Chapter Summaries

Plot points and events

• The trio deliver the nearly immobile Black Charcoal to Mayor Tantus, keeping him alive with blood. The mayor is shocked by the man’s apparent ability to recover and survive through drinking blood, but does not act on any possible greed.
• With evidence complete, the trio wait for the local nobles’ promised support. After several brutal encounters with the town’s monsters, they are exhausted and relieved when reinforcements finally arrive.
• The “knight” is a towering, six-to-seven-meter Squire-class mech. It tears through the forest with its Chainblade, then uses a Meltagun to destroy pursuing aliens and clear a path. Its double-headed eagle emblem recalls the symbol stamped on the trio’s gold coins.
• Du Qifeng recognizes the machine as a Knight Squire and reacts with anguish, but refuses to explain what the discovery means. The quest-completion notice appears, and the trio are transported back to the Azure Platform.
• Back on the platform, Lu Yansheng’s Blood Hound bite shows signs of tissue necrosis. The three laugh at their survival, then hear the cries of other returning players—many badly injured, and some grieving dead companions. They request repairs.
• During Du Qifeng’s healing, the Main God detects and removes several forms of corruption and blocks associations with a higher-order entity. Du glimpses strange symbolic influences being stripped away and realizes how narrowly he escaped.

Character developments and interactions

• The trio have grown tougher and more bonded through repeated danger, though their relief at surviving is tempered by the suffering of other players.
• He Qiu’s confidence in the supposedly primitive town is shaken by the immense, advanced mech; he and guard captain Denov share astonishment at its scale and power.
• Du Qifeng’s knowledge of the mech and its emblem hints at a larger connection between their world and the coins or setting. His strange vision and subsequent terror suggest he has been exposed to something far beyond ordinary danger.
• Mayor Tantus remains cautious despite his shock and curiosity about Black Charcoal, reassuring the trio that he will not recklessly exploit the discovery.

Significant themes

• Survival and luck: The trio’s return is cause for celebration, but the platform’s casualties show how precarious survival is.
• Human nature and temptation: Black Charcoal’s condition sparks the mayor’s curiosity and concealed greed, but restraint matters.
• The uncanny beneath the familiar: The “knights,” coins, and symbolic forces point toward a deeper reality hidden behind the apparent fantasy setting.
• The cost of adventure: True-body repairs are no longer free, and injuries, deaths, and emotional consequences persist beyond the quest.

Key plot points and events

• Survivors of the first true-body mission return to the Main God Platform. Some collapse and cannot be revived; the contrast between those who came back alive and those who died makes the risks of future missions unmistakable.
• Small “drop” spheres appear above some of the dead, containing possible remnants of their stored assets. Staff collect and catalogue them for decisions about inheritance, compensation, and the deceased’s families.
• Yuan Zhengxin and Ruan Chenggang emerge from their group’s protected sleep-pod facility. They learn that, besides the two of them, eight of their eleven established users and three of five newcomers survived.
• Yuan allows bereaved families to grieve, then directs his subordinates to handle the deaths, remains, and inheritance arrangements carefully. He stresses fairness—especially toward newcomers’ families—because the group’s future loyalty depends on how it treats the dead.
• The losses unsettle the organization: people resign, and its preparatory camp shrinks from over three hundred to fewer than two hundred. Yuan tells those unwilling to accept the danger to leave.
• At the old factory, Yuan addresses the remaining recruits directly: two of the five promising candidates selected earlier have died. Despite this, the recruits choose to stay, seeing the mission as a rare chance to escape their difficult lives.

Character developments

• Yuan Zhengxin shifts from forceful recruiter to sober leader. He acknowledges the cost of the mission, prioritizes the dead and their families, and recognizes that mishandling compensation could destroy the group’s trust.
• Ruan Chenggang shares Yuan’s return and participates in confronting the consequences, though the chapter gives him little individual focus.
• The recruits show greater resolve after witnessing the losses. Their decision to remain is driven not by confidence in survival, but by desperation and hope for a better future.
• The bereaved reveal the human cost of the mission: grief ranges from private anguish to public mourning and anger.

