Chapter Summaries

After a fortune-teller warned Chen Qiu that his thousands of Wraiths were eroding him, Chen Qiu resolved to release them in the Heavenly Dao Secret Realm and strengthened his Lightning-Channeling Art. He and Fat Dragon returned to Windward City for the realm’s opening, where they heard that a cultivator was publicly testing traits by chopping oxen.

• An old fortune-teller warned Chen Qiu that his Green Trait, Vengeful Spirit Summoning, and the thousands of Wraiths he carried could drive him mad and kill him.
• Chen Qiu noticed his body felt unnaturally cold and decided to release his Wraiths when he entered the secret realm.
• Chen Qiu used an Enlightenment Stone to raise the Lightning-Channeling Art to Great Perfection, then spent the night filling his enormous Dao Foundation with spiritual energy.
• Chen Qiu and Fat Dragon returned to Windward City with Scholar and another companion as the Heavenly Dao Secret Realm was about to open.
• A servant invited them to watch a Foundation Establishment cultivator publicly chop eight oxen to obtain random traits, and Fat Dragon suspected the man was the auction buyer who had purchased Self-Severing Root.

Chen Qiu and Fat Dragon went to Windward City’s central square to watch a public trait gamble, where the organizer’s preparations drew a large crowd. As the spectators discussed the danger of drawing traits associated with demonic cultivation, Chen Qiu learned how one such trait rewarded killing close relatives.

• Fat Dragon asked Chen Qiu whether they should investigate, and Chen Qiu agreed to visit the central square.
• Chen Qiu and his group arrived to find a large audience and Parent-Child Mirrors broadcasting the event around Windward City.
• Liu Attendant paid children to promote the event and explained to his master why they had reported it, offered benefits, and rented expensive clothes.
• Chen Qiu overheard spectators debate whether the gambler might draw a trait suited to demonic cultivation and face public suspicion.
• Chen Qiu learned that the trait called Treading the Immortal Path granted three Spirit Stones for every direct blood relative within three generations killed.

At a public trait-gambling demonstration in Windward City, a middle-aged Wang Family head repeatedly chopped off his oxen and drew traits, eventually acquiring the Self-Destruct Trait. His windfall stunned the crowd and left Fat Dragon regretting his fear of pain.

• Chen Qiu teased Fat Dragon about how his Never Misses trait could make him a fortune, and Fat Dragon rejected the idea as inhuman.
• A naked middle-aged Wang Family head began gambling for traits onstage by chopping off his oxen, drawing Person Below the Stage and Alchemy Aptitude.
• He drew Strength of Nine Oxen twice, each time replenishing his oxen to nine and giving him more chances to gamble.
• The Wang Family head drew the Self-Destruct Trait, then gathered his severed oxen and celebrated with Liu Attendant.
• Spectators sent word to their sects about the valuable traits, while Fat Dragon admitted he suddenly regretted being afraid of pain.

After gaining extraordinary strength from his newly acquired traits, Wang Tiedan imagined himself dominating the upcoming Heavenly Dao Secret Realm, but Liu Attendant warned him that he should avoid provoking Golden Core powers and instead target weaker Lineages. Wang Tiedan agreed with the strategy, though Liu Attendant pointed out that powerful enemies might kill him before he could break through.

• The crowd dispersed after Wang Tiedan’s trait results, worrying that his strength might exceed Foundation Establishment Sixth Layer, while would-be robbers abandoned plans to attack him.
• Wang Tiedan celebrated his newfound strength and looked forward to entering the Heavenly Dao Secret Realm to pursue the Golden Core Realm.
• Liu Attendant reminded Wang Tiedan that they had earned over five thousand Spirit Stones and explained that his strength came with poor defense and mobility against true Golden Core cultivators.
• Liu Attendant advised Wang Tiedan to use his reputation to bully Foundation Establishment Lineages and avoid massacring disciples of powerful sects.
• Wang Tiedan accepted the plan but wondered whether Golden Core cultivators would let him break through; Liu Attendant said he would already be coming to kill him.

