Chapter Summaries

Lan Tian refined his self-created Rasengan by combining Soul Power with the Sun and Moon Power from Sun and Moon Shine Together. After testing it on a boulder, he continued south, practicing the technique as he headed toward the unexplored depths of the forest.

• Lan Tian gathered Soul Power and Sun and Moon Power in his palm to form a palm-sized Rasengan, building on a year of failed attempts and later experimentation.
• Lan Tian drove the Rasengan into a waist-high boulder, drilling through it and shattering it into pieces.
• Lan Tian assessed the Rasengan's power and noted that it took too long to form, consumed considerable Soul Power, and could be improved further.
• Lan Tian continued south, repeatedly forming and dispersing smaller, more stable Rasengans as he practiced on the way to the unexplored region.

Lan Tian was ambushed by a bandit Soul Elder in a narrow valley and tested his Rasengan in battle. He defeated the bandit with one direct hit and continued south, newly confident in his Self-Created Soul Skill.

• A level thirty-five Soul Elder blocked Lan Tian in the valley and demanded his money and medicinal herbs.
• Lan Tian dodged the bandit's mace attacks and used Blue Silver Grass to disrupt his balance.
• The bandit used his first and second soul skills, forcing Lan Tian to defend himself with a wall of Blue Silver Grass vines.
• Lan Tian completed his Rasengan and struck the bandit in the chest, leaving him unable to fight.
• Lan Tian left the bandit alive and continued south, convinced of the Rasengan's power.

Lan Tian searched the defeated highwayman's corpse and found a parchment map whose coordinates seemed to mark the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well. He hid the body and set off southeast through Sunset Forest to investigate the location.

• Lan Tian returned to the highwayman's corpse and searched it, finding money, supplies, herbs, and a larger storage ring.
• Lan Tian discovered nearly a thousand Gold Soul Coins and a carefully marked parchment map among the ring's contents.
• Lan Tian compared the map with his own and recognized that its coordinates might lead to the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well.
• Lan Tian concealed the corpse in the bushes, then headed southeast toward the marked location deep in Sunset Forest.

Lan Tian reached a concealed valley that he believed was the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well, but discovered its depths were covered in deadly poison mist. After recognizing the danger of a possible fifty-thousand-year Soul Beast within, he stopped at the entrance to plan his next move.

• Lan Tian fought several powerful Soul Beasts over three days and collected valuable parts from the creatures he killed or drove off.
• Lan Tian followed the parchment map to a hidden valley whose terrain and opposing hot and cold currents suggested it was the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well.
• Lan Tian found numerous human and Soul Beast remains coated in green deposits along the slope into the valley.
• Lan Tian identified the poison mist as likely coming from the Jade Phosphor Seven Absolute Flower and considered the possibility of venomous Soul Beasts living within it.
• Lan Tian recalled that a fifty-thousand-year Empress Medusa might inhabit the valley and retreated to the entrance to study his maps and weigh his options.

Lan Tian found the approximate location of the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well but judged himself too weak to enter its poison-mist barrier, so he returned to Nuoding City to prepare. He began testing the poison mist and found that Sun and Moon Power could suppress it, though not cure it.

• Lan Tian memorized the hidden valley's location and terrain, collected a sample of its poison mist, and withdrew rather than risk entering.
• Lan Tian hurried back through Sunset Forest, reaching Nuoding City's north gate three days later and returning to his clinic.
• Lan Tian checked the Nine Heart Begonia, then sorted and stored the medicinal ingredients he had gathered.
• Lan Tian tested diluted poison mist on field mice and found that Endless Life delayed its effects while Sun and Moon Power suppressed them more effectively.
• Lan Tian recorded his findings, sealed the poison sample away, and resolved to build his strength and continue researching before returning to the valley.

Lan Tian registered as a Soul Elder after reaching level thirty-three and learned how to apply for a barony from the Tiandou Empire. He returned to his clinic intending to prepare the documents and later approach City Lord Alfred.

• Lan Tian visited the Spirit Hall Branch and told Elder Zhao he had advanced to Soul Elder.
• Lan Tian tested at level thirty-three and explained that his thousand-year Sun-Moon Grass Soul Ring had helped his cultivation rise by two levels.
• Elder Zhao updated Lan Tian’s registration, gave him a three-ring badge and his monthly subsidy, and explained the barony application process.
• Elder Zhao advised Lan Tian to ask City Lord Alfred to act as his guarantor and said the approval process could take several months or longer.
• Lan Tian left the branch and returned to his clinic, planning to organize his documents before speaking with Alfred.

Lan Tian visited Alfred to seek sponsorship for his application to become a baron, and Alfred approved and sealed the required letter. Lan Tian left with his materials ready to send to Heaven Dou City and expected the review to take several months.

• Lan Tian organized his credentials and records after registering with Spirit Hall for his noble title application.
• Lan Tian asked Alfred to sponsor his application, and Alfred agreed to provide a letter and arrange for investigators to be received in Nuoding City.
• Lan Tian told Alfred that his third Soul Ring was a thousand-year plant Soul Ring, and Alfred accepted the explanation.
• Alfred signed and sealed the sponsorship letter, then advised Lan Tian to send it with his Spirit Hall registration certificate through the official courier station.
• Lan Tian returned to his clinic, confident that he would become a baron if the application was approved.

