Chapter Summaries

Lu Ren waited in low Earth orbit for Shakya as China prepared for the ancient god’s return. The first wave of spiritual energy corrupted life across the planet, and Shakya attacked Lu Ren, dragging him into a devastating crash that left them facing off in a ruined city.

• Lu Ren warned the relevant departments that Shakya was approaching, while China evacuated civilians and launched its concealed weapons into space.
• The first wave of Heaven and Earth Spiritual Energy swept across the globe, transforming forests, animals, and people into monstrous forms.
• Shakya seized Lu Ren and taunted him over the destruction before dragging him down from low Earth orbit.
• Shakya and Lu Ren struck a bustling metropolis, destroying the surrounding city and leaving a vast crater.
• Shakya stood at the crater’s edge, revealed as a corrupted fusion of Buddha, demon, and Dao, with writhing blood lotuses across his body.

Lu Ren fought Shakya while resisting the polluted Heaven and Earth Spiritual Energy, and Shakya revealed the horrifying contamination embodied by his True Immortal Dao Fruit. The battle left Lu Ren facing Shakya’s unleashed power as he compressed its contamination into a small area.

• Lu Ren emerged from the crater with his wounds healing, while Shakya praised the polluted Heaven and Earth Spiritual Energy and urged him to accept it.
• Lu Ren recognized that the polluted energy could corrupt Martial Daoists and resolved to end the fight quickly.
• Shakya trapped Lu Ren in the True World, but Lu Ren struck through the illusion and returned to find Shakya unharmed.
• Shakya explained that he specialized in spells, then manifested his True Immortal Dao Fruit as a monstrous, contamination-spreading eye.
• Lu Ren stepped forward and used his True Essence to compress the contamination Shakya had released into a small area.

Lu Ren overwhelmed Shakya in close combat and blasted his body apart, but Shakya’s True Immortal Dao Fruit survived and restored him. Shakya reappeared and insisted that an undying Dao Fruit made a True Immortal undying.

• Shakya tried to wear Lu Ren down with Buddha Chant, but Lu Ren’s system blocked the attack.
• Lu Ren bound Shakya with his life Magnetic Field and struck him with a devastating Buddha hand.
• Lu Ren used his six arms to tear Shakya apart and unleashed an energy pillar that erased his flesh and flattened a distant mountain.
• Shakya’s grotesque True Immortal Dao Fruit emerged from the void, and he reappeared amid gathering Spiritual Energy.
• Shakya told Lu Ren that a True Immortal could not die while their Dao Fruit remained undying, then raged about the suffering he had endured to transform it.

Lu Ren confronted Shakya, whose Dao heart wavered after he realized Lu Ren had reached Human Immortal power through a different path. Shakya re-formed through his Dao Fruit and attacked, while Lu Ren drew on his Inner World’s inhabitants and pressed him in close combat.

• Lu Ren taunted Shakya, who recognized that Lu Ren wielded Human Immortal power without condensing a True Immortal Dao Fruit and began doubting his path.
• Shakya’s body exploded as his Dao heart faltered, but his True Immortal Dao Fruit gathered his remains and formed him anew.
• Shakya accused Lu Ren of undermining his Dao heart and attacked with Daoist arts, Supernatural Arts, and a Palm Buddha Kingdom.
• Lu Ren used the Tathagata Dharma Body and drew power from Xu Fu, Changxing, and others in his Inner World, strengthening his defenses and force field.
• Shakya found that Lu Ren’s domain obstructed his instantaneous movement arts, then charged forward to meet Lu Ren’s incoming fist.

Lu Ren defeated Shakya by shattering his Human Immortal Dao Fruit and destroying his body, causing blood rain to fall from the heavens. After confirming no trace of Shakya’s polluted flesh remained, Lu Ren gained rewards and advanced the Tali Body Forging Art, though he delayed further cultivation because his ongoing transformation could disrupt his control in battle.

