Chapter Summaries

Academy apprentices and mages began experiencing unusual dreams before the Magic Net announced the upcoming Virtual World. When it opened, Tom logged in and explored the Free Space and Apprentice Community, but lacked permission to enter the Mage Community.

• Academy apprentices compared dreams of their deepest desires, and Mage Jenny explained that the Holy Tower had identified the dreams as Magic Net debugging.
• The Magic Net announced that the Virtual World would open in seven days, prompting apprentices and Free Faction members to rush to prepare for its launch.
• At dawn on the eighth day, mages logged into the Virtual World as the Magic Net's final debugging ended.
• Tom agreed to the community rules, discovered that his permissions barred him from the Mage Community, and entered the Apprentice Community.
• Tom opened the control panel and found options for returning to Free Space, entering other communities or his academy, and selecting an instance world.

Tom explored the Virtual World’s instance options, while Adam developed its research and land-sale functions and Wendy prepared a virtual war trial. With war against Immortal Civilization approaching, Adam began looking for a Private Army to join the Vanguard.

• Tom entered the Dimensional Hub Platform and learned that apprentices could enter dangerous trial instances, while simulation instances offered new identities and prohibited bringing items out.
• Adam added land sales and simulated research to the Virtual World, allowing forces and institutes to conduct experiments at a fraction of the physical cost.
• Wendy objected to the Virtual World’s high, strength-based prices, but Adam defended the fees and reminded her to plan the First Virtual War Trial.
• Aisha caught Wendy calling her a workaholic, then assigned Wendy the remaining debugging and told Adam that the Vanguard would depart within a year for the coming war.
• Adam sought a Private Army for himself and considered recruiting his friends, beginning with Veiga Mo.

The Vanguard Legion reached the outskirts of the Immortal Civilization, whose powerful array guarded a vast Plane Group. Neham identified the central plane as the place he had infiltrated before, and the Legion realized the Immortals had prepared for their arrival.

• Adam explained that the Vanguard Legion would infiltrate the Immortal Civilization, seize control of a plane, gather intelligence, and establish Jump Points for the main force.
• Neham told Adam that Level Nine Immortals had attacked him with strange domain-like abilities and tracking methods.
• Adam used Wave-Particle Duality algorithms to disrupt the Immortals’ surveillance, prompting the Heavenly Court to activate its defenses and prepare for battle.
• Half a year later, the Vanguard Legion reached the Immortal Plane Group and detected a powerful Magic Array around its thirty-six large, eighty-eight medium, and one thousand and two small planes.
• Neham identified the central plane as the one he had infiltrated before and said the Immortals’ defenses had changed since then.

Adam and Neham sent converted soul fragments into the Immortal Civilization to gather intelligence by helping low-level disciples grow stronger. Adam’s fragment entered Liang Youqiao, a struggling Sword Sect disciple, and spoke to her after her cultivation attempt left her injured.

• Adam identified the outer planes as their best chance to learn about the Immortal Civilization and proposed sending wave-state soul fragments inside.
• Wendy transformed fragments of Adam and Neham’s souls into low-frequency electromagnetic waves and sent them into the plane group.
• Adam’s fragment entered a low-level Sword Sect disciple, while Neham’s entered a Dao Sect Servant Disciple.
• Adam explained that they would use modified Personal Chips to help their hosts grow stronger and gain access to higher-level cultivation knowledge.
• Liang Youqiao failed to break through a cultivation bottleneck, damaged her meridians, and coughed blood onto an inferior jade pendant.
• A voice spoke to Liang Youqiao through the pendant and asked, “Do you want to become stronger?”

Adam posed as an immortal and helped Liang Youqiao improve her cultivation, enabling her to reach Foundation Establishment and keep her place in the Sword Sect. He reported what he learned about the Immortal Civilization to the Nine-Headed Dragon, while Neham noted that his own host lacked a cultivation technique.

