Chapter Summaries

Wang Chengyuan nearly succumbed to a wicked ancient incense-offering cultivation method before Void True Lord saved him and ordered the sect’s old methods destroyed. After months of cultivating with the You Kingdom’s incense offerings, Li Qingyun reached the limit of the Fourth-Order Thunder Emperor and prepared to challenge the Dao Lord for the Fifth-Order Thunder Venerable divine rank.

• Wang Chengyuan tried an ancient incense-offering cultivation art and was polluted until Void True Lord’s warning brought him back to his senses.
• Void True Lord destroyed the jade slip, explained that Li Qingyun’s pure radiance came from his fortune and experiences, and ordered Wang Chengyuan to destroy the sect’s remaining old methods.
• Li Qingyun’s incense-offering aura reached a bottleneck, so he stayed in seclusion to deepen his lightning arts instead of returning to Immortal Ghost Heaven.
• Miaoxuan and Nangong Fengchuan took advantage of Li Qingyun guarding the present world to gather Black Earth Yang Fire, while Lingbao Sect prospered.
• After nearly half a year of cultivation, Li Qingyun reached the Fourth-Order Thunder Emperor’s limit and entered the lightning arts Great Dao sequence to challenge the Dao Lord.
• True Lord Peng Tai entered the sequence, saw Li Qingyun’s lightning lotuses, and was shocked by how quickly he had gained enough foundation to assault the Fifth-Order Thunder Venerable rank.

Li Qingyun fought the Dao Lord guarding the Fifth-Order Thunder Venerable Divine Position, using his immense lightning method foundations to withstand its attacks and force his way upward. After Li Qingyun persisted despite severe damage to his Lightning Spirit Divine Body, Thunder Altar Dao Lord Yu Chen stopped obstructing him, and Li Qingyun continued toward the divine seat.

• Li Qingyun ascended the Great Dao Staircase on thunder lotuses as a Dao Lord appeared above the Three-colored Thunder Venerable Divine Seat.
• The Dao Lord struck Li Qingyun with a gigantic thunder-patterned palm, but Li Qingyun summoned successive thunder lotuses to resist and destroy it.
• The Dao Lord unleashed repeated palm strikes while Li Qingyun pushed upward, suffering devastating damage to his Lightning Spirit Divine Body.
• Li Qingyun declared that the Dao Lord could not stop him, and continued fighting despite losing much of his body and lightning method foundations.
• Thunder Altar Dao Lord Yu Chen acknowledged Li Qingyun's persistence, withdrew its obstruction, and told him to seek it after ascending.
• Li Qingyun laughed and rode thunder lotuses toward the fully manifested three-colored divine seat.

Li Qingyun ascended to the fifth-rank Thunder Venerable position and discovered four sixth-rank Thunder God seats above him. True Lord Peng Tai tried to exploit the moment to claim the same position, but Li Qingyun rejected his threats and struck him back down.

• Li Qingyun gained the authority of a fifth-rank Thunder Venerable and sensed four Void Sky Dao Lords occupying the sixth-rank Thunder God seats.
• Li Qingyun recognized the Divine Firmament Demon Subduing Dao Lord among them and sensed that the other three Dao Lords had grown senile and unresponsive.
• True Lord Peng Tai saw the Dao Lord’s obstruction disappear and attempted to ascend, believing Li Qingyun’s injuries would keep him from interfering.
• Li Qingyun used his new Thunder Venerable authority to strike Peng Tai with a thunder palm and send him plummeting toward the fourth-rank seat.
• Peng Tai offered an alliance between Xushen Palace and the Lingbao Sect, but Li Qingyun refused and warned him to abandon his hopes of ascending.

Li Qingyun advanced to the fifth-order Thunder Venerable rank, foiled Peng Tai’s curse, and returned to Immortal Ghost Heaven to pursue further advancement. At the superior spirit platform, he confronted a black-robed entity and used his thunder-magic to suppress the temple’s eerie phenomena.

