Chapter Summaries

Chapter summary

Key events

• Fang Zhenya and Fang Yinxuan use a Purple Mansion secret treasure to reach Primordial Devil Heaven ahead of other Dao Foundation cultivators. In Heavenly River Hall, they defeat scaled Willow Earth puppets and discover that the grotto-heaven dates from before the ancient “Wei Seizing Liu Virtue” upheaval, when Willow Earth still possessed all four Divine Abilities.
• They find and collect the Five-Colored Millet Soil, an ancient Willow Earth Purple Mansion treasure. Yinxuan sees it as a valuable bargaining chip, while Zhenya urges them to continue searching for greater treasures.
• The three Fragrance Masters of the Three Fragrance Sect explore the grotto-heaven, gathering rich demonic materials. They recognize the place as a rare chance to acquire resources—but also suspect its treasures are protected by dangers capable of killing even Purple Mansion cultivators.
• The sisters encounter Kua Muzi, a formidable Dao Foundation cultivator of the Golden Core Heavenly Horn Sect, after his beast-mounted palace crashes and spills its treasures. Human Fragrance reaches for the scattered Spirit Assets; despite the risk, she proposes that the sisters kill him. Kua Muzi counters with the sword technique Shattering Edge, and the confrontation begins.
• Outside the grotto-heaven, Purple Mansion cultivators cannot see in or reliably tell whether their people are alive. True Person Zihao senses that the spiritual phenomenon tied to the three Fragrance Masters is collapsing and fears they have died. He enters the grotto-heaven to investigate, followed by Siyuan and several others.
• A Dharma King’s warning about evil causes and consequences leaves several Purple Mansion Great True Persons visibly unsettled.

Character developments and interactions

• Fang Zhenya is knowledgeable and confident, explaining Willow Earth’s lost status and encouraging Yinxuan to keep exploring.
• Fang Yinxuan moves from excitement at finding an ancient treasure to heightened greed, eager to trade the Millet Soil for valuable resources.
• The Fragrance sisters begin cautiously but grow bolder as they discover how rich the grotto-heaven is. Their cooperation and complementary Spirit Artifacts make them powerful together, though Human Fragrance’s impulsive attempt to seize Kua Muzi’s goods puts them in danger.
• Kua Muzi responds forcefully to the attempted theft, turning the sisters’ opportunism into an armed confrontation.
• Zihao shifts from waiting outside to risking entry when he believes the sisters may be dead. Siyuan follows him, and other Purple Mansion cultivators also choose to enter despite the danger.

Significant themes

• Treasure and temptation: The grotto-heaven’s riches awaken greed and encourage risky choices.
• The burden of the past: Ancient relics reveal a lost era in which Willow Earth held a status and power it no longer possesses.
• Risk and uncertainty: The Secret History Grotto-Heaven hides both its dangers and the fate of those within, forcing cultivators to act without reliable information.
• Consequences: The closing warning emphasizes that past actions—particularly the treatment of the three women—may bring retribution.

Plot points and events

• Fang Qing enters the depths of Primordial Devil Heaven, where its devilish exterior gives way to jade palaces and an eerie immortal stillness.
• He examines the sealed Heart Demon Golden Seat and realizes the Devil Ancestor’s original scheme might have enabled an ascent to Year Guardian: the Seat could possess an ascendant as a Heart Demon and eventually take control.
• Fang Qing assesses the Great Sun Year Guardian’s unstable mental state. He suspects its repeated setbacks have revived old madness, and that a strengthened Heart Demon Golden Seat could exploit this weakness.
• He also recognizes that the Great Sun Year Guardian is trying to restore the Great Sun Dao Path. However, Fang Qing’s exclusive control of Water Virtue prevents it from completing its power.
• Fang Qing concludes that the Golden Seat is drawing numerous cultivators into Primordial Devil Heaven by distorting their minds and blurring truth and illusion.
• Meanwhile, Fang Zhenya and Fang Yinxuan meet Kua Muzi, a powerful Horn Wood Destiny Child. They agree to explore separately and later trade discoveries, but the arrival of Purple Mansion cultivators escalates events.
• Zihao and other True Persons rush toward the Golden Nature they sense in the Grotto-Heaven. At its center, they find Fang Qing holding the Golden Seat. He freezes everyone present in place with his Year Guardian power.

Character developments and interactions

• Fang Qing demonstrates his strategic insight and confidence, interpreting both the Devil Ancestor’s failed plan and the Great Sun Year Guardian’s vulnerabilities. His Water Virtue status gives him decisive authority over Primordial Devil Heaven.
• Fang Zhenya identifies Kua Muzi’s Horn Wood Destiny and responds diplomatically, recognizing both his power and the value of cooperation.
• Fang Yinxuan is wary of Kua Muzi and critical of the Purple Mansion cultivators’ haste, but accepts the proposed exchange.
• Kua Muzi approaches Fang Zhenya and Fang Yinxuan peacefully, offering a mutual arrangement and a valuable Horn Wood Spirit Asset.
• Zihao and the other True Persons act on greed for Golden Nature, only to be overwhelmed by Fang Qing.

Significant themes

• Ambition and the danger of power: The Devil Ancestor’s scheme and the Great Sun Year Guardian’s attempted restoration show how the pursuit of transcendence can become destructive.
• Mental instability as vulnerability: The Great Sun Year Guardian’s hidden madness may be more dangerous than any physical weakness.
• Greed and corrupted perception: The Heart Demon draws cultivators toward Primordial Devil Heaven by undermining their judgment.
• Power hierarchy: Fang Qing’s effortless restraint of both Dao Foundation cultivators and Purple Mansion True Persons underscores the vast gulf between them and a Year Guardian.

Key plot points

• Fang Qing reveals his overwhelming influence over Fang Zhenya and Fang Yinxuan, explaining that he orchestrated their travels and their contact with the [Heart Demon] Golden Seat. He uses the power of [Lunar Yin] to erase their memories.
• The uncle and nephew believe they have successfully traded for a [Horn Wood] Purple Mansion spirit treasure. As they flee Primordial Devil Heaven amid a clash between powerful cultivators, they are swept into a different layer of Secret History.
• They arrive in a world where the dead rule and the living appear to be gone. A local cultivator explains that after a cataclysm, the continent shattered and the surviving world became the corpse of a fallen Buddha, whose flesh grows the Blood-Flesh Fruits eaten by its ghostly inhabitants.
• Fang Zhenya kills the local cultivator to keep their presence secret. Books found on the man suggest that this future ended in disaster: Golden Core True Lords died, the epoch came to an end, and even Spirit-Ease Grotto-Heaven may have fallen.
• Determined to find out more and perhaps avert this fate, Fang Zhenya decides to enter Wrongful Death City. He plans to use the Mirage Spring Pearl to disguise himself and Fang Yinxuan as dead beings.

