Recaps

Gao Linzhi watched two military advisors compete in Piece Battle, where Military Advisor Liu won despite weaker pieces and the court awarded Longevity Water. When players fought over the prize, Gao Linzhi realized the imperial court had turned the event into a trap to make players kill one another.

• Military Advisor Liu and Military Advisor Liang began a Piece Battle that tested troop strength, formations, and strategic play.
• Military Advisor Liu lured Military Advisor Liang into a costly fight and won by surrounding and capturing his dragon formation.
• Gao Linzhi received a notification that his Battle Formations skill had risen from beginner to intermediate, while Prefect Liang handed over six bottles of Longevity Water and Island 3081 gained 50,000 group points.
• The ancient-costumed female player and the two tengu demanded the Longevity Water, and other players joined their claims.
• When a player rushed to seize the bottles, the three players killed them, and Gao Linzhi realized Prefect Liu and Prefect Liang had used the prize as bait to provoke conflict and weaken the players.

Gao Linzhi watched players battle for six bottles of Longevity Water before stealing them and escaping aboard the flying ship. The remaining players vowed revenge, while Prefect Liu and Prefect Liang hoped the feud would weaken the Descenders.

• Prefect Liu and Prefect Liang set the six sealed bottles of Longevity Water in the venue, prompting the players to fight over them for the promised points.
• The players failed to open or store the bottles, and the three who seized them were overwhelmed as dozens of survivors attacked together.
• Prefect Liu and Prefect Liang discussed how the Descenders threatened their rule and considered sealing the passage into their world.
• The ancient-costumed female player threw all six bottles into the air rather than let the other players take them, and Gao Linzhi grabbed them while invisible.
• Gao Linzhi fled to the flying ship and piloted it away, while the pursuing players stopped at the sea and swore to find him.
• Prefect Liu and Prefect Liang welcomed the players' resentment and hoped their conflict would buy time to suppress them.

Gao Linzhi secured the Longevity Water in the Safe Zone, where angry players gathered to confront him before a Faceless Man’s White Mist anomaly attacked the village. Lin Qing revealed her true name to break the anomaly, earned a reward, and privately resolved to catch up with Gao Linzhi.

• Gao Linzhi delivered six bottles of Longevity Water to the underground laboratory, and the event ended with Can Xue Waves Across the Map ranked first.
• Players crowded into the Safe Zone to demand an explanation from Gao Linzhi, but the Second Elder warned them that the approaching White Mist was controlled by a Faceless Man anomaly.
• The mist called players’ names and produced familiar figures, while Gao Linzhi retreated into the underground laboratory and watched the attack unfold.
• Lin Qing wrote “Lin Qingyuan” on her belt and challenged the anomaly to call her true name, causing the fog figures to collapse and the mist to vanish.
• A game notification awarded Lin Qing five Free Attribute Points, and she kept the shattered jade pendant while recognizing that Gao Linzhi was still far ahead of her.

After Longevity Water triggered anomaly attacks across the islands, Gao Linzhi learned that anomalies had also invaded reality and traveled to Dragon City to investigate the Iron-Eating Beast threatening the Long family’s industrial city. He arrived at the Long family’s recruitment office, where only a handful of people had come to interview.

• Lin Qing resolved to grow stronger and control her own fate, while Gao Linzhi saved his new 40 Free Attribute Points, bringing his reserve to 80.
• Gao Linzhi discussed the strange mist and the Longevity Water with the village elders, then concluded that the water could attract anomalies and that anomalies could revive.
• Gao Linzhi found reports that Longevity Water had provoked anomaly attacks across many islands and learned that an anomaly had appeared in Dragon City after a player died in reality.
• Long Hezai announced that the Iron-Eating Beast anomaly was consuming steel and expanding its domain, and offered a top-tier Talent Stone and a Skill Stone to recruit experts.
• Gao Linzhi sent his Substitute Puppet to Dragon City, surveyed the city, and went to the Long family’s interview office, where he found only about a dozen candidates.

