Chapter Summaries

Key plot points and events

• Chen Hei reveals that his breakthrough method is “refining oneself”: consuming his own future self, the Chen Family Ancestor, who had reached limit-breaking perfection in Foundation Establishment before dying in the Fourth Era.
• The Ancestor’s remains—carrying his cultivation, insights, and life essence—combine with the origin power of the World Within the Painting and Central Province. This immense energy floods into Chen Hei and drives his breakthrough to qi refining.
• The upheaval draws the attention of powerful observers, including the Penglai Island Lord and the Buddha Ancestor of the Western Region. A figure identified as Senior Lin Feng appears on the scroll, orders them not to interfere, and alters the realm’s rules, halting the expanding rift and containing the crisis.
• Chen Hei completes his breakthrough, forming an extraordinary foundation. Though newly entered into qi refining, he says he has reached first-level qi refining perfection limit-breaking and possesses the rank and strength to rival an ordinary Foundation Establishment True Person.
• Chen Hei can also continue breaking limits and condensing primordial qi beyond the usual restrictions, much as the narrator can.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Hei fulfills the plan laid down by his future self, using the Ancestor as fuel for advancement. His breakthrough elevates his standing dramatically, though his actual qi-refining level remains low.
• The narrator recognizes the Ancestor and grasps Chen Hei’s plan, then questions him about his new cultivation stage and seemingly limitless potential.
• Senior Lin Feng intervenes indirectly through the scroll, dispersing outside observers and keeping the breakthrough undisturbed.
• The Chen Family Ancestor appears as the sacrificed future self: despite having fallen, he retains the presence and accumulated power of a Foundation Establishment True Person.

Significant themes

• Self-sacrifice and continuity across time: Chen Hei advances by refining a future version of himself, turning his own life and cultivation into the means of his rebirth.
• Power beyond ordinary limits: The breakthrough produces a mismatch between Chen Hei’s early cultivation stage and his extraordinary rank, while allowing further limit-breaking.
• Cosmic intervention and controlled fate: The conflict among Heaven and Earth, powerful observers, and Lin Feng’s rule-altering command shows how cultivation can trigger realm-wide consequences—and how even greater forces can contain them.

• Self-based qi refining and void-proof: The narrator learns that self-based qi refining may overcome the limit on breaking through beyond the ninth layer of qi refining. “Chen Hei” says the limit was imposed by Heaven and Earth—but only for ordinary qi refining. He explains that self-based qi refining is not mainly a way to pursue endless limit-breaking; he is using it to forge his Way of Void-Proof, since the present environment no longer supports void-proof. He claims the method came from his future self, the Chen Family Ancestor, who may have encountered and refined the technique.
• Chen Hei’s breakthrough: By the sixth year, aided by the narrator’s resources and Heaven and Earth’s power, Chen Hei reaches Foundation Establishment. He awakens only a minor life-bound divine ability, which he resents. Because his future self was forced to condense a minor ability, his past and present selves are bound to do the same. The narrator recognizes this as another consequence of Senior Lin Feng’s use of Time Shepherding to split Chen Hei into three selves.
• The first ruined fortune: Chen Hei recounts that his first great fortuitous encounter was the chance to obtain Karma Thief, the Thieving Immortal’s life-bound divine ability. The Thieving Immortal had stolen many fruit positions from the heavenly dao system, provoking Heaven and Earth and creating the Northern Land of Sin. Chen Hei believes that, without interference, his golden heaven’s mandate would have allowed him to enter that land, escape the Thieving Immortal’s karmic retribution, and claim the ability.
• How the opportunity became disaster: The Supreme Dao Immortal Venerable’s splitting of Chen Hei and the Supreme Immortal faction’s intervention disrupted that fate. A powerful figure from the faction secretly influenced Chen Hei’s future self, forcing him to merge with the Chen family’s fortune, remain at Foundation Establishment, and condense a life-bound ability prematurely. Chen Hei suspects these actions were meant to prevent his future self from turning the situation around with Heaven and Earth’s aid and obtaining Karma Thief.
  Character developments and interactions: Chen Hei emerges as a knowledgeable but guarded figure, focused on void-proof rather than raw cultivation, and bitter over how his potential and opportunities were manipulated. He shares these revelations with the narrator, who asks probing questions, follows the implications, and sympathizes with the thoroughness of the schemes against him. The exchange also deepens the mystery surrounding the Chen Family Ancestor and the forces shaping Chen Hei’s three selves.
  Themes: The chapter emphasizes how fortune can become calamity when powerful beings interfere; the costs of manipulating fate and time; the limits imposed by Heaven and Earth; and the possibility that an unconventional cultivation path may overcome those limits.

Key plot points and events

• Over the course of the Life-and-Death Chess Game, Chen Hei rapidly advances, reaching late-stage Foundation Establishment by Year Seven, perfection by Year Ten, and the ninth level of Foundation Establishment limit-breaking by Year Fourteen.
• His progress helps bring peace and prosperity to the newly founded Great Qian Dynasty. The narrator also hopes to learn from Chen Hei’s eventual breakthrough to Golden Core, especially how he might attain void-proof.
• Chen Hei’s limit-breaking stalls at the ninth level. The narrator realizes this restriction likely comes not from Heaven and Earth, but from another powerful being—evidence of multiple, layered limits on cultivation.
• In Year Fifteen, Chen Hei announces that he wants to visit the Great Li Imperial House’s Secret Realm, but keeps his reasons secret. The narrator agrees to help, concealing him and teleporting him inside.
• There, the narrator discovers that the Great Li Imperial House uses a system called the Dao Edict to grant officials fruit-position powers based on rank and merit. Its three leading figures—the Emperor and two State Preceptors—hold unrelated positions, which may prevent any of them from reaching the nascent-soul late stage. The narrator suspects this balance was deliberately designed by the Venerable Lord of Yin-Yang Authority, possibly for the chess game.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Hei grows quickly but remains enigmatic. Though the narrator repeatedly questions his intentions and plans for void-proof, Chen Hei gives no answers and proceeds toward the Secret Realm.
• The narrator shifts from supporting Chen Hei’s cultivation to investigating the deeper rules restricting limit-breaking. They use their power, Word Follows the Law, and the Hollow Willow to protect and transport him.
• The narrator and Chen Hei have a close but unequal exchange: the narrator provides resources and protection, while Chen Hei withholds the purpose behind his choices.

