Chapter Summaries

Plot points and events

• After a month of secluded training by day and killing by night, Fang Han completes his Blood Qi consolidation and approaches the Inner Force realm. His brutal attacks spread fear through Heavenly Eye City, but he ignores his family’s warnings.
• The Wang Family abruptly abandons the city. Fang Han inspects their empty residence and concludes that their ancestor, Wang Quan, may possess a power that lets him foresee danger. Though Fang Han has not yet struck the family, he resolves to settle the score with Wang Quan—and with royal-clan member Luo Jinghai—someday.
• The Wang Family’s departure triggers a violent scramble for its territory. The Fang Family stays out of the contest, but after its stabilizing elder, Fang Dian, dies, other factions begin eyeing its holdings.
• Fang Lie argues that the family must fight back rather than appear weak. He leads the defense, defeats the attackers, and urges the Fang Family to relinquish peripheral businesses and conserve its strength until it can produce another Aura Qi expert.
• Fang Han secretly attacks the factions threatening his family, restoring a measure of peace without revealing himself. Fang Lie suspects hidden help but attributes it to Fang Dian’s legacy.
• While studying ancient texts, Fang Han finds references to the Elder Ten Witches and recognizes Wu Peng as the source of Azure Wood Invocation. He suspects this world and Great Qian share a forgotten history.
• Having reached the Inner Force realm, Fang Han leaves Heavenly Eye City to investigate remote villages that still worship the ten witches. In an isolated southern mountain village, his use of Azure Wood Invocation prompts the villagers to kneel and chant. He stays to learn their language, the witch tongue.

Character developments

• Fang Han remains focused on cultivation, but his discoveries deepen his curiosity about the world’s ancient past. He also protects the Fang Family—not from attachment to his assumed identity, but to preserve the peace needed for training.
• Fang Lie emerges as a decisive and capable leader, combining bold defense with practical plans for conserving the family’s resources.
• Wang Quan appears increasingly capable of anticipating danger, while his unexplained flight leaves Fang Han wary and curious.
• Fang Dian’s death removes the Fang Family’s main source of stability, though his prudent leadership had kept the family from risking itself in the fight for Wang property.

Themes and interactions

• Strength and survival: The Fang Family’s crisis shows how quickly a lineage becomes vulnerable without a powerful protector.
• Hidden history and cultural continuity: Ancient texts, witch traditions, and Fang Han’s inherited technique suggest that seemingly separate worlds may share a common past.
• Concealed intervention: Fang Han protects his family anonymously, while Fang Lie senses the help but cannot identify its source.
• Key interactions: Fang Han’s secret reprisals deter the Fang Family’s enemies; Fang Lie rallies the family against attackers; and Fang Han’s technique transforms the villagers’ hostility toward outsiders into reverence.

Key plot points and events

• Fang Han learns the Witch Clan’s history: the Ten Witches once possessed unique inheritances, but an ancient calamity made them vanish and shattered the clan. The calamity also killed everyone who could read the clan’s script, erasing its written knowledge.
• He tests whether the villagers’ worship will attract Mystic Yellow Qi, but finds that it gathers around martial artists, not people revered as deities.
• Fang Han continues training, using the Azure Wood Invocation to strengthen his body and fighting powerful mountain beasts. Though some injuries are severe, they heal rapidly.
• Before leaving, he agrees to take Ying, a young woman chosen by the villagers, to care for him. She has come to regard him as a sacred being.
• Back in Heavenly Eye City, Fang Han finds his villa occupied by Fang Family members, who assumed he had died. His brother Fang Lie has gone to the Eastern Capital to seek a martial arts master.
• Rather than reclaim the villa, Fang Han gives it up to sever his remaining ties with the family. He rents a modest courtyard and decides the city offers too few martial artists to advance his cultivation.
• A ward alerts him that someone has entered his residence in the Great Qian World. He returns there and finds Li Qing, newly back from investigating the theft of his fortune.

Character developments and interactions

• Fang Han remains focused on cultivation and increasingly distances himself from his former family. He acts pragmatically, preferring a clean break over a dispute that might create obligations.
• Ying is devoted to Fang Han and begins learning the outside world’s common tongue during their journey. She questions his decision to surrender the villa but only partly understands his reasoning.
• The Witch Clan villagers fear Fang Han’s departure and treat him as a deity, offering Ying to accompany him.
• The Fang Family had presumed Fang Han dead and took over his property; once he leaves it to them, they quickly return to their revelry.
• Li Qing’s return reconnects the chapter’s events to Fang Han’s investigation in the Great Qian World.

Significant themes

• Faith and power: The villagers’ worship grants Fang Han reverence but no Mystic Yellow Qi, distinguishing spiritual devotion from martial strength.
• Lost history: The Witch Clan’s oral traditions preserve only fragments of a past whose writing and knowledgeable bearers were wiped out.
• Detachment and self-reliance: Fang Han rejects his family’s property and chooses independence, avoiding future entanglements.
• Cultivation through hardship: Fang Han’s dangerous battles with mountain beasts demonstrate his commitment to strengthening himself.

