Chapter Summaries

Li Chen performed the Puppet Master's Song “Zhuo Wudan Bids Farewell to His Beloved Wife on a Snowy Night” and used it to test his influence over the audience’s emotions. After Li Baiyan challenged his method, Li Chen concluded that he needed to make his emotional influence feel natural to pass the Assessment.

• Li Chen performed Zhao Ke’s play with Mechanism Puppets, instruments, illusions, and transformed Clay People.
• Li Baiyan and the other girls became absorbed in the tragic performance and felt sympathy for its characters.
• Li Chen secretly stirred the girls’ emotions, making them feel amused during the tragedy and revealing that he could impose feelings on his audience.
• Li Baiyan recognized Li Chen’s influence and asked him to stop when the girls’ minds became unsettled.
• Li Baiyan argued that imposed emotions did not come from the audience’s own hearts, but Li Chen disagreed and said he needed to make his influence flow naturally to pass the Assessment.

Li Chen adapted Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai into a Puppet Master's Song for the final assessment, using his flute, puppets, and spells to immerse the audience in the tale. The performance revealed Zhu Yingtai's disguise and ended with the lovers dying and becoming butterflies, leaving the Grandmaster Artisans and other performers captivated.

• Li Chen spent the days before the final assessment researching his breakthrough and refining the Puppeteer Happy Pill.
• The Puppet Masters began presenting their works, but the Grandmaster Artisans dismissed many performances, and Daoist Rotten Wood berated one Puppet Master's Song performer.
• Grandmaster Artisan Meijiu ordered the remaining Puppet Master's Song performers, including Hua Wucuo and Li Chen, to perform together in the hall.
• Li Chen played the flute and used puppets and spells to present his adaptation of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai, silencing the audience and even Hua Wucuo.
• The audience realized that Zhu Yingtai had disguised herself as a man, and watched her and Liang Shanbo's love end in tragedy as they became butterflies.

Li Chen impressed the Grandmaster Artisans with his adaptation of “The Butterfly Lovers,” but his performance drew a heavenly demon into the assessment hall. When it tried to ensnare him as Zhu Yingtai, Li Chen entered Supreme Detachment from Emotion and prepared to fight.

• Li Chen performed his adaptation of the Puppet Master's Song, moving the assessment participants and earning praise from the Grandmaster Artisans.
• Mo Qing and Daoist Rotten Wood noticed a haze of black smoke around the hall, but Mo Qing asked them to wait and see how Li Chen handled it.
• Li Chen's music stirred memories of loved ones in Hua Wucuo, Xiao Chun, Li Baiyan, and the other participants.
• An alluring heavenly maiden appeared before Li Chen and tried to seduce him with thirty-two forms, revealing herself as a Heavenly Demon.
• Li Chen entered Supreme Detachment from Emotion and declared that the heavenly maiden was a Heavenly Demon who had to die.

Li Chen overcame a manifested Heavenly Demon by stripping away her hide and resisting her mind-affecting power. Grandmaster Artisan Mo Qing declared him the sole passer of the Grand Artisan Assessment.

• Li Chen entered the Heavenly Demon's illusion and allowed her to approach, then tore off her beautiful skin to reveal her horrifying true form.
• Li Chen crushed the powerless Heavenly Demon and tried to bind her, but she dissolved into smoke and vanished.
• Daoist Rotten Wood explained that the inner demon had no substance and could not be captured, while praising the value of the Heavenly Demon Hide.
• Meijiu praised Li Chen's feat, and Mo Qing announced that Li Chen had passed the Assessment while everyone else had failed.
• Hua Wucuo remembered his infatuation and despair during the trial, covered his face, and began to sob.

Li Chen received full marks in the Art Dao assessment, earned Mo Qing’s offer to teach him, and showed Hua Wucuo how perception could distort beauty. After Hua Wucuo decided to study at Broad Cloud Peak, Li Chen faced the next assessment, themed Mechanical Weapons.

• The Grandmaster Artisans awarded Li Chen full marks for his Art Dao performance and eliminated the other contestants.
• Mo Qing offered to teach Li Chen the Art Dao and arranged for her disciples and acquaintances to seek instruction at Broad Cloud Peak.
• Hua Wucuo asked Li Chen how he had resisted the Heavenly Demon’s beauty, and Li Chen altered Hua Wucuo’s perceptions to demonstrate that beauty depended on the mind.
• Hua Wucuo thanked Li Chen for the lesson and decided to travel to Broad Cloud Peak to study under him.
• Li Chen arrived at a mountain of flames for his next assessment, where the Grandmaster Artisan announced the theme was Mechanical Weapons.

