Chapter Summaries

Du Bin brought eight household-born youths to Wang Qi’s estate so Wang Qi could use them for empirical tests, while Du Zhong challenged Wang Qi’s methods and intentions. Wang Qi provoked Du Zhong into a duel using only ancient methods, and the two began their one-move contest.

• Du Bin bought an estate in Divine Capital and brought eight Qi Refining youths there the next day, accompanied by the Golden Core cultivator Du Zhong.
• Du Zhong warned Du Bin that Wang Qi might be using Modern Dharma methods, but Du Bin trusted Wang Qi and showed him a mark that did not carry Outer Dao aura.
• Wang Qi arrived and accepted the eight youths for testing after Du Bin made him promise not to endanger their lives.
• Du Zhong’s scrutiny angered Wang Qi, who challenged him to compete using only ancient methods and demanded that Du Zhong become his subordinate if he lost.
• Du Zhong accepted the terms, and the two began their duel as Du Zhong unleashed spiritual power and Wang Qi drew his sword.

Wang Qi defeated Du Zhong with a sword strike that appeared to be the Innate Killing Fate Great Dao, then prepared a courtyard as a base for an experiment. He divided eight people into separate groups and left the chapter ready to begin his work.

• Wang Qi struck Du Zhong with a sword that seemed to embody the Innate Killing Fate Great Dao, leaving black Sword Qi in his wound and causing him to collapse.
• Wang Qi told Du Bin to have Du Zhong examined and to find the other eight people he needed.
• Wang Qi explained to Zhen Chanzi that he had imitated Hu Buxue's technique by combining the Tian Shang Jue with suggestion arts.
• Wang Qi considered how the Five Virtues of the Primordial might inform his Human Dao cultivation.
• Wang Qi inspected the eight-courtyard compound Du Bin had arranged and used his mana and Tian Ge Xing to build walls dividing it into three sections.
• Wang Qi ordered Du Bin to split the eight people into eastern and western groups and keep them apart unless summoned.

Wang Qi gave eight youths experimental external Foundation Bases, greatly increasing their spiritual power and granting them new abilities. He then ordered them to learn Holy Light, but Du Bin recognized the accompanying chants as the Holy Infant Sect’s Three Great Benedictions.

• Wang Qi distributed twenty-four Memory Units and had eight youths sign contracts before implanting their chosen Foundation Bases.
• Du Bin supplied Wang Qi with a box of Innate Divine Runes and explained how such items circulated among the Divine Capital’s noble scions.
• After recovering from the implantations, the eight youths demonstrated their new abilities as Wang Qi described each Foundation Base.
• Wang Qi restored the four youths’ energy with simulated Holy Light and gave them booklets to study.
• Du Bin read the booklet’s opening lines, recognized the Three Great Benedictions, and asked whether Wang Qi had gone mad.

Wang Qi organized Du Bin’s household servants into the Silver Dawn and Circle Theory groups, using altered divine-path practices to test his ideas about collective power and religious belief. He explained his research goals to Zhen Chanzi and resolved to pursue the project thoroughly.

• Wang Qi assured Du Bin’s four youths that his edited Three Great Benedictions could not connect them to a deity, then established Silver Dawn around Holy Light and obedience.
• Wang Qi taught the western-wing youths to revere reason and circles, naming their collective Circle Theory.
• Du Bin challenged Wang Qi about forming groups that resembled religious sects, and Wang Qi argued that his rhetoric opposed the divine path and asked Du Bin to have his steward supervise him.
• Wang Qi asked Du Bin to relay a message to the Transcendent Immortals: “Having already learned to serve people, why ask about serving ghosts and gods?”
• Wang Qi told Zhen Chanzi that he wanted to study cultivation methods, the divine path, collective power, and the force linking priests and believers.

Wang Qi organized a trove of Innate Divine Runes and continued developing an empirical research project that Chen Youjia warned might cross a line. After half a month of preparation, Chen Feng came to confront him with a bill.

• Wang Qi asked Chen Feng’s experimenters to sort nearly ten thousand Innate Divine Runes and said he had extorted them from a Divine Capital noble.
• Li Zhengguo discussed the rarity and value of dragon runes with Wang Qi, who said only dragon runes could increase his combat strength.
• Chen Youjia warned Wang Qi that his empirical research was dangerous and urged him to tell Chen Feng because he was using Chen Feng’s name.
• Wang Qi said he would wait until he had preliminary results before drawing Chen Feng into the project, then refined his plan and searched for research materials and equipment.
• For half a month, Wang Qi visited the courtyard daily, keeping the Circle Theory and Silver Dawn groups separate and reading them his written statements.
• Chen Feng arrived at Wang Qi’s door carrying a bill and knocked.

