Chapter Summaries

Key plot points and events

• Lin Fan returns to Commandery City unharmed, despite the Ten Thousand Treasures Commerce having sent two early transforming-force experts to ambush him. He carries no medicinal ingredients and goes directly to the Azure Elixir Hall.
• The Commerce learns that Lin Fan has agreed to join the Azure Elixir Sect and is moving there with his entire family. Its leaders assume a sect expert rescued him, though they cannot explain what happened to the two attackers.
• A sweeping search finds no bodies, tracks, blood, or signs of a fight. Unable to hide the failure, the Commandery City Chief Steward reports everything to headquarters.
• The Capital City Chief Manager angrily reprimands the local branch for its reckless plan and the likely loss of two elite fighters. He orders the Commerce not to provoke or enter Azure Elixir Sect territory.
• Instead, the Commerce is told to recruit pill refiners rapidly and defend its pill business against Lin Fan’s high-grade pills. Its campaign against him ends in complete defeat.

Character developments and interactions

• The Chief Steward shifts from confidence to alarm, then panic, as each report undermines his assumptions. He orders searches and ultimately confesses the failure to headquarters.
• Granny Qian and the other trusted stewards share the Chief Steward’s shock and dread. Together, they conclude the Azure Elixir Sect must have intervened.
• The Capital City Chief Manager responds with fury but ultimately chooses caution, prioritizing the Commerce’s survival over revenge.
• Lin Fan never appears directly in the chapter, but his safe return, recruitment, and relocation with his family decisively defeat the Commerce’s plans.

Significant themes

• The limits of power and retaliation: The Commerce cannot challenge a major sect without risking catastrophic consequences.
• The cost of reckless schemes: The failed ambush may bring enormous compensation obligations, while the broader campaign wastes the Commerce’s resources.
• Uncertainty and consequence: With no trace of the two experts, the Commerce is left to infer the worst.
• Strategic adaptation: Unable to attack Lin Fan, the Commerce turns to competing in the pill market instead.

Plot points and events

• The Ten Thousand Treasures Hall’s Chief Steward, still reeling from losses and a reprimand from headquarters, looks for a way to pressure Lin Fan. He orders scouts to find Lin Fan’s relatives, intending to use them as hostages.
• Scouts discover Lin Fan once lived in Green Mountain Town, married into the Su Family, and has a father-in-law there. They also learn that Lin Fan’s birth family was executed years ago; only Lin Fan and his younger sister survived.
• The Chief Steward first celebrates the Lin Family’s destruction, then decides to seize the Su Family instead. But the scout reveals that Lin Fan had already sent his relatives to Azure Elixir City, under the Azure Elixir Sect’s protection.
• With headquarters forbidding action in the sect’s territory, the Chief Steward’s plans collapse. Overwhelmed by anger and frustration, he spits blood and faints.
• The scene shifts to Lin Fan’s life in the sect: he meditates and cultivates, spends six hours a day refining pills, and occasionally teaches alchemy. His lectures draw packed audiences, including deacons and elders, because of his near-perfect success with high-tier pills and remarkable speed. He also enjoys visiting the Scripture Repository.

Character developments and interactions

• The Chief Steward grows increasingly desperate and vindictive. He seeks leverage over Lin Fan but underestimates how thoroughly Lin Fan has protected his family; the failure overwhelms him physically.
• Lin Fan appears in absentia in the first scene as a careful, capable strategist: his advance warning and relocation of relatives prevent them from becoming hostages. In the sect, his skill earns broad respect.
• The scout delivers the findings and grimly confirms that the Su Family has already moved, puncturing the Chief Steward’s hopes.
• The Chief Steward’s threats toward Lin Fan and the Su Family contrast with the respect Lin Fan receives from sect members who attend his lectures.

