Chapter Summaries

Key plot points and events

• Hoping to survive an approaching calamity, the protagonist spends their remaining fortune—100 million low-grade spirit stones—on the Heaven-tier spell Wind-Listening Ears. After a month of training, its enhanced hearing and divine sense help them search for Chen Qingyan.
• At the Myriad Beasts Mountain Range, the protagonist detects Chen on the final day of registration and recognizes that he has reached the peak of the Embryonic Breath Realm. They call out to him and use the phrase “Hidden Dragon in the Abyss” to draw him into a private conversation.
• Chen sees the protagonist’s worsening deathly fortune and agrees to consider helping, but rejects their claim that they can glimpse the future. He warns that such knowledge could be a trap and that both of them may be pieces in a larger scheme.
• After discovering the protagonist’s Heaven-grade Qi Refining foundation—and being unable to sense their refined Heaven and Earth Wonder—Chen agrees to help as a fellow Chen descendant and as a way of forging a karmic bond.
• He tells the protagonist to enter the secret realm with him. The protagonist accepts immediately, judging the risk preferable to certain death.
• Though tempted to reveal that the realm may be a trap set by a Blazing Fire Sect Golden Core powerhouse, the protagonist stays silent, fearing that disclosure could disrupt Chen’s plans or provoke the enemy.

Character developments

• The protagonist moves from fearful, isolated preparation to a fragile sense of hope. They act decisively despite the danger, but remain cautious about what they reveal.
• Chen Qingyan appears perceptive, guarded, and strategically minded. He can read the protagonist’s deathly fortune, distrusts their explanation, and seems conscious that both may be caught in a larger design. His willingness to help suggests a sense of obligation and personal boundaries despite his tragic circumstances.

Significant themes

• Fate and manipulation: The characters suspect that their choices and meeting may be part of someone else’s plan.
• Risk, survival, and trust: The protagonist must choose between near-certain death alone and a dangerous chance alongside Chen.
• The limits of knowledge: Knowing about a trap may be more dangerous than helpful when the enemy holds overwhelming power.
• Karma and obligation: Chen frames his assistance as a karmic bond, linking personal choices to broader destiny.

Character interactions

• The protagonist deliberately uses “Hidden Dragon in the Abyss” to gain Chen’s attention, then meets him privately.
• Chen confronts the protagonist about their motives and their claimed ability to see the future; the protagonist’s explanation fails to convince him.
• Despite his suspicions, Chen agrees to help and invites the protagonist into the secret realm, while the protagonist chooses to trust him rather than disclose everything they know.

Key plot points and events

• After three disorienting days, the narrator recalls only one clear instruction from a conversation with Chen Qingyan: follow him into the secret realm to resolve a fatal danger. They enter together and travel north, encountering no other competitors.
• Chen Qingyan leads the narrator to the White Bone Forest, a vast, oppressive field of human and beast skeletons. The narrator senses only deathly energy and resentment.
• Chen Qingyan addresses someone concealed in the void, provoking the Golden Core powerhouse from the Blazing Fire Sect. The powerhouse manifests his will, warning that the forest offers only death.
• Chen Qingyan declares the forest’s rule: “bear ten thousand karmic burdens, face death to find life.” He suggests the powerhouse and the Blazing Sun True Lord could have stayed out of the conflict.
• The gray-robed elder emerges from space. Chen Qingyan recognizes that he cultivates the space fruit position and accuses him of serving another power. The elder argues that even Chen Qingyan, once supreme, has been reduced to this predicament by a Golden Core cultivator.
• Chen Qingyan concludes that the elder is also an unawakened piece in a larger game, and announces that the trial will begin. The White Bone Forest erupts in a powerful upheaval.

Character developments and interactions

• The narrator remains confused and wary, with only fragments of memory and little understanding of the forces at play. The Golden Core powerhouse’s presence exposes how vulnerable the narrator is, while Chen Qingyan’s composure suggests he knows more than he reveals.
• Chen Qingyan shifts from silent guide to open challenger. He appears prepared for the elder’s arrival and speaks with confidence, though his remarks hint at a tragic fall from former greatness.
• The gray-robed elder is powerful but seemingly constrained by greater forces. His calm response to Chen Qingyan’s insults suggests resignation rather than anger.
• Their exchange reveals mutual recognition and distrust: Chen Qingyan sees the elder as a pawn, while the elder points out Chen Qingyan’s own loss of power.

Significant themes

• Hidden control and manipulation: The characters may be pieces in a vast game involving Golden Core cultivators, True Lords, and powerful “fruit positions.”
• Memory and awakening: The narrator’s recollection has been suppressed, while Chen Qingyan speaks of awakening the others.
• Fate, karma, and peril: The forest’s rule presents death as a necessary path toward survival, and the “fatal fortune” remains unresolved.
• Former glory and helplessness: Chen Qingyan’s past supremacy contrasts with his present vulnerability, while even powerful cultivators appear trapped by larger forces.

