Chapter Summaries

Plot points and events

• Chen Xuan returns to the store and finds Liu Shuyue visiting Lin Qing. Liu explains that the Liu family can manage Jiufeng City and Mala Village without her constant supervision, so she plans to spend more time at the store.
• Chen warns Liu that she and the other employees must appear ordinary, since the Ability Store’s enemies are dangerous and perceptive. Lin invents a cover identity for Liu as a financially struggling college student and proposes store uniforms; Chen agrees.
• During a quiet morning, Chen refines pills and contacts Walter Firearms to buy a four-seat helicopter. He refuses Walter’s offer to provide one for free, preferring to keep their business relationship clear. The helicopter will let Chen travel much faster to the East and carry members of his delegation.
• Walter arranges a secondhand Tyre-207 helicopter, fuel included, for 1.44 million yuan. Chen and Lin inspect it at the Branch Store, where Lin confirms she can operate it.
• Walter watches as the organization’s “porters” remodel an abandoned garage to fit the helicopter. Ten men then lift the aircraft onto their shoulders and carry it inside. Walter is impressed by their strength and concludes they would make formidable soldiers. The building soon appears empty again.

Character developments and interactions

• Liu Shuyue becomes more involved in the store, showing curiosity about its equipment and willingness to learn from Lin. Her responsibilities at home are eased by the Liu family’s growing competence.
• Chen Xuan remains cautious about security and favors independence in business, refusing a free helicopter to avoid future obligations. He plans practical ways to speed his journey and bring witnesses.
• Lin Qing takes the lead in training Liu and crafting her cover story, and she can identify and operate the helicopter.
• Walter continues to cultivate Chen’s business, offering quiet favors while respecting Chen’s insistence on paying. His view of the organization shifts as he witnesses its members’ extraordinary physical strength.

Significant themes

• Secrecy and disguise: Store employees must conceal their identities and blend into ordinary life.
• Independence and reciprocity: Chen avoids gifts that could create debts, preferring transparent exchanges.
• The contrast between appearances and reality: The supposed carpenters and porters prove to be exceptionally strong, while the organization’s simple methods conceal unusual capabilities.
• Practical progress: Chen uses ordinary technology—a helicopter—to overcome the distance separating him from his destination.

Key plot points and events

• Marlena grows frustrated after five days of waiting in camp for Divine Envoy Chen Xuan. She argues that the mission is wasting time while French soldiers die, but Baron Milton says they cannot challenge the leader’s orders without evidence—and that Chen’s appointment was backed by both the king and Joan of Arc.
• Marlena remains uneasy about Chen despite believing his supernatural abilities are real. She recalls that he exchanged her alchemical knowledge for a magical ability, and worries that someone with such power could elevate or ruin people at will.
• On the sixth day, Marlena hears a strange message in her mind about a “follow-up visit” and a “good review.” She traces it to a nearby house, where Chen has returned.
• Chen announces that the delegation can depart, but only the diplomats and four witches will continue. The horses, carriages, guards, cooks, and servants are to return to Versailles. The delegation’s supplies and gifts will be stored in the house, which Chen says will travel instantly to the East.
• The group accepts Chen’s explanation enthusiastically, largely relieved that most of them will not have to make the dangerous journey. Chen then tells Marlena and Milton they will travel “first class,” while he arranges accommodations for the others.

Character developments

• Marlena emerges as the delegation’s most conscientious member, but her responsibility makes her increasingly anxious and frustrated. Her faith in Chen’s abilities coexists with suspicion and fear of his power.
• Milton remains calm and pragmatic, defending the chain of command and readily accepting Chen’s supernatural explanation.
• Chen Xuan demonstrates that his apparent disappearance is tied to access to his otherworldly store and its transport capabilities. He returns with a plan that reduces the burden and risks of the journey.
• Sarah is chiefly interested in her alchemy and treats the imminent departure as a practical matter, reminding Marlena to pack her belongings.

Significant themes

• Faith, authority, and accountability: Chen’s appointment is protected by royal and religious authority, making it difficult for others to question his decisions.
• Unequal standards and social trust: Marlena reflects on how the same supernatural powers that make Chen revered might cause a witch to be condemned as demonic.
• Power and dependence: Chen’s ability to grant or withhold extraordinary gifts makes him both a benefactor and a potentially frightening figure.
• Self-interest beneath devotion: The delegation praises divine protection, but many are simply glad to avoid the dangerous expedition.

Character interactions

• Marlena repeatedly challenges Milton over the delay; he answers with court politics and the risks of accusing Chen without proof.
• Marlena and Sarah react differently to Chen’s return: Marlena is confused and alarmed, while Sarah immediately prepares to leave.
• Chen directs the delegation’s preparations, and the others respond with applause and praise. His private announcement to Marlena and Milton suggests that he has arranged special treatment for them.

Plot points and events

• Chen Xuan brings the twenty-two members of the delegation back to the Main Store, where they settle into private rooms. He then departs by helicopter with Lin Qing, while Liu Shuyue stays behind to secure the store.
• Lin Qing pilots the unfamiliar machine east. The helicopter’s noise, powerful rotor wash, and sudden ascent terrify Milton and astonish Marlena, who compares it to a divine form of travel.
• From the air, Marlena sees the landscape and cities from a radically new perspective. The party reaches Lorraine in a fraction of the time a carriage journey would take.
• The trip continues over eleven days, with flying limited to daylight and good weather. The cramped, noisy helicopter makes the journey exhausting; Chen Xuan eventually leaves most of the flying to Lin Qing.
• After crossing South Asia, the helicopter enters Ming territory through Myanmar. Lin Qing carries on northeast and spots a vast, unfamiliar city, far larger than Paris and filled with buildings unlike known historical architecture.
• The group lands discreetly in nearby woods and conceals the helicopter. Chen Xuan decides to investigate the city before bringing in the delegation, suspecting that historical records may no longer be trustworthy.
• Lin Qing disguises herself in plain clothes, changes her artificial “hair” to black, and joins Chen Xuan and Liu Shuyue in preparing to enter the city.