Plot points and events

• Li Qing confirms that Fang Han’s cousin, Fan Cheng, became a disciple of the powerful Yin-Yang School master Shao Lingxu soon after Fang Han’s Creation was stolen. The Fan Clan openly celebrated the connection, convincing Li Qing that they were involved.
• Fang Han vows to settle the debt eventually, but remains calm. Li Qing warns that the Fan Clan is not the main obstacle: Shao Lingxu is a powerful court minister in the Celestial Phenomenon Realm.
• Fang Han decides not to join the Confucian School, though he has not chosen another path. He will focus on strengthening his body until he finds a suitable teacher.
• After Li Qing leaves, Fang Han returns to the Martial World. He enters the True Qi Realm in a little over half a month, an astonishingly rapid advance.
• Seeking the source of Primordial Qi, Fang Han uses the Twelve Longevity Method to view the world from above. He discovers that its Primordial Qi is concentrated in a few locations rather than absent. One concentration attacks him through the image of a nine-headed demon beast, leaving him bleeding.

Character developments and interactions

• Fang Han shows greater restraint and maturity: despite learning who likely harmed him, he refuses to rush into revenge.
• Li Qing acts as a concerned ally, investigating the theft, warning Fang Han about Shao Lingxu, and supporting his decision not to join the Confucian School. Before leaving, he also begins spreading word of Fang Xun’s heroic deeds.
• Fang Han continues to command Ying’s devoted loyalty, though he does not question her habit of kneeling.
• Fang Han’s rapid martial progress reflects the benefits of his knowledge and the Azure Wood Invocation, which draws on the vitality of Heaven and Earth.

Significant themes

• Revenge and restraint: Fang Han remains committed to justice but understands that acting impulsively against powerful enemies would be dangerous.
• Power and hidden motives: The theft of Fang Han’s Creation appears tied to political and familial ambition, though Shao Lingxu’s precise reason remains unknown.
• Different paths to cultivation: Fang Han’s background lets him see the True Qi Realm as a manageable step, while ordinary martial artists struggle to reach it.
• The world’s concealed nature: Primordial Qi is present but hidden and concentrated—and may be guarded by forces capable of striking back.

Key plot points

• Fang Han’s injuries heal, but a black mark resembling the nine-headed beast Crab Nephew remains on his forehead. He suspects the great concentrations of heaven-and-earth energy may be ancient beasts—or martial artists awakening extraordinary powers.
• Mapping the energy sites, he identifies Emerald Plume Lake as the nearest one. Though it is infamous for unexplained disappearances, he decides to investigate, reasoning that death in Martial World will not erase his progress in Square Inch Space.
• A vast bank of dark clouds gathers over Heavenly Eye City after Fang Han leaves, apparently searching for him, then disperses. At home, Ying records the strange phenomenon in a drawing.
• At Emerald Plume Lake, Fang Han senses an immense concentration of energy beneath the water and dives in. The lake attacks him with freezing currents, cutting water, and monstrous forms, but Azure Wood Invocation’s powerful restorative vitality lets him endure and descend.
• On the lakebed, he finds patches of strange waterweed bearing eye-like growths, but realizes they are not the source of the lake’s power. He then suffers a terrifying illusion in which he seems to be choking himself; escaping to Square Inch Space breaks its hold.
• After searching for two days and nights, Fang Han discovers a cracked turtle shell inscribed with strange writing. As he reaches for it, an invisible force restrains him, visions overwhelm him, and his body is suddenly severed at the waist.

Character developments and interactions

• Fang Han is bold and curious, willing to face a dangerous mystery despite recognizing that its power may exceed his own. He relies on his healing ability and Square Inch Space as safeguards, and adapts by repeatedly withdrawing when the lake’s mental influence takes hold.
• Ying appears only briefly, quietly documenting the ominous clouds above the city.
• Fang Han’s main interaction is with the lake itself: it seems to sense his intrusion and responds with escalating hostility, while the turtle shell exerts a separate, seemingly supernatural force.

Significant themes

• Curiosity versus danger: Fang Han knowingly enters a forbidden place to uncover the source of its energy.
• Limits and resilience: His extraordinary healing allows him to withstand physical attacks, but the lake’s illusions and the shell’s power pose threats that brute endurance cannot easily solve.
• Mystery and supernatural power: The beast-like mark, searching clouds, living lake, and inscribed shell suggest that ancient or uncanny forces are active in the world.
• Repeated survival and its cost: Square Inch Space gives Fang Han a way to escape danger, but it does not prevent the increasingly disturbing consequences of his investigation.

Plot points and events

• Fang Han discovers that the ancient Turtle Shell emits an invisible force capable of slicing him in half. His abundant life force and healing ability keep him alive.
• Unable to take the Shell by ordinary means, he repeatedly charges it, using Square Inch Space to escape, recover, and return progressively closer despite being cut apart each time.
• Once within reach, he struggles to draw the Shell into Square Inch Space. He eventually succeeds by gathering his strength and enduring an attack from the hostile waterweeds.
• With the Shell removed, the lakebed’s eerie presence vanishes—but the elemental energy it had contained erupts violently, boiling Emerald Plume Lake.
• Fang Han absorbs some of the released energy, rapidly strengthening his true qi. He realizes the energy will spread through the world and make cultivation easier, especially for stronger warriors.

Character development

• Fang Han proves exceptionally persistent and resourceful: rather than retreating from a seemingly impossible threat, he treats his ability to recover as a tool for repeated experimentation.
• His growing power is matched by greater ambition and confidence. Even after winning the Shell, he immediately considers the wider consequences of its energy release.

