Chapter Summaries

Key events

• As the chapter opens, the protagonist is inhabiting Past Li Ping through Transform All Beings. Past Li Ping now has two Colorful Class Cards: Zero Returner and Creator, forming a ring with a fraction of the power of his complete nine-card ring.
• Future Ning Chen and the eleven higher-dimensional entities attack. Past Li Ping realizes the assault was orchestrated to make the protagonist reveal Creator. The attackers had anticipated the transformation, and Wang Hao’s mysterious ability appears to have enabled Future Ning Chen’s descent and brought the enemies’ future selves into the battle.
• The eleven entities unleash their powers alongside the projection of the Main God Space. Past Li Ping counters with Zero Returner, erasing their conceptual attack, then uses Creator to generate worlds that overwhelm them.
• Recognizing that the enemies are only future shadows, Past Li Ping uses the cards’ ring to seal Future Ning Chen, all eleven entities, and the Main God Space projection in another Strange Land.
• Once the protagonist’s one-incense-stick duration for Existence from Nonexistence ends, the “Old Self” and all benefits gained through sacrificed talents disappear. The protagonist deactivates Transform All Beings just before its remaining support vanishes, wary of possible contingencies Past Li Ping may have left behind.

Character developments and interactions

• Past Li Ping shifts from a seemingly passive figure to a decisive, overwhelmingly powerful combatant, revealing how potent the two cards are together. He also deduces the purpose behind the attack and confronts Future Ning Chen with those conclusions.
• Future Ning Chen is exposed as part of a broader plan rather than simply an independent attacker; he fights alongside the eleven entities but is ultimately sealed with them.
• The protagonist is largely reduced to watching the fight after the transformation begins. They recognize that the enemies engineered the confrontation to obtain Creator, then act cautiously to avoid remaining in Past Li Ping’s form.
• Wang Hao’s Golden Finger becomes a major mystery: the chapter suggests it can connect him to his future self and bring future versions of others into the present, but its full scope remains unknown.

Significant themes

• Foreknowledge and manipulation: The battle was shaped by knowledge of the protagonist’s future choices.
• Power and reversal: The protagonist’s former tormentors are swiftly suppressed by the very card they sought to draw out.
• Temporary power and consequence: The protagonist’s borrowed advantages vanish with the talent’s time limit, restoring a precarious situation.
• Uncertainty and caution: Even in apparent victory, the protagonist avoids assuming Past Li Ping’s actions are entirely safe.

Key plot points and events

• Chen Fan expects the crisis to be over after canceling his transformation into Past Li Ping, but the “Ring” formed from two Colorful Class Cards remains.
• Past Li Ping reappears through the Ring and declares that Chen Fan has lost again.
• Li Ping explains that Chen Fan’s plan relied on using the Ring to suppress eleven higher-dimensional entities, including Future Ning Chen. But the Ring’s continued existence also gives Li Ping a way to return.
• Although the [Zero Returner] card was created by Chen Fan’s transformation and should have vanished with it, the [Creator] card genuinely exists. Li Ping used it to absorb some of [Zero Returner]’s power, preserve the Ring, and briefly manifest without violating Chen Fan’s Chat Group rules.
• Freed from those rules, Li Ping can now challenge Chen Fan, who has exhausted his trump cards and is badly weakened. Chen Fan realizes his fatal mistake too late.

Character developments

• Chen Fan moves from cautious hope to resignation as he understands how he was outmaneuvered. He recognizes that he should have ordered Li Ping to destroy the higher-dimensional entities rather than merely contain them.
• Past Li Ping is revealed as a patient, meticulous strategist. His plan depended not only on his ability to foresee events but also on exploiting the rules and the genuine existence of [Creator].

Significant themes

• Planning and unforeseen consequences: Chen Fan’s strategy is reasonable, but one overlooked detail turns his safeguard into Li Ping’s escape route.
• Rules and loopholes: Li Ping remains within the letter of Chen Fan’s orders while finding a way to regain his freedom.
• Power, control, and inevitability: The exchange frames the confrontation as a contest of foresight, with Chen Fan seemingly unable to alter the outcome once his options are gone.

Character interactions

• Chen Fan questions Li Ping’s return and admits he may have no way to reverse the situation.
• Li Ping explains his reasoning and reveals how he exploited the Ring’s need to remain intact.
• Their exchange ends with Li Ping claiming victory and Chen Fan accepting that he has been defeated.

Plot

• Past Li Ping’s projection uses the Ring’s higher-dimensional power to erase Chen Fan’s past, present, and future, gradually replacing him.
• With his usual transformation ability unusable and no suitable target, Chen Fan draws on his incomplete Primordial Spiritual Root’s world-spanning power. He reaches the higher-dimensional level but immediately becomes lost, unable to perceive himself or his history.
• Past Li Ping enters that disoriented space. His presence briefly anchors Chen Fan, letting him return to the present—but by then the projection has replaced most of him.
• Past Li Ping explains his goal: he wants to take Chen Fan’s identity, use the surviving Group Leader Backend to unlock Chat Group permissions, and invite himself back into the group. He plans to leave Chen Fan partly conscious and influence him into doing it voluntarily.
• The attacker is not the original Past Li Ping but a simulation created through two Colorful Class Cards, possessing memories and consciousness but no true spirit. Realizing he is likely doomed, Chen Fan activates the authority of Immortal-Settling Journey to make one last move.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Fan exhausts his options, knowingly risking permanent loss of self to resist replacement. Though he recognizes the attempt has failed, he refuses to surrender quietly and presses Past Li Ping for answers.
• Past Li Ping’s projection reveals both the practical motive behind the attack and the limits of its own nature. It is calculating and confident, but its plan depends on manipulating Chen Fan rather than simply using his talents.