Li Chen forged five interconnected elemental magic swords and began refining the Sword Casket that housed them for the mechanical-weapons assessment. The swords were still three-star creations, and the chapter ended before he completed the casket or demonstrated the full weapon system.

• The Grandmaster Artisan explained that candidates had one month to assemble a four-star-or-higher mechanical weapon capable of slaying true demons, and they could not leave Crimson Flame Valley.
• Li Chen met Zhu Yishan, a Spirit Planting Dao practitioner, and considered how to pass the assessment.
• Li Chen forged his Fire Essence Sword and told Zhu Yishan that he had completed all five elemental magic swords.
• Li Chen explained that the five swords were interconnected Sub-Swords combining features of Mother-and-Child Swords and a Sword Casket.
• Li Chen placed the five swords in a 米-shaped Sword Casket and began refining the casket itself.

Li Chen demonstrated a Five Elements Sword Casket that controlled a set of magical swords as an automatic combat system. The Grandmaster Artisans watched it continue fighting after he stopped controlling it, revealing its ability to learn and adapt to unfamiliar attacks.

• Li Chen explained that his Sword Casket combined a spiritual energy core, sword Dao programs, and Five Elements Magical Swords into an auxiliary combat system.
• Grandmaster Artisan Tu Yao recognized Li Chen as a two-time perfect scorer, and the other examiners challenged him to show the full extent of his abilities.
• Li Chen mounted the Sword Casket on a Mechanical Armored Warrior and had it battle identical opponents.
• Li Chen stopped controlling the warrior, but the Sword Casket continued fighting automatically and adapted its attacks and defenses.
• The Grandmaster Artisans saw that Li Chen's system used machine learning and probability-based decisions built on the Chess Sword Art.

Li Chen passed the Creation Sect’s assessment with his intelligent Sword Casket and learned that the sect might buy it for military use. He revealed plans to build an information infrastructure business, while Zhu Yishan presented a Fire God Arquebus and also passed the assessment.

• Tu Yao asked Li Chen whether his intelligent Sword Casket could be mass-produced, and Li Chen explained that its unique chips and programs meant Broad Cloud Peak controlled its production.
• The grandmaster artisans awarded Li Chen a score of seventy-five and proposed sending envoys to inspect the Sword Casket and negotiate its introduction.
• Zhu Yishan told Li Chen that the sect’s purchase could open the door to a lucrative business, and Li Chen said he valued the potential of chips, computer frameworks, and network services even more.
• Zhu Yishan presented a Fire God Arquebus that fired gangstone bullets and could switch to Origin Core cannon attacks.
• The grandmaster artisans praised the arquebus’s long-range power and awarded Zhu Yishan a passing score of sixty.

Li Chen discussed Zhu Yishan’s firearm Magical Treasure and arranged to collaborate with him on firearm production. Zhu Yishan introduced his close friend Tu Hongshan as a skilled firearm artisan, while Li Chen and Qi Maigu confirmed they had both passed the assessment and prepared for its final round.

• Li Chen analyzed Zhu Yishan’s Fire God Arquebus and proposed exchanging ideas about firearm techniques and blueprints.
• Zhu Yishan explained that his four-star firearm relied on exceptional materials from the Creation Sect, and Li Chen suggested researching fire control and automatic firing together.
• Zhu Yishan recommended his close friend Tu Hongshan, whose firearm Magical Treasure skills matched his own, and exchanged a communication token with Li Chen.
• Li Chen returned to the Mountain Gate Courtyard and learned that Qi Maigu had also passed the assessment.
• Li Chen asked Qi Maigu what the final round entailed after hearing that only twenty or thirty participants remained and another dozen or so would be selected.

Li Chen attended the final round of the Creation Sect’s Grand Artisan assessment, where the candidates learned that only sixteen of the thirty-six remaining contestants would pass. The old Daoist outlined the title’s substantial privileges, leaving Li Chen eager to obtain them as the assessment’s final test loomed.

• Qi Maigu told Li Chen that past final rounds had given every candidate the same task, and Li Chen later received notice to attend the final round in September.
• Li Chen and the other candidates traveled to Golden Light City, where the Puppet Master Grandmasters gathered to oversee the assessment.
• An imposing old Daoist announced that only sixteen of the thirty-six remaining candidates would pass.
• The old Daoist described the three privileges granted to Grand Artisans: access to the sect’s library and secret arts, special trading rights, and use of the sect’s teleportation arrays and authorized Sky Cities.
• The old Daoist added that successful candidates would receive a branch of the Immortal Mountain as a spirit peak blessed land, and Li Chen admitted that the rewards tempted him.

