Chapter Summaries

Li Chen prepared to strike Chess Mountain by targeting Meng Fuyun, while publicly pursuing negotiations through the Ying Family. He left the story with rumors spreading among Chess Mountain’s forces that Meng Fuyun had fled with the alliance’s funds.

• The Ying Family elders recognized that accepting Li Chen’s costly offer would force them to choose a side, and the Family Head agreed they had little choice.
• Li Chen ordered his assembled legions to remain concealed and revealed that his true aim was to cripple Chess Mountain by attacking Meng Fuyun.
• Chess Mountain Puppeteers patrolling near Wing City found a leaflet claiming Meng Fuyun had absconded with the Commercial Alliance’s funds, and their patrol leader denounced it as enemy propaganda.
• Li Chen’s agents and local powers such as the Ying Family spread the rumor through Chess Mountain, fueling private doubts about Meng Fuyun.

Rumors targeting Meng Fuyun weakened after Chess Mountain’s leaders intervened, but they sparked fresh fears that he wielded too many Human Vessels and might threaten the clans. As pressure mounted to return the weapons, a sword cultivator appeared in his Refined Abode and asked whether he would hand them over to the Elders’ Council.

• Meng Fuyun rejected his disciples’ calls to silence the rumors and said he would answer questions at the Elders’ Council while defending himself against anyone who challenged him.
• At the Elders’ Council assembly, Chess Mountain’s leaders reassured Meng Fuyun and pledged to investigate and suppress the rumors.
• The rumors subsided, but Chess Mountain’s clans grew uneasy because Meng Fuyun controlled three powerful Human Vessels while the mountain had lost its own grand artisans and two great weapons.
• Critics argued that Meng Fuyun had only been entrusted with the Human Vessels and that they should ultimately return to the Elders’ Council.
• A sword cultivator in blue-green Daoist robes appeared before Meng Fuyun and asked whether he would return the Human Vessels.

Lu Ming persuaded Meng Fuyun to consider taking control of Chess Mountain and disclosed a secret that changed Meng Fuyun’s understanding of their dealings. By mid-May, the Elders’ Council had been devastated in a surprise attack, and Meng Fuyun seized temporary control of Chess Mountain’s resources and forces.

• Lu Ming told Meng Fuyun that Chess Mountain’s inherited power left him without true authority and offered to help him become its master.
• Lu Ming privately revealed a secret, shocking Meng Fuyun and clarifying why Chess Mountain had channels for obtaining raw materials.
• Lu Ming proposed that they bind their cooperation with a Spell Contract, with each helping the other handle people they could not act against directly.
• By mid-May, a powerful enemy slaughtered many senior clan heads and elders at an Elders’ Council assembly.
• Meng Fuyun consolidated military authority and temporarily took charge of Chess Mountain’s funds, provisions, and troops.
• Li Chen heard the news and asked what had happened.

Li Chen weighed whether to attack Chess Mountain after a massacre consolidated power in Meng Fuyun’s hands, then negotiated peace with him. They broadly agreed on terms that gave Li Chen valuable techniques, wealth, territory, and six billion people while establishing closer cooperation between Guangyun and Chess Mountain.

• Heavenly Pivot reported that unrest had killed nearly half of Chess Mountain’s senior elders and left Meng Fuyun in control, while Meng blamed Guangyun.
• Li Chen asked Heavenly Pivot to project the cost of an attack, and she advised against launching one while Chess Mountain’s strength remained uncertain.
• Meng Fuyun contacted Li Chen to discuss peace, and Li Chen demanded Trade City techniques, Human-Weapon Living Soldier methods, and Chess Mountain territory and population.
• Meng Fuyun proposed reparations based on what Chess Mountain could afford and closer commercial cooperation, while ceding five thousand li of territory and six billion people to Li Chen.
• Li Chen broadly accepted Meng Fuyun’s proposals, considering his strategic objectives achieved.

Li Chen and Meng Fuyun negotiated a peace treaty that imposed heavy reparations and concessions on Chess Mountain, including Sword Slave Yu Ling. As dissenters prepared to ambush Meng Fuyun, Lu Ming hinted that his reasons for adding Yu Ling to the treaty were still concealed.

