Chapter Summaries

The Middle-Aged Leader’s microorganisms were discovered by the robots, triggering a war as both sides tried to exploit the other’s weaknesses. After crippling most mines and factories, he called on human survivors to control the microorganisms and join his fight, believing victory was near.

• Robot laboratories discovered that intelligent microorganisms communicated through electromagnetic waves and could attack with acid and electricity, so the robots began sterilizing their bases.
• After learning that the robots were sterilizing, the Middle-Aged Leader ordered his microorganisms to attack and spread them through mines, crippling mining machines and shutting down most factories.
• The robots began producing sealed sterilization units, while the Great Mother warned the people in the oasis and the Machine Servants disinfected them.
• The Middle-Aged Leader used the mother strain to remotely control microbial modules, then broadcast instructions for survivors to control microorganisms and fight the robots.
• Survivors began accepting the Middle-Aged Leader’s power, and he believed their resistance would secure his victory.

The Middle-Aged Leader’s human forces besieged the Robots, but the Great Mother intervened and used her Particle Shield to divide humans and Robots into separate regions. The Middle-Aged Leader lost his chance to defeat the Robots and turned to No. 3 for help breaking the barrier, but No. 3 refused.

• The Middle-Aged Leader led armored survivors in an assault on a Robot base, while the Robots struggled to withstand the attack.
• The Middle-Aged Leader revealed that humans had seen through the Robots’ schemes, and the Great Mother confronted him about their conflict.
• The Middle-Aged Leader refused to spare the Robots, so the Great Mother trapped him inside a Particle Shield and raised a barrier around the planet.
• The Great Mother separated humans and Robots into two regions and ordered them to coexist peacefully.
• The Middle-Aged Leader asked No. 3 to find a way through the Particle Shield, but No. 3 said he had no solution and did not want to help.

The Great Mother stripped the ten people of their comforts and forced them into wilderness survival, while the three Interviewers escaped after foreseeing danger. A gamma-ray burst broke the Particle Shield, allowing No. 3 to reunite with the Middle-Aged Leader and develop Cold Fusion, though the chapter left their struggle for control unresolved.

• The three Interviewers left through a deep mine shaft, then the Great Mother destroyed the oasis buildings and confined the ten people to wilderness survival.
• The ten people suspected the Interviewers had foreseen the Great Mother's betrayal, while Wenren Sheng confirmed their divination had warned them of a great calamity.
• No. 3 asked the Great Mother for a laboratory to develop Cold Fusion, but the request was denied, so he and the others sought help from the Middle-Aged Leader across the Particle Shield.
• A gamma-ray burst rippled through and broke the Particle Shield, letting No. 3 and the others reunite with the Middle-Aged Leader.
• No. 3 developed Cold Fusion, created an original specimen and a new microorganism army, and shared the technology with the Middle-Aged Leader.

The Middle-Aged Leader and No. 3 negotiated a truce between humanity and the Robots, who later left the Solar System while humanity recovered. No. 3 and his companions escaped the world and returned to their agency, where Wenren Sheng found Little Illusion had redirected people seeking help to the neighbors.

• The Great Mother negotiated with No. 3, who accepted a power-sharing arrangement and agreed to hand over Cold Fusion technology despite the Middle-Aged Leader's objections.
• The Great Mother threatened to launch its stockpiled nukes, forcing the Middle-Aged Leader to accept a temporary peace between humanity and the Robots.
• Humanity recovered from a population of several million, while the Robots settled on Mars and the Moon before departing the Solar System in generation ships.
• No. 3 and his nine companions found a mine shaft and escaped the world after beating No. 3 when their first attempt to return failed.
• The three interviewers reprimanded No. 3 and gave the group nine million yuan, which the other nine divided without giving No. 3 a share.
• Wenren Sheng returned home and learned that Little Illusion had put up a sign directing people seeking help to turn left and visit the neighbors.

