Chapter Summaries

Tang Feng revealed that he had reached the Land Deity Realm and killed the Peak Heavenly Human experts who attacked Wang Pan. As Qin Rulong surrendered, Han Gen broke through into the Land Deity Realm, leaving Wang Pan with two newly revealed Land Immortals among his allies.

• Qin Rulong ordered his Peak Heavenly Human experts to capture Wang Pan, but Tang Feng stepped forward to stop them.
• Tang Feng used White Bone Finger and revealed his Land Deity Realm cultivation, then killed the experts when Wang Pan showed no interest in accepting their surrender.
• Qin Rulong abandoned his fight with Han Gen and knelt before Wang Pan, begging to serve him.
• Heaven and earth trembled as Han Gen began breaking through into the Land Deity Realm.
• The Power of Heaven and Earth enveloped Han Gen and healed his injuries as his transformation began.

After Han Gen’s breakthrough, Wang Pan spared Qin Rulong but executed Zheng He and dozens of other traitors, revealing strength that astonished allies and rivals alike. His growing power drew previously aloof elders toward his faction, and he ordered his followers to enforce the third of his Three Orders.

• Han Gen completed his breakthrough to the Land Deity Realm, and Wang Pan warned Qin Rulong to follow his rules or face death.
• Zheng He and dozens of Heavenly Human Realm cultivators begged for mercy and blamed Zheng He, but Wang Pan killed them with Mortal Worldliness.
• Liangqiu Qianshan and Ren Yan were shocked by Wang Pan’s immense strength, while elders who had resisted him began secretly seeking to join his faction.
• Wang Pan ordered his followers to implement the third of his Three Orders, arresting or killing anyone who obstructed it.

Wang Pan built the Pan Dynasty through sweeping reforms and spent years training loyal officials and soldiers to spread his ideals. After the Equality Society grew powerful and corruption spread among its members and generals, he established checks and balances and assigned political instructors to protect soldiers.

• Wang Pan brought several hundred Heavenly Human Realm cultivators and two Land Immortals to the Pan Dynasty, where his reforms subdued resistant clans and strengthened the state.
• Wang Pan trained selected legion members and provincial officials for three years, then sent them out to spread his ideals.
• Twenty years later, Wang Pan led the Equality Society as corruption and abuse of soldiers grew among its members and generals.
• Wang Pan proposed a Revolutionary Committee, severe penalties for false accusations, and oversight among the Committee, local Government Offices, and ordinary people.
• Wang Pan ordered political instructors to address soldiers' grievances and support their well-being, while separating their duties from those of generals.

Wang Pan established sweeping tax policies for the Pan Dynasty, exempting poorer citizens while sharply raising taxes on wealthy individuals and businesses. To enforce the rules against powerful tax evaders, he ordered the creation of a million-strong force called the Tax Investigators.

• Wang Pan ordered Zhou Yan to draft regulations establishing a Workers' Committee to protect workers in factories.
• Wang Pan set new personal income and business tax rates, exempting low-income people and offering subsidies to some farmers and livestock raisers.
• Wang Pan warned that officials who abused their power to benefit family businesses would lose their positions, face investigation, and risk severe punishment.
• Wang Pan ordered two elite legions to form the basis of the Tax Investigators, a force authorized to investigate tax evasion and receive a share of recovered funds.
• Wang Pan argued that powerful commercial enterprises might employ Mythical Realm experts and would require a capable force to ensure they paid taxes.

Wang Pan’s reforms took eight years of preparation before the Pan Dynasty began implementing a new legal code and abolishing agricultural tax. In Yellow Tooth Village, the villagers learned they could keep all the grain they grew and celebrated by crying, “Long live King Pan!”