• Adam offered to make Liang Youqiao stronger in exchange for her help, and she agreed to share her cultivation technique.
• Adam and the mages analyzed the Heqi Sword Incantation and altered its circulation to widen Liang Youqiao's meridians.
• Liang Youqiao endured severe pain, swallowed pills, and cultivated through the night until she reached Foundation Establishment and condensed her Natal Sword Spirit.
• Adam congratulated Liang Youqiao and asked her to find the formula for the Ningyuan Pill.
• Adam reported the Sword Sect's cultivation, magical treasures, and alchemy to the Nine-Headed Dragon, and Neham said his host lacked a cultivation technique.

Adam analyzed the Dao Sect’s cultivation methods and helped Liang Youqiao strengthen her cultivation before the sect examination. He left her with a sword technique to use against an enemy she could not defeat.

• Adam asked the Hyperdimensional Mages to assess Dao Sect pills and methods of material construction and transmission.
• After Liang Youqiao was shortchanged on supplies, Adam examined her Three-Origin Sword Canon and identified how its cultivation system relied on energy fields.
• Adam offered to improve Liang Youqiao’s cultivation technique and refine pills, then helped her obtain more Sword Qi with counterfeit pills.
• Adam and the Fifth Holy Tower’s mages optimized the Three-Origin Sword Canon, but the improved technique placed a greater burden on Liang Youqiao’s body.
• The night before the sect examination, Adam taught Liang Youqiao a sword technique and she began practicing it.

Adam studied the Immortal Civilization’s techniques and coordinated a plan to gather intelligence before the Mage World’s war, while his possessed companion Liang Youqiao awoke trapped with him in the Demon Submerging Abyss. She learned that the Sword Sect Elder had threatened to kill her family within seven days and begged Adam to save them.

• Neham explained the Immortal Civilization’s Five Elements system and its techniques for manipulating electromagnetic waves, and Adam judged those methods to be superficial.
• Adam and Neham discussed the coming war, the need to investigate the Immortal Civilization, and the plan to send information and physical samples back to the Mage World.
• Adam urged Wendy to finish a soul-conversion device so more mages could gather intelligence through divided souls, and asked her to complete the Yin Energy Sword Technique’s follow-up.
• Liang Youqiao awoke beside Adam in the Demon Submerging Abyss, where Adam sensed a barrier and energy made entirely of Negative Energy.
• Liang Youqiao learned that the Sword Sect Elder had threatened her family, and she begged Adam to save them before the seven-day deadline.

Liang Youqiao emerged from the Demon Submerging Abyss, survived a Heavenly Tribulation, and began killing her way through the Immortal Civilization as the Dead Soul Sword Demon. Meanwhile, Adam and his allies prepared to exploit the abyss seals, and nearly two hundred Hyperdimensional Mages and more than six hundred wave-state souls descended into the planes.

• Adam taught Liang Youqiao the Dead Soul Sword Scripture, and she rapidly advanced to the peak of Level Two in the Demon Submerging Abyss.
• Liang Youqiao escaped the abyss, endured a Heavenly Tribulation that removed the Demonic Qi, and received pills from Adam to heal her injuries.
• Liang Youqiao found her hometown in ruins and its entrance hung with corpses, then left without falling into the Sword Sect's ambush.
• Liang Youqiao killed people she could defeat as she cultivated the Dead Soul Sword Scripture, earning the name Dead Soul Sword Demon and drawing the major sects toward a Demon Extermination Alliance.
• Adam, Neham, and Wendy analyzed Spiritual Qi and magical artifacts, then planned to use the Demon Submerging Abyss seals as a way to create an opening in the planes.
• After the descent devices finished debugging, nearly two hundred Hyperdimensional Mages and more than six hundred wave-state souls secretly entered planes with different serial numbers.

Adam’s plan to break the Demon Submerging Abyss’s seal advanced as his influence drove Liang Youqiao into conflict with the righteous path. After Liang Youqiao tried to defy him, Adam had her killed and possessed one of her disciples, ordering him to attack the righteous sects.

