Chapter Summaries

Plot points and events

• The assimilated being demands a heavenly Dao system fruit position or a supreme fruit position in exchange for sending Li Ping’s external incarnation to the Supreme True Realm.
• It explains that the journey would cost it dearly and attract the attention of at least ten comparable beings. The Supreme True Realm is also in its Fifth Era, crowded with dangerous, powerful figures.
• Li Ping confirms there is no alternative and asks Chen Fan whether he has a suitable fruit position. Chen Fan has no heavenly Dao system position, but owns supreme positions in Heavenly Fire and Heavenly River Water.
• Chen Fan gives the being the Heavenly Fire fruit position. When he takes it out, his Golden Talent: Investment identifies the being as a golden investment target. He declines, saving the talent for a more valuable opportunity—possibly the Chat Group’s members or Li Ping—and because he considers the fruit position too cheap an investment.
• The being honors the exchange, returning a luminous object from within “heaven and earth.” It is an incomplete ancient painting: the Imagined Mountains and Seas Painting of Yore, a Dao master-level supreme treasure. It can grant one use of a past Penglai Island Lord’s life-bound divine ability.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Fan remains cautious and calculating: he weighs the cost of the deal, rejects the investment prompt to preserve his once-per-decade talent, and relies on his Judgment talent as leverage against betrayal.
• Past Li Ping is blunt and practical, recognizing the being’s bargaining strategy and affirming that its price and risks are real.
• The assimilated being shifts from seeking to exploit Li Ping to negotiating openly. It demands a rare prize, explains the dangers involved, and follows through once paid.
• Chen Fan and Li Ping work together to assess the offer, while Chen Fan and the being conduct a high-stakes exchange under an implicit threat of retaliation.

Significant themes

• Negotiation and reciprocal risk: Even extraordinary beings must bargain, and the requested price reflects the dangers of the deal.
• Strategic restraint: Chen Fan chooses not to spend a limited investment opportunity on an adequate but unexceptional target.
• Power as leverage: Chen Fan’s ability to destroy the Longevity Realm helps ensure the agreement is honored.
• Ancient inheritance: The painting links the present exchange to the legacy of Penglai Island Lords and offers access to a past lord’s signature power.

Plot points

• The being who had assimilated the Longevity Realm gives Chen Fan a one-use painting-dao imprint of the Imagined Mountains and Seas Painting of Yore. It lets him invoke a past Penglai Island Lord’s life-bound ability.
• Chen Fan learns to use the fourth Island Lord’s Myriad Worlds Gate, which can transport him to the Supreme True Realm through an anchor point on Penglai Immortal Island. The transaction ends, but Chen Fan does not use the treasure immediately.
• Instead, he asks Past Li Ping whether he knows Senior Lin Feng, the Supreme Dao Immortal Venerable.
• Li Ping claims he and Lin Feng once fought a magical duel, then reveals that he deliberately repeated Lin Feng’s catchphrase to show he can access some of Chen Fan’s memories.
• Li Ping says the Lin Feng Chen Fan met in the Immortal Realm may have been a future self created by Time Shepherding. He describes Lin Feng’s abilities as “Change the past! Travel to the future! Anchor the present!”
• Li Ping warns that Lin Feng may know of Chen Fan—and may have a hand in his predicament—since the Immortal Realm came from the Supreme True Realm, which was shattered after Lin Feng clashed with the Lord of the Heavenly Court.
• Chen Fan challenges Li Ping’s implication that Lin Feng is scheming against him, and questions whether Li Ping is trying to sow distrust or genuinely warn him.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Fan remains wary of Li Ping, whose past actions have repeatedly led to Chen Fan’s deaths. Though the warning unsettles him, he refuses to accept it without evidence, especially given Lin Feng’s history of helping him.
• Past Li Ping presents himself as both informed and manipulative: he admits to probing Chen Fan’s memories and uses dramatic claims about Lin Feng’s power to influence Chen Fan’s view of him. His true motive remains unclear.
• Senior Lin Feng does not appear directly, but is portrayed as a formidable, possibly far-reaching figure whose powers may extend across past, present, and future.

Significant themes

• Trust and manipulation: Chen Fan must judge a warning from an untrustworthy source about someone he trusts.
• Time, fate, and agency: Lin Feng’s ability to affect multiple points in time raises doubts about how much of Chen Fan’s situation is planned.
• Power and uncertainty: Even immense abilities and powerful artifacts come with unanswered questions about their origins, limits, and purposes.

Key plot points

• After an uneasy conversation with Past Li Ping, the narrator remains suspicious of Senior Lin Feng—but because of earlier doubts, not Li Ping’s claim that the Supreme Dao Immortal Venerable is plotting against them. With too little information, they postpone judgment.
• On the fifteenth day, Six-Ring Intelligence reveals that the Venerable Lord of Yin-Yang Authority deliberately placed the Painting Dao imprint version of the Imagined Mountains and Seas Painting of Yore in the hands of the being assimilating the Longevity Realm. The Venerable Lord was also the Painting Dao Founder and a close friend of a Penglai Island Lord.
• The narrator suspects the painting may be part of a scheme, but neither their I Am the Chess Player talent nor Past Li Ping detects a threat directed at them.
• Before entering the true Supreme True Realm, the narrator strengthens “Number One Other-Self” without synchronizing its cultivation or borrowing the Hollow Willow’s power, both of which could attract danger or trigger the Realm’s rejection of Spirit Transformation Dao Masters. Using Late Bloomer and Heaven Rewards Diligence, they sacrifice ninety-nine years of lifespan to raise its essence to twice an Immortal Venerable’s.
• The other-self activates the painting and is drawn into a world resembling Penglai. A heaven-reaching spiritual root notices its intrusion; a distant, contemptuous voice from the real Penglai Island expels it.
• Before the expulsion is complete, the painting grants the other-self a targeted strand of origin power, producing a single-use Myriad Worlds Gate. The painting becomes a blurred gate and pulls the other-self toward a chaotic passage that the narrator believes leads to the true Supreme True Realm.