The Tiandou Empire reviewed Lan Tian’s application for a baronial title, and Emperor Xue Zhou approved it despite his Blue Silver Grass Martial Soul. Lan Tian received his title and an eight-hundred-mu fief near Nuoding City, then returned to preparing medicinal baths at his clinic.

• Blair reviewed Lan Tian’s application and found his cultivation record, medical service, and character worthy of consideration.
• Xue Zhou weighed Lan Tian’s limited prospects against the value of honoring his perseverance and ordered the barony approved, with final confirmation delayed.
• Three months later, Lan Tian received an official document granting him the title of Baron and a fief forty li north of Nuoding City.
• Lan Tian calculated his expected income, celebrated his achievement, and went back inside to prepare medicinal bath ingredients.

After receiving his barony, Lan Tian visited his eight-hundred-mu fief north of Nuoding City to assess its potential. He found fertile land, a stream, and suitable slopes, then mapped the property and returned with plans to develop it.

• Alfred congratulated Lan Tian on becoming a baron and offered to connect him with retired city guards if he needed workers for the fief.
• Lan Tian packed supplies and traveled north from Nuoding City to inspect his land.
• Lan Tian surveyed the fief and found rolling hills, a clear stream, fertile soil, and areas suited to farming and medicinal herbs.
• Lan Tian sketched a map marking the stream, hills, vegetation, water sources, and possible building sites.
• Lan Tian headed back to Nuoding City, planning how to establish an estate and develop the fief.

Lan Tian surveyed his fief on horseback, mapped its terrain and water sources, and planned to begin with a hundred-mu medicinal herb field. He returned to Nuoding City intending to ask City Lord Alfred to recruit retired veterans to help reclaim the land.

• Lan Tian rode into his fief and surveyed its hills, stream, and surrounding terrain from horseback.
• Lan Tian found that the clear, steady stream could supply irrigation for most of the fief.
• Lan Tian revised his map with plans for a main house, experimental fields, a cart road, and an upstream water intake, then confirmed the boundary markers.
• Lan Tian chose a sunny hundred-mu slope beside the stream for the first fields and planned to transplant Sun-Moon Grass seedlings there.
• Lan Tian returned to Nuoding City, copied his map into a formal plan, and decided to ask Alfred about recruiting retired veterans.

After townspeople congratulated Lan Tian on becoming a baron, he partnered with Louise to sell herbs and pills from his fief. He arranged to recruit retired veterans and prepared to begin developing the land.

• Nuoding City's residents brought Lan Tian gifts and congratulations at his clinic after hearing of his title and fief.
• Louise returned from a business trip, and Lan Tian proposed that she handle sales for the medicinal herbs and pills he planned to produce.
• Louise agreed to become Lan Tian's business partner and arranged to visit the fief with him the next morning.
• Lan Tian told Louise he planned to hire workers for the fief, then asked her to advise him on which plots to cultivate.
• Lan Tian asked Alfred to help recruit retired veterans, and Alfred agreed to select five or six and advance their first month's wages.
• Lan Tian reviewed the fief map at the clinic, planning to clear the land with the veterans' help and develop the herb business with Louise.

Lan Tian divided his eight-hundred-mu fief into herb fields, a Blue Silver Grass cultivation area, and housing, then recruited workers to begin developing it. With the boundary wall underway and Louise bringing him food, he left the story preparing for the farms, canals, and homes still to come.

• Lan Tian finalized the fief's land-use plan and decided to build a two-meter wall around its boundaries.
• Lan Tian recruited and selected 110 workers in Nuoding City's labor market, offering food, lodging, wages, and bonuses.
• Lan Tian led the workers to the fief, explained its boundaries, and assigned them to build the wall first.
• Old Ke estimated the wall would take a month and a half, and Lan Tian agreed while promising bonuses for good work.
• Lan Tian worked alongside the crew as the wall advanced, and Louise visited with braised beef and warmed fruit wine.

Over three months, Lan Tian developed his fief, cultivated a valuable first crop of medicinal herbs, and created a medicine that temporarily suppressed the poisonous mist. After selling the harvest and celebrating with his workers, he prepared to return to the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well.

• Lan Tian grew the Nine Heart Begonia to three hundred years and raised his Soul Power from level thirty-three to level thirty-four while developing his fief.
• Lan Tian formulated a poisonous mist suppressant that let test mice survive nearly ten times longer in the mist than untreated mice.
• Lan Tian harvested the fief's first crop of medicinal herbs, and Louise agreed to buy the entire batch at twenty percent above market value.
• Lan Tian calculated that the harvest was worth around two hundred thousand Gold Soul Coins and distributed wages and bonuses to the workers.
• Lan Tian celebrated with the workers, then took out his poisonous mist suppressant and decided it was time to return to the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well.

Lan Tian spent three months strengthening his techniques and developing the powerful soul skill Giant Wood Burial before preparing to return to the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well. After crossing the toxic mist with his suppressant, he approached the hot and cold springs deep in the valley.

