Chapter Summaries

Plot points and events

• At Cambridge University, Sakura Nation prodigy Goda Kazuo is publicly bullied by Western students. The humiliation is deliberate training: his Tyrant Tortoise Divine Art strengthens his spirit by making him endure pain and degradation.
• Student council president Williams summons Goda to meet a senior Western official. Goda is ordered to travel to China as part of a diplomatic delegation and kill the younger generation’s martial artists, especially one troublesome fighter. The West promises technical knowledge for success and says it will restrain China’s powerful practitioners.
• The official reflects on the West’s restrictive sequence-based cultivation system, where advancement opportunities are scarce and practitioners compete for limited places. He considers whether Eastern martial arts may offer a better path. The narration notes that Newton’s standing is threatened by modern research, while Einstein has opened a new scientific frontier.
• In Tianjin, Ye Li completes a major upgrade to his Qi-Blood Network. He turns the Scarlet Gold Hall into its central processing core and refines three Incense Prayer Beads as network nodes. The beads can detect believers, process loan requests, and transmit qi-blood automatically; a test successfully boosts a martial artist to the peak of Clear Force.
• Ye Li considers how to supply spiritual energy on a planetary scale. He recalls that traits may be used to generate it, potentially through the Scarlet Gold Hall’s formations, but postpones the dangerous undertaking while existing reserves remain sufficient.
• Ye Li learns that officials and powerful martial artists want him to hand over his qigong method and let the court control the Qi-Blood Banks. He also hears that the Wu Family has sought reconciliation with Pei Taoyu, who rejected them.
• Pei Taoyu is close to reaching Transforming Force. Ye Li reassures her, promises her a loan after her breakthrough, and she embraces him gratefully. When they emerge, a crowd outside the courtyard greets Ye Li as an immortal master.

Character developments and interactions

• Goda Kazuo is revealed as a powerful practitioner who hides his strength and accepts abuse to advance his spiritual cultivation. Though outwardly obedient, he is wary of the mission and remains loyal to his own interests rather than the West.
• Williams and the blond official treat Goda as a weapon, using threats and promised technology to secure his cooperation.
• Ye Li shifts from personally managing the network to building a scalable, largely automated system. He also anticipates attempts by authorities and elites to seize control of his work.
• Pei Taoyu grows stronger and more confident. She stands by her refusal to reconcile with the Wu Family and remains deeply grateful to Ye Li for helping her pursue revenge and advancement.

Significant themes

• Endurance and humiliation: Goda’s art turns suffering into spiritual strength, though its doctrine is presented with dark, ironic national stereotypes.
• Scarcity and competition: Western sequence cultivation offers limited advancement, forcing practitioners to defend their positions; Eastern martial arts appear more open to widespread participation.
• Technology serving cultivation: Ye Li combines formations, spiritual networks, and automated loans to make martial advancement accessible at enormous scale.
• Power, control, and exploitation: Officials and foreign powers seek to control martial knowledge and systems, while Ye Li’s network challenges established hierarchies.
• Collective advancement versus individual ambition: Tianjin’s population rapidly cultivates together, while rival powers maneuver to preserve their own influence.

Key Plot Points and Events

• Ye Li emerges from seclusion, greeted by a massive crowd who have benefited from his Qi-Blood Bank.
• Deputy Minister Li arrives, demanding the handover of the Qi-Blood Bank's qigong method to the government, citing national security concerns.
• Ye Li refuses, and Li Weiguang leaves, threatening Ye Li with Western technology.
• The Wu Family, in cahoots with Li Weiguang, plans to capture Ye Li with the help of Western exoskeleton battle armor.
• Newspapers begin denouncing the Qi-Blood Bank, turning public opinion against Ye Li.

Character Developments

• Ye Li remains calm and unyielding in the face of threats, demonstrating his confidence and determination.
• Li Weiguang shows his true colors as a power-hungry official, willing to use any means to achieve his goals.
• The Wu Family patriarch, Wu Zhongxian, is revealed to be greedy and vengeful, eager to use Western technology to settle his grudges.

Significant Themes

• The conflict between traditional martial arts and Western technology is a central theme, with Ye Li representing the former and Li Weiguang and the Wu Family representing the latter.
• The theme of public opinion and its manipulation is also present, as Li Weiguang uses his influence to turn the tide against Ye Li.

Character Interactions

• Ye Li interacts with Deputy Minister Li, demonstrating his unwillingness to compromise.
• The Wu Family patriarch interacts with Li Weiguang, plotting to capture Ye Li with Western technology.
• The people of Tianjin interact with Ye Li, expressing their gratitude and worship, while the rest of China turns against him due to the manipulated public opinion.

Plot points and events

• A week after reaching Xiantian, Ye Li has advanced his Wood Divine Treasury to 70% and brought his Liver Wood treasury to major completion. His Azure Dragon Deliverance Method’s fifth-layer ability, “Inexhaustible,” lets his True Qi replenish instantly, making even all-out attacks sustainable.
• Wu Zhongxian, patriarch of the Wu family, uses foreign spacetime technology to teleport Ye Li’s house and the surrounding area into a sealed, distant location. He plans to capture Ye Li on behalf of a powerful patron and conceal the fight by destroying the Wu family’s territory.
• Wu Zhongxian and thirteen genetically enhanced fighters attack Ye Li in advanced, stellar-core-powered mecha. Ye Li clashes with Wu Zhongxian’s machine at full force and discovers that combat against a formidable opponent is gradually dissipating the hostile aura of Heavenly Will around him.
• The other mecha join the fight with missiles and light-speed cannons. Ye Li uses his inexhaustible True Qi to block their attacks. He eventually destroys eleven suits and proves impossible to kill: even catastrophic injuries heal almost instantly.
• With his forces collapsing, Wu Zhongxian releases the barrier and flees. Ye Li pursues him into the sky.
• Meanwhile, Ye Li’s concentration on the battle causes the Qi-Blood Network to shut down. Yang Guicang, Zheng Yexiao, and others discover Ye Li’s courtyard has vanished and fear something has happened to him. Li Cunzhen assumes Ye Li has fled after deceiving them, then tries to intervene when he sees the aerial chase—but Wu Zhongxian’s mecha badly injures him.
• Cornered by Ye Li, Wu Zhongxian threatens to detonate the mecha’s exposed stellar core and destroy Tianjin. Ye Li remains unafraid, and his panel displays [Swiftness] +19, followed by “Monthly Ticket” and “Recommendation Ticket.”