Significant themes

• Protection and foresight: Lin Fan’s relatives are safe because he anticipated the danger and moved them beneath the sect’s protection.
• Revenge and its consequences: The Chief Steward’s fixation on retaliation compounds his organization’s losses and ultimately defeats him.
• Power and sanctuary: The sect’s territory protects Lin Fan’s family from outside coercion.
• Merit and reputation: Lin Fan’s exceptional alchemy wins him influence and admiration through his work.

Plot and events

• Lin Fan joins the Azure Elixir Sect and uses its vast Scripture Repository to memorize its alchemy and breath-concealment manuals.
• The Ten Thousand Treasures Commerce stops harassing him directly. Lin Fan stays within the sect, and the sect safely transports his pills to Commandery City, where they are sold through the Azure Elixir Hall.
• After more than five months, Lin Fan has accumulated over 2.9 million strands of inner qi and is close to breaking through to the steel force realm.
• He delays the breakthrough because his concealment technique cannot yet hide the power of that realm. A premature revelation could draw dangerous attention and endanger the quiet life he shares with his family.
• Lin Fan changes his routine: he spends six hours a day refining pills for the sect and devotes the rest of his time to improving his concealment skills.
• After memorizing the Repository’s breath-concealment texts, he secretly pays trusted disciples nearly ten million silver taels to search across the Zhao Kingdom for more. They return with several hundred additional methods, which Lin Fan studies and combines in pursuit of a technique strong enough to mask his future breakthrough.
• News arrives that the Ten Thousand Treasures Commerce is recruiting alchemists to compete against the Azure Elixir Hall.

Character development and interactions

• Lin Fan shows patience and strategic restraint, choosing security over a rapid breakthrough. He continues supporting the sect through pill production while preparing to protect his family.
• His two children grow stronger, while his sister, Lin Ruoruo, and disciple Chu Lingxi mature and become more reserved.
• Lin Fan’s relationship with the sect is mutually beneficial: he supplies pills, while the sect shelters him and transports his goods. The trusted disciples he hires help him pursue his concealed research.
• The Ten Thousand Treasures Commerce remains a distant rival, competing indirectly through recruitment rather than confronting the sect openly.

Significant themes

• Caution and self-preservation: Power is not worth gaining if it exposes loved ones to danger.
• Preparation and accumulated knowledge: Lin Fan relies on research, experimentation, and patience before taking a major step.
• Rivalry and institutional power: The sect’s strength deters direct attacks, while commercial conflict shifts toward competition in alchemy.
• Family and responsibility: Lin Fan’s choices are guided by the need to preserve a peaceful life for those close to him.

Summary

Key plot points and events

• The Ten Thousand Treasures Commerce collapses after hiring alchemists whose advanced pills are far less reliable than Lin Fan’s. Unsold stock, high salaries, and declining sales ruin its finances.
• The Azure Elixir Hall’s reputation for Lin Fan’s top-grade pills also draws customers away from the Ten Thousand Treasures Hall’s lower-tier business. Discounts only reinforce the belief that its pills are inferior. Several branches close, and the rest struggle.
• Lin Fan sees the commerce’s downfall as the consequence of its earlier coercion and disrespect; he says he might have cooperated had they approached him properly.
• After nearly three months of study, Lin Fan combines thousands of concealment methods with his original art to create the Flying Dragon Breath Concealment Technique. It can hide even steel force realm aura, allowing him to disguise late steel force as early bright force.
• With this longstanding risk resolved, Lin Fan prepares to break through to the steel force realm, a level no one in the Azure Elixir Sect’s thousand-year history has reached.
• To avoid attracting attention during the breakthrough, he chooses a remote underground cavern more than 2,000 li from the sect. He says goodbye to his family, informs the sect master and elders, and politely refuses their offers of protection and supplies.
• He leaves alone and makes his way toward the cavern, whose deep, secluded location makes it suitable for secluded cultivation.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Fan remains calm about the Ten Thousand Treasures Commerce’s collapse and firm in his belief that its leaders brought it on themselves. His new concealment art marks a major advance in both his skill and confidence as he approaches a breakthrough.
• Lin Fan and his family: He asks Su Qingwei to care for the children, encourages Ruoruo to focus on her studies, and tells Chu Lingxi she can make time for play as well as study and cultivation.
• Lin Fan and the sect leadership: The sect master and elders are anxious about his traveling alone and offer guards, guides, and provisions. Lin Fan reassures them and firmly declines, while agreeing to contact them if he needs help.

