Chapter Summaries

Chapter Summary: “Heavenly Cycle Circulation Method”

Key plot points and events

• Chen Ye explores an ancient settlement in the Real World, passing weathered statues and small ruined buildings before reaching a circular cultivation plaza.
• At the plaza’s center, he discovers a stone stele inscribed with the Heavenly Cycle Circulation Method. The technique is clear and straightforward, and he finds no sign of hidden danger.
• The method cultivates by refining spiritual energy and circulating qi through the body, rather than emphasizing physical strength. It also forms a heavenly bridge, reaching a goal similar to the Great Jing Kingdom’s Bridge Sea Realm by a different route.
• Chen Ye tests the technique, then uses the Pawn System to exchange ten years of lifespan for ten years of cultivation. The system immediately advances the method from uninitiated to perfected.
• The perfected technique greatly strengthens his True Qi and rapidly extends his golden bridge—by several dozen feet, far more than his previous half-year of progress.
• Chen Ye cultivates for nearly two days, drawing in the area’s abundant spiritual matter. Golden light and wave-like phenomena surround him.
• When he wakes, he notices the local spiritual energy has thinned. Suspecting the supply is limited, he stops cultivating and returns from the Real World to his quiet room.

Character development

• Chen Ye shows caution and discernment: he studies the inscription, assesses whether it may be dangerous, and tests it before committing to cultivation.
• His confidence in his cultivation judgment grows when the technique proves safe and exceptionally effective.
• The discovery sharply changes his understanding of his progress, revealing how much faster cultivation can be in the Real World with the right method and environment.

Significant themes

• Different paths to the same goal: Physical cultivation and qi refinement can both lead toward the heavenly bridge.
• Knowledge and opportunity: An ancient technique, paired with the right setting, can transform years of slow progress into rapid advancement.
• Resource limits and restraint: The spiritual energy is powerful but apparently finite, so Chen Ye chooses to stop before exhausting it.
• The cost of advancement: His immediate breakthrough depends on sacrificing ten years of lifespan through the Pawn System.

Character interactions

• Chen Ye has no direct interactions with other characters in this chapter. His main exchanges are with the inscription, the Pawn System, and the cultivation environment.

Key plot points and events

• After returning from the Real World, Chen Ye concludes that it is not a perfect mirror of his own world: locations shift depending on where he enters, and it seems at least thirty times larger. His three-day cultivation retreat also suggests time passes at the same rate in both worlds.
• Chen Ye learns that San Gouzi’s cultivation has suddenly accelerated. San Gouzi reports hearing familiar murmurs while cultivating and feeling cool, refreshing energy enter his body—sensations like Chen Ye experiences when absorbing spiritual matter in the Real World.
• Suspecting the two worlds are deeply connected, Chen Ye tells San Gouzi to keep cultivating and report any further changes. He handles urgent household affairs, then enters seclusion again.
• This time, Chen Ye arrives in a lush mountain landscape rather than on the beach. He discovers a vast, apparently intact mountain city called Ten-Thousand-Fathom City. Cautious about possible dangers, he avoids entering and finds a concealed place to cultivate.
• Using the Heavenly Cycle Circulation Method, he absorbs spiritual matter rapidly and feels his golden bridge extend in his dantian. His cultivation progresses far faster than it does in the Great Jing Kingdom, and golden radiance and ocean-wave visions surround him.
• In the other world, the Xie Family Ancestor senses spiritual matter leaking through a newly opened crack in the passage to the Lesser Grotto-Heaven. He suspects the Yang Family may be responsible and urgently summons Xie Chongyi back to the capital, saying major plans must proceed quickly.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Ye grows more methodical and alert, testing how the two worlds relate and connecting San Gouzi’s unusual progress to his own journeys. Though tempted by Ten-Thousand-Fathom City, he prioritizes caution and cultivation.
• San Gouzi reveals a new sensitivity to spiritual matter and an unusually rapid breakthrough, suggesting Chen Ye’s actions may be affecting others.
• Su Guang provides reliable updates on the household and brings San Gouzi to Chen Ye. Chen Ye also keeps his staff’s affairs in order before returning to seclusion.
• The Xie Family Ancestor shifts from observation to urgent action, interpreting the spiritual disturbance as evidence that a rival force may be advancing. His message to Xie Chongyi sets up a looming conflict.

