Chapter Summaries

Chen Shouyi’s family rented a new home, and his mother worried about where he had gotten his money and weapons, while his father urged him to keep to the law. Later, Chen Shouyi tested the faint powers he retained on Earth and wondered whether he had discovered Sword Qi.

• Chen Shouyi accompanied his parents to rent a house, and Mother Chen negotiated the monthly rent down to one thousand yuan.
• The family spent the day buying necessities, and Chen Shouyi told Mother Chen he had nearly ten thousand yuan and some gold.
• Mother Chen questioned Chen Shouyi about the gold, bow, and sword, and he claimed he had found natural gold and sold some of it.
• Chen Dawei stopped Mother Chen’s questioning and told Chen Shouyi not to do anything illegal.
• Chen Shouyi tested his faint atmospheric power with a candle, then used his sword near tofu and found a deep, narrow cut that might have been Sword Qi.

Chen Shouyi tested a new mental power, then spent several days fishing while watching for suspicious people connected to the highway killings. He learned that someone had been asking about the burned car and realized cultists were searching for the mysterious martial artist, leaving him uneasy.

• Chen Shouyi discovered that his sword could cut through a candle, paper, and chopsticks with a force that drained his mind.
• Chen Shouyi disguised himself and went fishing near the burned car, keeping watch for suspicious people.
• Chen Shouyi read a report about the highway killings and learned from the farmstay owner's son that someone had asked about the car.
• Chen Shouyi concluded that cultists were searching for the martial artist involved in the killings and left the fishing spot early.
• Chen Shouyi returned home with a fish and passed the landlady's daughter, who complained that he had stared at her.

Chen Shouyi calmed Shell Girl’s demand to return to Small Island by giving her a Crystal Ball, then comforted Chen Xingyue and taught her an easier, improved version of the Thirty-Six Body Tempering Forms. The chapter ended with Chen Xingyue agreeing to keep the modified forms secret.

• Shell Girl grew angry when Chen Shouyi said they would not go to Small Island for at least ten days, and he distracted her with a Crystal Ball.
• Shell Girl mistook the Snow White figure inside the Crystal Ball for a real creature and hid in terror until Chen Shouyi broke the ball and showed her the doll.
• Chen Shouyi heard Chen Xingyue training and visited her, where she admitted she felt too weak to help anyone.
• Chen Shouyi demonstrated a simpler improved version of the Thirty-Six Body Tempering Forms and taught Chen Xingyue its first form.
• Chen Shouyi warned Chen Xingyue to keep the modified forms secret, and she agreed.

Chen Shouyi reported a Space Channel in Dongning City and spent ten days training as conditions improved. After Ningzhou announced a Martial Apprentice examination, he left for the city and ended up traveling alongside Zhou Xue, a proud young examinee.

• Chen Shouyi reported the hidden Space Channel to the Changmen Town Police Station and hung up before registering his information.
• Over ten peaceful days of training, Chen Shouyi raised his attributes and grew confident he could defeat the man in black.
• Chen Shouyi learned that power had returned to Ningzhou and that a Martial Apprentice examination would be held in two days, then told his parents he planned to take it.
• Chen Shouyi's parents and Chen Xingyue saw him off, and the landlady revealed that her daughter Zhou Xue was also traveling to the examination.
• Chen Shouyi and Zhou Xue met at the bus stop, exchanged brief introductions, and boarded the bus, where Zhou Xue objected to him sitting beside her.

Chen Shouyi and Zhou Xue traveled to Ningzhou for the Martial Arts Assessment, where they encountered signs that electricity shortages were pushing factories back toward steam power. After a tense search for affordable lodging, they checked into a hotel, with Zhou Xue firmly denying that they were a couple.

• Chen Shouyi watched Ningzhou's smoke-belching factories and worried that civilization was declining as electricity became scarce.
• Chen Shouyi and Zhou Xue shared a taxi to the Martial Arts Assessment Center, where the driver said the assessment requirements might be lowered.
• Chen Shouyi paid the expensive fare, and Zhou Xue demanded her share and carefully counted how much he still owed her.
• Chen Shouyi offered to pay for Zhou Xue's hotel, but she reacted coldly, and he apologized after realizing he had upset her.
• Chen Shouyi and Zhou Xue eventually found an affordable hotel, where Zhou Xue denied being Chen Shouyi's girlfriend and booked a single room.

