Chapter Summaries

Plot points and events

• Chen Fan withdraws the borrowed Foundation Establishment rank, keeping his Qi Refining Perfection foundation while losing the enhanced spiritual-sense range. The Simulator remains upgraded, but its cost returns to the normal level: one Heaven and Earth wonder.
• He asks the Chen Family Ancestor for a wonder. The ancestor refuses a direct trade and instead demands a favor, leaving Chen Fan wary of taking on an unclear obligation.
• Chen Qingyan cannot provide a wonder, but judges that the ancestor’s request is probably a straightforward investment in Chen Fan’s potential, not a hidden karmic or destiny-based scheme.
• With the Eighth Simulation urgent, Chen Fan accepts the favor. The ancestor sends him an Azure Mist Feather Crystal, a wind-element Heaven and Earth wonder.
• Chen Fan recharges the Simulator and begins the Eighth Simulation, drawing one golden and six purple talents.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Fan confirms that he can retain the Simulator’s upgraded functions while lowering its operating cost. Though cautious about debts and hidden risks, he decides the need to simulate outweighs his unease and accepts the ancestor’s favor.
• The Chen Family Ancestor remains enigmatic and firm: he will provide the wonder only in exchange for a favor, which he does not explain.
• Chen Qingyan acts as a cautious adviser, offering a reassuring interpretation of the ancestor’s motives without guaranteeing it.

Talents drawn

• Golden — Myriad Selves: Chen Fan can place concealed projections of himself around the world, share their senses, and later recall them with their cultivation, possessions, memories, and identities.
• Purple — Late Bloomer: His talent improves as he ages.
• Observation: Once every ten years, he can perceive the world from Heaven and Earth’s perspective, at the risk of losing himself to its will.
• Horror Revival: Introduces a mysterious Deep World connected to the real world.
• I Am the Chess Player: In games, schemes, and conflicts, he gains an opening to place a piece and discern part of the setup.
• Anywhere Door: Lets him travel by opening a door after naming a destination, though doing so may involve karmic law.
• Myriad Worlds Shop: Allows purchases with essence, but at a severely inflated exchange rate.

Significant themes

• Power and cost: Chen Fan seeks the advantages of the upgraded Simulator without paying the higher rank-based cost.
• Trust and obligation: The ancestor’s favor is useful but opaque, highlighting the difficulty of weighing immediate gain against an uncertain debt.
• Expanding possibilities and risks: The powerful new talents offer extraordinary reach and insight, but several carry dangers involving loss of consciousness, karma, or an unfamiliar world.

Plot points and events

• Chen Fan reviews seven refreshed talents and rejects several risky options: Observation, which could expose him to assimilation by Heavenly Will; Anywhere Door, which risks punishment from Karmic Law; Horror Revival, whose benefits are too uncertain for his immediate goal of leveling up; and Myriad Worlds Shop, whose unclear description makes it seem less useful.
• He chooses the golden talent Myriad Selves and the purple talents Late Bloomer and I Am the Chess Player. He hopes the latter will work especially well with Once and for All.
• The eighth simulation begins. Chen Fan uses Ascension on Eye of Illusion, transforming it into the purple talent True-Sight Eye, which can perceive a thing’s essence regardless of its rank and resist misleading information imposed by powerful beings.
• He inspects Myriad Selves and learns he has two projection deployments. They can follow karmic threads to an approximate location, so he decides to save them until he finds promising destinations.
• Before using Wish Echo, he receives a warning from I Am the Chess Player and refrains, trusting its judgment that the timing is wrong. He also saves his Spacetime Token rather than spending it without a pressing need.
• The chapter ends as Chen Fan tests True-Sight Eye by attempting to examine his own profile.

Character developments

• Chen Fan is more cautious and deliberate than before, weighing risks and utility rather than choosing powerful-sounding talents blindly.
• He shows growing confidence in his accumulated talents, while remaining disciplined about conserving limited abilities and resources.
• He trusts I Am the Chess Player as a guide to timing and danger, and plans to use Myriad Selves strategically rather than immediately.

Significant themes

• Power versus risk: Extraordinary abilities may carry hidden costs, so restraint is part of becoming stronger.
• Preparation and timing: Chen Fan saves tools for situations where they can make the greatest difference.
• Truth and deception: True-Sight Eye offers a way to see through distortions caused by higher-ranked forces.
• Strategic agency: The chess-player talent emphasizes identifying when and how to break a deadlock.

Character interactions

• The chapter focuses almost entirely on Chen Fan’s decisions and his interactions with his talents. I Am the Chess Player warns him against activating Wish Echo, and Chen Fan accepts the warning.
• He also considers how I Am the Chess Player and Once and for All could complement one another, and how Myriad Selves might be deployed to exploit valuable locations.

Key plot points and events

• Chen Fan uses True-Sight Eye to inspect himself and Chen Qingyan. His own information remains partly obscured by unknown high-level forces, while Chen Qingyan’s reveals a dangerous reincarnation, missing memories, and several powerful beings’ involvement in his fate.
• Chen Fan learns that Chen Qingyan’s hidden secret realm can shelter him from some forms of scrutiny, though not from the strongest True Lords. He asks Chen Qingyan to take him there.
• Inside the realm, Chen Fan deploys his first True Self Projection. The projection shares his essence—including fortune, cultivation speed, and potential—and appears to escape the notice of the unseen watchers. Their synchronized essence creates a compounding benefit for both bodies.
• Chen Fan begins cultivating, then uses Unrestricted to remove the Qi Refining realm’s limit on the number of limit-breaking levels. The restriction breaks, and he reaches Tenfold Limit-Breaking.

