Chapter Summaries

Key events

• Xu Yan reaches a ruined plaza littered with the bones of at least a thousand cultivators. Each skull bears three crooked, faintly glowing marks—one long and two short—that radiate an evil aura.
• He sees a damaged statue bearing the same marks, surrounded by fallen blood-colored pillars, and concludes the site is closely tied to the Ancient Demon Race.
• The Demon Ape he has been tracking enters a vast, ruined stone complex. Xu Yan cautiously approaches and uses his divine sense to investigate.
• When Xu Yan probes one skull, its markings flare and release a powerful evil aura. He quickly withdraws his divine sense to avoid alerting the Demon Apes.
• Inside the main hall, the wounded Demon Ape reports to an elder and several stronger apes. The hall contains a black-stone cauldron over a damaged formation, which is producing a spiritual substance nearly ready to be refined.
• The elder, eager to consume it and advance to the second tier before his lifespan runs out, decides the human intruder is not a major threat.
• Xu Yan learns the hall has been occupied by the Demon Apes rather than built for them. Recognizing the formation from Kong Xuan’s memories, he suspects the hall holds the apes’ secret and considers how to seize it.

Character developments and interactions

• Xu Yan is cautious and observant, but his discovery of the cauldron’s likely value stirs greed and a willingness to confront the apes. He watches them through divine sense without revealing his presence.
• The old Demon Ape is powerful, calculating, and driven by fear of death. The prospect of advancement makes him impatient despite believing Xu Yan will die soon.
• The wounded Demon Ape communicates its encounter through screeches and gestures, prompting the elder and the other apes to seek the elder’s judgment.
• The other Demon Apes defer to the elder, while Xu Yan remains hidden outside, assessing the group: the elder is the main obstacle; the rest are considerably weaker.

Significant themes

• Ancient danger and mystery: The marked bones, statue, ruined complex, and unfamiliar formation hint at a dark history tied to the Ancient Demon Race.
• Ambition and mortality: Both Xu Yan and the elder are drawn by the prospect of power, while the elder’s urgency is sharpened by his approaching death.
• Caution versus greed: Xu Yan avoids investigating the dangerous markings further, yet the possible treasure in the hall tempts him toward conflict.

Key plot points and events

• Xu Yan hides near the stone hall, expecting the demon apes to come out for revenge. He prepares an ambush with his Redfire Burning Art and Purple Sun Sword Art.
• The old demon ape leads its pack from the hall, carrying a massive blue-gold stone club it has spent nearly a century shaping.
• Xu Yan strikes first, combining six powerful fireballs with a storm of sword energy. The old ape is gravely wounded, and several apes are caught in the flames.
• He swiftly burns or pursues and kills the rest of the pack, believing the fight is over.
• The wounded old ape launches a surprise attack with its club. Xu Yan’s Greenedge Sword intercepts it but shatters, injuring Xu Yan through their mental link. He dodges the weakened blow, then kills the ape by crushing its head.

Character developments

• Xu Yan shows patience and tactical discipline in preparing his ambush, then decisive ruthlessness in eliminating the pack. His confidence briefly turns to surprise when the old ape survives long enough to counterattack.
• The old demon ape is revealed as intelligent, seasoned, and capable of a desperate ambush despite being gravely injured. Though it leads its followers and has awakened intelligence, its abilities and bloodline are limited.

Significant themes

• Preparation and initiative: Xu Yan’s ambush gives him a decisive advantage.
• Overconfidence and hidden danger: His quick victory makes him think the threat is over, but the old ape’s counterattack proves otherwise.
• Power without inheritance: The old ape’s intelligence and leadership cannot compensate for its modest innate ability and lack of a powerful legacy.

Character interactions

• The demon apes regard the old ape with loyalty and admiration, crediting it with leading them to the hall where they gained intelligence and demonic abilities.
• Xu Yan and the old ape face one another in a rapid contest of ambush and counterattack; the old ape’s followers flee or are killed, while Xu Yan ultimately finishes the wounded leader.

Key events

• After killing the old Demon Ape and its followers, Xu Yan checks for danger and meditates to restore most of his magic power.
• His Greenedge Sword has shattered under the strain of the Purple Sun Sword Art. He resolves to gather materials for the powerful, growth-capable Five Elements Dao-Evolving Sword once he reaches Foundation Establishment.
• He claims the old Demon Ape’s enormous club, discovering it is valuable second-tier azure-gold copper rock.
• Xu Yan enters the nearby stone hall, where he finds an ancient, damaged formation surrounding a smaller black stone cauldron. Its runes match those elsewhere in the ruins.
• Studying the hall’s pillars and consulting Kong Xuan’s memories, Xu Yan identifies the carvings as belonging to the Giant Spirit Race and realizes the cauldron and formation are tied to a secret method for refining soul-strengthening liquid.

Character developments and interactions

• Xu Yan remains cautious, restoring his strength before investigating the hall. His discovery of the cauldron sparks excitement, though he regrets that the Demon Apes likely wasted much of its contents.
• Kong Xuan’s memories provide Xu Yan with crucial historical knowledge. Kong Xuan had once considered targeting the Giant Spirit Race to obtain its secret art, but abandoned the plan after finding another way to strengthen divine sense.
• The old Demon Ape’s death leaves Xu Yan with both a valuable weapon-material prize and access to the hall’s mystery; there are no direct conversations in the chapter.

