Chapter Summaries

Chapter Summary: “Submerged Cultivation”

1. Key Plot Points and Events

• Three months after his previous developments, Chen Jichuan finishes consolidating control over Fierce Bird Mountain.
• He transforms the leaders of the nine largest fierce-bird tribes into intelligent human-form monsters using the Creation Method. Because of their savage nature and initial hostility, he secretly implants Grand Luo Heavenly Fire seeds in their souls to control them.
• The nine leaders are assigned to guard the nine peaks surrounding Pagoda-Bearing Peak, each commanding one hundred thousand fierce birds. This creates a formidable defensive force capable of delaying even a Heavenly Venerable.
• Chen Jichuan reviews his cultivation progress. His techniques and arts have advanced greatly, but his realm has progressed relatively slowly despite over twenty thousand years of cultivation.
• Determined to pursue the Five-Element path, he creates the earth-element Qilin Jade-Treasure Scripture by fusing multiple earth-element methods.
• He then fuses all five elemental Orthodox Grade cultivation methods into the superior Five Directions Five Emperors Five Spirits Five Elements Five Aspects Great Expansion True Scripture, also called the “Five-Five Great Expansion True Scripture.”
• The fusion initially causes his cultivation to collapse from the Three-Pattern Upper Immortal level to the beginning Transcendent Immortal realm.
• Using large quantities of Five-Element Jade Elixir, he cultivates the new method and manifests five Imperial Aspects corresponding to the Five Elements:
  • White Emperor and White Tiger
  • Black Emperor and Black Tortoise
  • Azure Emperor and Azure Dragon
  • Red Emperor and Vermilion Bird
  • Yellow Emperor and Qilin
• After one hundred years of intense cultivation in an earth-element source land, he recovers his lost cultivation and reaches the Three-Pattern Peak of the Inner Landscape Realm.
• Chen Jichuan then attempts the next major breakthrough. He opens the Qi-Source portal of the Qi-Source Method, absorbs the released Qi Essence, and successfully advances into the Cauldron-Claiming Outer Landscape Realm.

2. Character Developments

• Chen Jichuan becomes increasingly strategic and pragmatic. He recognizes the danger of relying on naturally savage fierce birds and controls them through the implanted Heavenly Fire rather than trust or loyalty.
• His ambition and confidence grow. He is willing to spend enormous wealth and resources to save time, viewing Essence Crystals as expendable compared with the value of cultivation speed.
• He shifts from cultivating four separate elemental methods to a unified Five-Element system, creating a stronger and more balanced foundation.
• His understanding of the earth element improves rapidly because the other four elements reinforce it through the new cultivation method.
• His decisive personality is emphasized when he immediately attempts the Outer Landscape breakthrough instead of waiting for a more favorable opportunity.
• The nine transformed fierce-bird leaders gain intelligence and obedience but remain fundamentally savage, resentful, and dependent on Chen Jichuan’s control.

3. Significant Themes

• Control versus loyalty: Chen Jichuan does not mistake obedience for gratitude. The fierce birds serve him because they fear the Heavenly Fire within their souls, highlighting the difference between genuine allegiance and enforced submission.
• Long-term preparation and delayed rewards: The creation of the new cultivation method temporarily weakens Chen Jichuan, but the resulting foundation allows him to recover and advance much faster.
• The value of time: Chen Jichuan repeatedly treats resources as tools for accelerating progress. Spending enormous amounts of wealth is worthwhile if it shortens cultivation time.
• Balance and integration: The Five-Element method represents the synthesis of separate powers into a stable, mutually reinforcing whole.
• Power through mastery and resources: Chen Jichuan’s progress depends not only on talent but also on his wealth, accumulated techniques, rare elixirs, and careful planning.
• Rapid advancement through risk: His willingness to endure cultivation collapse and immediately challenge a higher realm demonstrates his preference for decisive, high-risk progress.

4. Character Interactions

• Chen Jichuan confronts and dominates the nine fierce-bird leaders, first awakening their intelligence and then compelling their submission through the Heavenly Fire planted in their souls.
• He orders the nine leaders to protect Pagoda-Bearing Peak and organize their tribes into a large defensive formation.
• The Thick-Earth Ferocious Bird responds to Chen Jichuan’s summons and guards him while he cultivates in the earth-element source land. His presence intimidates the surrounding fierce birds and prevents interference.
• Chen Jichuan’s relationship with the fierce birds remains hierarchical and coercive: he is their absolute master, while they obey despite concealed resentment.
• Internally, Chen Jichuan interacts with the Five Emperors and Five Spirits through meditation and visualization, using their combined power to transform his dantian, strengthen his Magic Power, and break through the Qi-Source portal.

Plot points and events

• After twenty thousand years of cultivation on Myriad God Island, Chen Jichuan advances to the Outer Landscape Realm. His Five-Element Escape Art also reaches its seventh level, strengthening his ability to evade powerful enemies.
• Chen judges that even these gains are not enough to challenge long-established Heavenly Venerables and Immortal Venerables. He plans to build up his cultivation and develop more divine abilities, while continuing to study the resource-intensive Great Expansion Divination Method.
• A century later, Scarlet Rainbow Immortal Lord and his friend Darkstar Immortal Lord arrive at Fierce Bird Mountain. Scarlet Rainbow hopes to use a Fire-Element Source Land to break through to the Mid Dharma Body Stage; Darkstar also sees the trip as a way to avoid the dangerous Dongning Heavenly Venerable.
• Chen has spent the intervening years cultivating the Great Expansion Divination Method. Using precious resources worth fifty cubic measures of Essence Crystals raises it only one layer, from the fourteenth to the fifteenth, underscoring the immense cost of developing a divine ability.
• Scarlet Rainbow and Darkstar repeatedly try to reach the Fire-Element Source Land but are driven back by Fierce Bird Mountain’s increasingly alert fierce birds.
• From Pagoda-Bearing Peak, Chen watches their attempts. His new formation and the Nine Immortals’ command of the fierce-bird clans make the mountain’s defenses much stronger. He intends to keep outsiders away from the twenty-five Source Lands until he is powerful enough to safely reveal that he controls them.
• The chapter ends abruptly when Chen suddenly reacts to something and vanishes before giving the Nine Immortals further instructions.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Jichuan grows more powerful and confident, but remains cautious: he recognizes the gap between his abilities and those of ancient high-ranking immortals. He is also pragmatic about protecting the valuable mountain he now controls.
• Scarlet Rainbow Immortal Lord is ambitious but increasingly desperate. Having spent most of his wealth on formations, he sees the Fire-Element Source Land as a crucial chance to advance.
• Darkstar Immortal Lord accompanies his close friend both to protect him and to escape Dongning Heavenly Venerable. He understands the risk of Scarlet Rainbow’s failed investment but can offer little comfort.
• Chen and the Nine Immortals work together to repel the intruders, while Scarlet Rainbow and Darkstar persistently test the mountain’s defenses.

