Chapter Summaries

Ling Wuyuan traveled with a merchant caravan and considered the resources he needed from Azure Lake White Stream Palace, along with the consequences of carrying out his promised revenge on the families that destroyed the Pei Family. He remained determined to slaughter the three families, even if Black Stone City's authorities or the entire White Mist Country tried to stop him, while the burly man continued to mistake his calm demeanor for an easygoing nature.

• Ling Wuyuan told the burly man he preferred to live casually rather than take life seriously, and the two continued chatting.
• Ling Wuyuan reflected that Azure Lake White Stream Palace's second-stage mission was his best chance to obtain resources and that he would return to fulfill his promise to Pei Yiman afterward.
• Ling Wuyuan worried that taking revenge on the three families could draw in Black Stone City's City Lord, its garrison, and the White Mist Country's authorities.
• Ling Wuyuan resolved to kill anyone who tried to stop him from wiping out the three families, regardless of faction, number, or status.
• The burly man noticed none of Ling Wuyuan's violent thoughts and considered him cold-faced but warm-hearted.

Ling Wuyuan told Li Guang he was traveling to Dragon Peak City and declined the offer to join the caravan, preferring to ride alone. After he left, Steward Zhang recognized his horse and gear as signs of a powerful background and regretted that he had not traveled with them.

• Ling Wuyuan told Li Guang he was headed for Dragon Peak City, and Li Guang warned him about the dangerous, months-long journey.
• Li Guang invited Ling Wuyuan to travel with the caravan, but Ling Wuyuan refused because he needed to travel faster and wanted privacy for cultivating and refining medicine.
• Ling Wuyuan rode ahead alone, leaving the caravan behind.
• Steward Zhang questioned Li Guang about Ling Wuyuan and judged from his bearing, horse, and equipment that he was likely a prominent young member of a great power.
• Li Guang scratched his head and privately felt pleased with his eye for people.

Ling Wuyuan camped beside the road and brewed a potent medicinal mixture with a slice of three-thousand-year-old Purple Blood Ginseng. Its fragrance drew wild animals to his camp, and a colossal wolf emerged from the forest.

• Ling Wuyuan chose a level spot away from the road and set up a special tent that repelled snakes, insects, and rodents.
• After eating and settling his horse, Ling Wuyuan brewed medicinal herbs in a large cauldron while reading a book from the Cloud Piercing Gang.
• Ling Wuyuan added a slice of precious Purple Blood Ginseng, greatly strengthening the mixture and releasing a powerful fragrance.
• The horse grew restless, and wild deer, leopards, and wolves gathered nearby, held back by the dangerous scent of Ling Wuyuan's tent.
• A wolf howled as a colossal creature nearly the size of a young elephant approached through the dark forest.

Ling Wuyuan faced a Black Fierce Tiger, a powerful demonic beast drawn by the medicinal soup at his campsite. He killed it with three punches and regarded its body as a valuable ingredient for practicing his cultivation methods.

• A Black Fierce Tiger approached Ling Wuyuan’s campsite, driven by the rich medicinal soup in his cauldron.
• The tiger roared and charged, terrifying the nearby horse and scattering birds through the forest.
• Ling Wuyuan struck the airborne tiger with a punch that sent it crashing into a tree.
• Ling Wuyuan caught up and killed the tiger with two more punches.
• Ling Wuyuan felt satisfied that the tiger would make an excellent medicinal ingredient for his cultivation.

Ling Wuyuan butchered the Black Fierce Tiger and collected its valuable parts for cultivation and medicine refining. As he added the tiger's blood to his medicine, he considered how his fragile body limited the power of [Abyssal Divine Speed], leaving him determined to cultivate further.

• Ling Wuyuan carefully butchered the Black Fierce Tiger, preserving its hide and collecting its blood and other usable materials.
• Ling Wuyuan saved the tiger's heart's blood for the [Wolf Tiger Leopard Body Forging Technique] and considered using medicine refining to attract more demonic beasts.
• Ling Wuyuan weighed the destructive power and bodily risks of [Abyssal Divine Speed], recognizing that his body was its greatest limitation.
• Ling Wuyuan stored the tiger's materials in his spatial ring and poured fresh Tiger Blood into the medicine cauldron.
• Ling Wuyuan continued reducing the medicine over a gentle fire, planning to shape and bake the remaining medicinal ash into pills.