Significant themes

• Consequences of arrogance and coercion: The Ten Thousand Treasures Commerce’s mistreatment of Lin Fan and its customers ultimately contributes to its ruin.
• Reputation and trust: The Azure Elixir Hall’s success shows how consistent quality can build confidence across its entire product range.
• Preparation and perseverance: Lin Fan’s sustained study produces a technique strong enough to remove an obstacle that had troubled him for a long time.
• Ambition and risk: Reaching the steel force realm promises a dramatic transformation, but its rarity and danger make careful preparation essential.

Plot points and events

• Lin Fan travels deep into a remote cavern, choosing a sealed underground chamber where rock blocks sound, vibrations, and his aura, making it an ideal place to break through.
• After more than three days of accelerated cultivation, he reaches three million strands of inner qi and breaks through from the Transforming Force Realm to the early Steel Force Realm.
• The breakthrough transforms his body: some inner qi becomes blood, some becomes bone, and his former flesh-and-blood body is destroyed and remade.
• His newly unleashed power causes a massive underground blast and tremors that shake the mountain range and alarm residents in a nearby town, who mistake them for an earthquake.
• Lin Fan gains control of his power, conceals his new realm with the Flying Dragon Breath Concealment Technique, and returns to the Azure Elixir Sect without revealing his breakthrough.

Character development

• Lin Fan demonstrates exceptional confidence and composure, entering a place that would once have frightened him and enduring the dangerous breakthrough alone.
• Reaching Steel Force marks a historic advancement: no one in the Azure Elixir Sect has attained the realm in a thousand years.
• He shows strategic restraint by masking his immense strength and presenting himself as an ordinary early Bright Force martial artist.

Significant themes

• Secrecy and preparation: Lin Fan carefully chooses a hidden, secure location to protect himself and conceal his breakthrough.
• Transformation through cultivation: His advancement is portrayed as a complete remaking of the body, not merely an increase in power.
• Power and its consequences: Even an uncontrolled trace of his new strength causes destruction far beyond the cavern.
• Concealed greatness: Despite his extraordinary achievement, Lin Fan returns appearing unremarkable.

Character interactions

• Lin Fan has no direct conversations during the breakthrough. His actions nevertheless affect the nearby townspeople, who panic during the tremors.
• At the sect gate, the guards respectfully welcome him back. Their reaction reflects the sect’s concern: the master and elders have been asking after Lin Fan during his three-day absence because they regard him as a valuable member.

Key events

• Lin Fan returns safely to the Azure Elixir Sect after his dangerous journey. The sect master and core elders are relieved, unaware that Lin Fan has secretly become the sect’s first Astral Force powerhouse in a thousand years.
• He declines a welcoming banquet and returns to his courtyard, where Chu Lingxi greets him with evident joy. Lin Ruoruo is playfully jealous that Lingxi reached him first, while Su Qingwei welcomes him warmly. The family catches up over a peaceful conversation.
• Lin Fan checks his cultivation system and learns that reaching the Steel Force realm has increased the cost of accelerated cultivation tenfold. The next realms’ costs remain hidden.
• Calculating that his current income cannot sustain daily acceleration, Lin Fan decides to improve his alchemy so he can produce enough pills to fund it. He spends the next three months studying the sect’s extensive Pill Dao collection, while his cultivation nearly stalls.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Fan remains calm and considerate, reassuring the sect leaders and declining fuss. At home, he responds warmly to Chu Lingxi, Lin Ruoruo, and Su Qingwei, showing his affection for the close-knit household.
• Chu Lingxi’s attachment to Lin Fan is clear in her eager, relieved greeting. Lin Ruoruo’s mild jealousy appears as playful sulking rather than real resentment.
• Lin Fan shifts from prioritizing rapid cultivation to investing time in alchemy, choosing a practical way to support his ambitions despite the slowdown.