Significant themes

• Risk and perseverance: Fang Han accepts repeated, potentially fatal injuries to obtain a valuable prize.
• Power beyond established knowledge: The Shell’s abilities do not fit the world’s known Martial Dao, hinting at a deeper or different system of power.
• Opportunity and unintended consequences: Taking the Shell grants Fang Han a major cultivation boost but also unleashes energy across the region, potentially changing the world.

Character interactions

• Fang Han’s main conflict is with the Turtle Shell’s invisible defensive force and the reaching waterweeds; there are no direct conversations with other characters.
• His interactions with the Shell become a contest of endurance and will, while his use of Square Inch Space lets him turn repeated defeat into gradual progress.

Key Plot Points and Events

• A tortoiseshell, imbued with an unknown arcane aura, appears in Li Shun's Square Inch space, causing Mystic Yellow qi to react abnormally.
• Li Shun attempts to manifest the tortoiseshell in the real world but encounters resistance, suggesting it's incompatible with the world's laws.
• Fang Han returns home and learns about a powerful enemy tracking him. He decides to avoid confrontation for now and focuses on improving his martial skills.

Character Developments

• Li Shun: Shows curiosity and caution regarding the tortoiseshell, demonstrating his analytical thinking and willingness to explore unknown powers.
• Fang Han: Exhibits strategic thinking by deciding to avoid a powerful enemy and instead focus on improving his skills. He also shows interest in deciphering the tortoiseshell's writing.

Significant Themes

• Exploration of unknown powers and their potential dangers (tortoiseshell, primordial qi gathering points).
• The importance of strategic thinking and patience in dealing with powerful enemies.
• The incompatibility of certain powers with the world's laws, suggesting a deeper mystery.

Character Interactions

• Li Shun interacts with the tortoiseshell and Mystic Yellow qi, attempting to understand and control the unknown power.
• Fang Han interacts with Ying, asking her about the tortoiseshell's writing, showing trust and willingness to teach her.
• Fang Han and the unknown Grandmaster have a standoff, with the Grandmaster inviting Fang Han for a talk, showing curiosity and a desire for understanding.

Key plot points and events

• Fang Han meets Wen Ye, a Grandmaster who has accumulated a vast reserve of spiritual energy inside his body. Though Wen appears imposing, Fang Han initially wonders why he has not turned that energy into personal strength.
• In a private conversation, Fang Han explains that he came because he sensed the energy within Wen. He admits to having cultivated using energy gathered around an ancient object, but keeps the Turtle Shell’s identity secret.
• Wen explains that spiritual energy has grown scarce since the ancient severing of heaven and earth. It survives in certain ancient objects, spirit beasts, plants, and remote places; claiming it is usually a deadly struggle, and energy often disperses when its host dies.
• Wen describes the Abyss-Nascent Method, created by the famed Long Xuanji. It lets Grandmasters store spiritual energy in their bodies, giving rise to the practice of gathering it to cultivate.
• Fang Han asks why Wen has spent over fifty years gathering energy without converting it. Wen reveals that Grandmasters do not rely on ordinary true or astral qi: they wield spiritual energy directly.
• To demonstrate, Wen rises into the air and forms a powerful, lifelike three-headed tiger from spiritual energy. Fang Han responds not with awe but with a deep frown, leaving Wen confused.

Character developments and interactions

• Fang Han is frank and inquisitive, using the meeting to learn the Martial World’s cultivation principles. Though he possesses knowledge from another cultivation system, he deliberately intends to advance as a martial artist to avoid being treated as an outsider by the world’s heavenly laws.
• Wen Ye is welcoming and knowledgeable, sharing Martial Dao history and demonstrating his Grandmaster abilities. He is surprised to discover that Fang Han lacks basic knowledge of how Grandmasters cultivate.
• The two treat one another respectfully, but their different backgrounds create a gap in understanding: Wen expects his demonstration to impress Fang Han, while Fang Han’s reaction suggests he sees something troubling or unexpected.

Significant themes

• Scarcity and conflict: Spiritual energy is rare, and obtaining it can mean killing its host; power is tied to sacrifice and mortal danger.
• Knowledge and perspective: Wen’s impressive mastery is unfamiliar to Fang Han, while Fang Han’s own abilities and assumptions remain largely concealed.
• Adaptation and restraint: Fang Han chooses to follow this world’s martial path rather than openly rely on foreign methods, balancing ambition with caution.
• Power and its limits: Wen’s display establishes the Grandmaster’s extraordinary abilities, but Fang Han’s frown hints that the spectacle may not be as decisive as Wen believes.

Key plot points

• Fang Han discovers that Martial World grandmasters gather and store spiritual energy rather than refining it into power that is truly their own. He suspects this makes the energy vulnerable to outside control.
• Wen Ye explains that generations of gifted warriors have tried to claim spiritual energy fully, but none have succeeded. He acquired his own in an ancient ruin after killing an exotic beast, then spent decades circulating and refining it through his body.
• Fang Han suspects the world’s spiritual energy is scarce and may belong to a hidden power. He theorizes that grandmasters are unknowingly nourishing it through their vitality, and wonders whether Long Xuanji is behind the scheme.
• Wen Ye says he intends to pass his stored energy—and the Abyss-Nascent Method—to two promising successors, though they may not reach the grandmaster realm in time.
• Knowing Wen Ye has many enemies, Fang Han agrees to rescue the two successors once if they are in danger. He then gives Wen Ye a leaf of Cold Mountain Grass.