Wang Qi explained that he had built a mathematical model to help Jarvis infer human mental states from bodily and brain activity. He then showed Chen Feng that he was using his instruments to monitor two groups of four youths as part of his research into the divine path.

• Chen Feng confronted Wang Qi over a bill for monitoring instruments, and Jarvis explained the purchases and the contract terms.
• Chen Feng entered Wang Qi’s room and found him surrounded by complex mathematical projections.
• Wang Qi described his model for using physical indicators to classify human emotions and teach Jarvis to interpret people’s mental states.
• Chen Feng asked why Wang Qi needed the model, and Wang Qi said it was for his next step.
• Wang Qi showed Chen Feng screens monitoring two groups of four youths and presented his research into the divine path.

Wang Qi explained his mathematical model of the divine path to Chen Feng, describing how doctrines could be classified and how belief could spread through social interactions. He began setting up a cellular automaton simulation, but Chen Feng asked him to stop.

• Chen Feng praised the idea of treating the divine path as a social system, then questioned how it could be modeled and how religious doctrines could be judged.
• Wang Qi proposed evaluating doctrines through a series of questions and representing religions as points in a twenty-three-dimensional phase space.
• Chen Feng objected to the phase space’s 8,388,608 boundaries, while Wang Qi defended the model and said he could add more variables as needed.
• Wang Qi described belief as a dynamic game among gods, believers, and nonbelievers, explaining how benefits and spiritual comfort could deepen a believer’s devotion.
• Wang Qi asked Jarvis to build a three-dimensional cellular automaton of believers and nonbelievers, but Chen Feng hurriedly asked him to withdraw his divine powers.

Wang Qi showed Chen Feng models for analyzing how Divine Dao sects evolved and explained their limitations. He then proposed distributing Human Dao’s spiritual energy among everyone so all people could cultivate immortality.

• Wang Qi used a Cellular Automaton to simulate how believers’ choices could strengthen or destroy a Divine Dao sect, while Chen Feng asked whether the model could be made more precise.
• Wang Qi explained that his doctrine model and sect simulation were incomplete and studied only individual Divine Dao sects, but Chen Feng saw how the approach might later extend to the wider Human Dao.
• Chen Feng accused Wang Qi of violating the interests and consent of the eight people serving as experimental subjects, but Wang Qi argued that his work broke no serious Immortal Alliance laws and would improve their cultivation.
• Wang Qi invited Chen Feng to join his undertaking and suggested turning Human Dao’s spiritual energy into mana distributed among all people.
• Wang Qi declared that everyone should cultivate immortality and that the world should become one.

Wang Qi explained his plan to end the immortal-mortal divide by granting everyone basic magical power through Human Dao, funded and governed by a social contract. He outlined an ideal state in which immortal officials, military cultivators, and researchers divided the work of governing, defense, and pursuing knowledge, then asked Chen Feng to join.

• Wang Qi argued that spiritual energy and the separation of mortal and cultivator economies had created the immortal-mortal divide.
• Wang Qi proposed using the power of Human Dao to give every person basic magical power and access to the benefits of immortal civilization.
• Wang Qi described a social contract in which people surrendered some of their power to the collective, which the court would distribute as rewards and salaries to officials.
• Wang Qi said a stronger, larger, and more stable society would empower its justice system, military, and government through Human Dao.
• Wang Qi envisioned seekers of Dao conducting research, military cultivators defending the Divine Land, and immortal officials governing it, then asked Chen Feng to join.

Wang Qi persuaded Chen Feng to join his Divine Dao research and explained that morality and self-interest could align through the lasting benefits of continuance. Chen Feng agreed to help review the plan, while Wang Qi revealed that he was monitoring the eight youths for signs of Divine Dao power.

• Wang Qi offered Chen Feng a place in the research, and Chen Feng accepted.
• Chen Feng wrote Wang Qi a recommendation letter, put the research under his own name, and set conditions for protecting the eight youths and telling them the truth.
• Wang Qi explained his view that benefit and righteousness aligned, describing the continuance of bloodline, spirit, and species as three forms of immortality.
• Wang Qi asked Chen Feng to examine his empirical plan and doctrines for flaws and effects on human behavior.
• Wang Qi told Chen Feng that special sensing units in the eight youths’ Memory Bodies monitored their spiritual power for signs of Divine Dao or other unusual reactions.

Wang Qi monitored the youths in his Divine Dao experiment and used a false personality to preach Circle Theory to them. He continued cultivating a scientific sect while waiting for Du Bin to return.