Character developments and interactions

• The narrator remains wary but cautious, prioritizing preparation over premature conclusions. They accept a severe lifespan cost to improve their other-self before the dangerous transition.
• Past Li Ping cannot resolve the narrator’s suspicions about the painting and sees no evidence that it is a trap aimed at them.
• The Venerable Lord of Yin-Yang Authority / Painting Dao Founder is revealed to have arranged the painting’s earlier transfer, deepening the mystery around his intentions.
• The narrator’s other-self intrudes into Penglai’s domain and is forcefully rebuffed by its powerful spiritual root and an apparently remote authority.

Significant themes

• Uncertainty and mistrust: Clues suggest hidden schemes, but the characters lack enough evidence to determine their targets or motives.
• Preparation and risk: The narrator strengthens their other-self while avoiding actions that might expose them to higher-dimensional powers.
• Power and boundaries: Penglai’s distant presence can detect and expel an intruder across unknown distances, underscoring the vast gap in power.
• Unexpected opportunity: Even after being rejected, the other-self receives the power that may open the way to the next realm.

Plot points

• Through Number One Other-Self, the protagonist enters the Supreme True Realm’s immense River of Time, which is far vaster than the river in his own world and crowded with countless powerful beings’ spirit imprints.
• He discovers that the river has stopped flowing and that a stretch has been severed at both ends, forming an isolated temporal region that seems to cut off both past and future.
• A sudden temporal ripple knocks Other-Self off course and into an unknown point in time. More ripples then drive him downstream, suggesting that an unseen enemy is steering him toward their own era.
• The protagonist considers either revealing powerful Primordial World treasures or synchronizing Other-Self with his own cultivation. His I Am the Chess Player talent warns him not to expose the treasures, so he chooses synchronization.
• The increase in strength lets Other-Self escape the besieged point in time, rise above the River, and identify his attacker. Before he can respond, a real, towering figure appears and declares, “I have waited for you… for far too long!”

Character developments and interactions

• The protagonist remains cautious, weighing the danger of attracting attention from the overwhelmingly powerful beings around the River against the immediate threat of being trapped.
• He relies on his talents and on the warning from I Am the Chess Player to make a difficult tactical choice, rather than using his most conspicuous weapons.
• An unidentified enemy appears to manipulate time ripples to lure Other-Self into a specific era. The chapter ends with a direct encounter—and a suggestion that the figure knows or has been expecting the protagonist.

Significant themes

• Power and exposure: Greater strength can provide escape, but revealing extraordinary abilities or treasures may attract even greater threats.
• Fate, time, and causality: The severed River makes past, present, and future uncertain, while changes to anchored events may still trigger karmic punishment.
• Strategy under uncertainty: The protagonist must act with limited knowledge, balancing immediate survival against the consequences of drawing attention.
• Isolation and vulnerability: Though Other-Self is insulated from karma, he is not safe from manipulation or danger within the River of Time.

Key plot points and events

• Sensing a trap, the protagonist attacks the mysterious figure first, using Word Follows the Law to weaken him by 30%.
• The protagonist deduces that the stranger is a servant of the Supreme Immortal: a Spirit Transformation Dao Master able to foresee his arrival through Six Lives, Five Ages. The stranger effectively confirms the deduction.
• The attacker reveals himself as the Future Dao Master, wielding an ancient bronze bell and authorities over Oblivion, Eternity, Time, and an unknown Dao.
• Before the protagonist can deal with him, the Incumbent Dao Master joins the assault with a great seal embodying Destruction, Order, and Death. This is not his complete self, but the portion that escaped to the Northern Land of Sin, letting him act without karmic-law backlash.
• Caught between the two Dao Masters, the protagonist boosts his next divine ability tenfold with Heaven-Inscribing Chapter, then combines Word Follows the Law and Heavenly Formation to barely withstand their coordinated attacks.
• The battlefield draws the attention of increasingly powerful beings, making an already desperate fight even more dangerous.

Character developments and interactions

• The protagonist remains alert and analytical under pressure, quickly identifying the attacker’s likely motive and identity. Though confident enough to taunt him, he recognizes how badly outmatched he is once the second Dao Master appears.
• The Future Dao Master confirms the protagonist’s reasoning, then attacks rather than explaining himself.
• The Incumbent Dao Master’s partial return shows how he has exploited the boundary between past and future to evade karmic consequences.
• The two Dao Masters work in concert, forcing the protagonist onto the defensive.

Significant themes

• Foresight versus resistance: The protagonist’s unusual “No Heart” ability should prevent others from foreseeing his future, yet an exceptional power allows the Future Dao Master to anticipate him.
• Exploiting cosmic rules: The Incumbent Dao Master’s attack hinges on manipulating how karmic law classifies him.
• Power and survival: Even clever deductions and powerful abilities can only buy the protagonist time against opponents of vastly greater strength.
• Escalating danger: The arrival of hostile Dao Masters—and the attention of other supreme beings—signals that this confrontation may grow far beyond a two-on-one battle.