Chen Shouyi settled into his room in Ningzhou, read news about escalating crises, and learned that investigators suspected the victims of a highway murder were cultists. After giving Shell Girl her Crystal Ball, he played her favorite cartoon, leaving her quietly watching it.

• Chen Shouyi found that the television had no signal but used the computer to read news about national security, global unrest, and cult activity.
• Chen Shouyi invited Zhou Xue to lunch, but she said she had already eaten, so he went to a nearby buffet alone.
• A Ningzhou investigator reported that the highway murder victims were martial artists with no known links, and his superior ordered their families taken into custody while dismissing the search for another Martial Artist.
• Chen Shouyi returned to his room, checked for surveillance devices, and gave Shell Girl the Crystal Ball.
• Shell Girl recognized the computer screen as a chance to watch Beiqi, so Chen Shouyi opened the cartoon and found her sitting quietly on the bed.

Chen Shouyi refined his swordsmanship and went with Zhou Xue to take the martial arts assessment. The crowded assessment was moved to a concealed Space Channel at a military site, and Chen Shouyi followed the examiners inside.

• Chen Shouyi absorbed the black-clad man's combat experience and raised his swordsmanship to Proficient (18).
• Chen Shouyi and Zhou Xue ate breakfast together before heading to the Martial Arts Assessment Center.
• An examiner announced that the assessment had been moved because of the large crowd, and the examinees boarded buses.
• The buses carried Chen Shouyi and the examinees through a military checkpoint to a massive cave containing a concealed Space Channel.
• A little over ten examinees withdrew after hearing that the assessment would take place inside the Space Channel, while Chen Shouyi and Zhou Xue stayed.

Chen Shouyi waited to take the revised Martial Apprentice exam, which sent examinees through a heavily fortified passageway into the otherworld to hunt aggressive seabirds. After seeing the first batch return with injuries but no deaths, he entered the next batch with Zhou Xue.

• The examiners led the candidates through a fortified cave and announced that they would enter the otherworld in batches, armed with real bows and cold weapons.
• Chen Shouyi learned that the exam now required candidates to hunt one highly aggressive seabird on a small island, and that killing one would be enough to pass.
• The first examinees returned with injuries, and five Martial Apprentices were carried out with broken legs, but no one had died.
• The examiners warned candidates that the exam was risky, but no one withdrew.
• Chen Shouyi joined the second batch and followed Zhou Xue toward the passageway.

Chen Shouyi joined the Otherworld survival test and tried to hide his strength, but his skill became obvious when he killed attacking gray birds. He helped Zhou Xue survive her turn, and the examiner let her pass despite warning that Chen Shouyi’s intervention counted as cheating.

• Chen Shouyi entered the Otherworld, collected weapons, and joined an examiner’s group heading to a beach where aggressive gray birds tested the candidates.
• Chen Shouyi passed the first round by shooting a bird, then cut another attacking bird in half with his Long Sword, revealing his speed to the examiner.
• Several candidates failed in later rounds, while Zhou Xue hesitated before taking her turn and then missed her shot, drawing two birds toward her.
• Chen Shouyi shot one bird to draw it away from Zhou Xue, then killed it with a second arrow as Zhou Xue pierced the other bird with her sword.
• The examiner told Chen Shouyi that his help counted as cheating, but allowed Zhou Xue to pass because she had killed a bird herself.

After earning his Martial Apprentice certificate, Chen Shouyi left for Hedong and encountered a mysterious young man on the train who seemed to be an otherworldly powerhouse. The man escaped surveillance by leaping from the elevated bridge, leaving Chen Shouyi shaken and uncertain about what he had witnessed.

• Chen Shouyi and Zhou Xue returned to the Martial Arts Assessment Center, where they completed the procedures and received their certificates.
• Chen Shouyi told Zhou Xue he would travel to Hedong to reassure his parents, then left for the high-speed rail station.
• Chen Shouyi found a young man in his train seat and learned that the stranger recognized the Common Tongue and sensed his strength.
• The young man spoke of an approaching war and made the train attendant and railway police pass by without noticing him.
• The young man shattered the carriage window and disappeared by leaping from the elevated bridge, while Chen Shouyi watched from the train.