• Lu Ren split into three equally powerful forms and pinned Shakya’s Dao Fruit while two of them attacked it.
• Lu Ren shattered Shakya’s Dao Fruit, and crimson rain fell as Shakya began to die.
• Lu Ren destroyed Shakya’s heart and watched his body mutate and explode, then burned every trace of his flesh to ashes.
• Lu Ren received 5 Skill Points and 2 points of Force of Destiny for killing Shakyamuni and changing the world’s developments.
• Lu Ren spent 10 Skill Points to raise the Tali Body Forging Art to Minor Mastery and chose not to cultivate further while his body was still transforming.

After defeating Shakya, Lu Ren discovered that the True Realm had filled with monstrous entities and that contaminated spiritual energy was turning cultivators into mutants. He helped contain the crisis in several underground cities and encountered Zhang Tongxuan while continuing his inspections.

• Lu Ren sensed that the True Realm had become a blood-red expanse crowded with monsters, scattered golden flames into it, and withdrew before its contamination could mutate him.
• Contaminated Heaven and Earth Spiritual Energy spread across the planet, driving many cultivators mad and causing their bodies to transform.
• Lu Ren reached an underground metropolis near Central Province and used his divine sense to immobilize everyone amid the chaos.
• Lu Ren freed Chen Daoli, learned how the contamination had caused the outbreak, and ordered him to gather survivors and assess the mutated cultivators.
• Lu Ren and Chen Daoli helped bring the metropolis under control; Lu Ren then inspected four more cities and met Zhang Tongxuan leading an emergency rescue team.

Lu Ren helped China recover from the devastation caused by polluted Heaven and Earth Spiritual Energy, which killed nearly a hundred million people and drove cultivators and ordinary people alike to mutate. As cleanup continued, he began considering how to purify the world’s Spiritual Energy and prevent cultivation from being cut off.

• Zhang Tongxuan told Lu Ren that polluted Heaven and Earth Spiritual Energy had contaminated almost the entire Earth, while Ji Quanzhen and the other Wardens worked to suppress mutated cultivators.
• Over the month after Shakya’s death, Lu Ren helped stabilize the crisis and clean up the Kunlun Otherworld, but China suffered nearly a hundred million casualties and its cultivation strength was severely weakened.
• Zhang Li urged Lu Ren to rest, then revealed through her grief that her husband and daughter had died during the disaster; Lu Ren told an exhausted adjutant that China would recover what it had lost.
• The adjutant reported that Ji Quanzhen’s group had gone to the capital to deal with Shi Yong, who had lost his mind and changed form after absorbing too much Spiritual Energy.
• Lu Ren considered the pollution’s threat to cultivation and saw his disciple Li Qingling clearing mutated monsters with protection from the Illumination Mirror, which could filter the pollution.

As polluted Heaven and Earth Spiritual Energy threatened humanity, Lu Ren concluded that survival required both a clean region and a new way to cultivate without relying on the Dao Fruit. He shared the beginnings of his Body Tempering Art with the Martial Dao Academy and went to inspect the Nine Cauldrons and the scriptures stored beneath the imperial capital.

• Lu Ren gathered contaminated Spiritual Energy and considered whether humanity could adapt to it, but decided that establishing a clean region was the immediate priority.
• Lu Ren met Ji Quanzhen after the cleanup, and they discussed Shi Yong’s destruction and the danger posed by the pollution across the Supercluster.
• Lu Ren told Ji Quanzhen that he had found a new cultivation path that avoided the Dao Fruit, then added the Body Tempering Art’s basic postures and formulas to the Martial Dao Academy’s internal database.
• Lu Ren traveled to the heavily guarded underground vault holding the Nine Cauldrons and the original immortal cultivation scriptures.
• Lu Ren inspected the scriptures and judged their qi-based cultivation methods to be a blind path for Martial Daoists.

