Chapter Summaries

Plot and events

• Tang Changsheng’s victories embolden the Hongdong Barbarians, who join him in taunting Hua Bai, the Flower-Foot chief, into fighting.
• Hua Bai accepts the challenge and tries to grab Tang Changsheng. Tang notices a hidden threat and uses his Soul Bewitchment Art to briefly stun him, but Hua Bai breaks free.
• Tang exploits the opening to strike Hua Bai in the chest and throat, killing him. He then reveals that Hua Bai had been wearing spiked knuckledusters coated with Flowerfoot Snake venom, exposing the chief’s attempted ambush.
• Hua Bai’s son Du attacks Tang in revenge. Tang kills him with a palm strike, turning the Flower-Foot Barbarians’ shock into fury.
• The Flower-Foot warriors charge. Tang fights back with a seized blade, and the Hongdong warriors join him. A bloody battle erupts at the stockade gate.
• The Flower-Foot Wizard arrives and orders everyone to stop. The fighters halt, though Tang calmly finishes one last opponent before obeying.

Character developments and interactions

• Tang Changsheng proves himself a skilled tactician as well as a fighter, using provocation, technique, and quick judgment to overcome opponents stronger than he is. He reveals a ruthless side by killing Du and continuing the battle, though he privately recognizes that close combat is not his specialty and feels relieved when the Wizard intervenes.
• Hua Bai is forced by his status as chief to answer Tang’s taunts. His attempted poisoned ambush—an act that violates the apparent rules of the duel—leads to his death and publicly disgraces him.
• The Hongdong warriors, especially after Tang’s victories, gain confidence and move from cheering him on to fighting beside him.
• The Flower-Foot Barbarians shift from hesitation to shock at Hua Bai’s death, then to grief and rage after Du is killed. Their anger eventually gives way to fear as Tang cuts through their ranks.
• The Wizard’s arrival halts the fight, demonstrating the authority Wizards command among both groups.

Significant themes

• Strength versus skill: Tang lacks the Barbarians’ raw power but compensates with technique and tactical awareness.
• Honor and hypocrisy: Hua Bai’s poisoned weapon undermines the honor of the duel, while Tang uses the discovery to justify his actions.
• Escalation and retaliation: Killing Hua Bai provokes his son’s attack; killing the son transforms a personal confrontation into a bloody conflict between groups.
• Performance and power: Tang’s taunts and composed demeanor shape the crowd’s reactions and help him control the confrontation, even as the violence threatens to overwhelm it.

Summary

This is an author’s note rather than a story chapter. The author thanks readers for their tips, lists supporters by donation amount, and says an extra chapter will be posted at noon to thank the two readers who each tipped 10,000 Qidian coins.

Character and relationship developments

No fictional characters or plot events appear. The note highlights the author’s appreciative relationship with the readership.

Themes

Gratitude, reader support, and the connection between online authors and their audience.

Key plot points and events

• Tang Changsheng has come to the Flower-Foot Tribal Stockade after killing its leader and the leader’s son. He reveals that his apparent strength partly depends on concealed magic, which he keeps hidden because he is not yet strong enough to risk exposure.
• The Flowerfoot Wizard is unsettled. He had provoked a dispute over hunting grounds to test Hongdong’s strength and had suspected Tang of being an Outerworld Demon. But Tang’s bold attack—and the fact that the earlier mismatch between his soul and body now seems to have disappeared—have thrown the wizard’s assumptions into doubt.
• Tang understands that traces of his body takeover could still be detected by a powerful soul-searching expert. The Nine Luminaries Heavenly Heart Method is helping his Primordial Spirit harmonize with his new body far faster than would otherwise be possible, preserving his chance to cultivate.
• When the wizard demands to know Hongdong’s intentions, Tang bluntly claims he wants the hunting grounds. He offers to withdraw if Flower-Foot gives up half, and insists the wizard cannot attack him.

Character developments

• Tang Changsheng remains composed and calculating. He recognizes the danger of revealing too much while also judging that his hidden strength and Treasured Artifacts make the wizard a manageable threat.
• The Flowerfoot Wizard shifts from testing Hongdong’s weakness to uncertainty and caution. His suspicions about Tang persist, but he can no longer explain what he sees.
• The Hongdong warriors are frightened by the presence of a rival wizard and look to Tang to determine their stockade’s future.

Significant themes

• Power and intimidation: Tang’s confident demand challenges the authority that wizards normally command.
• Identity and bodily transformation: Tang’s takeover of another body leaves lingering traces, highlighting the risks of rebirth and the struggle to reconcile soul and flesh.
• Secrecy and misjudgment: The wizard’s incomplete knowledge of Tang shapes the confrontation, while Tang deliberately conceals the full extent of his abilities.
• Land and survival: Control of hunting grounds represents the prosperity—or decline—of both stockades.

