Chapter Summaries

Zhang Xuan woke with his memories lost in a Daoist temple and learned that his master, Zhang Jingzhi, had died under suspicious circumstances. As Jian San began a succession ceremony, Jiang Jiu shoved Zhang Xuan forward and the disciples declared him the new Celestial Master.

• Jiang Jiu woke Zhang Xuan and told him their master had died, then led him through the temple beside a burial ground.
• Jiang Jiu identified the kneeling corpse as Zhang Jingzhi, the thirteenth Celestial Master, while Jian San examined the body.
• Jian San claimed Zhang Jingzhi had killed himself and announced that the succession ceremony would proceed according to the late master's wishes.
• Zhang Xuan suspected Zhang Jingzhi had been murdered and questioned why the disciples were rushing to choose a successor.
• Jiang Jiu shoved Zhang Xuan into the open as Jian San and the others drew their swords.
• Jian San named Zhang Xuan the new Celestial Master and called on him to uphold the righteous path.

Zhang Xuan learned that his fellow disciples wanted him to become the next Celestial Master, despite the late master's failure to pass on the required ordination. After realizing the master might still be alive, Zhang Xuan urged Jiang Jiu to strike him with lightning and promised him the position of deputy head.

• Jiang Jiu explained that Zhang Xuan had been raised as the next Celestial Master, but the late master had died before passing on the Celestial Master's Ordination.
• Zhang Xuan refused the succession and tried to escape, but Jiang Jiu grabbed him while Jian San watched with his sword drawn.
• Zhang Xuan asked Jian San how he knew the master was dead and realized the recent poisoning might not have killed him.
• Zhang Xuan had Jiang Jiu strike the master's chest with Palm Thunder, then promised to appoint him deputy head if they revived the master and Zhang Xuan became Celestial Master.
• Jiang Jiu unleashed an even more powerful blast of lightning while shouting, "Shatter the darkness with thunder!"

Jiang Jiu revived the poisoned Old Celestial Master with Palm Thunder, and the Old Celestial Master took Zhang Xuan into an inner chamber to pass on the Celestial Master's Ordination. Zhang Xuan realized that some power was concealing the poisoning before the Old Celestial Master pressed a hand to his head and rendered him unconscious.

• Jiang Jiu shocked the Old Celestial Master with Palm Thunder, bringing him back to consciousness.
• The Old Celestial Master took Zhang Xuan to an inner chamber and explained the lineage behind the Celestial Master's Mansion.
• The Old Celestial Master announced that he would pass the Celestial Master's Ordination to Zhang Xuan.
• Zhang Xuan realized that everyone was acting as though the Old Celestial Master's poisoning had never happened, as if some power were concealing it.
• The Old Celestial Master placed a cold hand on Zhang Xuan's head, and the voice of the Inner Landscape sounded as Zhang Xuan lost consciousness.

The Old Celestial Master brought Zhang Xuan into the Inner Landscape and revealed that the supposed Celestial Master's Ordination was an all-knowing system that could answer questions but could not make its guidance come true for him. As the landscape began to collapse, Zhang Xuan saw the Old Celestial Master’s body decay and his eyes turn an eerie green.

• Zhang Xuan awoke in the Inner Landscape, where the Old Celestial Master ordered him to keep what he learned secret.
• The Old Celestial Master revealed the blazing sun as the Celestial Master's Ordination, but Zhang Xuan recognized the characters on it as “System.”
• The Old Celestial Master sealed Zhang Xuan’s mouth when he tried to challenge the name, then used the Ordination to confirm that Zhang Xuan was cursing him in his heart.
• The Old Celestial Master explained that the Ordination could answer any question and offer guidance, but Zhang Xuan would have to follow its advice himself to grow stronger.
• The Old Celestial Master said the Ordination could be used only three times a day, then admitted it would simply stop responding if Zhang Xuan exceeded the limit.
• The Inner Landscape trembled and turned green as the Old Celestial Master’s skin rotted and his eyes became emerald green.

The Old Celestial Master appointed Zhang Xuan as the fourteenth Celestial Master, but Zhang Xuan realized the old man’s Inner Landscape had made him forget the question of who poisoned him. After Zhang Xuan collapsed from unbearable pain, he woke to find Jiang Jiu serving him tea and revealing impressive control of the Thunder Method.

• The Old Celestial Master appointed Zhang Xuan as the fourteenth Celestial Master and offered him no instructions.
• Zhang Xuan remembered that the Old Celestial Master had been fatally poisoned and realized the old man’s Inner Landscape could make him forget the matter.
• Zhang Xuan returned to the Celestial Master's Mansion, collapsed in front of his fellow disciples, and lost consciousness.
• Zhang Xuan woke beside Jiang Jiu, who eagerly treated him as the new Sect Leader.
• Jiang Jiu used the Thunder Method to heat water in a cracked wooden cup without scorching it, and Zhang Xuan recognized his skill.

