Chapter Summaries

Wang Weiguo rapidly rose through the cultivation stages, survived threats from eunuchs and Civil Officials, and used the Urban System’s lightning talismans to force reforms on Da Qian. After reaching the Deity Transformation Stage, he learned from a cultivation Holy Land that Cultivators gained power by absorbing the people’s fate, and that hidden household registers diverted that fate to officials’ clans.

• Wang Weiguo cultivated the Seven Injuries Divine Skill and reached the Golden Core Stage at astonishing speed, stunning the Eunuch Sect and Fang Guang.
• A Grand Eunuch forced Wang Weiguo to sign a lifelong Blood Contract, after which Wang Weiguo continued cultivating and reached the Nascent Soul Stage.
• Wang Weiguo killed fifteen assassins sent by the Civil Officials’ faction, rejected their attempts to seduce him, and intimidated a great Confucian scholar.
• Wang Weiguo used Heavenly Lightning Strike Talismans to frighten the emperor into accepting reforms, including changes to trade, taxation, and local administration.
• Wang Weiguo reached the Deity Transformation Stage and was recommended to a cultivation Holy Land, where its Old Ancestor explained how Cultivators absorbed fate from registered people.
• Wang Weiguo learned that Civil Officials hid population records so their clans could claim the people’s fate, while the Old Ancestor admitted that Cultivators’ demands also drained the people.

Wang Weiguo questioned why Cultivators did not prioritize improving agriculture and craftsmen’s lives, and the Holy Land Old Ancestor explained that an industrial society would weaken the common people’s dependence on divine power and reduce the fortune Cultivators could harvest. The discussion ended with the Old Ancestor arguing that Cultivators had nevertheless supported Da Qian’s population growth, which had risen from thirty thousand to about 1.8 billion.

• Wang Weiguo challenged the Holy Land Old Ancestor over the neglect of farming, flood control, and craftsmen, citing advanced tools and crops that were not widely adopted and craftsmen fleeing to the barbarians.
• The Holy Land Old Ancestor explained that prosperous, self-sufficient common people would depend less on Cultivators, reducing worship and the fortune Cultivators relied on.
• Wang Weiguo realized that Cultivators maintained a balance by helping the population grow while preventing society from advancing enough to make them unnecessary.
• A folding-fan-wielding student proposed developing useful immortal arts to make the common people more dependent, and the Holy Land Old Ancestor praised the idea while describing the rivalry between immortals and officials who cultivated the Divine Path.
• Wang Weiguo concluded that immortal arts and waterworks were limited by competing interests, and the Holy Land Old Ancestor countered that Cultivators had still helped Da Qian grow from thirty thousand people to roughly 1.8 billion.

Wang Weiguo learned how longevity-seeking Cultivators resisted reform and how periodic massacres let new rulers seize fortune. He began an agricultural pilot near the capital, using water pumps and improved crops to help farmers prosper while intervening in mortal affairs.

• Wang Weiguo discussed the Cultivators’ fear of change with the Holy Land Old Ancestor, who explained that they preferred a stable life of longevity despite the danger of threats from beyond the heavens.
• The Holy Land Old Ancestor explained that unusually talented people eventually seized fortune from the ruling order by killing common people and redistributing their interests, while the Great Ascension Old Ancestor anticipated and accommodated each new ruler.
• Wang Weiguo left the lecture and planned a pilot project to improve agriculture and production without pursuing sweeping technological change.
• Wang Weiguo worked with Cheng Lan to make electric motors powered by the Ark of the Iron Man Armor and use them to build water pumps.
• Wang Weiguo introduced water pumps and improved sweet potatoes and potatoes in a commandery and county near the capital, turning dry fields into irrigated fields and raising farmers’ yields.
• Wang Weiguo explained the use of sheep intestines, encouraged families to have as many children as they could support, and ordered broader intervention in mortal affairs.

Wang Weiguo developed a formation network that improved safety and lowered rents across Da Qian, but elites soon seized those gains from the common people. He turned to the deeper problem of distribution and decided with Cheng Lan and Fang Guang to build an industrial economy backed by a secure food supply.