Character interactions

• The Flowerfoot Wizard confronts Tang and questions Hongdong’s intentions, but Tang answers with a direct demand rather than deference.
• Tang offers a bargain—half the hunting grounds in exchange for his withdrawal—while warning that the wizard cannot safely attack him.
• The Hongdong warriors’ fear contrasts with Tang’s calm, making him the central force in the standoff.

Key plot points and events

• Tang Changsheng rejects the Flowerfoot Wizard’s attempt to settle the conflict by offering half of the Flower-Foot Barbarians’ grazing land. He insists Hongdong must receive justice, and his warriors acclaim him as Hong Sheng, effectively recognizing him as their leader.
• The Flowerfoot Wizard yields half the grazing lands but threatens Tang with a curse and hints that he may attack secretly. Tang acts unconcerned and leads his victorious warriors home.
• The wizard concludes that Tang must be an Outerworld Demon, believing only someone with unusual power would show so little fear of wizards and the Flower-Foot Ancestral Spirit.
• Hongdong celebrates the victory, which promises more land, food, and future growth. Tang instead explores the cave’s underground river and discovers rich gold ore upstream, along with gold sand downstream.

Character developments

• Tang Changsheng strengthens his authority through boldness and his command of morale. He accepts the land concession as a temporary gain, with ambitions to expand further, and secretly recognizes the strategic value of Hongdong’s gold resources.
• The Flowerfoot Wizard shifts from open anger to suspicion. He suspects Tang is an Outerworld Demon and appears willing to pursue him through covert means.
• Hongdong’s warriors become more devoted to Tang, celebrating both the victory and their new leader.

Significant themes

• Morale and leadership: Tang’s confidence helps turn a military success into a decisive psychological victory.
• Justice as a source of legitimacy: By framing the dispute as a fight for justice, Tang rallies his warriors and strengthens his claim to leadership.
• Power and deception: Public rules constrain the wizard, but he considers acting in secret; Tang, meanwhile, conceals his own strength.
• Ambition and resources: The grazing lands are only an initial gain. The discovery of exceptionally rich gold hints at a much larger source of power and wealth.

Character interactions

• Tang and the Flowerfoot Wizard clash over the settlement, trading defiance and veiled threats. The wizard’s offer fails to intimidate Tang, and Tang’s warriors’ acclaim prevents the wizard from openly challenging him under accepted rules.
• Tang’s rallying cries unite the Hongdong warriors and turn their victory into recognition of his leadership.
• The wizard watches Tang depart and privately interprets his fearless behavior as evidence of supernatural backing, while Tang leaves unaware—or seemingly unconcerned—that he is now under suspicion.

Key plot points

• Tang Changsheng estimates that an underground river contains roughly a hundred tons of gold—an immense fortune—but recognizes that his small Tribal Stockade lacks the labor to mine it. He plans to absorb other stockades to gain people and resources.
• His immediate concern is the Flowerfoot Wizard. Tang believes the Wizard could become a threat after Tang killed the Flower-Foot Barbarians’ leader, and decides to strike before suspicion or retaliation can grow.
• Rejecting an approach through the Netherworld, where the Barbarians’ Ancestral Spirits might detect him, Tang travels through the Mortal World using the Yao Light Divine Lord transformation.
• He enters the Wizard’s Sea of Consciousness with the Nine Luminaries Heavenly Heart Method. The Wizard’s defenses are overwhelmed; Tang searches his memories, then kills him remotely.
• The attack severely drains Tang’s power and the Lamp Oil sustaining it. He takes a Spirit-Nourishing Pill and reflects that his technique could someday let him strike from great distances, like the legendary Sword Immortals.

Character developments

• Tang Changsheng shows growing ambition and pragmatism: he wants both the gold and the manpower to expand his influence. He is also increasingly ruthless, choosing preemptive assassination to eliminate a possible danger and gain access to the Wizard’s knowledge.
• The Flowerfoot Wizard is revealed to possess disciplined internal cultivation, breathing in fumes from a mysterious concoction. However, his abilities cannot protect him from Tang’s overwhelming soul-based technique.

Significant themes

• Preemptive force and survival: Tang embraces the principle of striking first rather than waiting for a rival to act.
• Power and its cost: Tang’s technique is devastating but consumes enormous energy, leaving him weakened.
• Wealth, ambition, and expansion: Gold is valuable not merely as treasure but as a resource for Tang’s larger plans.
• The supernatural and the limits of resistance: The Wizard’s mental defenses trigger, but the disparity in power makes resistance futile.

Character interactions

• Tang and the Flowerfoot Wizard never speak or meet face-to-face. Their interaction is a covert, one-sided attack: Tang invades the Wizard’s mind, examines his memories, and kills him before the Wizard can respond.