Significant themes

• Power and sacrifice: The Ancient Demon Race tried to overcome its weak divine sense through generations of experiments, including unions with humans. The Giant Spirit Race emerged from these efforts, while its own method of improving divine sense allegedly required many lives.
• Knowledge as opportunity: Xu Yan’s inherited memories help him recognize the significance of the ruins and uncover a potentially valuable secret.
• Preparation and ambition: Xu Yan balances immediate survival with long-term goals, including better equipment and greater cultivation.

Key plot points and events

• Xu Yan searches the Giant Spirit Race’s great hall for a lost legacy, especially the rumored second volume of the Great Azure Soul-Tempering Art, but finds nothing.
• He examines the damaged formation surrounding a black cauldron and discovers that four stone coffers contain cultivators’ remains. The formation consumes their flesh-and-blood essence to refine soul liquid.
• The formation is near collapse, and Xu Yan regrets that the Giant Spirit Race’s secret art may disappear with it. He expects the soul liquid to finish refining soon.
• To guard against surprises, he sets up the first-tier formations he carries at the hall entrance, then studies the Great Azure Soul-Tempering Art while he waits.
• Kong Xuan’s memories provide useful cultivation insights. The method’s first stage can more than triple divine sense, but even attempting to circulate it causes Xu Yan intense pain. The Mysterious Green Pearl prevents serious damage.
• Xu Yan concludes that his divine sense is not yet strong enough and decides to wait for the soul liquid before trying again.

Character development

• Xu Yan’s curiosity and ambition are evident in his eagerness to uncover the Giant Spirit Race’s techniques. He is also cautious, preparing defenses before focusing on cultivation.
• His understanding of the art deepens, along with his appreciation of its extraordinary value. His failed attempt teaches him that determination and Kong Xuan’s insights cannot compensate for his current limitations.
• Kong Xuan’s memories reveal that he had a supreme-grade spiritual root and spent a thousand years reaching only the art’s introductory stage, underscoring both his former potential and the method’s difficulty.

Character interactions

• Xu Yan’s relationship with Kong Xuan is mediated through the memories he acquired: Kong Xuan’s insights guide Xu Yan’s study, while his past ambitions and slow progress provide a point of comparison.
• The Mysterious Green Pearl acts as a crucial safeguard, shielding Xu Yan’s sea of consciousness when the cultivation attempt nearly overwhelms him.

Significant themes

• Lost knowledge: The damaged formation and missing second volume illustrate how ancient legacies can vanish over time.
• Power and cost: The soul liquid is produced by consuming cultivators’ life essence, linking advancement to sacrifice and exploitation.
• Limits of cultivation: A powerful technique offers immense rewards, but its difficulty demands a sufficiently strong foundation.
• Preparation and restraint: Xu Yan protects himself and stops when the method proves dangerous, balancing ambition with caution.

Key plot points and events

• After several days of waiting, the damaged Ancient Formation stops operating, and Xu Yan opens the black stone cauldron.
• Inside, he finds a dozen or so drops of precious soul liquid. He carefully seals and transfers them to a jade bottle before any more can evaporate.
• Xu Yan tests the liquid by swallowing one drop. After half a month of painful absorption, his divine sense grows by over thirty percent and its range increases by about twenty zhang. Exhausted, he sleeps for three days.
• He then consumes another drop while attempting to circulate the Great Azure Soul-Tempering Art. The process takes a month and is far more strenuous, but his divine sense doubles in strength.
• Xu Yan spends over a year cultivating in the hall. At last, he grasps the basics of the art, and his divine sense extends 450 zhang.

Character developments

• Xu Yan shows caution and discipline, carefully studying the soul liquid and managing its use rather than risking it recklessly.
• His confidence in the Great Azure Soul-Tempering Art grows as he experiences its effects, though he remains attentive to the strain it places on his sea of consciousness.
• He is increasingly focused on long-term advancement: he aims to reach Qi Refining perfection and eventually use the Mysterious Green Pearl’s future surge of spiritual energy to attempt Foundation Establishment.

Significant themes

• Patience and perseverance: Xu Yan endures prolonged pain, exhaustion, and more than a year of concentrated practice.
• Risk and restraint: The soul liquid offers remarkable gains but imposes severe strain, so Xu Yan learns to pause and recover.
• Preparation for future breakthroughs: His cultivation, enhanced divine sense, and plans to refine higher-tier pills all serve his eventual attempt at Foundation Establishment.

Character interactions

• The chapter is largely solitary, with no direct conversations or encounters. Xu Yan’s actions are guided by Kong Xuan’s memories and the Lin Family’s alchemical inheritance, which help him handle and preserve the soul liquid.