Plot points and events

• Chen Qingyan summons countless skeletons, which assemble into a vast, ominous White Bone Throne. The construction stops just short of completion, leaving it without the patterns and power that would make its authority complete.
• Chen explains that the throne is a nascent fruit position, entrusted to him by a powerful being ages ago. Though it cannot normally grant the Dao, its accumulated power can break Chen Fan’s death-luck and briefly clear the minds of certain beings.
• Chen tells Chen Fan to approach the throne. The gray-robed elder warns that attaining the unfinished fruit position will leave Chen Fan with only one incense stick’s worth of life.
• Chen Fan learns that Chen Qingyan knew this but withheld it. Chen views him as a pawn placed at his side by a True Lord and intends to use him fully.
• With death seemingly unavoidable either way, Chen Fan steps toward the throne, choosing a brief glimpse of supreme power over an ignorant death.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Qingyan reveals both grief or regret connected to the throne and an unwavering willingness to use Chen Fan for his own purposes. He treats the situation as part of a higher-level plan.
• Chen Fan moves from confusion and hope to shock, anger, and helpless acceptance. Though he recognizes he has little control over his fate, he makes a deliberate choice about how to face it.
• The gray-robed elder remains a detached observer, questions Chen Qingyan’s decision, and exposes the fatal cost Chen concealed from Chen Fan. He ultimately does not intervene.
• Chen Qingyan and the elder speak openly about Chen Fan as he approaches, showing their unequal power over his fate and their belief that events are orchestrated beyond him.

Significant themes

• Fate and agency: Chen Fan is caught in forces set in motion by powerful beings, but retains a narrow choice in how he meets his end.
• Sacrifice and exploitation: The fruit position offers a chance to resist death, but at the price of Chen Fan’s life—and Chen Qingyan regards him as a useful pawn.
• Power and incompleteness: The unfinished throne embodies immense potential while lacking the final essence needed for full authority.
• Despair and defiance: Chen Fan’s step toward the throne is made with full awareness of the cost, turning apparent resignation into a final act of resolve.

Key plot points and events

• The protagonist climbs the White Bone Steps, which rapidly elevate their rank and power while consuming their body, memories, and emotions. By the summit, only a remnant soul remains.
• They discover they had effectively died on the first step; the rank bestowed by the staircase merely sustains a brief, lucid phantom.
• A mysterious ancient voice asks what they hope to gain from the White Bone Throne. The protagonist insists they want the truth, even if it cannot save them.
• With their emotional numbness broken by anger at being manipulated, they conclude that their involvement began in the Treasure Pavilion and that their search for Chen Qingyan was guided by unseen forces. They suspect one or more Nascent Soul True Lords used them as a pawn.
• The voice grants their wish, declaring that the Supreme must not fall completely and that Beyond Heaven must be restored. The protagonist touches the throne and receives its hidden knowledge.
• They learn the site is the Burial Ground of the Dao, embodying a nascent dao-burying fruit position. The steps enact “burying the self,” sacrificing one’s former existence for a higher rank.
• The protagonist sits upon the throne. Their vision expands beyond mortal perception, and they begin to see through the schemes that shaped their fate.

Character developments

• The protagonist progresses from outward calm and emotional depletion to fierce defiance. Though doomed, they choose understanding over ignorance.
• The mysterious voice shifts from questioning the protagonist with apparent mockery or pity to making a resolute, sacrificial choice.
• Chen Qingyan remains a guarded, vulnerable figure whose circumstances suggest he, too, is caught in the True Lords’ conflicts.

Significant themes

• Truth versus survival: The protagonist seeks answers despite knowing they may not change the outcome.
• Sacrifice and transformation: Greater power comes at the cost of the self—body, memory, and emotion.
• Manipulation and agency: The protagonist recognizes they have been a pawn, but their final demand for truth is an act of resistance.
• Burial and renewal: The throne represents both an ending and the possibility of restoring a greater order.

Character interactions

• The protagonist confronts the ancient voice, explaining their refusal to die without understanding their fate; the voice ultimately enables them to reach the throne.
• The protagonist’s retrospective view implicates Chen Qingyan, the Treasure Pavilion steward, and multiple True Lords in a network of hidden schemes.
• Chen Qingyan and the gray-robed Golden Core cultivator witness the protagonist’s final ascent and seating upon the throne.

Key plot points and events

• The protagonist takes the seat of the White Bone Throne, becoming one with an incomplete Burial Dao nascent fruit position. The sudden elevation grants a vast, near-Nascent Soul perspective on the world and its laws.
• The Great Dao voice, weakened to its final breath, urges the protagonist to do what must be done, then falls silent.
• The throne proves unstable: it is a half-finished construct that is cracking apart under the strain of the protagonist using its power. The protagonist has only a brief window before it collapses—and may take them with it.
• Using this temporary authority, the protagonist sees the world’s karma as interwoven threads. Their fate is tightly bound to Chen Qingyan’s, whose own karma appears protected by precautions he made.
• The protagonist painstakingly severs the forced connection. As their own fate becomes clearer, they discover that four Nascent Soul True Lords have interfered with it.
• While tracing the schemes, the protagonist realizes that the Treasure Pavilion’s True Lord was not an unwitting observer: he tacitly approved, or encouraged, the protagonist’s guided purchase of Know Fortune and Misfortune, helping lead them into the trap.

Character developments and interactions

• The protagonist gains a powerful but short-lived change in status and perception. They remain resourceful and determined, accepting the throne’s cost to uncover who has shaped their fate.
• Chen Qingyan is revealed as a major, guarded presence in the protagonist’s destiny. The forced bond between their fates obscured the protagonist’s own path, and Chen’s preparations make his karma difficult to alter.
• The Great Dao voice provides one final, fading instruction before seemingly exhausting itself.
• The Treasure Pavilion True Lord is exposed as a participant in the conspiracy, making his apparent neutrality—and the protagonist’s purchase—part of a larger manipulation.
• The other three True Lords remain unidentified, but their involvement suggests the protagonist is caught in a high-level struggle.

Significant themes

• Power and its cost: The protagonist’s near-Nascent Soul authority comes from a flawed source that is destroying itself—and potentially them.
• Fate, karma, and agency: The chapter depicts destiny as manipulable threads, but changing them is difficult, especially when powerful figures have interfered.
• Hidden conspiracies: Actions that seemed ordinary, such as buying an item at the Treasure Pavilion, may have been orchestrated by powerful players.
• Knowledge under pressure: The protagonist must uncover the truth before their borrowed power—and the throne—collapses.