Zhang Xuan met his master's beautiful widow, Lin Youwei, and Jiang Jiu urged him to treat her as part of his inheritance. After Jiang Jiu left to arrange matters, Zhang Xuan recalled seeing a blue-green scale behind Lin Youwei's ear.

• Zhang Xuan deliberately spilled Jiang Jiu's tea to try to send him away, but Jiang Jiu stayed and wiped it up.
• Lin Youwei arrived in tears and embraced Zhang Xuan, who learned she was his late master's wife.
• After escorting Lin Youwei out, Zhang Xuan imagined taking advantage of her, and Jiang Jiu encouraged him by calling her part of his inheritance.
• Zhang Xuan agreed to Jiang Jiu's suggestion and reminded him of his promise to appoint him deputy sect leader.
• Once Jiang Jiu left to arrange matters, Zhang Xuan opened a window and remembered seeing a blue-green scale behind Lin Youwei's ear.

Zhang Xuan discovered poison and a threatening note hidden in his clothes chest, making him suspect he had poisoned the Old Celestial Master. As he reconsidered the mystery of his master’s death and the Celestial Master’s Ordination, he realized the Old Celestial Master may have been unable to read its Chinese characters and wondered why he could read them.

• Zhang Xuan searched his room after recalling Lin Youwei’s suspicious interest in his clothes chest, but initially found nothing.
• Zhang Xuan uncovered a hidden compartment containing a deadly poison and a note reading “Cut the grass, uproot the roots,” and feared he had poisoned the Old Celestial Master.
• Zhang Xuan reconsidered his fellow disciples’ behavior and his master’s unexplained death, suspecting they were hiding the truth about the Celestial Master’s position.
• Zhang Xuan realized the Old Celestial Master may have asked only yes-or-no questions because he could not read the Chinese characters in the Celestial Master’s Ordination.
• Zhang Xuan wondered why he himself could read those characters.

Zhang Xuan realized Chinese characters let him access the Celestial Master's Ordination more fully, but growing suspicious of the Celestial Master's Mansion, he tried to leave and collapsed with blood streaming from his orifices. He entered his eerie Inner Landscape and learned that he was dying, with only twenty-eight days left to live.

• Zhang Xuan suspected that someone had orchestrated his amnesia and arrival at the Celestial Master's Mansion, and decided to escape.
• As Zhang Xuan opened the door, he became dizzy, nearly fainted, and discovered that blood was coming from all seven of his orifices.
• Zhang Xuan recovered, recalled the Old Celestial Master's method, and entered his own Inner Landscape beneath a Blood Moon.
• Zhang Xuan asked the Celestial Master's Ordination about his condition, and it revealed that he had twenty-eight days of life remaining.

Zhang Xuan learned that his lack of a spiritual root would eventually kill him and that he needed to leave the Celestial Master's Mansion to find a body-refining pill. After the Celestial Master's Ordination warned him that his questions exceeded its secrecy threshold, he retrieved hidden items and escaped west, while his fellow disciples watched and discussed the danger he posed.

• Zhang Xuan learned that he would die unless a Core Formation cultivator tempered his body or he found a Marrow-Washing Body-Refining Pill, and he questioned why his fellow disciples had made him Celestial Master.
• The Blood Moon expanded until black iron chains appeared and suppressed it, then warned Zhang Xuan that his questions had exceeded the secrecy threshold.
• Zhang Xuan asked for immediate protection and learned that a hidden compartment beneath the ancestral master's statue held what he needed.
• Zhang Xuan entered the Celestial Master's Hall, took a yellow-covered book and a damaged jade pendant, and hurried west toward the Mass Grave.
• Several figures watched Zhang Xuan leave and said he had taken Divine Path and Mountain Suppressor, but that the group would die if the monster awakened.

After leaving the Mass Grave, Zhang Xuan found a book of Daoist arts and discovered he could cast a thunder spell, but hunger and exhaustion left him weak. Following the westward route toward a campfire, he encountered three grotesque figures disguised as a family.

• Zhang Xuan examined the cracked jade pendant and the book titled "Divine Path—Collected Essentials of Daoist Arts" that he had taken from beneath the patriarch's statue.
• Zhang Xuan read the incantation for Palm Thunder and effortlessly summoned pale-blue lightning, then collapsed from hunger and exhaustion.
• Zhang Xuan smelled roast chicken by a fire and followed the route indicated by the Celestial Master's Ordination, unaware that the path had shifted north.
• Zhang Xuan approached three figures seated by the fire and asked them for directions and food.
• Zhang Xuan noticed the figures had not turned around and that the woman was not moving, then saw their grotesque, split-mouth smiles when he stepped in front of them.

