Chapter Summaries

Li Chen finished searching the warehouse for hidden Void Waymarkers and received True Person Miaobao’s Truth-Discerning Immortal Mirror to check for law-level traps. After learning that each use cost a year of lifespan, Li Chen questioned whether lifespan was a true limit or merely a measure of vitality.

• Li Chen destroyed the last detected Void Waymarker in the warehouse and warned Heavenly Pivot that hidden law-level traps might remain.
• Heavenly Pivot told Li Chen that True Person Miaobao had agreed to lend him the Truth-Discerning Immortal Mirror.
• True Person Miaobao arrived at the Azure Billow Immortal Abode and explained the mirror’s origins, function, and cost of one year of lifespan per use.
• Li Chen asked True Person Miaobao whether cultivators’ lifespan was a fixed limit or simply a description of vitality.

True Person Miaobao explained competing theories of lifespan and how cultivation realms affected a cultivator’s remaining years. Li Chen proposed that lifespan laws depended on belief, then asked Miaobao to imagine a world without magic or laws, which Miaobao said he could picture but not understand.

• True Person Miaobao described the ancient true spirit theory and the modern law shackles theory of lifespan.
• Li Chen calculated that, based on his cultivation milestones, he could live to at least twelve hundred years.
• Li Chen suggested that ancient cultivators’ longevity and disappearance could be explained by changes in Heaven and Earth’s laws, and Miaobao revealed that some ancient powers still survived within the Immortal Alliance.
• Li Chen proposed that lifespan shackles existed only if people believed in them, and Miaobao considered the idea compatible with the mind-dependent nature of magic and laws.
• Li Chen asked whether Miaobao could imagine a material universe without magic or laws, and Miaobao said he could imagine it but could not understand it.

Li Chen argued to True Person Miaobao that the Age of the End of the Dharma could be understood as nature’s ordinary state, with supernatural cultivation acting as an interference that limited life. He left True Person Miaobao with the claim that abandoning cultivation when Dharma’s decline came would open the way to true longevity.

• True Person Miaobao rejected Li Chen’s imagined universe without spiritual energy, while Li Chen questioned what such a world would mean for the Great Dao.
• Li Chen and True Person Miaobao reasoned that a force capable of erasing supernatural powers would have to be a natural state rather than a law or Dao fruit.
• Li Chen described matter, stars, and living bodies as enduring manifestations of nature and argued that longevity depended on understanding natural processes.
• Li Chen cited improved living conditions, medicine, and long-lived intelligent machines as evidence that life could last far longer without cultivation.
• Li Chen concluded that cultivation and supernatural powers restricted cultivators, and that abandoning cultivation in the Age of the End of the Dharma could lead to true longevity.

Li Chen used True Person Miaobao’s Truth-Discerning Immortal Mirror to learn that no hostile law-level contingencies remained in his Materialized Heaven. After Miaobao returned home, the mirror confirmed that Li Chen would comprehend the power of Dharma’s Decline, leaving Miaobao stunned.

• True Person Miaobao explained the limits of his mirror, and Li Chen framed a specific question about hostile law-level contingencies.
• Miaobao used the mirror, which answered no, and Li Chen felt reassured that no such contingencies remained.
• Li Chen thanked Miaobao and gave him researched materials before Miaobao left for his Grotto-Heaven world.
• Li Chen asked Heavenly Pivot whether using the mirror consumed a year of Miaobao’s vitality, and Heavenly Pivot judged that Miaobao had likely concealed further information.
• Miaobao returned home and gave Wangshu Li Chen’s city-planning designs to model.
• A voice in Miaobao’s robes predicted that Li Chen would comprehend the power of Dharma’s Decline, and the mirror confirmed the prediction with a yes.

Li Chen sent warriors of materialized heaven to capture people implicated in the plot against him, using controlled artificial bodies to carry out missions abroad. At the Sheng Clan, Sheng Hai surrendered, while Grand Artisan Gu destroyed the visiting warriors and realized they were false bodies.

• Li Chen ordered the Creation Sect to punish a small group of its own members and dispatched warriors of materialized heaven to investigate implicated merchants and clans.
• Warriors of Heaven arrived at the Shengji Trading Company in West Extension Ward and confronted Second Elder Sheng, Sheng Hai.
• The warriors identified themselves as agents of materialized heaven, and Sheng Hai surrendered, asking Li Chen to spare his clan.
• In Cloud Arrival Ward, Grand Artisan Gu defeated the visiting warriors and destroyed their bodies.
• Grand Artisan Gu discovered that the warriors had been false bodies and wondered whether their claims about materialized heaven were true.