Summary

Key events

• As the White Bone Throne and the steps beneath it collapse, the narrator’s rank and remnant soul rapidly disintegrate. In their final moments, they piece together the scheme behind their ordeal.
• The narrator realizes that their imposed “Death Luck” drew them to Chen Qingyan and bound their fates, making them a weapon in one True Lord’s attempt to harm him.
• Another True Lord, apparently allied with Chen Qingyan, intervened to keep the narrator alive and guide them to the throne. Through the power of Dao Burial, the narrator could sever the fatal link between their fate and Chen Qingyan’s.
• The narrator finally understands why the True Lords noticed them: repeated simulations made their destiny wildly unpredictable, disrupting the futures that powerful beings believed they could foresee.
• As the simulation ends, the narrator silently calls Chen Qingyan “Brilliant.” Chen Qingyan answers “Not bad,” and the narrator’s consciousness vanishes.

Character developments and interactions

• The narrator moves from confusion to a clear, if too-late, understanding of the competing plans and their own role. They accept their death but retain enough composure to recognize Chen Qingyan’s insight.
• Chen Qingyan remains outwardly impassive, but the narrator’s appraisal draws a rare, genuine smile from him. Their silent exchange suggests mutual understanding and respect.
• The ancient voice emphasizes the larger schemes and the apparent futility of the narrator’s struggle, but the narrator stops giving it their attention.

Significant themes

• Fate versus agency: The narrator’s simulations repeatedly alter a seemingly predetermined destiny, making them an anomaly.
• Power and manipulation: The narrator has been used as a pawn by rival True Lords, even as one side’s intervention gives them a crucial role.
• Limits of action: The narrator can understand the game but cannot use that knowledge to save themselves—or affect their real-world counterpart.
• Recognition amid tragedy: The brief exchange with Chen Qingyan offers a moment of connection and acknowledgment before the narrator’s final disappearance.

Chapter Summary

Key plot points and events

• The five-year simulation ends with Chen Fan’s simulated self reaching a half-step Nascent Soul state as a remnant soul. Its final insight is that Chen Fan had been both a piece in a larger game and, briefly, a player who glimpsed the board.
• Back in reality, Chen Fan is shaken by the memories and realizes that Nascent Soul True Lords have been watching him. Their attention may be triggered by the Simulator repeatedly changing his fate.
• Reviewing earlier simulations, he notes a pattern: he tended to die after visiting the Treasure Pavilion or returning to the Chen Lineage. He suspects his sudden achievement of Heaven-grade Qi Refining—and the resulting disruptions to his destined future—made him stand out to the True Lords.
• Chen Fan refuses to claim a reward from the latest simulation, fearing that doing so would make its changes and revelations more visible to the True Lords.
• After the Simulator gives no guidance, he considers two ways forward: seek Chen Qingyan’s help, or keep simulating in hopes of obtaining a talent that can conceal him from the True Lords.
• He chooses to approach Chen Qingyan in the next simulation, planning to offer carefully selected information about the Simulator or possible futures in exchange for protection.

Character development and interactions

• Chen Fan moves from shock and anger to cautious analysis, then makes a deliberate choice to take action rather than wait for an inevitable death.
• His view of the Simulator becomes more conflicted: it has given him a path beyond an ordinary life, but its alterations to his fate may also expose him to powerful enemies.
• Chen Qingyan becomes Chen Fan’s most promising potential ally. Chen Fan believes his unusual fate may help him evade the True Lords’ scrutiny, but expects that any assistance will require a valuable bargain.
• The Simulator remains silent, leaving Chen Fan to assess the danger and choose his own strategy.

Significant themes

• Fate and free will: Chen Fan’s attempts to change his destiny may themselves make him conspicuous to those who can perceive fate.
• Power and exploitation: The chapter condemns a world where powerful cultivators manipulate or sacrifice weaker ones, even those who have barely begun cultivating.
• Knowledge as both weapon and risk: Future information may secure Chen Qingyan’s help, but revealing it could also expose Chen Fan further.
• Agency under pressure: With no safe option, Chen Fan chooses a dangerous, purposeful gamble over passive waiting.

Plot points and events

• Chen Fan begins the Sixth Simulation with a key rule in mind: never claim rewards with his real body. A sudden increase in cultivation could expose him to powerful observers. Instead, he will let a short-lived simulation clone claim rewards and bear the resulting attention.
• He spends 100,000 low-grade spirit stones to begin another simulation.
• His new choices are Ascension, which upgrades a blue-or-lower talent by one grade; Fortune, which grants the potential of a child of destiny; and Divine Body, which grants a random divine constitution.
• Chen Fan rejects Divine Body as a relatively minor advantage and Fortune as too conspicuous a disturbance to his already dangerous fate. He chooses Ascension, hoping to strengthen himself without creating an obvious change outsiders could detect.
• Because he did not select a reward after the Fifth Simulation, it carries into the Sixth. The clone claims the previous simulation’s life experience and talents—Eye of Illusion, Twice the Results with Half the Effort, and Beloved Object—rather than cultivation, which might attract the Nascent Soul True Lords.
• The clone considers which existing blue talent to upgrade. It dismisses Twice the Results with Half the Effort because greater efficiency cannot overcome the vast power gap between ordinary cultivators and True Lords. It doubts Eye of Illusion can do more than reveal dangers that Chen Fan is powerless to avoid.
• The chapter ends with the clone leaning toward Beloved Object, whose one-time effect provides what is most needed in the user’s current circumstances, subject to limits based on rank.