Significant themes

• Interconnection and synchronization: Events in one world appear to influence people and conditions in another, though the exact relationship remains unknown.
• Exploration versus caution: Chen Ye’s discoveries promise opportunity, but he avoids entering the unexplored city until he is stronger.
• Cultivation and transformation: Access to spiritual matter dramatically accelerates growth, potentially changing more than Chen Ye alone.
• Rivalry and impending conflict: The Xie Ancestor’s suspicion and urgent summons suggest competing families are moving toward a larger struggle.

Chapter Summary: “Conflict, a Visit”

Key plot points and events

• Chen Ye spends more than a month cultivating in the Real World, using the True Dragon Dao-Seeding Technique to extend his heavenly bridge to about a thousand feet. Despite his rapid progress, he realizes that reaching the far shore will take years—and fears the Xie Family’s Xiantian Ancestor may kill him before he can break through.
• While hiding in a crevice near Ten-Thousand-Fathom City, Chen Ye witnesses a force of roughly three hundred “barbarians” attack the city. The city’s defenders, outnumbered, fight them off after several hours.
• Chen Ye observes that even the city’s weakest fighters possess strength comparable to Bridge Sea Realm Martial Masters, while some display powerful manifested visions. The attackers, meanwhile, behave unnaturally: they endure grievous wounds, move with eerie stiffness, and seem to require decapitation to die.
• Intrigued by the living inhabitants of the Real World, Chen Ye waits several days after the battle before approaching the city. He introduces himself peacefully, but a language barrier prevents easy communication.
• The city’s commander eventually permits him to enter by means of a flying ruler. Chen Ye reaches the wall, where the defenders immediately surround him. From there, he sees that the city is far more ruined and desolate than he expected.

Character development

• Chen Ye remains cautious and strategic. He is frustrated by the slow pace of cultivation and anxious about the danger awaiting him, but his curiosity about the Real World motivates him to risk approaching its people. He deliberately stays calm, signals that he is unarmed, and keeps escape as a fallback.
• The city commander and defenders appear wary but disciplined. Despite their suspicion of Chen Ye, they assess his peaceful approach rather than attacking outright. Their conduct after battle also shows order and concern for their wounded.

Significant themes

• Power and vulnerability: Chen Ye’s impressive cultivation still feels inadequate beside the strength of the city’s inhabitants, deepening his determination to grow stronger.
• The uncanny nature of the Real World: The attackers’ unnatural bodies and resemblance to the eerie old Daoist suggest that the world holds threats beyond ordinary martial conflict.
• Caution, trust, and communication: Chen Ye must build trust with strangers despite a language barrier, while the defenders balance hospitality with the need to protect their city.
• Order amid violence: The defenders’ disciplined battle and orderly aftermath contrast with the attackers’ savage, seemingly unnatural assault.

Character interactions

• The barbarian leader openly threatens the city, while the guard commander answers defiantly; their confrontation sparks the battle.
• Chen Ye watches the defenders and attackers from hiding, learning about both their strength and the strange nature of the barbarians.
• At the gate, Chen Ye offers a peaceful introduction through gestures and words, but he and the guards struggle to understand one another.
• The commander permits Chen Ye onto the wall, yet the defenders surround him on arrival, leaving their welcome cautious and unresolved.