After Grand Artisan Gu killed the team sent to make him surrender, he planned to flee and leave his followers to bear the consequences. In Materialized Heaven, Luo Jin took control of a warship and prepared to retaliate against Gu.

• Grand Artisan Gu killed the attackers, realized they might have been acting on behalf of a Sky City, and decided to flee while using his followers as a shield.
• The Heaven warriors who had controlled the dead characters complained that Grand Artisan Gu had resisted them and asked Luo Jin to avenge them.
• Luo Jin explained that Gu's status as a territorial Grand Artisan made him difficult to deal with, then used his third-tier access to enter the Illusionary Realm.
• Luo Jin deployed his resources, including a combat legion and battle puppets, to confront Grand Artisan Gu.
• The War Spear, a silver-white flagship-class warship, breached the Firmament's world barrier and appeared above Cloud Arrival Ward.

Luo Jin tracked Grand Artisan Gu to Cloud Arrival Ward and fought his way into Gu’s household, but Gu had already fled. Luo Jin took control of the spirit peak and decided to search for Gu across the ward.

• Luo Jin used the Mind Core and signals from the fallen subjects of Heaven to locate Grand Artisan Gu’s spirit peak outside Cloud Arrival Ward.
• Luo Jin descended in the Silver Pearl and defeated the Red Owl Mechas that tried to stop him.
• Luo Jin fought through the spirit peak’s defenders without killing them, but Grand Artisan Gu never appeared.
• The Mind Core reported that its search had found no trace of Gu, and Luo Jin realized that Gu had fled.
• Luo Jin deployed artificial human soldiers to take control of the spirit peak and agreed to pursue Gu through a ward-wide bounty.

Li Chen learned that someone with powerful connections had erased clues to protect those who betrayed Materialized Heaven, but he refused to end the investigation. He decided to target the hidden backer and asserted that, amid the war, his authority served the bigger picture.

• Heavenly Pivot Dao told Li Chen that the investigation had identified the traitors, though someone had erased clues and blocked further progress.
• Li Chen ordered Heavenly Pivot Dao to continue investigating and said he would pursue the most powerful figures behind the cover-up.
• Mei Xuan warned Li Chen that the erased clues signaled influential people wanted him to spare the remaining suspects.
• Li Chen reasoned that the culprit was likely a Creation Sect Grandmaster and said the hidden backer, not the petty traitor, was the real target.
• Mei Xuan asked what Li Chen meant by putting the bigger picture first, and Li Chen declared that he was the bigger picture.

Li Chen used his influence to search for leads about the attack on his Materialized Heaven and received a report linking Grandmaster Xia Yutang to those seeking its location. Li Shengyuan had gone into hiding after investigating the matter, and Li Chen agreed to send someone to retrieve him.

• Li Chen decided to use his connections and growing influence to find leads despite having no clear direction.
• Bei Feng told Li Chen that Li Shengyuan had urgent information connected to the attack on Materialized Heaven.
• Li Chen learned that merchants had discussed profiting from his injury and that someone had offered an enormous price for Materialized Heaven's location.
• Li Shengyuan reported that Grandmaster Xia Yutang was connected to the scheme, then went into hiding after unidentified people began searching for him.
• Li Chen agreed to send someone to bring Li Shengyuan back to safety.

Li Shengyuan returned to Cishan after Xia Yutang’s operatives threatened the mountain’s residents, then fought their ten Core Formation-level combatants. Just as he was about to be defeated, three of the attackers turned on their leader and chose to act for themselves.

• Four veiled intruders threatened Cishan’s residents and demanded that they summon Li Shengyuan, demonstrating their Void power before waiting in the Market District.
• Li Shengyuan hurried back to Cishan, where ten Core Formation-level combatants surrounded and intercepted him.
• Li Shengyuan said he had hidden his closest companions and warned the attackers that Xia Yutang might sacrifice them, urging them to abandon the mission.
• Li Shengyuan fought the ten enemies with autonomous mechanical war machines, holding out for more than half a shichen before his puppets were destroyed.
• Three attackers struck down their leader and tore out his false core, saying Li Shengyuan had made a very good point and they would decide their own fate.

Wang Minzhu, Mu You, and Gong Ping turned against their leader, arguing that they had repaid Grandmaster Xia and were free to pursue their own futures. As Li Shengyuan recovered and observed, he recognized their beliefs as an effect of Grandmaster Li’s teachings and reflected on why he had chosen to side with him.