• Wang Qi lamented that Du Bin had not visited during the half month since the experiment began, while Zhen Chanzi explained why Du Bin feared the risks.
• Wang Qi reviewed Jarvis's surveillance records, which showed no clear changes in the spiritual energy or power affecting the youths.
• Wang Qi activated a false personality and went to the Circle Theory group to inspect its symbolic circle and question the four youths.
• The four youths recited Circle Theory and its meaningless rallying cry, "Homu," to Wang Qi.
• Wang Qi preached that people must experience the world's events through the spirit, as he shaped the youths into followers of his scientific sect.

Wang Qi preached the Holy Light to the Silver Dawn, then met Zhao Qingfeng to discuss the divine path and the ancient cultivation methods. He proposed that the Five Virtues of the Primordial were hidden within the divine path, and identified them as processes for establishing order.

• Wang Qi used a pseudo-personality to preach the Holy Light and the Spiral Stairway to the Silver Dawn while his true consciousness laughed at the performance.
• Wang Qi noticed a spiritual-energy fluctuation during his sermon and suspected the Silver Dawn had made progress.
• Du Bin appeared and led Wang Qi to Zhao Qingfeng after confirming that Wang Qi had delivered the message.
• Zhao Qingfeng challenged Wang Qi about serving others and the divine path being an Outer Dao, and Wang Qi answered by invoking his Mount Luofu Mystic Clarity Palace inheritance.
• Wang Qi compared the Five Primordial States with the Five Virtues in the Emperor-Grade World-Shaking Scripture and proposed that the Five Virtues were concealed in the divine path.

Wang Qi explored how the Five Primordial States and Five Virtues related to the Divine Dao, then received ancient cultivation methods from Zhao Qingfeng. The chapter ended with Li Zhengguo questioning whether Wang Qi had truly obtained three unrecognized Dragon Clan Innate Divine Runes from Divine Capital nobles.

• Wang Qi reasoned that the Five Primordial States and Five Virtues represented forms of increasing and decreasing entropy, and connected the Divine Dao to establishing order.
• Zhao Qingfeng explained how ancient sects embodied Moral Virtue and Sacred Virtue, then described the Holy Infant God and Ketu’s role in completing the Holy Infant Sect’s Five Virtues.
• Wang Qi asked for simpler Five Virtues cultivation methods, and Zhao Qingfeng gave him over twenty jade slips from the Immortal Path Burning Books Outline in exchange for studying Wang Qi’s new method.
• Zhen Chanzi recognized most of the cultivation methods in the jade slips and lamented that Mount Luofu Mystic Clarity Palace had overlooked their connection to the Five Virtues.
• Li Zhengguo told Wang Qi that three Innate Divine Runes from the box could not be identified with certainty and questioned whether he had received them from Divine Capital nobles.

Chen Feng identified Wang Qi’s three Innate Divine Runes as rare core abilities of the dragon race, and he delivered the memory-reading Ghost Soldier Wang Qi named White Snake. Wang Qi then summoned White Snake for experiments and planned to use Du Zhong’s resentment in research into the Five Elements of the Primordial, Killing Fortune, or Calamity Fortune.

• Chen Feng identified Wang Qi’s three runes as the dragon race’s Dragon Force, Dragon Attack, and Dragon Defense, and the group questioned how they had ended up as collectibles.
• Chen Feng gave Wang Qi a Soul Steel card containing a Ghost Soldier with memory-related abilities, and Wang Qi named it White Snake.
• Du Zhong arrived at Wang Qi’s courtyard as required by the wager, and Wang Qi sent him back to tell Du Bin about his progress in memory technology.
• Wang Qi told Zhen Chanzi that Du Zhong’s resentment might help him study how to destroy order and investigate the Five Elements of the Primordial, Killing Fortune, or Calamity Fortune.
• Wang Qi transformed into Father Wang Qi, summoned White Snake, and headed to Silver Dawn to begin his experiments.

Wang Qi presented Du Bin with improved memory units and used White Snake to secretly copy Du Bin’s memories while distracting him. Half a year later, Wang Qi was encouraging a young man whose devotion to Circle Theory had grown into worship.

• Wang Qi showed Du Bin the low-cost commercial memory units and warned him to test them on retainers rather than himself.
• Wang Qi distracted Du Bin by asking about the Innate Divine Runes while White Snake secretly touched Du Bin’s soul and copied his memories.
• Wang Qi showed Du Bin new divine ability coins that resolved conflicts between different elemental alignments, then left to continue his research.
• Afterward, Wang Qi reviewed the copied memories and wondered whether the three Dragon Runes in Du Bin’s box had been planted by someone else or were a coincidence.
• Half a year later, Wang Qi praised a young man for his devoted beliefs about Circle Theory and implanted a divine ability coin in him as a reward.

