Chapter Summaries

Xu Yi and the Huaixi Prefecture team began the second trial by climbing an apparently endless staircase that grew more oppressive with every step. When the red staircase began disappearing behind them, the team realized that stopping to rest could leave them stranded.

• The green-robed elder conjured five colored stairways and announced that contestants could withdraw before the dangerous second trial began.
• Xu Yi followed Gong Xiuhua, Qiu Dao Ming, Yang Jun, and the others up the Huaixi Prefecture staircase, where a restriction after the hundredth step slowed their movement.
• Xu Yi urged the team to stay together and climb steadily, then helped a green-clothed woman back to her feet when her legs gave way.
• Fei Si suggested resting, but Yang Jun and Xu Yi argued that the staircase was testing their resolve and that they should keep climbing.
• Qiu Dao Ming questioned why the team could not rest, and the green-clothed woman pointed out that the red staircase was rapidly disappearing behind them.

Xu Yi kept the exhausted group moving up the vanishing steps and rescued three companions who had collapsed. He left them resting and continued climbing, while Gong Xiuhua tried to help and Xu Yi realized he might be able to use his soul sense instead of moving himself.

• After Young Master Zhang saw someone swept into Gale Force Canyon, Xu Yi calmed the group, estimated how many steps remained, and ordered everyone to replenish their strength.
• Xu Yi led the group onward, but Fei Si, Li Tong, and Qu Ying collapsed from exhaustion, forcing him to call a rest.
• Xu Yi gave Qu Ying water and meat, then revived Fei Si and fed him while continuing toward Li Tong.
• Fei Si reconsidered his resentment toward Xu Yi after Xu Yi went out of his way to save him.
• When Gong Xiuhua tried to get up and help, Xu Yi ordered her back, then realized he could try using his soul sense to control things from where he stood.

Xu Yi discovered that soul sense could move people through the staircase’s oppressive barriers, allowing the Huaixi team to cross safely and reach the cliffside. The teams from Huainan and Huaibei arrived with heavy losses as everyone rested and awaited the next trial.

• Xu Yi used soul sense to pour water over Li Tong and realized it could move objects freely through the obstructed area.
• Xu Yi organized the group to carry one another with soul sense, and all seventeen crossed the remaining staircase without effort.
• The Huaixi team landed at the cliffside, where Chen Xuan provoked them and Qiu Dao Ming countered by pointing out their superior survival and scores.
• Xu Yi told the group to stop arguing and recover while they waited for the next trial.
• The Huainan team arrived with only ten survivors, followed by the Huaibei team with only six.

Xu Yi and the surviving candidates passed the second trial and arrived at Immortal Pointing Hall, where a Water Qilin attacked them on the rainbow bridge. Xu Yi stopped the beast by offering it spirit stones, leaving the candidates in danger as it devoured them.

• Xu Yi rested, reflected on Xia Zimo, Qiu Wa, Xue Zihan, and Yan Zi, and decided he would need Elder Qin's help finding a Dark Mountain leading to Great Yue.
• The man in the green robe announced that the candidates had passed the second trial and explained that the Huaizhong Prefecture candidates had died pursuing immortality.
• The man in the green robe opened a golden portal, and the candidates entered it and arrived at a vast square before Immortal Pointing Hall.
• As the candidates crossed the rainbow bridge, a Green Eyes Golden Pupils Water Qilin rose from the turquoise gorge and unleashed a torrent upon them.
• Xu Yi resisted the attack and offered the Water Qilin over a hundred spirit stones, which it eagerly swallowed.

Xu Yi and the other civil examination candidates reached Immortal Pointing Hall, where Lord Lu announced a final trial and explained the consequences of withdrawing. The candidates were given thirty breaths to decide whether to continue or register as officials.

• The Water Qilin carried Xu Yi across the rainbow bridge, then let the other candidates cross after receiving spirit stones.
• Xu Yi and the surviving candidates entered Immortal Pointing Hall and took their places among the examination groups.
• Xu Yi noticed that Huaixi Prefecture had lost only one candidate, while Huaizhong Prefecture's row was empty and the Central Three Prefectures had full ranks.
• Lord Lu arrived and told the candidates that they could either attempt one final trial or withdraw and register as officials.
• Lord Lu warned that those who withdrew would be sent to remote regions without promotion for ten years, then gave everyone thirty breaths to decide.

Xu Yi and the remaining examinees learned that the third imperial examination trial required them to hunt sea demons in the Abundant Sea Market. After receiving scoring rules and Demon Spotting Bottles, they prepared to enter the dangerous sea.