Lu Ren discovered an ancient Totem Spirit and forcibly subdued the Nine Provinces Cauldron, deciding to use it to purify a province. Afterward, Zhang Tongxuan warned that adapting to the worsening contamination in Heaven and Earth Spiritual Energy was essential to prevent humanity's extinction.

• Lu Ren examined an ancient stone slab containing a dormant Totem Spirit, and Han Zhuang explained its connection to the destroyed Houfeng Tribe.
• Lu Ren asked Han Zhuang about the totem era, learning that people then relied on totems rather than an immortal cultivation system.
• Lu Ren seized the rusted Nine Provinces Cauldron and suppressed its violent resistance with his True Energy.
• Lu Ren decided to use the cauldron to suppress a province and purify its Heaven and Earth Spiritual Energy.
• Zhang Tongxuan warned Lu Ren that humanity faced extinction unless it adapted to the changing spiritual energy and its contamination.

Lu Ren activated the Nine Cauldrons to create a sanctuary that could protect humanity from polluted spiritual energy and give people time to adapt. The cauldron purified the surrounding energy, while ancient worshippers’ echoes revealed that the shamans had preceded the flourishing of the immortal path.

• Lu Ren told Zhang Tongxuan that humanity needed time to adapt to the pollution or many people would die or lose their minds, and Zhang asked where to establish the sanctuary.
• Lu Ren enlarged the Nine Cauldrons and discovered that the bronze vessel was covered in cracks, suggesting it had suffered a terrible upheaval.
• Lu Ren poured immense energy into the cauldron, illuminating its cracks, then sent it to a mountain in the southwest, where it settled onto an ancient altar.
• Zhang Tongxuan examined the altar’s carvings and concluded that the Nine Cauldrons combined the early immortal path with the totem system.
• The Nine Cauldrons released a canopy of light, revealing echoes of ancient worshippers, and Zhang Tongxuan identified them as shamans who vanished before the immortal path flourished.
• Lu Ren sensed that the Nine Cauldrons were rapidly purifying the polluted Heaven and Earth Spiritual Energy.

Lu Ren discussed securing the underground city and the dangers posed by sleeping True Immortals, then continued his search for the Nine Cauldrons. He visited the imprisoned Sun Wukong, challenged his beliefs about Dao Fruits, and proposed a deal, but Sun Wukong responded by revealing how he had endured his imprisonment.

• Ji Quanzhen volunteered to guard the damaged Nine Cauldrons site while Lu Ren arranged for people to develop it and discussed reconnecting underground cities with the surface.
• Lu Ren explained that the other sacred lands held sleeping True Immortals who had to disperse their Dao Fruits to avoid contamination and transformation into monsters.
• After Zhang Tongxuan took charge of the overall situation and Ji Quanzhen oversaw internal threats, Lu Ren set out to find the remaining Nine Cauldrons.
• Lu Ren entered the cavern where Sun Wukong was imprisoned, and Sun Wukong was shocked that Lu Ren wielded True Immortal power without a Dao Fruit.
• Lu Ren disputed Sun Wukong's claim that only Dao Fruits could reach The Other Shore and asked whether he dared condense one himself.
• Lu Ren proposed a deal, but Sun Wukong activated the lightning collar and said that after nearly ten thousand years he had grown accustomed to its punishment.

Lu Ren negotiated Sun Wukong’s release in exchange for help finding the Nine Cauldrons and a promise not to harm humans. After forcing Sun Wukong to reveal his escape method, Lu Ren freed him but demanded that he sign a strict Contract Seal, leaving Sun Wukong objecting to its limits.

• Lu Ren agreed to free Sun Wukong if Sun Wukong helped him find the Nine Cauldrons and never harmed the human race.
• Lu Ren confronted Sun Wukong about his earlier escape plan and insisted on seeing how it worked, so Sun Wukong broke the chains imprisoning him.
• Lu Ren presented Sun Wukong with a Contract Seal and required him to accept its terms before receiving basic trust.
• Sun Wukong read the contract’s many restrictions and protested that they would keep him out of human territory, where the Yu King Cauldrons might be located.

