Recaps

Li Qing discovered a vast torrent of strange entities beyond the world and used the Jade Tablet to infer that the Three Realms were facing a destructive Tribulation. He decided to prepare a Tribulation-avoiding grotto-heaven and strengthen his Spirit Consciousness Realm by mastering a new Heavenly Secrets spell.

• Li Qing saw countless strange entities covering the sky on another temporal-spatial plane, and his powers cleansed the mutation they had triggered in his body.
• Li Qing recorded his observations in the Record Book, and the Jade Tablet revealed that the world had shrunk by 1% over 3,300 years while strange entities filled the Netherworld Dark Side and the Thirty-Three Heavens' Bright Side.
• Li Qing inferred that the Nine Provinces formed the foundation of a Three Realms system and that the immortals had descended in search of a chance for survival or their own path to life.
• Li Qing concluded that the world was being consumed and might eventually face destruction, so he resolved to prepare a Tribulation-avoiding grotto-heaven.
• Li Qing decided to complete his Spirit Consciousness Realm armament by mastering the Heavenly Secrets spell he had previously been unable to cultivate.

Li Qing completed the fifth and sixth steps of Cosmic Mind Star Divination, building a cosmic starry sky in his sea of consciousness to serve as a second deduction system alongside the Jade Tablet. His first deduction showed him a horrifying possible future in which a monstrous version of himself slaughtered Anomalies and fed their power through pipes to a shadowy palace.

• Li Qing used the Thirty-Six Military Formation Diagram of Calculating Heaven and Earth with a star chart, tortoiseshell, and copper coins to construct a cosmic starry sky in his sea of consciousness.
• Li Qing recorded the Jade Tablet’s information across the stars and considered the Heaven's Secret Art a potential second path for survival, though it could not yet restore distorted cultivation techniques.
• Li Qing began his first Heaven's Secret Art deduction, asking what his future would be like.
• Li Qing saw a giant version of himself in bronze armor slaughtering Anomalies and absorbing their power through bizarre hairs and tentacles.
• Li Qing saw pipes carrying the Anomaly power to a vast, sinister palace, then woke in fear and realized the future had changed dramatically.

Li Qing used the Record Book to investigate the Six Paths Investiture of Gods and uncovered a plan to gather all vital essence, reforge spacetime, and establish an eternal hierarchy. He feared the plan would cut off his cultivation and turn him into a puppet, so he resolved to reach the Primordial Spirit realm as quickly as possible.

• Li Qing recorded that a future version of himself had been made into a giant puppet that hunted Anomalies and delivered them to cloud-shrouded palaces.
• The Jade Tablet revealed that the Six Paths and Eight Immortals devised the Six Paths Investiture of Gods to save the world and postpone endless Tribulations.
• Li Qing reasoned that the plan might gather vital essence into a new world, leaving the Nine Provinces without Anomalies or cultivators.
• Li Qing's deduction uncovered part of the plan's purpose: to reforge spacetime and preserve an eternal hierarchy.
• Li Qing realized the plan could deprive him of vital essence and leave him unable to cultivate, and he resolved to reach the Primordial Spirit realm quickly.

Li Qing studied ways to hide his fate and discovered the Wedding Garment Divine Art, which could graft another person’s karma onto him. He created its seals and arranged for Wang Mingde to become the target, leaving the plan poised to begin.

• Li Qing planned to expand his control across the provinces and investigate the benefits and secrets of the Six Paths Investiture of Gods.
• Li Qing searched his compendiums and found the Wedding Garment Divine Art, which concealed a person’s fate by transferring their karma to another, provided the two never met.
• A Shadow Paper Doll bought the spell’s materials, including a stolen bride’s wedding garment, and delivered them to Li Qing.
• Li Qing used Supreme Fate Flame, rootless water, and his Spiritual Sense to create the Wedding Garment Divine Art’s black child seal and white mother seal.
• Ma Mingyue recruited Wang Mingde for Li Qing’s plan and asked him to stay inside a new residence unless given permission to leave.