Gao Linzhi and Lin Qing joined a Long Family team to investigate the Iron-Eating Beast, an anomaly that had entered the real world through a possessed player and consumed iron. After reviewing the destruction it caused, the group traveled to its expanding territory to assess how to stop it.

• Gao Linzhi crushed an iron block during the Long Family's strength test, and the elder dismissed candidates who could not withstand the Iron-Eating Beast's attacks.
• The Long Family elder showed footage of a player collapsing, turning into an iron block, and triggering the destruction of a dormitory as the anomaly consumed its metal.
• Lin Qing and the others realized the beast could drain iron from human bodies, while Gao Linzhi asked when it had appeared and learned it emerged during the treasure hunt event about a week earlier.
• Lin Qing proposed checking players for anomalies in Safe Zones before they logged off, but the group doubted they could enforce such restrictions.
• Lin Qing suggested visiting the anomaly's location, and the surviving candidates boarded a helicopter for the steel factory in Long City's northwest suburbs.

Gao Linzhi and the others failed to find a way to remove the Iron-Eater anomaly in the real world, so they investigated its origins and learned that its victim, Long Xi, still had fragments of consciousness. The chapter ended with Dragon Fruit contacting Long Xi’s remnant soul, whose damaged memories seemed to be stuck in middle school.

• At the steel factory, Gao Linzhi and the others discovered that game items could not affect the Iron-Eater, and they discussed containing it or countering it with another anomaly.
• Lin Qing proposed surrounding the anomaly with plastic and other materials, but the group realized its domain could expand underground and that the anomaly could not be physically moved.
• Back on Wolf Snake Island, Gao Linzhi consulted Hai Zida, who advised investigating the dead player’s identity and history before attempting to handle the anomaly.
• Gao Linzhi learned that Long Xi had been oppressed by his family and had entered the anomaly hoping to gain its iron-absorbing power, but the anomaly remained in the real world while he vanished.
• Hai Zida proposed communicating with Long Xi’s remaining consciousness, and Gao Linzhi brought Dragon Fruit to the factory to perform spirit communication.
• Dragon Fruit contacted Long Xi’s remnant soul and found that he was not completely dead, but his fragmented memories were stuck in his middle-school years.

Gao Linzhi reshaped the factory aberration into a personality that stopped it from absorbing iron, earning the Long family’s gratitude and rewards. At their gathering, he refused to join the Alliance and warned that aberrations could only be countered, not destroyed.

• Gao Linzhi had Dragon Fruit give the gray-white mass a simple personality focused on controlling the anomaly and protecting its family, and the figure returned iron while halting its absorption.
• Long Hezai thanked Gao Linzhi and the other contributors, while the Long family elders discussed their decline, the anomaly’s potential as a defense system, and ways to recruit Gao Linzhi.
• Gao Linzhi explained that the created personality needed Mysterious Energy to persist, and Long Hezai’s family agreed to reward and court him.
• At the Long family gathering, Long Hezai presented Gao Linzhi with a Rare Tier Skill Stone and a Talent Stone, and Gao Linzhi used the skill stone to upgrade his Appraisal Skill.
• Yang Wenyuan invited Gao Linzhi to join the Alliance, but Gao Linzhi refused and said he would work for payment instead.
• Gao Linzhi warned the guests to stay vigilant and said aberrations could not be destroyed, only countered.

At a Long family gathering, Gao Linzhi discussed transferring the iron-eating anomaly while the Joint Committee planned player registration and research into containing anomalies. After the Committee debated Safe Zones and gold as defenses, the Federation publicized the incident on the Archipelago Forum, where players argued over the danger of anomalies entering the real world.

• Long Hezai asked Gao Linzhi whether the anomaly could be transferred back to the Skyfall World, and Gao agreed to investigate with the Long family covering the costs.
• The Joint Committee decided to let Gao handle the anomaly and use the incident to push player registration, screening, and public warnings about anomaly infection.
• A researcher explained that shrine Safe Zones relied on ancestral souls that had become anomalies and enforced a rule of preserving the family line.
• The Joint Committee discussed gold as a way to limit anomaly rules and proposed acquiring it on a large scale, including through coercive measures.
• Gao returned the transferred project to Hai Zida and continued his investigations as posts about the anomaly appeared on the Archipelago Forum.
• Forum users argued about the anomaly remaining in Dragon City and condemned whoever had brought an anomaly into the real world.

