Chapter Summaries

After decades in Divine Mechanism City, Chu Mu used True Understanding Pavilion and his healer identity to observe cultivators and seek insight into fate and the world's invisible restraints. That insight had advanced his Profound Art of Nine Revolutions to Nascent Soul Perfection, and he continued contemplating the connection between Heaven and Earth and living beings.

• True Understanding Pavilion’s reputation spread among Divine Mechanism City’s low-tier cultivators, and Chu Mu became a recognized presence there.
• Chu Mu sold stored low-tier Alchemical Pills and treated his work as a healer as a way to meet and observe cultivators.
• Chu Mu reflected that the Profound Art of Nine Revolutions required understanding the world as a cage and the meaning of Transcendence.
• After several decades of observing people at the pavilion, Chu Mu advanced the Profound Art of Nine Revolutions from Nascent Soul Middle Stage to Nascent Soul Perfection.
• Chu Mu considered how fate, Children of Destiny, and the Heavenly Evolution Sacred Beast pointed to invisible ties between living beings and their world.

Chu Mu studied the Grand Heaven's Secret Art while observing the fate of Yu She and the people at True Understanding Pavilion. After a year of contemplation, he briefly merged with heaven and earth, but felt his green-robed self stood even more distinctly apart from the Spirit Realm.

• Chu Mu recalled someone whose fate he had once manipulated and considered whether destiny could truly be controlled.
• Chu Mu observed Yu She, a wounded Foundation Establishment cultivator who worked at True Understanding Pavilion to afford pills that suppressed his lingering injury.
• Chu Mu took out the Rule Jade Slip containing the Grand Heaven's Secret Art and reflected on how difficult the secret art was to cultivate.
• Chu Mu spent a year observing the people and patterns of fate around True Understanding Pavilion while comprehending the secret art.
• Chu Mu set down the jade slip after briefly merging with heaven and earth, then sensed that his green robe was even more incompatible with the Spirit Realm.

Chu Mu realized that the Grand Prophecy relied on merging with Heaven and Earth, a practice incompatible with his path and one that had drawn Heaven and Earth's sharper attention. It advanced his Thousand-Year Tribulation by nearly ten years, while his visions revealed several possible futures for his injured clerk.

• Chu Mu concluded that the Grand Prophecy was a divination art based on merging with Heaven and Earth, making it unsuitable for someone on the path of “I am the Rule.”
• Chu Mu sensed that forcibly merging with Heaven and Earth had brought his Thousand-Year Tribulation forward by nearly ten years and made the Spirit Realm’s rejection of him more targeted.
• Chu Mu examined the hunched middle-aged clerk and saw a likely future in which he healed and cultivated the man before harvesting him after he became a powerful expert.
• Chu Mu glimpsed another possible future in which the clerk entered a relic at Cave Misfortune Mountain, obtained treasures, recovered from his injuries, and eventually reached Spirit Transformation.
• Chu Mu recognized that the clerk’s many possible futures could shift as reality changed, and that even the relic’s emergence was not guaranteed.

Chu Mu used Grand Heaven's Secret Art to probe the connection between Heaven and Earth, fate, and living beings through Yun Qingyi's hair. He traced her past toward its ultimate origin and wondered whether reincarnation existed in the Spirit Realm.

• Chu Mu realized that advancing along the path of I am the Rule would free his fate from Heaven and Earth's influence, and he stopped studying Grand Heaven's Secret Art further.
• Chu Mu used the Rule Jade Slip's insights to support his cultivation of the Nine Revolutions Mysterious Technique rather than pursue Body Harmonization with Dao.
• Chu Mu used the strand of Yun Qingyi's hair as an Anchor Point to probe Heaven's secrets across the two realms separating them.
• Chu Mu disguised himself from Heaven and Earth, merged his spirit with its order, and followed the hair's imprint into vast fragments of information.
• Chu Mu examined Yun Qingyi's past rather than her possible futures and wondered whether her ultimate origin involved reincarnation.