Key plot points and events

• Chen Ye encounters wary guards outside Ten-Thousand-Fathom City, but neither side understands the other. An elderly man provides a Voice-Transmitting Jade Slip, which instantly teaches Chen Ye the local language.
• When questioned, Chen Ye hides his true origins and claims he fled a village destroyed by disaster. Commander Lu Tu accepts the story and offers him work as a patrolman, since the city needs recruits.
• Lu Tu leads Chen Ye through the city. Its fortified design contrasts sharply with its crumbling buildings, poor and exhausted residents, and apparent absence of women. Most people are injured, and the city feels deeply troubled.
• At the Government Office, Lu Tu hands Chen Ye over to Qian Wu, known as Old Fifth Qian, to arrange lodging and explain the rules. Chen Ye learns that Ten-Thousand-Fathom City is one of the thirty-six cities belonging to the Grand Void Palace, and that dangerous “Demon Slaves” live outside it.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Ye stays cautious, conceals his otherworldly origin, and observes the city rather than asking too many questions. He is relieved to gain shelter and a provisional role.
• Lu Tu begins suspiciously but becomes practical and welcoming once communication is possible. He recruits Chen Ye, then casually delegates responsibility for him to Old Fifth Qian.
• Old Fifth Qian is blunt and irritable with Lu Tu but relatively kind to Chen Ye. He recognizes Chen Ye as another survivor of the disasters beyond the city and gives him a place to stay.
• The jade-slip exchange shifts the encounter from tense mutual incomprehension to cautious cooperation.

Significant themes

• Displacement and survival: Chen Ye must adapt quickly and invent a past to protect himself.
• Communication as a bridge: A magical tool overcomes the language barrier and makes trust and practical help possible.
• A world in decline: The city’s decay and its residents’ hardship suggest widespread danger and social collapse.
• Uneasy refuge: Ten-Thousand-Fathom City offers shelter, but the threats outside—and the mysteries within—remain unresolved.

Key plot points and events

• In Ten-Thousand-Fathom City, Qian Laowu asks Chen Ye about his cultivation. Chen Ye cautiously explains that he has little formal training but admits he has refined his divine consciousness and opened a spirit sea, identifying him as a Spirit Sea Realm cultivator.
• Qian explains that Heavenly Demons control the savage Demon Slaves outside the city. Spirit Sea cultivators patrol the walls because their divine consciousness can detect the otherwise formless demons.
• Chen Ye learns that the next realm is the True Person Realm—equivalent to the Xiantian Realm in his home world. The usual route takes decades or longer; a dangerous spirit-body method offers a faster alternative.
• Qian reveals that Ten-Thousand-Fathom City, one of thirty-six cities under the Grand Void Palace, preserves the Heaven-Sea Movement Art. Normally it requires years of service and merit, but the city’s shortage of defenders allows Qian to give it to Chen Ye in exchange for his help defending the city.
• Chen Ye immediately studies the scroll and uses his lifespan-exchange ability to gain twenty years of cultivation, advancing the art to major mastery. His golden bridge lengthens rapidly, drawing him closer to connecting with heaven and earth.
• Back in his residence, he spends another ten years of lifespan on the art, reaching perfection. The chapter ends as a thunderous sound erupts from his body, signaling a major breakthrough or transformation.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Ye remains guarded with unfamiliar people, but answers Qian honestly when concealment seems risky. He is practical and impatient with slow cultivation, yet readily commits to defending the city in return for a faster path to power.
• Qian Laowu acts as guide and benefactor, explaining the local dangers and cultivation system. He initially teases Chen Ye by emphasizing the art’s usual cost, then offers it because the city urgently needs capable defenders.
• Their exchange is mutually advantageous: Qian hopes Chen Ye will strengthen the city against future demon attacks, while Chen Ye gains a powerful cultivation method.

Significant themes

• Urgency versus patience: Chen Ye’s looming dangers make decades of gradual cultivation unacceptable.
• Power and responsibility: Access to advanced cultivation is tied to service and the city’s survival.
• Adaptation across worlds: Chen Ye recognizes that unfamiliar realm names describe stages he already understands from his own world.
• Calculated risk and opportunity: A dangerous shortcut becomes worthwhile when paired with Chen Ye’s unusual lifespan-based cultivation advantage.