Key plot points and events

• Unable to use his Primordial World Supreme Treasures without risking an unknown upheaval, the protagonist struggles against the Future and Incumbent Dao Masters. Suspecting their attack may be designed to force him into a future consequence, he searches for another escape.
• He uses the Hollow Willow’s Space Great Dao to break away, then activates the water Fruit Position Mystique Sea of Time to travel into the future. The Future Dao Master’s Eternity authority pins him down, and the two enemies badly wound his Number One Other-Self with a bell and seal.
• The protagonist restores his condition with Sea of Time, but the Mysterious Dao Master suddenly appears and crushes his Other-Self’s Dharma Body. The Future Dao Master’s oblivion authority had briefly made the protagonist forget the lurking attacker.
• With his Other-Self close to death and other powerful beings watching, the protagonist activates Transform All Beings to summon Senior Lin Feng. He chooses Lin Feng as a reliable ally whose connection to the Supreme Dao Immortal Venerable might deter further attacks.
• The talent succeeds, granting the temporary ability Beyond Heaven. A new figure emerges from the ruined Dharma Body, effortlessly blocks the three Dao Masters’ combined assault, and taunts them: “You’re on far too low a level!”

Character developments

• The protagonist remains resourceful under pressure, carefully weighing the risks of his treasures, time travel, and possible allies. As the situation worsens, he abandons his preference for keeping a low profile and makes a bold summoning.
• The Future Dao Master proves especially dangerous through both direct restraint and the covert use of oblivion.
• The Mysterious Dao Master reveals himself as the hidden attacker, striking at the moment the protagonist is vulnerable.
• Senior Lin Feng—or the being summoned through his power—appears vastly stronger than the three attackers, though the source of the acquired Beyond Heaven ability is initially unexpected.

Significant themes

• Hidden consequences and fate: The protagonist fears that the Dao Masters are trying to force events that will create danger in the future, while karmic law limits what can be changed.
• Deception and unfair odds: The enemies coordinate their powers and exploit the protagonist’s momentary forgetfulness.
• Risk versus necessity: Preserving secrecy and staying cautious become impossible; survival requires revealing a powerful connection.
• Power and perspective: The closing taunt dramatically reverses the apparent imbalance, suggesting that the attackers have misjudged their opponent’s level.

Character interactions

• The Future and Incumbent Dao Masters work together to restrain and injure the protagonist’s Other-Self; the Mysterious Dao Master joins them with a surprise strike.
• The protagonist assesses potential allies, rejects options he considers unreliable or dangerous, and calls on Senior Lin Feng for support.
• The newly emerged figure confronts the three Dao Masters, dismisses their coordinated attack, and challenges their sense of superiority.

Plot points

• The protagonist’s “Number One Other-Self” uses the talent [Transform All Beings] to take the form of Senior Lin Feng, the legendary Supreme Dao Immortal Venerable. His appearance causes a stir among beings who have transcended the River of Time; those trying to reach him from the sealed past are blocked, while powerful beings gather freely from the present.
• The Nine Heavens Celestial Court manifests as an incomplete phantom spanning the present and future. It unleashes its power to test—and seemingly confront—Lin Feng.
• Lin Feng discovers that he is only a derivative created by the protagonist’s ability, with less than a tenth of his full strength and without his life-bound divine ability. Even so, he can still use [Beyond Heaven], effortlessly brushing aside the Court’s attack.
• When Lin Feng moves to investigate the unstable future, the Celestial Court’s phantom blocks his way, joined by a powerful true-spirit imprint. Lin Feng challenges the three Spirit Transformation Dao Masters to attack as well, but they have already fled.
• He then challenges all gathered powerhouses. His words alone leave them silent and afraid, and he declares that he will show them what it means to be “Unrivaled Throughout History.”

Character developments and interactions

• Senior Lin Feng is revealed as calm, perceptive, and overwhelmingly confident—even while operating through a severely diminished manifestation. His contemptuous remarks expose how little he regards the assembled challengers.
• The protagonist is addressed as Lin Feng’s “young successor,” suggesting a meaningful connection between them and confirming that the manifestation is only a derivative of his power.
• The Celestial Court acts as an organized, formidable force intent on testing Lin Feng, while the three Dao Masters’ retreat underscores their fear of him. Other supreme beings shift from curiosity or hostility to stunned silence.

Significant themes

• Reputation and overwhelming presence: Lin Feng’s name and bearing intimidate even before he demonstrates his power.
• Power across time: The Court’s existence beyond the River of Time highlights the scale of the conflict and the limits imposed on beings tied to the past.
• True identity and imitation: Lin Feng’s appearance is created through another’s ability, raising questions about how much of the legend’s power and identity can be reproduced.
• Confidence amid limitation: Even a fraction of Lin Feng’s strength is enough to deflect the Court and cow the gathered powers.