• Qu Ying, Fei Si, Li Tong, and Xue Chun left the examination, thanking Xu Yi for his help.
• Lord Lu distributed booklets explaining that the third trial was to collect demon cores in the Abundant Sea Market, a sea enclosure in the Sea of Forgetfulness.
• A blue-robed welcoming envoy reassured the frightened examinees that the Road Court had monitored the market and sent the Huai character faction toward its destination.
• The envoy gave each examinee a Demon Spotting Bottle and explained how demon colors identified their strength and how cores earned points.
• Xu Yi judged that he could fight a Mid-stage Tongyu Realm demon with his current cultivation.

Xu Yi reunited all thirteen members of Huaixi Prefecture in the Abundant Sea Market and organized them to hunt demons in smaller groups. He chose to hunt alone while the others drew lots to form three teams.

• Xu Yi entered the Abundant Sea Market, landed alone on a beach, and flew east to search for his teammates.
• Xu Yi found Zhang Shaodong and other Huaixi Prefecture members, who described the market's boundary and helped him locate the rest of the group.
• Xu Yi reunited all thirteen Huaixi Prefecture members and proposed splitting into small teams to hunt separately.
• Gong Xiuhua objected to Xu Yi hunting alone and demanded to join his team, but Xu Yi insisted on deciding the arrangements.
• Xu Yi chose to hunt alone and had the other twelve members draw lots to form three teams.

Xu Yi organized the Huaixi cultivators’ hunt but chose not to kill demons himself, then hosted a feast after the squads returned with monster cores. Their celebration was interrupted by a hostile group that attacked Gong Xiuhua, and the chapter ended as Scarface was struck by golden light and Gong Xiuhua was hurled away by a giant hand.

• Xu Yi gave each squad voice-transmission beads, urged them to prioritize survival, and set a daily meeting time before the groups split up to hunt.
• Xu Yi stayed on the beach and slept in a birch tree rather than join the hunt because he could not bring himself to kill intelligent demons.
• At the evening gathering, Qiu Dao Ming, Yang Jun, and Gong Xiuhua reported their squads’ kills, while Xu Yi pretended to have brought back one monster core.
• Xu Yi warned the others not to hunt at night and organized a beach feast of grilled sea demon meat and chilled wine.
• More than thirty people surrounded the group, and Scarface threatened Gong Xiuhua over a monster core and mocked him.
• Gong Xiuhua attacked Scarface with the Abusive Demon Blade, but golden light pierced Scarface’s chest as a huge hand seized and flung Gong Xiuhua away.

Xu Yi drove Song Xitian’s group away after defeating and humiliating their leader, then followed a mysterious tug into the underwater Demon Domain. There, he heard a familiar voice and discovered that Fierce Rhinoceros was nearby.

• Xu Yi learned that Scarface’s group had feuded with Gong Xiuhua’s team over demon cores and challenged Song Xitian.
• Xu Yi’s Immortal Slaying Spear wounded Scarface, and Xu Yi punched Song Xitian into a bonfire before mocking him until he fled.
• Gong Xiuhua slashed Scarface again, and the gathered teams dispersed for the night.
• The next morning, Xu Yi followed a growing tug south until an invisible barrier forced him beneath the sea.
• Xu Yi rode a Dragon Swordfish through the water, and Fierce Rhinoceros recognized him by voice.

Xu Yi communicated with Fierce Rhinoceros, learned that the Golden Scale Young Master had gone missing, and agreed to look for him. He found a golden cage imprisoning a great demon and tried to convince its suspicious occupant to make a bet.

• Xu Yi and Fierce Rhinoceros explained how they could communicate, and Fierce Rhinoceros asked him to find the missing Golden Scale Young Master.
• Fierce Rhinoceros described the Sea of Forgetfulness's hierarchy and assured Xu Yi that the human fishing ground was too insignificant to provoke trouble.
• After they parted, Xu Yi swam alone through the sea, searching for the Golden Scale Young Master.
• Xu Yi discovered a golden cage that held its own enclosed space and entered it to question the imprisoned great demon.
• The great demon accused Xu Yi of killing its kin, so Xu Yi proposed a bet to prove he had come alone and meant no harm.

Xu Yi lured a hidden sea demon into a one-on-one fight and used talismans and a Coral Horn to overcome the Crimson Gold Purple-Whiskered Lobster’s attacks. After both sides stopped fighting, Xu Yi asked the lobster to acknowledge who had won.

