Chapter Summaries

Chapter Summary: “Time Tower”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Li Wen speaks with Lauen Make, who explains that Master 9-Star is considered the strongest participant in their group and one of the top Venerable Realm experts in the Molo Intermediate Empire.
• Lauen reveals that he is a Six-Star Master, while Li Wen claims to be only a Five-Star Blazing Sun. Lauen is shocked because Source Network normally requires entrants to be near Master level.
• Li Wen clarifies that he has only spent about a day in the Limit Martial Arena and has not yet had time to raise his displayed rank. Lauen realizes that Li Wen’s rapid progress indicates Master-level potential.
• Lauen explains the importance of the year-long Source Network trial. Rankings are calculated monthly, and higher rankings earn greater access to rare cultivation resources in the following month.
• The most valuable resource is the Time Tower, a cosmic wonder that accelerates time with minimal side effects. It can allow years or centuries of cultivation to pass internally while only days or a year pass outside.
• Other powerful resources include:
  • The Soul Origin Tower, which strengthens the soul’s origin.
  • The Star Marrow Chamber, which improves the structure of bodily particles.
  • The Myriad Phenomena Secret Realm, which tempers willpower, comprehension, and law insights through simulated extreme environments.
• Lauen emphasizes that the first-month ranking is crucial. Everyone receives equal resources initially, but subsequent allocations—especially Time Tower access—depend on the first ranking.
• After Lauen leaves, Li Wen reevaluates the trial. He had initially planned merely to familiarize himself with the universe and improve gradually, but now decides that obtaining a high ranking is essential.
• Li Wen enters the Virtual Universe and begins a relentless series of Limit Martial Arena matches to raise his Martial Artist rank.
• He maintains a perfect win rate, defeating opponents from low-star to high-star Transcendent ranks with effortless, instant saber strikes.
• After dozens of battles, Li Wen advances from Blazing Sun to One-Star Transcendent.
• His promotion causes the matchmaking system to pair him with a One-Star Master, a powerful lava-skinned Venerable from another race. The opponent is surprised by Li Wen’s apparently low rank and begins checking his record.

Character Developments

• Li Wen becomes strongly motivated by the Time Tower’s potential. Because he has exceptional comprehension but relatively little cultivation time, accelerated time is perfectly suited to his needs.
• He shifts from a passive approach to the trial to a determined strategy focused on achieving the highest possible ranking.
• His combat ability is shown to be far above his displayed rank. He effortlessly defeats Transcendent-level opponents and is prepared to challenge Masters.
• Lauen Make is established as a knowledgeable and relatively strong participant at Six-Star Master. He initially doubts Li Wen’s stated rank but quickly recognizes his extraordinary talent and treats him with greater respect.
• Lauen also acts as Li Wen’s guide, explaining the training base, its ranking system, and the value of its resources.

Significant Themes

• The value of time: Time is presented as Li Wen’s greatest limitation, making the Time Tower an invaluable opportunity.
• Competition and advancement: The ranking system creates intense pressure, since early success leads to greater resources and a widening advantage.
• Hidden potential versus visible rank: Li Wen’s official rank severely understates his true strength, emphasizing the danger of judging cultivators solely by their current displayed level.
• Rare opportunities: The Source Network trial offers resources unavailable even to the imperial family of an Intermediate Empire, making the year-long program a once-in-a-lifetime chance for transformation.
• Accumulation and experience: Even a powerful cultivator needs time, combat experience, and repeated refinement to reach greater heights.

Character Interactions

• Lauen and Li Wen begin with a formal exchange of ranks, but Lauen’s disbelief over Li Wen’s Five-Star Blazing Sun rank leads to clarification and mutual understanding.
• Lauen’s explanation of the Time Tower changes Li Wen’s entire perspective on the trial.
• Their conversation develops from cautious assessment into cooperative discussion, with Lauen sharing valuable information and Li Wen asking focused questions.
• The chapter ends with Li Wen facing a new and much stronger opponent: a One-Star Master who is intrigued by the mismatch between Li Wen’s low displayed rank and his perfect battle record.

Chapter Summary: “Centurion”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Lava Venerable, a Master Rank fighter, is shocked by Li Wen’s perfect win rate and recognizes him as an unusually formidable newcomer to the Limit Martial Arena.
• Their battle begins with Lava Venerable launching a powerful flaming hammer attack. Li Wen counters with a simple blade slash that overwhelms him, demonstrating extraordinary physical strength and condensed Blade Intent.
• Lava Venerable continues fighting rather than surrendering, surrounding Li Wen with countless hammer shadows and forcing their battle to last far longer than Li Wen’s previous matches.
• Li Wen eventually identifies a weakness in Lava Venerable’s defense and kills him with a precise blade strike. The battle earns Li Wen an S-level evaluation.
• For the first time, Li Wen receives Martial Artist class experience from a virtual battle. He realizes that difficult fights against powerful opponents can help advance his class.
• Over the next two hours, Li Wen continues winning increasingly challenging battles against Master Rank opponents. Although his win rate remains perfect, the fights become much more difficult and sometimes last over a minute.
• After defeating a Five-Star Master, Li Wen advances to Four-Star Transcendent and raises his Martial Artist class to Level 7.
• His level-up strengthens his body, True Gang, vitality, and physical power by nearly ten percent. His “Berserk” skill’s enhancement rises from 60% to 70%, and his blade comprehension improves slightly.
• With less than half an hour before the first assembly at the Source Network Training Base, Li Wen leaves the Virtual Universe and joins the other elite reserve members.
• He tells Lauen Make that he has reached Four-Star Transcendent, surprising Lauen with the speed of his advancement and suggesting that Li Wen’s real combat power may already rival Four- or Five-Star Masters.
• The gathering is interrupted by the arrival of a terrifying Fifth-Order Killing Centurion, whose presence and killing intent silence the entire courtyard.
• Lauen explains that the man’s five-story Centurion medal signifies that he has won one thousand consecutive same-realm death matches in the Killing Tower. As a Fifth-Order Star Lord, this means at least one hundred Fifth-Order Star Lords have died by his hand.

Character Developments

Li Wen

Li Wen’s strength, combat experience, and confidence grow rapidly. His fight with Lava Venerable marks his first genuinely challenging battle since reaching Transcendent. He also discovers that high-level combat directly contributes to his Martial Artist class progression. By the end of the chapter, he reaches Four-Star Transcendent, advances to Class Level 7, gains a major physical upgrade, and becomes more confident about the upcoming base trial.

Lava Venerable

Initially proud but cautious, Lava Venerable’s competitive spirit intensifies after Li Wen withstands his opening attack. He fights seriously and demonstrates impressive strength and technique, but ultimately falls to Li Wen after a prolonged battle.

Lauen Make

Lauen acts as Li Wen’s friendly contact and informant. He is impressed by Li Wen’s rapid advancement and provides important information about the Killing Centurion system.

The Killing Centurion

Though he has not yet fought or spoken beyond commanding silence, his arrival establishes him as an extremely dangerous and experienced figure. His medal and aura immediately command fear and respect.

Significant Themes

• Growth through adversity: Li Wen gains meaningful advancement only when battles become difficult, emphasizing that genuine pressure and danger are necessary for breakthroughs.
• Hidden strength and talent: Li Wen’s modest rank disguises combat power far beyond what others expect, while the mysterious Centurion’s medal hints at an even greater level of concealed ability.
• Competition and survival: The reserve members gather in an atmosphere of rivalry, while the Killing Tower represents the most extreme form of competition—victory requires the opponent’s death.
• Strength earned through bloodshed: The Centurion medal symbolizes achievement built upon repeated lethal combat, contrasting with Li Wen’s relatively safe but intense virtual battles.
• Confidence before a greater challenge: Li Wen’s improvements prepare him for the upcoming base trial, while the Centurion’s appearance reminds him that far more formidable figures exist.

Character Interactions

• Li Wen and Lava Venerable: Their exchange is primarily expressed through combat. Lava Venerable forces Li Wen to fight seriously for the first time, while Li Wen ultimately defeats him through superior strength, blade mastery, and tactical awareness.
• Li Wen and Lauen Make: Lauen welcomes Li Wen at the assembly and questions his sudden advancement. Their conversation shows growing familiarity and mutual interest, with Lauen recognizing that Li Wen’s true ability is much greater than his apparent rank.
• Lauen and the gathered reserve members: Through his whispered explanation, Lauen interprets the significance of the Centurion’s medal and reveals the horrifying standards required to earn it.
• The Centurion and the assembly: His killing intent and single command, “Silence,” instantly suppress the crowd, establishing his dominance and creating an atmosphere of fear before the formal training begins.

Chapter Summary: “Bone Age Test”

Key Plot Points and Events

• The chapter opens with an explanation of the Killing Tower’s medal system. A Fifth-Order Thousand Commander medal proves that Instructor Blood Edge has killed more than one hundred Fifth-Order Star Lords—a feat that establishes his terrifying strength and reputation.
• Blood Edge introduces himself as the instructor responsible for the trainees’ foundational training and assessment. His overwhelming killing intent immediately suppresses the crowd’s arrogance and creates a tense, disciplined atmosphere.
• He unveils a high-grade device capable of accurately measuring a person’s true bone age, explaining that bone age is an important part of the talent evaluation.
• The trainees are tested one by one. Most receive “Medium” or “Medium-low” ratings, with scores generally ranging from 150 to over 200 years.
• Pato Ironscale, who mocked Li Wen previously, records a bone age of 126 years and earns a “Medium-high” rating. He proudly flaunts his result and continues looking down on Li Wen.
• Lauen Make achieves a bone age of 102 years, also rated “Medium-high.” Although he narrowly misses the “Upper” threshold of 100 years, he accepts the result calmly.
• The Monroe Family genius scores 108 years, earning another “Medium-high” rating and briefly exchanging a competitive glance with Lauen.
• Kains Radiance, widely considered the strongest genius in the group, produces an exceptional result: a bone age of 96 years, earning the first “Upper” rating. The crowd praises him as the clear leader of the batch.
• Immediately afterward, Blood Edge calls Li Wen’s name. Because everyone is still focused on Kains’s success, Li Wen receives little attention except for Lauen’s encouragement and Pato’s contempt. Li Wen calmly approaches the testing device, setting up the chapter’s cliffhanger.

