Chapter Summaries

Lu Ren learned how Wang City and its Wang Coins worked, then set out for the city to investigate its promised path to ascension. On the road, he met a human cultivator who offered to travel with him, leaving Lu Ren with more questions about who came to Wang City.

• Lin Hui explained that Wang Coins served as proof of identity and that ten thousand coins qualified someone to enter Wang City and buy an Ascension Token, while the Battle Arena offered another path to a Dao Fruit.
• Lu Ren gave Lin Hui a Wang Coin, parted ways with her, and watched cultivators scramble for Spirit Meridian Pills that had come from Wang City.
• Lu Ren toured the market town, dismissed an old man's complaint about his gaze, and continued toward Wang City's gates.
• A male cultivator approached Lu Ren, recognized him as human because he bore a Bodhisattva Dharma Appearance, and invited him to travel together.
• Lu Ren accepted the invitation and planned to verify whether Wang City's visitors came from many worlds or from this universe's own cultivation systems.

Lu Ren and Lin Shu reached Wang City, where Lu Ren learned that its Armored Guardians could attain the True Immortal Realm without condensing Dao Fruits. Lin Shu left to seek bounty work, while Lu Ren recognized the bloodshed behind his companion’s friendly manner and considered the new cultivation path.

• Lin Shu told Lu Ren that spiritual energy was fading in his world and described the dangers of crossing the Primordial Path.
• Lin Shu recounted a female True Immortal who had condensed a Dao Fruit, gone insane, and died, strengthening Lu Ren’s suspicion that they came from the same world.
• Lu Ren and Lin Shu reached Wang City, where Lin Shu explained that entry cost ten thousand Wang Coins and that bounty missions could earn them.
• Lu Ren realized the Armored Guardians appeared to have reached the True Immortal Realm without Dao Fruits, revealing a new cultivation path.
• Lin Shu departed to inspect the mission board, and Lu Ren used his Mind-Eye Dimensional Ascension Observation to see the extensive bloodshed behind Lin Shu and Lin Hui.

After resisting an external demon that shook his beliefs, Lu Ren confronted an Armored Guardian at Wang City’s entrance. The Guardian judged him qualified to enter and offered an Ascension Token if he defeated it, but Lu Ren held back, uncertain of the Guardian’s purpose.

• Lin Shu parted from Lu Ren near Wang City, and Lu Ren questioned whether his own beliefs or the cultivators’ outlook were abnormal.
• The System warned Lu Ren that an external demon had invaded him, and he steadied himself before approaching the Armored Guardian.
• The Armored Guardian moved for the first time in centuries, and its spiritual force collided with Lu Ren’s as nearby cultivators fled.
• The Guardian declared that Lu Ren could enter Wang City and could obtain an Ascension Token by defeating it.
• Lu Ren declined to challenge the Guardian immediately and decided to learn more about its intentions first.

Lu Ren learned that he could reach the True Immortal Realm through body refinement without condensing a polluted Human Immortal Dao Fruit, then left Wang City to reflect on the path ahead. Back in reality, he considered Shakya’s impending return and worried that his strength was still insufficient to face him and Laozi.

• Lu Ren asked the Armored Guardian how someone could enter the True Immortal Realm without condensing a Human Immortal Dao Fruit, and learned that extreme physical strength could form an inner world and prove the Dao through strength.
• The Armored Guardian offered to reveal more information if Lu Ren fought it, but Lu Ren declined for the moment and returned to his Inner World.
• Lu Ren planted a waypoint orb on the Primordial Path and left the Inner World, while Xu Fu, Subhuti, Chen Xuzi, Kong Qiu, and Chang'e speculated about his changed aura.
• Lu Ren returned to reality and reflected that Shakya had tried to seize his body after discovering that Lu Ren had sealed the backdoor in his Three Sutras.
• Lu Ren worried that his strength remained inadequate and wondered how soon Shakya and Laozi would return to Earth.

After emerging from a week of seclusion, Lu Ren reconnected with his first love, Chen Han, and learned she had joined White Jade Capital to cultivate. He then met Ji Quanzhen, whose self-perception had changed to that of a spirit monkey while his mind and cultivation remained intact.

• Lu Ren checked his messages and saw that Chen Han had sent him a message a month earlier, so he began chatting with her.
• Chen Han told Lu Ren that she had gone up the mountain to cultivate and belonged to Kunlun's White Jade Capital.
• Lu Ren considered how cultivation might have changed Chen Han, then headed into the island's forest to check on Ji Quanzhen.
• Lu Ren found Ji Quanzhen transformed into an ape, convinced he had always been a monkey, and wielding a staff technique he claimed was rooted in his bloodline.
• Lu Ren confirmed Ji Quanzhen's mind was not corrupted and sparred with him, discovering his strength had increased dramatically.