Character developments

• Chen Fan becomes more confident in his abilities and strategic position. He discovers that his projection can multiply his essential advantages, but remains cautious, saving a second deployment for the Ten Thousand Beasts Secret Realm.
• Chen Qingyan is revealed to be a gifted but cursed and heavily manipulated figure whose ultimate fate is still uncertain. He cooperates readily with Chen Fan and guides him to the hidden realm.

Significant themes

• Freedom versus limitation: Chen Fan uses Unrestricted to break a fundamental cultivation ceiling.
• Identity and multiplicity: The projection is a separate “other self,” yet shares and amplifies Chen Fan’s core essence.
• Hidden manipulation and uncertain fate: Powerful, unseen actors influence both characters, and apparent benevolence does not make their motives easy to judge.
• Caution amid growing power: Chen Fan gains major advantages but avoids acting recklessly under the gaze of stronger forces.

Character interactions

• Chen Fan directly examines Chen Qingyan, uncovering more of his troubled history and the schemes surrounding him.
• He tells Chen Qingyan he wants to visit the secret realm; Chen Qingyan agrees without pressing him for an explanation and escorts him there.
• After Chen Qingyan leaves, Chen Fan remains in seclusion, tests his projection, and advances his cultivation alone.

Key plot points and events

• After reaching the tenth Qi Refining limit-breaking layer, the protagonist’s essence doubles rather than remaining unchanged. Their cultivation efficiency rises sharply through the combined effects of personal cultivation, the Once and for All talent, and their “other self” projection.
• Over the following years, they break through repeatedly, reaching the nineteenth limit-breaking layer by age twenty-four. Essence and cultivation speed increase exponentially, though each breakthrough takes longer.
• Their growing fortune brings better rewards in the Secret Realm: they gain two intact, high-quality heaven and earth wonders, unlike the damaged wonder they struggled to obtain earlier.
• The protagonist realizes that their apparent strength—roughly comparable on paper to a Foundation Establishment cultivator—does not guarantee parity with experienced opponents, who may possess hidden trump cards or complicated karma.
• At age twenty-two, Chen Qingyan visits. The protagonist tests the Supreme Limitless Dharma Seal’s Amplification ability, but it cannot overcome the essence-amplification cap.
• The protagonist considers using a second projection to speed cultivation, then decides to reserve it for the Ten Thousand Beasts Secret Realm, hoping to exploit a karmic connection without triggering the realm’s rules.
• At age twenty-five, they end their five-year secluded cultivation because the Ten Thousand Beasts Secret Realm is about to open.

Character developments

• The protagonist grows dramatically in power and fortune, while becoming more cautious about judging strength by conventional cultivation ranks.
• Their progress raises deeper questions about the nature and possible limits of limit-breaking. They suspect it may involve more than simply unlocking potential, but postpone investigating until they can consult Lin Feng.
• Their planning becomes increasingly strategic: rather than maximize immediate cultivation, they preserve a projection for use in the Secret Realm’s larger, uncertain schemes.
• Chen Qingyan’s visit provides an opportunity to test a powerful treasure, though the experiment confirms that some cultivation rules remain beyond even supreme artifacts.

Significant themes

• Exponential growth and its cost: Limit-breaking multiplies essence and cultivation efficiency, but the time and effort required for each new layer also escalate.
• Limits and unknown rules: The amplification cap, the absence of any visible endpoint, and the seal’s failure suggest that the path operates under deeper laws.
• Power versus experience: Raw strength does not account for hidden techniques, trump cards, or karma.
• Fortune and opportunity: Greater fortune directly improves the protagonist’s rewards in the Secret Realm.
• Long-term strategy: The protagonist prioritizes future leverage and covert positioning over faster short-term advancement.

Character interactions

• Chen Qingyan visits the protagonist, lending the Supreme Limitless Dharma Seal for the amplification test; the protagonist returns it when it fails to affect their essence.
• The protagonist plans to seek Lin Feng’s insight into limit-breaking during a future activation of the Spacetime Token.
• The protagonist’s observations of the Chen Family Ancestor and other high-level cultivators reinforce their caution about assuming opponents are ordinary or fully understood.

Plot points and events

• At the secret-realm entrance, the narrator uses the True-Sight Eye and discovers that the supposed Golden Core realm is actually an unclaimed Half-Immortal’s legacy. The revelation suggests a power beyond Spirit Transformation and explains why major factions are maneuvering around the site.
• The narrator suspects the realm’s open entry may be part of a larger ritual or selection, and considers the factions’ possible positions: Lin Feng’s group to the north, Blazing Sun Province to the south, and a Bodhisattva’s investigation to the west.
• Rather than join the crowds, the narrator and Chen Qingyan head east, following traces of ancient, high-level battles to a vast battlefield ruin and a lone stone gate.
• Chen Qingyan touches the gate’s inscriptions, which enter his mind. They carry a message from an old friend: “A Half-Immortal’s legacy brings calamity, not fortune. Seek no further. We shall not meet again!”
• The narrator concludes that Lin Feng and others likely prepared plans in more than one direction, and resolves to ask the Devil Master about the message’s author.

Character developments and interactions

• The narrator shifts from treating the site as a dangerous but ordinary secret realm to recognizing it as part of a much larger, potentially perilous contest. Despite limited information, they choose to investigate the east.
• Chen Qingyan trusts the narrator’s judgment and follows without question. After receiving the inscription’s message, he is unsettled but accepts the old friend’s wish to sever contact.
• The narrator suspects the Devil Master may be the old friend—or at least know who it is—because he previously said he had secretly helped Chen Qingyan.

Significant themes

• Hidden power and incomplete knowledge: The narrator can identify the legacy’s nature but not its full danger or purpose.
• Schemes and manipulation: Powerful factions may be using the realm’s entrants as pieces in a broader plan.
• The cost of seeking power: The warning frames the Half-Immortal’s legacy as a source of calamity rather than a prize.
• Separation and unresolved identity: Chen Qingyan’s past remains obscure, and the old friend’s farewell deepens the mystery.