Character developments and interactions

• Fang Qing demonstrates how completely he controls events around the Fang family descendants, then conceals that control by wiping their memories.
• Fang Zhenya shifts from fearful submission before Fang Qing to grim resolve after learning what this Secret History may reveal. He kills the informant out of caution and takes charge of the next step.
• Fang Yinxuan shares his uncle’s alarm and supports his decisions, though he is visibly shaken by the possibility of the Grotto-Heaven’s destruction.
• Fang Zhenya and Fang Yinxuan act as a wary, cooperative pair: they flee danger, investigate the strange world, and prepare to infiltrate the city together.

Significant themes

• Hidden control and manipulated memory: Fang Qing shapes events while the descendants remain unaware of his influence.
• Catastrophe and alternate histories: The new Secret History presents a possible future in which the world’s order has collapsed.
• Life, death, and survival: The dead live on by consuming fruit grown from a Buddha’s body, while the two living visitors are outsiders in a realm governed by death.
• Fear and resolve: Faced with a seemingly hopeless future, the uncle and nephew choose investigation and action over surrender.

Key plot points and events

• Disguised as a cultivator he killed, Fang Zhenya enters Wrongful Death City with Blood-Flesh Fruit. He finds a grim settlement where mortals and cultivators live among ghosts, the population is sparse, and people trade in bones and blood.
• He discovers that the world’s cultivation has changed: qi now tends toward yin, and even familiar lineages have become sinister. The city’s people rush to receive soup from a white-clad Holy Maiden, whose presence makes Fang feel that something is wrong.
• When an underworld official spots him as a living person, Fang flees. A powerful seven-fingered hand pursues him into the Great Void, overwhelms him, and brings him to a black palace.
• Inside, Fang recognizes paintings of the fall of the White Bone Buddha, the Moon-Chasing Xuanlin Primordial Sovereign, and—most painfully—the destruction of his family’s Spirit-Ease Grotto-Heaven, with Fang Daoling and Fang Xianyuan defeated.
• The palace’s attendant, Red Sleeve, reveals that Fang is in a layer of Secret History. Its inhabitants know that such histories are real to them, even if they are like dreams to the One True Realm.
• Red Sleeve explains that the unique Year Guardian’s Golden Seat can connect the One True Realm to counterparts in Secret Histories. She then reveals that she is channeling the consciousness of the Lunar Yin Golden Core True Lord, the Ninefold Year-Spirit Pure Radiance Primordial Sovereign.
• The Nether Bureau cannot locate the Metal Virtue Year Guardian, who was banished to a lost Secret History. Meanwhile, Lunar Yin and Fire Virtue are awakening. Fang realizes that the figure he encountered earlier may have been the Water Virtue Year Guardian—his own ancestor.

Character developments and interactions

• Fang Zhenya begins as a wary infiltrator, relying on disguise and a Void-Walking Talisman to escape. His confidence collapses as the city’s true power becomes clear, and the paintings and revelations leave him frightened and disoriented.
• Red Sleeve first appears to be a formidable local attendant, but her knowledge and Lunar Yin power reveal that she is serving as a vessel for a True Lord from the One True Realm.
• Fang and Red Sleeve’s exchange shifts from his apology for trespassing to her probing his origins, then to her explaining the nature of Secret Histories and the Year Guardians. Fang ultimately recognizes the Primordial Sovereign and submits in reverence.
• Fang’s encounter with the city’s ghostly residents and the pursuing official emphasizes how completely out of place—and vulnerable—a living person is in this world.

Significant themes

• A world inverted: Yin qi, death, and ghostly rule have replaced familiar spiritual orders, affecting both society and cultivation.
• Reality and history: Secret Histories are presented as lived realities, yet remain connected to the One True Realm through powerful beings.
• Ancestral loss and revelation: The ruined Grotto-Heaven exposes the Fang family’s catastrophic downfall, while the possibility that its ancestor is a Year Guardian ties that loss to a much larger mystery.
• Power and helplessness: Fang’s escape techniques are useless against a Great True Person, underscoring the vast gap between his abilities and the forces governing this world.

Chapter summary

Key plot points and events

• Fang Qing explains that Year Guardians are exceptionally difficult to destroy: even if their Golden Nature and True Spirit are lost, the world and its Golden Seats can eventually call them back. Several long-dead Guardians are beginning to awaken, and ordinary cultivators can do little to affect their conflict.
• At a Year Guardian’s command, Secret History shifts and opens many passages. The Fang family elders, Fang Xianyuan and Fang Daoling, enter Secret History, as do Lunar Yin cultivators sent by the Moon-Chasing Xuanlin Primordial Sovereign on Emperor Lord Taiyi’s orders.
• In the Great Void, Gu Hongzi and another Purple Mansion cultivator cross paths with Namo White Bone Manifestation Great Compassion Tathagata. Gu Hongzi is converted, while his pursuer narrowly escapes. Their encounter reveals that a terrifying True Lord is moving through the world.
• The Fang elders locate the Secret History realm where the Metal Virtue Year Guardian was exiled. It is a sword-centered continent where every inhabitant awakens a Natal Sword Star.
• The Moon-Chasing Xuanlin Primordial Sovereign approaches the Fire Virtue Year Guardian to negotiate on behalf of Water Virtue. The Fire Guardian responds with overwhelming force, killing several accompanying Lunar Yin cultivators. This suggests Fire Virtue may have joined Great Sun’s side.
• Fang Qing enters the secluded realm of the Lunar Yin Year Guardian. He finds her in the form of an old woman weaving, with the appearances of a girl and a middle-aged woman superimposed on her. He asks for her help in the coming struggle and proposes a trade involving the Lunar Yin Golden Seat.

Character developments and interactions

• Fang Qing shows strategic ambition and a willingness to negotiate with other ancient powers. He plans to surpass the rank of Year Guardian and offers to compensate Lunar Yin for surrendering her Golden Seat, possibly returning it once he no longer needs it.
• Fang Xianyuan and Fang Daoling act on the command to enter Secret History, putting the Fang family’s future ahead of their worries about younger relatives Zhen Ya and Yin Xuan.
• The Lunar Yin Year Guardian is cautious and pragmatic. Though she once resisted the tyranny of the Year Guardians, she doubts she can help without suffering Metal Virtue’s fate and demands to know what she will gain.
• The Moon-Chasing Xuanlin Primordial Sovereign serves as an emissary for Lunar Yin and Water Virtue, but her attempted approach to Fire Virtue ends in violence.
• Gu Hongzi is transformed by the Tathagata’s presence; his pursuer survives only because he is farther away, underscoring the vast difference between ordinary cultivators and a True Lord.

Significant themes

• Persistence and resurrection: Year Guardians cannot be permanently eliminated while the world and their Golden Seats can summon them back.
• Power and helplessness: Cultivators below Year Guardian rank are largely powerless in conflicts between these beings.
• Alliance and political maneuvering: The balance among Water, Lunar Yin, Fire, Metal, and Great Sun is shifting, and cooperation is driven by necessity as much as trust.
• Ambition and compromise: Fang Qing seeks power beyond the Year Guardian level, offering a calculated bargain that could reshape the world’s balance.