Character developments and interactions

• Ye Li grows more confident in both his cultivation and his new regenerative power. Rather than use good fortune to avert every calamity, he embraces danger and treats battle as a way to challenge Heavenly Will. He remains composed even when Wu Zhongxian threatens a city.
• Wu Zhongxian initially boasts of his technological advantage and believes his mecha’s near-limitless energy will outlast Ye Li. As Ye Li survives every attack and destroys his forces, his confidence turns to terror and desperation.
• Li Cunzhen arrives as a skeptical, arrogant elder who doubts the Qi-Blood Bank and dismisses Ye Li as a fraud. His attempt to judge the confrontation ends with him badly wounded by Wu Zhongxian.
• Yang Guicang, Zheng Yexiao, and Le Yao search for answers after the network fails and Ye Li disappears. They suspect the Wu family and recognize that foreign technology is involved, while remaining deeply concerned for Ye Li.

Significant themes

• Technology versus cultivation: The mecha give ordinary martial artists immense combat power, but Ye Li’s cultivation, inexhaustible energy, and regenerative ability ultimately outmatch them.
• Endurance and self-renewal: Ye Li’s True Qi and healing make him extraordinarily difficult to defeat, allowing him to fight at full strength without conserving energy.
• Confronting fate: Ye Li chooses to face Heavenly Will’s calamities directly, believing that overcoming formidable opponents can weaken the hostile force around him.
• Power and moral compromise: Wu Zhongxian sacrifices his family’s territory and risks Tianjin itself to serve a powerful patron and escape defeat.

Key Plot Points and Events

• Wu Zhongxian threatens to destroy Tianjin with a miniature star core, but Ye Li drags him and the core into space, where it explodes harmlessly.
• Li Weiguang tries to flee Tianjin, but Ye Li curses him to death using the death qi of the fourteen Transforming Force martial artists he killed earlier.
• Pei Taoyu avenges her family by killing all the Wu Family members and their allies, then embraces Ye Li, expressing her gratitude and affection.

Character Developments

• Ye Li demonstrates his immense power and speed, proving himself to be a formidable force at the Xiantian Realm.
• Wu Zhongxian shows his ruthlessness by threatening to destroy Tianjin to take Ye Li down with him.
• Li Weiguang reveals his desperation and willingness to do anything to eliminate Ye Li.
• Pei Taoyu shows her determination and skill in avenging her family, and her growing affection for Ye Li.

Significant Themes

• Power and its consequences: Ye Li's power allows him to save Tianjin from destruction, but it also makes him a target for those who fear him.
• Revenge and its impact: Pei Taoyu's quest for revenge consumes her for a time, but once it's complete, she is left with a void that she hopes Ye Li can fill.
• The struggle between good and evil: Ye Li's actions protect the innocent, while Wu Zhongxian and Li Weiguang's actions put innocent lives at risk.

Character Interactions

• Ye Li and Wu Zhongxian: Their confrontation highlights the difference in power and morality between them, with Wu Zhongxian willing to sacrifice innocent lives to defeat Ye Li.
• Ye Li and Li Weiguang: Their conflict shows the lengths Li Weiguang is willing to go to eliminate Ye Li, even if it means destroying Tianjin.
• Ye Li and Pei Taoyu: Their interaction reveals Pei Taoyu's growing affection for Ye Li and her desire to be close to him, while Ye Li shows concern and support for her.

Plot and key events

• A divine prayer bead reaches the capital, allowing Ye Li to extend the Qi-Blood Bank beyond Tianjin. From afar, he forcibly connects everyone in the city to the network and grants each person ten points of qi and blood without consent.
• The sudden influx of strength overwhelms ordinary people and martial artists alike. Many experience dramatic boosts, while practitioners break through long-standing bottlenecks. Within half an hour, more than ten million people apply for additional loans.
• As the Qi-Blood Bank’s effects become impossible to dismiss, the capital’s newspapers abruptly switch from condemning it to praising the qi-blood martial path. The spread reaches other major cities as well.
• Ye Li anticipates resistance from powerful authorities and martial artists. Capital officials invite him to discuss the Bank, while Li Cunzhen reports that several Elixir Embrace masters also want to meet him. Ye Li plans to recruit these powerful practitioners as borrowers, since their qi and blood could yield far greater returns.
• Ye Li, Li Cunzhen, Pei Taoyu, and Zheng Leyao travel to the capital aboard a foreign-built sublight vessel. Li Weiguang, who had previously summoned an Elixir Embrace mecha, has since died in a spacecraft accident.
• During the journey, Leyao visits Ye Li’s cabin under the pretext of needing help with her martial arts stance. Ye Li invites her in and shuts the door. Next door, Taoyu continues training, determined to grow strong enough to keep Ye Li to herself.

Character developments and interactions

• Ye Li shifts from gradual persuasion to coercive expansion, prioritizing speed and reach. He remains confident that the Bank’s benefits will win people over and sees elite martial artists as especially valuable clients.
• Li Cunzhen, restored to his youthful prime by the Bank, regrets doubting Ye Li and now helps promote it. He also becomes Ye Li’s link to influential capital-based masters.
• Jiang Guqin passionately defends the Bank to her skeptical master, describing how it has accelerated her progress and could make martial arts accessible to ordinary people. Her plea is interrupted when the network reaches the school.
• Jiang Zhenyue begins as a staunch critic who trusts newspaper reports over his disciple’s testimony. Forced enrollment and the qi-blood infusion challenge his assumptions, though his reaction is initially furious.
• Pei Taoyu remains intensely focused on cultivation, driven by grief and the desire to become stronger. Her devotion is also possessive: she wants to be the only one close to Ye Li.
• Zheng Leyao acts more boldly and personally, seeking private attention from Ye Li during the trip. Their interaction contrasts with Taoyu’s disciplined, inward approach.