Chu Mu broke through the barrier shielding Yun Qingyi’s past and traced her life back to her birth, but found only blankness before it. He then divined the life of a middle-aged man and discovered the same void before the man’s birth.

• Chu Mu reviewed the events he had witnessed with Yun Qingyi and found her earlier past concealed by a barrier tied to the Qingqiu Moon Emperor bloodline.
• Chu Mu carefully probed the barrier, endured its counterattacks, and found a flaw that let him break through.
• Chu Mu followed Yun Qingyi’s past back to her birth as a newborn fox, then found only a blank void beyond it.
• Chu Mu turned his divination toward a middle-aged man and traced his life back to his birth, finding the same blank void before it.

Chu Mu investigated the origins of Otherworld beings and found that their pasts appeared as an empty void until they entered the Spirit Realm. He examined an Artifact Race member in Divine Mechanism City, sensed the city’s surveillance and a possible conspiracy surrounding the race, then confirmed his theory by probing the member’s fate.

• Chu Mu concluded that the heavenly secrets he could glimpse about beings from other worlds began only when they appeared in the Spirit Realm.
• Chu Mu spotted several Artifact Race members in Divine Mechanism City and learned that the race had been settled there after the Divine Mechanism Battalion conquered their Otherworld fragment.
• Chu Mu discreetly touched a third-tier Artifact Race member with his Divine Sense and sensed that hidden watchers and possibly the City Protection Array had locked onto him.
• Chu Mu suspected a conspiracy over the Artifact Race’s value but avoided getting involved and returned to the True Understanding Pavilion.
• After several days, Chu Mu probed an Artifact Race member’s fate and confirmed that everything before entering the Spirit Realm was an empty void.

Chu Mu considered seeking the Holy Imperial Palace’s knowledge but rejected the idea of binding himself to a powerful faction. In the City Lord’s Mansion, Mu Liuyun and his allies activated the Star Observation Platform to search for hidden threats.

• Chu Mu wondered about the deep connections people formed with worlds and suspected the mysteries of the blank sky held the answers.
• Chu Mu considered entering the Holy Imperial Palace to gain knowledge, then suppressed the temptation because he refused to accept restraints on his path to Transcendence.
• Mu Liuyun, Mu Nanfeng, and Chang Qing gathered atop the Star Observation Platform in the City Lord’s Mansion.
• Mu Nanfeng reported that the Array Spirit had locked onto the Artifact Race, while Chang Qing said the Thousand Left Battalion had secretly entered the city.
• Mu Liuyun activated the Compass, and its light spread across the altar as a mysterious ripple scanned outward.

While cultivating in True Understanding Pavilion, Chu Mu sensed that an unknown expert had probed his fate, then watched Divine Mechanism City activate its City Protection Array and announce a hunt for a major criminal. Explosions and battles spread across the city as disguised Foreign Race members revealed themselves and attacked.

• Chu Mu sensed an unknown existence investigating his fate and wondered whether the Qingqiu Fox Clan had been exposed.
• Chu Mu saw Divine Mechanism City's City Protection Array activate and received a City Lord's Mansion notice announcing a hunt for a major criminal.
• A powerful explosion erupted in the city, and the array suppressed its shockwaves as officials and armed soldiers rushed toward the disturbance.
• Battles broke out across Divine Mechanism City, where disguised Foreign Race members revealed their forms and fought the city's forces.
• Chu Mu watched a towering Foreign Race member withstand soldiers' attacks near True Understanding Pavilion.

Chu Mu realized barbarians had infiltrated Divine Mechanism City and that he had been caught in the city’s trap. After the barbarians were defeated, three powerful figures arrived outside True Understanding Pavilion, drawn by the strange reading of Chu Mu’s fate.