Key plot points and events

• Fang Qing negotiates with the newly awakened Lunar Yin Year Guardian. She agrees to help him and promises that, if he wins, he will revive the Phoenix. Lunar Yin’s power remains incomplete because the Great Sun Year Guardian holds the Rooftop Moon Principal Position.
• Fang Qing offers her several Golden Seats as alternatives to pursuing Rooftop Moon. The Lunar Yin Guardian weighs their strategic uses—especially Temporal Light and Profound Thunder—and notes that Heart Demon might worsen the Great Sun Guardian’s growing madness. Her choice is left unresolved.
• The approaching Year Guardian battle destabilizes the Secret History around Wrongful Death City. Fang Yinxuan sees the city and its people becoming translucent, while Fang Zhenya learns from Attendant Deity Red Sleeve that the conflict may be disrupting the One True Realm itself.
• Fang Qing and the Great Sun Year Guardian clash directly. The Great Sun’s power, called Furnace-Melting Myriad-Forms Nature, draws on sunlight and many Dao Paths to melt and contain all forms. Fang Qing counters with the Water Virtue Golden Seats and their command over water and the seasons.
• The Fire Virtue Year Guardian enters the fight on the Great Sun’s side, but Fang Qing alters history so that the Fire Guardian’s awakening never occurred. The figure is erased, revealed to be a Golden Core cultivator from the Nine-Heavens Fire Manor who had assumed the Fire Guardian’s form.
• The two Year Guardians carry their struggle backward through history, into High and then Primordial Antiquity.

Character developments and interactions

• Fang Qing remains calculating and confident. He tests whether Lunar Yin has abandoned her former ambitions, offers her power while guarding against betrayal, and demonstrates that he can rewrite history to remove threats.
• The Lunar Yin Year Guardian accepts Fang Qing’s terms and shows both strategic judgment and awareness of her limits. Her alliance with him is conditional on his eventual victory and promise to revive the Phoenix.
• Fang Yinxuan struggles between fleeing danger and remaining loyal to his captured uncle, Fang Zhenya.
• Fang Zhenya recognizes how powerless the Fang Family is against a battle between Year Guardians; Red Sleeve confirms that ordinary beings may be swept up in the conflict.
• The Great Sun Year Guardian appears immensely powerful but increasingly mad and corrupt. His control of multiple Dao Paths lets him interfere with other Year Guardians’ strength and recruit or manipulate allies.

Significant themes

• Power and dependence: Even ancient, formidable beings have limits when their authority is compromised or controlled by another.
• History as a weapon: The battle is fought not only through force but by creating or erasing entire branches of history.
• The vulnerability of ordinary lives: The Year Guardians’ conflict destabilizes places and people far removed from its combatants.
• Ambition and corruption: The Great Sun’s attempt to absorb multiple Dao Paths has brought immense power, but may also be driving him toward madness.

Plot and key events

• As Wrongful Death City and its inhabitants vanish with the collapse of the Secret Histories, Fang Daoling rescues Fang Zhenya and Fang Yinxuan from the void. He warns that everyone in the collapsing histories—and eventually the One True Realm—will disappear unless the ancestor wins.
• Fang Xianyuan observes that several spiritual objects are fading, while a golden peony grows brighter, suggesting that some power or influence is persisting through the collapse.
• In Primordial Antiquity, Fang Qing confronts the Great Sun Year Guardian. He has pursued it through collapsing layers of history and confirms that the Metal and Fire Year Guardians are only shadows, while the Lunar Yin Year Guardian remains active.
• Fang Qing and Lunar Yin seize control of eight of the twelve months, weakening the Great Sun Guardian. Lunar Yin’s attack shakes loose its Golden Seats, and Fang Qing uses his Causality and Heart Demon Golden Seats to bind and further destabilize it.
• Taking advantage of the opening, Fang Qing draws out and traps the Wall Water Golden Seat with the Dao-Born Pearl’s Clear-Turbid Gate. Its removal destabilizes the Great Sun Year Guardian, causing it to collapse and scatter its Golden Seats across the Great Void.
• Lunar Yin congratulates Fang Qing, but he warns that the Great Sun Guardian may return. He hints that he has prevented such a return before and intends to make this victory final.

Character developments and interactions

• Fang Zhenya and Fang Yinxuan survive the collapse through Fang Daoling’s intervention, but remain powerless as their world disappears.
• Fang Daoling accepts the danger calmly, trusting the outcome to the ancestor’s victory.
• Fang Qing demonstrates formidable strategic power and confidence, combining the authority of Water Virtue with the Dao-Born Pearl and multiple Golden Seats. He is not satisfied with merely defeating the Great Sun Guardian; he plans to eliminate its chance of resurrection.
• The Lunar Yin Year Guardian moves from hidden support to direct intervention. She is impressed by Fang Qing’s unexpected victory but doubts he can prevent the Great Sun Guardian’s return.
• The Great Sun Year Guardian, already driven mad, is further destabilized by Fang Qing’s attacks and ultimately falls when Wall Water is removed.

Significant themes

• History and impermanence: The destruction of the Secret Histories threatens entire worlds and populations, while time’s layers become a battlefield.
• Power through alignment and strategy: Fang Qing wins not through strength alone, but by coordinating month-based authority, causality, the Heart Demon seat, and Lunar Yin’s assistance.
• Victory versus lasting resolution: The Great Sun Guardian’s defeat is not necessarily permanent; the chapter raises the question of whether a powerful force can truly be erased.
• Survival amid cosmic collapse: The mortal characters’ fate depends on events far beyond their control, underscoring the vast scale of the conflict.

Key plot points

• Fang Qing attempts something more complete than his earlier destruction of the Mount Shu world: he travels backward through time to erase the old world and create a new one.
• He traces time to the source of space and time, where heaven and earth are still undivided. Realizing a Year Guardian cannot go farther or undo the Golden Seats, he uses the Dao-Born Pearl and its power of Omnipresence to pass beyond that limit.
• Fang Qing witnesses the Five Primordials in reverse: Supreme Ultimate, Grand Simplicity, Grand Beginning, and Grand Origin, then absolute nothingness. At Grand Origin, the Golden Seats dissolve into Primordial One Qi.
• Using the Breath-Nourishing Dao as his foundation, he reaches Grand Change and resets history. The former world becomes an unreal future, its imprints erased; even the old Great Sun Year Guardian can no longer revive.
• Fang Qing then creates a new world, allowing heaven and earth and the Golden Seats to form again. He uses the Nine True Waters to establish time, water, land, life, and other foundations, and declares the first year of the Great Wilderness Calendar.
• Despite this act of creation, Fang Qing has not fully transcended the Year Guardian realm. He must absorb the insights in seclusion and devour Fire Virtue, Lunar Yin, and the Great Sun to advance further.