Significant themes

• Powerful progress versus consent: The Bank delivers real, rapid benefits, but Ye Li’s forced enrollment and loans raise questions about coercion and agency.
• Access to martial arts: The qi-blood system promises to overcome the time, talent, and financial barriers that keep ordinary people from advancing.
• Public opinion and proof: The newspapers’ sudden reversal shows how quickly official narratives can change when experience contradicts prior claims.
• Ambition and desire: Ye Li pursues influence and resources; Taoyu pursues strength and exclusivity; Leyao pursues a more immediate personal connection.

Key plot points and events

• After a night together aboard the starship, Le Yao finds that her cultivation has risen to the peak of Hidden Force, with Qi and blood approaching Transforming Force. Ye Li attributes the dramatic effects to his abundant spiritual energy and the world’s spiritually starved “Gods and Devils cells.”
• The starship lands in the capital. Ye Li senses that the Qi-Blood Network has greatly strengthened the city’s people, but recognizes that widespread martial training could disrupt existing social and labor hierarchies.
• Li Cunzhen warns Ye Li that the capital’s many Elixir Embrace experts—often backed by military factions—may challenge his authority over the Qi-Blood Network.
• At a banquet on Jade-Wave Lake, the experts argue that martial training should be restricted, the Qi-Blood Bank’s interest should be waived or regulated, and the network should be handed to the central government. Ye Li rejects their demands and says strength, not debate, will settle the matter.
• Ye Li overturns the stone banquet table, sending it—and its dishes—flying into his opponents. He quickly defeats several early- and middle-stage Elixir Embrace practitioners.
• Two late-stage Elixir Embrace experts challenge him. Their initial clash gives Ye Li a measure of his raw strength: roughly equal to an ordinary late-stage Elixir Embrace practitioner. He then uses special speed enhancements and a powerful mental attack to overwhelm and subdue them.
• The fight devastates the pavilion and surrounding area, drawing star-destroying warships to the sky. Ye Li asks the gathered martial artists how they compare with those Western ships, hinting at his next move.

Character developments

• Le Yao grows closer to Ye Li and gains a major leap in cultivation. She also takes quiet satisfaction in showing her new closeness to him in front of Pei Taoyu.
• Ye Li becomes more confident about his position in this world after discovering that his abilities—including speed enhancement and mental force—let him overcome opponents beyond what raw strength alone would suggest.
• Li Cunzhen acts as Ye Li’s adviser and warns him about the political and martial resistance his reforms will provoke.
• The capital’s Elixir Embrace experts reveal themselves as factional powerbrokers, more concerned with preserving influence and social order than embracing universal martial advancement.

Significant themes

• Power and social order: If ordinary people gain martial strength, established hierarchies and unwanted labor arrangements may collapse.
• Reform versus control: The experts’ objections frame public access to martial training as dangerous, while Ye Li insists that the decision will not be reversed.
• Strength as authority: The banquet’s debate gives way to combat, reflecting the world’s belief that force settles disputes.
• Limits of conventional cultivation: Ye Li’s traits and mental attack defeat opponents whose martial traditions focus on physical strength, exposing gaps in their understanding.

Character interactions

• Le Yao and Ye Li share an intimate bond, while Pei Taoyu watches their closeness with jealousy and resentment.
• Li Cunzhen supports Ye Li but cautions him about the powerful military factions represented at the banquet.
• Yang Yizhen and other True Persons confront Ye Li with demands for restrictions, government control, and changes to the bank’s terms; Ye Li listens, then refuses them.
• When two senior experts try to test or intimidate him, Ye Li defeats them and leaves the rest of the gathering subdued.

Summary

Key Plot Points and Events

• Ye Li's arrival in the capital draws the attention of major factions, leading to a standoff with thousands of Star Destroyers.
• Ye Li destroys the Star Destroyers using a lucky trick, convincing the Elixir Embrace experts that he's a Force Aura martial artist.
• Ye Li purges dissenters and takes the remaining Elixir Embrace experts into seclusion to help them advance.

Character Developments

• Ye Li: Maintains his calm and composure, displaying his strength and resolve.
• Elixir Embrace Experts: Realize Ye Li's power and submit to him. Some are purged, while others remain and are taken into seclusion.

Significant Themes

• The power dynamics between martial artists and technological weapons.
• The consequences of underestimating Ye Li and the importance of submission.
• The potential threat of Ye Li's Qi-Blood Network to the West.

Character Interactions

• Ye Li interacts with the Elixir Embrace experts, demonstrating his power and making them submit to him.
• The Western powers discuss the threat posed by Ye Li's Qi-Blood Network and consider joining forces to decipher its secrets.

Chapter Summary

1. Key Plot Points and Events

• News that Ye Li had reached the Transforming Force Realm spreads across China. Major factions that had previously schemed against him immediately abandon their plans and begin trying to recruit him.
• The China People’s Daily officially announces that Ye Li destroyed three thousand starships with one finger, with the Transforming Force Grand Commander confirming the report. His authority and the authenticity of his Qi-Blood Bank are no longer questioned.
• Ye Li secretly works from the capital, refining thousands of Incense Prayer Beads and sending them throughout China to connect and strengthen the population.
• He also assists more than thirty talented Elixir Embrace martial artists, using spiritual energy to purify their qi and blood and help them break through.
• Ye Li perfects the fifth layer of the Azure Dragon Deliverance Method and unlocks three possible traits. He chooses Dragon Source Inexhaustible · Modified, allowing him to convert his endless True Qi into other forms of energy, especially spiritual energy.
• By converting True Qi into spiritual energy, Ye Li effectively creates an enormous renewable supply of cultivation resources, reducing his dependence on Scarlet Gold Hall’s pill reserves. He also condenses spiritual energy into extremely pure spiritual crystals.
• Over six days, twenty-eight Elixir Embrace martial artists successfully advance by one minor realm. Ye Li then harvests part of their accumulated golden fortune.
• Having strengthened his foundation, Ye Li begins breaking through to the Second Transformation, opening the Heart Divine Treasury.
• His breakthrough unexpectedly triggers a terrifying lightning tribulation, despite him advancing only to the second transformation rather than the Grandmaster Realm.
• Ye Li deliberately enters the thunderclouds and absorbs the lightning directly, using it to temper and rebuild his body. Although repeated strikes nearly kill him, his regenerative abilities revive him and allow him to continue refining the tribulation’s power.

