Chapter Summaries

Lu PingAn used a super-sized Steam Organ to attempt to create life, destroying the machine and dying in the process, but his experiment produced living crystalline beings. After being revived, he reflected on the nature of life and decided the experiment was only a beginning.

• Lu PingAn played the First and Second Major Keys on the Steam Organ, pouring his emotions into the music as the machine repeatedly exploded under the strain.
• The organ collapsed, Lu Mouren turned to ash, and transparent crystals containing apparent life appeared above the wreckage.
• Lu PingAn died as his body broke apart, then reappeared after a mechanism was triggered and accepted the cost of creation.
• Big Cat questioned whether the crystals contained a newborn race, while Lu PingAn struggled to define life and concluded that life could take many forms.
• Lu PingAn healed much of his damaged body, recognized that the crystals were only a beginning, and asked the multiverse whether it was watching him.

Lu PingAn experimented with giving the Wasteland’s native lifeforms organs and desires, hoping to increase the plane’s evolutionary potential. His first trial ended in the doll’s death, but the next doll inherited the experience and developed a sense of being full.

• Lu PingAn concluded that the Wasteland’s native evolutionary system functioned without outside intervention, though its lack of needs and social bonds prevented lasting civilizations.
• Lu PingAn decided to introduce beneficial mutations, using local plants and crystal hearts to alter the lifeforms and environment.
• Lu PingAn ordered a doll to swallow a crystal heart containing the Gluttony Module, which gave it a powerful hunger.
• The doll ate until it died within hours because the module gave it no way to stop, and Lu PingAn recovered the crystal heart.
• A second doll received the recovered gem and developed the desire to feel full, showing that it had absorbed its predecessor’s experience and evolved.

Lu PingAn introduced mass-produced Artificial Tear Stones that could give local elemental lifeforms experiences of appetite, pain, and fighting spirit, and secured increased support from the Martial God Church. He began another social experiment with newly reborn Fused Gorillas, hoping they would form a community instead of killing one another.

• Lu PingAn told the Martial God Church envoy that he had planned to swindle ten years of funding, and Cui Na confirmed that he was telling the truth.
• After Lu PingAn presented his results, the Martial God Church increased the project's resources and funding by thirty percent.
• Lu PingAn gave the envoy a batch of consumable Artificial Tear Stones and warned that their effects could cause lasting psychological dependence.
• Lu PingAn explained that the stones could provide elemental lifeforms with sensations and emotions such as gluttony, pain, and fighting spirit.
• Lu PingAn started the 101st social experiment by bringing newly reborn Fused Gorillas out of cold storage and hoping they would build a village rather than slaughter one another.

Lu PingAn struggled to control the emotions and appetites he had introduced into elemental life-forms, whose ape-like populations repeatedly collapsed into famine and violence. With Big Cat’s proposal to influence them through their origins, the first batch of local hybrid descendants was born.

• Lu PingAn reviewed the failures of his artificial stones and recognized that their emotional effects were difficult to control.
• Lu PingAn watched another ape village collapse as its inhabitants fought over food despite an adequate supply.
• Lu PingAn concluded that appetite accelerated the creatures’ growth but intensified their selfishness and made society difficult to establish.
• Big Cat suggested influencing the creatures gradually through their environment or contaminating their offspring during gestation.
• Lu PingAn and Big Cat decided to experiment with Crystal Trees and Flowers, and the first batch of local hybrid descendants was born.

Lu PingAn explained why he needed local trading partners and how creating a new race could help both his Life Points and the Martial God Church. After the Church’s leaders doubted his claim, they met the race he had created and agreed to invest further.

• Lu PingAn recognized that without enough Traders in this world, his Life Points would decline and he would eventually have to leave.
• Lu PingAn argued that a plentiful, adaptable local race could trade for power and support the Martial God Church’s development of the plane.
• The Martial God Church’s leaders doubted that Lu PingAn had created an energy-based lifeform and suspected he was misusing the project budget.
• Representatives of the new race visited the Church’s leaders, greeted them on Lu PingAn’s behalf, and asked about the remaining payment and future investments.
• The Martial God Church’s leaders agreed to invest fully in Lu PingAn’s other projects.

Lu PingAn used his abilities and Heaven's Favor to create a rapidly growing intelligent race called the Phoenix Ape Descendants. As they formed villages around Holy Pillars, Lu PingAn warned that they were still evolving, while the Martial Combat Church began inspecting them.