Themes

• The struggle to preserve identity when one’s past, present, and future can be overwritten.
• Desperation and resistance in the face of overwhelming power.
• The danger of wielding power without the understanding or perspective needed to control it.
• The distinction between a person and a simulation that possesses their memories but lacks their true spirit.

Plot points and events

• Near the end of the future simulation, the protagonist returns to the Northern Land of Sin, where they hope to exploit the region’s immense, incomprehensible karmic sin.
• As Past Li Ping increasingly takes over their body, the protagonist uses Bitter Fruit to designate him as their archrival, earning the talent’s highest-quality reward: a colorful orb.
• The protagonist then activates Judgment, a rarely used talent that inflicts increasingly severe penalties based on a target’s karmic sin. They choose the entire Northern Land of Sin—thereby placing themselves within its scope too.
• A higher-dimensional presence appears and prepares to attack. To survive and resist Li Ping’s takeover, the protagonist uses Transform All Beings to become the “True Scripture,” a powerful, defensive being connected to the Ruler.
• The protagonist’s Judgment annihilates the Northern Land of Sin and the Longevity Realm, including the force responsible for assimilating the realm. The higher-dimensional attacker also falls.
• The protagonist’s own accumulated sin triggers the second tier of Judgment, leaving them near death. Past Li Ping endures the same effect, but his replacement of the protagonist reaches its peak. The protagonist’s spirit is consumed, and they eventually die, ending the simulation.

Character developments and interactions

• The protagonist chooses a final, self-sacrificing attack: they knowingly include themselves in Judgment’s reach to destroy the realm and ensure Li Ping does not escape unscathed. Their transformation into the True Scripture is a desperate attempt to resist both the external threat and Li Ping.
• Past Li Ping remains the protagonist’s ultimate adversary. Though Judgment nearly destroys the Ring sustaining his borrowed attunement, he withstands the second-tier effect long enough to take over the protagonist.
• The higher-dimensional presence attacks sooner than before, but is caught in the catastrophic Judgment alongside the realm’s other powers.
• The protagonist’s final glimpse reveals that two higher-dimensional beings have died, adding a final mystery to the destruction.

Significant themes

• Fate and repetition: Li Ping is once again the force behind the protagonist’s death, a coincidence the protagonist recognizes with bitter irony.
• Sacrifice and revenge: The protagonist accepts their own likely destruction in order to obliterate the Northern Land of Sin and punish Li Ping.
• Karma’s indiscriminate force: Judgment destroys powerful enemies, but also harms the person who invokes it.
• Uncertainty and hidden scale: Even at the end, the protagonist discovers there were two higher-dimensional beings, underscoring how much remains beyond their understanding.

Key events

• Chen Fan reviews the rewards from the second future simulation, whose clone reached extraordinary cultivation heights and amassed rare treasures, artifacts, talents, and Dao fruit positions.
• The standout reward is the Incomplete Myriad-Void Primordial Ancient Weeping Willow, which Chen Fan expects could let him match a Supreme Existence without relying on “Old Self.”
• The simulation clone used Judgment to destroy the Northern Land of Sin. Though the two higher-dimensional beings there survived, they were left gravely wounded.
• Chen Fan realizes that rewards appear to be assessed from the clone’s peak state, even if it later sacrificed talents or cultivation. This may preserve rewards he would otherwise lose.
• He also suspects The Only Player can still trigger reward calculations based on its earlier presence in the simulation. Its destruction of the Northern Land of Sin may yield a huge haul of experience.
• The clone’s Bitter Fruit talent produced eleven more colorful orbs, bringing the total to twenty-two across simulations. Chen Fan decides to inherit everything.

Character development

• Chen Fan grows more confident about the power he can eventually wield, especially through the primordial willow and its ability to become a world.
• He remains cautious about the two surviving higher-dimensional beings, recognizing they are far beyond his current ability to challenge.

Character interactions

• No direct encounters occur in the present chapter; Chen Fan reflects on his clone’s actions and the beings it fought.
• The clone’s transformation into the defensive “True Scripture” helped it withstand the threats in the Northern Land of Sin.

Significant themes

• Accumulation and inheritance: Simulation achievements can translate into enormous real-world gains.
• Power and limits: Chen Fan’s rewards promise near-immortal strength, but higher-dimensional beings remain dangerous.
• Strategic adaptation: Transforming into a highly defensive entity and exploiting talent mechanics are crucial to survival and advancement.

