Chapter Summaries

Fang Yuan rushed to the aid of slain Confucian disciples, but found only automated puppets and could not locate Li Chen. Li Chen’s attacks forced Fang Yuan to withdraw, and the chapter ended with Fang Yuan threatening to destroy Guangyun as Elder He feared he would sink the continent.

• Elder He ordered Golden Light City to pursue Fang Yuan despite his companions’ severe injuries.
• Fang Yuan reached the devastated area and discovered that the Patrol Mountain Cranes and other puppets had no living Puppeteers behind them.
• Fang Yuan attacked Golden Light City with a soul technique, but Elder He and another elder powered a fiery puppet against him.
• Golden Light City received Li Chen’s report that he had killed five Core Formation cultivators and many other enemies, renewing the defenders’ resolve.
• Li Chen’s forces killed two more Core Formation cultivators, while Fang Yuan withdrew and gathered his surviving people.
• Fang Yuan vowed to destroy Guangyun, and Elder He realized he intended to sink the continent.

Fang Yuan’s attack devastated Guangyun despite Golden Light City’s attempt to block it, and Li Chen vowed to avenge the casualties. Reinforcements from the Golden Sun Gate drove Fang Yuan away, but the battered Golden Crow Puppet revealed that it had come from a brutal battle.

• He Changnian and the other Grand Artisans realized Golden Light City could not safely stop Fang Yuan’s strike, but they prepared to intervene anyway.
• Fang Yuan used Pointing Out the Rivers and Mountains, and Golden Light City diverted part of the blow but could not prevent it from shattering Guangyun’s land and causing widespread casualties.
• Li Chen vowed to make Fang Yuan pay, then ordered mobile units to reinforce the damaged Underground Base and evacuate endangered shelters.
• The Golden Crow Puppet arrived, joined Golden Light City in forcing Fang Yuan to withdraw, and stopped above Guangyun instead of pursuing him.
• He Changnian saw that the Golden Crow Puppet was badly damaged, with one leg broken and its tail feathers severed.

Li Chen learned how the Dao Path Contest had devastated other battlefields and discussed with He Changnian why the Outer Dao exploited puppet masters and their people. After Heavenly Pivot reported Guangyun’s enormous losses, Li Chen faced the urgent task of resettling its common folk.

• Golden Sun Gate emissaries told Li Chen that Great Elder Shen had been grievously wounded and that grandmasters and great powers had intervened on other battlefields.
• Li Chen and He Changnian discussed the Dao Path Contest, the Outer Dao’s exploitation of productive practitioners, and the Yan Progenitor’s founding of the Puppet Dao.
• He Changnian explained how menial disciples and craftsmen had been exploited for generations, while the Outer Dao continued to plunder puppet masters and their lands.
• Heavenly Pivot reported that Fang Yuan’s strike had killed millions and that more than four hundred thousand people had been killed or abducted.
• Li Chen set aside the broader losses and considered how to resettle Guangyun’s common folk.

Li Chen met Heavenly Will, the Creation Sect’s mechanical intelligence, and learned that the Puppet Dao planned to elevate him and appoint him acting city lord of Golden Light City. The sect saw his swarm-control methods as a way to strengthen its forces and turn the faltering Vast Sea campaign around.

• Li Chen arranged to relocate the Shaman Folk to Chess Mountain Domain, while Yu Youxian handled the move with Heavenly Pivot’s assistance.
• Li Chen left Dong Long to help interrogate prisoners in Golden Light City and went to meet the sect’s higher-ups.
• Li Chen encountered a jade-like skeleton that identified itself as Heavenly Will, a mechanical life-form serving the Creation Sect’s Elders’ Council.
• Heavenly Will told Li Chen that sect leaders had recommended him for his Puppet Dao methods and planned to record his path, promote the Swarm of Bees Technique, and strengthen multiline control.
• Heavenly Will proposed appointing Li Chen acting city lord of Golden Light City to oversee a counteroffensive and explained the Puppet Dao’s severe losses across the Vast Sea campaign.

