Chapter Summaries

Lu Qing listened to a Ruomu expert lecture on the Life-and-Death Path and considered how the Six Paths’ fate and fortune were tied to the Nine Heavens Dao Assembly. The lecture led him to compare its teaching on annihilation with a terrifying Formation Dao he had encountered, while he continued listening for insights into life and awaited the third day’s divination.

• Lu Qing realized that the Six Paths’ experts sought to protect their Paths’ Fate Allotment by lecturing before the Nine Heavens’ cultivators.
• Lu Qing reflected on Heavenly Will, Heavenly Retribution, and whether changes in the Mystic Path and Sentient Path had affected the divination.
• Lu Qing listened as a mighty Ruomu expert began lecturing on the Life-and-Death Path before Spirit Clan cultivators and other listeners.
• Lu Qing compared the lecture’s teaching of annihilation with the Annihilation Formation Dao he had encountered in the Heavenly Domain.
• Lu Qing considered how life arose through vitality, wisdom, and spiritual nature, and how the Spirit Path differed from Immortal Path cultivation.

Lu Qing reflected on karmic affinity and gained insight into the next steps of Dongzhen cultivation while listening to a Dao exposition in the Cloudmist Realm. As the third day of the assembly began, he waited to learn which Dao would be expounded, with an ocean appearing to the northwest.

• Lu Qing connected entering the Immortal Path with karmic affinity and clarified how different Daos could coexist within one Dao Heart.
• Lu Qing inferred that after Dao Manifestation came Dao-Assimilation, which would let a cultivator travel above and beneath the River of Time without tampering with Heavenly Secrets.
• Lu Qing opened his eyes after listening to the Spirit Path powerhouse's exposition for two days and decided to remain for the third day's teaching.
• Cultivators whose figures had grown illusory left the Cloudmist Realm to undergo tribulations elsewhere, knowing the assembly might be nearly over when they returned.
• Lu Qing concealed his Heavenly Secrets and remained as a Primordial Spirit in the Daoist dojo; on the third day, he saw an ocean appear to the northwest.

Lu Qing watched a violet-robed Immortal Path powerhouse arrive to lecture on the Dao of Time. In the void, ancient figures discussed the lecture, the Reincarnation Nether Sea, and Heavenly Sun’s cultivation path, while their inability to intervene directly left their plans dependent on subtle influence.

• A wild and solitary Dao Rhyme swept over the assembly as a powerhouse arrived, scattering clouds and shaking nearby cultivators.
• The violet-robed young man announced that he would lecture on time, and Lu Qing sensed that the Immortal Path powerhouse had glanced at him.
• The young man explained that the Dao Heart could observe time and urged his listeners not to underestimate its cultivation.
• Figures in the boundless void praised Zhou’s Time Way and discussed how he had left his former Heavenly Heart Path.
• Ruomu dismissed speculation about the Reincarnation Nether Sea, saying he only wished to shelter his sect’s descendants.
• A veiled figure from Heavenly Sun defended its approach against comparisons to the Ancient Demon Sect, while the gathered Dao-seekers acknowledged that none dared abandon the path of Fate Allotment.

The Heavenly Sun cultivators debated the risks of spreading their Dao during the coming Tribulation and agreed to watch how fate allotment shifted. Following a divination, Lu Qing went to Little Yang Mountain, where he sensed the place had fulfilled the prediction.

• The Heavenly Sun figures discussed fate allotment, the Immortal Path’s influence, and the dangers that the Tribulation posed to the cultivation world.
• The Heavenly Sun figures agreed to observe Heaven’s Will rather than continue trying to persuade one another.
• Lu Qing left the crowd and followed the divination to Little Yang Mountain.
• Lu Qing explored the tranquil mountain and felt its pure Spiritual Resonance settle his mind.
• Lu Qing stopped beneath the cloud-veiled cliff when he sensed that he had reached the place where the divination would be verified.

