Chapter Summaries

Mo Hua asked Bai Xiaosheng about the Beauties List before persuading him to investigate the Earth Sect elder Tian Musheng’s death. Bai Xiaosheng returned with a troubling account of Tian Musheng’s monopolistic conduct, contradicting Mo Hua’s understanding of the elder.

• Bai Xiaosheng explained that the Beauties List’s top three places were reserved for prominent local families and the Earth Sect, while the remaining rankings served fame, profit, power, and marriage interests.
• Mo Hua threatened to tell Bai Xiaosheng’s grandaunt about his gambling and brothel visit until Bai Xiaosheng agreed to ask around about Tian Musheng’s death.
• After seven days without news, Bai Xiaosheng came to the Small Blessed Land and reported that Tian Musheng had been a powerful Earth Sect elder who controlled its Spirit Plant Arrays.
• Bai Xiaosheng said Tian Musheng had blocked efforts to spread Spirit Plant Arrays and was disliked across the Earth Sect, leaving Mo Hua troubled by the contradiction.

Mo Hua investigated Elder Tian’s suspicious death and learned that the elder’s wealth, poor reputation, and death raised questions, while Bai Xiaosheng warned him that his actions in Ganxue Prefecture had earned him enemies in Dao Province. After staking out the Tian Family Mansion, Mo Hua spotted several covert observers and a powerful Feather Transformation cultivator, leaving the reason for their surveillance unexplained.

• Mo Hua questioned Bai Xiaosheng about Elder Tian’s death and learned that Tian Musheng had one son, Tian Jizhi, who lived in the Tian Family Mansion.
• Bai Xiaosheng warned Mo Hua that his prominence at the Ganxue Assembly had angered powerful people and left him enemies awaiting him in Dao Province.
• Mo Hua visited the Tian Family Mansion, noticed signs that someone had previously tampered with its arrays, and chose to watch the estate instead of breaking in.
• Mo Hua told Bai Zixi he would stay out that night to investigate, and she cautioned him to be careful.
• Mo Hua watched the mansion from a nearby rooftop and noticed several concealed observers gathering after dark.
• Mo Hua spotted a deeply concealed figure with powerful Divine Consciousness and realized a Feather Transformation cultivator had come to watch the estate.

Mo Hua secretly watched Tian Mansion and discovered that a black-mist Feather Transformation cultivator was monitoring it. He followed the cultivator to an abandoned village, where Tian Jizhi was captured and asked where his father’s corpse was.

• Mo Hua sensed a black-mist Feather Transformation cultivator watching Tian Mansion and stayed hidden while monitoring the estate for several days.
• Mo Hua observed Tian Jizhi and noticed a succession of concealed carriages leaving Tian Mansion, but waited until the seventh carriage drew the Feather Transformation cultivator’s attention.
• Mo Hua identified Tian Jizhi in the seventh carriage and followed the Feather Transformation cultivator after he pursued it east from Houtu City.
• Mo Hua reached an abandoned village and saw the Feather Transformation cultivator subdue Tian Jizhi and his pursuers.
• The Feather Transformation cultivator held a sword to Tian Jizhi’s throat and demanded to know where his father’s corpse was.

Mo Hua witnessed a black-mist Feather Transformation cultivator threaten Tian Jizhi to reveal where Tian Musheng’s corpse was hidden. The coffin hauled up by Earth Ghosts was empty, and when a masked Feather Transformation cultivator intervened to protect Tian Jizhi, Mo Hua fled, determined to uncover the corpse’s whereabouts.

• The black-mist Feather Transformation cultivator threatened to slaughter the Tian Mansion unless Tian Jizhi revealed where his father’s corpse was, and Tian Jizhi’s distress exposed the funeral carriage’s secret.
• The black-mist cultivator used blood characters to summon Earth Ghosts, who dragged a coffin from underground before fleeing without payment after sensing something frightening nearby.
• The black-mist cultivator opened the coffin and found it empty, realizing Tian Musheng had deceived even Tian Jizhi about the body’s location.
• A masked, black-clad Feather Transformation cultivator appeared and stopped the black-mist cultivator from killing Tian Jizhi, then fought him with a broadsword.
• Mo Hua quietly escaped while the two Feather Transformation cultivators fought and resolved to find Tian Musheng’s corpse and learn why it mattered.