Character developments and interactions

• Fang Han’s doubts about the Martial World’s cultivation system deepen into suspicion of a vast conspiracy. He also shows insight by reading Wen Ye’s fate and estimating his remaining lifespan.
• Wen Ye’s pride in his decades of cultivation gives way to resignation about its limits. He reveals his concern for his successors and asks Fang Han for help after his death.
• Their exchange shifts from questioning and explanation to mutual trust: Fang Han offers limited help, while Wen Ye hopes to see him become a grandmaster.

Significant themes

• Power and ownership: The chapter questions whether stored energy truly belongs to the person who holds it.
• Hidden systems and manipulation: Fang Han suspects that grandmasters may be unwittingly sustaining someone else’s power.
• Legacy and mortality: Wen Ye’s plans for his successors are shaped by his approaching death and the enemies he has made.
• Limits of cultivation: A method that appears to strengthen warriors may conceal a deeper cost or purpose.

Key plot points and events

• Wen Ye is amazed by the Cold Mountain Grass leaf Fang Han gives him. Fang Han explains that burning it will alert him if Wen Ye faces an emergency.
• Fang Han asks how many grandmasters exist and learns that at least 133 are recorded, with perhaps many more hidden from public view. Some cultivate spiritual energy by gathering qi.
• Concerned that grandmasters may be part of a larger scheme, Fang Han asks what happens to their bodies after death. Wen Ye says they are buried.
• Fang Han investigates and secretly opens the graves of seven deceased grandmasters across several cities. Every coffin is empty, confirming his suspicion that the bodies are being taken.
• He concludes that an unknown power has exploited grandmasters while they are alive—and is putting their remains to use after death. Rather than exposing himself prematurely, Fang Han keeps investigating.
• Over the next month, he visits more than a dozen places where Heaven-and-Earth energy gathers. He challenges grandmasters, takes strange beasts and spirit plants, and absorbs the energy directly, avoiding the Abyss-Nascent Method.
• The energy does not build up elsewhere after he releases or absorbs it. Even Emerald Plume Lake has returned to normal, suggesting an unseen force is draining energy from across the Martial World.

Character developments

• Fang Han shifts from treating the Martial World as relatively unimportant to taking its hidden threat seriously. He remains cautious about revealing himself, but the prospect of a powerful adversary excites him.
• Wen Ye shows renewed mental clarity after receiving the leaf and continues to serve as a source of information about the martial world.

Character interactions

• Fang Han and Wen Ye discuss the leaf, grandmasters, and qi cultivation. Wen Ye answers candidly, though he is baffled by Fang Han’s question about what happens to grandmasters’ bodies.
• Fang Han avoids telling Wen Ye what he suspects, then investigates on his own.
• Fang Han’s encounters with grandmasters are framed as challenges or bouts, while he claims the beasts and spirit plants he finds.

Significant themes

• Secrecy and investigation: Fang Han gathers evidence before confronting the unknown force.
• Power and exploitation: Grandmasters appear to be treated as resources both in life and after death.
• An unseen threat: The missing bodies and vanishing spiritual energy point to a vast, hidden scheme whose full purpose remains unknown.
• Challenge and ambition: Rather than fear a formidable opponent, Fang Han finds the possibility of a real contest invigorating.

Key plot points and events

• Fang Han clears another gathering point of earthly essence and breaks through to the Astral Qi Realm, gaining far greater destructive power and glimpsing the next step: the Grandmaster Realm.
• A Grandmaster ambushes him with a winged-tiger attack. Fang Han’s fist intent briefly checks it, but the vast difference in strength leaves him near death.
• The Azure Wood Invocation rapidly heals his shattered body. Fang Han is eager to fight again, but senses that the attacker—and several approaching Grandmasters—are strangely lifeless, like puppets.
• Facing roughly ten Grandmasters, Fang Han escapes into Square Inch. When he later reappears, enemies are waiting at his last departure point. A thunderous drumbeat briefly stuns him, and their attacks destroy his body, though he manages to retreat again.
• Li Shun realizes that every return places Fang Han in the same spot, making him easy to ambush. After another failed attempt, he asks the Mystic Yellow Qi to change his arrival location.
• The change costs ten strands of Mystic Yellow Qi. Fang Han returns safely to his home in Heavenly Eye City, and his sense of danger disappears. Li Shun suspects the Heavenly Dao itself may be directing the Grandmasters.

Character developments

• Fang Han reaches the Astral Qi Realm and demonstrates powerful will and remarkable resilience, facing a Grandmaster without surrendering to fear. His confidence, however, is tempered by the overwhelming danger of a coordinated ambush.
• Li Shun shifts from treating the attacks as a direct hunt by an enemy to considering that the Heavenly Dao may be responsible. He uses the Mystic Yellow Qi strategically, accepting a steep cost to escape the trap.

Significant themes

• The gap between levels of power: Astral Qi is formidable, but a Grandmaster can overwhelm it with ease.
• Resilience and adaptation: Fang Han survives through rapid healing and retreat, while Li Shun changes tactics when repeated attempts fail.
• Fate and higher powers: The attackers’ puppet-like state and the warning from the Heavenly Dao raise doubts about who—or what—is controlling events.
• The cost of survival: Escaping safely requires a significant expenditure of Mystic Yellow Qi.