Lu Ren told Ji Quanzhen about the strange city he had entered on the Primordial Path, and Ji Quanzhen explained what Qingcheng's records said about it. The two shared a meal as they discussed its dangers and the threat of mirror images and outer demons.

• Ji Quanzhen sensed he was close to a breakthrough, while Lu Ren said he had completed the Ten Grounds Golden Body Bodhisattva Path.
• Lu Ren described entering a city on the Primordial Path, where strange cultivators from many worlds had arrived after enduring the Five Elements tribulations.
• Ji Quanzhen caught a giant deer, and he and Lu Ren prepared a campfire meal with fish and seafood.
• Ji Quanzhen shared Qingcheng's records about the city, its connection to many worlds, and a divine lord said to offer a glimpse of the Human Immortal Dao Fruit.
• Ji Quanzhen warned that cultivators could fall from the Primordial Path when their mirror images overcame them, and recounted a Qingcheng patriarch who had been corrupted and killed.

After Lu Ren and Ji Quanzhen left the deserted island, Lu Ren reassured Li Ting that Ji Quanzhen remained himself despite Sun Wukong’s curse. As Earth’s spiritual energy continued to revive and draw the attention of unknown threats, Ji Quanzhen reminded Li Ting that humanity could endure even if it lost.

• Lu Ren and Ji Quanzhen waved to the surveillance satellite, then boarded a cruiser captained by Li Ting.
• Li Ting failed to recognize Ji Quanzhen, who explained that his breakthrough had restored his youth.
• Lu Ren told Li Ting that Sun Wukong’s curse had changed Ji Quanzhen’s understanding of his origins but had otherwise left him unchanged.
• Lu Ren reflected that Earth’s growing spiritual radiance could attract dangers and that China was searching for secret realms and stable passages to other worlds.
• Li Ting asked when the ancient immortals and gods would return, and Lu Ren said it might take decades, centuries, or happen tomorrow.
• Ji Quanzhen recognized Li Ting’s Qingcheng Dao lineage and encouraged him to keep preparing, saying that even defeat would leave sparks from which humanity could rise again.

Lu Ren investigated Wang City and the Primordial Path, finding that Wang City’s promises trapped cultivators while the road’s strange stars and hidden influence raised troubling questions about its purpose. He stopped himself from probing those questions further and resolved to investigate them cautiously.

• Li Ting and Ji Quanzhen agreed that dealing with the sleeping immortals and gods mattered more than speculating about them.
• Lu Ren observed Wang City and concluded that its Ascension Tokens and Wang Coins offered cultivators hope while keeping them from advancing along the Primordial Path.
• Lu Ren accepted a Wang City task, destroyed a tentacled monster that tried to violate him, and escaped when an Armored Guardian pursued him.
• Lu Ren explored beyond Wang City and saw a star-filled stretch of the Primordial Path whose glowing stars seemed to contain sleeping, terrifying beings.
• Lu Ren questioned whether something influenced cultivators’ understanding of the Primordial Path, then stopped thinking when he sensed that an existence might notice him.

Lu Ren abandoned his plan to continue toward the Primordial Land and decided to seek a way into Wang City, while spending a quiet stretch back at Falcon Fist Martial Arts Hall. He left Li Qingling with a new cultivation art and later chatted with Ji Quanzhen in the bustling city.

• Lu Ren decided to seek a way into Wang City after concluding that further speculation about the Armored Guardian and the Primordial Land was pointless.
• Lu Ren tried to teach Li Qingling the Celestial Muscle Jade Bone art, then used the Mind-to-Mind Imprinting Technique to force the fundamentals into her Spirit Soul.
• Lu Ren searched the streets for someone who might inherit his legacy, but dismissed the people he noticed as unsuitable or in need of growing up.
• Ji Quanzhen joined Lu Ren on a bench, explained that he was covering his body hair to blend in and find a girlfriend, and discussed his restored youth.
• Lu Ren and Ji Quanzhen chatted about returning to human society and Lu Ren's original yogurt purple rice drink without purple rice.

Lu Ren searched across China for an heir to inherit his Martial Dao while using his travels as Mortal World Heart Training and sealing Yin World Leakages. After a year, he returned to Shu Capital still without a successor, having sensed the Reviving Earth Veins and learned of a permanent Spatial Rift.

• Lu Ren told Ji Quanzhen that he was searching for someone to inherit his legacy, and Ji Quanzhen questioned whether he could find a suitable person that way.
• Lu Ren said Li Qingling lacked the talent for his horizontal-training Martial Dao, though her Phoenix Fist Scripture might eventually draw the True Phoenix.
• Ji Quanzhen told Lu Ren that a Spatial Rift he had encountered had been confirmed as a permanent passage, and Lu Ren agreed to look into it.
• For more than half a year, Lu Ren traveled across China, sealed Yin World Leakages, and continued searching for an heir while practicing Mortal World Heart Training.
• After a year of traveling and sensing the Reviving Earth Veins, Lu Ren returned to Shu Capital without finding a suitable successor.