Significant themes

• Power requires time and resources: Advancement, especially the cultivation of divine abilities, demands enormous effort and wealth.
• Ambition under pressure: Fear of stronger enemies and frustration with stalled progress drive the Immortal Lords to take risks.
• Strength and security: Chen’s valuable territory brings opportunity but also danger; he must conceal his control until he can defend it openly.
• Patience and preparation: Chen invests in cultivation, formations, and his allies’ coordination rather than rushing to claim public authority.

Plot points and events

• After advancing his Great Expansion Divination Method, Chen Jichuan finally discovers that Wang Yan is alive and in the Ninth Heaven. He rushes toward her, regretting that he did not try this divination sooner.
• Near the Yu Ming Immortal Court, Wang Yan mistakes Chen for an enemy and strikes him twice with her sword. The blows badly injure him and gravely damage his Nine-Treasure Glazed Pagoda.
• Chen recognizes Wang Yan and calls out to her. At first she is uncertain, but his detailed memories of their life together in the Qinling World convince her. The two embrace after more than forty-eight thousand years apart.
• Wang Yan worries about Chen’s injuries, but he reassures her that his unusual cultivation method gives him a long lifespan, despite the years of recovery he will need.
• They travel together to Fierce Bird Mountain, sharing the stories of their lives since their separation. There, Wang Yan sees Chen’s simple thatched home and is moved by its resemblance to the places they once made together.
• Chen explains why he had asked the Yu Ming Immortal Court for help against the mysterious swordswoman: he had not known that the swordswoman was Wang Yan. Wang Yan laughs at the misunderstanding and recalls that she had wounded several of the court’s Transcendent Immortals while evading them.
• The chapter ends with Chen asking Wang Yan to tell him everything she has endured. She agrees and begins her account.

Character developments

• Chen Jichuan shifts from anxious searching to overwhelming relief and tenderness. Though severely injured, he sees the reunion as far more important than the cost and is eager to hear about Wang Yan’s life.
• Wang Yan, now the formidable Dongning Heavenly Venerable, is revealed as both a ruthless fighter and a deeply loving wife. Once she recognizes Chen, her cold composure gives way to tears, affection, and concern for his health.
• Their reunion restores an intimate bond that has endured decades of millennia, while revealing how much both have changed since their earlier life together.

Significant themes

• Enduring love and reunion: Their affection survives separation, transformation, and enormous spans of time.
• Fate, timing, and regret: Chen’s breakthrough finally reveals Wang Yan’s location, prompting him to wonder whether an earlier attempt might have reunited them sooner.
• The cost of power: Wang Yan’s rise to Heavenly Venerable status involved years of conflict and hardship, while Chen’s strength and unusual longevity have their own limits.
• Misunderstanding and reconciliation: Wang Yan’s attacks and Chen’s appeal to her enemies stem from not recognizing one another; once the truth is clear, the conflict becomes an affectionate, humorous story.

Character interactions

• Chen recounts intimate memories to prove his identity, and Wang Yan recognizes the love and shared history in his words.
• Wang Yan apologizes indirectly for injuring Chen and checks his condition; Chen comforts her and downplays his suffering.
• The couple tease one another over the mistaken conflict with the Yu Ming Immortal Court, then turn toward a more serious exchange as Chen asks to hear both the good and painful parts of Wang Yan’s past.

Key plot points

• Wang Yan recounts her rise from a newly ascended Second-Rank True Person in the powerful Nine Mountains world. Through relentless adventuring, she inherited the legacy of Xingyun Fairy and advanced to Transcendent Immortal.
• After entering the Eastern Tranquility Realm, Wang Yan found Xingyun Fairy’s cave abode and gained two exceptional treasures: the Nebula Stele, which contains the Seven Emotions Sword, and the Sword-Trial Stone, which houses the Golden Wind Spring and aids sword cultivation and breakthroughs.
• The Three Immortal Courts pursued Wang Yan to seize these treasures and blocked her from leaving the realm. She endured the pressure until she became a Heavenly Venerable, then fought her way out and struck back at the courts.
• Reunited with Chen Jichuan, Wang Yan resolves to destroy the Three Immortal Courts with him once they are ready. For now, they stay together while Chen recovers from severe injuries.
• Over two hundred years, Chen repeatedly uses his Enlightenment ability to help Wang Yan unlock the potential of her long cultivation. She rises to the Fifth Layer of Heavenly Venerable and masters the tenth form—the second realm—of the Seven Emotions Sword. She now hopes to reach the Fifth Rank and transcend life and death.

Character developments and relationships

• Wang Yan emerges as a hardened, ambitious survivor: patient under persecution, fearless in battle, and determined to turn the Three Immortal Courts into a proving ground. Her reunion with Chen also gives her new confidence that true transcendence may be possible.
• Chen Jichuan learns the full history behind Wang Yan’s treasures and her conflict with the courts. He admires her endurance and commits to fighting alongside her, while his Enlightenment becomes the catalyst for her rapid progress.
• Xingyun Fairy, though long dead, shapes Wang Yan’s life through her legacy. Wang Yan’s gratitude toward her highlights how the predecessor’s gifts made both her survival and reunion with Chen possible.
• After more than forty thousand years apart, the spouses cherish their reunion, spending two centuries together before turning their attention back to their ambitions.

Significant themes

• Perseverance and accumulated effort: Wang Yan’s rise comes through decades of danger and hardship; Chen’s Enlightenment unlocks, rather than replaces, the foundations she built over millennia.
• Legacy and opportunity: Xingyun Fairy’s inheritance transforms Wang Yan’s prospects, while the treasures’ origins connect her story to the mysterious Immortal Gate.
• Love, separation, and mortality: Wang Yan’s desire to transcend life and death is driven partly by the hope that she and Chen will never again be separated permanently.
• Hope against overwhelming odds: Wang Yan’s breakthrough renews the possibility of reaching the Fifth Rank, a feat no Heavenly Venerable in Brightwing Realm’s history has achieved.

Plot points and events

• After 200 years of quiet, four Immortal Venerables and ten Heavenly Venerables gather at Great Mo Ridge to locate Dongning Heavenly Venerable, whose actions had troubled the Ninth Heaven.
• Lunar Yin Immortal Venerable combines everyone’s power to divine her location. A jade mirror reveals Dongning and her husband on Fierce Bird Mountain.
• The group arrives at the mountain, where they encounter Scarlet Rainbow Immortal Lord. He explains that he has repeatedly failed to reach the Fire-Element Source Land and realizes the hidden couple must have been obstructing him.
• Golden Radiance Immortal Venerable charges into the mountain. Fierce birds and a powerful formation divide the group, but they eventually reach Pagoda-Bearing Peak.
• There they meet Chen Jichuan (White Tiger Immortal) and Wang Yan (Dongning). Chen explains that they were separated, failed to recognize each other when they first met again, and reunited only 200 years ago.
• Yu Ming accepts the explanation and apologizes to Wang Yan for pursuing her at Chen’s request. Wang Yan holds no grudge, and the former conflict becomes friendly conversation.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Jichuan and Wang Yan are revealed as husband and wife, living together in seclusion while maintaining their ambitions. Their reunion has resolved the conflict that drew the Heavenly Courts to them.
• Immortal Venerable Yu Ming handles the misunderstanding diplomatically. He is curious about the couple and impressed by Chen’s formation, and hopes to build a relationship with them.
• Celestial Venerable Shan Hua and Heavenly Venerable Yu Cheng are bewildered by Chen’s request to target his own wife, but accept the explanation once the couple clarifies matters.
• Golden Radiance Immortal Venerable remains aggressive and impatient, choosing to enter the mountain by force rather than dwell on speculation.
• Scarlet Rainbow Immortal Lord, badly injured after repeated attempts to enter the mountain, learns that the couple’s interference—not his own failure alone—kept him out.