2. Character Developments

• Ye Li becomes increasingly confident and powerful. His rise to Transforming Force makes him the unquestioned dominant figure in China, while his cultivation innovations give him nearly limitless spiritual-energy production.
• He demonstrates greater strategic patience by delaying his breakthrough until he can harvest the Elixir Embrace martial artists’ fortune and maximize his foundation.
• His new energy-conversion ability gives him a partial form of Creation Authority, broadening his abilities beyond ordinary Xiantian cultivation.
• Ye Li’s defiance toward Heavenly Will becomes even more pronounced. Rather than fearing the lightning tribulation, he treats it as an opportunity for further tempering and growth.
• Li Cunzhen becomes the first of the assisted martial artists to break through, reaching the middle Elixir Embrace stage and then being pushed to its peak by Ye Li.

3. Significant Themes

• Power reshapes political relationships: Once Ye Li is believed to possess Transforming Force, former enemies immediately abandon hostility and seek alliance.
• Accumulation and preparation: Ye Li emphasizes strengthening his foundation, gathering fortune, refining techniques, and securing resources before advancing.
• Creation and transformation: The ability to convert True Qi into spiritual energy symbolizes Ye Li’s movement toward higher, almost divine levels of authority.
• Defiance against fate and heaven: The lightning tribulation represents Heavenly Will’s hostility, but Ye Li responds with open resistance rather than submission.
• The strong becoming stronger: Ye Li’s assistance allows exceptional martial artists to overcome the limitations of the modern age, while his own growing power lets him help and exploit their advancement simultaneously.
• Regeneration and rebirth: Ye Li’s ability to survive destruction and recover through wood-fire power reinforces the theme of repeatedly breaking limits through transformation.

4. Character Interactions

• China’s major factions reverse their stance toward Ye Li, shifting from suppression and attempted exploitation to recruitment and appeasement.
• The public and media react fearfully to his confirmed Transforming Force status, while former critics hurriedly claim their opposition came from “temporary employees.”
• Ye Li guides the Elixir Embrace martial artists by purifying their qi and blood, enabling their breakthroughs. He directly boosts Li Cunzhen after his initial advancement and silently instructs him not to disturb the others.
• Ye Li’s confrontation with Heavenly Will becomes the chapter’s central conflict. He challenges the lightning tribulation head-on, absorbing its attacks and using them to strengthen his body rather than merely surviving them.

Plot points and events

• Ye Li undergoes an immense heavenly lightning tribulation. He survives by adapting as its power rises, studying the lightning, and using Dragon Source: Inexhaustible—Modified to imitate the parts he can understand.
• The ordeal transforms his body, soul, meridians, and true qi. He reaches Second-Transformation Xiantian, gains golden, lightning-infused true qi, and becomes powerful enough to defend himself—at least to a limited degree—against Astral Force cultivators.
• Hidden by the tribulation clouds, Ye Li returns unnoticed to his residence. He creates a million Incense Prayer Beads and dispatches them across China, rapidly expanding his Qi-Blood Bank network and drawing more people into its cultivation system.
• After several days of consolidating his breakthrough and guiding Pei Taoyu, Ye Li strolls through the city with Le Yao. A newspaper reports that Goda Kazuo, a martial artist from Sakura Nation, has defeated thirty Chinese Transforming Force fighters.
• The chapter recounts Goda’s arrival and explains that his pact with the demon Overlord Zero, combined with the Tyrant Tortoise Divine Art, makes people instinctively despise and underestimate him. This distortion has helped him win repeated challenges and serves Sakura Nation’s aim of exploiting China’s population and emotions to empower its supernatural beings.
• Back at home, Ye Li considers whether another person’s true qi can be treated as a distinct kind of energy. He looks at the slumbering Dragon Maiden’s soul and wonders whether he can analyze and simulate her far stronger Mid-Grandmaster true qi.

Character developments and interactions

• Ye Li emerges from the tribulation vastly stronger and more controlled, with a new capacity to reproduce lightning’s essence. He remains ambitious and experimental, turning his breakthrough into both a national cultivation network and a new research question.
• Le Yao is increasingly comfortable and intimate with Ye Li. She hints that he should pursue Pei Taoyu and says she would accept sharing him, but becomes jealous when she learns that Jiang Xiyue is Ye Li’s most beloved woman.
• Pei Taoyu, though absent from the walk, is described as training intensely and approaching late-stage Transforming Force. Ye Li’s relationship with her remains unresolved.
• Goda Kazuo presents himself as a humble visitor seeking martial exchange, but his demon pact manipulates others’ perceptions and fuels a covert ambition to enable Sakura Nation’s supernatural forces.
• The Dragon Maiden remains unconscious in Ye Li’s Scarlet Gold Hall; her overwhelming strength inspires his next experiment.

Significant themes

• Defying and adapting to heaven: Ye Li survives a trial designed to grow deadlier alongside him, turning its destructive force into a source of advancement.
• Power as replication and accumulation: His ability to analyze energy drives both his personal cultivation and the mass expansion of the Qi-Blood Bank.
• Perception as a weapon: Goda’s supernatural influence causes people to misjudge him, showing how distorted perceptions can undermine an entire martial community.
• Personal desire and attachment: Ye Li’s relationships with Le Yao and Pei Taoyu are contrasted with his enduring emotional priority for Jiang Xiyue.
• Conflict between nations and supernatural forces: Goda’s challenge tour reveals a broader struggle over human emotions, belief, and the power they can sustain.