Significant themes

• Hidden limits on power: Restrictions on cultivation may come from forces beyond Heaven and Earth, and overcoming one barrier can reveal another.
• Power and its costs: The Dao Edict grants fruit-position abilities without demanding aptitude or advancement rituals, but its users are weaker than peers and cannot revive after death.
• Political balance and control: The Great Li’s disconnected fruit positions may intentionally prevent a single ruler from becoming overwhelmingly powerful.
• Knowledge and secrecy: The narrator can investigate systems and infer their origins, but cannot force Chen Hei to reveal what he knows.

Key plot points and events

• After discovering that the Right State Preceptor possessed the Thunderclap Fire system fruit position, the narrator resolved to obtain it. It would supply the final fire-element position needed to advance the Heavenly Fire Supreme Fruit Position to Great True Lord.
• Investigating the Great Li Imperial House, the narrator found a realm dominated by cultivators. The Eldest Prince, chosen by the Venerable Lord of Yin-Yang Authority, remained at the ninth level of Foundation Establishment Limit-Breaking, despite becoming the leading contender for the throne.
• The Great Li Emperor refused to abdicate and suppressed his increasingly powerful son. The dynasty’s succession struggle had shifted from a contest among princes to a conflict between father and son.
• Inside the time-adjusted Life-and-Death Chess Game, Chen Hei spent three years quietly cultivating in the Great Li Secret Realm rather than immediately forming a faction. He hinted that he had another purpose there, so the narrator waited.
• By year twenty, the Ninth, Third, and Seventh Princes had been killed and their factions destroyed. The Fourth and Sixth Princes crippled their cultivation and were exiled. Only the Eldest and Eighth Princes remained: the Emperor backed the Eighth as a counterweight to the Eldest.
• The Eldest Prince gained the support of both State Preceptors. By year twenty-one, his faction was overtaking the Eighth Prince’s: officials around the Eighth Prince were dying, their posts were being filled by the Eldest’s followers, and some of the Eighth Prince’s remaining officials defected. The Emperor wanted to intervene but lacked the power to reverse the trend.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Hei: His younger self differs sharply from the older Chen Hei Quan. Rather than seeming measured and seasoned, he projects an unsettling, almost reckless confidence—an apparent willingness to disregard both past and future. His secretive patience suggests a hidden agenda beyond political advancement.
• The narrator: The narrator recognizes Chen Hei’s unusual character and chooses not to press him, while continuing to monitor the imperial struggle and pursue the Thunderclap Fire position.
• The Eldest Prince and Emperor: Their conflict becomes the central political struggle. The Eldest Prince builds strength through the State Preceptors, while the Emperor uses the Eighth Prince to preserve his own position and resist abdication.
• The princes and officials: Former rivals are eliminated, exiled, or forced to switch sides; officials’ allegiances and survival directly shape the balance of power.

Significant themes

• Power and succession: The fight for the throne evolves from rivalry among siblings into a confrontation between ruler and heir.
• Political office as power: Under the Great Li Dao Edict System, official rank determines both status and cultivation strength. A sufficiently high post can grant its holder the corresponding realm, even if they were previously mortal—but losing the post strips that power away.
• Ambition and instability: The system makes political appointments consequential and factional conflict especially volatile.
• Patience and hidden motives: Chen Hei’s decision to wait, rather than act openly, contrasts with the rapidly escalating struggle around him.

Key plot points and events

• Inside the time-adjusted Life-and-Death Chess Game, the struggle between the Great Li Empire’s Eldest and Eighth Princes drags on. Chen Hei remains relaxed, avoids gathering intelligence, and delays his Golden Core breakthrough, claiming his ambition is “void-proof.”
• By year forty, the princes’ factions are evenly matched. The Eldest Prince has surrendered advantages and seems to have abandoned the political route to the throne.
• The narrator suspects the Venerable Lord of Yin-Yang Authority is pursuing another path: helping the Eldest Prince attain Nascent Soul, then using the State Preceptors to force the old emperor to abdicate—or remove him.
• The narrator further suspects the Venerable Lord holds the sword dao fruit position, famed for its unmatched killing power, and may intend it as a contingency that would let the Eldest Prince attain the Dao.
• When told this theory, Chen Hei accepts the possibility with striking enthusiasm, prompting the narrator to suspect the sword dao fruit position is connected to him.
• The narrator recalls that Chen Hei Quan had three great opportunities, two still unidentified. The sword dao fruit position may be one of them.

Character developments and interactions

• The narrator shifts from frustration at Chen Hei’s evasiveness to forming a broader theory about the Venerable Lord’s plans. They share it with Chen Hei and begin connecting the fruit position to Chen Hei’s past.
• Chen Hei remains deliberately opaque and patient, but reacts unusually to the sword dao fruit position, laughing and welcoming the possibility that the Eldest Prince might attain the Dao. His excitement hints at personal stakes.
• The Eldest Prince appears to relinquish political ambition, suggesting either a strategic change or a plan beyond ordinary succession.
• The Venerable Lord of Yin-Yang Authority remains unseen but is suspected of orchestrating the Prince’s shift and holding a powerful contingency.
• The old emperor’s refusal to abdicate is presented as the central obstacle to a straightforward succession.

Significant themes

• Hidden strategies and incomplete knowledge: Political developments may conceal a plan that cannot be understood from appearances.
• Power and succession: The contest may be resolved through cultivation and force rather than ordinary politics.
• Opportunity turned into curse: The narrator’s suspicion that the sword dao fruit position is one of Chen Hei Quan’s great opportunities links immense power with possible manipulation or danger.
• Patience and ambition: Chen Hei’s delayed breakthrough and the Eldest Prince’s apparent retreat both suggest that waiting or yielding may serve a larger design.