Character development and interactions

• Marlena moves from alarm to wonder, interpreting flight as an almost godlike experience and realizing how profoundly it changes her view of the world.
• Milton reacts with fear, first shrinking into his seat and then praying, but proves useful after landing by speaking fluently with the local villagers.
• Chen Xuan remains practical and focused on the mission’s safety. Though impatient with the helicopter’s pace, he recognizes it as the best available transport and prioritizes investigating the suspicious city before exposing the delegation.
• Lin Qing demonstrates confidence and technical skill as pilot and navigator. She also shows a playful side while using her adaptable artificial hair to complete her disguise.
• Liu Shuyue takes on security duties and applies what she has learned about Chen Xuan’s operations, helping prepare for a cautious reconnaissance.

Significant themes

• Technology and wonder: The helicopter’s flight overturns the travelers’ expectations and makes modern technology seem supernatural to those unfamiliar with it.
• Changing perspectives: Seeing the world from above alters Marlena’s sense of scale, distance, and possibility.
• Progress versus inconvenience: Air travel is dramatically faster than carriage travel, yet its noise, discomfort, and dependence on weather make it far from effortless.
• Uncertainty and caution: The city’s extraordinary size and architecture suggest that the world may not match historical knowledge, making investigation and protection essential.

Key plot points and events

• Chen Xuan, Liu Shuyue, and Lin Qing reach a huge, prosperous city called Chang’an. Its scale and name reassure Chen Xuan, though its identity puzzles Lin Qing, whose historical database suggests the city should have been renamed Xi’an.
• The trio discover that entry requires Jade Coins, which they don’t have. Liu Shuyue offers valuables to exchange, but Chen Xuan instead accepts a stranger’s offer to smuggle them in inside a wagon’s cabinet.
• The smuggling goes smoothly. Expecting a robbery, Chen Xuan and his companions emerge ready to fight, but the man—known as Big-Eared Wang—charges them a discounted fee, accepts Liu Shuyue’s gold and pearls, and even leaves change.
• Inside the city, Chen Xuan hires two competing tea servers for information. They describe Chang’an as a cosmopolitan place filled with people from many distant regions.
• When Chen Xuan asks who the emperor is, the servers laugh and explain that the city has not had an emperor for a long time.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Xuan remains wary and opportunistic, deliberately accepting what he suspects is a scam so he can turn the situation to his advantage. His readiness to confront the supposed crooks backfires comically when they prove honest.
• Liu Shuyue is practical and observant: she spots the gate’s spiritual-energy detection array, cautions Chen Xuan about the stranger, and provides valuables to pay the fee. She is also increasingly accustomed to Chen Xuan and Lin Qing’s unfamiliar references.
• Lin Qing contributes modern, database-based observations and offers a dry, teasing perspective. The cramped ride highlights the physical weight of her cybernetic body.
• Big-Eared Wang initially appears suspicious but acts as a straightforward middleman, treating the trio fairly.
• The tea servers’ competitive banter establishes the city’s lively, commercial atmosphere.

Significant themes

• Appearances can mislead: the apparent scam proves legitimate, while Chen Xuan’s suspicion makes him look like the threat.
• Cultural and historical dislocation: the travelers’ assumptions about Chang’an and emperors do not match the world they have entered.
• Openness and cosmopolitanism: Chang’an’s bustling trade and diverse population contrast with the strict gate controls one might expect, even as the city has its own systems, such as Jade Coins and detection arrays.

Plot and key events

• Chen Xuan learns that the Tang Empire’s fall led to a new political order: cultivation sects replaced the warlords and formed the Immortal Alliance, which coordinates major affairs while sects govern their own territories. Chang’an remains the realm’s capital and the Alliance’s headquarters.
• Two tea scholars explain that cultivators are influential but not universally powerful. Many people can sense qi, though most have weak aptitude; cultivators also use spells and magical devices to support farming and transport.
• Chen Xuan uses the Heavenly Cloud Skill to scan the area and confirms that qi-sensitive people are common in Chang’an, but their spiritual energy is generally faint. He and Liu Shuyue are far stronger.
• After gathering information, Chen Xuan, Liu Shuyue, and the sleepy Lin Qing leave the teahouse and return to the shop. Liu Shuyue prepares the diplomatic party with horses, carriages, and formal uniforms.
• The French envoy group approaches Chang’an, impressed by its grandeur. At the gate, guards question them. Baron Milton identifies them as French envoys, while Chen Xuan introduces himself as the mission’s leader and requests a meeting with the Immortal Alliance.
• The guards direct the group to Chang’an’s Foreigners’ Quarter, where they can wait to be summoned.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Xuan is surprised by the Alliance’s political system and carefully assesses the city’s cultivation strength. At the gate, his apparent fluency in Chinese impresses the envoys; in fact, his shopkeeper ability automatically adapts his speech to listeners.
• Liu Shuyue is fascinated by cultivators’ role in government and considers whether their model could be useful back home. She eagerly discusses the subject with the scholars.
• Lin Qing is bored without internet access and falls asleep during the discussion.
• Old Gu and Old Li, the tea scholars, trade teasing insults while explaining the Alliance. Old Gu reveals his modest cultivation aptitude; Old Li mocks it, illustrating the gap between merely sensing qi and being accepted by a sect.
• Milton is initially sick from the journey but regains his formal bearing in uniform. He hopes an alliance with the cultivators might help France defeat England and the supernatural monsters.
• The guards respond calmly to the foreign delegation, showing that Chang’an regularly receives visitors from distant lands.