Significant themes

• The price of opportunity: The true-body mission offers extraordinary rewards, but success and death are separated by a thin and frightening line.
• Risk, class, and desperation: Those with few prospects see danger as preferable to a life of hardship, making their choice both courageous and tragic.
• Leadership and responsibility: How the living treat the dead and their families becomes a test of institutional legitimacy.
• Grief and pragmatism: Mourning is real, but the survivors must also manage compensation, loyalty, and the group’s future.

Character interactions

• Medics struggle to revive the fallen while grieving relatives try to reach them; other users pull them back and attempt to comfort them.
• Yuan’s subordinates report the deaths and organizational unrest. He gives them authority to support families, manage inheritances, and maintain order.
• Yuan meets the bereaved, permits them to grieve, and explains the compensation plan, easing some of their immediate concerns.
• At the factory, Yuan challenges the recruits to reconsider staying. They answer collectively that the risk is worth taking, and he accepts their decision.

Chapter summary

• The True Body Mission’s toll becomes clear. Preliminary figures suggest that 10–20% of registered users died, with newcomers and inexperienced participants suffering the worst losses. Government officials conclude that cautious policies must give way to stronger support and recruitment: the country cannot afford for its user population to shrink while the world is changing so quickly.
• Ordinary life is disrupted. Deaths among users destabilize businesses, industries, and personal networks. Many survivors lose interest in conventional affairs and concentrate instead on training, enhancements, and future missions. Yuan Zhengxin, for instance, largely delegates management of the Xinlin Group to focus on what he considers more urgent.
• Yuan Yao recounts his newcomer mission. He survived three days as a laborer building a pyramid in ancient Egypt, returning with a deep scar on his face and neck. He chose to save his limited points for an internal martial arts enhancement rather than spend them on cosmetic restoration. Fatty Yuan introduces him to Li Jiye, hoping the more experienced specialist will advise him.
• Users debate whether groups are safer. Reports suggest that sending more people into the same True Body scenario can make it more dangerous. A team of nearly a hundred entered a Jurassic Park-like world and faced intelligent, lightning-wielding, dragon-blooded dinosaurs; fewer than half survived. Their experience also exposes how mistrust and betrayal can make cooperation disastrous, especially when death is permanent and fallen users’ possessions tempt survivors.
• The losses are quietly contained. Unlike reactions abroad, domestic media and officials largely avoid discussing the deaths. Families appear to receive discreet support, while public debate is left mostly to online speculation and resentment.
• Li Yun’s perspective reveals the Main God’s logic. He sees the deaths as a brutal but deliberate selection process: pressure pushes users to improve, removes complacent veterans, and opens opportunities for more capable newcomers. In his view, the upheaval benefits both users who can rise to the challenge and the Main God itself.

Character and thematic notes

• Yuan Yao is marked by his harsh first mission but responds pragmatically, prioritizing strength over appearance.
• Fatty Yuan acts as a connector and patron, arranging introductions and support for fellow users, though he remains burdened by real-world responsibilities.
• Li Jiye and Li Yun serve as experienced observers: Li Jiye offers practical concern, while Li Yun interprets events through the colder logic of survival and advancement.
• Major themes: the cost of progress, survival over ordinary security, the fragility of cooperation, institutional control of catastrophe, and the moral ambiguity of treating deaths as a means of selection. The closing idea—“Render unto mortals what is theirs, and unto the Main God what is his”—underscores the separation between worldly concerns and the Main God’s demands.