• Peng Tai tried to ascend again after Li Qingyun left the thunder-magic Dao space, but Dao Lord Yu Chen knocked him back to his divine seat.
• Peng Tai’s Death Mandate Scroll curse failed against Li Qingyun’s Jade Pure Profound Light and rebounded, injuring Peng Tai.
• After three days of recovery, Li Qingyun entered Immortal Ghost Heaven and met True Lord Ruoxi, Ning Fenghe, Su Yuhuang, and the other cultivators near the Ancient Array Gate.
• Li Qingyun and the others used their Heavenly Origin Tokens to open the array gate, and Li Qingyun appeared in the dark temple atop the superior spirit platform.
• When a black-robed Daoist entity called him a sinful living being, Li Qingyun manifested his Thunder Venerable symbols and suppressed the temple’s eerie forces.

Li Qingyun advanced toward Life Gate Realm Great Perfection by hunting fiends in Immortal Ghost Heaven, while remote curses strengthened his Soul Corpse Body. After observing the worsening lives of the former Li dynasty descendants and welcoming New Year visitors at the Lingbao Sect, he received an unexpected visit from Lu Liqian and her son.

• Li Qingyun suppressed a Saint-marked immortal fiend with the Fifth-Order Thunder Venerable divine office, then spent five days grinding it to ashes and absorbing its Heavenly Origin Qi.
• Over the following months, Li Qingyun hunted fiends across Immortal Ghost Heaven and opened a total of one hundred and one minor heavenly gates, bringing his cultivation close to Life Gate Realm Great Perfection.
• Li Qingyun redirected repeated curses from True Lords onto his mysterious Soul Corpse Body, whose left arm nearly thawed, though its cultivation remained stuck at the Nascent Soul Transformation Realm.
• Li Qingyun secretly observed the former Li dynasty descendants and saw that Li Yan and the others in the Fu Kingdom suffered poverty and abuse under the Rotten Moon Palace, but he chose not to intervene.
• Li Qingyun welcomed New Year visitors at the Lingbao Sect and gave disciples and elders valuable cultivation resources as red envelopes.
• Lu Liqian arrived at Qingyun Mansion with her twelve- or thirteen-year-old son to offer New Year greetings to Li Qingyun.

Li Qingyun welcomed Lu Liqian and her son Yan Chaoyun, whose struggles in the Yan household had brought them to seek his protection. He offered Lu Liqian the chance to leave with Chaoyun and start over in Southern You, but she refused because her son belonged with the Yan family.

• Li Qingyun sent Meng Shan to welcome Lu Liqian and Yan Chaoyun to Qingyun Mansion.
• Meng Shan escorted the mother and son into the hall, where they knelt and paid respects to Li Qingyun.
• Li Qingyun addressed Lu Liqian as Senior Sister and reassured her that he knew about her difficulties.
• Li Qingyun offered Lu Liqian the chance to take Chaoyun to Southern You and begin a new life.
• Lu Liqian refused, explaining that Chaoyun bore the Yan surname and belonged there.

Li Qingyun settled Lu Liqian’s request by accepting Yan Chaoyun as Meng Shan’s disciple, then advanced through Immortal Ghost Heaven until he reached Life Gate Realm great completion. He activated the Ancient Array Gate alone to seek the Ancient Heavenly Gate, but an unseen force tried to obstruct him.

• Li Qingyun gave Lu Liqian precious resources, and Meng Shan agreed to accept Yan Chaoyun as his disciple.
• Li Qingyun entered Immortal Ghost Heaven and told Xiao Ao, Gu Li, Zhao Xuan, and True Person Hong Ling that he might soon stop appearing there, giving each the location of a mid-grade spirit platform.
• Li Qingyun erased more Saint-ranked ghostly entities and reached Life Gate Realm great completion, while his Jade Pure Essence grew stronger.
• Li Qingyun activated the Ancient Array Gate alone, saw a phantom of the ancient Heavenly Gate, and prepared to travel there.
• Sinister winds intensified around the array, and Li Qingyun shouted at the unseen force trying to obstruct his Dao Path.

Li Qingyun fought off masked Life Gate Realm cultivators who tried to stop him from reaching the ancient Heaven Gate, then entered the realm beyond it. His Jade Pure Profound Light revealed an ancient Ancestral Heaven Gate, leaving him facing a mysterious, ruined passage.