Significant themes

• Hidden strength: Lin Fan’s immense breakthrough goes unnoticed because he can conceal his power.
• Ambition and cost: Rapid progress requires increasingly large resources, forcing him to balance speed against sustainability.
• Learning as growth: He turns to the sect’s accumulated knowledge to strengthen his alchemy.
• Family and belonging: His return restores warmth and completeness to the household.

Key plot points

• After three months studying the Azure Elixir Sect’s alchemical texts, Lin Fan integrates his knowledge and makes a major breakthrough: he can control two pill furnaces at once without sacrificing quality.
• A trial run produces only top-grade high-grade pills. Dual-furnace refining more than doubles his output, allowing him to make nearly 3,000 pills in six hours and save a large monthly income.
• Lin Fan resumes his routine of refining pills for six hours daily and cultivating for the rest of the day. His next delivery of 3,000 pills astonishes the sect, whose previous expectation was about 1,300 per half month.
• The sect master and elders visit. Lin Fan demonstrates his technique and explains that his breakthrough came from studying the Scripture Repository. The elders recognize how exceptionally difficult dual-furnace refining is.
• Word spreads through Azure Elixir City, bringing admirers and visitors to Lin Fan’s mountain. He has disciples turn them away and continues his quiet life.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Fan advances as an alchemist and becomes more capable of managing his growing strength through the discipline of pill refining. He remains modest and private despite his fame, deliberately concealing the true level of his power by using only early bright-force strength while refining.
• The sect master and elders move from surprise at Lin Fan’s increased output to open admiration after witnessing his skill firsthand.
• Chu Lingxi, Lin Fan’s eldest disciple, watches him refine pills and helps sort them.
• Lin Ruoruo plays with Mao Mao, while Su Qingwei tends the courtyard’s spiritual herbs. Lin Fan also spends time teaching his two young children to speak.

Significant themes

• Mastery through study and practice: Lin Fan’s breakthrough grows from sustained learning, reflection, and disciplined work.
• Skill as both livelihood and cultivation: Alchemy earns wealth and supports the sect, while helping Lin Fan control his inner power.
• Recognition versus privacy: Lin Fan’s achievement makes him famous, but he prefers family life and steady cultivation over public attention.
• Strategic restraint and security: By concealing his full strength, Lin Fan limits the risks that fame might bring, while his valuable pill production also makes him useful to the Zhao Kingdom.
  The chapter ends with Lin Fan and his family enjoying a peaceful life at the sect, now more than a year after their arrival.

Key plot points and events

• Lin Fan produces over 3,000 High-Grade Superior Pills every half month, more than Azure Cloud Commandery City can absorb. The Azure Elixir Sect expands Azure Elixir Hall into other commandery cities and considers further expansion.
• Lin Fan’s lectures have raised the sect’s general alchemy skill, strengthening its ability to supply pills.
• Azure Elixir Hall’s growth severely cuts into Ten Thousand Treasures Commerce’s pill sales in several cities. Though the commerce guild remains wealthy, its local chief stewards fear further losses to their incomes.
• Stewards from affected commanderies meet secretly in Azure Cloud City. They conclude that Lin Fan is the main obstacle and discuss eliminating him, but recognize they cannot attack the powerful Azure Elixir Sect directly.
• After two hours of failed efforts to find an ally, Azure Cloud’s still-injured chief steward remembers that Lin Fan and his sister survived the execution of their family, the Lin lineage, in the Capital City. He suggests this old bloodbath may offer a way to draw others into the conflict.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Fan remains offstage but is established as the source of Azure Elixir Hall’s commercial strength and the sect’s improved alchemy.
• Azure Elixir Sect is shown as a martial organization that uses alchemy to fund cultivation, unlike Ten Thousand Treasures Commerce, which is chiefly a profit-making enterprise.
• The Ten Thousand Treasures chief stewards shift from anger over lost business to plotting against Lin Fan. Their discussion reveals both their resentment and their reluctance to confront the sect without powerful allies.
• Azure Cloud’s chief steward, still suffering from his earlier injuries, moves the meeting forward by proposing Lin Fan as the target, then supplies a possible lead through his family history.

