Chapter Summaries

Xiu Mi and Luluwei learned of Inda’s death as Lu Cang investigated ruins containing the Original Forbidden Magic of Time. After his simulations failed to reveal a way through, a hooded shadow entered the ruins, leaving Lu Cang and Ansu wondering what it was.

• Luluwei told Xiu Mi that Lu Cang could likely defeat a level 7 Class-changer, though the group continued toward the Abyss Rift without him.
• A wave of sorrow spread from the White Tower after the level 8 Scholar Inda killed himself, and Luluwei and Leng Qingying felt unsettled by his death.
• Lu Cang identified the ruins’ magic as the Original Forbidden Magic of Time and found that Future Simulation could not show him obtaining it or escaping.
• Lu Cang decided to prepare further before entering the ruins, then saw a hooded shadow pass him and disappear inside.
• Lu Cang asked Ansu about the shadow, and Ansu suggested that they had encountered a haunting.

Lu Cang retreated from the Ancient Ruins of Lost Time after an unidentifiable shadow passed him, then used the Book of Answers in the city to investigate it and a way to restore someone transformed by Lomo. The book directed him back to the ruins for the shadow’s answer and to the Tower of the Wise for the restoration method, while he left one question unused.

• Lu Cang saw a vision of himself falling into a rift when he tried to divine the shadow, and the divination revealed nothing about it.
• Lu Cang told Ansu he would not enter the ruins, then suddenly departed for the city.
• Lu Cang took the Book of Answers to a private inn while the city held a funeral for a deceased eighth-level Class-changer.
• Lu Cang asked what the shadow was, and the book directed him to enter the Ancient Ruins of Lost Time.
• Lu Cang asked how to restore a human who had turned the monster Lomo into a monster, and the book pointed him to the Tower of the Wise.
• Lu Cang left his third question blank, put the book away, and looked toward Luluwei and the others.

Lu Cang watched Xiu Mi’s party battle Abyss Creatures, impressed by Luluwei’s Meteor Strike and Leng Qingying’s improved combat skills. As he began forging new equipment, he found himself dwelling on the possibility of hunting powerful Class-changers for their Enchantment Stones and undead minions.

• Xiu Mi opened a rift to the Abyss of Falling, releasing a torrent of Abyss Creatures into the designated hunting area.
• Luluwei destroyed the first wave with a Meteor Strike, stunning Xiu Mi’s red-haired companion with her power.
• Leng Qingying moved invisibly through the horde, cutting off the monsters’ heads while applying Lu Cang’s combat teachings.
• Xiu Mi’s party fought the continuing waves of Abyss Creatures with arrows, spells, and close combat.
• Lu Cang considered hunting high-level Class-changers for Enchantment Stones and undead minions, then kept the idea in mind as he forged equipment.

Lu Cang forged the Yinda Brain Robe and used its True Eye Tower to perceive the Abyss’s corruption around the Valley of Emptiness. He then saw eyes watching Luluwei and Xiu Mi’s group from beyond the Abyss Rift.

• Lu Cang forged a second-tier Yinda Brain Robe using Yinda’s brain, granting its wearer access to the brain’s knowledge and a True Eye Tower in their sea of consciousness.
• Lu Cang entered the True Eye Tower and discovered that it let him see through some disguises and deceptions, though it could not pierce every concealment.
• Lu Cang expanded his perception across the City of Dark Silence, alerting every class-changer above level three.
• Lu Cang saw purplish-black Abyss corruption tainting the land and observed Luluwei’s group fighting fifth-tier Abyss Creatures.
• Lu Cang looked through the Abyss Rift with the True Eye Tower and saw eyes watching Luluwei and Xiu Mi from the other side.

Lu Cang discovered that the eyes watching adventurers in the Abyss Rifts belonged to the level-nine Eye of the Falling Abyss, an Observer that normally remained inside the Abyss. After one eye emerged and drifted away, Lu Cang pursued it in a simulation, learned about its true form, and severed its stalk.

• Lu Cang found an eye watching each Abyss Rift and asked Ansu about the creature.
• Ansu identified it as the Falling Eye, a powerful Observer that lived at the top of the Abyss of Falling and supposedly never left.
• Lu Cang saw an eyeball emerge from a rift and float away, so he activated a simulation and chased it.
• The eyeball's gaze began unraveling Lu Cang's secrets, but he caught it and used God-Tier · Secret Origin to learn about the Eye of the Falling Abyss.
• Lu Cang discovered that the level-nine Observer was an enormous upside-down tree of eyes and severed the stalk attached to the escaped eyeball.