Character development

• Chen Fan is increasingly cautious and strategic, treating visibility itself as a threat. He separates his real self from the risks of simulation rewards and prioritizes discreet, indirect gains.
• His past deaths have made him more realistic about talent: better cultivation, sharper perception, or good fortune may be useless against enemies who vastly outrank him.
• The clone reflects this hard-earned perspective by seeking a resource that could address his immediate predicament rather than merely improve his abilities.

Significant themes

• Power and vulnerability: Individual talent matters little against overwhelming differences in rank.
• Knowledge versus agency: Seeing danger is not enough if one lacks the power to change its outcome.
• Concealment and fate: Sudden gains or favorable fortune may attract attention from those monitoring the world’s “river of fate.”
• Pragmatism and survival: Chen Fan favors quiet, targeted advantages over flashy improvements.

Character interactions

• Chen Fan’s central interaction is with the Simulator, which offers talents and carries over the unclaimed Fifth Simulation reward.
• He also responds indirectly to the unseen Nascent Soul True Lords, whose scrutiny shapes his choices; no direct encounter occurs in this chapter.

Key plot points and events

• The protagonist first uses the blue talent Beloved Object to obtain the same Heaven and Earth Wonder that previously enabled a safe breakthrough to Heaven-grade Qi Refining.
• They then use Ascension on the talent. Beloved Object becomes the purple talent Wish Echo, which ignores rank and selects whatever object is best suited to their circumstances.
• Wish Echo produces a mysterious token engraved with “Time.” The protagonist cannot activate it or learn more about it; their Eye of Illusion identifies it only as a Damaged Spacetime Token, an unowned opportunity.
• Suspecting the token may protect them from the fate-scrutiny of a Nascent Soul True Lord, the protagonist waits a year in hiding, watching for signs of interference. None appear.
• At age 20, they decide not to wait longer and begin the familiar breakthrough to Heaven-grade Qi Refining. They succeed quickly—but an unexpected change erupts just as they reach the new realm.

Character development

• The protagonist shows greater caution and strategic thinking, recognizing that the token may work passively and testing their safety before acting.
• They also remain determined not to let uncertainty or excessive waiting stall their cultivation.

Significant themes

• Fate, foresight, and protection: The token’s purpose is unclear, but its arrival may counter a powerful figure’s ability to observe or manipulate the protagonist’s fate.
• Power beyond appearances: The dormant, damaged-looking token may be an immensely powerful treasure.
• Risk versus progress: The protagonist balances caution against the cost of delaying a crucial breakthrough.
• Coincidence and hidden design: The new talent’s effect seems uncannily suited to the protagonist’s immediate predicament, raising the possibility of a deeper scheme.

Character interactions

• No direct conversations occur. The central tension is the protagonist’s implied conflict with the unseen Nascent Soul True Lord; the protagonist tries to avoid provoking that figure by keeping a low profile.

Plot points

• Chen Fan’s breakthrough to heaven-grade Qi Refining attracts the attention of several Nascent Soul True Lords. The Temporal Decree hides his location and the traces of his breakthrough by distorting the time and information associated with him, defeating their attempts to investigate.
• After the True Lords’ attention fades, the decree opens a screen linking Chen Fan to a man in another time period. The man recognizes Chen as an Otherworldly Demon—a transmigrator—from the next epoch.
• Chen cautiously confirms his identity and explains that he trusts the connection because the Temporal Decree came through his Golden Finger. The man correctly deduces that Chen has a Golden Finger and is relatively inexperienced.
• Chen gives his name and says he belongs to the Chen Family. When the man tries to divine which family, heavenly lightning strikes him for probing too deeply into Chen’s origins. He survives almost unharmed, explaining that his divination interfered with a significant cause and triggered karmic punishment.
• The man introduces himself as Lin Feng, a Nascent Soul True Lord who attained the Dao in Beyond Heaven and is known as the Supreme Dao Immortal Venerable.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Fan moves from fear at the True Lords’ scrutiny to greater confidence in the Temporal Decree’s protective power. He remains wary but chooses to be candid with Lin Feng, judging the connection trustworthy.
• Lin Feng appears genial, perceptive, and teasing, yet demonstrates overwhelming strength by surviving the karmic lightning. He seems experienced with transmigrators and Golden Fingers.
• Their conversation is cordial but unequal: Lin Feng reads Chen’s guardedness and probes his background, while Chen tries to assess whether this apparent fellow transmigrator is safe to trust.

Significant themes

• Time, information, and concealment: the Temporal Decree protects Chen not through direct confrontation but by making him difficult to perceive or trace.
• Fate and karmic limits: Lin Feng’s attempt to uncover Chen’s precise origins provokes punishment, suggesting that some causes cannot be investigated without consequences.
• Power and experience: Chen’s young cultivation contrasts sharply with Lin Feng’s immense strength and accumulated knowledge.
• Trust and secrecy: Chen’s openness about being a transmigrator sits alongside his reluctance to reveal his Golden Finger or more personal details.