Key plot points and events

• Qian Yisheng reviews reports of violent disputes over the belongings of deceased Main God users. In one case, intruders break into a home, kill an elderly man, and steal a valuable “relic,” leaving his family vulnerable.
• The Special Office is struggling to manage inheritances, compensation, staffing, and the wider fallout. Some officials are also pushing to reclaim and redistribute “special resources,” raising suspicions of internal political maneuvering.
• Seeking a break, Qian reads a popular forum post about Fourth Tier enhancements. It describes their advanced energy systems and extraordinary abilities, suggesting that Fourth Tier users represent a major leap in the level of life.
• Qian reflects on how quickly the world is changing: powerful users are emerging, governments are watching online activity, and people are fascinated by the perilous Main God worlds.
• A new official document arrives, assigning further work related to users and visits from foreign guests.
• The scene shifts to a Cemetery World, where Wu Shaoyou and Li Anshan fight undead together. Wu’s forceful attack accidentally sends a skull into a teammate, while Li continues providing ranged support.
• The college roommates have grown stronger through repeated battles: Li relies on a Second Tier ranged enhancement, while Wu has taken a gene enhancement and favors close combat.
• After Wu narrowly avoids an attack when Li’s support is delayed, Li recognizes the scene as resembling an earlier encounter in the True Body Mission—with a shape-shifting monster that attacked him from behind.

Character developments and interactions

• Qian Yisheng is overworked and increasingly uneasy. He is aware of both the human cost of users’ deaths and the selfish interests competing to control their remains and resources. His interest in the Fourth Tier post reflects a desire to understand a rapidly changing world.
• Wu Shaoyou is a confident, aggressive fighter, but his enthusiasm can put teammates at risk. He checks whether Li can continue after the latter’s delayed response.
• Li Anshan is a practical ranged fighter, though he is exhausted and distracted by a troubling memory. His partnership with Wu relies on complementary front-line and support roles.

Significant themes

• Power and vulnerability: A user’s death can turn their family into targets, showing how extraordinary “inheritances” invite exploitation.
• Competition and institutional corruption: Individuals and officials alike maneuver for scarce resources, while public authorities are left to manage the consequences.
• Rapid transformation: Fourth Tier abilities and the spread of permanent mission worlds signal a profound shift in human capabilities and society.
• Growth through danger: Users willingly enter lethal battles to become stronger, treating survival and combat as a form of work.
• Memory and trauma: Li’s sense of déjà vu links his present danger to the violence of the True Body Mission, hinting that its effects still haunt him.

Key plot points and events

• The Special Office asks Lieutenant Li Jiye to join a meeting with an incoming multinational delegation led largely by Users. The visitors want to meet the country’s First-Test User, but officials are wary: the delegation may be more than a friendly exchange, and one attendee—Bishop Di of Vatican City—is believed to be a formidable Fourth Tier User. Li Jiye agrees to help represent the country.
• Li Yun receives a similar invitation through his acquaintance Hu Dingjun, but gives no firm answer. He is reluctant to become involved in the international maneuvering.
• Director Qian Yisheng visits Li Yun and describes how the world is changing. The Azure Sky and falling stars have disrupted rail, road, and air travel; authorities struggle to keep major routes clear, while sea transport faces its own growing dangers. Habitable areas are gradually contracting around cities.
• Qian raises concerns about an abandoned factory on the city’s outskirts, where people and animals have been gathering. He asks Li Yun to warn the owner. Li Yun understands that this is Fatty Yuan’s increasingly visible recruitment camp and agrees to pass on the message.
• Fatty Yuan’s group is screening recruits after heavy losses in the True Body Missions. Other User groups are doing the same, and applicants are drawn by the chance to join a User-led organization, despite the risks.

Character developments and interactions

• Li Jiye is willing to accept a public-facing role when asked, recognizing the strategic importance of the visit and the need for a capable representative.
• Li Yun remains calm and guarded. He lets Qian speak at length without revealing much of his own thinking, but responds cooperatively when asked to caution Fatty Yuan.
• Qian Yisheng uses their friendly relationship to share both a warning and broader information about the worsening situation. Li Yun’s relaxed courtyard offers him a rare sense of relief.
• Hu Dingjun acts as a messenger for the invitation to Li Yun and casually plays with Li Yun’s mischievous black cat.
• Fatty Yuan, though not present, is shown to be expanding his operation rapidly and struggling to manage its size and visibility. The cat provides a light, comic contrast to the chapter’s increasingly serious events.