• Wang Weiguo learned from the Holy Land Old Ancestor about using formations and fortune to protect settlements, then developed a channel formation that shared Qi Resonance among cities.
• The Holy Land Old Ancestor rewarded Wang Weiguo with a Substitute Death Talisman after the formation network helped Da Qian's cities become safer and land rents fall.
• Local Cultivators and nobles later annexed land and raised rents and taxes, leaving common people with little of the prosperity created by Wang Weiguo's inventions.
• Wang Weiguo concluded that lasting reform required solving food distribution and ensuring farmers could survive while moving into industrial work.
• Wang Weiguo, Cheng Lan, and Fang Guang decided to secure enough food, recruit farmers as workers, and begin clearing land until they controlled at least one-tenth of it.

Wang Weiguo built a prosperous territory through grain distribution, public works, and shared fortune, but a Deity Transformation Old Ancestor seized it and destroyed its population. After a century of harsh cultivation, Wang Weiguo reached Spirit Transformation and killed the Old Ancestor when he discovered the land had been reduced to ruin.

• Wang Weiguo used road-building jobs, grain sacrifices, and shared fortune to support the poor and grow his territory's population from one million to over five hundred million.
• A Deity Transformation Old Ancestor seized Wang Weiguo's land, defeated him, and destroyed his body, but Wenren Sheng's ring preserved him.
• Wenren Sheng reflected on how ordinary people and their fortune gave the world meaning as Wang Weiguo spent a hundred years cultivating inside the ring.
• Wang Weiguo emerged, endured extreme self-inflicted hardship, reached Spirit Transformation, and abandoned his challenge after deciding that saving people was meaningless.
• The Old Ancestor returned Wang Weiguo's land, but Wang Weiguo found its population had fallen to 200,000 after the ruler canceled his measures and launched major projects.
• Wang Weiguo killed the Spirit Transformation Old Ancestor with the Heaven and Earth Yin Yang Great Compassion Palm, drawing the favor of heaven and earth.

After returning to the survivors, Wang Weiguo realized his mistakes and vowed to become a recorder of history, then cultivated until he reached the peak of Dao Integration. When the Holy Land Old Ancestor warned him that the Great Ascension Old Ancestor would interfere with his breakthrough, Wang Weiguo turned to his Urban System and found a talisman that might give him a chance to win.

• Wang Weiguo gathered more than two hundred thousand survivors, regretted the deaths caused by his earlier naivety, and was recognized and worshipped as the Living Bodhisattva.
• Wang Weiguo vowed to preserve the truth about good and evil, and Wenren Sheng received a notification that the Time Observer had been born.
• Wang Weiguo hid the survivors in a Blessed Land, practiced painful ascetic cultivation, and advanced to the peak of Dao Integration.
• The Holy Land Old Ancestor warned Wang Weiguo that the Great Ascension Old Ancestor would interfere with his tribulation and urged him to stop cultivating.
• Wang Weiguo called on his Urban System for help and found a talisman that he believed could give him hope of victory.

Wang Weiguo tested whether he could survive a Great Ascension Stage attack, accepted the Holy Land Old Ancestor’s aid, and continued cultivating toward a confrontation. When Cheng Lan and Fang Guang urged him to compromise, he recognized the scene as an illusion and reaffirmed his resolve to kill the Great Ascension Stage Old Ancestor; he then approached another tribulation.

• Wang Weiguo used a Youth Restoration Talisman to consider how he might survive a Great Ascension Stage attack, and the Holy Land Old Ancestor revealed he was the Great Ascension Stage Old Ancestor’s avatar.
• The Holy Land Old Ancestor struck Wang Weiguo while he suppressed his cultivation, judged that he was not yet strong enough, and gave him accumulated treasures to help him prepare.
• Wang Weiguo cultivated for several hundred years and celebrated Spring Festival with more than two hundred thousand people, giving them a Health Buff.
• Cheng Lan and Fang Guang tried to persuade Wang Weiguo to accept the Great Ascension Stage Old Ancestor’s Social Self-Management System and abandon his challenge.
• Wang Weiguo rejected the plea, used God Sword Splits the Sky to dispel the illusion, and continued cultivating until he was about to undergo tribulation.