• More than twenty masked cultivators attacked the ancient array gate as Li Qingyun tried to activate it, but he recognized many of them and defended the gate with his Jade Pure Profound Light and thunder-jade radiance.
• Li Qingyun killed several attackers, including Ning Fenghe, Su Yuhuang, and Chu Ming, while the remaining cultivators retreated and continued attacking from a distance.
• Li Qingyun refused to leave the array gate, activated it, and teleported away as the ambushers failed to block his path to the Heaven Gate.
• Li Qingyun arrived before a colossal ancient stone wall and used his vitality profound light to reveal the words “Heaven Gate” and the outline of a gate.
• Li Qingyun shone his Jade Pure Profound Light on the wall, causing the words to change to “Ancestral Heaven Gate” and revealing a ruined, ancient light gate.

Li Qingyun entered the Ancestral Heaven Gate and refined Origin Gates to break through toward the Heaven Gate Realm. He left the ancient void having claimed nine Origin Gates and greatly expanded his foundation.

• Li Qingyun passed through the light gate into the Ancestral Heaven Gate, where a gate-shaped black hole appeared before him.
• Li Qingyun poured Jade Purity Longevity Qi into the first Origin Gate and drew it into his body after completing its refinement.
• A second Origin Gate appeared, and Li Qingyun refined it, doubling the foundation of his origin.
• Li Qingyun continued refining Origin Gates until he had claimed nine, using the life force of all one hundred and eight life channels.
• Li Qingyun saw no tenth Origin Gate appear and declared that he had succeeded.

Li Qingyun broke through the Heaven Gate Realm, gained a foundation capable of contending with Clear Self Realm True Lords, and retaliated against sect leaders who had cursed him. After experiencing a disturbing vision of nine shadowy selves, he went to Moon Yin Palace to meet True Lord Zhu.

• Li Qingyun returned from Immortal Ghost Heaven to his Inner Mansion, where nine Heaven Gates appeared behind his Great Sun Golden Core and his power rose to rival Clear Self Realm True Lords.
• Li Qingyun burned Death Mandate Scrolls for True Lords Qingquan, Yunyu, and Yize, as well as Wang Chengyuan, Void True Lord, and Peng Tai, then erased the traces of his curse technique.
• Wang Chengyuan suffered severe curse backlash and called for help, while the three Rotten Moon Palace True Lords and other powerful figures sensed the curses and suspected their rivals.
• Li Qingyun redirected the backlash toward the mysterious soul corpse, then saw nine black-clad versions of himself behind nine gates before dispelling the vision.
• Li Qingyun arrived at Moon Yin Palace and asked to meet True Lord Zhu, who appeared at the sect gate and greeted him.

After breaking through to the Heaven Gate Realm, Li Qingyun visited Zhu Yuyan to ask about seeing a door and another version of himself in meditation. Zhu Yuyan explained that he had reflected a past-life shadow unusually early and revealed that she remained trapped in the entanglements of her thirteenth past life, leaving Li Qingyun to offer her future help.

• Zhu Yuyan welcomed Li Qingyun to Moon Yin Palace and invited him to her cavern dwelling, while True Lord Ruoxi wondered at her unusual warmth toward him.
• Li Qingyun asked Zhu Yuyan whether the shadow of a door and another self he had seen after his breakthrough indicated a cultivation flaw.
• Zhu Yuyan explained that he had reflected a past-life shadow, a phenomenon ordinary Heaven Gate practitioners reached only at Great Perfection, and described its connection to the Clear Self Realm.
• Li Qingyun asked whether past lives meant one lifetime or all previous existences, and Zhu Yuyan said cultivators usually had no more than nineteen past lives.
• Zhu Yuyan confessed that she had been trapped in the entanglements of her thirteen past lives for a thousand years, and Li Qingyun promised to help if she ever needed him.
• Zhu Yuyan smiled with relief and delight at Li Qingyun's offer.

