Chapter Summaries

Blackstone City prepared to withstand Shi Haojun’s siege as Yan Pojun rationed supplies and the clans mourned their dead. Long Yuan secretly ordered the Long Family’s geniuses and treasures moved to the Far West Long Family, while the city’s most powerful clan ancestors gathered at the City Lord’s Manor to discuss what came next.

• Yan Pojun learned Qian Jinjin had fled Blackstone City with the Qian Clan Merchant Association’s wealth, then ordered the city to conserve supplies and Spirit Stones.
• Yan Pojun sent the defenders to destroy the Plague Corpses beneath the walls, while Shi Haojun watched and planned to continue the siege with more corpses.
• Long Yuan mourned the loss of his Fire Dragon Gu and discussed the battle’s heavy casualties with Long Yuanshan.
• Long Yuan ordered Long Yuanshan to secretly move the Long Family’s geniuses, wealth, and manuals to the Far West Long Family while keeping the Spatial House’s secret hidden.
• Long Yuan and the leading ancestors of the city’s clans gathered at the City Lord’s Manor for a meeting called by Yan Pojun.

Yan Pojun ordered Blackstone City to slaughter Black Moon City’s people, claiming it might appease Shi Haojun while also easing the food shortage. By nightfall, the purge had begun, and Long Xuan and Long Ziyan watched the violence consume the city.

• Yan Pojun proposed killing every Black Moon City person in Blackstone City in hopes that Shi Haojun would spare his mother’s hometown.
• The Stone Clan’s ancestor warned that Shi Haojun’s Forbidden Gu might drive him to keep killing even after his enemies were dead.
• Yan Pojun revealed that the purge would also target unfamiliar outsiders and use Gu King battles to kill mortals, then ordered the operation to begin that night.
• Long Xuan packed to flee Blackstone City, but heard fighting break out before he could leave.
• Long Xuan saw Gu Kings slaughtering Black Moon City Gu Kings amid widespread destruction and civilian deaths.
• Long Ziyan told Long Xuan that Blackstone City was killing Black Moon City’s people to seek Shi Haojun’s forgiveness, while Long Xuan feared the purge could wipe out half the city.

Shi Haojun turned the Gu Kings killed in battle into Plague Corpses, leaving Blackstone City in greater danger. As Long Xuan and other Long Family geniuses began evacuating through the Spatial House, the Far West Long Family welcomed Long Xuan home.

• Yan Pojun told Shi Haojun that Black Moon City's people had all been killed and pleaded for him to spare Blackstone City, but Shi Haojun refused to be deterred.
• Shi Haojun revived the dead Gu Kings as Plague Corpses, worsening Blackstone City's chances of surviving.
• Long Dan explained to Long Xuan that Shi Haojun could be countered by means such as Tribulation Lightning or the Purification Gu, and Long Yuanshan assured them that Gu Emperor City had methods to oppose him.
• Long Ruoxue and Long Dan declared they would stay and fight, but Long Yuanshan ordered the geniuses to evacuate.
• Long Xuan led Long Ziyan into the Spatial House, then followed her through the Void Realm to the Far West Long Family, where its upper ranks welcomed him home.

Long Xuan learned the rabbit knew a lifespan-extending elixir recipe and used it as inspiration to create a Low-Grade Longevity Gu Recipe. The Western Land Long Family then delivered mountains of Spirit Insects and urged him to accelerate his research on the Dragon Blood Battle Gu Recipe.

• Long Xuan returned to find Living Wood stripped of its bark and leaves, enraging the rabbit.
• Long Xuan asked the rabbit to write down its Longevity Elixir Recipe, then realized many of its materials were likely extinct.
• Two months later, Long Xuan created a Low-Grade Longevity Gu Recipe and ordered his clone to gather its materials for testing.
• Long Qian visited Long Xuan with mountains of Spirit Insects, saying the Lineage wanted him to speed up research on the Dragon Blood Battle Gu Recipe.
• Long Xuan questioned Long Qian about how the Western Land Long Family had obtained so many Spirit Insects.