Key plot points and events

• After finding only the ancient gate intact in the battlefield ruins, the protagonist warns Chen Qingyan not to investigate further. Chen agrees, and both leave when the secret realm closes.
• Three days later, the protagonist uses Myriad Selves to create a second projection in the secret realm. It searches for traces of fallen cultivators but finds nothing; going deeper would expose it to powerful Golden Core forces, so it retreats near the ruins.
• Back home, the protagonist continues cultivating with the aid of two projections. They reach the nineteenth limit-breaking level at age 25 and the twentieth at age 27, but their essence still shows no apparent limit.
• Worried that cultivation is progressing too slowly, the protagonist studies and masters Heaven-Bartering Fortune, a spellcraft that exchanges personal resources for benefits from heaven and earth.
• The protagonist sacrifices nearly all their estimated 16,000 years of lifespan, leaving only one year. The exchange itself provides little, but the sacrifice triggers Late Bloomer to awaken explosively. Their essence and related attributes multiply at an accelerating rate.
• The resulting supernatural phenomena attract powerful observers. As danger closes in, Once and for All activates the dormant Spacetime Token. A scholar appears through a light screen and asks why the Temporal Decree reacted.

Character developments

• The protagonist shifts from cautious cultivation to a drastic gamble, accepting near-total loss of lifespan in pursuit of faster growth. The gamble unlocks immense power but exposes them to scrutiny.
• Chen Qingyan demonstrates trust in the protagonist by accepting the warning and withdrawing from the ruins.
• The scholar reappears as a composed but authoritative figure, apparently connected to the mysterious Temporal Decree.

Significant themes

• Power at a cost: The protagonist trades nearly all their lifespan for a seemingly trivial return, only to trigger a far greater transformation.
• Growth and limits: Despite repeated breakthroughs, the protagonist remains frustrated by the seemingly endless path ahead.
• Risk versus restraint: The protagonist avoids a dangerous expedition in the secret realm but later takes an extreme risk in cultivation.
• Hidden forces and surveillance: The protagonist’s breakthrough draws attention from powerful entities, suggesting their development is no longer concealed.

Character interactions

• The protagonist persuades Chen Qingyan to leave the ancient ruins, prioritizing survival over curiosity.
• The protagonist’s projection operates independently in the secret realm but remains under the original self’s direction.
• The chapter ends with the scholar addressing the protagonist through the Spacetime Token, linking the sudden awakening to the Temporal Decree.

Key plot points and events

• The protagonist contacts Lin Feng through the Spacetime Token, explaining the simulation rules and their current predicament.
• They ask whether Qi Refining limit-breaking has a true upper limit. Lin Feng says ninefold is the theoretical limit, but recounts witnessing a cultivator from the Second Era reach 100,000 layers and suppress a Spirit Transformation Dao Master.
• Lin Feng says he himself tried to exceed the ninefold restriction but was stopped by a supreme barrier, which he suspects was established by someone at least as powerful as karmic law. The protagonist realizes their unrestricted talent can bypass a barrier of that magnitude.
• The protagonist asks about Immortals. Lin Feng reacts with alarm, warns that the subject is beyond the protagonist’s level, and says Immortals are above karmic law—yet insists that none have ever existed, or ever will, in the Myriad Worlds.
• With the Spacetime Token close to expiring, the protagonist explains that the talent late bloomer has caused their essence to surge and attracted powerful attention. Lin Feng offers a solution: a talisman supposedly hidden beneath the Chen Family’s Old Locust Tree, which can fully activate a buried Supreme Treasure.
• Karmic-law fluctuations end the connection, and the Light Screen disappears.

Character developments

• The protagonist shows greater caution than before, prioritizing questions about limit-breaking and Immortals before seeking practical help. They conceal sensitive information about the secret realm to avoid karmic-law punishment.
• Lin Feng shifts from his usual reassuring manner to solemnity when discussing the restriction on limit-breaking and especially the subject of Immortals. His personal failure to break the restriction adds weight to his warning.

Significant themes

• Limits and transcendence: Ninefold cultivation is the accepted ceiling, but extraordinary individuals can exceed it, while even Lin Feng was blocked by a higher power.
• Forbidden knowledge and cosmic hierarchy: The truth about Immortals is dangerous and inaccessible to those below a certain level.
• Power’s consequences: The protagonist’s rapid growth draws attention from beings far stronger than them.
• Caution under fate’s rules: The protagonist must manage what they reveal because karmic law can punish disclosures.

Character interactions

• The protagonist consults Lin Feng as both a source of historical knowledge and a potential adviser, carefully controlling what they disclose.
• Lin Feng answers the cultivation question with a personal recollection, then shuts down further inquiry about Immortals with a grave warning.
• When the protagonist finally describes their immediate crisis, Lin Feng responds lightly and points them toward the talisman beneath the Old Locust Tree as a way to deal with it.

Key events

• After supreme beings’ scrutiny returns, the protagonist uses a concealed projection to retrieve a talisman Lin Feng hid with the Heavenly Secret Creation Jade Butterfly.
• The talisman’s power awakens the jade butterfly, which conceals the protagonist from heavenly and karmic detection below the Dao Master level. Its protection will last five years, giving the protagonist time to establish a secure foundation.
• The protagonist leaves the heavily watched secret realm and cultivates in a cave. Late Bloomer’s enhancement reaches Nascent Soul-level essence, and cultivation breakthroughs accelerate dramatically.
• The protagonist advances through Qi Refining Limit-Breaking, reaching 100 levels—believed to correspond to Golden Core-level strength—and then 300 levels, where normal-state essence reaches the Golden Core Middle Stage.
• Meanwhile, the concealed “other self” in the Ten Thousand Beasts Secret Realm benefits from the same Nascent Soul-level essence. Though weaker than a true Nascent Soul cultivator, it can easily handle ordinary Golden Core opponents and is ready to explore the Myriad Beasts Mountain Range.