Lu Qing passed the Nine-Turn Trials set by two mysterious Mountain Dwellers on First Yang Mountain and witnessed a vision of the Sentient Path and a darkened land. After leaving the mountain, he found that the Heavenly Secrets had suddenly become clear, deepening his suspicions about the Primordial Era and its cataclysm.

• Lu Qing saw two voices playing chess near a stone table and heard them discuss the Great Immortal, Heavenly Secrets, and someone outside the mountain.
• The Mountain Dwellers tested Lu Qing with nine worlds that challenged his Dao Heart, and he passed without using Dharma Power or Divine Ability.
• The Mountain Dwellers showed Lu Qing a vision of cultivators entering the Sentient Path and a land darkened by blood mist and fading heavenly light.
• The Mountain Dwellers withdrew the vision and told Lu Qing to leave, calling outsiders who reached the mountain monstrous.
• Lu Qing left First Yang Mountain and found the Heavenly Secrets clearer, with signs of his own Heaven's Will and Purple Radiance appearing.

Lu Qing glimpsed a future strand of the Heavenly Secrets as they briefly brightened, revealing hope beyond a series of upheavals. Powerful figures across the world witnessed the same instant and began reconsidering the struggle for Fate Allotment and the spread of their Daoist traditions.

• Lu Qing sensed powerful figures observing the heavens as the Heavenly Secrets brightened for an instant.
• Lu Qing saw a familiar pattern of Fate Allotment in the future Heavenly Secrets, with pale violet and gold at its center and dark currents receding at the edges.
• Figures across the world unleashed Dao Rhyme and Energy Flow as they tried to seize the next moment's Heavenly Secrets, but the glimpse passed.
• Powerful figures interpreted the vision in different ways, including as proof that the road ahead existed and that the era's variables could not be controlled.
• The Six Paths powerhouses reconsidered Fate Allotment and Dao Transmission, while the Demonic Path figures remained silent.
• A powerhouse on the Heavenly Sun Cloud Terrace tried to calculate the Heavenly Secrets but found only mist, while recognizing that the earlier revelation had been real.

The Cloud Platform figures examined the Heavenly Secrets, considering how completing heaven and earth could clear primordial karmic causes and enable the Human Path to emerge. After the Dao lecture, Lu Qing studied the Time Dao and later observed the Divine Spirit and Incense Divine paths, deepening his understanding of their different forms of Dao.

• The gathered figures reasoned that severing primordial karmic affinities and completing heaven and earth could advance the grand trend of cultivation.
• The Cloud Platform figures wondered where the Human Path was and whether the Human Emperor had appeared, but their deductions revealed strange purple, golden, and blood-red lights.
• Lu Qing returned his consciousness to his mind after the lecture ended, sending one side toward Little Yang Mountain while the other stayed to hear the Time Dao.
• Lu Qing listened to a purple-robed expert explain how the Heavenly Heart could become a Dao Heart, and he reflected on the dangers and nature of comprehending time.
• During the following days of Dao lectures, Lu Qing observed the Divine Spirit Way and the Incense Divine Path, seeing the laws and Incense Dharma Realm associated with them.

Lu Qing listened to lectures from Divine Path and Demon Race experts in the Dao-Debate Realm, then watched the Six Demonic Paths gather to present their own teachings. As a Heaven-Spanning Sect elder began lecturing, the Dao gradually took on a strange, heaven-defying character.

• Lu Qing reasoned that the Dongzhen Cultivators had little reason to debate the Dao and might seek demonic methods to prolong their lives.
• Lu Qing listened to later lectures from Divine Path and Demon Race experts and considered how their teachings differed from the Immortal Path.
• Lu Qing saw the Six Demonic Paths gather, including the Heaven-Spanning Sect, and noticed cultivators leave rather than risk tainting their Dao Hearts.
• Cultivators speculated that one of the Five Elders of the Heaven-Spanning Demonic Path had come to lecture.
• A demonic silhouette began the lecture normally, but the Dao he spoke of gradually became different.

