Chapter Summaries

Linsey shot down a man posing as Ya Li Kun after realizing the apparent Sixth Stage merchant was an impostor. He discovered that the impostor had rented Ya Li Kun’s identity using a rare Double Serpent Coin, while another person remained hidden in the valley.

• Ya Li Kun pressured Reze and the Exploration Team to stay out of the Riverbank Merchant Guild’s plans, offering compensation while refusing to address the forest’s aberration.
• Linsey shot the man posing as Ya Li Kun, then kicked away his Double Serpent Coin and exposed him as an ordinary, wounded man.
• Linsey explained to Reze that the man’s behavior and Ya Li Kun’s recent business dealings made the merchant’s appearance suspicious.
• Linsey spotted another Red Dot in the valley and questioned the Sensor, who said his contract prevented him from revealing information.
• Linsey examined the Double Serpent Coin and learned it could let someone rent a Sixth Stage merchant’s identity, then asked Mira to stabilize the impostor’s injuries.

Linsey revealed his real name to Reze and joined the Exploration Team in opposing the Riverbank Merchant Guild. The prisoners revealed that the guild was provoking the forest’s changes to find the Forest Veins, and that an Element School sorcerer remained in the secret realm to stimulate them.

• Linsey admitted to Reze that he had hidden things from him, revealed his real name, and reaffirmed his commitment to the journey.
• Mira treated the prisoners, and Linsey wounded one of them when he refused to answer questions.
• Mira used powdered insect remains to make the prisoner answer questions about the Riverbank Merchant Guild’s plans.
• The prisoner explained that the guild was stimulating the Forest Veins to locate their core and extract their power to restore its standing in Platinum City.
• Reze grew furious upon learning the guild had caused the forest’s abnormal changes, while Linsey asked who remained in the secret realm.
• The prisoner identified the remaining person as an Element School sorcerer assigned by Ya Li Kun to stimulate the Forest Veins.

After leveling up his FPS Module and gaining Shooting Prediction, Linsey fought the last Riverbank Merchant Guild enemy, an Element Manipulator who chained elemental attacks to trap and injure him. Linsey used a Flame Bomb in the opponent’s wind vortex, engulfing the enemy in flames.

• Linsey unlocked Shooting Prediction after defeating two Fifth Stage Awakened and tested his ability to predict moving targets.
• The Element Manipulator launched Linsey into the air with earth and attacked him with wind blades, so Linsey used Datafication and his Vine Wood Whip to escape.
• The enemy combined fire and wind into a flaming tornado, but Linsey used the Magma Crest to land safely despite the heat.
• Linsey charged through rising earth and an entangling swamp as the Element Manipulator formed a deadly wind vortex and threatened to kill him.
• Linsey threw a Flame Bomb into the vortex, and its explosion engulfed the Element Manipulator, who screamed in agony.

Linsey defeated the Element Manipulator after his vortex exploded, then returned to the captives with the corpse and collected his rewards. Flavi warned that killing the Element Manipulator may have been improper as he sensed something changing around them.

• The Element Manipulator lost control of his vortex while burning, causing an explosion that blasted him into the lake and left him dead.
• Linsey checked the map, recovered the corpse, unlocked a human-hunting achievement, and collected a Guillotine Axe and a Source Material Seed.
• Linsey extinguished the scattered fires and met Reze, who had rushed over after hearing the explosion.
• Linsey and Reze returned to the captives, where the Formless One demanded to know how Linsey had found him.
• Flavi saw the Element Manipulator's corpse and warned Linsey that killing him may have been improper because Flavi sensed something changing around them.

After the Formless Ones revealed that Ya Li Kun’s Debt Transfer had drawn the forest’s wrath onto the Exploration Team, Linsey discovered that everyone around him had been marked by the danger except himself. The forest began to tremble, leaving Linsey to face an unexplained exception amid the looming threat.

• Linsey questioned Flavi about the danger, while Reze gathered everyone together and ordered the Awakened to protect the ordinary people.
• A Formless Ones offered to reveal how to evade Ya Li Kun’s contract in exchange for learning how Linsey had detected him, and Linsey agreed to explain his environmental search skill.
• The Formless Ones revealed that Ya Li Kun’s Debt Transfer had passed the forest’s calamity and hatred to Linsey’s companions after Linsey killed the Element Manipulator, then collapsed from the contract’s backlash.
• The forest and ground began to tremble, and Linsey used Commodity Skill to discover that everyone present except him had gained the condition Gaze of the Forest’s Wrath.