Chapter Summary

Plot and key events

• In the Scarlet Gold Hall, Ye Li studies the Dragon Maiden’s wounded soul and the trace of Grandmaster-level True Qi within it. The immense gap between their cultivation levels nearly overwhelms him, but he concludes that he may eventually learn to imitate her True Qi and gain a powerful combat technique.
• Ye Li reflects on the brutal logic of cultivation: growing stronger brings trials from Heavenly Will, but standing still leaves a fighter vulnerable to rivals.
• In China, Goda Kazuo has won more than forty martial matches, badly injuring or crippling opponents. Chinese Elixir Embrace masters travel to watch him, but a demonic influence distorts their judgment, making them dismiss him as weak and his victories as flukes.
• Goda defeats another Transforming Force opponent with a single counterstrike. The crowd and watching masters blame the defeated fighter, unaware that Goda’s contracted demon has been manipulating perceptions and steering stronger challengers away.
• Ye Li arrives after his Qi-Blood Network alerts him to the growing losses. He halts the surrounding activity and exposes the supernatural influence. The affected masters regain their senses and realize they have been deceived.
• Ye Li confronts Goda, who pleads that he is a young competitor and threatens diplomatic consequences. Some Chinese masters also urge Ye Li to let a younger fighter handle the match. Ye Li rejects their caution, disguises his intervention as a fair contest, and challenges Goda at the same supposed cultivation level.
• Though Ye Li claims to be an early-stage Transforming Force fighter, his true power is vastly greater. He unleashes his full strength and kills Goda with one devastating punch, ending the chapter on Ye Li’s victory over an opponent three minor stages above him.

Character developments

• Ye Li gains a clearer understanding of Grandmaster True Qi and considers how to reproduce it. His sense of justice is paired with impatience: he refuses to let rules or concerns about appearances protect a malicious enemy.
• Goda Kazuo is revealed not as a genuine string of victories but as the vessel and accomplice of a demon that manipulates people’s perceptions and exploits emotional energy. His confidence collapses when Ye Li appears.
• The Chinese masters shift from confidence and contempt to shock once Ye Li breaks the demon’s influence. Their earlier complacency exposes how thoroughly their judgment was compromised.
• The Dragon Maiden remains unconscious, but the remnant of her power continues to influence Ye Li’s understanding of the world’s highest cultivation levels.

Significant themes

• Power and cultivation: The distance between realms is qualitative as well as quantitative, and even a faint trace of Grandmaster power can dwarf lower-level strength.
• The cost of ambition: Cultivators face danger both from Heavenly Will and from rivals, leaving retreat or continued struggle as risky choices.
• Deception and perception: Goda’s apparent success depends on supernatural manipulation, showing how easily pride and contempt can make people misread danger.
• Hypocrisy and fairness: Ye Li mocks the language of “fair play” when it is used to restrain him while enemies break the rules. He turns Goda’s own contest rules against him.
• Competing ways of exploiting people: Ye Li compares his Qi-Blood system to cultivation and harvesting, while the demon drains people’s emotions in a way that harms them.

Character interactions

• Ye Li cautiously probes the Dragon Maiden’s soul, confronting the immense difference between their powers.
• Goda’s demon manipulates the watching masters, encouraging their contempt and making them underestimate him.
• After Ye Li dispels that influence, the masters recognize the deception but still argue that Ye Li should avoid fighting Goda himself.
• Goda tries to escape through appeals to seniority, age, diplomacy, and the rules of the exchange; Ye Li answers by insisting that they both follow those rules and then attacks without restraint.

Key plot points and events

• Ye Li’s punch obliterates Goda Kazuo, nearly vaporizing the city’s underground—but he channels the force into the earth to spare the population. The watching martial artists realize Ye Li’s strength is extraordinary, though he admits he still falls far short of true Grandmaster technique.
• The demon contracted to Goda Kazuo reveals itself after deciding Ye Li is not a Grandmaster. It hopes to consume him and rise to that level.
• Ye Li attacks at superluminal speed, but the demon’s Minor Malice ability subtly disrupts his aim. Intrigued, Ye Li decides he would rather refine the demon into a Sacrificial Artifact than simply destroy it.
• Their battle escalates. Ye Li’s endless True Qi, regenerative vitality, and protective foundation let him unleash an immense barrage without tiring as a conventional martial artist would. His attacks overwhelm and destroy the demon’s body.
• The demon survives by spreading its influence through hundreds of millions of people in the city, filling their minds with evil and threatening Ye Li with their lives.
• Ye Li reveals that his soul has grown powerful through accumulated training and uses trait upgrades to increase it dramatically. Rather than use an inappropriate technique to cleanse the crowd, he prepares to make his “Big Jail” method attack the city’s evil wills.

Character developments

• Ye Li demonstrates both immense power and restraint: he directs his first devastating strike away from civilians, then adapts from physical combat to a spiritual threat. He is confident, resourceful, and irreverently humorous.
• The demon shifts from caution to arrogance, then from apparent triumph to fear when Ye Li proves capable of challenging it mentally as well as physically.
• The Elixir Embrace martial artists move from stunned spectators to alarmed witnesses, recognizing the demon’s role in the earlier violence and worrying about Ye Li’s safety.

Significant themes

• Raw power versus mastery: Ye Li can produce enormous force, but his lack of Grandmaster-level control remains a clear limitation.
• Endurance and unconventional strength: Traits and renewable resources let Ye Li fight in ways traditional martial artists cannot.
• Restraint amid overwhelming power: Ye Li repeatedly takes care to avoid harming civilians, even while fighting on a catastrophic scale.
• Adaptation and hidden capabilities: The conflict expands from physical attacks to mental influence, requiring Ye Li to draw on a different aspect of his strength.

Character interactions

• The demon mocks and underestimates Ye Li, while Ye Li treats it as both a threat and a potential resource.
• Their battle becomes a contest of tactics: the demon uses subtle mental interference and then civilian hosts; Ye Li answers first with overwhelming attacks and then with strengthened soul power.
• The martial artists and the crowd interpret events differently: ordinary people are confused by their sudden violence, while the trained observers understand that a demon had manipulated them.

Plot points and events

• Ye Li unleashes hundreds of millions of soul threads across the city to stop people acting on the Overlord Demon’s influence. His avatar, “Big Jail,” intervenes in scenes of abuse, exploitation, and violence, restoring outward order.
• The demon argues that force only suppresses evil temporarily and will provoke resentment. Ye Li changes tactics, using “Universal Joy” to make the city laugh uncontrollably. With negative emotions displaced, the demon seeds are gradually purified.
• Ye Li removes the final seed and recognizes its unusually pure mental energy as something he may be able to study. The demon fades, warning that powerful martial artists will target Ye Li now that his strength has been exposed.
• Gang Force grandmaster Yang Shaohou arrives. After questioning Ye Li about his unfamiliar powers, he publicly credits the Qi-Blood Bank with saving lives and extending his own life, then promises to protect Ye Li from hostile practitioners.
• Yang accompanies Ye Li to his courtyard, where he meets the Elixir Embrace practitioners and Pei Taoyu. Pei asks whether a God Perception master could retrieve the dead from the River of Time. Yang explains that his ancestor’s supposed time travel was actually faster-than-light movement that let him see old light carrying images of the past.