Wang Weiguo began his Heavenly Tribulation in isolation, enduring successive bolts of heavenly lightning while countless people watched and wagered on his success. When golden lightning began cleansing the darkness from his heart, he chose to resist it, and Wenren Sheng realized that Wang Weiguo was unlikely to pass.

• Wang Weiguo released his Dao Integration Stage aura on a remote, frozen mountain peak and triggered his Heavenly Tribulation.
• Purple heavenly thunder struck Wang Weiguo repeatedly, and he endured it with the help of his preparations, strengthening his body.
• Great Ascension Stage Old Ancestors arranged for people across countless cities to watch Wang Weiguo's tribulation and bet on its outcome, increasing his psychological pressure.
• Golden lightning entered Wang Weiguo and began erasing his dark thoughts, which he recognized as a threat to his identity and chose to resist.
• A powerful cultivator explained that the golden sacred lightning cleansed darkness from the heart, and Wenren Sheng concluded that Wang Weiguo's resistance made failure almost certain.

Wang Weiguo survived the three ascension trials, though he and Wenren Sheng suspected Heaven and Earth were turning him into ham. When a Great Ascension Stage cultivator tried to stop him, Wenren Sheng empowered Wang Weiguo, who killed the attacker with a single slap.

• Wang Weiguo surrendered to the Golden Lightning, which erased his distracting desires and reshaped his thoughts, then endured the Earthfire and Void Wind trials.
• Wang Weiguo feared that the trials were processing him into food, and Wenren Sheng also concluded that the process resembled making air-dried ham.
• Wang Weiguo passed all three trials, while the watching crowd reacted with surprise.
• The Great Ascension Stage cultivator declared that the Human Tribulation continued and struck at Wang Weiguo with a giant palm.
• Wenren Sheng linked the Seed of Mystery to Wang Weiguo and amplified his power a hundredfold, allowing Wang Weiguo to slap the Great Ascension Stage cultivator to death.

Wang Weiguo refused the Light of Guidance and met the Great Ascension Old Ancestor, who revealed that their world was a cultivation factory that consumed its inhabitants. The Old Ancestor urged him to lie flat and avoid feeding the world, but Wang Weiguo resolved to grow strong enough to crush the world and escape it.

• Wang Weiguo refused ascension because he still had the Main God's mission to help the common people prosper.
• Wang Weiguo discovered that the Great Ascension Old Ancestor had survived, and that the cultivator he had struck down was only an incarnation.
• The Great Ascension Old Ancestor showed Wang Weiguo a pig-rearing allegory and explained that the world processed cultivators like livestock, while he had resisted by suppressing progress and letting the dynasty decay.
• The Great Ascension Old Ancestor explained that the world consumed increasingly powerful cultivators as its demands grew, so he had urged people to lie flat rather than advance.
• Wang Weiguo argued that people with wisdom and dignity should resist being consumed, and proposed gathering enough force to shatter the world and escape.
• The Great Ascension Old Ancestor laughed and agreed to see whether Wang Weiguo could break the world.

Wang Weiguo created the Social Automatic Management System and used it to provide for Da Qian’s population and tightly administer the realm. His policies ended famine and uprising for a thousand years, while he used illusion realms to show tax rebels the consequences of their preferred system.

• Wang Weiguo explained that he intended to strengthen Heaven and Earth alongside himself so they could escape its cage and cooperate rather than let it devour ascendants.
• Wang Weiguo forged the Social Automatic Management System, which tracked population and production and distributed food and clothing to everyone.
• Wang Weiguo created executor avatars to administer Da Qian, reorganized its regions, and promoted cultivation tools so no one starved that year.
• Heaven and Earth bestowed great merit on Wang Weiguo, and the Great Ascension Old Ancestor warned that the merit would make him more tempting to consume.
• Wang Weiguo maintained prosperity for a thousand years without famine-driven uprisings, suppressed tax revolts, and showed people over a hundred illusion realms comparing taxation with periodic upheaval.