Significant themes

• Political change and governance: A sect-based alliance has replaced dynastic rule, presenting an alternative to a centralized empire.
• Power and social hierarchy: Cultivators enjoy status and authority, yet aptitude varies widely, and practical skill helps justify their influence.
• Cultural exchange: Chang’an’s open gates and international visitors reflect a long-standing, prosperous connection between East and West.
• Appearance and hidden ability: The envoys’ formal uniforms transform their image, while Chen Xuan’s seemingly impressive language ability conceals the supernatural mechanism behind it.

Key plot points

• The French envoy arrives in Chang’an’s Foreigners’ Quarter and is efficiently registered and housed.
• While Chen Xuan and Liu Shuyue admire the foreign visitors, they discuss the vastness of the world beyond the Six Nations. Liu admits she longs to travel beyond the Abyssal Sea; Chen promises he will take her someday.
• Their planned walk through Chang’an is interrupted when Baron Milton announces that the Immortal Alliance is ready to receive them. Liu graciously steps aside, and Chen leads the delegation to the meeting.
• The envoys visit the Moon-Watching Tower, the city’s tallest building, and learn that the Immortal Alliance’s current Governor is Xu Yuanqing of Ascension Terrace. The tower’s rope-powered lift impresses the delegation’s guide, though Chen and his companions take it calmly.
• At the meeting, Xu welcomes the group. After formal introductions and the presentation of credentials, he says he will add France to the Alliance’s map.
• Chen presents the delegation’s request. Marlena explains that Demons and mutated forces have ravaged the English Channel and warns that they may soon threaten the East. She asks the Eastern Cultivators to help repel them.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Xuan remains composed and observant, using a fabricated story about France to present himself as a displaced man seeking his way home. He also reassures Liu Shuyue that they will travel beyond the Six Nations together.
• Liu Shuyue reveals her curiosity and dissatisfaction with a life confined by sect responsibilities. She is disappointed to postpone their outing but supports Chen’s diplomatic duty.
• Marlena takes on the crucial role of explaining the crisis, speaking for nearly half an hour despite her nervousness.
• Xu Yuanqing presents himself as a relaxed but authoritative host, balancing formal diplomacy with a willingness to recognize France on the Alliance’s map.
• The guide’s pride in the tower and lift contrasts humorously with Chen’s lack of awe, reflecting the different technological assumptions of the visitors.

Significant themes

• Exploration and longing: Liu’s desire to see beyond familiar borders echoes the chapter’s wider sense of a vast, interconnected world.
• Diplomacy across cultures: The formal meeting, translation, gifts, and credentials show how distant societies attempt to establish trust and cooperation.
• The spread of danger: Marlena’s warning frames the Demons as a threat that may unite distant regions.
• Different perspectives on progress: The tower and lift seem astonishing to the locals but ordinary to Chen, highlighting the gap between their worlds.

Plot points and events

• Marlena reports that demons threaten France, but the Immortal Alliance’s officials react with mixed skepticism, disdain, surprise, and interest.
• Governor-General Xu Yuanqing says the Alliance cannot promise military aid: it has no evidence to verify the warning, and its leader alone can command all sects. Without proof, spreading the news could damage trust between them.
• Chen Xuan realizes that visiting every sect would be impractical and asks for a chance to address many at once. Xu points to the annual cultivation tournament, held in two months. Foreigners may not compete unless they establish a sect.
• Xu gives Chen an Alliance guest token, permission to recruit at sect courtyards and recruitment platforms, access to limited local assistance, and 100,000 Jade Coins. Chen must recruit at least ten people to enter the tournament.
• After the delegation leaves, Xu explains privately to Grand Tutor Wei Si why he made an exception: Chen’s spiritual energy is extraordinarily pure and unlike any cultivation method Xu has encountered. Marlena’s energy is unusual too. Xu hopes their presence and Chen’s new method will bring valuable knowledge to the Alliance.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Xuan moves from frustration at the apparent dead end to strategic action. He recognizes the Alliance may welcome the prospect of demons but wants to avoid responsibility for unverified claims, and finds a way to turn the tournament into a publicity and recruitment opportunity.
• Xu Yuanqing appears cautious in public, emphasizing the Alliance’s limits and need for verification. Privately, he is open to new cultivation knowledge and willing to take political criticism for the Alliance’s potential benefit.
• Marlena and Milton struggle to understand the Alliance’s decentralized authority and its refusal to act on their account alone. Marlena offers recordings, but Xu rejects them as insufficient proof.
• Wei Si objects that giving the delegation special treatment could invite criticism. After Xu explains Chen’s unusual cultivation, Wei understands and accepts the decision.
• Xu and Chen share a pragmatic understanding of the Alliance’s constraints, even as Xu quietly sees Chen as an important opportunity.

Significant themes

• Decentralized authority and institutional caution: the Alliance cannot easily mobilize autonomous sects, and unverified claims carry political risks.
• Opportunity beneath diplomacy: the crisis may offer cultivators a chance to confront demons, while Chen and Xu each see ways to advance their own aims.
• Exchange and innovation: Xu believes cultivation improves through sharing knowledge and refining existing methods.
• Different motives behind cooperation: Chen seeks practical success for his business and delegation; Xu seeks knowledge and a possible benefit to the Alliance.