Character developments and interactions

• Fang Qing evolves from a powerful Year Guardian into a creator-like figure, capable of undoing and rebuilding a world. Yet he recognizes the limits of his achievement: his power still depends on the Dao-Born Pearl and an inherited framework.
• The Lunar Yin Year Guardian confronts Fang Qing over his promise and invokes Lunar Yin as her witness. When he suggests Lunar Yin might cease to exist, she follows him into the river of time, but cannot reach the primordial source.
• Fang Qing’s relationship with the former Great Sun Year Guardian remains adversarial in consequence: by erasing the old world’s history and Golden Seat imprints, he nullifies every contingency that could have enabled that Guardian’s return.
• Fang Qing also considers the True Spirits sealed within the Dao-Born Pearl. He may allow them to live again, but intends to erase their memories and give them wholly new lives.

Significant themes

• Creation through destruction: Fang Qing’s new world requires the complete erasure of the old one, not merely its ruin or relocation.
• Limits and transcendence: Even a Year Guardian cannot alter the deepest foundations of reality; crossing that boundary requires a power akin to a Dao Fruit.
• Time, history, and identity: Resetting the timeline makes the former world’s events unreal and removes the records that sustain immortality and revival.
• Power and restraint: Though Fang Qing could alter the world’s laws, he preserves familiar paths so that future Year Guardians can arise and he can pursue advancement by devouring them.
• Creation’s ambiguity: Fang Qing calls himself a Creator, yet admits that much of his new world follows an existing pattern and that he remains, for now, “an unremarkable Water Virtue Year Guardian.”

Chapter Summary: Age of Behemoths

Key Plot Points and Events

• In the year 9900, Fang Qing awakens to find the world still largely primitive and barren. The seas are dominated by enormous behemoths resembling mosasaurs and dragons, while spiritual cultivation has not yet emerged.
• Seeking to secure the Water Virtue Dao Path before a naturally born Great Sage can claim it, Fang Qing freezes the surrounding ocean and kills countless behemoths.
• He creates the [Cold Intercalation] Golden Seat, associated with ice, frost, hidden cold, and Lunar Yin. This allows him to truly advance as the Year Guardian.
• The Golden Seat manifests as a Jade Qilin, Fang Qing’s incarnation. The Qilin gives birth to four children—leopard, ape, worm, and Yu—representing the remaining Four Waters and allowing Fang Qing to consolidate control over Water Virtue.
• Fang Qing observes that the new Golden Seats are completely pure and unclaimed, with no prior masters or lingering imprints. He reflects on the scarcity of True Lords and the difficulty of comprehending the other Dao Paths.
• He uses the Dao-Born Pearl to place a modified remnant of Phoenix’s True Spirit into the [Wings Fire] Golden Seat, causing it to begin developing consciousness, though it remains far from becoming a true Great Sage.
• After roughly twenty thousand years, primitive ape-men tribes have developed across the continent. Their evolution is indirectly traced to the Qilin’s “ape” offspring.
• The oceans and land are now populated by organized behemoth tribes, strange beasts, spiritual phenomena, and the first low-grade spiritual objects. Fang Qing names the period the Age of Behemoths.
• Two ape-men from the Blackwater Tribe, Zhong and Jing, discover a tree bearing frost-patterned azure spiritual fruits. They eat the fruits, survive their freezing transformation, and gain powerful cold-based abilities.

Character Developments

• Fang Qing strengthens his authority over Water Virtue by creating and claiming the Cold Intercalation Golden Seat. He progresses from a deceptive or incomplete Year Guardian status to a genuine one.
• He demonstrates increasing mastery of incarnation and Dao manipulation through the Jade Qilin and its four offspring.
• Despite his immense power, Fang Qing recognizes his limitations in Dao comprehension, especially regarding Fire Virtue, and wonders whether absorbing or manipulating Golden Seats is still his only path forward.
• Fang Qing remains morally detached from the world’s creatures, slaughtering behemoths to establish his authority and viewing the developing civilizations largely as consequences of his own actions.
• Zhong develops from a tribal hunter into an empowered warrior after consuming the spiritual fruit. His confidence and ambition increase immediately.
• Jing also gains cold power, though he is more cautious and fearful than Zhong.

Significant Themes

• Creation and unintended consequences: Fang Qing’s Qilin incarnation and its offspring unintentionally lead to the rise of ape-men civilization.
• The emergence of cultivation: The world gradually transitions from an age ruled solely by physical strength to one where spiritual fruits, strange beasts, and supernatural abilities begin appearing.
• Authority and succession: Fang Qing seeks to claim Golden Seats before independent Great Sages can arise, emphasizing control over cosmic order and Dao legitimacy.
• Power versus understanding: Although Fang Qing possesses overwhelming strength and can seize Golden Seats, he admits that fully comprehending multiple Dao Paths is beyond his natural aptitude.
• Evolution and survival: Behemoths, ape-men, and tribes adapt to a changing world filled with spiritual dangers. Strength becomes increasingly necessary for tribal survival.
• Moral detachment: Fang Qing treats entire species and spiritual beings as pieces in a larger cosmic arrangement, contrasting sharply with the ape-men’s immediate concerns about hunger, warfare, and survival.

Character Interactions

• Fang Qing interacts primarily with the world through his incarnations and manipulation of natural forces rather than through direct conversation.
• His relationship with the Lunar Yin Year Guardian and Phoenix is explored indirectly. Fang Qing questions whether Lunar Yin genuinely cares for Phoenix or merely views her as a resurrection vessel, then uses Phoenix’s altered True Spirit to influence the Wings Fire Golden Seat.
• Zhong and Jing are partners from the Blackwater Tribe investigating rumors of spiritual fruits and supernatural warriors.
• Zhong pressures the hesitant Jing to eat the fruit, framing the risk as necessary for their tribe’s survival. Both ultimately gain frost-related powers, and Zhong immediately imagines using their newfound strength to dominate rival tribes.

Plot points and events

• In the Great Wilderness, the Blackwater Tribe has grown into a thousand-strong army and hunts giant beasts. Chief Zhong proposes replacing the tribe’s shared system with a hierarchy that rewards powerful warriors with wealth, wives, and slaves.
• Zhong plans to justify his rule through religion: he invents a god who supposedly tests warriors, makes Jing the priest, and declares himself God’s chosen king. The tribe’s contempt for hairless people makes them especially easy to enslave.
• Over the following decades, the Blackwater Tribe conquers neighboring peoples and grows to more than a hundred thousand. Its people gain strange abilities by consuming or mating with powerful beasts, and these traits become a mark of status. Hairless captives are treated as property and entertainment.
• Now old, Priest Jing joins Zhong as he announces a new state: the Jiuli Kingdom. With allies Yan and An, Zhong intends to unite the tribes and eventually conquer the seas and the wider world.
• Watching from above, Fang Qing recognizes the society’s growing cruelty and ambition. He notes that its leaders have overlooked the “greater path” of winning distant peoples over, suggesting their rise contains the seeds of their downfall.