Long Qian explained how the Western Land Long Family profited from Blackstone City’s siege by buying up Spirit Insects cheaply and smuggling in food, while Long Xuan used their materials to begin refining Blade Gu. The refinement began with Xiaoyue charging into a chaotic battle among hundreds of thousands of Spirit Insects.

• Long Qian said the Western Land Long Family had bought up Blackstone City’s Spirit Insect resources at rock-bottom prices and planned to sell food in the besieged city for enormous profits.
• Long Qian explained that the family needed the Dragon Blood Battle Gu to withstand the Plague Demon Gu, and Long Xuan agreed to work on the recipe while keeping his completed results secret for now.
• Long Xuan had the Ice Bees carry the Spirit Insects to his mountain and prepared a large basin as a Gu-refining site.
• Long Xuan released Xiaoyue among roughly 530,000 Spirit Insects, then removed his illusion technique once the refinement site registered progress.
• The Spirit Insects began slaughtering and devouring one another, while Xiaoyue fought off the swarm with her ten blades.

Long Xuan used the Longevity Gu to transform Thatch Gu, confirming it could safely teleport living creatures, and had it build larger escape houses from Fourth-Grade Spirit Tree wood. After a year and a half of training and dual cultivation, Long Xuan reached the Late Marrow-Cleansing Stage, completed the Ten Ultimates Saber Technique, and gave the manual to Xiaoyue to teach his mature Five-Hundred-Thousand-Tier Blade Gu.

• Long Xuan fed the Longevity Gu to Thatch Gu, which transformed into a Mid-Grade Gu Insect with nearly twice its lifespan and the ability to teleport living creatures.
• Long Xuan tested Thatch Gu's teleportation on Spirit Insects, his clones, and himself, then ordered it to build ten larger houses from Fourth-Grade Spirit Tree wood.
• Long Xuan spent a year and a half training and dual cultivating with Long Ziyan, reaching the Late Marrow-Cleansing Stage as Long Ziyan advanced to the Spiritual Sea Stage.
• Long Xuan completed the Ten Ultimates Saber Technique and handed its manual to Xiaoyue, telling her to learn it instead of her old saber technique.
• Long Xuan's Blade Gu matured into a world-rare Five-Hundred-Thousand-Tier Blade Gu, refined using the remaining types of Spirit Insect in Western Land.

During Blackstone City's year-and-a-half siege, the Western Land Long Family secretly profited from selling food and water while the city's Gu Kings began suffering from unexplained illnesses. Long Xuan gave Xiaoyue a saber technique suited to her, then visited Long Ziyan to ask about Sword Intent and was met with shock at his estimate of several thousand more bloodline refinements.

• The Western Land Long Family secretly sold food and water to Blackstone City, while its members pretended to starve and Yan Pojun worried as the Gu Kings' health deteriorated.
• Xiaoyue read Long Xuan's Ten Ultimates Saber Technique, recognized it as a perfect fit for her ten sabers, and began practicing its strongest move.
• Long Xuan decided to help Xiaoyue pursue sword and saber dual cultivation and went to ask Long Ziyan whether she could comprehend Sword Intent.
• Long Xuan found two Thatch Gu relaxing together in the Icefire Cabin and made one take him to Long Ziyan's residence.
• Long Ziyan asked how many more bloodline refinements Long Xuan needed, and he estimated several thousand, causing her to spill her fruit juice in shock.

Long Xuan gave Long Ziyan a Millennium Longevity Gu, relieving her fear that her Nine-Yin Severing Physique would cut her life short. He then sent the completed Blood Dragon Battle Gu Recipe to the Long Family, where the elders gathered to study the Gu and decide who would claim it.