Chapter Summary: “Hongdong Bloodline”

Key events

• Tang Changsheng discovers from the Flowerfoot Wizard’s memories that the Wizard had recognized him as an Outerworld Demon. The secret was not shared, but the Wizard left a written record hidden in the Flower-Foot Ancestral Spirit’s cave.
• Fearing the record could expose him, Tang Changsheng concludes he may eventually need to eliminate the Ancestral Spirit. That would mean confronting the Flower-Foot people, whose two hundred bloodline-awakened warriors make them far stronger than the Hongdong tribe.
• Rather than attack first or reveal his full power, Tang decides to wait for the Flower-Foot Barbarians to retaliate. They remain unexpectedly quiet.
• While Hong An recovers, Tang lets him lead hunts and manage the tribe’s affairs. Tang secretly experiments with local ingredients to recreate his Spirit-Nourishing Pills, using the knowledge he gained from the Hongdong and Flowerfoot Wizards.
• Tang’s bloodline continues to strengthen, awakening exceptional marksmanship. He demonstrates it by shooting leaves from a hundred paces and hurling short spears through a tree trunk.
• The high-quality iron-tipped arrows taken from the Flower-Foot stockade make Tang question his assumption that the world is technologically primitive.

Character developments and interactions

• Tang Changsheng grows more capable but also more trapped by his own choices: hiding his identity may require escalating violence. He remains cautious, concealing his strength while preparing for possible conflict.
• Hong An gradually heals and resumes leadership duties under Tang’s direction.
• The Flower-Foot Barbarians do not retaliate as Tang expects, leaving the threat unresolved.
• The two deceased Wizards continue to influence Tang through their memories: their knowledge supports his medicine-making and understanding of the local environment, while the Flowerfoot Wizard’s hidden record endangers him.

Significant themes

• A chain of wrongdoing: Tang reflects that one concealed mistake can lead to further actions and an increasingly difficult cover-up.
• Power and secrecy: His growing abilities are useful, but exposing their full extent could reveal his true identity.
• Knowledge and inheritance: The Wizards’ accumulated understanding of plants, animals, and minerals proves valuable, and Tang regrets how much knowledge died with them.
• Uncertain civilization: The sophisticated weapons suggest the world is more complex and developed than Tang assumed.

Plot points and events

• Tang Changsheng finds his bow too weak to reliably kill the exceptionally tough people of the Black Rock Mountains.
• At a mountain fissure, the Flower-Foot Barbarians try to awaken their Ancestral Spirit with animal offerings. When this fails to draw a clear response, they sacrifice a girl; a red glint appears in the spirit’s eyes.
• Tang reflects on the Tribal Stockade’s food shortage. Hunting cannot support many people, and the stockade’s rudimentary farming yields little. He hopes to cultivate the few rice seeds he has saved.
• While searching for suitable land, Tang catches a Flowerfoot Snake. Soon, countless snakes surround him. Using the Primordial Yang Divine Lamp and Wishfire, he terrifies them to death.
• Poisonous rain follows, but the lamp’s light shields Tang. He deliberately walks toward the Hongdong Tribal Stockade to draw out the unseen attacker. A huge stone fails to harm him, and he reveals his enemy with a spark from the lamp: a monstrous being with a snake’s body and a human head.
• The creature is startled that Tang possesses what it recognizes as a Wizard’s power.

Character developments and interactions

• Tang is practical and forward-looking: alongside confronting threats, he worries about feeding the population and plans to expand agriculture.
• He remains composed and confident under attack, using the lamp’s protective power to provoke his hidden enemy into revealing itself.
• The Flower-Foot Barbarians’ desperation is evident in their increasingly extreme offerings, culminating in human sacrifice.
• The snake-bodied adversary attacks Tang with poison, snakes, and a thrown stone, but seems surprised by his abilities. Their confrontation is left unresolved.

Significant themes

• Survival and scarcity: Hunting and weak farming make food a persistent problem, prompting Tang to consider rice cultivation.
• Faith, ritual, and desperation: The Flower-Foot Barbarians’ sacrifices show how far they will go to win their Ancestral Spirit’s aid.
• Power and recognition: Tang’s Wishfire and divine lamp make him formidable, while the enemy’s question hints that his abilities resemble those of a Wizard.

Plot and events

• Tang Changsheng encounters the Flower-Foot Barbarians’ Ancestral Spirit, a powerful Yin Spirit strengthened by prayer power. Though it covets his Primordial Yang Divine Lamp, it retreats without fighting.
• Meanwhile, the Flower-Foot Barbarians attack the Hongdong Tribal Stockade. Tang’s defensive strategy keeps the Hongdong warriors behind the walls, where they repel attacks with arrows—but the attackers’ stones begin to smash through the poorly built defenses.
• Tang arrives when the stockade is in danger and quickly cuts down Flower-Foot warriors, inspiring the defenders.
• Qiang senses the Flowerfoot Snake Ancestral Spirit approaching. A giant lizard emerges with countless small snakes, threatening to overwhelm the stockade.
• The Hongdong Ancestral Spirit appears from its Totem Pillar and strikes the Flowerfoot Snake, inflicting a fiery wound despite its otherwise intangible form.