Significant themes

• Misunderstanding and reconciliation: A political mission to hunt Dongning becomes awkward once the pursuer and target are revealed to be a married couple.
• Power and restraint: The assembled Immortal Venerables and Heavenly Venerables can overcome the mountain’s defenses, but the couple’s formation and fierce birds delay them.
• Alliance-building: Yu Ming turns an embarrassing mix-up into an opportunity for friendship, recognizing the couple’s influence and potential value.
• Seclusion amid wider conflict: While the broader realms return to political maneuvering, Chen and Wang have spent centuries focused on their private life together.

Plot points and events

• Wang Yan, eager to test her strength after two centuries of rapid cultivation, enters the formation to fight Myriad Shadows Heavenly Venerable.
• Using the Seven Emotions Sword, a divine ability, she breaks through his confusing illusions and steadily suppresses him. Her power astonishes the observers when they realize she has reached the fifth layer of Heavenly Venerable, despite having been only at the first layer two hundred years earlier.
• Immortal Venerable Yu Ming recognizes that Wang Yan may eventually transcend. He worries this could change Chen Jichuan’s willingness to sell the sacred artifacts the Yu Ming Immortal Court needs.
• In conversation, Chen Jichuan asks about the Immortal Gate. Yu Ming reveals it descended from the Upper Realm and forged the Ninth Heaven when it struck the Brightwing Realm. It was once the inheritance treasure of Yuxing Sea, an immortal power destroyed in an Upper Realm conflict.
• The damaged Immortal Gate now leaks fragments of Yuxing Sea’s divine-ability inheritance. It also contains trials: transcendent immortals need sacred and divine artifacts to forge a World-Crossing Treasure Raft and break through the Gate to ascend.
• Yu Ming explains that even Immortal Venerable Bixia, after nearly a million years of effort, remains trapped. Chen Jichuan concludes that securing sacred artifacts is essential, though other unknown requirements may exist.

Character developments

• Wang Yan demonstrates how dramatically her cultivation and combat skill have advanced; she is now a serious candidate for future transcendence.
• Chen Jichuan gains crucial knowledge about the Immortal Gate and quietly assesses how to meet its requirements, while concealing his understanding of its trials.
• Immortal Venerable Yu Ming shifts from curiosity and concern to candid cooperation, recognizing that pressuring the couple would be unwise. He reveals what he knows about the Gate’s history and rules.

Themes

• Power and unexpected growth: Wang Yan’s rapid progress overturns the assumptions of other venerables.
• Cooperation over conflict: Yu Ming chooses to preserve a workable relationship rather than provoke Chen Jichuan and Wang Yan.
• Opportunity and entrapment: The Immortal Gate offers divine inheritances but also blocks ascension and imposes a difficult trial.
• Uncertainty and perseverance: Even ancient immortals do not fully understand the Gate’s rules, so progress requires acting with incomplete knowledge.

Character interactions

• Wang Yan asks Chen Jichuan’s permission to fight; he encourages her, and Yu Ming watches with keen interest.
• Yu Ming and the other observers are stunned by Wang Yan’s victory and cultivation level.
• Yu Ming tests the waters about Wang Yan’s future and the couple’s sacred artifacts, then openly shares the Immortal Gate’s history when Chen Jichuan asks.

Key plot points and events

• During the battle at Fierce Bird Mountain, Immortal Venerable Yu Ming offers Chen Jichuan a stockpile of immortal-treasure materials and two divine abilities—the Wishful Azure Spirit Great Hand Seal and the Eight-Dragon Heaven-Locking Sword Formation. He asks Chen and Wang Yan to help Yu Ming’s court if they achieve Transcendence.
• Moved by Yu Ming’s humility and sincerity, Chen accepts the gifts and promises they will remember his generosity.
• Wang Yan continues fighting Myriad Shadows Heavenly Venerable within the mountain’s formation. Her swordsmanship overwhelms him, though Golden Radiance Immortal Venerable eventually intervenes before she can seriously cripple him.
• After three days, Golden Radiance’s group and the other rival forces withdraw. Fierce Bird Mountain’s formation and endless waves of fierce birds make the campaign costly and unproductive.
• Once the visitors leave, Chen invites Scarlet Rainbow Immortal Lord into the mountain to cultivate in its Fire-Element Source Land. Yu Ming sends Yu Cheng to explain the new alliance to the other Immortal Venerables.
• Outside, the other courts learn that Yu Ming has reconciled with Chen and become his close friend. Scarlet Rainbow, who has waited outside the mountain for two hundred years, is delighted to be invited in at last.

Character developments

• Yu Ming reveals how deeply he longs for Transcendence: despite his rank and authority, he humbles himself and gives up precious resources to secure a chance of future help. His openness earns Chen’s respect and trust.
• Wang Yan demonstrates a major increase in strength, now capable of dominating an experienced Heavenly Venerable. Chen is proud of her, but worries about preparing her for the Upper Realm because he cannot ascend alongside her.
• Chen Jichuan begins planning which arts to teach Wang Yan. He prioritizes abilities that will aid her survival and complement her Seven Emotions Sword, including protective and escape techniques.
• Yu Cheng calmly carries out his senior brother’s instructions, while Scarlet Rainbow’s disappointment turns to joy when he is finally welcomed inside.

Significant themes

• Hope and desperation: Yu Ming’s long pursuit of Transcendence shows how even the powerful cling to hope after ages of uncertainty.
• Trust and reciprocity: Yu Ming’s frank generosity turns former distance into friendship, grounded in a promise of mutual aid.
• Power and preparation: Wang Yan’s growth offers immediate strength, while Chen’s planning reflects the need to prepare for dangers beyond the present battle.
• The limits of force: The rival courts can escape the mountain, but its formation and tireless creatures make conquest impractical.

Character interactions

• Yu Ming bows to Chen and offers treasures and divine abilities; Chen accepts and promises future assistance.
• Chen and the others watch Wang Yan’s duel, with Yu Ming and the other experts praising her skill.
• Golden Radiance rescues Myriad Shadows and leads his allies out, prompting the other courts to withdraw as well.
• Chen, Wang Yan, and Yu Ming’s group share tea after the battle. Yu Ming sends Yu Cheng to explain the reconciliation, and Chen arranges for Yu Cheng to bring Scarlet Rainbow inside.

