Chapter Summaries

Wenren Sheng observed Shuang Laoda survive in the Upper Realm by spending ten years mastering the life of a beggar, until the city requisitioned him to explore a dangerous ruin. Green Cloud Old Ancestor explained that he had once offered up a clone-type Golden Finger, and Shuang Laoda agreed to reveal his own.

• Shuang Laoda followed Green Cloud Old Ancestor and learned to beg, ration spiritual energy, and identify the people most likely to give alms.
• Over ten years, Shuang Laoda built a comfortable routine around regular patrons and fixed begging spots in the city.
• Two years later, the city requisitioned Shuang Laoda and Green Cloud Old Ancestor as cannon fodder for a ruin expedition.
• Green Cloud Old Ancestor said they had not been requisitioned for more than ten thousand years since he offered up a Golden Finger.
• Green Cloud Old Ancestor revealed that his Golden Finger created many clones, and Shuang Laoda said his own situation was the same.

Shuang Laoda and Green Cloud Old Ancestor were conscripted to scout an abandoned Ancient City in exchange for rewards if they survived three days. After learning that the two had been assigned neighboring areas, Green Cloud Old Ancestor reacted with terror, leaving Shuang Laoda uncertain about the danger ahead.

• Green Cloud Old Ancestor told Shuang Laoda that he could have exploited the taunt-type Golden Finger by winning its host’s affection, and Shuang Laoda bitterly regretted sacrificing it.
• City guards gathered Shuang Laoda, Green Cloud Old Ancestor, and other beggars, servants, and Door-to-Door Son-in-Laws to scout the wilderness.
• The group boarded an Azure Flying Boat and traveled for a week before reaching an abandoned Ancient City watched by huge Crows.
• A city guard offered ten High-Grade Spirit Stones and other benefits to anyone who survived three days in an assigned area.
• Shuang Laoda was assigned to Area No. 49 and Green Cloud Old Ancestor to Area No. 50, so the two decided to stay near the boundary between them.

Wenren Sheng watched Green Cloud Old Ancestor and Shuang Laoda survive a deadly ruins expedition, then learned how Golden Fingers were taken and redistributed in the Upper Realm. After Shuang Laoda was lured to his death more than a thousand years later, he chose Disassembly Reincarnation and targeted the pregnant concubine of the city lord.

• Green Cloud Old Ancestor and Shuang Laoda survived three days of ruin disasters, returned to Giant City, and learned that half the expedition had died.
• Wenren Sheng decided to prepare hidden techniques by breaking them into reliable small functions rather than ascending prematurely.
• Shuang Laoda learned that Green Cloud Old Ancestor's Golden Finger avatar had been assigned to the city lord, and Green Cloud Old Ancestor warned him not to speak carelessly about powerful figures.
• Wenren Sheng watched for another thousand years as Shuang Laoda was tricked into leaving the city and killed by a small organization seeking his accumulated wealth.
• Shuang Laoda chose Disassembly Reincarnation and planned to be reborn as the city lord's newly pregnant concubine's child.

Wenren Sheng secretly ascended to the Upper Realm with advanced technology, then entered Giant City with Wang Bao and Lin Xiaofan. After abandoning their underground hideout because an Earth Dragon kept attacking them, Wenren Sheng found work refining pills and began adapting to life in the city.

• Wang Bao released the Heavenly Dao Poison, killing the Extraterrestrials who had remained in the Small World, while Lin Xiaofan later repopulated it by cloning thirty billion people.
• After the Small World began to crack, Wenren Sheng used technology to secretly bore a passage into the Upper Realm, evading its ascension checkpoints and surveillance.
• Lin Xiaofan and Wang Bao followed Wenren Sheng through his smuggling passage, but Lin Xiaofan found that Upper Realm cultivators were unwilling to have children because doing so depleted their cultivation and aptitude.
• Wenren Sheng and Wang Bao left their tunnels after a persistent Earth Dragon kept attacking them, then paid the entrance fee to enter Giant City.
• Wenren Sheng settled in the North Side and earned thirty High-Grade Spirit Stones a month refining Spirit Transformation medicines, while Wang Bao helped him adjust to his work routine.

Wenren Sheng, Wang Bao, and Lin Xiaofan discussed a newly opened relic that Wang Bao’s simulations showed was deadly for young cultivators. Because Wang Bao needed resources before his lifespan ran out, he entered the relic and followed a deduction-based plan to win over a female monster.