• Mages descended into the Realm of Desire, where numerous Children of Fortune emerged and threw the planes into turmoil.
• Over two years, Liang Youqiao rose to the Tribulation Transcendence stage, founded the Dead Soul Sword Sect, and fought Sun Guanyu’s Demon Extermination Alliance.
• Liang Youqiao questioned Adam’s plan to use the Demon Submerging Abyss to reach the Realm of Form and accused him of murdering her family.
• Liang Youqiao destroyed the jade pendant and threatened to kill Adam, but he shattered her Inner Circulation and ordered her disciples to attack.
• Liang Youqiao’s disciples killed and absorbed her, after which Adam possessed one of them and ordered an assault on the Sword Sect.

Adam directed the Hyperdimensional Mages to build strength while they waited for the Demon Submerging Abyss to open, and ordered the Demon Extermination Alliance to attack the Dead Soul Sword Sect. The Dead Soul Sword Sect destroyed the Sword Sect and found the sealed Array Eye beneath Sword Mountain.

• Adam told the Hyperdimensional Mages to control the parasites, ordered Neham to attack the Dead Soul Sword Sect, and planned for the legion to withdraw into the Nine-Headed Dragon sequence.
• Adam encouraged the new Dead Soul Sword Demon to spread the Dead Soul Sword Scripture and ordered him to destroy the Sword Sect and open the Demon Submerging Abyss.
• The Dead Soul Sword Sect attacked the Sword Sect, whose disciples' flying swords were corroded by the attackers' domain fields.
• The Dead Soul Sword Sect overwhelmed the Sword Sect in two days, before the Demon Extermination Alliance's reinforcements arrived.
• The Sword Demon found an ancient sword serving as the sealed Array Eye beneath Sword Mountain and reported it to Adam.

Adam learned that the Level Nine Immortals were allowing him to approach Demon Submerging Abyss, though their motives remained unclear. After the Dao Sect fell and its Dao Seal broke, Adam ordered the seal opened.

• Adam appointed a new Dead Soul Sword Demon and ordered the Dead Soul Sword Sect to attack the other orthodox sects.
• After half a year, the Dao Sect was the only major sect left, and Adam and Neham discussed the sects' living immortal artifacts.
• Adam tested Demon Submerging Abyss by sending disciples and captives into it, then concluded that the Level Nine Immortals were guiding him toward the Demonic Qi.
• The Level Nine Immortals debated whether the Outsider Demons were connected to a True Demon and decided to keep watching.
• Sun Guanyu's betrayal helped destroy the Dao Sect, and the new Sword Demon killed its leader as the Dao Seal shattered.
• Adam ordered the seal of Demon Submerging Abyss opened.

Adam and Neham watched as the seals around Number One Plane failed and the Immortal Civilization sent Third Epoch creatures toward the Nine-Headed Dragon. Adam deduced that Neham had been lured here and called for his aura to be concealed while Wendy sent the intelligence to the Mage World; the threat remained, and Adam insisted Neham undergo an examination.

• After Adam ordered the seal nodes destroyed, he and Neham returned to the fleet as the seals around Number One Plane began to fail.
• A void fissure released black energy that destroyed the plane and formed a fortress covered with enormous Third Epoch creatures.
• The Heavenly Sword pushed the fortress toward the Nine-Headed Dragon, and the Vanguard Legion fleet sounded a Level Three alert.
• Adam concealed Neham's aura and deduced that Neham had followed intercepted information from Another World into a trap set by the Immortal Civilization.
• Wendy agreed to send the intelligence to the Mage World, while Neham volunteered to fight the creatures.
• Adam stopped Neham and told him to draw on Laura and Croft for a thorough physical examination before they decided how to handle the threat.