Summary

Key plot points and events

• Chen Fan inherits the rewards of the second future simulation. His cultivation gains are modest: his Heavenly Fire Dao attainment reaches Great True Lord (late Nascent Soul), and his qi refining advances from 16,000 to 18,000 layers.
• He tests Heavenly Fire’s fruit-position mystique, Heavenly Rule Inscription, which can transform an object into a “heaven-and-earth wonder.” It cannot fool the Simulator, but a scrap-iron wonder successfully lets an Embryonic Breath cultivator reach Heaven-grade Qi Refining.
• Chen Fan discovers the breakthrough binds the cultivator’s foundation and life to him: he can revoke the mystique and destroy the cultivator’s cultivation—or kill him. In return, the cultivator’s primordial qi feeds back to Chen Fan, and Chen Fan can absorb it completely. The gain from one cultivator is tiny, but multiplying it across billions suggests a way to “herd all living beings” and accelerate his own cultivation.
• Chen Fan then receives the simulation’s talents—Golden: Investment, Purple: Judgment, and Purple: Existence from Nonexistence—and relives its events, including the schemes involving Past Li Ping, Wang Hao, the Chat Group, and Senior Lin Feng.
• The final scene reveals that Past Li Ping has replaced the Simulated Clone and is recovering from near-fatal injuries with help from the Colorful Class Card Creator. But the destruction of the Northern Land of Sin has drawn the attention of powerful beings. Two wounded higher-dimensional existences attack him, setting up an imminent battle.

Character developments

• Chen Fan shifts from merely inspecting his inheritance to recognizing a potentially vast, though ethically troubling, method of gaining cultivation through dependent cultivators.
• Past Li Ping survives the Simulated Clone’s desperate final gamble and takes over the identity of Chen Fan, but remains badly injured and threatened by powerful enemies.
• The Simulated Clone is remembered as having chosen a final all-or-nothing gamble despite knowing defeat and death were likely.
• Wang Hao remains an enigmatic schemer whose possible safeguards against Past Li Ping are a major unanswered question.

Significant themes

• Power and dependency: Heavenly Rule Inscription grants breakthroughs while placing recipients under Chen Fan’s control.
• Cultivation through others: The possibility of gathering primordial qi from vast numbers of cultivators raises the prospect of turning society into a resource.
• Schemes, survival, and uncertainty: The simulation’s events are shaped by layered plots, desperate gambles, and unresolved conflicts.
• The scale of experience: Three years of events feel extraordinarily long because of their intensity and emotional weight.

Character interactions

• Chen Fan tests his ability on an Embryonic Breath cultivator, observes the successful breakthrough, and discovers the resulting bond and cultivation feedback.
• In recalling the simulation, he revisits his confrontations and games of strategy with Past Li Ping and the Venerable Lord of Yin-Yang Authority, as well as the Chat Group members’ schemes.
• In the closing scene, the two higher-dimensional beings confront Past Li Ping, turning his recovery into an immediate threat of renewed conflict.

Key plot points and events

• Past Li Ping fights two immensely powerful higher-dimensional beings, but Chen Fan can barely observe the battle. Li Ping creates and destroys countless realms with the Colorful Class Card [Creator].
• Li Ping eventually forms the [Creator] card into a Ring, using its power to escape the ruined [Northern Land of Sin]. The card cracks from the strain, and he heads toward the [Gods and Devils Realms], apparently desperate to reach a hidden contingency or safe haven.
• As Li Ping approaches, another Simulated Clone arrives: Chen Fan from two days earlier, who had used [Immortal-Settling Journey] to travel to a beneficial higher-dimensional future.
• Li Ping had taken over a Simulated Clone and assumed the identity of Chen Fan. When he sees the other Chen Fan, the higher-dimensional rule against two identical existences sharing a point in time is triggered. Li Ping is annihilated instantly.
• Li Ping realizes just before vanishing that the entire situation was Wang Hao’s scheme, but dies before he can say more than “Wang Hao—”. The earlier Simulated Clone survives because it never saw or observed the duplicate.

Character developments

• Chen Fan is startled by how far beyond his perception the two higher-dimensional enemies are, and pieces together the rules behind Li Ping’s fate.
• Past Li Ping proves extraordinarily resourceful, escaping a seemingly hopeless fight, but his desperation to reach the Gods and Devils Realms suggests he is relying on a backup plan. His identity theft ultimately makes him vulnerable to the rules he has manipulated.
• Wang Hao is revealed as the apparent mastermind behind the trap, though his exact plan remains unexplained.

Significant themes

• Limits of knowledge and power: Even Chen Fan’s enhanced ability to observe cannot reveal the techniques of beings at the highest levels.
• Rules as weapons: The higher-dimensional rule forbidding duplicate existences becomes the mechanism that destroys Li Ping.
• Causality and identity: Li Ping’s attempt to survive by becoming Chen Fan creates the contradiction that causes his annihilation.
• Irony and reversal: After enduring catastrophic combat and escaping his enemies, Li Ping is undone by an encounter he did not anticipate.

Character interactions

• Li Ping’s conflict with the two higher-dimensional beings is presented mainly through the realms his [Creator] card creates and destroys; their techniques remain unseen.
• Li Ping’s encounter with the arriving Chen Fan triggers the duplicate-existence rule, though Chen Fan does not need to attack him.
• In his final moment, Li Ping recognizes Wang Hao’s role in the scheme, linking his defeat to a larger, still-unrevealed plan.