• Lu PingAn explained that his technical groundwork and unique abilities had helped his experiments succeed, and he recognized Heaven's Favor as the reason his progress had been so swift.
• Lu PingAn reflected that the world's blessing might mean his work served its interests, while sensing it would reward him with the chance to become an elemental Monarch if he abandoned his flesh.
• Bai Ju, the self-chosen Eldest Son of his family, asked Lu PingAn for more commercial films and Holy Pillars to grow their population and branches.
• The Phoenix Ape Descendants spread through villages built around Crystal Tree Holy Pillars, whose fruits matured into new members of the race.
• Members of the Martial Combat Church and other staff inspected the newborns, testing their abilities and studying their unusual plant, crystal, and animal traits.
• Lu PingAn told the church officials that the Phoenix Ape Descendants were still evolving, but he knew they would continue hurrying to inspect them.

Lu PingAn’s creation of a new species drew attention from the Eastern Kingdom and other powerful beings, earning him a place in the Xuan Wu Plan. As newborns continued to emerge, he focused on improving the race before his fading good fortune ran out.

• Officials in Wanjing learned of the new species and decided to assign Lu PingAn more resources and transfer him to the Xuan Wu Plan.
• The decision-makers described the plan as an effort to evolve humanity and sent a strategic team to gather data while ensuring Lu PingAn’s safe return.
• News of Lu PingAn’s achievement spread among powerful beings, and Rebirth Company gained recognition as a major cross-dimensional corporation.
• Lu PingAn continued his 661st test and worked to improve the new species as his world-given advantages began to fade.
• Crystal fruits beneath the Crystal Trees produced more newborns, who already knew basic language, tool use, and common knowledge.

Zhao Qian awakened as a newborn of the Phoenix Ape Race, chose the warrior path, and joined a mercenary team in exchange for food and colorful resistance equipment. Watching her, Lu PingAn assessed the race’s limits before learning that the Xuan Wu Plan’s mutated gene library could help him improve them.

• Zhao Qian awakened with basic knowledge, met her village chief, and drew a lot that assigned her to become a warrior.
• Zhao Qian completed warrior training, traded her combat service for food, and demanded colorful resistance equipment from the mercenaries.
• Researchers from the Martial God offered Zhao Qian three equipment sets in different colors after noticing her strong self-determination.
• Lu PingAn observed Zhao Qian and judged that the Phoenix Ape Race, despite its advantages over humans, might fall short at higher levels.
• Visitors from Lu PingAn’s homeland presented him with the Xuan Wu Plan’s optional mutated gene library for humanity.

Lu PingAn learned that the Eastern Kingdom’s Xuan Wu Plan pursued many possible paths for human evolution and that secret migration to habitable worlds had begun years earlier. He agreed to join the plan and began studying its research materials for his ongoing project.

• Director Zhao explained that the Xuan Wu Plan tested many evolutionary paths and would retain only safe, successful subspecies.
• Lu PingAn learned that failed experiments could be abandoned beyond Earth and that subspecies might survive as New Humans if Earth fell.
• Director Zhao revealed that the Eastern Kingdom had secretly established cities on more than a dozen habitable worlds, beginning ten years earlier.
• Lu PingAn recognized that he was one link in a much larger plan and agreed to take part in the Xuan Wu Plan.
• Lu PingAn reviewed the declassified research materials and realized he could still apply some of their findings to his current project.

Lu PingAn’s Phoenix Ape Race grew into a powerful, rapidly evolving people whose warriors adapted their bodies by taking traits from other creatures. After their population outgrew his fields, he blessed them with Black Flame, and they prepared to expand beyond their garden.

• Lu PingAn observed that the Phoenix Apes’ reproduction and brutal wars favored stronger warriors, while each generation grew larger, more powerful, and shorter-lived.
• Lu PingAn and Chris used Eastern Kingdom genetic modules and cultural materials to shape the Phoenix Apes, whose appearance and cognition became increasingly human.
• Third-generation Phoenix Ape warriors replaced their limbs with parts taken from elemental beasts and trolls, gaining new abilities through their talent for using tools.
• The Phoenix Ape population surpassed five thousand, so Lu PingAn blessed the race with Black Flame as they prepared to leave his fields.
• The Phoenix Apes learned to coat their weapons in flames and began forming legions, leaving Lu PingAn worried they might become a planar Natural Disaster.