Chen Shouyi survived a terrifying encounter with a mysterious young man aboard the train, then answered railway police questions about the broken window. He arrived in Hedong City and headed for the Martial Arts Assessment Center, learning that smaller cities might wait years for electricity.

• A mysterious young man vanished after shattering the train window, leaving Chen Shouyi shaken and relieved to have escaped death.
• Chen Shouyi pushed through the crowd and confronted a bespectacled passenger who accused him of breaking the window.
• Railway police showed the passengers surveillance footage of the mysterious man and questioned Chen Shouyi about his encounter with him.
• Chen Shouyi got off at Hedong High-speed Rail West Station and took a taxi to the Martial Arts Assessment Center.
• Chen Shouyi learned from the taxi driver that Hedong had regained electricity five days earlier and that smaller cities could wait years for power.

After a dangerous encounter with a mysterious presence in his Memory Space, Chen Shouyi went to register for the martial arts assessment in Hedong City. He proved his strength to a skeptical staff member and successfully proceeded with registration.

• Chen Shouyi entered the train scene in his Memory Space and was violently thrown out when a mysterious presence seemed to notice him.
• He returned to the scene and found the mysterious man replaced by a dim shadow that he could neither see clearly nor remember.
• The next morning, Chen Shouyi arrived at the Hedong City Martial Arts Assessment Center to register for the assessment.
• A staff member questioned whether Chen Shouyi was ready to take the assessment because he had received his Martial Apprentice certificate only the day before.
• Chen Shouyi demonstrated the Forward Lunge Stab, accidentally wrecking a coffee table, and the staff member agreed to register him.

Chen Shouyi searched for somewhere quiet to practice swordsmanship and found an abandoned house in a downtown alley. After training there, he learned from an elderly woman that the house was supposedly haunted.

• Chen Shouyi completed the procedures for his martial artist assessment, scheduled his physical test for the next morning, and bought a practice sword.
• Chen Shouyi realized he needed a quiet place to practice and found an abandoned house in a narrow alley.
• Chen Shouyi jumped into the overgrown courtyard and practiced swordsmanship at high speed.
• An elderly woman warned Chen Shouyi that the house was haunted and asked whether he valued his life.
• Chen Shouyi told the woman he was not afraid of ghosts.

Chen Shouyi investigated a supposedly haunted house but found no sign of a Space Channel. At a martial artist examination center the next morning, he learned that a heretical cult blood sacrifice in Dongning City had killed more than a hundred people, leaving him worried about everyone he knew there.

• Chen Shouyi heard an old woman recount how a maid had died in the house and how its later residents had become ill and died.
• Chen Shouyi searched the abandoned house, found no trace of a Space Channel, and left after feeling an oppressive chill inside.
• Chen Shouyi practiced his sword in the yard and returned to his hotel.
• Chen Shouyi arrived at the martial artist examination section and heard applicants discuss training rooms connected to the Other World.
• A middle-aged man told Chen Shouyi that a heretical cult blood sacrifice had killed more than a hundred people in Dongning City, which was now under lockdown.
• Chen Shouyi worried about his uncle's family, classmates, friends, and Zhang Xiaoxiao in Dongning City.

Chen Shouyi took the Martial Artist assessment in Hedong City and easily surpassed the standards in every test. He passed the first round and was told to attend the practical assessment in five days.

• Three Martial Arts Notary staff arrived and led the applicants into the testing hall.
• A notary questioned Chen Shouyi's eligibility because he had passed the Martial Apprentice test only two days earlier, but the director allowed him to try.
• Chen Shouyi punched at 385 meters per second, far exceeding the passing standard, and the notary apologized for misjudging him.
• Chen Shouyi passed the running and Stab Small Balls tests with ease, then passed the strength test.
• The assessment ended with only twenty percent of applicants passing, and the notaries announced that the practical assessment would take place in five days.