Lu Cang escaped the scrutiny of a level 9 observer, then hunted an Eye of the Falling Abyss and brewed perception potions from it. After considering hunting more eyes, he sensed that he could advance to level 6 as a Decipherer.

• Lu Cang sealed an eyeball that was watching him, but his wish to make everyone forget he existed failed until he used Oblivion and Moon Star's conception to break the scrutiny.
• Lu Cang saw the Eye of the Falling Abyss reach across many worlds, then sliced the eyeball apart and realized its fragments could be used as potion ingredients.
• After studying the eyes in Future Simulation, Lu Cang used delayed casting and Oblivion to ambush a distant eyeball, collected it, and fled to Xian City.
• Lu Cang brewed twelve vials of permanent Extreme Perception Secret Medicine, each increasing basic perception range by 20,000 kilometers.
• Lu Cang grew eager to hunt more eyeballs, then heard a chorus calling his name and recognized it as a sign that he could advance to level 6 as a Decipherer.

After his Moon-Time Scroll spread his solution to the moon-phase puzzle, Lu Cang felt his discovery inspire Decipherers across the world and decided to advance to level 6. Euynri explained how rare Decipherers were as they entered the advancement hall, where Lu Cang prepared to seek a talent that could unravel the Original Forbidden Magic.

• Lu Cang felt Decipherers across the world gain inspiration from his answer to the moon-phase puzzle and sensed that his discovery had advanced the world's pursuit of the Source.
• Lu Cang met Euynri at the Cipher Enthusiast Association, where Euynri confirmed that he had spread Lu Cang's answer throughout the Moon Sea.
• Lu Cang agreed to hold his level 6 Decipherer advancement ceremony at the association.
• Euynri explained that the Moon Sea had about 120,000 Decipherers, only six registered level 6 Decipherers, and that Lu Cang would become the seventh.
• Lu Cang entered the advancement hall intending to seek a talent that could unravel the Original Forbidden Magic, and Euynri asked whether he could resist corruption.

Lu Cang passed his level 6 Decipherer Promotion Ritual by solving an unsolved mystery and gained the God-Tier · Deepest Reality talent. Using it, he saw that the struggle over the Moon Star had already begun and discovered foreign thoughts and emotions inside his mindscape.

• Lu Cang used Primordial Source, Unsolvable Mystery, and Lotie's mindscape defense to protect himself from corruption during the Promotion Ritual.
• Lu Cang solved a level 5 mystery about how the mind altered magic and earned the Unknown Mystery Tree's recognition.
• Lu Cang advanced to level 6 Decipherer and gained General Solution, Exhaustive Hypothesis, Perceptual Sensitivity, and Collation.
• Lu Cang upgraded Truth Seeking to God-Tier · Deepest Reality and saw the hidden struggle over the Moon Star in the sky.
• Lu Cang examined his mindscape and found dreamlike bubbles, a massive multicolored tree, and thoughts and emotions that did not belong to him.

Lu Cang realized Lotie had planted thoughts in his mind that he could recognize but could not remove, and he asked Ansu for help. Ansu said Lu Cang had few options and suggested confronting Lotie, leaving Lu Cang to decide how to deal with her influence.

• Lu Cang identified thoughts about Lotie and helping her as planted or influenced, but meditation could not dislodge them.
• Lu Cang called Ansu and noticed his powerful body beneath his withered exterior; Ansu revealed it was his original corpse from his first death.
• Lu Cang told Ansu that Lotie's mental influence had left him unable to hate her or remove the thoughts.
• Ansu said Lu Cang could not overcome Lotie's control with his current mastery, and that reincarnation might possibly free him.
• Ansu suggested Lu Cang either endure the influence or ask Lotie to withdraw it herself.

Lu Cang completed his advancement to Level 6 Decipherer and struggled with whether he had been contaminated or was simply having malicious thoughts suppressed by Lotie. Euynri then offered to show him the association’s secrets, which were accessible only to Decipherers with the highest clearance.

• Lu Cang sensed unfamiliar thoughts urging him to kill a Level 7 Defender and felt other thoughts resisting the urge.
• Lu Cang recalled Lotie’s explanation that Deep Earth could make fantasies real and questioned whether he had been contaminated.
• Lu Cang remembered killing people on Moonfall Island and realized he had killed ordinary people, though he felt neither regret nor certainty that he had done wrong.
• Lu Cang asked Ansu whether Lotie might be suppressing contamination, and Ansu said she could twist his thoughts to make him seem normal.
• Lu Cang considered visiting the ruins but hesitated because their dangers were unknown.
• Euynri congratulated Lu Cang on becoming the association’s seventh Level 6 Decipherer and offered to show him its highest-clearance secrets.