Chapter summary

Key plot points and events

• “Chen Hei” reveals that the Sword Dao fruit position was meant to be one of his three great opportunities. Its extraordinary offensive power makes it valuable enough that he considers revising his plan, though he waits to see how the Eldest Prince fares.
• In the Life-and-Death Chess Game, the Eldest Prince remains locked in a stalemate with the Eighth Prince and the old emperor. Backed by the Venerable Lord of Yin-Yang Authority, he has abandoned his Dao Edict cultivation and rebuilt himself through conventional cultivation to prepare for the Sword Dao fruit position.
• In year fifty, the Eldest Prince inscribes his true spirit onto the fruit position and becomes the Great Li Imperial House’s first Golden Core Powerhouse. The fruit position’s phantom appears amid overwhelming sword phenomena, and the Prince quickly advances to the Golden Core middle stage.
• The old emperor, coveting the Sword Dao fruit position, attacks the Eldest Prince in year fifty-one with his Dragon-Subduing Chant. The Left and Right State Preceptors intervene—but attack the emperor instead. Their abilities combine to counter his strike: the Left State Preceptor’s mystique creates a second consciousness within things, while the Right State Preceptor lends his rank to others to form an opposing force.

Character developments and interactions

• The Eldest Prince proves willing to discard his former cultivation and become a piece in a larger scheme in pursuit of the throne. His successful breakthrough gives him the coveted Sword Dao fruit position and rapidly increases his power.
• “Chen Hei” remains conspicuously inactive, observing events with interest despite the chance to pursue the same fruit position. The narrator suspects he is planning something but avoids examining him too closely, fearing the other Chen Fan might discover the plan.
• The old emperor shifts from supporting the Eighth Prince to making a direct bid for the Eldest Prince’s fruit position, driven by its superiority to his own ordinary fruit position and by the limitations of the Dao Edict system.
• The State Preceptors’ intervention reveals that the old emperor’s authority is not secure: though they belong to his court, they turn against him when he attacks the Eldest Prince.

Significant themes

• Opportunity and danger: The Sword Dao fruit position is a tremendous prize, but the narrator questions whether such “opportunities” are really blessings or traps.
• Power and political ambition: The Eldest Prince’s breakthrough intensifies the succession struggle, while the old emperor’s attack shows how spiritual advancement and imperial politics are intertwined.
• Schemes and manipulation: The Eldest Prince knowingly accepts his role as a chess piece, and unseen forces shape the contest behind the scenes.
• Limits of established systems: The old emperor’s Dao Edict cultivation leaves him constrained and unable to progress freely, making the alternative fruit position especially tempting.

Plot points and events

• The old Great Li Emperor attacks the Eldest Prince over the Sword Dao Fruit Position, but the clash ends after only two exchanges. The Eldest Prince is supported by two Nascent Soul middle-stage State Preceptors, forcing the emperor to back down.
• The Sword Dao Fruit Position has a history: the Penglai Island Lord once came close to claiming it, but the Venerable Lord of Yin-Yang Authority intervened and took control of it. Its reappearance—and the Eldest Prince’s cultivation of its golden nature—suggests the Venerable Lord is involved.
• The narrator suspects the old emperor’s attack was caused by outside influence: the emperor should have known how dangerous it was to covet the position.
• Over the following years, the emperor withdraws from public rule and lets the Eighth Prince govern as regent. The Eldest Prince’s faction remains strong at first, buoyed by his connection to the Sword Dao Fruit Position, but later loses ground as he loses interest in politics and the Eighth Prince expands his influence.
• The narrator’s attention shifts from court politics to the old emperor’s origins. He appears to have emerged only after the Venerable Lord returned to Central Province, despite having no known presence during the earlier chaos.
• The chapter ends with the central mystery unresolved: if the emperor was not a contingency created by the Venerable Lord, what explains his abnormal behavior?

Character developments and interactions

• The Eldest Prince remains politically influential because of his Sword Dao prospects, but his cultivation progress slows and he grows disengaged from political struggle.
• The Eighth Prince steadily strengthens his faction while serving as regent, eventually gaining the upper hand.
• The old emperor retreats from active rule after his failed attack, but his unexplained conduct and suspicious origins become the narrator’s main concern.
• The two State Preceptors support the Eldest Prince, deterring the emperor from prolonging the fight.
• Chen Hei remains inactive and makes no discernible progress or plans.

Significant themes

• Power and political calculation: Court factions respond less to formal authority than to the promise of a powerful cultivation path.
• Hidden influence and manipulation: The emperor’s seemingly irrational choices suggest an unseen force may be affecting events.
• The limits of ambition: The Sword Dao Fruit Position is so coveted—and so dangerous—that even powerful cultivators dare not openly challenge its presumed owner.
• Uncertainty behind appearances: The narrator’s investigation turns a political conflict into a larger mystery about the emperor’s identity and purpose.

Plot points and events

• The old emperor remains inactive after his earlier move against the Eldest Prince. The narrator suspects another force is interfering in the game, but the Venerable Lord of Yin-Yang Authority does not use the powerful painting scroll as expected.
• By Year 80, the Eldest Prince’s political faction is declining while the Eighth Prince consolidates power as regent. The emperor and the State Preceptors stay out of the struggle, apparently wary of making mistakes after discovering who backs the Eldest Prince.
• In Year 90, the Sword Dao Fruit Position manifests openly over Central Province. Its descent strips sword cultivators of their power, which gathers around the Dao Fruit in a spectacular display.
• Beneath it, the Eldest Prince is forging a grotto-heaven. The narrator suspects the Venerable Lord is helping him advance unusually quickly—possibly straight toward becoming a Nascent Soul True Lord.
• “Chen Hei,” dormant for decades, suddenly speaks as though the long-awaited opportunity has arrived: the fruit position is vacant, and it is time to attain the Dao. He turns to the narrator and asks whether the narrator has been waiting for this moment.