Lu Qing revealed his Great Dao to Qingxuan, whose insight into Heavenly Secrets was shaken by its transcendence. After Qingxuan departed, Lu Qing considered his cultivation plans and watched the Hidden Dragon Ranking’s Heaven’s Pride gather at the Dao Debate Assembly.

• Qingxuan asked Lu Qing to reveal his Great Dao, and Lu Qing showed him drifting Dao Seals without revealing his Inner World.
• Qingxuan recognized a Heavenly Secrets Dao Seal that seemed to transcend Heaven’s Will, while Sun Qidao admired Lu Qing’s cultivation.
• Qingxuan gave Lu Qing coordinates to an Earth Realm before leaving to handle Sword Lineage affairs.
• Lu Qing decided to deal with matters on the Dao Sect’s side before visiting the Earth Realm and concluded that the divination would not disrupt the Nine Heavens’ future.
• Lu Qing watched three thousand Heaven’s Pride gather on the Cloud Mist Dao Debate Platform as their Fate Allotment formed a vast pillar of cloud and mist.

Lu Qing considered the upheaval of the Six Paths’ Fate Allotment and the possible return of the Human Path before turning his attention to the Dao Debate Assembly. As three thousand Hidden Dragon prodigies gathered and the Cloud Mist Dao Debate Platform began pairing them unpredictably, Lu Qing watched to see how the debates would unfold.

• Lu Qing reasoned that the Human Path’s Fate Allotment might emerge amid the current upheaval and bring conflict, a search for the Human Emperor, and possibly the return of its corresponding Primordial Era continent.
• Lu Qing considered the connections among the Human Path, the Incense Divine Path, and the returning lands of the Primordial Era, but concluded that these were still distant and uncertain matters.
• Lu Qing examined the three thousand Hidden Dragon prodigies, noting Fate Allotment among figures including Ye Lin, Chen Fan, Zhou Shenlong, and Tan Qingfeng, as well as several rogue cultivators.
• The Cloud Mist Dao Debate Platform shifted and paired entrants through illusion, while Lu Qing watched the central platform without using his Dongzhen Realm cultivation to pierce its secrets.

At the Dao Debate Cloudsmoke Terrace, Lu Qing observed the different answers Heavenly Prodigies gave to the question of what Dao was and realized that cultivation required witnessing myriad Dao methods. Sensing the Dharma-Free Immortal Gate’s Fate Allotment along the Long River of Time, he found an uncannily recognizable trace ahead.

• Lu Qing watched Heavenly Prodigies present their Dao Rhymes and explain their different understandings of Dao.
• He considered how the Nine Dragons Divine Dynasty’s imperial heirs pursued Dragon Qi and how different Immortal Path factions followed their own interests.
• Lu Qing examined the varied Fate Allotments of the Daoist Lineages and realized he needed to behold myriad Dao methods.
• He sensed the Dharma-Free Immortal Gate’s Fate Allotment while his consciousness traveled above the Long River of Time.
• Lu Qing noticed a distant radiance that did not conceal its Fate Allotment’s origin, making its Daoist Lineage potentially identifiable.

Lu Qing left the Nine Heavens Dao Assembly after gaining an insight and recognized that its transformations in Fate Allotment benefited living beings throughout the Nine Heavens. Back in his Daoist Dojo, he found White Crane Boy cultivating in seclusion and drew a strand of Heavenly Secrets and Cause and Effect from the lake.

• Lu Qing noticed an Immortal Gate expert on the Dao Seal Long River, but both continued on their separate paths without approaching each other.
• Lu Qing entered the River of Time, understood the source of his faint sensation, and left the Dao Discussion Cloudmist Realm to cultivate in seclusion.
• Lu Qing observed tribulation thunder and changes in Providence across the Nine Heavens, realizing that the Dao Assembly's enlightenment and growing cultivation had brought merit and transformation.
• Lu Qing returned to his Daoist Dojo, where White Crane Boy was absorbed in enlightenment and White Marsh greeted him.
• Lu Qing went to the mountaintop lake and drew out a drop of water that transformed into a strand of Heavenly Secrets and Cause and Effect.