Character developments and interactions

• Ye Li shows both immense power and adaptability: when brute force proves inadequate, he uses forced laughter to deprive the demon seeds of the negative emotions they need. He also recognizes that his exposed status leaves him vulnerable to higher-level martial artists.
• The Overlord Demon is confident in its account of human nature, but becomes alarmed by Ye Li’s countermeasure and dies as its influence is erased.
• Yang Shaohou shifts from examining Ye Li’s abilities to openly supporting him, acknowledging his debt and warning off potential aggressors.
• Pei Taoyu reveals that her drive to advance in martial arts is tied to a hope of recovering someone who has died. Though Yang’s answer undermines that hope, she listens with determination.
• The city’s inhabitants are temporarily transformed from conflict and cruelty into helpless laughter; father and son, for example, share laughter after Big Jail stops the father from abusing the child.

Significant themes

• Symptoms versus causes: The demon correctly observes that violent suppression cannot erase evil, prompting Ye Li to seek a different way to disrupt its emotional roots.
• Power and control: Ye Li’s “Universal Joy” defeats the demon, but its forced happiness raises questions about whether imposed emotional states are genuine well-being.
• Responsibility and solidarity: Yang’s public pledge demonstrates how Ye Li’s actions create obligations and allies, even as they attract powerful enemies.
• Hope and the limits of knowledge: Pei’s wish to reverse death meets a sobering explanation: apparent time travel is only the observation of past light, not a return to the past.

Key Plot Points and Events

• Yang Shaohou reveals that the reversal of the river of time is a rumor.
• Ye Li assures Pei Taoyu that he will help revive her parents.
• A demigod from the Eagle Nation publicly challenges Ye Li to a battle over the Atlantic Ocean in one month.
• Ye Li accepts the challenge.

Character Developments

• Pei Taoyu's hope is dashed upon learning that reversing time is impossible.
• Ye Li demonstrates confidence and ruthlessness in accepting the challenge.
• Yang Shaohou shows concern for Ye Li's safety and offers to change the battle location.

Significant Themes

• The power of belief and hope, and their fragility.
• The consequences of rash actions and underestimating one's opponent.
• The importance of preparation and confidence in facing challenges.

Character Interactions

• Yang Shaohou and Ye Li discuss the challenge and the potential dangers.
• Ye Li comforts Pei Taoyu and reassures her of his intentions to help her.
• The demigod from the Eagle Nation and Ye Li engage in a public challenge, setting the stage for a high-stakes battle.

Summary of Chapter: Remote Duel Rankings

1. Key Plot Points & Events

• Duel Announced: Ye Li (Eastern newcomer demigod, recent slayer of a Japanese demon) accepts a challenge from Fisher (Eagle Nation veteran demigod, formerly political-path, now military-path) to battle atop the Atlantic Ocean. News spreads globally, stirring massive attention.
• Betting Mania: Wall Street opens a betting pool; odds reach an insane 65:1 favoring Fisher, with billions wagered.
• Fisher’s Psychological Warfare: A month before the battle, Fisher hijacks global projection screens to taunt Ye Li, trying to build public support and karmic momentum. Yang Guicang explains Fisher’s scheme: Fisher’s military-path cultivation has stagnated, so he plans to use this duel’s fame and victory to switch back to the political path and break through to mid-demigod.
• Ye Li’s Brutal Training: Inside the Scarlet Gold Hall, Ye Li repeatedly analyzes and simulates the Dragon Maiden’s true qi. Each attempt causes his body to explode (tens of thousands of times). Using his inexhaustible Wood-Fire Divine Repository, he rebuilds himself, but the pain leaves him mentally foggy. He gradually refines the simulation, planning to rely on attrition in the real fight.
• Counter-Livestream: Ye Li, accompanied by Gangjin Grandmaster Yang Shaohou, broadcasts his own response. He mockingly trash-talks Fisher, vowing to make him kneel, yank off his top hat, and call him “the little brother of demigods.” The crude rant shatters public perceptions of demigods, dominates global headlines, and causes Fisher’s accumulated karmic power to plummet.

2. Character Developments

• Ye Li: Demonstrates obsessive determination, enduring endless physical destruction to master a technique. Also shows tactical cunning—he counters Fisher’s dignified public-opinion campaign with vulgar trash talk, leveraging his own past as a streamer. His methods are unconventional, pragmatic, and ruthless.
• Fisher: Exposed as an opportunistic political climber. His bluster and manipulation are undercut by Ye Li’s response, revealing that his supposedly invincible aura depends on fragile public opinion.
• Zheng Leyao: Worried for Ye Li, tries to persuade him to delay the fight, but is swayed (and hinted to have spent the night with him). She reassures her father of Ye Li’s confidence.
• Pei Taoyu: Shows extreme devotion, keeping Ye Li’s food warm using her own qi/blood, and expresses her love through quiet dedication. Her motivation for training is centered on staying with Ye Li and reviving her family.

3. Significant Themes

• Power of Public Opinion & Karmic Politics: Demigod strength is tied to human belief and attention. Fisher’s political-path cultivation depends on popular support; Ye Li’s insult-laden response shows that public perception can be weaponized.
• Cost of Power: Ye Li’s quest for strength involves violent self-destruction and regeneration, emphasizing that advancement demands suffering and sacrifice.
• East vs. West Culture Clash: Western pomp and media-savvy versus Eastern bluntness and pragmatism; Ye Li destroys the “demigod mystique” revered in the West.
• Media as Battlefield: The duel is fought not only in the ocean but through livestreams, headlines, and psychological warfare.

4. Character Interactions

• Zheng Yexiao & Zheng Leyao: He asks about Ye Li’s confidence; she deflects with a forced smile, concealing her private worry and Ye Li’s unorthodox “rest” method.
• Yang Guicang & Group: Discuss Fisher’s political strategy, explaining the intricacies of path-switching and why Fisher is building momentum.
• Ye Li & Pei Taoyu: A intimate, tender exchange. She reports outside news, he trusts her judgment, and she silently vows to protect him or avenge him. He appreciates her but remains oblivious to the depth of her feelings.
• Ye Li & Fisher (via screens): Indirect confrontation—Fisher taunts, Ye Li responds with crude insults, publicly humiliating his opponent and flipping the narrative.