Gao Linzhi learned that Anomalies had forced the Federation and companies to expand their response, while he planned to gather more knowledge by returning to the Imperial Observatory. On Capital Island, he found players building an orderly shantytown and trading with displaced people under the imperial court’s watch.

• Rogue Players condemned the Federation’s plan to register and monitor them, while Gao Linzhi noted that even one unchecked player could now pose a planetary threat.
• Hundred Birds Company’s chairman agreed to report a looping hallway Anomaly after the Long family’s Anomaly had been exposed and suppressed.
• The Federation formed an Anomaly Investigation Group and recruited staff by offering game access, training, and Revival Stones.
• Gao Linzhi decided to visit the Imperial Observatory again so he could gain knowledge and prepare to fight stronger Anomalies.
• Gao Linzhi reached Capital Island and saw players operating shops, organizing shantytowns, and hiring displaced people while imperial soldiers watched.

Gao Linzhi discovered that the players’ shantytown temple was an attempt to create an ancestral hall using the refugees’ worship, but its unstable beliefs risked contaminating the players. A woman in ancient-style clothing explained that a true ancestral hall required generations of protective conviction and warned the players to stabilize their beliefs before the experiment caused disaster.

• Gao Linzhi overheard laborers praising the players and vowing to protect the shantytown from the court.
• Gao Linzhi found a temple with three faceless statues and realized the players were trying to create an artificial ancestral hall.
• Two players discussed strange activity in the temple, including a statue that seemed to speak and strike one of them.
• A tall woman in ancient-style clothing explained that ancestral halls arose from protective conviction passed down through generations, not incense offerings alone.
• The woman warned that the players’ scattered thoughts could turn their worship into dangerous contamination and advised them to recite classics to stabilize their beliefs.

Miss Cheng revealed the Daoist Academy’s history and explained how the Heaven’s Heart Stone could protect souls pursuing immortality through incense offerings. After a quest prompted Gao Linzhi and the players to seize the stone from the Imperial City, three players infiltrated the city and followed the map toward a garden where the treasure appeared to be hidden.

• Miss Cheng joined the Xingzhou Association and told its members that the Daoist Academy and Imperial Observatory had once belonged to Yuanshi before the organization split.
• Miss Cheng described the dangers of incense-based immortality and claimed treasures such as the Heaven’s Heart Stone could protect and preserve a soul.
• Gao Linzhi and the players received a quest to seize the Heaven’s Heart Stone, which Miss Cheng said was inside the Imperial City.
• Three players with Revival Stones entered the Imperial City by hiding in water carts, and Gao Linzhi followed them.
• The players used the game’s navigation and crossed the city’s maze-like paths until they reached a garden marked as the treasure’s location.

Gao Linzhi discovered that the Heaven's Heart Stone was being used to collect the blood of 999 strong men, while three players were caught in an illusion and fought the imperial guards before Old Daoist Tiansheng subdued them. As the guards prepared to kill the players, a prince arrived and ordered Tiansheng to stay his hand.

• Gao Linzhi used Sense Linking Technique on one of the three players and learned that a garden formation trapped them in an ocean illusion.
• The players fought back against the imperial guards after realizing the monsters and their surroundings were illusions, and they nearly routed the guards without killing them.
• The guard captain revealed that the Heaven's Heart Stone needed the blood of 999 strong men and that 500 had already been offered.
• Old Daoist Tiansheng arrived, knocked out the three players, and ordered the guards to kill them because their souls could not be offered to the stone.
• A prince in a Five-Python Robe arrived with attendants and told Daoist Master Tiansheng to stay his hand.

The Fourth Prince rescued three players from Old Daoist Tiansheng and recruited them to help improve the court in exchange for the Heaven's Heart Stone. Gao Linzhi followed them to the prince's residence, where the players began negotiating ways to raise money and resources for his plans.

