Recaps

Li Qing used Shadow Paper Dolls and a Wish Spell to draw Divine Soul Realm guards away from the Dao Lineages’ Library Towers and steal their stored records. After consolidating the information, he uncovered extensive spy networks across the Nine Provinces.

• Li Qing decided to lure the guards away from the Library Towers because their Divine Soul Realm cultivators made direct infiltration difficult.
• Shadow Paper Dolls planted Curse-Grade Essence Stones beneath trees near the Library Towers of the capital’s Dao Lineages.
• Li Qing used the Wish Spell to turn the trees into Anomalies that attacked the towers, drawing the guards’ attention.
• While the guards dealt with the attacks, the Shadow Paper Dolls entered the Library Towers and stole three hundred years of records in less than a quarter of an hour.
• Li Qing reviewed the consolidated records and found lists of spies planted in the imperial court and among Dao Lineages throughout the Nine Provinces.

Li Qing prepared intelligence to bargain with Emperor Kuntai, but the imperial palace’s defenses blocked his Shadow Paper Doll. He used a Wish Spell to send a letter through Prince Li Yukun, who regained his senses but chose to bring it to the emperor.

• Li Qing organized intelligence on the Dao Lineages, spies, Emperor Kuntai’s planned death, and Children of Destiny as bargaining chips.
• Li Qing sent a Shadow Paper Doll to the imperial palace, but its formations and restrictions prevented it from entering.
• Li Qing used a Wish Spell to make Li Yukun carry a letter addressed to Emperor Kuntai.
• Li Yukun entered the palace, regained control of himself, and realized someone had influenced him to deliver the letter.
• Li Yukun decided to present the letter to Emperor Kuntai rather than risk concealing it.

Li Yukun told Emperor Kuntai that mysterious sorcery had compelled him to bring a letter, which named Li Qinglian and the northern border. Emperor Kuntai burned it and ordered the imperial family to hunt at the Southern Mountain Hunting Grounds, where Li Qing prepared to meet him.

• Li Yukun told Emperor Kuntai that a mysterious power had made him believe the letter was from Wang Ruozhi and compelled him to present it.
• Emperor Kuntai read the letter, which said “Li Qinglian, northern border” and “I want to see you,” then burned it.
• Emperor Kuntai ordered a hunt at the Southern Mountain Hunting Grounds in three days and confined Li Yukun to his residence.
• Li Qing learned that Emperor Kuntai’s power would weaken beyond the imperial city and sent a Shadow Paper Doll to hide in the hunting grounds’ temporary palace.
• The imperial family prepared for the hunt as rumors spread through the capital about Emperor Kuntai’s unusual decision.

Emperor Kuntai brought the princes to the Southern Mountain Hunting Grounds, where he offered the hunt’s winner a title and a fief while privately fearing the imperial family’s coming calamity. That night, the Shadow Paper Doll met him to propose cooperation and request the royal family’s accumulated records, then raised the Six Paths Investiture of Gods plan and the Anomalies’ counterattack.

• Emperor Kuntai suffered a worsening attack of pain in his carriage and concluded he had at most another year to live as he resolved to test an unknown person.
• Emperor Kuntai announced that the winner of the three-day Southern Mountain hunt would receive a title and a fief, and the princes eagerly set out to compete.
• Emperor Kuntai privately reflected that only the chosen one would survive the coming calamity and hoped the princes might find a chance to live.
• The Shadow Paper Doll appeared before Emperor Kuntai and exposed the imperial family’s plan involving Li Qinglian and the Son of Destiny.
• Emperor Kuntai identified the visitor as Li Wushuang, and the Shadow Paper Doll requested cooperation and the royal family’s records from the past three hundred years.
• The Shadow Paper Doll told Emperor Kuntai that the proposed cooperation concerned the Six Paths Investiture of Gods plan, the Anomalies’ Wisdom Ones, and the world’s future.

Li Qinglian offered Emperor Kuntai intelligence about the Six Paths Investiture of Gods plan and proposed helping Li Qinglian restore the nation. Emperor Kuntai judged him too dangerous to work with and decided to lure him into a trap in the capital and eliminate him.

