Chapter Summaries

Zhang Ming used [Ignite Comprehension] to devise a way to research a Zombie corpse, then met Jiang Yingxue and traded Phosphate Fertilizer for Dragon Blood Grass. He kept his research hidden from her and ended the chapter with the rare healing herb in his possession.

• Zhang Ming found that the New Version Great Medicine capped his [Ignite Comprehension] boost at one thousandfold and chose a research plan for the Zombie corpse.
• After more than ten days of research, Zhang Ming stopped Jiang Yingxue from entering his room and spoke with her outside.
• Jiang Yingxue gave Zhang Ming a booklet describing corporeal and incorporeal Demons, Monsters, Ghosts, and Oddities.
• Jiang Yingxue agreed to trade one Dragon Blood Grass for Zhang Ming's letter addressed to the Mine, explaining its healing effects and chance of granting the Dragon Blood Trait.
• Zhang Ming completed the exchange and relaxed after Jiang Yingxue left, relieved that she had not seen his research.

Zhang Ming completed a risky first version of the Zombie Skill and resolved to keep refining it, while the Mysterious Figure used the Heavenly Fate Pearl to seek a general and strategist for his ambition. The chapter left Zhang Ming absorbed in research and the Mysterious Figure preparing to burn fortune for new allies.

• Zhang Ming celebrated after using three instances of [Ignite Comprehension] to develop a method for studying Corpse Qi and a provisional Zombie Body Forging Technique.
• Zhang Ming recognized that copying Corpse Qi's effects wholesale could turn a cultivator into a Zombie, and he decided to continue optimizing the technique and pursue human experiments.
• Zhang Ming set aside the Dragon Blood Grass so he could focus on adapting the Zombie Skill for ordinary people and investigating the relationship between Corpse Qi and Vital Energy.
• Jiang Yingxue reported that Phosphate Fertilizer had been loaded onto ships, and the Mysterious Figure rewarded her with a Wisdom Fruit.
• The Mysterious Figure reflected on how Zhang Ming had helped him obtain weapons and Phosphate Fertilizer, then used the Heavenly Fate Pearl to wish for a capable general and strategist.

Jiang Gui led a starving band of refugees to Yang City, where the Zhang Family sheltered them and offered work, but recruitment as drug trial participants forced them to weigh survival against danger. Jiang Gui chose to volunteer, and several others followed, hoping the Zhang Family would provide for their families.

• Jiang Gui encouraged his refugees through the blizzard toward Yang City, though several people died on the journey.
• A Zhang Family steward brought the survivors to a camp, where they received a warm house, a fire, and thin porridge.
• The steward explained that the Zhang Family would arrange work based on their skills, then offered drug trial participants five taels of silver and guaranteed work for their families.
• Jiang Gui decided to become a drug trial participant, saying he had no family and would use the settlement money before he died.
• Several men looked at their starving relatives and agreed to volunteer with Jiang Gui, hoping the Zhang Family would keep its promise.

Zhang Ming continued developing the Zombie Skill into a human-compatible, self-cultivating method and named it the Cycle Devour Art, while recruiting refugees for experiments. Jiang Gui and the other refugees learned that the Zhang Family honored its promises to surviving participants and stayed despite the risks.

• Zhang Ming received the newly arrived refugee test subjects and ordered them examined, cleaned, and allowed to recover before experiments began.
• Zhang Ming explained that two months of research had produced a theoretically self-cultivating version of the Zombie Skill, though it remained too dangerous for him to practice himself.
• Zhang Ming used condemned prisoners for early experiments, then recruited refugees and worked to improve the survival rate of the trials.
• Zhang Ming renamed the revised method the Cycle Devour Art because it continuously circulated and consumed energy.
• Jiang Gui enjoyed the Zhang Family's food and lodging and learned from disabled participants that the family provided work or ongoing care to those who survived.
• Jiang Gui and the other refugees chose to remain, believing the Zhang Family would keep its promises.

Jiang Gui grew to admire the Zhang Family’s prosperity and resolved to spread its benefits to other poor places. Zhang Ming then began a new round of Cycle Devouring Art experiments, leaving ten of twelve participants alive after the procedures.

• Jiang Gui explored Yang City, learned how the Zhang Family protected tenants and residents, and wished to bring such prosperity to impoverished places.
• The steward gathered Jiang Gui and twelve other Drug Trial Participants and brought them to Zhang Ming.
• Zhang Ming led the group into an Underground Fortress and explained that they would enter a guarded room one at a time.
• Zhang Ming knocked Ding Mao unconscious and implanted the Cycle Devouring Art circuit, stabilizing him after the procedure.
• Zhang Ming completed experiments on all twelve participants, with two dying on the operating table and ten surviving.