Character developments and interactions

• Tang Changsheng remains confident and calculating. He deliberately relies on prepared defenses, waits for the right moment to intervene, and proves himself a greater source of courage to the Hongdong warriors than their walls.
• Qiang trusts Tang because Tang spared his life, but fears the approaching Ancestral Spirit and prays for Hongdong’s protection.
• The Flowerfoot Snake Ancestral Spirit is both wary of and tempted by Tang’s lamp; it avoids confronting him directly.
• The Hongdong warriors follow Tang’s defensive orders, then rally when he arrives. Their Ancestral Spirit answers their peril by confronting the enemy’s guardian.

Themes

• Preparation and strategy: Tang’s rebuilt defenses and disciplined orders blunt a stronger enemy’s assault.
• Courage and leadership: Tang’s presence steadies the warriors more than the stockade itself.
• Collective memory and belief: The Hongdong Ancestral Spirit embodies the shared wills of generations of fallen warriors and Wizards.
• Contrasting sources of power: The Flowerfoot Snake has a physical body and can act in daylight, while Hongdong’s guardian depends on collective spiritual force—but can still wound it.

Plot and key events

• The Flowerfoot Snake and the Hongdong Ancestral Spirit continue fighting. The Ancestral Spirit’s spirit-body form is nimble, but it is weakened by daylight and has only a fraction of its former power.
• After a minute of combat, the Ancestral Spirit has wounded the snake but cannot defeat it. Rather than retreat to the Spirit Realm, it spends its remaining power diving into the snake’s Sea of Consciousness in a desperate attempt to destroy it.
• Tang Changsheng realizes the Ancestral Spirit is losing and intervenes. His saber strike barely damages the snake and breaks the weapon, but it conceals his real attack: he sends Wishfire into the snake’s Spirit Terrace.
• Inside the snake’s consciousness, Tang finds its Spirit Terrace as a vast abyss, where the snake is overpowering a trapped Warrior. He ignites the abyss’s walls with Red Wishfire, forcing the snake to abandon its prey and struggle against the flames. The battle remains unresolved at the excerpt’s end.

Character developments and interactions

• Tang Changsheng proves calculating and opportunistic. He understands the Ancestral Spirit’s limitations, keeps it in the fight because it provides cover, and uses a physical strike to mask a more effective spiritual attack.
• The Hongdong Ancestral Spirit shows fierce devotion to its stockade, choosing apparent self-sacrifice over retreat. Its resolve is strong, but its limited power leaves it unable to overcome the snake alone.
• The Flowerfoot Snake is revealed as both physically formidable and spiritually vulnerable: Tang’s blade cannot penetrate its bones, while Wishfire attacking its Spirit Terrace causes it pain.
• The Hongdong and Flower-Foot Warriors react in opposing ways: the Hongdong side despairs at the Ancestral Spirit’s apparent sacrifice, while the Flower-Foot side celebrates what looks like victory.

Significant themes

• Sacrifice and protection: The Ancestral Spirit is compelled to risk itself to defend its people.
• Strategy over brute strength: Tang compensates for the failure of his weapon by attacking the snake’s spiritual foundations.
• The cost and limits of power: Daylight and depleted Divine Power and Wishfire put a strict limit on the Ancestral Spirit’s endurance.
• Different forms of strength: The chapter contrasts physical toughness with spiritual resilience, showing that each can be vulnerable in different ways.

Plot points and events

• Tang Changsheng’s Wishfire overwhelms the Flowerfoot Snake, despite the Ancestral Spirit defending itself with its own Vow Power. Tang’s greater supply of Sky Silver and superior command of the power decide the struggle.
• Tang pulls the Hongdong Ancestral Spirit from the snake’s consciousness and destroys the Flowerfoot Snake’s Spirit Terrace and Primordial Spirit. To onlookers, the victory appears to come when he strikes its head and flames consume its body.
• The Flower-Foot Barbarians’ warriors suffer a backlash from the Ancestral Spirit’s death: those with its Bloodline are badly injured, while the others lose their will to fight. Some flee; the rest surrender.
• Tang orders the prisoners bound and guarded by the women, then leads the Hongdong forces toward Flowerfoot Stockade. With its protector gone, the stockade is vulnerable to monsters, so incorporation into the Hongdong tribe may be its people’s best chance of survival.

Character development

• Tang demonstrates both strategic power and practical knowledge: he understands how the Flowerfoot Snake’s death will affect its Bloodline bearers and quickly turns victory into an advance on the stockade.
• He briefly considers his prospects for spiritual advancement but reaffirms that his true ambition is the Immortal Dao Path and to go farther than merely attaining the Yin God or Yang Spirit.

Character interactions

• The Hongdong warriors move from despair to stunned relief and then celebration as the battle turns in their favor; Tang’s raised hand immediately quiets them so they can follow his orders.
• The captured Flower-Foot warriors submit once their Ancestral Spirit is dead, and Tang assigns the women to guard them.