Li Qing arranged to use Wang Mingde’s fate through the child seal, created new Flesh Seeds, and traveled toward Dragon Province. In Moonlight Town, a blood-red moon appeared and the world began to mutate as a mysterious woman lured the drunken Li Lao Jiu into an alley.

• Wang Mingde agreed to Ma Mingyue’s instructions, and Li Qing implanted the child seal, causing Wang Mingde’s karma to spread over him.
• Li Qing created two Spirit Consciousness Realm Flesh Seeds and discovered that his Thief-Devouring Soul had hidden itself within them.
• Li Qing assumed Wang Mingde’s form and set out for Dragon Province, stopping at checkpoints along the way.
• Li Qing arrived in Moonlight Town and spent the evening at an inn beside the docks.
• The moon turned blood-red, revealing a sky full of battling Anomalies as eerie sounds and mutations spread through the world.
• Li Lao Jiu heard a seductive woman calling to him from an alley and turned toward her.

Anomalies erupted across Moonlight Town and other regions, overwhelming the local Demon Extermination Hall. Li Qing sent his Dream Projection to clear the town, then followed it to confront a powerful serpent-like anomaly drifting in the river.

• A veiled woman lured Li Lao Jiu into an alley and swallowed him, while a blurry Anomaly drained a sleeping couple to death.
• Anomalies appeared in unusually large numbers across the Nine Provinces, and the Demon Extermination Captain led thirty martial artists to defend Moonlight Town.
• Li Qing used his Shadow Paper Dolls to survey the town and sent his Dream Projection to handle the threats, recognizing that a dangerous aura came from the river.
• The Dream Projection killed the town's Anomalies, including one Baleful Intent Rank and nineteen Curse Rank Anomalies, and collected their Essence Stones.
• The Dream Projection entered the river and found a three-zhang serpent-like Anomaly covered in human faces and tangled limbs.

Li Qing tested his Heaven and Earth Turning Wheel Tribulation Qi against an Anomaly, but a mysterious swordsman destroyed it first. After learning that more than two million people had died across the north in one night, Li Qing planned to gather records from Dragon Province and eventually seek the imperial archives.

• Li Qing ordered his Dream Projection to attack the Anomaly with Heaven and Earth Turning Wheel Tribulation Qi, but a swordsman killed it with crimson flames before it could be defeated.
• Li Qing observed that his tribulation qi could silently kill an equal-level target and considered how it resembled his master's Light of the Righteous Path.
• The Jade Tablet reported that ten thousand villages had vanished, more than two thousand towns had been devastated, and over two million people had died in one night.
• Li Qing concluded that the upheaval could destabilize the world and resolved to establish surveillance in Dragon Province and collect its books.
• Li Qing considered seeking the Great Tang Dynasty's imperial archives and historical tombs, then left Moonlight Town and went fishing from a boat.

Li Qing rescued the badly injured Wu De from the Pu River and healed him with a Spring Rain Talisman. Wu De repaid him with Essence Stones and joined his skiff, while Li Qing continued toward Dragon Province and reached its border with Yang Province.

• Li Qing hooked a seemingly dead Wu De from the river and used a Spring Rain Talisman to heal his hidden injuries.
• Wu De thanked Li Qing, sensed that he carried both a great opportunity and immense danger, and asked to travel aboard his skiff while he recovered.
• Wu De gave Li Qing over a hundred Baleful Intent-grade Essence Stones, which Li Qing accepted and planned to absorb.
• Wu De cast a spell that formed a barrier over the skiff as Li Qing continued downstream and cultivated with the Essence Stones.
• After several days, Li Qing and Wu De reached the border between Yang Province and Dragon Province, where Dao soldiers stood among cultivated mountains.

Li Qing and Wu De traveled by boat into Divine Mist Mountain, where Wu De recounted the region’s history and the Dragon-Slaying Daoist’s legendary Dragon-Slaying Treasure Art. The chapter ended with Wu De explaining that the famed cultivator vanished a century after slaying a South Sea Dragon King.