• Li Qinglian told Emperor Kuntai that the Six Paths and Eight Immortals had devised a plan to delay the apocalypse, while intelligent Anomalies planned to sabotage it through secret organizations.
• Li Qinglian explained that he could give Li Qinglian intelligence to help him exploit the conflict between Dao Lineages and improve his chances of restoring the nation.
• Li Qinglian revealed that Emperor Kuntai was destined to die in the middle of May of the twentieth year of Kuntai, after which the realm would descend into chaos and the Li family would be killed.
• Emperor Kuntai considered the limits of Li Wushuang's intelligence and concluded that Li Qinglian's cooperation would make his plans too easy to expose.
• Emperor Kuntai decided to reveal part of his plan, lure Li Qinglian into a trap, and kill him in the capital.

Emperor Kuntai agreed to help Li Qinglian seize power by becoming a tyrant and arranging his own death, and he promised Li Qing a secret about becoming an immortal. After receiving the emperor’s token, Li Qing used a beggar to approach the imperial palace, where the chapter ended as the beggar presented it to the guards.

• Emperor Kuntai outlined a plan to stir the realm into chaos, let Li Qinglian rally the feudal lords, and hang himself with an edict legitimizing the change of rule.
• Emperor Kuntai asked Li Qing to aid Li Qinglian and promised him a great gift: the imperial family’s secret of becoming an immortal.
• Emperor Kuntai gave the Shadow Paper Doll a token for the Royal Library, while Li Qing provided documents listing spies and operatives across three provinces.
• Emperor Kuntai reviewed the documents, resolved to eliminate Li Wushuang and purge mysterious organizations, and planned to pass spy lists to Li Qinglian.
• Li Qing controlled a beggar with his Dream Projection and had the beggar approach the imperial palace with Emperor Kuntai’s token.
• The beggar showed the token to the guards at the imperial city gate and said he needed to enter the palace.

Li Qing used the Emperor’s token to enter the palace’s Document Palace and scan its books through the beggar he controlled. After finding that the most important records were missing, he learned from the gray-robed man that the secret library was underground.

• General Wang verified the beggar’s token and sent Zhou Wenquan to escort him to the Royal Library.
• Zhou Wenquan brought the beggar to Document Palace, where a gray-robed man examined him and let him enter.
• Li Qing ordered the gray-robed man to open the library’s restrictions and leave, invoking his deal with the Emperor.
• Li Qing scanned the books for half an hour and recorded the palace-related materials, but found that records on the Primordial Spirit and Dharma Form levels were missing.
• Li Qing demanded access to the secret library, and the gray-robed man said it was underground.

Li Qing sent a beggar into the palace’s underground library and recorded every book without being affected by its aberrant power. After intimidating Princess Wude and leaving the Imperial City, he used the Wish Spell to make everyone who saw the beggar forget what happened, except the gray-robed man.

• The gray-robed man led the beggar to a secret underground library, where Li Qing used a Shadow Paper Doll to record every book and then left as eerie figures appeared.
• The beggar met Princess Wude while leaving the palace, and Li Qing frightened her into collapsing before departing with Zhou Wenquan.
• The beggar left the Imperial City and collapsed at a street corner, while a Shadow Paper Doll left gold as payment.
• Li Qing decided to act before Emperor Kuntai could purge witnesses and used the Wish Spell to make everyone who saw the beggar forget, sparing the gray-robed man.

After erasing everyone’s memories of the beggar, Li Qing examined how the royal library’s knowledge had transformed, including stronger spells and powerful artifact designs. He discovered a new fiftieth page in the Truth of the World, whose first illustration depicted a world divided into three layers.