Character interactions

• Fang Han directly clashes with the first Grandmaster, briefly resisting through his Martial Dao will before being gravely injured.
• The lifeless Grandmasters act together as a coordinated hunting force, ambushing Fang Han both before and after his retreats.
• Li Shun negotiates with the Mystic Yellow Qi to change Fang Han’s return point, paying ten strands in exchange for escaping the ambush.

Key plot points and events

• After clashing with an Innate grandmaster, Fang Han recognizes that he is not yet strong enough to face several grandmasters at once, so he postpones returning to the Heaven and Earth essence gathering point.
• He concludes that a grandmaster’s divine ability begins as an imperfect form and is refined through repeated life-and-death battles. Rather than seek a shortcut, he decides to forge his own path through combat.
• With Wen Ye’s help, Fang Han obtains a list of high-level martial artists and spends nearly a year challenging them. He disguises himself under three identities to conceal his extraordinary recovery, though his use of Emperor Fist sometimes reveals similarities between them.
• The fights steadily sharpen his martial will and combat instincts. After defeating another Astral Qi opponent, he senses that the grandmaster realm is within reach, but he still needs a decisive opportunity.
• Fang Han returns quietly to Heavenly Eye City and takes a peaceful rest at home, where Ying has faithfully kept his room and greets him with devotion.
• His respite ends when armed men arrive to hunt down the Fang Family on behalf of “Young Master Fang.” Their conversation reveals that Fang Lie offended the powerful Grandmaster Lu, whose school has three grandmasters. As the gate is forced open, Fang Han realizes this looming confrontation may provide the breakthrough he needs.

Character developments

• Fang Han shifts from seeking rapid advancement to embracing combat as the way to develop a unique divine ability. His year of challenges transforms him from a fighter who often relied on endurance into one who can overwhelm most Astral Qi martial artists.
• Ying remains unwaveringly loyal despite Fang Han’s long absence, showing that her devotion is not diminished by time.
• Fang Lie is revealed as the cause of the Fang Family’s crisis: he struck Grandmaster Lu’s son, provoking retaliation against his family.

Significant themes

• Growth through struggle: True mastery comes from repeated challenges, not shortcuts.
• A personal path to greatness: A divine ability becomes supreme through its wielder’s victories and refinement.
• Power and its consequences: A grandmaster’s influence can mobilize others to punish an entire family, even without direct orders.
• Patience and timing: Fang Han pauses to recover and reflect, but recognizes that the crisis arriving at his door may be the opportunity he needs.

Character interactions

• Fang Han and Wen Ye work together to arrange his series of challenges.
• Fang Han and Ying reunite at home; she welcomes him with the same devotion she showed before his departure.
• The pursuing martial artists discuss Fang Lie, Grandmaster Lu, and the Fang Family’s predicament before breaking into Fang Han’s courtyard.

Key Plot Points and Events

• A group of Inner Strength martial artists, led by Lu Chuan, confront Fang Han at the Fang Family residence.
• Fang Han, with a mere glance, severely injures Lu Chuan, revealing his immense power.
• Fang Han challenges two Grandmasters, Lu Feng and Luo You, to help him advance into the Innate realm.
• Lu Feng agrees, and the challenge is set.

Character Developments

• Fang Han: Reveals his immense power and ambition, challenging two Grandmasters to aid his advancement.
• Lu Chuan: Beaten by his father, Lu Feng, after his actions against the Fang Family are revealed.
• Lu Feng: Shows humility and wisdom in handling the conflict, agreeing to Fang Han's challenge.

Significant Themes

• Power and Ambition: Fang Han's desire to protect his family and advance his cultivation drives him to challenge two Grandmasters.
• Humility and Wisdom: Lu Feng's willingness to concede and learn from a younger opponent shows his understanding of the greater picture.

Character Interactions

• Fang Han vs. Lu Chuan: Fang Han's display of power leads to Lu Chuan's punishment by his own father.
• Fang Han vs. Lu Feng and Luo You: Fang Han challenges the two Grandmasters, leading to a historic battle.
• Lu Feng vs. Fang Han: Lu Feng shows respect and admiration for Fang Han's ambition and power, agreeing to his challenge.

Key Plot Points and Events

• Fang Han, a Gangqi Realm martial artist, challenges two grandmasters, Lu Feng and Luo You, to help him break through to the Grandmaster Realm.
• The battle begins with Fang Han facing immense pressure from the grandmasters' auras.
• Fang Han withstands the pressure, attacks with Emperor Fist techniques, and faces counterattacks from both grandmasters.
• He takes severe injuries but heals rapidly due to the Azure Wood Invocation's vitality absorption.
• Fang Han asks for another round, displaying his resilience and determination.

Character Developments

• Fang Han demonstrates his courage, strategic thinking, and incredible vitality recovery.
• Lu Feng and Luo You show their prowess as grandmasters and their respect for Fang Han's abilities.

Significant Themes

• The disparity between martial artist realms and the challenge of breaking through.
• The importance of courage, determination, and resilience in the face of adversity.
• The awe-inspiring power of grandmasters and the awe they command.

Character Interactions

• Fang Han and Lu Feng: Fang Han shows respect by cupping his hands, and Lu Feng praises Fang Han's tactics.
• Fang Han and Luo You: They engage in a deadly exchange, with Luo You's attack nearly incapacitating Fang Han.
• Fang Han and the spectators: The crowd initially holds little expectation for Fang Han but is likely impressed by his performance.