During a progress inspection, Lu PingAn showed that the Phoenix Ape Race had rapidly developed into a civilized society and was renamed the Phoenix Origin People. The inspection team gave the project its highest evaluation and promised more resources, while Lu PingAn asked for everyday necessities to meet the people’s growing needs.

• Lu PingAn’s inspection team found six cities and fortresses, organized land use, and saw the Phoenix Ape Race producing artists and architects.
• The Eastern Kingdom envoy proposed renaming the race the Phoenix Origin People, and they agreed.
• Lu PingAn explained that the people’s emotions grew through resonance with one another and that they had developed a division of labor.
• The inspection team awarded the project maximum scores and prepared to continue providing maximum resources.
• Lu PingAn requested food, clothing, housing, and transportation supplies because unmet needs were limiting the population, and the investigators welcomed the people’s growing wants.

Lu PingAn’s Phoenix Origin Race expanded across the 200th floor, driven by hunger and a desire to evolve, and developed into a powerful warlike people. As they gained new weapons, adaptations, and a name, Lu PingAn worried that the multiverse had cast him as the creator of the Burning Legion.

• The Phoenix Origin Race’s desire to expand led Lu PingAn to realize that changing their instincts would not undo their shared social consciousness.
• Lu PingAn gave the race access to Black Flame, and its members developed powerful classes and combat techniques, including the Huang Fighter.
• The race spread across the 200th floor, hunted dragons, experimented with grafted wings, and produced its first Six-Armed Angel.
• As the race evolved specialized bodies and learned to mass-produce angels through Holy Pillars, Lu PingAn received requests to create more races and admitted he could not repeat the process.
• The Phoenix Origin Race became known as the Burning Legion, and Lu PingAn feared the name had made him the multiverse’s future final boss.

Lu PingAn met Shui BaiHe, a celebrated Scholar leading research for the Xuan Wu Plan, and joined her team to study the multiverse’s lifeforms. After a month of intensive research, Shui BaiHe proposed that he use the Phoenix Origin People to create a race of his own, leaving Lu PingAn to consider the offer.

• Lu PingAn explained how he had altered the Phoenix Origin People, and Shui BaiHe examined his research and asked about his origin.
• Lu PingAn told Shui BaiHe that his origin was All Spirits, and she invited him to work with her for a month in exchange for guidance.
• Lu PingAn joined Shui BaiHe’s research team and learned its methods while studying and collecting biological materials.
• After examining the local lifeforms, Shui BaiHe suggested that Lu PingAn create a race from the Phoenix Origin People to serve as his attendants and guards across the multiverse.

After Water Lily Lady left, Lu PingAn considered the Phoenix Origin People's growth and the limits that kept them tied to their world. He began exploring how to bring them into the multiverse by transforming them into an eternally burning legion.

• Water Lily Lady finished her research and left Lu PingAn books and assignments to continue studying.
• Lu PingAn reflected on Water Lily Lady's strength and the knowledge he had gained during their months of work.
• Lu PingAn saw the Phoenix Origin People building settlements, fighting wars, and spreading through society as mercenaries and workers.
• Lu PingAn decided against altering the Phoenix Origin People's nature after seeing how changes could cause dangerous long-term consequences.
• Lu PingAn considered making the Phoenix Origin People his followers, since their elemental bodies could weaken outside their homeland.
• Water Lily Lady suggested that Lu PingAn turn the Phoenix Origin People into eternally burning flames and make them his legion.

Lu PingAn realized he could become the Phoenix Origin People’s new source and began considering how to develop them into his own people. As the Eastern Kingdom and the Martial God Church struggled for influence over the new race, he learned that the Aus Continent had fallen and many Aus had died or become refugees.

• Lu PingAn concluded that he could become the Phoenix Origin People’s new source, giving him a reason to establish his own sphere of influence in Phoenix City World.
• Lu PingAn considered upgrading the Holy Fire Chapel and credited Doctor Shui with pointing him toward the idea, then returned to his experiments.
• The Eastern Kingdom backed the Phoenix Origin People and expanded its efforts to create human subspecies and overseas Eastern Kingdoms, drawing objections from the Martial God Church.
• Lu PingAn avoided taking sides in the political struggle over the Rebirth kin while presenting himself as a technician and researcher.
• Lu PingAn suspected the Eastern Kingdom was acting urgently because its Homeworld had been stolen, then learned the Aus Continent had fallen and many Aus were dead or displaced.

Lu PingAn learned that Australia’s collapse threatened the Eastern Kingdom’s sphere of influence and its southern defenses. He realized Dragon Moon Island, home to his faction, could be caught up in the crisis.