• The Wish Spell erased the beggar from the memories of everyone it affected, including Princess Wude, while the gray-robed man in the Document Palace remained furious.
• Li Qing reviewed the upgraded Comprehensive Record of Humanity Under Heaven and the Six Great Compendiums, finding refined cultivation methods and extensive new principles and techniques.
• Li Qing learned that the Compendium of World Crafting described nine powerful artifacts, including how to advance his Dream Lamp into a Divine Lamp that created a Desire God.
• Li Qing saw that the Shadow Paper Doll had become the Myriad Shadow Spell, with a limit of three hundred and sixty-five dolls and a new ability called Shadow Manipulation.
• Li Qing found a special fiftieth page in the Truth of the World and examined its first illustration, which showed a vast circular world divided into three layers and an upper realm of sacred lands.

Li Qing studied illustrations showing how vital essence from the Nine Provinces fed the growth of the light and dark sides, spawned Anomalies, and led to the 3,300-year calamity. He concluded that the Six Paths and Eight Immortals were trying to delay or solve the disaster, while the world's deeper origins remained unknown.

• Li Qing examined the first illustration, which depicted the Nine Provinces surrounded by the light and dark sides and their inhabitants.
• The second and third illustrations showed Anomalies multiplying, fighting across the realms, and pouring into the Nine Provinces as the Six Paths' forces stopped resisting.
• The fourth illustration showed eight towering figures wiping out the Anomalies in the Nine Provinces, whose remains became vital essence and further enlarged the light and dark sides.
• Li Qing inferred that vital essence both nourished cultivators and spawned Anomalies, causing the Nine Provinces' 3,300-year calamity and the world's eventual destruction.
• Li Qing suspected that the Six Paths and Eight Immortals had discovered a way to address the danger, but questioned the origins of logical Anomalies and wondered what lay beyond the known world.

Li Qing discovered that the Six Paths Investiture of Gods Plan consumed the Nine Provinces’ mass to turn Anomalies back into vital essence, then nearly died after divining its hidden secrets. He realized the Six Paths and Eight Immortals purged anyone who learned sealed information and began planning to exploit that mechanism against an intelligent anomaly.

• Li Qing used Cosmic Mind Star Divination to investigate the Six Paths Investiture of Gods Plan, but a terrifying will shattered his connection and attacked him.
• Li Qing escaped a force that erased the place where he had been, and a hazy face declared that he was an existence outside fate.
• Li Qing recorded his deductions that the plan made vital essence harmless to postpone the Tribulations and that a mysterious existence had attacked him for investigating it.
• The Jade Tablet revealed that the Six Paths and Eight Immortals had sealed information and purged anyone who touched it, while those without fate could evade the mechanism.
• Li Qing decided to seek a stronger Heaven’s Secret Art so he could use the information-triggered attack to trap an intelligent anomaly and learn what had delayed the Six Paths and Eight Immortals.

Li Qing deduced that the Six Paths Investiture of Gods plan would use Logical Anomalies to construct the Heavenly Dao and reincarnation, then learned that the Radiant Buddha Bone Temple was stirring and that a primordial dharma form lay inside. He sent his Dream Projection to meet Wu De, while the Record Book warned that Wu De might suspect Wang Mingde’s identity.

• Li Qing reasoned that Six Paths and Eight Immortals planned to capture intelligent Logical Anomalies and use their logic to build a system capable of resolving the Tribulations.
• The Jade Tablet revealed that the plan involved investing nine Tribulation-grade Logical Anomalies as gods to construct the Heavenly Dao and reincarnation, then investing cultivators as immortals and gods to operate them.
• Li Qing sensed a danger tracing his thoughts, sealed his aura, and left before considering how to limit the plan’s damage and benefit from it.
• The Jade Tablet reported that the Radiant Buddha Bone Temple was stirring, and Li Qing learned that a first-generation primordial dharma form was inside its ruins on Spirit Platform Mountain.
• Li Qing sent his Dream Projection, disguised as Wang Mingde, to the meeting place beneath Hidden Dragon Mountain, where Wu De arrived calling for him.
• Li Qing used the Record Book to note that Wu De seemed welcoming but might suspect Wang Mingde’s identity.

Li Qing met Wu Delai, learned about the dangers and history of the Radiant Buddha Bone Temple, and received a map to its ruins. He reached Spirit Platform Mountain and watched a midnight Buddha-light flare, but the temple did not appear.