Key plot points and events

• Chen Xuan announces that he has founded the “Heaven Above, Earth Below, I Alone Reign Sect,” choosing an intentionally grandiose name to attract attention for the Immortal Alliance’s upcoming sect tournament.
• He invites Liu Shuyue to join as an instructor. Though she worries that joining another sect would betray the Lotus Cloud Sect, Chen reassures her that the arrangement is temporary and unofficial. She agrees to join in name only.
• They plan to recruit ten tournament participants, potentially drawing on the Mala Village Hunting Squad. Chen believes the villagers are strong enough, since he judges the Immortal Alliance governor—an experienced cultivator—to be weaker than Liu.
• Liu explains the basics of cultivation: absorbing qi improves a person’s body and abilities, while deeper cultivation depends on refining spiritual energy and using it effectively. The ideal is immortality, though no one has achieved it.
• She warns that drawing spiritual energy from demons is crude and limits future cultivation; absorbing energy from other people is far more dangerous and can cause a powerful heart demon. The proper method is to absorb free energy from nature using a mind method.
• Liu adds that cultivation speed varies by individual, especially because thoughts and will—the cultivator’s Dao heart—shape how effectively they refine energy. Experience and helping others temper that inner resolve.
• Concluding that cultivation requires engagement with the world rather than secluded meditation, Chen decides to establish the sect in Chang’an City.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Xuan displays practical ambition, treating the sect name and tournament as publicity tools. His curiosity about cultivation leads him to connect Liu’s explanations to his own speculative theories.
• Liu Shuyue balances loyalty to her original sect with willingness to help Chen. She proves knowledgeable and patient, but becomes stern when Chen misconstrues her warnings about killing and spiritual-energy absorption.
• Lin Qing teases Chen about his pompous sect name and bluntly notes that he lacks cultivation knowledge. Her curiosity draws her into Liu’s lesson, and she lightens the conversation with irreverent comments.

Significant themes

• Ambition and presentation: The sect’s outrageous name is meant to draw attention, not express Chen’s sincere belief in his own supremacy.
• Cultivation and ethics: Power gained through another being’s energy carries spiritual and moral risks; natural cultivation is safer and more compatible with the cultivator.
• Character and experience: A cultivator’s thoughts, will, and lived experience matter as much as technique, making cultivation a process of personal development rather than mere training.

Plot points and events

• Chen Xuan takes Liu Shuyue out to explore Chang’an City. She enjoys the outing partly because it recalls her first year away from her sect, when she wandered instead of immediately taking up her duties.
• They follow the smell of food to a crowded stall selling meat-stuffed buns. The vendor refuses payment and kneels in fear after noticing Chen Xuan’s Immortal Alliance jade token.
• Su Qidong, another cultivator, intervenes and explains that ordinary people treat Alliance members with fearful deference. He invites Chen Xuan to a district reserved for cultivators, where commoners are excluded.
• Chen Xuan notices that the city is visibly divided: cultivators use wider, better-lit streets, while commoners are confined to narrower, poorly maintained lanes.
• He declines Su Qidong’s invitation. He and Liu Shuyue return to the commoners’ street, intending to pay for the buns and continue exploring. Chen Xuan hides his token, and Liu Shuyue turns her sable coat into a scarf for him.

Character developments and interactions

• Liu Shuyue is increasingly relaxed and candid with Chen Xuan. She admits she once avoided her responsibilities by wandering, and voices her belief that cultivators should not separate themselves from ordinary people.
• Chen Xuan remains considerate of commoners and is unsettled by the privilege attached to his token. Rather than accept exclusive access, he chooses to keep exploring alongside Liu Shuyue among the ordinary residents.
• Su Qidong is friendly and appears to mean well, intervening to spare the vendor further anxiety. However, he accepts the city’s social hierarchy and encourages Chen Xuan to stay away from commoners.
• Chen Xuan and Liu Shuyue share an easy, teasing rapport. She looks after his comfort by lending him her coat, while they make plans together.

Significant themes

• Class privilege and social division: The jade token turns Chen Xuan into a member of the city’s elite, revealing how sharply cultivators and commoners are segregated.
• Responsibility versus freedom: Liu Shuyue’s wandering recalls her earlier reluctance to shoulder her sect’s duties.
• Power and social conduct: The vendor’s fear shows that even an apparently generous gesture can feel coercive when made by someone with authority; Chen Xuan’s attempt to pay exposes the imbalance.
• Community and belonging: Liu Shuyue argues that cultivators who distance themselves from ordinary people risk weakening their own society.

Key plot points and events

• Su Qidong reports that Chen Xuan declined Xu Yuanqing’s invitation to socialize and continued exploring Chang’an with his companion, putting away his Immortal Alliance token.
• Xu Yuanqing interprets the refusal as evidence that Chen Xuan has more important priorities, while explaining that he had the token monitored as a safeguard against misuse.
• Xu Xuanling questions her father’s favorable view of Chen Xuan, especially his habit of spending time among commoners. Xu Yuanqing maintains that Chen’s restraint, ambition, and good treatment of ordinary people make him an unusually promising young Cultivator.
• Xu Yuanqing suggests that his twelve-year-old daughter visit Chen Xuan’s sect rather than attend the Ascension Terrace. He argues that traditional sect resources may soon be less valuable if reports of Monster-filled seas near France and England prove true.
• Xu Xuanling eagerly accepts the challenge, determined to test Chen Xuan’s cultivation and gain entry to his sect without her father’s help.

Character developments and interactions

• Xu Yuanqing is cautious as well as discerning: he recognizes Chen Xuan’s promise but keeps watch over the token to protect the Immortal Alliance’s reputation. He also encourages his daughter while insisting she prove herself independently.
• Xu Xuanling is confident, competitive, and devoted to cultivation. She resists her father’s comparison with an older Cultivator, then turns the challenge into a chance to seek out Chen Xuan’s sect.
• Su Qidong serves as the messenger, reporting Chen Xuan’s movements and his refusal of the invitation.
• The father and daughter exchange teasing disagreement: Xu Yuanqing praises Chen Xuan, while Xu Xuanling doubts his distinction and boldly claims he may not even be able to recruit a disciple.

Significant themes

• Character over status: Chen Xuan earns respect through discipline, ambition, and his treatment of ordinary people, rather than by seeking pleasure or elite company.
• Caution and institutional responsibility: Xu Yuanqing’s surveillance reflects the risks attached to granting authority and the need to protect the Immortal Alliance’s standing.
• Changing sources of cultivation: The possibility of abundant Monsters overseas could overturn established sects’ control of cultivation resources.
• Self-reliance and ambition: Xu Xuanling chooses to pursue entry on her own merits, reflecting her confidence and commitment to cultivation.