• Chu Mu recognized the attackers as barbarians and reasoned that the Artifact Race might have helped them overcome their lack of souls.
• Chu Mu suspected Divine Mechanism City had set a trap, concluded that a fate probe had swept through the city, and chose to wait rather than challenge the City Protection Array.
• The city’s defenses and Holy Imperial Palace forces suppressed the uprising in less than a quarter of an hour, killing the Dharma Appearance barbarians and many others.
• The Star Observation Platform exposed hidden barbarians and Heretical Cultivators, but its reading found the Golden Core Realm cultivator in True Understanding Pavilion out of place with Heaven and Earth.
• Three figures noticed the anomaly and appeared outside True Understanding Pavilion as Chu Mu watched them arrive.

After the three rulers of the Thousand Left Mountain region left, Chu Mu investigated why their Heavenly Mechanism probe had revealed nothing about him. He realized that his fate was imprinted in the spacetime of his previous life, leaving him an anomaly and passerby in the Spirit Realm, and wondered whether true Transcendence would require him to return to that spacetime.

• The Lord of Divine Mechanism City and the commanding generals of the Divine Mechanism Battalion and Thousand Left Camp questioned Chu Mu, then departed without exposing the Qingqiu Fox Clan's secret.
• Chu Mu wondered whether their probe had failed to reveal his fate because he was from another world and recalled the Heavenly Evolution Sacred Beast's words about severing Heaven and Earth Connection and an unrevealed Heavenly Mechanism.
• Chu Mu merged his consciousness with heaven and earth and realized that his fate was imprinted in the spacetime of his previous life, making him a blank anomaly in the Spirit Realm's Heavenly Mechanism.
• Chu Mu connected his outsider nature to the Spirit Realm's rejection of him and his early Thousand-Year Tribulation.
• Chu Mu wondered whether reaching ninth-order Transcendence would require him to return to his previous spacetime and recover his fate's imprint.

Mu Liuyun and the City Lord's Mansion investigated Chu Mu, confirmed he was human, and found no traces of his past before Divine Mechanism City. Chu Mu remained in seclusion for more than a dozen years, rapidly advancing his Profound Art of Nine Revolutions while heaven and earth increasingly rejected him, and resumed cultivation after confirming Qingqiu Grotto-Heaven remained stable.

• Mu Liuyun used the Compass and the City Protection Array to inspect Chu Mu's identity and traces, discovering that his history began in Divine Mechanism City.
• Mu Liuyun ordered Chu Mu to be watched and reported to the provincial capital, while delaying any decision about the coming matter.
• Chu Mu concluded that his past could not be exposed, resumed secluded cultivation, and faced no further interference beyond covert surveillance.
• After more than a dozen years, Chu Mu reached the late stage of the fifth revolution of the Profound Art of Nine Revolutions, while the pressure and rejection of heaven and earth intensified.
• Chu Mu contacted Yun Qingyi, confirmed Qingqiu Grotto-Heaven and the Qingqiu Demon Emperor remained stable, then returned to seclusion to fuse the Profound Art of Nine Revolutions with the Heaven and Earth Furnace.

Chu Mu left Divine Mechanism City as his Thousand-Year Tribulation approached, and Mu Liuyun and Mu Nanfeng realized he had entered the Dao Integration Realm ahead of time. He settled on an icy plain as the Rules Tribulation began to gather overhead.

• A report that Chu Mu had left the city caused Mu Liuyun to see that Heaven and Earth had locked onto him as an anomaly.
• Mu Nanfeng arrived, and he and Mu Liuyun concluded that Chu Mu had entered the Dao Integration Realm while still at the Dharma Appearance Realm.
• Mu Liuyun and Mu Nanfeng decided to inform Chu Mu about a place that was about to open and to earn his favor.
• Chu Mu traveled north of Divine Mechanism City and sat in meditation on an icy plain, preparing to face his Thousand-Year Tribulation.
• Thunder sounded as the wind and snow vanished beneath the dark clouds, and Chu Mu opened his eyes to the beginning of the Rules Tribulation.