Ling Wuyuan refined and tested enhanced Marching Pills, discovering that they nourished his body and accelerated his blood qi. On his first night alone after leaving the White Crow Gang, he reflected on returning to solitary life while holding on to the power and future he had gained.

• Ling Wuyuan finished roasting 145 enhanced Marching Pills made from a formula in Azure Lake White Stream Palace’s pharmacopeia.
• Ling Wuyuan tasted one pill and felt its nutrients spread through his body, strengthening his blood qi.
• Ling Wuyuan recognized that his lack of true qi made him a novice compared with qualified alchemists.
• Ling Wuyuan lay alone in his dark tent on his first night after leaving the White Crow Gang and thought about facing the dangers ahead by himself.
• Ling Wuyuan clenched his fist, resolved to take charge of his life and future, and felt power flowing through him.

After a month of painful bodily remodeling, Ling Wuyuan completed his transformation, entered the Qi Nourishing Realm, and gained True Qi. He prepared to continue traveling, while his horse’s growing obedience revealed how different his presence had become from that of a normal human.

• Ling Wuyuan finished a second round of tooth replacement, leaving him with forty-four teeth, dark gray hair and eyes, and vertical pupils.
• Ling Wuyuan endured his bones, muscles, and organs repeatedly breaking and rebuilding until his body reached 1.7 meters and 220 jin.
• Ling Wuyuan gained True Qi as his remodeling ended and learned that half of his Qi and Blood would convert into it.
• Ling Wuyuan recognized that he had entered the Qi Nourishing Realm and learned that gathering outside spiritual energy would let him reach the Source Gathering Realm.
• Ling Wuyuan finished bathing, dressed, and prepared to travel as his horse approached obediently out of instinctive fear.

Ling Wuyuan encountered bandits robbing a convoy and welcomed the chance to kill after advancing that morning. When he ignored their threats and let their arrows hit him, the projectiles shattered against his body, even as two armor-piercing arrows drilled against his eyeballs.

• Ling Wuyuan came upon a bandit ambush on a gorge road, where guards lay dead and travelers knelt beside the halted carriages.
• The bandit leader rejected his vice-captain’s suggestion to let Ling Wuyuan pass and demanded his horse and sword.
• The leader and the surrounding bandits fired a volley of arrows at Ling Wuyuan, aiming mostly for his head.
• Ling Wuyuan stood still as the arrows shattered against his body, while two special arrows spun against his eyeballs and wore down into sparks.

Ling Wuyuan faced the Crimson Fire Bandits, endured their arrows without injury, and offered them a chance to escape with their lives. He killed all 114 bandits with fragments from the arrows, leaving the hostages unharmed.

• The Crimson Fire Bandits shot arrows at Ling Wuyuan, but the arrows broke against his eyes without hurting him.
• The bandit leader seized hostages and pleaded for mercy, naming the gang as the Crimson Fire Bandits.
• Ling Wuyuan recalled hearing that the bandits were wanted cultivators who preyed on travelers.
• Ling Wuyuan offered the bandits an opportunity to escape with their lives, then flung 114 arrow fragments at them.
• Ling Wuyuan killed the bandits with shots to the head and remarked that they had failed to seize their opportunity.

Ling Wuyuan defeated the attackers who had ambushed the convoy, then agreed to let the survivors travel with him to Taixia Town. As the group prepared to leave, he watched the survivors handle the dead and goods, disdainful of their weakness and hidden resentment.

• Ling Wuyuan retaliated against the attackers who had provoked him, leaving most of them dead.
• A shopkeeper from Huangji Pharmacy asked Ling Wuyuan to let the survivors follow him to Taixia Town, and he agreed because the town was on his way and he needed supplies.
• The shopkeeper ordered Captain Sun to gather the guard team's bodies and arrange the surviving goods and carriages.
• Ling Wuyuan noticed some passengers blaming the guard team and one man secretly kicking the guards' corpses.
• Ling Wuyuan looked down on the survivors for hiding their true feelings and lacking the strength to express them openly.

Ling Wuyuan arranged for a large supply of medicinal herbs, with the rescued local powerbrokers agreeing to help pay and procure them. Meanwhile, the [Crimson Fire Bandits] leader found the remains of the convoy’s attackers and mistook their brutal disposal for a deliberate threat.