• Lu PingAn’s team discussed Australia’s fall, and he learned how pollution had reshaped the world’s politics and weakened the Western powers.
• Lu PingAn learned that Australia’s isolation and corporate control had left it vulnerable to collapse.
• Hua Xueyi and the others warned that Australia’s collapse could spread north through the Archipelago Alliance, South Asia, Sakurajima, and the Leighton Peninsula.
• Lu PingAn traced the threatened defensive line to Dragon Moon Island and realized the crisis could reach his faction’s home.

As rumors spread that Aus had fallen to invaders from beyond the realm, Lu PingAn considered how the conflict could threaten the Eastern Kingdom and resolved to prepare for war. He concluded that a major ocean offensive was likely already anticipated and ordered preparations for planar defensive warfare.

• Lu PingAn heard rumors about Aus and worried that the war could eventually draw him and the Eastern Kingdom into battle.
• Lu PingAn decided that he would answer a call to defend his homeland and judged that his skills suited a Pacific Ocean battlefield.
• Lu PingAn reasoned that Aus was a likely target because it was isolated, politically divided, and vulnerable to a sea-based invasion.
• Lu PingAn concluded that the Eastern Kingdom might have prepared for an ocean war in advance, including training warriors for aquatic combat.
• Lu PingAn ordered his legions to accelerate their preparations for planar defensive warfare.

With the war at home worsening, Lu PingAn accelerated his experiments to create a race adapted to Black Flame and capable of fighting the Octopus Race. The new race settled in his Courtyard and became his merchant group’s bodyguards, but the coming mobilization orders still left everyone feeling unprepared.

• Reports revealed that a coalition led by the Octopus Race had made the Pacific and nearby shipping routes dangerously insecure, while its fast Fishmen units evaded large Earth fleets.
• Lu PingAn used Wishes and repeated transformations to alter Phoenix Origin People, breeding mutations that improved their ability to wield Black Flame.
• Lu PingAn and the Phoenix Origin People merged traits as they became semi-Energy Beings, and Lu Mouren completed his Rebirth after Lu PingAn tasted death again.
• Lu PingAn taught the evolving creatures his Wave-Cut Axe martial art, which Big Cat called Wave Oscillation Fist.
• A crystal pillar rose in the Courtyard as the new race settled there, gained the ability to survive across multiple planes, and became the first long-term bodyguards of Lu PingAn’s merchant group.
• The new bodyguards rejoiced when Lu PingAn offered to take them to humanity’s homeland, but everyone still felt unprepared when war mobilization orders arrived.

Lu PingAn received the Phoenix City World's gifts and helped the Phoenix Origin People and Phoenix Fire evolve within his Courtyard, which was increasingly becoming a world of its own. A frontline deployment order arrived, and Lu PingAn learned that an eighth-rank monster had devastated Outer Dragon State.

• A blood-crystal pillar rose in the Courtyard as the Phoenix City World granted Lu PingAn authority to produce and revive Retainers, along with the title of Creator of the Phoenix Origin People and Phoenix Fire.
• Over a month, more than seventy Phoenix Fire were born and adapted to life in the Courtyard under Big Sister Little Flame.
• Lu PingAn adjusted both races, as the Phoenix Origin People became more materialized predators and the Phoenix Fire evolved into flame-bodied centaurs led by Little Flame.
• The Courtyard's energy cycle and ley lines developed until suppressing its growth toward becoming a world grew increasingly difficult for Lu PingAn.
• An official delivered Lu PingAn a frontline deployment order and reported that an eighth-rank monster had landed in Outer Dragon State twenty days earlier, destroying three towns and causing at least tens of thousands of casualties.

As people aboard the Ark prepared for the growing threat of marine monsters and Fishmen, Lu PingAn expanded the Courtyard’s Beast Transformation options with stronger Fishmen bloodlines. Testing revealed that the Phoenix Fire Clan could also undergo beast transformation, producing a new species of finned centaurs.

• Lu PingAn saw that travelers were training intensely and choosing Fishmen transformations because they feared attacks on their homeland.
• He decided to add more Fishmen bloodlines, and a poll showed that most people supported the change even if it raised their chances of drawing a weak species.
• A member of the Phoenix Fire Clan tried beast transformation and became the first flame centaur with fish fins.
• Lu PingAn confirmed the Phoenix Fire Clan had good compatibility with beast transformation, and finned centaurs emerged as a stable new species.