Chapter Summaries

Feng Zhengliang confronted the Xiao Household Clan Elder over the Xiao Household’s rumors and the mistreatment of a shopkeeper, then defeated him with the Mechanism Device “Red Lotus.” The chapter ended with the wounded elder mistaking Feng Zhengliang for Feng Mingzhu and begging for his life.

• Feng Zhengliang dismissed the Xiao Household Clan Elder’s demand for an explanation and accused the Xiao Household of spreading rumors and insulting him.
• The Xiao Household Clan Elder activated the household’s War Armor, Battle Master, and decided to injure Feng Zhengliang without killing him.
• Feng Zhengliang summoned the Mechanism Device “Red Lotus” and used its Eight-Faced Glazed Fire to corrode Battle Master’s defenses and attack the elder’s consciousness.
• Feng Zhengliang combined the eight fire dragons into one stream and blasted the Xiao Household Clan Elder into the ruins.
• The wounded Xiao Household Clan Elder saw Feng Zhengliang approach and begged him for mercy, calling him Senior Phoenix.

Feng Zhengliang turned the Xiao Household’s attack into a wider conflict, while Li Chen used the turmoil to bargain with the Feng Household for its Array Dao knowledge. The chapter ended with Li Chen and Feng Zhengliang agreeing to a contract exchanging the Brain Deconstruction Technique secrets for one intervention in battle.

• Feng Zhengliang killed the Xiao Household’s fourth elder, stormed its headquarters, and seized two Yaksha Mechas, prompting the Xiao Household to rally its remaining forces and seek allies.
• Li Chen watched the conflict from the Skin-Painting Guild’s residence and recognized that the Xiao Household’s isolation gave the Feng Household a major advantage.
• The Xiao Household sent an envoy to ask Li Chen for help, but Li Chen rejected its offer and leaked the proposal to the Feng Household.
• Feng Zhengliang invited Li Chen to the Feng Residence, where Li Chen offered secrets of Luo Changshan’s Brain Deconstruction Technique in exchange for the Feng Household’s Array Dao knowledge.
• Feng Zhengliang asked Li Chen to become an ally, and Li Chen agreed to intervene once within three months against a Foundation Establishment-level opponent.
• Li Chen and Feng Zhengliang prepared a karmic contract, and Li Chen warned Feng Zhengliang not to sign his ancestor’s name.

Li Chen received Feng Mingzhu’s complete Array Dao inheritance and the schematic for the Hundred Ingenious Weapons from Feng Zhengliang, giving him new foundations for advancing his craft. He ordered the Auxiliary Brain to analyze the materials and plan his studies as he considered how programming could help him master complex arrays and mechanisms.

• Li Chen reflected that the Feng Household had traded valuable knowledge for his promise to help with its upcoming operation.
• Li Chen examined the Book of the Nine Xuanmen Arrays, which covered nine foundational arrays and their applications across the Array Dao.
• Li Chen studied the Hundred Ingenious Weapons schematic and considered applying its Mechanism Transformation principles to his own devices.
• Li Chen ordered the Auxiliary Brain to scan the jade slips, organize their contents, and prepare a study plan.
• Li Chen compared Array Dao fundamentals to low-level programming languages and resolved to master them as a foundation for the Great Dao.

Feng Zhengliang revealed that the ancestor had ordered the Feng Household to trade its treasures, then called in Li Chen and other cultivators to fulfill their contracts in the war against the Xiao Household. As the Feng forces launched an assault on the Xiao Household Manor, they deployed their four-star Jade-Eyed Fire Thunder Beast.

• Feng Tiande confronted Feng Zhengliang over giving away the Feng Household’s treasures, but Feng Zhengliang said the deals followed the ancestor’s final instruction.
• Feng Zhengliang took out the Fire Dragon Mechanism’s main component and began refining it with azure flame.
• The Feng and Xiao Households waged a bloody war while other Suyang factions watched for chances to profit, and Li Chen secluded himself to study the Book of the Nine Xuanmen Arrays.
• Feng Zhengliang invoked Li Chen’s contract and summoned him, You Renzhi, Fu Wei, Zhen Zhuo, and other cultivators to fight for the Feng Household.
• Feng Zhengliang led the allied cultivators toward the Xiao Household Manor, where the Feng Household deployed its four-star Jade-Eyed Fire Thunder Beast.

The Feng Household launched an attack on the Xiao Household Manor, using its four-star Jade-Eyed Fire Thunder Beast to breach the Mountain Gate Grand Formation. Just as the Feng forces seemed poised to overwhelm the Xiao defenders, Xiao Yicheng revealed that three of the Xiao Household’s Mechas had attacked a Feng Household Villa.

