Chapter Summaries

Su Mo secured Pei Shao’s help obtaining restricted alloys for his research, while Zhang Min’s exhausting wait in Fishmen City ended when Yu Chenghui returned. The chapter left Zhang Min rushing to prepare to see the Second Prince despite her collapse.

• Su Mo learned that Sun Quan had completed the Energy Stone Tools and went to the cafeteria to speak privately with Pei Shao.
• Su Mo tested Pei Shao by naming restricted high-level alloys, and Pei Shao agreed to ask old acquaintances to obtain them if Su Mo gathered enough Trading Points.
• Su Mo and Pei Shao finished their conversation with a new understanding, while Pei Shao appeared to have confirmed suspicions about Su Mo.
• Zhang Min spent four days watching the castle in Fishmen City for Yu Chenghui and collapsed from exhaustion and heat.
• When a flag appeared over the castle, Zhang Min realized Yu Chenghui had returned and ordered her maids to help her get ready to see him.

Yu Chenghui returned to Fishmen City, where Zhang Min’s request for help was brushed aside and left her gravely distressed. In Sang Tian Town, Zhang Da learned that Zhang Bowen and Su Youzong had revived Carefree Good Workshop, and the family decided to secure Su Youzong’s help and keep him from joining a rival shop.

• Yu Chenghui arrived in Fishmen City and received a King Conch from Zhang Min, but he delayed meeting her and sent a guard to tell her to wait.
• Zhang Min and her maids waited outside the castle until a fishman guard dismissed them; after hearing fishmen boast about their power, Zhang Min fainted.
• Zhang Bowen showed Zhang Da and Zhong Yunxiang the new energy stone sickles, a large tool order, patent certificates, and the workshop’s improved accounts.
• Zhang Bowen praised Su Youzong’s teaching, and Zhang Da recognized the value of Su Youzong’s business advice while concealing the family’s original reason for hiring him.
• Zhong Yunxiang worried Su Youzong would leave for another shop, so Zhang Da resolved to attend the Summer Harvest Preheating Conference and keep him away from Qiankun Grain Store.

Su Mo spent a leisurely morning before taking his neighbors to Carefree Good Workshop for the Summer Harvest Preheating Conference. There, Zhang Da offered him a 10% stake in the workshop, and Su Mo accepted.

• Su Mo reviewed the Sun Chasing Armor 1.0 design and resolved to investigate Tian Yuan Territory’s hidden past after finishing the armor.
• Sun Quan brought gifts to Su Mo’s home, and Wang Qian and the others joined the lively gathering before they all headed to the workshop.
• Su Mo met Zhang Da, the recovering founder of Carefree Good Workshop, and entered a private meeting with Zhang Da, Zhang Bowen, and Zhong Yunxiang.
• The system informed Su Mo that Zhang Da had transferred him 10% of Carefree Good Workshop’s shares, granting him a portion of its fixed income, advisory rights, and limited access to Trading Points.
• After Zhang Da explained the offer and welcomed him to the workshop, Su Mo agreed to accept the shares.

Chen Shen ordered Sang Tian Town’s officials to support Carefree Good Workshop and raise Su Youzong’s reputation after learning it had developed a superior harvest tool. Zhang Min returned from Fishmen City to find the workshop drawing a huge crowd, and she collapsed in shock when she learned it had succeeded.

• Chen Shen read Su Youzong’s file and summoned Chen Kai, Chen Yi, and Chen Yun to hear their reports on the harvest conference.
• Chen Kai told Chen Shen that Carefree Good Workshop had developed a tool that outperformed Qiankun Grain Store’s Micro Energy Engine 1.0.
• Chen Shen ordered the three officials to support Carefree Good Workshop unconditionally and quietly make Su Youzong Sang Tian Town’s most respected person.
• Chen Shen revealed his scarred face and wondered whether he should continue waiting before acting on his plan.
• Zhang Min left Fishmen City and traveled back toward Sang Tian Town with her two maids.
• Zhang Min found a long line outside Carefree Good Workshop and collapsed after seeing a flyer advertising its Energy Stone Sickle and hearing that Master Su led the workshop.