Zhang Ming’s experiments on Jiang Gui revealed 95% compatibility with the Cycle Devouring Art, inspiring him to improve the method and pursue experiments on himself. A month later, successful trials had produced dozens of stronger refugees, and Jiang Gui was helping manage Yang City’s expanding refugee camp.

• Jiang Gui demonstrated his newfound strength and pledged to follow Zhang Ming after receiving the Cycle Devouring Art.
• Zhang Ming examined Jiang Gui and recorded 95% compatibility, estimating that the method could rapidly build a Postnatal Martial Artist-level physique.
• Zhang Ming reasoned that the remaining 5% might explain how quickly Old Steward Zombie had evolved and resolved to reduce experiment deaths and improve success rates.
• Over the next month, thousands of refugees arrived in Yang City, and Jiang Gui led empowered test subjects in keeping the refugee camp orderly.
• Zhang Ming’s experiments produced dozens of successful subjects, including several with over 80% compatibility, whom he assigned to help Jiang Gui manage the camp.

After refining the Cycle Devouring Art through experiments on prisoners, refugees, and estate guards, Zhang Ming used [Ignite Comprehension] to implant the art into his own body. The surgery succeeded with 96% initial compatibility, which began to rise as the art merged with him.

• Zhang Ming told Jiang Gui that he would stop bringing in Drug Trial Participants and would next test the Cycle Devouring Art on the estate guards.
• Zhang Ming reproduced the experiments on nearly one hundred guards, with one death and a success rate nearing eighty percent; Wang Song displayed 96% compatibility.
• Zhang Ming decided to try implanting the Cycle Devouring Art into himself, combining surgical guidance with self-cultivation.
• Zhang Ming performed the operation in a hidden Laboratory inside the Zhang Family's Underground Fortress while [Ignite Comprehension] was active.
• Zhang Ming completed the surgery in under ten minutes and sensed 96% initial compatibility, which continued to increase.

Zhang Ming used Ignite Comprehension to refine the Cycle Devouring Art and plan for the Hundred Beasts Sect’s arrival, while considering further research into how Zombies were created. He left to investigate the Zombie birth mechanism, beginning at the cemetery.

• Zhang Ming calculated that the Cycle Devouring Art could raise his physique to Innate level within a month and his cultivation to the Innate Realm within two, while he prepared strategies to face the Hundred Beasts Sect.
• Zhang Ming developed Super Corpse Poison and considered several ways to defeat Grandmasters without relying on strength.
• After Ignite Comprehension ended, Zhang Ming reviewed the Cycle Devouring Art’s progress and identified Rapid Recovery, Life Sense, and the Zombie birth mechanism as research priorities.
• Zhang Ming reasoned that understanding the Zombie birth mechanism might lead to creating stronger beings without the usual drawbacks of Zombies.
• Zhang Ming drank Mighty Bull Great Medicine to fuel the Cycle Devouring Art and decided to begin investigating the birth mechanism at the cemetery.

Zhang Ming investigated the Cemetery’s strange influence and arranged an experiment to see whether a resentful corpse buried there would become a Zombie. Seven days later, the corpse had transformed, and Wang Song fought it while Zhang Ming watched from a distance.

• Zhang Ming mapped the Cemetery and found that it brought him and Wang Song a sense of peace and seemed to speed the recovery of a wounded Zombie.
• Zhang Ming decided to test the Cemetery’s influence by burying a fresh corpse filled with resentment in Old Steward’s grave.
• Zhang Ming arranged for a man who hated the Zhang Family to die and had his corpse taken to the Cemetery.
• Seven days later, Zhang Ming watched as Wang Song and the Armored Soldiers surrounded and fought the transformed Zombie.
• Wang Song held off the Zombie and charged at it again after the soldiers stopped it from escaping.

Zhang Ming tested whether the Cemetery’s terrain formed an array by recreating it at a Mass Grave. After sensing the same faint aura there, he confirmed it was Momentum and began investigating how to enter the Array Dao.

• Wang Song killed a newly made Zombie, and Zhang Ming ordered it secretly sent to the Laboratory.
• Zhang Ming told Wang Song to find a Yin-heavy Mass Grave and recreate the Cemetery’s terrain there to test whether it formed an array.
• A month after the project was completed, Zhang Ming continued studying the Cycle Devouring Art and replicated the [Rapid Recovery] and [Life Sense] abilities.
• On the thirtieth day after the Mass Grave project’s completion, Zhang Ming sensed a faint, comfortable aura and confirmed the terrain reproduced the Cemetery’s Momentum.
• Zhang Ming decided to study the recreated array through elimination so he could decipher its composition and enter the Array Dao.