• The confrontation builds: Lin Feng’s avatar waits in the River of Time for the Lord of the Heavenly Court to revive. The assembled supreme beings are already cowed by Lin Feng’s claim that he will show them what “Unrivaled Throughout History” means. The narrator reflects that this is only an avatar—not Lin Feng’s true body—yet it can still command such awe.
• The Lord revives: The Nine Heavens Celestial Court illusion fades as the Lord’s true-spirit imprint solidifies into a powerful dharma body, accompanied by an immense fruit-position manifestation. He enters the River of Time unharmed and advances toward Lin Feng’s avatar, declaring that the karma between them will be settled when they meet again.
• Past Li Ping recognizes their history: Li Ping praises the Lord’s Investiture of the Gods Method and says Lin Feng’s past actions have borne fruit. His unusually solemn respect makes clear that he knows more about their connection than the narrator does. He urges Chen Fan to watch a “true contest of arts,” dismissing comparisons with higher-dimensional battles: what matters is the mechanics, not cultivation level.
• The Lord displays extraordinary power: After absorbing the fruit-position illusion, the Lord notes that his abilities are incomplete and temporary, then summons at least a hundred fruit-position manifestations. Using the Water Supreme Fruit Position, Heavenly River Water, he invokes Sea of Time and brings the River of Time—and his own time—to a halt.
• Lin Feng’s identity is questioned: Lin Feng’s avatar has so far done little beyond calmly waving a feather fan. The Lord senses that this figure is not ordinarily Lin Feng: it has no real karma and no trace across past, present, or future. He concludes that it was summoned by some means and is, for the moment, truly Lin Feng.
  Character dynamics and themes: Chen Fan watches in startled uncertainty, while Li Ping’s grave admiration suggests a deep, undisclosed history between Lin Feng and the Lord. The chapter emphasizes the gap between appearances and reality—avatar versus true body, incomplete power versus formidable technique—and frames mastery of underlying “mechanics” as more decisive than raw realm or strength.

Key plot points

• The Lord of the Heavenly Court repeatedly draws fruit-position illusions and uses their mystiques to restore and amplify his strength. The narrator is stunned by the breadth of abilities he can wield.
• Senior Lin Feng reveals that the Lord’s apparent preparation is mostly a performance: the abilities activate instantly when the illusions appear. He let the display continue so the watching beings could see it—and to confirm Lin Feng’s identity.
• The Lord unleashes a vast force of peak manifestations from the fruit positions, along with countless life-bound divine abilities, including several that impose seemingly certain deaths.
• Lin Feng remains still. His power, Beyond Heaven, appears and erases the attacks and manifestations, apparently through the authority of a true spirit imprint within it.
• The Lord realizes Lin Feng is using this display to establish his stance and protect the narrator, who seems connected to the being associated with Beyond Heaven. He accepts the challenge.
• The Lord begins releasing restrictions with successive Great Dao bell tolls. His strength surges with each toll, and past Li Ping warns that he is preparing a final, all-or-nothing strike.

Character developments and interactions

• Senior Lin Feng is revealed as composed, perceptive, and protective. He understands the Lord’s hidden mechanism and uses Beyond Heaven to demonstrate overwhelming resistance without attacking.
• The Lord of the Heavenly Court proves cunning and extraordinarily powerful, but his confidence shifts to surprise when Beyond Heaven counters him. He then knowingly commits to a decisive final attack.
• The narrator moves from bewilderment at the Lord’s abilities to alarm at the scale of the attack and the mysteries surrounding Lin Feng.
• Past Li Ping offers cryptic commentary, then turns serious as the Lord prepares his final blow.

Significant themes

• Hidden mechanisms and deception: The Lord’s apparent sequence of actions conceals abilities that activate instantly.
• Power and limits: Vast accumulated abilities can still be nullified by a superior authority such as Beyond Heaven.
• Protection and allegiance: Lin Feng’s display signals that he intends to protect the narrator, and the Lord recognizes this as the real message.
• Escalation and sacrifice: The Lord’s repeated tolls mark a rapid release of restrictions, culminating in a potentially desperate final attack.

Key plot points and events

• After Lin Feng’s [Beyond Heaven] manifested as a phantom and rang the Great Dao Bell twice, Nine Heavens—Lord of the Heavenly Court—began fighting as if cornered. Chen Fan realizes the bell tolls seem to share the source of the Heavenly Court’s power.
• Li Ping suggests that [Beyond Heaven] may preserve something resembling the Heavenly Court Lord’s past self, letting it reproduce his abilities. He stresses that this is only a hypothesis.
• A double-digit number of bell tolls briefly makes Nine Heavens’s phantom solid. In doing so, he lifts his restrictions, provoking signs of karmic-law punishment.
• Nine Heavens summons a barely visible golden scroll bearing 365 divine positions. Its appearance shakes the karmic law and gives Chen Fan a vision of worlds and all beings across past, present, and a broken future.
• A flash of purple light snaps Chen Fan out of the vision. Li Ping recognizes the treasure’s manifestation as Deification, a glimpse of the “Investiture of the Gods Method,” and urges Chen Fan to watch closely.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Fan moves from confusion to recognizing the bell tolls as the likely turning point, then experiences the scroll’s overwhelming vision firsthand.
• Li Ping interprets the connection between [Beyond Heaven] and Nine Heavens, while showing intense excitement at the appearance of Deification.
• Nine Heavens shifts from attacking under restraint to staking everything on a decisive strike, accepting the risk of karmic punishment.
• Lin Feng’s [Beyond Heaven] remains mysterious: it appears able to echo the Heavenly Court Lord’s power, though the exact mechanism is unknown.