Li Chen and the other candidates learned that qualifying as Grand Artisans would bring them resources as well as the duty to resist the Outer Dao. On their way to the Star Sea battlefield for the final test, they witnessed Great Elder Shen Longcheng’s Dragon Puppet annihilate a Great Demon.

• The old man explained that Grand Artisans received the resources needed for cultivation and announced that the final selection test would involve combat on the Star Sea battlefield.
• Li Chen realized that the candidates would have to fulfill the responsibility of protecting cultivators from the Outer Dao in return for the Creation Sect’s support.
• The candidates departed with Golden Light City as guest Puppet Masters and reached the eastern reaches of the Eastern Victory Continent.
• A Great Demon resembling an armored mosquito appeared in the Star Sea and threatened Golden Light City.
• The old man, identified as Shen Longcheng, summoned his Dragon Puppet and killed the Great Demon with one strike.
• Li Chen learned that Shen Longcheng was one of the Creation Sect’s seven Grandmasters and that his Nine-Star Dragon Puppet was said to use a True Dragon’s body.

Li Chen and the other Quasi-Grand Artisans learned that their assessment required them to support the frontline against monsters, Sea Folk, and Outer Dao disciples. After considering how best to fulfill his role as a Puppet Master, Li Chen traveled to his assigned post at Black Reef Island, where Creation Sect disciples welcomed him.

• A Puppet Master Grandmaster described the dangers in the Star Sea, including Demonic Beasts, Sea Folk, and Outer Dao disciples, and explained that the group would reinforce the outposts and frontline positions.
• Li Chen and Qi Maigu discussed how to earn high scores, while Zhu Yishan planned to inspect the front lines and then return to the city to build carts.
• Qi Maigu decided to use his Solar Dao to provide weapons and improve the frontline's arrays and energy supplies.
• Li Chen concluded that the assessment tested how each Puppet Master Grand Artisan would put their abilities to practical use, and decided to inspect his assigned post.
• An envoy guided Li Chen to Black Reef Island, where Creation Sect disciples came out to welcome him.

Li Chen visited Black Stone Reef, where You Cheng explained the garrison’s shortages and daily hardships. After a Stone Octopus destroyed the settlement’s vegetable garden, Li Chen saw the limits of their combat-focused resources and considered their needs.

• Li Chen asked You Cheng what help the Black Stone Reef garrison needed, and You Cheng described their difficulty growing food and the limits of their supplies.
• Li Chen reflected on how farming and organized work had improved life for the Shaman Folk under his rule.
• An alarm sent You Cheng and Li Chen to the city wall, where a Stone Octopus had collapsed it and crushed the vegetable garden.
• The garrison attacked the Stone Octopus with weapons and Combat Puppets, and You Cheng helped kill it.
• Li Chen asked You Cheng why they did not use Work Armor for tasks like farming and cleanup, and You Cheng explained that their limited supplies and spirit stones went toward combat.

Li Chen returned to Golden Light City after inspecting the front lines, then brought food to Black Stone Reef and treated a gravely ill disciple. He praised the local healer Old Sun before leaving the others to continue their work.

• Li Chen, Zhu Yishan, and Qi Maigu discussed the desperate conditions at the outposts and the purpose of the Grand Artisan assessment.
• Li Chen gathered food in Golden Light City and delivered it to Black Stone Reef at You Cheng's request.
• Old Sun told Li Chen that Old Wang was still feverish after a Blood Mosquito drained his blood and vital energy.
• Li Chen used the Blood-Exchange Art to cure Old Wang's baleful qi disease, and Old Wang regained consciousness.
• Old Sun lamented his inadequate skills, but Li Chen bowed to him and called him a healer with a compassionate heart.

Li Chen reflected on whether a Puppet Master should pursue lofty principles or practical work after honoring Old Sun for saving Old Wang. After healing and enhancing more than a hundred people, Li Chen realized that serving everyone at cost drained his resources and left him no time for his own cultivation and responsibilities.

• Li Chen paid Old Sun his respects and considered the tension between pursuing the great Dao and attending to ordinary people’s needs.
• Li Chen treated Old Wang’s Baleful Qi Disease with the Blood-Exchange Art, replaced his spirit mercury, and restored his health and cultivation.
• Li Chen offered to enhance the others’ bodies while charging only for materials.
• Over ten-odd days, Li Chen enhanced more than a hundred people, raising their strength by roughly two or three cultivation levels.
• Li Chen discovered the work had cost him a million talisman coins and consumed the time he needed for cultivation and other duties, so he decided the approach did not suit him.