Plot points

• The narrator realizes that Beyond Heaven is a Fruit Position, not a faction, and recalls that Chen Qingyan is the reincarnation of the Supreme Fruit Position. Lin Feng’s claim to have attained Beyond Heaven suggests a powerful connection between him and Chen Qingyan.
• Lin Feng warns the narrator not to ask directly about Beyond Heaven or the past: altering history could trigger Heavenly Dao Correction and the Punishment of the Law of Karma. He has already absorbed some of that backlash on the narrator’s behalf.
• Instead, the narrator disguises a question about their own predicament—an unusually fortunate breakthrough that has drawn Nascent Soul True Lords’ attention. Lin Feng offers a legend: a Heavenly Mystery Creation Jade Butterfly, buried beneath an old locust tree at the Chen family estate, can conceal fate even from Nascent Soul experts.
• The damaged Spacetime Token runs out of energy, ending the contact. The narrator suspects it may need heavenly Dao power to recharge and decides to pursue the jade butterfly.
• In the past, Lin Feng withstands a far greater karmic lightning tribulation after the contact ends. He suspects the narrator’s enemies are more formidable than they seem, but believes the narrator has a chance to escape their predicament.
• Chen Qingyan arrives. Lin Feng sends him to bury the jade butterfly at a specific spacetime location; Qingyan recognizes it as a treasure once owned by Lin Feng’s fallen close friend and accepts the task without asking questions.

Character developments and interactions

• The narrator becomes more cautious about speaking across time, while remaining determined to find protection from those targeting them.
• Lin Feng acts as a knowledgeable protector, taking the karmic backlash himself and giving indirect guidance. His apparent good humor after the ordeal suggests confidence in the narrator’s potential.
• Chen Qingyan is revealed as Lin Feng’s respectful disciple. Though startled by the treasure and concerned about its significance, he obeys his master without probing further.
• Their exchange is marked by restraint: Lin Feng blocks dangerous questions, the narrator uses a hypothetical to seek advice, and Qingyan avoids questioning a sensitive command.

Significant themes

• The danger of changing the past: Even conversation across time can provoke cosmic correction.
• Fate and concealment: The jade butterfly may hide the narrator’s altered destiny from powerful observers.
• Mentorship and sacrifice: Lin Feng protects the narrator and entrusts Qingyan with a consequential mission.
• Hidden plans and foreknowledge: The “legend” appears connected to Lin Feng’s deliberate action in the past, hinting that events may be unfolding according to a larger design.

Plot points

• The protagonist secretly returns to the Chen Family, confident that their heaven-grade Qi Refining lets them hide their true cultivation from ordinary detection.
• Following Lin Feng’s clue, they approach an ancient scholar tree. A lingering spacetime imprint responds to their touch, and the Heavenly Secret Creation Jade Butterfly emerges from beneath its roots.
• The artifact’s arrival appears to ease the threat of being watched by a Nascent Soul True Lord, but that same evening Chen Qingyan visits.
• Qingyan recognizes the protagonist as the person his master, Lin Feng, has spoken of. He explains that Lin Feng arranged for the Jade Butterfly to be buried there, and that Qingyan’s reincarnation into the Chen Family was partly meant to guard it and await the protagonist.
• Calling the protagonist his martial uncle, Qingyan offers to protect their travels. The protagonist accepts, and they become companions.
• During a year on the road, Qingyan explains the wider world of cultivation, including the scale of the Nascent Soul realm and the hierarchy of its fruit positions.

Character developments and interactions

• The protagonist gains a powerful artifact and a reliable protector, but realizes that Lin Feng’s plans have brought them back into the attention of influential beings. They respond to Qingyan’s revelations with surprise and growing awareness of how much they still have to learn.
• Chen Qingyan acts with deference despite the protagonist’s apparent weakness. His connection to the Jade Butterfly and his duty to await the protagonist reflect his loyalty to Lin Feng and his willingness to safeguard the protagonist.
• Their relationship shifts from a surprise meeting to a respectful, practical partnership. The protagonist presses Qingyan directly about his motives, and Qingyan answers openly.

Significant themes and lore

• Fate and hidden causes: The Jade Butterfly’s appearance, Qingyan’s reincarnation, and the protagonist’s arrival are all presented as parts of a larger design shaped by karma and Lin Feng’s foresight.
• Protection versus exposure: The artifact may hinder direct control by a Nascent Soul True Lord, but obtaining it—and meeting Qingyan—does not necessarily keep the protagonist hidden.
• The hierarchy of power: Qingyan describes three broad tiers of Nascent Soul fruit positions:
  1. Void-proven positions, created through an extraordinarily difficult process and possessing the greatest potential; only their holders can glimpse the opportunity for Spirit Transformation.
  2. Positions nurtured by heaven and earth, embodying laws or authority, including the powerful primordial-unity “heaven position” and reincarnation “earth position.”
  3. Derivative and ordinary extrarealm positions, generally weaker and often dependent on a higher-tier position. Derivative holders can be tied to their source: if its main holder dies, they die as well.
• Cosmic scale: The Supreme Chaos True Realm is only one world among many, though its comparatively complete laws make its cultivation systems especially powerful.

Key events

• Chen Qingyan reveals that both Lin Feng’s Heaven Beyond Heaven and his own past-life Supreme Fruit Position were Void-Proven Fruit Positions. However, Heaven Beyond Heaven was far more mysterious and powerful, one of only two transcendent powers spanning the heavens and myriad worlds.
• Chen explains the Nascent Soul titles: early and middle stages are True Lords, late stage is Great True Lord, perfection is Heavenly Venerable, and those who break through the limit become Immortal Venerables. His former title, Supreme Infinite Heavenly Venerable, indicates perfection; Lin Feng’s Supreme Dao Immortal Venerable suggests he broke the limit.
• Chen remembers dying in a desperate situation, but suspects his master sealed those memories to prevent powerful beings from tracing them. His reincarnation’s purpose is to find someone at the Chen Family and perform a “Life Exchange” to gain a new life, though he refuses to explain further.
• With Chen’s guidance, the narrator’s cultivation talents, and insights from earlier simulations, the narrator advances to Late Qi Refining within a year.
• At age 24, Chen persuades the narrator to postpone secluded cultivation and accompany him on an urgent mission: retrieving instructions Chen hid in a secret site in his previous life.
• The site proves to be a barren, concealed fragment of a Grotto-Heaven, with little spiritual energy and no visible treasures. Chen explains that its few opportunities depend on fortune, which neither of them currently has enough of; he came instead to retrieve a hidden message containing the next step of his plan.
• The narrator’s Temporal Decree remains difficult to recharge: after three years and various experiments, it has reached only 13.5%. Chen activates a secret art at an ordinary-looking wall, revealing a glowing note.