Li Chen accepted the Creation Sect’s urgent mission to oversee large-scale intelligent upgrades of Golden Light City’s Puppet Legion, aiming to slow the Outer Dao and prepare a counteroffensive. He Changnian showed him the city’s puppet reserves and explained that the trial would test whether Li Chen’s ideas could address the Puppet Dao’s shortage of high-rank fighters.

• Heavenly Will assigned Li Chen to act as lord of Golden Light City and upgrade its Puppet Legion, and Li Chen accepted.
• After returning to his secluded chamber, Li Chen discovered that his memories of the superior who gave him the mission had been erased, and He Changnian warned him not to probe further.
• He Changnian took Li Chen to Golden Light City’s public storehouses, where Li Chen saw the city’s extensive reserves of battle puppets.
• He Changnian explained that the Puppet Dao lacked high-rank talent, could not safely rely on remote control, and hoped Li Chen’s intelligent devices and Swarm of Bees Technique could transform its forces.
• Li Chen agreed to begin the upgrades and asked He Changnian to gather the personnel.

Li Chen organized Golden Light City's Puppet Masters to replace its military intelligence network with his Heavenly Network and transform its puppet legions into a unified warfare system. After the first upgraded legions succeeded, he prepared to submit his methods and recorded knowledge to the Creation Sect for verification and wider adoption.

• Li Chen gathered Golden Light City's surviving Puppet Masters, learned how badly the earlier battle had depleted their ranks, and received their pledge to follow his orders.
• Li Chen assigned the artisans to upgrade the city's puppet legions and incoming Battle Puppets, while he and the senior experts handled the system's core transformation.
• Li Chen arranged for industries and workers from his Blessed Lands and the Chess Mountain Domain to move to Golden Light City, and explained his plan to replace the city's wisdom core with Heavenly Network.
• Li Chen used his authority as Acting City Lord to give Heavenly Pivot extensive access, and its subunit cores spread through Golden Light City over the following month.
• The first transformed puppet legions successfully followed commands through communication towers, demonstrating the Swarm of Bees Technique and enabling Puppet Masters to command larger forces.
• Li Chen compiled a Transformation Project Template and Spirit-Particle Memory Meme records for the Creation Sect to verify before distributing his methods to other artisans.

Li Chen unveiled Golden Light City’s upgraded command system and proposed that the Creation Sect build a communication and logistics network for Puppet Masters. Golden Light City and other restored cities began aiding allies under attack by the Outer Dao.

• Li Chen’s new system let Golden Light City’s Controllers command more Battle Puppets and Mecha while Golden Light guided operations.
• He Changnian praised Li Chen’s achievements, and Li Chen argued that closer cooperation with the Creation Sect could have prevented wasted time and resources.
• Li Chen urged He Changnian to help establish a communication network for Puppet Masters, followed by logistics and transportation networks, and offered to surrender his shares in the Myriad Realms Marketplace.
• After Golden Light City returned, allied cities requested aid, and its Puppet Legion quickly resolved one battlefield crisis before moving on to another.
• Thousand Pearl City and Pagoda City regained some combat strength and headed out to assist other allies.

Outer Dao Experts moved to intercept the puppet dao’s Sky Cities while Li Chen heard He Changnian explain how the puppet dao had risen through shared origins and accumulated creation. As the White Bone Dharma King, Daoist Qinghe, and Fairy Caiyun attacked Golden Light City, hidden Mechanism Puppets reinforced the ground markets.

• Martial Emperor Yang Wuji and Kong Haoyuan split from the Outer Dao Experts to answer challenges from powerful enemies.
• Li Chen learned that Fang Yuan was helping other nascent soul cultivators hold the Golden Sun Gate’s Golden Crow Puppet in check.
• He Changnian told Li Chen how the puppet dao had endured opposition and grown through unity, creation, and accumulated strength.
• The White Bone Dharma King attacked Golden Light City while Daoist Qinghe and Fairy Caiyun struck from its flanks.
• Golden Light City sent out Battle Puppets to engage the attackers, while Mechanism Puppets secretly arrived to confront outer dao cultivators in the market districts.