Key plot points and events

• Chen Fan realizes that Wang Hao may have orchestrated both the Simulated Clone’s journey into the future and Past Li Ping’s successful replacement of the clone as “Chen Fan.” Wang Hao’s schemes appear to have been in motion long before their consequences became clear.
• The simulation continues after Past Li Ping’s destruction, showing a meeting between Senior Lin Feng’s future self and Wang Hao in a realm beyond ordinary perception.
• Lin Feng asks how Wang Hao managed to anchor the future despite Lin Feng having used a mysterious, taboo-named Golden Finger to suppress the other Otherworldly Demons’ Golden Fingers.
• Wang Hao reveals an image of the Simulated Clone on the first day of the Fourth Group Mission, already in contact with another version of Wang Hao. He explains that the outcome of the third day’s final battle had been secured from the first day.
• Lin Feng deduces that Wang Hao has used a higher-dimensional version of himself from the past to shape the present and fix the future. Lin Feng’s Golden Finger, he notes, is incomplete: it can only disable abilities that have not yet been activated at that point in time.

Character developments

• Chen Fan is increasingly alarmed by the scale of Wang Hao’s planning and by revelations about powers and entities he did not know existed.
• Wang Hao is shown to be an exceptionally capable strategist whose Golden Finger can anchor future outcomes—and may have grown stronger.
• Senior Lin Feng reveals a hidden future self connected to his life-bound ability, Time Shepherding. Though initially composed, he recognizes Wang Hao’s growth and becomes more cautious.

Significant themes

• Fate, time, and causality: Wang Hao uses knowledge and influence from the past to determine later events.
• Escalating power and hidden limits: Golden Fingers can be suppressed or improved, but even powerful abilities have restrictions.
• Scheming and sacrifice: Multiple characters’ actions appear to be directed toward helping Chen Fan, though the reason for their commitment remains unexplained.

Character interactions

• Lin Feng and Wang Hao meet as apparent adversaries but speak rather than fight, probing each other’s methods and motives.
• Wang Hao points out that he, Lin Feng, and Past Li Ping have all acted for Chen Fan, challenging Lin Feng to explain Chen Fan’s appeal.
• Lin Feng identifies Wang Hao’s temporal strategy and acknowledges both his tactical brilliance and his continued growth.

Plot points and events

• Chen Fan’s observation of the previous simulation abruptly ends when the Simulator reports that its level is too low to follow events in a higher-dimensional information stream.
• He collects the simulation’s death-haul, including the Incomplete Myriad-Void Primordial Ancient Weeping Willow and enormous rewards for destroying the Northern Land of Sin. These include more than 1.5 billion experience points, nearly ten million attribute points, and over twenty major divine abilities.
• The rewards reveal that the land contained several Spirit Transformation Dao Masters and Great True Lords whom the clone had not detected. The three Spirit Transformation Dao Masters each held a karmic system fruit position, prompting Chen Fan to suspect that they were pawns of a hidden power.
• Rather than spend his gains immediately, Chen Fan saves them for future simulations, where his clone can use them—and potentially combine abilities more efficiently.
• He chooses an ordinary simulation instead of a future simulation. Future runs have been short and dangerous, while a long ordinary run gives him time to benefit from Golden Talent: Investment, which needs years to mature.
• The eleventh ordinary simulation begins with an unusually powerful draw: one rainbow talent, one golden talent, and ten purple talents. Among the talents revealed are Supreme God’s Game, Incomplete Immortal Domain, Equipment Slot, and Life-and-Death Arena. The chapter ends as Chen Fan starts examining the draw.

Character development and interactions

• Chen Fan responds to the Simulator’s limits with frustration, but turns quickly to planning. He shows greater caution about hidden forces and preserves resources rather than spending them impulsively.
• His choice of an ordinary simulation reflects a strategic shift toward long-term development and investment, rather than risking another short-lived future run.
• The chapter focuses on Chen Fan’s relationship with the Simulator and its rewards; no direct encounters with other characters occur. Wang Hao remains an important looming threat, since Chen Fan expects him to prevent a fifth group mission and kill him by the fourth.

Significant themes

• Limits of knowledge and power: Chen Fan cannot observe events beyond the Simulator’s authorization, and even his powerful clone failed to detect other realms and hidden players.
• Hidden manipulation: The fruit positions and unexplained cultivators suggest that forces behind the Northern Land of Sin may be orchestrating events.
• Preparation and patience: Chen Fan banks resources and chooses a longer simulation because some of his strongest opportunities require time.
• Risk and reward: The new talents offer immense power, but several carry severe caveats—especially the unstable Immortal Domain and the all-or-nothing Life-and-Death Arena.

Key plot points and events

• Chen Fan reviews eight retained Purple Talents, including Sealing, When Hardship Ends, Good Fortune Arrives, and Heaven-Stealing.
• He considers Observation, which lets him view worlds from Heaven and Earth’s perspective and reveal lower-ranked beings’ secrets. Its risk is gradual assimilation into Heaven and Earth’s will, potentially costing him consciousness. His primordial spiritual root may help him use it effectively.
• He draws the Golden Talent Future Letter, which can deliver one message every ten years from his own “true future.” Chen Fan is struck by its exceptional status and wonders whether outside powers can interfere with it.
• Finally, he obtains the Rainbow Talent Ten Gates. It opens access to safe worlds containing stories and encounters with ten Supreme Existences. As Chen Fan’s understanding of them—and their recognition of him—grows, he can acquire their abilities, borrow their powers, and eventually summon them to assist him.