Lu Cang decided to leave the continent and avoid getting involved in dangerous affairs, but followed Euynri to the Cipher Enthusiast Association’s archive. There he found an account of a time-related ruin near the Abyss of Falling and began investigating its secrets.

• Lu Cang resolved to leave for the Land of Seeing the Moon and later travel to the Tree of the World Center, while following Euynri underground.
• Euynri opened a hidden chamber containing generations of the Cipher Enthusiast Association’s records.
• Lu Cang found an account by Pamell, a level-six fortune-teller who explored a ruin near the Abyss of Falling three years earlier.
• Euynri confirmed the ruin was known for time-related secrets and said its puzzles had sent many explorers back empty-handed.
• Lu Cang read that the ruin began with a corridor of time and asked Euynri for more records of its expeditions.

Lu Cang studied accounts of the ruins and decided they seemed manageable enough to explore, despite the unknown dangers. After promising Euynri he would record his experience and continue their research later, Lu Cang returned to the ruins’ entrance.

• Lu Cang agreed to examine the ruins after Euynri offered to share information, and he declined an adventuring team because he already knew one.
• Lu Cang read accounts describing time-based puzzles in the first area and learned that only a few people had reached the later areas.
• Lu Cang discovered that only two people had reached the third area, which seemed to require knowledge of history and the future.
• Lu Cang promised Euynri they would resume researching how to turn monsters into people after he returned.
• Lu Cang left the city and arrived at the ruins’ entrance, where the ghostlike figure was absent.

Lu Cang entered the Time's Long Corridor after expanding his perception and preparing for the ruins. He recognized that the corridor differed from the one in his Future Simulation and began working out how to escape.

• Lu Cang drank all twelve Extreme Perception Potions, increasing his perception range to 400,000 kilometers.
• Lu Cang gained the Combat Insight «Primordial, Unchanging» and used the Moon Star Insight «Purity» to strengthen his body-tempering technique.
• Lu Cang sent Luluwei a message to go to the Land of Seeing the Moon without him if he had not returned after a month.
• Lu Cang entered the ruins and found a perfectly straight corridor unlike the one in his Future Simulation.
• Ansu identified the place as the Time's Long Corridor and explained that its symbol belonged to Ekhatol, a legendary being connected to time.
• Lu Cang walked forward, noticed the wall clocks' hands pointing to different numbers, and began figuring out how to leave.

Lu Cang solved the time-themed ruin’s first puzzle and was transported to the Realm of Secret Knowledge, where he encountered a real Izpalut from the future. Izpalut summoned Lu Cang with ninth-order time magic to stop him before his future corruption caused catastrophes, and the chapter ended with Lu Cang demanding an explanation as they prepared to fight.

• Lu Cang identified the clock pointing to the wrong time, removed it, and triggered the ruin’s next stage.
• Lu Cang arrived in the Realm of Secret Knowledge, where his Future Simulation talent would not activate.
• Lu Cang encountered Izpalut and confirmed that his talent recognized Izpalut and the surroundings as real.
• Izpalut accused Lu Cang of causing disasters in the future and said he had summoned him using Ninth-Order Time Magic—Historical Extraction.
• Lu Cang gripped his battle spear and asked Izpalut to explain before trying to kill him.

Lu Cang faced Izpalut and discovered that his former master had reached the 9th level and intended to kill him to prevent a future catastrophe. Lu Cang summoned Ansu to fight beside him, leaving them to seek a way to escape an opponent they could not defeat.

• Lu Cang saw that Izpalut was a 9th-level mage and judged that he had no chance of winning a direct fight.
• Izpalut accused Lu Cang of destroying the Secret Sea and helping Bai return, then said Lu Cang himself would bring an even greater disaster.
• Izpalut explained that corruption had made Lu Cang impossible to save and that he had to stop him, despite Lu Cang not yet being responsible for the coming disaster.
• Lu Cang summoned Ansu and sent hundreds of trillions of exalted souls into him, allowing Ansu's Spirit Body to enter the physical world.
• Ansu raised his hand as immense magic circles filled the sky and urged Lu Cang to find a way for them to escape Izpalut.