After passing the physical assessment, Chen Shouyi learned about Divine Blood and the costs of advancing as a martial artist while dining with Lu Weifeng and Wei Chenghao. He checked official news and searched for information about the haunted house at 18 Shigang Lane, but the account he found had been deleted.

• Chen Shouyi met Lu Weifeng and Wei Chenghao at their hotel and agreed to have dinner with them.
• Wei Chenghao said he planned to move his family to Hedong City, and Lu Weifeng explained that martial artists could receive a settlement allowance but faced high costs for housing, equipment, and Divine Blood.
• Chen Shouyi learned that Divine Blood was cellular fluid extracted from cultivated remains of deities who had fallen on Earth.
• Lu Weifeng paid for the meal and suggested they go relax, but Chen Shouyi and Wei Chenghao declined.
• Chen Shouyi confirmed that his name topped the physical assessment pass list and read about martial law and investigations in Dongning City.
• Chen Shouyi searched for 18 Shigang Lane and found a former owner's account describing a haunted house, but the post had been deleted.

Chen Shouyi continued practicing swordsmanship before joining Lu Weifeng for the martial artist practical assessment. On the bus to passageway 10233, the head of the Jiangnan Province Martial Arts Notary and Discipline Supervision Department tried to recruit him to stay in Hedong City by offering special relocation assistance.

• Chen Shouyi practiced at the haunted house for five days, and his strength, perception, and will each increased by 0.1.
• Lu Weifeng arrived early, and Chen Shouyi went with him to the Martial Artist Club for the practical assessment.
• Chen Shouyi overheard other candidates discussing his reputation and spoke with the Bald Man while they waited.
• A notary announced that the candidates would take their assessment at passageway 10233 in the suburbs of Hedong City.
• The head of the notary office asked Chen Shouyi about his plans and offered special relocation assistance to persuade him to remain in Hedong City.

Chen Shouyi weighed whether to join the Martial Arts Certification and Discipline Supervision Department or return to Dongning City, then joined a practical assessment in a Space Channel. The group reached a barbarian tribe ruled by a sleeping giant, and their assessment began as they prepared to attack.

• Chen Shouyi hesitated over his future and considered the safety of bringing his family to Hedong City rather than returning to Dongning City.
• A notary explained that the tribe near Space Channel No. 10233 had enslaved villagers and fed them to a giant, and the examinees were tasked with wiping out the tribe and killing it.
• Director Fang and the examinees arrived at the military position guarding the channel, then entered the other world.
• Director Fang told the group that their practical assessment had begun and that they would have to act on their own unless they faced danger.
• Chen Shouyi and the group reached a primitive barbarian camp and spotted a sleeping black-and-yellow giant surrounded by bones and excrement.

Chen Shouyi and the other martial artist candidates attacked a sleeping giant, but their arrows barely wounded it and it charged at Chen Shouyi. Director Fang struck the giant in the eye with an arrow, and it collapsed as the chapter ended.

• The group agreed to kill the sleeping giant and crept toward it through the weeds.
• Chen Shouyi urged the group to get within range, and the horse-faced middle-aged man coordinated a simultaneous volley.
• The candidates' arrows failed to penetrate the giant's defenses, and it awoke, healed its wounds, and threatened to eat them.
• The giant charged at Chen Shouyi after he shot another arrow and prepared to make a last stand.
• Director Fang shot an arrow into the giant's eye socket, causing it to stagger and crash to the ground.

Chen Shouyi and the other examinees killed the giant and then slaughtered the barbarian tribe that came to investigate. Director Fang announced that twelve candidates, including Chen Shouyi, had passed the examination and become martial artists.

• Director Fang shot the giant in the eye, but it rose again before collapsing, so Chen Shouyi and the others attacked until it died.
• Chen Shouyi hacked off the giant’s head, and Director Fang warned the group that some extraordinary creatures’ blood was dangerous.
• Three barbarians came to investigate, and the examinees killed them before pursuing and slaughtering the tribe.
• The group returned in silence after confronting the deaths of the tribe’s members, including children and infants.
• Director Fang warned the examinees to stay alert and announced that twelve candidates, including Chen Shouyi, had passed and become martial artists.