Lu Ren learned that ancient immortals and gods might return within fifteen years, while Ji Quanzhen revealed a stable passage to a resource-rich Doomsday Ruins. Lu Ren entered the otherworld to investigate it personally and flew away from its forward base.

• Lu Ren told Ji Quanzhen that Heaven and Earth Spiritual Energy was recovering and that they had at least fifteen years to prepare for the ancient immortals and gods’ return.
• Ji Quanzhen told Lu Ren that the stable Spatial Rift passage led to a devastated world with abundant minerals and no immortals or gods.
• Lu Ren agreed to inspect the Doomsday Ruins, while the Kunlun Otherworld remained a guarded Martial Dao trial ground and source of rare resources.
• Three days later, Lu Ren entered the Doomsday Ruins passage and found that radiation at the forward base had fallen to normal levels.
• Lu Ren took an alloy battle sword and Fish Scale Combat Suit, then flew out from the base as soldiers speculated about his identity.

Lu Ren investigated the nuclear wasteland and discovered a Nurturing Tree growing in the Seeking Truth Realm, its fleshy growths enclosing living beings. After cutting one open, he found a sleeping girl with unusual genetic traits and wondered whether the tree had created her or swallowed someone from the real world.

• A colonel recognized Lu Ren as a legendary figure as he surveyed the otherworldly realm with his primordial spirit.
• Lu Ren sensed a hidden source of Strange Particles and investigated a nuclear blast zone, where radiation triggered changes in his DNA.
• Lu Ren entered the Seeking Truth Realm and saw a huge tree bearing tumor-like fleshy growths in the wasteland.
• Lu Ren cut open one of the tree's fleshy growths and watched blood and a naked young girl spill out.
• Lu Ren examined the sleeping girl with divine sense, discovered her enlarged pineal gland and retractable tail, and considered whether she had been nurtured by the tree or swallowed as fertilizer.

Lu Ren discovered that the Nurturing Trees in the ruined city grew brainless human bodies, then encountered a human-operated spacecraft that attacked him. He destroyed the craft and confronted its pilot, who survived his kick and began to rise.

• Lu Ren found that the bodies growing on the Nurturing Tree had no Spirit Souls and saw similar trees at the city's other nuclear blast sites.
• A hovering spacecraft fired a plasma beam at Lu Ren, but he quickly healed and dodged its next shot.
• Lu Ren struck the spacecraft with a fist and crushed it by standing on its hull until it broke apart.
• Lu Ren found a human pilot in the cockpit and kicked him through the wreckage, leaving him motionless in the distance.
• Lu Ren examined the spacecraft's interior and watched the pilot struggle free of his seat belt and slowly rise.

Lu Ren encountered Chen Luo, a lone Earth transmigrator trying to restore humanity with a Nurturing Tree in the Seeking Truth Realm. After learning that the tree could not create spiritually complete humans, Lu Ren confirmed Chen Luo’s origins and ended with another code phrase.

• Lu Ren dodged Chen Luo’s attacks and lightly flicked his stomach, shattering his armor and forcing him to the ground.
• Lu Ren learned Chen Luo had mistaken him for an evil aberration and asked whether Chen Luo had planted the Nurturing Tree.
• Chen Luo tried a code phrase, and Lu Ren recognized him as a likely transmigrator from Earth.
• Lu Ren explained that the tree’s artificial offspring would lack Spirit Souls and that human reproduction was essential to creating spiritually complete people.
• Chen Luo revealed he was the only person left in the world and was trying to restore humanity.
• Lu Ren asked whether Chen Luo was from Earth, then replied with another code phrase when Chen Luo stayed silent.

Lu Ren met Chen Luo, a stranded genius who had spent thirty years alone in another world and built a spaceship with help from an AI. Chen Luo explained how his world’s technology accessed the Inner State, leaving Lu Ren interested in the knowledge and abilities Chen Luo could offer.

• Chen Luo told Lu Ren how he had survived alone for thirty years, built an underground research institute, and assembled a spaceship with help from the AI Anna.
• Lu Ren explained that martial arts had flourished in his world, and Chen Luo asked him to take him back after learning practitioners could survive in space.
• Lu Ren asked how Chen Luo had entered the Inner State, and Chen Luo took him to a near-Earth space station built by four superpowers.
• Chen Luo explained that the station’s equipment could send people into the Inner State by adjusting their Mental Frequency, while a miniaturized device remained unfinished.
• Lu Ren recognized Chen Luo’s exceptional innate talent and considered the potential of his technological expertise and AI Anna.

