Chapter Summaries

The Jinhe Alliance and Qixia Dynasty revealed the forces they could field and agreed to plan a joint war against Great Xia. Before discussing battle plans, they questioned how they could respond if Lin Lin intervened, and Jin Liu argued that rumors of him possessing an Immortal God's power were impossible.

• Jin Yuan announced that the Jinhe Alliance could field twelve Heaven and Human Realm experts, three hundred Peerless Experts, twenty thousand martial artists, and eight hundred thousand naval troops.
• Feng Wu reported that Qixia could field fifteen Heaven and Human Realm experts, three hundred and eighty Peerless Experts, thirty thousand martial artists, and 1.3 million naval troops.
• The assembled leaders grew confident that their combined forces could defeat Great Xia's overseas military and force it back to negotiations.
• Jin Yuan called for the alliance and Qixia to begin planning their attack on Great Xia.
• A Phoenix Family expert raised the question of how they would handle Lin Lin if he entered the battle, and Huang Cheng recounted rumors about his overwhelming power.
• Jin Liu agreed that Lin Lin was powerful but rejected claims that he possessed an Immortal God's strength, citing his family's records of the Earthly Transformation Realm.

Jin Liu argued that Lin Lin’s strength was limited by the martial arts realm’s upper bound and the world’s declining vital energy, persuading the Jinhe Alliance and Qixia Dynasty leaders that they could resist him by waiting and joining forces. The gathering ended with them convinced that Lin Lin was weakened and too occupied with absorbing vital energy to attack.

• Jin Liu explained that the Earthly Transformation Realm had a limit of roughly eight hundred years of power and estimated Lin Lin’s strength at no more than twelve hundred years.
• Jin Liu argued that the decline in Heaven and Earth Essence Qi had sharply reduced Lin Lin’s combat strength, making it possible for many Heaven and Human Realm masters to oppose him.
• Those gathered reconsidered their fear of Lin Lin and discussed waiting until vital energy was exhausted before negotiating with the Da Xia Dynasty.
• When people questioned whether Lin Lin had caused the decline, Jin Liu said his breakthrough forced him to spend much of each day replenishing the vital energy his body consumed.
• Jin Liu concluded that Lin Lin lacked the ability to eliminate his rivals and might eventually have to abandon his cultivation or die from the loss of vital energy, and the assembly agreed.

Jin Liu argued that the Qixia Dynasty and Jinhe Alliance should resist Great Xia rather than surrender, despite doubts about Lin Lin’s power and motives. Jin Yuan proposed assessing Lin Lin as an Immortal God, arguing that his immense daily energy consumption could explain the decline in Heaven and Earth Essence Qi.

• Jin Liu persuaded most attendees that Lin Lin’s strength did not threaten them as long as they avoided attacking Great Xia’s homeland.
• Lei Dong suggested Lin Lin might have caused the decline in Heaven and Earth Essence Qi, while Zhenyang Fei argued that Lin Lin might tolerate them because conquering more territory would be difficult to govern.
• Jin Liu dismissed their speculation and said that if they could not defeat Great Xia, they should join it rather than waste time debating surrender.
• The meeting grew tense until host Jin Yuan proposed a compromise and asked the attendees to assume Lin Lin was the source of the declining Essence Qi.
• Jin Yuan argued that Lin Lin’s Immortal God-level power must require enormous amounts of Heaven and Earth Essence Qi merely to sustain him.

Jin Yuan persuaded the Jinhe Alliance and Qixia Dynasty leaders to wait for Heaven and Earth Essence Qi to run out, expecting Lin Lin to weaken. They fortified their territories, cultivated in secret, and gradually withdrew from public power as several decades passed.

• Jin Yuan estimated that Heaven and Earth Essence Qi would be exhausted within twenty-five years and explained the choices Lin Lin would face afterward.
• Jin Yuan urged the leaders to protect their strongholds, cultivate toward the Heaven and Human Third Realm, and conceal their identities while waiting for Lin Lin to weaken.
• The Jinhe Alliance and Qixia Dynasty leaders accepted Jin Yuan's plan and ended the meeting.
• The two forces patrolled against Da Xia Dynasty fleets, reduced some taxes, and transferred power to administrators as their leaders withdrew behind the scenes.
• Several decades passed under these arrangements.