Lu Cang extracted Izpalut’s Historical Extraction spell during his battle with Ansu, allowing himself and Ansu to return to their own era. Izpalut tried to stop them, but Lu Cang dispelled his magic and escaped with Ansu.

• Lu Cang reasoned that Iz did not truly intend to kill him and gambled that extracting Iz’s time magic could return him to his era.
• As Izpalut overwhelmed Ansu, Lu Cang used God-Tier Lighthouse of Myriad Laws to find and extract Historical Extraction.
• Izpalut attacked Lu Cang, but the wounded Ansu intercepted him and kept Lu Cang alive.
• Lu Cang saw Izpalut cast Seventh Forbidden Magic—Elements and dispelled it by stealing the spell.
• Lu Cang and Ansu disappeared from the battlefield together.

After surviving Iz’s attack, Lu Cang recovered in the darkness and used souls to help the badly injured Ansu. He gained Izpalut’s Original Forbidden Magic, “Seventh Forbidden Magic—Elements,” and chose to save his remaining wishes for future emergencies.

• Lu Cang realized that fulfilling his first wish had returned it, but decided to keep at least one wish unfulfilled in case his life was in danger.
• Lu Cang understood that his Ninth-Order Time Magic, Historical Extraction, meant events Iz had observed would remain unchanged, even if someone tried to kill him.
• Lu Cang gave Ansu soul power to repair him, then added a hundred souls when Ansu complained that the first amount was too small.
• Ansu warned Lu Cang that Iz was stronger than the War God and urged him to kill Iz before he grew more powerful.
• Lu Cang separated a wicked thought about killing Iz from his own intentions, wondered whether his future corruption would turn him into a calamity, and resolved to wait before making another wish.
• Lu Cang recognized that he had gained Izpalut’s Original Forbidden Magic, Seventh Forbidden Magic—Elements.

Lu Cang learned the Seventh Forbidden Magic, Element, and discovered that its final style could destroy all the elements in the world. After testing the magic’s passive boost, he gave Ansu souls to help him recover and offered the possibility of becoming friends if Lu Cang reached the 9th tier.

• Lu Cang examined the three styles of Element and learned that the Final Style would permanently deplete the world's elements.
• Lu Cang realized that the Lighthouse of Myriad Laws removed the magic’s activation costs, though he still lacked the requirements for its Final Style.
• Lu Cang felt Element's rune strengthen his elemental magic and tested the boost by casting Lightning Strike Technique.
• Lu Cang found Ansu recovering from injuries after spending the souls in their previous battle.
• Lu Cang gave Ansu several thousand souls as compensation and said they could become true friends if he reached the 9th tier.

Lu Cang and Ansu crossed a time fracture and found the entrance to the Time ruins, where Lu Cang’s foresight warned him that staying outside was dangerous. Inside, he became trapped in a corridor that reset whenever he tried to reach its distant door.

• Lu Cang replenished souls from the ant hill in his Ten Thousand Skins Bag while Ansu recovered to level-7 class-changer strength.
• Lu Cang and Ansu discussed time fractures as a spiral entrance to the ruins appeared in the darkness.
• Lu Cang used Fate to divine that the unstable area was growing more dangerous, then entered the ruins as Ansu returned to his mindscape.
• Lu Cang heard a little girl's voice behind a shining door and sensed that the Second Forbidden Magic, Time, lay beyond it.
• Lu Cang accelerated toward the door, but the scene reset and placed him two hundred thousand kilometers away again.
• Lu Cang noticed that objects he had discarded vanished after the reset, while the wall patterns stayed unchanged, and suspected he had reached the third area.

Lu Cang was repeatedly reset to earlier moments as he approached a door in the ruins, while Ansu helped him reason through the time anomaly. He identified the door as the Gate of Closed Time and deciphered its warning, leaving him uncertain whether opening it would unleash a disaster.

• Lu Cang discovered that time repeatedly reset him to earlier points, while Ansu had no memory of the resets.
• Ansu reasoned that the resets could not be genuine changes to the past, and Lu Cang rushed toward the spiral entrance to beat the time limit.
• Lu Cang touched the door with his core and identified it as the Gate of Closed Time, created by Ekhatol.
• Lu Cang struck the door with his core, but it did not open; instead, pale-golden lines appeared across its surface.
• Lu Cang deciphered the lines as a warning about a cage imprisoning a forbidden moment and wondered whether opening the door would cause a future disaster.