Chu Mu realized the Thousand-Year Tribulation had created a false copy of his Heaven and Earth Furnace to absorb his unique Furnace Rules into the Spirit Realm’s order. He stopped resisting and let the tribulation devour him, intending to claim its rules as his own.

• Chu Mu recognized the Thousand-Year Tribulation as a furnace that plundered all things and wondered whether he could plunder it in return.
• The tribulation drew Chu Mu into a furnace identical to his Heaven and Earth Furnace, where its stronger rules began devouring him.
• Chu Mu recalled that his path of I am the Rule made his Furnace Rules unique, with the Spirit Realm’s heaven and earth as the only possible exception for its inhabitants.
• Chu Mu concluded that the furnace tribulation was a false creation meant to absorb his rules into the Spirit Realm’s order.
• Chu Mu released his Furnace Rules and let the tribulation devour him while he watched with the clarity of Spirit Radiance Blessing.

Chu Mu survived the Thousand-Year Tribulation by merging his consciousness with its furnace space and swallowing its Furnace Rules. As the tribulation’s heavenly wrath faded, his cultivation surged and his Heaven and Earth Furnace began transforming.

• Chu Mu merged his preserved consciousness with the false furnace tribulation, reclaimed its Furnace Rules, and re-formed within the furnace space.
• Chu Mu collapsed the furnace space and absorbed everything within it, turning the tribulation’s attempt to devour him against itself.
• Heaven and earth unleashed thunder against Chu Mu, but the assault quickly ended because the Thousand-Year Tribulation had already been passed and the order limited further tribulation.
• Chu Mu recognized that he had angered and further incurred the disdain of heaven and earth, then felt his cultivation rise rapidly from absorbing the tribulation’s Furnace Rules.
• Chu Mu entered the Heaven and Earth Furnace while seated on the icefield, and its transformation reshaped his Essence, Qi, Spirit, and body as his cultivation advanced into the Dharma Appearance Middle Stage.

Chu Mu spent decades cultivating amid the Furnace Rules’ destructive influence, reaching Late Stage Dharma Appearance and approaching Completion. After stabilizing his cultivation, he left the transformed plain, whose strange phenomena vanished and whose winter snow returned.

• The Furnace Rules transformed the plain outside Divine Mechanism City into a lethal forbidden zone, which the Divine Mechanism Battalion guarded as the years passed.
• Chu Mu’s cultivation advanced from Dharma Appearance Middle Stage to Late Stage, and he nearly reached Completion.
• Chu Mu reflected on how Heaven and Earth Rules constrained those who defied Heaven and considered the possibility of human tribulations and exalted seats within the world’s order.
• Chu Mu noticed three Dharma Appearance Great Experts in the distance, exchanged greetings with them, and stepped away from the plain.
• As Chu Mu left, the Furnace Rule phenomena disappeared, the plain returned to normal, and wind and snow covered his footprints.

Chu Mu entered Qingqiu Grotto-Heaven and helped Yun Qingyi restore its disordered rules while secretly embedding his own influence in its order. He left himself a hidden safeguard against losing control of the grotto-heaven as it returned to normal.

• Chu Mu sensed that Yun Qingyi had restored three or four parts of Qingqiu Grotto-Heaven's disordered rules and worried that its growing power might eventually overwhelm his control.
• Chu Mu entered Qingqiu Grotto-Heaven, reunited with Yun Qingyi, and told her about his recent opportunity and improved cultivation.
• Yun Qingyi explained the state of the grotto-heaven's rules, and Chu Mu joined her in sorting them under the pretense of helping her take control.
• Chu Mu discovered that Qingqiu Grotto-Heaven's rules were deeply bound to the Qingqiu Fox Clan and its Moon Emperor Bloodline.
• Using the Heaven and Earth Authority Yun Qingyi granted him, Chu Mu secretly embedded traces of himself into the grotto-heaven's rules over several decades.