Character developments and interactions

• The narrator gains a clearer sense of Lin Feng’s extraordinary stature, while also recognizing how little is known about his power and Golden Finger.
• Chen emerges as a knowledgeable, strategic reincarnator whose plans are carefully divided and concealed to evade divination. Despite being the narrator’s junior in cultivation and age, he takes the lead, and the narrator follows his directions—partly because they suspect they cannot easily back out.
• Their relationship mixes formal hierarchy—the narrator is Chen’s martial uncle—with practical deference to Chen’s superior experience and foresight. Chen bluntly judges both of their fortunes to be poor.

Significant themes

• Hidden power and cosmic hierarchy: titles and fruit positions reveal vast differences in status, but the greatest powers remain only partly understood.
• Reincarnation, memory, and secrecy: Chen’s past-life knowledge is incomplete, and his plans are deliberately concealed to protect him from powerful observers.
• Fortune versus preparation: opportunities may exist, but access depends on luck; Chen relies instead on planning and hidden instructions.
• Slow progress and constrained resources: the narrator’s cultivation advances quickly, yet recharging the Temporal Decree remains painstakingly slow.

Key events

• Chen Qingyan’s cryptic clue—“Meet an old acquaintance in the Myriad Beasts Mountain Range”—leaves the narrator wondering whether past Golden Core figures were allies or enemies.
• Before leaving the now-empty secret realm, Chen Qingyan points out that its residual primordial energy can aid a breakthrough. After a month of cultivation, the narrator reaches perfected Qi Refining, and the Damaged Spacetime Token charges from 13.5% to 70%. The realm is left dormant as its energy is depleted.
• At age 25, the narrator travels with Chen Qingyan to the Myriad Beasts Mountain Range, judging that staying near him is safest.
• Chen Qingyan explains that the era’s highest fruit positions are absent or concealed, keeping the greatest Nascent Soul powers out of sight; only cultivators with derivative fruit positions are openly active.
• Inside the range, Chen Qingyan senses familiar auras in every direction. The narrator shares knowledge from prior simulations as a “premonition,” and they choose to head west.
• They reach an ancient Buddhist temple, but Chen Qingyan recognizes that it is not the right destination. The ancient Buddha attacks with overwhelming force. Chen Qingyan blocks the blow with a mysterious seal and escapes with the narrator.
• The pair return to the earlier secret realm, where Chen Qingyan reveals that the seal is his diminished Nascent Soul true treasure, the Supreme Limitless Dharma Seal. Its Rewind ability lets him establish a spacetime anchor and return himself, with his current cultivation and belongings, to that point—unless a Nascent Soul True Lord intervenes.

Character development and interactions

• The narrator grows stronger and more perceptive, using knowledge from past simulations to help choose a route while keeping the Simulator secret.
• Chen Qingyan acts as guide and protector, but his powers and past remain only partly understood. His calm response to the temple’s failed lead suggests he has anticipated setbacks.
• Their partnership is built on trust: Chen Qingyan protects the narrator, while the narrator contributes strategic insight.
• The ancient Buddha initially appears like the awaited acquaintance, but the attack reveals that appearances and apparent clues cannot be trusted.

Significant themes

• Uncertain loyalties: Familiar figures may be allies or enemies, and the narrator’s past simulations provide clues rather than certainty.
• Hidden power and a changed era: The most powerful Nascent Soul figures are absent from public view, while even Chen Qingyan’s former supreme status and treasure have been diminished.
• Accumulation and resourcefulness: The secret realm’s residual energy advances the narrator’s cultivation and charges the token, but using it exhausts the realm.
• Time, fate, and survival: Chen Qingyan’s Rewind ability offers a powerful escape and return mechanism, while its limitations keep the danger real.

• Chen Qingyan explains his rewind ability. You ask whether he is an Otherworldly Demon, since his [Rewind] seems even more powerful than your Simulator’s ability to preserve a run. Chen says he does not believe he is one: the power comes from his Supreme Limitless Dharma Seal, a True Treasure his master, Lin Feng, made by fusing three treasures. Chen has unlocked only Rewind, can use it only three times in his current condition, and has already spent two uses escaping. The rewind also cannot fool Nascent Soul True Lords, who may detect it and respond.
• You and Chen separate. Chen plans to wait for the Myriad Beasts Mountain Range Secret Realm to open again and explore its last unexplored direction, where he hopes to meet an old acquaintance. Because the trip is dangerous and the seal has only one use left, he goes alone and tells you to stay in the Secret Realm and cultivate.
• You learn the rules of limit-breaking. Returning to age 24, you begin pursuing a limit-break at Qi Refining Perfection. Chen explains that cultivation quality determines future potential: Human-grade Qi Refining offers little prospect of advancement, while Earth-grade makes Foundation Establishment difficult. Heaven-grade grants the eligibility to limit-break—up to nine times—with accumulated cultivation and each breakthrough shaping the strength of one’s Dao foundation. He also recounts an unverifiable legend of a prodigy who broke the nine-limit rule and achieved ten thousand limit-breaks, but cautions you not to rely on it.
• You begin a long seclusion. The Secret Realm’s source energy is dormant after helping you reach perfection, so you must first accumulate cultivation. Your first limit-break requires 500 years’ worth. Chen leaves you fasting pills and purified water, repeatedly warns you not to go outside, and does not return by ages 26, 28, or 30.
• Your talent accelerates the work. During years of solitary practice, you discover that your blue talent [Twice the Results with Half the Effort] also doubles your cultivation gains, potentially reducing the first limit-break’s accumulation period to about 250 years. By age 30, five years of practice have made your aura steadier, your control of spiritual energy finer, and the primordial qi in your dantian denser—but the goal remains distant.
  Character and relationship developments: Chen proves cautious and self-sacrificing, choosing to face danger alone while protecting you. You trust his judgment and follow his instructions, though you worry about him in his absence. You become more disciplined and hopeful as you recognize your talent’s usefulness.
  Themes: The chapter emphasizes the immense time and effort cultivation demands, the role of innate potential in shaping one’s future, and the risks of pursuing power amid a dangerous world. It also highlights trust and concern between companions, even while they are separated.