Character development and interactions

• Chen Fan shifts from simple curiosity to intense excitement as the scale of his new talents becomes clear. He recognizes that Observation could complement his existing power, while Future Letter and Ten Gates may transform his prospects.
• The chapter focuses on Chen Fan’s relationship with the beings behind Ten Gates: his growing understanding and their recognition of him determine what he can gain from them. No direct encounter occurs yet.

Significant themes

• Power and risk: Some abilities offer extraordinary insight or strength at the cost of danger or loss of control.
• Fate, time, and knowledge: Future messages and access to beings across past, present, and future suggest that knowledge can reach beyond ordinary temporal limits.
• Growth through connection: Ten Gates makes power dependent not only on acquisition but also on understanding and mutual recognition.
• Escalating possibility: Chen Fan imagines accumulating powerful abilities across multiple simulations, potentially including otherworldly beings’ Golden Fingers.

Key events

• Chen Fan prepares for his eleventh ordinary simulation, selecting [ten gates] (rainbow), [future letter] (golden), and [Supreme God’s Game] (purple).
• He rejects [observation], reasoning that “Old Self” can protect him in this simulation and that he can use [Transform All Beings] if needed. He also considers saving observation for future simulations, where he may lack that support.
• He briefly weighs [equipment slot], wondering whether equipping the Spacetime Token might bypass karmic law, but concludes that many other hidden restrictions would still apply.
• He retains nearly all his talents, but releases [Sealing] and [Life-and-Death Arena] to make room for stronger future choices. The simulator confirms the selections, and the eleventh simulation begins.

Character development

Chen Fan is increasingly focused on optimizing his long-term growth. Rather than keeping talents simply because they are powerful or interesting, he judges them by their practical usefulness and by how well they fit his current circumstances. He is also eager to test whether Chat Group can be given to another being—and whether it can work alongside investment to create an overwhelming advantage.

Significant themes

• Strategic resource management: Limited talent slots force Chen Fan to prioritize high-impact abilities.
• Power and dependence: Chen Fan weighs his own options against the protection and abilities provided by “Old Self.”
• Limits on power: Even seemingly clever ways to evade one restriction may fail because greater, hidden laws govern the world.
• Practicality over potential: A talent’s theoretical strength matters less if Chen Fan cannot use it effectively.

Character interactions

• Chen Fan’s main interaction is with the simulator, as he chooses and retains talents before receiving confirmation that the simulation has launched.
• “Old Self” remains an important influence on his decisions, even without directly appearing in the scene.

Key plot points and events

• At age 20, the protagonist begins the twelfth ordinary simulation and claims two rewards inherited from an earlier mission: a chaos spiritual root of their choice and a random fruit position.
• The random draw yields the earth fruit position Great Post Earth, an ordinary result that disappoints them.
• They choose the Chaos Great Dao Tree, whose three thousand Dao fruits and leaves embody the laws of the three thousand great daos. Its abilities complement the incomplete Eternal Primordial Chaos Willow World, which can provide the world origin needed to nurture it. The tree will also return Dao principles to the world as it develops.
• The tree’s daos are less than halfway complete. Though the world may help it nurture one or two complete daos over ten thousand years, the protagonist finds that timeline far too slow and plans to use the Golden Talent: Investment on the tree.
• They spend over 1.5 billion experience points on Qi Refining Limit-Breaking. With the Heaven Rewards Diligence amplification, their foundation rises from eighteen thousand to twenty-one thousand layers.
• The breakthrough radically transforms their essence and reveals that heaven and earth are incomplete. As their perception expands, they nearly enter Dao transformation. The talents I Am the Chess Player, Once and for All, and Fifth Black Hand trigger, allowing “Old Self” to pull them back and suppress the upheaval.

Character development and interactions

• The protagonist is ambitious and strategic: they select a spiritual root to address the Willow World’s incomplete daos, then plan to accelerate its growth through investment.
• Their frustration at the slow nurturing process reflects impatience and awareness of their limited time in the simulation.
• Their breakthrough grants a profound but unsettling new perspective. They instinctively want to investigate the incomplete world, but “Old Self” intervenes through the activated talents, preventing their near-transformation.

Significant themes

• Power and incomplete creation: The protagonist’s growing strength exposes flaws in the structure of heaven and earth, while their spiritual roots offer a way to build and complete cosmic laws.
• Ambition versus time: Vast achievements still demand long periods of development, pressing the protagonist to seek ways to accelerate progress.
• Knowledge as danger: Seeing more of reality brings the protagonist close to losing their ordinary state; understanding the cosmos carries serious risks.

Plot and events

• After reaching 21,000 layers of qi-refining limit-breaking, the protagonist reflects on a powerful Dao-transformation experience and a disturbing glimpse that Heaven and Earth are flawed. They have no way to explain what the flaws are, but estimate their ordinary strength has increased roughly a thousandfold—though likely only to the early Spirit Transformation stage.
• They use Golden Talent: Fusion on more than a hundred mostly karma-related minor divine abilities gained from destroying the Northern Land of Sin. With the help of the talents Once and for All and Heaven Rewards Diligence, they guarantee the fusion succeeds, producing A Foot of Land.
• Spending 300,000 attribute points upgrades it into the major divine ability Inch-Square Domain. They then fuse that ability with more than twenty other major divine abilities, creating Inch-Square Dao Lord.
• The protagonist turns to the fruit positions they have collected. Their immediate goal is to obtain the highly destructive sword Dao fruit position. They also plan to use their heavenly-fire fruit-position ability to transform ordinary objects into Heaven-and-Earth wonders, potentially cultivating others and gaining feedback from their breakthroughs.