Significant themes

• Hidden mechanisms and uncertain knowledge: the characters can infer how [Beyond Heaven] works, but cannot confirm its full nature.
• Power and consequence: breaking restrictions strengthens Nine Heavens but draws karmic punishment.
• Cosmic order and fate: the scroll appears to contain all beings and time itself, suggesting immense control over existence.
• Foreboding revelation: the chapter ends as Deification begins to manifest, setting up a larger display of the Investiture of the Gods Method.

Key plot points and events

• The Lord of the Heavenly Court reveals overwhelming power, using the Investiture of the Gods List to erase a newly formed karmic-law punishment.
• He uses the List to appoint himself Lord of the Future, inscribing an authority to rule across time and creation.
• He severs the Supreme True Realm’s future and takes control of its river of time, using it to attack the Supreme Dao Immortal Venerable.
• Lin Feng counters with Time Shepherding, locking the realm into the present and shifting the confrontation to a higher-dimensional possible future, where the river of time loses its power.
• The two agree their aims have been met. Lin Feng then collapses that future, apparently burying the battlefield and everything in it.
• The narrator’s talents warn that witnessing the collapse is catastrophic, so the narrator erases those memories. When reality settles, only the being known as Unrivaled Throughout History remains on the battlefield.

Character developments and interactions

• The narrator is repeatedly stunned by the gulf between these beings’ apparent status as Nascent Soul True Lords and their near-cosmic abilities. They try to understand the fight through questions to past Li Ping.
• Past Li Ping acts as an interpreter, explaining the Lord’s strategy: use the river of time to provoke karmic-law punishment against Lin Feng.
• Lin Feng, initially silent, reveals the power of Time Shepherding and turns the Lord’s temporal attack into a battle in a possible future. His calm acceptance that both sides achieved their aims suggests the fight is not simply a contest to defeat the opponent.
• The Lord does not resist Lin Feng’s final act of collapsing the future, leaving their ultimate outcome ambiguous.

Significant themes

• Time and possibility: The battle moves beyond ordinary past, present, and future, treating possible futures as arenas that can be entered and destroyed.
• Power and authority: Fruit Positions and divine artifacts prove far more potent than their conventional descriptions suggest.
• Karma and consequence: The Lord manipulates time to trigger karmic punishment, while both combatants seek ways to evade or redirect its effects.
• Knowledge as danger: The narrator’s warnings and memory-erasing talent show that merely witnessing certain truths can invite catastrophe.

Key plot points

• The battle ends almost instantly, though its final exchange is beyond ordinary perception and seems to occur outside time and spacetime.
• The Lord of the Heavenly Court’s revived phantom vanishes, and the Supreme Dao Immortal Venerable (Lin Feng) is left standing. Even the greatest beings cannot tell exactly how he won.
• The narrator, who witnessed Lin Feng’s finishing move directly, is stunned by its extraordinary power, though the memories surrounding it have been cut away.
• Past Li Ping remarks that the Lord of the Heavenly Court never properly used the Investiture of the Gods Method. He explains that the Lord’s use of the technique was only a shallow application, and that the Lord could theoretically have broken the stalemate by granting himself the title Supreme Dao Immortal Venerable.
• Past Li Ping adds that the method can grant titles and abilities without restriction, stack abilities, and forcibly assign titles to others—then trails off before explaining further.

Character developments and interactions

• The narrator remains overwhelmed by the scale of the fight and reacts with disbelief to Past Li Ping’s claim that the Lord’s power was barely demonstrated. Their internal jokes about Past Li Ping being “sneaky” reveal both familiarity and suspicion.
• Past Li Ping acts as an expert commentator, correcting the narrator’s assumptions and hinting that his knowledge comes from painful experience with either Lin Feng or the Lord. His sudden vagueness leaves the method’s full capabilities unclear.
• Lin Feng is established as seemingly unrivaled, while the Lord of the Heavenly Court is shown to possess far greater potential than his defeat suggests.

Significant themes

• The limits of perception and memory: The decisive moment cannot be understood through normal time, and the narrator’s memories are incomplete.
• Power and hidden potential: The battle’s outcome does not reveal the full strength of either combatant; the Lord’s defeat may have come before he truly acted.
• Titles as power: The Investiture of the Gods Method can reshape identity and grant or impose abilities, blurring the line between naming someone and changing what they are.
• Uncertainty and unreliable understanding: Even powerful observers—and the narrator—know only fragments of what occurred.

Key plot points and events

• The narrator fails to get a clear explanation from Past Li Ping, who continues to evade questions.
• The recent battle reveals that the versions of Senior Lin Feng and Nine Heavens seen in the “Immortal Realm” were likely fakes or manifestations. Lin Feng’s realm had sealed his Future Self—a being who can draw on possible futures and use them to suppress enemies or attack through a future version of himself.
• The narrator asks who is stronger, Lin Feng or Nine Heavens. Past Li Ping says Lin Feng’s title, “Unrivaled Throughout History,” was earned through battle.
• In the true River of Time, Lin Feng finds the narrator’s anchored temporal node with ease. Before entering it, he asks whether the narrator has anything to ask him.
• The narrator asks why Lin Feng spared three wounded Spirit Transformation Dao Masters. Lin Feng explains that killing them would bring the final battle forward.
• Lin Feng says the coming confrontation may involve the Supreme Immortal, but it is not that simple—and he cannot yet say exactly how it will unfold. He insists that, as a Future Self, he does not know the ultimate outcome either.
• Before disappearing into the future node, Lin Feng asks the narrator to consider his final choice.