• Long Xuan gave Long Ziyan a human Longevity Gu that could grant up to a thousand years of life, and she accepted it with gratitude.
• Long Xuan explained that he had spent heavily developing the Longevity Gu and teased Long Ziyan about compensating him.
• Long Xuan went to Long Wanli and asked to use the Spatial House to send the completed Dragon Blood Battle Gu Recipe to the Western Land Long Family.
• Long Wanli took the recipe and summoned the Far West Long Family's upper elders, who excitedly copied it and examined the finished Blood Dragon Battle Gu.
• Long Yuanshan announced that the Blood Dragon Battle Gu was ownerless and asked which elder wanted to form a blood contract with it.

The Far West Long Family elders argued over who would keep Long Xuan’s uncontracted Blood Dragon Battle Gu, until their ancestor claimed it. Meanwhile, the Western Land Long Family celebrated the restored recipe, then realized the finished Gu and original draft had been kept by the Far West Long Family and erupted in anger.

• Long Lin questioned why Long Xuan had not blood-contracted the Blood Dragon Battle Gu, while Long Wanli speculated that he had refined another one.
• Long Xuan chose the Heavenly Dream Dragon Silkworm over the Blood Dragon Battle Gu because its Soul Armor offered broader, uncapped defense and the transformation would tear his clothes.
• The elders argued over ownership of the Blood Dragon Battle Gu until the Lineage ancestor announced that he wanted it.
• Long Wanli watched the elders’ argument with amusement, and they later blamed him for baiting them into embarrassing themselves.
• Long Yuanshan and the Western Land Long Family celebrated Long Xuan’s restored recipe and planned to refine the Gu in quantity.
• The Western Land Long Family discovered the finished Gu was missing and suspected the Far West Long Family had kept it along with the original recipe draft, prompting furious curses.

Long Xuan devised an Illusion Formation that would let people repeatedly face simulated weapon intents to comprehend Sword Intent, then wagered with Long Ziyan that he could create it. Half a year later, he completed the Immortal-Slaying Formation, which could function as either a training formation or a deadly killing formation.

• Long Xuan discussed Sword Intent with Long Ziyan but remained unable to understand how to comprehend it, so he proposed building an Illusion Formation using the Demon Flower to simulate many kinds of intent.
• Long Ziyan dismissed the idea, but accepted Long Xuan’s bet that he could create the formation in exchange for a month in which she would obey his demands if he won.
• Long Xuan left to prepare materials and decided to submit the Longevity Gu recipe to the Far West Long Family to obtain resources.
• After half a year of research, Long Xuan completed the Immortal-Slaying Formation, which contained countless weapon intents and could either help cultivators train or kill anyone who entered if its revival function was disabled.

After completing the Immortal-Slaying Formation Diagram, Long Xuan helped the Long Family plan to protect the wealth and influence they expected from improved Thatch Gu. He then finished the Immortal-Slaying Grand Formation and sent Long Ziyan inside to experience its simulated Sword Intent.

• Long Xuan presented the Longevity Gu Recipe to Long Wanli, and the Long Family's elders discussed using it to improve Thatch Gu and establish teleportation gates.
• The Grand Elder warned that the teleportation technology would attract powerful rivals, so the Long Family decided to seek allies among their relatives and eventually approach the Dragon-Teng Empire.
• Long Wanli agreed to send aid to the besieged West Sea Long Clan, making them the Long Family's first prospective partner.
• Long Xuan and his five clones completed the Immortal-Slaying Grand Formation at Violet Star Peak in half a month.
• Long Xuan gave Long Ziyan a Formation Key and pushed her into the formation; its eighteen pillars flashed, then vanished along with her.

Long Ziyan entered Long Xuan’s lifelike Illusion Realm, discovered that dying to Sword Intent gave her real insights, and began training through its challenges. While Long Xuan waited for her to emerge, three months passed and major events unfolded across the Far Western Lands and Western Land.

• Long Ziyan explored the Illusion Realm, rushed toward its strongest Ice Sword Intent, and was killed before respawning at the Long Family safe house with new insights.
• Long Ziyan returned to the weaker Sword Intent challenges, determined to master every kind of Sword Intent, while Long Xuan waited outside for her to come out.
• Over the next three months, Xiaoyue learned the Ten Ultimates Saber Technique and the Far West Long Family sent troops into the West Sea.
• After two and a half years of siege, Blackstone City received its first reinforcements, sent after Gu Emperor City issued the Demon-Slaying Edict against Shi Haojun.