Chu Mu spent decades stabilizing Qingqiu Grotto-Heaven’s rules while Yun Qingyi searched for surviving Qingqiu Fox Clan members. After discovering the Grotto-Heaven’s hidden wounds and deciding to wait before taking its power, he remembered an invitation from Divine Mechanism City and left for it with eight years remaining.

• Chu Mu let Yun Qingyi leave Qingqiu Grotto-Heaven to find surviving Qingqiu Fox Clan members and rebuild the clan.
• Over more than a dozen years, Chu Mu sorted out the Grotto-Heaven’s disordered rules and planted hidden safeguards in its Heaven and Earth Order.
• Chu Mu realized Qingqiu Grotto-Heaven had devoured much of the fallen Qingqiu Realm’s World Origin, which had contributed to its rule disorder and lasting wounds.
• Chu Mu considered stealing the Grotto-Heaven’s power but decided to wait until its rules fully stabilized.
• Chu Mu recalled that cultivators from Divine Mechanism City had invited him and said eight years remained, then left for Divine Mechanism City.

Chu Mu returned to Divine Mechanism City, where Mu Liuyun told him that the Holy Imperial Palace had located the next descent site of the Illusory Realm of Grand Void. Mu Liuyun explained that the realm’s legends of immortal treasures and inheritances were true, and Chu learned that he was being invited because of his rapid cultivation and talent.

• Chu Mu returned to Divine Mechanism City and reflected on whether clans and factions had their own fortune and power of rules.
• Mu Liuyun appeared, welcomed Chu Mu, and brought him to the City Lord’s Mansion.
• Mu Liuyun asked Chu Mu about the Illusory Realm of Grand Void, and Chu recalled its legendary descents and treasures.
• Mu Liuyun revealed that the Holy Imperial Palace had determined the realm’s next descent site within the Nine Provinces.
• Mu Liuyun explained that the Illusory Realm of Grand Void embodied the Rule of Illusion, where anything could become real, and said he sought to form a bond with Chu Mu because of his exceptional progress.

Eight years later, Chu Mu returned to the True Understanding Pavilion and examined how a former clerk’s fate had changed. He discovered that the Golden Core Realm man possessed exceptional soul strength and an unusually solid foundation, then invaded his Sea of Consciousness to inspect his memories.

• Chu Mu reflected on the Illusory Realm of Grand Void and its power to turn illusion into reality.
• Chu Mu returned to the busy True Understanding Pavilion and noticed that its former, severely injured clerk had survived for over a hundred years and advanced to the Golden Core Realm.
• Chu Mu used his connection to Heaven and Earth to inspect the clerk’s fate and found that one future branch led him to wield the power of rules.
• Chu Mu searched the clerk’s past but found no obvious reason for the drastic change in his fate.
• Chu Mu isolated the True Understanding Pavilion in a separate space, rendered the clerk unconscious, and examined his Essence, Qi, and Spirit.
• Chu Mu found the clerk’s soul strength, cultivation foundation, magic power, and technique extraordinary, then entered his Sea of Consciousness to view his memories.

Chu Mu discovered that a seemingly ordinary Golden Core cultivator had awakened memories of several previous lives, but he could not determine whether they were genuine or what higher power had caused them. After questioning the man, Chu Mu left to investigate the cultivator’s home in Small Mountain Town.

• Chu Mu examined the unconscious man and found that his soul had grown unusually powerful and that he had awakened memories of several lives spent cultivating the immortal Dao.
• Chu Mu reviewed the man’s memories but found that the cause of the changes had seemingly been erased by an unknown higher power.
• Chu Mu awakened the man and demanded to know how he had gained his previous-life memories.
• The man said he had fallen asleep after work and awoken with memories, techniques, and experiences that felt real, while Chu Mu suppressed his cultivation and made him kneel.
• Chu Mu left the rules space and appeared outside Divine Mechanism City, heading toward Small Mountain Town, where the man lived.