Chen Qiu waited outside Windward City for a secret realm to open and assessed his powerful preparations. When Ma Yinxue arrived, Fat Dragon revealed that she was his ex-girlfriend, whom he had helped become a Heavenly Dao Beauty before she left him.

• Liu Attendant persuaded Wang Tiedan to abandon the secret realm and reflected on his plans to raise the Wang Family’s status.
• Chen Qiu waited with the gathered cultivators and reviewed the strength of his Dao Foundation, spells, Wraiths, traits, and talismans.
• Zhao Yishi arrived, drawing attention as a Foundation Establishment Sixth Layer prodigy from the Heavenward Sect.
• Ma Yinxue descended among the crowd, and Fat Dragon explained that Heavenly Dao Beauties gained special benefits when they genuinely loved someone.
• Fat Dragon revealed that Ma Yinxue was his ex-girlfriend, whom he had helped enter the Beauty Rankings before she left him, leaving Chen Qiu speechless.

Chen Qiu and Fat Dragon encountered Ma Yinxue, a Heavenly Dao Beauty and Fat Dragon’s former wife, who mocked him and challenged his past choices. Fat Dragon insulted her back, and Ma Yinxue threw ten bottles of medicinal potions at him, leaving her followers ready for a fight.

• Fat Dragon told Chen Qiu that his recent humiliations were part of the trials on his path to becoming a great figure.
• Chen Qiu learned that Ma Yinxue’s Beauty effect let her husband gain three minor cultivation realms and two temporary traits in the Heavenly Dao Secret Realm.
• Ma Yinxue approached Fat Dragon and mocked him for his failed business and for not clinging to her in the past.
• Fat Dragon slapped Ma Yinxue’s hand away and insulted her, prompting her followers to draw their weapons before she stopped them.
• Ma Yinxue taunted Fat Dragon about her influence and returned ten bottles of the medicinal potions he had once given her.

Fat Dragon confronted Ma Yinxue over their past, and Chen Qiu killed the five men who attacked them with his Lightning-Channeling Art. Fat Dragon then killed Ma Yinxue after she survived his first strike, while Zhao Yishi reluctantly prepared to enter the secret realm.

• Ma Yinxue mocked Fat Dragon by throwing medicine bottles and her worn intimate garments at him, while five of her suitors threatened him.
• Fat Dragon revealed Chen Qiu as his backer, and Chen Qiu shielded him before killing the five attackers with a storm of lightning.
• The onlookers recoiled at Chen Qiu's power, while Zhao Yishi asked his sect master to let him avoid the secret realm and was ordered to enter.
• Fat Dragon approached Ma Yinxue with his Dragon Slayer saber, and Chen Qiu pointed out that Fat Dragon was still the name she had called him before.
• Fat Dragon struck Ma Yinxue again after learning his first blow had not killed her, then denied her accusations about their past to Chen Qiu.

Chen Qiu and Fat Dragon witnessed the opening of the Mock Heaven Minor World and watched cultivators enter despite fearing the powerful opponents gathered outside. Zhao Yishi asked Chen Qiu not to kill him if they competed inside, then ordered his sect disciples to wait outside while he entered alone.

• Chen Qiu asked Fat Dragon about Ma Yinxue, and Fat Dragon dismissed their cursed bond and said he would avoid romance until attaining immortality.
• A panel announced that the Mock Heaven Minor World had opened as a seven-stage trial for cultivators at Foundation Establishment Sixth Layer and below.
• A middle-aged cultivator led his Lineage into the secret realm, and the hesitant crowd followed while wary of Chen Qiu.
• Chen Qiu and Fat Dragon discussed whether anyone might seek revenge, prompting a young man who overheard them to flee instead of entering.
• Zhao Yishi sent a Voice-Transmission Talisman to Chen Qiu and asked him not to kill him if they competed for an opportunity inside.
• Zhao Yishi told his sect disciples to wait outside while he entered alone, and they reluctantly agreed.