Key plot points and events

• Immortal Venerable Yu Ming refuses to join the three Immortal Courts against Wang Yan and Chen Jichuan, instead openly backing them. The coalition withdraws from Fierce Bird Mountain, avoiding a larger conflict.
• Yu Ming warns Wang Yan not to underestimate veteran Immortal Venerables Golden Radiance and Lunar Yin, whose long experience may conceal formidable abilities.
• Before leaving, Yu Ming gives Chen Jichuan two divine-ability steles and thirty-three rare treasure-making materials. Chen recognizes the gift as a major gamble on their future.
• Wang Yan declines to study the two offensive divine abilities, choosing to focus on the Seven Emotions Sword and improve her escape techniques. Chen recommends cultivating speed and concealment arts to ensure she can flee danger.
• News of the confrontation spreads through the Ninth Heaven. Some observers believe Wang Yan has made herself vulnerable by settling at Fierce Bird Mountain and taking Chen, an ordinary Transcendent Immortal, as her Dao companion.
• While recovering from severe injuries, Chen cannot cultivate or use Enlightenment, so he rests and tends the mountain. Over forty years, he studies treasure-making and designs a lifebound treasure for Wang Yan: the Seven Emotions and Six Desires Diagram. It will aid her cultivation and understanding while also allowing her to hide or escape danger.

Character development and interactions

• Yu Ming commits decisively to Chen and Wang Yan, wagering his resources and political standing on their potential. Chen and Wang Yan both recognize and appreciate the scale of his trust.
• Wang Yan shows clear-eyed discipline about her limits, refusing to divide her attention among too many offensive arts. She accepts the need to develop survival skills and remains confident in her and Chen’s future.
• Chen Jichuan shifts from combat and cultivation to recovery, reflection, and practical support for his wife. He designs a treasure focused on her growth and safety rather than direct combat.
• The married couple’s affection and playful intimacy come through as Wang Yan teases Chen about his self-portrait in the diagram, suggesting she paint his image herself.

Significant themes

• Trust and chosen alliances: Yu Ming’s support changes the balance of power and reflects his willingness to stake everything on those he believes can transcend.
• Prudence and survival: Wang Yan prioritizes escape and concealment over accumulating more offensive powers; Chen likewise designs a treasure to protect rather than provoke.
• The risks of attachment: Outsiders see Wang Yan’s home and marriage as vulnerabilities, while the chapter presents them as sources of loyalty, purpose, and mutual strength.
• Patience and devotion: Chen’s long recovery and forty years of work on Wang Yan’s treasure show care expressed through sustained, practical effort.

Key plot points and events

• Sima Hanchuang breaks through to the Four-Pattern Upper Immortal, Outer Landscape Realm, but worries that his age and lack of resources will limit his progress. He receives two talisman edicts from his master, Chen Jichuan: one grants access to the Ninth Heaven, and the other summons him to Fierce Bird Mountain after he and six fellow disciples spend sixty years gathering the emotions and desires of mortals.
• At Fierce Bird Mountain, the disciples learn that Chen Jichuan and Wang Yan—once enemies—are now Dao companions. Their fears that Chen may be trapped or mistreated are heightened by the mountain’s intimidating immortals, but the couple warmly welcome them.
• The disciples’ collected mortal thoughts provide crucial materials for Wang Yan’s Seven Emotions and Six Desires Diagram, which she spends three thousand years refining. Chen supports her and guides the disciples.
• Over those millennia, Fierce Bird Mountain grows into a community of twenty-three Transcendent Immortals, though several members of Chen’s former circle die of old age.
• Once the diagram is complete, Chen adds three hundred Saint Marks drawn from eighty-four destroyed Sacred Artifacts. Wang Yan takes it to the Immortal Gate in hopes of opening it, but cannot move it. She has advanced to the Heavenly Venerable Ninth Heaven, yet still lacks the strength—or some unknown requirement.

Character developments

• Sima Hanchuang remains ambitious and disciplined, driven by his late master’s predicament and by the need to overcome the limits facing Transcendent Immortals.
• Chen Jichuan has shifted from recruiting disciples partly for practical advantage to genuinely caring for and guiding them. He acknowledges that self-interest and affection coexist.
• Wang Yan devotes millennia to creating a powerful lifebound artifact and reaches the Ninth Heaven, but her first attempt at the Immortal Gate ends in failure.
• The disciples show strong loyalty, even suspecting that Chen may be in danger at Fierce Bird Mountain. Their devotion delights him.

Significant themes

• The difficulty of cultivation: Advancement depends on rare resources, opportunities, and time, especially for those without powerful backing.
• Loyalty and reciprocal care: Chen’s disciples serve him faithfully, while he responds with sincere guidance and support.
• Time, mortality, and loss: Even Transcendent Immortals die; witnessing old companions pass away makes Chen cherish those around him.
• Ambition tempered by uncertainty: Great effort and powerful preparation do not guarantee success, as Wang Yan’s failed attempt shows.

Character interactions

• Sima Hanchuang and his fellow disciples arrive wary of Wang Yan, but Chen and Wang Yan joke about their mistaken fears after the disciples are led away to explore the mountain.
• Chen and Wang Yan work together on the artifact: the disciples gather mortal thoughts, Chen provides guidance and materials, and Wang Yan undertakes the long refinement.
• After Wang Yan’s failure at the Immortal Gate, Chen comforts her and points to Immortal Venerable Yu Ming’s much longer struggle as a reminder that progress may take a very long time.

Key plot points and events

• Chen Jichuan decides to speed up his search for Saint Marks, but after selling and shattering most of his Sacred Artifacts, he has only seven left. He takes his wife, Wang Yan, to explore the Immortal Gate Realm.
• The Summoning Cottage has grown into a major power, controlling the Vaglion Continent, but its pool of Legendary Mages has declined as fewer people join after centuries without anyone becoming an Immortal.
• Wang Yan experiences the Immortal Gate Realm’s harsh suppression of Immortal Dao cultivators firsthand. She and Chen review records of the Realm’s dangerous competition for Sacred Artifacts.
• Chen explains his plan to secure resource-rich lands and trade their yields for Sacred Artifacts, while using those resources to strengthen the Summoning Cottage and support further searches.
• To help manage this expansion, Chen identifies a promising Legendary Mage who could become an Immortal and guard the organization in his absence.
• Months later, Belut—an able spatial-magic specialist and longtime Summoning Cottage member—becomes its second homegrown Immortal since Windwalker Law King. Chen had guided him at crucial points in his career.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Jichuan is pragmatic and methodical: he plans to build the Cottage’s power through resource control and carefully cultivates promising members, often intervening at decisive moments. He also reminds Wang Yan that they must remain humble and aware of fate.
• Wang Yan visits the Immortal Gate Realm for the first time, observes its restrictions and dangers, and reflects on how even powerful beings remain subject to uncertain fate. She supports Chen’s plans while considering her own cultivation.
• Belut moves from a struggling Mage to a Legendary and then an Immortal, largely through Chen’s timely guidance. Grateful and overwhelmed, he repeatedly thanks and bows to his dean; Chen reassures him and encourages him to relax.
• The couple’s discussion of the Realm, its resources, and its risks shows their trust and shared approach to long-term cultivation and organizational strategy.