• Wu De told Li Qing how he survived a siege and a Fierce-grade anomaly, which he realized had been an external Tribulation of his inner demon.
• Li Qing teased Wu De about his own extraordinary bad luck, and Wu De insisted that traveling together would not make him more likely to die.
• Li Qing and Wu De entered the dangerous stretch of the Pu River between Divine Mist Mountain’s cliffs.
• Wu De explained that Orchid Pavilion Temple and the other unorthodox paths on Divine Mist Mountain vanished after a catastrophe a thousand years earlier, leaving a deadly Anomaly zone.
• Li Qing asked about the Dragon-Slaying Daoist, and Wu De described the cultivator’s Dragon-Slaying Treasure Art and his victory over a South Sea Dragon King.
• Wu De said the Dragon-Slaying Daoist disappeared a hundred years after becoming famous.

Wu De told Li Qing that Dragon-Slaying Daoist might be buried near Divine Mist Mountain, and the two set out to investigate. After an anomalous mist engulfed the river, they escaped by climbing the cliff and continued toward Orchid Pavilion Temple, where Wu De proposed using Divine Spirit Incense to explore safely.

• Wu De revealed that Dragon-Slaying Daoist might be buried near Divine Mist Mountain and invited Li Qing to investigate with him.
• An anomalous mist spread across the river, raising enormous waves and forcing Li Qing and Wu De to abandon their boat and climb the cliff.
• Li Qing and Wu De climbed above the mist and reached the mountainside of Eastern Divine Mist Mountain.
• Wu De explained that Orchid Pavilion Temple had become an anomalous land and proposed using Divine Spirit Incense to create an expendable divine spirit incarnation for their investigation.
• Li Qing agreed to take a look as long as they could flee if danger arose, and Wu De agreed they would both run.

Li Qing and Wu De encountered a dangerous logic Anomaly on Divine Mist Mountain, and Wu De used a Logic Relic to defeat it. The lantern had only one use left, which Wu De said would inevitably kill whoever lit it.

• Wu De explained to Li Qing that the Miscellaneous School drew on every school’s Principles and that cultivation meant holding fast to one’s own character.
• A Woodcutter appeared and repeatedly asked Li Qing and Wu De why they had come to Divine Mist Mountain and urged them to leave.
• Li Qing and Wu De recognized the Woodcutter as a logic Anomaly and tried to escape, but he appeared beside them again.
• Wu De lit his red wedding lantern, summoned a bridegroom, and told him that the Woodcutter had come to steal his bride.
• The bridegroom attacked the Woodcutter and took over his body, and Wu De extinguished the lantern before the bridegroom could claim him.
• Wu De told Li Qing that he had already used the lantern twice and that lighting it a third time would make it impossible to extinguish and would get him killed.

Li Qing traded the Eight Rivers Soul-Locking Heaven-Shrouding Grotto-Heaven Diagram for Wu De’s lantern and axe, then used the Jade Tablet to uncover the axe’s history and rules. He learned that the axe could kill anyone it was used against but trapped its wielder as the Woodcutter, leaving Li Qing to dismiss it as too dangerous to use.

• Wu De explained the dangers of Logic Relics, and Li Qing offered to exchange the Eight Rivers Soul-Locking Heaven-Shrouding Grotto-Heaven Diagram for his lantern and axe.
• Wu De recognized the formation as ancient knowledge and agreed to trade the two Logic Relics for its cultivation method.
• Li Qing gave Wu De the formation’s method in a Record Book, and Wu De handed over the lantern and axe in a Universe Bag.
• Li Qing recorded the axe’s encounter on Divine Mist Mountain, and the Jade Tablet identified it as the Logic Anomaly Woodcutter.
• Li Qing learned that activating the axe’s logic turned its user into the Woodcutter forever, so he decided the relic was too dangerous to use.

Li Qing used the Jade Tablet and divination to investigate Wu De’s reasons for proposing they enter Orchid Pavilion Temple, then agreed to explore it with him. Wu De lit the Divine Spirit Incense and created an avatar, leaving them poised to enter the temple’s anomalous grounds.