Li Chen’s battlefield command network let Golden Light City coordinate puppet legions across multiple fronts and wear down the Outer Dao, despite powerful experts destroying millions of puppets. Just as the allies saw victory turning in their favor, the Creation Sect ordered Li Chen to stage a defeat to conceal their remaining strength and buy time to recover and expand production.

• Li Chen established a wartime network linking Golden Light City to other cities, enabling Shaman Folk controllers and artificial intelligence to coordinate puppet legions across the battlefields.
• Li Chen and He Changnian discussed the system’s limits and how higher-grade puppets could retain pilots to withstand communication interference.
• The White Bone Dharma King rushed between battlefronts, destroyed many Battle Puppets, and left to aid Elder Lai at the Ridge of Ascending Peaks.
• The Outer Dao’s mobile experts destroyed millions of puppets over several days, while Li Chen and his allies saw their forces gaining control of the war.
• The Creation Sect’s higher-ups ordered Li Chen to lose deliberately, make their reinforcements appear exhausted, and buy time to recover and produce more puppets.

Li Chen carried out a carefully controlled feigned retreat to buy time, allowing the enemy to believe the puppet dao was nearing collapse. The outer dao forces remained focused on the front, unaware that artisans across distant regions were advancing Li Chen’s Puppet Dao Revolution.

• He Changnian asked Li Chen whether Golden Light City should obey the order to feign defeat, and Li Chen agreed that buying time would benefit them.
• Patrol Mountain Cranes broke through the Outer Dao Disciples’ formation, but a concealed rescuer swept the survivors away with a sword strike.
• He Changnian lamented that the enemy’s promising disciples had escaped, while Li Chen said the puppet dao could deal with them later and relied on its production strength.
• Li Chen used the Empty-Stove Stratagem to make the retreat appear natural, and the war in the Vast Sea region settled into another stalemate.
• The Immortal Alliance and Great Qian believed the puppet dao was weakening, while artisans in distant Sky Cities and Spirit Mountain Blessed Lands joined Li Chen’s revolution and studied new creations.

Dongfang Mao and other Creation Sect experts applied Li Chen’s mechanical intelligence architecture and Swarm of Bees Technique to production and research during the war. Their work yielded a new digital communication method, demonstrating the Creation Sect’s ability to build on Li Chen’s ideas.

• Dongfang Mao tested a crystalline computing device and learned that the Creation Sect was reproducing the Creation Mother Device to supply the front lines with Battle Puppets.
• Experts across the region received Li Chen’s mechanical intelligence architecture and Swarm of Bees Technique, which he shared in return for the Creation Sect’s trust.
• Practitioners of the Hundred Crafts Gate and other mechanical arts researchers drew inspiration from Li Chen’s demonstration that cultivation could be combined with mechanisms.
• Senior Brother Huang announced that he had made a Message Box work by using digital signals and program-based error correction to reconstruct long-distance communications.
• The Creation Sect’s collaborative research produced the new communication method in little more than a month.

Huang Ding recognized that Li Chen’s communication principles had enabled a new mechanism device and traveled to Golden Light City to seek his guidance. Li Chen explained error correction and information theory, hoping Huang Ding would help develop the mathematical foundations of his Dao Path.

• Huang Ding explained how chips, programs, data packets, and routing could transform communication and resolved to report the device and seek a Grandmaster Artisan’s review.
• Li Chen learned that Huang Ding’s work had rapidly turned his basic ideas into a new communication mechanism device.
• Huang Ding descended to Golden Light City through an incarnation and respectfully asked Li Chen for guidance.
• Li Chen taught Huang Ding about error correction and Shannon’s information theory, hoping to encourage more mathematical research into communication and networks.

Li Chen exchanged insights with several master artisans and agreed to trade knowledge about communication artifacts and mechanical weapons. He Changnian read a classified book documenting Li Chen’s new Dao and learned that Jing Tianxing had recommended Li Chen for the Elders’ Council, effectively proposing that he receive the rank of Grandmaster Artisan.