Character developments and interactions

• The narrator continues watching the emperor and the wider political struggle, focused less on court politics than on uncovering the Venerable Lord’s intentions. They interpret the Sword Dao spectacle as evidence of hidden assistance to the Eldest Prince.
• The old emperor remains outwardly inactive, while the State Preceptors withdraw from court affairs and quietly maintain their support for the Eldest Prince.
• The Eldest Prince shifts from political contender to a cultivator pursuing an extraordinary breakthrough, using the manifested Sword Dao Fruit Position to forge his grotto-heaven.
• Chen Hei abruptly abandons his long-standing passivity and addresses the narrator directly, implying that the narrator has been anticipating an opening to attain the Dao.

Significant themes

• Hidden hands and strategic restraint: Major players avoid acting openly, aware that intervention may expose them or invite retaliation.
• Political power versus cultivation power: The Eighth Prince gains control of the court, even as the Eldest Prince receives overwhelming supernatural support.
• Destiny and opportunity: The vacant fruit position and its sudden manifestation create a decisive moment for someone to pursue the Dao.
• Uncertainty and manipulation: The narrator can observe events but remains unsure who is orchestrating them—and why the Venerable Lord has not acted as expected.

Chapter Summary

Key plot points and events

• As the Eldest Prince approaches Golden Core Late Stage and the formation of a grotto-heaven, Chen Hei turns his attention from the breakthrough to the narrator and asks whether their “chess game” has reached its endgame.
• Chen Hei argues that the narrator has been steering events toward the Eldest Prince’s apparent attainment of the Sword Dao Fruit Position—not necessarily to help the prince, but to make the Fruit Position itself manifest.
• He challenges the narrator’s understanding of the Life-and-Death Chess Game with the Venerable Lord of Yin-Yang Authority, suggesting the game cannot be as straightforward as choosing a candidate to become emperor.
• Chen Hei proposes that the Venerable Lord may be able to learn the narrator’s thoughts through his Life-Bound Divine Ability, Twin Blossoms. By contrast, Chen Hei’s Heaven and Earth Soul protects his true thoughts by entrusting his memories to heaven and earth.
• This reasoning leads Chen Hei to a startling conclusion: the narrator is an otherworldly demon—a transmigrator—and possesses an ability the Venerable Lord cannot copy: Talent.

Character developments and interactions

• The narrator has regarded Chen Hei as a useful but ultimately expendable chess piece, and is unsettled when Chen Hei seems to understand the larger design.
• Chen Hei appears more perceptive and self-directed than the narrator expected. He speaks with unusual certainty, openly questions the narrator’s motives, and reveals how his ability shields his thoughts.
• The narrator’s confidence falters as Chen Hei’s questions revive the memory that the talent I Am the Chess Player may have guided the narrator into choosing Chen Hei and entering the game.
• Their exchange shifts from a tense confrontation into a challenge to the narrator’s assumptions about who is directing the game.

Significant themes

• Control and agency: The narrator may believe they are using Chen Hei, but their own decisions may have been guided by a talent—or by an unseen hand.
• Deception and hidden motives: The Life-and-Death Chess Game may conceal a purpose beyond its stated rules, while both sides may be protecting their thoughts.
• Fate and misfortune: Chen Hei’s bleak destiny contrasts with his sudden insight and willingness to confront the narrator.
• Identity and the unknowable self: The revelation that the narrator is a transmigrator reframes their unique Talents as something the Venerable Lord cannot reproduce.

Character interaction

• Chen Hei directly confronts the narrator with an interpretation of the Eldest Prince’s breakthrough and the larger chess game. The narrator initially rejects the idea, but Chen Hei’s reasoning forces them to reconsider whether their choices—and even their role as a chess player—have been shaped by forces beyond their awareness.

Key plot points and events

• Chen Fan suspects his current self may be only a fragment or decoy, concealing the thoughts of his “true self” from the Venerable Lord of Yin-Yang Authority. He wonders whether his Purple Talent, “I Am the Chess Player,” brought him into the Life-and-Death Chess Game for reasons he cannot remember.
• Chen Hei explains that he went to the Great Li Dynasty to verify whether the game was real. He watched the Eldest Prince and the succession contest, eventually becoming convinced the prince was the Venerable Lord’s chosen piece.
• Chen Hei reasons that Chen Fan must have entered the game for the sword Dao fruit position, given Chen Fan’s astonishing reputation and apparent ability to outmaneuver even powerful immortals.
• He interprets the old emperor’s attack on the Eldest Prince—despite the danger of opposing the Venerable Lord and the prince’s protectors—as evidence that someone secretly influenced the emperor. Since neither Chen Fan nor the Venerable Lord visibly responded, Chen Hei believes Chen Fan engineered it to signal his determination to claim the fruit position.
• Chen Hei concludes that the signal was meant for him: Chen Fan wanted him to give up pursuing void-proof and contend for the sword Dao fruit position instead. Chen Fan plays along with this interpretation, though he doubts it is true.
• Chen Hei says he has abandoned void-proof but has deliberately remained at Foundation Establishment Limit-Breaking, ninth level. Advancing to the sword Dao fruit position now would ruin his own plan, which he refuses to explain.
• When Chen Fan demands Chen Hei’s real purpose, Chen Hei finally reveals it: he wants an audience with Chen Fan’s true self.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Fan shifts from speculation to cautious probing. He conceals his uncertainty, adopts Chen Hei’s assumptions to keep him talking, and recognizes that Chen Hei is withholding a crucial plan.
• Chen Hei moves from careful deduction to open confidence. He treats Chen Fan as a master chess player and himself as a piece, yet asserts that he has independent designs and will not advance until the timing is right.
• Their exchange is a contest of interpretation: Chen Hei confidently attributes hidden strategy to Chen Fan, while Chen Fan privately knows those explanations may be mistaken and uses them to draw out Chen Hei’s intentions.