Character developments and interactions

• The narrator grows more suspicious and unsettled, wondering whether Lin Feng regards them as a genuine friend or merely a pawn. Despite many questions, they choose to ask about the spared Dao Masters and the final battle.
• Past Li Ping remains evasive, but confidently affirms Lin Feng’s legendary strength.
• Senior Lin Feng shows unusual warmth toward the narrator. He offers limited explanations, emphasizes that he has never harmed them, and leaves them with a pointed question about their choice.
• The conversation between narrator and Lin Feng is intimate but unresolved: Lin Feng addresses them as a “dear young friend,” while withholding much of what they want to know.

Significant themes

• Fate and possible futures: Lin Feng’s power and identity are tied to alternate futures, yet even he cannot know how events will ultimately unfold.
• Trust and uncertainty: The narrator struggles to decide whether Lin Feng is an ally, manipulator, or both.
• Consequences and restraint: Powerful actions—such as killing the three Dao Masters—could trigger a catastrophe prematurely.
• Choice: Lin Feng’s closing question foregrounds the narrator’s role in determining what happens next.

Plot points and events

• The protagonist’s “Number One Other-Self,” carried into the Supreme True Realm by Senior Lin Feng, is unexpectedly pulled away by a powerful divine ability. The protagonist suspects the unknown force may belong to Lin Feng’s Beyond Heaven faction and decides to go along.
• The Other-Self is transported to the real Penglai Immortal Island—the same place the protagonist previously encountered in an illusory painting—and then taken to a central secret realm.
• A mysterious figure holds the Other-Self helplessly while presenting it to Penglai’s heaven-reaching spiritual root for examination.
• Using True-Sight Eye, the protagonist learns that the root is Longevity Great Talent, an extraordinarily powerful but incomplete Chaos Spiritual Root. It once possessed two complete supreme Great Daos and another still developing, but was plotted against by three Heaven-Throughing Chess Players, shattered its own Great Daos, and now lies gravely damaged with its main body dormant and memories incomplete.
• Longevity Great Talent drains the Other-Self’s time, vitality, magical power, and lifespan, using those reserves to restore a withered branch and produce peach blossoms. It then determines that the Other-Self is an unusual derivative rather than the original body.
• The root observes that the protagonist’s past cannot be traced, their present is blank, and their future has only just begun—closely matching the protagonist’s use of Future Simulation.

Character developments and interactions

• The protagonist stays cautious but cooperative, reasoning that the force pulling them in may not be hostile. Once the root’s insight exposes the nature of their temporal state, the protagonist is alarmed by how accurately it has read them.
• The mysterious figure acts with overwhelming authority, transporting and restraining the Other-Self before handing it over for inspection.
• Longevity Great Talent is revealed as ancient, immensely powerful, and dangerously compromised. Despite its condition, it remains perceptive enough to identify the protagonist’s strange relationship to time.

Significant themes

• Fate and manipulation: Longevity Great Talent’s ruin stems from a conspiracy by powerful chess players, echoing the chapter’s chess imagery.
• Time and identity: The protagonist’s erased or inaccessible past, skipped present, and newly begun future make their existence fundamentally anomalous.
• Power and vulnerability: Even a top-tier Chaos Spiritual Root has been crippled, while the protagonist’s avatar can be helplessly drained by it.
• Illusion versus reality: Penglai, first encountered in a painting-world, is now revealed in its true, transcendent form.

• The Penglai Island Lord interrogates the protagonist’s “Number One Other-Self.” He suspects the protagonist may be connected to Heaven and Earth or the Supreme Immortal, despite Longevity Great Talent’s assurance that there is no such connection. The narrator suspects the Island Lord has a hidden agenda: his behavior seems at odds with Penglai’s longstanding friendship with Beyond Heaven.
• Longevity Great Talent openly defends the protagonist. He insists the protagonist has had no contact with those rival powers, and the Island Lord releases the Other-Self from his restraints. Longevity’s support suggests goodwill toward the protagonist, likely because the protagonist has established himself as a member of Beyond Heaven. The Island Lord, however, remains difficult to read, cloaked in Dao Resonance and describing the protagonist as only “presumably” a member.
• The Western Buddhist Land attacks Penglai. Repeated impacts and Buddhist chanting announce its arrival. When the protagonist uses Word Follows the Law to learn what is happening, the Buddha Ancestor’s chant invades the Other-Self’s consciousness and nearly converts him through the force of Buddhist fruit-position mystique.
• Longevity rescues the Other-Self with the Dao of Ages. He strikes the Other-Self’s sea of consciousness and extracts the span in which the dangerous investigation and backlash occurred, effectively undoing that episode. The protagonist realizes Longevity’s power is not ordinary control over time but the related, formidable Dao of Ages—and that the Buddha Ancestor nearly defeated an equal-strength version of the protagonist without even appearing.
• The crisis becomes an internal confrontation as well as an invasion. Longevity notes that the Buddhists have arrived at a suspiciously convenient moment and implies that the Island Lord may have summoned them. The Island Lord remains cold and unreadable, while Penglai faces an external assault from the Western Buddhist Land and a growing standoff between its two leaders.
  Character and thematic developments: The protagonist grows more wary of the Island Lord while gaining confidence in Longevity’s support. Longevity emerges as a powerful protector, whereas the Island Lord’s loyalties remain uncertain. The chapter emphasizes hidden agendas, factional suspicion, the terrifying reach of high-level Dao powers, and the danger of spiritual conversion.