• Wu De praised the Formation Grotto-Heaven Diagram Li Qing had traded him and said major Dao Lineages could pay dearly for it.
• Li Qing and Wu De climbed toward Orchid Pavilion Temple, where the surrounding forest had turned gray and withered.
• Wu De offered to use Divine Spirit Incense to send avatars into the temple, and Li Qing used a Record Book and the Jade Tablet to uncover Wu De’s motives and the temple’s dangers.
• Li Qing performed Cosmic Mind Star Divination and decided they could risk exploring the temple.
• Wu De lit the Divine Spirit Incense, breathed in its smoke, and produced an illusory avatar with all his abilities.

Li Qing and Wu De entered the withered forest using illusory figures and encountered powers that distorted their senses. They reached Orchid Pavilion Temple and stepped through its gates into a decaying garden, with a vast ruined square beyond.

• Li Qing used Divine Spirit Incense to create an illusory figure, while Wu De activated a formation that concealed their bodies.
• Li Qing and Wu De entered the silent, cold forest and found a stone stele marking the path to Orchid Pavilion Temple.
• Li Qing saw Wu De's head spin with a sinister smile, and Wu De warned that the forest's power could distort their five senses and deepen through fear.
• Wu De saw a twisted face grow from Li Qing's cheek, and both men continued onward despite the frightening hallucinations.
• Li Qing and Wu De reached the temple gate, saw blood-red characters and handprints on its plaque, and pushed the gates open.
• Li Qing and Wu De entered the decaying garden and saw a vast square of cracked stone beyond it.

Li Qing and Wu De crossed a ruined temple square while resisting the Mahavira Hall’s mutating sutras. After Li Qing’s glance into the hall nearly contaminated his true body, they reached a cluster of temples and found the Sutra Chanting Hall’s monks turning their cold stares toward them.

• Li Qing and Wu De avoided entering the brightly lit Mahavira Hall and took the passage beside it as chanting and grotesque monk apparitions assailed their minds.
• Li Qing looked into the Mahavira Hall and saw its monks transform into a horrific scene that tried to imprint itself on his mind and contaminate his true body.
• The Heavens Civilization Torrent erased the dangerous imprint, and Wu De warned Li Qing that the hall was a source of mutation.
• Li Qing and Wu De passed the hall and found bone-built Buddha statues and chanting monks throughout the surrounding temples.
• Li Qing and Wu De looked into the Sutra Chanting Hall, where its silent monks turned toward them and threatened to invade their minds through their gazes.

Li Qing and Wu De encountered hostile Anomalies among Orchid Pavilion Temple’s meditation chambers, and Li Qing used Calamity Qi empowered by Spirit Awareness to defeat the two that confronted him. They passed through to the temple’s Scripture Repository, where they hoped to find books and cultivation methods, though Li Qing suspected their avatars could not leave the temple.

• Li Qing and Wu De circled the Sutra Chanting Hall and entered the meditation chamber area, where Wu De sensed a monk that Li Qing could not see.
• Li Qing spotted two grinning monks beckoning from the right-hand passage, and he and Wu De prepared to fight the threats on their respective sides.
• Li Qing sent Spirit Awareness-infused Calamity Qi at the two monks, which transformed into monstrous Anomalies before the Mist seized and dragged them away.
• Wu De continued battling an unseen opponent as Li Qing declared his side clear and led him through the right-hand passage.
• Li Qing and Wu De reached Orchid Pavilion Temple’s Scripture Repository, and Wu De hoped it held the temple’s cultivation methods.

Li Qing and Wu De entered the Scripture Repository hoping to find valuable Buddhist cultivation methods, but discovered its books had been corrupted by anomalous power. Wu De began recording the methods with a mirror talisman, while Li Qing revealed he had already recorded all the books.

• Wu De and Li Qing agreed to search the repository and potentially sell parts of its cultivation methods for resources.
• They entered the dark Scripture Repository and saw that its books were tainted with anomalous power, so they avoided reading the contents directly.
• Li Qing secretly sent a Shadow Paper Doll through the shelves to record information in his Jade Tablet, though most of it was obscured by Mist.
• Wu De used a talisman to reveal sinew-like corruption covering the books and concluded their contents could not be read safely.
• On the second floor, Wu De found shelves of cultivation methods and used a mirror spell to copy them into a talisman.
• Li Qing told Wu De he had already recorded all the books, leaving Wu De astonished.