Wang Weiguo explained how unchecked wealth and unbreakable economic order lead to a single Final Producer, convincing the elites to support his system of taxation and relative fairness. The world prospered and expanded under his rule, but eventually it began trying to devour him, fearing he might become its master.

• People in a tavern condemned the 95% inheritance tax and left for a tax-free Secret Realm, where businesses replaced government services.
• In the Secret Realm, immortal arts and unrestrained competition let one powerful winner take everyone else’s assets, leaving the former elites as slaves or tenants.
• Wang Weiguo explained that taxation could restrain the strongest and preserve relative fairness, and the elites agreed to support his method.
• Wang Weiguo used Mahayana power, modern technology, and immortal techniques to make the world prosperous, expand its territory, and raise its population to one hundred quadrillion.
• The world began trying to devour Wang Weiguo, and the Mahayana Old Ancestor explained that it had learned his methods and feared he might become its master.

Wang Weiguo used Wenren Sheng’s ten-thousandfold power boost to destroy his mission world after its people turned against him and its heavens tried to bargain with him. The Main God Space transferred him to the Honghuang World, where Wenren Sheng was surprised to find himself drawn into a world he had tried to avoid.

• Wang Weiguo prayed to the Mysterious Person who had supported him before, and Wenren Sheng gave him a ten-thousandfold boost in power.
• The people argued over whether Wang Weiguo was a devil or a benefactor, and their accusations enraged him.
• Wang Weiguo punched the firmament, causing stars to fall and the world to begin collapsing.
• The heavens offered Wang Weiguo immortality and authority, but he rejected the offer and destroyed the world with another punch.
• The Main God Space detected that Wang Weiguo’s power exceeded its capacity and transferred him to the Honghuang World.
• Wenren Sheng wondered how he had entered the Great Honghuang World, a setting he had long tried to avoid.

Wenren Sheng entered the Great Honghuang World with the Seed of Mystery and observed its vast, dangerous early era. The seed grew into a Red Sandalwood Tree above a human village that had expanded to thousands, where communal life reflected the people’s low productive capacity.

• Wenren Sheng was drawn into the Seed of Mystery, which carried him and Wang Weiguo into the Great Honghuang World.
• Wenren Sheng observed the immense mountain and watched people settle at its base, where ordinary lives depended on luck in a world without fixed lifespans or laws.
• The Seed of Mystery broke through the mountain rock and grew into an enormous Red Sandalwood Tree.
• The village grew from several dozen people to 4,530, while its residents treated the clan as supreme and shared a strong sense of unity.
• Wenren Sheng concluded that the village’s communal customs came from low productivity rather than exceptional moral character.

Wenren Sheng watched over the village because its growing population increased the Seed of Mystery, until a golden bird arrived to eat the villagers. He secretly empowered their bravest man, who wounded the bird and drove it away.

• Wenren Sheng observed the villagers’ direct, cooperative ways and continued protecting them as their population caused the Seed of Mystery to grow.
• A golden bird appeared over the village, trapped the villagers in an array, and announced that Nüwa had created them as food for demons.
• The bravest villager argued with the bird and prepared to fight it with a Wooden Spear.
• Wenren Sheng secretly increased the villager’s strength a hundred thousand times, allowing his spear to pierce the golden bird’s breastbone.
• The wounded golden bird fled, and the villager celebrated as it escaped.

Wenren Sheng drove away a threat to the humans living among the trees grown from the Seed of Mystery, then considered how a Way could gain authority by helping heaven and earth operate and grow. He began searching for a Way of his own, concluding that humanity’s greatest invention could protect those who advance human knowledge and leave the story with his idea unfinished.