• Lin Xiaofan told Wenren Sheng and Wang Bao that an ancient relic had opened to ordinary Nascent Soul Cultivators, and Wang Bao warned that desperate old cultivators made it extremely dangerous.
• Wenren Sheng reluctantly supplied Wang Bao with a small amount of support, and Wang Bao dispersed his cultivation to exploit his simulator before restoring his Foundation Establishment cultivation.
• Wang Bao’s three hundred simulations showed that he died in nearly every attempt, while Wenren Sheng advised him not to enter and Wang Bao explained that he could not afford to keep delaying.
• Wang Bao entered the relic and spent several days making friends with elderly cultivators, all of whom eventually disappeared without attacking him.
• Wang Bao followed his deductions to a valley, sought an herb, and staged a fall so a female monster who loved heroic stories would rescue him.
• Wang Bao told the female monster a story about buying medicine for an ill elder brother, then revealed his disguised handsome appearance, prompting her to develop a favorable impression of him.

After escaping the female monster and returning to Giant City, Wang Bao learned to keep his sudden cultivation gains hidden and spent ten thousand years lying low with Lin Xiaofan and Wenren Sheng. Wenren Sheng developed the Heaven Devouring Array, giving the group a way to build safe settlements beyond Giant City if its lord turned against them.

• Wang Bao reached Divine Transformation through the female monster, then secretly left her and returned to Giant City after simulations showed it was the safest route.
• Lin Xiaofan teased Wang Bao about enduring the female monster, while Wenren Sheng suggested he would eventually get used to it; news of a ship captain stealing a rare treasure made Wang Bao more cautious about exposing his gains.
• Wang Bao, Lin Xiaofan, and Wenren Sheng lay low for ten thousand years, and Wenren Sheng continued developing his skills and cultivation.
• Wenren Sheng created the Heaven Devouring Array, which let groups of Nascent Soul cultivators unleash an attack comparable to a Combination Spirit cultivator’s full-force strike.
• Wenren Sheng’s formation became popular with wilderness camps, and he trained Wang Bao and Lin Xiaofan to master it so they could build their own cities and escape Giant City if necessary.

Wenren Sheng completed and spread a defensive formation that let lower-realm cultivators deter powerful enemies, while Wang Bao’s simulations revealed an impending Wild Beast invasion of Giant City. After Wang Bao and Lin Xiaofan secured a green mark from a female monster, the beasts arrived, and the city lord relied on the formations as Giant City shifted to a desperate defense.

• Wenren Sheng finalized the Heaven Devouring Array, spread its designs, and let cultivators adapt it into many versions, including clan defenses and personal trump cards.
• Wang Bao simulated that Wild Beasts would attack Giant City within three months and learned that the city lord would eventually conscript people to defend it.
• Wenren Sheng, Wang Bao, and Lin Xiaofan planned a dangerous journey to find Wang Bao’s old lover, a female monster who could give them a green mark.
• Wang Bao and Lin Xiaofan returned successfully half a month later, and Wenren Sheng received the green mark while staying home.
• Wild Beasts swept across the region, driving cultivators from smaller cities back to Giant City and forcing the city to rely on its formations as the invasion overwhelmed its defenses.

Wenren Sheng, Wang Bao, and Lin Xiaofan hid in Wenren Sheng’s secret space while the Wild Beasts devastated Giant City. In the third year, the city lord unleashed ten thousand Combination Spirit-stage clones and wiped out the exhausted attackers, revealing a power Wang Bao’s simulations had missed.

• Wenren Sheng suspected the Wild Beasts were summoned players as they attacked Giant City in coordinated waves and overwhelmed its defenses.
• Wenren Sheng used a Small Space Tear Talisman to hide himself, Wang Bao, and Lin Xiaofan in his secret space while the city’s formations and cultivators fell.
• Wang Bao and Lin Xiaofan watched the battle from safety, ate their stored food, and played Fight the Landlord rather than trying to rescue anyone outside.
• By the third year, the Wild Beasts had grown exhausted, and the Giant City city lord unleashed ten thousand Combination Spirit-stage clones.
• The city lord’s clones slaughtered the remaining Wild Beasts in three days, and Wang Bao realized that one Golden Finger could conceal its existence from another.