Significant themes

• Identity and hidden selves: Chen Fan questions whether his present consciousness is his authentic self or a protective fragment.
• Chess, agency, and manipulation: Both men frame events as a game of pieces and players, but Chen Hei’s independent plan complicates the apparent hierarchy.
• Reputation versus reality: Chen Hei’s awe-inspiring account of Chen Fan’s accomplishments contrasts with Chen Fan’s private sense that much of his success came through simulations and another version of himself.
• Uncertainty and inference: Major conclusions—especially the alleged manipulation of the old emperor—rest on circumstantial evidence, leaving the truth unresolved.
• Timing and concealed purpose: Chen Hei’s refusal to cultivate suggests that restraint itself is part of his strategy.

Plot

• “Chen Hei” suspects the apparent Chen Fan is only a decoy, while the real Chen Fan is hidden within the talent I Am the Chess Player. He waits for the talent to react.
• After a long silence, the talent activates, confirming his theory. Once and for All and the True-False Supreme Realm also trigger, freezing their surroundings as the Chaos Bell shields the awakening Chen Fan from the other Chen Fan’s observation.
• The real Chen Fan awakens and confronts Chen Hei. He recognizes that Chen Hei’s deduction was not proof so much as a hopeful assumption: Chen Hei needed Chen Fan’s help against the Venerable Lord of Yin-Yang Authority and reasoned from the outcome he needed.
• Chen Hei admits he was taking a risk, arguing that he must pursue victory rather than let fear make success impossible. He ends by declaring, “This time... I won’t lose again!!!”

Character development and interactions

• Chen Fan reclaims his identity as the real self, no longer the apparent figure made from only part of his true-spirit memories. He is wary of Chen Hei’s motives, but also recognizes and admires the determination—and especially the reckless, all-or-nothing madness—behind them.
• Chen Hei shifts from outward confidence to respect when the real Chen Fan appears, then drops the pretense and openly owns his gamble. His resolve is rooted in desperation to win.
• Their exchange echoes an earlier encounter from the Seventh Ordinary Simulation, when Chen Fan’s “Old Self” similarly revealed himself to the Devil Master. The parallel makes Chen Fan see himself now as the powerful figure backing someone else’s attempt to overturn the board.

Themes

• Identity and hidden selves: The chapter confirms that the apparent Chen Fan and the real Chen Fan are distinct.
• Risk versus certainty: Chen Hei acts on a conjecture because waiting for certainty leaves him no path forward.
• Agency in a rigged game: Both characters understand that they may be pieces on a vast chessboard, but Chen Hei insists that daring to gamble is the only chance to escape a predetermined defeat.
• Cycles and reversal: The echoed line from the earlier simulation highlights how roles can change, with Chen Fan now occupying the position of the hidden power behind another’s bid for victory.

Plot points and events

• “Chen Hei” declares that he will overturn the Life-and-Death Chess Game, believing victory is his only hope.
• He reveals the depth of his past defeats: despite once enjoying great glory and challenging the Supreme Dao Immortal Venerable, he was ultimately crushed and imprisoned. He refuses to accept an outcome he cannot understand.
• His prospects appear hopeless. He is still at the Foundation Establishment limit-breaking ninth level, while the Eldest Prince—backed by the Venerable Lord of Yin-Yang Authority—is close to claiming the Sword Dao Fruit Position.
• Chen Hei has already exposed the protagonist’s hidden true self through his conjectures, making a final confrontation with the Venerable Lord harder to avoid.
• When challenged about how he could possibly win, Chen Hei does not disclose a trump card. He admits he does not trust the protagonist, but says he came to ask one decisive question: whether the protagonist seeks the Sword Dao Fruit Position and why he agreed to the game.
• The protagonist answers truthfully that he is plotting to obtain the position. Satisfied, Chen Hei declares once more that he will overturn the game.

Character developments

• Chen Hei Quan drops his defiant façade enough to reveal the pain, bitterness, and unresolved anger behind his history of failure. His desperation becomes a focused, almost serene resolve after receiving the answer he wanted.
• The protagonist recognizes Chen Hei Quan as more than a disposable chess piece and reflects on how his own anger resembles the Devil Master’s past response. Though displeased by Chen Hei Quan’s actions, he answers honestly.

Significant themes

• Defiance against a seemingly predetermined defeat: Chen Hei Quan rejects an ending he considers incomprehensible and unjust.
• Chess, agency, and expendability: Both men are caught in a larger contest, but Chen Hei Quan insists he can still disrupt its course.
• Trust and disclosure: Chen Hei Quan distrusts the protagonist and withholds his plan, yet needs a truthful answer from him before acting.
• Failure and understanding: What wounds Chen Hei Quan most is not simply losing, but losing for reasons he cannot accept.

Character interactions

• The protagonist confronts Chen Hei Quan’s confidence and demands to know what he hopes to achieve, while privately recognizing that Chen Hei Quan has already compromised his concealment.
• Chen Hei Quan challenges the assumption that he must lose, then asks whether the protagonist truly intends to claim the Sword Dao Fruit Position.
• The protagonist gives a limited but honest answer; Chen Hei Quan treats it as sufficient and renews his vow to overturn the game.

