Chapter Summaries

Plot points and events

• The protagonist searches the Western Buddhist Land and uncovers its hidden history: thirty thousand years ago, the Buddha Ancestor founded the Buddhist Dao Fruit system by taking the Humanity Dao’s origin and creating the supreme position known as Pure Land.
• Determined not to repeat an earlier defeat, the protagonist sends his “Other Self” to kill Shakyamuni’s Past Self, the key to severing the Buddha Ancestor’s Future Fruit. The mission carries the risk of retaliation from the entire Buddhist system.
• The protagonist upgrades Heaven-and-Earth Sword into a major divine ability, spending 100,000 attribute points. Despite his vastly superior cultivation and doubled essence, his attacks disappear under the Past Self’s Past and Present technique, leaving the opponent’s health bar untouched.
• Realizing he cannot even land a hit—and would face the Present and Future Selves as well—the protagonist decides to retreat. The Past Self intervenes with a gentle, seemingly harmless touch, killing the Other Self again.

Character developments

• The protagonist approaches the encounter with greater caution after his previous instant death, but still underestimates how completely a supreme fruit position can defy ordinary power.
• His confidence collapses into alarm and pragmatism once his strongest attacks prove useless. He recognizes that retreat is the only sensible choice.
• Shakyamuni’s Past Self is revealed as calm and courteous on the surface, yet lethally powerful.

Significant themes

• Power has limits: Superior cultivation, upgraded abilities, and guaranteed-damage mechanics are ineffective when an opponent’s rules prevent attacks from connecting.
• Arrogance versus caution: The protagonist’s earlier lesson about numerical or realm superiority not ensuring victory shapes his approach, though he still learns that some powers are beyond straightforward calculation.
• The danger of hidden systems: Supreme fruit positions operate through strange, underhanded mechanics that can erase attacks and overturn conventional expectations.

Character interactions

• The protagonist’s “Other Self” attacks Shakyamuni’s Past Self repeatedly, but every strike is erased by Past and Present.
• As the Other Self attempts to withdraw, the Past Self addresses him warmly as a friend and offers to see him off. He then touches the Other Self’s shoulder and kills him before the protagonist can react.

Plot points and events

• The simulated clone is killed repeatedly by Buddha Ancestor · Present Self and returned to the battle’s beginning, trapped in increasingly nested “dreams within dreams.”
• After several deaths, the clone realizes the attacks involve power reaching from the distant past, likely connected to Buddha Ancestor · Past Self and the earth-supreme fruit position.
• The clone tries to flee toward the Immortal Palace and contact Chen Qingyan, but the Buddha Ancestor keeps pursuing him. The Immortal Palace’s lord does not intervene.
• Using the insight of [I Am the Chess Player], the clone sees that the repeated deaths are meant to force him to attain the Tianyan Fruit Position. Chen Qingyan wants this outcome, with the Buddha Ancestor acting as his weapon.
• Rather than accept an unknown fate, the clone self-destructs. Outside the simulation, Chen Fan must choose whether to let the clone comply or investigate first. He chooses to uncover the truth.

Character developments

• The clone moves from confusion and fear to careful observation, then recognizes the larger scheme. He refuses to become a pawn without knowing why.
• Chen Fan is wary of being manipulated, and his choice reflects both that distrust and his belief that the clone shares it. He also sees the investigation as useful for his own future.
• Chen Qingyan’s apparent passivity is revealed as purposeful: he wants the clone to attain the fruit position, though his ultimate motive remains unknown.

Significant themes

• Agency versus predestination: the clone is pushed toward a prescribed destiny but chooses to resist.
• Manipulation and trust: powerful figures pursue hidden agendas, making obedience dangerous.
• Repetition as revelation: each death and reset provides clues about the attacker’s powers and the true purpose of the ordeal.
• Dream and reality: nested cycles blur what is real while serving as a mechanism of coercion.

Character interactions

• The Buddha Ancestor relentlessly attacks the clone with Buddhist chants and mysterious past-linked abilities, forcing him to confront the Tianyan Fruit Position.
• Chen Qingyan remains absent and unresponsive while the clone is targeted, but his silence is eventually understood as part of a plan.
• Chen Fan, observing from outside the simulation, intervenes by choosing investigation over immediate compliance.

Key plot points

• After repeated deaths at the Buddha Ancestor’s hands, the protagonist considers splitting off more projections or retreating, but concludes neither would solve the problem. The system’s quest hints that confronting the mystery is essential.
• He sends a second Other Self into the Supreme True Realm to investigate the Buddha Ancestor while the first remains trapped in the Dream Realm.
• Attempts to gain strength by hunting powerful beings fail: the system grants no rewards, suggesting the dream cycles cannot produce real karma. Seeking the Heavenly Court’s protection and confronting the Buddha Ancestor also end in failure.
• After many deaths, the protagonist glimpses the Buddha Ancestor’s supreme fruit position, Pure Land. Its power appears to govern Buddhist fruit positions: World-True Words makes speech law, while Rampart Earth can rewrite the past. This lets the Buddha Ancestor restore slain Bodhisattvas and kill the protagonist’s Other Self again.
• In reality, the protagonist consults the Devil Master, who reveals that the Buddha Ancestor was once revered as the World-Honored One: a brilliant founder of the Buddhist Dao who was eventually slain by the Supreme Dao Immortal Venerable.
• Despite that victory, the Immortal Venerable later eradicated Buddhism and destroyed its records, declaring: “The Buddha has no past, nor any future, but I do!”