Significant themes

• Resource and institutional strategy: Power depends not only on personal strength but also on controlling valuable places, cultivating talent, and creating sustainable systems.
• Mentorship and opportunity: Chen’s discreet guidance changes the futures of people he judges worthy, while the Summoning Cottage provides a structure in which they can advance.
• Fate and uncertainty: Wang Yan recognizes how fragile and consequential people’s destinies are; Chen responds that this calls for humility and continued effort.
• The cost of power: Sacred Artifacts are scarce and coveted, making violence and death common, while the Immortal Gate Realm itself strips Immortal Dao cultivators of much of their strength.

Key plot points and events

• In Benag’s Mage Tower, Chen Jichuan tells Belut that the Summoning Cottage needs to expand beyond Vaglion and secure new sources of income, particularly valuable magical resources and Sacred Artifacts.
• Chen marks several targets on a map, including Moyinduo River and Virtual Arena. Belut warns that taking Virtual Arena would provoke the powerful Coastal Alliance, but Chen accepts the prospect of war.
• The chapter shifts to Moyinduo River, where Dawn Era’s remaining stronghold, Dawn Island, is defended by Hogg, its sole Extreme Legendary. Hogg regrets modeling his magic on the Tyrant: his scattered spells now obstruct his chance of reaching the Immortal Realm, and he blames Benag for his wasted potential.
• Chen arrives at Moyinduo River with Belut and twenty-four summoned Ancestors. Declaring that a new Immortal Realm expert has joined the Summoning Cottage, he announces that he will claim four islands and gives their occupants fifteen minutes to leave.
• Two weaker organizations surrender their islands, presenting blueprints and seeking Chen’s favor. Dawn Era and the Holy Covenant Church still hold the other two.
• Chen reveals the Grand Mirror Technique, duplicating all twenty-four Ancestors into forty-eight forces. The chapter ends as the mirror images charge toward the remaining islands.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Jichuan shifts from long seclusion to bold expansion, openly using his reputation and overwhelming power to claim territory. His plans extend beyond Moyinduo River, even to conflict with the Coastal Alliance.
• Belut acts as Chen’s adviser, assessing the risks and identifying the island owners. Though cautious about provoking the Coastal Alliance, he follows Chen’s lead.
• Hogg is introduced as a gifted but embittered mage. His youthful admiration for the Tyrant shaped his spell choices; now he resents Chen for the career path he chose and panics when Chen actually appears.
• The weaker island holders choose pragmatic submission, while the stronger organizations face Chen’s challenge.

Significant themes

• Power and reputation: Chen’s legendary standing is enough to make some opponents surrender without a fight.
• Ambition and strategic expansion: The Summoning Cottage seeks resources and territory to sustain future growth.
• Regret and the cost of choices: Hogg’s refusal to abandon his early approach has narrowed his path to immortality.
• Fear, pragmatism, and submission: Faced with overwhelming force, weaker groups prioritize survival and political favor over resistance.

Chapter Summary

Key plot points and events

• Chen Jichuan, the Tyrant, overwhelms Dawn Island and Holy Covenant Island by creating 120 Ancestor mirror images with repeated casts of the Grand Mirror Technique. Their defenses collapse, and the four islands previously controlled by Dawn Era and the Holy Covenant Church fall to the Summoning Cottage.
• Hogg’s Undead Legion and its mirror copies are swiftly destroyed. Hogg loses hope and is killed by the attackers.
• News of the assault spreads, reviving the continent’s fear of the Tyrant. Dawn Era’s leaders, the Starshine King and Dawn Scholar, recognize that his power has grown and decide they cannot risk confronting him. The Holy Covenant Church also stays silent; neither faction dares retaliate.
• The Summoning Cottage consolidates its hold over the Moyinduo River, then expands again. Two years later, Chen and Belut arrive at the valuable Elemental Pasture. Its four Immortal dark-elf elders surrender the site without a fight.
• After another two years, Chen strikes the Virtual Arena, also called the Eight-Direction or Gods-and-Devils Arena. He arrives with Belut, 24 Ancestors, and a million-strong Undead Legion—just as the arena’s management is running a betting pool about his next target.
• The arena’s spectators revel in the unexpected spectacle, while the Coastal Alliance’s ten Immortal leaders assemble virtually and prepare to defend their prized stronghold. Unlike the earlier targets, they believe their legions, formations, and numbers can withstand Chen.

Character developments

• Chen Jichuan reasserts his reputation as an overwhelming force, but his repeated expansions show that his ambitions extend beyond reclaiming territory: he is methodically targeting strategic sites.
• The Starshine King and Dawn Scholar have shifted from anger and plans for recovery to wary resignation. Their past defeat has taught them not to challenge Chen directly.
• The Dark Elf elders demonstrate pragmatic caution, choosing surrender over a potentially disastrous battle.
• The Coastal Alliance’s leaders are confident and defiant, setting them apart from the groups that yielded or stayed silent. Their confidence sets up the chapter’s next major confrontation.
• Hogg is crushed both militarily and psychologically, abandoning resistance once his forces are destroyed.

Character interactions

• Chen’s attacks leave Dawn Era and the Holy Covenant Church too intimidated to respond; their leaders discuss his motives but ultimately accept their losses.
• The Dark Elf elders meet Chen’s arrival with an immediate, unanimous decision to hand over the Elemental Pasture.
• At the Virtual Arena, spectators mock the betting operation and cheer for the attack, while the Coastal Alliance’s leaders coordinate their defense and reassure one another that the arena can hold.

Significant themes

• Overwhelming power and fear: Chen’s reputation alone shapes how other organizations respond, often before fighting begins.
• Pragmatism versus pride: Weaker factions surrender or retreat, while the powerful Coastal Alliance chooses to resist.
• Escalating ambition: Chen’s successive campaigns reveal a broader push to control strategically valuable locations.
• Spectacle and irony: The arena turns even an invasion into entertainment and gambling—until the spectacle lands on its own doorstep.