After Reze discovered that the mutated forest attacked anyone who entered it, Linsey found that its hostility did not affect him. He planned to leave the valley alone to seek the Soul Blue Lily and confront the forest’s cause, while Reze and the others stayed behind.

• Linsey told his companions that the forest was hostile, and Reze went outside to test the danger.
• The forest attacked Reze with branches, roots, and vines, forcing him to retreat into the valley, where the attacks stopped.
• Linsey walked through the forest unharmed and considered several possible reasons why its hostility bypassed him.
• Linsey told Reze he would investigate alone, left him a summoned bat as a signal, and said he would set out in half an hour.
• Linsey asked Reze and the others to search the secret realm for a Soul Blue Lily, and Reze agreed to organize the search.

Linsey followed the forest’s veins to Creek Moon River, where he found a dying Awakened from Nine Bends City and discovered Green Fir nearby. The chapter left Linsey reunited with the Sixth Stage Life Scholar as he tried to understand what had happened in the forest.

• Linsey reviewed the rare plants and Life Lake Water he had collected, then accepted the Jungle Expedition III task to stop the forest’s mastermind.
• Linsey followed the forest’s veins for a week and reached the foul-smelling Creek Moon River.
• Linsey crossed the river after spotting a yellow marker and found a mortally wounded man beside a withered tree.
• Linsey tried to heal the man, but he died after handing Linsey a ring and saying Alrina’s name.
• Linsey recognized the dead man’s uniform as belonging to a guard or City Hall worker from Nine Bends City and began digging a grave.
• Green Fir approached Linsey, recognized him, and asked why he was there.

Linsey met Green Fir in the forest and learned that the missing Han Si Ke and Mu En City Lord were nearby after a near-fatal battle. Green Fir discovered that Linsey’s injury came from an Eighth Stage technique and urged him to abandon his will-attribute source material, leaving him questioning whether he could safely retain it.

• Green Fir recognized Linsey by his life aura and warned him that the forest had become dangerous, but Linsey refused to leave his trapped companions behind.
• Green Fir revealed that she had tracked Han Si Ke and Mu En City Lord from traces in a river, and said one was injured while the other had advanced during their battle.
• Green Fir examined Linsey’s injury and identified it as the effect of an Eighth Stage technique connected to the Dragon Beast’s death in the Black Mountain World.
• Green Fir advised Linsey to abolish his will-attribute Life Source Material, but Linsey asked whether he could keep all his source materials safely.

Green Fir explained the stages and potential of Life Source Material as she and Linsey traveled deeper into the forest. When they stopped to camp, Linsey's map revealed that the ground beneath them was not a mountain peak.

• Green Fir described the advancements of Life Source Material, from its seed stage through Ancient Life, and explained that she was undergoing complete fusion with her Source Material.
• Linsey asked about the potential of other Source Materials, and Green Fir discussed Willpower Source Material and artists who fused emotions with Source Material.
• Linsey and Green Fir followed the Forest Veins deeper into the forest, where they found more people killed by the forest's attacks.
• At dusk, Linsey noticed that his map showed green over the area around their campsite and expanded his scouting range in three-dimensional mode.
• Linsey told Green Fir that the thing beneath their feet did not seem to be a mountain peak.

Linsey discovered that the mountain beneath him was filled with an enormous plant root that Green Fir could not sense. Green Fir followed the Forest Veins and confirmed that the root aligned with them, leaving the nature and scale of the buried life-form unresolved.

• Linsey used his Map Skill and found that the mountain contained a vast friendly presence extending far beyond its visible slopes.
• Green Fir opened a fissure in the ground, revealing a massive root buried beneath the mountain.
• Green Fir realized her life-sensing ability could not detect the root and concluded it might belong to an existence beyond the Seventh Stage.
• Green Fir reasoned that roots of such scale implied an enormous plant above ground, though the Courtyard in the Forest's explorers had never found one.
• Green Fir followed the Forest Veins with her senses and confirmed that they perfectly overlapped with the enormous root.

Green Fir explained how the enormous lifeform beneath the Forest Veins could reveal a new path to the Eighth Stage, then sensed an unusually rich Life Secret Realm ahead. She and Linsey rushed toward it, where the merchants might be, while Green Fir hoped to avoid the wounded Seventh Stage figures Mu En City Lord and Han Si Ke.