Key plot points and events

• Fang Han faces Grandmasters Lu Feng and Luo You. Realizing ordinary attacks cannot overcome his rapid healing, they unleash their innate divine abilities: spiritual-energy phantoms of the ancient beasts Hundun and Feitai.
• The beasts’ terrifying presence overwhelms the spectators and stirs fear, rage, and violent impulses in Fang Han. Their attacks also summon visions of slaughter and threaten to consume him.
• Fang Han recognizes that some of his defiance comes from the Azure Wood Invocation, the Ten Shamans’ legacy. In their worldview, even ancient monsters are prey—not objects of fear.
• His understanding transforms his response: he stops seeing the beasts as invincible and begins to regard them with excitement and hunger. The phantoms grow more substantial, drawing on their masters’ spiritual energy and seemingly escaping their control.
• Fang Han chants, triggering an immense surge of heaven-and-earth vitality. It reconstructs his body, and he grows into a ten-zhang giant.
• He declares the beasts have no right to use human powerhouses as breeding grounds, then traps both phantoms’ spiritual energy as they try to flee. Before he can seize them, dark clouds gather and form a vast face that looks down at him.

Character developments and interactions

• Fang Han moves from instinctive fear and near-paralysis to understanding, confidence, and a predatory resolve. His connection to the Azure Wood Invocation becomes far more powerful, revealing a new scale of transformation and control over spiritual energy.
• Lu Feng and Luo You begin with confidence in their Grandmaster abilities, but become alarmed when their summoned beasts turn beyond their control. They try to withdraw when Fang Han appears close to death, suggesting they did not intend to kill him.
• Fang Han and the Grandmasters’ beasts undergo a reversal of power: the phantoms first dominate Fang Han through primal terror, then recognize a presence they fear and attempt to escape when he transforms.
• The spectators are overcome by the beasts’ oppressive aura and collapse, witnessing Fang Han’s transformation in terror.

Significant themes

• Overcoming fear through a shift in perspective: Fang Han’s awakening changes the beasts from overwhelming predators into prey.
• Inheritance and identity: The Azure Wood Invocation carries the Ten Shamans’ ancient worldview and shapes Fang Han’s instincts and power.
• The limits of control: Lu Feng and Luo You’s divine abilities appear formidable, but their creations become uncontrollable.
• Transformation and escalation: Fang Han’s body is remade through the vitality of heaven and earth, marking a dramatic leap in power—interrupted by the mysterious face in the clouds.

Key plot points and events

• An immense face forms from storm clouds above the arena. Its presence leaves the spectators—and even grandmasters Lu Feng and Luo You—dazed, while Fang Han remains alert.
• The face commands Fang Han to “die,” and a curse begins draining his vitality. His usual ability to replenish himself from Heaven and Earth cannot keep pace.
• Fang Han destroys the two illusory beasts beside him and absorbs the spiritual energy they release. In Wu Peng’s true body, he can take in nearly all of that energy, temporarily repairing the damage.
• He attacks the cloud-face with Heavenly Dao Severed Qi from the Great Qian World. The black qi devours the storm clouds, driving the manifestation away and growing many times stronger.
• The Qi’s release draws intense hostility from the Martial World, which now treats Fang Han as an enemy. Before it can retaliate, however, the Qi’s hunger turns toward something else.
• Fang Han swallows the rampaging Qi. His transformed Invincible Mystic Body, combined with Wu Peng’s powerful healing, lets him withstand it for now. He then races in the direction the Qi is trying to go.

Character developments

• Fang Han demonstrates quick thinking and nerve under a lethal supernatural attack. Rather than trying to overpower the cloud-face directly, he exploits a foreign force the Martial World fears, then contains it himself.
• The puppet Shentu Xin’s trait has evolved from Unbreakable Body into Invincible Mystic Body after prolonged exposure to the Severed Qi. It is not full immunity, but it helps Fang Han survive swallowing it.
• Lu Feng, Luo You, and the spectators are shown to be vulnerable to the face’s influence, contrasting with Fang Han’s ability to remain conscious and act.

Significant themes

• Cunning over brute force: Fang Han survives by turning one threat against another.
• Power and danger: The Severed Qi is potent enough to devour the cloud manifestation, but its uncontrolled hunger also threatens Fang Han from within.
• Conflict with the world’s order: Using the Qi makes Fang Han a target of the Martial World’s hostility, suggesting that resisting its power comes at a cost.
• Adaptation and accumulated gains: Shentu Xin’s gradual transformation provides Fang Han with a crucial advantage at a decisive moment.

Character interactions

• The cloud-face curses Fang Han and attempts to drain his life, while Fang Han answers with defiance and releases the Severed Qi against it.
• The spectators and two grandmasters are passively overwhelmed by the face, leaving Fang Han to confront it alone.
• After devouring the manifestation, the Severed Qi struggles to escape Fang Han and pursue something; Fang Han follows its pull, setting up the next development.