Li Qing and Wu De copied the mutated scriptures on the third floor and fled its tentacles to the fourth floor, where a Buddha portrait nearly ensnared their minds. After Li Qing woke Wu De, they spotted three scriptures beside the portrait and approached them.

• Li Qing and Wu De found the third-floor scriptures covered in flesh and tentacles, and Li Qing used the Shadow Paper Doll to record their information.
• The tentacles attacked as they headed upstairs; Li Qing destroyed some with a golden fist, while Wu De's sword barely harmed them.
• The tentacles stopped at the fourth-floor entrance, apparently afraid to cross it, and withdrew into the darkness.
• Li Qing and Wu De gazed at a Buddha portrait and were drawn into its radiant Pure Land until Li Qing's Spirit Awareness freed him and he slapped Wu De awake.
• Wu De identified the portrait as a dangerous Dharma Form Catalog, then noticed three scriptures on an altar and approached them with Li Qing.

Li Qing and Wu De discovered signs of the Buddhist Sect’s ancient sources in the Scripture Repository, then narrowly escaped a speaking anomaly that tried to draw them into answering. After retrieving their belongings, they heard a scripture chant outside a separate hall, where a golden Pure Land appeared around them.

• Wu De identified the scriptures as Primordial Spirit cultivation methods, while Li Qing’s Shadow Paper Doll recorded them and the painting titled <Boundless Light and Darkness Great Tome—Record of Light>.
• Li Qing studied a vision of one Buddha and four Bodhisattvas and speculated that they were the sources of the Buddhist Sect’s four Dao Lineages and that the figures behind the Six Paths drove the Six Paths Investiture of Gods.
• A Buddha in the portrait asked whether Li Qing and Wu De wanted to borrow scriptures, and the two destroyed their incarnations to escape its influence.
• Li Qing and Wu De returned as new incarnations, retrieved Wu De’s belongings from the third floor, and fled the Scripture Repository while sensing a watcher in its doorway.
• The pair reached a separate hall behind the Scripture Repository, where a thunderous chant surrounded them with a golden Pure Land and a colossal Buddha.

Li Qing and Wu De escaped a Pure Land illusion in Orchid Pavilion Temple, only to be attacked by a horde of supernatural mummies. They fled the Hall of Buddhas and reached a passage where the pursuing corpses could no longer follow.

• Li Qing resisted the Pure Land’s influence with the Heavens Civilization Torrent, then broke free and used it to awaken Wu De.
• Li Qing and Wu De saw an eyeless, mouthless monk in the Hall of Buddhas, surrounded by hanging corpses in gray robes.
• The corpses dropped from their ropes and charged, while Wu De’s flying sword failed to harm them and Li Qing’s punch only knocked one aside.
• Li Qing spread calamity qi over the mummies, causing them to trip and entangle one another as he and Wu De escaped through a passage.
• The pair reached the area beyond the Hall of Buddhas, where the mummies’ howls stopped and the pursuers vanished.

Li Qing and Wu De entered the woods behind the Hall of Buddhas, where an army of bone Anomalies formed and pursued them. They fled through the darkness, and Li Qing’s tribulation qi helped Wu De destroy one skeletal beast as the rest of the army closed in.

• Li Qing told Wu De that what they sought lay in the woods and warned him to stay close during the danger ahead.
• As they followed the stone path, the dead trees and plants stirred whenever they moved, and Li Qing led them onward using visions of the future.
• Roots and bones assembled behind them into a towering bone Anomaly and a host of skeletal creatures that swept through the woods.
• A bone spear pierced the stone path, and Li Qing and Wu De turned to see the silent bone army charging after them.
• Li Qing ran while using Heaven and Earth Turning Wheel Tribulation Qi to disrupt three pursuing skeletal beasts, and Wu De severed one beast’s cracked throat with his flying sword.