Key plot points and events

• Xu Yan tests the introductory level of the Great Azure Soul-Tempering Art and finds that it has increased his divine sense about fivefold, extending its range to roughly 450 zhang. However, its first volume contains no divine-sense combat techniques.
• Searching the stone hall for clues about the Giant Spirit Race, he notices that strange markings on a pillar react to his divine sense with a dark glow.
• Investigating the hall’s four stone shrines, Xu Yan discovers rune-covered pits beneath them. Filling their holes with low-grade spirit stones causes a brief response, but the stones crumble and the mechanism falls silent.
• He realizes the formation needs more powerful spirit stones and spends forty middle-grade stones to activate it. The pillars rotate, forming a blue-green gateway that pulls him inside.
• Xu Yan arrives in a vast, illuminated cave. Its walls show carved scenes, beginning with the middle-aged cultivator he saw earlier—now depicted in battle, gripping an enormous severed head.

Character developments

• Xu Yan’s enhanced divine sense makes him more confident and perceptive, while also encouraging him to investigate the hall more thoroughly.
• He shows persistence and practical ingenuity by identifying how the hidden mechanism works. Though reluctant to spend valuable middle-grade spirit stones, he accepts the cost to uncover the hall’s secrets.

Character interactions

• Xu Yan has no direct exchanges with other characters in this chapter. His actions are shaped by Kong Xuan’s remembered knowledge about spirit-stone requirements and by the mystery surrounding the Giant Spirit Race and the depicted cultivator.

Significant themes

• Discovery through observation: Xu Yan uncovers the hidden passage by noticing subtle reactions and piecing together physical clues.
• Knowledge and power: His stronger divine sense improves his ability to perceive and control his surroundings, but its potential remains limited without specialized techniques.
• The cost of exploration: Progress requires risking scarce resources, with Xu Yan weighing the expense against the possibility of valuable discoveries.
• Foreshadowing and mystery: The responsive markings, concealed gate, and violent cave carvings suggest a deeper history—and a dangerous story—behind the ruins.

Key plot points

• Xu Yan examines portraits in the hidden sanctuary and infers that the Giant Spirit Race’s progenitor once killed an Ancient Demon. He suspects the paintings preserve real history.
• Deeper in the cave, he discovers a vast tomb containing more than a thousand soul tablets. The top tablet belongs to the race’s progenitor, Ling Jie.
• Runes on the chamber walls identify the mark found on human cultivators’ foreheads as an Ancient Demon Slave Talisman. The Ancient Demons branded the Giant Spirit Race with these talismans and used its members as sacrifices.
• A Projection Pearl reveals Ling Jie’s recorded message. Though he failed to remove the talisman, he learned how it worked and developed a divine-sense attack using the essence of human cultivators refined into soul liquid.
• Ling Jie recounts that the art could kill even a Spirit Transformation Ancient Demon when used by a Nascent Soul cultivator. He claims the Giant Spirit Race was created as the Ancient Demons’ natural counter, but says a sudden calamity destroyed the race before it could take revenge.
• Xu Yan is especially interested in learning the divine-sense art, which could complement his progress in the Great Azure Soul-Tempering Art.

Character development and interactions

• Xu Yan pieces together the history from the portraits, tomb inscriptions, and Ling Jie’s projection. He remains emotionally detached from Ling Jie’s hatred and revenge mission, focusing instead on the practical value of the technique.
• Ling Jie, speaking through the recording, presents himself as a betrayed progenitor who wants his descendants to destroy the Ancient Demons. His account reveals both the Giant Spirit Race’s enslavement and his determination to leave behind a means of resistance.
• Xu Yan does not directly converse with Ling Jie; he listens and evaluates the message for what it can teach him.

Significant themes

• Enslavement and resistance: The Giant Spirit Race was controlled through slave talismans, yet its progenitor turned their workings into a weapon.
• Unintended consequences: The Ancient Demons’ attempt to create or control a race produced a natural enemy.
• Legacy and revenge: Ling Jie’s final message seeks to preserve his art and pass on his vendetta, while Xu Yan treats that legacy as a resource for his own cultivation.

Key plot points and events

• The Giant Spirit Race progenitor, Ling Jie, reveals the Soul-Annihilating Demon Needle, a technique that compresses divine sense into a needle to attack another cultivator’s divine sense.
• Ling Jie warns that the technique is powerful but damages its user, requiring a month of recovery between uses. He urges his descendants to save it for desperate moments.
• Before vanishing, Ling Jie asks anyone outside his race who learns the technique to kill Ancient Demon cultivators when possible. He then appears to be destroyed by the Ancient Demon Race’s Slave Talisman.
• Xu Yan suspects the talisman caused Ling Jie’s death and reflects on how even a cultivator capable of defeating Spirit Transformation experts could not escape it. The Ancient Demon Race’s history and the depths of the Ancient Demon Abyss intrigue him.
• Finding nothing else in the tomb, Xu Yan returns through the portal just before the forty middle-grade spirit stones powering it crumble.
• He spends a year learning to compress his divine sense into a soul needle, then masters directing it as an attack.