Great Xia’s overseas dominance weakened as the Jinhe Alliance and Qixia Dynasty grew stronger, while Heaven and Earth Essence Qi steadily vanished. By the fifth year of the Era of Dharma Decline, the two rival powers believed their long-awaited chance had arrived.

• Great Xia martial artists found it increasingly difficult to abduct people and make profits in the Far West as naval patrols intercepted them and reduced taxes made locals less willing to leave.
• The Jinhe Alliance and Qixia Dynasty learned Great Xia’s technologies and strengthened their economies, intensifying competition with the Da Xia Dynasty.
• The Jinhe Alliance and Qixia Dynasty learned that Lin Lin had left state affairs to Supreme Emperor Lin Yue and Princess Lin Sixue, while Heaven and Earth Essence Qi gathered around Divine Capital City.
• In the fiftieth year of Great Xia, Heaven and Earth Essence Qi was completely depleted, leaving martial artists unable to draw on it and making combat costly to their cultivation.
• The Da Xia Dynasty, Jinhe Alliance, and Qixia Dynasty gradually reduced their struggles for overseas supremacy as martial artists relied more on armies.
• In the fifth year of the Era of Dharma Decline, the Jinhe Alliance and Qixia Dynasty believed their opportunity had arrived.

After deciding that Lin Lin could no longer act freely, the Jinhe Alliance and Qixia Dynasty prepared a massive invasion of Great Xia’s Southern Domain Kingdoms. Their fleet reached Zhiyuan Port, where the defenders spotted it and sounded the alarm.

• Jin Yuan welcomed forty-five Heaven and Human Realm experts at a gathering on Chasing Sun Island, as the alliance and Qixia Dynasty judged Lin Lin unable to stop them.
• Jin Liu proposed concentrating their forces for a decisive attack, and Feng Wu urged them to seize the prosperous Southern Domain Kingdoms and coerce its experts into joining them.
• The leaders approved the plan and spent three years assembling troops, supplies, and a fleet of more than three million soldiers.
• The alliance’s fleet sailed secretly toward the Southern Seas, concealing its tracks with mist created by Heaven and Human Realm experts.
• Workers and sailors at Zhiyuan Port spotted the fleet as the mist cleared, and a warning of an enemy attack rang out.

The Qixia Dynasty and Jinhe Alliance launched a surprise invasion of Zhiyuan Port, where Zhang Yi ordered his outnumbered troops to hold the enemy back while civilians evacuated. As the allied forces gained ground, an unexpected development interrupted Feng Wu’s confident assessment of their advance.

• Zhang Yi counted forty-five Heaven and Human Realm experts among the approaching allied fleet and recognized how badly Zhiyuan Port was outmatched.
• Zhang Yi ordered his personal guard to send a warning to the Nine Provinces homeland, organize resistance, and help civilians evacuate.
• Jin Yuan asked for someone to claim the first victory, and Jin Liu went to confront Zhang Yi as three more Heaven and Human Realm experts followed.
• The four allied experts forced Zhang Yi and his troops onto the defensive while other allied ships landed and pursued the evacuating civilians.
• Feng Wu said the allied forces would soon seize Zhiyuan Port and Da Xia’s wealth, but an unexpected event interrupted him.

Zhang Yi was on the verge of defeat against the Western Sky Allied Forces when the Great Xia Emperor guided his Inner Breath and gave him overwhelming power. A gigantic hand then struck the West Sea, destroying nearly the entire enemy fleet and leaving the few surviving experts to face Zhang Yi.

• Zhang Yi refused Jin Liu's offer to surrender and prepared to burn his source Inner Breath as his Qi Blood ran out.
• The Great Xia Emperor guided Zhang Yi's Inner Breath, restoring him and making him more than a thousand times stronger than before.
• Zhang Yi killed Jin Liu and three other Heaven and Human Realm experts with a single slash.
• A gigantic palm descended onto the West Sea, raising colossal waves that hurled the Western Sky Allied Forces' fleet into the air and killed nearly all its soldiers.
• Zhang Yi confronted the few surviving Western Sky Allied Forces experts with his long blade.

Lin Yue and Lin Sixue learned that Lin Lin had single-handedly destroyed the invading Western Sky Allied Forces and saved Zhiyuan Port. Lin Lin then tested his successful Light No. 1 gene serum, which let him absorb sunlight for energy, though far less efficiently than Heaven and Earth Essence Qi.