Character development

• The protagonist remains pragmatic and resourceful, readily spending lifespan and attribute points when the gains seem worthwhile.
• They show growing curiosity about the limits of qi refining and the mysterious flaws in Heaven and Earth, while acknowledging that they currently lack the information to investigate them.
• Their ambitions expand from personal power toward possibly “shepherding” other cultivators for the benefits their progress could provide.

Significant themes

• Power through accumulation and synthesis: Combining many abilities produces a result far more valuable than its components.
• The limits and risks of advancement: Higher levels of qi refining may bring the danger of being assimilated by Heaven and Earth.
• Knowledge of cosmic imperfection: The protagonist’s glimpse that Heaven and Earth are flawed introduces a larger mystery.
• Cultivation as reciprocal gain: The protagonist considers helping others advance in order to benefit from their progress.

Character interactions

• No direct interpersonal exchanges occur in this chapter. The main interactions are between the protagonist and the system, whose prompts govern the fusion and upgrade process. The protagonist also considers future relationships with other cultivators as potential beneficiaries—and sources—of cultivation feedback.

Plot points and events

• The protagonist successfully attains the Sword Dao Fruit Position, with their Other Self reaching the same position directly in the Immortal Realm through the Myriad Selves talent.
• The fruit position’s mystique, White Edge, has no formal ritual. Its requirement is a will bold enough to draw a sword against the strong—something the protagonist recognizes as fitting their history of defying vastly more powerful opponents.
• White Edge grants the concept of “slashing” to all things, letting the protagonist cut through even lethal karma, unknown influences, and beings as powerful as the Immortals. The protagonist realizes this may let them challenge higher realms.
• While deciding which newly acquired talent to test, the protagonist receives a warning from I Am the Chess Player: use Future Letter first and do not use Ten Gates.
• The resulting letter, apparently sent by a future version of the protagonist, warns: “Do not trust the first being unlocked through Ten Gates.” That being is an Otherworldly Demon who has deceived everyone.
• Despite the warning, the protagonist activates Ten Gates, reasoning that the letter forbids trust, not contact. The familiar world disappears, replaced by boundless chaos and a series of immense conceptual gates.

Character developments and interactions

• The protagonist gains a formidable offensive ability and takes confidence from the realization that their defiant nature meets the Sword Dao Fruit Position’s demanding condition.
• Their Other Self acts in concert with them, attaining the fruit position in the Immortal Realm.
• I Am the Chess Player unexpectedly intervenes, urging caution and revealing that Ten Gates is tied to a serious danger.
• The protagonist’s future self communicates only one urgent warning, suggesting the threat posed by the first being through Ten Gates outweighs other concerns.
• The protagonist chooses curiosity and investigation over avoiding the encounter, but intends to approach the first being with suspicion.

Significant themes

• Defiance and courage: The sword fruit position is earned through willingness to challenge overwhelming power.
• Power through concepts: White Edge is more than raw damage; it imposes the possibility of being cut even on seemingly untouchable forces.
• Fate and future knowledge: A future self reaches back with limited but crucial information, raising questions about what they have experienced.
• Trust, deception, and curiosity: The warning creates tension between caution and the protagonist’s desire to see the truth firsthand.
• Cosmic scale: The gates reveal a level of reality so vast that the protagonist’s known world—including the Immortal Realm and the Higher-Dimensional Land—seems insignificant.

Plot points and events

• Chen Fan is drawn toward the first of ten dazzling conceptual gates. Unable to move, he watches as the gate comes to him and eventually swallows him.
• The gate bears an eerie silver-and-gold clown mask and a mysterious poem describing a masked figure, a cosmic game, karma, and a legacy left for those who come after.
• Beyond the gate, Chen Fan finds himself mortal: he cannot use his powers or talents. Reassured by his Rainbow Talent that he is absolutely safe, he explores a stark world dominated by black and white.
• A masked being appears and says he has waited a very long time. Chen Fan recognizes him as the senior Otherworldly Demon warned about in a future letter—the one said to have deceived every existence.
• The stranger knows Chen Fan by name and claims Chen Fan himself once told him to wait beyond the first gate.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Fan shifts from awe and helplessness before the gate to cautious exploration in his powerless state. He is startled when the masked being recognizes him, but admits he does not know how.
• The masked senior is presented as immensely powerful, enigmatic, and apparently tied to Chen Fan’s past or a prior version of him. He suspects Chen Fan may still be in a simulation and responds to Chen Fan’s ignorance with teasing familiarity.
• Their exchange ends on a cliffhanger: the stranger’s claim suggests Chen Fan has a hidden history, perhaps involving the simulation or the events described in the poem.

Significant themes

• Power and vulnerability: Chen Fan enters a higher realm but becomes effectively mortal.
• Identity and hidden history: The masked being recognizes Chen Fan, raising questions about memory, prior selves, and simulation.
• Time and waiting: The repeated “waited too long” motif creates unease and hints at a long-standing connection.
• Masks, games, and legacy: The poem frames existence as a game bound by karma, with a mysterious figure influencing those who come after.