Significant themes

• Commerce versus martial power: Ten Thousand Treasures Commerce prioritizes profit, while the Azure Elixir Sect treats pill-making as support for cultivation and survival.
• Limits of material resources: Pills can aid cultivation but cannot replace discipline, physical capacity, or other factors; overuse can be harmful.
• Competition turning into conspiracy: Market losses prompt the stewards to consider violence rather than accept changing fortunes.
• The past shaping present conflict: Lin Fan’s family’s destruction may connect current commercial rivalry to an older political or personal feud.

Key plot points

• Facing pressure from Lin Fan and the expanding Azure Elixir Hall, the Ten Thousand Treasures Commerce’s regional stewards seek a powerful ally to help counter the Azure Elixir Sect.
• They investigate Lin Fan’s background and uncover that his family was framed and executed after an elder exposed illicit businesses connected to Prince Gao’s Manor. Prince Gao himself had demanded the harshest punishment.
• Recognizing that Lin Fan’s family history gives Prince Gao a motive to fear and oppose him, the stewards send their findings and a proposed alliance to the Commerce’s headquarters.
• The Chief Manager brings the evidence to the Ten Thousand Treasures Ancestor, who reviews it and connects Lin Fan’s growing influence to the Commerce’s declining elixir profits. The chapter ends before he gives instructions.

Character developments and interactions

• The regional stewards shift from searching broadly for an ally to pursuing a specific strategy: exploit the feud between Lin Fan and Prince Gao.
• The Chief Manager acts cautiously and respectfully, reporting the matter rather than deciding on the Commerce’s behalf.
• The Ten Thousand Treasures Ancestor appears detached and controlled, but his reaction reveals growing frustration over the Commerce’s losses and interest in Lin Fan’s past.
• The stewards collaborate by gathering and cross-checking records; the Chief Manager then presents their findings directly to the Ancestor.

Significant themes

• Power and political corruption: Prince Gao’s faction allegedly used its influence to frame the Lin Family and destroy it.
• Revenge as leverage: The Commerce hopes to turn Lin Fan’s personal vendetta into a political alliance against him.
• Commercial rivalry: The Azure Elixir Hall’s expansion threatens the Ten Thousand Treasures Commerce’s wealth and standing.
• Information as power: Investigating old records gives the stewards a possible route to influence events.

Plot points and events

• The Ten Thousand Treasures Ancestor learns that Lin Fan’s family was exterminated in an old case connected to Prince Gao’s Manor. He sees an opportunity to exploit this history and orders lavish gifts prepared for Prince Gao: a Millennium Ganoderma, a Deep-Sea Pearl, and Lifespan-Extending Pills.
• He sends Prince Gao a message claiming to have information about the manor’s safety. Prince Gao accepts the gifts and agrees to meet him the next morning, though he privately doubts his manor is in danger.
• The Ancestor arrives alone with a chest containing gathered case files, clues, and witness statements. He tells Prince Gao that Lin Fan survived the Lin family’s destruction and is now an elder of the Azure Elixir Sect.
• The Ancestor emphasizes Lin Fan’s extraordinary abilities—at twenty, he has reached the bright force realm and can produce thousands of superior-quality High-Grade Pills. The chapter ends as he prepares to reveal the crucial connection between Lin Fan and Prince Gao’s Manor.