• Li Chen and Meng Fuyun’s representatives agreed on five peace terms, including reparations, trade restrictions, territory, secret techniques, Human Vessel Embryos, and Sword Slave Yu Ling.
• Li Chen realized Meng Fuyun had offered Yu Ling partly to weaken Chess Mountain’s Elders’ Council and shift the problem to Li Chen.
• Chess Mountain cultivators accused Meng Fuyun of betrayal, and a Ying Family disciple reported plans to ambush him at the Assembly.
• The Ying Family Head worried about the planned ambush and whether Chess Mountain’s hidden elders would use their control of the Human Vessels against Meng Fuyun.
• Meng Fuyun questioned Lu Ming about why he had insisted on surrendering Yu Ling, and Lu Ming told him not to speculate and promised future repayment.

Li Chen signed a peace agreement with Chess Mountain, gaining territory and a vast mortal population alongside treasures and other concessions. He then revealed Sword Slave Yu Ling’s Shadowless Sword and began testing her power against his forces.

• Li Chen and Meng Fuyun signed a peace agreement that ended the conflict and transferred five thousand li of land and 7.5 billion mortals to Guangyun.
• Li Chen returned to the Black Shark Flying Boat with Xiao Die, Xiao Ying, and Chess Mountain’s first delivery of treasures.
• Li Chen drew Yu Ling’s Shadowless Sword and explained that its blade was a formless edge of sword qi while its physical vessel was the hilt.
• Li Chen tested Yu Ling’s power in the wilderness with Xiao Die, Xiao Ying, and ten Steel-Feathered Cranes as opponents.
• Li Chen connected his will to Yu Ling’s and unleashed a slash that carved a trench more than a hundred zhang long.

Li Chen tested the Human Vessel Sword Slave Yu Ling in battle, using her sword techniques against Xiao Die, Xiao Ying, and the Steel-Feathered Cranes. Hua Wucuo explained that Human-Weapon Living Soldiers preserve a remnant soul’s knowledge and abilities, and Li Chen recognized their potential for research into the soul dao and higher realms.

• Li Chen used Yu Ling’s Sky-Splitting Slash to destroy one Steel-Feathered Crane and force Xiao Die and Xiao Ying to evade.
• Xiao Die attacked with frost while Xiao Ying summoned thunder, but Li Chen used Sword Shadows Condensing Light to create sixteen illusory bodies and counterattack.
• Li Chen’s sword qi injured Xiao Die and Xiao Ying and tore wounds into several Steel-Feathered Cranes.
• Hua Wucuo explained that Human-Weapon Living Soldiers used a remnant soul’s knowledge and experience as an artifact spirit, with the weapon body serving as its vessel.
• Li Chen agreed and said Human Vessels could advance research into artificial divine souls, nascent soul formation, and primordial spirit modification.

Li Chen tested Yu Ling’s Heavenly King Cloud-Breaking Strike and learned that Chess Mountain feared an unknown art hidden in her memories. He returned to the Black Shark Flying Boat with Yu Ling, Dong Nü, and Lin Yue, then began planning research into souls and artificial primordial spirits.

• Li Chen used Yu Ling’s Heavenly King Cloud-Breaking Strike to raze a distant hill and recognized the weapon’s formidable power.
• Li Chen discussed Yu Ling’s hidden art with Hua Wucuo and resolved to use the sword cautiously, eventually cleansing away her remnant soul if possible.
• Li Chen summoned Yu Ling, Dong Nü, and Lin Yue aboard the Black Shark Flying Boat and announced his plan to research artificial primordial spirits.
• Li Chen offered Dong Nü a flesh-and-blood body in exchange for helping with his research, and she agreed despite learning that she would be studied.
• Li Chen assigned Hua Wucuo to investigate the Lin Household’s bloodline and its connection to spirit weapons while he studied the divine soul.

Li Chen began a public Class A modification of mortal craftsman Pang Siyuan, demonstrating a low-cost way to improve mortal health and longevity. He implanted Mustard-Seed Puppets and a Blood-Cleansing Organ, while planning broader reforms for mortal society in the Chess Mountain Domain.