• Wang Pan supported Equality of All Beings and let the Equality Society’s core members develop the laws and reforms over eight years.
• The Pan Dynasty implemented a comprehensive legal code and separated legislation, administration, and justice, while advocates hurried to study the new laws.
• The Pan Dynasty abolished agricultural tax, allowing ordinary people to keep the grain grown on their land.
• In Yellow Tooth Village, villagers interrupted a coming-of-age ceremony at King Pan Temple to announce the news of the tax abolition.
• The village chief learned that the villagers would keep their harvest and joined them in celebrating and praising King Pan.

After the Pan Dynasty abolished grain taxes and introduced a steep Commercial Tax, merchants organized resistance by mobilizing factory workers and pressuring officials. Wang Pan refused to change the tax, and Lin Xiang and the other merchants decided to incite further unrest.

• Ordinary people celebrated the end of the grain tax, while merchants condemned the new Commercial Tax and began organizing across the Pan Dynasty.
• Lin Xiang stirred workers at his textile factory by claiming the tax would force the factory to close and leave them unemployed.
• More than a thousand merchants from twenty cities formed a united front and demanded that officials change the Commercial Tax rate.
• Wang Pan rejected the merchants' demands, and local officials firmly refused their proposal.
• Lin Xiang urged the merchants to return to their cities and incite workers into rebellion, and the merchants agreed to act.

Merchants in twenty cities incited workers to riot against Wang Pan’s tax policy, but the Pan Dynasty’s security forces swiftly suppressed the unrest and arrested the organizers. Wang Pan’s government sentenced thousands of merchants to death, silencing would-be opposition across the nation.

• Thousands of merchants in twenty cities secretly stirred more than three million workers into protests that escalated into widespread looting and destruction.
• The security forces suppressed the riots within half a day and imposed fines, permanent demerits, and prison or death sentences on participants who committed crimes.
• A Special Investigation Team from twenty cities arrested the merchants gathered at an estate outside Baiyang City.
• The merchants claimed they had only called for marches and protests, but Wang Pan’s government sentenced them to death.
• News of the punishments spread nationwide, and merchants elsewhere abandoned plans to challenge the tax policy.

Wang Pan returned to King Capturing City after years away and reunited with his Adoptive Father, Yu Chou. Though Yu Chou warned him about the Yu Dynasty’s threat to the Heavenly Venerate Sect, Wang Pan planned to return there, and Yu Chou decided to go with him.

• Merchants across the Pan Dynasty became more cautious about tax evasion after the authorities cracked down on them.
• Wang Pan decided not to rush the Pan Dynasty’s development and left for Desolate Prefecture to visit Yu Chou.
• Wang Pan found Yu Chou with two companions, then endured Yu Chou’s angry greeting and teasingly called him out for looking unconcerned about his absence.
• Yu Chou was shocked that Wang Pan remained a perfected Great Grandmaster, and Wang Pan explained his years away and his strength.
• Yu Chou warned Wang Pan that the Yu Dynasty could threaten the Heavenly Venerate Sect, but Wang Pan chose to return to the sect after staying a year or two.
• Yu Chou insisted on accompanying Wang Pan to the Heavenly Venerate Sect rather than remain behind in the Yu Dynasty.

Wang Pan ordered the Tax Bureau to investigate merchants after learning that tax revenue had risen far less than it should have. The investigation exposed widespread tax evasion across Pan Province, and the Tax Bureau’s commanding officer accepted responsibility for underestimating the problem.

• Yu Chou gave his assets to his concubines and left the Yu Dynasty with Wang Pan.
• Merchants across the Pan Dynasty schemed to evade taxes, while the Tax Bureau reported 4.386 billion taels of silver in revenue to Wang Pan.
• Wang Pan ordered the Tax Bureau to deploy Tax Investigators, who arrested merchants and dismantled the Lin Family for tax evasion.
• The Tax Bureau spent three months investigating Pan Province, during which 3,700 Tax Investigators died in the line of duty.
• The commanding officer asked Wang Pan to dismiss him, but Wang Pan admonished him to learn from the mistake and warned him against repeating it.