Plot points and events

• The Penglai Island Lord and Great Timber of Longevity take the protagonist’s “Number One Other-Self” to the outskirts of Penglai Island. The island is unharmed, while Buddha Ancestor Shakyamuni calmly toys with three Nascent Soul True Lords.
• Shakyamuni appears to notice the protagonist, stirring the Buddhist chanting in their Sea of Consciousness. The Island Lord refuses to explain why they have been treating the protagonist this way, but says they can no longer affect them directly.
• The Island Lord places the protagonist in a prepared, Formation-like setup. Shakyamuni confronts the Island Lord for apparently deceiving him and asks why the protagonist cannot be killed.
• The Island Lord says this is not the protagonist’s original body, so killing it would be pointless. They also insist the protagonist must not be harmed on Penglai Island by their own hand. The future cannot be changed, they say—but they are only hastening the protagonist’s eventual death.
• Shakyamuni accepts this explanation. The Island Lord then sacrifices a Foundation Establishment cultivator, activating a life-bound divine ability that teleports the protagonist and the surrounding ground to an unknown destination.
• Unable to resist and uncertain whether using the Spatial Willow’s Space Great Dao would help, the protagonist is left fearing that the teleportation is a deliberate step toward their death.

Character developments and interactions

• The protagonist becomes more suspicious of the Island Lord’s motives but remains powerless. Their memory of Shakyamuni’s overwhelming strength makes them hesitate to use their own spatial ability.
• The Penglai Island Lord reveals a cryptic plan: the protagonist’s death is inevitable, but its timing can be accelerated. They protect the protagonist from being killed directly on Penglai Island while arranging their dangerous teleportation.
• Shakyamuni displays immense power, defeating the three True Lords effortlessly. He challenges the Island Lord over their apparent deception, then accepts their reasoning without anger.
• Great Timber of Longevity does not intervene during the teleportation.

Significant themes

• Fate and inevitability: The future supposedly cannot be changed, even as the Island Lord acts to hasten the protagonist’s death.
• Powerlessness and uncertainty: The protagonist cannot understand the plan or safely judge whether resistance is worthwhile.
• Deception and hidden motives: The Island Lord refuses to explain their treatment of the protagonist, and their words to Shakyamuni suggest important constraints or taboos.
• Identity and the self: The protagonist’s “Other-Self” is not the original body, making its death potentially inconsequential.

Key plot points and events

• Chen Fan chooses not to use the Space Great Dao, judging that he is outmatched and that unleashing it would not help. He allows the Penglai Immortal Island Island Master’s plan to unfold, though Number One Other-Self is forcibly transported and cannot resist.
• Inside the Hollow Willow’s inner world, Past Li Ping warns Chen Fan that three recent opponents rank among the Supreme True Realm’s strongest. He urges Chen Fan to abandon exploring the realm and return to the Longevity Realm.
• Li Ping argues that Chen Fan is increasingly targeted by schemes from formidable figures, and that even the Hollow Willow may not protect him from a Supreme Immortal.
• Feeling overwhelmed, Chen Fan considers retreating to the Longevity Realm, where he could pursue opportunities with fewer threats.
• Before he can decide, his purple talent, I Am the Chess Player, activates. Its phantom image cracks, and a familiar voice urges him: “Do not turn back, do not turn back, do not turn back…”

Character developments

• Chen Fan recognizes how badly outmatched he is and feels frustrated by his lack of time and power to grow. He is tempted to retreat, but the talent’s intervention challenges that impulse.
• Past Li Ping takes a protective, cautionary role, pressing Chen Fan to prioritize survival rather than continue into danger.
• Number One Other-Self remains helpless under the Island Master’s control, illustrating the disparity in power between Chen Fan and the realm’s major players.

Significant themes

• Powerlessness against overwhelming forces: Chen Fan’s opponents are so strong that even powerful abilities may not offer a meaningful escape.
• Caution versus perseverance: Retreat appears strategically sensible, yet the chapter’s final voice insists that Chen Fan must not turn back.
• Manipulation and uncertainty: The escalating schemes leave Chen Fan unsure who is targeting him or whether any refuge is truly safe.
• Growth and potential: Chen Fan believes his talents are inadequate for the challenges ahead, while the awakening of I Am the Chess Player hints at a different way to confront them.

Character interactions

• Past Li Ping confronts Chen Fan about the danger he faces and tries to persuade him to leave the Supreme True Realm.
• Chen Fan internally resists and questions the advice, but gradually begins to consider it.
• The Island Master’s unseen intervention controls Number One Other-Self, while Chen Fan watches events unfold without using the Space Great Dao.

Chapter Summary

After resisting an attempt by Past Li Ping to influence him into abandoning his exploration, the protagonist suspects that Li Ping deliberately forced him to use—and damage—his [I Am the Chess Player] talent. He sets aside the mystery for now and checks on Number One Other-Self, whose teleportation has ended and freed it from the Penglai Island Lord’s restraint.
Using power comparable to a Spirit Transformation Dao Master, the protagonist searches the surrounding area, gathers information from cultivators and texts, and learns how the five great powers, or sacred lands, divide the Supreme True Realm:

• Buddhist Land rules the West and follows Buddhist cultivation under the three bodies of Buddha Ancestor Shakyamuni.
• Penglai Immortal Island occupies the East. It is mysterious, reportedly has deep reserves and legacy safeguards, and is associated with the chaos spiritual root Longevity Great Talent. Rumors connect its leaders with Beyond Heaven.
• Nine Realms Gate rules the South. Formerly the Five Realms Gate, it survived the Third Era’s upheavals and remains secretive. Though once a likely enemy of Penglai, it now appears to be moving toward reconciliation.
• Northern Land of Sin lies in the North, still concealed by karmic sin.
• Great Li Dynasty occupies Central Province. Founded by the returning Venerable Lord of Yin-Yang Authority, it is an unusual cultivation dynasty with a vast mortal population. Its people suffer continual disasters and rebellions, while its fortune appears greatly diminished—conditions the protagonist suspects are engineered.
  The protagonist finally looks skyward and pierces the restrictions concealing the fifth power: the Nine Heavens Celestial Court, whose palaces and immortal officials fill the heavens.