• The Fourth Prince persuaded Old Daoist Tiansheng to release the three players and escorted them to his mansion.
• The Fourth Prince asked the players to support his efforts to reform the court, and they agreed while openly mentioning his bid for the throne.
• The Fourth Prince revealed that the Heaven's Heart Stone needed sacrifices from 499 powerful people before it could take effect.
• The Fourth Prince explained the court's need for rare materials, gold, and high-quality timber to prepare for a bottleneck two years away.
• The players proposed raising funds by auctioning mines, techniques, and other valuable assets, while Gao Linzhi watched them negotiate.

The Fourth Prince and three players arranged to auction a gold mine and use a competition to gather sacrifices for the Heaven's Heart Stone, while Gao Linzhi watched their plan unfold. When the recruitment competition began, the players discovered they had been trapped and could neither withdraw nor log out.

• The Fourth Prince agreed to auction a gold mine on installment terms and offered the players ten high-level techniques to lure skilled players into a competition for the Heaven's Heart Stone.
• The players planned to recruit level-45 players with promises of imperial jobs, advanced techniques, and a share of collected tribute, intending to use them as sacrifices.
• A week later, more than a thousand players gathered for a Werewolf-style elimination competition overseen by the Fourth Prince.
• When players learned that losing meant real death and tried to withdraw, an official declared they could leave only by dying.
• The players found that combat restrictions prevented them from logging out, and the Fourth Prince ignored their protests.

The Fourth Prince ordered his guards to slaughter the players, while Gao Linzhi secretly watched and took the Heaven's Heart Stone after it absorbed the corpses and became a Gold Tier treasure. The three surviving players searched for the thief and agreed to help the Fourth Prince raise funds, but suspicion and dread grew when they realized someone nearby could have carried off the massive stone.

• The Fourth Prince ordered his guards to kill the players, and the sealed-off area became a massacre as some players fled, revived, or turned on their companions.
• The Heaven's Heart Stone absorbed the dead and transformed into a Gold Tier treasure, which Gao Linzhi secretly took.
• The three surviving players accused one another of stealing the stone and agreed to stay together and watch each other.
• The Fourth Prince promised to provide three more stones and pressed the players to help sell the court's assets and raise funds.
• Player Two realized that none of the three mages had enough physique to carry the enormous stone, and the players grew alarmed as the Fourth Prince offered to have the Imperial Observatory examine them.

Gao Linzhi gave Heaven's Heart Stone to Hai Zida, who planned to use the Incense Longevity Path to create a research space and recruit physicist Zhang Zicai. The game then unlocked official alliances, prompting players to scramble to form or join groups after discovering the Alliance Store offered a Revival Stone.

• Gao Linzhi handed Heaven's Heart Stone to Hai Zida, who proposed using it to shield scientists from mental interference and build an incense space for research.
• Hai Zida chose physicist Zhang Zicai as his first recruitment target, and Gao Linzhi agreed to approach him.
• The game announced the Talent Alliance feature, including Alliance Dungeons, Contribution, and an Alliance Store.
• Wuliao, Danji, Xu Gou, and Jiangnan1912 considered how the new alliance system could affect their standing and ambitions.
• Players discovered that creating an alliance required two tons of gold, while the 2086 Kongkong Alliance began recruiting members.
• Players found a Revival Stone in the Alliance Store and rushed to apply to alliances.

Gao Linzhi examined the new alliance system, then decided to infiltrate the Daoist Academy to study its magic. He approached Miss Cheng in Capital Island and asked to join, where he witnessed her heal impatient patients by spending years of their lives.

• Gao Linzhi established Flowing Cloud Pavilion and reviewed alliance dungeons, stores, and management features before leaving dungeon operations to Boredom.
• Players discussed the costs of alliances and began organizing groups to share resources and dungeon runs.
• Gao Linzhi assessed his skills and concluded that joining the Daoist Academy would let him study magic while avoiding the Imperial Observatory.
• Gao Linzhi's Substitute Puppet found Miss Cheng treating the poor in a temple, and Gao Linzhi asked to join the Daoist Academy.
• Miss Cheng healed patients who demanded treatment by wrapping them in red light, and Gao Linzhi realized they had traded away years of their lives.