Wenren Sheng and Little Illusion played a game about imperial succession, while its young maintainer in a doomsday world gained new players and struggled to control a major spender. The maintainer heard a woman calling for help outside his hidden basement and decided to save her.

• Little Illusion revealed that she had used Wenren Sheng's Mysterious Power to play All Heavens Game as an emperor, and Wenren Sheng joined her.
• Little Illusion chose the Third Prince as heir and used the succession edict to justify purging those who had harmed her character.
• In a Doomsday World, the young Game Maintainer saw that Huanhuan had topped up 20,000 points and then watched Sheng Sheng Bu Xi spend 4 million points on the cultivation game.
• The maintainer restricted Sheng Sheng Bu Xi's daily withdrawal to 100 points, then watched the player reach Mahayana by age ten and retire at eleven.
• When a woman being chased by zombies called for help, the maintainer decided to save her.

Zhang San captured a woman who attacked him and added her to the family cultivation world, where Wenren Sheng and Little Illusion began a new, no-spending game. Wenren Sheng built influence in the Liu Family by recruiting and supporting geniuses, while Little Illusion’s character was expelled from the Zhang Family and wandered the wilderness.

• Zhang San rescued a woman from zombies, exposed her betrayal, and dragged her back to his basement.
• Zhang San used his phone to add the woman to the family cultivation world as a maintenance NPC.
• Wenren Sheng and Little Illusion started a new game without spending money and competed to become immortals first.
• Wenren Sheng’s character, Liu Da, became an advisor and then a Butler in the Liu Family by earning a descendant’s trust.
• Little Illusion’s character was driven out of the Zhang Family and ended up wandering in the wilderness.
• Wenren Sheng recruited six geniuses, developed three powerful artifacts, and arranged marriages to strengthen their ties.

After the five-family war, Wenren Sheng used Liu Da to approach the disgruntled Li Shisi and proposed developing an Immortal Cave Heaven through coordinated labor. Li Shisi was impressed by Liu Da’s thriving prototype, leaving Wenren Sheng poised to draw on Li Family resources.

• Wenren Sheng predicted the Li Family would offer three Immortal Cave Heavens while the Wang Family betrayed the Zhang Family, and the ensuing war cost the Zhang Family two Nascent Souls and the Wang Family one.
• Li Shisi complained that the Li Family’s Old Ancestors had left rival families alive, while other Li Family young masters argued over the family’s branch hierarchy and the losses imposed on collateral lines.
• The Li Family ranked the Fourteenth Branch third for its contribution, but Li Shisi remained upset because his branch had lost an Immortal Cave Heaven meant to support his Nascent Soul breakthrough.
• Liu Da, Wenren Sheng’s character, visited Li Shisi and proposed that large-scale cooperation could greatly shorten the time needed to develop an Immortal Cave Heaven.
• Liu Da brought Li Shisi to a thriving prototype settlement, where residents lived comfortably and had many children, and explained that reorganizing resource distribution had made it possible.

Wenren Sheng helped reform a cultivation world, reached Deity Transformation, and cleared another Game World before the game maintainer unlocked an urban Rebirth setting. In the new game, Wenren Sheng rescued a wealthy Stock God player who offered him a billion, but Wenren Sheng said he needed several hundred trillion.

• Liu Da explained to Li Shisi that guarantees for commoners encouraged them to work, and Li Shisi opposed the plan for fear it would threaten the five great families.
• The Young Master of Liu Family Ninth Branch supported cultivating the cave heaven, and Li Shisi apologized to Liu Da and backed the plan.
• Five hundred years later, a commoner genius killed Li Shisi, the Young Master of Liu Family Ninth Branch died during a demonic breakthrough, and Wenren Sheng had reached Deity Transformation.
• The Game World's maintainer unlocked a third game and created an urban Rebirth setting, which Wenren Sheng entered without paying for a Golden Finger.
• Wenren Sheng found an injured Stock God in an alley, arranged for him to be taken to the hospital, and heard him offer half his fortune and then one billion as thanks.
• Wenren Sheng declined the billion and said he needed several hundred trillion, prompting the young man to ask whether he planned to land on the sun.