Mo Hua summoned a Land Duke to capture an Earth Ghost, which guided him to the real coffin carriage. He discovered the carriage was the second one, but after witnessing Uncle Ping kill Tian Xiu and drive away, Mo Hua found the mountain hollow empty and realized the area contained an enormous Earth Array.

• Mo Hua wrote an edict in Monster Blood, summoned the Land Duke, and asked him to capture an Earth Ghost.
• The Land Duke brought an Earth Ghost, which guided Mo Hua south toward the carriage carrying Elder Tian's coffin.
• Mo Hua found the second carriage, then discovered that Uncle Ping and Tian Xiu were pretending to pull a fake carriage.
• Uncle Ping poisoned and killed Tian Xiu, drew something with his blood, and drove the carriage into a mountain hollow.
• Mo Hua reached the hollow after Uncle Ping had vanished and recognized that the surrounding mountains formed an enormous Earth Array.

Mo Hua failed to uncover Elder Tian’s hidden tomb because he could not penetrate its Earth Array, then returned to Houtu City and sought another way to find it. He recruited Shopkeeper Zhao to assemble a tomb-robbing crew and took the underworld moniker “Black-Faced Fiend.”

• Mo Hua surveyed Elder Tian’s burial ground but could not reconstruct or break its Earth Array, and the carriage and Uncle Ping remained missing.
• Mo Hua returned to Houtu City and reunited with Bai Zixi, then spent three days studying Array Techniques with her while continuing to worry about Elder Tian’s corpse.
• Mo Hua asked Shopkeeper Zhao to take him underground, but Shopkeeper Zhao explained that his ruined reputation and the deaths of the former Grave Leaders prevented him from organizing a crew.
• Mo Hua offered to act as the Grave Leader for a promising Earth Sect tomb and asked Shopkeeper Zhao to assemble a crew, especially someone skilled at exploring tombs.
• Mo Hua chose “Black-Faced Fiend” as his alias so Shopkeeper Zhao could recruit people without revealing his identity.

Mo Hua recruited a team for a tomb expedition under the nickname Black-Faced Fiend and chose to enter Elder Tian’s tomb on the day of an Earth Sect assembly to reduce the danger from Feather Transformation Realm cultivators. As the burial date approached, he learned the Twenty-Eight Pattern Flame Kill Array and prepared to test it with Junior Martial Sister.

• Mo Hua persuaded Shopkeeper Zhao to accept Black-Faced Fiend as his Grave Leader nickname and take charge of the expedition.
• After struggling to recruit a team, Shopkeeper Zhao found several experienced strangers, and Mo Hua agreed to go with them.
• Mo Hua asked True Person Rong to identify any Earth Sect leaders who missed an assembly scheduled for ten days later, hoping to avoid or identify Feather Transformation Realm opponents.
• Mo Hua completed True Person Rong’s introductory Karma calculation and left her with the derivation.
• Mo Hua scheduled the burial for the assembly date, then learned the Twenty-Eight Pattern Flame Kill Array and prepared to test it with Junior Martial Sister.

Mo Hua tested the Flame Kill Array, accepted Spirit Ink from Bai Zixi, and set out for Elder Tian’s tomb disguised as the Black-Faced Fiend. On the journey, he detected Magnetic Patterns around his companions and wondered if his Thunder-Magnetic Array knowledge could let him listen in on their private messages.

• Mo Hua activated the Flame Kill Array and saw it swiftly burn away the Gold-Stone Puppet’s legs, confirming its concentrated power exceeded his expectations.
• Bai Zixi warned Mo Hua that the array’s origins might be suspicious, gave him five bottles of top-grade fire-aspected Spirit Ink, and told him to return safely.
• Mo Hua met Shopkeeper Zhao and four hired cultivators, adopting the Black-Faced Fiend persona as their leader for the expedition.
• Shopkeeper Zhao privately urged Mo Hua to bring at least one or two hired cultivators back alive, and the group set off.
• During the carriage ride, Mo Hua sensed faint Magnetic Patterns around his companions and realized they might be communicating secretly through Message Tokens.
• Mo Hua considered using his Thunder-Magnetic Array knowledge to listen in on the companions’ messages.

Mo Hua led Iron Mountain Tiger and the others to Elder Tian’s burial ground, where they searched for the tomb entrance. Smiling Face revealed exceptional Earth Array skill and opened the sealed tomb, allowing a dense deathly aura to rise from underground.