Long Xuan learned that the Purification Gu-led campaign against Shi Haojun had continued after the first battle, then received a Medicine Insect that could accelerate the growth of spirit medicines. He rushed off to develop a Medicine Gu Recipe, while Long Ziyan secretly refined a Myriad-level Blade Gu and began guiding its first transformation.

• Long Xuan reviewed how Purification Gu could counter Shi Haojun's plague, and learned that the first encirclement had failed after Shi Haojun escaped despite a mysterious woman's ambush.
• Gu Kings from the Central Region arrived at Blackstone City, where some used Purification Gu to cleanse the waters while the others continued pursuing Shi Haojun.
• Flame Clone returned with the stone from the ancient tomb, and Long Xuan broke it open to find a sleeping green caterpillar identified as the Medicine Insect.
• Long Xuan realized the Medicine Insect could mature spirit medicines and help his Divine Dragon Trees grow, then hurried home to develop a Medicine Gu Recipe.
• After Long Xuan left, Long Ziyan revealed her successful Myriad-level Blade Gu and gave it her Ice Sword Intent to guide its first transformation.

Long Xuan spent half a year researching a Medicine Gu Recipe while the Far West Long Family used Earthworkers to crush the Zhu-Song Families in a decisive battle. He completed the recipe, unaware that the Earthworkers had become famous across the world.

• Long Xuan narrowed the Medicine Gu Recipe to one requiring roughly ten thousand materials and entered seclusion to research it.
• The Far West Long Family launched volleys of earth balls from five thousand Earthworkers, devastating the Zhu-Song Families' army.
• The Earthworkers charged with mobile Mountain-Protecting Formations and slaughtered the survivors, forcing the allied army to flee as the Long Family won without losses.
• The West Sea Long Clan's leaders were stunned by the Earthworkers' power, and the battle made the creatures renowned throughout the world.
• After half a year, Long Xuan completed the Medicine Gu Recipe and proudly celebrated his achievement.

After receiving his promised contributions and permission to mine Geng Metal, Long Xuan hurried to the Western Land Long Family’s ore vein with several other geniuses. The group began their month of mining, while Long Qian warned them not to steal any metal.

• Long Qian delivered Long Xuan’s Contribution Token and confirmed he could collect his reward of Geng Metal.
• Long Xuan learned that Long Ziyan was still inside the Immortal-Slaying Formation comprehending Sword Intent, then traveled with Long Qian through a Thatch Gu House.
• Long Qian arrived late at the Geng Metal Ore Vein, where Long Dan, Long Ruoxue, Long Xuan, Long Qilin, and Long Panpan waited for him.
• Long Qian told the geniuses they had one month to mine and could keep what they extracted.
• Long Xuan saw branch family Gu cultivators caught trying to hide Geng Metal, and Long Qian warned the geniuses not to steal any.

Long Xuan entered the Geng Metal Ore Vein, wary of a Bai Clan Spirit Sea Peak cultivator who had been staring at him. He sent a clone to secretly watch the man and used his progress-bar sight to locate Geng Metal Essence, arriving at a crowded rich-ore tunnel where mining it discreetly would be difficult.

• Long Xuan noticed a hostile Bai Clan Spirit Sea Peak cultivator watching him, but Long Qian dismissed the threat and led the young geniuses into the mine.
• Long Qian handed out maps, mining tools, and special storage pouches, warning everyone to avoid tunnels marked with crosses.
• Long Qilin challenged Long Xuan to a bet over who would mine more Geng Metal, and Long Xuan accepted before sending six clones to mine separately.
• Long Xuan ordered his Flame Clone to monitor the Bai Clan cultivator from outside the mine and record any suspicious actions with a transformed Image-Recording Gu.
• Long Xuan used the Eye of Heavenly Secrets to find a progress bar he believed belonged to Geng Metal Essence and headed for it.
• Long Xuan reached a crowded rich-ore tunnel, where the miners and supervisors made it difficult to extract the Geng Metal Essence unseen.