Character developments and interactions

• The Ten Thousand Treasures Ancestor acts as a calculating strategist, using evidence, gifts, and a carefully framed warning to gain access to Prince Gao and advance his scheme.
• Prince Gao remains composed and authoritative, initially dismissing the old case as insignificant. The Ancestor’s report begins to attract his attention, but his true reaction remains concealed.
• Lin Fan is absent from the events and unaware that his family’s past is being used to create a threat against him and the Azure Elixir Sect.

Significant themes

• The past as a weapon: A buried family tragedy becomes leverage in present-day political maneuvering.
• Power and manipulation: Gifts and claims of danger serve as tools for influencing those in authority.
• Hidden threats: Lin Fan’s peaceful routine contrasts with the danger quietly gathering around him.
• Unequal knowledge: The Ancestor possesses evidence and a plan, while Prince Gao—and especially Lin Fan—do not yet know the full stakes.

Key plot points and events

• Ancestor Wanbao tells Prince Gao that the Lin Family’s old “dereliction of duty” case was allegedly fabricated after the family uncovered illegal businesses tied to Prince Gao’s Manor in Blackwater Commandery. He adds that Prince Gao once advocated executing the entire family.
• Prince Gao denies personal responsibility, claiming his subordinates acted without his knowledge and that he only supported a lawful judgment. Wanbao warns that Lin Fan will likely hold the manor responsible and may eventually seek revenge.
• Wanbao presents a box of case records, correspondence, and witness statements. After reviewing them, Prince Gao finds the evidence credible and orders a discreet investigation into the case, Lin Fan, and the Azure Elixir Sect.
• Over the next ten days, Prince Gao gathers intelligence and develops a plan. He then summons Wanbao back to the manor, where a concealed late Transforming Force Realm expert is now present.
• Asked how to deal with Lin Fan and the sect, Wanbao proposes that the manor and the Ten Thousand Treasures Commerce join forces to destroy the Azure Elixir Sect and capture Lin Fan alive, exploiting his alchemy to make him produce pills.

Character developments and interactions

• Prince Gao shifts from apparent indifference to guarded concern and then to active planning. Though he denies culpability, the evidence prompts him to investigate and prepare for the threat.
• Ancestor Wanbao acts as both informant and strategist. He presses Prince Gao with the danger Lin Fan poses, then proposes a ruthless solution that would benefit their alliance.
• Lin Fan, absent from the scene, becomes the focus of Prince Gao’s concerns: his rapid growth, potential desire for revenge, and skill in alchemy make him both a threat and a valuable target.
• Prince Gao and Wanbao’s exchange is tense and politically cautious: Wanbao lays out the manor’s exposure, while Gao weighs the evidence before committing to action. The newly present expert underscores the seriousness of their preparations.

Significant themes

• Hidden corruption and accountability: The Lin Family case may have concealed abuses by powerful interests, raising the prospect that old injustices will return.
• Power and self-preservation: Prince Gao prioritizes protecting his manor, while Wanbao advocates eliminating a perceived threat.
• Information and intrigue: Secret records, discreet investigations, spies, and private questioning drive the political maneuvering.
• Exploitation of talent: Wanbao’s plan treats Lin Fan not only as an enemy but as a resource to be captured and forced to produce pills.

The Ten Thousand Treasures Ancestor agreed to Prince Gao’s terms and began assembling allies for an attack on the Azure Elixir Sect. After investigating nearby sects, he chose Blackstone Valley and arrived there with Mo Chen to seek its support.