Lu Qing used a Heavenly Secret Lake droplet to view a vision of an azure-green river beyond the Nine Heavens, where the shattered Seeking Dao Immortal Cauldron rested. He suspected the river was connected to the Human Path’s return and wondered what the Seeking Dao Immortal Sect had done with its supreme treasure.

• Lu Qing stirred the Heavenly Secret Lake’s deduced water droplet and received a vision of an azure-green river filled with life but no visible living beings.
• Lu Qing recognized the ruined cauldron in the river as the Seeking Dao Immortal Cauldron, the Seeking Dao Immortal Sect’s lost sect-protecting treasure.
• Lu Qing sensed that the river lay outside the Nine Heavens and suspected it was connected to the Human Path that would return.
• Lu Qing recalled that someone in his sect possessed a fragment of the cauldron and wondered why the Seeking Dao Immortal Sect had shattered its supreme treasure.

After witnessing a remnant of the Seeking Dao Immortal Cauldron through Heavenly Secret Lake, Lu Qing set aside his unanswered questions and prepared to cultivate, knowing his next breakthrough would be difficult. At the Dao Discussion Cloudmist Realm, the debates grew more sincere, though one prodigy’s Dao Heart wavered against a rival’s great-river Dao Rhyme.

• Lu Qing considered the Seeking Dao Immortal Cauldron’s fragments and the Demonic Path’s interest in the treasure, then decided to enter seclusion rather than pursue speculation.
• Lu Qing reflected that his next step in the Dongzhen Realm would be a major transformation and concluded that the Dao Debate Assembly’s early sermons had benefited cultivators through Karmic Affinity.
• Cultivators at the Dao Discussion Cloudmist Realm gradually focused on debating the Dao as the realm’s clouds and mist calmed their hearts and exposed their true intentions.
• A prodigy who cultivated flowing water debated a great-river prodigy, whose vast river phenomenon caused the stream prodigy’s Dao Heart to waver.

Heavenly prodigies debated the Heavenly Sun Path on the Cloudmist platforms, exposing how its borrowed strength could leave cultivators’ own Dao Hearts weak. Hidden inheritors watched and reflected on the distant Dongzhen Realm, while the elders of Heavenly Sun saw unexpected flaws in the path they had introduced.

• Heavenly prodigies debated the Heavenly Sun Path, and observers noted its resemblance to Immortal, Divine, and Spirit cultivation.
• A mild-faced heavenly prodigy challenged a Heavenly Sun cultivator’s claim to Heavenly Human nature, leaving the cultivator’s borrowed aura discordant.
• Concealed inheritors discussed the Heavenly Sun Path’s influence and admitted that Fate Allotment’s hidden struggles lay beyond their control.
• A heavenly prodigy told a defeated Heavenly Sun cultivator that borrowed Dao arts could not compensate for a weak Dao Heart.
• Heavenly Sun elders recognized that the debates had revealed flaws in their path and recalled the Devil Master’s inconceivable abilities during the Primordial Cataclysm.

As the Nine Heavens Debate Dao Assembly neared its end, Lu Qing continued his secluded cultivation and sent his Dao Rhyme into the true Long River of Time. He spread it across countless eras, revealing a subtle presence that had always existed within time.

• Heavenly Sun elders discussed reducing heaven and earth’s rejection and considered transforming the Heavenly Sun Path into the Heavenly Sun Immortal Path.
• Three months passed while Lu Qing remained in secluded cultivation, and the Nine Heavens Debate Dao Assembly neared its end.
• Lu Qing walked farther along his inner road, then sent the Dao Rhyme of his Great Dao into the Long River of Time.
• A senior cultivator warned Lu Qing that touching the Long River of Time could destroy him, but Lu Qing thanked him and continued.
• Lu Qing sent manifestations of himself into the river and spread his Dao Rhyme across three thousand Great Eras, where a faint presence appeared throughout time.