After three months of revising the Mass Grave Project, Zhang Ming perfected a simplified blueprint for the Gathering Yin Zombie Array and continued considering how to improve Zombies. When a giant bird beast entered Yang City, he suspected the Hundred Beasts Sect had arrived and prepared to deal with them.

• For three months, Zhang Ming directed repeated repairs and reconstruction of the Mass Grave Project while Yang City completed its housing renovations and improved civic conduct.
• Zhang Ming finished reverse-engineering the Gathering Yin Zombie Array, reducing its blueprint to several thousand essential nodes, and planned to study it while researching ways to improve Zombies.
• Wang Hao learned that Junior Niu had not contacted him for nearly a year and decided to travel to Yang City to investigate.
• More than ten days later, Zhang Ming received a report that a giant bird beast had entered Yang City and recognized the likely connection to the Hundred Beasts Sect.
• Zhang Ming prepared to confront the suspected Hundred Beasts Sect members and settle matters in one stroke.

Zhang Ming ambushed and killed Wang Hao, a Hundred Beasts Sect disciple, after tricking him into revealing that the sect had two Grandmasters. He planned to head to the sect and destroy it, then wondered what Grandmaster intent was and whether his own abilities might count as intent.

• Wang Hao admired Yang City's prosperity as he flew toward the Mighty Bull Martial Arts School on a giant bird beast.
• Zhang Ming confronted Wang Hao, questioned him about the Hundred Beasts Sect, and deduced that it had two Grandmasters.
• Zhang Ming unleashed his Mighty Bull Demon Devouring Avatar and pierced Wang Hao's chest with a blood-red shockwave.
• Wang Hao died regretting that he had risked his life for the Niu family, while Zhang Ming announced that he planned to destroy the Hundred Beasts Sect.
• Zhang Ming considered the difference between Innate Realm Vital Energy and Grandmaster intent, and wondered whether hypnosis or Ignite Comprehension could produce it.

Zhang Ming used the Gathering Yin Zombie Array to kill the Hundred Beasts Sect’s disciples and martial artists, then confronted the sect’s furious ancestor. The ancestor attacked Zhang Ming with overwhelming Grandmaster Vital Energy.

• Zhang Ming reached the outskirts of the Hundred Beasts Sect and recognized that its terrain suited the Gathering Yin Zombie Array.
• Zhang Ming modified the surrounding terrain and used the array’s auxiliary capabilities against the Hundred Beasts Sect.
• Outer Disciple Tian Ying coughed blood and died, and the sect’s members collapsed in succession until its disciples and martial artists were dead.
• Hundred Beasts Ancestor summoned the Grandmaster-level Black Centipede Demon Beast Great Gold and searched for the attacker.
• Zhang Ming appeared among the corpses and provoked Hundred Beasts Ancestor, who launched a powerful Vital Energy attack at him.

Zhang Ming defeated Hundred Beasts Ancestor and Great Gold using dormant poison and the power of the Gathering Yin Zombie Array. Worried the array was gestating or connecting to something dangerous, he destroyed its nodes, then set out to collect the Hundred Beasts Sect’s techniques and records on training Demon Beasts.

• Zhang Ming blocked Hundred Beasts Ancestor’s attack with a purple-black shield and drew his attention to Great Gold.
• Hundred Beasts Ancestor discovered that the Gathering Yin Zombie Array’s flames had burned Great Gold down to its skeletal frame.
• Zhang Ming immobilized Hundred Beasts Ancestor and revealed that dormant Super Mixed Corpse Poison was destroying him.
• Hundred Beasts Ancestor died as the array’s purple-black energy darkened the surroundings, and Zhang Ming realized the array might be gestating or connecting to something dangerous.
• Zhang Ming destroyed several array nodes, causing its energy and the surrounding abnormalities to recede.
• Zhang Ming planned to collect the Hundred Beasts Sect’s Cultivation Methods, Martial Skills, secret transmissions, and Demon Beast training records.

The destruction of the Hundred Beasts Sect sparked rumors that the Five Poisons Cult was responsible, though the cult’s investigation showed the poison was beyond its practical means. Huang Xin, a reincarnator from three hundred years in the future, recognized Zhang Ming’s role in the massacre and planned to use his foreknowledge to seize power and claim Zhang Ming’s legacy.

• News of the Hundred Beasts Sect’s destruction spread across Liangguang, and many blamed the Five Poisons Cult because the victims had died in agony.
• The Five Poisons Cult Master learned that the poison had killed more than a thousand people almost simultaneously, but using such a poison would cost the cult too much.
• After the cult disciple left, he asked Elder Yao through an ancient bronze ring to identify the deadly poison.
• The Mysterious Figure used the Heavenly Fate Pearl and his fortune from thirty million people to search for the killer, but abandoned the attempt when his fortune proved insufficient.
• Huang Xin celebrated the massacre as the first major event in Zhang Ming’s rise and planned to use his future knowledge and the True Martial Manual to surpass him.
• Huang Xin recalled future events including the destruction of the Five Poisons Cult, the Shu Land rebellion, King Guang proclaiming himself Emperor, and the demonic calamity.