Chen Qiu and Fat Dragon entered the secret realm and learned that the ruins belonged to Mocking Heaven Sect, whose first trial demanded that candidates sever their worldly attachments. Zhao Yishi used his freedom to enter ahead of everyone and hide inside an abandoned building, while the others began climbing toward the sect gate.

• Zhao Yishi entered the secret realm first, and Heavenward Sect's disciples revealed that their sect had raised him as its hope after he changed his name from Zhao Batian to Zhao Yishi.
• Chen Qiu and Fat Dragon entered the Minor World and found vast ruins bearing the name Mocking Heaven Sect, while the Heavenly Dao binding kept the other cultivators immobile.
• Zhao Yishi moved freely before the entrance closed and disappeared through the mountain gate, prompting the gathered cultivators to envy his presumed Seize the Initiative trait.
• After the entrance closed, a voice announced that the first of four trials for becoming an Inner Disciple was to sever worldly attachments, and Chen Qiu and Fat Dragon questioned the sect's teachings and the trial count.
• Chen Qiu led Fat Dragon and the others up the mountain path, while Zhao Yishi hid in an abandoned cultivation building using his perfected Invisibility Technique.

Chen Qiu entered the Mocking Heaven Sect’s first trial, which required him to sever his worldly attachments, and killed the Fat Dragon manifestation it presented as his beloved friend. He learned that the manifestation was real and Fat Dragon had died, then buried him before continuing on.

• Chen Qiu and Fat Dragon reached the Bronze Bell, where an inscription announced the trial of severing worldly attachments.
• Other cultivators entered the barrier and emerged shaken, while some ignored the trial and searched the ruins for treasure.
• Chen Qiu entered the trial and saw a Fat Dragon manifestation, which the trial instructed him to kill.
• Chen Qiu struck the manifestation with three Lightning-Channeling Arts and emerged to find the real Fat Dragon mortally wounded outside the barrier.
• Chen Qiu realized the trial had made him kill Fat Dragon, buried his friend, and said, “You led me into initiation; I'll send you into the ground.”

Chen Qiu cleared the Mocking Heaven Sect’s first trial by recognizing and killing an illusory Fat Dragon, then waited near the Alchemy Hall as Fat Dragon underwent the same trial. Fat Dragon cleared it after repeatedly indulging in illusions of Ma Yinxue, and the two reunited, with Chen Qiu proposing a sparring match.

• Chen Qiu recognized the false Fat Dragon as an illusion, killed him, and received the first trial’s instructions and reward.
• Fat Dragon entered the Bronze Bell barrier and faced an illusory Ma Yinxue as his worldly attachment.
• Fat Dragon repeatedly indulged in the illusion and killed Ma Yinxue ninety-nine times, clearing the first trial exceptionally.
• After Fat Dragon left the Bronze Bell, later entrants found that the trial no longer activated and granted no rewards.
• Chen Qiu asked whether Fat Dragon had suffered psychological trauma, and Fat Dragon awkwardly said the trial had been pretty great.
• Chen Qiu suggested they spar after leaving so he could help Fat Dragon gain combat experience.

Chen Qiu and Fat Dragon entered the Alchemy Hall to face the gravity-based second trial, while Zhao Yishi waited for a safe chance to attempt the first. In Windward City, Scholar heard a storyteller and a patron disparage his past, then left without fighting as the sky darkened again.

• Chen Qiu and Fat Dragon entered the Alchemy Hall, where they had to reach the central pill furnace without stepping backward to pass the second trial.
• Zhao Yishi hid near the first trial until several failed cultivators attacked the barrier concealing him, prompting him to reveal his giant form and head out.
• Scholar listened as a storyteller recounted the fall of the White-Clad Sword Cultivator, then heard a patron mock him as a lucky failure.
• Scholar's younger brother warned him that he was still recovering from poison, so Scholar left the teahouse without confronting the patron.
• Scholar and his younger brother went outside beneath black clouds that once again covered the sky.