Li Chen’s enhancements could not protect the people of Black Stone Reef when demonic Shrimp People attacked, and he helped turn the battle in their favor. After the victory, Zhou Zhou’s death left Li Chen questioning how he could bring about lasting change.

• Li Chen reflected that his modifications only offered temporary improvements and could not change the battlefront or stop demonic incursions.
• Demonized Shrimp People and Crab Soldiers attacked Black Stone Reef, where You Cheng and the defenders met them with Mechanism Puppets and weapons.
• Li Chen summoned Xiao Die and Xiao Ying, who cut through the attackers and killed the enormous Mutated Armor Demon leading the charge.
• The defenders won the battle, but several disciples were killed or wounded, including Zhou Zhou, whom Li Chen had modified days earlier.
• Li Chen mourned Zhou Zhou and questioned what he needed to do to create genuine change and development.

Great Elder Shen and He Changnian discussed the predetermined Grand Artisan candidates and the final stage’s test of their character and influence, including Li Chen’s unusual contribution to the Swarm of Bees Technique. Their discussion was interrupted by a report of a spatial transfer inside the sealed assessment area, raising fears of an Outer Dao intruder.

• Great Elder Shen explained that the candidates’ skills had already been assessed, while the final stage would judge their aspirations, vision, and choices.
• Great Elder Shen named Huang Jun, Qi Maigu, and Li Chen as identified candidates, and described Li Chen’s rogue-cultivator background and Swarm of Bees Technique.
• He Changnian questioned why Li Chen had made the list, and Great Elder Shen hinted that the technique’s hidden intricacies were significant.
• An attendant announced that Grandmaster Artisan Huang requested an audience, and Huang reported detecting an abnormal surge of spatial waves.
• Great Elder Shen and He Changnian wondered whether someone from the Outer Dao had slipped into the sealed assessment area.

Martial Dao cultivators from the Other Continent entered the Water Realm and were ordered to capture or kill those taking part in the Creation Sect’s Grand Artisan assessment. After receiving an incursion warning at Black Stone Reef, Li Chen learned that the city was arranging a cautious evacuation and was told to avoid using spatial travel or communications that could expose him.

• Dozens of Martial Dao cultivators emerged from a Cosmic Dao grotto-heaven near the boundary between the Water Realm and the Star Sea, and the Martial Emperor ordered them to find the assessment participants and capture or kill them.
• Li Chen received an Outer Dao incursion warning relayed from Golden Light City at Black Stone Reef.
• The Steward explained that the Other Continent’s Outer Dao powers sought Puppet Masters to serve them and warned Li Chen that captives there were treated as slaves.
• The Steward said the Grandmaster Artisans were assessing the enemy’s strength and would send Puppet Master Grandmasters to retrieve participants in batches.
• The Steward told Li Chen and the other participants to wait, avoid spatial travel, and maintain silence on communication frequencies except in emergencies.

Li Chen returned to Golden Light City with He Changnian and learned that Martial Emperor Yang Wuji had come to fight the Puppet Dao. When several outposts were attacked and Black Stone Reef was threatened, Li Chen volunteered to go there and help.

• Li Chen questioned He Changnian about the ordinary fighters left at Black Stone Reef, but He Changnian said the sect’s overall strategy required Li Chen to return to Golden Light City.
• Li Chen reunited with Qi Maigu, who explained Yang Wuji’s status and the long conflict between the Puppeteer Dao Path and the Outer Dao cultivators.
• Li Chen saw Yang Wuji’s golden dragon Dharma Form confront Great Elder Shen’s Sky-Reaching Divine Dragon Puppet in the highest heavens.
• News arrived that several outposts had been attacked and hundreds of Puppet Masters and Puppeteers abducted, with attackers heading toward Black Stone Reef.
• He Changnian called for volunteers to reinforce Black Stone Reef, and Li Chen immediately offered to go.

Li Chen joined He Changnian’s pursuit of the attackers who had destroyed Black Stone Reef. He Changnian’s Puppets trapped and poisoned the fleeing cultivators, but their leader revealed a second primordial spirit.

• Li Chen volunteered to accompany He Changnian, and Qi Maigu and several others joined the operation.
• He Changnian opened a Void Grotto-Heaven, brought the group toward Black Stone Reef on Mechanism Wooden Cranes, and found the reef in ruins.
• He Changnian used Immortal Crane Points the Way to track the attackers across the sea.
• He Changnian sent his boy and girl Puppets against three Core Formation cultivators and more than a dozen Foundation Establishment cultivators, trapping them in a Net of Heaven and striking one with poison.
• The enemy leader revealed a dragon-shaped Dharma Form using the Great Might Heavenly Dragon Art, and He Changnian realized it was a second primordial spirit.