Lu Ren made Sun Wukong sign a Dharma Seal Contract, then broke the underground seal to search for the Yu King Cauldron. They discovered a Spatial Rift that Sun Wukong believed led to the cauldron, but Lu Ren stopped him from rushing inside.

• Sun Wukong crushed the Dharma seal and formed an intangible connection with Lu Ren, agreeing to the contract.
• Sun Wukong told Lu Ren that the Yu King Cauldron lay beneath them, and Lu Ren shattered the Heaven Earth Lockdown formation.
• Lu Ren and Sun Wukong descended through the collapsing underground space but found no cauldron, while Sun Wukong was shocked by the polluted Spiritual Energy.
• Lu Ren detected a Spatial Rift, and Sun Wukong recognized it as a secret realm passage where the Yu King Cauldron might have fallen.
• Sun Wukong leaped toward the rift, but Lu Ren grabbed his tail and deflected his kick when he fought back.

Lu Ren and Sun Wukong fought before entering a Spatial Rift in search of the Yu King Cauldron. Lu Ren arrived in a peaceful world rendered in a two-dimensional anime style, where he found no sign of contamination and began to suspect it was connected to his own world.

• Lu Ren and Sun Wukong traded blows until the Spatial Rift passage began to fluctuate, forcing them to stop fighting.
• Sun Wukong questioned how Lu Ren had gained the power of a True Immortal, but Lu Ren instead invited him to enter the Spatial Rift together.
• Sun Wukong accepted Lu Ren's taunt and rushed through the rift, and Lu Ren followed after him.
• Lu Ren emerged in a pastoral landscape of wheat fields, distant mountains, and a modern town, all rendered in a detailed anime style.
• Lu Ren discovered that he was naked and used his divine sense and Mind's Eye to determine that the world was not truly two-dimensional and showed no sign of contamination.

Lu Ren and Sun Wukong found themselves in an eerie anime-like realm where ordinary cultivation was impossible and grotesque spirit entities roamed. After Lu Ren destroyed several spirits, Sun Wukong offered to teach him the Nine Revolutions Mysterious Technique in exchange for True Essence, leaving Lu Ren to consider its value on his different path.

• Lu Ren examined the alien realm and realized its seemingly normal rules might have been artificially altered, though studying them caused intense mental contamination.
• Sun Wukong struggled to understand their changed surroundings, while Lu Ren noticed nearby spirit entities that Sun Wukong could sense but not see clearly.
• A spirit entity excitedly lunged at Lu Ren, who destroyed it with a glance; the surrounding spirits also disintegrated, and Sun Wukong tried to swallow their spiritual light.
• Sun Wukong complained that the realm's spiritual energy was too thin and contaminated, while Lu Ren examined the residue left by the spirits.
• Sun Wukong offered to teach Lu Ren the Nine Revolutions Mysterious Technique for a strand of True Essence, and Lu Ren replied that he had left the path of immortality.

Lu Ren traded a strand of True Essence for Sun Wukong’s incomplete Nine Revolutions Mysterious Technique, then tricked him into accepting Buddhist energy and polluted spiritual energy. Their exchange was interrupted by the arrival of a strangely blank-faced schoolgirl, while Lu Ren continued considering how to kill Sun Wukong.

• Lu Ren bargained with Sun Wukong for the Nine Revolutions Mysterious Technique after Sun Wukong refused to part with his Ruyi Divine Iron.
• Lu Ren memorized the incomplete technique and realized Sun Wukong had concealed a trap in it.
• Lu Ren transferred a strand of Buddhist True Essence into Sun Wukong, forcing him to nurture it as an energy seed.
• Sun Wukong cursed Lu Ren after discovering the True Essence was Buddhist, while Lu Ren defended the exchange as fair.
• A schoolgirl approached without acknowledging Lu Ren or Sun Wukong, though they knew she had seen them.
• Sun Wukong absorbed polluted spiritual energy and accused Lu Ren of setting him up, while Lu Ren considered killing him.