Character Developments

• Li Wen: Remains calm and confident despite being underestimated. His thoughts reveal that his difficult, resource-poor upbringing on Blue Star may have given him an unusually young and strong foundation.
• Blood Edge: Is established as an extremely powerful, feared, and disciplined instructor. His immense killing intent alone commands obedience, while his detached attitude shows that ordinary “genius” results do not impress him.
• Lauen Make: Demonstrates humility, composure, and genuine support for Li Wen. His close result places him among the strongest candidates while also suggesting rivalry with the Monroe genius.
• Pato Ironscale: His arrogance remains intact despite being subdued by Blood Edge’s presence. His relatively strong result reinforces his pride and contempt toward Li Wen.
• Kains Radiance: Confirms his reputation as the leading genius of the group. His outstanding bone age and calm enjoyment of the crowd’s admiration strengthen his image as confident and highly talented.
• Monroe Family genius: Establishes himself as another elite competitor, though he remains expressionless and quietly competitive toward Lauen.

Significant Themes

• True talent versus outward appearance: Li Wen’s ordinary aura and unknown background cause others to dismiss him, while the test may reveal hidden potential.
• The importance of foundations: Bone age represents the purity and efficiency of a cultivator’s development, favoring those who achieved their realm without accelerated cultivation.
• Class and lineage privilege: Great Lineages provide superior resources and training standards, giving their disciples advantages over those from weaker backgrounds.
• Power and intimidation: Blood Edge’s presence demonstrates that genuine strength needs no explanation; it naturally commands fear and respect.
• Competition and reputation: The trainees are constantly compared through rankings, bloodlines, cultivation levels, and test results, with Kains’s performance intensifying the competitive atmosphere.

Character Interactions

• Blood Edge’s silent pressure forces the entire crowd, including proud elites such as Pato, to behave obediently.
• Pato indirectly challenges Li Wen through his boastful attitude and contemptuous looks.
• Lauen openly encourages Li Wen and stands beside him, showing a supportive relationship amid the hostile competition.
• Lauen and the Monroe genius exchange a brief, tense glance, hinting at rivalry between their families.
• Kains’s spectacular result shifts the crowd’s attention away from everyone else, while Blood Edge briefly shows interest in confirming the famous genius’s reputation.
• The chapter ends with Li Wen entering the test after being dismissed by nearly everyone, creating anticipation over whether his true bone age will overturn the group’s assumptions.

Chapter Summary: “Bone Age Forty!”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Li Wen enters the bone-age testing device after Kains Radiance and Pato Ironscale.
• Unlike the quick, ordinary tests before him, the machine takes unusually long to process his results. Its runes flicker violently, its energy builds, and the device appears to strain under the test.
• The display reveals an astonishing result: “Bone Age: 40. Rating: Exceptional!”
• The entire square falls into stunned silence before erupting into disbelief and excitement.
• Pato Ironscale reacts with panic and denial, claiming the machine must have malfunctioned after testing Kains. His own bone age of 126, which he had considered impressive, is reduced to a source of humiliation by comparison.
• Kains Radiance is equally shaken. His previous position as the batch’s youngest and most exceptional participant is eclipsed by Li Wen’s result. He begins viewing Li Wen as a serious rival—and possibly the greatest threat in the trial.
• The crowd speculates about Li Wen’s origins, wondering whether the obscure Blue Star Human Race might possess an extraordinarily powerful bloodline.
• Instructor Blood Edge is also deeply surprised. Having witnessed countless geniuses over more than a thousand years, he recognizes that exceptionally young bone ages are extraordinarily rare and often indicate future supreme figures.
• Blood Edge officially records Li Wen’s result and orders the testing to continue, but the atmosphere has permanently changed. Li Wen becomes the central figure of attention among the 189 provisional members.
• After the bone-age testing concludes, Lauen Make congratulates and admires Li Wen. Blood Edge immediately begins the next evaluation: combat-power testing.
• The group travels to the Heaven-Piercing Tower, a nine-story structure in the Source Network where each floor presents increasingly difficult challenges.

Character Development

• Li Wen: His extraordinary potential is publicly revealed. Despite causing enormous shock, he remains calm, modest, and restrained, reinforcing the impression that he possesses immense hidden strength and self-control.
• Kains Radiance: His confidence and composure are seriously shaken. He recognizes that Li Wen’s youth, cultivation speed, and comprehension may surpass his own, transforming Li Wen from a minor concern into a major competitor.
• Pato Ironscale: His arrogance collapses. The result exposes the inadequacy of his own achievement and leaves him defensive, suspicious, and humiliated.
• Lauen Make: His respect for Li Wen grows dramatically. He begins to understand that Li Wen’s rapid progress reflects not only physical talent but also terrifying comprehension ability.
• Blood Edge: His former assessment of Li Wen as ordinary is completely overturned. He now studies Li Wen carefully and treats him with unusual seriousness, recognizing his potential to become a future powerhouse.

Significant Themes

• Hidden potential and sudden recognition: Li Wen’s restrained presence conceals talent so extraordinary that one test completely changes how everyone views him.
• Youth as a measure of potential: A bone age of forty at Venerable Realm Perfection signifies an exceptionally solid foundation and immense room for future growth.
• Comprehension versus bloodline: The chapter emphasizes that bloodline establishes a cultivator’s lower limit, while comprehension determines how far they can ultimately rise. Li Wen’s rapid advancement demonstrates rare understanding of laws and martial principles.
• The collapse of arrogance: Pato’s pride and Kains’s previous superiority are both challenged by Li Wen’s result.
• The unpredictability of genius: Even experienced figures such as Blood Edge are surprised, showing that the greatest talents may emerge from unknown or overlooked backgrounds.

Important Character Interactions

• Li Wen and Pato: Pato’s earlier confidence is overturned when Li Wen’s result publicly surpasses him, turning his former mockery into embarrassment.
• Li Wen and Kains: Although they exchange no direct words, the test creates a major shift in their relationship. Kains now regards Li Wen as a rival who must be taken seriously.
• Li Wen and Lauen: Lauen openly expresses admiration and amazement. Li Wen responds modestly rather than boasting.
• Li Wen and Blood Edge: Blood Edge’s formal recording of the result and intense scrutiny show that the instructor now considers Li Wen exceptionally important.
• The crowd and Li Wen: The assembled contestants move from curiosity and doubt to shock, reverence, and intense interest in the previously obscure Blue Star human.

Ending

The chapter ends with the group arriving at the Heaven-Piercing Tower for the next stage: combat-power testing. Li Wen’s astonishing bone-age result has made him the most mysterious and prominent participant in the training camp, and the upcoming tower challenge will begin testing whether his potential is matched by actual combat ability.

Chapter Summary: Heaven-Piercing Tower

Key Plot Points and Events

• The Heaven-Piercing Tower is introduced as the training camp’s primary test of real combat ability. Its virtual battles feel completely real, and results depend on floors cleared and time endured.
• Trainees enter in groups of one hundred. Anyone who fails to clear the third floor during their first attempt is eliminated.
• Lauen explains the tower’s extreme difficulty: reaching the fifth floor marks someone as a top genius, while the sixth floor is rarely achieved and the seventh is largely legendary.
• The first group enters, including Kains Radiance, Pato Ironscale, and the silver-armored youth of the Monroe Family.
• Kains advances rapidly, reaching the second and third floors far ahead of the others. When the test ends, he has reached the fifth floor, nearly twenty trainees reach the fourth, most stop at the third, and a few fail on the second.
• Kains emerges proudly, believing he has reestablished himself as the strongest combatant in the class after being overshadowed by Li Wen’s extraordinary bone-age result.
• Li Wen enters with the second group. Because of his revealed bone age of forty, he becomes the focus of the trainees, older members, and even Instructor Blood Edge.
• Inside the tower, Li Wen is transported to a cosmic void containing a rune-covered metal platform. His first challenge consists of more than a hundred heavily armed mechanical puppets.
• The puppets unleash overwhelming particle-beam fire while simultaneously charging with massive alloy blades. Li Wen effortlessly dodges every attack, recognizing that their movements are crude and predictable.
• He concludes that the first-floor opponents are only moderately powerful and poorly coordinated. The chapter ends as he finishes observing them and prepares to counterattack.

Character Developments

• Kains Radiance: Demonstrates exceptional combat ability by reaching the fifth floor faster than anyone else. His pride and confidence return after his earlier humiliation in the bone-age test, and he becomes determined to prove that Li Wen cannot surpass him in actual strength.
• Li Wen: Transitions from an overlooked newcomer into the center of attention. Despite his restrained and apparently ordinary aura, he displays extraordinary perception, movement, and composure. Rather than rushing to attack, he studies the tower’s enemies and evaluates their abilities with ease.
• Lauen Make: Provides context about the tower’s difficulty and reveals his own admiration and longing to reach higher floors.
• Instructor Blood Edge: Though usually impassive, he shows genuine interest in Li Wen’s performance, indicating that Li Wen’s bone age and potential have affected even the instructor.
• Other trainees and older members: Their attitudes shift from curiosity and doubt to intense anticipation. Some question whether Li Wen’s bone-age result was a mistake because his aura seems so ordinary.