Lu Qing entered seclusion to face the Time Tribulation, while changes in his aura stirred alarm in the Daoist Dojo. After the Grand Dao Discussion Assembly, breakthroughs among Profound Heaven Dao Sect disciples strengthened the sect’s Fate Allotment, and its Supreme Treasures discussed the changes within the sect.

• Lu Qing looked into the Long River of Time as figures with different Great Dao auras appeared before him.
• White Marsh cut off Chaosheng’s view of Lu Qing’s cultivation ground after sensing a dangerous aura of time.
• After the Grand Dao Discussion Assembly, Heavenly Prodigies pursued breakthroughs in seclusion, travel, and combat, while their advances enriched the sect’s Fate Allotment.
• The Profound Heaven Bell sensed fresh, vigorous vitality rising in the sect’s providence as disciples made breakthroughs.
• The Profound Heaven Mirror emerged from the Dao Sect Treasury and discussed with the Profound Heaven Bell the end of entanglements among the sect’s great families and the Law Enforcement Lineage’s leadership.

The Profound Heaven Supreme Treasures and the Dao Sect’s elders observed Lu Qing entering the Long River of Time to cross tribulation, while Fu Huazi judged that Lu Qing was confident and that the era was filled with emerging Variable Fates. Lu Qing remained in the tribulation and sensed the Voidness Dao.

• The Profound Heaven Bell dismissed the idea of being used as a trump card and concealed Lu Qing’s present-day Fate Allotment.
• The Profound Heaven Mirror noticed dense Time Tribulation Qi around Lu Qing’s Fate Allotment and wondered whether he was approaching the second step.
• Yu Youshu asked his personal disciples how far they had advanced the sect-protecting grand formation, and they guiltily thought of Lu Qing.
• Fu Huazi and White Crane observed Lu Qing crossing tribulation in the Long River of Time, and Fu Huazi said Lu Qing must be confident.
• Fu Huazi warned that many Variable Fates were emerging and that the future remained full of hidden dangers.
• Lu Qing continued crossing tribulation without feeling Tribulation Qi and sensed the Voidness Dao.

Lu Qing completed the Tribulation of Time and advanced to the second step of the Dongzhen Realm, Manifesting Three Thousand, with shadows spanning past, present, and future. After three years in seclusion, he learned of his new posts in the Dao Sect and sensed that something had just begun to emerge.

• Lu Qing endured the Long River of Time's pull toward the Voidness Dao and remained steady as he witnessed scenes from the Primordial Era.
• After three years, Lu Qing emerged from the River of Time and reached the second step of the Dongzhen Realm, Manifesting Three Thousand.
• Lu Qing received a message naming him Peak Master of Spirit Plant Peak and an Outer Sect Elder, whose duties included guiding and teaching disciples.
• Lu Qing noticed the Fate Allotments of every path stir and sensed that something had sprouted at the right time.

After returning to the Dao Sect, Lu Qing took up his Outer Sect Main Lineage elder duties and agreed to oversee cultivation courses. He began considering a Dao Academy system that would help disciples choose suitable studies, while the chapter left him with new resources and cultivation paths to explore.

• Lu Qing returned to the Dao Sect after his seclusion and met Fu Huazi and White Crane Ancestor following a Sword Lineage sermon.
• The Profound Heaven Bell recognized that Lu Qing had passed his Tribulation and approved of his new position as a peak master and main lineage elder.
• Lu Qing visited the Outer Sect Elder Hall and learned from Wei Zu how extensive the Dao Sect's affairs and responsibilities were.
• After hearing that the Outer Sect lineages lacked candidates to revise cultivation courses, Lu Qing agreed to take charge of them.
• Lu Qing examined the authority and resources of his elder position, then considered establishing a Dao Academy system that used guidance from earlier disciples to help students choose courses.