Li Qingyun learned from Zhu Yuyan that the Upper Three Realms were the Clear Self, Pure Self, and Sever Self Realms, and that cultivators who lingered in the Supreme Realm for thirty thousand years would decay into dust. He left Moon Yin Palace troubled by the Shadowed Domain’s closed loop and returned to Qingyun Mansion, where Meng Shan welcomed him.

• Zhu Yuyan explained the Upper Three Realms and said she expected Li Qingyun to reach the Clear Self Realm soon, when she would ask him for help.
• Li Qingyun asked why Void Sky Dao Lords chose ascension over remaining as red-dust deities, and Zhu Yuyan said they faced a thirty-thousand-year limit before turning to dust.
• Li Qingyun concluded that the Shadowed Domain offered no escape from its closed loop and sensed the mysterious Daoist effigy in his mind respond with ancient desolation.
• Li Qingyun thanked Zhu Yuyan and left Moon Yin Palace after she escorted him to its gates.
• Li Qingyun returned to Qingyun Mansion, where Meng Shan greeted him and hoped his apparent progress would bring prosperity to the Lingbao Sect.

Li Qingyun entered seclusion and used an Origin Door to visit the Heavenly Ruins, where he found his movement abilities suppressed and learned that Heaven Gate cultivators needed to refine small worlds to support their Origin Doors. The chapter left him standing amid the ruins, beginning to explore the realm.

• Li Qingyun warned Meng Shan to focus on Yan Chaoyun's temperament as well as his aptitude.
• Meng Shan returned to Pillar Peak Residence and found Lu Liqian doting on Yan Chaoyun with spiritual food.
• Li Qingyun entered his inner scenery, where the nine Shadows of Past Life briefly watched his true body with greed and longing.
• Li Qingyun used an Origin Door to enter the Heavenly Ruins, a vast landscape of decaying palaces beneath a dusk-colored sky.
• Li Qingyun discovered that flight and other movement abilities were suppressed, and recalled that Heaven Gate cultivators refined small worlds to support their Origin Doors and store Dharma power.

Li Qingyun explored a ruined manor in the Heavenly Ruins, where dark-gold bones and a strange portrait exposed him to dangerous pollution. He reached the central plaza and saw eerie creatures appear, solemnly chanting before the palace.

• Li Qingyun examined dark-gold bones in the manor and found their markings incompatible with his cultivation path.
• Li Qingyun nearly succumbed to the portrait’s pollution, then used Jade Pure Profound Light to cleanse himself.
• Li Qingyun explored the manor and learned that even small objects in the Heavenly Ruins could carry dangerous pollution.
• Li Qingyun traveled toward the Heavenly Ruins’ center, concealing his identity when another cultivator approached.
• Li Qingyun arrived at a vast plaza and saw eerie creatures appear, chanting unknown scriptures before the palace.

Li Qingyun entered an ancient plaza filled with chanting ghostly creatures and discovered that their worship centered on a ruined hall he identified as Human Heaven Hall. After using the plaza’s pollution to strengthen his Jade Pure Essence, he prepared to enter the hall as two more cultivators arrived.

• A Daoist named True Man Gusu emerged from a Heaven Gate, exchanged greetings with Li Qingyun, and crossed the plaza to enter the hall.
• Li Qingyun inspected the ruined sign and concluded that the hall’s original name was Human Heaven Hall.
• Li Qingyun stayed among the ghostly creatures to cultivate Jade Pure Essence, enduring their powerful pollution until his vitality began to run low.
• Li Qingyun decided to seek the small world first, then saw a man and a woman at Heaven Gate Realm Great Perfection arrive through gates in two directions.

Li Qingyun reached the Human Heaven Hall, killed Tuo Feng with a bolt of Divine Lightning after Tuo Feng challenged him, and met Wen Miaozhu of Arid Wood Palace. He followed Wen into the hall as she offered to guide him through its shifting spaces to the God-Illuminating Mirror.