Gao Linzhi infiltrated the Daoist Academy, paid five tons of gold to bypass its admission requirements, and unlocked a side quest for other players. After taking a student’s place, he discovered that a werewolf taught the academy’s lessons and heard its account of Yuanshi’s origins.

• Miss Cheng led Gao Linzhi through the sewers beneath the imperial city to Zhengxin Academy, where he noticed that a talented student had been contaminated by an anomaly.
• Miss Cheng told Gao Linzhi that students needed eight years of study before learning advanced magic, but Mr. Cheng offered to sell him another student’s place for five tons of gold.
• Gao Linzhi paid the gold, triggering a side quest that let other players apply to the Daoist Academy and required them to pay for rewards, partly to him.
• Gao Linzhi took another student’s identity and attended class, where he found that the Werewolf Teacher taught the students about the origins of the uncanny.
• The Werewolf Teacher said that Yuanshi appeared to grant an emperor immortality, but the emperor’s planned dynasty of ten thousand generations fell before reaching its third generation.

Gao Linzhi challenged the Werewolf Teacher’s account of an immortal emperor’s fall and learned how Divine Anomalies became entangled with successive dynasties. The lesson ended with the teacher outlining a plan to lure the court into a dangerous strait near Wolf Snake Island.

• Qingshan argued that the immortal emperor had become muddleheaded, but the Werewolf Teacher rejected his answer and ordered him to surrender an arm.
• Gao Linzhi argued that the dynasty fell because the emperor could not openly wield power, lost the loyalty of his forces, and failed to prevent popular rebellion; when the Werewolf Teacher attacked him, Gao Linzhi destroyed its head with a punch.
• Gao Linzhi used Appraisal Skill and discovered that the students, including Qingshan, were human puppets; another identical Werewolf Teacher soon arrived and continued the lesson using Gao Linzhi’s explanation.
• The Werewolf Teacher explained how the old emperor and his successor sought power and immortality from Divine Anomalies through large-scale sacrifices, establishing the court’s connection to the bizarre.
• The Werewolf Teacher urged the students to build their own dynasty and explained how to exploit bizarre phenomena, pointing out a strait near Wolf Snake Island that the court would have to cross.

Gao Linzhi and the students discussed using Sea Anomalies to obstruct the imperial court’s tribute routes, learning that moving stationary Undersea Anomalies required enormous sacrifices. Gao Linzhi objected to sacrificing people and learned that valuable items could substitute for lives, leaving him with a method that suited him.

• The Werewolf Teacher explained the three categories of Sea Anomalies, and the students debated which kinds could block the imperial shipping route.
• The students chose stationary Undersea Anomalies, but the Werewolf Teacher revealed that moving them required sacrifices ranging from ten thousand to ten million people.
• Gao Linzhi connected the sacrifices to the growth of Anomalies and learned that ancestral halls protected communities while preserving populations for future sacrifices.
• The Werewolf Teacher described how dynasties’ sacrifices empowered Anomalies and drove them into a cycle of instability and collapse.
• Gao Linzhi challenged the idea that people had to be sacrificed, and a student explained that valuable items could be offered instead.

Gao Linzhi negotiated with the Daoist Academy to trade supplies for protection and joined its advanced class to learn how to survive encounters with oddities. The chapter ended with him reserving a Sacred Shield, a costly treasure that could defend against oddities if he kept making offerings to it.

• Gao Linzhi offered the academy abundant supplies in exchange for half the offerings collected and a life-protecting item, stunning the Werewolf Teacher and the students with his inventory.
• The Werewolf Teacher brought Gao Linzhi to meet the headmaster, Chu Lianxing, whom Gao Linzhi appraised as a disguised Longevity Being aged 1,800 years.
• Chu Lianxing admitted Gao Linzhi to the academy's advanced class, though she postponed their supply deal while she evaluated him.
• The next day, Gao Linzhi joined five students and three animal teachers, then asked to learn how to fight and evade oddities.
• The tiger teacher explained methods of avoiding oddities, including concealment and the Sacred Shield, and Gao Linzhi reserved one.