• Prince Gao offered two late transforming force experts in exchange for the Azure Elixir Sect’s entire treasury, and the Ten Thousand Treasures Ancestor accepted.
• Prince Gao assigned the Black-Clad Elder to assist with planning and promised a second expert would join when fighting began.
• The Ten Thousand Treasures Ancestor and the Black-Clad Elder left the Capital City and traveled south toward the Southern Frontier.
• The Ten Thousand Treasures Ancestor ordered spies to investigate nearby sects and selected Blackstone Valley, whose pill trade had suffered from Lin Fan’s success.
• The Ten Thousand Treasures Ancestor and Mo Chen reached Blackstone Valley’s mountain gates to seek an alliance.

The Ten Thousand Treasures Ancestor and an expert from Prince Gao's Manor negotiated with the Black Baleful Adept to form an alliance against the Azure Elixir Sect. After nearly two hours, they agreed on the terms for the attack and the division of spoils.

• The Ten Thousand Treasures Ancestor and his companion arrived at Blackstone Valley and were welcomed by the Black Baleful Adept.
• The Ten Thousand Treasures Ancestor invited Blackstone Valley to join an attack on the Azure Elixir Sect, citing its growing pill business under Lin Fan.
• He promised four late transforming force realm experts on their side and offered Blackstone Valley the sect's lands, businesses, alchemists, and Azure Elixir Hall medicine shops.
• The Black Baleful Adept questioned the offer's reliability, and the Ten Thousand Treasures Ancestor proposed recording the spoils, deadlines, and responsibilities in a Blood Oath Pact.
• After nearly two hours of discussion, the Ten Thousand Treasures Ancestor and the Black Baleful Adept settled the alliance's terms.

The Ten Thousand Treasures Ancestor and the Black Baleful Adept sealed an alliance against the Azure Elixir Sect, while Lin Fan helped Chu Lingxi overcome her discouragement with alchemy. Chu Lingxi successfully refined three low-grade pills under Lin Fan's guidance.

• The Black Baleful Adept agreed to ally with the Ten Thousand Treasures Ancestor, and they swore a blood oath against the Azure Elixir Sect.
• Lin Fan reflected on his cultivation and alchemy progress after more than three months in the steel force realm.
• Lin Fan found Chu Lingxi upset after her third failed attempt to refine an Essence-Stabilizing Pill.
• Lin Fan explained that Chu Lingxi's ingredients were well refined and advised her on controlling the flame and directing qi during pill formation.
• With Lin Fan beside her, Chu Lingxi tried again and successfully produced three low-grade pills.

Lin Fan recognized Chu Lingxi’s growing affection but decided to preserve their peaceful companionship while he focused on reaching the innate realm. Meanwhile, Blackstone Valley completed its secret preparations for war, and its force assembled to deploy.

• Chu Lingxi watched Lin Fan cultivate beneath the moonlight, then returned to her room after admiring him from beneath an osmanthus tree.
• Lin Fan sensed Chu Lingxi’s feelings and decided not to reject them, but to wait because she was young and he needed greater strength to protect those around him.
• Blackstone Valley recalled its experts, forged armor and weapons, and prepared combat pills as it secretly readied more than a thousand disciples for battle.
• The deployment day arrived, and the Ten Thousand Treasures Ancestor and two late transforming force realm experts from Prince Gao’s Manor stood at the head of the assembled force.

Ten Thousand Treasures Ancestor led Blackstone Valley’s forces, including a hidden demonic expert, to attack the Azure Elixir Sect. The sect’s annihilation alarm sounded, and its leaders ordered the defenders to prepare for battle and activate the Mountain-Guarding Grand Formation.

• Ten Thousand Treasures Ancestor and Black Baleful Adept led Blackstone Valley’s disciples toward the Azure Elixir Sect, while a masked late transforming force realm expert revealed demonic inner qi.
• Blackstone Valley’s forces arrived outside Azure Elixir City, where Ten Thousand Treasures Ancestor ordered them to show no mercy and assigned Lin Fan to himself.
• The four late transforming force realm experts released their pressure over the Azure Elixir Sect, alerting two outer sect elders to the invasion.
• The two outer sect elders shouted an alarm and rang the enormous bronze bell, throwing the Azure Elixir Sect into chaos.
• The sect master and inner sect elders heard the annihilation alarm and ordered the defenders summoned and the Mountain-Guarding Grand Formation activated.