• Li Qingyun discovered that the ghostly creature's eye-threads could not hold him and confirmed that he could not open the Heaven Gate inside the Human Heaven Hall's affiliated area.
• Tuo Feng demanded that Li Qingyun move aside, but Li Qingyun struck him with Divine Lightning and shattered his Heaven Gate phantom, dispersing his Primordial Spirit body.
• Wen Miaozhu greeted Li Qingyun respectfully, and he introduced himself as He Xiao and reassured her that he was not overbearing.
• Wen Miaozhu explained that the hall contained shifting layers of space and offered to guide Li Qingyun to the God-Illuminating Mirror.
• Li Qingyun followed Wen Miaozhu into the dark hall and sensed that its interior was extraordinary.

Li Qingyun followed Wen Miaozhu through the spatial currents of the Human Heaven Hall and reached the God-Illuminating Mirror. After learning that viewing a Shadow of Past Life took days, he struck True Man Haoyang with Divine Lightning to claim his turn.

• Li Qingyun followed Wen Miaozhu safely through the hall’s spatial currents and used Yin-Yang Copper Coins to sense the locations of minor worlds.
• Li Qingyun and Wen Miaozhu reached the chamber containing the God-Illuminating Mirror, where True Man Gusu and two other cultivators were waiting.
• Wen Miaozhu told Li Qingyun that she had viewed her Shadow of Past Life eight times without revealing a clear image, and that some cultivators never advanced beyond the Heaven Gate Realm.
• True Man Haoyang of the Spirit God Palace took the first turn beneath the mirror, shielding his viewing from the others with his Heaven Gate.
• Impatient with the long wait, Li Qingyun stepped forward and struck True Man Haoyang with Divine Lightning.

Li Qingyun defeated True Man Haoyang and examined the God-Illuminating Mirror, where he uncovered a vision of the white-haired wind killing an indigo deity. After forcing the mirror to respond, he saw his previous life as a young concubine-born son of Marquis Qinghe's Estate.

• Li Qingyun destroyed True Man Haoyang's Heaven Gate phantom and defeated him with a bolt of lightning, then took his place before the God-Illuminating Mirror.
• The mirror triggered a vision in which the white-haired wind swept through the hall and killed the indigo deity holding it.
• Li Qingyun asked Wen Miaozhu, Gu Su, and True Man Jinyu to wait outside Human Heaven Hall while he continued examining the mirror.
• Li Qingyun used Jade Pure Radiance to compel the mirror to reveal a Shadow of Past Life.
• The mirror showed Li Qingyun as a pale, frightened twelve- or thirteen-year-old concubine-born son who had drowned at Marquis Qinghe's Estate.

Li Qingyun’s first past-life reflection failed, but the God-Illuminating Mirror revealed his second past life and restored his Dao Path. He found a superior-grade small world in Human Heaven Hall and began refining it before returning to his body.

• Li Qingyun’s reflection of his first past life shattered, so he urged the God-Illuminating Mirror to show another past life.
• The mirror revealed a dying old man as Li Qingyun’s second past life, allowing him to continue toward breaking through.
• Li Qingyun scattered more than a thousand Yin-Yang Copper Coins through the void turbulence and found a superior-grade small world.
• Li Qingyun entered the small world and used his Origin Gate to absorb it over more than a month.
• Wen Miaozhu, Gu Su, and True Man Jinyu returned to the mirror chamber without Li Qingyun, while True Man Jinyu stepped forward to view his past life.
• Li Qingyun’s soul returned to his body, and the figure behind one of his Heaven Gates had grown more solid.

After learning that a living anomaly was about to emerge from Youjiang Temple, Li Qingyun rushed to Southern You. A mysterious Daoist killed the anomaly and triggered the temple to gestate a Heavenly Anomaly, and Li Qingyun confronted him as thunderclouds gathered overhead.

• Li Qingyun received reports that Youjiang Temple's seal had broken and a powerful anomaly was about to emerge.
• Miaoxuan watched a plump official emerge from the temple and recognized it as a living anomaly.
• Yun Yu appeared and killed the official anomaly despite Miaoxuan's warning, causing Youjiang Temple to begin gestating a Heavenly Anomaly.
• Yun Yu tried to leave, but Li Qingyun intercepted him and demanded to know his name and sect.
• Yun Yu revealed he was a True Lord and challenged Li Qingyun as thunderclouds gathered over Southern You.