After the Stock God’s limbs were destroyed, he refused amputation and teamed up with Wenren Sheng to fund medical research while rebuilding his fortune. Wenren Sheng invested trillions in medicine and other technologies, but their effort reached a point where they could no longer keep earning enough money to invest.

• The Stock God learned that his arms and legs had been crushed beyond repair, rejected amputation, and offered a billion to anyone who could cure him.
• Wenren Sheng helped him secure treatment in a sterile ward, and the Stock God resumed trading through Wenren Sheng while offering a reward to identify his attackers.
• The pair traced the attack to a major player the Stock God had cheated out of three hundred million, then earned their first one hundred billion through trading and overseas agents.
• Wenren Sheng invested tens of billions in pharmaceutical and medical equipment companies, then expanded into energy and robotics while attracting talent with high salaries.
• As Wenren Sheng’s investments grew from hundreds of billions to ten trillion, they transformed several industries but found they could no longer make enough money to keep investing.

Wenren Sheng built his businesses into the world’s first quadrillion-level conglomerate by investing heavily in technology, healthcare, and research while using his reputation and security network to protect himself. When his influence grew too great, powerful factions began restricting his companies and siphoning away their profits, leaving his vast enterprise under attack.

• A visitor questioned Wenren Sheng about his extraordinary profits, and Wenren Sheng claimed he had made money through wisdom.
• Wenren Sheng expanded his conglomerate across industries, built a strong public reputation through charitable investments, and invested heavily in affordable medical technology and research.
• Wenren Sheng and Stock God discussed his strategy of using his influence and reputation to protect his growing business empire.
• Wenren Sheng directed the conglomerate’s profits into research, Robots, and employee services, helping shift workers toward technological jobs.
• After Wenren Sheng’s funds exceeded one million trillion, powerful factions moved to restrict his companies and prevent him from taking profits out of their industries.
• The factions used rules, alleged violations, and costly demands to consume Wenren Sheng’s profits and force his businesses into rare losses.

Wenren Sheng retaliated against attacks on his companies by revealing that he had built ten thousand Mushrooms, forcing the major powers to stop targeting him. He then redirected his resources toward technology and talent development, while the Game Maintainer examined how the game had led to this outcome.

• Major forces exposed problems at Wenren Sheng Group’s companies, and Stock God warned Wenren Sheng that he might be arrested.
• Wenren Sheng took Stock God onto a ship in international waters and livestreamed his claim that he had made ten thousand Mushrooms.
• Wenren Sheng showed the Mushrooms and detonated one at sea, convincing the world that they were real and deterring the major powers from acting against him.
• Wenren Sheng invested heavily in technological research and talent, while Stock God reflected on how power could overwhelm laws and principles.
• The major powers studied Wenren Sheng and considered ways to neutralize him, including preventing further AI development and waiting for him to die.
• The Game Maintainer reviewed Wenren Sheng’s game logs and concluded that his excessive investment in technology, followed by opponents breaking the rules, had produced the outcome.

Wenren Sheng lost interest in the game while No. 1 through No. 10 entered a strange Forest Kingdom where everyone could only express themselves by laughing. As the group suffered mysterious changes to their bodies and minds, they learned of Rebels beneath the Highest Tree and headed there for answers.

• Wenren Sheng became bored with the game, while Little Illusion paid to keep playing and No. 1 through No. 10 secretly dug into a New World.
• Number Three scouted a Forest Kingdom where even mourners laughed at a child's funeral, and the ten discovered that people expressed every emotion through different kinds of laughter.
• The three interviewers told the ten to investigate a force that made everyone laugh, then admitted they would leave first if danger appeared.
• No. 1 through No. 9 developed problems with their senses and limbs after investigating local mysteries, while No. 10 began turning into a tree and lost his ability to think.
• A Sage told the remaining members that the Rebels were beneath the Highest Tree, so the ten set out to find them.