• Lin Yue and Lin Sixue received word that three million Western Sky Allied Forces and forty-five experts had attacked Zhiyuan Port, and planned to send reinforcements before launching a counterattack.
• A second report said Lin Lin had annihilated the invading force with a single strike, leaving Zhang Yi to eliminate the surviving leaders and secure the battlefield.
• Lin Lin explained that he had acted through People's Aspirations to save his subjects, and expected the captured supplies and their gratitude to repay the energy his strike cost.
• Lin Lin examined a successful clone and used his decades of research to create and inject himself with the Light No. 1 gene serum.
• Lin Lin tested the serum in space and confirmed that sunlight replenished his Essence and Qi Blood, but its yield was only about one-eighth that of absorbing Heaven and Earth Essence Qi.

Lin Lin assessed Light No. 1’s benefits and planned to improve and sell it, then discussed the Southern Seas victory and his cultivation with Lin Sixue. He refused to teach her the Divine Hidden Treasures Method because the world lacked the resources to support her cultivation, but offered to help extend her life in hopes that circumstances might change.

• Lin Lin concluded that Light No. 1 could slow cellular aging and extend lifespan, though it could not yet provide enough energy for his own cultivation.
• Lin Lin planned to improve the Light series and sell Light No. 1 to fund research and encourage martial artists to develop overseas territories.
• Lin Sixue gave Lin Lin the Southern Seas battle report, which recorded roughly six billion taels in captured ships and supplies.
• Lin Sixue asked whether Lin Lin had deliberately let the Western Sky Alliance grow stronger before defeating it, but Lin Lin said he had simply been busy with experiments.
• Lin Lin told Lin Sixue that his combat power had returned to the level of Burning the Heavens and Boiling the Seas, while a major cultivation breakthrough remained years away.
• Lin Sixue’s request for a stronger cultivation method prompted Lin Lin to explain that the world lacked resources for her to cultivate it, though he offered to help extend her life.

Lin Lin demonstrated a brain transplant as a possible way to extend Lin Sixue’s life, using the dying Zhou Zheng as a test subject. The transplant revived Zhou Zheng, but his powerful consciousness overwhelmed the cloned body’s weak spirit, leaving Lin Lin to devise a long recovery plan.

• Lin Lin took Lin Sixue to a Biological Laboratory and showed her Zhou Zheng’s replicated bodies and the Hibernation Pod that had kept him alive.
• Lin Lin transplanted Zhou Zheng’s brain into a young clone, and Zhou Zheng initially awakened feeling vigorous.
• When Zhou Zheng tried to cultivate, his new body began to burst apart, so Lin Lin moved his brain into another replica.
• Lin Lin concluded that Zhou Zheng’s powerful soul had crushed the cloned body’s weak spirit and proposed gradually adapting the body to his consciousness.
• Lin Lin arranged life support and medicinal treatment for Zhou Zheng, estimating that these measures would let him recover in three to five years.

Lin Lin developed Light No. 1 to help Lin Sixue and his relatives advance their cultivation, then used her insight to cultivate the Blazing Sun Sword Dao and absorb solar energy. He solved his food crisis without hibernating and ultimately developed the Radiance No. 2 Gene Evolution Potion to improve energy digestion.

• Lin Lin reassured Lin Sixue that he would preserve her life and brought her to an underground laboratory to analyze her genes for a customized Light No. 1 potion.
• Lin Sixue suggested using the Blazing Sun Intent Realm to actively gather solar energy, giving Lin Lin a new approach to his food crisis.
• Lin Lin cultivated the Blazing Sun Sword Dao, gathered Sun and Moon Essence in the starry sky, and confirmed that his body could absorb it to sustain cultivation.
• Lin Lin produced customized Light No. 1 potions for Lin Sixue, his parents, and four elders, including Cui Ximing, while learning that his Divine Power reserves would soon run out.
• Lin Lin used clones for experiments over several years and successfully developed the Radiance No. 2 Gene Evolution Potion to improve the body's ability to digest solar energy.