Character developments

• Xu Yan gains a formidable new offensive technique and shows patience and determination, enduring a year of cultivation to master it.
• His confidence is tempered by caution: he recognizes the technique’s backlash and the lethal dangers surrounding the Ancient Demon Race.
• Ling Jie is portrayed as a proud, defiant creator, devoted to his race and still committed to opposing the Ancient Demons even at the moment of his destruction.

Significant themes

• Power and cost: Great strength may come with serious physical or spiritual consequences.
• Legacy and duty: Ling Jie’s technique carries forward both his knowledge and his hatred of the Ancient Demon Race.
• The limits of power: Even exceptional cultivation cannot necessarily overcome a supernatural curse or talisman.
• Curiosity and ambition: Xu Yan’s interest in the Ancient Demon Abyss grows alongside his desire to become stronger.

Character interactions

• Though they never meet in person, Xu Yan receives Ling Jie’s teachings and final appeal through the progenitor’s recorded presence.
• Ling Jie’s message shapes Xu Yan’s view of the Ancient Demon Race, while Xu Yan’s successful cultivation turns Ling Jie’s legacy into a weapon he can potentially use.

Plot points and events

• After two years in a stone hall, Xu Yan completes the Great Azure Soul-Tempering Art and the Demon-Slaying Needle of Evolved Sense. His magic power has also advanced, bringing him close to qi-refining perfection.
• With the Mysterious Green Pearl likely to last only a little over two more years, he leaves the hall to pursue a breakthrough and escape the Ancient Demon Abyss. He keeps the damaged ancient formation in mind as a possible weapon against the Six Sects’ disciples.
• Deeper in the Abyss, Xu Yan finds and takes a valuable spatial artifact, an empty Purple Jade Gourd, from a cultivator who died after running out of medicine to resist the poison mist.
• He then encounters a confrontation between an elderly Foundation Establishment cultivator and a Crimson Flame Demon Leopard. The old Daoist wants a millennium fire lotus from the cave, hoping it will extend his life by thirty years. Xu Yan recognizes him as an elder of Medicine King Valley and hides, intending to let the two fight before seeking an opportunity for himself.
• The leopard attacks with a powerful fire pillar. The old Daoist counters by activating his Violet-Gold Spirit-Refining Cauldron, which begins absorbing the flames.

Character developments

• Xu Yan is more capable and confident after mastering his new techniques, but the Pearl’s limited duration keeps his escape urgent. He remains cautious and opportunistic, preferring to observe the battle before acting.
• The old Daoist is powerful but near death, and his desperation to obtain the lotus drives him to risk fighting a dangerous beast.
• The Crimson Flame Demon Leopard shows intelligence and formidable second-tier power, though it has not yet reached its full potential.

Character interactions

• Xu Yan silently watches and assesses both opponents rather than intervening.
• The old Daoist threatens the leopard with a spirit pill if it yields the lotus; the leopard answers with a roar and attacks.
• The old Daoist responds to the leopard’s fire attack by using his cauldron to absorb it.

Significant themes

• Survival under a deadline: Xu Yan’s limited time in the Abyss shapes his choices.
• Risk and opportunism: Both the Daoist and Xu Yan pursue valuable gains despite the danger, though in different ways.
• The cost of the Abyss: Poison mist and scarce resources have already killed travelers, while the environment also appears to affect its creatures.

Key plot points and events

• The purple-robed Medicine King Valley cultivator neutralizes the Crimson Flame Demon Leopard’s powerful Nine-Yan Spirit Fire with his purple-gold cauldron, then attacks it.
• The leopard reveals the strength of its Spirit Demon Bloodline, enlarging its body and battering the cauldron. Xu Yan watches from a concealed position, hoping the two combatants will badly injure each other.
• The old Daoist swallows a precious pill that transforms him into a golden giant. One punch breaks the leopard’s bones and leaves it apparently near death—but the pill’s backlash also weakens him.
• Xu Yan exploits the opening, killing the old Daoist with his Soul-Annihilating Demon Needle. The attack’s recoil nearly injures Xu Yan as well.
• Xu Yan finishes the leopard with the Azure Flood Dragon Furnace, collects its body and the old Daoist’s cauldron, and searches the old Daoist’s Storage Bag. Finding little beyond Detoxification Pills, he begins sealing the corpse’s vital essence.

Character developments

• Xu Yan proves patient, opportunistic, and ruthless: he waits until both opponents are distracted and the old Daoist weakened before striking. However, using his soul attack carries a serious cost.
• The old Daoist is revealed to possess a powerful body-enhancing technique or transformation triggered by a pill. His strength is formidable, but the pill’s backlash leaves him vulnerable.
• The Crimson Flame Demon Leopard demonstrates that its bloodline makes it a dangerous opponent even for a Foundation Establishment cultivator, though it cannot withstand the old Daoist’s boosted physical attack.

Significant themes

• Power comes with risk: the old Daoist’s dramatic increase in strength is followed by debilitating backlash, while Xu Yan’s decisive soul attack nearly harms him too.
• Survival through opportunism: Xu Yan succeeds not by joining the fair fight, but by observing, timing his intervention, and taking advantage of weakness.
• Appearances can mislead: the seemingly frail old Daoist hides overwhelming strength, while even a seemingly dominant beast can be brought down by a sudden reversal.