Significant Themes

• Combat ability versus innate potential: The tower is designed to determine whether Li Wen’s extraordinary bone age translates into genuine fighting strength.
• Reputation and rivalry: Kains’s successful performance temporarily restores his status and intensifies his rivalry with Li Wen.
• Hidden strength: Li Wen’s calm, weak-looking exterior contrasts sharply with his actual capabilities, emphasizing the danger of judging fighters by outward aura.
• The limits of genius: The tower’s progression illustrates the immense gap between ordinary trainees, top talents, and legendary figures.
• Observation before action: Li Wen’s analytical approach shows that mastery involves understanding an opponent’s weaknesses rather than relying solely on overwhelming force.

Character Interactions

• Lauen explains the tower’s standards and previous results to Li Wen, revealing both his respect for Kains and his own ambition.
• Kains deliberately stares at Li Wen after leaving the tower, silently asserting their competition.
• Trainees and older members discuss Li Wen’s bone age and speculate about his identity and strength, while Instructor Blood Edge watches him closely.
• Within the tower, Li Wen faces the mechanical puppets alone. Their coordinated assault is presented as a direct test of his combat instincts, but he treats their attacks as predictable and ineffective, setting up his imminent counterattack.

Chapter Summary: “Impossible It Was Him”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Li Wen enters the Heaven-Piercing Tower’s first-floor trial, where waves of mechanical puppets attack him.
• With a single devastating horizontal slash infused with the laws of destruction, he annihilates more than a hundred powerful puppets at once, instantly clearing the early section.
• He continues through the middle and late sections without hesitation. Despite the puppets becoming stronger, more numerous, and better coordinated, Li Wen destroys them effortlessly by targeting their weaknesses.
• Even elite puppets attempting to self-destruct are eliminated before they can detonate.
• Li Wen clears the entire first floor and reaches the gate to the second floor in an exceptionally short time, becoming the first challenger in the second batch to advance.
• Outside the tower, the monitoring screen reveals that a lone point of light has already entered the second-floor section. The spectators are stunned because the time is apparently even faster than the first batch’s record-holder, Kains Radiance, who cleared the floor in 2 minutes and 58 seconds.
• The crowd struggles to identify the challenger. Although some suspect Li Wen, most reject the idea as impossible because his exceptional age and cultivation already seem miraculous enough.
• Pato Ironscale dismisses Li Wen’s achievement, while Kains reacts with genuine shock and senses a serious threat.

Character Developments

• Li Wen: Demonstrates overwhelming combat ability, precision, speed, and complete composure. His effortless destruction of the puppets establishes that his true strength far exceeds the expectations created by his age, race, and publicly known cultivation.
• Kains Radiance: Previously confident in holding the fastest first-floor record, he becomes visibly shaken when Li Wen appears to surpass him. For the first time, he recognizes Li Wen as a dangerous rival.
• Pato Ironscale: Responds with hostility and denial, attempting to belittle Li Wen’s achievement rather than acknowledge it. His reaction reveals insecurity and prejudice toward Li Wen.
• The spectators and old members: Their assumptions about the new contestants are overturned. They begin to reconsider Li Wen, though most still resist believing that someone with his background could possess such extraordinary combat strength.

Significant Themes

• Hidden strength and underestimated talent: Li Wen’s performance exposes the danger of judging someone by age, race, background, or previously known cultivation.
• Breaking established records: His rapid clearance challenges the prestige of Kains Radiance and disrupts the rankings and expectations formed by the first batch.
• Composure and mastery: Li Wen’s calm, economical swordsmanship contrasts with the spectators’ astonishment. His technique has reached a level where overwhelming power appears simple and effortless.
• Prejudice versus reality: Many observers refuse to accept that Li Wen could be responsible because it contradicts their assumptions about the Blue Star Human Race and his status.
• Rivalry and rising tension: Li Wen’s breakthrough immediately places him in conflict with figures such as Pato and Kains, setting up competition for future rankings.

Character Interactions

• The spectators debate which second-batch challenger reached the second floor, initially considering Lorne Make and other low-profile contestants.
• An informed observer suggests Li Wen, but the crowd rejects the possibility as absurd.
• Pato openly mocks Li Wen’s accomplishment and predicts that he may not even reach the third floor.
• Kains does not speak directly to Li Wen, but his reaction reveals that Li Wen’s achievement has deeply unsettled him and transformed him from an unknown competitor into a potential threat.

Chapter Summary: “Crushing Through Like Rotten Wood”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Kains Radiance, previously proud of being the fastest and strongest newcomer, realizes that an unidentified second-batch entrant has cleared the first floor of the Heaven-Piercing Tower far faster than he did.
• The unknown entrant is revealed to be Li Wen, who enters the second floor and immediately faces a deadly environment of lava, poisonous clouds, green lightning, and soul-attacking Baleful Wind.
• Li Wen quickly determines that the second floor’s dangers are formed from real elemental laws rather than illusions.
• He effortlessly withstands the Baleful Wind because his Primordial Spirit has reached the Peak Saint Realm, then evades the lava claw and divine thunder through overwhelming speed.
• After drawing his blade, Li Wen destroys the attacks with precise slashes that target their energy cores and law nodes.
• As the second floor becomes more difficult, elemental creatures and guards appear, but Li Wen continues dismantling them with efficient, minimal movements.
• He clears the second floor even faster than the first, shocking everyone watching from outside and entering the third floor almost immediately.
• Observers, particularly Pato Ironscale, argue that Li Wen’s speed may be due to elemental counters or unusual movement abilities rather than genuine overall strength.
• The third floor is revealed as a stark, cramped white space designed for direct physical combat. Li Wen encounters the terrifying Three-Headed Sin Dragon Beast, a massive creature with overwhelming destructive power.

Character Developments

• Li Wen: Demonstrates extraordinary speed, composure, spiritual strength, and mastery of blade techniques. Rather than relying on flashy attacks, he identifies weaknesses and destroys opponents at their law nodes or energy cores. His performance establishes him as vastly superior to ordinary Venerable Perfection cultivators.
• Kains Radiance: Suffers a major blow to his confidence after his record is surpassed so completely. Though he tries to rationalize Li Wen’s success as a temporary advantage, his pride and position as the leading newcomer become uncertain.
• Pato Ironscale: Acts as a skeptical voice, dismissing Li Wen’s performance as potentially dependent on elemental advantages. His confidence shifts attention toward the third floor, where he expects Li Wen to face a true test.
• The observing newcomers and old members: Move from surprise to speculation, debating whether speed, elemental counters, or genuine combat power explains Li Wen’s rapid progress.

Significant Themes

• Pride and humiliation: Kains’s former achievement is rendered insignificant almost instantly, showing how quickly confidence can collapse when confronted with overwhelming talent.
• True strength versus specialized advantage: The observers question whether Li Wen’s performance reflects comprehensive combat ability or merely favorable compatibility with the second floor’s elemental trials.
• Precision over brute force: Li Wen’s restrained, technically precise blade work proves more effective than extravagant attacks, emphasizing mastery, efficiency, and insight.
• The limits of established rankings: The chapter challenges assumptions about who is strongest among the newcomers and suggests that hidden ability can overturn social hierarchies.
• Escalating trials: Each floor tests a different aspect of cultivation—survival against complex laws on the second floor and direct physical combat on the third.

Character Interactions

• Kains is affected by the questioning and astonishment of the surrounding crowd, while privately struggling to accept that his record has been surpassed.
• Pato openly challenges the crowd’s admiration for Li Wen, offering an explanation that minimizes his achievement and redirects attention to the third floor.
• Other observers partially agree with Pato, arguing that the third floor’s Sin Dragon Beast will reveal whether Li Wen possesses genuine strength.
• Li Wen has no direct interaction with the spectators, remaining unaware of the uproar outside as he calmly advances through the tower.

Chapter Summary: “Ten Seconds”

Key Plot Points and Events

• On the third floor of the Heaven-Piercing Tower, Li Wen faces a colossal three-headed baleful dragon beast. Its spatial shockwave attack can shatter space and kill an ordinary Venerable Perfection Realm expert, while its immense body seals off every possible escape route.
• Observers outside the tower expect Li Wen to be overwhelmed, especially because the beast relies on overwhelming physical force rather than techniques that can easily be countered by speed.
• Exactly ten seconds after the battle begins, Li Wen’s point of light crosses into the fourth-floor zone. He clears the third floor in a record-breaking ten seconds.
• The spectators are stunned, particularly Kains Radiance, who previously needed nearly ten minutes and a trump-card technique to defeat the same projection. Pato Ironscale’s earlier claim that speed was useless without sufficient power is exposed as arrogant and incorrect.
• On the fourth floor, Li Wen encounters a mirror replica of himself. The replica possesses nearly identical physical strength, True Gang, Blade Intent, combat instincts, techniques, and battle experience.
• The replica immediately uses Li Wen’s own saber style against him, predicting his movements and attacking with extreme precision. Li Wen initially evades rather than meeting the attack directly, while the replica continues to adapt and close off his escape routes.
• The fourth floor is explained to have progressively stronger “Shadows of the Self,” ranging from roughly ninety percent to nearly ninety-nine percent of the challenger’s combat strength and combat wisdom.
• After forty-five seconds, Li Wen suddenly breaks out of the fourth-floor space and advances to the fifth floor, defeating a replica possessing nearly ninety-nine percent of his abilities.
• The spectators are even more shocked than before. Kains Radiance is left fearful and despairing, while Pato’s remaining confidence and dignity collapse completely.
• Li Wen, unaware of the uproar outside, enters the fifth floor and senses far greater pressure and law fluctuations. He calmly prepares to continue the trial.