The Azure Elixir Sect faced an invasion by Blackstone Valley, backed by four late transforming force realm experts, and struggled to defend itself as Azure Elixir City fell. The Azure Elixir Ancestor confronted the attackers, who surrounded him and began their assault.

• Four late transforming force realm auras descended on the Azure Elixir Sect, prompting the elders to muster its forces.
• The Azure Elixir Ancestor emerged from seclusion, recognized the invasion as a war of annihilation, and hurried to the sect gates.
• Over a thousand Blackstone Valley disciples sacked Azure Elixir City, then advanced up the mountain toward the sect.
• The Ten Thousand Treasures Ancestor, two experts from Prince Gao's Manor, and the Black Baleful Adept waited above the gates as the Azure Elixir Ancestor rallied the sect to fight.
• The Blackstone Valley forces clashed with the Azure Elixir Sect, while the four enemy experts surrounded the Azure Elixir Ancestor.
• The Ten Thousand Treasures Ancestor struck first, launching a crushing palm attack at the Azure Elixir Ancestor.

Four late transforming force experts nearly destroyed the Azure Elixir Sect, but a masked steel force realm expert arrived and killed them all. The Azure Elixir Sect survived the immediate assault, though its ancestor, elders, and disciples were gravely wounded.

• Four late transforming force experts overwhelmed Azure Elixir Ancestor, shattering his defenses and leaving him severely injured.
• Azure Elixir Sect elders charged in to help, but the attackers quickly wounded them and Blackstone Valley's Battle Elixir-strengthened disciples routed the sect's fighters.
• As Azure Elixir Ancestor and the sect faced defeat, a masked expert with steel force realm astral qi arrived.
• The masked expert killed Ten Thousand Treasures Ancestor with a single palm strike.
• The masked expert swiftly killed the other three late transforming force experts as they tried to flee.

Lin Fan secretly rescued the Azure Elixir Sect from Blackstone Valley’s invasion and saved the Su Family from attackers in Azure Elixir City. After learning Ten Thousand Treasures Ancestor had arranged the assault to seize the sect’s holdings and capture him, Lin Fan turned his attention to the plot’s greedy instigators.

• Lin Fan defeated the four late transforming force realm experts and knocked the Blackstone Valley invaders unconscious before vanishing without revealing himself.
• Lin Fan remembered that Su Yuanshan and his family were in Azure Elixir City and raced from his mountaintop courtyard to protect them.
• Lin Fan subdued Blackstone Valley disciples as they tried to break into the Su Residence, then interrogated them.
• Lin Fan learned that Ten Thousand Treasures Ancestor had allied with Blackstone Valley to destroy the Azure Elixir Sect, capture Lin Fan, and divide its holdings.
• Lin Fan reacted with cold anger after discovering that Ten Thousand Treasures Ancestor had arranged the attack for profit.

Lin Fan disguised himself as an unknown steel force realm expert, saved the Azure Elixir Sect from Blackstone Valley’s attack, and then traveled to Blackstone Valley to take its treasury’s silver. He reached the treasury beneath Blackrock Main Peak and prepared to get past its protective formations.

• Lin Fan reassured the Su Family, then disguised himself and went to the Azure Elixir Sect, where he killed four late transforming force realm attackers and knocked out over a thousand Blackstone Valley disciples.
• Lin Fan left without revealing his identity and flew to Blackstone Valley to claim its silver, planning to leave the other treasures for the Azure Elixir Sect.
• Lin Fan entered Blackstone Valley, located the treasury beneath Blackrock Main Peak, and silently knocked out the disciples and elders in his path.
• Lin Fan arrived at the treasury’s layered protective formations, which he believed would pose little obstacle to his steel force realm strength.