Key plot points and events

• Chen Xuan tells the delegation he will establish a sect in Chang’an so it can enter the Immortal Alliance’s tournament. He hopes the event will publicize France’s appeal for help against England and attract volunteers.
• The delegation, especially Baron Milton and Marlena, praise Chen Xuan and apologize for doubting his commitment. Chen Xuan assigns them practical duties: Milton will find a residence, while Marlena agrees to compete. Sarah will support the team with potions.
• Chen Xuan decides to recruit all the sect’s disciples from Mala Village and leaves the work to Liu Shuyue.
• Milton finds a spacious lakeside estate near Chang’an, rented cheaply by a French-friendly Persian merchant. Chen Xuan arranges a sublease so he can open a Branch Store there.
• Sarah produces a batch of Stimulant Potions, which temporarily suppress fatigue but become dangerous if used too long. She later brews Hallucinogenic Perfume for the tournament.
• The delegation establishes a sect called Heaven Above, Earth Below, I Alone Am Supreme. Marlena eagerly trains while waiting for Chen Xuan to begin teaching cultivation.
• Overwhelmed by the delegation’s constant reports and enthusiasm, Chen Xuan retreats to the Main Store. Lin Qing massages his shoulders and jokes about her infiltration and assassination training.
• Chen Xuan notices that the Branch Store is still connected to the estate despite being locked and without his using the return feature. In the gloomy courtyard, an unfamiliar boy approaches the store carrying someone on his back.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Xuan takes on a larger role in the French mission, though he remains practical and delegates most work. He is also surprised by how intensely the delegation depends on him.
• Milton proves resourceful, securing both a suitable estate and the sect’s signboard.
• Marlena moves from skepticism to trust and volunteers for the tournament, while continuing to train eagerly.
• Sarah finds a way to contribute through alchemy, producing useful—and potentially hazardous—potions.
• Lin Qing offers Chen Xuan comic reassurance while revealing her background in covert techniques.
• The boy’s sudden appearance introduces an unexplained new customer and a possible mystery around the Branch Store’s connection.

Significant themes

• Duty and commitment: Chen Xuan chooses to continue helping France even after his formal diplomatic role is essentially complete.
• Cross-cultural cooperation: French diplomats, witches, a Persian merchant, and eastern institutions become connected through the sect’s creation.
• Faith in leadership: The delegation’s gratitude and dependence on Chen Xuan give him almost messianic status in their eyes.
• Ambition and risk: The tournament offers a path to influence, while Sarah’s potions embody the trade-off between useful power and danger.

Plot points and events

• Two exhausted children enter Chen Xuan’s store. The boy pleads for help for his unconscious sister before collapsing himself. Both are dangerously weak; the girl also has a high fever and irregular pulse.
• Chen Xuan checks for pursuers, finds none close by, and closes the store for safety. Since neither child has a clear external injury, he decides they need professional medical care.
• To avoid exposing the children’s lack of official identities at a hospital, Chen Xuan contacts Xu Wangxian, the owner of Hundred Herbs Hall. Xu arranges for two doctors to treat them discreetly.
• Tests show that the children are not poisoned or internally injured: they are suffering from extreme starvation and dehydration. Treatment improves their condition, and the doctors judge them out of immediate danger.
• Rather than keep the children at the pharmacy for several days, Xu arranges for them to continue receiving IV treatment at Chen Xuan’s home, allowing Chen Xuan to control who meets them when they wake.
• While they wait, Xu reports that Chen Xuan’s Blood Orange and Sweet Jade Clear Pills are selling rapidly, with the latter commanding very high resale prices.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Xuan acts quickly and compassionately, while taking care to protect the children’s identities and his own secrecy. His exchange with Xu also reveals that he sees the pills as a practical source of funds for his cultivation force, not simply as products or a path to immortality.
• Lin Qing helps assess the children’s condition and stays with them during treatment, serving as Chen Xuan’s practical support.
• Xu Wangxian proves both well-connected and discreet. He helps arrange medical care without probing the children’s origins, and understands Chen Xuan’s wish to take them home.
• The two children remain unconscious throughout the chapter; their desperate arrival and critical condition introduce an unresolved mystery.

Significant themes

• Compassion balanced with caution: Chen Xuan helps strangers in danger but takes steps to guard against pursuers and unwanted scrutiny.
• Secrecy and trust: Xu’s discretion allows Chen Xuan to protect the children and keep their identities hidden.
• Money versus cultivation: Xu assumes Chen Xuan cares little for worldly wealth, but Chen Xuan privately regards money as necessary to support his larger plans.
• The value of healing: The pills’ popularity highlights how strongly people seek relief from illness and fear of decline.

Plot points and events

• A Jiu wakes in the store’s third-floor dining hall, where he and his sister, A Hua, are recovering after Chen Xuan’s staff saved them.
• Chen Xuan tells A Jiu that the store is the “Heaven Realm,” presenting its modern technology and furnishings as proof. He explains that A Jiu may stay three days and can seek help by making a transaction.
• A Jiu eventually asks for Immortal Arts that will let him take revenge on the five Cultivators who murdered his family.
• He recounts how his family in Feng County made a living gathering herbs. A wounded rogue cultivator they rescued became A Jiu and A Hua’s teacher, teaching them both scholarly subjects and cultivation.
• The siblings had recently begun their formal cultivation, but before they could receive their Dao names, attackers stormed their home. Their master fought back and instructed them to hide in a well using the Tortoise-Breath Technique. When they emerged, they found their home burned and their family dead.

Character developments

• A Jiu is polite and well educated despite his desperate circumstances. His initial confusion gives way to grief and anger as he explains his past and declares his desire for revenge.
• Chen Xuan is a pragmatic but patient guide. He uses the store’s unusual features to persuade A Jiu, while withholding pressure until the boy is ready to reveal what he wants.
• A Hua remains asleep and vulnerable, but her survival is central to A Jiu’s decisions.
• The rogue cultivator master is revealed as a devoted teacher who believed the siblings had exceptional potential and resisted sending them to a sect.