Zhang Xuan faced three ghosts while too exhausted and terrified to escape, but destroyed the Female Ghost with Palm Thunder after distracting her. As the two remaining ghosts closed in, a bald monk arrived and accidentally struck Zhang Xuan with a Black Donkey Hoof before hitting a ghost with what looked like a brick.

• A ghost woman stretched her arm through the fire and offered Zhang Xuan a charred human foot, while he struggled to move or fight.
• Zhang Xuan bit his tongue, taunted the Female Ghost by touching her face, and blasted her with Palm Thunder until she vanished.
• The two remaining ghosts advanced on Zhang Xuan, who was too drained to cast Palm Thunder again.
• A bald monk charged in and threw three objects, one of which hit Zhang Xuan in the forehead and turned out to be a Black Donkey Hoof.
• Zhang Xuan dodged the monk's next attack, and the monk's brick struck one of the ghosts, making it recoil in pain.

Zhang Xuan watched Monk destroy the remaining ghosts with a blood-coated Bluestone Brick, then shared a meal with him by the fire. Monk explained that the Chang Ghosts used illusions to terrify travelers and steal their souls, but secretly discarded bloodied objects while Zhang Xuan ate.

• Monk arrived and offered to handle the two remaining ghosts.
• Monk coated a Bluestone Brick with black dog blood and beat the ghosts until they vanished.
• Monk invited the hungry Zhang Xuan to share roasted corn and dried meat by the campfire.
• Monk explained that Chang Ghosts frightened travelers until their Soul-Guarding Lamps went out, allowing the ghosts to seize their souls.
• Monk secretly threw a skewer of blood-drenched objects into the darkness while Zhang Xuan ate.

Monk Sanjie told Zhang Xuan about the disasters and demonic calamity ravaging the kingdoms, then urged him to travel west together. Zhang Xuan accepted the offer, and Sanjie kept watch as he fell asleep.

• Monk Sanjie explained that he had once been a wandering swordsman and became a monk after a regretful event three years earlier.
• Sanjie described the disasters afflicting Northern Qi, Southern Liang, and Great Wei, and explained that Cloudrise City had once been known as a Buddhist sanctuary.
• Sanjie recalled Cloudrise City's destruction and said he was traveling west to investigate the demonic calamity in Great Zhou.
• Sanjie mistook Zhang Xuan for a Daoist master and invited him to help investigate the strange incidents; Zhang Xuan initially denied the identity and refused.
• After Sanjie warned that the other kingdoms had stationed troops around Great Zhou and supernatural incidents plagued its prefectures, Zhang Xuan agreed to travel west with him.
• Sanjie volunteered to keep watch while Zhang Xuan, exhausted, fell asleep.

Zhang Xuan questioned Sanjie’s ability after learning the monk had relied on folk stories to defeat the Chang Ghost, but he continued traveling with him. At dawn, Sanjie told him about an old man whose missing daughter was always reported to be doing well, and the pair headed north after Zhang Xuan spotted what looked like a human foot near their camp.

• Zhang Xuan discovered Sanjie was recording folk remedies and admitted he had never faced a Chang Ghost before.
• Zhang Xuan doubted Sanjie’s cultivation and considered leaving, but Sanjie persuaded him to keep traveling with him.
• At dawn, Sanjie told Zhang Xuan about an old man whose daughter had disappeared after marrying far away, while everyone sent to find her repeated that she was doing very well.
• Sanjie hurried Zhang Xuan away from something in the grass and claimed it was a rabbit, but Zhang Xuan recognized it as a human foot and realized the monk had hidden what happened at their camp.
• Zhang Xuan and Sanjie continued north along the path while arguing about the foot.

Zhang Xuan and the Monk encountered a supernatural rainstorm that flooded the mountain trail, then narrowly dodged two enormous black coffins swept toward them by the water. They found the coffins smashed against a locust tree and realized what had nearly killed them.

• Zhang Xuan considered saving his daily questions for urgent matters, especially finding the Marrow-Washing Body-Refining Pill before his twenty-eight-day deadline.
• Dark clouds gathered, and the Monk warned Zhang Xuan that people had vanished in the mountain during rainstorms.
• Rising water surrounded Zhang Xuan and the Monk, and the Monk suspected a Five-Ghost Relocation formation was concentrating the forest's rainwater around them.
• Two black shapes hurtled downstream, and Zhang Xuan and the Monk dodged them just in time.
• The black shapes crashed into a locust tree, and Zhang Xuan and the Monk discovered they were enormous black coffins.