Qi Tian survived his apparent suicide, killed his father, and threatened his second mother as he vowed to make his new name famous. In the Heavenly Dao Secret Realm, Chen Qiu passed the second trial using his Human-Faced Spider Wraiths and learned that the third trial awaited in the Martial Hall.

• Qi Tian's demonic cultivator master failed to arrive, and Qi Tian appeared to kill himself in front of his father.
• Qi Tian ambushed and killed his father, then made his second mother kneel and crawl toward him as he declared he would become known as Qi Tian.
• Chen Qiu struggled against the second trial's crushing gravity while Fat Dragon and others crawled toward the alchemy furnace.
• Chen Qiu used nearly a hundred Human-Faced Spider Wraiths to carry him to the alchemy furnace, passing the trial before Fat Dragon.
• Chen Qiu learned that the trial offered different paths and rewarded him with three mid-grade Foundation Establishment Qi-Replenishing Pills, then discussed the Mocking Heaven Sect's downfall with Fat Dragon.

Chen Qiu and the others reached the third trial, where the rare Top-Grade Foundation Earthfire Pill stirred greed and killing intent among the cultivators. The Martial Hall’s barrier vanished once everyone arrived, revealing one hundred arenas, but the Heart Severing trial had only just begun.

• The crowd discovered that passing the third trial would earn a Top-Grade Foundation Earthfire Pill and make them candidates for inner disciples of the Mocking Heaven Sect.
• Chen Qiu asked Fat Dragon what a Heavenly Dao Version was, and Fat Dragon admitted he did not know either.
• Cultivators anticipated a fight over the rare pill, while weaker participants withdrew to hide and conserve their spiritual energy.
• A Sky-Piercing Giant emerged from the Alchemy Hall, causing the barrier at the Martial Hall to disappear.
• Chen Qiu led Fat Dragon into the Martial Hall, where they found one hundred arenas prepared for the Heart Severing trial.

Chen Qiu and Fat Dragon entered the third trial, where disciples had to build a chain of personal claims and expose lies without risking elimination. Chen Qiu responded to a provocative claim by saying he had watched his sister-in-law bathe and possessed a Green Trait.

• The disciples read the Heart Severing trial rules and hurried to claim arena spots, while a cultivator who attacked a rival was killed by lightning from the hall’s formation.
• Fat Dragon took a seat on Arena Number Eighteen, and Chen Qiu settled on Arena Number Nineteen with his resentful spirits gathered below.
• The trial began, and one disciple claimed he had eaten a meal before another added that he had killed someone.
• A third disciple added that he had eaten shit, and the next disciple continued the chain by claiming he had bought talismans.
• The following disciple challenged the claim, and the talisman buyer was eliminated from the arena.
• In the next round, a disciple claimed he had watched his sister-in-law bathe, and Chen Qiu added that he possessed a Green Trait.

Chen Qiu took part in the Heart Severing trial, where contestants had to keep adding true experiences while deciding whether to challenge the person above them. As Arena No. 19 dwindled to three contestants, Chen Qiu revealed that he had five or more traits to make his statement believable, though his earlier claims about peeping at people bathing were lies.

• Chen Qiu recognized that he could use his Rainbow Trait to bluff but chose not to reveal it for the sake of an Upper-Grade Foundation Establishment Earthfire Pill.
• The contestants in Arena No. 19 added increasingly unusual experiences to their statements, and one person was eliminated after questioning a neighbor whose claims were true.
• Chen Qiu realized that several contestants had treated peeping at their sister-in-law bathing as an ordinary experience.
• After many rounds left only three contestants, Chen Qiu's upper neighbor claimed to have five or more traits and challenged Chen Qiu to question him or keep going.
• Chen Qiu stated that he had five or more traits and displayed five trait panels, hoping to prevent the person below him from questioning his statement.