Character Developments

• Li Wen: Demonstrates that his speed is supported by overwhelming strength, exceptional combat judgment, and refined technique. He remains composed throughout, showing genuine interest rather than fear when confronted by his own replica. His successful fourth-floor breakthrough confirms that he can overcome even an opponent designed to neutralize his combat habits.
• Pato Ironscale: Changes from smug confidence to disbelief and humiliation. His assertion that speed cannot compensate for insufficient power is directly disproven, leaving him psychologically crushed and unable to maintain his arrogance.
• Kains Radiance: Experiences a growing sense of defeat and fear. Comparing Li Wen’s ten-second and forty-five-second clear times with his own much longer battles makes him recognize an enormous gap between himself and the newcomer.
• The spectators: Shift from skepticism and curiosity to unanimous shock and recognition of Li Wen as an exceptional, possibly unprecedented talent.

Significant Themes

• Absolute strength versus conventional expectations: Li Wen’s performance overturns the belief that speed and technique cannot prevail against overwhelming power.
• Self-confrontation and mastery: The fourth-floor replica represents the ultimate opponent—one who knows Li Wen’s abilities, habits, and instincts almost perfectly. Defeating it suggests Li Wen is capable of transcending his own established limits.
• Humility and the collapse of arrogance: Pato’s humiliation illustrates how quickly certainty and boastfulness can be destroyed by undeniable results.
• The emergence of a prodigy: Li Wen’s rapid progress signals the arrival of a powerful new figure who may reshape the competitive landscape of Elite Training Base No. 7.
• Calmness amid overwhelming pressure: While the outside world reacts dramatically, Li Wen remains focused solely on the next challenge.

Character Interactions

• The main external conflict is between Li Wen’s performance and Pato Ironscale’s earlier dismissal of his abilities; every new record increasingly exposes Pato’s error.
• Kains Radiance serves as a comparison point, having personally struggled against the same trials and therefore understanding better than most how extraordinary Li Wen’s achievements are.
• Li Wen’s most important interaction is with his mirror replica. The battle functions as a contest between his current self and an almost perfected reflection of his own combat style, forcing him to rely on adaptability, movement, and deeper mastery rather than familiar techniques alone.

Chapter Summary

Key Plot Points and Events

• Li Wen enters the fifth floor of the Heaven-Piercing Tower after defeating the nearly perfect Shadow of the True Self on the fourth floor.
• The fifth floor tests mental will and Primordial Spirit strength rather than physical combat. A vast mental storm filled with despair, greed, madness, and jealousy attacks his consciousness.
• While even powerful cultivators struggle against the storm, Li Wen’s extensively tempered Primordial Spirit effortlessly suppresses it. He clears the fifth floor almost instantly.
• Outside the tower, spectators—including Kains Radiance and Pato Ironscale—are stunned. Their previous belief that Li Wen succeeded through luck or advantageous matchups is completely destroyed.
• On the sixth floor, Li Wen faces a powerful headless mechanical guardian equipped with spatial binding, a five-direction energy cage, and a peak Early Saint Realm Soul Light Ray.
• Rather than evade, Li Wen tests his newly strengthened body by stopping the Soul Light Ray with his bare hand and physically crushing it.
• He draws his blade and uses his law-infused sword intent to destroy the guardian’s five energy beams without causing a conventional explosion.
• Before the guardian can launch another attack, Li Wen uses the incomplete technique “Myriad Phenomena Return to Void: Silent Annihilation,” erasing the guardian’s energy core and reducing its body to cosmic dust.
• Li Wen clears the sixth floor in one minute and fifteen seconds, advancing to the seventh floor and leaving the entire audience speechless.

Character Developments

• Li Wen demonstrates that his Primordial Spirit is far beyond that of ordinary Peak Saint Realm cultivators, approaching the level of a Star Lord. His will is shown to be nearly impervious to mental corruption.
• His newly upgraded fleshly body is strong enough to resist and destroy a Saint Realm Soul Light attack directly, confirming that his physical power has reached an extraordinary level.
• Li Wen also reveals increasing mastery of his sword laws. His blade intent can neutralize powerful energy attacks, while his incomplete ultimate technique can annihilate a high-level mechanical guardian instantly.
• Kains Radiance suffers a severe blow to his confidence after realizing that Li Wen cleared the fifth floor instantly, despite Kains having barely endured it for several minutes using a secret technique.
• Pato Ironscale is forced to abandon his earlier excuses that Li Wen’s victories resulted from luck or being naturally suited to certain opponents.
• The spectators’ perception of Li Wen changes from viewing him as unusually talented to recognizing him as a terrifying “monster among monsters.”

Significant Themes

• Overwhelming perseverance and willpower: Li Wen’s Primordial Spirit reflects years of cultivation, repeated life-and-death struggles, and his determination to protect his people.
• The limits of conventional cultivation standards: His abilities vastly exceed what should be possible for someone at his apparent level, challenging established ideas about Saint Realm strength.
• Physical power versus spiritual and technological force: Li Wen proves that a fleshly body can directly withstand attacks designed to destroy the soul, emphasizing the terrifying potential of bodily cultivation.
• Hidden strength and continuous revelation: Each floor exposes another aspect of Li Wen’s power—mental resilience, physical endurance, and sword mastery.
• Humiliation of old assumptions: Kains, Pato, and the crowd must confront how mistaken their earlier judgments of Li Wen were.

Character Interactions

• Li Wen has no direct dialogue with the spectators, but his rapid victories dramatically affect them.
• The mechanical guardian issues a formal challenge and launches a coordinated series of lethal attacks, creating the chapter’s central confrontation.
• Li Wen responds with calm confidence, choosing to endure and counterattack rather than retreat.
• Kains and Pato react with fear, disbelief, and shaken pride as Li Wen repeatedly surpasses their expectations.
• The crowd collectively shifts from skepticism to awe, repeatedly calling Li Wen an absolute monster and eagerly awaiting whether he can continue his ascent on the seventh floor.

Chapter Summary: “A Crushing Advance”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Li Wen’s unprecedented progress through the Heaven-Piercing Tower shocks everyone watching outside. He clears the sixth floor in only 1 minute and 15 seconds and advances into the seventh floor.
• Kains Radiance, previously proud of his own combat ability, is devastated by the enormous gap between himself and Li Wen. He abandons any hope of competing with him.
• Lauen Make and the other trainees struggle to believe that someone has reached the seventh floor. Instructor Blood Edge recognizes the achievement as extraordinary, noting that the last trainee to reach this level appeared roughly a thousand years earlier.
• On the seventh floor, Li Wen enters a chaotic void devoid of normal light, sound, time, and space. A mysterious cold swordsman appears, possessing a faint silver mark on his forehead and the power of a highly refined Mid Saint Realm expert.
• The opponent attacks using spatial laws, causing his blade strikes to bypass distance and combining spatial cutting with temporal slowing. Li Wen is quickly overwhelmed and forced into a defensive position.
• Li Wen activates Lv. 20 Absolute Focus, allowing him to analyze the enemy’s attacks, but his blade technique and cultivation remain inferior.
• Realizing that technique alone cannot defeat the swordsman, Li Wen merges his vast Primordial Spirit Power into his body. His strength, speed, defense, perception, and understanding of laws rise sharply, bringing his combat power close to the Late Saint Realm.
• Using overwhelming force rather than pure skill, Li Wen reverses the battle and defeats the first manifestation by cutting through its neck.
• The swordsman immediately resurrects, strengthened by the silver mark and now possessing Late Saint Realm power. The second battle begins with even greater intensity, as both combatants tear apart and restore space while distorting the flow of time.

Character Developments

• Li Wen: Demonstrates extraordinary talent, adaptability, and composure. Although initially outmatched, he quickly identifies the limits of relying on swordsmanship alone and decisively changes tactics by using Primordial Spirit Power to enhance his physical body and combat ability.
• Kains Radiance: Suffers a major psychological defeat. His pride and competitive spirit collapse after witnessing Li Wen’s vastly superior performance.
• Lauen Make: Experiences shock and disbelief as Li Wen’s progress overturns his understanding of the tower’s difficulty.
• Instructor Blood Edge: Shows rare, intense excitement and recognition, understanding that Li Wen’s achievement may rival legendary figures who later rose to prominence within the Source Network.
• The Cold Swordsman: Serves as a powerful and evolving trial opponent. Initially emotionless and dominant, he becomes stronger after resurrection, revealing that the seventh floor tests more than simple victory over a single enemy.

Significant Themes

• Overwhelming talent versus conventional genius: Li Wen’s performance makes even respected elites appear insignificant, establishing him as an exceptional “monster.”
• Adaptability in battle: Li Wen succeeds because he abandons a failing approach and combines his spiritual power with his physical body.
• The limits of pride and competition: Kains’s confidence collapses when confronted with an opponent far beyond his expectations.
• Breaking through boundaries: Li Wen fights across the gap between cultivation realms, showing that combat power can temporarily surpass formal advancement.
• Endurance and escalating trials: The seventh floor is not a single fight but a progressively more difficult challenge, with the opponent resurrecting at a higher realm.
• Law and power: Space and time laws dominate the battle, emphasizing that higher-level combat depends on mastery of fundamental cosmic principles rather than strength alone.