Character developments and interactions

• Zhong transforms from a tribal chief into an ambitious would-be monarch. He openly embraces privilege, conquest, slavery, and divine authority, presenting himself as the sole rightful king.
• Jing, once concerned about inequality and the cost of gaining power, ultimately supports Zhong’s plans. Over time, he becomes an old priest who accepts the tribe’s hierarchy and cruelty as normal.
• Yan and An, leaders or representatives of other tribes, submit to Zhong and affirm his kingship, reinforcing his growing political power.
• Fang Qing remains a detached observer, viewing the tribe’s evolution with curiosity and skepticism.

Significant themes

• Power and inequality: Shared resources give way to a rigid hierarchy in which strength determines who deserves wealth and control.
• Religion as political authority: Zhong uses belief in a god to legitimize his rule and distinguish elites from ordinary people.
• Dehumanization and slavery: The tribe turns physical difference into a pretext for contempt and exploitation.
• Ambition and decline: Conquest builds the Jiuli Kingdom, but Zhong’s arrogance and failure to pursue diplomacy may eventually undo it.

Key plot points and events

• Zhong celebrates uniting the Hairy Folk and destroying the Giant Beast Tribe, but his triumph is overshadowed by old age and fear of losing both his life and his throne.
• He rejects the idea of attacking sea beasts and instead orders the construction of a Heaven-Piercing Tower, hoping to reach the gods and obtain immortality. He also sees the tower as a lasting monument to his rule.
• The project is built through brutal forced labor. Zhong orders that construction be tested with iron nails, with builders killed if their work fails and slaves killed if it passes.
• Zhong’s son Jue oversees the work and drives the slaves mercilessly, capturing more people when the workforce runs short. He threatens to conscript even Hairy Folk citizens, beginning with those of lower status.
• At the worksite, an overseer lets a falling stone crush several slaves rather than intervene, then orders the survivors back to work.
• That night, a slave named Yuan condemns the hierarchy that makes his people powerless. His words awaken a shared sense of injustice and the possibility of resistance.

Character developments

• Zhong shifts from victorious unifier to a frightened, increasingly ruthless ruler. His desire to preserve his life and legacy eclipses his concern for his people.
• Jing, the aged priest, recognizes that Zhong has changed. He objects to the tower’s human cost but ultimately withdraws without challenging the king.
• Jue uses the tower project to advance his standing with his father. His ambition makes him willing to intensify exploitation, even at the risk of provoking revolt.
• Yuan emerges as a bold, defiant voice among the slaves, articulating a vision of equality and self-rule.

Character interactions

• Zhong dismisses Jing’s warnings about the sea and the tower’s cost, asserting his authority over the priest.
• Zhong praises Jue’s work, while Jue’s brothers watch with jealousy.
• Jue intimidates an overseer into accepting harsher labor policies; the overseer fears the consequences but complies.
• The slaves are abused by their overseers and guards, yet Yuan’s speech turns private resentment into a shared awakening.

Significant themes

• Power and inequality: The kingdom’s hierarchy privileges Innate Gods and Devils and Hairy Folk citizens while dehumanizing hairless slaves.
• Tyranny and ambition: Zhong’s fear of death and Jue’s desire for approval lead them to sacrifice countless lives.
• Resistance and dignity: Yuan insists that appearance and status do not determine a person’s worth, planting the seeds of collective rebellion.
• Mortality and legacy: Zhong seeks immortality, yet the tower he hopes will preserve his name is being built through cruelty that may undermine his rule.

Key plot points

• King Zhong completes the Heaven-Piercing Tower, hoping to attract a god and win eternal life. His sons Jue, Hong, and Tang celebrate his decline and secretly plot to seize power; Hong has enlisted the Oceanic Beast Tribe.
• Yuan, a former slave, learns of the princes’ rebellion and the beasts’ planned attack. He sees the coming disorder as a chance to free the slaves and establish a human tribe.
• Zhong climbs above the clouds seeking a divine sign. When nothing appears, he insists on going higher; his winged attendants lose their grip, and he falls to his death.
• The Oceanic Beast Tribe attacks Xundi. Hong kills Priest Jing, crowns himself, and calls the destruction “necessary sacrifices.” The princes then turn on one another, and nearly all die.
• Amid the chaos, Yuan frees the slaves. They rescue others, gather supplies, and escape to found the Great Jing Tribe. The surviving Hairy Folk also flee south and establish a new Nine Li Tribe under Zhong’s youngest son, Li.
• Fang Qing observes humanity’s emergence and decides to help it progress. In the Great Jing Tribe, Yuan rejects the suggestion that humans imitate the Hairy Folk by consuming beast blood to become Innate Gods and Devils.
• As Yuan’s wife goes into labor, a white-jade Qilin appears with a bone book. The people recognize its first two characters as “Plain King.”

Character developments and interactions

• Zhong moves from ambitious ruler to frail, desperate old man, clinging to faith in a god until his fatal attempt to reach the heavens.
• Jing, Zhong’s loyal priest and brother, mourns him and resolves to protect the kingdom, only to be betrayed and killed by Hong.
• Hong reveals his ruthlessness: he uses the beast invasion to claim the throne, treating the deaths around him as acceptable costs.
• Yuan matures into a strategic leader. Rather than confront the Innate Gods and Devils directly, he frees his people and builds a community—and rejects the brutal path to power proposed by one of his hunters.
• Fang Qing remains detached from the Hairy Folk’s suffering but takes an interest in humanity’s development, choosing to intervene indirectly.
• The chapter contrasts Zhong’s doomed pursuit of divine favor with Yuan’s practical leadership, and sets up the significance of the Qilin’s arrival at the birth of Yuan’s child.

Significant themes

• Faith and delusion: Zhong’s devotion to an absent god becomes fatal when it overrides judgment.
• Freedom and human solidarity: The slaves’ coordinated escape marks the beginning of a human society.
• Power and moral cost: Hong pursues rule through betrayal and sacrifice, while Yuan refuses to gain strength through monstrous means.
• The rise of humanity: The collapse of the Nine Li Kingdom creates space for a new tribe and hints at a divinely marked future.

Plot points and events

• The Jade Qilin vanishes after delivering a white bone book. Yuan’s newborn son, Su, rapidly grows from a baby into a small child, and the tribe hails him as the “son of the water spirit.”
• Months later, Su warns Yuan that scattered Hairy Folk tribes and their Innate Gods and Devils threaten humanity. He proposes that humans gain power through Shamanism rather than relying on the Gods-and-Devils path.
• Su explains that shamanic talismans can identify people with the aptitude to wield this power. Those with the aptitude can also eat spirit fruit without dying. Yuan tests the method and finds that roughly one in ten warriors qualifies.
• Yuan tests captured Hairy Folk as well. When one proves to have shamanic aptitude, Yuan orders him killed. He then forces another to eat a golden date; the Hairy Folk dies in a grotesque eruption of metal shards. Yuan concludes that those without aptitude cannot survive spirit fruit and orders the remaining captives killed.
• Yue, a young girl identified by the talisman, is brought with other children to meet Su. He introduces himself as the tribe’s Grand Witch and demonstrates his powers by walking through the air amid swirling water vapor.