Character developments and interactions

• The protagonist shifts from avoiding the attention of powerful beings to using the five-year concealment window to cultivate and prepare. Their confidence grows as they realize how rapidly their strength is increasing.
• Lin Feng supports the protagonist from afar, leaving behind a powerful talisman and instructions about the jade butterfly’s limits.
• The protagonist’s main body and projection operate in parallel: one cultivates safely, while the other can explore the secret realm without revealing the protagonist’s presence.

Significant themes

• Concealment and autonomy: Protection from cosmic scrutiny prevents the protagonist from being manipulated by supreme beings.
• Rapid growth and unconventional progression: Qi Refining Limit-Breaking becomes a scale of advancement that appears to parallel major cultivation realms.
• Strategic preparation: The protagonist treats the five-year reprieve as a chance to build strength before future threats arrive.

Key plot points and events

• The protagonist sends his “other self” deeper into the Ten Thousand Beasts Secret Realm, despite Lin Feng’s warnings about investigating matters involving Immortals. He believes the Half-Immortal’s legacy may contain an unclaimed fortune.
• Deep inside, he encounters an invisible formation that appears designed to screen or select who may pass. He tears open a narrow gap and enters.
• Beyond it lies an eerie rift that seems to swallow light, space, and time. A strand of divine sense sent inside loses contact, and then the rift’s force drags the Nascent Soul-level other self in despite its strength and protective talent.
• Just before the projection disappears, the protagonist senses a faint, ancient-sounding sigh. His main body assumes the other self has fallen into another scheme and keeps the reclamation channel open while using the projection to scout.
• The other self emerges in a landscape resembling the area outside the secret realm. Everything—including the spiritual energy, Dao laws, and a rogue cultivator’s memories—indicates that it is the Supreme True Realm.
• Yet the main body cannot sense the projection normally. The protagonist concludes this is probably not the real present world, but a highly realistic illusion or a separate mirror world.

Character developments

• The protagonist’s curiosity and confidence lead him to disregard earlier warnings and force his way through the formation. The rift’s power shocks him and makes him suspect that a powerful being has targeted him.
• After the disappearance, he becomes cautious and strategic: rather than immediately reclaiming the other self, he uses it to investigate while preserving a weak recovery link.

Significant themes

• Curiosity and risk: The pursuit of a possible legacy draws the protagonist into danger despite his awareness of the risks.
• Hidden powers and deception: The formation, rift, and apparent world suggest that forces beyond the protagonist’s understanding may be manipulating events.
• Reality and uncertainty: The “outside” world appears completely authentic, but the broken connection and other anomalies cast doubt on what it is.

Character interactions

• Lin Feng’s earlier warnings shape the protagonist’s decision but do not stop him from investigating.
• The protagonist’s main body and other self remain linked only through a fragile projection–reclamation channel.
• The protagonist briefly invades a rogue cultivator’s mind to verify where the other self has arrived, then leaves the cultivator unconscious.

Key plot points and events

• The simulated clone discovers that this world’s factions differ sharply from the familiar Nine Regions: the Central Continent is ruled by the Heavenly Court, the west by a Buddhist realm, the north by the Burial Sky Pivot and Demon Abyss, and the east by the Immortal Palace.
• The Immortal Palace’s origin is tied to the Dream Master, who supposedly attained immortality after a ten-thousand-year dream and came to rule heaven and earth. The claim unsettles the protagonist because Senior Lin Feng had insisted that immortals could not exist in the Myriad Worlds.
• Back in the cave, the protagonist consults a faction guide and realizes that records of the east and north have been inexplicably absent from everything he has encountered.
• His purple talents flare, and a hidden note falls from the guide, revealing that the Eastern Region is an End-of-Dharma deadland, cut off from the realm but still connected by lingering karma. The Northern Domain is a land of sin, burdened by karmic debt and barred from the path to immortality.
• The protagonist concludes that a powerful, unseen force has deliberately concealed these facts. He suspects the note appeared because I Am the Chess Player recognized an opportunity to intervene in a deadlock.

Character developments and interactions

• The protagonist shifts from curiosity about the apparent false world to serious suspicion that its mysteries are connected to forces in the real world. He grows wary of an entity powerful enough to influence events despite the protection left by Lin Feng at his peak.
• His other self witnesses the Immortal Palace on the eastern horizon, while the original body investigates its significance through the guide and the newly revealed note.
• Lin Feng’s warning against investigating immortals remains a crucial influence on the protagonist’s caution.
• The protagonist compares the unseen force with the Mysterious Dao Master, judging that it may rival Lin Feng’s level—far beyond the Dao Master’s demonstrated power.

Significant themes

• Truth concealed by power: Information about entire regions has been suppressed by an unknown influence.
• Immortality and forbidden knowledge: The Dream Master’s ascension challenges established beliefs and risks crossing a boundary Lin Feng explicitly warned against.
• Karma and cosmic exclusion: The east and north are isolated in different ways—one severed yet still connected, the other condemned under an overwhelming karmic burden.
• Agency amid a larger game: The protagonist’s talent frames the revelation as a possible move in a wider struggle, suggesting that even discovering the truth may be part of someone else’s design.