After developing Radiance No. 2, Lin Lin greatly increased his ability to absorb solar energy, extended his lifespan, and explored the moon. Concerned that his energy absorption would harm Aqua Blue Star, he moved to the moon and built Guanghan Palace, where he continued cultivating and planned to seek more Divine Power.

• Lin Lin used Radiance No. 2, transforming his body, improving his energy absorption, and extending his lifespan to 2,840 years.
• Lin Lin flew to the moon, found no Guanghan Palace or artificial structures, and concluded that traveling to other star systems remained impractical.
• Lin Lin realized that absorbing too much solar energy on Aqua Blue Star could threaten life there, so he moved his base to the moon.
• Lin Lin brought his Heaven and Human Realm Wind and Snow Guards to the moon, where they built an underground survival base and Guanghan Palace.
• Lin Lin settled in Guanghan Palace and absorbed the moon's sunlight, causing people on Aqua Blue Star to stop seeing the moon at night.
• Lin Lin planned to accumulate Divine Power and develop a way to produce Heaven and Earth Essence Qi so he could cultivate faster.

In Year 70 of Great Xia, Lin Lin sought a way to deduce how Heaven and Earth Essence Qi formed and concluded that advancing computer technology was his best option. He introduced a Merit System that rewarded citizens for prayer, causing faith and Divine Power production to surge.

• Lin Lin considered three ways to discover how Heaven and Earth Essence Qi formed and ordered the Great Xia Investigation of Things Academy to prioritize developing a Planet-Level Computer.
• Lin Lin assessed how Shallow, Pious, and Fanatical Believers generated People's Aspirations and decided to encourage faith through beneficial rewards.
• Lin Lin connected a new Merit System to Great Xia's household registration system, allowing citizens to exchange accumulated merit for goods, skills, medical treatment, and extended lifespans.
• Citizens began exchanging merit for rewards, and many Shallow Believers became Pious or Fanatical Believers.
• Lin Lin's annual Divine Power income rose from fewer than 400 drops to 2,000, then reached 16,000 drops in the third year of the Merit System.

Lin Lin’s Heaven and Human Intent Realm greatly increased his cultivation and combat power, letting him wield the sun’s essence and sense all of Aqua Blue Star, though he could not yet calculate how Heaven and Earth Essence Qi formed. Eighty years after the Merit System began, he returned to Da Xia and saw that widespread devotion to earning merit had left society on the brink of decline.

• Lin Lin condensed the Blazing Sun Sword Emperor Intent Realm, expanded his perception across thirty thousand kilometers, and demonstrated Moon Shattering Level power by cutting apart a lunar mountain range.
• Lin Lin found that his new Mental Strength could perceive all of Aqua Blue Star, but calculating the planet’s secrets would take about three hundred and ninety thousand years, so he decided to wait for a Planet-Level Computer.
• Over the decades, Lin Lin’s annual Divine Power income reached forty thousand drops and then largely saturated as the Merit System spread through Da Xia.
• In the eightieth year of Great Xia, Lin Lin returned from the Guanghan Palace with Lin Yue, Lin Sixue, Zhang Fei, and Su Minghua and found a village whose residents had gathered to pray.
• Lin Yue warned Lin Lin that the Merit System had devastated education and commerce as people prioritized prayer, while automated industry, agriculture, and synthetic food technologies developed to sustain the population.

Lin Lin defended the Merit System as a way to give people value in an increasingly automated society, while Lin Yue persuaded him to encourage education through rewards. Back on the moon, Lin Lin inspected experiments on brains in vats and virtual worlds, which he hoped could expand humanity’s living space as the Solar System’s population grew.

• Lin Lin brought Lin Yue, Zhang Fei, Lin Sixue, and the others to a school in Xihe County City, where they observed children learning and praying, including one unusually curious child.
• Lin Lin explained that automation would make most people unnecessary as workers, and argued that the Merit System gave them a way to contribute while leaving education available to anyone who wanted it.
• Lin Yue proposed tying advanced rewards to academic or martial achievements, and Lin Lin agreed to research incentives without changing the Merit System itself.
• Lin Lin returned to Guanghan Palace and connected to a virtual world where cloned children with brain-only bodies were being taught by academicians.
• Zhang Jie reported that children could study in the virtual world, though its current design could fool only martial artists below the Spirit Refinement realm; Lin Lin ordered research toward supporting stronger martial artists.
• Lin Lin reflected that virtual worlds could expand people’s activity space and help support a future population of tens of trillions across the Solar System.