Significant themes

• Inherited power and impermanence: Bloodlines depend on the strength and longevity of the beings that pass them down. The Flowerfoot Snake’s brief influence means its Bloodline will likely disappear within a generation or two, unlike ancient or powerful inherited lines.
• Knowledge as a weapon: Eastern Glory World has studied Wuman World and its peoples extensively, underscoring how conquest can be built on systematic research.
• Victory and survival: The defeat of an Ancestral Spirit brings freedom from its protection but also leaves its people exposed; absorption into another tribe may be their only protection.

Plot points and events

• Tang Changsheng’s Warriors take the Flower-Foot Stockade with little resistance. The remaining residents surrender when they realize their Warriors have been defeated.
• Absorbing the stockade gives Tang Changsheng a force of more than two hundred Warriors and a population exceeding eight hundred. He plans to stay hidden, build strength, and wait for an opportunity.
• He inspects the Flowerfoot Barbarians’ Ancestral Cave, hoping to find traces of the Flowerfoot Snake and evidence left by their Wizard.
• Deep in the cave, he discovers a vast, mist-filled fissure with unusually abundant Spiritual Qi. The poisonous vapor smells of sulfur and may contain mercury; sensing danger, he retreats rather than investigate further.
• Tang Changsheng searches for the Snake’s Spirit Realm and Daoist Grounds with the Three Realms Mirror, but something obstructs its vision. He suspects the Spirit Realm may conceal something unusual. The excerpt ends as he points out that a tiny image of the Flowerfoot Snake is inside the Primordial Yang Divine Lamp.

Character development

• Tang Changsheng remains cautious and strategic: he delegates routine rule to his father, avoids a dangerous fissure, and focuses on strengthening his position.
• His curiosity grows when the Mirror cannot reveal the Snake’s Spirit Realm, suggesting he suspects a hidden treasure or other mystery.

Significant themes

• Consolidation and survival: Victory matters less than quietly building power and staying safe.
• The cost of curiosity: The fissure promises discovery but presents clear danger, so Tang Changsheng chooses restraint.
• Ancestry and belonging: The groups’ shared language and ancestry make their absorption into one people seem natural.
• Mystery and concealed power: The Snake’s unusual Spirit Realm and the Mirror’s failure to reveal it hint at secrets yet to be uncovered.

Character interactions

• The Flower-Foot residents offer no resistance to Tang Changsheng’s Warriors, allowing a smooth takeover.
• Tang Changsheng relies on his father to manage the stockade’s affairs while he investigates the cave.

Plot points and events

• Tang Changsheng captures Flowerfoot Snake’s Primordial Spirit and begins refining it with Wishfire, intending to turn it into Sky Silver.
• When he asks for the snake’s Spirit Realm Daoist Grounds, it reveals that the Netherworld’s upheaval destroyed its Spirit Realm long ago.
• Facing destruction, Flowerfoot Snake offers its True Name. The Heavenly Mandate Compass translates the strange characters, giving Tang control over its life and death.
• Tang chooses to spare it, judging a living Yin Spirit more useful than the materials he could gain by refining it. He learns that the Ancestral Spirits of Black Rock Mountain emerged from an Abyss, whose mist can harm souls and Primordial Spirits.
• He places Flowerfoot Snake in a jade pendant and gives it Sky Silver to help it recover.
• With the immediate matter settled, Tang reflects on the recovered mirror fragments and the artifact’s expanding abilities.

Character development and interactions

• Tang Changsheng shows pragmatism and growing command of his artifacts: he shifts from threatening to destroy Flowerfoot Snake to preserving it as a potential servant. He also recognizes the Three Realms Mirror as his most important Treasure Artifact.
• Flowerfoot Snake goes from helpless captive to obedient subordinate. Terrified of being erased, it offers its True Name, accepts Tang’s authority, and enters the pendant without resisting.
• Their interaction is defined by Tang’s control and the snake’s fear, but his decision to help restore its strength suggests he intends to make practical use of it rather than simply discard it.

Significant themes

• Survival and submission: Flowerfoot Snake accepts servitude rather than face the destruction of its soul.
• Knowledge as power: Possessing a True Name gives Tang decisive control over the spirit.
• Change and ruin: The Netherworld’s chaos has destroyed Spirit Realms and reshaped the dangers of the region.
• Growing power and tools: The mirror’s reunited fragments reveal an increasingly versatile artifact—capable of travel, investigation, memory, and, potentially, calculation.