Key plot points and events

• The protagonist sends an “other self” to investigate a false version of the Supreme True Realm, beginning in Blazing Sun Province.
• The province lacks the Chen Family and Blackstone Town. The protagonist concludes that this world’s Heavenly Court is the original Heavenly Court, never sealed away at the end of an era.
• Comparing histories, the protagonist suspects the differences all stem from the absence of Beyond Heaven—and therefore Lin Feng. Without them, the Heavenly Court remained powerful, the Chen Family never rose, the Devil Master founded the Demon Abyss without interference, and the creator of the Dao-Burying Fruit Position avoided involvement.
• The protagonist wonders whether this world could be the true Half-Immortal Legacy, but doubts that a mere Half-Immortal could create such a convincing reality. Remembering a mysterious sigh, they head to the Immortal Palace to investigate.
• At the Immortal Palace, the protagonist reveals their Nascent Soul True Lord aura and senses ten beings of comparable rank. Despite the danger, they request an audience with the palace’s master and are unexpectedly admitted.
• Inside, the palace contains countless miniature worlds. The protagonist is drawn into a bamboo-grove world, where they meet the master—and recognize him as Chen Qingyan.

Character developments

• The protagonist shifts from cautious exploration to direct confrontation, deciding that uncovering the world’s truth outweighs the risks to their projected “other self.”
• The Immortal Palace’s master looks exactly like Chen Qingyan, but seems more detached and imperious, lacking the restrained, weathered quality of the Chen Qingyan the protagonist knows.

Significant themes

• Alternate histories and causality: The absence of Beyond Heaven reshapes the world’s major powers and historical events.
• Reality and illusion: The protagonist questions whether this elaborate world is a genuine realm, a legacy, or an artificial construction.
• Power and perspective: The Immortal Palace’s concentration of Nascent Soul True Lords challenges the protagonist’s understanding of the world’s scale and strength.
• Identity: The resemblance between the two Chen Qingyans raises the question of whether they are the same person or distinct versions.

Character interactions

• The protagonist boldly asks for an audience, expecting hostility, but receives a calm invitation.
• Face-to-face with the Immortal Palace’s master, the protagonist names him “Chen Qingyan.” The man responds with genuine confusion, asking how the protagonist knows his name.

Key plot points and events

• The protagonist’s clone meets Chen Qingyan, Lord of the Immortal Palace, who reveals Heavenly Venerable-level strength. Chen agrees to talk because he considers the clone too weak to threaten him.
• The protagonist explains that he was pulled from the Ten Thousand Beasts Secret Realm. Chen says cultivators from the main world have appeared in this world every fifty years, usually at low cultivation levels; the protagonist is unusual because his Nascent Soul-ranked clone has only Qi Refining cultivation.
• Chen confirms that this world lacks Beyond Heaven, Spirit Transformation Dao Masters, and even the supreme karmic law known in the main world. The protagonist suspects something is fundamentally wrong with it.
• Chen forcibly searches the clone’s soul, then recognizes the main world’s powers and reveals that this place is the Dream Realm, created by his master, the Dream Master.
• The Dream Master created it to evade karmic law, Beyond Heaven, and the Supreme Dao Immortal Venerable, in pursuit of immortality. Chen does not know whether his master was a Half-Immortal or ever became an immortal; the protagonist infers that the “Half-Immortal legacy” refers to him.
• When the protagonist asks about the first person to reach the Dream Realm, Chen reveals that the visitor came from Beyond Heaven, called himself Eternal Pole Dao Venerable, and claimed to be Chen’s eldest senior brother.

Character developments and interactions

• The protagonist remains cautious and candid, withholding his theory that the world may be false while using the meeting to gather information. He is startled by Chen’s revelations but keeps probing.
• Chen is blunt, suspicious, and decisive: he dismisses the protagonist as harmless, doubts his explanation, and searches his soul rather than asking permission. Despite this, he answers several questions out of regard for his main-world counterpart’s connection to the protagonist.
• Their exchange shifts from a tense interrogation into a revelation about the Dream Realm’s origin and the protagonist’s possible connection to its earliest visitor.

Significant themes

• Reality and illusion: Chen describes the Dream Realm as something that may be both real and false.
• Escaping cosmic law: The Dream Master’s world was built as a means of evading higher powers and karmic law in pursuit of immortality.
• Identity and connection across worlds: Chen’s “eldest senior brother” revelation links the Dream Realm’s history to a figure from Beyond Heaven.

Key plot points and events

• Chen Qingyan’s account reveals that roughly 5,000 years earlier, Eternal Pole Dao Venerable—who claimed to be Beyond Heaven’s Eldest Senior Brother—arrived in the Dream Realm searching for something. After battling three Heavenly Venerables at the Heavenly Court ruins, he stopped when the Lord of the Immortal Palace intervened, then left after discussing the main world.
• The narrator concludes that Eternal Pole Dao Venerable was probably the person awaited in the eastern ruins, and that he likely left the warning that the half-immortal legacy was a curse.
• While researching the Dream Realm’s history, the narrator learns that its eras end in immeasurable kalpas, when immortality becomes possible. The Dream Master attempted to become immortal at the start of a kalpa but failed, leaving the half-immortal legacy.
• A mysterious sigh triggers the narrator’s talents, which command the Dream Realm “other self” to break through to Foundation Establishment. The other self’s 500 strands of primordial qi forge an immense 500,000-zhang Dao foundation.
• The narrator realizes the Dream Realm is likely an artificial, closed-loop world: its past and future are scripted, and even its history and laws are fabricated.
• At the moment of breakthrough, a powerful will attempts to possess the other self. The “myriad selves” talent repels and dissolves it.
• The apparent collapse of a core mechanism causes the Dream Realm’s concepts—its landscapes, celestial bodies, history, and inhabitants—to pour into the Dao foundation. The other self breaks through and awakens the major divine ability True-False Supreme Realm.