• Li Chen, You Renzhi, and Fu Wei arrived above the battlefield and saw the Feng Household’s ground forces struggling against the Xiao Household’s fortified defenses.
• Feng Zhengliang led the Jade-Eyed Fire Thunder Beast in an assault that broke through the Mountain Gate Grand Formation, and the Feng Household’s Foundation Establishment cultivators charged into the valley.
• Li Chen intercepted a Xiao Household Night Owl, while You Renzhi and Zhen Zhuo confronted Xiao Household allies who recognized them.
• Feng Zhengliang taunted Xiao Yicheng, who showed a jade-slip image of Feng Tiande and other Feng Household Descendants captured at a Feng Household Villa.

Feng Zhengliang ignored Xiao Yicheng’s threat to kill his captured father and led the assault on the Xiao Household’s main force. As the battle began, outside clans hesitated to intervene, leaving the outcome uncertain.

• Xiao Yicheng revealed that the Xiao Household had captured Feng Tiande and taken the Cold Mountain Retreat, hoping to make Feng Zhengliang withdraw.
• Feng Zhengliang laughed off threats against his father and urged his allies to attack the Xiao Household.
• Feng Zhengliang unleashed the Jade-Eyed Fire Thunder Beast’s power, displaying strength that astonished the gathered cultivators.
• Li Chen used Thunder Whip to intercept an opponent and focused on defeating the Xiao Household under the terms of his contract.
• Xiao Yicheng called for the Xiao Household’s allies to reinforce him, but the surrounding clans stayed behind their formations and waited to see how the battle developed.

Li Chen kept a Xiao Household commander occupied while Feng Zhengliang overwhelmed the Xiao Household forces. After Feng Zhengliang killed Xiao Yicheng and several other enemies, You Renzhi, Fu Wei, and the Feng Household fighters joined forces to destroy the Xiao Household's main force.

• Li Chen rejected a Xiao Household commander's offer and threat, then fought him at close quarters with his upgraded Combat Puppet.
• Feng Zhengliang defeated Xiao Yicheng by enveloping him in fused fire dragons and burning him to death.
• Feng Zhengliang's fire dragons killed Xiao Household disciples and two more elders, breaking the survivors' morale.
• You Renzhi, Fu Wei, and the Feng Household fighters increased their attacks and slaughtered the Xiao Household's main force.

After the Feng Household defeated the Xiao Household, Li Chen returned to Crouching Tiger Hill and agreed to wait while Wu Ding attempted Foundation Establishment. He offered to modify He Ran into a Foundation Establishment-level fighter so Crouching Tiger Hill would remain protected after Li Chen left.

• After the Xiao Household commander refused to surrender, Li Chen and two Feng Household fighters killed him.
• Li Chen learned that Suyang's aristocratic clans had sworn allegiance to the Feng Household and joined the campaign against the Xiao Household.
• Li Chen returned to Crouching Tiger Hill, where He Ran and Wu Ding discussed the Feng Household's victory and Feng Zhengliang's rise.
• Wu Ding asked Li Chen to stay while he attempted Foundation Establishment, and Li Chen agreed.
• Li Chen offered to modify He Ran or leave behind a Three-Star Puppet to protect Crouching Tiger Hill.
• He Ran chose to be modified.

Li Chen prepared a life-supporting puppet chassis and preservation chamber for He Ran, then began replacing He Ran’s body while keeping him alive. The conversion surgery proceeded smoothly, though the chapter ended before the result was shown.

• Li Chen explained that He Ran’s conversion required a puppet chassis with a mechanical life-support system because Qi Refining cultivators could not survive without one.
• Li Chen built He Ran a Foundation Establishment-level chassis, ordered a Spirit Essence Furnace and Spirit Pump, and constructed an Original-Body Preservation Chamber using the Spirit-Gathering Formation.
• Li Chen completed and tested the equipment, then brought He Ran to Ironstone Tower to begin the conversion.
• Li Chen used the Silk-Threading Art to numb He Ran below the neck, cut off his head, and used his magic power to maintain the vitality of both head and body.
• Li Chen performed the Meridian-Rejoining Method, Blood-Transfusion Art, and Flesh-Regeneration Art, and the surgery proceeded smoothly.

Li Chen successfully modified He Ran with a head-swapping procedure, giving him a Foundation Establishment combat chassis, and instructed his disciples on the technique and its ethical limits. After Crouching Tiger Hill received a share of the Xiao Household spoils, Li Chen accepted an invitation to bid on a captured Red Owl mecha.