• Mo Hua secretly decoded fragments of the group’s messages and learned they were testing his reliability while discussing ten million Spirit Stones.
• Mo Hua brought Iron Mountain Tiger, Thin Cicada, Mountain-Piercing Rat, and Smiling Face to the burial ground, where they found Tian Xiu’s gnawed corpse.
• Iron Mountain Tiger, Thin Cicada, and Mountain-Piercing Rat used their methods to locate the tomb entrance beneath a small earthen slope.
• Mo Hua began deriving the Tomb Array, but Smiling Face recognized his approach and took over with a more advanced Earth Array technique.
• Smiling Face activated his Earth Array and opened the tomb’s seal, releasing deathly aura as Mo Hua wondered where Elder Tian had been buried.

Mo Hua led Iron Mountain Tiger’s group into a sinister tomb, where his poor navigation and trap skills left the others doubting him. After soul-sucking ghosts nearly killed the group, Mo Hua drove them away, and Iron Mountain Tiger recognized the mural as part of a Ghost-Raising Life-Extension Formation.

• Mo Hua led Iron Mountain Tiger, Thin Cicada, Mountain-Piercing Rat, and Smiling Face into the tomb but got lost, failed to dismantle a trap, and barely broke a defensive array.
• The group privately mocked Mo Hua and discussed a fifty-million-Spirit-Stone reward for finding a corpse, while Mo Hua secretly learned from Smiling Face’s array work.
• Iron Mountain Tiger’s group reached a door covered in murals, and touching one caused the flesh-and-blood ghosts depicted there to come alive and attack.
• The ghosts latched onto the cultivators and drained their Divine Consciousness, but Mo Hua’s Fireball interrupted an attack and his presence frightened all the ghosts away.
• After the group recovered, Iron Mountain Tiger identified the mural as a Ghost-Raising Life-Extension Formation, and Mo Hua reacted sharply to the revelation that it extended a dead person’s life.

Mo Hua and the tomb raiders crossed the three Ghost Gates and found Elder Tian’s coffin, where they were attacked by the tomb keeper Uncle Ping. As the battle turned against Uncle Ping, the supposed Smiling Face revealed himself as a powerful impostor who had eaten the real Smiling Face, but Elder Tian then sat up and addressed him.

• Mo Hua discovered that the little ghosts fled from him, and the raiders used fire to pass through the remaining Ghost Gates.
• The group entered the burial chamber and found Elder Tian’s open coffin and a life-extending lamp, but Uncle Ping ambushed them with Pear Blossom Silver Needles.
• Iron Mountain Tiger and the others fought Uncle Ping, whose strength faltered when wounds from the ghosts’ backlash reopened.
• The supposed Smiling Face seized the chance to attack Uncle Ping, but Iron Mountain Tiger exposed him as an impostor who had eaten the real Smiling Face.
• The impostor revealed his late-stage Golden Core strength, defeated Iron Mountain Tiger, Thin Cicada, and Mountain-Piercing Rat, then approached Elder Tian’s coffin.
• Elder Tian sat up and told the impostor that he was already dead and asked why he was still being pursued.

Smiling Face revealed his corpse transformation and overwhelmed Uncle Ping after the elder used God Invocation to fight him. Just as Smiling Face moved to extinguish Elder Tian’s Soul Lamp, Mo Hua distracted him with Fireballs and drew his attack.

• Smiling Face told Elder Tian that the Dark Division intended to take his corpse and use his brain, while Elder Tian refused to betray the Tian Clan’s ancestral precepts.
• Uncle Ping used God Invocation, broke Smiling Face’s arms, and drove him to the ground, but Smiling Face rose again with a fully transformed corpse body.
• Uncle Ping’s strength failed, and Smiling Face broke his limbs before turning toward Elder Tian and the Soul Lamp.
• Smiling Face tore through Tian Musheng’s hastily prepared Earth Prison and Fire Blade arrays, leaving Elder Tian unable to stop him from reaching the lamp.
• Mo Hua struck Smiling Face with three precise Fireballs, then mocked his appearance, prompting Smiling Face to charge at him with corpse claws.

Mo Hua evaded Smiling Face’s attacks, then trapped him with a Flame Kill Array and an Earth Coffin Array. After Uncle Ping killed the badly wounded Smiling Face, Elder Tian recognized Mo Hua, who removed his Ghost Mask and revealed his face.