Plot points and events

• Fisher reads a headline quoting Ye Li’s insult and nearly loses his temper. He soon regains composure and explains that he expects the Atlantic confrontation to attract many hidden demigods—and perhaps a true god. He believes that whatever happens, he can benefit: victory would strengthen Western opinion and let him capture Ye Li; if Ye Li proves too powerful, the other demigods will attack him.
• For the month before the duel, Ye Li publicly trades insults with Fisher while continuing to cultivate. As China’s Qi-Blood Network spreads, the nation’s fortune fuels his Heartfire Divine Treasury. He reaches 100% in the Fire Divine Treasury, completing the Wood-Fire cycle and greatly strengthening his body and soul.
• Ye Li’s cultivation begins to affect the world around him: winter trees bud, frozen water warms, and snow melts. His will temporarily brings spring to the surrounding region—an extraordinary feat for someone only at his second revolution.
• Rather than advance immediately, Ye Li chooses to learn the Nine Nether True Extreme Seal from the Dragon Maiden’s techniques. After intensive practice, he forms Nine Nether true qi, which his modified Blue Dragon Source trait spreads throughout his dantian.
• On the eve of the battle, Pei Taoyu has reached perfected Transforming Force, while Zheng Leyao has only reached the late stage. Ye Li reassures and teases both women, then tells them to remain behind because the fight is too dangerous.
• Ye Li travels to the Atlantic with Yang Shaohou. He knows the confrontation may involve more than Fisher and has asked Yang to follow their agreed plan. Although some Chinese martial artists offered help, Ye Li declined.
• Millions of enormous ships and a vast interstellar audience await the duel. Ye Li appears in the air and calls for Fisher. Fisher responds by raising a colossal wave and using his naval authority to carry his warship through space at light speed.
• The two demigods meet. Fisher senses that Ye Li’s energy is below a demigod’s and believes he has the advantage. He begins by unleashing his power, making the sea across a vast area plunge downward.

Character development and interactions

• Fisher is revealed as calculating beneath his controlled public image. He treats the duel as a political opportunity and assumes hidden forces will eliminate Ye Li if he is stronger than expected.
• Ye Li combines confidence and discipline: he uses only a little time for public taunts, focuses on cultivation, and prepares a powerful technique rather than rushing his next breakthrough. He also appears aware of the danger surrounding the duel.
• Pei Taoyu makes rapid progress through hard training and is encouraged by Ye Li’s praise. Zheng Leyao is jealous of the attention Pei receives and protests that she has worked hard too; Ye Li teases her, leaving her embarrassed.
• Yang Shaohou worries that the battle will draw in more than the two announced opponents. He supports Ye Li but accepts Ye Li’s decision to handle the danger according to their plan.

Significant themes

• Power and the natural world: Ye Li’s spiritual growth reaches beyond his body, altering the seasons and environment.
• Cultivation through discipline and preparation: Ye Li’s month of steady progress and week of focused technique practice show the value of persistence over haste.
• Political spectacle and hidden agendas: The duel is marketed as an East–West clash, but powerful factions and concealed observers make it far more than a simple contest.
• Confidence versus misjudgment: Fisher believes Ye Li is outmatched, while Ye Li’s true abilities and preparation remain partly concealed.

Key Plot Points and Events

• Ye Li and Fisher, a demigod, face off on the boundless sea.
• Ye Li uses the [Nine Nether True Extreme Seal] to transform his body into a black hole, increasing in mass and power over time.
• Fisher attempts to counter by compressing space and using the sea's water to accelerate Ye Li's consumption.
• Ye Li, nearing his limit, uses a strand of Dragon Maiden True Qi to trigger an explosion, defeating Fisher.
• After Fisher's death, Ye Li inherits his physical attributes, significantly strengthening his body.
• Other demigods, who had been lying in wait, attack Ye Li in retaliation for Fisher's death.

Character Developments

• Ye Li demonstrates his strategic thinking and adaptability in battle, using his environment and opponent's strength against them.
• Fisher's overconfidence and underestimation of Ye Li lead to his downfall.
• Ye Li's body undergoes significant physical enhancement after inheriting Fisher's attributes.

Significant Themes

• The power of adaptability and strategy in battle.
• The consequences of underestimating one's opponent.
• The enhancement of physical attributes through inheritance.

Character Interactions

• Ye Li and Fisher's intense battle showcases their strength and determination.
• Ye Li's inheritance of Fisher's attributes highlights the power of the Dragon Joy ability.
• The other demigods' attack on Ye Li demonstrates their loyalty to their fallen comrade and their desire for revenge.

Summary

Key Plot Points and Events

• Ye Li defeats Fisher, but more than a dozen demigods attack him to claim his Qi-Blood Network.
• A Western True God, Herbert, appears and seals Ye Li within a water cage.
• Ye Li initiates a breakthrough during the battle, drawing down a lightning tribulation.
• Herbert attempts to cripple Ye Li's cultivation and kill him, but Ye Li's body continuously regenerates.

Character Developments

• Ye Li demonstrates extreme speed, surpassing light speed, and defeats multiple demigods.
• Ye Li's cultivation is crippled by Herbert, but he continues to regenerate due to his breakthrough.
• Herbert reveals his true power and intentions, showing no mercy towards Ye Li.

Significant Themes

• The power gap between demigods and True Gods.
• The desperation and determination of Ye Li in the face of overwhelming odds.
• The ruthlessness and disregard for rules shown by the Western forces.

Character Interactions

• Ye Li and Herbert face off, with Herbert attempting to kill Ye Li and claim his power.
• Ye Li's allies in the East watch helplessly as he battles against insurmountable odds.
• The Western demigods and True God work together to eliminate Ye Li, disregarding any pretense of fairness.