• Xu Yi challenged the hidden sea demon to a one-on-one fight and offered to let it capture him if it won.
• Xu Yi descended into the lair, released purple mist, dodged the lobster’s whip, and pierced its shell with the Coral Horn.
• The Crimson Gold Purple-Whiskered Lobster attacked again, but Xu Yi used four Swift Body Talismans to evade its whips and strike it once more.
• The lobster gave up fighting and explained that it did not want to cross blades again, while Xu Yi said he respected demons and had dear demon friends.
• Xu Yi asked the Crimson Gold Purple-Whiskered Lobster to confirm whether he had won their fight.

After winning a wager against the Crimson Gold Purple-Whiskered Lobster, Xu Yi learned that the Golden Scale Young Master might be southeast and set off to search for him. He then rushed to rescue Qiu Dao Ming and the Huaixi Prefecture group, who were surrounded by their three rival factions.

• Xu Yi persuaded the Crimson Gold Purple-Whiskered Lobster to honor their wager and asked about the Golden Scale Young Master.
• The Crimson Gold Purple-Whiskered Lobster denied knowing the young master's whereabouts but directed Xu Yi to search southeast.
• Xu Yi traveled southeast until Qiu Dao Ming contacted him and urged him toward the Kunli direction.
• Xu Yi hurried to the battle and found the Huaixi Prefecture group wounded and surrounded by more than fifty attackers from the other three factions.
• Xu Yi hurled a huge fire dragon into the attackers, scattering them and blasting away everything within three hundred zhang of the explosion.

Xu Yi confronted the teams that had attacked Huaixi Prefecture and killed Song Xitian when he challenged him. Tu Xingchen appeared to negotiate, while Xu Yi learned the roots of the conflict and concealed the limits of his dramatic attack.

• Xu Yi stopped his injured companions from explaining themselves and ordered them to treat their wounds.
• Song Xitian confronted Xu Yi, who killed him with a flash of golden light after demanding that someone more courageous speak for the crowd.
• Tu Xingchen, leader of Jinyang Prefecture, appeared and drew Xu Yi's attention as the other teams warned him of Tu's reputation.
• Qiu Dao Ming and Yang Jun explained that Huaixi's success in organizing and hunting, along with a failed attempt to capture a golden lion demon, had fueled the attack.
• Xu Yi recognized that his sky-splitting fire dragon strike took several breaths to prepare and was impractical in a real fight, though Tu Xingchen appeared shocked by its reported power.

Xu Yi endured Tu Xingchen’s relentless assault and won their contest when Tu could not break his defense. Before Xu Yi could settle Tu’s earlier attack on the Huai Xi scholars, the Golden Scale Lion freed imprisoned demons, and a host of great demons rose from the sea.

• Tu Xingchen attacked Xu Yi with his Thousand Rivers No Shadow movement technique and Frost Flower Sword, battering him for more than thirty breaths.
• Xu Yi held out against over a hundred blows, while his attacks wounded Tu; the two separated, and Tu admitted defeat.
• Xu Yi praised Tu’s skill and began to raise the issue of Tu’s attack on the Huai Xi scholars, but a cultivator reported that they had found the Golden Scale Lion.
• Another cultivator warned that the Golden Scale Lion had bitten through its cages and released many great demons, then the Dragon King Tyrannical Crab killed him and devoured his True Soul.
• The sea churned, and Tu Xingchen and the other cultivators fled as seventeen Tongyu Great Demons burst from the water.

After the Great Demons escaped, the cultivators fled the sea but found an invisible barrier blocking their retreat into the forest. The Golden Scale Young Master joined the demon horde, and the battle began in a chaotic collision that forced both sides to withdraw.

• The cultivators escaped the sea while the Great Demons pursued them, and all 218 candidates gathered on the beach.
• Tu Xingchen assessed the demons’ numbers and strengths, then organized the cultivators into formations; Xu Yi directed the Huaixi Prefecture squads.
• The Golden Scale Young Master arrived and cursed the humans, while his past revealed how their pursuit had driven him to free the imprisoned Great Demons at great personal cost.
• The Golden Scale Young Master’s fury stirred the demons, and more than eighty Great Demons clashed with over two hundred human cultivators.
• The attacks converged into a house-sized sphere of chaotic energy, forcing both sides to retreat.

Xu Yi and the Huaixi Prefecture cultivators fought off successive assaults from the sea demons after a devastating clash, buying time to recover. With the Golden Scale Young Master still in danger to the north, Xu Yi remained determined to fulfill Fierce Rhinoceros's request.