Significant themes

• Uncertainty and hidden motives: Officially friendly diplomacy may conceal strategic calculations, while apparently ordinary developments carry wider implications.
• A shrinking human world: Environmental and supernatural disruptions are making travel difficult and reducing the areas where people can safely live and work.
• Survival through competence: After the missions’ casualties, User groups increasingly value capable, carefully screened recruits over random invitees. A place in a group may be an opportunity for the strong but a death sentence for the unprepared.
• Order amid disorder: Authorities and User organizations try to impose structure—maintaining routes, recruiting members, and managing risks—while deeper instability continues to grow.

Key events

• Inside the old apartment building, the Jade’s influence has intensified: a “cloud and mist” effect is more noticeable, and the soil near the Jade is turning into Crystal Sand—evidence that the Meteorite Fragments are permanently changing the environment.
• Ning Yu, a Druid Apprentice, tends the Vermilion Herbs growing unusually quickly in the spiritually rich building. She carefully harvests their ripe fruits while her oversized black-cat Wild Companion sneaks the damaged ones. Enjoying the fruits and the subtle sense of connection her enhancement gives her, she notices movement among the anomalous insect eggs she brought back and nurtured.
• At the abandoned factory, a surge of applicants overwhelms the Xinlin Group’s preparations. Fatty Yuan personally oversees recruitment and angrily expels a former trainee who had previously quit, while reprimanding the interviewers for letting him through.
• Old Li and Ruan Chenggang watch Yuan’s forceful management style. Li Yun observes the crowd quietly, drawing Fang Yishu’s curious attention.

Character developments and interactions

• Ning Yu takes pride in cultivating and harvesting the plants, and her Druid abilities give her an intuitive awareness of their needs. Yet she remains uneasy about the rapid environmental changes and feels constrained by her parents’ concern and matchmaking hints. Thinking of a “blockhead” makes her flustered and leads her to crush two fruits; her cat comforts her—partly in hopes of getting the spoiled fruit.
• Fatty Yuan shows a strict, uncompromising leadership style, insisting that applicants must demonstrate commitment and that connections will not earn exceptions. His outburst intimidates both staff and applicants.
• Ruan Chenggang recalls Yuan’s poorer, fiercer days, adding a glimpse of their shared past. Old Li admires Yuan’s commanding presence.
• Fang Yishu has grown stronger mentally but still cannot read Li Yun’s thoughts. She suspects he deliberately watches the recruitment process, though his interest remains unclear.

Significant themes

• Growth and change: Ning’s cultivation reflects both personal development and the altered world around her, while the increasingly transformed soil suggests that the changes may not be reversible.
• Instinct, affinity, and hidden consequences: Ning’s Druid path seems to reward nurturing life, though its deeper effects remain difficult to explain.
• Commitment and merit: Yuan’s recruitment standards reject applicants who lack resolve, even if they have connections or have previously been involved.
• Uncertainty and observation: The chapter repeatedly highlights what characters cannot yet understand—Ning’s subtle enhancement, the insect eggs’ movement, Fang Yishu’s inability to read Li Yun, and Li Yun’s motives.

Chapter Summary

Key plot points and events

• Li Yun watches Fatty Yuan manage the training camp, noting the boss’s harshness toward subordinates but warmth toward friends. He suspects Yuan may be well suited to handling people and social obligations.
• Li Jiye asks Li Yun to review a confidential report on the Tianhuang Stone, whose unusual spiritual-energy output has yielded little theoretical progress. Researchers now plan practical experiments on plants, animals, cells, and seeds.
• Li Yun abruptly leaves after sensing something amiss.
• The chapter shifts to a trafficking operation: criminals abduct a young girl and an unconscious adult woman, then transport them through a decoy villa to a guarded estate. The estate’s buyers pay for a steady supply of victims, including children.
• Li Yun appears at the estate, apparently having followed the operation. He examines the girl, finds an empty “Baby Milkshake” bottle in her pocket, and asks the people there how long she will remain asleep. He then casually requests to stay for dinner.