Lu Ren and Sun Wukong headed toward a nearby town in the strange foreign realm after Sun Wukong used Lu Ren’s True Essence to sustain his failing life. Lu Ren wondered whether the realm’s people normally ignored him, while Sun Wukong remained bound by their contract not to kill.

• Sun Wukong swallowed his anger, refined spiritual energy, and used it to strengthen the qi seed made from Lu Ren’s True Essence.
• A young girl passed Lu Ren and Sun Wukong as if she could not see them, but Lu Ren grabbed her wrist and startled her into fleeing when she realized he was naked.
• Sun Wukong mocked Lu Ren for walking around unclothed, and Lu Ren chose not to release his True Essence to cover himself because he feared the realm’s strange rules.
• Sun Wukong proposed a blood-sacrifice method to find the Nine Cauldrons, but stopped when Lu Ren showed his killing intent and reminded him of their True Spirit Contract.
• Lu Ren and Sun Wukong set off toward the town where the girl had fled, with Lu Ren wondering whether people in the realm normally ignored him.

Lu Ren entered the foreign city and saw that monstrous spirit entities secretly preyed on one another above a seemingly peaceful human world. He and Sun Wukong split up to search for the girl, while Lu Ren began exploring the Body Tempering Art as a path free from the immortal path’s corruption.

• Lu Ren entered the city, saw the spirit monsters and Outer Gods hidden above it, and concluded that humanity was being raised as livestock.
• Sun Wukong watched the vehicles and mistook them for advanced mechanical art, then suggested that he and Lu Ren search separately.
• Lu Ren sent Sun Wukong away, expecting his troublemaking nature to draw the attention of the invisible spirit entities.
• Lu Ren decided to investigate the Body Tempering Art because the immortal path seemed vulnerable to corruption and this world suited the new cultivation method.
• Lu Ren practiced the Body Tempering Art’s one hundred and eight forms on a rooftop, controlling his blood, organs, muscles, and meridians with help from his system.

Lu Ren followed Xu Qing, a girl who could see spirit entities, to learn about her unusual sight and the beings in this realm. At Xu Qing’s old house, he noticed a sealed, pitch-dark room before sharing dinner with her.

• After training, Lu Ren followed Xu Qing from town and asked whether she could see the spirit entities.
• Xu Qing mistook Lu Ren for a threat, but his Saintly Aura calmed her, and she agreed to speak with him elsewhere.
• Xu Qing brought Lu Ren to her old house, tested him with a talisman, and relaxed when it did not react.
• Lu Ren inspected a chained, talisman-covered door and saw only absolute darkness beyond it.
• Xu Qing prepared dinner, and Lu Ren ate with her and thanked her for the meal.

Lu Ren learned that Xu Qing gained the ability to see spirits after visiting Spirit Mist Mountain three years earlier, where she had worshiped a deity and returned with a fever. He arranged to stay at Xu Qing’s home for a few days, and she finished preparing his bed despite her growing unease.

• Xu Qing told Lu Ren that another person who gained the ability to see spirits with her had been killed by an axe-wielding monster.
• Xu Qing explained that she began seeing spirits after worshiping at Spirit Mist Mountain, and pointed out the mountain she had avoided ever since.
• Lu Ren considered the spirits and the enormous figures towering into the sky, while Xu Qing said looking at one had once given her a terrible headache.
• Xu Qing noticed it was late and questioned Lu Ren about staying in the home of a girl he had just met.
• Lu Ren asked to stay for a few days because he had nowhere else to go, and Xu Qing agreed before reconsidering her decision.
• Xu Qing finished making Lu Ren a floor bed and told him his room was ready.