Character developments and interactions

• Su emerges as an exceptionally gifted, deliberate leader. He develops Shamanism as a practical way for humans to defend themselves, creates shamanic symbols and talismans, and begins gathering children to train as Witch Disciples. Though revered as supernatural, he privately treats the bone book as a resource for shaping his teachings.
• Yuan shifts from a former slave focused on survival to a chief concerned with his people’s security and strength. He eagerly adopts Su’s method, but his treatment of the captured Hairy Folk shows how readily fear and tribal survival lead him to cruelty.
• Yue is introduced as a mature, observant child whose newly discovered aptitude changes her prospects. She approaches Su with curiosity and uncertainty.
• Su and Yuan discuss how humanity can survive the Hairy Folk threat; Su supplies a strategy, while Yuan tests and enforces it. Su and Yue meet as teacher and potential pupil, with Su’s display establishing his authority over the children.

Significant themes

• Human survival and self-determination: Shamanism offers humans power of their own in a world dominated by stronger beings.
• Knowledge as power: Su’s script, bone book, and talismans turn learning into a means of organizing and protecting the tribe.
• Leadership’s moral cost: Yuan’s protection of his people comes with ruthless decisions and the dehumanization of captives.
• Reverence and authority: Su’s extraordinary birth and public display of magic make him a religious and political figure, not merely Yuan’s son.

Chapter Summary: “Repelling the Enemy”

Key events

• Su teaches the tribe’s children the basics of shamanism: cleansing through the Orchid-Broth Soul-Bathing Spell, drawing talismans, and progressing toward becoming Witch Disciples. He rewards successful students with meat, encouraging them to study.
• Su gives Yuan a jade pendant containing the knowledge of papermaking. He explains that the craft will be useful only when the tribe grows much larger, while Yuan accepts both the gift and Su’s practical judgment.
• Months later, Su teaches the apprentices how shamans “borrow” power from spirits, nature, ritual objects, and ceremonies such as the Nuo tradition. During an exercise in sensing spirits, the children receive visions of war and danger.
• Su interprets their visions as a warning: a Hairy Folk army, accompanied by giant beasts, is coming to attack. Yuan initially wants the tribe to flee, but Su argues that they cannot run forever and takes responsibility for defending them.
• Su orders a three-zhang ritual altar and animal sacrifices. Wearing a Nuo Mask, he performs a terrifying rite that sends a black wind toward the invading army. The supernatural force strips flesh from the Hairy Folk and their beasts, destroying the army and killing its golden-haired leader.

Character developments and interactions

• Su emerges as both a patient teacher and a confident protector. He cultivates the children’s abilities, cautions them against arrogance before spiritual forces, and uses his ritual knowledge to save the tribe.
• Yue, the brightest apprentice, excels at talisman study but is frightened during the spirit-sensing exercise. Su reassures her that fear is a valuable sign of respect for danger. Man, briefly pleased that he seems to surpass her, also demonstrates an early ability to perceive spirits.
• Yuan admires shamanic power and accepts Su’s guidance, though he remains anxious about the tribe’s safety. Their exchange over papermaking highlights their unusual, almost reversed parent-child dynamic, while rumors question Su’s parentage.
• The Hairy Folk leader is confident in his overwhelming force, but his certainty collapses when Su’s ritual wipes out his army.

Significant themes

• Knowledge as power: Teaching and practical skills prepare the tribe for future growth, while shamanism offers a means of defense beyond conventional strength.
• Respect for the unknown: Su warns that communicating with spirits does not make shamans omnipotent; humility and caution are essential.
• Collective survival and resolve: Yuan’s instinct is to flee, but Su insists that a people cannot spend generations running from danger.
• Planning for the future: Papermaking is not immediately useful, yet Su preserves the knowledge for the tribe’s eventual expansion.

Plot points and events

• After destroying the Chenhai Tribe, Su refuses to become king and adopts the title East Lord. Yue begins recording the tribe’s history on bone tablets, as Su has urged.
• The East Lord tells the Lesser Shamans to learn to fight and kill, since they must eventually handle nearby Hairy Folk tribes and the southern Jiuli without his help. He outlines the shamanic ranks—Lesser Shaman, Spirit Shaman, Grand Witch—and proposes Shaman God as the name for the realm beyond Grand Witch.
• By year 20,053, the Great Jing Tribe has grown into a prosperous, walled kingdom with developed industries and a powerful army. Man returns victorious from a campaign that unifies the north, having advanced to the peak of Lesser Shaman.
• Yue breaks through to Spirit Shaman after twenty years of effort. The East Lord summons her and Man to the Shaman Terrace, where they meet his younger brother, Jie.
• The East Lord is writing a Qilin Tome, a sacred text combining shamanic arts with teachings on government and industry. He reveals that he is exploring the path of the Shaman God.
• He gives Man a Witch Medicine to aid his coming breakthrough and assigns Yue to assist the king in the expected southern campaign. Jie, now a Lesser Shaman, asks to serve the kingdom, and the East Lord agrees.

Character developments and interactions

• Yue has become both the tribe’s chronicler and a capable Spirit Shaman. Though awed by the East Lord, she accepts her growing responsibility and serves as his trusted aide.
• Man has risen through military victories and wants to impress his teacher. His ambition and envy of Yue’s breakthrough show beneath his respectful deference; he gratefully accepts the East Lord’s medicine.
• The East Lord remains composed and authoritative, guiding the tribe’s growth while keeping his own larger aims private. His refusal of kingship contrasts with his immense influence over the kingdom.
• Jie appears as a curious, educated prince and emerging shaman, eager to contribute beyond his royal status. The East Lord readily accepts him into service.

Significant themes

• Building a civilization: The shift from tribe to kingdom is marked by history-writing, urban planning, agriculture, crafts, and military expansion.
• Knowledge and power: The Qilin Tome and shamanic training link spiritual mastery with practical governance.
• Ambition and hierarchy: Yue, Man, and Jie pursue advancement, while the East Lord defines the ranks and directs their roles.
• Hidden purpose: The East Lord’s choice of title and his private explorations suggest a strategic agenda beyond ordinary leadership.