• Green Fir buried the enormous roots beneath the mountain and restored the mutated trees around the clearing.
• Green Fir told Linsey that Life School practitioners could reach the Eighth Stage by assimilating a world into an extension of their will, and said the lifeform might reveal a new advancement method.
• Green Fir said Volcano City would consider Linsey one of its own because he had inherited and shared Master Yang Ye's knowledge, and agreed that stopping the merchants was their shared goal.
• Green Fir sensed an unusually active Life Secret Realm along the Forest Veins and detected the aura behind the forest's unrest there.
• Green Fir and Linsey set off through the night toward the secret realm, while Green Fir hoped they would not encounter the wounded Mu En City Lord or Han Si Ke.

Linsey and Green Fir traveled through the increasingly dangerous forest toward the attacked earth veins, and Linsey crafted a Jungle Archer with the ability to fire seeds. They reached a valley occupied by Awakened and discovered a mist-shrouded lake with an island, where Green Fir urged Linsey to sense the source material.

• Linsey and Green Fir navigated the violent forest by blending in with their surroundings and concluded that the worsening path meant they were heading the right way.
• Linsey crafted the Jungle Archer at the Workbench and tested its draw, finding that he could use it to fire seeds despite his injured left hand.
• Green Fir sensed that they were nearing their destination, and Linsey used his map to spot many people gathered in a valley ahead.
• Linsey and Green Fir concealed their auras as they approached the valley and saw cleared ground, a lake, and a mist-covered island.
• Green Fir told Linsey to carefully sense the source material so he could learn to control Life Source Material.

Linsey benefited from sensing the secret realm’s life power while Green Fir overheard the merchants arguing over their search and their dwindling chances. Green Fir planned to exploit their divisions by sending Linsey inside disguised as Kang Qi, using Ya Li Kun’s Double Serpent Coin to provoke them.

• Linsey sensed the secret realm’s life aura and stabilized his Life Source Material, increasing his Constitution by one point.
• Green Fir overheard Ya Li Kun and another merchant disagreeing about how long to keep searching for the earth veins.
• Green Fir told Linsey the merchants’ conflict could be turned into a civil war and an opportunity to defeat them.
• Linsey revealed that he had taken a Double Serpent Coin from one of Ya Li Kun’s doubles.
• Green Fir proposed that Linsey enter disguised as Kang Qi and use the coin to stir up the merchants.

Linsey entered the secret realm disguised as Kang Qi and reached the lake island where Ya Li Kun was disrupting the Forest Veins. The veins awakened with overwhelming power, but their gaze treated Linsey with warmth and submission, leaving him puzzled as the others struggled under its pressure.

• Linsey disguised himself as Kang Qi, grew Gale Water Lilies across the lake, and used them to cross to the island unnoticed.
• Linsey identified Ya Li Kun and the Element Manipulator attacking the Forest Veins, and spotted Ailini among the Riverbank Merchant Guild's allies.
• The island and lake suddenly shook as the Forest Veins released a powerful presence, and the merchants accused Linsey before he could explain.
• Ya Li Kun resisted the presence and told the others it came from the forest's collective subconscious, while Linsey felt warmth and eagerness to please from it.

The Forest Veins abducted Linsey and unleashed a deadly attack across the lake island, while Green Fir confronted Ya Li Kun over Kang Qi’s disappearance. Underground, the forest’s owner offered Linsey a fruit to heal his arm, and Linsey asked it to spare his two friends.

• Ya Li Kun tried to stop the roots from taking Linsey with a Double Serpent Coin, but the forest overpowered it and dragged Linsey underground.
• The lake island’s plants turned violent, and poisonous pollen killed the Element Manipulator and the Awakened information gatherer.
• Ya Li Kun abandoned his companions and bought a path through the plants, but Green Fir blocked his escape and demanded to know where Kang Qi was.
• Ya Li Kun prepared to fight Green Fir, insisting that the events were a transaction and the essence of wealth in motion.
• A glowing seedling produced a scarlet fruit underground, and the forest’s owner asked Linsey to eat it and heal his arm.
• Linsey recognized that the voice’s words answered some of his questions, but asked it not to harm his two friends still aboveground.

Linsey learned that his Divine Court noble status explained the Forest Will’s protection, then ate the Must Vein Fruit and recovered from the Extinction Crown’s injury. The fruit advanced his Life Lineage and Game Player ability, but the clash between his Life Lineage and Stairway to Heaven began damaging his body, and the Forest Will advised him to consume Willpower Source Material.