Character developments

• Li Yun remains composed and observant. His sudden departure shows that he can act decisively when he detects danger; his calm, unexpected arrival at the trafficking estate suggests confidence and control.
• Fatty Yuan is presented as a capable, socially experienced boss whose intimidating manner contrasts with his considerate treatment of Li Yun’s group.
• Old Li is shown as honest and unsuited to hard-nosed negotiation, particularly in his reluctance to demand the return of the meteorite fragments.
• Fang Yishu displays curiosity about the report and mild annoyance when Li Yun flips through it too quickly.
• The traffickers and estate buyers are characterized as organized, calculating, and callous, treating abducted people as merchandise.

Significant themes

• Different sides of people: A person’s behavior can change with their role and audience, as seen in Fatty Yuan’s contrasting treatment of staff and friends.
• Power, privilege, and social connections: Access to special treatment and confidential information reflects hierarchies within institutions.
• Institutional strain and social breakdown: Weakened public services allow serious crimes to flourish.
• Exploitation and dehumanization: The traffickers’ language reduces victims to “goods” and “packages,” underscoring the brutality of the operation.
• Scientific uncertainty: Researchers turn from theory to practical testing when they cannot explain the stone’s properties.

Character interactions

• Li Yun observes Fatty Yuan’s leadership without interfering.
• Li Jiye turns to Li Yun for help interpreting the Tianhuang Stone report; Fang Yishu leans in to read it, while Li Yun remains focused on the document.
• The trafficking crew coordinates the abduction and handoff, with a guard warning them not to mistreat the buyers’ “goods.”
• Li Yun confronts the estate’s occupants indirectly, entering without concealment and speaking to them with striking politeness—an unsettling contrast to the criminal scene.

Key plot points and events

• Li Yun notices a little girl, Bubble, carrying a self-refilling milkshake bottle that she treats as a protective charm. He returns it to her, improves her appearance with a casual touch, and then enters a wealthy estate concealed from ordinary perception.
• He uses an unusual, overwhelming perception to locate a hidden passage behind a painting. Though briefly injured by the vast information he sees, he follows a faint trace to an underground complex.
• Beneath the manor, he discovers a bloodstained ritual chamber where people have recently been sacrificed. A concealed door leads to a luxurious room, where a wealthy middle-aged man is abusing a bound, barely conscious woman.
• Li restrains the man and destroys the Yin Spirit concealed in his bracelet, along with the bracelet itself. The man submits and reveals that the charm came through a network of illicit dealings.
• Li finds dozens—possibly around a hundred—of kidnapped people held in the manor. They had been drugged and gathered over less than a month, then traded among influential associates.
• Rather than pursue the entire network himself, Li gives the perpetrator a lasting punishment and anonymously alerts the Special Office about the manor’s illegal construction and safety violations.
• That evening, he brings Bubble back to the restaurant where she belongs. She runs inside, and an adult greets her with tearful relief.

Character developments

• Li Yun is powerful, controlled, and generally reluctant to involve himself in the world’s many abuses. Bubble’s disappearance gives him a personal reason to act, while the Yin Spirit and sacrificial site also draw his attention.
• The middle-aged man shifts from predatory confidence to terror and abject submission once Li takes control. He readily betrays his associates to save himself.
• Bubble remains a frightened, vulnerable child, but her milkshake bottle gives her a small source of comfort. Her return to safety closes the chapter’s emotional arc.