• Li Chen ordered Heavenly Pivot to prepare a demonstration for Pang Siyuan’s Class A modification, and followers connected to watch.
• Viewers debated the difficulty and expense of modifying mortals, while Li Chen explained that mortals and cultivators followed the same path beneath the Great Dao.
• Li Chen entered the operating room and used mortal methods to modify Pang Siyuan, injecting Mustard-Seed Puppets into his body.
• Li Chen implanted a Blood-Cleansing Organ near Pang Siyuan’s heart to refine his blood, store primordial energy, and improve bodily functions at low cost.
• Li Chen estimated the modification could extend Pang Siyuan’s life by more than twenty years and planned related social policies for the Chess Mountain Domain.

Li Chen explained his plan to transform the Common Folk of Chess Mountain, arguing that affordable enhancements could extend mortal lifespans and let ordinary people study the Great Dao. He began modifying Pang Siyuan with a Spirit-Particle Memory Meme and Spirit Mind One, while also planning to connect mortals to Guangyun’s systems and the Materialized Kingdom.

• Li Chen compared the costs of mortal transformation methods and said modifying hundreds of millions of people would be far cheaper than using artificial spiritual roots or Fill with Mercury as Blood.
• Li Chen explained that his investment in the Common Folk was part of making cultivation scientific, systematic, and accessible to mortals.
• A Master Artisan asked how mortals without spiritual roots could master cultivation knowledge, and Li Chen answered that enhancement and guidance could help them learn from the Great Dao’s traces in the world.
• Li Chen began implanting a Spirit-Particle Memory Meme into Pang Siyuan to improve his intelligence and provide basic scientific knowledge.
• Li Chen explained that Spirit Mind One and the Worker Bee Core operating system would give mortals artificial abilities, including shared perception, telepathy, and knowledge transmission.
• Li Chen planned to make the mortals Subnet Terminals that supplied cultivation provisions to the Materialized Kingdom’s virtual personalities and allowed unseen spirit-wave influences to guide society.

Li Chen explained how combining different fields of knowledge could advance the search for the Dao, and advocated separating supernatural powers from empirically testable research. After demonstrating mortal surgery and applying his methods to more city leaders and nobles, he left a new scientific school taking shape in Guangyun.

• Li Chen told his listeners that cultivators and sages each understood only part of the Dao and had to pursue their own paths toward a more complete model of reality.
• Li Chen completed Pang Siyuan’s modification using mortal techniques and explained how mathematics, natural sciences, falsification, and trial and error could help mortals investigate the world.
• Li Chen argued that magic power should be treated as a black box and separated from empirically verified phenomena so that supernatural effects would not distort scientific research.
• Li Chen modified several more Mortal City Lords and nobles, using a secret potion refined from spiritually imbued materials to assist the surgeries.
• A wave of discussion about scientific methods spread through Guangyun, and a new school of thought began to take shape.

Li Chen committed Guangyun to a decade of mortalization, scientific research, and building a large puppet legion instead of constructing the Six-Star Battle Puppet, while preparing for a possible Outer Dao invasion. He left teleportation arrays unbuilt and continued fortifying hidden production sites, with the Azure Billow Immortal Abode as his final stronghold.

• Li Chen contacted Hua Wucuo and decided to divert resources from the Heavenly Hero Divine Crane into mortalization projects and preparations for war.
• Li Chen established project grades, prioritizing his advancement research and future weapons while funding Chess Mountain's mortal modification package and recruiting craftsmen and Puppeteer Apprentices.
• Mei Xuan reported that Trade City's daily revenue could reach a hundred million and asked about teleportation arrays, which Li Chen decided not to build because of their cost and the threat of invasion.
• Li Chen prepared hidden shelters, factories, food stores, and materials so Guangyun could resume production after an enemy attack.
• Li Chen kept the Azure Billow Immortal Abode hidden as his final stronghold and stored his important assets there.

Li Chen explained his plan to transform Chess Mountain by improving ordinary production and replacing human rulers with artificial intelligence. He left Li Baiyan considering new forms of art for the civilization he hoped to create.