Wenren Sheng and Wang Bao spent a century developing a Heart Tempering Pill that could counter the soul poison left by the Wild Beasts, then Wenren Sheng underwent its Red Dust Tempering illusion. After recovering his memories, he considered pursuing the mysteries of spacetime and faced Zhao Han and Little Illusion, who wanted to join his next journey.

• The city lord's incarnations defeated the Wild Beasts, but their souls left a poison that spread through the Giant City and made cultivation breakthroughs dangerous.
• The city lord asked Wenren Sheng to resolve the poison, and Wenren Sheng agreed to work with Wang Bao using the city lord's resources.
• After a hundred years of research, Wenren Sheng and Wang Bao created a Heart Tempering Pill that let cultivators overcome and absorb the soul poison.
• Wenren Sheng, Wang Bao, and Lin Xiaofan took the pill, sending Wenren Sheng into an illusion where he recovered his memories and gained Mystery Points after glimpsing a secret of time.
• Wenren Sheng reflected on how wisdom could help him conquer spacetime, then Zhao Han and Little Illusion appeared and Little Illusion insisted on joining him.

Wenren Sheng returned from the Red Dust Torch Heart illusion as Wang Bao and Lin Xiaofan escaped their own illusions, and he resolved the city lord’s suspicions by presenting a formula based on wisdom. After thousands of years of peace and cultivation, a powerful Player Golden Finger brought modern-looking newcomers to Giant City, leaving Wenren Sheng to guide his companions in figuring out what the players and their controller wanted.

• Wang Bao and Lin Xiaofan woke from their illusions, and Wang Bao warned that the city lord might suspect them of having Golden Fingers.
• Wenren Sheng gave the city lord his formula, and the city lord sent rewards instead of trying to seize their Golden Fingers.
• Little Illusion spent thousands of years tormenting Wang Bao and Lin Xiaofan, while Wenren Sheng advanced to Return to Void, Lin Xiaofan reached Combination Spirit, and the city lord reached Great Ascension.
• A group of ordinary-looking newcomers arrived in Giant City, and Wenren Sheng recognized them as players brought by a powerful Player Golden Finger.
• A Soul Transformation Cultivator failed to restrain or kill a player whose body turned illusory, while Wang Bao and Lin Xiaofan worried that their world had become a game.
• Wenren Sheng told Wang Bao and Lin Xiaofan to study the players’ collective motives and the needs of their hidden controller.

Wang Bao investigated the players searching for medicine and suspected their hidden controller was a dying mortal with a powerful Golden Finger. He tried to deduce how to approach the city lord and steal the secret of taking Golden Fingers, but every path ended in danger, so Wenren Sheng urged him to offer the city lord a valuable secret in exchange.

• Wang Bao and Lin Xiaofan realized that the players were searching for a cure for their hidden controller, and Wang Bao considered recruiting Lin Xiaofan's children to carry out his plans.
• Wang Bao deduced that entering the City Lord's Mansion as a eunuch would get him exposed and killed, then learned from Wenren Sheng that reincarnating as the city lord's son would bring its own dangers.
• Wang Bao deduced that keeping his memories would eventually let the city lord discover and take his Golden Finger, while sealing them would leave him unable to learn the city lord's secrets before dying and being exposed during another reincarnation.
• Wenren Sheng advised Wang Bao to offer the city lord a secret important enough to secure an exchange for the method of stealing Golden Fingers, and Wang Bao considered the city lord's coming ascension.

Wang Bao discovered that his Upper Realm was a tiny world inside a swimming pool and that a glass wall blocked him from reaching the world beyond. The city lord sought Wenren Sheng’s help to bargain with the world’s controller, while Wang Bao learned that the city lord planned to lure the controller into their world by promising to cure his illness.

• Wang Bao repeatedly simulated his path to immortality but died before ascending, and Wenren Sheng suggested that the Upper Realm might not permit anyone to become immortal.
• Wang Bao and the city lord found the players’ entrance at the swimming pool’s drainage outlet and realized their world was inside a pool beneath a larger world.
• Wang Bao simulated escaping the pool, reached a glass barrier, and saw a giant he believed was the sick Behind-the-Scenes Manipulator.
• Wang Bao accepted his situation for the moment and started a martial arts game with Little Illusion, but the city lord arrived and proposed that they join forces to reach the greater world.
• Wenren Sheng explained that the city lord would need to offer a cure for the controller’s illness, and the city lord left with a plan to deceive the controller into entering their world.