Adam used his newly named Adam’s Sword to destroy the Demonic Beasts and their fortress, then sealed the contaminated remains and paid his respects to the Immortal Civilization. After returning to the Nine-Headed Dragon, he left with Neham to investigate the world that had sent a message.

• Adam weighed the risks of war and alliance with the Immortal Civilization before entering the void alone.
• Adam unleashed Adam’s Sword, annihilating the fortress’s hundreds of thousands of Demonic Beasts and destroying the fortress.
• Adam sealed the contaminated energy and mutated flesh, bowed toward Immortal Civilization Da Luo Heaven, and returned to the Nine-Headed Dragon.
• Neham reported that Croft had ordered the mages to avoid provoking the Immortal Civilization and focus on investigating the world that sent the message.
• Neham took Adam through a door in the void to investigate that world, leaving the Nine-Headed Dragon and its operating authority with Wendy.

Adam theorized that Immortal Civilization used Heavenly Tribulation to detect and remove demonic contamination from its inhabitants, and that its immortals might not consider Realm of Desire lifeforms their own people. He and Neham continued searching for the Third World, while the Great Heavenly Venerable chose to wait and see how Immortal Civilization would respond to the sealing scrolls.

• Level Nine Immortals debated whether Laura’s sealing scrolls proved the outsiders were allies or concealed a demonic scheme, and the Great Heavenly Venerable told them to wait and see.
• Adam told Neham that Heavenly Tribulation might be a self-inspection program that removed demonic roots from those seeking to enter the Realm of Form.
• Adam reasoned that Realm of Desire lifeforms could harbor demonic roots and that Immortal Civilization might treat them as contaminants rather than fellow citizens.
• Neham questioned how the first Level Nine Immortal could have established the cultivation system, and Adam suggested the first immortal might have been born from a Hypervoid Life.
• A few days later, Adam discovered something else.

Adam and Neham discovered that a contaminated region near the Immortal Civilization contained a new Third Epoch civilization whose expansion was damaging the void and could hasten the Epochal Tribulation. After finding several such Plane Groups and reaching a war between a civilization and the contamination, Neham sent Adam back to report and await orders.

• Adam detected unusual radiation near the Hypervoid Life’s location, and he and Neham identified the area as a Disaster Zone filled with Third Epoch remnants.
• Adam suspected that a Hypervoid Life’s corpse in the Demon Submerging Abyss was drawing remnants toward the Immortal Civilization, though he and Neham could not explain why no Hypervoid Life had awakened.
• Adam and Neham found a cluster of planes inhabited by contaminated creatures, including a Level Nine Life, and Neham determined that the group was consuming the void and suppressing its recovery.
• Adam sent their findings to the Magic Net, and he and Neham continued through the void, discovering three more contaminated Plane Groups with Level Nine Life.
• Adam and Neham reached a Void Zone where a civilization was fighting contamination sources, and Neham opened a portal to send Adam back near the Nine-Headed Dragon to report and await orders.

Adam returned to the Nine-Headed Dragon as Prometheus ordered the Vanguard Legion to retreat and await further intelligence. Neham joined the battle, fought the Level Nine Demon Creature, and entered its devastated civilization, where he reached the first city.

• Adam left the battlefield, and the Nine-Headed Dragon evacuated the Vanguard Legion before Prometheus ordered them to withdraw and await Randolph and Neham’s intelligence.
• After the Nine-Headed Dragon arrived, Neham entered the battle and used his roar, Dragon Breath, and attacks through the void to devastate the Demonic Beasts.
• Neham dragged many Demonic Beasts into the space behind the void and slaughtered them, but a Level Nine Demon Creature broke through his domain.
• Neham evaded the creature’s attacks, compressed the void around it, and used the moment to enter the civilization where Level Nine Life existed.
• Neham explored the civilization’s ruined planes, discovered its people faced despair and dwindling descendants, and arrived before a city.