Key plot points and events

• The masked being, “Zero,” claims that Chen Fan is incomplete because he has forgotten his higher-dimensional past self, Past Chen Fan. He says Past Chen Fan asked him to wait before the First Door.
• Chen Fan asks for proof, but Zero first demands to know the Simulator’s level.
• Outside the simulation, the Simulator offers three choices: reveal the level, lie, or refuse and forgo the evidence. Chen Fan chooses to refuse, wary of Zero and mindful of a future letter warning, “He deceived you.”
• The simulated Chen Fan refuses to answer. Zero correctly infers that Chen Fan’s original self intervened and guesses the Simulator is at least LV2.
• Zero then observes that Chen Fan was wary even before the intervention and deduces that this is not his first simulation: Chen Fan must have met him in an earlier one.

Character developments

• Chen Fan remains guarded, choosing not to disclose sensitive information or trust Zero without proof. His caution reflects both the future letter’s warning and his awareness of the original self’s influence.
• Zero appears perceptive and strategic. When denied information, he analyzes Chen Fan’s behavior and draws increasingly specific conclusions.

Significant themes

• Trust and deception: Zero’s claims may be truthful or manipulative, while Chen Fan has reason to distrust him.
• Memory and identity: Chen Fan’s forgotten higher-dimensional past raises questions about who his former self was and what it means to be “incomplete.”
• Control and foresight: The original Chen Fan’s intervention shapes the simulated version’s choices, while Zero tries to infer what lies beyond his reach.
• Information as power: Both characters carefully withhold or seek knowledge, especially about the Simulator.

Character interactions

• Zero presents a claim about Chen Fan’s past and asks for the Simulator’s level in exchange for evidence. Chen Fan refuses, and Zero accepts the refusal but reads it as evidence of outside intervention.
• Chen Fan remains silent when Zero asks why he distrusts him. Zero uses that silence, along with Chen Fan’s behavior, to infer a prior encounter in an earlier simulation.

Key plot points and events

• Chen Fan questions the masked figure about whether a “Past Chen Fan” exists, how powerful he was, whether he had a Simulator, and what he might be planning.
• The figure describes Past Chen Fan as a reckless, idealistic “madman” who risked everything in a final, unwinnable gamble. He confirms that Past Chen Fan also had a Simulator, though its capabilities may have differed, and calls him extraordinarily powerful.
• The figure says Past Chen Fan trapped him in the Black-and-White World and made a deal: he would help the present Chen Fan, then be released. He claims Past Chen Fan failed at the final gamble.
• To help Chen Fan develop his special talent, the figure gives him the Clown Mask. It holds considerable power, can protect Chen Fan from a devastating attack, and using its abilities will deepen Chen Fan’s understanding of the figure.
• As their brief conversation ends, Chen Fan suspects the gift has an ulterior motive: perhaps the figure needs the mask removed from the world to use his own Golden Finger. He identifies him as a “Senior Otherworldly Demon.”

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Fan remains cautious, pressing for information while recognizing the figure’s exceptional ability to infer details about his Simulator.
• The masked figure presents himself as bound by a bargain with Past Chen Fan and willing to help, but his calculated gift prompts Chen Fan to question his true motives.
• Their exchange shifts from interrogation to a tense bargain-like interaction: the figure offers power and protection, while Chen Fan sees the possibility of manipulation.

Significant themes

• Trust and deception: The figure may be mixing truth with falsehood, and even his apparent generosity could serve his own interests.
• Legacy and identity: The possibility that past, present, and future versions of Chen Fan are linked raises questions about how much of his path has been arranged.
• Risk and ambition: Past Chen Fan’s all-or-nothing gamble embodies heroic idealism taken to an extreme.
• Power through understanding: Chen Fan’s talent requires both the figure’s approval and greater insight into him, making the mask a tool for growth as well as a potential trap.

Plot and key events

• The protagonist recognizes that the masked senior is an Otherworldly Demon, matching the warning in a future letter. He refuses to accept the Clown Mask, reasoning that it is likely a physical manifestation of Zero’s hidden Golden Finger ability and would become dangerous outside the protective domain of Rainbow Talent: Ten Gates.
• The protagonist concludes that Ten Gates suppresses other beings’ Golden Finger abilities within its doors; Zero’s long confinement without using his own supports this theory. Taking the mask into reality could remove that protection.
• Zero admits he is frustrated that the protagonist identified him, and praises the protagonist’s overall perceptiveness—while confirming that his earlier claim of having the protagonist’s maximum approval was a lie.
• The door itself awakens a vast power, triggering a system reward. The protagonist’s understanding of Zero reaches 10%, while Zero’s approval is only 1%. Since both values exceed zero, the requirements to draw one of Zero’s abilities are met.
• A colossal wheel displays an enormous collection of Zero’s powers, including authorities, treasures, talents, and his obscured Golden Finger ability. The protagonist immediately accepts the random draw, and the wheel begins to spin.

Character developments and interactions

• The protagonist shows growing caution and analytical skill: rather than trusting Zero’s plausible explanation, he prioritizes the future letter’s warning and Zero’s concealed identity. He is also stunned by how easily the system’s reward condition is satisfied.
• Zero shifts from a composed, persuasive figure to one who openly expresses frustration at being recognized. His deception becomes clearer, and his praise of the protagonist is mixed with evidence that he has been manipulating the truth.
• Their interaction is a contest of concealment and inference: Zero tries to get the protagonist to take the mask, while the protagonist’s knowledge of Zero’s identity prevents him from doing so.