Character developments and interactions

• The protagonist shifts from testing brute-force solutions to investigating the rules behind the Buddha Ancestor’s power. He remains determined to complete the quest and find a way to survive, but recognizes that his existing trump cards would be wasteful to use.
• The Buddha Ancestor remains an enigmatic, relentless adversary, repeating that the protagonist feels like an old friend while killing him across successive dream cycles.
• The Devil Master responds to the protagonist’s direct questions with unusual silence and visible unease, then shares his knowledge of the Buddha Ancestor’s history.
• The protagonist relies on Chen Qingyan’s trust to reach the Devil Master, who becomes a crucial source of information.

Significant themes

• Persistence and investigation: Repeated failure gradually reveals the mechanism behind the enemy’s power.
• Past, memory, and identity: The Buddha Ancestor’s ability to rewrite history—and the Immortal Venerable’s attempt to erase Buddhism—makes control over the past central to the conflict.
• Power has rules: Greater strength and more projections are useless until the protagonist understands the governing mechanism.
• Historical erasure and mystery: The Buddha Ancestor’s absence from the records is explained by the deliberate destruction of Buddhist history.

Key plot points and events

• The protagonist reconsiders the Buddha Ancestor’s claim that he has no past or future, while the protagonist does. A flash of insight from the I Am the Chess Player talent leads him to connect the Buddha Ancestor’s “Past Self” and “Future Self” to Senior Lin Feng’s unique Time Shepherding ability.
• Suspecting that the Buddha Ancestor may actually be Lin Feng, the protagonist takes control of his Other Self in the Dream Realm. Facing the chant that seems to precede his death, he declares: “The Buddha has no Past and no Future, but I do!”
• The chant stops. A withered hand rests on the Other Self’s shoulder, and the Buddha Ancestor repeats that they are “old friends at first sight”—this time without attacking or dismissing him.
• The protagonist becomes certain the Buddha Ancestor is Senior Lin Feng, who has apparently been confronting him through the Dream Realm all along. Lin Feng then says, “The Spacetime Token.”
• The protagonist passes the token to his Other Self and activates it. Its immense spacetime aura envelops both him and the Buddha Ancestor, setting up the next chapter’s revelations.

Character developments and interactions

• The protagonist moves from confusion to a bold, well-founded suspicion, then to certainty about the Buddha Ancestor’s identity. He recognizes that their connection may span eras.
• Lin Feng’s behavior shifts: instead of attacking or “seeing off” the Other Self, he acknowledges their familiarity and gives the protagonist a brief instruction.
• Their exchange suggests an established, deeply personal relationship, though the nature of their shared past remains unexplained.

Significant themes

• Identity across time: The chapter links the Buddha Ancestor’s past and future selves to time-based abilities and raises questions about who he really is.
• Recognition and connection: “Old friends at first sight” takes on a deeper meaning, hinting at a bond that crosses generations or eras.
• Insight and trust: The protagonist’s deduction enables him to act, while the Spacetime Token becomes the means to uncover what lies behind the encounter.

Key plot points and events

• Chen Fan uses the Spacetime Token to contact the younger Mo Wuyou, bringing past, present, and future Token holders together for what may be their only meeting across generations.
• Mo Wuyou recognizes Chen Fan and reacts with unexpected excitement and admiration, though he stops himself from revealing what he knows about the future.
• Chen Fan confronts the apparent “Buddha,” who drops the disguise: the figure is a clone of Senior Lin Feng.
• Lin Feng explains that he once sent his future self to investigate the mysterious Dream Master. After witnessing the Dream Master’s extraordinary deeds—including defying Heaven, leaving powers for later generations, and fighting an immortal—Lin Feng chose to tolerate his plans while setting up safeguards.
• Lin Feng reveals that Heaven and Earth tried to disrupt the Dream Master’s first inheritance by possessing Chen Fan’s other self. This explains earlier warnings that the inheritance was dangerous.
• Lin Feng believes the Dream Realm’s purpose is to make Chen Fan inherit the Dream Master’s karma and become the true Dream Master—but admits he does not know exactly what that entails.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Fan is unsettled by Mo Wuyou’s unusual admiration and frustrated that Lin Feng has repeatedly killed his simulated selves. He presses Lin Feng for answers, then becomes alarmed by the possibility that accepting the inheritance could threaten his identity.
• Mo Wuyou appears younger and less guarded than his reputation suggests. His recognition of Chen Fan hints that he knows something about Chen’s future, but he carefully avoids revealing it.
• Lin Feng shifts from the Buddha’s false appearance to speaking candidly. He reveals both his past involvement in monitoring the Dream Master and his uncertainty about the Dream Realm’s ultimate aim.
• Their meeting brings three generations together, but the interaction is shadowed by the risk that discussing the future could attract karmic consequences.

Significant themes

• Inheritance and identity: Becoming the Dream Master’s successor may mean more than receiving power; Chen Fan fears he could lose his own sense of self.
• Fate, karma, and interference: Heaven and Earth, Lin Feng, and the Dream Master all influence the inheritance, leaving Chen Fan caught among competing designs.
• Knowledge across time: The gathering of past, present, and future creates a rare opportunity for recognition, but karmic rules limit what can be shared.
• The danger of power: The Dream Master’s legacy is both extraordinary and hazardous, capable of drawing the attention of Heaven and Earth.

