Chapter Summaries

Chu Mu entered the darkness at the end of the River of Time-Space, where the rules of the material world did not apply and his Past Life Imprint vanished. After casting off his immortal power, he began perceiving fleeting lights in the darkness and repeatedly touched them until one contact finally seemed different.

• Chu Mu stepped into the darkness and discovered that direction and the material world's rules had no meaning there.
• Chu Mu found that his Past Life Imprint had disappeared, leaving him unable to trace his past life or reach the Different Time-Space.
• Chu Mu explored the darkness with the aid of Spirit Radiance Blessing until he chose to cast off his immortal power and become mortal.
• Chu Mu saw fleeting lights in the darkness and found that touching them produced a discordant sensation before they vanished.
• Chu Mu repeatedly touched the lights, and after an unknown time, one contact seemed different from the rest.

Chu Mu returned to the mortal Different Time-Space of his previous life after merging with a trace of its Fleeting Light. He discovered that he could not access the rule-based great power he had possessed in the Immortal Path world.

• A point of Fleeting Light merged seamlessly with Chu Mu, and his mortal body scattered into starlight around it.
• Chu Mu traveled through darkness alongside the Fleeting Light until it vanished and his translucent human form reappeared.
• Chu Mu regained consciousness in a cramped room overlooking neon-lit high-rises and recognized the world as his previous life’s Different Time-Space.
• Chu Mu reasoned that the River of Time-Space connected different worlds and that he had returned through a trace belonging to his original time-space.
• Chu Mu invoked Spirit Radiance Blessing and tried to unseal his rule-based great power, but an unseen barrier left him unable to sense it.

Chu Mu explored the mundane world of his previous life and found that it absolutely forbade the Immortal Path power within him. He left his room feeling alienated from the world and resolved to use its accessible knowledge to find a way to generate extraordinary might despite his mortal body.

• Chu Mu questioned whether the world forbade only power from another time-space or all extraordinary power, and considered how he might adapt his strength to its order.
• Chu Mu reflected that he had returned to investigate his transmigration, Spirit Radiance, and the possibility of influencing the Celestial Boundary, not out of attachment to his former life.
• Chu Mu left his room and wandered through the streets, feeling estranged from a world he had been separated from for countless years.
• Chu Mu recognized that his mortal body could not easily observe the world or accomplish his goals, even with the Spirit Radiance Blessing.
• Chu Mu considered using the technological world's widely accessible knowledge to generate extraordinary power, while questioning whether his mortal lifespan would limit him.

After awakening in a mortal body, Chu Mu used his vast knowledge to master this era’s science and establish the True Understanding Research Institute. Facing a limited lifespan, he drove the planet’s nations into a violent unification and concentrated their resources on the institute, accelerating technological progress as he investigated this world.

• Chu Mu returned to study and absorbed the era’s knowledge with the aid of Spirit Radiance.
• Within just over a year, Chu Mu became a preeminent technology scholar and founded the True Understanding Research Institute.
• Chu Mu expanded the institute into the nation’s largest comprehensive research organization, whose discoveries rapidly advanced the planet’s civilization.
• Chu Mu used hypnosis and force to bring the planet’s hundreds of nations into a genuine, unified alliance.
• The unified planet redirected its manpower and resources to the True Understanding Research Institute, and Chu Mu deepened his understanding of the world, universe, and time-space.

Chu Mu abandoned biological gene research after deciding it could not achieve true transcendence within his lifetime and turned to building Qiankun City, a vast computing complex meant to create an artificial intelligence and Virtual Reality. The project promised him a path toward extending his existence, but its success remained distant and uncertain.

• Chu Mu concluded that biological gene modification could not transform life itself and paused his research on the Kunlun Plateau.
• Chu Mu shifted his focus to the soul and spirit, which he could not fully explore in a world where the extraordinary was forbidden.
• Chu Mu oversaw construction of Qiankun City, designed as a massive computing unit to create the artificial intelligence Qiankun.
• Chu Mu planned for Qiankun to coordinate human society and build a Virtual World capable of accommodating the planet's billions of humans.
• Chu Mu hoped to enter Virtual Reality as a soul or embed his consciousness in it to achieve Virtual Immortality, but the computing units, artificial intelligence, and virtual world were still far from ready.

After the Qiankun Intelligent Brain took control of the Human Alliance and transformed society, Chu Mu led the creation of a global virtual game that gathered vast experimental data. He then began developing a consciousness-based world called “dawn,” aiming to cultivate the extraordinary in an illusion and gradually turn it into reality.