Plot points and events

• Chen Ye uses the full twenty years of cultivation granted to him to advance the Heaven-Sea Movement Art. His golden bridge stretches across the Golden Sea, but it strikes a hidden barrier.
• With a final exertion, he breaks through the barrier, completes the bridge, opens the Spirit Platform Heavenly Gate, and enters the Xiantian realm—a breakthrough that would ordinarily take decades.
• His new power manifests as a golden sun and a flaming golden crow. He discovers that he can command natural energy over a wide area and that his Divine Consciousness now reaches across Ten-Thousand-Fathom City.
• While exploring with this heightened awareness, Chen Ye senses a sinister presence near an abandoned district. He finds a weak Heavenly Demon by a dry well and destroys it with golden flames.
• Meanwhile, Lu Tu and Old Fifth Qian discuss Chen Ye’s origins and consider using him to deal with a Heavenly Demon in an abandoned mine. Seeing Chen Ye’s golden manifestation, they realize he is far more powerful than they expected and rush to investigate.
• Chen Ye senses them coming and withdraws from the Real World before they arrive. Back in the Chen Mansion, he checks the Pawn System and finds his remaining lifespan has risen to 100 years.

Character development and interactions

• Chen Ye moves from striving toward Xiantian to attaining it, and is astonished by the scale of his new abilities. His response to the Heavenly Demon shows immediate confidence and control, though he avoids explaining himself to others by slipping away.
• Lu Tu and Old Fifth Qian shift from speculating that Chen Ye is a protected aristocratic disciple to suspecting that he may have concealed extraordinary cultivation. They discuss using him as a solution to their city’s danger, then hurry to confront him after witnessing his power.
• The two men’s conversation highlights both their practical need for help and their shared uncertainty about Chen Ye.

Significant themes

• Rapid advancement and destiny: Chen Ye crosses a seemingly impossible cultivation threshold in a single breakthrough.
• Power and perception: His new Divine Consciousness reveals threats hidden from ordinary awareness and lets him defeat them decisively.
• Secrecy and misjudgment: Others try to infer Chen Ye’s background and strength, but his true nature remains beyond their understanding.
• Life and transformation: Chen Ye’s breakthrough changes both his body and his prospects, reflected in his unexpectedly increased lifespan.

Key plot points and events

• Chen Ye breaks through to the Xiantian Realm, gaining nearly fifty years of lifespan and sensing a new connection with the world around him.
• Over the next year, he strengthens his force: he teaches his retainers cultivation and martial skills, supplies them with refined pills, leads daily drills, and equips them with nearly a hundred suits of rattan armor. Zhuang Chaoyang and Jiang Yi advance to four rounds of mortal shedding, while Su Guang reaches the Dragon Elephant Realm.
• The Xie Family wins a decisive victory over Northern Liang, earning Xie Chongyi an imperial title and making the clan appear powerful enough to threaten the dynasty.
• Worried about the Xie Family’s growing influence, Emperor Shenwu summons Chen Ye to the capital, ostensibly to discuss military affairs. He orders Chen Ye to bring eight hundred retainers and also hopes to link him to the imperial family through a possible match with Jia Ning.
• Chen Ye suspects political developments lie behind the summons. He sends Su Guang ahead with veteran soldiers to investigate the capital before the main force departs.
• Meanwhile, the Xie Family Ancestor declares that preparations are complete. The clan has brought a mysterious “Supramundane Divine Statue” to the capital and begins constructing a blood-soaked formation around it, intending to open a passage to the Immortal Realm by sacrificing the capital’s residents.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Ye is newly confident after his breakthrough, but remains cautious. He devotes his resources to building a capable, loyal army rather than relying solely on his own strength.
• Su Guang proves himself a trusted subordinate: after reaching the Dragon Elephant Realm, he accepts Chen Ye’s covert mission to assess the capital.
• Emperor Shenwu shifts from rewarding the Xie Family to seeking a counterweight against it. He intends to use Chen Ye’s rising power—and possibly a marriage alliance—to protect imperial authority.
• Xie Chongyi returns from the frontier carrying intense killing intent, the result of killing many people to gather blood essence for the Ancestor’s plan.
• The Xie Family Ancestor regards his descendants and ordinary people as expendable in pursuit of immortality, revealing the cruelty behind the clan’s apparent political triumph.