Plot points and events

• King Yuan leads Great Jing’s army south to destroy the Nine Li Tribe, determined to settle the old hatred during his own reign. Before the march, he publicly declares that his sacred son Su has first claim to the throne; the other princes may inherit only if Su refuses.
• Nine Li’s ruler, Li, learns that Su is absent and believes this is his chance to defeat Great Jing. He orders a full attack but secretly instructs his guard captain, Black Tapir, to flee with the tribe’s priests and treasures if the battle is lost, taking the knowledge of creating Innate Gods and Devils to the sea-beast tribes.
• On the Plains of Muye, the two armies clash. Great Jing’s archers and Prince Jie’s shamanic abilities help, but the Jiuli warriors are individually stronger.
• Yue, Su’s disciple and a powerful Spirit Shaman, reveals her full strength. She summons devastating thunder, earth beasts, wind, and a sleep-inducing black mist, routing the Jiuli army and turning the battle into a Great Jing victory.
• Li retreats to his capital, finds his people fleeing and Black Tapir gone, and sets himself on fire rather than be captured by those he considers “lowly slaves.” Great Jing’s commanders reach the burning city.
• Some wealthy Hairy Folk surrender, claiming they suffered under Li. Jie wants them killed; Qi urges restraint until Yuan arrives. Yue offers no judgment, and Jie privately resents Qi’s intervention.

Character developments and interactions

• Yuan shows both resolve and awareness of his age. He is committed to ending the conflict himself and makes the succession order explicit, asserting Su’s priority over his ambitious brothers.
• Li is strategic but overconfident: Su’s absence encourages him to attack, while his contingency plan reveals his willingness to endanger the wider world by transferring Jiuli’s techniques to the sea beasts. Defeat leaves him choosing death over surrender.
• Yue moves from observing the battle to openly wielding her formidable power. Her victory earns the army’s respect and fulfills Great Jing’s long-held desire for revenge.
• Jie is an effective warrior but shows a ruthless streak in demanding the surrendered Hairy Folk’s deaths. He resents Qi for advocating restraint.
• Qi, who is less prominent and less gifted than his brothers, displays compassion and deference to Yuan’s authority.
• Black Tapir obeys Li’s secret escape order, abandoning the capital as the battle turns against Jiuli.

Significant themes

• Revenge and historical memory: Yuan and Yue frame the campaign as justice for generations of enslavement and cruelty.
• Power and succession: Yuan’s public declaration attempts to contain rivalry among his sons, though Jie’s resentment suggests the conflict may persist.
• The costs of war and unchecked ambition: Li’s plan to share Jiuli’s methods with the sea beasts could threaten everyone beyond his own tribe.
• Moral ambiguity after victory: Great Jing’s triumph does not settle how to treat the defeated; the surrendered Hairy Folk’s claims and Jie’s response expose the danger of replacing one cruelty with another.

Key plot points and events

• Following Great Jing’s victory over Jiuli, the army returns to the capital and the people celebrate the end of their ancestral blood feud.
• King Yuan declares that Great Jing will become the Jing Kingdom and plans to establish six imperial armies. At Grand Witch Su’s suggestion, the court adopts enfeoffment: royal relatives and loyal ministers receive territories to govern and defend, while owing tribute to the king.
• Yuan distributes lands to princes, generals, and even Mu, a descendant of the Hairy Folk who has turned away from his people’s former cause. Su accepts Fang Mountain and founds the Fang Kingdom. His acceptance signals that he is giving up any claim to the Jing throne, leaving Jie as the likely heir.
• Three years later, Su remains at the Shaman Terrace rather than visiting his new fief. Man returns from seclusion having become a Spirit Shaman, with abilities distinct from Yue’s.
• Su warns Man and Yue that a heavenly omen signals danger: the Giant Beast Tribe, strengthened by Jiuli’s spiritual treasures and methods, is attacking. He sends the two Spirit Shamans to defend the kingdom and goes to the palace to see Yuan, who is dying.
• Yuan reflects on rising from slavery to build Great Jing and establish the fiefs. Su promises that the kingdom will last more than five hundred years, though no kingdom lasts forever. Yuan asks to see Su’s face, but Su falls silent.
• As Jie keeps vigil outside, two terrifying beasts—the Cang Dragon and the Eight-Armed Alligator Dragon—attack. Yue blinds the Cang Dragon with peach resin and Man hurls the other beast beyond the city walls, beginning the defense of the capital.

Character developments and interactions

• Su remains composed and politically astute. His proposal wins broad support, but his acceptance of Fang Mountain reveals his decision to relinquish the throne. He is also a powerful, unreadable presence, directing the kingdom’s defense while facing Yuan’s final moments.
• Yuan secures his legacy by founding the kingdom and enfeoffing its territories. He recognizes Su’s refusal of the throne and appears to settle on Jie as successor, while confronting his own impending death.
• Jie is left as the expected heir, but the others’ scrutiny and his clenched fists suggest pressure and uncertainty. He is surprised and moved that Su comes to say farewell to their father.
• Man celebrates his breakthrough, but Su’s flames expose the limits of his new strength. In battle, however, he demonstrates formidable physical power.
• Yue applies her specialized skills strategically, using peach resin to counter the Cang Dragon’s sight.
• Mu’s grant recognizes a former enemy who has joined the Jing side, showing the kingdom’s willingness to incorporate outsiders.

Significant themes

• Political change and state-building: Enfeoffment distributes authority to secure borders, reward service, and extend the kingdom’s reach, while also leaving local lords with considerable power.
• Legacy and mortality: Yuan’s life’s work, Su’s promise about the kingdom’s longevity, and the uncertain succession frame the chapter’s treatment of what can endure.
• Power and pragmatism: Su promotes a system suited to the kingdom’s current conditions rather than an idealized, more centralized structure.
• New threats after victory: Jiuli’s defeat does not end conflict; its techniques and treasures empower a dangerous new enemy, making the kingdom’s triumph only the start of another struggle.

Plot points and events

• Black Tapir leads an invasion of Jing by the Oceanic Beast Tribe, aided by Xun Mu, a Hairy Folk lord who betrays the kingdom. The attack brings flying Giant Beast Kings and a flood threatening to destroy the capital.
• Yue cannot stop the deluge, but Su protects Jing City with a barrier. After placing the crown on his younger brother Jie, Su uses the Qilin Tome to summon overwhelming cold, killing the beasts, their kings, Black Tapir, and much of the invading army.
• Yuan’s death is announced, and Jie succeeds him as king. He orders his father’s funeral and other state matters, then condemns Xun Mu to death for treason.
• Jie orders the extermination of the Hairy Folk. Su intervenes, citing their shared ancestry and Heaven’s regard for life; Jie agrees to spare a small fraction, though he plans to exile the survivors at sea.
• Su withdraws from court, leaving a clear division of authority: the king governs, while the Shaman Terrace oversees rites.
• In a heavenly interlude, Fang Qing reveals that Jie is his uncle’s reincarnated True Spirit, placed in mortal life to gain experience and destiny. Fang considers sending other spirits into history but worries that the Golden Seat would consume those lacking a strong foundation.