Gao Linzhi learned several ways to defend against eerie entities and decided to rely on a Golden House and protective treasures. At the branch academy’s vault, he bought the Shield of the Immortal Elder, whose effect remained unknown.

• Teacher Deer, Teacher Sheep, and Teacher Tiger explained methods of dealing with eerie entities, including becoming one, becoming demonized, and sealing oneself inside a Golden House.
• Gao Linzhi chose the Golden House method and resolved to increase his gold reserves.
• Teacher Tiger explained that Yuanshi Divine Anomalies could use Creation Power to create worlds where eerie entities could be eliminated.
• The teachers and headmaster took Gao Linzhi to the branch academy’s treasure vault, where he saw books from players and learned the academy had adopted player culture.
• Gao Linzhi examined the Sacred Shield, which could attract and resist anomalies, then tested and bought the Shield of the Immortal Elder despite its unknown effect.

Gao Linzhi studied at the Daoist Academy, gained a powerful shield, and advanced many skills before the academy prepared a plot to help the Great Ying Dynasty oppose the Sky Wolf Dynasty. The game launched the Dynasty Hegemony storyline and added an alliance feature that let party members share health and revive one another.

• Gao Linzhi equipped the Sacred Shield, also called the Shield of the Immortal Elder, and discovered that it could separate him from the world and protect him from strange beings.
• After a month of specialized lessons, Gao Linzhi advanced dozens of skills and raised his spirit from 607 to 757.
• The Daoist Academy assigned Gao Linzhi to help the academy head prepare a Sacrifice Event intended to obstruct the Sky Wolf Dynasty from collecting offerings.
• The game announced the Immortal Dynasty Hegemony storyline and offered players a choice between serving the Sky Wolf Dynasty or joining the Great Ying Dynasty for greater risks and triple rewards.
• Players discovered that alliance members could form parties of up to five and share health within five kilometers, allowing surviving members to revive fallen allies at the base.

Qingcheng Bored and Xu Gou argued over whether Wolf Snake Village should side with the court or the rebels, then fought under a mysterious Killing Intent curse. Gao Linzhi traced the curse to a forbidden book about the Great Ying Dynasty and began investigating the danger threatening the village.

• Qingcheng Bored and Xu Gou disagreed about joining the court or the rebels, so Gao Linzhi split the villagers into two teams.
• Qingcheng Bored and Xu Gou fought outside the Elder Council Hall, and Gao Linzhi used Appraisal Skill to discover that both had a Killing Intent debuff.
• Gao Linzhi considered the dangers facing Wolf Snake Village and the limits of its ancestral hall as a shelter during disasters.
• Gao Linzhi asked Qingcheng Bored and Xu Gou about unusual encounters, and Xu Gou recalled that they had read the forbidden Book of Great Ying after investigating the ancestral hall.

Gao Linzhi joined the head of Academy Mountain and Miss Cheng in preparing to draw supernatural entities toward the sea lanes and disrupt the Imperial Court’s tribute shipments. As players split between the Imperial Court and Rebel Army, the Fourth Prince recruited three players to infiltrate the rebels, while Gao Linzhi reached an Archipelago aboard a stealthy boat.

• Gao Linzhi used Heavenly Clear Talismans to remove curses from two men whose argument had been intensified by supernatural influence.
• Players debated the terms of the Imperial Court and Rebel Army factions, and many switched to the Rebel Army after learning it paid a share of the tribute it seized.
• Gao Linzhi met Miss Cheng and the head of Academy Mountain near Capital Island to prepare materials for drawing supernatural entities toward the sea lanes.
• At the Fourth Prince’s Mansion, three players learned that the Daoist Academy planned to block tribute routes and explained why players favored the rebels.
• The Fourth Prince refused to offer players access to skills and professions, then accepted Player Two’s offer for the three players to infiltrate the rebels and report back.
• Half a month later, Gao Linzhi traveled with the mountain chief by stealth boat to an Archipelago, avoiding the Deep Sea Giant uncanny.