Character interactions

• The old Daoist and the leopard engage in a fierce contest of magic, physical strength, and endurance, each initially underestimating the other.
• Xu Yan stays out of their battle until the old Daoist’s pill backlash creates an opening, then attacks him without warning.
• After killing the old Daoist, Xu Yan turns on the wounded leopard, ensuring neither opponent survives to threaten him or claim the spoils.

Key plot points and events

• Xu Yan retrieves the purple-robed Daoist’s sealed corpse, intending to use it to condense Soul Liquid, then enters a blazing cave to claim a Millennium Fire Lotus.
• He carefully seals the rare Tier Four herb to preserve its spiritual power and stores it in a jade box.
• After restoring his magic power and preparing protective formations, Xu Yan eats a lotus petal without first taking medicines to reduce its effects.
• The lotus’s fierce medicinal power causes a month of extreme agony as it burns and tempers his body. He eventually emerges with greater physical strength, renewed lifespan, and strengthened bones.
• With some of the lotus’s power still absorbed in his flesh and blood, Xu Yan decides to continue cultivating and attempt a breakthrough to Qi Refining Perfection.

Character development

• Xu Yan’s confidence grows as he experiences the benefits of body refinement. He believes his body can now withstand ordinary magic artifacts.
• His interest in the Ancient Demon Race’s legacy deepens: he now seeks not only its connection to the Ancient Demon Slave Talisman, but also its potential body-refinement methods.
• He remains bold and impatient, choosing to endure the lotus’s full pain rather than spend time preparing medicines to temper it.

Significant themes

• Power through suffering: The lotus’s transformation comes only after prolonged, brutal pain.
• Fortune and rarity: The Fire Lotus is an exceptionally rare gift of heaven and earth, prized for both its lifespan-restoring and body-strengthening effects.
• Growing ambition: New strength expands Xu Yan’s goals and encourages him to pursue a dangerous legacy and further cultivation.

Character interactions

• There are no direct conversations or encounters in the chapter. Xu Yan acts alone; the purple-robed Daoist appears only as a sealed corpse whose remains he plans to use.

Plot points and events

• Xu Yan uses the spiritual energy left in his body by a Millennium Fire Lotus, along with Qi Gathering Pills, to break through to Qi Refining Perfection. He then spends time consolidating his cultivation.
• His divine sense now reaches more than five hundred zhang, and he believes he is strong enough to challenge ordinary Foundation Establishment cultivators. His next goal is Foundation Establishment.
• On leaving his cave, he finds several of his first-tier defensive formations badly worn and resolves to acquire stronger ones.
• Xu Yan travels deeper into the Ancient Demon Abyss, hoping to find an inheritance of the mysterious Ancient Demon Race.
• He discovers clusters of black holes that pour out demonic qi and devour his divine sense. He suspects they cause the Abyss’s demonic-qi eruptions, but avoids them rather than risk investigating further.
• After three months of cautious travel, he reaches a barren region of black sand and notices a strange, unusually large dune. He approaches it.

Character development

• Xu Yan grows stronger and more confident after reaching Qi Refining Perfection, while remaining cautious about the dangers of the Abyss.
• His curiosity about the Ancient Demon Race deepens, but he tempers it with practical judgment, retreating from the mysterious black holes.
• The passage also recalls Kong Xuan’s grudge against his senior brother, rooted in a formation that killed him; this history explains the importance Xu Yan places on formations.

Significant themes

• Cultivation and preparation: Xu Yan’s breakthrough is followed by deliberate consolidation, while his damaged formations remind him that power depends on preparation as well as strength.
• Curiosity versus caution: The Abyss’s ancient mysteries draw Xu Yan onward, but their dangers demand restraint.
• The unknown and hidden history: The black holes and the scarcely understood Ancient Demon Race suggest forces and secrets buried within the Abyss.

Character interactions

• Xu Yan has no direct conversations or encounters with other characters in this chapter. His choices are shaped by the remembered conflict between Kong Xuan and his senior brother, and by his own assessment of the Abyss’s dangers.

Key plot points and events

• Xu Yan discovers an unusual black dune and uses his magic to uncover a colossal, half-kneeling skeleton buried beneath it.
• The skeleton is enormous, black and jade-like, and still radiates an oppressive aura. Xu Yan suspects it belonged to an Ancient Demon Race cultivator of at least nascent-soul strength.
• He realizes the deadly aura comes from a hole in the skeleton’s brow. The fractures across its body suggest a single powerful divine ability killed its owner.
• Xu Yan finds no surviving inheritance or valuables, but discovers a broken Bronze Long Spear marked with an Ancient Demon Slave Talisman, confirming the skeleton’s identity and indicating he is near the Ancient Demon Abyss’s Core and ancestral lands.
• Unable to fit the remains in his Storage Bag, Xu Yan uses his Purple-Gold Great Cauldron to break off a large rib. The strike damages the cauldron’s spiritual essence, but he keeps the rib and continues onward.