Chen Qiu passed the third trial and claimed its pill, then joined the other cultivators at the Sword Pavilion for the fourth trial. The trial required them to fight a thousand sword-wielding puppets in an illusion, where death could still be real.

• Chen Qiu tricked his upper neighbor into making a false claim and won the third trial, earning a Top-Grade Foundation Earthfire Pill and prospective Inner Disciple status.
• Fat Dragon told Chen Qiu that he had lost after his upper neighbor claimed to have eaten shit, and Chen Qiu advised him to explore safely.
• Chen Qiu headed to the Sword Pavilion and considered cultivating after the trial because his control over spiritual energy remained poor.
• Chen Qiu read the Sword Bone trait, which granted sword insight to those who touched its bones after death, but an unseen force repelled the cultivators who tried.
• The cultivators gathered as the barrier vanished, revealing that the fourth trial required them to kill at least ten of a thousand matching-cultivation puppets in an illusion, with higher kills counting as later trials and death remaining possible.

Chen Qiu passed the fourth, fifth, and sixth Sword Pavilion trials by using his Wraiths to destroy a thousand puppets, earning three sword-related rewards before heading toward the seventh trial. Meanwhile, Liu Attendant and Wang Tiedan traveled beneath ominous black clouds, and Liu Attendant urged the family head to return to Windward City.

• Zhao Yishi gave up on the fourth trial and settled down to eat a huge pile of demon beast meat.
• Chen Qiu entered the fourth trial and unleashed more than six thousand demon beast Wraiths against the thousand bronze puppets.
• Chen Qiu's Wraiths destroyed the puppets, and the trial panel declared him an Inner Disciple, a true disciple, and an inner elder, granting him three sword-related rewards.
• Chen Qiu realized the Wraiths had not been consumed in the illusion and headed through the Sword Pavilion toward the seventh trial.
• Liu Attendant noticed the ominous black clouds and suggested that Wang Tiedan return to Windward City, but Wang Tiedan did not respond.

Liu Attendant and the family head fled toward Windward City as a massive demonic beast horde charged down the official road. Meanwhile, Chen Qiu reached the Mocking Heaven Sect’s seventh trial, where passing the Sword Severing trial would let him inherit the sect and its small world.

• Liu Attendant pulled the family head from the carriage and urged him to flee when a vast horde of demonic beasts appeared.
• Liu Attendant used Swift-Tread Talismans and the official road’s Windwalking Formation to speed their escape toward Windward City.
• Chen Qiu passed the Sword Pavilion, Scripture Repository, and Law Enforcement Hall, then entered the Sect Grand Hall.
• Chen Qiu read the hall’s inscriptions, which mocked other cultivation paths and praised sword cultivators.
• Chen Qiu reached the seventh trial’s barrier and learned that passing Sword Severing would make him sect master and grant him the sect’s resources and authority over its small world.

Chen Qiu inherited Mocking Heaven Sect by sitting in its Sect Leader’s Chair and gained control of the sect and its Minor World. He found the sect empty and its powerful formations badly damaged, but noted that the Sword Bone outside the Sword Pavilion remained.

• Chen Qiu sat on the Sect Leader’s Chair and became Mocking Heaven Sect’s seventeenth-generation sect leader, ranked 3,483rd among Great Xia’s sects.
• Chen Qiu recognized the chair as his master and gained control over the sect’s mountain-protecting formation and the entire Minor World.
• Chen Qiu saw Zhao Yishi eating demon-beast meat and Fat Dragon searching the ruins for treasures.
• Chen Qiu discovered that the sect had no remaining treasures and that its damaged sword formations would be difficult and costly to repair.
• Chen Qiu noted that the Sword Bone outside the Sword Pavilion was one thing the sect had left him.