• Wenren Sheng protected the humans from outsiders who wanted to eat them, while the humans shouted about courage without realizing he was helping them.
• Wenren Sheng reasoned that the Way granted authority in heaven and earth, and that even Saints depended on following the rules of the Heavenly Way.
• Wenren Sheng concluded that people seeking the Way of Primordial Unity had to prove their Way would help heaven and earth develop more effectively.
• Wenren Sheng compared the different sects’ Ways and judged Laozi’s Way of purity and inaction successful because it endured into later ages.
• Wenren Sheng pondered what Way he should establish and began the thought, “Humanity's greatest invention has been the use of...”

Wenren Sheng established his Dao of law and gave the villagers seeds that granted cultivation, enabling Courage to protect a growing settlement. Courage’s protection developed into a taxed city, and he became a True Immortal strong enough to guard a vast territory.

• Wenren Sheng descended the mountain, preached that everyone must obey laws, and offered the villagers 9,999 Seeds of Power when they demanded spells and divine abilities.
• Courage and the villagers swallowed the seeds, which took root in their bodies and automatically cultivated them; Courage rapidly advanced through the immortal realms.
• Courage protected the village for a hundred years as it grew into a city of hundreds of thousands, attracting newcomers and vegetarian demons while he began favoring associates and imposing regulations.
• Courage demanded taxes in spirit herbs and valuables, and most residents paid rather than lose his protection from the monsters outside the city.
• Tax revenue allowed Courage and his subordinates to focus on cultivation, and Courage became a True Immortal who patrolled and protected a vast area.

Wenren Sheng taught the people to unite their strength, enabling them to kill Brave One after he failed to protect them. The elderly Wise One became king and transformed into Clever Man, founding the divided and war-torn Da Qian dynasty, which remained unstable but endured for millennia.

• Brave One grew tyrannical as he took the people’s resources and neglected his duties, then failed to awaken when demons attacked.
• Wenren Sheng suppressed the demons and taught the people to link their roots and combine their power.
• The people used their united strength to defeat Brave One, sparing his primordial spirit so he could reincarnate or possess another body.
• The elderly Wise One became king and, as Clever Man, imposed class and regional divisions to consolidate his rule and increase taxes.
• Clever Man founded Da Qian under an enfeoffment system, and the divided dynasty endured for tens of thousands of years amid constant internal conflict and demon attacks.

After Da Qian’s laws took effect through the Mysterious Tree, its roots began punishing anyone who broke them, regardless of status. Clever Man’s daughter was killed despite his efforts to exempt her, and the chapter left him unable to change or evade the laws he had established.

• Wenren Sheng watched the Mysterious Tree grow stronger after Da Qian’s ten laws were announced.
• The Mysterious Tree hanged a city commander’s son for murdering and eating infants, then hanged the commander for allowing the crimes.
• Across Da Qian, the roots stripped offenders of their mana and punished them for breaking the laws, causing widespread executions.
• The roots seized Clever Man’s daughter for killing beggars to practice cultivation, and she was torn apart while Clever Man failed to save her.
• Clever Man tried to exempt his family and issue new laws, but the stone tablets and roots remained unchanged.

Wenren Sheng enforced his Law Path through the Mysterious Tree, punishing a corrupt city lord and drawing the Golden Crows to Da Qian. When the Golden Crows tried to devour its people, Wenren Sheng appeared and trapped them with vines.

• Wenren Sheng resolved to make laws strictly enforceable, including against Saints, by having the Mysterious Tree act on people's true thoughts.
• In Sky Wolf City, the city lord demanded two pieces of five-thousand-year-old Spirit Grass each month, and the Mysterious Tree hanged him to death when he threatened the protesting crowd.
• The Da Qian Dynasty's vast population and changing fortune drew the attention of the Two Saints of the West and other powers.
• Nine Golden Crows arrived in Da Qian's capital and demanded a billion people to eat, claiming humans had been created as food for their clan.
• Clever Man refused to hand over the people, and Wenren Sheng bound the Golden Crows in vines, declaring that trees could entangle them.