Plot points and events

• Lin Feng explains how his “Buddha Ancestor” incarnation survived in the Dream Realm: the realm erased all karma connected to Lin Feng, allowing a reincarnated fragment of his spirit—without any remaining karmic link to him—to arise as the Buddha Ancestor.
• Lin Feng reveals that this was deliberate. He sent a sliver of his true spirit through ten thousand lifetimes of tribulation, arranging for it to become a human captive in the Northern Region’s Demon Ruins just as Emperor Zhenwu’s Jiazi Demon-Suppression reached its decisive stage.
• The captive’s grief and hatred drew Emperor Zhenwu’s attention. Chosen as a leader, he gained fortune, fought demons, and came to embody the suffering of ordinary people. After personal tragedy destroyed his hopes of a quiet life, he devoted himself to saving living beings.
• Heaven and Earth ultimately chose him, and the nearly vanished humanity dao fruit position answered him. He refined golden nature, became a Golden Core powerhouse, and was destined to journey west, destroy demons, attain True Lord status, and found a sect.
• The plan went awry when hidden forces interfered and Lin Feng’s suppressed Time Shepherding ability emerged. The Buddha Ancestor split into past, present, and future selves, each sharing memories of the future.
• Lin Feng says the future self has been assimilated by him. The present self founded the Buddhist Land and attained the Pure Land fruit position; the past self attained the “city-head earth” fruit position. Lin Feng destroyed the present self in a decisive battle, ending his Dao lineage and path of return—but the fates of the past and future selves remain uncertain.
• The narrator remains stunned and suspects Lin Feng is withholding further truths.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng is revealed as a long-term strategist who engineered the Buddha Ancestor’s rise, using both carefully arranged suffering and divine destiny. His calm, guarded manner suggests he knows more than he will disclose.
• The Buddha Ancestor began as an ordinary human shaped by captivity, loss, and compassion. He became a genuine champion of common people, though his life and choices were also manipulated by Lin Feng.
• The narrator moves from skepticism to shock, recognizing that Lin Feng’s earlier account was only a fraction of the story. The narrator questions him directly but cannot get a full answer.

Significant themes

• Karma, identity, and reincarnation: Erasing karmic connections makes a new incarnation possible, while shared memories and divided selves complicate personal identity.
• Free will versus fate and manipulation: The Buddha Ancestor’s path appears ordained by Heaven and Earth, yet was also designed by Lin Feng and shaped by other players.
• Suffering as a source of compassion: The Buddha Ancestor’s painful experiences deepen his commitment to ordinary beings.
• The cost of heroism: His rise brings purpose and power, but also the loss of his loved one, private hopes, and ultimately control over his own life.
• Incomplete truth: Lin Feng reveals an immense design while deliberately leaving its most consequential mysteries unresolved.

• The Dream Realm’s “fruit positions” are exposed as false attainments. Lin Feng explains that the realm depends on the Supreme True Realm and lacks the laws, authority, and calamities needed to support genuine Dao attainment. Its Nascent Soul True Lords therefore exist through “borrowed attunement”: their power and lives depend on the realm’s master. The vacant Tianyan fruit position was a trap that could have made the protagonist’s other self a puppet.
• Lin Feng reveals his role in the nested dreams. As the Buddha Ancestor, he arranged them to guide and test the protagonist, using the city-head earth fruit position’s ability, Past and Present. His future self secretly drew out the Tianyan position; Past and Present let him rewrite that future self’s prior Dao attainment, explaining how he could summon it despite already being a Nascent Soul.
• The Lord of the Immortal Palace had a larger plan. Lin Feng calls him his third disciple. The disciple intended to steer the protagonist into unifying with Central Province’s fortune, provoking conflict with the Pure Land and Heavenly Court, and eventually uniting the Dream Realm. The protagonist would then become its sole inheritor—helping the Dream Master complete a second legacy.
• A new kalpa arose because the protagonist arrived. Lin Feng says the Dream Master had declared that a renewed kalpa would signal his return with his divine ability, “whatever the heart desires shall come to pass.” Lin Feng believes the protagonist can take on the Dream Master’s karma and gain that power, turning an apparent possession into a possible inheritance that could protect him from the Mysterious Dao Master’s schemes.
  Character developments and interactions: The protagonist moves from confusion to recognizing the false fruit positions and the scale of the competing plans, while inwardly resenting Lin Feng’s rough “test” but outwardly thanking him. Lin Feng presents himself as a hidden protector and strategist, though his motives and the promised opportunity remain uncertain. The chapter ends with the protagonist asking whether he is not merely destined to inherit the Dream Master’s karma, but has been the Dream Master from the very beginning.
  Key themes: Illusion versus reality; borrowed power and dependence; hidden manipulation and fate; the ambiguous boundary between possession and symbiosis; and identity across time and selves.

Key plot points and events

• The protagonist reflects on why Chen Qingyan’s affection is so high and wonders whether they may have been the Dream Master all along, or whether the Simulator is one of the Dream Master’s powers.
• Their suspicion is reinforced by the Dream Master’s influence across past simulations, its repeated role in saving them, and the fact that a simulated clone once became the Dream Master while retaining his own consciousness.
• Lin Feng, asked for the truth, admits he does not know the Dream Master’s true nature. He suggests that if this being wants the protagonist to have been the Dream Master from the start, reality will ultimately conform to that wish.
• With the Spacetime Token’s time nearly up, the protagonist holds back a long list of questions about Lin Feng’s survival, strength, motives, and apparent hostility toward immortals.
• The protagonist instead asks Mo Wuyou why he reacted to their name with such admiration. As the connection closes, Mo Wuyou’s answer is cut off after the declaration: “You are… the greatest of all!”

Character developments

• The protagonist grows more troubled by the possibility that their identity and history have been shaped by a powerful, unseen force. They remain suspicious of Lin Feng but recognize his past help and choose not to confront him.
• Lin Feng maintains an air of solemn authority while openly acknowledging the limits of his knowledge. His advice deepens the mystery rather than resolving it.
• Mo Wuyou appears terrified and awestruck by the protagonist, suggesting their future reputation is extraordinary.