• Li Qing met Wu Delai, who described his recent misfortune and warned him that the Radiant Buddha Bone Temple was dangerous.
• Wu Delai gave Li Qing a map of the temple and invited him to explore an ancient underground tomb in Hidden Dragon Mountain later.
• Li Qing traveled to Spirit Platform Mountain and heard that the temple's golden flashes had become more frequent as cultivators gathered nearby.
• Li Qing sent a Shadow Paper Doll to the mountain summit, where midnight golden light revealed a faint Buddha but no temple.

Li Qing divined that the Radiant Buddha Bone Temple was a trap set to capture him, then learned that the Buddhist Sect was testing how much information he could uncover. He prepared to build a wider information network by upgrading his Shadow Paper Dolls into Myriad Shadow Paper Dolls.

• Li Qing divined that eight figures had separated his body and spirit, with a Jade Tablet at their center, and concluded the Radiant Buddha Bone Temple was a trap for him.
• Li Qing used his Record Book to learn that Bone Bodhisattva was overseeing a capture plan ordered by the Six Paths and Eight Immortals, who wanted a secret he possessed and were testing his information-gathering abilities.
• Li Qing realized his enemies would tailor future traps around his ability to uncover their plans, and decided to rely on apparent coincidences to avoid them.
• Li Qing sent Shadow Paper Dolls to buy materials in Hundred Gates Alley and prepared to establish a stronger information network.
• Li Qing upgraded his spell into the Myriad Shadow Spell, which could create up to 365 Myriad Shadow Paper Dolls, and transformed the blank paper dolls into shadows.

Li Qing refined the Divine Lamp, creating an immortal Divine Body that could use his powers, and tested it in Spirit Platform Mountain. When the entrance to the Radiant Buddha Bone Temple opened, he entered last and found a staircase leading toward its palaces.

• Li Qing sent the Myriad Shadow Paper Dolls across the Four Domains of the Nine Provinces to establish an intelligence network.
• Li Qing refined the Divine Lamp, causing his Dream Lamp to decay as its dream power flowed into the new artifact.
• Li Qing created a Divine Body resembling Wang Mingde and tested its abilities by defeating an Anomaly on Spirit Platform Mountain.
• Two days later, a golden vortex opened at the mountain's summit, and Rogue Cultivators and Dao Lineage cultivators began entering.
• Li Qing entered the vortex last and reached a staircase leading toward the Radiant Buddha Bone Temple's palaces.

Li Qing and the other cultivators crossed the temple’s deadly stairway and entered the Radiant Buddha Bone Temple, where he headed toward the Scripture Repository. He cautiously explored the left passage with two powerful Spirit Consciousness Realm cultivators.

• Li Qing saw that restrictions covered the stairs, and he avoided the traps while the cultivators climbed under pressure that prevented them from flying.
• Golden Arhat statues came alive and attacked the cultivators; Li Qing disabled the statues with golden-fingered strikes while many others died.
• The surviving cultivators reached the gate of the Radiant Buddha Bone Temple, and Li Qing used Heavens Civilization Torrent to block the heart-bewitching breeze from within.
• The cultivators entered the temple and split among three passages, while Li Qing followed his remembered map toward the Scripture Repository on the left.
• Li Qing proceeded with a sinister Daoist and an armored Military School cultivator, judging both to be peak Spirit Consciousness Realm figures who might be seeking tribulation.

Li Qing explored the Radiant Buddha Bone Temple, where empty palaces transformed into a realm of flesh and monstrous Anomalies. He reached the Sea of Suffering Pool, but a Rogue Cultivator sent to test its golden vortex was dragged into the black water and returned in agony.