Character developments

• The narrator shifts from believing the Dream Realm’s history at face value to recognizing it as a constructed reality, while remaining alert to the Lord of the Immortal Palace’s possible manipulation.
• The other self’s extraordinary cultivation—built through 500-layer Qi Refining—culminates in a vast Dao foundation and a breakthrough beyond ordinary limits.
• The Lord of the Immortal Palace is increasingly ambiguous: his words may have encouraged the narrator to trust the Dream Realm’s reality for an unknown purpose.
• Eternal Pole Dao Venerable is identified as the likely source of the warning, though his motives remain unclear.

Significant themes

• Reality and illusion: The Dream Realm’s apparent history and laws may be only a preset script.
• Power and risk: The half-immortal legacy promises a path toward immortality but is described as a curse.
• Control and resistance: The breakthrough is commanded by the narrator’s talents, while the realm’s own will tries to seize the resulting Dao fruit.
• Transformation through disruption: Breaking the realm’s possession attempt appears to destabilize its foundations and turns its entire reality into the other self’s cultivation.

Character interactions

• Chen Qingyan provides the narrator with crucial historical information about Eternal Pole Dao Venerable.
• The Lord of the Immortal Palace previously negotiated with Eternal Pole Dao Venerable and may now be steering the narrator toward trusting the Dream Realm.
• The narrator’s talents direct and protect the other self during the breakthrough, while the Dream Realm’s mysterious will attempts to possess him.

• Key events: The simulated self breaks through to Foundation Establishment inside the Ten Thousand Beasts Secret Realm and is teleported outside, apparently having obtained a half-immortal legacy. Chen Fan realizes he can use this self’s Foundation Establishment abilities without advancing his own cultivation. He hopes that, after the simulation, having the self inherit a saved Nascent Soul-level reward will also upgrade the Simulator—possibly twice—and grant him much greater power.
• Character developments: The simulated self briefly feels envy and bitterness toward Chen Fan, who may benefit from his eventual “death,” but accepts his position as a clone and resolves to make the most of his own path. Chen Fan, meanwhile, becomes excited by the possibility of rapid Simulator upgrades and gaining high-level combat strength without changing his own realm.
• New ability and interaction: The self examines his awakened major divine ability, True-False Supreme Realm. The Dream Master’s voice accompanies its activation, but the self dismisses the apparent interference as irrelevant to Chen Fan. The ability creates an illusory world with no karma, apparently beyond the reach of karmic law. Time can be adjusted inside it, though its full capabilities remain unknown. The self considers whether it could protect him from karmic punishment but postpones testing that idea.
• Further progress: Avoiding the secret realm, the self rapidly advances through Foundation Establishment’s middle, late, and perfection stages, then begins Foundation Establishment limit-breaking. Because he meets the requirements—including having a major life-bound divine ability and having limit-broken during Qi Refining—he succeeds.
• Themes: The chapter explores the divide between a person and their simulated counterpart, ambition and envy tempered by acceptance, and the strategic value of exploiting one’s own abilities. It also emphasizes escalating power, hidden cosmic interference, and the potential to evade the laws governing reality.

Key plot points and events

• The protagonist’s “other self” rapidly advances through Foundation Establishment limit-breaking, expanding his Dao foundation from 520,000 to 590,000 zhang in under two days and reaching the ninth layer.
• He cannot break through to a tenth layer: the realm has a limit, and the talent that might overcome it has already been used in Qi Refining.
• Preparing to pursue Golden Core, he answers a summons from the Chen Family Ancestor and goes to the ancestral shrine.
• His danger sense warns him that the meeting is a trap. Third Elder Chen Ming appears, but True-Sight reveals he is a puppet possessed by a Nascent Soul perfection Heavenly Venerable.
• The enemy intends to injure the protagonist’s past self in a way that will affect his future while avoiding karmic backlash. Just before the puppet can strike, the protagonist’s life-bound divine ability activates through the link with his other self and pulls him into the karma-free true-false supreme realm.
• The Heavenly Venerable cannot find him. After reflecting on the protagonist’s unexpected escape, the enemy decides to activate a contingency plan.

Character developments and interactions

• The protagonist grows far stronger and more confident, but his confidence is checked by the discovery that a vastly more powerful enemy has anticipated his existence. His composure gives way to alarm, then he survives through the connection with his other self and his unusual abilities.
• The other self remains physically distant but proves crucial, transmitting the danger signal and enabling the protagonist to use its life-bound divine ability.
• The Heavenly Venerable reveals himself as a calculating, future-aware adversary. He is surprised by the protagonist’s escape, admires his resourcefulness, and shifts to a backup plan.
• Chen Ming is revealed not to be acting as himself, but as the possessed puppet through which the Heavenly Venerable attacks.

Significant themes

• Growth and limits: Even extraordinary advancement encounters barriers that cannot be overcome with the protagonist’s currently available talent.
• Karma, fate, and time: The enemy attempts to change the protagonist’s past indirectly to influence his future without provoking karmic law.
• Identity and connection: The bond between the protagonist and his other self becomes a literal means of survival.
• Preparation and contingency: Both sides rely on unusual abilities and layered plans, with the enemy’s final decision setting up further danger.

Key plot points and events

• After surviving the attack in the phantom Ancestral Shrine, the protagonist reviews what happened. The attacker was likely a present-day Nascent Soul perfection expert—possibly the near-Immortal Venerable mentioned by the Devil Master—and not someone acting from the future.
• The protagonist connects this threat to earlier mysteries: the Chen Family’s karmic protection, Chen Ming’s past attack, and Chen Qingyan’s unfinished claim that the force behind events was not the True Lord associated with illusion and reality.
• To escape the Shrine, the protagonist tries to use the newly awakened true-false supreme realm to teleport to another self. The ability allows control to be transferred between selves, making remote extraction possible.
• I am the chess player reveals that leaving would trigger a curse tied to the protagonist’s borrowed attunement rank from the Chen Family Ancestor. The curse would erase their rank, body, soul, and true spirit.
• The protagonist concludes that escape is impossible for now and suspects the attacker has deliberately trapped them, despite the karmic backlash such a curse should provoke. They decide to investigate through another self in Chen Qingyan’s old secret realm.