Character development

• Xu Yan is curious and resourceful, carefully investigating the skeleton rather than rushing in.
• His awe at the ancient cultivator’s power deepens his interest in the Ancient Demon Race’s body-refinement techniques.
• His disappointment at losing the chance to collect the whole skeleton shows his practical, material-minded side, while his willingness to damage a valuable artifact reflects his determination to salvage something useful.

Significant themes

• The lingering power of the past: Even after ages, the skeleton and the force that killed its owner remain formidable.
• Limits of power and knowledge: Xu Yan can identify the remains and recover a fragment, but cannot access the cultivator’s lost inheritance or preserve the whole skeleton.
• Ambition and discovery: The find strengthens Xu Yan’s desire to learn about Ancient Demon body refinement and signals that he is nearing the race’s ancestral territory.
• The cost of opportunity: Recovering even a single valuable piece requires sacrificing some of the cauldron’s spiritual essence.

Character interactions

• Xu Yan has no direct interaction with other living characters. His encounter is with the remains of the Ancient Demon cultivator and the enduring traces of the unknown divine ability that killed it.

1. Key plot points and events

• Xu Yan travels deeper into the Ancient Demon Abyss, encountering increasingly frequent black holes—a sign that the Demonic Qi Eruption may be near.
• He finds more Ancient Demon Race remains and concludes that the race, along with its powerful spirit beasts, was likely wiped out in a brief, devastating assault. The attackers’ identity remains a mystery.
• Hearing rhythmic, unfamiliar sounds, Xu Yan suspects the Ancient Demon Race may still have descendants. He hides his aura and investigates.
• He discovers an apparently deserted Ancient Demon settlement, built from black stone and decorated with demonic patterns. The sound seems to come from a gap in its walls.
• As he approaches, the sound stirs grief and unwillingness in him, but he counters its influence by circulating his magic power.
• The settlement is surrounded by walls twenty zhang high and covered by a vast demonic cloud that emits demonic qi and flashes with dark light, possibly indicating a formation. Xu Yan reaches the entrance, where heaps of beast bones flank the opening.

2. Character developments

• Xu Yan remains cautious around the abyss’s hazards, but his curiosity and hope of finding a legacy lead him toward the settlement despite the danger.
• His observations deepen his awareness of the Ancient Demon Race’s mysterious annihilation. He reasons that ancient Spirit Transformation cultivators may already have investigated the region, reassuring himself that he can safely take a chance.
• He demonstrates composure by recognizing and resisting the strange sound’s emotional influence.

3. Significant themes

• Ruins and lost civilizations: The remains and settlement evoke the scale of the Ancient Demon Race’s disappearance.
• Unanswered history: The force capable of destroying a powerful race remains unknown, hinting at a deeper secret.
• Curiosity versus danger: Xu Yan’s pursuit of knowledge and possible treasure repeatedly draws him into peril.
• The past’s lingering presence: The settlement’s sound and surviving demonic qi suggest that ancient sorrow and power endure long after their creators are gone.

4. Character interactions

• Xu Yan has no direct encounter with another living character in this chapter.
• His main interaction is with the ruins and their mysterious sound, which affects his emotions until he uses magic power to resist it.

Plot points and events

• Xu Yan cautiously investigates an ancient Ancient Demon Race settlement after hearing strange, chant-like sounds from within. He confirms the entrance appears deserted and enters.
• He finds a huge statue of an old man, possibly the race’s progenitor, but discovers it is only an ordinary statue and holds no inheritance.
• The settlement is lifeless and strangely lacks remains near its entrance. Xu Yan follows the sounds toward a forest of black stone pillars.
• Beyond the pillars, he finds hundreds of Ancient Demon Race skeletons seated in a plaza, all facing an elder’s corpse. The eerie sounds stop when he arrives.
• Xu Yan realizes the sounds came from the elder’s lingering obsession. Its resonance reveals a vision: the elder was teaching young members of his race when an enormous palm killed them all, followed by a finger that pierced the elder’s brow.
• Unable to gain further information, Xu Yan disperses the elder’s remaining obsession and searches the skeletons, finding no useful items. He decides to look through the settlement’s living quarters—but the strange chant begins again.

Character developments and interactions

• Xu Yan remains wary and methodical, using divine sense to check for danger before entering. His curiosity grows as he investigates the statue, the sounds, and the plaza.
• He feels both relief at finding no living cultivators and disappointment at the settlement’s emptiness. The massacre’s vision darkens his mood, but he treats the elder’s fading obsession as no threat.
• The elder appears only through his corpse and lingering obsession. His final defiance survives in the strange sounds, while his memory reveals his role as teacher to the young.
• The chapter offers no direct exchange between living characters; Xu Yan’s main interaction is with the elder’s obsession and the scene it evokes.

Significant themes

• Annihilation and loss: The settlement preserves evidence of a people’s destruction but little else.
• Knowledge’s limits: Xu Yan seeks an inheritance and clues about the past, yet the statue, remains, and obsession yield almost nothing.
• Defiance beyond death: The elder’s last resistance endures as an inexplicable sound across ages.
• Unease and unresolved mystery: The chant’s return at the end suggests the settlement still holds something unexplained.

