and Spirit Sight to identify the culprits.
• Lu PingAn scored well across the day's tests with help from veteran craftsmen and Beast Tamers, demonstrating knowledge of magical creatures, traps, foreign customs, and evil gods.
• Lu PingAn considered how the great reform could change the availability of knowledge and recognized that he needed to prove his ability for the work ahead.
• Lu PingAn completed the remaining practical tests and concluded that passing should be easy unless he failed the final combat test.
• Lu PingAn dragged Cat Cat back to the inn after the practical examination, and Cat Cat bit him.

Lu PingAn completed the Secret Keepers Qualification Examination’s practical test with ease and learned how the profession’s training system and the newly changed exam worked. He passed, though the chapter ended before revealing the full details of his result.

• Lu PingAn reflected on Secret Keepers as the foundation of the Professional system and a path passed down through generations.
• Lu PingAn cleared the practical test’s waves of simulated monsters, stopping before he risked damaging the examination hall.
• Lu PingAn observed that many candidates were far stronger or stranger than ordinary examinees, including people who seemed like sealed-away old monsters.
• Xia Qin explained that the practical test had changed from candidates fighting one another to a simulated monster trial, and that the Secret Keepers exam had been made easier as the Explorer Qualification became the higher-level certificate.
• Lu PingAn received his Secret Keepers Qualification results sooner than expected and passed, though the result was unusual.

After earning 675 points on the Secret Keepers examination, Lu PingAn and Xia Qin turned their attention to the upcoming Explorer Examination. Its organizers announced there would be no written test, leaving Xia Qin’s intensive studying useless for the moment and the examinees facing an unexpected new format.

• Lu PingAn checked his 675-point score, learned that Cat Cat had scored 88, and saw that the passing cutoff was 371 points.
• Xia Qin reflected on Lu PingAn becoming a Professional, then discussed with him the lack of information about the Explorer Examination and their need for someone on the team to pass.
• Lu PingAn and Xia Qin noted that the Secret Keepers pass rate had surged, while Lu PingAn reassured Xia Qin that the qualification would become less valuable after reforms.
• The Explorer Examination organizers announced there would be no written examination, shocking the examinees who had been studying otherworldly subjects.
• Xia Qin told Lu PingAn a rumor that Rule-level candidates had wrecked an examination hall and the Ministry of Education after a trial test, and Lu PingAn suspected the written test had been dropped to avoid blocking combat talent.
• Lu PingAn set aside his study books, while Xia Qin lamented her wasted cramming and he tried to comfort her.

As Lu PingAn accelerated his training and planned for an expedition to the outer domains, he learned that two members of his group had become Tier 0 Professionals. The Explorer and Secret Keeper Qualification Examinations began with a brief, lethal Rule-level pollution outbreak, and Lu PingAn and Xia Qin faced the released eyeball.

• Lu PingAn intensified his cultivation and Cat Cat’s training while planning to seek opportunities in the outer domains.
• Mei Yuge and Tian Xi called Lu PingAn to tell him they had become Tier 0 Professionals, while Sister Simir was close to advancing.
• The authorities announced three examination subjects over two days, and many examinees withdrew after learning the first was an Anti-Pollution Test.
• Lu PingAn and Xia Qin chose to take the test, which required them to survive for one minute in a room with an unrestrained eyeball producing a Rule-level pollution outbreak.
• The first test began after the examinees signed waivers for accidental death.

Lu Xinghui and other Secret Keepers faced Rule-level pollution during the first round of testing, and many were overcome or mutated. Number 7 remained unharmed beside the pollution source and wondered whether it had activated.

• Lu Xinghui chose to attempt the test despite the danger, hoping to break through his third-tier bottleneck and gain access to the outer realms.
• Rule-level pollution overwhelmed Lu Xinghui, mutating his body until he lost consciousness.
• The staff sealed and treated affected examinees, while the extermination team was ordered to deal with Number 17 after he completely lost control.
• The monitoring team noticed Number 7 standing beside the pollution source and warned him not to move.
• Number 7 said he felt nothing and asked whether the source had activated.