• Huang Ding discussed information theory with Li Chen, tried the Heavenly Forum, and agreed to introduce talented people from his school to the new Dao.
• Daoist Wufeng approached Li Chen about mechanical weapons, and the two agreed to exchange knowledge and trade.
• Lin Yong, a Grand Artisan of the Mu Kingdom, arrived, and Li Chen sat down to exchange insights with him.
• He Changnian noticed that artisans from many schools were joining the connection queue and opened a classified special edition about Li Chen’s Dao.
• He Changnian read Jing Tianxing’s recommendation and realized the Elders’ Council was considering an exception to grant Li Chen the rank of Grandmaster Artisan.

Li Chen learned that his Ink Gate teachings had been published in a special volume, drawing recognition across the Puppet Dao and prompting his nomination as a Grandmaster Artisan. He focused on whether his Worker Bee Core techniques would be produced for the Vast Sea war, as the Creation Sect’s leaders encouraged collaboration around his technological methods.

• Elder He and the other Grandmaster Artisans discussed Li Chen’s nomination, noting that his new Dao Path warranted the title even though he had not reached Nascent Soul.
• He Changnian told Li Chen that his teachings had appeared in a special volume and that the nomination had made him a Grandmaster Artisan Candidate.
• Li Chen realized the publication and growing recognition might be linked to the war in the Vast Sea and the need for the sect to support the front.
• Li Chen asked whether his Worker Bee Core schematics, Program Design, and networking methods had been sent out for production and refinement.
• He Changnian explained that Sky Cities and Grand Artisans were researching Li Chen’s Worker Bee Core, Spirit-Particle Memory Meme, and other methods, while the sect’s leaders promoted their open sharing to support the war.

Li Chen saw how rapidly the Creation Sect could scale up his industrial and warfare systems, and he continued coordinating their resistance while considering how their cooperation could spread the Puppet Dao. As a new shipment arrived in Golden Light City, He Changnian hinted that Li Chen could build a Logistics Array around a Sky City.

• Li Chen reflected that the Creation Sect’s resources and efficiency had let it reproduce in two months what he had spent over twenty years building in Guangyun.
• Li Chen and He Changnian discussed Sky Cities, disrupted teleportation arrays, and the possibility that Huang Ding could solve the problem of communication.
• Apprentices told He Changnian and Li Chen that the passage was opening, and He Changnian ordered them to receive the shipment.
• He Changnian suggested Li Chen could establish a parent Logistics Array in a Sky City and have other cities fund subsidiary arrays.
• Li Chen inspected the opened Heaven-and-Earth Treasure Chests and found Mechanism Cranes, Asura Mechas, Yaksha Mechas, Steel-Feathered Cranes, and standardized replacement parts.

Li Chen received vast military supplies and helped build the Puppet legions of the three Sky Cities into a billion-strong force controlled through Wisdom Cores and a materialized network. Commanding the armies accelerated his Puppet Dao cultivation and transformed Heavenly Pivot, leaving him poised for an unprecedented breakthrough.

• A steward reported the delivered supplies to He Changnian and Li Chen, including a Solar Furnace Mechanism Device, Jin Clan External Elixirs, humanoid chassis, and secret treasures.
• Li Chen examined a Luo Parasol and recalled its schematics, but declined He Changnian's offer to have a true inheritor craft him a finer weapon.
• As supplies and production lines accumulated, the three Sky Cities' legions grew to one billion low-tier Puppets and thousands of high-tier units in fewer than a hundred days.
• Li Chen explained to He Changnian that Wisdom Cores and a materialized network let fewer than ten thousand people control the legions, with low-star Puppets serving as unmanned Bee Soldiers.
• While commanding the armies, Li Chen felt empirical certification accelerate his mental certification, magic power, and understanding of the Puppet Dao.
• Li Chen sensed new divine ability configurations forming and saw Heavenly Pivot undergo a wondrous transformation.