• Li Chen told Mei Xuan that poverty trapped mortals in exhausting labor and argued that developing everyday tools was essential to civilizational progress.
• Li Chen proposed eliminating exploitation in Chess Mountain through twelve Kingdoms managed by Heavenly Pivot, while letting residents maintain and modify the system themselves.
• Li Chen explained that the twelve Kingdoms would serve as control groups and distinguished Chess Mountain's governance from Guangyun's final owner model.
• Li Chen said he wanted Chess Mountain's people to become engineers and researchers who could build intelligent machinery and sustain their own society.
• Li Baiyan objected that this model left no place for the artistic Daos, and Li Chen argued that new forms of art would emerge from a new era.

Li Chen adapted Golden Light City's Mechanism Wooden Cranes and designed new autonomous Wisdom Cores and combat machines, laying the groundwork for mortal industry to transform Guangyun's military. He aimed to mass-produce these devices and eventually extend mortal industrial methods to artifacts, Magical Treasures, and other Mechanisms.

• Li Chen drew renewed confidence from his increased intelligence, expanded holdings, and promotion to Grand Artisan, and prepared for an Outer Dao invasion.
• Li Chen redesigned Golden Light City's Mechanism Wooden Cranes with mundane materials and fourth-generation Worker Bee Cores, then developed a Fifth-Generation Wisdom Core able to operate independently when disconnected from the network.
• Li Chen oversaw the Patrol Mountain Crane and the supersonic Swordfeather Crane, adapting the latter as a powerful flying Battle Puppet.
• Li Chen developed the Mechguards, auxiliary combat tools for Mechas and cultivators, and prepared the mechanical Sword Casket Hundred Rays for widespread use.
• Li Chen planned to mass-produce these devices and weapons through mortal industry, with the eventual goal of industrializing more cultivators' artifacts, Magical Treasures, and Mechanisms.

Li Chen reviewed his new Sword Crane Battle Puppet Legion and reflected on how industrialized Cultivation Mortalization could enable cheap, large-scale armies. He warned Yu Youxian that such forces still needed defenses against asymmetric attacks, while she argued that Guangyun’s intelligence network and Materialized Kingdom Network were already well suited to countering them.

• Li Chen watched more than eight hundred Sword Crane Battle Puppets demonstrate their speed and coordination at Broad Cloud Peak.
• Li Chen explained that modern factories in Chess Mountain were using mundane materials and intelligent systems to reduce puppet costs and expand production.
• Li Chen concluded that Cultivation Mortalization had so far reached mostly Apprentice- and Craftsman-level techniques and one- or two-star creations, limiting its strategic uses.
• Yu Youxian suggested that Li Chen’s wealth could support an army of a million puppets, but Li Chen raised the threat of asymmetric warfare, including soul attacks, divination, curses, and viruses.
• Yu Youxian argued that Outer Dao cultivators were scarce and that Guangyun’s intelligence system and Materialized Kingdom Network could better support coordinated defenses against such attacks.

Li Chen prepared Guangyun for a possible war by securing void origin crystals and sensor diagrams, then began developing defenses and battlefield detection systems. Meanwhile, the Creation Sect’s strategic stockpiling and a stolen Golden Sun Gate weapon design stirred unrest across the Vast Sea Domain, leaving Li Chen concerned that the coming war would be larger than expected.

• Li Chen concluded that the Puppeteer Dao Path’s ability to store strength gave it greater capacity for war, while his mortalization path could expand that capacity further.
• Mei Xuan told Li Chen that the Creation Sect had approved discounted void origin crystals and the original Magic Power Sensor and Divine Soul Sensor diagrams.
• Li Chen chose to obey the Creation Sect’s stockpiling restrictions and began researching ways to block Void Transfer and improve battlefield detection around Guangyun.
• Rumors of an Immortal Mountain Ruins discovery caused rogue cultivators and small clans to sell void origin crystals, while larger powers quietly stockpiled them.
• News spread that a Golden Sun Gate traitor had stolen Blazing Sun Divine Thunder diagrams, and the Golden Sun Gate warned Li Chen not to interfere.
• Li Chen laughed at the notice but grew more solemn, suspecting the coming war would be larger than expected.