• Smiling Face pursued Mo Hua, but Mo Hua repeatedly evaded him and attacked with Five Elements spells.
• Smiling Face intensified his assault to exhaust Mo Hua’s Lingli, but Mo Hua suddenly restored his strength and lured Smiling Face into a hidden Flame Kill Array.
• Mo Hua delayed Smiling Face with a Water Prison Technique, then trapped him in an Earth Coffin Array while the Flame Kill Array burned him.
• Mo Hua gave Uncle Ping a healing pill and ordered him to finish off Smiling Face, instructing him to pierce his vital points until he was completely dead.
• Elder Tian recognized Mo Hua, who removed his Ghost Mask and revealed his face to a stunned Uncle Ping.

Mo Hua discovered that Elder Tian had used a forbidden Earth Array to hide from the Heavenly Dao and learned that the array came from Square Inch Mountain, a secluded blessed land tied to the Earth Sect. Before Mo Hua left, Elder Tian entrusted him with the Tian Clan’s Spirit Plant Array Treasury and asked him to teach his son Tian Jizhi or pass the legacy on to the world.

• Mo Hua explained how he had investigated Elder Tian’s supposed death, followed Uncle Ping, and found the tomb by joining a group of tomb robbers.
• Mo Hua deduced that Tian Musheng had died and survived temporarily through ghost arts and an Earth Array that concealed him from the Heavenly Dao.
• Tian Musheng revealed that the array came from Square Inch Mountain, a hidden blessed land in Kun Province, but warned Mo Hua not to interfere in the dangerous affairs of the Earth Sect.
• As Mo Hua prepared to leave, Tian Musheng learned that Mo Hua had memorized two high-tier arrays after seeing them once and gave him the Tian Clan’s Spirit Plant Array Treasury.
• Tian Musheng asked Mo Hua to teach the array legacy to his son Tian Jizhi if possible, or otherwise share it with the world, and Mo Hua accepted.

After Elder Tian returned to his coffin, Mo Hua spared Iron Mountain Tiger’s group, uncovered a hidden Earth Array inheritance in Smiling Face’s body, and led the survivors out of the tomb. He deceived the three tomb raiders into believing he had rescued them from a Substitute Ghost, and Iron Mountain Tiger began explaining the deal behind their mention of “fifty million.”

• Elder Tian fell into a deep slumber, and Mo Hua stopped Uncle Ping from killing Iron Mountain Tiger’s group while Smiling Face’s corpse was set aside for disposal.
• Mo Hua found a bone fragment bearing a strange Array Pattern and a fang containing a different branch of Earth Array inheritance inside Smiling Face’s body, then asked Uncle Ping to show a copy of the pattern to Elder Tian if he awoke.
• Uncle Ping told Mo Hua that he practiced Left Path ghost arts, then parted ways with him at the tomb entrance after Mo Hua dragged Iron Mountain Tiger, Thin Cicada, and Mountain-Piercing Rat away.
• Mo Hua revived the three tomb raiders and convinced them that an empty coffin had bewitched them into fighting, while Smiling Face had become a Substitute Ghost and vanished inside it.
• Iron Mountain Tiger and the others thanked Mo Hua for saving their lives, and Iron Mountain Tiger began telling him about the deal connected to the “fifty million” they had shouted.

Mo Hua returned from Elder Tian’s tomb with Iron Mountain Tiger and his companions, then helped them settle in Houtu City and visited Bai Zixi. Bai Zixi revealed that her mother was familiar with Square Inch Mountain, leaving Mo Hua curious about the connection.

• Iron Mountain Tiger told Mo Hua that his group had been hired to find Elder Tian’s corpse for a promised fifty million Spirit Stones, but he was unsure whether the corpse he had seen was real.
• Mo Hua led Iron Mountain Tiger, Thin Cicada, and Mountain-Piercing Rat out of the tomb and gave them money and medicine after they reached Shopkeeper Zhao’s residence.
• Mo Hua asked Shopkeeper Zhao to help the three tomb raiders if they faced difficulties and to involve them in future expeditions.
• Mo Hua returned to Little Luan Mountain Blessed Land, cleaned up, and told Bai Zixi about his trip underground.
• Mo Hua asked Bai Zixi about Square Inch Mountain, and she said her mother seemed familiar with it.

Mo Hua told Bai Zixi about his tomb expedition while hiding its unresolved dangers, then reviewed the array inheritances he had gained. He discovered unfinished Spirit Plant Array drafts called “Breath Soil” and prepared to study the Earth Array manuals taken from Smiling Face.