Significant themes

• Faith and persuasion: Chen Xuan frames the store’s unfamiliar technology as evidence of a supernatural realm, inviting A Jiu to trust what he cannot explain.
• Grief and revenge: A Jiu’s request is rooted in the destruction of his family and the loss of his master.
• Talent, institutions, and independence: The master distrusts sects, which he sees as exploitative, and encourages the siblings to cultivate outside the established system.
• Hope amid trauma: Though A Jiu has lost nearly everything, the store offers a possible path toward answers and action.

Character interactions

• Chen Xuan questions A Jiu about his needs and gently coaxes him to explain the massacre, while A Jiu struggles to recount it.
• A Jiu shows formal gratitude to Chen Xuan for saving him and A Hua, but remains skeptical of the “Heaven Realm” claim until shown the store’s features.
• The master’s final instructions to the siblings reveal his protectiveness and give them a means to survive the attack.

Plot points and events

• A Jiu recounts how cultivators slaughtered his family and master. Afraid the local authorities were tied to the sects, he fled with his sister, A Hua, hoping to seek justice in Chang’an. Poor and pursued by someone carrying their portraits, they fled again; hunger, exposure, and A Hua’s fever left them in desperate condition.
• Chen Xuan scans the siblings and discovers extraordinary abilities. Both share the multicolored ability Twins, which links their consciousness, achievements, and fate, effectively allowing them to share gains and losses. A Jiu also has the gold-grade Cultivation Prodigy talent; A Hua has the gold-grade Spiritual Energy Body, which makes her absorb and convert spiritual energy exceptionally quickly but threatens to destroy her body.
• The nature of the attack seems suspicious: the cultivators arrived openly, killed the household, burned the home, and left without noticing the children hiding in a well. Chen Xuan suspects they were targeting the siblings’ master, with the family’s deaths incidental.
• Chen Xuan offers to help the twins gain strength and uncover the truth, on the condition that they join his sect. After A Hua wakes, both accept. He assigns them student numbers and names his organization the Heaven Above, Earth Below, I Alone Reign Sect.
• As payment, Chen Xuan asks to take two of their abilities. Since Twins cannot be transferred, he targets their gold-grade talents. A Jiu agrees to trade Cultivation Prodigy, along with three white-grade abilities.

Character developments and interactions

• A Jiu is grieving, frightened, and initially focused on revenge, but proves decisive when he accepts Chen Xuan’s offer and relinquishes valuable abilities for the sect’s help.
• A Hua wakes weak and disoriented. Her close bond with A Jiu is evident when he comforts her, and she quickly understands that joining Chen Xuan makes them members of his sect.
• Chen Xuan approaches the case cautiously, piecing together the likely motive behind the attack. He offers the twins a path to power while making clear that his help depends on their joining and that the ability trade is voluntary.
• The siblings’ shared ability appears to deepen their connection: A Jiu calms A Hua through physical closeness, and Chen Xuan wonders whether they have just shared consciousness.

Significant themes

• Justice versus survival: The twins’ desire for answers and revenge is constrained by their vulnerability and distrust of local authorities.
• Power and its cost: Their rare talents promise extraordinary strength, but A Hua’s ability carries a potentially fatal physical cost, while A Jiu gives up his talent in exchange for help.
• Trust and consent: Chen Xuan offers aid but does not force the trade; A Jiu must knowingly choose whether to surrender his abilities.
• Shared fate and family bonds: The Twins ability turns the siblings’ loyalty into a literal sharing of fortune, progress, and suffering.

Key plot points and events

• A Jiu agrees to let Chen Xuan alter the siblings’ abilities, trusting him because he saved them and because his master taught him to keep promises. Chen Xuan postpones taking their abilities until they have avenged their master and family, and instead transfers A Hua’s “spiritual energy body” to A Jiu to create a stronger cultivator and distribute the risks of rapid energy refinement.
• After recovering from treatment and a filling meal, A Jiu and A Hua travel with Chen Xuan through Fu Jiaolu’s room into Mala Village, a vast world of plains and mountains. They are astonished by its scale and by the villagers’ respect for Chen Xuan.
• A Jiu explains that his master knew of the Great Thousand Worlds and of hidden passages between dimensions, controlled by powerful sects. Chen Xuan suspects these passages may be erosion points monopolized by organizations such as the Immortal Alliance and the Dimensional Limit Organization.
• Liu Shuyue takes the siblings into her sect and begins teaching them immortal arts, stressing that cultivation requires good character as well as skill. A Jiu proves exceptionally gifted, learning the Pure Heart Art’s circulation in a single morning.
• Mala Village’s residents are increasingly devoted to cultivation and eager to join the Hunting Squad, especially after its victories in Yun Prefecture and Jiufeng City. Liu Shuyue limits practice to eight hours daily so the village can keep functioning.
• Liu Shuyue brings Chen Xuan emerald-green stones and asks to exchange them for money from his world. Her rent question is only a pretext: she wants to buy an excavator.

Character developments and interactions

• A Jiu shows gratitude, resolve, and respect for his master’s principles. He and A Hua quickly accept Liu Shuyue as their teacher, while A Jiu’s natural talent impresses her.
• A Hua is recovering well and shares her brother’s awe at the Heaven Realm; her spiritual-energy ability is transferred to A Jiu.
• Chen Xuan continues acting as benefactor and guide, while privately connecting the siblings’ account of dimensional passages to his knowledge of erosion points.
• Liu Shuyue has grown less attached to her title and hopes A Jiu may eventually take over, freeing her to focus on Mala Village and her life at the store. Her popularity as a clerk also boosts sales.
• Lin Qing teases Liu Shuyue about A Jiu’s potential and helps reveal her unusual purchase request. Chen Xuan’s surprise at the excavator video ends the chapter on a comic note.