Zhang Min returned to Carefree Good Workshop and learned that Su Youzong’s Energy Stone Tools had made the shop prosperous, but she warned Zhang Da that a Great Hailstorm would arrive after only three days of harvesting. She and Zhang Da chose to trust the territory’s interests and plotted to frame Su Youzong and Sun Quan for arson, while Su Mo remained unaware of their plan and noticed that several groups were watching him.

• Zhang Min returned to the workshop and saw that the Energy Stone Tools had drawn crowds and brought in a flood of workers.
• Zhang Da celebrated the workshop’s prospects and discussed giving Su Youzong a large share, but Zhang Min told him that the Great Hailstorm would arrive after just three days of harvesting.
• Zhang Min revealed that Qiankun Grain Store was backed by Hope City, the Chen Family, and the mayor, then showed Zhang Da the incendiary bombs Yu Chenghui had given her.
• Zhang Min and Zhang Da decided to frame Su Youzong and his younger brother Sun Quan for arson, then destroy the shop to erase the evidence.
• Su Mo declined Zhang Bowen’s invitation to drink, invited Sun Quan to move in with him, and quietly assigned him a task involving the shop’s idle workers.
• Su Mo sensed that four groups were watching him as he headed toward Gu Tian Third Street, including teams he suspected belonged to Feng Long and the Supervisory Department.

Su Mo took Huang Xiaojuan to Hope City, explored its western district, and visited Treasure Fish Heavy Industries to commission a harvester for Starfire No. 3. The factory could build it quickly, but the Academy of Sciences’ requisition of Buffer Alloy left Su Mo needing to find a researcher who could spare some.

• Wang Qian ordered four people to follow Su Youzong to Hope City and told them to avoid clashing with the inspection team.
• Su Mo and Huang Xiaojuan traveled to Hope City, where they toured the western district and Huang Xiaojuan went shopping while Su Mo pursued his business.
• Su Mo hired a driver to take him to Treasure Fish Heavy Industries and showed business manager Yan Jianhua the harvester blueprints.
• Yan Jianhua said the factory could build the harvester quickly but lacked the first-grade Buffer Alloy needed for its cutting heads because the Academy of Sciences had requisitioned its supply.
• Yan Jianhua suggested Su Mo ask a researcher he knew for some of their allocated research materials, and Su Mo decided that was his only option.

Su Mo visited the Academy of Sciences district to learn how he might obtain Buffer Alloy and discovered that access could require connections, an examination, or solving research problems. As he approached the Academy’s entrance, four factions secretly followed him, wondering what he intended to do there.

• Yan Jianhua arranged for Zhou Yue to escort Su Mo and explained that factories had to comply with the Lockdown Line agreement, which allowed the Academy of Sciences to requisition materials.
• Zhou Yue described three ways to obtain Buffer Alloy: receive an allocation through a researcher, qualify as an external researcher, or earn points by solving posted problems; he said favors could cost fifty thousand points.
• Su Mo rejected Zhou Yue’s offer to introduce him to a researcher because the fee was far beyond his budget.
• Yu Zhou and three other vehicles followed Su Mo toward the Academy of Sciences, while Yu Zhou warned his team that Su Youzong might be trying to involve the Academy in the territory’s political struggle.
• Zhou Yue dropped Su Mo at the Academy district’s outer gate, where Su Mo saw the tree-lined road leading to a second, more imposing entrance.

Su Mo visited the Tian Yuan Academy of Sciences and learned how its researchers and staff earned money, then went to the Technology Stele Tower to seek a way to connect with a researcher. There, he recognized Hou Congwu, an old acquaintance now posting a research problem.

• Su Mo passed through the Academy’s public grounds and learned that researchers and staff earned income through classes, private jobs, and research projects.
• Qi Xiaomei introduced herself as an Academy guard and drove Su Mo around, explaining the Academy’s unusual work and funding system.
• Qi Xiaomei took Su Mo to the Technology Stele Tower, where he learned that people could gain researcher status by solving a posted problem.
• Su Mo joined the crowd around the central stele and recognized the researcher posting the task as Hou Congwu, who had changed his name to Hou Congwen after becoming Ai Jianfeng’s apprentice.