Key plot points and events

• Tang Changsheng reflects that the Three Realms Mirror’s deepest secrets are tied to high-grade Heavenly Book Characters, which he is not yet powerful enough to understand.
• Although his territory now spans dozens of miles, he has found no sign of Gu Junjie, Zhang Qiuping, or the others. He hopes they survived their arrival in the Shaman Barbarian lands.
• Using the Primordial Yang Divine Lamp, Tang sends the Three Realms Mirror’s light into the Netherworld. He sees distant flashes of immense power, suggesting a major battle, and suspects it may involve outsiders from the Eastern Flower Heavenly Court.
• Qi reports that Piercing Rock Tribal Stockade captured a demon on the day the meteors fell. The captive came “from beyond the sky,” making Tang fear that someone from his group has been captured.
• Qi also reveals that merchants have arrived. They previously traded with the Flower-Foot people, including supplying their notably fine weapons.

Character developments and interactions

• Tang Changsheng has gained enough security to turn his attention back to his missing companions, though he remains cautious about risking a rescue. He is also curious about the Netherworld but unsettled by the distant battle.
• Qi, formerly an aide to Hong An and now serving Tang, shows initiative by investigating the missing disciples and reporting what he learns. His usefulness may determine whether Tang continues to trust him.
• Tang questions Qi about the report, then learns the news came through merchants—a revelation that hints at trade networks beyond the tribal stockades.

Significant themes

• Survival and responsibility: Tang had to focus on staying alive before he could help his companions; now that his position is steadier, he feels responsible for them.
• Uncertainty and looming danger: The Netherworld battle and the captured outsider suggest conflicts larger than Tang’s immediate territory.
• Trust and usefulness: Qi’s place in Tang’s circle depends less on past loyalty than on present service.
• Hidden connections: The mirror, the Heavenly Book Characters, the Netherworld conflict, and the arrival of outsiders all point toward a wider world whose workings Tang is only beginning to uncover.

• Trade and first impressions: Tang Changsheng inspects a small merchant caravan traveling under Pan King. Its warriors seem formidable at first, but he judges them weaker than his own fighters and the Flower-Foot Barbarians. The merchants’ presence—and a silent wizard among them—would intimidate most tribes, though not Tang’s.
• The attempted gold trade: The caravan leader offers iron weapons and tools, and silk cloth, in exchange for an equal weight of gold. Tang’s warriors eagerly want the goods, but Tang recognizes the offer as exploitative: the merchants assume the tribe does not understand gold’s value. He pretends the tribe has no gold, then proposes trading hides instead. The leader dismisses hides at first but accepts rare, well-preserved ones rather than return empty-handed. The merchants also take medicinal herbs Tang cannot identify.
• Tang assesses the merchants: Their willingness to trade hides only reluctantly suggests that fur commerce has not yet become widespread and that they are still focused on acquiring gold. From this, Tang forms an initial impression of Pan King’s society and its level of economic development. He considers the ironware a poor bargain but sees value in using surplus hides to learn more about the merchants.
• The wine feast: Tang hosts the traders at noon, and they are captivated by his clear, deep-red fruit wine. When they ask how it is made, he invents a story that mountain monkeys brew it, attributing its quality to forest spirits and nature’s essence. The merchants believe him and drink more, imagining the wine is rich in spiritual energy. In reality, its appeal comes from careful filtering and storage in a cave with abundant Spiritual Qi.
• Character development and interactions: Tang demonstrates strategic patience, keeping his warriors from acting on their eagerness and concealing his knowledge of gold’s value. He also uses humor and deception to protect useful knowledge while probing the merchants’ intentions. His warriors’ reverence for him—strengthened by his defeat of the Flowerfoot Snake—keeps them silent and obedient. The merchant leader is calculating but practical: he tries to exploit the tribe’s supposed ignorance, then compromises when his journey’s costs make an empty return undesirable.
• Themes: The chapter contrasts civilization with wilderness, while questioning the idea that greater material sophistication means greater strength. It highlights unequal trade and colonial-style exploitation, as well as the importance of knowledge: Tang’s understanding of history and economics lets him see through the gold bargain. It also shows how storytelling and belief can shape perceived value, turning ordinary fruit wine into something the merchants regard as almost mystical.

Plot points and events

• Tang Changsheng persuades a merchant caravan to trade weapons and goods for Elf Wine, then watches it leave.
• The merchants’ account reveals how vast the Wuman World is: the Black Rock Mountains are only a remote part of the Southwestern Yi region of King Pan’s Kingdom.
• On the road, the caravan Wizard realizes the Flower-Foot Tribal Stockade is suspiciously lacking in gold jewelry. The leader concludes the stockade may be hiding something or trading with a rival caravan.
• The Wizard proposes returning to interrogate Tang Changsheng, confident that the stockade has no Wizard or living Ancestral Spirit to protect it.
• Tang’s hidden Wishfire kills both the leader and the Wizard. He says he had not intended to harm the caravan, but acted once its members became a threat. Without the Wizard, the rest of the caravan is unlikely to survive the mountain road.
• Tang turns his attention to what he has learned about the Chuanyan Tribal Stockade, whose people still live in caves.