Key plot points

• Xu Yan investigates a huge wooden bird after it speaks in the voice of an Ancient Demon Race elder. Though it appears lifeless, it periodically opens its beak and makes an eerie call.
• Recalling ancient accounts of Anomalies—rare beings created by heaven and earth that lack an ordinary life aura—Xu Yan suspects the bird is one. He confirms it cannot enter his Storage Bag, but successfully stores it in a Spirit Beast Bag.
• Xu Yan theorizes that the elder once bound the Anomaly with a Slave Talisman and sacrificed it to preserve his lingering obsession. The bird seems to have lost nearly all awareness, though it may retain a trace of spirit.
• He hopes the Anomaly can recover: such beings possess unique, powerful innate abilities, and an ancient Secret Art could allow a cultivator to claim one. However, learning that art requires at least Golden Core cultivation, so Xu Yan prioritizes finding the Ancient Demon Race’s inheritance—especially the Slave Talisman technique.
• Xu Yan enters a massive ancient hall built from the bones of powerful Demon Beasts. He discovers that its bronze chandelier still burns after countless ages, apparently fueled by oil made from Nascent Soul Realm Flood Dragon Folk.

Character development and interactions

• Xu Yan moves from alarm and bafflement to cautious recognition, then excitement at the Anomaly’s potential. He remains practical, keeping his ambitions in check and focusing on the inheritance he can pursue now.
• His interaction with the wooden bird is largely investigative: he tests it with divine sense and storage items, then takes it with him. He also interprets its connection to the elder as the result of the elder’s past control and sacrifice.
• Though the elder is no longer present, his voice and lingering obsession shape Xu Yan’s understanding of the bird and the settlement’s history.

Significant themes

• The limits of knowledge: Even Xu Yan’s extensive inherited records cannot fully explain the wooden figure.
• Ancient power and its cost: The hall’s construction and the bird’s apparent sacrifice reveal the Ancient Demon Race’s strength and ruthlessness.
• Ambition tempered by caution: Xu Yan is tempted by the prospect of a world-shaking divine ability, but recognizes that it remains beyond his current cultivation.
• Survival and lingering traces: The Anomaly and the burning lamp suggest that fragments of life, power, and history can persist across vast stretches of time.

Key plot points

• Xu Yan examines three relics on an altar in an ancient demon hall: a half-broken black stele, a stone cauldron containing traces of exceptionally old spirit medicines, and a blank stone book.
• The stele holds a mysterious inner space filled with writing, but Xu Yan initially cannot understand the Ancient Demon Race’s script.
• When he sends Divine Sense into the blank book, ancient spirit-script characters appear alongside the demon writing. Using them as a key, he spends three days deciphering the language, exhausting his Divine Sense before taking a day to recover.
• He returns to the stele and discovers it does not contain the race’s full inheritance. Instead, it praises their progenitor, Xuan Hua, and describes a secret body-refining art based on inscribing a “Sacred Prohibition” on the body. The art is restricted to those with the race’s core bloodline.

Character development

• Xu Yan shows patience, scholarly ingenuity, and persistence, using his knowledge of ancient spirit script and Kong Xuan’s memories to solve the language barrier.
• His initial excitement about finding an inheritance gives way to surprise when the stele proves to be a record of the progenitor and a bloodline-restricted technique.

Significant themes

• Knowledge through interpretation: The wordless book’s translated script unlocks the stele’s otherwise inaccessible meaning.
• Inheritance and bloodline: The demon art is tied to lineage, limiting who can practice it.
• Lost ancient power: The relics and faded hall evoke the former greatness of the Ancient Demon Race.
• Cost of discovery: Xu Yan’s prolonged use of Divine Sense leaves him mentally strained and in need of recovery.

Character interactions

• Xu Yan has no direct exchanges with other characters in this chapter. His main “interaction” is with the ancient artifacts: he studies the cauldron, uses the stone book to decipher the stele, and uncovers the demon race’s account of Xuan Hua and their body-refining tradition.

Key plot points and events

• Xu Yan discovers and memorizes the Ancient Demon Race’s Slave Talisman secret art. The talisman can kill a branded being with a thought, but is difficult to master and requires essence blood from demon beasts carrying at least six spirit-demon bloodlines.
• He learns from the hall’s inscriptions that the tribe belongs to one of the Ancient Demon Race’s thirty-six tribes and finds its fully charged teleportation formation.
• Xu Yan activates the formation and arrives at the race’s central ancestral grounds. The journey badly injures him because the formation places severe demands on the body; his earlier use of a millennium fire lotus helps him survive.
• The ancestral grounds are devastated: the sky is blood-red, the land is split by enormous fissures, and skeletons and ruined palaces lie everywhere. The area is saturated with ancient killing intent.
• Xu Yan heads toward Primordial Demon Mountain, where the Ancient Demon Race’s true legacy grounds and Sacred Pavilion are said to lie. On the mountainside, he finds immense black-gold skeletons whose lingering pressure suggests their owners were powerful beyond the Nascent Soul Realm.
• He concludes that five Spirit Transformation cultivators died there.