Significant themes

• Looking away versus taking action: People can ignore wrongdoing until they notice it or become personally connected to it; Bubble’s plight makes Li intervene.
• Hidden corruption and complicity: The manor’s crimes are part of a wider web of trafficking, influence, and exchange—not the work of one isolated offender.
• Power and vulnerability: The chapter contrasts the helpless captives with Li’s immense power, and shows how the abuser’s authority vanishes when he becomes vulnerable himself.
• The supernatural entering ordinary life: The Yin Spirit, ritual practices, and numinous forces suggest that occult abilities and objects are spreading beyond the Main God’s system.

Character interactions

• Li handles Bubble gently, returning her bottle and guiding her home, in contrast to his cold treatment of the captors.
• He confronts and interrogates the middle-aged man, whose bracelet triggers the Yin Spirit’s brief defense before Li destroys it.
• The chapter ends with Bubble reunited with the people at the restaurant, whose tearful relief underscores the human cost behind the manor’s crimes.

Key events

• After returning a missing child to their parents, Li Yun slips away before the police can question him.
• He follows signs of recent activity into a concealed, newly reopened well entrance and explores the city’s underground waterways.
• The sewers have become a thriving, eerie ecosystem of mutated plants and creatures, fungal growths, and weak spiritual beings. Li Yun also finds evidence of people using the passages for transport and trade.
• He spots masked workers pushing a cart loaded with spiritually tainted goods but avoids approaching them.
• At a broad underground channel, Li Yun throws a wooden bead into the water to draw out a ghost. Through it, a man calling himself Broker speaks to him.
• Broker says he contacted Li Yun to explain that he had no personal stake in the people Li Yun punished earlier. He wants Li Yun to avoid interfering with his underground business, offering help in return.
• Li Yun challenges him about exploiting people through charms and spiritual objects that secretly nourish his spirits, then asks about his connection to the online figure called the Death Mentor. Broker admits the man was something of a mentor to him.

Character developments and interactions

• Li Yun remains observant, self-controlled, and wary. He investigates the underground world without revealing himself, recognizes the danger in Broker’s spirit-raising operation, and questions him directly rather than accepting his proposed alliance.
• Broker presents himself as polite and practical, but his “business” relies on using other people’s vitality to strengthen spirits. His outreach suggests he sees Li Yun as powerful enough to threaten his interests.
• Their encounter is a cautious negotiation: Broker offers a truce and favors, while Li Yun probes his motives and connections.

Significant themes

• Civilization’s hidden underside: The city’s growth and migration reshape not only its visible neighborhoods but also its shadow economy underground.
• Life and death intertwined: The dark, damp sewers foster both unusual life and spiritual entities, blurring boundaries between the natural and supernatural.
• Order and exploitation: As society changes, underground networks create their own systems of trade and influence—often at the expense of vulnerable people.
• Power and moral ambiguity: Broker’s pursuit of strength is rationalized as ambition, while Li Yun’s questions expose the human cost behind it.

Key plot points and events

• Li Yun questions a female ghost bound to a spirit entity and identifies her handler as Mr. Zhong, an intermediary in the underground order. Zhong claims his work repurposes spirits—especially those of unborn children—rather than indulging in cruelty, and argues that his trade can coexist with social stability.
• Li Yun remains wary but acknowledges Zhong’s controlled, reasonable manner. Zhong offers him a bead-like “Soul Crystal” as a gift and compensation. Li Yun recognizes it as a crude vessel for extracted spiritual substance, potentially valuable to psychic practitioners, and removes its lingering mental traces.
• Before leaving, Li Yun warns Zhong that copying the methods of the “Death Mentor” may carry hidden risks, including the original master’s influence or concealed techniques. Zhong understands the hint.
• Li Yun then visits a makeshift underground market built across abandoned sewage structures. The goods include weapons, forged documents, pills, local materials, and dubious antiques. Traders’ conversations reveal that tighter inspections, security concerns, and new development plans are driving black markets farther underground and making ordinary ventures harder.
• In the crowd, Li Yun spots police officer Luo Wei undercover near a forged-document stall, with veteran detective Hu Dingjun nearby pretending to inspect stones. He observes without approaching them.