Su Mo toured the Academy of Sciences, studied its research problems, and concluded that its growing focus on architectural materials was tied to an urgent demand for Buffer Alloy. After he left, Qi Xiaomei was confronted by multiple authorities investigating her, and she surrendered.

• Su Mo examined the three Technology Stele Towers and learned from Qi Xiaomei that a surge of new architectural research problems had appeared in recent months.
• Su Mo decided he could solve several problems but withheld his answers until he understood the Academy of Sciences' rules and suspected Qi Xiaomei was testing him.
• Su Mo and Qi Xiaomei toured the Lizard Park, testing ground, and Debate Room before heading toward the exit.
• Su Mo transferred five points to Qi Xiaomei and left, while she realized he had detected her attempts to learn about him.
• Qi Xiaomei returned to her guard booth, where officials and military personnel surrounded her with investigation orders, and she surrendered.

Su Mo decided to adapt the Pillar of Genesis into a structure that could earn him researcher status, then built and tested a wooden prototype. After it supported several people despite weighing barely over a kilogram, he named it the Sky-Scraping Pillar and prepared to take it to the Academy of Sciences.

• Su Mo chose to make a simplified Pillar of Genesis structure and sketched its design before going to sleep.
• Su Mo built a sixty-centimeter wooden tower from 1,650 pieces, with a central pillar bent seven times.
• Huang Xiaojuan, Sun Quan, and Wang Qian stood on the tower, and it held their combined weight despite creaking under Wang Qian.
• Su Mo estimated that an alloy version could meet the Academy of Sciences' requirements and said he would take the prototype there after eating.
• Su Mo named his invention the Sky-Scraping Pillar after Sun Quan asked what it was called.

Su Mo went to the Academy of Sciences to answer Hou Congwen’s architectural challenge and seek researcher status, despite several factions mobilizing to stop or influence him. With Qi Xiaomei’s help, he reached Hou’s laboratory, where the evaluation was about to begin.

• Su Mo named his wooden tower the Sky-Scraping Pillar, and Wang Qian worried that Su Mo’s abilities and the Academy of Sciences could draw the territory’s factions into conflict.
• Su Mo traveled to Hope City and found armed personnel from several factions gathering around the Academy of Sciences.
• Qi Xiaomei drove Su Mo through the institute and explained that the Northern Military Region would buy him time to persuade a dean, while warning him about the fishmen and the mayor’s Investigation Office.
• Su Mo passed security and registered with intern Qiu Hong to answer Hou Congwen’s architectural question, learning that Dean Ai would evaluate his proposal if Hou approved it.
• Hou Congwen saw Su Mo on the intercom and let him into the laboratory.

Su Mo demonstrated that his wooden tower could withstand more than three hundred times its own weight, convincing Hou Congwen that he had passed the architectural challenge. He then began building an alloy structure in Virtual Reality and raised its thousand floors toward the stars.

• Qiu Hong led Su Mo into Hou Congwen’s laboratory, where Su Mo entered a Virtual Reality testing ground.
• Hou Congwen explained the challenge and its load-bearing standards, and Su Mo presented his wooden tower design.
• Hou Congwen tested the enlarged wooden tower until it collapsed at a load of three hundred and ten times its own weight, confirming Su Mo had passed.
• Su Mo chose to build an alloy structure for a higher score, transforming the test site as silver metal formed a curved tower.
• Su Mo set the alloy tower to a thousand floors and rose with Hou Congwen to a height of 1,100 meters.

Su Mo tested his weakened Pillar of Genesis structure in Virtual Reality and helped Hou Congwen break the Academy of Sciences’ tower-load record. After Hou Congwen described the worsening disasters and humanity’s dwindling population, a real-world power outage interrupted them, and armed fishman warriors from the Northern Military Region stormed the Academy of Sciences and aimed their weapons at the laboratory.