Important Character Interactions

• The observers outside collectively react to Li Wen’s progress with shock, disbelief, and awe, while Blood Edge provides the significance of reaching the seventh floor.
• Li Wen and the cold swordsman communicate almost entirely through combat. The swordsman offers only the command “Fight,” while Li Wen responds through tactical adaptation and increasingly powerful attacks.
• Li Wen’s use of Absolute Focus allows him to study the opponent, but the decisive turning point comes when he combines Primordial Spirit Power with his body and overwhelms the swordsman.
• After Li Wen defeats the first manifestation, its resurrection transforms the confrontation into an even more dangerous battle between near-equal Late Saint Realm forces.

Chapter Summary: “Blood Edge’s Shock”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Li Wen battles the cold swordsman on the seventh floor of the Heaven-Piercing Tower. The opponent’s techniques become increasingly unpredictable, combining Space and Time Laws with near-perfect natural harmony.
• Even after merging his Primordial Spirit Power with his body and raising his strength close to the Late Saint Realm, Li Wen gradually realizes that he cannot defeat the cold man through ordinary swordsmanship alone.
• Li Wen unleashes his Primordial Spirit Secret Art, Myriad Phenomena Return-to-Void Finger, creating a dark-gold annihilation finger that completely erases the cold man.
• The trial advances to its later stage, where the cold man is revived at Peak Saint Realm, possessing power close to the Star Lord threshold. His sword techniques now directly manipulate space and time, and a single attack wounds Li Wen.
• Li Wen responds with an even stronger version of the annihilation technique, but the cold man blocks it through layered blade defenses. Their battle becomes increasingly intense.
• Using his Primordial Spirit perception, scholar profession, and combat analysis, Li Wen studies the opponent’s law fluctuations and detects a tiny weakness during the transfer of power between techniques.
• He exploits the opening by disrupting a spatial node near the cold man’s wrist, temporarily restraining his movement. Li Wen then strikes the dark-gold mark on the man’s forehead—the apparent source of his power—with the Myriad Phenomena Return-to-Void Finger.
• The mark cracks, the cold man’s strength collapses, and Li Wen finishes him by severing his head. The seventh floor is cleared.
• Li Wen immediately enters the eighth floor, shocking everyone outside the tower. Reaching the eighth floor is associated with facing a Star Lord-level challenge and is considered nearly legendary for someone from an intermediate empire.

Character Developments

• Li Wen: Demonstrates remarkable perseverance, tactical intelligence, and adaptability. Rather than relying solely on brute force, he combines his swordsmanship, Primordial Spirit, scholar abilities, and analytical perception to learn the opponent’s techniques and discover a decisive weakness. His victory establishes him as capable of challenging Peak Saint Realm experts and possibly Star Lord-level opponents.
• The Cold Man: Evolves from a powerful and mysterious swordsman into a Peak Saint Realm combatant. His strength becomes overwhelming, but his reliance on a forehead mark creates a vulnerability that Li Wen eventually identifies and destroys.
• Kains Radiance: Suffers a severe psychological blow. His former fifth-floor achievement and confidence appear insignificant compared with Li Wen’s advancement to the eighth floor. Pride in his bloodline and talent gives way to humiliation, defeat, and fear.
• Blood Edge: Loses his usual stern composure and reacts with open shock and excitement. As chief instructor, he understands the extraordinary significance of Li Wen reaching the eighth floor better than anyone present.

Significant Themes

• Adaptation and learning through combat: Li Wen wins not simply because of greater strength, but because he observes, analyzes, and incorporates his opponent’s law patterns into his own battle instincts.
• The limits of power and the importance of precision: Even overwhelming techniques can be neutralized, while a precisely targeted attack on a structural weakness can decide the battle.
• 突破 and surpassing expectations: Li Wen’s progress defies the limits expected of trainees from an intermediate empire and transforms him into a figure of historic significance.
• Pride and humiliation: Kains’s collapse highlights the fragility of status based on inherited bloodline and reputation when confronted with undeniable achievement.
• The path toward higher realms: The transition from Peak Saint Realm to the eighth floor symbolizes Li Wen approaching a level of power previously regarded as legendary.

Character Interactions

• Li Wen and the cold man engage in a prolonged duel involving swordsmanship, spatial manipulation, time effects, and annihilation techniques. Their battle shifts from direct confrontation to a contest of observation and tactical exploitation.
• Li Wen’s final victory depends on recognizing a brief flaw in the cold man’s law circulation, disrupting his wrist through Space Law, and then destroying the forehead mark before delivering the killing blow.
• Outside the tower, the trainees collectively react with disbelief and awe. Their shock is especially directed toward Kains Radiance, whose status is diminished by Li Wen’s achievement.
• Blood Edge silently witnesses Li Wen’s breakthrough before openly expressing astonishment, emphasizing the event’s exceptional importance.

Summary

Key Points and Events

• The author announces a structural change: instead of publishing two 3,000-word chapters daily, they will combine them into one 6,000-word chapter.
• This change is intended to improve the book’s chances of earning a featured badge, which is the author’s major current goal.
• The author acknowledges that longer, combined chapters may inconvenience readers, particularly those who use chapter cards.
• To apologize, the author plans to compensate affected readers through a fan group linked in the book description and at the end of each chapter.
• Readers who have at least 500 fan points on Qidian can join the group and contact its owner to receive 500 coins in return.
• The group will also allow readers to chat with one another and access possible future side stories.

Character/Author Development

• The author presents themself as ambitious but financially struggling, emphasizing the importance of gaining featured status.
• They show consideration for loyal readers by worrying that the chapter change might cause some to abandon the book.
• The compensation and fan-group plan demonstrate gratitude toward readers who have continued supporting the story.

Significant Themes

• Author-reader relationship: The announcement emphasizes mutual support, appreciation, and communication.
• Pursuit of recognition: Becoming featured represents the author’s dream and motivation for changing the update format.
• Compromise and gratitude: The author balances personal ambitions with efforts to minimize inconvenience for readers.
• Community-building: The fan group is presented as a place for discussion, rewards, and future bonus content.

Character Interactions

• The main interaction is between the author and their readership. The author explains the change directly, apologizes for the inconvenience, offers compensation, and invites readers into a closer community.
• Readers are treated as valued supporters whose continued approval matters deeply to the author.

Chapter Summary: “Annihilate Here”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Li Wen reaches the eighth floor of the Heaven-Piercing Tower, an achievement extraordinarily rare even across the Arka Advanced Empire.
• The eighth-floor guardian is a First-Order Star Lord-level metal giant, vastly stronger than Li Wen’s Peak Saint Realm ability.
• Li Wen activates his Lv7 [Berserk] skill, increasing all his attributes by 70% and bringing his combat power close to the Star Lord threshold.
• He immediately uses his strongest attack, Myriad Phenomena Return-to-Void Finger, but the guardian effortlessly counters it with a precise spear technique.
• Li Wen barely survives the first attack by combining his enhanced reactions with three defensive Blade Intent techniques. His weapon is damaged, and he suffers severe injuries.
• The guardian then unleashes its decisive attack, “Annihilate Here,” killing Li Wen. Despite this, Li Wen lasts more than ten seconds against a Star Lord-level opponent.
• Outside the tower, the spectators are stunned when Li Wen’s light finally disappears. His performance is recognized as unprecedented for someone in the Venerable Realm.
• The final rankings reveal that Li Wen, identified as a member of the Blue Star Human Race, placed first by reaching the early eighth floor. Kains Radiance ranks second after reaching only the fifth floor.
• Pato Ironscale reacts with hysterical disbelief, unable to accept that the supposedly inferior Blue Star human surpassed everyone.
• Li Wen exits the tower unaware that the entire plaza is focused on him. His companion, Lauen Make, initially discusses the eighth-floor achiever with him before realizing that Li Wen himself is the prodigy.
• Instructor Blood Edge officially rates Li Wen’s performance as “Exceptional,” doubles his first-month resource quota, and grants him five days of early access to the Time Tower.

Character Developments

• Li Wen demonstrates immense courage and combat instinct by confronting a Star Lord-level enemy without hesitation. His battle reveals both his extraordinary strength and the enormous gap between Saint and Star Lord realms.
• Although defeated, Li Wen gains a clearer understanding of higher-level power and law mastery. His calm attitude after the trial contrasts sharply with the shock of everyone around him.
• Blood Edge shifts from surprise to intense excitement and protective concern. He realizes Li Wen’s value far exceeds his previous estimate and begins considering how to secure him the best training and protection.
• Pato Ironscale’s arrogance collapses completely. His belief in bloodline superiority is destroyed when Li Wen, whom he considered trash, becomes the top-ranked trainee.
• Kains Radiance experiences a quieter but profound defeat. His pride in his Radiant Clan bloodline and status as newcomer king becomes meaningless beside Li Wen’s achievement.
• Lauen Make moves from casual conversation to stunned disbelief when he discovers that the legendary eighth-floor achiever is the seemingly ordinary person beside him.

Significant Themes

• The vast gap between realms: The battle emphasizes that the difference between Peak Saint Realm and Star Lord is not merely a matter of energy, but of life level and law comprehension.
• Talent versus bloodline and status: Li Wen’s success challenges the trainees’ assumptions about racial hierarchy, inherited bloodlines, and superiority.
• Hidden genius: Li Wen’s unassuming appearance and calm behavior conceal power capable of shocking an entire elite training base.
• Recognition of potential: The institution immediately responds to extraordinary talent with protection, resources, and accelerated opportunities.
• Defeat as growth: Though Li Wen is killed in the trial, the encounter gives him direct experience against a higher realm and establishes the next stage of his development.