Long Xuan exploited his ability to locate Geng Metal Ore and distracted the miners so he could collect the surface Geng Metal Essence. After discovering a hidden passage toward the Bai Clan’s mine, he suspected the Bai Clan overseers had a secret plan and fled the area, while three more Bai Clan cultivators arrived to help break a formation.

• Long Xuan used his High-grade Spiritual Pickaxe and knowledge of hidden ore to harvest Geng Metal Essence while luring nearby miners into fighting over crude ore.
• Long Xuan collected all the Geng Metal Essence he could reach in the Long Family’s surface mining area and considered sneaking into the Bai Clan’s mine.
• Long Xuan discovered a stone-blocked passage leading toward the Bai Clan’s mining area and suspected Bai Clan overseers had dug it for a scheme.
• Long Xuan hurried away from the hidden passage, afraid of encountering the Bai Clan overseers.
• Bai Ye greeted three arriving Bai Clan cultivators and said their help would let the six Spiritual Sea Stage cultivators break a formation within half a month.

Bai Ye and the Bai Clan Gu Masters planned to loot the Ancient Cultivator's Cave Dwelling and massacre the Long Family miners, blaming the Great Yin Dynasty. After watching their plot on an Image-Recording Gu, Long Xuan decided to find the cave dwelling and take its treasures before exposing them.

• Bai Ye persuaded three Bai Clan Gu Masters that their numerical advantage and the city lord's policies would let them kill the Long Family geniuses without consequences.
• The Bai Clan group agreed to break into the cave dwelling first and attack the Long Family afterward, then secretly headed toward the mine veins.
• The Flame Clone recorded the conversation with an Image-Recording Gu and brought the footage to Long Xuan.
• Long Xuan learned about the Bai Clan's plan and realized that the cave dwelling was likely hidden in a dangerous, crossed-off mine tunnel.
• Long Xuan decided to search for the cave dwelling and claim its treasures before handing the recording to the Western Land Long Family.

Long Panpan secretly arranged to buy miners’ Coarse Geng Metal Ore while Long Xuan used the Illusion Realm to break the formation around an ancient cultivator’s cave abode. After ten days, he opened the way in the Illusion Realm and discovered the cave’s surviving treasures, including Soul-Nourishing Wood.

• Long Panpan devised a plan to trade with miners for their Coarse Geng Metal Ore and began collecting a portion of the mine’s output.
• Long Xuan entered the marked mine tunnel through his Origin Realm and began studying the ancient formation protecting the cave abode.
• Long Panpan recruited miners for her scheme, while Long Qilin and Long Dan continued mining through the following days.
• Long Xuan used clones and his ability to locate ore to mine efficiently and monopolized the mine’s Geng Metal Essence.
• After ten nights, Long Xuan broke the formation in the Illusion Realm and explored the cave abode, where he found a skeleton, mostly ruined treasures, three cultivation manuals, and a piece of Soul-Nourishing Wood.

Long Xuan discovered that the cave residence held Soul-Nourishing Wood and three High-Grade Heavenly-Tier Techniques, including the dangerous True Soul Transformation. He decided to steal the treasures while the Bai Clan cultivators were away and sent his Flame Clone to carry out the plan.

• Long Xuan recognized the Soul-Nourishing Wood as a treasure that could increase Innate Soul Power and resolved to take it.
• Long Xuan examined the three techniques, dismissed the body-refining and cultivation techniques, and focused on the Soul Refining Technique.
• Long Xuan opened True Soul Transformation and learned that cultivating it without Soul-Nourishing Wood meant certain death.
• Long Xuan left the Illusion Realm and planned to loot the cave residence during the day, when the Bai Clan’s six Spiritual Sea Stage Gu cultivators were gone.
• Long Xuan sent his Flame Clone to break the cave-protecting formation and retrieve the treasures while he stayed cautious.