• Su Mo and Hou Congwen tested the single-pillar tower, and Su Mo raised its load until it broke the record at seven hundred times under Hou Congwen’s name.
• After the record drew researchers’ attention, Su Mo and Hou Congwen waited for the dean while Hou Congwen explained the Academy’s eight institutes and the growing need for underground shelters.
• Hou Congwen told Su Mo that disasters and population decline threatened humanity, but their Virtual Reality scene suddenly vanished during a power outage.
• Hou Congwen left the room to investigate the outage, but Qiu Hong silenced him and pinned him against a wall in the glass passageway.
• A gunshot killed someone nearby, and Hou Congwen saw armed fishman warriors from the Northern Military Region aiming Dragon Tooth Assault Rifles at the laboratory.

Fishmen attacked the Academy of Sciences, and Su Mo fought them while researchers learned he was a record-breaking talent with dean-level potential. The researchers rushed out to summon reinforcements and the Academy’s ultimate weapon, but Su Mo still had to survive for at least five minutes.

• Hou Congwen was knocked down the stairs by a Fishman, then stabilized with treasure water after the attackers learned he was on the Deification List.
• The laboratory on the third floor exploded, and Fishmen fired Rocket Propelled Grenades at the building as their target escaped toward the second floor.
• Su Mo fought the Fishmen at close range, and Hou Congwen identified him as the test-taker who had broken the Tower Structure record.
• Hou Congwen told the researchers that Su Mo’s building could reach at least one thousand times, prompting them to rally and demand that the attackers be stopped.
• Researchers left the building to contact reinforcements, the grand dean, and other forces while Su Mo continued fighting in the Academy of Sciences battlefield.

Su Mo fought off the Fishmen attacking the Academy of Sciences until Yu Yangyu transformed into an armored monster and overwhelmed his weapons. After researchers rescued Su Mo on the Seventh Floor, Ai Jianqiang prepared to unleash the Academy’s counterattack.

• Su Mo used the Wolf Fang Assault Rifle to hold back the Fishmen while Yu Yangyu tried to make him reveal human Su God’s whereabouts.
• Yu Yangyu revealed that Fishmen first prince Yu Chenghuang had sent him, then drank King’s Drug and transformed into a huge, nearly invisible monster.
• Yu Yangyu’s armored body deflected Su Mo’s bullets, so Su Mo fled upward through the building while Yu Yangyu pursued and hurled rubble at him.
• A researcher took an energy stone from Su Mo to build a power-transmission device, while Su Mo continued toward the Seventh Floor and was badly injured by falling stones.
• Researchers pulled Su Mo onto the Seventh Floor and gave him Psionic Water, where he recognized the dean, Ai Jianqiang.
• Ai Jianqiang took Su Mo’s remaining energy stone and said the old researchers were ready to show the Fishmen their counterattack.

The Fishmen attacked the Academy of Sciences to seize Su Youzong, but Dean Ji unleashed overwhelming power that destroyed them and stopped the advancing troops. Wang Qian learned that the Fishmen wanted to use Su Youzong in a collider to find the Ocean God and Su Mo, while the Academy’s Dedication Agreement became the lesson that revealed Dean Ji’s strength.

• Wang Qian refused to retreat as Fishmen and drug-enhanced Black Monsters devastated his forces outside the Academy of Sciences.
• Yu Shi said the Fishmen had sent Commander Yu Yangyu inside to capture Su Youzong, then revealed that their plan depended on using him in a collider.
• Su Mo watched his wound begin to heal as Ai Jianqiang and Ning Yushu introduced the Dedication Agreement as his first lesson, titled “One Day Supreme!”
• Dean Ji appeared as a giant face in the clouds, blocked the Heaven Po Jun forces from approaching, and struck the Fishmen with lightning.
• Yu Shi fled toward Wang Qian and revealed that Su Youzong’s red information threshold could help the Fishmen locate the Ocean God and Su Mo, but Dean Ji killed him before he could say more.

After Ji Yang annihilated the fishmen, Su Mo learned that Heaven Po Jun and the Chen Family had signaled their arrival and heard accusations that military factions had allowed the attack to worsen. As Su Mo resolved to reclaim control of the divided territory, he declared that he would rebuild Tian Yuan Territory under his rule.