Character developments

• Li Yun remains observant and cautious, assessing both people and objects without committing himself. He sees through Zhong’s polished presentation, recognizes the Soul Crystal’s commercial potential, and notices the officers’ surveillance.
• Mr. Zhong presents himself as a pragmatic, rule-minded figure who wants cooperation and order in the underground world. His gift shows both courtesy and an attempt to advertise his trade and influence.
• Luo Wei appears inexperienced and conspicuous to Li Yun, though her seemingly naive behavior may itself serve as an effective cover.
• Hu Dingjun appears more naturally convincing in the market, blending into the crowd while examining merchandise.

Significant themes

• Talent and power depend on support: Exceptional ability alone is not enough; resources and networks help people rise.
• Morality in the gray areas: Zhong frames spirit exploitation as practical recycling and social balance, leaving the ethics of his trade unresolved.
• Commerce in the supernatural: Spirit remnants can be processed into marketable goods, suggesting a growing economy built around extraordinary phenomena.
• Social change and instability: Increased regulation and public insecurity push illicit activity into hidden spaces.
• Appearances and concealment: Polite conversation, gifts, and even apparent naivety can function as strategies or disguises.

Character interactions

• Li Yun and Zhong engage in cautious probing: Zhong seeks friendship and cooperation, while Li Yun withholds commitment and warns him about the risks of imitating the Death Mentor’s methods.
• Zhong’s gift is simultaneously a gesture of courtesy, an inducement, and a demonstration of the value of his operation; Li Yun accepts it but is largely uninterested in being recruited.
• Li Yun silently observes Luo Wei and Hu Dingjun at the market, judging their undercover behavior without revealing himself.

Key plot points and events

• Police officer Luo Wei leads a raid on an underground market to arrest a hooded foreigner collecting forged documents. When the man draws a gun and fights back, Hu Dingjun and the officers subdue him; Li Yun secretly trips him as he tries to escape.
• The documents carry five different identities, none matching the suspect. He insists the police have the wrong man, while Hu recognizes that the arrest may anger powerful people connected to the market.
• Li notices that some market visitors possess a faint “numinous spark.” The captured foreigner also seems unnaturally strong, suggesting that unusual abilities and resources are beginning to circulate beyond known users.
• The scene shifts to a research facility, where scientists report that a test subject using an experimental cultivation method has gained exceptional physical abilities. However, organ improvements are beginning to plateau, and the method works only for a small number of unusually talented people.
• After reviewing the early results, authorities decide to expand testing confidentially within the Special Investigation Bureau.

Character developments and interactions

• Luo Wei acts decisively, revealing her weapon and badge and taking charge of the arrest.
• Hu Dingjun demonstrates experience and toughness, tackling the armed suspect and remaining wary of the political consequences. He senses Li nearby but does not expose him.
• Li Yun stays disguised and unobtrusive, intervening just enough to stop the suspect’s escape. His observations show growing interest in people who seem enhanced without being conventional users.
• The foreigner proves strong and combative, yet his multiple false identities and denial leave his true purpose unresolved.
• The research team’s discussion reveals tension between measurable progress and disappointment that cultivation remains inaccessible to most people.

Significant themes

• Hidden power and social change: Enhanced people and spiritual abilities are appearing in places and communities where authorities may not expect them.
• The informal networks beneath society: The black market links criminals, officials, users, and other shadowy forces; policing it risks upsetting established arrangements.
• Science, talent, and access: Cultivation can be studied and partially standardized, but innate aptitude and favorable spiritual conditions remain crucial barriers.
• Uncertainty and escalation: The arrest raises unanswered questions about the foreigner, while the government’s research program suggests broader efforts to control or reproduce emerging abilities.

Basim recalled how Alucard’s Death River nearly killed him during a survival mission and how Dracula spared him, revealing a Domain that gave Basim a new model for advancing beyond the Fourth Tier. After a long recovery in the meteorite’s barren territory, Basim swallowed his remaining fragments, seeking to strengthen himself.