Significant themes

• Identity and destiny: The protagonist questions whether they have always been the Dream Master and whether personal history can be rewritten by another’s will.
• Power and uncertainty: Even immense beings such as Lin Feng may know little about the forces shaping events.
• Trust and suspicion: The protagonist is grateful to Lin Feng but cannot dismiss doubts about his disappearance and intentions.
• Reputation and legacy: Mo Wuyou’s reverence hints at the protagonist’s future greatness, though its cause remains unexplained.

Character interactions

• The protagonist presses Lin Feng for answers about the Dream Master; Lin Feng responds with uncertainty and a chilling claim about its ability to shape reality.
• The protagonist and Lin Feng share a tense silence as unasked questions accumulate.
• The protagonist turns to Mo Wuyou for an explanation of his admiration, but the Spacetime Token closes before he can elaborate.

Plot points and events

• After Mo Wuyou calls the protagonist “the greatest person,” the protagonist fears he has inherited the Dream Master’s enormous karmic burden.
• Senior Lin Feng’s “other self” is left to face rival Golden Core cultivators and watching Nascent Soul True Lords. The protagonist’s talents activate automatically, transforming that self and instantly forging the Tianyan Fruit Position.
• The other self becomes the Tianyan True Lord, unites with Central Province’s fortune, and advances to Nascent Soul middle stage. Meanwhile, the main body receives the mission reward of Golden Core middle-stage cultivation.
• A new mission demands that the protagonist unify the Dream Realm, offering a random fruit position. He recognizes that this would draw him deeper into the Dream Master’s karma and serve the Immortal Palace Lord’s plans, but decides to proceed.
• He attacks the assembled True Lords, killing Taibai Jinxing first and then eliminating the rest in one overwhelming strike. The system grants experience, attributes, treasures, and several major divine abilities.
• After converting the rewards into cultivation, his limit-breaking level rises dramatically. He heads for the Heavenly Court, choosing it as a more manageable target than the Buddhist Land or Immortal Palace, and begins a massacre.
• The chapter ends with Chen Qingyan, Lord of the Immortal Palace, confronting Shakyamuni, the Present Self—Senior Lin Feng—near the Buddhist Land.

Character developments

• The protagonist shifts from alarm and uncertainty to decisive aggression. Though wary of the mission’s hidden agenda, he accepts that advancing may be his only option and starts forcibly consolidating the Dream Realm’s power.
• Senior Lin Feng leaves the protagonist’s other self to pursue an old acquaintance, later revealed to be Chen Qingyan.
• Chen Qingyan emerges as a central opposing power, meeting Lin Feng directly in a tense confrontation.

Significant themes

• Power and responsibility: gaining the Tianyan fruit position makes the protagonist more powerful but also binds him further to the Dream Master’s karma.
• Manipulation and fate: the mission system appears to be steering the protagonist toward a larger scheme, leaving him to act despite suspecting he is being used.
• Conquest as unification: the protagonist treats rival factions and their fortune as obstacles to be eliminated on his path to unifying the Dream Realm.
• Escalating ambition: rapid advancement turns a precarious situation into a campaign against the Dream Realm’s major powers.

Character interactions

• Mo Wuyou’s praise unsettles the protagonist, prompting fears about his inherited karma.
• Lin Feng instructs the other self to attain the fruit position, then departs.
• The protagonist confronts the True Lords, killing Taibai Jinxing before they can respond and wiping out the rest.
• He avoids attacking the Buddhist Land because Lin Feng is there, and hesitates to challenge the Immortal Palace because of Chen Qingyan.
• Lin Feng and Chen Qingyan face one another across the void, setting up the next confrontation.

Plot points and events

• Chen Qingyan confronts Lin Feng, a frail old monk whose true spirit is nearing dissipation. Lin Feng remains calm as Qingyan summons another powerful figure; together, they unleash immense force.
• Lin Feng identifies the figures as manifestations of Qingyan—Lord of the Heavenly Court, Lord of the Immortal Palace, and likely the northern Devil Master—and notes that the Dream Realm limits their use of a life-bound ability.
• Qingyan attacks with the seal technique “Past and Present.” The strike devastates the Buddhist Land and kills countless cultivators. Lin Feng recognizes that Qingyan is briefly drawing on mysteries from the Dream Master’s second legacy.
• Lin Feng argues that Chen Fan, his younger incarnation, cannot yet become the Dream Master. He warns that forcing the inheritance onto Chen Fan in a future crisis could expose the Dream Master to karmic punishment, but might be necessary to stop a supreme Immortal’s descent and save the True Realm.
• Qingyan pauses his assault, but then erupts in anger. He accuses Lin Feng of treating people and entire eras as expendable pieces, citing the sacrifices of his senior brothers and the losses caused by Lin Feng’s supposedly necessary plans. His renewed attacks reduce much of the Buddhist Land to ruin.
• Lin Feng finally insists that Chen Fan is different: unlike everyone else, he is not a chess piece but someone special. The chapter ends amid further destructive explosions, with the conflict unresolved.

Character developments and interactions

• Lin Feng stays composed under attack and reveals his strategic understanding of the Dream Realm, the Dream Master’s inheritance, and the possible future crisis. His calm gives way to a rare, emphatic defense of Chen Fan.
• Chen Qingyan moves from cold, controlled hostility to open fury. His anger is rooted not only in the immediate confrontation but in years of perceived manipulation and sacrifice.
• Their exchange exposes a deep rupture: Lin Feng believes harsh sacrifices may serve the True Realm’s survival, while Qingyan sees this reasoning as hypocrisy that denies the people involved their agency and humanity.
• Chen Fan, though absent, becomes the argument’s center: Lin Feng views him as uniquely capable of changing the pattern, while Qingyan suspects Lin Feng intends to use him just like the others.