After Pan Dynasty Tax Investigators uncovered 7.6 billion taels of silver in evaded taxes across fifty-two provinces, Wang Pan’s Momentum of Humanity’s Way transformed and he broke through a bottleneck that had troubled him for two hundred years. Tang Feng and Qin Rulong moved to contain the destructive upheaval around the Royal Capital.

• Wang Pan ordered three million-man legions to join the Tax Investigators and commanded severe punishment for tax evasion and anyone who tampered with the pensions of investigators killed in the line of duty.
• The Great Martial Army and Tiger Standard Cavalry benefited from the tax system’s generous rewards, while other legions competed for the new positions; three legions ranked below one hundred were eventually selected.
• Tax Investigators and Merchants fought an increasingly sophisticated battle over the previous year’s taxes, and the investigation uncovered 7.6 billion taels of silver in evaded taxes across fifty-two provinces.
• As the investigation concluded, Wang Pan’s Momentum of Humanity’s Way transformed, forming a crimson dragon that became a dragon-headed, human-bodied figure before merging into him.
• Wang Pan broke through his long-standing bottleneck, unleashing enormous destructive power, and Tang Feng and Qin Rulong tried to suppress the upheaval threatening the Royal Capital.

Wang Pan broke through into the Dharma Form Realm, and the power he unleashed overwhelmed Tang Feng and Qin Rulong. He returned to the Heavenly Venerate Sect and displayed his strength at its gates, prompting its Land Immortals to prepare to repel what they believed was an intruder.

• Wang Pan's breakthrough sent Tang Feng and Qin Rulong flying, and he realized his new strength was fueled by the people of the Pan Dynasty.
• Wang Pan explained to himself that his self-created cultivation system had a high upper limit, though he still needed the simulator system to survive in the Main World.
• Wang Pan ordered Tang Feng and Qin Rulong to guard the capital; Qin Rulong sincerely pledged loyalty out of fear of Wang Pan's strength.
• After briefing the Pan Dynasty's department Commanding Officers, Wang Pan returned to the Heavenly Venerate Sect and unleashed his aura at Heavenly Venerate Peak.
• The Mountain Protection Array activated, and the sect's Land Immortals emerged, mistaking Wang Pan for an enemy who had come to challenge them.

After forging his own path, Wang Pan arrived at the Heavenly Venerate Sect and declared that he would rule the Land Deity Realm, shocking the sect’s experts with his power. He condemned the sect’s survival-of-the-fittest traditions and argued that order and cooperation had made the Pan Dynasty strong.

• Liangqiu Qianshan, Ren Yan, and Muying recognized that Wang Pan had successfully forged his own path, and Ren Yan proposed naming him Young Heavenly Venerate.
• Dozens of Land Deity Realm experts confronted Wang Pan and were stunned by his strength and commanding aura.
• Wang Pan declared that he would have the final say in the Land Deity Realm, but the experts challenged his authority and defended the sect’s traditions.
• Wang Pan accused the Heavenly Venerate Sect’s survival-of-the-fittest system of destroying gifted disciples and breeding selfish, treacherous survivors.
• Wang Pan argued that order and coordinated legions were the true sources of strength, citing the Pan Dynasty’s growing ranks of Great Grandmasters and future Heavenly Human Legions.

Wang Pan challenged the Heavenly Venerate Sect’s Land Deity Realm experts and demonstrated overwhelming strength when Pan Liang attacked him. After Wang Pan shattered Pan Liang’s Heaven’s Collapse technique and control over the local Power of Heaven and Earth, the other experts faced a newcomer who had proved his claim to command them.