Wang Bao accepted that he should follow his teacher, whom he believed had the wisdom and integrity to become a great figure. In the real world, Gu Tiancheng faced a choice between entering the Swimming Pool to cure his terminal illness and remaining outside while its world struggled to advance, and the chapter ended with him refusing to enter after a die roll.

• Wang Bao decided that he could not outscheme Sages and was better off following his teacher, whose disciplined approach to cultivation he admired.
• Gu Tiancheng watched the Swimming Pool world remain stuck below immortality and considered whether to enter it for a chance to heal his severe neuroma.
• A voice from inside the Swimming Pool urged Gu Tiancheng to come in, but he dismissed it as a hallucination and feared the risks of entering without the ability to revive.
• Gu Tiancheng rolled a die to decide his fate, got three odd results out of five, and resolved not to enter despite his worsening pain.
• Gu Tiancheng questioned Professor Shanben about his treatment, heard that new medications were still being tested, and returned to his bedroom in his automatic wheelchair.

Gu Tiancheng entered the Swimming Pool world, discovered an unknown Transmigrator had transformed its Spirit-Sealing Land, and used the Heavenly Dao’s guidance to get his illness cured. After being arrested for visiting a pleasure quarter, he learned that officials were preparing to welcome immortals from the heavens.

• Gu Tiancheng entered the Small World where Wenren Sheng had lived and found evidence that an unknown modern-world Transmigrator had built a technological society there.
• After a Heavenly Dao warning led him to flee a cave search, Gu Tiancheng hid in an underground city and sold buried valuables to pay for treatment.
• Doctor Wang cured Gu Tiancheng with a Nano Needle injection for one hundred yuan, and Gu Tiancheng left him a piece of jewelry in gratitude.
• Gu Tiancheng went to a pleasure quarter after recovering, was arrested in a police sweep, and learned the Heavenly Dao had withheld warnings because he had forbidden it to inspect his privacy.
• A fellow detainee told Gu Tiancheng that officials were cleaning up public behavior before welcoming immortals, and the Heavenly Dao clarified that only one person could use divine sense in cultivation lands or the Spirit-Sealing Land.

Gu Tiancheng learned how the Small World’s people could enter the cultivation realm and discovered that Wenren Sheng possessed a legendary Great Dao Spirit Root. Meanwhile, Wang Bao plotted to seize the Behind-the-Scenes Manipulator, Lin Xiaofan gave birth to billions of offspring, and Wenren Sheng continued his experiments.

• Gu Tiancheng recovered in detention, resolved to keep living, and listened as another prisoner explained how people could gain entry to the cultivation realm.
• Gu Tiancheng investigated the Small World’s history and learned that extraterrestrials had invaded before dying from Heavenly Dao Poison, while the Upper Realm and Small Worlds formed a cycle of nourishment.
• Wang Bao told Wenren Sheng that the Behind-the-Scenes Manipulator had appeared powerless, but Wenren Sheng warned him against rushing to capture the manipulator.
• Lin Xiaofan reproduced on a vast scale, giving birth to 50 billion offspring and rapidly increasing her strength, while Wang Bao continued calculating how to seize the manipulator.
• Gu Tiancheng was released after two weeks and began searching for a safe way to cultivate as an independent cultivator.
• Gu Tiancheng used the Heavenly Dao to inspect Wenren Sheng and discovered that he possessed a Super Grade Great Dao Spirit Root.

Gu Tiancheng acquired a false identity, obtained a Great Dao Spirit Root by transplanting it from a woman who loved him, and joined the Green Cloud Sect under a contract he barely read. In the Upper Realm, the Green Cloud Old Ancestor began writing a commissioned essay celebrating life as a beggar.

• Gu Tiancheng used Heavenly Dao information to create a convincing identity and bribe his way into a spirit root test, where he learned he had no spirit root.
• Gu Tiancheng paid a connected staff member to find candidates, then located a woman with a Great Dao Spirit Root and secretly arranged for the staff member to be silenced.
• Gu Tiancheng learned the transplant procedure, fell in love with the woman, and eventually performed the operation; she died from the pain, and he took her spirit root.
• Gu Tiancheng concealed his Great Dao Spirit Root as a second-grade one, bribed his way to the cultivation world, and signed a restrictive contract to join the Green Cloud Sect.
• The Green Cloud Old Ancestor accepted a job from the City Lord's Mansion and began writing My Forty Thousand Years as a Beggar.