Zhang Ming returned to Yang City and reviewed the martial arts texts and treasures he had taken from the Hundred Beasts Sect. He decided to cultivate the renewable Demon Blood Tree using blood from Mine Cave Beasts and grew curious about the mystery of Mine Cave No. 13.

• Zhang Ming returned to Yang City, reassured his parents, and went to his underground research room to inspect his gains.
• Zhang Ming counted thirty-three martial arts classics, twenty-two Cultivation Method and Martial Skill manuals, and eleven books on beast-taming.
• Zhang Ming identified the Marrow Cleansing Flower, Wisdom Heart Fruit, and Demon Blood Tree among his treasures, and recognized the Demon Blood Tree as the most valuable because it could produce nourishing Demon Blood Fruits.
• Zhang Ming considered planting the Demon Blood Tree in his Underground Fortress but rejected the plan because raising it would require frequent deliveries of blood and compromise the fortress's secrecy.
• Zhang Ming decided to plant the Demon Blood Tree in the Mine, where Mine Cave Beasts could provide blood, and wondered what secret lay behind the beasts in Mine Cave No. 13.

After using [Ignite Comprehension], Zhang Ming fused the Hundred Beasts Sect’s cultivation methods into the powerful [Beast King Art] and reflected on the structure of martial realms. He began considering how to improve it further by imitating Demon Beasts and unusual creatures.

• Zhang Ming found that the Gathering Yin Zombie Array slightly reduced the pain from [Ignite Comprehension] and recalled how abundant yin energy had enhanced him during the Hundred Beasts Sect battle.
• Zhang Ming fused the Hundred Beasts Sect’s beast cultivation methods into the [Beast King Art], which he believed could rival a Martial Saint cultivation method.
• Zhang Ming reviewed the distinctions between body-focused martial realms, intent-focused Grandmasters and Great Grandmasters, and Martial Saints, whose intent and bodies were fused.
• Zhang Ming decided that a future cultivation method should imitate Demon Beasts rather than ordinary beasts.
• Zhang Ming wondered whether creatures such as ants, Electric Eels, tardigrades, and fleas could count as beasts, and imagined gaining their abilities.

Zhang Ming inspected Qingmang Mountain Mine and saw that its workers had begun improving the coal, iron, and military complex on their own. He rewarded Lin De and headed with him toward Mine Cave No. 13, where Lin De was now strong enough to help protect him.

• Zhang Ming returned to Qingmang Mountain Mine and praised Lin De for his work.
• During the inspection, Zhang Ming discovered that workers had independently proposed improvements to mining transport and iron smelting.
• Zhang Ming approved of the mine's progress and promised Lin De a New Mighty Bull Great Medicine as his year-end bonus.
• Zhang Ming and Lin De went to Mine Cave No. 13, where Zhang Ming encouraged the Armored Soldiers and Lin De offered to protect him.
• Lin De recalled his strengthened cultivation and believed he could accompany Zhang Ming without holding him back.

Zhang Ming explored Mine Cave No. 13 and discovered that its Demon Beasts had gathered in a vast underground chamber to breed. He realized the horde was too large to confront directly and decided he could not kill them all because he needed them to cultivate Demon Blood Trees.

• Zhang Ming and Lin De traveled deeper into Mine Cave No. 13, but found no Demon Beasts where they had appeared on earlier expeditions.
• Zhang Ming heard violent roars ahead, ordered Lin De to stay behind, and hurried forward alone to investigate.
• Zhang Ming found an enormous underground space packed with more than five thousand Demon Beasts, including several dozen Xiantian and three Grandmasters.
• Zhang Ming judged that he could wipe out the horde using the Gathering Yin Zombie Array, but refrained because he needed the beasts for planting and cultivating Demon Blood Trees.

Zhang Ming searched the deep mine cave for the treasure sustaining its Demon Beasts and discovered an abundant spring of Earth Marrow. He collected a flaskful and left the spring intact, planning to return after using it.

• Zhang Ming realized the Demon Beasts needed an unusual food source and decided to search the mine cave for Heavenly Material and Earthly Treasure.
• Zhang Ming ordered Lin De to leave before he ventured farther into the cave alone.
• Zhang Ming concealed himself and passed the Demon Beasts before descending through a deep underground tunnel.
• Zhang Ming found a blue spring and identified its liquid as Earth Marrow, a rare treasure with many benefits.
• Zhang Ming collected about a hundred drops of Earth Marrow in his flask and chose not to investigate or disturb the seemingly abundant spring.