• Wang Pan criticized the Heavenly Venerate Sect’s survival-of-the-fittest system, prompting its Land Deity Realm experts to rage and unleash their auras.
• Pan Liang attacked Wang Pan alone, but Wang Pan caught and crushed his Crimson Lightning spear without being harmed.
• Wang Pan explained that he meant to test his strength and force the Land Deity Realm experts to submit, then taunted them as they urged Pan Liang to defeat him.
• Pan Liang used Heaven’s Collapse to seize the local Power of Heaven and Earth and imprison Wang Pan beneath its force.
• Wang Pan transformed with Human Path: Dharma Form, and his blood energy shattered Heaven’s Collapse and the surrounding terrain.
• Pan Liang lost control of the local Power of Heaven and Earth, suffered its backlash, and spat golden Blood Mist.

Wang Pan fought dozens of Heavenly Venerate Sect Land Deity Realm cultivators who joined forces against him, then defeated their strongest, Zhou Xu. After Wang Pan’s sword struck the sect’s Mountain Protection Array without breaking it, Zhou Xu and the others admitted defeat and agreed that the Heavenly Venerate Sect’s doctrines might have been wrong.

• Wang Pan transformed into his enormous Dharma Form, prompting the Land Deity Realm cultivators to abandon martial honor and attack him together.
• Wang Pan summoned the moon’s essence and unleashed Frost Kills All Grass, freezing the cultivators’ attacks and preventing most of them from controlling the Power of Heaven and Earth.
• Zhou Xu wielded the Life-Slaying Sword, whose physical and spiritual attack targeted Wang Pan’s body and soul.
• Wang Pan used Human Dao: Reform Sword to shatter Zhou Xu’s attack and send his sword into the Heavenly Venerate Sect’s Mountain Protection Array, which withstood it.
• Zhou Xu and the other cultivators admitted defeat, and Zhou Xu acknowledged that the Heavenly Venerate Sect’s doctrines might have been wrong.

Wang Pan was named the Young Heavenly Venerate and told Liangqiu Qianshan and the Vice Sect Leaders about the new Cultivation System he had created. After seeing how it could advance his own cultivation, Liangqiu Qianshan gave Wang Pan her knowledge of the Heavenly Venerate Stele and urged him to study it.

• Liangqiu Qianshan declared Wang Pan the Young Heavenly Venerate, and the Land Deity Realm cultivators bowed to him.
• Ziyu escorted Wang Pan to the main hall, where Liangqiu Qianshan asked about his breakthrough.
• Wang Pan revealed that he had reached the Dharma Form Realm and transmitted the knowledge behind his new Cultivation System to Liangqiu Qianshan, Muying, and Ren Yan.
• Liangqiu Qianshan comprehended Wang Pan's system and gained new insights that strengthened her, though she chose to remain on her own path.
• Liangqiu Qianshan passed Wang Pan her Heavenly Venerate Technique knowledge and advised him to study the Heavenly Venerate Stele before sending Ziyu to take him to rest.

Ren Yan abandoned his plan to create a separate Cultivation System and chose to follow Wang Pan’s unfinished system, returning with him to the Pan Dynasty. By living among its people and serving them for centuries, Ren Yan advanced through the Aura, Intent, and Momentum of Humanity’s Way, while the Pan Dynasty grew into a powerful realm.

• Ren Yan decided to cultivate Wang Pan’s system, then asked Liangqiu Qianshan and Muying to let him return to the Pan Dynasty with Wang Pan; Liangqiu Qianshan agreed, and Wang Pan welcomed his protection.
• Ren Yan traveled to the Pan Dynasty with Wang Pan and more than a dozen Land Deity Realm elders, then used countless incarnations to experience ordinary citizens’ lives.
• Over the following centuries, Ren Yan studied, became a civil servant and city official, enforced Wang Pan’s laws, and developed the Aura of Humanity’s Way while living with his wife.
• Ren Yan’s wife gave birth to a daughter, transforming his Aura into the Intent of Humanity’s Way; after she died centuries later, his Intent became the Momentum of Humanity’s Way.
• The Pan Dynasty’s population grew to twelve billion, its main forces became three hundred-thousand-strong Heavenly Human Legions, and signs of a Second Industrial Revolution appeared.