• Mo Hua asked Bai Zixi about Square Inch Mountain and learned that even her mother had never entered its gates.
• Mo Hua concealed the graveyard’s connection to their master from Bai Zixi, then noticed she felt confined in the Small Blessed Land and offered to take her out sometime.
• Mo Hua reviewed the Tian Clan Spirit Plant Array Treasury and found incomplete, complex drafts labeled “Breath Soil.”
• Mo Hua decided to master the treasury’s complete Spirit Plant Arrays before studying the unfinished Breath Soil drafts.
• Mo Hua opened the storage space hidden in Smiling Face’s fang and found manuals containing the Earth Sect’s secret Earth Array inheritance.

Mo Hua studied Spirit Plant Earth Formations and the Dark Division’s burial Earth Arrays, gaining a tentative insight into how the earth’s life and death might relate to Yin-Yang Array Techniques. After improving Xiao Ju’s Orange Trees with new arrays, he learned that Earth Sect elders were dying amid an internal purge, then encountered Wu Ming, who challenged him to a rematch.

• Mo Hua compared Spirit Plant Earth Formations with the Dark Division’s Earth Arrays and wondered whether they revealed a path toward understanding Yin-Yang Array Techniques.
• Mo Hua studied the two kinds of arrays by day and night, but made little progress in grasping Yin and Yang while improving his practical array skills.
• Mo Hua rebuilt the arrays around Xiao Ju’s Orange Trees, causing them to grow slightly, and Xiao Ju promised to help him in the Small Blessed Land.
• Shopkeeper Zhao told Mo Hua that another dozen or so Earth Sect elders had died, while warning him that the sect was purging rivals.
• Wu Ming confronted Mo Hua and challenged him to avenge his defeat at the Sword Discussion, and Mo Hua asked whether he had brought enough Spirit Stones.

Mo Hua defeated Wu Ming in a five-hundred-thousand-Spirit-Stone duel, then shared a meal with him and learned the Wu Family had sent him to probe Mo Hua’s background. Wu Ming revealed that Kun Province’s Great Clans viewed Mo Hua as an unfathomable anomaly and that his portrait had circulated among their women as part of the region’s marriage-alliance politics.

• Mo Hua demanded five hundred thousand Spirit Stones to duel Wu Ming, who agreed and took him to a private room at the Sword Discussion Arena.
• Mo Hua defeated Wu Ming in under half an hour, leaving him shaken and questioning why his cultivation, arts, and artifacts had failed.
• Mo Hua collected the stakes and invited Wu Ming to eat; Wu Ming sent his attendants away and agreed to join him for fish at Hongyun Pavilion.
• During dinner, Mo Hua asked why Wu Ming had challenged him, and Wu Ming admitted the Wu Family’s senior elders had sent him to test Mo Hua and investigate his connections.
• Wu Ming explained that the Great Clans saw Mo Hua as a suspicious anomaly who might disrupt their marriage alliances, then revealed that his portrait had circulated among the women of Kun Province’s Great Clans.

Mo Hua learned that the great clans’ marriage alliances were suddenly being redirected toward the Earth Sect, then discovered his Taotie Spirit Remains was consuming the spiritual energy needed for his Golden Core breakthrough. He estimated that reaching Golden Core Peak and beyond could require over four billion Spirit Stones, and left to earn more.

• Wu Ming told Mo Hua that marriage arrangements among Kun Province’s great clans were shifting toward the Earth Sect, and warned him that resisting family decisions could carry a heavy cost.
• Mo Hua returned to Little Luan Mountain Blessed Land, saw Bai Zixi, and struggled to ask whether she would also be drawn into a marriage alliance.
• Mo Hua used Spirit Stones to feed his Taotie Spirit Remains, then felt his Golden Core approach the Golden Core Middle Stage bottleneck during his morning cultivation.
• The Taotie Spirit Remains devoured the spiritual energy Mo Hua tried to channel into his Golden Core, preventing his breakthrough.
• Mo Hua calculated that he needed about ten million more Spirit Stones to reach Golden Core Middle Stage and might need over four billion to fill all twelve Spirit Remains.
• Mo Hua left the Small Blessed Land to earn Spirit Stones and vowed to confront the Great Shaman if the fully fed Taotie Array proved disappointing.