• The medicinal shop's proprietor warned Ling Wuyuan that he would need time to gather enough herbs, and Ling Wuyuan told him to prioritize speed over cost.
• Shopkeeper Huang offered to pay for the herbs to repay Ling Wuyuan, but the other rescued powerbrokers insisted on sharing the expense and helping with the procurement.
• Shopkeeper Huang cautioned that the [Crimson Fire Bandits'] recent activity would make transporting herbs difficult, and the others agreed to help.
• The [Crimson Fire Bandits] leader rode to the burning pit and identified the corpses as the group sent to shake down the convoy.
• The [Crimson Fire Bandits] leader assumed the mutilated, burned corpses were a warning from a powerful enemy, unaware that the convoy’s passengers and guards had simply vented their grief and anger.

Ling Wuyuan arrived at Taixia Town with survivors from a caravan attacked by the Crimson Fire Bandits, and the town chief learned that Ling had single-handedly defeated the bandits. The chapter ended with Town Chief Zhang astonished to hear that Ling had blocked arrows from two Organ Fortification Realm bandits with his eyes.

• Ling Wuyuan reached Taixia Town at noon with the battered caravan, prompting the gate guards to sound the alarm.
• Town Chief Zhang questioned the survivors, learned the Crimson Fire Bandits had attacked a Taixia Town caravan, and angrily condemned them.
• Shopkeeper Huang credited Ling Wuyuan with saving the caravan, and Town Chief Zhang arranged for him to rest at Huangyun Tower before a banquet.
• After Ling Wuyuan left with Little Yue, Town Chief Zhang asked Shopkeeper Huang and the others about Ling’s strength.
• Shopkeeper Huang and the others said Ling had killed the bandits without resistance and had blocked arrows from two Organ Fortification Realm bandits with his eyes, leaving Town Chief Zhang stunned.

After hearing about Ling Wuyuan’s strength, Zhang Tang considered building a relationship with him. Meanwhile, the Crimson Fire Bandits learned that two captains and over a hundred men had been killed, and their leaders debated how to respond to the local forces.

• Zhang Tang questioned reports that Ling Wuyuan had withstood an attack with his eyes, then decided to invite him to a meal and make connections.
• The Crimson Fire Bandits’ investigator confirmed that Zhang Laosan, Cheng Qi, and their men had been killed and their bodies burned.
• The investigator suspected that the local forces had planted false information about a merchant caravan to lure the bandits into a trap and warn them.
• Yan Linde smashed his bowl and raged that the Crimson Fire Bandits could not accept the deaths as an insult.
• The deputy leader warned Yan Linde that the allied local forces outmatched the depleted bandits and could wipe out their subordinates in a direct fight.

Yan Linde, consumed by hatred for Che Xianwei and the loss of his treasure map, decided the Crimson Fire Bandits would raid Taixia Town before fleeing White Deer Province. His second-in-command and the others recoiled at the plan, but Yan Linde insisted they could escape to Cloud Ridge Province and join forces opposed to the officials.

• Yan Linde brooded over Che Xianwei stealing his collection and the treasure map to the Azure Lake White Stream Palace, and believed Che Xianwei's group had found the treasure.
• Yan Linde rejected the second-in-command's suggestion to let matters go and declared that the Crimson Fire Bandits would carry out one major robbery before leaving.
• Yan Linde named Taixia Town as their target because it lay closest to the border with Cloud Ridge Province.
• The second-in-command warned that Taixia Town had several Qi Nourishing Realm cultivators, walls, a garrison, and the protection of the Imperial Court.
• Yan Linde argued that the bandits were already wanted and said they could flee to Cloud Ridge Province and ally with forces opposed to the officials.

Yan Linde persuaded the Crimson Fire Bandits’ second leader to raid the Jiang family in Taixia Town that night, using an attack on the South Lake Gang as a diversion. After the bandit leaders killed the South Lake Gang’s young leader, Town Chief Zhang was left wondering what feud had sparked the attack.

• Yan Linde convinced the second leader to target the Jiang family and move against them that night.
• The second leader proposed attacking the South Lake Gang first to disguise their plan for Taixia Town.
• Yan Linde agreed, and the two bandit leaders set out to ambush the South Lake Gang.
• The Crimson Fire Bandits’ leaders killed the South Lake Gang’s young leader and declared they would fight the gang to the bitter end.
• Town Chief Zhang heard the report at the Yellow Cloud Restaurant and wondered why the two groups were enemies.

Ling Wuyuan visited the historic Yellow Cloud Restaurant, where he admired a painting that stirred him, while Town Chief Zhang learned that the Crimson Fire Bandits had attacked the South Lake Gang and struggled to understand their motives. The chapter left Zhang Tang lost in speculation and Ling Wuyuan waiting to eat.