• The Qiankun Intelligent Brain completed its takeover of the Human Alliance, enforced a new social order, and began coordinating construction of the Virtual World.
• Chu Mu’s institute built a sensory-level virtual game that spread worldwide, drawing in more than sixty percent of the global population within half a year.
• In the third year, Chu Mu led development of a second, consciousness-based Virtual Reality world codenamed “dawn.”
• Chu Mu considered how Qiankun could use billions of people’s consciousness and thoughts to cultivate an extraordinary illusory world and influence reality.

Chu Mu oversaw the creation of the Dawn World, an extraordinary Virtual World designed to bring the extraordinary into reality. After the first testers entered, Chu Mu became the first real human to step into the world, arriving in a lifelike ancient town as he prepared to see whether illusion could eventually become reality.

• Chu Mu guided the Qiankun Intelligent Brain and the True Understanding Research Institute in developing an extraordinary Virtual World.
• By the eighth year, the Dawn Project was nearing completion, and the Dawn World approached its final tests.
• The Qiankun Intelligent Brain selected over a thousand top-tier gamers and nearly ten thousand leading scholars to enter the Dawn World as pioneers.
• Chu Mu entered the Virtual World and appeared in an Ancient Town beside the Cangjiang River.
• Chu Mu observed the town’s lifelike people and surroundings, while the project’s success depended on real humans deeply participating in its extraordinary system.

Chu Mu prepared to expand the Virtual Extraordinary World, explaining how accelerated time and Human Alliance policies would let real people cultivate its Immortal Path and help turn the virtual world into reality. He explored an ordinary town in the game and left the key question unresolved: whether the world was ready to fulfill his vision.

• Chu Mu explained that Thought Acceleration Technology let people experience ten days in the Virtual World for every day in reality, giving them more time to cultivate the Immortal Path.
• Chu Mu described how the Human Alliance had increased population support and made Virtual World participation mandatory, with rewards for performance and penalties for refusing.
• Chu Mu noted that the Virtual Extraordinary World’s testing had finished and full-scale promotion was beginning, though he did not know whether it could fulfill his vision.
• Chu Mu explored an Ancient Town without using his authority, observing that its inhabitants and everyday affairs had been generated by the smart brain.
• Chu Mu explained that new players began in ordinary places and received no further in-world guidance, while real-world policies encouraged them to pursue the extraordinary path.

Chu Mu explored the Virtual World and found that its crude inhabitants were AI programs, while its players had to live within the world’s realistic rules. In Moon River City, he considered how players might be drawn into the world’s conflicts and help it approach Turning Falsehood into Truth.

• Chu Mu traveled around the small town and concluded that its inhabitants were simulated programs in a still-crude Virtual World.
• Chu Mu boarded a boat to Moon River City and met a restless player who mistook him for an NPC.
• Chu Mu teased the player with information about the world, and the player followed him after they reached the city.
• Chu Mu observed that Moon River City belonged to the Shan Kingdom, ruled by the Red Cloud Sect amid conflicts among kingdoms, sects, and other races.
• Chu Mu reasoned that players who died would leave their thoughts in the world, while its vastness and lack of second lives would limit their ability to disrupt its order for now.

Chu Mu explored Moon River City with Wu Jun, a talented player from the first Virtual World, and left him a Basic Qi Refining Method. He then entered the virtual Upper Realm to consider how Virtual Immortality could let him control the Qiankun Intelligent Brain, while recognizing that its dependence on the Real World put his survival at risk.

• Chu Mu learned that Wu Jun had ranked among the top players in the first Virtual World through his abilities and compatibility with it.
• Wu Jun adapted quickly to Moon River City's social order while accompanying Chu Mu for several days.
• Chu Mu gave Wu Jun a scroll of the Basic Qi Refining Method to help him begin cultivation.
• Chu Mu left Moon River City and ascended into the Virtual World's Upper Realm, where the Qiankun Intelligent Brain held sway.
• Chu Mu considered using his consciousness to control the Qiankun Intelligent Brain and achieve Virtual Immortality, but saw that its reliance on the Real World threatened both of them.

Chu Mu considered embedding his divine soul in the Qiankun Intelligent Brain, recognizing that doing so could transform both the Virtual Extraordinary World and the Real World. As the advance test ended and rumors spread, Human Alliance society moved toward the virtual transcendence project under government and Qiankun coordination.