Chapter Summary: “War”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Chen Jichuan and Belut infiltrate the isolated Virtual Arena island, bypassing the Coastal Alliance’s chaotic defensive formations.
• Chen summons twenty-four Ancestors and an initial million-strong Undead Legion, seizing the island’s outskirts before the Coastal Alliance can respond.
• The Coastal Alliance activates its Anti-Magic Formations and withdraws its forces into the central twenty-thousand-li defensive zone, where fortresses, weapons, and terrain give them a major advantage.
• Chen publicly demands that the Coastal Alliance surrender the Virtual Arena, claiming it originally belonged to Vaglion. He gives three warnings, backed by the synchronized stomping of his undead army.
• Rather than immediately attack, the Coastal Alliance’s leader, Usenno, chooses to delay and wait for reinforcements. Meanwhile, Chen continuously summons more undead, allowing them to destroy Mage Towers and defensive formations throughout the outskirts.
• Reinforcements pour in: elite legions, Immortals, Legendaries, and dimensional Ancestors. The arena broadcasts the confrontation, attracting enormous audiences and turning the invasion into a major public spectacle.
• Chen eventually orders the Undead Legion to attack. The undead surge against the Coastal Alliance’s heavily fortified defensive line in a massive battle involving millions of soldiers.
• The war lasts three days and three nights. Although the undead suffer enormous losses, the Coastal Alliance’s Black Armor warriors are steadily destroyed, with entire legions wiped out.
• By the evening of the third day, the defenders’ physical and psychological endurance is failing, while the undead remain tireless and continue pressing the assault.

Character Developments

• Chen Jichuan demonstrates overwhelming confidence and strategic patience. Rather than resorting immediately to indiscriminate destruction or theft, he frames the invasion as a legitimate territorial claim, preserving his reputation and avoiding giving other powers a reason to unite against him.
• He also reveals his willingness to wage a prolonged conventional war when the Anti-Magic Formation neutralizes his most feared advantage, Mirror Magic.
• Belut, newly advanced to the Immortal Realm, acts cautiously and provides valuable information about the Virtual Arena and its Anti-Magic Formation. The scale of Chen’s forces leaves him deeply shaken, but he remains alert and useful.
• Usenno, the Dragonblood Warrior and one of the Coastal Alliance’s ten Immortals, initially appears confident and disciplined. However, watching the outskirts of the arena being destroyed frustrates him, forcing him to suppress his anger and continue waiting for reinforcements.
• The Black Armor warriors gradually lose their morale. Repeated announcements of destroyed legions and the undead’s endless attacks erode their confidence and expose the limits of ordinary soldiers facing an inexhaustible enemy.

Significant Themes

• Overwhelming force versus strategic defense: Chen’s immense summoning ability clashes with the Coastal Alliance’s fortified position, Anti-Magic Formation, weapons, and organized legions.
• Attrition and endurance: The battle emphasizes the contrast between tireless undead and living soldiers who suffer exhaustion, fear, and psychological collapse.
• War as spectacle and commerce: The Coastal Alliance broadcasts the conflict through the Virtual Arena, attracting unprecedented audiences and encouraging betting. Even amid mass death, the battle becomes entertainment and business.
• Legitimacy versus conquest: Chen deliberately presents his attack as the recovery of territory stolen from Vaglion rather than simple plunder, showing his preference for operating within recognizable political rules.
• The human cost of war: The chapter vividly depicts slaughter, crushed bodies, ruined fortresses, and the emotional toll on living soldiers, contrasting spectators’ excitement with the battlefield’s brutality.

Character Interactions

• Belut warns Chen about the Anti-Magic Formation, while Chen remains confident that a direct military confrontation can still succeed.
• Chen confronts Usenno publicly, demanding surrender and threatening the Coastal Alliance if it refuses.
• Usenno rejects Chen’s ultimatum and chooses a defensive strategy, creating a tense standoff between the two leaders.
• Chen’s forces and the Coastal Alliance’s armies interact through a prolonged clash of tactics: undead waves assault fortified positions while the defenders rely on weapons, formations, and reinforcements.
• The spectators’ reactions add another layer to the conflict: many glorify the spectacle, demand betting, or admire the scale of the war, while others become disturbed and silent before its cruelty.

Key plot points and events

• After three days of battle, news that multiple Coastal Alliance legions have been wiped out triggers a rout. Soldiers flee or surrender, and the Alliance’s forces collapse.
• Keen returns from the Undead Realm, where he failed to persuade its rulers to stop their Ancestors from aiding Benag. He arrives too late: the Alliance has lost.
• Benag—Chen Jichuan—claims the Virtual Arena for the Summoning Cottage. He demands 520 Sacred Artifacts, the island’s construction plans, and control of its Mage Towers and formations in exchange for releasing the captives.
• The Coastal Alliance pays the next day. Chen accepts the ransom and lets its sixteen million troops withdraw. The Arena formally changes hands six days after the battle began.
• Chen gains 520 Sacred Artifacts containing 676 Saint Marks, bringing him closer to his goal of collecting a thousand for the Seven Emotions and Six Desires Diagram.
• After the armies leave, Chen uses the Upper Sacred Artifact Death Heaven and the Forbidden Curse Impure World Reincarnation to gather the fallen soldiers’ souls and give them a place to live again.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Jichuan/Benag emerges as an overwhelming military power, able to defeat the Coastal Alliance without personally leading its armies. He is confident and uncompromising in victory, but also shows compassion by providing the dead with a new existence.
• Usenno accepts the defeat with weary resignation. He is not troubled by the scale of deaths so much as by Benag’s terrifying power and the Alliance’s inability to challenge him.
• Keen returns frustrated by his failed diplomatic mission and reacts angrily to Chen’s demands, but cannot change the outcome.
• Belut reflects on how leaders in a supernatural world treat ordinary soldiers as expendable. Chen agrees that war is merciless, while demonstrating a more humane response toward the dead.
• The Alliance’s Legendary and Immortal Realm fighters yield without intervening, unwilling to risk their own lives against Benag and the undead.

Significant themes

• Fear and power: The battle’s outcome is driven as much by Benag’s fearsome reputation as by military strength; even elite fighters hesitate to oppose him.
• The expendability of ordinary lives: Powerful leaders risk millions of soldiers to preserve their own interests, while the deaths barely register to them.
• Victory and its costs: The Alliance loses the Arena, suffers heavy casualties, and cedes strategic ground elsewhere after diverting its forces.
• Mercy amid brutality: Chen’s treatment of the captives is transactional, but his effort to restore the dead offers a measure of dignity and choice to those sacrificed in the war.

Summary

• Key events: The narrator announces a goal of reaching over 1,000 monthly votes, noting that March’s performance provides a reference point. They outline an upcoming writing and update schedule: approximately 4,000 words per day throughout April, with additional updates near the end of the month, totaling about 20,000 words. In May, the update pace is planned to increase to 8,000 words per day.
• Character development: No fictional characters or narrative development appear; the speaker presents themselves as an author addressing readers.
• Themes: The passage emphasizes reader engagement, steady productivity, ambitious output goals, and anticipation of increased future updates.
• Character interactions: There are no story-based interactions. The main interaction is between the author and readers, as the author asks for monthly votes and communicates future update plans.