• Li Qing used the Heavens Civilization Torrent to block mind-eroding chants as he searched the temple’s empty Scripture Repository and surveyed the other palaces with Shadow Paper Dolls.
• The temple’s golden light darkened, and its palaces transformed into monstrous Anomalies that attacked the cultivators.
• Li Qing used World-Walking Star-Shifting to cross the chaos and reach the Sea of Suffering Pool, where a golden vortex hovered over a small island.
• More than twenty survivors gathered at the pond, including seven Spirit Consciousness Realm cultivators, while the palace Anomalies kept their distance.
• A Military School cultivator ordered a Rogue Cultivator to test the island; the Rogue Cultivator fell into the black water and swam back screaming in agony.

Li Qing crossed the Sea of Bitterness by using the Heavens Civilization Torrent to absorb its pain, then entered a hidden palace inside the mural. He found more than a hundred dead monks and went down the left passage to search for information about the first-generation Original Dharma Box, as their bones assembled into a monster and pursued him.

• A Rogue Cultivator retreated from the pond after the suffering within overwhelmed him, and the Military School cultivator and others entered the water to attempt the crossing.
• Li Qing used the Heavens Civilization Torrent to absorb the suffering and discovered that it strengthened the spell’s information.
• As spatial forces expanded the pond and raised waves, Li Qing used World-Walking Star-Shifting to reach the island and enter its vortex.
• Li Qing arrived in a palace concealed within a mural and found more than a hundred dead monks scattered across the floor.
• Li Qing chose the left passage to search for information about the first-generation Original Dharma Box.
• After Li Qing left, the monks’ bones gathered into a hundred-armed bone arhat that slithered after him.

Li Qing defeated a Fierce-grade Anomaly and followed the recurring back of a monk through the temple passages. He reached the Arhat Golden Hall, while Mingkong of the Yin Demon Path went down a different passage.

• Li Qing killed a hundred-armed Anomaly by tearing out its Essence Stone, and Mingkong later examined the scattered bones and suspected Wang Mingde had slain it.
• At a crossroads, Li Qing saw a monk’s back appear repeatedly and chose to follow it after discovering it was trailing him.
• Li Qing met Mingkong, introduced himself as Wang Mingde, and let the Daoist choose a passage.
• Li Qing followed the monk’s back through the winding passage and arrived at the Arhat Golden Hall.

Li Qing uncovered Yuanxin’s plot to possess anyone who touched his relic, then deliberately awakened the monk to test his own combat power. Yuanxin transformed into a White Bone Arhat, but Li Qing’s powers suppressed him as their fight began.

• Yuanxin asked Li Qing to carry his relic to Ten Thousand Wheel Mountain and offered the jade butterfly’s temple records in return.
• After Yuanxin turned to ash and left behind his relic and jade butterfly, Li Qing used the Record Book to reveal that Yuanxin planned to possess him with the Relic Rebirth Art.
• Li Qing learned that Yuanxin would become a White Bone Arhat and attack if he refused to touch the relic, so he decided to use the threat to test his strength.
• Li Qing poured tribulation qi into the relic, awakening Yuanxin, who re-formed from ashes as a White Bone Arhat and attacked.
• Li Qing evaded Yuanxin with World-Walking Star-Shifting and suppressed the Arhat’s strength, though Yuanxin still wielded power beyond ordinary peak Spirit Awareness cultivators.

Li Qing defeated Yuanxin’s White-Bone Arhat, claimed a Second-Generation Dharma Form record, and escaped a palace of awakening corpses. Deeper in the cave heaven, he discovered its Anomalies produced unusually pure Essence Stones and continued onward, collecting more.

• Li Qing suppressed and battered Yuanxin’s White-Bone Arhat until it crumbled to ashes, destroying its relic as well.
• Li Qing found a jade leaf containing the Luminous Tathagata Dharma Form Record (Second-Generation Dharma Form) among the ashes.
• The palace’s gilded Arhat statues decayed to reveal shriveled corpses that began to stir, so Li Qing fled.
• A warped Anomaly attacked Li Qing, who destroyed it with a torrent of mental information and collected its Baleful Intent-grade Essence Stone.
• Li Qing recognized the stone as a purer cave-heaven Anomaly Essence Stone and continued through the cave heaven, defeating more Anomalies and collecting over a dozen stones.