Significant themes

• People versus pieces: The chapter questions whether pursuing a greater good can justify treating lives as expendable.
• Sacrifice and responsibility: Lin Feng’s plans may be aimed at preventing catastrophe, but Qingyan demands accountability for their human cost.
• Fate, inheritance, and choice: Chen Fan’s possible role as Dream Master raises the question of whether salvation can be forced upon someone—or must come from their own choices.
• Trust and hypocrisy: Lin Feng’s affection for Chen Fan rings false to Qingyan because of his history of calculated sacrifices.

Key events

• The protagonist’s “other self” attacks the Heavenly Court, despite noticing that more than half of the Northern Region has mysteriously been destroyed and many True Lords are dead or injured.
• The Lord of the Heavenly Court, Nine Heavens, appears. The system reveals that his supreme position was derived from the Heavenly Dao and that, though once far stronger, he is now only at Nascent Soul triple limit-breaking.
• The protagonist uses Heavenly Formation to enhance his abilities and analyze and counter the enemy’s powers, then combines Treasure-Borrowing Method with Heaven-and-Earth Sword. Nine Heavens is killed almost instantly.
• The protagonist absorbs the Heavenly Court’s fortune, returns toward the Northern Region, and spends his experience breaking through to Qi Refining 1,600-layer limit-breaking.
• Outside the simulation, Chen Fan reconsiders what he has learned about Chen Qingyan. A conversation between Lin Feng and the Lord of the Immortal Palace suggests Chen Qingyan is real, not a Dream Realm creation, and may be connected to multiple identities within the Dream Realm.

Character developments and interactions

• The protagonist displays overwhelming confidence in his new abilities, especially against Nine Heavens, whom he considers a lesser opponent than Lin Feng. The battle also showcases the range of his major divine abilities, including Intent on Past and Present, Intent-Creation Assimilating False Body, and true-false supreme realm, though he does not use all of them.
• Chen Fan shifts from certainty to alarm as he questions whether the Chen Qingyan he encountered in simulations—and perhaps in reality—was the genuine person.
• Lin Feng’s remarks to Chen Fan imply that one person may occupy several roles in the Dream Realm: Lord of the Heavenly Court, Lord of the Immortal Palace, and possibly the Devil Master. Chen Fan suspects Chen Qingyan’s life-bound divine ability may explain this.

Significant themes

• Power and its limits: The protagonist’s abilities make short work of a weakened divine ruler, while the contrast with Lin Feng emphasizes that raw strength is not the only measure of danger.
• Identity and reality: Chen Fan’s understanding of who is real, who is an avatar, and how identities overlap in the Dream Realm is unsettled.
• Knowledge as power—and a cost: Several abilities depend on analysis, memory, or imitation; notably, summoning a remembered figure through Intent on Past and Present costs the user all memories of that person.
• Uncertainty beneath apparent victory: Nine Heavens’s easy defeat may not reflect the real Lord of the Heavenly Court’s strength, since the slain figure may have been only a special avatar.

Key plot points

• The protagonist’s “Other Self” attacks Burial Sky Pivot, expecting to confront its powerful lord. The assault yields a surge of experience and minor divine abilities, but no sign of the leader.
• In Burial Sky Pivot’s forbidden heart, the protagonist finds a bone-filled landscape and a dead figure seated on a throne. A voice invites them up the Rebirth Stairway to hear the truth.
• The figure reveals that he once attained Void-Proof as the True Lord of the Dao-Burying Fruit Position, but was erased after glimpsing the Dream Realm’s reality. He reincarnated as Tianyan True Person, rose to power again, and was killed once more by the Lord of the Immortal Palace at the moment he achieved Void-Proof.
• Before his lingering consciousness fades, he warns that the Devil Master, Lord of the Heavenly Court, and Lord of the Immortal Palace are all the same person—and that the realm is that person’s chessboard.
• The throne and Burial Sky Pivot then explode. The Devil Master appears, and the protagonist realizes the realm’s apparent great powers may conceal a single controlling force.

Character developments and interactions

• The protagonist begins with a confident, almost playful plan to attack the target they consider safest, but the revelation leaves them stunned and reassessing everything they believed about the realm.
• The dead True Lord is revealed as a twice-fallen cultivator who struggled to escape his fate through reincarnation. He spends his last moments sharing the truth with the protagonist, whom he suspects may be the prophesied reincarnation of the Dream Master.
• The Devil Master’s silent arrival immediately after the warning makes him seem even more threatening, though he says nothing in this passage.

Significant themes

• Power and manipulation: Even extraordinary cultivation and achievement may be controlled or undone by a hidden authority.
• Reincarnation and futile escape: The True Lord’s attempts to start over do not free him from the same unseen adversary.
• Illusion and reality: The Dream Realm may be less a world of independent powers than a constructed game board.
• Uncertainty and revelation: The protagonist’s assumptions—especially about the Heavenly Court’s weakness and the separation of the realm’s factions—are abruptly overturned.

Key plot points and events

• The Devil Master tells the protagonist to meet him at the Immortal Palace, then destroys himself with Liberation by Violence. The protagonist suspects the Lord of the Immortal Palace has been orchestrating events and decides to follow the plan.
• The protagonist’s “other self” absorbs the fortune left behind by the Northern Region’s fallen powers. Having gathered the fortune of three factions, the protagonist needs only the Buddhist Land and Immortal Palace to unify the world’s fortune.
• The protagonist travels to the Immortal Palace and meets its ruler, Chen Qingyan. Chen reveals that unifying the remaining fortune will unlock the Dream Master’s second legacy: a fruit position, the foundation for ascending to immortality.
• Chen warns that attaining the Dao too soon would prompt Heaven and Earth to intervene. Instead, they must first break the deadlock.
• He explains that the Dream Realm contains an imprint of the Thieving Immortal, a Second Era Half-Immortal who stole supreme authority through his life-bound ability, Theft of Destiny. Heaven and Earth has reincarnated that imprint in the Supreme True Realm, intending to harvest it once the reincarnation awakens his powers.
• The protagonist recognizes the proposed countermeasure: kill the Thieving Immortal’s reincarnation before he can awaken and thereby thwart Heaven and Earth’s contingency.