• Aftermath of the Virtual Arena battle: Two years pass without the Tyrant making another move. The Summoning Cottage focuses on securing its four strategic sites, including the lucrative Virtual Arena. Across the Divine Throne Continent and Immortal Gate Realm, organizations study Chen Jichuan’s battles, search for his weaknesses, and investigate his immense magic power and the loyalty of his Undead forces. Yet his reputation makes direct opposition seem futile.
• The Immortal Gate remains closed: Immortal Venerable Yu Ming visits Chen Jichuan and Wang Yan, chiefly curious about Chen’s haul of 520 Sacred Artifacts. Chen explains that even after gathering 1,000 Saint Marks, he still could not open the Immortal Gate. Yu Ming is disappointed but takes some comfort in learning that the threshold is far beyond his own current resources. Wang Yan reflects on the repeated failures and uncertainty that make the pursuit of immortality so painful.
• Chen and Wang Yan focus on cultivation: With the Summoning Cottage’s income ensuring a steady supply of resources, Chen and Wang Yan decide to prioritize cultivation. Wang Yan takes Chen to spar with powerful cultivators and explore treasured lands, while guiding him through combat and Dao study. Their combined resources, experience, and access to rare training grounds help Chen progress rapidly.
• Chen’s advancement and new abilities: In 2,480 years, Chen advances from the beginning of the Outer Landscape Realm to its peak. Rather than immediately breaking through, he cycles through earlier stages again, uses Enlightenment and Deduction, and develops three divine abilities—including the Origin-Returning Heaven-Hiding Method, which conceals his aura and shields his karma and heavenly secrets. He then opens the Essence-Source Method and reaches the Dharma Body Realm, becoming a Seven-Pattern High Immortal. He is 27,729 years old; Wang Yan is 55,455.
• Their life together: Over the next forty thousand years, the couple cultivate, travel, spar, and enjoy everyday experiences together. They sometimes live as ordinary married people in the mortal world, run a business, make friends, and seek out good food. Their relationship remains affectionate and comfortable, with occasional bickering and reconciliation.
  Character development: Chen shifts from recovery and the aftermath of his victories toward sustained cultivation, showing patience by strengthening his abilities before advancing. Wang Yan, now the stronger partner and Chen’s mentor, takes pleasure in supporting him. Yu Ming’s encounter with Chen’s resources and failed breakthrough tempers his hopes about the Immortal Gate.
  Themes: The chapter emphasizes how daunting and uncertain the path to immortality is, and how progress depends on resources, guidance, companionship, and perseverance. It also contrasts Chen’s frightening public reputation with the warmth and ordinary pleasures of his private life with Wang Yan.

Chapter Summary: Heart Lamp

Key Plot Points and Events

• After 40,000 years together, Chen Jichuan and Wang Yan return to Fierce Bird Mountain.
• Wang Yan has reached the Ninth Heaven of the Fourth Rank and dramatically increased her strength. She now possesses twelve abilities, including four at the Third Realm and five at the Second Realm, making her powerful enough to overwhelm Fourth-Rank Upper Immortals and potentially escape Fifth-Rank opponents.
• Chen Jichuan believes Wang Yan must leave the Brightwing Realm and seek advancement in the Upper Realm. Although she still has roughly 40,000 years of lifespan remaining, she has been stuck at the peak of the Fourth Rank for nearly that long.
• Her cultivation depends on mastering the Seven Emotions. She has advanced significantly in Joyful Intent and Longing Intent, but the remaining emotions have not fully broken through. Chen fears that remaining in the peaceful Brightwing Realm will leave her permanently stagnant.
• Before their separation, Chen gives Wang Yan a special ability called the Heart Lamp, which allows them to sense each other’s locations across worlds and distances.
• As they say goodbye, Wang Yan unexpectedly breaks through in Sorrowful Intent, bringing her closer to the Fifth Rank and demonstrating that separation may provide the emotional pressure needed for further advancement.
• The narrative then shifts to the Immortal Gate Realm, 40,000 years later. Chen Jichuan is known as the terrifying “Tyrant,” despite having acted publicly only twice in that period.
• His disciple Belut, now an immortal known as the “Little Calamity Star,” visits the Dawn Era on Chen’s behalf and demands five Sacred Artifacts for the Tyrant’s experiments.
• The Starshine King, intimidated by Chen’s reputation, obediently provides the artifacts. In return, Belut offers access to a Legendary Potion that may help five Peak Archmages advance to the Legendary Realm.
• The leaders of the Dawn Era worry that Chen’s renewed activity signals coming trouble.

Character Developments

• Wang Yan: Becomes an exceptionally powerful Fourth-Rank cultivator, with abilities surpassing those of many Upper Immortals. Despite her reluctance to leave Chen, she accepts that advancement requires entering a broader world. Her emotional breakthrough during their farewell marks an important step toward the Fifth Rank.
• Chen Jichuan: Shows both strategic wisdom and deep affection. He recognizes that emotional comfort has become an obstacle to Wang Yan’s progress, even though separating from her causes him pain. He creates the Heart Lamp specifically to ensure they can reunite.
• Belut: Has matured into an immortal and acts as Chen’s representative. His status and Chen’s reputation allow him to pressure major organizations without direct confrontation.
• Starshine King: Once hostile or defiant toward Chen, he is now cautious and submissive, choosing cooperation over provoking the “Tyrant” again.

Significant Themes

• Love and separation: Chen and Wang Yan separate not because their relationship has weakened, but because they hope to secure a longer future together.
• Emotional cultivation: Wang Yan’s path depends on experiencing and mastering the Seven Emotions. Her breakthrough in Sorrowful Intent suggests that pain and separation can produce growth that comfort cannot.
• The limits of stagnation: Even immense strength and a stable environment can become obstacles when they prevent further advancement.
• Power and reputation: Chen’s reputation alone commands obedience across the Immortal Gate Realm. His influence persists even during decades of inactivity.
• Hope amid uncertainty: The Heart Lamp symbolizes their determination to find each other despite the vastness and danger of the myriad worlds.

Important Character Interactions

• Chen and Wang Yan discuss the necessity of her departure, with Wang Yan expressing frustration over leaving while Chen explains the risks of staying.
• Chen reassures her that their separation is temporary and gives her the Heart Lamp as a means of finding one another.
• Their farewell triggers Wang Yan’s breakthrough in Sorrowful Intent.
• Belut formally confronts the Dawn Era and requests Sacred Artifacts on Chen’s behalf.
• The Starshine King, remembering Chen’s past violence, responds with extreme courtesy and gives in to Belut’s demands. The Dawn Era’s leaders later acknowledge that Chen’s renewed movements may foreshadow greater upheaval.