Lu PingAn discovered that Life's Deferred Payment could halt contamination-induced mutations, and he spent the day using it to save dozens of candidates. After returning to the hotel, he found Xia Qin and Guan Xinxian recovering well, while they discussed the mysterious healer they did not recognize as Lu PingAn.

• Lu PingAn passed the contamination test without noticing its effects, then saw that many candidates had suffered severe mutations.
• Lu PingAn patted a half-mutated candidate and halted his mutation, realizing that his ability could defer contamination's cost.
• Lu PingAn explained that he could divide the mutation's effects over time, and the rescue team asked him to help other candidates.
• Lu PingAn worked through the day in a protective suit and saved several dozen people from worsening mutations.
• Lu PingAn returned to the hotel and confirmed that Xia Qin and Guan Xinxian had endured the test without serious harm.
• Xia Qin and Guan Xinxian praised the mysterious Man in Black healer, while Lu PingAn struggled to respond.

The Explorer Examination was postponed by a day after the first test left many candidates injured or reconsidering their plans, and the remaining applicants prepared for an interview. Lu PingAn explained the limits of his new contamination-mitigation ability to his companions, then faced five examiners and was asked to justify why he should become an Explorer.

• The organizers postponed the examination by one day because many candidates were recovering from the first test, and many others withdrew after seeing how contamination affected them.
• The first round reduced the candidates to a survival rate of roughly 8 to 15 percent in each state, making the Explorer Qualification Examination exceptionally difficult.
• Lu PingAn celebrated with his group and revealed that he had been the Man in Black, explaining that his new ability reduced contamination's effect on physical mutation to one-third but could not make excessive exposure safe.
• The one-day postponement led to the second test's interview question being leaked, but the examiners kept the examination unchanged.
• Lu PingAn entered a room with five examiners, who asked him why he should become an Explorer and what advantages and contributions he could offer.

Lu PingAn presented his research achievements, professional abilities, and military record to convince the examiners he could contribute as an Explorer. He passed the interview, but the examiners then required him to prove his strength in a final combat test.

• Lu PingAn explained that his Gardener patents and research could bring valuable magical plants and knowledge back from other worlds.
• He told the examiners he was a Tier 2 Pactbearer with multiple professions and was advancing toward Tier 3 Gardener.
• The examiners verified his record, including two S-rated missions and a Lantern Bearer Gold Medal, and discussed his qualifications.
• The examiners confirmed that Lu PingAn had passed the assessment.
• As Lu PingAn prepared to leave, the examiners stopped him and asked him to choose one of them for the final actual-combat test.

Lu PingAn easily passed the Explorer qualification assessment and attended a briefing on the Mending the Heavens Plan. The briefing left him reconsidering his plans, and three days later Big Cat proposed a high-stakes gamble.

• Lu PingAn set up his defenses for the assessment, but the veteran examiners declared that his combat pets and profession systems already met the requirements and passed him without a fight.
• Lu PingAn completed the paperwork, received a temporary certificate copy, and was directed to a thirty-minute pre-job training session.
• Lu PingAn joined the other candidates in a cinema-like hall, where he and the others waited for the briefing to begin.
• Premier Song explained the Mending the Heavens Plan and the Explorers’ role in it, leaving Lu PingAn and the other attendees silent as they departed.
• Three days later, Big Cat told Lu PingAn they should gamble everything on one decisive attempt.

After the Explorer exam, Lu PingAn learned that he and Guan Xinxian had passed while Xia Qin had failed. He explained that the exam favored scarce technical specialists, then tried to cheer Xia Qin up by teasing her about other failed candidates.

• Lu PingAn returned to the hotel and told Xia Qin he had passed, while Cat Cat mocked him for announcing it when Xia Qin had failed.
• Lu PingAn explained that he and Guan Xinxian were assessed as rare technical specialists, while Xia Qin faced a much harder combat test as a fighter.
• Xia Qin described having to last a minute against two examiners, while Guan Xinxian and Lu PingAn passed with easier practical assessments.
• Lu PingAn called Su Zhizhu and taunted him about failing; Su Zhizhu said he had passed, and Lu PingAn concluded that Ba Manzhen had failed too.
• Lu PingAn tried to comfort Xia Qin by saying her failure would not affect their plan, so Xia Qin pinched and tugged his cheeks.