Li Qing crossed a lotus pond whose flowers and hidden faces attacked him, then fled to a white jade mountain where Buddhist chants tried to convert him. He discovered the mountain was built from bones and climbed toward the Radiant Buddha Bone Temple, believing it held the answers to the mysteries.

• Li Qing nearly stepped into the lotus pond after seeing visions of Earth, but the Heavens Civilization Torrent broke his daze and revealed eerie faces beneath the water.
• The lotuses attacked Li Qing, and he fought them off with golden-light punches as a mass of corpses rose from the pond and unleashed twisted black energy.
• Li Qing escaped to the foot of the white jade mountain, where Buddhist chants tried to convert him as the black aura stopped at the mountain's boundary.
• The Buddhist chants and the pond's hateful voices clashed, and Li Qing's Heavens Civilization Torrent drove the chants from his mind.
• Li Qing saw that the mountain, its coral, and its trees were all made from bones, recognized it as the Radiant Buddha Bone Temple, and climbed toward its summit.

Li Qing reached the White Bone Hall and discovered that its Buddha statue was a Dharma Form secretly monitoring the cultivators. Realizing he needed to conceal his strength, he introduced himself as Wang Mingde and began speaking with the others.

• Li Qing climbed White Bone Mountain and found Mingkong and a Military School cultivator facing off inside the White Bone Hall.
• Mingkong tried to make the Military School cultivator believe he and Li Qing were allies, but Li Qing rejected the implication, and the cultivator invited him to join forces against Mingkong.
• Li Qing examined the hall’s bone Buddha statue and used the Record Book to learn that it was the Great Radiance Dharma Form, which Bone Bodhisattva used to monitor and capture powerful cultivators.
• Li Qing learned that a scroll before the statue contained the Buddha’s original Dharma Form and decided to hide his abilities and rely on verbal sparring.
• Li Qing introduced himself as Wang Mingde of the Miscellaneous School, and the Military School cultivator identified himself as Yue Wudi of the Battle Formation Lineage.

Li Qing persuaded Mingkong and Yue Wudi to inspect the scroll together, then used their reaction to the Primordial Dharma Form portrait to escape the Bone Palace. The Bone Bodhisattva captured the other two and extracted their memories, while Blood Demon King ordered Wang Mingde to investigate the escapee.

• Li Qing proposed that he open the scroll and let Mingkong and Yue Wudi examine it together before deciding whether to fight over it.
• Li Qing unfurled the scroll, revealing a portrait of the first-generation Primordial Dharma Form, and Mingkong and Yue Wudi recognized its value and attacked.
• Li Qing threw the portrait into the air and slipped through the Bone Palace doors as they closed, leaving Mingkong and Yue Wudi trapped inside.
• The Bone Buddha seized Mingkong and Yue Wudi, and its ghastly white radiance eroded their minds and extracted their memories.
• Bone Bodhisattva realized that one person had escaped, and Blood Demon King ordered Wang Mingde to investigate.

Li Qing escaped White Bone Hall and returned to his underground safe house outside the Capital City. After learning that the Buddhist Sect had exposed his Wang Mingde alias and was likely preparing another trap, he planned to expand his intelligence network using a new artifact, the Myriad Spirit Mother Eye.

• Li Qing escaped White Bone Hall, crossed the Sea of Bitterness and Spirit Platform Mountain, and returned to his true body without being stopped.
• Li Qing left Radiant Buddha Bone Temple and reached his underground safe house outside the Capital City.
• Two days later, Li Qing learned that the Buddhist Sect's first-generation primordial Dharma Form had been attributed to the alias Wang Mingde, prompting the Miscellaneous School to deny knowing him.
• Li Qing realized the Buddhist Sect wanted the world to help search for him and resolved to use heavenly secret divination to investigate future opportunities and traps.
• Li Qing planned to spread his Divine Body and Myriad Shadow Paper Doll across the Nine Provinces and replace the Hundred Things Eye with the Myriad Spirit Mother Eye, a new artifact capable of building a vast surveillance network.