Gu Tiancheng escaped the Green Cloud Sect after the Heavenly Dao warned him that the city lord’s pursuers were coming, then used extraterrestrial technology in the Spirit-Sealing Land to help its people defeat the surface cultivators. Watching the new society take shape, he concluded that the Heavenly Dao prevented emotional, oppressive cultivators from becoming immortals.

• Gu Tiancheng cultivated to the Golden Core Stage with the Heavenly Dao Strategy Device’s guidance and fled the Green Cloud Sect just before ten powerful pursuers arrived.
• The city lord sealed the cultivation world and sent avatars to hunt Gu Tiancheng, who returned to the Spirit-Sealing Land and learned to preserve his cultivation and lifespan.
• Gu Tiancheng used extraterrestrial technology to accelerate the Spirit-Sealing Land’s development, and five hundred years later its people launched a counterattack against the surface.
• The technologically advanced underground forces defeated the surface cultivators, imprisoned the sects and guards, and drove the surviving pursuers back to the Upper Realm.
• After the underground people settled on the surface, technological immortality reduced resource conflicts and childbirth, while Gu Tiancheng concluded that the Heavenly Dao barred emotional cultivators from becoming immortals.

Gu Tiancheng became a Great Dao Immortal after Wang Bao accidentally damaged his Small World, then repaired it and declared a new order with six places for immortals. The city lord tried to locate the hidden world through Wenren Sheng, who refused and warned that people remained subject to heaven across the greater expanse of time and space.

• Wenren Sheng watched Gu Tiancheng cultivate into an immortal while explaining to Little Illusion that their former Lower Realm was like an ant nest.
• Wang Bao reported that he had deduced a path to immortality, then accidentally stepped on the ant nest during Gu Tiancheng's ascension tribulation.
• Gu Tiancheng merged with the Great Dao, abandoned his emotions, and repaired the damaged Small World, including restoring its creatures and removing those who had pursued him.
• Gu Tiancheng announced that the Great Dao had emerged, established order under the Heavenly Dao, and offered six immortal positions to disciples at Heavenly Cloud Palace.
• The city lord returned to the Upper Realm and asked Wenren Sheng to find Gu Tiancheng's hidden Small World, but Wenren Sheng refused and cautioned that man could not conquer heaven across time and space.

Wenren Sheng refused the city lord’s attempts to learn the location of the Small World, despite accepting his gifts and warning that Gu Tiancheng had become an emotionless Great Dao Immortal. The city lord remained determined to challenge Gu Tiancheng, who emerged from the ant hole and rapidly grew to match the city lord’s strength.

• Wenren Sheng rejected the city lord’s threats and offers, explaining that he would not help a person he considered unreliable or risk disturbing his studies.
• After the city lord left, he sent nine Female Immortals, treasures, delicacies, and finally the Infinite Substitute Death Golden Finger, which Wenren Sheng accepted but still refused to trade for information.
• Wenren Sheng told the city lord that Gu Tiancheng had become an emotionless machine and that the city lord could ascend by becoming a Heavenly Dao Spirit, but the city lord refused to submit and vowed to defeat him.
• The city lord caused upheavals around Wenren Sheng’s courtyard while Gu Tiancheng continued his transformation in the ant hole.
• One month later, Gu Tiancheng emerged and grew to the city lord’s strength within a Planck-time particle, leaving the city lord unable to react.

Gu Tiancheng defeated the city lord, made him the first Heavenly Dao Immortal, and awarded Wenren Sheng Primordial Violet Qi for his merit. A hundred years later, the city lord founded the Old Religion as the struggle for the remaining five immortal positions intensified, while Wang Bao and Lin Xiaofan asked Wenren Sheng for a share of the qi.

• The city lord attacked Gu Tiancheng with tens of thousands of clones, but Gu Tiancheng made them vanish and explained that survival mattered more than righteousness.
• Gu Tiancheng granted the city lord Green Vitality and bound him with a golden hoop, appointing him the first Heavenly Dao Immortal.
• Wenren Sheng declined Gu Tiancheng's mechanical Dao, described his own aim to explore mysteries, and received Primordial Violet Qi as Great Dao merit.
• Gu Tiancheng and the city lord departed, and a hundred years later the city lord became the first Heavenly Dao Immortal and founded the Old Religion.
• As the competition for five more immortal positions grew, Wang Bao and Lin Xiaofan asked Wenren Sheng for Primordial Violet Qi, and he told them to return in ten years while he examined it.