Significant themes

• Trust and reciprocity: A Jiu’s willingness to help Chen Xuan follows from gratitude and his master’s lessons about keeping one’s word.
• Cultivation as character-building: Liu Shuyue emphasizes that power must be matched by moral discipline.
• Worlds beyond the known: The siblings’ knowledge introduces hidden dimensions and raises questions about who controls access to them.
• Community and practical progress: Mala Village’s cultivation boom reflects collective ambition, while Liu Shuyue’s limits highlight the need to balance advancement with everyday life.
• Humor through contrast: Ancient cultivation and interdimensional intrigue sit alongside modern commerce—and Liu Shuyue’s desire for an excavator.

Plot

• Liu Shuyue proposes buying an excavator to help Mala Village expand into the forested mountains. Chen Xuan agrees, noting that it should be easier to purchase than weapons, though transporting it will be difficult. He advises her to have the villagers make more Sweet Jade Clear Pills to sell rather than rely on gemstones.
• The store’s surroundings shift to a meadow and cliffside church. A knight arrives on behalf of Gilles de Rais, who is gravely ill and wants to see Chen Xuan. Chen Xuan leaves Lin Qing and Liu Shuyue at the store and follows him.
• Gilles, now elderly and near death, asks Chen Xuan to hear his confession. He recounts his violence, greed, use of Black Magic, and other crimes, explaining that he hopes to reach heaven and reunite with Joan of Arc.
• Chen Xuan offers him an “indulgence” and solemnly tells him that God forgives him. Gilles dies peacefully, refusing Chen’s offer to summon Joan because he wants her to remember him as the marshal he once was.
• Afterward, Chen Xuan finds the old book containing the Black Magic teachings. Its writing is indecipherable to him, a first for his shopkeeper abilities. He leaves the church as Gilles’s family mourns.

Character developments and interactions

• Liu Shuyue shows practical curiosity about tools from Chen Xuan’s world and thinks ahead about Mala Village’s growth. Chen supports her plan and offers business advice.
• Gilles de Rais is revealed as remorseful and deeply concerned about the consequences of his past. His conversation with Chen gives him the forgiveness and peace he sought.
• Chen Xuan acts compassionately, listening to Gilles despite having no formal role in absolution. His unusual inability to read the Black Magic book raises a new mystery.
• Gilles and Joan of Arc remain emotionally connected: he longs to reunite with her, yet chooses not to let her see his aged, dying state.

Significant themes

• Repentance and forgiveness: Gilles’s confession reflects his attempt to face a violent past and find peace.
• Memory and dignity: He wants Joan to remember him at his strongest rather than witness his decline.
• Faith and mortality: His belief in heaven shapes his final request and provides comfort as he dies.
• Practical progress and cultural exchange: The excavator proposal shows how technology from Chen Xuan’s world could support life in Mala Village.

Plot points and events

• After Gilles de Rais dies, the Ability Store disappears, leaving Chen Xuan unable to return to this place easily. He decides to investigate the seaside cave where Gilles found the book that led him to Black Magic, partly because Liu Shuyue now has that ability.
• A herder directs Chen to the shore. Following a childhood marker bearing Gilles’s initials, Chen finds the cave and discovers a chained wooden door at its rear—something Gilles never mentioned.
• Beyond the door is a small Erosion Point. Chen enters and emerges in a vast, abandoned steel factory, where a sinister altar stands amid bones and dried blood.
• He senses several clusters of spiritual energy high above him, but they do not react. After opening another door, he steps onto a walkway overlooking an enormous, deserted city of rusted steel.
• The city lies beneath yellow-green storm clouds. Lightning flashes silently as snow falls over the lifeless landscape.

Character developments

• Chen Xuan is curious and methodical, but proceeds alone despite recognizing the risks. He uses his abilities to scout carefully and avoids Coin Toss after its frightening, unnatural effect.
• Gilles’s childhood courage is reinforced by the dangerous coastal marker he placed at age ten. His claim that the book and Black Magic changed him also remains a concern for Chen.

Character interactions

• Chen briefly asks a local herder for directions, then explores without companions.
• Though absent, Gilles shapes the investigation through his account of the cave and the mystery of the book. Chen’s concern also extends to Liu Shuyue, the current holder of Black Magic.

Significant themes

• The lingering cost of power: Chen fears Black Magic may bring its new owner the same destructive consequences Gilles described.
• Uncertainty and discovery: The hidden door, altar, spiritual presences, and unknown city raise more questions than they answer.
• Isolation and decay: The rusting factory and silent, snow-covered city create an atmosphere of abandonment and menace.

Key plot points and events

• Chen Xuan discovers that the strange “snow” outside is dust-like fallout beneath a yellow-green sky, suggesting the abandoned city may be a nuclear wasteland. Worried about radiation, he returns to the sealed room.
• A grotesque centipede creature made of human limbs emerges near the Altar. It demands that Chen Xuan return the book and leave, but attacks when he refuses.
• Chen Xuan’s Thousand Thoughts Swords can cut the creature’s limbs, but its central body is heavily armored. The monster also spits corrosive acid that melts the room’s metal surfaces.
• Chen Xuan combines the Heavenly Thunder Command with a steel pipe, launching it with his energy swords. The lightning-charged strike pierces the creature’s shell and paralyzes it, allowing the swords to destroy its insides.
• As the monster dies, it curses Chen Xuan. Its blood appears to activate the Altar: the candelabras flare, the basin fills and boils, and Chen Xuan feels something enter his chest.
• Chen Xuan recalls himself to the Ability Store, but the sensation remains. A scan reveals two abilities have changed, including a new curse, “Flesh Thirst,” and “Fission and Fusion.” He stores the curse, immediately ending the burning, compulsive feeling.