Character Interactions

• Li Wen and the metal guardian exchange brief but forceful declarations before engaging in battle, with the guardian dismissing him as an “ant” and Li Wen accepting the challenge.
• Blood Edge observes Li Wen’s fight and later personally announces his result and rewards, signaling institutional recognition.
• Pato Ironscale publicly rejects the ranking and attacks its credibility, while Kains Radiance silently accepts the crushing defeat.
• Lauen Make unknowingly speaks with Li Wen about the eighth-floor genius, then reacts with astonishment when he realizes the person is standing beside him.
• The wider trainee group shifts from curiosity and disbelief to awe, reverence, envy, and worship as Li Wen’s identity and achievement become clear.

Chapter Summary: “Entering the Time Tower”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Li Wen is awarded five days of Time Tower access, an unprecedented reward compared with the usual one day given to top-ranked trainees. This immediately establishes him as a legendary figure within the training base.
• Kains Radiance, who previously looked down on Li Wen because of bloodline prejudice, publicly acknowledges Li Wen’s overwhelming strength and respectfully challenges him to a future spar. Li Wen calmly accepts.
• Chief Instructor Blood Edge personally escorts Li Wen to the Time Tower and explains its function. The tower can accelerate time up to 1:100, though most Venerables can safely manage only around 1:10 because higher rates cause severe mental pressure and perceptual distortion.
• Blood Edge again attempts to recruit Li Wen as an internal member of the Source Network, offering unlimited access to powerful resources such as the Time Tower, Soul Origin Tower, Star Marrow Chamber, secret inheritances, mentors, and missions.
• Li Wen hesitates because internal membership would restrict his freedom and require obedience to the Source Network’s deployments. His concern for Blue Star, his family, and his independence outweighs the temptation, so Blood Edge gives him a year to decide.
• At the Time Tower plaza, the trainees react with awe to Blood Edge’s personal escort of Li Wen. After Li Wen enters, they discover that he is the young genius who reached the eighth floor of the Heaven-Piercing Tower at only forty years of bone age, causing widespread shock and admiration.
• Inside the Time Tower, Li Wen encounters a vast, surreal space filled with the Time River, phantom gears, flowing Time Sand, and dense temporal energy.
• He tests his theory by immediately raising the time-flow ratio to 1:100. The mental pressure that would destroy an ordinary cultivator is neutralized by his Martial Artist passive skill, Eternal Heart, proving that he is immune to the tower’s negative mental effects.
• Realizing that his greatest weakness—his limited cultivation time—has been overcome, Li Wen begins cultivating. He activates Level 20 Absolute Focus and prepares to review his recent battles for further comprehension.

Character Developments

• Li Wen demonstrates exceptional composure, humility, and confidence. He accepts praise and challenges without arrogance and remains focused on cultivation rather than fame.
• His discovery that Eternal Heart allows him to withstand 1:100 time acceleration dramatically increases his potential. He can now gain the equivalent of decades of cultivation within a relatively short period.
• Kains Radiance undergoes a major change in attitude, abandoning his bloodline-based prejudice and sincerely recognizing Li Wen’s strength.
• Blood Edge develops greater respect and investment in Li Wen. He sees not only Li Wen’s power but also his stable temperament and strong will, prompting another serious recruitment attempt.
• Blood Edge also shows a gentler, more understanding side. When Li Wen hesitates, he avoids pressuring him and allows him time to make his decision.
• The trainees at the base shift from curiosity and suspicion to admiration and eagerness to befriend Li Wen after learning of his achievement.

Significant Themes

• Strength overcoming prejudice: Li Wen’s ability forces Kains and the wider training base to reconsider assumptions based on bloodline and status.
• Freedom versus power: The Source Network offers extraordinary resources, but joining it would require loyalty, obedience, and reduced personal freedom. Li Wen must weigh rapid growth against independence.
• Time as a limited resource: Li Wen’s youth and short cultivation history have been a major disadvantage. The Time Tower offers a chance to compensate for that weakness.
• Talent combined with discipline: Li Wen’s success depends not only on his extraordinary abilities but also on his calm mentality, focus, and willingness to cultivate steadily.
• The cost of power: The tower’s highest time-flow rate is dangerous for most cultivators, emphasizing that powerful opportunities often carry serious risks.
• Recognition and reputation: Li Wen’s achievements make anonymity impossible. His fame spreads throughout the base, changing how others interact with him.

Character Interactions

• Li Wen and Kains Radiance: Kains respectfully apologizes through his actions, acknowledges his former prejudice, and requests a future duel. Li Wen accepts without boasting.
• Li Wen and Blood Edge: Blood Edge acts as both mentor and recruiter. He explains the dangers of the Time Tower, offers Li Wen a place within the Source Network, and ultimately respects Li Wen’s hesitation.
• Li Wen and the trainees: The trainees initially treat him with curiosity and cautious flattery. A short, plump trainee humorously gives up his place in line and calls Li Wen “Boss,” while the others follow suit to gain his favor.
• Li Wen and the Time Tower: Their interaction is effectively a test of Li Wen’s limits. By reaching 1:100 without mental disruption, he confirms that his Eternal Heart passive uniquely complements the tower’s power.

Chapter Summary: The King’s Challenge

Key Plot Points and Events

• While inside the Time Tower, Li Wen uses Absolute Focus and a hundredfold time multiplier to analyze the Heaven-Piercing Tower’s attacks and deepen his understanding of combat techniques.
• He develops new saber techniques by combining:
  • The Annihilation Artistic Conception from the Myriad Phenomena Return-to-Void Finger.
  • His understanding of “stillness” and “flow.”
  • His movement and evasion techniques.
  • The Time Law.
• His saber attacks begin to manipulate the perceived flow of time, alternating between extreme slowness and sudden acceleration. He realizes that his blade can create faint “creases” in time, marking the embryonic form of controlling acceleration, deceleration, and freezing.
• Li Wen decides to make the Time Law his primary cultivation path, believing it may allow him to reach the Saint Realm and eventually overcome the dark-gold giant on the eighth level of the Heaven-Piercing Tower.
• He spends ten days cultivating in the Time Tower, equivalent to only two hours and fifteen minutes outside. During this time, his Time Law comprehension, combat experience, and Primordial Spirit all improve significantly.
• Before leaving, Li Wen lowers the multiplier from one hundredfold to twentyfold so that outsiders will only detect the more believable level of power.
• Outside the tower, students have gathered to observe him. Kulu Duo provokes his rival Tuka into betting five hours of Time Tower access on whether Li Wen’s multiplier exceeds tenfold.
• When Li Wen exits, the aura reveals that he endured a twentyfold multiplier for more than two hours. Kulu Duo wins the wager, while Tuka is humiliated and forced to surrender his five hours before fleeing.
• Li Wen recognizes that concealing his ability to withstand a hundredfold multiplier is essential because it is connected to the secret of his Eternal Heart. He considers revealing it only if doing so could secure greater access to the Time Tower.
• Back in his residence, Li Wen reviews his gains and concludes that meditation is inefficient for increasing his Martial Artist level. He decides that intense combat is the fastest way to advance.
• He enters the Limit Martial Arena and discovers more than 999 challenge invitations, many from Master- and King-Rank geniuses of the Arka Advanced Empire’s Imperial Star.
• Rather than fearing the attention, Li Wen views the challengers as opportunities to gain experience and begins selecting the strongest King-Rank opponents.
• The chapter ends by introducing several powerful Arka Empire prodigies, including three-star King Rank Ares Titan, who discuss and verify Li Wen’s astonishing record.

Character Developments

• Li Wen: Makes a major breakthrough in his understanding of the Time Law and commits to cultivating it as his primary law. He becomes more confident, calculating, and strategically cautious, deliberately hiding his hundredfold-time capability while publicly displaying only twentyfold endurance. He also shifts his focus toward seeking high-level battles to improve his Martial Artist profession.
• Kulu Duo: Demonstrates sharp instincts and a talent for manipulation. He exploits Tuka’s temper and racial sensitivity to force him into a wager, then celebrates triumphantly after winning.
• Tuka: Reveals his impulsive and prideful nature. Provoked by Kulu Duo’s insult toward his race, he accepts the wager despite his suspicions and later suffers public humiliation after losing.
• Ares Titan and the Arka Empire prodigies: Are established as major upcoming rivals. Their interest in Li Wen shows that his reputation has spread beyond the Moro Empire and attracted attention from a much stronger civilization.

Significant Themes

• The pursuit of higher laws: Li Wen’s decision to follow the Time Law emphasizes the value of choosing a powerful and personally compatible path rather than merely improving conventional techniques.
• Hidden strength and strategic concealment: Li Wen balances the need to establish himself with the danger of exposing the Eternal Heart’s secret. His controlled display of twentyfold time shows his growing political and tactical awareness.
• Combat as the path to growth: The chapter contrasts peaceful cultivation with life-and-death battle, presenting intense conflict as the quickest way to transform experience into real strength.
• Reputation and opportunity: Fame attracts danger, but Li Wen sees the challenges from elite geniuses as valuable resources rather than threats.
• Pride and manipulation: Kulu Duo and Tuka’s wager illustrates how personal rivalry, racial sensitivities, and public pressure can drive characters into disadvantageous choices.