Wang Pan decided to make his cultivation system part of the Pan Dynasty’s education and official assessment, then realized that the dynasty’s laws were the Laws of Humanity’s Way he had sought. He formed a net of law across the Pan Dynasty and began using it to address injustice, ending with a new law taking shape.

• Wang Pan decided to promote his cultivation system through schools and government, giving current officials one hundred years to produce the Aura of Humanity’s Way or risk reassignment.
• Wang Pan reflected on his progress and realized that the laws he had established for the Pan Dynasty were the Laws of Humanity’s Way.
• Wang Pan advanced, creating Crimson Gold Law God Chains that spread across the Pan Dynasty and let him sense and punish violations of its laws.
• Wang Pan sensed a wealthy merchant and local commanding officer exploiting workers and abusing legal loopholes to punish a dead woman’s parents.
• Wang Pan began creating a new law to close the loopholes, and another Law God Chain slowly formed.

Wang Pan created a new criminal law, advanced to the mid-stage of the Law Enforcement Realm, and began expanding the Pan Dynasty’s legal system and technological development. As the Yu Dynasty’s Old Ancestor dismissed the Pan Dynasty as a threat, Wang Pan learned that Tiannan City in Qin Province had disappeared.

• Wang Pan’s creation of a new Law God Chain strengthened the Constitution and advanced him to the mid-stage of the Law Enforcement Realm, with power rivaling the Mythical Realm Peak.
• Ren Yan sensed Wang Pan’s breakthrough, while Liangqiu Qianshan and Muying witnessed the Pan Dynasty’s Crimson Gold Chains and felt its growing power.
• The Yu Dynasty’s national fortune stirred through its Bronze Divine Tree and nine Golden Crows, but the Yu Dynasty Old Ancestor suppressed the disturbance and dismissed the Pan Dynasty as a threat.
• Wang Pan refined the Pan Dynasty’s laws, introduced his system to the population, and saw the first generator mark the start of the Second Industrial Revolution.
• A subordinate told Wang Pan that Tiannan City in Qin Province was gone, and Wang Pan demanded an explanation.

After learning that the White Bone Killing Sect's Bone Flower and her two guards had destroyed Tiannan City, Wang Pan ordered an investigation into corrupt officials and demanded the sect hand over the three fugitives. His ultimatum made war between the Pan Dynasty and the White Bone Killing Sect inevitable.

• Wang Pan learned that Tiannan City's commanding officer had abused his authority against Bone Flower, prompting her two Land Immortal guards to slaughter thousands of Security Personnel and raze the city, killing nearly six million people.
• Wang Pan's high-ranking officials demanded justice, and he ordered the commanding officer's arrest, an investigation into officials who protected him, and the dissolution of the Equality Society and other political parties within the system.
• Wang Pan wrote a Divine Script Order of Accountability with the power of the Mythical Realm Peak and sent it through space to the White Bone Killing Sect.
• Wang Pan demanded that the White Bone Killing Sect surrender Bone Flower and her two guards or face war with the Pan Dynasty.

Gu Changge received a powerful decree demanding that the White Bone Killing Sect answer for the slaughter of six million people, and he traced the incident to the Heavenly Venerate Sect’s territory. Wary of the decree’s unknown Mythical Realm Peak power, he went to question Liangqiu Qianshan, who met him on guard.

• Gu Changge and several Mythical Realm experts witnessed a decree emerge from shattered space and impose divine laws on the White Bone Killing Sect.
• The decree demanded accountability for the killing of six million people, and the White Bone Killing Sect’s experts protested the demand.
• Gu Changge questioned Bone Flower and learned that the incident had taken place in Heavenly Venerate Sect territory, then withdrew without confronting the decree’s unknown creator.
• Gu Changge brought Bone Flower and two Land Deity Realm experts through a Spatial Channel to the Heavenly Venerate Sect.
• Liangqiu Qianshan appeared outside Heavenly Venerate Peak and bluntly asked why Gu Changge had come.