• Li Chen completed He Ran’s head-swapping modification, and He Ran began adapting to his powerful new chassis.
• Li Chen told He Ran to master flight and learn to control his new strength, then explained the procedure to his observing disciples and warned them against abusing such techniques.
• A few days later, He Ran flew unsteadily around the Ironstone Tower, and Crouching Tiger Hill celebrated gaining another source of Foundation Establishment combat power.
• Li Chen attended Suyang City’s alliance gathering and accepted spirit materials worth hundreds of thousands as spoils from the campaign against the Xiao Household.
• An elder of the Feng Household offered Crouching Tiger Hill the chance to bid on a captured Red Owl mecha, and Li Chen agreed to attend the auction.

Li Chen explained Crouching Tiger Hill’s neutrality policy and revealed that he planned to leave Suyang when the time came. The news spread through the region, and Qi Yuetian flew toward Crouching Tiger Hill.

• Li Chen brought the repaired Red Owl mecha to Crouching Tiger Hill, stirring public discussion about the hill’s growing military strength.
• Li Chen announced that Crouching Tiger Hill would remain a vassal of Suyang and adopt a permanent Neutrality Policy, with the Feng Household offering protection.
• Li Chen told An Yuanxi, Zhong Zhang, and the others that he would eventually leave Crouching Tiger Hill and urged them to share the news openly.
• Foundation Establishment cultivators across Suyang discussed Li Chen’s ambition to leave, while You Renzhi reflected on his own lost chance to seek greater horizons.
• Qi Yuetian read a letter in Qishan Valley, looked toward the horizon, and flew toward Crouching Tiger Hill.

Li Chen resolved to leave Suyang City rather than let its peaceful life limit his cultivation, and Qi Yuetian accepted his decision. Several days later, Li Chen completed his preparations and began consolidating ten years of operational data to evolve the Magic Cube Maze’s intelligence.

• Li Chen examined his attachment to Suyang and decided he had to leave to pursue greater cultivation.
• Qi Yuetian arrived to ask whether Li Chen was leaving, then understood his reasons and wished him well.
• Li Chen returned to Ironstone Tower and had the Auxiliary Brain finish storing the Treasured Materials he planned to take.
• Li Chen gathered data from detectors and Flying Discs around Crouching Tiger Hill for the Swarm of Bees Technique experiment.
• Heavenly Pivot began deep learning and activated evolution mode with the accumulated data.

Li Chen combined mechanical intelligence with spiritual intelligence to evolve Heavenly Pivot into a four-star intelligence. He then upgraded Xiao Die and Xiao Ying and devised a way to strengthen Dominator through a network of allied intelligences.

• Li Chen used Capture Shadows, Refine Souls to merge a spiritual root bone template with Heavenly Pivot’s intelligence architecture.
• Heavenly Pivot completed its evolution, and tests confirmed it had reached four-star grade.
• Li Chen spent the following days integrating and upgrading Xiao Die and Xiao Ying.
• Li Chen planned to turn Dominator into a collective intelligence, supported by Heavenly Pivot, Xiao Die, Xiao Ying, and his own divine sense.

Li Chen watched Xiao Die and Xiao Ying’s remote Puppet Doll bodies independently reconstruct swordsmanship and develop distinct Sword Dao paths. Their intelligence cores had advanced far enough to preserve these styles as integral parts of their identities.

• Li Chen observed the Puppet Sisters’ protected cores and their network of remote bodies in the Magic Cube Maze.
• Xiao Die and Xiao Ying used virtual personalities and combat programs to train with about a hundred spare bodies.
• The sisters rebuilt swordsmanship from scratch, progressing from clumsy weapon swings to techniques that surpassed ordinary mortal methods.
• Xiao Die independently developed the Chess Sword Art, while Xiao Ying deduced a style resembling the Three Talents Sword School.
• Li Chen realized the sisters’ sword styles had become embedded in their core algorithms and could only be removed by rebuilding their intelligences.

Li Chen tested how the Puppet Doll sisters’ artificial intelligence could develop and share Sword Dao techniques, then prepared to leave after receiving no word from Wu Ding. He disguised a Wooden Soldier as a Qi Refining Rogue Cultivator and departed quietly.