• A violent collision devastated the battlefield, and Xu Yi rallied the injured cultivators as the sea demons temporarily withdrew.
• Xu Yi spread the human formations apart and led Huaixi Prefecture south, where he faced an Eight-Bearded Great Serpent alone.
• Xu Yi killed the Eight-Bearded Great Serpent with his Coral Horn and seized its demon core while fending off the Five-Pointed Star Demon.
• A Snowy White Squid King trapped Xu Yi with its tentacles, but Gong Xiuhua, Qiu Dao Ming, and the others used their Eight Trigrams Array Disks to rescue him and drive the demons back.
• After the attackers retreated, Xu Yi urged the cultivators to heal and watched the Golden Scale Young Master to the north, determined to honor Fierce Rhinoceros's request.

Xu Yi captured the Golden Scale Young Master and forced the sea demons to retreat, but the Crimson Gold Purple-Whiskered Lobster then seized Xu Yi. With the young master still in Xu Yi’s grasp, he used him to stop the demons from attacking and proposed negotiating underwater.

• The Golden Scale Young Master summoned a vast horde of sea demons, and Xu Yi’s group struggled to hold them back with the Eight Trigrams Array Disk.
• Tu Xingchen attacked the Golden Scale Young Master, but the young master vanished, and Tu Xingchen fell under assault from the great demons.
• Xu Yi used Tu Xingchen’s attack as cover to capture the Golden Scale Young Master, who halted his secret technique and made the demon horde retreat.
• The Crimson Gold Purple-Whiskered Lobster ambushed Xu Yi with its whip and dragged him away.
• Xu Yi threatened to kill the Golden Scale Young Master if the demons harmed him, then proposed negotiating underwater.

Xu Yi rescued the Golden Scale Young Master from the forbidden land and brought him to Fierce Rhinoceros at the barrier. Fierce Rhinoceros explained how to free the trapped demons and welcomed Xu Yi's companions as fellow allies.

• Xu Yi forced the Great Demons to retreat by threatening the Golden Scale Young Master, then persuaded the Young Master that he had come to help him return home.
• The Crimson Gold Purple-Whiskered Lobster carried Xu Yi and the Golden Scale Young Master to the barrier, where Xu Yi contacted Fierce Rhinoceros.
• Fierce Rhinoceros told Xu Yi that a human could carry the Young Master through the barrier by wrapping him in a fragment of his soul.
• Xu Yi worried about leaving dozens of Great Demons behind, and Fierce Rhinoceros explained that the General could break the barrier after they returned with the Young Master.
• Xu Yi met Fierce Rhinoceros at the barrier, and Fierce Rhinoceros introduced Xu Yi to the gathered Great Demons as his old friend who had found the Young Master.

After Xu Yi helped Fierce Rhinoceros rescue the Golden Scale Young Master, Fierce Rhinoceros taught him the Starry Sky Breath Locking Technique, which could help him locate a path back to Great Yue. Xu Yi learned that nearly three years had passed in Great Yue during the eight months he had spent in the Central Profound Continent.

• Fierce Rhinoceros told the gathered demons that the Golden Scale General would lift the restrictions after they rescued the Golden Scale Young Master.
• Xu Yi wrapped the Golden Scale Young Master's separated form in a wisp of his true soul and sent him through the restriction, then left the demons' lair.
• Fierce Rhinoceros promised Xu Yi a personal reward and taught him the Starry Sky Breath Locking Technique, a chapter of his inherited Star Gazing Secret Art for finding spatial-fragment entrances.
• Xu Yi was relieved that the technique could help him find the route back to Great Yue, where he hoped to return soon for Yan Zi's sake.
• Fierce Rhinoceros explained that time flowed about four times faster in Great Yue, so the eight months they had spent in the Central Profound Continent amounted to nearly three years there.

Xu Yi escaped the Abundant Sea Market, received gifts and a warning from the Illusionary Form Great Demon of the Golden Scale Water Mansion, and returned to Immortal Pointing Hall. There, Tu Xingchen thanked him for saving his life, while Xu Yi worried that Yan Zi might not survive until he could return.

• Xu Yi found jade tablets explaining that Luting officials had ended the trial early and opened a concealed exit from the Abundant Sea Market.
• A black jade box struck Xu Yi and shattered, revealing demon cores, a Law Pattern-covered water bead, and a Shadow-Sound Pearl containing the demon sense of a Golden Scale Water Mansion demon.
• The demon in golden armor thanked Xu Yi with gifts, warned him against humans caging demons, and threatened revenge if they did so again.
• Xu Yi escaped through the concealed exit, traveled to Luting, and met the green-robed official who had guided his cohort.
• Xu Yi returned to Immortal Pointing Hall, where Tu Xingchen apologized and thanked him for saving his life.