Key plot points and events

• The protagonist returns from the True-False Supreme Realm with power comparable to a Spirit Transformation Dao Master. His unmasked presence shakes the Great Li world, whose apparent peak strength is only Nascent Soul.
• The Painting World manifests through a blurred figure and challenges him: his display seems to violate the Life-and-Death Chess Game’s sole rule, which forbids personal intervention.
• The protagonist claims he has no intention of breaking the rules. Privately, however, he had planned to seize the Eldest Prince’s Sword Dao fruit position at the moment it appeared, using the True-False Supreme Realm ability.
• He explains that safeguards—including his “I Am the Chess Player” and “Wish Echo” talents—made that risky plan seem manageable. He admits the only genuine truth known to the part of his spirit exposed to the game is that he never wanted to join it.
• The Venerable Lord of Yin-Yang Authority suspects he is concealing his real self and asks what he wants. The protagonist accuses the deity of already knowing about his abilities and pretending otherwise.
• Rather than pursue the argument, the protagonist says he will wait for the game to produce a winner. Then he unleashes Heaven-and-Earth Sword—not at the Eldest Prince or the Old Emperor, but at the hidden Eighth Prince.
• He declares that the Eighth Prince is the true observer behind the game: the Third Chess Player, Nine Heavens, Lord of the Heavenly Court.

Character developments and interactions

• The protagonist reveals himself as a formidable, calculating player, but also expresses deep distrust of the game and its participants. He shifts from defending his conduct to actively exposing a hidden force behind the contest.
• The Venerable Lord of Yin-Yang Authority remains outwardly composed and probing. Their exchange shows that both recognize the other’s scheming, though neither fully reveals their aims.
• The Eldest Prince continues striving to reach Golden Core late stage, form a grotto-heaven, and claim his Sword Dao fruit position; he is not the target of the protagonist’s attack.
• The Eighth Prince is exposed as a concealed presence and, according to the protagonist, the game’s real third chess player.

Significant themes

• Rules versus loopholes: The protagonist’s intended intervention would technically breach the game’s rule, despite his claim that he will not act.
• Deception and mutual suspicion: Both the protagonist and the Venerable Lord conceal their thoughts and question each other’s honesty.
• Control and hidden agency: The apparent contest among the imperial players may be directed or watched by another, previously concealed participant.
• Risk and self-preservation: The protagonist’s reluctance to stake his life on an uncertain game contrasts with the elaborate protections he prepares to pursue his own goals.

Plot points

• Chen Fan’s Heaven-and-Earth Sword strikes at the Eighth Prince’s palace. Though powerful enough to rival a Spirit Transformation Dao Master, it causes no damage—evidence that the Venerable Lord of Yin-Yang Authority has allowed the attack to be blocked.
• Nine Heavens, Lord of the Heavenly Court, emerges from the palace, confirming that he had been concealed there as the Eighth Prince.
• Chen Fan deduces that the Venerable Lord helped unseal and position the Nine Heavens Celestial Court above the Great Li Dynasty, and that Nine Heavens is either the deity’s ally or a contingency in the Life-and-Death Chess Game.
• The Venerable Lord confirms Chen Fan’s deductions, including that Chen Fan’s earlier confrontation with the deity was meant to test whether its powers were impaired.
• The deity then identifies Nine Heavens as the hidden force behind the old emperor’s sudden attack on the Eldest Prince. That seemingly pointless move was actually a signal: another chess player was present, and that player was closely connected to the Great Li Imperial House.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Fan demonstrates his skill as a strategist, piecing together the relationship between the deity, the Celestial Court, and the Eighth Prince. He remains curious about why powerful figures repeatedly call him the “Eternal Radiance Immortal Venerable.”
• The Venerable Lord of Yin-Yang Authority shows that it understands Chen Fan’s plans and has been managing events around the chess game. Rather than deny his deductions, it confirms them and turns the analysis back on him.
• Nine Heavens is revealed as a patient, powerful schemer who secretly occupied the Eighth Prince’s position and manipulated events from within the imperial family. He offers Chen Fan admiration but leaves the reason for the recurring title unexplained.
• Chen Fan and the Venerable Lord engage in a direct exchange of deductions, while Nine Heavens mostly watches, his concealed role now exposed.

Significant themes

• Strategy and signaling: Actions that appear useless may be deliberate messages to an opponent.
• Hidden players and layered plans: The apparent two-sided contest conceals a third chess player.
• Power versus restraint: Chen Fan’s attack is immense, but its failure reveals who is permitting or controlling events.
• Appearance and truth: Public explanations for the Celestial Court’s presence—and the Eighth Prince’s survival—do not withstand close scrutiny.

Plot points and events

• Changming concludes that Nine Heavens revealed himself for two reasons: to seek a possible alliance against the Venerable Lord of Yin-Yang Authority, and, more importantly, to push Chen Hei—the Ancestor’s past self—toward attaining the Sword Dao Fruit Position.
• Changming rejects cooperation with Nine Heavens because he cannot verify his intentions or control him. He exposes Nine Heavens instead, then clarifies that he wants the Life-and-Death Chess Game to continue normally by removing outside interference.
• As the three Chess Players confront one another, the Eldest Prince’s attainment of the Sword Dao Fruit Position appears to succeed. He forms a grotto-heaven, reaches Golden Core Late Stage, and seems poised to become a Nascent Soul True Lord.
• At the decisive moment, a figure emerges from within the Fruit Position. The Eldest Prince’s grotto-heaven shatters, his cultivation falls to Golden Core Middle Stage, and his true spirit is destroyed. His Dao Foundation collapses, leaving him gravely wounded and near death.
• The figure is revealed to be Chen Hei Quan, who had hidden power within the Fruit Position and struck when the Eldest Prince was attaining the Dao.

Character developments and interactions

• Changming shows caution and strategic resolve: he refuses an alliance he cannot trust, while insisting that the game itself should proceed without a third Chess Player’s interference.
• Nine Heavens is exposed as an active player, apparently seeking to influence Chen Hei’s path to the Sword Dao Fruit Position.
• The Eldest Prince rises on the verge of a major breakthrough, only to be brutally sabotaged and nearly killed.
• Chen Hei Quan reveals himself as a powerful, concealed force who can manipulate the Fruit Position and devastate another cultivator at a critical moment.
• Changming, the Venerable Lord of Yin-Yang Authority, and Nine Heavens share a tense, watchful confrontation before the Eldest Prince’s breakthrough is interrupted.