Character Developments and Interactions

The protagonist shows renewed resolve after recognizing Past Li Ping’s influence, but grows wary of Li Ping’s possible plan to weaken his talent. His interaction with Number One Other-Self is primarily investigative: through it, he surveys the realm and gathers intelligence. The wider chapter also establishes a complicated relationship between Penglai and the Nine Realms Gate, once hostile but now apparently seeking rapprochement.

Significant Themes

The chapter emphasizes hidden agendas and manipulation, as the protagonist questions why Past Li Ping tried to stop him. It also develops themes of power, secrecy, and political uncertainty: the realm’s factions conceal their strength, old rivalries shift, and the Great Li Dynasty’s apparent decline hints at a larger scheme.

Plot points and events

• The narrator learns that the Nine Heavens Celestial Court returned to the world sometime in the Fourth Era, appearing above the newly founded Great Li Dynasty. Its return was quiet, and the Lord of the Heavenly Court remains unaccounted for.
• The Venerable Lord of Yin-Yang Authority did not react when the Celestial Court appeared. Later, a Nine Realms Gate Nascent Soul True Lord entered it and died so completely that their Dao fruit position vanished and Heaven and Earth mourned.
• The narrator is puzzled that even their powerful perception cannot reveal the Celestial Court’s secrets. They suspect the Nine Realms Gate may have had a reason for sending someone to investigate.
• With “Number One Other-Self” already exploring the Great Li Dynasty, the narrator uses Intent-Creation Assimilating False Body to create an equally strong, secretly controlled incarnation from rare treasures. They equip it with divine abilities and send it east toward the Myriad Worlds Gate and Nine Realms Gate.

Character developments and interactions

• The narrator is wary and strategic, believing powerful factions are watching despite giving no outward sign. They have offended nearly all the leading powers and trust none of them to offer protection.
• Their confidence in their abilities has been tempered by witnessing Senior Lin Feng’s battle with the Lord of the Heavenly Court; they now fear that an “other-self” could be destroyed before their safeguards can retrieve it.
• The narrator avoids revisiting Penglai Immortal Island and refuses to approach the Western Buddhist Land, partly because of traumatic experiences in the Dream Realm.
• The Celestial Court’s unexplained arrival and the Venerable Lord’s silence are notable interactions—or lack thereof—between major powers.

Significant themes

• Hidden power and uncertainty: Even exceptional abilities cannot uncover the Celestial Court’s nature or the motives behind its return.
• Risk management and deception: The narrator uses a disposable, independently controlled incarnation rather than exposing another valuable self.
• Factional distrust: The realm’s leading powers are entangled in schemes, leaving the narrator with few safe allies.
• The limits of power: Past encounters have made the narrator question whether their protections can withstand the strongest beings.

Key plot points

• Number One Other-Self surveys the collapsing Great Li Dynasty, where famine, banditry, sect violence, and civil conflict have left the land in chaos. He suspects the devastation is deliberate, but lacks enough information to identify who is behind it.
• Intelligence on the sixteenth day reveals that he is caught in a death trap: his arrival in the Supreme True Realm and earlier events were all part of someone’s scheme. The only person he can trust is Longevity Great Talent. The revelation also confirms that Penglai’s Island Master is hostile and that Buddha Ancestor Shakyamuni is not Senior Lin Feng.
• The next day, intelligence explains that Longevity Great Talent secretly planted a tiny remnant of himself in Number One Other-Self’s future, after the Island Master blocked him from helping directly.
• To find it, Number One Other-Self enters the True-False Supreme Realm and repeatedly uses Heavenly River Water’s Sea of Time mystique to search his future. After an extraordinary 914.5 million attempts, the remnant finally responds: “I waited for you... far too long!”

Character development and interactions

• Number One Other-Self remains wary and calculating, but the death-trap revelation unsettles him and leaves him feeling isolated. He chooses investigation and patience over acting blindly.
• Longevity Great Talent emerges as a covert ally: despite restrictions, he found a way to leave behind a trace that could eventually aid Number One Other-Self.
• The Penglai Island Master is established as an obstacle who actively prevents Longevity Great Talent from helping. Number One Other-Self has no direct contact with either figure until the final response.

Significant themes

• Hidden schemes and unreliable appearances: The dynasty’s collapse, the crisis at Penglai, and Number One Other-Self’s arrival may all be connected to a larger plan.
• Trust and isolation: Amid uncertain allies and concealed motives, Longevity Great Talent is identified as the sole trustworthy figure.
• Patience and persistence: Number One Other-Self’s relentless search—despite its almost absurd duration—finally reaches the remnant.
• Power and indifference: Though surrounded by mortal suffering, Number One Other-Self does not intervene, emphasizing the distance between cultivators and ordinary people.