Character developments

• The protagonist shifts from immediate survival to careful investigation, recognizing that the enemy is powerful and that the danger may involve a larger scheme.
• Despite being trapped, the protagonist stays composed and relies on myriad selves, whose projections conceal karma and resist divination.
• The attacker emerges as a formidable and possibly desperate adversary, willing to risk punishment from karmic law to kill the protagonist.

Significant themes

• Fate, karma, and consequence: Borrowed rank creates the karmic link that makes the curse possible, while the attacker’s actions risk karmic retaliation.
• Entrapment and indirect conflict: The protagonist survives one danger only to discover that the apparent refuge has become a dead end.
• Uncertainty and hidden schemes: The attacker’s identity and motives remain unresolved, and past events take on new significance.
• Adaptation through multiple selves: The protagonist’s distributed selves provide a way to keep acting even when their main body cannot safely move.

Character interactions

• The protagonist recalls the Devil Master’s warning about a near-Immortal Venerable and reinterprets the Chen Family massacre and Chen Qingyan’s cryptic words in light of the current attack.
• The protagonist’s talents—I am the chess player, once and for all, and myriad selves—shape their survival: the first warns of the curse, the second helped preserve them, and the third offers a route to investigate while remaining concealed.
• The conflict with the Heavenly Venerable remains indirect: the protagonist cannot confront or escape the threat, so they turn to another self to uncover more.

Key plot points and events

• The protagonist considers investigating the Chen Family and Sacred Land through an “other self,” but abandons the idea to avoid exposing the clone to karmic surveillance or alerting a powerful Heavenly Venerable.
• Further cultivation seems inefficient: foundation establishment is already at its limit, qi refining has stalled, and ordinary progress could take years. The protagonist also rejects repeatedly reclaiming clones as a costly shortcut.
• Instead, they decide to meet Chen Qingyan and test the Supreme Limitless Dharma Seal’s third ability.
• At age 26, Chen Qingyan arrives after investigating the suspicious circumstances around his family. The protagonist explains their situation and asks to use the seal.
• The seal’s third ability, Deception, can make a falsehood real if someone believes it. Its effects depend on believers’ conviction, number, and strength.
• The protagonist initially doubts this ability could fool powerful figures, but the phrase “I Am the Chess Player” illuminates in their Sea of Consciousness, sparking a possible breakthrough insight: Deception might help them become a Golden Core powerhouse.

Character development

• The protagonist shows greater caution, prioritizing secrecy over risky investigation or modest gains.
• Their understanding of the Dharma Seal deepens. They begin to see its abilities—and the phrase “I Am the Chess Player”—as potentially more significant than they first assumed.
• Chen Qingyan appears wary and methodical, investigating before approaching rather than walking into a possible trap.

Significant themes

• Secrecy and risk: Knowledge-gathering can be dangerous when powerful beings can trace karma or inspect the past.
• The limits of cultivation: Raw effort and accumulated power may not be enough to overcome a bottleneck.
• Belief and reality: The Deception ability makes conviction a force capable of turning falsehood into fact.
• Strategy and control: The protagonist’s “chess player” insight suggests that manipulating belief may offer a way to influence the larger game.

Character interactions

• The protagonist briefly controls an “other self” to observe the Chen Family, then recalls it to avoid detection.
• They summon Chen Qingyan through the old Secret Realm. After cautious conversation and an explanation of their circumstances, the protagonist asks for the Dharma Seal and activates its third ability in his presence.

Key plot points and events

• The narrator considers the near-impossible path to becoming a Golden Core Powerhouse: genuine fruit positions are already claimed, and even derivative ones are unavailable. The previous simulation’s Mo Wuy ya succeeded only through exceptional help from Heaven and Earth.
• With the orthodox route blocked, the narrator considers void-proof, a forbidden method that reverses the usual breakthrough sequence: forge a grotto-heaven at Golden Core Early Stage, then imprint the True Spirit only after successfully achieving void-proof.
• The method is dangerous and was previously possible only with the narrator’s Heaven’s Mandate talent. Now, however, the narrator suspects the Deception ability of the Supreme Limitless Dharma Seal—and a karma-shielded “other self”—might make an audacious attempt survivable.
• Outside the simulation, Chen Fan is offered a choice: abandon void-proof and wait for another opportunity, or pursue it despite the unknown risk. He chooses the second option to explore the method and test Deception.
• In the simulation, the narrator travels with Chen Qingyan after confirming that Chen Qingyan still cannot recover his erased memories. Meanwhile, the narrator deploys another self near the Ten Thousand Beasts Secret Realm, synchronizes it to Foundation Establishment Peak, and sends it to Dao Yan Sacred Land.
• The clone openly announces himself at the gates and declares that he has come to settle his karma with the Sacred Land’s Holy Son.

Character developments

• Chen Fan actively embraces risk, treating the clone’s attempt as a way to scout a dangerous path for himself.
• The narrator/simulated self shifts from cautious observation to bold experimentation, relying on Deception, karma shielding, and strategic use of multiple selves in place of Heaven’s Mandate.
• Chen Qingyan remains unable to retrieve his memories, but becomes the narrator’s companion and someone the narrator intends to protect and monitor.