Character developments and interactions

• Tang remains focused on his larger mission as a disciple of the Eastern Glory Immortal Realm, not on building the Hongdong Tribal Stockade’s power. He is pragmatic: willing to trade, but quick to eliminate a danger once the merchants discover too much.
• The caravan leader shifts from tipsy confidence to suspicion and anger, then regains his composure and recognizes the possible threat of a competing trade route.
• The Wizard is observant and aggressive, identifying the stockade’s unusual lack of gold and planning to exploit its apparent lack of spiritual protection. Tang’s earlier precaution against him proves decisive.
• The leader and Wizard discuss the stockade’s secrets and decide to confront Tang; Tang’s concealed attack ends that plan.

Significant themes

• Misjudgment and hidden danger: The merchants mistake Tang’s apparent openness for vulnerability, while Tang has already anticipated possible trouble.
• Trade and self-interest: Commerce offers Tang useful information and resources, but business rivals can quickly become threats.
• The scale of the world and the limits of knowledge: Tang learns that the mountains are only a small corner of a vast world, while remaining unsure why his realm invaded or how powerful its forces are.
• Suspicion and consequences: The merchants’ discovery of an anomaly turns a peaceful deal into a deadly confrontation.

Plot points and events

• Tang Changsheng learns that the Rock-Piercing Stockade is far more powerful than Fu had suggested: it has over ten thousand people, eleven Wizards, more than a thousand Warriors, and worships an Ancestral God. It is also over three hundred li away.
• He weighs whether to rescue a captive there. The journey may take too long, and being exposed could force him to flee Hongdong Stockade—but leaving the man unaided could create further danger if he reveals Tang’s whereabouts.
• Far away, a statue representing caravan leader Luan Ping cracks. The Lineage’s officials suspect he may have died or defected and try to summon his soul with River Styx Water. They fail because Tang’s Wishfire had already destroyed it.
• A Wizard’s Star Divination identifies a target, but the basin explodes, killing several people. Tang simultaneously suffers a sudden, unexplained blow to his consciousness. His Heavenly Mandate Compass reveals that someone has attacked him through a spell using the Great Dao Secrets.
• Tang realizes that fate-concealment no longer protects everyone: a bloodred Star Cloud in the eastern sky marks the growing presence of the Eastern Flower Heavenly Court in the Wuman World.

Character developments and interactions

• Tang remains cautious and strategic, balancing compassion and self-preservation, but his conscience and fear of being exposed both weigh on his rescue decision.
• The Lineage’s officials debate whether Luan Ping betrayed them. Wizard Iron Flower tries and fails to retrieve Luan Ping’s soul, while another Wizard dismisses his efforts and attempts Star Divination instead. The attempt backfires disastrously.
• Tang’s earlier killing of Luan Ping now has consequences beyond the immediate encounter: the Lineage is investigating, and its divination reaches him.

Significant themes

• Compassion versus survival: Tang wants to help the captive but understands the potentially fatal cost.
• The reach and danger of supernatural power: Spells can target someone through seemingly ordinary traces, making protection difficult.
• Consequences of past actions: Luan Ping’s death prompts an investigation that threatens Tang.
• A shifting balance of power: The Heavenly Court’s visible Star Cloud signals that a major force has established itself and is expanding in the Wuman World.

Key plot points and events

• Tang Changsheng recognizes that the stars reveal the Great Dao Secrets in this world, making it a rare opportunity to advance toward True Immortality. He resolves to seek such insight, though his immediate priority is rescuing Gu Junjie and the others.
• While the Warriors hunt, Tang leaves the Tribal Stockade alone to scout the Rock-Piercing Stockade, where captives may be held. It is a major settlement protected by an Ancestral God—an opponent Tang cannot safely confront within its territory.
• Tang travels through the dangerous Black Rock Mountains, relying on his strength, the Primordial Yang Divine Lamp, and fifty Heavenly Soldier Protectors to make the journey.
• At night, his Northern Pole Secret Aperture resonates with a star. The pulse stirs his heart and awakens a Second Bloodline, an exceptionally rare development among Warriors.

Character developments

• Tang shows ambition in wanting to comprehend the Great Dao Secrets, but also restraint: he understands the Ancestral God’s strength and plans to retreat if rescue proves impossible.
• His Second Bloodline awakening marks a major increase in potential and suggests his power may grow beyond that of ordinary Warriors.

Significant themes

• Opportunity and spiritual ambition: Tang sees the world’s visible Great Dao Secrets as a chance to pursue higher cultivation.
• Knowing one’s limits: Despite his confidence, Tang distinguishes weaker spirits from Yang Spirit-level powers and avoids reckless confrontation.
• Rarity and extraordinary potential: The Second Bloodline is presented as a rare, transformative source of strength.