Character Interactions

• Li Wen interacts indirectly with the students outside the Time Tower, using their assumptions about the twentyfold aura to conceal his true ability.
• Kulu Duo deliberately provokes Tuka with racial insults and challenges his courage, successfully forcing him into a public bet.
• Tuka and Kulu Duo’s rivalry culminates in Tuka’s humiliating loss and surrender of five hours of Time Tower access.
• The gathered students react with shock and admiration to Li Wen’s endurance, further strengthening his reputation.
• In the Arka Advanced Empire, Ares Titan and other elite figures discuss Li Wen’s accomplishments, setting up a broader conflict between Li Wen and the empire’s strongest young geniuses.

Chapter Summary: “The Next One”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Li Wen’s achievement of reaching the eighth floor of the Heaven-Piercing Tower at only forty years old shocks the elite young geniuses of the Arka Advanced Empire.
• Baroque, Naraku, Ares Titan, and Isabel debate whether Li Wen’s accomplishment is genuine. Naraku dismisses him as a low-bloodline native who succeeded only through luck, while Ares and Isabel recognize that his feat suggests extraordinary talent or inheritance.
• Ares and Isabel send Li Wen challenge invitations. Li Wen chooses to accept Naraku’s challenge first, treating him as an opportunity to gain experience.
• The battle takes place in the immense Star Sea Arena, where Naraku is watched by many imperial geniuses, including Ares, Isabel, Kane Flame, Hisoka Shadowblade, and Raymond.
• Naraku provokes Li Wen over rejecting the Source Network’s invitation and mocks his origins. Li Wen calmly counters by reminding Naraku that he failed on the seventh floor of the Heaven-Piercing Tower.
• Naraku begins with Shadow Devourer Thousandfold Cleave, attacking with countless law-infused shadow claws. Li Wen uses Absolute Focus to perceive the attack’s weaknesses, sever its energy core with Space Severance, and evade the remaining strikes.
• For several minutes, Li Wen and Naraku fight evenly. Observers initially believe Li Wen relies mainly on movement and technique, while Ares and Isabel suspect he is deliberately concealing his true strength.
• Naraku unleashes his more powerful technique, Shadow Devourer: Descent of Eternal Night, creating a massive sphere of shadow that combines devouring, corrosion, confinement, and gravitational force.
• Li Wen finally reveals his true power through the Primordial Spirit Secret Art Myriad Phenomena—Return to Void. A dark-gold giant finger manifests and effortlessly pierces through Naraku’s ultimate attack and defense.
• Naraku’s strongest shield and physical body are completely annihilated. Li Wen wins decisively, leaving the spectators stunned.
• After the battle, Li Wen gains ten Martial Artist experience points and immediately accepts another challenge, choosing a powerful opponent known as the Two-Star King.

Character Developments

• Li Wen demonstrates exceptional composure, battle awareness, and confidence. He carefully analyzes Naraku’s techniques instead of immediately revealing his full strength.
• His Absolute Focus allows him to perceive energy flows, attack trajectories, and weaknesses with extraordinary precision.
• Li Wen’s Primordial Spirit power is revealed to be near the peak of the ninth layer, and his secret art can unleash power comparable to the Peak Saint Realm.
• Naraku’s arrogance collapses under pressure. His contempt for Li Wen turns into humiliation, fury, fear, and desperation once Li Wen overwhelms his strongest techniques.
• Ares Titan shifts from curiosity to serious respect, recognizing that Li Wen’s apparent weakness is deliberate concealment.
• Isabel becomes deeply fascinated by Li Wen’s Primordial Spirit path and the profound law conception within his secret art, suggesting that he may inspire her Star Law cultivation.
• Kane, Hisoka, and Raymond, initially skeptical, are forced to reconsider their assessments after witnessing Li Wen’s hidden strength.

Significant Themes

• Appearances versus true ability: Li Wen’s aura and visible energy seem ordinary, but his actual combat power is vastly greater than it appears.
• The danger of arrogance and prejudice: Naraku’s contempt for Li Wen’s low-tier origins blinds him to Li Wen’s real capabilities and ultimately contributes to his defeat.
• Experience and hardship versus privileged cultivation: Isabel suggests that geniuses from humble civilizations may develop unusually powerful willpower and Primordial Spirits because of harsher life-and-death struggles.
• Controlled revelation of strength: Li Wen deliberately probes his opponent before exposing his decisive technique, emphasizing patience, strategy, and confidence.
• Rising recognition: Li Wen’s victory marks his emergence as a major force among the empire’s elite and guarantees even greater challenges.

Character Interactions

• The opening discussion establishes a contrast between Naraku’s contempt, Ares’s cautious respect, and Isabel’s intellectual curiosity toward Li Wen.
• Kane Flame and Hisoka Shadowblade exchange playful insults while evaluating Li Wen, showing their competitive personalities.
• Ares repeatedly attempts to keep the group focused on the battle rather than their banter.
• Naraku and Li Wen engage in verbal provocation before the duel, with Li Wen’s remark about Naraku failing on the seventh floor striking directly at Naraku’s deepest insecurity.
• During the battle, the observers debate whether Li Wen is weak, concealed his strength, or possesses unusual combat instincts.
• After Li Wen’s final technique, Isabel and Ares recognize that his Primordial Spirit cultivation may place him in a category comparable to—or potentially more impressive than—that of the empire’s greatest geniuses.

Chapter Summary:

Titan Royal Clan

Key Plot Points and Events

• After being defeated by Li Wen, Naraku returns to the Arka Imperial Star palace psychologically crushed. The memory of Li Wen’s Myriad Phenomena Return-to-Void Finger destroys his former pride and confidence.
• Raymond, a powerful 2-Star King, accepts Li Wen’s challenge. The Arka geniuses believe Li Wen’s strongest technique has a long recovery period and plan to defeat him by surviving its first use.
• In the Limit Martial Arena, Raymond launches a brutal assault using the Strength Law and Thunder Law. Li Wen initially avoids and redirects the attacks through superior perception, movement, and blade techniques, but Raymond’s strength and defense gradually restrict him.
• Raymond uses his ultimate attack, Mountain Breaker, forcing Li Wen to respond with the dark-gold giant finger. Although Raymond manages to block the first finger, Li Wen unexpectedly summons a second one.
• The combined power of the two fingers overwhelms Raymond, destroying his weapon and annihilating him. Li Wen gains valuable Martial Artist experience from defeating both Naraku and Raymond.
• Li Wen then notices Ares Titan, a 3-Star King and apparent member of the Arka Empire’s royal Titan Clan, and accepts his challenge.
• Ares enters the arena in golden armor and speaks condescendingly to Li Wen, criticizing his refusal to join the Source Network. Li Wen ignores him completely.
• Once the battle begins, Ares overwhelms Li Wen with immense physical power, superior Laws, and the suppressive bloodline pressure of a High Titan. Li Wen is repeatedly blasted away and can only survive through his movement and blade skills.
• By the chapter’s end, Ares has Li Wen under total control but has not yet used his full Divine Punishment Power. The Arka geniuses regain confidence, anticipating Li Wen’s defeat.

Character Developments

• Li Wen: Demonstrates immense Primordial Spirit reserves by using his supposedly limited secret technique twice in succession. His calmness, tactical observation, and refusal to be intimidated reinforce his confidence and growing reputation. However, Ares’s strength reveals that Li Wen still faces a major gap against higher-ranked opponents.
• Naraku: Changes from a proud and contemptuous genius into a traumatized, vengeful spectator. His brief hope that Raymond might defeat Li Wen collapses when Li Wen uses the second giant finger.
• Raymond: Initially confident that his defense and strength can counter Li Wen’s technique. His confidence turns to disbelief and terror when Li Wen produces a second finger, leading to his complete annihilation.
• Ares Titan: Introduced as a powerful, aristocratic 3-Star King of the Titan Royal Clan. He is composed, domineering, and patronizing, viewing himself as qualified to guide Li Wen. His combat ability far surpasses the previous opponents.
• Isabel: Shows the most perceptive and impartial judgment among the Arka geniuses. She recognizes that Li Wen is studying and adapting rather than panicking, and she is impressed rather than threatened by his abilities.
• Kane, Hisoka, and the other geniuses: Their confidence shifts repeatedly—from contempt, to anxiety after Li Wen’s victories, and finally to renewed optimism when Ares suppresses him.

Significant Themes

• Pride and humiliation: Naraku and Raymond’s confidence is shattered by Li Wen’s overwhelming technique, while the Arka geniuses struggle to preserve their sense of superiority.
• Hidden strength and miscalculation: The opponents correctly identify a supposed weakness in Li Wen’s secret art but fail to account for his extraordinary Primordial Spirit reserves.
• Power hierarchy: The battle with Ares establishes the much greater strength of a 3-Star King and emphasizes the importance of realm, Laws, bloodline, and raw physical power.
• Talent versus affiliation: Ares argues that refusing the Source Network is foolish, while Li Wen’s silence suggests that he values his own path over institutional approval.
• Observation and adaptation: Li Wen’s combat style relies on analyzing opponents, exploiting weaknesses, and concealing his true limits until the decisive moment.

Character Interactions

• The Arka geniuses collectively analyze Li Wen’s abilities and encourage Raymond to exploit the recovery period of his secret technique.
• Naraku silently watches Raymond’s battle, hoping for revenge, but is plunged into deeper despair when Raymond is defeated.
• Isabel’s measured interpretation of Li Wen’s behavior contrasts with the others’ contempt and emotional reactions.
• After Li Wen defeats Raymond, he deliberately selects Ares as his next opponent, escalating the conflict.
• Ares gives Li Wen patronizing advice about joining the Source Network, but Li Wen’s deliberate silence provokes the Arka spectators.
• During the battle, Ares openly lectures Li Wen while suppressing him, treating the fight as a lesson rather than a genuine threat—at least for the moment.