Plot points and events

• Ye Li’s breakthrough to the third turn begins while Herbert, a Sequence One true god, is trying to kill him. His [World-Shocking Wisdom] trait makes the breakthrough unstoppable: his body, meridians, dantian, and soul repeatedly rebuild despite being destroyed.
• Herbert unleashes a devastating attack, but it inadvertently tempers Ye Li through repeated cycles of destruction and healing. Ye Li’s body and soul strengthen as his third divine repository—the Spleen Earth repository—takes shape.
• The breakthrough triggers a massive Heavenly Tribulation. Since it has locked onto Herbert as well, Ye Li forces him to choose between stopping the breakthrough and facing the calamity; Herbert can do neither. The other true gods seal the Atlantic Ocean to keep him from escaping.
• The lightning severely wounds Herbert and strengthens him temporarily, but his body cannot withstand the repeated waves. He is ultimately reduced to ash while Ye Li survives and absorbs the tribulation’s power.
• Ye Li completes the third turn. The Spleen Earth repository strengthens his flesh, blood, and vitality, raising his physical body to peak Demigod level despite his much lower cultivation rank.
• A group of more than a dozen true gods confronts Ye Li. When William Howard Taft tries to capture him, Ye Li breaks free and channels a small amount of extraordinarily pure, Gods-and-Devils-level energy. Though the power destroys his arm, he repeatedly regenerates and unleashes endless slashes, forcing the true gods to retreat.

Character developments and interactions

• Ye Li moves from near death to a much stronger, resilient fighter. He remains wry and confident under extreme pressure, even joking about his “transformation” and treating pain as a sign of growth. His new strength lets him threaten true gods, though using it exacts a physical cost.
• Herbert shifts from arrogant ruler to panicked, desperate adversary. His attacks become a means of tempering Ye Li, and his attempt to flee is thwarted by the other true gods. He dies in the tribulation.
• The other true gods cooperate to contain Herbert, then turn on Ye Li, blaming him for Herbert’s death and attempting to capture him. Faced with Ye Li’s unexpected power and relentless attacks, they withdraw.
• The watching world is stunned by Ye Li’s survival, Herbert’s death, and the sight of a demigod forcing multiple true gods to retreat.

Significant themes

• Unbreakable progress: Ye Li’s breakthrough continues regardless of injury or danger, presenting advancement as relentless and unstoppable.
• Pain as transformation: Destruction and suffering become sources of strength, with the tribulation and Herbert’s attacks forging Ye Li’s body and soul.
• Power and limits: Ye Li’s raw strength remains below that of true gods, but resilience, regeneration, and superior energy quality let him challenge them.
• Reversal and irony: Herbert’s efforts to destroy Ye Li instead help complete his breakthrough, while the gods’ attempt to contain the crisis ends with them retreating from Ye Li.

Key Plot Points and Events

• Ye Li, after defeating the True Gods, stands alone at the summit of the Atlantic Ocean.
• He decides to target Japan, aiming to wipe out all martial artists at the Transforming Force level and above.
• Ye Li's actions are broadcasted worldwide, causing shock and controversy.
• Sakura Nation's Prime Minister tries to seek help from other nations and contact Ye Li, but to no avail.
• Ye Li's journey towards Japan is met with resistance from Sakura Nation's military and advanced weapons.
• Amaterasu, a cursed spirit and guardian deity of Sakura Nation, confronts Ye Li but is easily defeated.
• Ye Li completes the inscription of the formation, ensuring that no one in Sakura Nation can reach Transforming Force in the future.
• The formation causes the qi and blood of all Sakura Nation people to leak away, leading to their death or loss of cultivation.

Character Developments

• Ye Li's power and confidence grow after defeating the True Gods. He becomes more decisive and ruthless in his actions.
• Yang Shaohou, though not fully understanding Ye Li's actions, chooses to trust and support him without condition.
• The people of Sakura Nation are driven to madness and desperation, resorting to suicide attacks against Ye Li.
• The people of other nations react with shock, outrage, and fear to Ye Li's actions, some trying to intervene while others remain silent.

Significant Themes

• The consequences of past actions and the necessity of preventing future tragedies.
• The ruthlessness and determination required to protect one's homeland and people.
• The power dynamics between nations and the fear of foreign intervention.

Character Interactions

• Ye Li and Yang Shaohou: Ye Li's decision to target Japan is met with Yang Shaohou's unconditional support.
• Ye Li and Sakura Nation: Ye Li's actions cause terror and desperation among the people of Sakura Nation, leading to their futile attempts to resist.
• Ye Li and the World: Ye Li's actions spark controversy and outrage among the people of other nations, some trying to intervene while others remain silent.

Summary

Key Plot Points and Events

• A youth with immense power travels through a nebula, annihilating gods and demons, and absorbing their spiritual energy.
• He senses a lightning tribulation in a distant nebula and decides to investigate.
• In another part of the universe, Ye Li, a powerful cultivator, purges Japan of its evil forces and returns to China to bring order.
• He leaves the governance of China to Yang Shaohou while he focuses on maintaining peace and preventing foreign invasion.
• Ye Li takes a break from cultivation to travel with Zheng Leyao and Pei Taoyu.
• The Dragon Maiden awakens after Ye Li repairs her fractured soul and reveals that returning to the Universe Realm will take decades.

Character Developments

• The youth's power and cultivation grow rapidly, and he becomes increasingly indifferent to the destruction he causes.
• Ye Li continues to grow stronger, reaching the third turn of his cultivation within three months, and solidifying his soul to the level of an early Grandmaster Realm cultivator.
• The Dragon Maiden awakens and reveals her assessment of Ye Li's cultivation progress and the challenges he will face upon returning to the Universe Realm.

Significant Themes

• The consequences of unchecked power and the indifference it can breed.
• The challenges and setbacks in cultivation and personal growth.
• The struggle between maintaining peace and order and the complexities of human nature and relationships.

Character Interactions

• The youth interacts with countless gods and demons, annihilating them without remorse.
• Ye Li interacts with Yang Shaohou, entrusting him with the governance of China while he focuses on maintaining peace and preventing foreign invasion.
• Ye Li travels with Zheng Leyao and Pei Taoyu, with Zheng Leyao feeling jealous of Pei Taoyu's slowness in pursuing Ye Li.
• Ye Li interacts with the Dragon Maiden, who helps him repair her fractured soul and reveals her assessment of his cultivation progress and the challenges he will face upon returning to the Universe Realm.