Key plot points and events

• The narrator spends decades cultivating in Chen Qingyan’s secret realm, finding no hidden opportunities and making slow but steady progress despite a lack of fortune.
• Worry over Chen Qingyan’s fate and the narrator’s isolation gradually deepen. By age 81, suppressed restlessness nearly drives the narrator to leave the realm, despite knowing powerful enemies may be waiting outside.
• The damaged Spacetime Token suddenly releases a calming force, ending the mental compulsion. The narrator realizes it can protect its owner from malign influence, though doing so drains its charge from over 70% to 45%.
• The narrator resumes cultivation. By age 90, accumulated progress reaches roughly 300 of the 500 years needed for a first breakthrough; further replenishment of the realm’s energy may eventually help both cultivation and the token.
• At age 110, the narrator finds a few minor ancient relics—the first opportunity in a century.
• At age 120, Chen Qingyan returns after nearly a century away, now with his cultivation restored to the Foundation Establishment realm.

Character developments

• Narrator: Endures prolonged isolation and slow progress, becoming increasingly desperate to escape. The token’s intervention restores composure, and the narrator recommits to cultivation.
• Chen Qingyan: Remains absent for decades, prompting the narrator’s concern. His return with Foundation Establishment cultivation marks a major, unexplained recovery.

Significant themes

• The hardship of cultivation without fortune, resources, or powerful backing.
• The psychological cost of isolation and the danger of acting on desperation.
• Hidden protection and the energy cost of relying on powerful artifacts.
• Patience and incremental progress amid long periods of apparent stagnation.

Character interactions

• Chen Qingyan’s earlier warnings continue to shape the narrator’s choices, keeping them inside the secret realm despite the urge to leave.
• The Spacetime Token intervenes directly when the narrator is close to acting recklessly, effectively protecting both mind and body.
• Chen Qingyan and the narrator reunite at the end, setting up their next interaction.

Key plot points

• At age 120, the narrator recognizes Chen Qingyan entering the secret realm but immediately senses something is wrong. The Eye of Illusion reveals that Chen is only a possessing, insubstantial remnant—and already dead.
• The narrator realizes Chen willingly sacrificed himself to secure a chance of survival for them. Chen gives them the Supreme Limitless Dharma Seal; on contact, he dissolves completely.
• In his final message, Chen says this era is darker and more dangerous than any before it. He has done all he can to protect the narrator and leaves them a blessing for the road ahead.
• The seal bonds with the narrator and reveals its abilities: Rewind, with one use remaining but unable to affect Nascent Soul True Lords or higher, and Amplification, which boosts cultivation, comprehension, Fate Pattern, and Fortune.
• The secret realm finishes replenishing its energy, bringing the damaged Spacetime Token’s charge to 60 percent. The narrator decides to use it to seek guidance from Lin Feng, the Supreme Dao Immortal Venerable.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Qingyan makes a final, selfless choice: despite being dead, he delivers the seal and a last message to his Martial Uncle. His quiet acceptance and trust contrast with the narrator’s shock and grief.
• The narrator moves from devastation to renewed hope after learning about Amplification. They resolve to seek help rather than face the worsening danger without more information.
• Their relationship is defined by sacrifice and trust: Chen’s final act gives the narrator what may be the means to escape their predicament.

Significant themes

• Sacrifice and inherited hope: Chen’s death buys the narrator a chance, not certainty of safety.
• Fate, fortune, and agency: Amplification may alter the narrator’s chronically poor luck and improve their potential.
• Uncertainty and escalating danger: The narrator senses their predicament is worse than they understand, while the era itself is described as unusually dark.
• Time and rescue: The Spacetime Token offers a possible link to a powerful figure in the past—and perhaps a route toward answers.

Key plot points

• Chen Fan activates the damaged Spacetime Token, which consumes nearly a century’s stored energy and forms a connection—not to Lin Feng’s past, but to a boy living in the distant future.
• The boy, Mo Wuyou, appears in a modern city and wears a school uniform. He recognizes Chen Fan’s robes as resembling those of cultivators from a bygone age.
• Chen Fan realizes that his own era is now the “anchored past.” Mo explains that he lives in the Starry Sky Era, which began about a thousand years after Chen Fan’s time. Chen refuses to hear details about future cultivation methods, fearing karmic punishment.
• After they introduce themselves, Mo reveals that his family has been wiped out. Chen, aware that the token’s connection is brief, asks Mo to look for vague historical records about his era and fate, avoiding specific names.
• Mo finds a fragment describing a cultivator who reached Qi Refining Perfection with nine limit-breaks and died beneath the old pagoda tree of his own Lineage.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Fan moves from shock at seeing a seemingly familiar modern world to cautious curiosity. Though he knows he risks karmic consequences, his desire to learn whether he has a future outweighs his hesitation. He remains careful, setting limits on what Mo may reveal.
• Mo Wuyou is initially wary and fascinated by Chen’s appearance, then becomes more open as they exchange information. His grief over his family’s destruction emerges briefly before he searches the future’s records.
• Their conversation links two eras and two people in hardship. Chen sees Mo’s misfortune as echoing his own precarious circumstances, while Mo’s historical perspective makes Chen’s era seem like a distant, declining past.