Li Chen entered the newly completed Creation Secret Realm, a virtual world linking several sky cities, and learned from He Changnian that the original secret realm had been destroyed and rebuilt. As the Creation Sect’s network strengthened the spread of its Dao Path, Heavenly Will chose to pursue innovation despite uncertainty, accepting that failure would mean its replacement.

• Li Chen learned that his inner transformation was progressing favorably while he continued empirical certification and helped spread his Dao Path among Puppet Masters.
• The Creation Sect completed the Creation Secret Realm, a vast virtual reality network connected to Golden Light City, Thousand Pearl City, Pagoda City, and other sky cities.
• Li Chen explored a virtual Golden Light City, where He Changnian joined him and explained the Creation Secret Realm’s history and its role in preserving the sect’s Dao Path.
• He Changnian revealed that the original Creation Secret Realm had been destroyed, but argued that its true legacy could always be reborn as long as the Dao Path continued to spread.
• Heavenly Will discussed with a mysterious woman its decision to pursue the Dao Expounder’s path, even though its calculations were unclear and failure would lead the Creation Sect to create a new Heavenly Will.

He Changnian showed Li Chen the Creation Secret Realm and explained how the Creation Sect preserved and shared its teachings. Li Chen inspected the realm’s network, standardized its data specifications, and was alerted that the Golden Sun Gate Headquarters was under attack.

• He Changnian explained the Creation Secret Realm’s role in transmitting teachings and described how Li Chen’s Dao of Wisdom had earned recognition from the Observatory Court.
• Li Chen met the Puppet Masters maintaining the realm and reviewed their network implementation, including their conflicting byte-order standards.
• Li Chen proposed standardizing storage on little-endian and used a Light Prism to demonstrate how the specifications should work.
• Li Chen toured the Creation Secret Realm with the Puppet Masters and offered further suggestions about its operations.
• A strange, pervasive aura spread through the realm, but Li Chen’s Auxiliary Brain interrupted him with a confidential report that followers of the Outer Dao were attacking the Golden Sun Gate Headquarters.

Li Chen ended the concealment and launched a full counterattack against the Outer Dao, sending forces across the Star Sea and into battle. The Outer Dao's experts found themselves facing the three Sky Cities and millions of war machines, while Puppet Legions overwhelmed enemy forces on other fronts.

• Li Chen and He Changnian agreed to stop hiding their forces and counterattack before the Outer Dao could destroy the Golden Sun Gate.
• Li Chen ordered Golden Light to deactivate the Concealment Array, and forces across the Star Sea began mobilizing for war.
• At the Golden Sun Gate, Chi Zong attacked the Golden Crow Puppet with the Heaven-Shaking Bow and Sun-Shooting Arrow as other Outer Dao experts joined the assault.
• Eight Nascent Soul experts intercepted the three Sky Cities, but millions of Puppet Masters' war machines arrived and used Cosmic Dao Beacons to disrupt the void.
• After more than two hours of fighting, Puppet Legions emerged through void passages across other battlefields and engulfed several Outer Dao main forces.

The Tiger-Subduing Peak Master summoned a vast Puppet Legion that wiped out the Outer Dao cultivators attacking him. The puppets then struck Cloud-Ladder Peak, where a coordinated assault overwhelmed the defenders and left two Core Formation cultivators facing a dire battle.

• The Tiger-Subduing Peak Master used a Beacon Spirit Ring to summon more than a million puppets, which quickly killed the Outer Dao cultivators surrounding him.
• A concealed Puppeteer trapped the surviving Foundation Establishment Sword Cultivator in threads and forced him to break his own bones.
• At Cloud-Ladder Peak, two Outer Dao Core Formation cultivators discovered a vast puppet assault and saw Snake Beauty attack them.
• The Core Formation Sword Cultivator fought Snake Beauty while the Spell Cultivator urged his companion to find its Puppeteer.
• The Wooden Cranes formed a battle formation and unleashed a hurricane that devastated the peak and killed many disciples.
• More than a dozen Steel-Feathered Cranes struck at high speed, killing several defenders and forcing the two Core Formation cultivators to recognize the danger.