Over six months, Wang Qi used Ghost Soldier White Snake and implanted memory modules to reshape Circle Theory’s youths, strengthen them, and collect spiritual-energy data. As his research suggested that impersonal gods could be constructed, he headed to Silver Dawn to investigate a sign of a god’s birth.

• Wang Qi had White Snake extract and copy the youths’ memories, steering their debates into Circle Theory’s creed of negation and doubt.
• Wang Qi reported that he had distributed hundreds of coins and artificial Foundation Bases, while the eight youths of Circle Theory and Silver Dawn grew into late-stage Qi Refinement cultivators.
• Wang Qi observed that spiritual energy around the research room had risen by one percent and concluded that impersonal gods might be constructed.
• Wang Qi compared Circle Theory and Silver Dawn’s spiritual-energy data and detected fleeting order within Silver Dawn’s sphere of activity.
• Wang Qi transformed into Father Wang Qi and went with White Snake to Silver Dawn, where he found four youths meditating amid negative-entropy light.

Half a year after beginning to cultivate and study human behavior, Wang Qi used his advanced calculations to analyze the four Silver Dawn youths as Du De chanted on a platform. His work let him sense an unseen entity stirring nearby, leaving the story poised for its appearance.

• Du De chanted poetry while Wang Qi sat with the other three youths, and White Snake implanted Du De's thoughts into their minds.
• The four youths feared that they had displeased Wang Qi, while he reflected on how their devotion to the Holy Light concealed shallow beliefs and behavior.
• Wang Qi used his mana, Jarvis, and spiritual-restriction sensors to monitor the youths' bodies, souls, and brains without their knowledge.
• After half a year of cultivation and calculation, Wang Qi reached the Foundation Establishment Middle Stage and advanced his Heavenly Position Skill and behavioral research.
• Wang Qi combined spiritual-field analysis, a cellular automaton, and Wang's Scene Mapping to model the youths and their surroundings.
• Wang Qi sensed an entity stirring in the invisible.

Wang Qi used his theory of the divine path and holy light to create a non-personality god through the discussion of four believers. He trapped the newborn god and captured a fragment as an experimental specimen.

• Wang Qi let four youths discuss freely while their linked thoughts made the spiritual energy field increasingly orderly.
• The four youths released holy light, and their ideas caused the power of the divine path to gather around the cross.
• A non-personality god formed above the cross as spiritual energy transformed into a new kind of power.
• Wang Qi used a spell based on the Five Virtues of the Primordial to restrain the newborn god.
• Wang Qi tore off a piece of the god and captured it as an experimental specimen.

Wang Qi captured holy light in a Tianyi Spirit Jade and brought it to Chen Feng for testing. The tests showed that even tiny fragments could transform souls, while a mysterious connection to the newborn Holy Light God continued to threaten Wang Qi.

• Wang Qi trapped the newborn Holy Light God inside a cross and stored a sample of its holy light in a Tianyi Spirit Jade.
• Wang Qi detected a spiritual thread linking him to the Holy Light God and used his defenses to weaken it as he left the experimental courtyard.
• Wang Qi delivered the divinized jade to Chen Feng, who divided it into portions for analysis and further experiments.
• Chen Feng tested fragments of the jade on white mouse souls and found that even tiny particles transformed them with the characteristics of holy light.
• Chen Feng warned Wang Qi that his caution may have saved his life, as they questioned whether the being was a god or a Demonic Beast.

Wang Qi and Chen Feng studied how the Holy Light God transformed souls, then prepared new experiments involving believers and memory bodies. Wang Qi recruited Du Gui as another subject, implanting a Holy Light Technique and scripture while presenting the intervention as a divine gift.

• Wang Qi and Chen Feng recorded that Holy Light transformed souls without strengthening their abilities, affected mice faster than pigs, and stopped transforming souls after an unknown threshold.
• Wang Qi asked Chen Youjia to optimize memory-body designs and arranged for a piece of Heavenly Will Spirit Jade to be analyzed in Leiyang.
• Wang Qi observed that the Holy Light God’s connection to seven transformed souls intensified after Silver Dawn’s four believers accepted them as angels.
• Chen Feng sent Li Zhengguo from Shenjing City to hunt demon beasts for comparative experiments.
• Wang Qi and Du Bin went to the Du Family estate, where Wang Qi chose the skilled but disloyal Du Gui as a test subject.
• Wang Qi used an illusion and the Ghost Soldier White Snake to implant information in Du Gui’s mind, then gave him a Holy Light Technique and scripture.