Key plot points and events

• The Tyrant’s agent, Belut, visited 486 organizations across Throne World and collected 794 Sacred Artifacts. He also recruited 820 Peak Archmages for the promised Legendary Potion.
• The potion’s results stunned the Pan-Plane: 640 of those mages advanced overnight, and Vaglion gained 1,200 Legendary Mages in total—an apparent success rate of about 80%.
• Major powers, including Sky City and other organizations across the three continents, became alarmed and eager to investigate or obtain the potion. The Tyrant refused all audiences, leaving them to wait.
• Meanwhile, Chen Jichuan continued his seclusion in the Ninth Heaven. After 40,000 years of practice, he had reached the sixth level of the Celestial Ladder Realm, with his essence and qi near perfection; his primordial spirit remained the main obstacle to further advancement.
• Chen and Wang Yan’s cultivation and divine abilities had consumed enormous resources. The Yu Ming Immortal Court had supplied much of their funding and materials, and Chen resolved to repay Immortal Venerable Yu Ming after Wang Yan’s ascension was settled.
• Wang Yan emerged from seclusion. She and Chen discussed the growing number of visitors to Fierce Bird Mountain, who were seeking to meet them and discuss the Dao.

Character developments and interactions

• Belut proves effective as the Tyrant’s emissary, gathering artifacts and recruits on a vast scale.
• Sky City’s Immortals, led by Storm Sovereign Klaus, shift from disbelief to alarm—and then to interest in controlling the potion for their own advantage. Thane, an expert potion-maker, stresses how implausible its success seems.
• Chen Jichuan has grown vastly stronger and is formidable among Ninth Heaven cultivators, though still behind Wang Yan. He also shows gratitude and loyalty toward Immortal Venerable Yu Ming despite having relied heavily on the Immortal Court’s resources.
• Wang Yan recognizes that the sudden artifact-gathering campaign has made powerful figures suspicious of her and Chen. The couple agree, implicitly, to avoid visitors rather than answer probing questions.

Significant themes

• Power and upheaval: The Legendary Potion threatens to overturn the existing balance by creating large numbers of Legendary Mages quickly.
• Distrust and ambition: Organizations doubt the Tyrant’s motives, yet their fear and greed drive them to pursue the potion.
• Patronage and obligation: Chen’s advancement depends heavily on Yu Ming’s support, which creates a sense of debt he intends to repay.
• Seclusion amid scrutiny: As the couple’s influence grows, outsiders seek access and explanations, while Chen and Wang Yan protect their privacy and plans.

Plot points and events

• After gathering a total of 3,100 Saint Marks in the Seven Emotions and Six Desires Diagram, Chen Jichuan and Wang Yan decide to make another attempt at the Immortal Gate. Chen’s long work refining the diagram has also advanced his artifact-refining skill to the Fourth Rank.
• Chen refuses to give other Immortal Venerables and Heavenly Venerables either priority access to Sacred Artifacts or the secret they believe lets him travel safely through the Immortal Gate Realm. He intends to honor Immortal Venerable Yu Ming, who has supported him and Wang Yan.
• At the Immortal Gate, they find seven Immortal Venerables and dozens of Heavenly Venerables blocking the steps. Led by Lunar Yin, the group demands that Chen reveal his supposed method, offering payment and then threatening to keep the couple from the Gate until their Fourth Rank lifespans run out.
• Chen denies possessing such a method and, after Golden Radiance’s threat, ends the negotiations. Wang Yan attacks, sweeping three Immortal Venerables and eight Heavenly Venerables into her sword strike. The Heavenly Venerables are gravely wounded, while the Immortal Venerables struggle to withstand her.
• Bixia calls on Mohe and Nine Suns to join the fight. Wang Yan welcomes the challenge and battles five Immortal Venerables alone.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Jichuan remains committed to fairness and loyalty to Yu Ming, even when threatened. He refuses to bargain over a secret he says he does not possess and chooses combat over further argument.
• Wang Yan displays the full extent of her power. Her refined cultivation and third-level Seven Emotions Sword make her overwhelmingly stronger than the assembled Heavenly Venerables and a match for several Immortal Venerables at once.
• Lunar Yin emerges as the plot’s organizer: after investigating for millennia, he unites the others and leads the effort to pressure the couple.
• Bixia, usually detached, joins the blockade out of desperation for Transcendence. Golden Radiance openly voices the group’s coercive plan, while the others largely accept it.
• Chen and Wang Yan act as a united couple: he recognizes the confrontation’s danger, while she is eager to fight and takes the lead.

Significant themes

• Desperation for transcendence: Centuries of confinement and the fear of death drive the Immortal Venerables to abandon restraint and turn on potential allies.
• Loyalty and principle versus self-interest: Chen prioritizes Yu Ming and refuses to sacrifice his commitments for a chance to pass the Gate.
• Power and coercion: The blockade turns negotiations into a test of strength; Wang Yan’s response shows how dramatically power can overturn the crowd’s assumptions.
• Limits and scarcity: Sacred Artifacts and Saint Marks are difficult to obtain, making the race to transcendence a source of conflict.

Plot and key events

• Immortal Venerable Yu Ming arrives at the Immortal Gate after learning that Chen Jichuan and Wang Yan are under attack. He chooses their side and is stunned to see Wang Yan effortlessly suppressing five Immortal Venerables.
• Chen Jichuan tells Yu Ming to watch the battle, then joins the fight. The Heavenly Venerables—many of whom had mocked him as a dependent, “kept” cultivator—are shocked by his strength.
• Chen manifests five powerful Five Directions Emperor Aspects, each wielding a Five-Element Immortal Sword. They overwhelm the Heavenly Venerables guarding the gate, killing some and forcing others to retreat injured.
• Chen confronts Immortal Venerables Bixia and Xuanming. He uses the Great Luo Heavenly Sleeve to seize Bixia’s prized Mountain-River Pearls, then attacks with an array of divine abilities and arts.
• Wang Yan continues fighting five Immortal Venerables at once. Her Wind-Thunder Walk and Seven Emotions Sword let her strike repeatedly while avoiding their attacks. Chen and Wang both dominate their opponents, leaving the attackers battered and unable to escape.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Jichuan reveals the extraordinary power he had concealed beneath years of ridicule. He is inventive and opportunistic in battle, using the seized pearls as a welcome acquisition for Wang Yan.
• Wang Yan fights with even greater ferocity once Chen joins in, turning the duel into a display of their complementary strengths.
• Yu Ming confirms his loyalty to the couple, recognizing that their success could eventually benefit him and those close to them. His initial readiness to help gives way to amazement at Chen’s ability.
• Bixia and Xuanming are thrown off balance: Bixia loses control of her treasured pearls, while both Immortal Venerables struggle to defend themselves against Chen.
• The Heavenly Venerables’ contempt for Chen collapses as his avatars prove capable of overwhelming them.

Significant themes

• Appearances versus reality: Chen’s reputation as a weak dependent masks his true power.
• Partnership and loyalty: Chen and Wang fight as a formidable pair, while Yu Ming risks involvement because of his bond with them.
• Power and scarcity: The limited supply of Sacred Artifacts and opportunities for Transcendence drives factional conflict.
• Preparation and ingenuity: Chen’s years of cultivating varied arts pay off, allowing him to adapt and seize advantages in battle.