Character developments and interactions

• Su proves himself both protector and political authority: he saves the capital, installs Jie as king, and restrains Jie’s vengeance without openly taking the throne.
• Jie moves from anxious younger brother to confident ruler. He respects Su’s stature and grants him unusual court privileges, but displays harsh, vindictive instincts toward Xun Mu and the Hairy Folk. He plans to pursue cultivation independently.
• Yue witnesses Su’s power and records the invasion’s defeat. Her restrained entry—“destroyed them”—contrasts with the extraordinary scale of the battle.
• Xun Mu is exposed as a traitor despite having received a title and fief from Yuan; he begs for mercy by appealing to shared blood.
• Fang Qing views Jie’s kingship as deliberate training, hoping the experience of founding a dynasty may prepare him for a higher spiritual path.

Significant themes

• Power and legitimacy: Su’s supernatural authority saves Jing, but he deliberately lets Jie hold the crown and govern.
• Mercy versus vengeance: Su limits Jie’s proposed mass killing, though the compromise remains brutal.
• History as cultivation: Fang Qing treats political hardship, achievement, and destiny as means of spiritual development.
• Kinship and betrayal: Shared ancestry shapes Su’s plea for restraint, while Xun Mu’s betrayal makes that bond politically fraught.

Plot points and events

• Grand Witch Su gives Yue and Man the Qilin Tome, a powerful guide to Shamanism, as an aid to reaching Grand Witch. He warns that studying it is mentally and physically taxing, so they must alternate in three-day sessions and rest afterward.
• Decades pass. Under Jie’s capable but ruthless rule, Jing Kingdom and its vassal states grow substantially, while the Hairy Folk nearly disappear. Jie demonstrates his authority by confiscating a vassal’s fief and dividing it among his sons.
• Yue, now a historian and senior Spirit Shaman, studies the Qilin Tome. After decades, she has reached the peak of Spirit Shaman and glimpsed the path to Grand Witch. She is also beginning to shape her understanding into a Dark Moon Shaman Codex.
• The Shaman Terrace has grown into a vast institution, but competition over access to the Qilin Tome and political influence has bred scheming among its Spirit Shamans. Yue remains detached from these rivalries, while Man is more combative.
• Man tells Yue that the decennial Grand Tribute Assembly is approaching and that she must preside. He also reports that Jie’s health is failing: Jie has repeatedly failed to advance to Spirit Shaman, damaging his cultivation foundations. With succession looming, political conflict may follow.
• The chapter ends with Xiahou Qi bringing his young son, Xia Qi, to Jing City so the boy can pursue a future on the Shaman Terrace. The child eagerly imagines meeting the legendary East Lord, unaware that even his father does not know what the masked Grand Witch looks like.

Character developments and interactions

• Yue has become a powerful, scholarly, and composed figure. She records Jing’s history, advances through the Qilin Tome, and is entrusted with presiding over the coming assembly. She and Man respect one another, though both recognize their rivalry in cultivation.
• Man has developed into a physically formidable, confrontational Shaman who follows a path of bodily tempering. He admires Yue’s scholarship but watches her progress warily and sees worldly political struggles with contempt.
• Jie has matured into an effective king, but his limited Shamanic aptitude and distance from the Shaman Terrace have left him unable to cultivate successfully. His declining health puts the succession at risk.
• Su supports Yue and Man’s advancement by giving them the Qilin Tome, while remaining largely removed from the world above.
• Xiahou Qi and his son introduce the next generation: Qi’s lack of inheritance prospects leads his father to seek a Shamanic path for him.

Significant themes

• Time and historical change: Decades transform Jing’s kingdom, its institutions, and its people, while Shamans’ long lives allow them to watch dynasties and rulers change.
• Talent, ambition, and limits: Yue and Man thrive through exceptional aptitude, while Jie’s ambition cannot overcome his middling talent.
• Power and corruption: Jing’s expansion and the Shaman Terrace’s prestige bring authority, but also ruthless rule, rivalry, and political scheming.
• Knowledge and cultivation: The Qilin Tome offers immense possibilities, yet its teachings demand years of effort and remain only partially understood.
• Generational succession: Jie’s failing health and Xia Qi’s arrival link the kingdom’s political future to the Shaman Terrace’s continuing influence.

Plot points and events

• The Shamanic Way has flourished in Jing City. From the Shaman Terrace, Su counts nine Spirit Shamans and hundreds of Lesser Shamans, and sees the city filling with people hoping to enter the order.
• Su considers his long-term plans for the Dao Paths and Golden Seats. He believes he can eventually claim the [Shaman] seat, while using his true self and carefully placed allies to pursue the Great Sun, Fire Virtue, and Lunar Yin paths. Yue and Man may be able to advance to Grand Witch when Su’s own breakthrough creates favorable conditions.
• Su reflects that King Jie has struggled to cultivate and may soon die, since Lesser Shamans cannot extend their lifespans. He notes that his promise to Yuan Bao was to preserve the Jing Kingdom for five hundred years, not to guarantee Jie—or any particular royal branch—the throne.
• At the Shaman Terrace, Yue oversees admissions. Children of nobles are admitted without testing, while ordinary children must prove their aptitude. A commoner boy displays top-grade talent, immediately attracting nobles eager to secure him through marriage and patronage. Yue recognizes that access to Shamanism may eventually become hereditary and exclusive.
• Marquis Xia brings his son Yu to enroll and offers Yue a rare Spirit Shaman-level Water Virtue treasure. Before Yue can respond, Su arrives. His presence overwhelms Xia Qi and gives Yu a powerful vision of the ancient mountain spirits.
• Su asks Xia Qi to accompany him to see Jie off. Xia Qi realizes his royal brother is likely dying and breaks down in tears.

Character developments and interactions

• Su remains strategic and far-sighted, balancing ambition for the [Shaman] seat with plans to influence other Dao Paths. His authority is palpable: even Xia Qi is shaken by his arrival.
• Yue is an experienced, capable administrator whose understanding of Shamanic cultivation is growing. She also sees how privilege and elite connections may shape the order’s future.
• Xia Qi appears proud of his son and eager to secure his place, using both family ties and an expensive gift. Su’s announcement about Jie exposes his grief and affection for his brother.
• Yu is introduced as Xia Qi’s only child with Shamanic aptitude. His encounter with Su leaves him awed and unsettled.
• Jie, though absent from the scene, is presented as a king nearing death after failing to advance in cultivation.

Significant themes

• Power, ambition, and destiny: Su’s plans to claim powerful seats reflect the struggle to shape the world’s spiritual order.
• Privilege and inequality: Admissions begin as an opportunity for commoners, but wealth, noble ties, and inherited access threaten to make Shamanism exclusive.
• Mortality and succession: Jie’s likely death underscores the limits of power and the uncertainty of political inheritance.
• Institutional growth: The Shamanic Way’s success brings both hope and the risk that its once-open gates will close.