Lin Lin raised every Potential Door in his body to Level 3, gaining new bloodline traits, stronger combat power, and a greatly extended lifespan. By combining energy-saving mode with an anaerobic state, he increased his lifespan to nearly 150,000 years, but the chapter ended with him frowning.

• Lin Lin completed the transformation of all his Potential Doors to Level 3, gaining the Blazing Sun Body and an energy-saving trait from Golden Flesh Jade Bones.
• Lin Lin assessed his new abilities and found that his increased capacity to absorb Sun and Moon Essence let him cut the moon apart with three swords, bringing his combat power close to Planetary Level.
• Lin Lin activated the energy-saving trait and reduced his bodily functions to 5% of their peak, raising his lifespan to 66,800 years.
• Lin Lin entered an anaerobic state, increasing his lifespan to 146,960 years, then frowned despite the enormous gain.

Lin Lin rejected Pu Lin’s proposal to use Flesh and Blood Fusion inside martial artists’ bodies and instead proposed using electricity as a cultivation energy source. He began researching the Thunderbolt No. 1 gene potion, which could lower the threshold for martial arts cultivation.

• Lin Lin tested Golden Flesh Jade Bones’ energy-saving trait, found it extended his lifespan at the cost of leaving him at five percent of his peak condition, and resumed his cultivation routine.
• In Year 105 of Great Xia, controlled nuclear fusion power plants entered practical use, and Pu Lin proposed using Flesh and Blood Fusion to power martial artists.
• Lin Lin judged that uncontrolled fusion inside the body was too dangerous, though a miniature controlled reactor might be feasible in the future.
• Lin Lin proposed that martial artists use electricity from power plants for cultivation and later generate electricity from a planet’s magnetic field.
• Lin Lin began developing the Thunderbolt No. 1 gene potion to let people absorb electrical energy and replenish their Essence, Qi, and Spirit.

As Thunderbolt No. 1 made martial arts accessible to Da Xia’s citizens, their cultivation and rising life essence greatly increased the Divine Power Lin Lin received. While cultivating on Mercury amid Da Xia’s expansion into space, Lin Lin discovered that ten million drops of Divine Power, combined with Civilization Radiance and Civilization Authority, could ascend into Humanity’s Luck.

• Da Xia’s citizens spent merit on Thunderbolt No. 1 and martial arts training, while families pooled cultivation resources to support promising young practitioners.
• As martial arts spread and the population grew, Lin Lin’s annual Divine Power income rose to three million drops by Great Xia Year 115.
• By Great Xia Year 120, Lin Lin was cultivating on Mercury, while Da Xia developed the moon and the Heavenly Palace as automated industrial and administrative centers.
• Da Xia’s cultivation-driven growth accelerated scientific progress, bringing plans for a Planet-Level Computer forward from around Year 170 to as early as Year 130.
• Lin Lin watched ten million drops of Divine Power condense into a golden crystal, which absorbed his Mental Strength and transformed into violet-gold mist.
• Lin Lin recognized the mist as Humanity’s Luck, formed from Divine Power, Civilization Radiance, and his Civilization Authority, and understood that it could extend lifespan, elevate life essence, and help explore fundamental truths.

After synthesizing Humanity's Luck, Lin Lin discovered Civilization Radiance, Civilization Authority, and the Three Souls and Seven Spirits through an elevated perception. He began developing a method for reincarnation and concluded that sufficiently powerful Mental Strength could let the Soul of Life leave the body with the True Spirit.

• Lin Lin found that Civilization Authority rose from 51% to 60% when he handled people's prayers and governmental affairs, then fell after he stopped taking responsibility.
• Lin Lin used Humanity's Luck, increasing his lifespan limit and activating his Essence, Qi, Spirit, perception, and comprehension.
• Lin Lin's enhanced perception revealed Civilization Radiance, Civilization Authority, Luck, and the Three Souls and Seven Spirits.
• Lin Lin identified the Soul of Life as the foundation of consciousness and began researching how to transfer it into a new body for reincarnation.
• Lin Lin concluded that Mental Strength was the power of the Soul of Life and that sufficient Mental Strength could let the soul and True Spirit exist independently of the body.