Character developments and interactions

• The protagonist moves from suspicion to pragmatic cooperation, accepting that the Immortal Palace’s apparent manipulation may be part of a larger plan. Their growing fortune has also tied them more deeply to the Dream Realm and strengthened their standing despite their unchanged cultivation.
• Chen Qingyan openly reveals the legacy’s purpose and the danger posed by Heaven and Earth, replacing secrecy with a direct explanation of the stakes.
• The Devil Master departs without resistance, leaving the protagonist to wonder how completely Chen has control over events.
• The protagonist worries that Senior Lin Feng, whose true spirit formed the Buddha Ancestor, may already have been discovered by Chen.

Significant themes

• Karma and orchestration: Past choices and legacies shape present events, and even reluctant participants may be caught in a larger design.
• Fate versus defiance: Heaven and Earth manipulates reincarnation and destiny, while the Dream Master and Thieving Immortal represent attempts to resist that control.
• Power and inheritance: The fruit position links authority across levels of cultivation and is central to the path toward immortality.
• Urgency and sacrifice: The protagonist has only nine days left, making the plan to prevent the Thieving Immortal’s awakening a race against time.

Plot and events

• The narrator panics upon learning that the Dream Master is a Half-Immortal, but Chen Qingyan, the Lord of the Immortal Palace, explains that only one Half-Immortal can arise in each era, usually amid a great calamity. The previous ones were the Dream Master, the Thieving Immortal, and an unnamed figure from the first era.
• Chen Qingyan says their opponent’s options are restricted by the rules and asks the narrator to wait while he prepares a plan. The narrator trusts him for now, though time is short: only nine days remain.
• The I Am the Chess Player talent triggers a golden mission: prevent Heaven and Earth’s schemes by destroying the reincarnation of a fragment of the Thieving Immortal’s imprint. The mission points to the Northern Land of Sin.
• The narrator sends Number Two Other-Self to investigate. The region is enveloped in overwhelming karma, and the mission warns that forcing entry or sending the narrator’s cultivated main body inside could cause catastrophe—or instant death.
• Following the mission’s advice, the narrator instead crafts a cultivation-free avatar with no karmic connection to them, using the divine ability Intent-Creation Assimilating False Body. They secretly equip it with Fishing Platform and Treasure-Borrowing Method, then send it into the karma barrier.

Character development and interactions

• The narrator’s confidence is shaken by the revelation of Half-Immortals, but they remain practical, weighing risks and devising a safer approach rather than charging into the Northern Region.
• Chen Qingyan acts as a reassuring, knowledgeable ally. His deep understanding of the Supreme True Realm makes the narrator suspect he is more than a mere Dream Realm projection, though the narrator does not know he is the real Chen Qingyan.
• The narrator and Chen Qingyan share a temporary common goal, and the narrator relies on his promise to act while urging him to hurry.

Significant themes

• Hidden history and escalating threats: Each new revelation suggests that the Supreme True Realm’s past and power structure are deeper than the narrator understood.
• Strategy over strength: The mission explicitly rewards planning, and survival depends on using an indirect, expendable avatar rather than relying on raw power.
• Karma and cosmic consequences: The Northern Land’s accumulated karma is so immense that entering carelessly could endanger not just the individual but the world itself.
• Trust under uncertainty: The narrator relies on Chen Qingyan despite not knowing his true identity or full capabilities.

Plot points

• The Mysterious Dao Master’s actions once again sever the protagonist’s karmic connection to the Chen Family, whose members are being massacred. The protagonist feels less sorrow than anger at the repeated provocation.
• The protagonist’s Other Self retaliates by unleashing a Heaven-and-Earth Sword against the Blazing Sun Sacred Land. Its defenders—including the Blazing Sun Heavenly Venerable and awakened former Sacred Lords—cannot withstand the strike.
• Just as Blazing Sun Province seems doomed, a mysterious figure appears and leaves the province unharmed. He flees beyond the world, pursued and injured by karmic punishment.
• The protagonist follows with another sword strike, but an ancient seal shields the figure. The Incumbent Dao Master also appears.
• The protagonist burns a hundred years of true lifespan, gaining two Great Daos and enough power to rival an ordinary Spirit Transformation Dao Master. Facing both Dao Masters, the protagonist declares that fighting them together is “not out of the question.”

Character developments and interactions

• The protagonist shifts from restrained frustration to decisive retaliation, showing confidence in confronting powers far beyond the realm’s normal limits.
• The Mysterious Dao Master intervenes to protect Blazing Sun Province, then retreats under karmic punishment. The protagonist pursues him, but his ancient seal blocks the attack.
• The Blazing Sun Heavenly Venerable appears panicked and childish under the threat; the Sacred Land’s full defenses prove insufficient.
• The chapter’s central confrontation sets the protagonist against the Mysterious and Incumbent Dao Masters at once.

Significant themes

• Karma and consequence: The Mysterious Dao Master’s intervention draws severe karmic punishment.
• Repeated injustice and defiance: The Chen Family’s recurring destruction becomes a symbol of the protagonist’s humiliation and resolve.
• Sacrifice for power: The protagonist trades a century of true lifespan for a dramatic leap in strength.
• Power beyond limits: In the Supreme True Realm, the protagonist’s enhanced abilities overturn the world’s usual ceiling.