Key plot points and events

• After Fang Han’s earlier battle, the witnesses remember only his transformation into a giant, yet find two grandmasters unconscious in the arena.
• Guided by the Heavenly Dao Severed Qi, Fang Han reaches a remote, perpetually frozen mountain range. His power is weakening because a mysterious “hole” within Wu Peng’s True Form is draining his vitality and spiritual energy.
• He discovers that the mountains conceal an underground boundary to a thriving world inhabited by beasts. Its powerful inhabitants seem to rival Celestial Phenomenon Realm cultivators, and Fang Han suspects this world is feeding on the depleted Martial World.
• Rather than cross the boundary, Fang Han decides to locate the hidden adversary he senses nearby. He feints toward the beast world, draws out the watcher, and strikes it with Emperor Fist: Plowing the Courtyard.
• The attacker is Fei, an ox-like, one-eyed beast with a serpent’s tail—the same creature apparently connected to the earlier giant face. Cut off from the Heavenly Dao’s power, Fei is far weaker than before. Fang Han overwhelms it, and the chapter ends with him demanding to know whether it can speak a human language.

Character developments

• Fang Han remains cautious and goal-focused despite his recent victory. He recognizes that the dangers beyond the boundary exceed his current strength, and uses strategy—not just force—to expose his hidden opponent.
• Fei is revealed to be a physical beast rather than an illusion. Its fear and pleas for mercy contrast sharply with the overwhelming menace of the giant face it was associated with.

Character interactions

• Fang Han follows the Heavenly Dao Severed Qi’s pull, but ignores its urge to enter the beast world.
• He lures Fei into revealing itself, then beats it into submission and questions it while continuing to attack.

Significant themes

• A larger, interconnected world: The boundary reveals that the Martial World is only part of a much wider supernatural reality.
• Power and dependence: Fei’s strength collapses once separated from the Heavenly Dao’s influence, showing how much its former might depended on borrowed power.
• Caution and strategy: Fang Han chooses to investigate and secure his position rather than recklessly confront the powerful beings beyond the boundary.
• Worlds in conflict: The apparent draining of the Martial World by the beast world hints at a deeper imbalance or threat.

Key plot points and events

• Fang Han subdues the beast Fei and forces it to explain the world’s true nature: the Martial World is called Pasture Thirteen, a dependent realm controlled by the Demon Race.
• The demons use human Martial Grandmasters as hosts for demon offspring. Grandmasters who awaken divine abilities unknowingly nurture a demon fetus, which eventually consumes and replaces them.
• The practice was devised by Bai Ze to slow the Demon Race’s decline. A curse, dating from the ancient catastrophe known as the Severing Heaven and Earth, has made demon reproduction extremely rare.
• Fei reveals the Demon Realm’s hierarchy—one emperor, four kings, and twelve marquises—and says that Long Xuanji once resisted cultivating a divine ability. Bai Ze personally took him away, after which he disappeared.
• Fei identifies Fang Han as a witch. He explains that demons, witches, and gods were the three dominant powers of the ancient Elder Primordial Continent.
• The Severing Heaven and Earth shattered the world; its cause remains unknown. Pasture Thirteen is one fragment, now possessing an independent Heavenly Dao.
• Fang Han begins questioning Fei about how to control that Heavenly Dao.

Character developments and interactions

• Fang Han shifts from interrogating Fei about the Martial World to uncovering the larger conflict behind it. He reacts with anger to the parasitic fate imposed on human Grandmasters, and his connection to Long Xuanji becomes significant.
• Fei, terrified and eager to survive, submits completely, divulges what he knows, and tries to win Fang Han’s favor by offering extra details. He recognizes Fang Han as a witch and asks to be spared.
• Bai Ze emerges as a powerful, influential figure whose method sustains the Demon Race at the expense of human cultivators.
• Long Xuanji is revealed as the only known Grandmaster to resist the temptation of demonic divine abilities; Bai Ze’s intervention leaves his fate mysterious.

Significant themes

• Survival at a moral cost: The demons preserve their dwindling race by sacrificing human cultivators.
• Temptation and autonomy: Divine abilities offer power but conceal a parasitic consequence; Long Xuanji represents resistance.
• Cycles of catastrophe and decline: The ancient world-shattering event reshaped civilizations and left the Demon Race facing extinction.
• Power and exploitation: Pasture Thirteen’s people are treated as resources by an outside ruling power.

Key events

• Fang Han questions Fei about the Heavenly Dao authority he claims to hold. Fei says his authority is limited and has been disrupted by the black qi.
• Fang Han tests Fei’s reaction by revealing the Heavenly Dao Severed Qi. Fei is terrified, explaining that his world is already weakened by the Severed Lineage Curse and could not survive further damage.
• Fei begs Fang Han not to enter the Demon Race world, predicting that even if Fang Han were defeated, the Demon Race would suffer lasting devastation. Fang Han says he has no immediate plans to go there, and offers to stay away for a hundred years if Fei helps him control the Martial World. Fei readily agrees.
• Fang Han rides Fei into a hidden grotto-heaven beneath the snowy mountains. Fei explains that he carved this space from part of the existing world using an innate ability, then carefully shaped it into a peaceful grassland.
• After Fang Han cuts short Fei’s lengthy tour of the landscape, Fei demonstrates how the grotto-heaven can connect to the outside world. The view reveals traces of the Heavenly Dao’s circulation, and Fang Han begins to sense its thoughts.

Character developments and interactions

• Fang Han remains wary of Fei’s quick surrender and suspects it may conceal a scheme, though he judges that a puppet body poses little danger. He also becomes interested in Fei’s spatial ability and considers whether fierce beasts might make useful puppets.
• Fei appears genuinely fearful and pessimistic, possibly shaped by the curse afflicting his homeland. He is also revealed to be patient, meticulous, and deeply attached to the peaceful grotto-heaven he created. His willingness to bargain suggests he prioritizes his world’s safety.
• Their relationship is defined by Fang Han’s suspicion and coercive leverage, balanced by Fei’s eagerness to cooperate. Fei’s enthusiastic explanations contrast with Fang Han’s impatience.