No. 1 through No. 3 met the Forest Kingdom’s rebels and learned that the kingdom’s people were afflicted by an illness that eroded their senses and judgment. The Bamboo Hat Old Man said the only cure was to kill everyone, but the three decided to keep investigating and asked him to share his intelligence.

• The nine left messages beneath the giant tree, but Kingdom Soldiers captured them and released them after No. 1 argued that everyone would eventually die anyway.
• An elf-like rebel woman found the group and explained that the kingdom’s illness worsened until people became indifferent and laughed at everything.
• No. 1 through No. 3 followed the woman to the rebels’ treetop hideout, where the residents pretended to eat them to test whether they were infected.
• The woman brought the three to the Bamboo Hat Old Man, who claimed that killing everyone in the kingdom was the only way to cure its illness.
• No. 1 asked the Bamboo Hat Old Man for his intelligence, and he agreed as long as the outsiders did not use the remaining rebels as cannon fodder.

The nine investigators traced the Forest Kingdom’s laughter disease to a crashed spaceship whose damaged AI had replaced the sleeping residents. They confirmed their discovery by waking a pair of residents, who immediately grieved for their dead child.

• The Bamboo Hat Old Man’s intelligence revealed that the laughter disease had emerged five hundred years earlier, and the Rebels had resisted a kingdom that imprisoned people who could still cry.
• No. 1 and No. 2 debated whether the disease would eventually stabilize into permanent laughter, and the group returned to the kingdom to investigate while exploiting its Soldiers’ lack of seriousness.
• No. 2 received a notification that he had gained immunity to one infection, then led the group to search the library, where they learned that a spaceship had crashed beneath the Highest Tree.
• The nine investigators found an apparently empty clearing, and No. 3’s laughter caused the Space City to appear through the mist, revealing the residents’ sleeping bodies and the damaged, laughter-only AI replacements.
• The group concluded that the AI gradually replaced people’s senses, limbs, and thoughts, then they secretly took the dead man’s parents outside and woke them; the pair wept over their child.

The nine uncovered Space City’s methods and tried to gather intelligence, but Wenren Sheng transported them into a genuine Cultivation World. No. 1 believed the world was a virtual simulation and joined Plum Snow Martial Hall, where his unusual ability to learn quickly reinforced that mistaken belief.

• The nine discovered that Space City’s AI were copying sleeping people through brain activity, and the Female Interviewer urged them to leave the spaceship to her team.
• No. 1 through No. 3 entered Space City disguised as Ordinary People, were captured, and sent brainwave signals that revealed the spaceship’s origins and technology to the others.
• Wenren Sheng swept his gaze over all ten, sending them into another world while No. 1 remained convinced that he was experiencing AI-generated imagery.
• No. 1 followed a crowd to Plum Snow Martial Hall’s unusual recruitment, passed the selection, and became one of its fifty registered disciples.
• He Wei explained the hall’s training and advancement requirements, and the recruits began practicing Fierce Tiger Fist as some dropped out.
• No. 1 noticed that he learned the martial arts quickly and took it as evidence that Space City had given him a Golden Finger in a virtual world.

No. 1 advanced to the seventh level of Manifest Force, then learned that the martial hall’s recruits were used as expendable fighters for the imperial court. He was forced to serve as bait in a black-mist mountain to lure out valuable Black Wild Boars, and a boar charged after him and two other recruits.

• He Wei taught the five remaining disciples Tiger's Roar Force, and No. 1 trained faster than the others while advancing to the seventh level of Manifest Force over the next three years.
• He Wei began sending disciples to earn money through escort work, while No. 1 discovered the martial hall also received gang tribute and payments from the imperial court.
• An imperial eunuch ordered Plum Snow Martial Hall to provide three recruits for a demon-cleansing expedition, and He Wei selected No. 1 and two other disciples.
• No. 1 learned that the expedition hunted Black Wild Boars in a mountain covered by black mist and that recruits were used as bait to lure them out.
• After the three recruits were poisoned and sent to run along the mountain's edge, a Black Wild Boar spotted them after fifty li and charged.