Character developments

• Chen Xuan remains observant and cautious, quickly interpreting the strange snowfall as possible radioactive fallout and recognizing that the creature’s slime is acid.
• He shows confidence under pressure, using his abilities creatively rather than relying on retreat. His improvised thunder-and-pipe attack demonstrates adaptability and tactical ingenuity.
• The monster’s dying curse leaves Chen Xuan with a dangerous new ability, but he discovers he can suppress its effects by storing it in the Ability Store.

Significant themes

• Survival through observation and ingenuity: Chen Xuan’s careful assessment of the environment and inventive combat strategy help him overcome a physically stronger enemy.
• The cost of power: The Altar and the creature’s curse suggest that abilities can be imposed or transformed, carrying disturbing consequences.
• Humanity and grotesque transformation: The monster’s fused human parts and its promise of “fusion” make bodily corruption a central horror.
• Uncertainty and contamination: The possible fallout outside and the curse inside Chen Xuan create threats that are difficult to identify or control.

Character interactions

• The creature speaks to Chen Xuan in a chorus of voices, demands the book’s return, and attacks when he refuses; their exchange reveals that it guards the Altar and sees resistance as rejecting “fusion.”
• Chen Xuan answers the creature’s threats with calculated resistance, ultimately killing it. Its final curse triggers the change in his abilities, leaving the Altar’s influence unresolved even after he escapes.

Key plot points

• Chen Xuan discovers that Fission and Fusion, an ability he acquired in a collapsing world, is marked “Forbidden.” He also finds that two other unusual abilities—Black Magic and Coin Toss—seem to belong to the same mysterious series.
• He tells Lin Qing about his experience with the doomed world and questions whether the organization’s account of how worlds erode one another is complete. Their discussion touches on the limits of the organization’s knowledge and its scarce ability to measure Gravitational Fluctuations.
• Chen Xuan tests Fission and Fusion by merging a grasshopper with a twig. The creature survives, but the result is grotesque. The ability can fuse any living target with another object, at a cost drawn from Chen Xuan’s own body; the cost rises with the target’s size. He speculates it might be useful for treating cancer, though its restrictions prevent others from using it through a trade.
• A week after settling in Chang’an, Chen Xuan receives a visit from Xu Yuanqing and Immortal Alliance officials. Xu explains that founding a recognized sect requires an application, which Chen Xuan had not submitted. The chapter ends when Chen names his sect “Heaven Above, Earth Below, I Alone Am Supreme,” leaving the visitors stunned.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Xuan remains curious and pragmatic, probing the rules behind strange abilities and worlds. He is also aware of Fission and Fusion’s disturbing potential and considers both its dangers and possible medical uses.
• Lin Qing is thoughtful about the fate of worlds, but reacts with disgust and concern to the ability’s effects. She warns Chen Xuan to use it carefully and checks that its cost has not harmed him.
• Xu Yuanqing takes an active, almost impatient interest in Chen Xuan’s sect plans, bringing registration officials directly to his manor. Hong Li explains the formal process and accommodates the application on the spot.

Significant themes

• Vastness and uncertainty: Countless worlds may exist or perish beyond anyone’s knowledge, and the organization’s theories may be incomplete.
• Power and cost: Fission and Fusion offers immense, precise potential, but its bodily price and disturbing effects demand restraint.
• Order versus improvisation: Chen Xuan’s casual approach to founding a sect clashes with the Immortal Alliance’s bureaucracy—and culminates in an audacious name.

Chapter summary

Key events

• Chen Xuan completes the registration of his new sect, the deliberately extravagant Heaven Above, Earth Below, I Alone Reign Sect. The Immortal Alliance provides ten identity plaques, with additional plaques costing ten thousand Jade Coins each.
• Chen Xuan gives Governor Xu Yuanqing several unfamiliar bottles of alcohol as thanks for personally helping with the registration. Xu, an obvious wine enthusiast, is captivated by them and accepts.
• That afternoon, a young cultivator calling herself Lingdang arrives, eager to join. Chen Xuan tests her by ordering her to run three laps around Chang’an. She completes the grueling distance in about four hours, but he claims she was too slow and says she must return the next day.
• Lingdang protests that sects normally test spiritual-energy aptitude with a Six-Reel Instrument. Chen Xuan says his new sect cannot afford one.
• The next day, Grand Historian Hong Li brings Chen Xuan the testing equipment and restorative herbs the sect needs, along with an instruction manual.
• Lingdang returns with an initiation fee and takes the Six-Reel Instrument test. She moves five layers of discs. Chen Xuan declares that she needs six to pass, despite her pointing out that other sects accept three.
• Chen Xuan demonstrates that his standard is real by having A Jiu use the instrument: A Jiu moves six layers and makes a seventh tremble. Lingdang is left stunned.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Xuan continues to improvise eccentric entrance requirements, using humor and apparent lack of resources to make his sect’s recruitment difficult. He is also shrewd about rewarding the governor’s assistance.
• Xu Yuanqing shows his fondness for alcohol and accepts Chen Xuan’s gift, creating a warm, mutually beneficial exchange.
• Lingdang is unusually confident and persistent for a child. She treats joining the sect as an obvious choice, challenges Chen Xuan’s claims, and returns even after his first absurd test. Her reaction to A Jiu’s demonstration suggests that her confidence—or expectations—has been badly shaken.
• Hong Li supports the new sect by supplying practical recruitment tools and instructions. A Jiu’s demonstration gives Chen Xuan’s unusually high standard credibility.

Significant themes

• The chapter contrasts formal cultivation practices with Chen Xuan’s unconventional, physical approach to testing recruits.
• Establishing a sect requires both official recognition and costly practical resources.
• Humor comes from the gap between Lingdang’s bold assumptions and Chen Xuan’s arbitrary-seeming tests, as well as from the sect’s grandiose name and humble beginnings.