Significant themes

• Destiny versus self-determination: without Heaven’s favor, the narrator tries to manufacture an opportunity rather than accept the limits imposed by the world.
• Risk and ingenuity: void-proof is a perilous alternative to a blocked orthodox path, demanding a clever—and possibly deceptive—plan.
• Power and access: advancement depends not only on cultivation, but on access to scarce fruit positions controlled by greater powers.
• Control and uncertainty: the simulator’s choice function lets Chen Fan alter the story’s direction, though the consequences remain unknown.

Character interactions

• The narrator and Chen Qingyan discuss his missing memories and agree to travel together, partly for mutual protection.
• Chen Fan intervenes in the simulation by choosing the dangerous void-proof route.
• The deployed clone confronts Dao Yan Sacred Land directly, challenging its Holy Son over unresolved karma.

Key plot points and events

• “Other self” No. 3 appears before the Dao Yan Sacred Land, drawing the attention of its master, the Great True Lord. The protagonist’s Karma Shielding conceals his true origin, encouraging the True Lord to suspect a powerful figure stands behind the newcomer.
• No. 3 tells Dao Wudi that they have no karma yet, but will in the future, and claims Dao Wudi will help him achieve void-proof—a nearly impossible feat in this era.
• No. 3 announces his intention to challenge every Foundation Establishment cultivator and compresses his displayed cultivation from Foundation Establishment Perfection to Late Stage.
• Dao Wudi accepts the challenge, but loses to a single punch before he can use his Life-Bound Divine Ability. No. 3 reveals a 590,000-zhang Great Dao Foundation, demonstrating strength far beyond ordinary prodigies.
• No. 3 leaves without further explanation. The protagonist plans to continue the challenges, using the spectacle to draw out powerful beings while keeping his true body hidden.

Character developments

• The protagonist shows himself to be a deliberate strategist, using No. 3 as a decoy to create a convincing story around his supposed pursuit of void-proof.
• Dao Wudi shifts from bafflement to wary belief in the possibility that a powerful force backs No. 3. Though he accepts the fight to test him, he is quickly overwhelmed.
• The Dao Yan True Lord remains silent and unreadable, apparently watching No. 3 but unable to uncover the protagonist’s concealed identity.

Significant themes

• Deception and misdirection: The protagonist stages a public campaign to conceal his real objective and protect his original body.
• Power and perception: No. 3’s extraordinary foundation persuades observers that he may be a genuine contender for void-proof—and perhaps a pawn in a larger game.
• Risk and calculation: The plan offers a potentially great payoff with little cost, since the protagonist can reclaim the other self if things go wrong.

Character interactions

• No. 3’s cryptic claims unsettle Dao Wudi, especially his prediction of future karma and promise of help with void-proof.
• Dao Wudi and No. 3 fight; No. 3 defeats him instantly, establishing a stark difference in their strength.
• No. 3’s brief upward glance and the True Lord’s silence suggest an unspoken exchange of scrutiny, while leaving the Sacred Land’s observers too intimidated to intervene.

Key plot points and events

• At age 27, Chen Hei builds his reputation by having his “third other-self” challenge Foundation Establishment cultivators across the land and defeat each with a single move. He deliberately prolongs the campaign to create overwhelming momentum and attract the True Lords’ attention.
• After defeating the Jade Pool Sacred Land, he reaches the Blazing Sun Sacred Land—the final stop and, in his view, the faction most likely to be secretly controlling events in Blazing Sun Province.
• Instead of a Saint Son, a former-generation Saint Son appears: a Golden Core expert at perfection who has forged a grotto-heaven. He uses a seemingly impossible divine ability to compress his cultivation to Foundation Establishment perfection and demands a “fair” fight.
• Chen Hei suspects the Blazing Sun True Lord is the hidden enemy behind his family’s destruction. He reasons that the True Lord is testing whether the challenger is Chen Fan by trying to provoke the use of his life-bound divine ability.
• Chen Hei accepts the challenge. Avoiding it would undermine his carefully constructed reputation and his larger plan of “Deception”; fighting may instead persuade the True Lord that Chen Fan has the potential to achieve void-proof.

Character developments

• Chen Hei is patient, strategic, and increasingly confident: he treats the challenge campaign as a way to shape others’ beliefs, not simply to win fights. He recognizes the danger of revealing his divine ability but decides the potential gains outweigh the risk.
• The former-generation Saint Son is introduced as a formidable, composed opponent whose ability to suppress his cultivation masks an extraordinary Golden Core foundation. His contemptuous challenge suggests he is testing Chen Hei rather than seeking a routine contest.
• The Blazing Sun True Lord remains unseen, but Chen Hei’s suspicions about his power, knowledge, and involvement in the Chen family’s destruction sharpen. Chen Hei also considers the possibility that the True Lord could be manipulated into believing in Chen Fan’s future greatness.

Significant themes

• Power and appearances: The opponent’s “fair” Foundation Establishment cultivation conceals Golden Core-level depth, while Chen Hei’s public persona hides a more complex identity and agenda.
• Reputation as strategy: Chen Hei cultivates momentum and an invincible image to influence powerful observers.
• Fate, knowledge, and deception: The possibility that the True Lord knows the future turns the duel into a test of identity and destiny.
• Risk versus opportunity: Chen Hei accepts a dangerous confrontation because retreat could ruin his larger plan.

Character interactions

• Chen Hei’s third other-self once passes his first other-self, traveling with Chen Qingyan, but ignores him after a dismissive glance to preserve the challenger persona.
• At the Blazing Sun gate, Chen Hei confronts the former Saint Son, who provokes him by calling him afraid. Chen Hei stays controlled, weighs the hidden stakes, and finally agrees to fight.
• Behind the duel, Chen Hei imagines a broader contest of wills with the Blazing Sun True Lord, who may be testing him—and whom Chen Hei hopes to turn into a believer in Chen Fan’s potential.