Character interactions

• Tang delegates the hunting expedition to Qi, trusting that his own prestige and strength are enough to prevent Qi from threatening his position.
• He leaves Flowerfoot Snake behind while setting out alone, separating himself from the Tribal Stockade to assess the danger firsthand.
• His connection with the star—through the Northern Pole Secret Aperture—triggers the Second Bloodline awakening.

Key plot points and events

• Tang Changsheng awakens his second bloodline, Heavy Python, which lets him draw seemingly inexhaustible strength from the earth while his feet remain on the ground.
• Recognizing that uncontrolled power could be dangerous, he suppresses the bloodline temporarily and resolves to master it gradually.
• On the way to Rock-Piercing Stockade, he reaches a broad, fast-flowing river and searches downstream for a safe crossing.
• A small, monkey-like creature attacks him. Wishfire only drives it back, unlike in the Stockade Barbarian Spirit Realm, and Tang realizes the creatures are likely undead with no souls.
• More creatures emerge from the river and swarm him. Tang suspects something is directing them, then tears up a sapling and uses it as a weapon, sweeping dozens aside with his new strength.

Character developments

• Tang is cautious despite his growing power: he deliberately limits the Heavy Python bloodline until he can control it.
• He adapts quickly when Wishfire proves ineffective, switching to his blade and then brute force.
• His confidence grows as he discovers that Heavy Python’s strength makes him far stronger than his original body.

Significant themes

• Power and restraint: Great strength is valuable, but Tang understands that power he cannot control can be dangerous.
• Changing rules and adaptation: Creatures that once feared Wishfire no longer respond to it, forcing Tang to reassess what he knows.
• The uncanny and the undead: The river creatures’ corpse-like stench and apparent lack of souls suggest a hidden supernatural threat.

Character interactions

• Tang has no meaningful conversation with anyone in this chapter. His encounters are hostile: he fights first a single river creature, then a growing swarm, and ends by overpowering them with a tree used as a makeshift club.

Key events

• Tang Changsheng fights off waves of Dwarfs and Shaman Barbarian corpses emerging from the river. Using the Myriad Forms Mirror, amplified by his Heavy Python Bloodline, he creates a powerful field that disorients enemies, repels corpses, and tears apart a poisonous, corpse-qi-spewing serpent.
• He realizes the serpent is not truly alive but a controlled puppet, and continues forward cautiously.
• The mirror then shows another scene: a swordsman kills a huge blackened creature, revealing that its body is full of tiny insects. The swordsman destroys the fleeing swarm.
• Tang identifies the insects as a primitive form of the legendary Corpse-Guarding Worm and recalls its origins and history.

Character developments and interactions

• Tang displays growing confidence in his unusual power, which approaches a Yin Spirit’s domain despite his not having reached that stage. He also becomes more wary after recognizing that the river creatures are being controlled by an unseen force.
• The hidden enemy’s creatures repeatedly attack Tang, while he taunts the unseen controller to confront him directly.
• The swordsman in the mirror’s vision demonstrates lethal precision and prevents the worm swarm from escaping.

Significant themes

• Power and advancement: Tang’s abilities blur the boundary between his current level and the formidable Yin Spirit stage.
• Deception and control: Apparently living monsters may be puppets, while a corpse can conceal a swarm of parasites.
• Hidden history: The Corpse-Guarding Worm connects the present danger to vanished sects and secrets from an earlier era.

Key plot points and events

• Tang Changsheng recognizes the black blood as a possible mother Corpse-Guarding Worm. He uses the Primordial Yang Divine Lamp’s wishfire to expose and destroy the tiny worms, sealing the surviving cluster in a talisman-bound bottle.
• After crossing the river, he hears a party approaching and hides himself with the Myriad Forms Mirror.
• The group consists of Warriors from Rock-Piercing Stockade and their Wizard, Acha. They are searching for the escaped “Black Death Worms,” which Tang suspects are the Corpse-Guarding Worms.
• The group reveals that the worms escaped while being used to capture two Outerworld Demons—apparently Tang’s companions—and that the captives are now at Rock-Piercing Stockade.
• Tang puts the party to sleep, catches Acha’s water-filled tracking bowl, and begins searching the Warriors’ souls for information, saving the Wizard for last to avoid possible magical safeguards.

Character developments and interactions

• Tang proves cautious and resourceful: he uses the worms’ weakness, conceals himself, and avoids recklessly probing the Wizard before assessing the others.
• Acha is focused on recovering the worms and treats the captured Outerworld Demons as a serious threat to their world.
• The Warriors are relatively relaxed around Acha, joking about the prisoners and the Ancestral God’s likely approval. None notices Tang before he incapacitates them.

Significant themes

• Danger and responsibility: Though the worms pose little threat to Tang, he destroys as many as he can because they could endanger ordinary beings.
• Power and caution: Rock-Piercing Stockade’s strength and the unpredictability of witchcraft make careful planning essential.
• Outsider conflict: The local people view Outerworld Demons as enemies, while Tang’s search for his captured companions puts him in opposition to their authorities.