• Linsey reasoned that the Divine Court had once ruled the Courtyard in the Forest and that the Forest Will recognized him as one of its former masters.
• Linsey ate the Must Vein Fruit, whose Life Force purged the Extinction Crown’s lingering injury after a painful struggle.
• The fruit advanced Linsey’s Life Lineage to Growth, increased his attributes, and granted him Extraordinary Endurance.
• Linsey’s Game Player ability advanced to Hardcore Gamer and unlocked Special Discount instead of another module slot.
• Linsey’s Life Lineage and Stairway to Heaven clashed inside his body, and recovery food and medicine eased but did not resolve the damage.
• The Forest Will told Linsey to consume abundant Willpower Source Material so his Life Source Material could suppress the conflict.

Linsey used Resource Conversion to stop the damage caused by the conflict between his two types of Source Material, then discovered Datafication could keep them from clashing temporarily. Forest Will revealed a more lasting solution and, as it faded into the world, gave Linsey a seed and urged him to destroy traces of the abyss.

• Linsey converted supplies and other resources, suppressing his Willpower Source Material and ending the recurring damage in his body.
• Linsey activated Datafication and found it separated his two types of Source Material, though he could maintain it for only three hours.
• Forest Will explained that Linsey could eat a fruit at the center of the Garden Enclosure to construct a new Source Material Circulation System.
• Forest Will marked the Garden Enclosure's location near Echo Valley on Linsey's map and explained its origins as a Divine Court facility absorbed by the world.
• Forest Will told Linsey to eradicate the abyss's traces, then left him a seed before fading into the world.

Ya Li Kun called on Ailini to help him fight Green Fir, but she refused and revealed her ties to the United Guild. After Ya Li Kun unleashed his source material to turn the battle in his favor, a disguised attacker stabbed him through the heart, leaving the stranger’s identity unknown.

• Ya Li Kun begged Ailini to lend him money, but she refused, saying a merchant should not budget for the dead.
• Ailini’s Financial Exemption Order nullified Ya Li Kun’s attempt to influence her, and she said she was conducting normal business activities.
• Ya Li Kun used his silver necklace to release his source material, disrupting Green Fir’s attacks and weakening her art.
• A man wearing Kang Qi’s appearance stabbed Ya Li Kun through the heart with a wooden spear.
• Ya Li Kun asked who the attacker was before losing consciousness and falling into darkness.

After defeating Ya Li Kun, Linsey collected a rare Source Material Core and learned that the Forest's Will had healed his left hand. He revealed the power of his new Red Horn Mistletoe weapon, then refused Green Fir's offer to return with her, insisting that he needed to travel to Echo Valley to address the danger of cultivating two kinds of Source Material.

• Linsey collected a Source Material Core from Ya Li Kun's corpse and found a formula for using it to make a Source Material Circuit.
• Green Fir examined Linsey, learned that the Forest's Will had healed his left hand, and asked whether it had also given him his wooden spear.
• Linsey revealed that the spear was a Red Horn Mistletoe grown from one of his quest rewards, alongside the Eternal Night Iris and Shining Iron Stone Tree seeds.
• Ailini recognized Linsey beneath his Kang Qi disguise, and Linsey told Green Fir that Ailini was a very good friend.
• Linsey explained that the Forest's Will had nearly merged with the world and lost its independent consciousness, prompting Green Fir to report the event to the Law Codex Compilation Society.
• Linsey refused to return with Green Fir and said the Forest's Will had pointed him toward Echo Valley as a possible solution to the danger of cultivating two kinds of Source Material.

After the battle at Lake Island Secret Realm, Linsey and Ailini discussed the forest’s favor, their next destinations, and the danger ahead. Ailini warned Linsey that two Seventh Stage Awakened were heading toward Echo Valley, then made an agreement with him about how she could recognize him in disguise.

• Green Fir left the ruined secret realm to report to Volcano City, leaving Linsey and Ailini behind.
• Linsey explained that the will of the forest had made the berserk plants in the Courtyard in the Forest less hostile toward Ailini.
• Linsey inspected the Garden Nursery Management Seed and Plant Expert's Backpack he had received as rewards.
• Ailini collected Ya Li Kun's corpse and told Linsey she planned to travel to Remote Yue City to sell news of his death to the merchant guild.
• Ailini warned Linsey that Han Si Ke and Mu Le Na Hu En had been seen heading toward Echo Valley, and Linsey remained confident about facing them.
• As they parted, Ailini asked Linsey to leave a mole on his left ear whenever he met her while disguised.