Significant themes

• Trust and control: Changming avoids a seemingly useful alliance because he cannot know or constrain Nine Heavens.
• Manipulation and hidden agendas: The Fruit Position and the breakthrough are revealed as tools in a larger contest among competing players.
• The fragility of advancement: The Eldest Prince’s near-attainment of the Dao is undone in an instant, showing how precarious cultivation can be.
• Uncertainty and reversals: Apparent breakthroughs and declared intentions conceal further twists, keeping the outcome of the Chess Game unresolved.

Key plot points and events

• Chen Hei Quan’s intervention nearly cripples the Eldest Prince, though the State Preceptors’ protections keep him alive. The other players in the Life-and-Death Chess Game do not intervene because Chen Hei’s move obeys the game’s rules.
• The narrator recognizes that Chen Hei has not literally acted across spacetime. Instead, his Present Self planted a contingency in the Sword Dao Fruit Position during the Third Era, allowing it to influence events later while limiting the karmic punishment.
• The Chen Family Ancestor could not serve this purpose: his death had already been witnessed and established as fact, so involving him in future events would create a paradox.
• Chen Hei appears and resonates with the planted contingency, preparing to inscribe his true spirit on the Sword Dao Fruit Position and become a Golden Core powerhouse. This would make him the only eligible candidate and overturn the game’s outcome.
• The Left and Right State Preceptors and Great Li’s Old Emperor suddenly unite to kill him. They unleash three fruit-position mystiques, but Chen Hei effortlessly nullifies them with the power of Heaven and Earth.

Character developments and interactions

• The narrator demonstrates sharp insight into Chen Hei’s time-related strategy and is impressed by the lengths Chen Hei has gone to, including involving another version of himself.
• Chen Hei shifts from apparent underdog to a decisive contender, showing both elaborate foresight and overwhelming power.
• The State Preceptors and Old Emperor, despite their usual hostility, cooperate to eliminate Chen Hei. Their loyalty is pragmatic: they support the Eldest Prince because they expect protection and reward from their superior, while viewing Chen Hei as a dangerous outsider.

Significant themes

• Causality and karmic consequences: Influencing the future indirectly through a planted contingency is safer than directly reaching across time, but still carries a cost.
• Rules and strategy: The chess game permits actions that seem extraordinary, so long as they remain within its constraints.
• Power and ambition: The Sword Dao Fruit Position is so valuable that rival factions will unite—or resort to lethal force—to control who obtains it.
• The limits of apparent strength: Chen Hei seems vulnerable before his breakthrough, yet his command of Heaven and Earth’s power overturns the attackers’ expectations.

Key plot points

• The narrator watches Chen Hei attain the sword dao fruit position without intervening. Heaven and Earth’s overwhelming power has already frightened off three Nascent Soul True Lords, leaving Chen Hei’s path clear.
• The Venerable Lord of Yin-Yang Authority recognizes Chen Hei as Chen Hei Quan, a figure from the Third Era who bears the golden heaven’s mandate.
• The lord explains that Chen Hei Quan was once nearly destroyed by the Supreme Dao Immortal Venerable. After Lin Feng’s Time Shepherding split him into three selves across different eras, Chen Hei Quan used the separation to leave a contingency that gave his past self, Chen Hei, this chance to rise.
• The lord reveals that Chen Hei Quan was meant to contend with his master and inherit Heaven’s mandate—and that both the master’s effort to destroy him and Heaven and Earth’s intervention reflect how exceptional he is.
• The narrator dismisses the importance of such schemes, expecting that once Chen Hei becomes a Nascent Soul True Lord, he can simply be dealt with. The lord counters that Heaven’s mandate cannot determine everything.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Hei is shown as a carefully prepared, protected figure whose ascent is the result of long-range planning by his other selves.
• The narrator, Chen Fan, moves from surprise at the lord’s praise to skepticism about the power of fate and elaborate schemes.
• The Venerable Lord of Yin-Yang Authority reveals unusual sorrow and personal feeling about Chen Hei Quan, describing him as uniquely worthy of opposition and return. He challenges Chen Fan’s assumption that Heaven’s mandate settles all outcomes.
• Chen Fan and the lord’s exchange is philosophical rather than confrontational: the lord sees Chen Hei’s struggle as meaningful, while Chen Fan treats him as a piece that cannot overturn the larger order.

Significant themes

• Fate versus agency: The chapter questions whether a heaven-given mandate controls destiny or whether individual choices still matter.
• Planning across time: Chen Hei Quan’s divided selves demonstrate how actions in one era can shape opportunities in another.
• Recognition and worth: The lord’s account suggests that Chen Hei’s importance lies not only in his mandate, but also in his courage and capacity to return after ruin.
• Power and perspective: Chen Fan’s confidence contrasts with the lord’s compassion, leaving open whether Chen Hei can truly be dismissed as merely a chess piece.

Chen Hei attains the Sword Dao fruit position and breaks through to Golden Core. By inscribing his true spirit upon the fruit position, he gains the rank’s defining quality, “one proof, eternal proof”: his cultivation is fixed across his past, present, and future selves.
That breakthrough triggers a temporal paradox. Chen Hei’s past self and future self also rise to Golden Core, even though the future self—the Chen Family Ancestor—was known to have died at only Foundation Establishment’s ninth level. Since that established history cannot simply be changed, karmic law unleashes a vast punishment to correct the contradiction. The narrator notes that this danger could have been avoided through “void-proof,” which does not confer the same across-time permanence, but Chen Hei chose the Sword Dao fruit position anyway.
A mysterious Dharma body then emerges from the sealed past, concealed by a fruit-position illusion and apparently powerful enough to dismiss karmic punishment capable of destroying an Immortal Venerable. It advances through time with killing intent aimed at Chen Hei. The narrator suspects it is Senior Lin Feng: Lin Feng’s life-bound ability, Time Shepherding, helped create the temporal chain behind the paradox, making him a likely target of karmic law—and potentially leading him to eliminate Chen Hei.
Before the narrator can learn more, Nine Heavens, Lord of the Heavenly Court, manifests the genuine Celestial Court in the River of Time. Using the Water Supreme fruit-position mystique, Sea of Time, he moves upstream and confronts the mysterious figure. Nine Heavens appears intent on protecting Chen Hei so he can continue ascending toward Nascent Soul, setting up a clash between the two powerful beings.
Character developments and interactions: Chen Hei’s breakthrough shows his willingness to defy enormous risks, even if he understands the underlying situation. Nine Heavens openly takes his side, while the narrator recognizes that the mysterious attacker may be Lin Feng and interprets the conflict as a consequence of Lin Feng’s role in Chen Hei’s timeline. The chapter ends with Nine Heavens facing the past-emerging figure to prevent Chen Hei’s destruction.
Significant themes: The chapter explores the costs of changing or entangling timelines, the inexorable correction imposed by karmic law, and the tension between fate and defiance. It also contrasts two paths to cultivation: a fruit-position breakthrough that grants enduring power across time but creates paradoxes, and void-proof, which avoids that temporal consequence.