The chapter surveyed the Vast Sea Domain’s shifting alliances and growing demand for skilled retainers, then followed Wang Dou, an orphan working in an automated factory in Salt City, as he became engrossed in programming. It left Wang Dou reflecting on the childhood selection that separated him from a companion who had become a Puppeteer Apprentice.

• Li Chen’s seizure of land and resources from Chess Mountain helped stir activity among the Vast Sea Domain’s factions, while a trade war began after an ancient continent and void origin crystals were discovered.
• A traitor’s stolen Blazing Sun Divine Thunder schematic enabled the Yang clan and its allies to produce the weapon, and the traitor gained power through marriage into the Yang family.
• Broad Cloud Peak hired Puppeteer Apprentices and Puppet Master Craftsmen as factions across the underworld competed for talent.
• Wang Dou studied Principles of Assembly Language while monitoring machines in Salt City’s automated factory, and a boy with a ducklike voice urged him to leave work and play kickball.
• Wang Dou remembered that he had no spiritual root, while his childhood companion had been selected as a Puppeteer Apprentice.

Wang Dou turned his talent for mathematics toward computer science and developed his own variant Dao patterns, then found a damaged chip substrate and entered the apprentices' Production Yard to try modifying it. Heavenly Pivot showed Li Chen footage of Wang Dou's work, and Li Chen recognized him as a peerless genius.

• Wang Dou refused to play with the duck-voiced boy and returned to reading, still longing to find a way to control his fate.
• Wang Dou connected his mathematical studies to Guangyun's computer science, learned assembly principles, and began designing programs with punched paper tape.
• Wang Dou refined his variant Dao patterns, which he named Dou Talismans, while noticing flaws in the books' explanations of Dao patterns and restrictions.
• Wang Dou found a damaged chip substrate in the rubbish dump and treasured it as a chance to make an Electronic Chip.
• Wang Dou entered the apprentices' Production Yard and sat at a workbench, unaware that a Gangstone Gun had tracked him.
• Heavenly Pivot sent Li Chen images and videos of Wang Dou, and Li Chen recognized him as a peerless genius.

Li Chen explained to Mei Xuan that genius depended on circumstances and argued that Chess Mountain should nurture talent through a system that provided mortals with stability and opportunities. Though he chose not to recruit Wang Dou personally, he secretly arranged support for him, and Wang Dou began studying network knowledge from discarded materials.

• Li Chen told Mei Xuan that different eras valued different talents and that Chess Mountain’s reforms could reveal abilities that other societies overlooked.
• Li Chen said he valued systems for discovering and cultivating talent more than individual geniuses, and described his plan to provide for mortals while using their abilities for civilization’s development.
• Mei Xuan recognized how Chess Mountain’s schools and prosperity had helped Wang Dou uncover his mathematical and Array Dao talents, while the Shaman Folk’s harsher circumstances had not.
• Li Chen decided not to bring Wang Dou over for personal instruction and explained that stable living conditions and equal opportunities mattered more than selecting a few exceptional people.
• Wang Dou continued his ordinary life but found more discarded mechanism parts and an Image-Recording Jade Slip filled with network knowledge, unaware that Li Chen had arranged the materials through Salt City’s subsidiary unit.

Li Chen laid out the perfect person project, a sweeping effort to transform Chess Mountain’s society, economy, and citizens through abundance, education, bodily modification, and redesigned social systems. He began by replacing the old currency and planning reforms that would redirect people from survival and routine labor toward learning, research, and further development.

• Li Chen decided to develop Chess Mountain into a prosperous Human Dao paradise and provide resources broadly rather than favoring Wang Dou alone.
• Li Chen abolished the old gold- and silver-based currency and replaced it with the Materialized Kingdom’s credit assets, while citizens continued to receive basic necessities for free.
• Li Chen assembled researchers to study the Common Folk and planned to change their constitutions and environments so they would take pleasure in learning and self-improvement.
• Li Chen established a three-tier citizen advancement mechanism to regulate access to knowledge and supplies and included it in the perfect person project.
• Li Chen envisioned citizens freed from inefficient labor, improved through research, bodily refinement, longer lifespans, and reforms to motivation, ethics, customs, and laws.
• Li Chen used artificial intelligence and automated machinery to pursue material abundance and reduce the Common Folk’s struggle for necessities.