Character development

• Xu Yan is resourceful and methodical, carefully studying the inscriptions, memorizing the talisman art, and using the recorded instructions to operate the teleportation formation.
• His confidence is tempered by the teleportation injury and the oppressive danger of the ancestral grounds. He proceeds cautiously, but remains driven by the prospect of finding a surviving legacy.
• His curiosity grows as he considers whether the mountain’s enormous skeletons belonged to Ancient Demon Race members with a sacred evolution bloodline.

Significant themes

• Ancient power and vanished civilizations: The ruined ancestral grounds and formidable remains hint at the Ancient Demon Race’s former greatness—and its mysterious downfall.
• Dangerous knowledge and control: The Slave Talisman offers absolute domination but demands difficult cultivation and rare materials.
• Survival through preparation: Xu Yan’s physical tempering and careful use of recorded knowledge are what allow him to survive the teleportation and enter the ruins.
• The limits of human cultivation: The lingering force of long-dead Spirit Transformation experts emphasizes how far beyond ordinary cultivators the ancient beings stood.

Character interactions

• Xu Yan has no direct encounters with other living characters in this chapter. His interactions are with the Ancient Demon Race’s legacy: its inscriptions, secret art, teleportation array, ruined grounds, and the remains of its powerful cultivators.

Key plot points and events

• Xu Yan reaches the summit of Primordial Demon Mountain, where he finds a vast demonic pool and the ruined Sacred Pavilion. The pool still contains spiritual energy, but only cultivators with pure Ancient Demon Race blood can use it.
• The Sacred Pavilion bears signs of a catastrophic battle. Its first floor is wrecked and strewn with bones belonging to demons and human cultivators; its shelves are empty.
• On the second floor, Xu Yan discovers wall carvings containing the Ancient Demon Race’s core inheritance, including murals depicting the divine ability Annihilation Demon Finger.
• The murals trigger a vivid vision of the technique’s destructive power. The accompanying inscription explains how to cultivate it and how it can be unleashed as a forbidden attack by sacrificing the user’s essence blood and lifespan—or by using a living being marked with a Slave Talisman.
• Xu Yan recognizes the technique as the secret art once mentioned by the Giant Spirit Race’s progenitor. He begins studying it, hoping to strengthen himself before enemies from the Six Sects find him.

Character development and interactions

• Xu Yan remains cautious and composed, but his disappointment at being unable to use the demonic pool gives way to excitement when he finds the inheritance.
• He sees the Annihilation Demon Finger as a potential life-saving weapon, especially when combined with his Slave Talisman technique.
• No direct conversations occur in the chapter; Xu Yan interacts mainly with the ancient ruins, its inscriptions, and the vision brought on by the murals.

Significant themes

• The cost of power: The divine ability’s greatest strike may require sacrificing life, essence, or another living being.
• Inheritance amid ruin: The Sacred Pavilion is devastated, yet its core knowledge survives.
• Urgency and survival: Xu Yan’s need to grow stronger is heightened by the threat of discovery and his lack of a Foundation Establishment Pill.
• Limits of bloodline: The demonic pool’s power is inaccessible to those without the proper ancestry.

Key plot points and events

• Xu Yan is nearly killed by a nightmare illusion that recreates a memory of Golden Light Daoist preparing to take his blood. The Mysterious Green Pearl alerts him, allowing him to break free.
• He confronts the ancient demonic presence on the Sacred Pavilion’s third floor. It claims to be an Ancient Demon and offers a bargain: Xu Yan’s essence blood in exchange for ancient demon true blood and help cultivating the Divine Ability.
• Xu Yan refuses, recognizing the demon’s weakness and distrusting its promises. The demon threatens him and hints that it once killed two human Spirit Transformation cultivators.
• When the demon will not risk possessing Xu Yan, Xu Yan attacks with the Soul-Annihilating Demon Needle, a secret art effective against the Ancient Demon Race. The attack destroys the demon’s remaining wisp of divine sense.
• With the demonic energy fading, Xu Yan discovers a huge, black, patterned egg-like object and wonders whether it is a Demon Embryo.

Character developments

• Xu Yan moves from near-victim to confident adversary. He stays alert after escaping the illusion, sees through the demon’s bluffing and attempted bargain, and acts decisively.
• The Ancient Demon is revealed as a greatly weakened remnant: despite its ancient power and boasts, it cannot safely seize Xu Yan’s body and is ultimately destroyed.

Significant themes

• Vigilance and deception: The illusion exploits Xu Yan’s trust and past trauma, while the demon uses both threats and promises to manipulate him.
• Power versus appearance: The demon’s overwhelming aura conceals its depleted condition; Xu Yan’s composure and specialized technique give him the advantage.
• Knowledge as survival: Xu Yan’s awareness of the Mysterious Green Pearl and the Soul-Annihilating Demon Needle proves crucial.

Character interactions

• Xu Yan rejects the demon’s offer and challenges its threats, provoking it into revealing its vulnerability.
• The demon tries first to bargain, then to intimidate Xu Yan, but neither tactic succeeds.
• The Mysterious Green Pearl indirectly saves Xu Yan by warning him before the illusion can kill him.