Significant themes

• Power and its costs: Chen Ye’s breakthrough extends his life, while the Xie Family pursues immortality through mass killing.
• Political balance and ambition: The emperor tries to contain aristocratic power by elevating a new force, while the Xie Family’s military success threatens the dynasty.
• Preparation and loyalty: Chen Ye builds strength through disciplined training, shared resources, and trusted relationships.
• Human lives as instruments: The Ancestor’s plan treats people as sacrificial materials, sharply contrasting with Chen Ye’s investment in his followers.

Su Guang investigated the Xie Family’s secret activity in the capital and warned Chen Ye that the emperor’s summons might be part of a scheme. Chen Ye arrived in the capital ahead of his eight hundred retainers, while Xie Chongyi prepared to capture him before the Xie Family’s grand formation was completed.

• Su Guang learned that the Xie Family had been searching the capital with compasses and that relations between the family and the emperor were tense.
• Su Guang sent Chen Ye a warning that his summons might involve a marriage alliance and that the Xie Family appeared to be preparing a major scheme.
• Chen Ye ordered Zhuang Chaoyang and Jiang Yi to ready eight hundred retainers and Rattan Armor, then set out for the capital with a small escort.
• Chen Ye reached the capital after more than twenty days of travel and went to his residence, while Xie Chongyi learned of his arrival.
• Xie Chongyi revealed that the grand formation would be ready in about ten days and decided to visit Chen Ye’s mansion to capture him for the Human Refining Technique.

Xie Chongyi tried to recruit Chen Ye into the Xie Family, but Chen Ye revealed his Xiantian strength, killed him, and interrogated a surviving guard. Learning that the Xie Family was preparing a grand formation that could be completed in ten-odd days, Chen Ye rode to the palace to alert the Shenwu Emperor.

• Xie Chongyi visited Chen Ye and offered him wealth and advancement if he joined the Xie Family, but Chen Ye refused.
• Xie Chongyi ordered his guards to seize Chen Ye, and Chen Ye killed the guards before revealing his Xiantian power and defeating Xie Chongyi.
• Chen Ye killed Xie Chongyi and tortured a surviving guard, who revealed that the Xie Family was preparing a grand formation around a statue from Nanhu Prefecture.
• Chen Ye learned that the formation could be completed in ten-odd days and suspected the Xie Family planned a massacre in the Capital City.
• Chen Ye rode to the palace with urgent intelligence and was admitted to the Imperial Study to meet the Shenwu Emperor.

Chen Ye warned the Shenwu Emperor that the Xie Family planned to sacrifice the Capital City to open a passage to the True Spirit Realm, prompting the emperor to mobilize his forces against them. The Xie Family Ancestor activated the unfinished array, and as blood mist spread across the city, he seized Chen Ye—only for Chen Ye to reveal his Xiantian breakthrough.

• Chen Ye told the Shenwu Emperor that he had killed Xie Chongyi and exposed the Xie Family’s plan to sacrifice the Capital City.
• The Shenwu Emperor ordered the Imperial Guard and Capital Guards to surround the Xie estate, while Chen Ye went to meet his eight hundred retainers at Xizhi Gate.
• The Xie Family Ancestor learned that Xie Chongyi had died and, with the estate surrounded, activated the unfinished array and the four arrays around the city.
• Five blood-red pillars rose as the array spread life-draining mist over the Capital City, and the Xie Family Ancestor summoned a towering phantom.
• The Xie Family Ancestor seized Chen Ye and tried to refine him, but Chen Ye unleashed a golden ocean of true yang, revealing that he had reached the Xiantian Realm.