Significant themes

• Time, history, and fate: The token connects people across eras, making Chen’s present someone else’s past and raising the question of whether history’s records can reveal—or shape—his ending.
• Knowledge and its risks: Learning the future may trigger karmic punishment, so Chen and Mo must balance curiosity against potentially catastrophic consequences.
• The scale of history: Chen’s turbulent age becomes a documented chapter in the Starry Sky Era, while an obscure cultivator like him may leave only a fragmentary trace.
• Hope amid hardship: Both men face loss and uncertainty, yet the connection offers Chen a brief chance to glimpse what may await him.

Key plot points and events

• After learning of his apparent future death, the protagonist is struck by a devastating Karmic Law Punishment that pierces the Secret Realm’s defenses. The Heavenly Secret Creation Jade Butterfly protects him, dissolving the attack before it can kill him.
• Lin Feng’s lingering message explains that the Spacetime Token seems to connect to the past on odd-numbered uses and the future on even-numbered uses, while leaving its other mechanisms for the protagonist to discover.
• The protagonist considers two possible routes to survival: use the Supreme Limitless Dharma Seal’s last Rewind charge, or rapidly cultivate to Foundation Establishment and unlock the Seal’s third ability. He chooses cultivation, doubting that Rewind alone could overturn fate.
• Thanks to Amplification and the talent Twice the Results with Half the Effort, he advances through three Qi Refining Limit-Breaking layers at extraordinary speed: the first after about two months, the second in Year 125, and the third in Year 129.
• Each Limit-Breaking sharply increases his rank and cultivation speed. By the third layer, his effective cultivation rate reaches roughly 800 times normal, and his Fortune also improves. He commits to remaining in the Secret Realm and cultivating until Foundation Establishment, barring a fatal threat.

Character developments and interactions

• The protagonist moves from terror at his predicted death to determined, practical resolve. Rather than rely on a possible time-reversal escape, he commits to strengthening himself.
• Lin Feng communicates through the Jade Butterfly, offering a limited clue about the Spacetime Token before withdrawing.
• The Jade Butterfly demonstrates its extraordinary protective power, shielding its owner even from punishment capable of destroying a Golden Core cultivator.
• Chen Qingyan’s sacrifice remains a motivating presence: the protagonist wonders whether the Dharma Seal is the “slender thread of survival” bought for him.

Significant themes

• Fate versus agency: A grim prophecy does not end the protagonist’s hope; he seeks a way to change the outcome through strength.
• Power and its cost: The survival crisis underscores how dangerous the future is, while the rapid cultivation gains offer a possible answer.
• Sacrifice and perseverance: Chen Qingyan’s life-saving sacrifice drives the protagonist forward, and relentless discipline becomes his chosen path.
• Uncertainty and discovery: The Spacetime Token’s rules remain only partly understood, leaving the protagonist to uncover its mysteries himself.

Key plot points and events

• In Year 130, the protagonist reaches the fourth limit-breaking, then quickly completes the fifth and sixth. Their cultivation speed rises from 3,200 times its original rate after the fourth to 12,400 times after the fifth.
• The protagonist deduces that each limit-breaking condenses additional strands of purer primordial qi. By the ninth limit-breaking, nine strands will merge into one, cleansing postnatal impurities and creating a flawless innate Great Dao foundation.
• In Year 131, the protagonist reaches Qi Refining perfection and completes all nine limit-breakings. Their cultivation speed stabilizes at an astonishing 100,000 times its original rate, apparently the realm’s limit.
• Their fortune also improves dramatically, making valuable resources in the secret realm easier to find. They obtain another intact heaven-and-earth wonder.
• The protagonist identifies what can recharge the Damaged Spacetime Token: ancient relics, Foundation Establishment cultivators’ jade bones, and heaven-and-earth wonders—all of which contain a special essence tied to time, existence, or the Dao.

Character development

• The protagonist becomes increasingly knowledgeable about the mechanics and purpose of limit-breaking, interpreting its benefits as signs of heaven and earth’s recognition.
• They are astonished by their own growth, especially upon realizing their essential rank may now exceed that of the powerful Chen Family Ancestor, despite still being in Qi Refining.
• Rather than dwell on how unusual this path is, they choose to exploit their rapid progress and continue cultivating.

Significant themes

• Transformation and foundation: Limit-breaking is presented as more than accumulating power; it changes the cultivator’s fundamental nature from postnatal toward innate.
• Recognition and reward: Heaven and earth’s approval allows deeper refinement while rewarding each breakthrough with greater speed, rank, and fortune.
• Potential beyond conventional limits: The protagonist’s essential rank surpasses that of a late-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator, raising questions about how far this path can go.
• Preparation for the future: A perfected foundation is portrayed as making later breakthroughs—especially Foundation Establishment—more attainable.

Character interactions

• There are no direct conversations or confrontations. The protagonist’s most important comparison is with the Chen Family Ancestor, whose formidable status highlights the extraordinary level of the protagonist’s essential rank.