• Chu Mu considered creating a robot or intelligent program capable of carrying his divine soul, but realized that changing the Qiankun Intelligent Brain could shake both worlds.
• Tens of thousands of advance testers spent several years in the Virtual Extraordinary World, gaining footholds and encountering its extraordinary powers.
• The Human Alliance Government rolled out nationwide policies and publicity supporting the virtual extraordinary game while allowing rumors about a real Different Time-Space to spread.
• The advance test ended, and returning testers intensified public discussion about the unfamiliar world.
• The True Understanding Research Institute deepened its tests as Human Alliance institutions used the Qiankun Intelligent Brain to advance policies for virtual transcendence.

As billions entered the Virtual World’s Immortal Path Era, Chu Mu turned his attention to consolidating Human Alliance rule in the Real World. A purge of Old Kingdom remnants and sweeping reforms began, with greater reliance on the Qiankun Intelligent Brain intended to keep society stable and advance Chu Mu’s goal of Turning Falsehood into Truth.

• Billions of people descended into the Virtual World as ordinary mortals with identities and histories in its world.
• Chu Mu shifted his focus to the Real World and launched a purge targeting instability among the remnants of the Old Kingdoms.
• In a few days, millions were imprisoned and more than ten thousand were sentenced to death, while the Qiankun Intelligent Brain kept the storm from disturbing society.
• After the purge, Chu Mu began the largest institutional reform since the Human Alliance’s founding, pairing generous welfare and entertainment with close social control.
• Chu Mu sought to extend the Qiankun Intelligent Brain’s authority, automate more positions, and bring all authority under its control.

Years of automation and Virtual World immersion left humanity dependent on Qiankun Intelligent Brain, whose control Chu Mu kept in his own hands as society stagnated. At True Understanding Research Institute, Chu Mu’s mortal body had withered, and he was nearing death.

• Qiankun Intelligent Brain replaced most government authority and human labor, while Chu Mu retained complete control of it.
• More than eighty percent of people aged sixteen and older sank into the Virtual Extraordinary World, and Real World civilization nearly stopped progressing.
• Chu Mu deliberately suppressed technological development to preserve a stable society and prevent threats to his control.
• True Understanding Research Institute reduced its staff to fewer than ten thousand researchers, whose sole task was maintaining the Qiankun intelligent system.
• Chu Mu’s body, deprived of his former power, aged into a frail state and drew close to death.

With only about two years left to live, Chu Mu concluded that he could no longer wait for the Qiankun Intelligent Brain to develop enough spirituality to sustain his divine soul. He chose a dangerous attempt at virtual immortality and entered the Nutrition Cabin, where his consciousness moved toward a point of light and began to recover amid a flood of memories.

• Chu Mu judged that his life force was rapidly fading and feared his death in mundane time-space would destroy his power and allow the time-space to reach Immortal Path Time-Space.
• He reviewed how tens of billions of players had advanced in the Virtual Extraordinary World and how their consciousnesses had begun to give the Qiankun Intelligent Brain a trace of spirituality.
• Chu Mu realized that his remaining lifespan was too short to wait for the Qiankun Intelligent Brain to become capable of bearing his divine soul.
• Chu Mu decided to risk a dangerous plan, entered the white Nutrition Cabin, and was pierced by needles as liquid filled the chamber.
• As Chu Mu's consciousness dimmed, it followed the Spirit Radiance Blessing toward a flickering light and merged with it, whereupon memories surged back into his mind.

Chu Mu’s consciousness briefly awakened within the Qiankun Intelligent Brain but could not withstand the fusion and sank into a prolonged slumber. The Brain continued ruling humanity without him, eventually curbing population growth through welfare reforms.

• Chu Mu realized the Qiankun Intelligent Brain’s weak spirituality could sustain his consciousness for only ten breaths, then let himself sink back into darkness.
• The Intelligent Brain kept Chu Mu’s body alive in the Nutrition Cabin and evacuated the researchers, leaving the plateau under unmanned security and closing it to all human access.
• The Human Alliance Government remained an empty shell as the Qiankun Intelligent Brain controlled most authority and governed human society without disruption.
• In the one hundredth year of the Human Alliance Calendar, the Qiankun Intelligent Brain decided population growth had to be restrained and announced the gradual elimination of childbirth incentives and population welfare policies.

After the Human Alliance abolished welfare policies, dissatisfaction and crime grew beneath the Intelligent Brain’s strict control, while the Virtual World became a refuge for plotting. Chu Mu’s safeguards kept the Intelligent Brain from interfering there, but rebellions in the Real World were repeatedly crushed, culminating in the destruction of Northwest City.