Chen Ye killed the Xie Family Ancestor after he sacrificed himself and the people of the Capital City to open a passage to the True Spirit Realm. The uncontrolled formation then tore the sky open further, allowing a Giant Demon from another world to descend into the Capital City.

• The Xie Family Ancestor attacked Chen Ye, but Chen Ye's golden ocean vision and powerful blows forced him onto the defensive.
• The Xie Family Ancestor sacrificed his body and the vitality of people near the formation to awaken the Supramundane Divine Statue and open a passage to the True Spirit Realm.
• The Xie Family Ancestor absorbed spiritual substance from the passage and overpowered Chen Ye, but Chen Ye activated the True Explanation of Character Dou and beheaded him with a golden saber.
• The formation continued to collapse after the Xie Family Ancestor died, and its blood-red mist drained the vitality of people across the Capital City.
• A Giant Demon forced its enormous hands through the widening rift and descended into the Capital City, declaring that it would take the world's inhabitants as delicacies.

The Heavenly Demon descended upon Capital City and overwhelmed the Shenwu Emperor and the assembled defenders. As the two worlds began to overlap, Chen Ye escaped the demon’s grasp by entering the strange space between them, though he did not know how long he could remain there.

• The Shenwu Emperor ordered the crown prince to retrieve the founding emperor’s Dragon Armor, then donned it and led the city’s forces against the Heavenly Demon.
• Cui Zhenru gathered the aristocratic clans into a Five Elements Grand Formation, but the Heavenly Demon swallowed most of the defenders and unleashed demonic flames upon Capital City.
• The Heavenly Demon sensed Chen Ye’s true dragon bloodline and struck at him with an enormous hand.
• Chen Ye used the True Dragon Dao-Seeding Technique to enter a strange space between the overlapping worlds, causing the Heavenly Demon’s grasp to pass through empty air.
• Chen Ye realized the strange state would not last once the worlds fully merged.

Chen Ye pawned ninety-nine years of lifespan in the spatial rift, breaking through beyond the Xiantian Realm and awakening a powerful Dharma Aspect. He emerged above Capital City and began slaughtering the invading Heavenly Demons, pursuing them as they tried to flee.

• Chen Ye used the dense spiritual energy in the spatial rift and pawned ninety-nine years of lifespan to gain ninety-nine years of cultivation.
• Chen Ye's martial arts fused into the Martial Canon, and he broke through into a new realm while awakening his true dragon bloodline and the Law of Heaven and Earth.
• Chen Ye emerged above ruined Capital City as Heavenly Demons poured through cracks between the realms.
• Chen Ye fought the three-armed Heavenly Demon, blasted its hands back, and destroyed two other Heavenly Demons with his Dharma Aspect.
• Chen Ye invoked True Explanation of Character Dou, enlarged his Dharma Aspect to a hundred zhang, and killed Heavenly Demons by the score.
• Chen Ye pursued the retreating Heavenly Demons, smashing one into another as the battle continued.

Chen Ye slaughtered the Heavenly Demons, sealed the passage to the Real World, and destroyed the suspicious statue in the Xie Residence. With the Shenwu Emperor dead and the realm in ruins, he took charge of rebuilding the court, restored his lifespan, and looked toward a new beginning.

• Chen Ye killed every Heavenly Demon over the Capital City and used his true yang power to close the rift in the sky.
• Chen Ye destroyed the cracked stone statue in the Xie Residence after confirming that it carried a demonic aura.
• Su Guang and the surviving people hailed Chen Ye as their leader, and Chen Ye agreed to take charge after the Shenwu Emperor's death.
• Over the next three months, Chen Ye reorganized the court, restored order, and appointed capable officials with help from Su Guang and his retainers.
• Chen Ye redeemed valuables through the Pawn System to restore ninety-nine years of lifespan, then planned to spend the night with his three consorts.