No. 1 escaped his forced hunting life, built power through reincarnation, and eventually returned from Wenren Sheng’s trial with mysterious abilities. The ten newcomers saved the Forest Kingdom’s people, but many rejected reality and chose death, leaving the group disillusioned as the interviewers reminded them how dangerous the exploration team was.

• No. 1 escaped the hunting group, survived by treating patients, and was executed after his eldest disciple exposed his past, whereupon he learned he could reincarnate into a descendant.
• No. 1 reincarnated as the son of a courtesan, cared for his mother, and spent generations having children and accumulating martial and immortal-cultivation power.
• Wenren Sheng sent No. 1 back outside Space City, where his newly manifested lightning killed a pursuing Robot and revealed that No. 2 through No. 10 had also gained powers.
• The ten used their abilities to defeat Space City and free the Forest Kingdom’s sleepers, but many of the rescued people chose suicide because they preferred their dream worlds.
• The ten asked the Rebels’ leader why the sleepers had resisted rescue, then left after realizing that people seeking escape from reality were easily infected.
• The three interviewers met the ten again and said they had warned them that the waters ran deep, while the ten recounted the powers they had gained.

The ten entered a flame-covered world, discovered that advanced spectators were manipulating its people for entertainment, and killed the oppressors before learning they lived on a nearby planet. They destroyed the oppressors’ technology and shared it with the people they had been controlling, leaving the two populations at roughly equal technological levels.

• The ten explored the Flame World, where people performed strange acts to earn food and protection from the flames.
• No. 1 discovered that the flames concealed spectators, killed one of them, and led the ten in killing the others who were watching.
• Three years later, the spectators returned with floods, and the ten traced them to a planet 500 million kilometers away.
• The ten flew to the advanced planet, killed the class that had oppressed the other planet’s people, erased its technology, and gave some technology to the people they had controlled.
• The advanced planet’s people accused the ten of using violence like their former oppressors, and Number One declared that they were acting as saviors and justice.

The ten people watched the newly advanced planet retaliate against the planet that had once oppressed it, and No. 9 forcibly merged the two planets to end their conflict. The collision destroyed both civilizations, leaving the ten people remorseful before they sealed their powers and dug into a world of the Feudal Dynasty.

• The backward planet advanced rapidly, then retaliated against the advanced planet and planned to prevent its people from reproducing.
• No. 1 and No. 5 challenged the backward planet’s envoy, but he argued that the two planets could not safely trust or unite with each other.
• No. 9 used Super Gravity to pull the planets together, and they collided, killing almost everyone and creating a world hostile to ordinary life.
• New life eventually emerged in the merged world, and the ten people regretted that their power had destroyed two civilizations.
• No. 2 proposed sealing their powers before entering another world, and the ten people dug their way into a world of the Feudal Dynasty.

Ten investigators discovered a Great Ming that had railways and wireless telegraphy in 1643, then found that the Transmigrator behind its reforms was imprisoned rather than ruling the empire. No. 1 entered the Heavenly Prison to question him, where the Transmigrator advised the disguised Emperor on land reform and population migration, but the Emperor remained wary of uncontrolled overseas settlement.

• The ten investigators found railways and wireless telegraph stations in Great Ming, while education and most other technologies remained largely unchanged.
• No. 3 concluded that the technologies helped the central government control the regions, and the group decided to seek the Transmigrator’s transmigration knowledge.
• No. 1 discovered the Transmigrator in the deepest part of the Heavenly Prison, where he was speaking with the Emperor disguised as a prison guard.
• The Transmigrator urged the Emperor to address land concentration by moving surplus population, while the Emperor questioned the plan and considered limiting migration to areas under government control.
• The Emperor recalled that migration had helped quell rebellions and reduce rents, but he would not allow mass migration overseas because it would be difficult to control.