Significant themes

• Trust and deception: Plausible explanations can still conceal dangerous motives.
• Knowledge as protection: Recognizing Zero as an Otherworldly Demon lets the protagonist resist his scheme.
• Power and constraint: Ten Gates appears to neutralize outside Golden Finger abilities within its domain, but that protection may end beyond its doors.
• Uncertainty and risk: The reward offers access to one of Zero’s vast powers, but the draw is random and could even select his mysterious Golden Finger.

Plot points

• Chen Fan wins the Authority of Deception in a draw. It can make even impossible claims or actions real if enough beings believe in them.
• He is stunned to discover that its power exactly matches Deception, the third ability of the Supreme Limitless Dharma Seal. This raises the possibility that the Seal’s abilities—Rewind, Amplification, and Deception—are fragments of powerful authorities, not ordinary functions of a “True Treasure.”
• Chen Fan questions “Zero” about Senior Lin Feng and the legendary Supreme Dao Immortal Venerable. Zero dodges the question, prompting Chen Fan to call them a liar.
• Chen Fan points out that Zero’s warning about the time limit was false: he has been inside the gate far longer than the promised incense-stick’s burn time.
• When Chen Fan asks whether Past Chen Fan exists, Zero admits they have never met him and that their earlier claims about him were fabricated from impressions of other beings.
• Zero explains that they knew Chen Fan’s name because it was engraved on the gate. The mist lifts, revealing the inscription: Gate Master: Chen Fan; Disciple: “Zero.” Chen Fan realizes Zero concealed it and used the information to ingratiate themself with him.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Fan moves from exhilaration at his reward to deep suspicion about the Dharma Seal’s origins. He directly challenges Zero’s evasions and presses for the truth, though he remains exhausted and exasperated.
• Zero is revealed as playful and manipulative: they use mockery, misleading time limits, and concealed information to control the interaction. They do eventually admit the truth about Past Chen Fan, while maintaining that they may refuse to answer questions.

Significant themes

• Truth, deception, and belief: The new authority turns falsehood into reality through belief, while Zero’s lies shape Chen Fan’s understanding of events.
• Uncertainty about power and origins: The apparent link between the authority and the Dharma Seal suggests that the Seal may be far more extraordinary than its classification implies.
• Information and trust: Zero’s concealed knowledge—and Chen Fan’s effort to expose it—makes their relationship defined by suspicion, manipulation, and uneasy authority.

Plot and key events

After questioning Zero about why it was confined behind the first of the Ten Gates, the protagonist learns only that Zero lost and was locked away. He leaves without pressing further and returns to the real world.
The protagonist tests the newly acquired deception authority, finding it far more powerful than the related ability he previously possessed: it takes belief from only three Nascent Soul True Lords—or ten thousand Golden Core cultivators—to activate. This prompts him to intensify and broaden his plan to “herd all living beings” by spreading his Dao and extracting value from their cultivation.
In the Immortal Realm, he raises mortals and weaker beings to embryonic-breath perfection, supplies Heavenly Rule Inscription-created wonders so they can reach heaven-grade Qi refining, and uses their progress to gain fortune, experience, and other benefits. He also exchanges valuable resources through Equivalent Exchange and enrolls cultivators into his Heavenly Gate, exploiting the Disciple-Teaching Returns ability to collect feedback from disciples.
The protagonist’s recruitment policy is ruthlessly pragmatic. Some powerful cultivators are first enrolled to trigger the returns, then killed for rewards and recycled resources. He offers resources and even fruit positions to promising Golden Core cultivators, presenting the arrangement as benevolent while treating everyone as a source of growth.
With Chen Qingyan’s consent, he expands the same system into the Dream Realm, sparing only the Immortal Palace before establishing another Heavenly Gate. He then sends other selves to spread the Dao across the myriad worlds, using Immortal-Settling Journey to ensure they travel only where they face no danger. He applies the plan as well to the incomplete Eternal Primordial Chaos Willow World and its countless derivative worlds, creating a kind of cultivation “assembly line.”

Character developments and interactions

• The protagonist becomes more openly calculating and ambitious. His new deception authority encourages him to revise his strategy, and he uses every available resource, ability, and living being to strengthen himself. He frames this exploitation as generosity, even joking that the Immortal Realm is fortunate to have him.
• Zero remains guarded. It answers the protagonist’s question briefly but refuses to discuss Senior Lin Feng, so the protagonist leaves without learning more.
• Chen Qingyan, Lord of the Immortal Palace, grants the protagonist permission to expand his operation in the Dream Realm.
• The protagonist interacts with cultivators mainly as recruits, beneficiaries, targets, or sources of rewards; even former enemies are made to join before being killed.

Significant themes

• Power through deception and belief: The new authority makes other people’s belief a resource the protagonist can deliberately cultivate.
• Exploitation disguised as benevolence: His “Dao-spreading” program offers genuine cultivation opportunities, but its underlying purpose is to harvest benefits and recycle people and resources.
• Scale and systematization: The protagonist turns cultivation into a repeatable, multi-world process rather than a personal undertaking.
• Ruthless pragmatism: He shows little concern for the cost to others, reasoning that every being and object has some value to extract.