Lu Ren brought Chen Luo to the China forward base after warning him that the Nurturing Trees in the Seeking Truth Realm could produce bodies occupied by strange entities. He returned to the deeper layer of the realm and found that a girl he had cut open had awakened with an eerie smile.

• Chen Luo learned that the real world had established a forward base and hurried with Lu Ren to join it.
• Lu Ren explained that Chen Luo’s Nurturing Trees could not create ordinary humans through gene-bank cultivation and warned that the True Realm might fill the bodies with something inhuman.
• Chen Luo reunited with other humans at the China forward base, and Lu Ren returned to investigate the Seeking Truth Realm.
• Lu Ren entered a deeper layer of the realm and saw bizarre black entities crawling around the fleshy growths on the Nurturing Trees.
• Lu Ren found the girl he had cut open sitting up in a pool of blood, and she turned toward him with an eerie smile.

Lu Ren blocked an Outer God named Pasusius from forcing an agent contract on him, though the god left a brand in his primordial spirit. A month later, as China developed the apocalyptic ruins into a new territory, Lu Ren sensed an energy point approaching Earth from deep space.

• Lu Ren endured the Outer God’s overwhelming contact and learned it wanted him to become its agent in exchange for power.
• Lu Ren ordered the system to block the contact, and the system collected information about Pasusius while leaving the option to accept the contract available.
• Lu Ren returned to reality and considered the dangers of the Seeking Truth Realm and the Outer God’s interest in the world.
• After Lu Ren submitted his survey report, China began moving people and supplies into the now mostly habitable ruins, while Northern Europe and the United States also prepared to act.
• Lu Ren focused on cultivating the Three Lifetimes Sutra and sensed an energy point flying toward Earth from the depths of space.

Lu Ren traveled with Zhang Tongxuan to Hangu Pass, seeking the lost Dao Scripture Laozi had left behind. They entered the ancient, sealed stronghold, where Zhang Tongxuan revealed it had once guarded a road to the outer starry sky.

• Lu Ren asked Zhang Tongxuan about the two parts of Laozi's Dao De Jing, and Zhang Tongxuan said only the Virtue Scripture had survived into the present age.
• Zhang Tongxuan led Lu Ren to a hidden gorge at Dragon Tiger Mountain, where the ancient Daoist Xu Feng recognized Lu Ren and allowed them to enter.
• Zhang Tongxuan told Lu Ren he had reached the Seeking Truth Realm after years of accumulation and treasures from Celestial God's Tombs.
• Zhang Tongxuan opened a broken staircase that led Lu Ren into the secret realm of Hangu Pass.
• Lu Ren saw the enormous, weathered pass and sensed that some of its ancient defenses still worked.
• Zhang Tongxuan explained that Hangu Pass had guarded a road to the outer starry sky until Yin Xi sealed it and severed the passage to Tongtian.

Lu Ren and Zhang Tongxuan discovered that Hangu Pass had been consumed by a bizarre force and found the Dao Scripture transformed into a living book of flesh on an altar. As they approached it, an unknown kneeling figure appeared, and Lu Ren prepared to confront it.

• Lu Ren and Zhang Tongxuan sensed Hangu Pass’s plea for help, but Lu Ren warned that the corrupted world might be luring them into a trap.
• They climbed to the pass’s high platform and saw the Dao Scripture from the Dao De Jing wrapped in flesh and floating above an altar.
• Zhang Tongxuan explained that the contaminated scripture could not be opened, and Lu Ren moved closer to inspect it.
• A kneeling figure in ancient, rusted armor appeared within a hundred zhang of the altar, though Zhang Tongxuan had never seen it before.
• Lu Ren restrained the corruption with Buddhist seals and asked who had left the figure there.

Lu Ren revealed that Shakya’s phantom had tried to seize his body and warned Zhang Tongxuan that Shakya and Li Er might return in three years. Seeking to learn the danger recorded in the Daoist scripture, Lu Ren approached the altar’s guardian, who rose and spoke with apparent sanity.

• Zhang Tongxuan identified the armored guardian as likely Yin Xi and warned Lu Ren that reading the corrupted Daoist scripture could lead them astray.
• Lu Ren told Zhang Tongxuan that Shakya’s phantom had tried to seize him and that a minor peak would arrive in three years.
• Lu Ren said he needed to understand the Daoist scripture to prepare for Shakya and Li Er, and asked Zhang Tongxuan to contact the Buddhist and Daoist lineages for their foundations.
• Lu Ren approached the altar in his Bodhisattva Dharma Appearance, and the guardian rose, took hold of its sword, and turned to face him.
• The guardian laughed that it finally had a chance to feed, and Lu Ren asked whether it was Yin Xi; the guardian said it had been a very long time since anyone called it that.