Key events

• Chen Fan’s present self confronts the Mysterious Dao Master, expecting him to intervene in the Blazing Sun Sacred Land and suffer karmic backlash. The plan fails: the Dao Master stays calm and proposes talking instead.
• The Dao Master calls Chen Fan “the greatest of all” in later ages and warns that, as he is now, his death is inevitable. Chen Fan recognizes that the Dao Master may know something of his future and agrees to hear him out, despite their enmity.
• Meanwhile, Chen Fan’s avatar enters the Northern Land of Sin. Its immense karmic burden steadily erodes the avatar’s consciousness and dims its once-exceptional body.
• The avatar eventually reaches a vast mine in a remnant plane of the Supreme True Realm. Gao Qiming explains that ascenders here are branded sinners, trapped by their karma and forced to mine Origin Stones to survive. Escape requires accumulating a thousand stones for a chance at an “immortal god’s blessing”; the avatar must first endure a week to receive a worker number.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Fan remains confident and prepared to fight, but the Dao Master’s warning unsettles him. His willingness to pause and listen shows that the possibility of a disastrous future outweighs his desire for immediate revenge.
• The Mysterious Dao Master shifts from apparent menace to controlled negotiation. By invoking Chen Fan’s future reputation and fate, he suggests he possesses knowledge that could change the course of their conflict.
• Gao Qiming introduces himself as a fellow ascender and explains the mine’s brutal rules. His weary, matter-of-fact guidance contrasts with the overseer’s forceful treatment of newcomers.
• The avatar enters the Land of Sin already burdened by karma and is immediately reduced to the status of a powerless prisoner and laborer.

Significant themes

• Fate versus agency: Chen Fan’s apparent rise to supremacy may still end in death, and the Dao Master’s glimpse of the future challenges Chen Fan’s confidence.
• Karma and consequence: The avatar’s accumulated karmic burden becomes a physical and spiritual affliction, while the mine turns redemption into a harsh system of labor and merit.
• Power and vulnerability: Even a body forged from rare treasures can be diminished by a hostile realm; meanwhile, the exchange between two supreme figures hinges on information as much as force.
• Survival under oppression: In the mine, Origin Stones govern safety, comfort, and the slim prospect of freedom.

Key plot points and events

• The avatar rejects overseer Gao Qiming’s advice to wait a week, knowing only nine days remain before its countdown expires.
• It uses Treasure-Borrowing Method to take an Origin Stone, then deploys Fishing Platform to draw the mine’s scant fortune toward itself. That fortune lets it borrow the strength of the area’s most powerful person, reaching mid-stage embryonic breath.
• The avatar also borrows knowledge of the Longevity Realm. It learns that the mine belongs to Purple Cloud Palace and that the realm’s cultivation ranks differ greatly from those of the Supreme True Realm.
• Ascenders are blamed for a past calamity and burdened with terrible karma. The mine is an isolated prison for them; the promise that a thousand Origin Stones will earn release is a lie. The avatar appears trapped and doomed.
• Meanwhile, Chen Fan’s “Number Two Other-Self” confronts the Mysterious Dao Master beyond the world. Reviewing the mission, Chen Fan realizes he may have misread its target: the Thieving Immortal’s reincarnation may have escaped the northern Land of Sin and entered the Supreme True Realm.
• The Dao Master declares that death is inevitable. Chen Fan’s danger sense urges immediate action, while I Am the Chess Player warns him to wait. The chapter ends as Chen Fan must choose whether to trust the talent or use two one-time talents, Wish Echo and I Am the Mastermind. Before he can decide, I Am the Chess Player activates on its own.

Character developments and interactions

• The avatar proves resourceful and skeptical, using its divine abilities to survive and investigate rather than trusting the mine’s overseer.
• Gao Qiming serves as a source of warnings, but the avatar doubts both his timing advice and the claim that Origin Stones can buy freedom.
• Chen Fan becomes increasingly uncertain after discovering that the mission’s true target may not be where he expected. His established trust in I Am the Chess Player now clashes with his urgent instincts.
• The Mysterious Dao Master intensifies the confrontation by predicting Chen Fan’s death, heightening the pressure to act.

Significant themes

• Deception and false hope: The mine’s promised route to freedom is a scam, while apparent mission clues may also mislead.
• Trust versus instinct: Chen Fan must weigh a consistently reliable talent against an overwhelming sense of danger.
• Karma and confinement: Ascenders are imprisoned because of their karmic burden, turning fortune into both a resource and a measure of danger.
• Uncertainty and misdirection: The avatar’s discovery and Chen Fan’s reassessment suggest that the larger plan may be more complex—and more dangerous—than either initially understood.

• Plot: After hearing [I Am the Chess Player] warn that greater players shape the game, Chen Fan realizes the eighth simulation’s apparent choices may have been engineered by Heaven and Earth. The Simulated Clone’s path—gaining Dream Master, escaping certain-death karma, traveling into the future, and trying to save the True Realm—may have been part of a plan that ended in karmic punishment and death. Chen Fan also suspects the ninth simulation’s directions about the Northern Land of Sin could be deliberate misdirection.
• Choice and plan: In the real world, Chen Fan chooses to use the one-time talent [I Am the Mastermind], hoping the Clone will do the same. The Clone recognizes this as a crucial choice and decides not to trust the purple-ranked [I Am the Chess Player] talent. Instead, it targets the Mysterious Dao Master, the figure most likely to know the hidden schemes. The talent can force someone to obey one command if a mastermind stands behind them and the user’s rank is higher. To meet that requirement, the Clone considers reclaiming its two “other selves,” boosting its lifespan and Great Dao of Spirit Transformation, and exploiting the Dao Master’s recent injuries. It may alternatively use the nearby Incumbent Dao Master as leverage.
• Character developments and interactions: Chen Fan shifts from confusion to alarm, recognizing how outmatched he may be by Heaven and Earth. Though he cannot communicate directly with his Clone, he tries to guide it through the simulation choice system. The Clone responds to this influence, steels itself, and chooses an active counterplay rather than following its original talent’s guidance. Its plan centers on confronting or manipulating the Mysterious Dao Master.
• Themes: The chapter emphasizes the gap between ordinary players and higher-ranked masterminds, the danger of apparently helpful guidance, and the possibility that fate and past choices have been orchestrated. It also highlights agency under constrained conditions: Chen Fan and the Clone may be trapped in a larger design, but they still seek a way to exploit an opening and turn the game around.