Key events

• The looming clash between Senior Lin Feng and the Lord of the Heavenly Court, Nine Heavens shakes the time node. The narrator realizes Chen Hei’s path to enlightenment has drawn Nine Heavens into protecting him.
• Fearing Chen Hei may soon become impossible to kill, the narrator abandons his plan to wait until Chen Hei reaches Nascent Soul and attacks immediately with Heaven-and-Earth Sword, enhanced by the Sea of Time.
• Nine Heavens effortlessly destroys the attack with a Formless Great Hand and blocks the narrator. The narrator appeals to the Venerable Lord of Yin-Yang Authority to intervene, warning that inaction will bring severe backlash upon the lord’s master, Lin Feng. The Venerable Lord remains silent.
• The narrator then attacks Nine Heavens directly, using Heavenly Rule Inscription to make his techniques certain to hit and twice as powerful. But he deliberately redirects the strike to annihilate the Great Li imperial palace, killing the Left and Right State Preceptors and the Old Emperor—three Nascent Soul Middle Stage cultivators.
• The kills trigger rewards from The Only Player, including abilities and fruit positions. Most importantly, the narrator obtains the thunderclap fire fruit position, completing the five-element requirements needed to advance his fire supreme fruit position, Heavenly Fire, to Nascent Soul Late Stage.

Character developments and interactions

• The narrator shifts from pursuing the greater reward of killing Chen Hei later to securing an immediate, strategically valuable breakthrough. He is ruthless but calculating, exploiting the chaos to eliminate targets he had been watching.
• Nine Heavens openly protects Chen Hei and demonstrates overwhelming power, while still appearing possibly weakened enough that the narrator considers testing him.
• The Venerable Lord of Yin-Yang Authority refuses to help despite the danger to Lin Feng, its own master. This strains the implied master-disciple bond and leaves the narrator to act alone.
• Lin Feng is drawn into the crisis through his intervention, though the Venerable Lord’s inaction leaves him exposed to the consequences of Time Shepherding.

Significant themes

• Power and protection: Chen Hei’s importance is shown by the extraordinary figures willing to defend his advancement.
• Strategic ruthlessness: The narrator prioritizes concrete gains over honor, timing, or the broader contest.
• Master-disciple betrayal and indifference: The Venerable Lord’s refusal to protect Lin Feng highlights a disturbing break in their relationship.
• Opportunity amid catastrophe: A clash threatening the wider world becomes the narrator’s chance to complete a crucial cultivation breakthrough.

Plot points and events

• Chen Hei, the Past Self of Chen Hei Quan, devotes himself to attaining the Sword Dao Fruit Position. Though he has only recently reached the Golden Core realm, reserves hidden by his Present Self let him advance far faster than expected.
• As his Present Self becomes fully visible, both versions of Chen Hei Quan exist at once. Their coexistence violates the proper order of time and draws the karmic law punishment, which threatens to erase the anomaly.
• The Present Self recognizes Chen Hei as his past self and comforts him. Chen Hei reflects on the Present Self’s immense hardships: after losing the protection of Heaven and Earth and his golden heaven’s mandate, he survived the age dominated by the Supreme Dao Immortal Venerable and left behind a legacy for his successors.
• Chen Hei remembers being split into three selves by Time Shepherding, and remains tormented by the Venerable’s overwhelming power, the destruction of his former life, and the mystery of why he was chosen as the Venerable’s destined rival.
• Chen Hei accepts the inheritance his Present Self left for him. The Present Self willingly dissolves into starlight and merges into him. With the two selves united, only one Chen Hei Quan remains, and he is on the verge of attaining the Dao.

Character developments

• Chen Hei (Past Self): Moves from confusion, resentment, and self-doubt toward accepting the inheritance and his role. He still cannot fully understand his defeat or the Venerable’s motives, but he chooses to continue forward.
• Chen Hei (Present Self): Appears serene and compassionate, offering his past self comfort rather than blame. His willingness to disappear—and his genuine happiness at Chen Hei’s choice—reveals his acceptance and release.

Significant themes

• Identity and time: The three selves raise questions about whether they are separate people or parts of one whole.
• Inheritance and sacrifice: The Present Self’s legacy enables the Past Self’s advancement, but accepting it also means the Present Self ceases to exist.
• Unresolved defeat: Chen Hei’s drive is bound to his need to understand why he lost and why the Supreme Dao Immortal Venerable was so far beyond him.
• Compassion and acceptance: The encounter offers a rare moment of comfort amid a life shaped by loss, confusion, and fate.

Character interactions

The central interaction is between Chen Hei and his Present Self. The Present Self acknowledges Chen Hei’s suffering and encourages him to choose his own path; Chen Hei, in turn, recognizes the greater hardships his Present Self endured. Their exchange ends not in conflict but in mutual acceptance, as the Present Self merges into Chen Hei and leaves him to attain the Dao.