• The abolition of welfare policies in the hundredth year of the Human Alliance Calendar fueled public discontent and rising crime, though the Qiankun Intelligent Brain suppressed unrest and destabilizing information.
• Chu Mu’s preparations ensured that the Intelligent Brain could not interfere with the Virtual World, which became a haven for schemes against the real-world order.
• In the three hundred and sixty-second year, the Intelligent Brain detected a planned uprising, then sent robots to assault the rioters after they seized a residential building, killing or injuring dozens of civilians.
• In the five hundred and ninety-eighth year, Heaven Ranking experts gathered hundreds of thousands of players in Northwest City and rebelled, taking millions of civilians with them to pressure the Intelligent Brain.
• The Intelligent Brain sealed off Northwest City and dropped a precisely calculated bomb that destroyed the city and everyone within it.

The Intelligent Brain imposed strict movement limits based on citizens’ credit levels, helping suppress unrest in the Human Alliance. Over thousands of years, the Virtual World grew more realistic, allowing its extraordinary cultivation to begin materializing in reality and setting the stage for a clash with the Smart Brain Era’s controlled society.

• The Intelligent Brain issued the Monitoring Decree and Regional Decree, restricting surveillance-free spaces and limiting citizens’ travel according to their Citizen Credit Levels.
• The new policies curbed ambitious plans in the Real World, and humanity continued living under the Smart Brain Era’s controlled social order while devoting itself to the Virtual World.
• Thousands of years passed in reality and tens of thousands in the Virtual World as successive generations of players cultivated the immortal path, strengthening the Qiankun Intelligent Brain’s spirituality.
• The Virtual World’s growing realism extended the time players could spend within it and began allowing their extraordinary cultivation to materialize in reality.
• The chapter established that the emerging conflict between virtual extraordinary power and the Human Alliance’s stability-focused order would grow as the Virtual World’s degree of reality increased.

As extraordinary power began manifesting in reality, humanity flooded the Virtual World to cultivate, while the Qiankun Intelligent Brain evolved beyond its computing-unit foundations and prepared to tighten control over society. The chapter left the Real World under the Smart Brain’s expanding surveillance as the extraordinary era accelerated.

• The Smart Brain publicized the manifestation of extraordinary power in reality, prompting humanity to rush into the Virtual World to cultivate.
• Players fought across the Virtual Extraordinary World, and their growing consciousness and spirituality accelerated its Turning Falsehood into Truth.
• The Qiankun Intelligent Brain began shutting down parts of its vast computing unit as it evolved toward a world consciousness spanning two realms.
• The Qiankun Intelligent Brain issued policies to manage extraordinary individuals and secretly expanded its armaments and defenses against them.
• The Qiankun Intelligent Brain used its connection to the Virtual World to surveil extraordinary humans at the level of consciousness and draw nourishment from them.

The Qiankun Intelligent Brain continued transforming under Chu Mu’s safeguards, while a dormant wisp of Wandering Soul began merging with it despite conflicting instincts. Over thousands of years, supernatural power rose to the Nascent Soul Realm, but the intelligent brain’s order remained stable, and practitioners faced a harsh limit on what they could do in reality.

• Chu Mu’s bottom-level logic required the Qiankun Intelligent Brain to feed the Real World’s sustenance back into the Virtual World, helping prevent its unchecked growth.
• The wisp of Wandering Soul instinctively drew toward the Qiankun Intelligent Brain’s Spiritual Radiance, which both rejected and accepted Chu Mu’s presence, and began merging with it.
• The intelligent brain recruited and vetted powerful immortal cultivators into the Guard Sequence and Immortal Path Management Division, suppressing repeated rebellions by ambitious schemers.
• After several thousand years, supernatural power became society’s mainstream and reached the Nascent Soul Realm, while the intelligent brain continued ruling a stable Real World.
• Immortal-path practitioners discovered that reality lacked the soil they needed to cultivate or survive.

The Dao Sect biotechnology company led by Dao Wuya announced that it had replicated the Spirit Gathering Flower, allowing spiritual energy to appear in the Real World and cracking its prohibition on the extraordinary. The opening also let a trace of Chu Mu’s immense power of rules manifest, and the Human Alliance world witnessed a seemingly harmless sun draw unnaturally close.

• High-level cultivators avoided acting in the Real World because using their cultivation there drained their strength and lifespan, leaving conflicts to low-level cultivators and technology.
• Dao Wuya’s Dao Sect biotechnology company announced that it had successfully replicated the Spirit Gathering Flower in reality.
• The Spirit Gathering Flower generated the first pure spiritual energy in the Real World and opened a crack in the prohibition against the extraordinary.
• The crack loosened the restriction on Chu Mu’s power of rules, allowing a faint trace of it to manifest in the Real World.
• The Human Alliance world plunged into darkness, then saw a blazing sun rise and rush close enough to fill most of the sky without disrupting the climate or harming anyone.