Chapter Summary

Key Plot Points and Events

• Li Wen initially struggles against Ares Titan, whose superior Saint-level law comprehension gives him a decisive advantage.
• Realizing that prolonging the battle is dangerous, Li Wen uses Myriad Phenomena Return-to-Void Finger, his strongest known attack.
• Ares counters with Holy Barrier: Light Cross, successfully blocking the annihilating finger and convincing the spectators that Li Wen has exhausted his options.
• Ares then unleashes Titan Divine Punishment: Ragnarok, a devastating attack approaching Star Lord power.
• At the critical moment, Li Wen activates his Martial Artist passive [Berserk], increasing all his attributes by 70%. Combined with his mastery of darkness and a fragment of temporal law, his strength rises far beyond the normal Venerable Realm.
• Rather than using a weapon or technique, Li Wen meets Ragnarok with his bare fist. His darkness and temporal force dismantle Ares’s attack, shatter the golden fist, and then strike Ares directly.
• Ares is blasted into a distant mountain and defeated. The spectators, including Naraku, Raymond, Kane, and Isabel, are left stunned by Li Wen’s hidden power.
• Li Wen receives 50 Martial Artist experience points and recognizes the importance of combining Berserk with temporal power.
• Instead of resting, Li Wen accepts numerous challenge invitations from Imperial Star geniuses. He defeats several King Rank opponents in rapid succession, often killing them instantly through superior insight, speed, physical strength, and precision.
• Isabel, regarded as the strongest Imperial Star genius after Ares, is the final challenger. She reveals that she specializes in the Primordial Spirit path and begins the fight with a coordinated barrage of mental attacks.

Character Developments

• Li Wen: Reveals that his true strength is vastly greater than previously believed. His activation of Berserk demonstrates that he can temporarily reach a level beyond the Venerable Realm. His control of darkness, temporal law, physical power, and Primordial Spirit cultivation makes him exceptionally versatile. He also remains calm and analytical, treating successive battles as valuable opportunities for growth.
• Ares Titan: Initially confident that his superior bloodline, defense, and Saint-level laws will secure victory, he is shocked when Li Wen destroys Ragnarok and defeats him with a single follow-up punch. His silent reaction afterward suggests deep disbelief and self-reflection rather than anger.
• Isabel: Establishes herself as perceptive, intelligent, and composed. She notices Li Wen’s hidden confidence before his reversal and correctly identifies the extraordinary level of his physical and Primordial Spirit cultivation. As a Primordial Spirit specialist equipped with a powerful artifact, she presents a different and potentially more dangerous challenge than Ares.
• Imperial Star geniuses: Their pride changes into humiliation, silence, and fear as Li Wen defeats them one after another. Their former confidence in the superiority of the Imperial Star is severely shaken.
• Naraku and Raymond: Their admiration and relief after Ares blocks Li Wen’s finger turn into shock and fear when Ares is defeated.

Significant Themes

• Hidden strength and reversal: Apparent disadvantage does not reflect Li Wen’s true capabilities; his calmness conceals a decisive trump card.
• The limits of conventional power: Ares’s overwhelming Saint-level laws and defensive bloodline are defeated by Li Wen’s unusual combination of abilities.
• Adaptability and synthesis: Li Wen’s victory depends on combining Berserk, physical strength, darkness, temporal law, and precise combat insight rather than relying on one technique.
• Pride and humiliation: The Imperial Star’s collective confidence collapses as its champions are defeated by an outsider from Blue Star.
• Growth through combat: Li Wen views powerful opponents as opportunities to improve, immediately accepting further challenges after defeating Ares.
• Uncertainty surrounding Li Wen: Isabel and the other spectators realize that Li Wen continues to conceal major secrets and may possess power beyond the established realms.

Character Interactions

• Isabel carefully observes Li Wen during his battle with Ares, recognizing that his composure and concealed power differ from what the others perceive.
• Ares taunts Li Wen after blocking his strongest apparent technique, claiming that forcing him to use the Light Cross should make Li Wen proud. His confidence is destroyed when Li Wen activates Berserk and defeats him.
• Li Wen’s immediate acceptance of multiple challenges is interpreted by the Imperial Star geniuses as deliberate humiliation, though he calmly points out that they were the ones who challenged him.
• The challengers attack out of anger and wounded pride, but Li Wen defeats them effortlessly.
• Isabel and Li Wen exchange formal introductions before their match. She openly acknowledges his dual cultivation, while he responds with restrained courtesy.
• Isabel begins their battle with three linked Primordial Spirit attacks—mental pressure, a Soul Spike, Mind Mist, and Holy Light Shackles—forcing Li Wen to activate Absolute Focus and confront a completely different style of combat.

Key plot points and events

• Li Wen survives Isabel’s combination of Soul Spike, Mind Mist, and Holy Light Shackles, using his saber, Spirit Piercing Thorn, and Primordial Spirit Power to break through. He recognizes that her White Jade Staff makes Secret Arts stronger, faster to cast, and less taxing.
• Isabel escalates with Holy Judgment: Light Annihilation, a Purification Law attack. Li Wen counters with a greatly strengthened Myriad Phenomena Return-to-Void Finger. His technique pierces her beam and shatters her staff’s defensive shield, winning the match.
• Back in his personal space, Li Wen studies Primordial Spirit magical implements. He learns that they amplify and stabilize Secret Arts, but are extraordinarily expensive because they require scarce Spirit God Gold.
• Star Nexus explains that Star Lord-level Primordial Spirit cultivators develop Willingness Power and a Primordial Spirit World. These enable sustained power, fully capable independent avatars, and remote control of powerful weapons.
• Li Wen realizes that reaching the Star Lord realm could let him create an avatar to protect Blue Star and keep his parents company while he pursues martial cultivation. Since his Scholar skill has reached its current level cap, he resolves to advance through training instead.
• He reserves a session in the Soul Origin Tower and cultivates there. Its dense, pure mental energy accelerates his Primordial Spirit growth dramatically, strengthening his confidence that he can break the ten-thousand-zhang limit, form a Star Core, and reach the Star Lord realm.

Character developments

• Li Wen gains a deeper understanding of Primordial Spirit implements and the limits other cultivators face when casting powerful arts repeatedly. He remains calm after defeating Isabel, then turns his attention to long-term growth and protecting his family.
• Isabel demonstrates exceptional mastery of Primordial Spirit Secret Arts, supported by her staff, but Li Wen’s technique and will ultimately overcome her.
• Star Nexus serves as Li Wen’s efficient guide to cultivation technology, marketplace costs, and the nature of Willingness Power.

Significant themes

• Preparation and knowledge: Understanding how implements work gives Li Wen new insight into both his opponent and his own potential.
• Power and resource inequality: Rare materials and elite cultivation facilities are costly, while Li Wen’s special-grade standing grants him exceptional access.
• Family and responsibility: Li Wen’s ambition to reach the Star Lord realm is tied not only to power, but to safeguarding Blue Star and his parents.
• Persistence beyond advantages: With his Scholar progression temporarily capped, Li Wen commits to disciplined cultivation rather than waiting for another system update.

Character interactions

• Li Wen and Isabel engage in a high-level duel marked by mutual respect: she praises his escape, while he studies her staff’s capabilities and defeats her.
• Li Wen consults Star Nexus about implements, Willingness Power, and cultivation arrangements.
• At the Soul Origin Tower, other students treat Li Wen with deference because of his reputation and special-grade status.

Chapter Summary

Key events

• Li Wen leaves the Soul Origin Tower and trains in the Star Marrow Chamber, where searing, freezing, and crushing forces painfully temper his body. He activates Absolute Focus to control the process and improve its effectiveness.
• He visits the Myriad Phenomena Secret Realm, rich in many kinds of laws, but resists the temptation to explore further because he has committed to mastering the Time Law.
• Li Wen plans his monthly training resources: prioritize the Time Tower, Soul Origin Tower, and Star Marrow Chamber; use the Secret Realm to broaden his understanding; and devote remaining time to combat at the Limit Martial Arena.
• Nearly a year later, on the final day of his trial, Li Wen enters the Time Tower for his last free session. With time accelerated a hundredfold, he spends over sixteen internal days studying the River of Time and its laws.
• He advances in his understanding but cannot yet form the “Dao seed of Initiation” needed to cross into true Initiation. After settling his cultivation, he leaves the tower, having discreetly reset its time-flow setting to the twentyfold level he usually displays publicly.
• Trainees outside watch him with awe and speculate about which major power he will join when his trial ends. When he emerges, they sense a subtle aura of the Time Law around him.

Character development

• Li Wen shows discipline and strategic restraint: he chooses not to overextend himself or get distracted by other laws, and carefully allocates scarce training resources.
• His use of Absolute Focus reveals a renewed application of an ability he had rarely needed since his spiritual power and will strengthened.
• He remains patient when he falls short of Initiation, recognizing that his progress is already extraordinary and that deeper comprehension cannot be forced.

Character interactions

• Star Nexus explains how Star Marrow Tempering builds the bodily foundation needed to integrate laws after reaching the Saint Realm.
• Li Wen responds politely to a trainee who greets him, while the trainees outside discuss his achievements, his independence, and the likely competition among powerful organizations to recruit him.

Significant themes

• Foundations and endurance: lasting advancement requires strengthening the spirit and body, even through painful training.
• Focus and commitment: Li Wen resists distractions and centers his effort on the Time Law.
• Patience in mastery: extraordinary progress does not guarantee an immediate breakthrough.
• Freedom and reputation: Li Wen’s choices—and his preference for fewer restrictions—shape how others speculate about his future allegiance.