Zhang Xuan and Monk cautiously investigated a cracked black coffin blocking their path through the rain. Inside, they found a freshly killed headless tomb robber, and they fled in case whatever had killed him was still nearby.

• Monk tried to throw a Black Donkey Hoof into the open coffin but missed, so Zhang Xuan threw the remaining hoof through the gap.
• When the Black Donkey Hoof landed with a sound like it had hit flesh, Zhang Xuan warned Monk that something was inside.
• Monk opened the coffin and revealed a headless corpse dressed in black.
• Monk identified the corpse as a recently killed tomb robber from the Mountain-Moving lineage.
• Zhang Xuan and Monk ran through the water, fearing the creature that had torn off the man's head was still close.

Zhang Xuan and Monk Sanjie escaped a sinister presence by taking refuge in a ruined temple, where they found a headless clay idol and waited out the storm. A cheerful, bedraggled scholar arrived at the temple, leaving them to face an unexpected newcomer.

• Zhang Xuan was pulled from his daze by Monk Sanjie and brought to safety as the rising water stopped at the temple's last step.
• Monk Sanjie carried Zhang Xuan into the ruined temple, where the chilling feeling of being watched disappeared.
• Zhang Xuan and Monk Sanjie examined the headless clay idol, then gathered branches and lit a fire while discussing the temple's sinister reputation.
• A fair-skinned, plump scholar rushed into the temple and greeted Zhang Xuan and Monk Sanjie warmly.

At a rain-soaked ruined temple, Zhang Xuan grew suspicious of the travelers sheltering there and consulted the Celestial Master's Ordination for a way to survive. It offered him the Nether Candle Mystic Eyes for twelve hours, leaving him to consider the proposed ability.

• Meng Changxi claimed he had come from Kangyang Town to find his uncle, and the Monk tested his story about Hunter Zhang.
• An old woodcutter and his grandson Gouwa entered the temple, and Zhang Xuan noticed that the ginger soup they offered was inexplicably warm.
• Gouwa asked his grandfather if they would ever make it home, while Zhang Xuan spotted bloody stitches around the old man's neck.
• Zhang Xuan pretended to sleep, entered the Inner Landscape, and asked the Celestial Master's Ordination how he could avoid danger.
• The Celestial Master's Ordination offered Zhang Xuan the Nether Candle Mystic Eyes for twelve hours in exchange for one question opportunity.

After activating Mystic Eyes of Hidden Illumination, Zhang Xuan saw that the Headless Clay Idol was actually a monstrous Headless Corpse Buddha made from hundreds of human heads. He stopped Meng Changxi from removing a wooden Buddha head from its shrine, quieting the monster’s awakening cries, but the vision identified it as a wild god in a state of Nirvana with a deep red threat level.

• Zhang Xuan activated Mystic Eyes of Hidden Illumination and returned from the Inner Landscape to the ruined temple.
• Zhang Xuan saw Meng Changxi taking a small object from the shrine and urgently told him to put it back.
• Zhang Xuan’s new sight revealed the Headless Clay Idol as a Headless Corpse Buddha covered in human heads, including the old man and Gouwa.
• Zhang Xuan recognized the object in Meng Changxi’s hands as a small, two-faced human head and warned him again.
• Meng Changxi returned the wooden Buddha head to the shrine, and the Corpse Buddha’s glowing eyes and soundless cries subsided.
• Zhang Xuan read the apparition’s description identifying the Headless Corpse Buddha as a wild god in Nirvana with a deep red threat level.

Zhang Xuan witnessed two ghostly figures vanish in the ruined temple and used his Nether Candle Mystic Eyes to inspect Monk Sanjie, Meng Changxi, and the Two-Faced Buddha Head. He recognized the Buddha head as a dangerous but potentially valuable opportunity, while Meng Changxi’s parasitized condition remained unexplained.

• An old man offered Zhang Xuan moldy flatbread, and the boy sang a strange song before both figures vanished, leaving a wooden horse behind.
• The temple was battered by a sudden downpour, and the wooden horse carved the warning “Run!” into the floor.
• Zhang Xuan’s Nether Candle Mystic Eyes revealed Monk Sanjie’s abilities and identified the Two-Faced Buddha Head as a corrupted treasure that had received 996 human sacrifices.
• Zhang Xuan suspected the Wild God intended to claim their heads and considered the treasure a possible opportunity prepared by the Celestial Master's Ordination.
• Zhang Xuan discovered that Meng Changxi was a Copper Skin Realm martial artist who had been parasitized by the black fluid from the Buddha head.