Key plot points

• Facing death, Chen Fan merges his two other selves back into his body, restoring his lifespan to 500 years. He then spends all of it—leaving only nine days—to unleash his [Late Bloomer] talent.
• [Late Bloomer] and [Heaven Rewards Diligence] produce ten great daos; together with the two he had already gained, Chen Fan commands twelve. His entire being reaches a perfected state, making him effectively invincible among the Spirit Transformation cultivators present.
• Beyond the World, Chen Fan’s other self confronts the [Mysterious Dao Master] and the [Incumbent Dao Master]. To force the Mysterious Dao Master to reveal what he knows, Chen Fan uses his one-use [I Am the Mastermind] talent.
• The talent cannot make the Mysterious Dao Master loyal, but Chen Fan imposes a command: after Chen Fan dies, the Dao Master must sabotage his own side and then kill himself. The resulting supernatural bond alarms the target.
• Backed by the twelve daos, Chen Fan threatens to take the Dao Master down with him. The Mysterious Dao Master gives in and agrees to answer questions, though he warns that some truths are taboo.
• He reveals that three beings control the unfolding “game of chess”: the [Supreme Immortal], [Heaven and Earth], and likely the [Supreme Dao Immortal Venerable], lord of Beyond Heaven.
• Most shocking, he claims none of the three will allow Chen Fan to inherit the [Dream Master]’s karma—and that Senior Lin Feng personally orchestrated the Dream Master’s fall.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Fan shifts from desperate survival to overwhelming, calculated dominance, gambling his remaining lifespan and using coercion when persuasion fails. The revelation about Lin Feng leaves him shaken.
• The Mysterious Dao Master moves from attempted recruitment to reluctant disclosure after Chen Fan binds him with a lethal command and demonstrates superior power.
• The Incumbent Dao Master stands alongside the Mysterious Dao Master but refrains from acting against Chen Fan once confronted by the twelve daos.
• Chen Fan’s relationship with Senior Lin Feng is thrown into doubt: someone he regarded as a trusted senior is accused of conspiring against his inheritance of the Dream Master’s legacy.

Significant themes

• Sacrifice and risk: Chen Fan spends his entire lifespan reserve, accepting near-certain death for a chance to survive.
• Power and coercion: Talent, overwhelming strength, and threats force the powerful to reveal information, but cannot guarantee loyalty or truth.
• Hidden control: The world’s apparent conflicts are part of a larger game directed by three supreme forces.
• Betrayal and uncertainty: The accusation against Lin Feng undermines Chen Fan’s trust and suggests that even mentors may be manipulating events.

Key plot points and events

• The Mysterious Dao Master explains that the True Realm treats living beings as pieces on a cosmic chessboard. The Dream Master alone dared to try to overturn it, but the schemes of three Supreme Existences brought about their current fate.
• Because the protagonist has inherited the Dream Master’s karma, it is unclear whether they are truly themself or the Dream Master returned. The powerful forces opposing the Dream Master will therefore never allow the protagonist to succeed.
• The Dao Master says their side would first try to sever the protagonist’s existence karma, but the protagonist’s power—manifested as twelve Great Daos—has already surpassed the culprit behind the crisis, making that tactic futile. The Dao Master knows little of the Supreme Dao Immortal Venerable’s plans.
• When the Dao Master starts to speak about Heaven and Earth, Karmic Law reacts violently, signaling that they are nearing forbidden knowledge about the future. Despite the danger, the Dao Master declares admiration for the protagonist and reveals one final clue: “Heavenly Will.” The accumulated karmic punishment immediately strikes.
• The phrase recalls a prior simulation: a being from the Northern Land of Sin, bearing Heaven’s Mandate and possessing “void-proof,” was a pawn in Heavenly Will’s scheme. That being was the reincarnation of a wisp of the Thieving Immortal’s imprint. The protagonist realizes this likely explains the earlier omen about the Land of Sin, though the event is more than five hundred years away.

Character developments and interactions

• The protagonist remains skeptical of the Dao Master’s account but recognizes they have little reason to lie. The revelation unsettles them, especially as they connect it to memories from another simulation.
• The Mysterious Dao Master shifts from guarded explanation to a bold, costly act of disclosure. They openly admire the protagonist and risk karmic punishment to provide the clue.
• The protagonist’s growing strength is emphasized: conventional attempts to erase their existence karma are now ineffective.

Significant themes

• Fate versus rebellion: The world is presented as a rigged game, with the Dream Master’s effort to overturn it drawing the attention of overwhelming powers.
• Identity and inherited karma: The protagonist’s relationship to the Dream Master raises the question of whether they are an heir—or the Dream Master returned.
• The cost of forbidden knowledge: Speaking about the future triggers Karmic Law, yet the Dao Master chooses to reveal a dangerous truth.
• Hidden schemes across simulations: A seemingly distant future event may be part of Heavenly Will’s long-planned strategy, showing how past clues and different timelines connect.