• A servant guided Ling Wuyuan through Yellow Cloud Restaurant and introduced its antique calligraphy and paintings, which he mostly dismissed.
• Ling Wuyuan stopped at a painting of flying birds, praised its spirit, and declined the servant’s invitation to leave behind a work of his own.
• Town Chief Zhang learned that Yan Linde and his group had killed the South Lake Gang’s Young Gang Leader after attacking the gang deep in its territory.
• Zhang Tang wondered why the Crimson Fire Bandits had provoked both Taixia Town and the South Lake Gang, and ruled out cooperation between the bandits and the gang.
• Ling Wuyuan noticed the dishes Zhang Tang had meant to bring him and silently hoped he could start eating.

After the Young Gang Leader of the South Lake Gang died, Zhang Tang and the others hosted Ling Wuyuan and pressed him to reveal his identity. Ling Wuyuan told them the truth about his name and humble origins, but they insisted he was hiding a powerful background, leaving him to endure their speculation while enjoying the feast.

• Zhang Tang offered Ling Wuyuan Water Snow Leaf and later asked his name and background, joined by Shopkeeper Huang and the others.
• Ling Wuyuan introduced himself as an unknown nobody named Ling Wuyuan, but Shopkeeper Huang praised his supposed modesty and assumed he was concealing his identity.
• Ling Wuyuan explained that his surname had been chosen from a dictionary and his given name reflected the hope that he would live without resentment.
• The guests dismissed his explanation and speculated that his sect or family had forbidden him from revealing his real surname.
• Ling Wuyuan silently forgave their disbelief because they had treated him to a meal, and continued eating the duck leg.

Ling Wuyuan watched an opera with Town Chief Zhang, who offered to arrange an encounter with the singer, but Ling refused. When the City Defense Bell rang, they learned the Crimson Fire Bandits had infiltrated Taixia Town and attacked the Jiang family and the city gates, leaving Zhang facing the crisis with only General Chen and an offer of help from Ling Wuyuan.

• Ling Wuyuan attended an opera at Yellow Cloud Restaurant with Town Chief Zhang and their companions.
• Town Chief Zhang offered to arrange an encounter with the singer, but Ling Wuyuan refused because he feared she might be coerced.
• The City Defense Bell rang, and a message reported that the Crimson Fire Bandits had attacked the Jiang family and the guards at the city gates.
• Zhang Tang ordered General Chen to wipe out the bandits and proposed seeking help from the Luo family and the Sun family.
• General Chen said the two families would not help and told Zhang Tang that the two of them had to respond themselves.
• Ling Wuyuan asked Zhang Tang whether he needed help.

After accepting Taixia Town’s hospitality, Ling Wuyuan agreed to help defend it and launched himself toward the battle using an experimental air-step technique. At the burning Jiang family mansion, Chen Li fought two Crimson Fire Bandit leaders alone, while the wounded Jiang family ancestor faced their attack.

• Ling Wuyuan agreed to deal with the Crimson Fire Bandits after Zhang Tang asked for his help.
• Ling Wuyuan leapt high and blasted himself through the air, astonishing Zhang Tang, Shopkeeper Huang, and the others.
• Chen Li struggled to hold off two Crimson Fire Bandit leaders as they attacked him and the wounded Jiang family ancestor.
• The chief of the Crimson Fire Bandits found an opening and kicked Chen Li away.
• The two bandit leaders turned on the injured Jiang family ancestor, who could not escape.

Ling Wuyuan arrived just as the Jiang family ancestor was about to be killed by Yan Linde and Wang Jian, and his dramatic landing left him unharmed. He then attacked Wang Jian with a swift, unassuming sword strike, beginning his confrontation with the Crimson Fire Bandits.

• The Jiang family ancestor prepared a final blade stroke as Yan Linde and Wang Jian closed in to kill him.
• Ling Wuyuan crashed down between them, forcing all three to retreat and leaving a huge crater in the ground.
• The Jiang family ancestor was wounded by flying debris, while Yan Linde and Wang Jian emerged uninjured and watched Ling Wuyuan.
• Ling Wuyuan praised the protection of true qi, drew his sword, and crossed the distance to Wang Jian in a single step.
• Ling Wuyuan slashed diagonally at Wang Jian, who sensed an overwhelming threat but could not react in time.