• Lan Tian improved his toxic mist suppressant and Rasengan, then developed Giant Wood Burial, a devastating attack that consumed most of his Soul Power.
• Lan Tian left his fief in Old Ke's care, closed his clinic, and set out on foot for Sunset Forest.
• Three days later, Lan Tian reached the vine-concealed valley entrance and drank a dose of toxic mist suppressant.
• Lan Tian moved through the toxic mist toward the boundary between the hot and cold currents, keeping a Rasengan ready.
• Lan Tian heard water ahead and continued toward the springs as the ground and air grew distinctly hot and cold.

Lan Tian fought and killed a Jade-Scaled Eight-Clawed Bug in the poison mist, then realized the battle had disturbed the fifty-thousand-year-old Empress Medusa. After evading its searching pressure, he continued toward the sound of water, determined to take what he needed and leave quickly.

• Lan Tian dodged the Jade-Scaled Eight-Clawed Bug's ambush and used his Rasengan to wound its tentacles.
• Lan Tian exposed the bug's vulnerable underside with Blue Silver Grass and killed it with a direct Rasengan strike.
• Lan Tian removed the bug's venom sac and stored it for his poison-mist suppressant research.
• Lan Tian felt the Empress Medusa's immense pressure spread through the poison mist and stayed motionless until it faded.
• Lan Tian continued toward the sound of water, intent on finishing his task and leaving without delay.

Lan Tian found the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well and selected the Infernal Delicate Apricot and Octagonal Mysterious Ice Grass to build resistance to poison, heat, and cold. After enduring severe burns and frostbite to harvest them, he swallowed both herbs and leaped into the springs to begin their tempering.

• Lan Tian reached the basin and identified the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well and its many immortal herbs.
• Lan Tian hid from Empress Medusa and chose the Infernal Delicate Apricot and Octagonal Mysterious Ice Grass.
• Lan Tian endured burning pain as he pulled the Infernal Delicate Apricot from the soil.
• Lan Tian suffered intense cold while harvesting the Octagonal Mysterious Ice Grass.
• Lan Tian swallowed both immortal herbs and leaped into the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well.

Lan Tian endured the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well’s extreme temperatures and fused the effects of the Infernal Delicate Apricot and Octagonal Mysterious Ice Grass, gaining immunity to all poisons and ice and fire. He left the basin planning to wait three months before taking another immortal herb, while remaining wary of the sleeping Empress Medusa.

• Lan Tian endured the cold and heat of the spring as he used the Sun and Moon Power and life energy to guide the herbs’ effects through his body.
• The conflicting forces gradually merged, and Lan Tian recovered without burns or frostbite.
• Lan Tian tested his new resistance by touching a scorching rock and stepping onto frost without being harmed.
• Lan Tian considered entering the basin again, but remained cautious of the Empress Medusa sleeping in a cave.
• Lan Tian decided to wait about three months before consuming another immortal herb and left the remaining herbs in the basin so they would not wither.

Lan Tian collected water from the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well, but awakened the Empress Medusa and barely escaped her attack and the pursuing poisonous soul beasts. He left the valley alive, exhausted and wary of the giant serpent still within it.

• Lan Tian filled more than a dozen refined iron bottles with water from the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well.
• Lan Tian sensed a presence in the cave and saw two dark golden lights as the Empress Medusa awakened.
• Lan Tian fled from the cave, using Giant Wood Burial to block the Empress Medusa’s dark golden beam.
• The Empress Medusa emerged, became enraged at Lan Tian for stealing from the well, and summoned poisonous soul beasts to pursue him.
• Lan Tian escaped through the poisonous mist using his knowledge of the terrain and stopped in the forest to recover.

Lan Tian fled the Empress Medusa and the venomous Soul Beasts until he reached a cliff with nowhere else to go. He leaped into the abyss and survived by landing in a lake, but remained trapped at the bottom with no clear way out.

• Lan Tian used his Soul Skills to recover Soul Power while fighting off pursuing venomous Soul Beasts.
• Lan Tian reached a cliff and found the Empress Medusa and the Soul Beasts closing in behind him.
• Lan Tian chose to leap into the abyss rather than be killed by the pursuers.
• Lan Tian fell into a deep lake, swam to shore, and collapsed on the gravelly beach.
• Lan Tian rested at the bottom of the cliff, uncertain what awaited him or how he could escape.

After escaping into the valley, Lan Tian recovered his Soul Power and discovered an ancient stone gate. He broke through it with a Rasenshuriken and entered a passage leading to a small chamber, where he stopped in shock at what he saw.

• Lan Tian rested by the lakeshore and used his abilities to recover roughly seventy percent of his Soul Power.
• Lan Tian followed the lakeshore into a quiet passage and found an ancient stone gate covered in carvings and symbols.
• Lan Tian tried to open the gate with his hands and Blue Silver Grass vines, but it did not move.
• Lan Tian formed a Rasenshuriken and destroyed the stone gate, revealing a blue-lit passage beyond it.
• Lan Tian walked through the passage and reached a small ancient chamber, where the sight before him froze him in place.