• Basim emerged from the soil where he had been recovering in the territory he claimed after the meteorite’s fall.
• Basim remembered how Alucard unleashed the Death River during the battle in London, drowning the city in blood and overwhelming him with the dead.
• Dracula spared Basim, declaring that Basim was not pure enough to kill him, and Basim survived the mission’s time limit.
• Basim realized that Alucard’s Domain offered a path beyond mere techniques and abilities, showing him how power could impose its laws on the outside world.
• Basim recognized Dracula as a forerunner on the path of souls and swallowed the few Meteorite Fragments he had left.

Li Yun attended an international reception with Old Li and their companions, where researchers discussed spiritual energy and officials tried to recruit him. The evening’s socializing brought Li Yun’s attention back to a tattooed foreign guest with differently colored eyes, who watched him across the hall.

• Old Li, Li Yun, Fang Yishu, Ning Yu, and the two professors arrived at the reception in a VIP vehicle and took their assigned places.
• Professor Xin questioned Li Yun about spiritual energy, human observation, and its possible effects on experiments.
• An elderly official welcomed the international delegation, and the banquet began after his speech.
• Fang Yishu asked Li Yun about the tattooed foreigner, who greeted him with a raised glass; Li Yun ignored him.
• Two officials urged Li Yun to relocate to their region and promised him resources and support.
• Li Yun noticed the foreigner watching him again across the hall.

At a Chengdu reception, Li Yun confronted Hedit, a fourth-tier necromancer hiding inside the corpse-like body of Michael Wood, while they discussed the delegation and observed guests coveting Ning Yu’s black cat. When officials returned to press Ning Yu to sell it on behalf of a Dutch royal guest, Hedit stepped forward with a savage grin.

• Li Yun recognized Michael Wood as a corpse controlled by Hedit, a fourth-tier Death Mentor, and the two exchanged guarded remarks through mental fluctuations.
• Hedit explained that he had come to Chengdu to avoid other fourth-tier beings in the delegation, including Bishop Di of Vatican City, and Li Yun suggested that every subgroup might have its own Michael.
• A group of foreign guests noticed Ning Yu’s black cat and sent a representative to offer her money for it, but she refused.
• Two more men approached on the guest’s behalf, invoking his Dutch royal status and their duty not to offend him.
• Hedit stepped forward and challenged the men for pressing Ning Yu after she had already shown them consideration.

Michael used his Fear Aura to force the young aristocrat and his entourage to their knees after they pressured Li Yun to give up his cat. The incident sparked further clashes between domestic and foreign users at the gathering, which erupted into a brawl.

• Michael silenced the foreign-affairs escorts and confronted the group seeking to buy the cat.
• Michael unleashed his Fear Aura, making the young aristocrat, the blonde woman, and more than twenty others collapse or kneel.
• Michael released the group and returned to Li Yun, insisting that he had shown them consideration.
• The hall's guests interpreted the lack of official intervention as a sign of changing attitudes toward users.
• A drunk guest picked a fight over a supposed South Korean visitor, and the gathering erupted into a mass brawl.

Li Yun and Ning Yu watched reports of violent clashes at the visiting delegation’s events and mass protests abroad before meeting with officials. A diplomat questioned Li Yun about Michael Wood, an apparent ordinary man who had effortlessly subdued more than twenty people, and asked what tier of user he might be.

• News reports showed that Michael Wood had stood calmly over kneeling guests and attendants after a banquet fight broke out.
• Reports described mass protests and unrest in Europe and North America over policies concerning users and the visiting delegation.
• Qian Yisheng discussed the clashes with Li Yun and recounted rumors of a Fourth Tier figure silencing a banquet in Yanjing.
• A diplomat told Li Yun that the conflict began when Michael Wood intervened after Lady Josephine took an interest in Ning Yu’s pet cat.
• The diplomat presented evidence that Michael Wood had appeared to be an ordinary person before overpowering more than twenty people, then asked Li Yun to estimate his user tier.