Li Qing and Wu De fled hundreds of White Bone Anomalies along the middle path and reached the Sarira Garden, where an old monk offered them a chance to obtain the Dragon-Slaying Daoist's inheritance by answering a question. Li Qing agreed to answer, and the monk asked, "What is Buddhism?"

• Li Qing chose the middle fork after judging that the other two paths led to certain death, and Wu De followed as the White Bone Anomalies closed in.
• Li Qing used the Heaven and Earth Turning Wheel Tribulation Qi to hinder the pursuing bones while he and Wu De raced toward the buildings on South Pavilion Temple's back mountain.
• Li Qing and Wu De reached the Sarira Garden, where Wu De explained that Buddhist monks' sarira were buried in pagodas gathered there.
• Li Qing shoved open the gate and entered the garden with Wu De just before bone spikes reached them; the gate slammed shut and silenced the pursuit.
• An old monk demanded that Li Qing answer a question to earn the Dragon-Slaying Daoist's inheritance, and Li Qing agreed after deciding the monk was not a logical Anomaly.
• The old monk asked Li Qing, "What is Buddhism?"

Li Qing answered the old monk’s question about Buddha, prompting the monk to attain enlightenment and vanish in a burst of golden light that cleansed Orchid Pavilion Temple. Li Qing and Wu De then found Dragon-Slaying Daoist’s black stone tower and discovered his strange, apparently aberrated body inside.

• Li Qing explained that a Buddha was an awakened one, whether or not it was a sentient being.
• The old monk declared that a great Demon treated heaven and earth as a game board and living beings as food, then attained nirvana in golden light.
• The golden light erased the temple’s abnormal aura and revealed a dilapidated Sarira Garden.
• Li Qing and Wu De opened the black stone pagoda and found Dragon-Slaying Daoist seated inside, covered in scales and other aberrant features.
• Wu De recounted a story of an ancient Ghost Path Dharma Form whose exposed tomb had drawn investigators into a deadly blood sacrifice.

Li Qing recognized that the Dragon-Slaying Daoist had set a trap: whoever cultivated the Dragon-Slaying Treasure Art would inherit his aberration and take his place inside the Black Jade Reliquary Pagoda. Li Qing and Wu De removed the scripture and traded it for a healing jade pendant, while Li Qing secretly recorded the treasure art with the Jade Tablet.

• Li Qing warned Wu De not to touch the wooden box and used the Jade Tablet to investigate the Dragon-Slaying Daoist and his relics.
• Li Qing discovered that the Dragon-Slaying Daoist was likely still alive and that cultivating his treasure art would exchange places with him in the Black Jade Reliquary Pagoda.
• Wu De used a clay doll to retrieve the wooden box and offered to buy the Dragon-Slaying Treasure Art to use against an enemy.
• Li Qing secretly recorded the scripture with the Jade Tablet and agreed to trade it for Wu De's jade pendant, which healed injuries at the cost of causing an Aberration.

Li Qing and Wu De returned to Orchid Pavilion Temple after the old monk had eradicated its Anomalies, and Li Qing discovered that the restored Dragon-Slaying Treasure Art was the Immortal-Slaying Flying Dagger. The two searched the ruined temple and continued toward Skywater City, while Li Qing wondered whether his former world was connected to this one.

• Li Qing explained that the old monk’s Buddhist enlightenment had unleashed power that cleansed Orchid Pavilion Temple of its Anomalies.
• Li Qing examined the Jade Tablet’s restored arts and found that the Dragon-Slaying Treasure Art had become the Immortal-Slaying Flying Dagger.
• Li Qing recorded his suspicions that the Buddhist invocation and the treasure connected this world to his previous world, but the Jade Tablet restored no new information.
• Li Qing gave Wu De the talismans, scripture, and flying sword, and Wu De proposed visiting the temple’s Scripture Repository before traveling to Skywater City.
• Li Qing and Wu De searched the ruined temple, found only a few damaged books, and descended Divine Mist Mountain toward Skywater City.