Significant themes

• Fear and survival: Fei accepts personal humiliation to protect his homeland from a catastrophe he believes Fang Han could cause.
• Power and restraint: Fang Han uses the threat of the black qi to secure cooperation, while promising not to invade Fei’s world for a time.
• Creation and contentment: Fei’s carefully cultivated refuge reflects a quiet, personal form of fulfillment.
• Perception of the divine order: The chapter closes with Fang Han glimpsing the Heavenly Dao’s hidden workings, setting up a deeper connection to the world’s underlying forces.

Key plot points and events

• Fang Han senses that the Martial World’s Heavenly Dao is anxious and constrained, but cannot communicate with it directly. Fei, who holds the world’s authority, serves as their intermediary.
• Fang Han considers killing Fei and making him a puppet, then decides against it: Fei might flee for help, bringing powerful demon kings who could overwhelm Fang Han.
• Fang Han’s real aim is to obtain the world’s Mystic Yellow Qi. He has no plans to lead a rebellion against the Demon Race, though he hopes to reduce the number of grandmasters used as demon-beast breeding grounds.
• Using the Twelve Longevity Method, Fang Han asks Heaven and Earth to lend him longevity. Through Fei’s repeated translations, he explains how borrowed lifespan is eventually repaid, making the arrangement effectively risk-free for the Heavenly Dao.
• The Heavenly Dao agrees in principle but requires valuable collateral. It shows Fang Han hidden gathering points of vital essence—pockets of spiritual energy that have survived the draining of the Martial World by the Demon Beast World.
• The Heavenly Dao hopes these sites can be gathered and nurtured, potentially creating a refuge for spiritual energy and, eventually, a chance for the Martial World to escape the Demon Beast World’s control.
• Fang Han accepts the task, confident that his awakened Wu Peng true form and Fei’s help will make it manageable.

Character developments

• Fang Han remains pragmatic and self-interested. He weighs the risks of killing Fei, prioritizes his own objective, and agrees to help the Heavenly Dao only because the task seems easy and useful.
• Fei continues as a cautious, life-preserving intermediary, relaying Fang Han’s words to the Heavenly Dao.
• The Martial World’s Heavenly Dao emerges as a constrained but hopeful force, seeking ways to preserve its spiritual essence and resist the world’s exploitation.

Significant themes

• Transactional cooperation: Fang Han and the Heavenly Dao negotiate mutual benefit rather than act from shared ideals.
• Survival under exploitation: The Martial World’s spiritual energy is being siphoned away, leaving only isolated pockets of vitality.
• Hope through preservation: The gathering points may offer a small possibility of recovery, though not an immediate solution.
• Power and restraint: Fang Han recognizes that acting aggressively against Fei could provoke consequences beyond his ability to handle.

Character interactions

• Fang Han communicates with the Heavenly Dao through Fei, who repeats his messages and confirms the Dao’s responses.
• Fang Han negotiates the terms of borrowing longevity, explaining why repayment is ultimately inevitable.
• The Heavenly Dao sets a condition—collateral in the form of the vital-essence gathering points—and Fang Han agrees to protect and nurture them.

Key plot points and events

• While continuing his negotiations with the Martial World’s Heavenly Dao, Fang Han reflects on what makes a world willing to grant Lifespan Borrowing. He suspects each world has its own motives, but cannot yet uncover the Great Qian World’s.
• Fang Han and Fei travel across the Martial World, gathering the places where Heaven and Earth’s vital essence has accumulated. Their greatest challenge is an enormous, scarred cliff whose ancient-battle illusion nearly kills Fang Han; Fei survives its attacks with remarkable ease.
• After collecting all the concentrations, they carve out a plain near Heavenly Eye City and move them there. Fei then creates a separate space to contain them, using an effortless spatial ability that Fang Han recognizes as an innate demon-beast power.
• Fei explains that he once hoped to reverse the Demon Race’s decline, but has come to accept that it cannot be stopped. Meeting Fang Han has revived his hope: he sees Fang Han as a sign that the stagnant world order might finally change.

Character developments and interactions

• Fang Han remains pragmatic and watchful. He uses Fei’s strength while questioning whether Fei’s cooperation reflects genuine loyalty or hidden calculation. He also learns more about the power—and limitations—of demon-beast abilities.
• Fei proves far tougher than his noisy reactions suggest and works diligently alongside Fang Han. His own spatial talent further impresses Fang Han. More importantly, Fei reveals renewed ambition and openly expresses hope that Fang Han will come to the Demon Race World.
• Their relationship shifts slightly: Fang Han still treats Fei as a capable asset rather than trusting him fully, while Fei increasingly views Fang Han as a potential force for transformation.

Significant themes

• Change versus stagnation: Fei believes the Demon Race’s unchanging hierarchy and fading hope are central to its decline.
• Worlds and hidden motives: The conditions for Lifespan Borrowing differ from one world to another, and Fang Han has yet to understand what drives the Great Qian World.
• Innate power and its limits: Demon beasts possess extraordinary natural abilities, but their inability to study and develop those abilities collectively may explain why they have fallen behind.
• Hope amid decline: Fang Han’s actions give Fei a reason to believe that even a seemingly irreversible decline might be challenged.