• Ji Yang destroyed the fishmen, extinguished the fires with rain, and left the researchers about twenty minutes for a debriefing before his remaining time ran out.
• Ning Yushu introduced Su Mo to the Architecture Institute and offered him a position, but crimson and blue fireworks signaled Heaven Po Jun and the Chen Family's arrival.
• Su Mo and Ning Yushu left the damaged building and saw Heaven Po Jun's troops surrounding the Academy of Sciences while Wang Qian described the casualties and blamed the Western Military Region for failing to act.
• Wang Qian told Su Mo that the Northern Military Region could not arrive for hours and promised that the Academy of Sciences would protect his identity, leaving his future choice to him.
• Su Mo concluded that factional conflict and deliberate delays had helped cause the disaster, then vowed to reclaim Tian Yuan Territory and rebuild it under his authority.

After the fishmen’s attack ended, Su Mo helped carry the dead to the Academy of Sciences’ auditorium and met with its senior researchers. In his virtual realm, he demonstrated the Skyscraper Tower and broke through the thousandfold load-capacity limit, leaving the researchers astonished.

• Su Mo carried the body of Qiu Hong, a fellow intern researcher, to the auditorium, where Hou Congwen said the Academy would avenge those who died.
• Hou Congwen told Su Mo that Dean Ji Yang wanted to see him and that his incomplete model needed to be entered into the virtual realm again.
• Ai Jianqiang introduced Su Mo to Wen Ziling and brought several researchers into Su Mo’s virtual realm to examine his structure.
• Su Mo rapidly built a nine-story Skyscraper Tower in the virtual realm, and the senior researchers praised its load-bearing design.
• The Deification List appeared with Su Youzong’s name and a load-capacity result of one thousand times, surpassing the previous record and shocking Ai Jianqiang and the others.

Su Mo set a new load-bearing record at the Academy of Sciences and met the overclocked Jiyang, whose information-stream investigation found Su Mo blank. As Jiyang pressed him for answers about the blank stream and the vanished founder of Tian Yuan Territory, Su Mo tried to keep the conversation going over tea, hoping Jiyang would recognize a crucial clue.

• Su Mo tested the Skyscraper Tower until it collapsed at 1,100 times its load, setting a record that placed Su Youzong fourth in the Tower Structure rankings.
• Ai Jianqiang summoned Jiyang, who arrived as a barely formed phantom after discarding his physical body to overclock his thoughts.
• Jiyang told Su Mo that his information stream appeared blank and demanded to know whether Su Mo came from another world or had concealed it.
• Su Mo avoided answering and offered to discuss thought overclocking, saying he wanted to see whether he could keep Jiyang alive.
• Jiyang explained that the founder of Tian Yuan Territory had vanished in the first year of the Wasteland and that overclocked investigation had failed to find his information stream.
• As Jiyang waited for an answer, Su Mo drank cup after cup of tea; with fifteen minutes left, Jiyang picked up a cold cup and drank it too.

The Academy of Sciences accepted Su Youzong as a vice dean after Ji Yang approved him and endorsed the Sky-Scraping Pillar. Ji Yang sacrificed himself to advance several technologies, and Su Mo left with a temporary research arrangement and Ai Jianqiang’s Energy Vehicle, promising to help the territory rise again.

• Ai Jianqiang told the Architecture Institute researchers he would protect Su Youzong if Ji Yang found no problem with him, and Ji Yang soon confirmed that Su Mo had passed.
• Ji Yang died after burning himself, leaving behind major research advances, including a sixth-generation Energy Stone Engine and a Sky-Scraping Tower with thirteen hundred times the standard load-bearing capacity.
• The Academy of Sciences elevated the Architecture Institute to second place, and Ji Yang’s endorsement made Su Mo its new vice dean.
• Su Mo declined a welcoming ceremony and requested deferred employment, so Ai Jianqiang arranged a virtual-realm laboratory and temporary access for him.
• Ai Jianqiang lent Su Mo his Energy Vehicle and urged him not to betray the Academy’s hopes, and Su Mo promised the territory would recover and see the sun again.