Neham observed how the survivors maintained their city through reproductive cell collection, food synthesis, and brutal demon cell transplants. He left the arsenal after learning that only 182 of nearly a thousand transplant recipients survived, and those survivors were left to fight Demonic Beasts while struggling against their mutations.

• Neham accepted the Personal Chip’s language and writing translation, then learned that warlocks received Stabilizing Reagent injections before demon cell transplants.
• Neham watched residents feed Demonic Beast flesh into food synthesizers and collect measured portions of blackish-purple gel.
• Neham saw reproductive cell donors enter Culture Tanks and endure painful procedures before leaving the city with their supplies.
• Neham discovered embryos and infants being assessed in Culture Tanks, with unqualified individuals moved to Secondary Culture Tanks and qualified ones placed in advanced tanks.
• Warlocks transplanted cells from a fourth-tier Demonic Beast into recipients, killing those who mutated unsuccessfully and leaving 182 survivors out of nearly a thousand.
• Neham left the arsenal and wandered through the city.

Neham explored the Warlock Civilization, observing how its people endured scarcity and fought Demonic Beasts through painful, self-destructive powers. Meanwhile, the Vanguard Legion investigated the fixed, contracting boundaries of the void, and Wendy returned with the explanation that the region was a separated special Void Zone.

• Neham surveyed the Warlock Civilization’s cities and saw Ordinary People and warlocks contribute resources to sustain society and reinforce their plane.
• Neham entered the harsh Main Plane, observed warlocks’ factories and self-damaging spellcasting, and recorded how they summoned and controlled Demonic Beasts.
• Neham revealed his aura and approached the Central City as high-level warlocks followed him; at the outskirts, one greeted him as a guest from afar.
• Adam and the Hyperdimensional Mages discussed how the void’s fixed, shrinking boundary differed from previously observed boundaries and resembled an Epochal Tribulation.
• Wendy returned and said the region was a special Void Zone that had been separated out.

Wendy and Adam concluded that the Immortal Civilization had emerged after the First Level Nine Immortal disrupted a Hypervoid Life, and that surviving worlds might still exist deeper in the Void Zone. Patriao told Neham how his world was ruined by demonic energy and how he transformed himself and his people to resist the demons, though Shanti was close to falling.

• Wendy explained that the Immortal Civilization was likely the source of the breach and that Third Epoch energy had spread outward from it.
• Adam and Wendy reasoned that other resisters and intact Plane Groups could remain beyond the areas they had explored.
• Wendy raised the question of whether the later Level Nine Immortals knew the first one's origin.
• Patriao told Neham how his world, Shanti, had once led a peaceful community that was corrupted by powerful energy and then attacked by demons.
• Patriao explained that he fused with a demon, gained Fel Energy, and became a Void Warlock, but a Demon Overlord soon appeared.
• Patriao said he had transformed the warlocks into Demon Warlocks, yet Shanti's people could no longer hold out much longer.

Patriao told Neham that Shanti’s attempts to create more Level Nine Fel Energy Warlocks had failed, leaving his people near extinction, and asked for help even if they had to become vassals. The Vanguard Legion agreed to prepare supplies and send exploration robots and limited forces to support the Warlock Civilization, pending further orders.

• Patriao explained that every attempt to advance another Fel Energy Warlock had ended in failure and death, driving Shanti toward collapse.
• Patriao asked Neham to save his people and offered to give everything, including accepting vassalage; Neham said the Mage Council would have to decide whether to accept them.
• Patriao described the Warlock Civilization’s urgent needs: clean food and water for ordinary people and healing potions for the warlocks.
• The Vanguard Legion reviewed Neham’s intelligence and concluded that general-purpose Root of Life stabilizing potions could reduce the warlocks’ Self-Consumption and extend their lives, though supplies were lacking.
• Wendy said the Mage World could provide resources, while Adam proposed sending the first Exploration Robots and leading half the Vanguard Legion through the Demonic Qi blockade to support the Warlocks.