• Li Chen stopped Xiao Ying and another avatar’s sparring and explained that their ability to extrapolate sword moves mattered more than their swordsmanship.
• Xiao Ying uploaded her swordsmanship models to the divine sense network, and Li Chen loaded them into his Auxiliary Brain, Dominator.
• Li Chen used a puppet frame to spar with Xiao Ying, but his Auxiliary Brain lagged behind her until he trapped her with a magnetic origin field and won.
• Xiao Ying knocked Li Chen down when she lunged at him, and he detached his head and ordered Heavenly Pivot to send his frame back to recharge.
• Li Chen disguised a spare Wooden Soldier as an ordinary Qi Refining Rogue Cultivator and decided to leave quietly without waiting longer for Wu Ding.

Li Chen arrived in the old city of the Long Capital to ask about the area, but Earthly Sha Sect thugs tried to extort him after he injured one of their men. He revealed his inhuman nature and dared them to summon the Tiger Lord, leaving the gang terrified.

• Li Chen asked an inn waiter for information about the neighborhood, then left without eating the meal he had ordered.
• Two Earthly Sha Sect thugs followed Li Chen, and he severed one thug’s hand when the man tried to rob him.
• Three more Earthly Sha disciples confronted Li Chen and demanded ten thousand Talisman Coins as compensation.
• Li Chen opened his chest and removed a sealed Spirit Essence Furnace, then detached his head and offered both as payment.
• Li Chen challenged the disciples to call the Tiger Lord, and one of them fell to his knees begging for his life.

Li Chen used a puppet incarnation to meet Yang Hu, the Tiger Lord of the Earthly Sha Sect, and learned about the demon calamity and the hunt for Mo Huang. After obtaining maps and current information, he left to hunt Mo Huang’s subordinates and build his reputation in the Long Kingdom.

• Yang Hu recognized Li Chen’s puppet incarnation as a sign of an accomplished senior and knelt to offer his help.
• Li Chen asked Yang Hu for maps and the latest information about the demon calamity.
• Yang Hu explained Mo Huang’s attack on Long Capital ten years earlier, its escape underground, and the bounties offered for demons and their leader.
• Li Chen obtained maps of the Long Kingdom and updates on the demon calamity, then flew away from the inn.
• Li Chen decided to hunt the true demons under Mo Huang, earn talisman coins and spirit materials, and establish his reputation before seeking connections with local experts.

Li Chen used the Wooden Soldier and Flying Discs to locate a valley full of Glutton Hounds, then sent his Sword Guard puppets to hunt them. The pack was slain and its useful materials were collected for the mother hive.

• Li Chen guided the Wooden Soldier past an overgrown Market District and reflected on how demons and wilderness had reclaimed human lands.
• The Wooden Soldier killed a Glutton Hound, and Li Chen detected a broad cloud of demonic qi with his reconnaissance instruments.
• Li Chen found thirty or forty Glutton Hounds in a valley, where they had devoured the local beast herds and a grizzly bear.
• Li Chen deployed ten Sword Guard maidens, who fought through the pack and killed its leader and the remaining elite hounds.
• Six Worker Bees dissected the demon corpses, gathered Demon Cores and other materials, and returned to the mother hive.

After assessing the modest profit from wiping out a small demon tribe, Li Chen decided to pursue a more valuable target: a notorious Mystic Ice Python turned true demon. Unable to search the vast mountains by himself, he prepared concealed detection Mechanism Devices to locate it.

• Li Chen calculated that destroying the demon tribe had earned him only forty to fifty thousand in spirit materials and accepted that ordinary demons were not worth hunting unless he encountered them.
• Several days later, Li Chen followed a map to the mountains where the Mystic Ice Python had been sighted and reviewed its history of attacking towns and killing people.
• Li Chen learned that the locals had offered a bounty of one and a half million talisman coins for the Mystic Ice Python, but its intelligence and ability to hide made finding it across the vast mountains difficult.
• Li Chen took improved, walnut-sized detection Mechanism Devices from the Magic Cube Maze storeroom to deploy across the mountains and search for the python.

Li Chen deployed a network of Detection Mechanism Devices to search for the True Demon Black-Ice Python while hunting demon beasts to recoup his costs. When he detected powerful demonic energy consistent with the python, he switched to his specially built combat Puppet and prepared to investigate.

• Li Chen used an automated Flying Shuttle to place detectors and spent several days forming a surveillance net across six great circles.
• Li Chen hunted several High Rank demon beasts, earning back the cost of his reconnaissance equipment, and decided he needed better cultivation resources.
• Li Chen analyzed the detectors' reports and identified a distant area where High Rank demon beasts gathered, possibly near a false blessed land.
• Li Chen flew toward the area in the Wooden Soldier but detected Foundation Establishment-level demonic energy along the way.
• Li Chen opened a Void Gate and replaced the Wooden Soldier with the higher-tier combat Puppet he had built for himself.