• Wang Minzhu, Mu You, and Gong Ping rejected their leader’s accusations of betrayal and admitted they had once depended on Grandmaster Xia’s support.
• Mu You urged Wang Minzhu and Gong Ping to remember their discussion and argued that Grandmaster Xia’s kindness had been intended to make them serve as expendable tools.
• Wang Minzhu and Gong Ping agreed they had repaid their debt to Grandmaster Xia and declared that they would choose their own futures.
• Li Shengyuan ordered his mechanical legion to repair itself and scout escape routes while he realized the three lackeys had attacked at a decisive moment to free themselves.
• Li Shengyuan connected the men’s arguments to Grandmaster Li’s Treatise on Materialization and reflected that changing moral ideas had justified his own decision to leave the Creation Sect’s side.

Mu You’s group broke with their pursuers while Li Shengyuan fled, but Han Li intercepted him and rescued him from the remaining attackers. She took him aboard a War Spear Flying Boat to meet her master, while Heaven’s warriors secured his Mountain Gate.

• Mu You kicked the leader aside as Li Shengyuan escaped, and Mu You and his companions fled in another direction.
• The leader sent four men after Li Shengyuan, then repaired his own body with limbs from a dead companion and recognized a Silver Pearl streaking across the sky.
• Li Shengyuan rode his Mechanical Demon Spider toward the crash site and found Han Li beside a Silver Pearl bearing Materialized Heaven’s emblem.
• Han Li struck down Li Shengyuan’s pursuers with sword qi that also cut the summit from a mountain.
• Han Li told Li Shengyuan that Heaven’s warriors had secured his Mountain Gate and that her master wanted to meet him, then took him aboard the War Spear Flying Boat toward Materialized Heaven.

Li Chen questioned Li Shengyuan about Xia Yutang’s suspected aid to the Immortal Alliance and recruited him as a witness despite his incomplete evidence. Li Chen then used the Earth-Covering Cloud-Banishing Banner to bypass Xia Yutang’s defenses and confront him at the Xia Household’s ancestral grounds.

• Li Shengyuan told Li Chen that Xia Yutang had secretly aided the Immortal Alliance and described how he had narrowly escaped an ambush.
• Li Chen asked Li Shengyuan to serve as a witness against Xia Yutang, saying he needed a rightful cause to act and ordering him to compile what he knew.
• Li Chen decided to go directly to Xia Yutang while arranging for others to fill gaps in the evidence.
• Xia Yutang worried that Li Chen might discover his role and directed his subordinates to destroy evidence and sever connections.
• Li Chen breached Xia Yutang’s protective barriers using the Earth-Covering Cloud-Banishing Banner and appeared in his courtyard.
• Li Chen stood before Xia Yutang and asked whether he knew why he had come.

Li Chen ambushed Xia Yutang with an illusion created through his Primordial Spirit Virus and killed him after exposing his attempt to escape. Li Chen left no trace, and a mysterious figure arrived much later before quietly departing.

• Li Chen confronted Xia Yutang and attacked him, while Xia Yutang's Soul Fortress let him break out of the minor grotto-heaven and flee.
• Xia Yutang summoned Pang Huo with an Edict Talisman, but Li Chen revealed that the escape and Pang Huo's appearance were part of an illusion.
• Xia Yutang realized Li Chen had clouded his mind with the Primordial Spirit Virus and gave up resisting.
• Li Chen struck Xia Yutang's Nascent Soul, and the Corrupting Shadow devoured him as his body decayed into bloody liquid.
• Li Chen put away the Earth-Covering Cloud-Banishing Banner and departed; much later, a faint human figure appeared and left without a trace.

Materialized Heaven, led by Li Chen, formally entered the war over the Equal Sea Domain, prompting the Creation Sect to debate his aims and possible promotion to Grandmaster. The sect agreed to cooperate with him and consider his appointment, while Pang Huo proposed new protections for private data on the Puppet World Heavenly Net.

• Li Chen officially committed Materialized Heaven to the war, attracting Wilderness Rogue Cultivators and local magnates as vassals.
• Six Creation Sect Grandmasters and senior artisans discussed Li Chen’s entry, and Wu Fangdao argued that he sought merit, public support, and influence for Materialized Heaven.
• The gathered leaders decided not to oppose Li Chen and agreed to cooperate in conquering the Equal Sea Domain.
• Shen Longcheng proposed considering Li Chen for Grandmaster and making the war a test of his promotion, while Pang Huo questioned whether it was too soon.
• Pang Huo proposed restricting access to private Heavenly Net data and requiring collective votes for any such access, and the gathering agreed.

Li Chen considered the Creation Sect’s new policies, including his nomination as a Grandmaster candidate and restrictions on Heavenly Net privileges. He accepted the changes and turned his attention toward advancing his people into lesser unity heaven and pursuing freedom heaven.

• Heavenly Pivot told Li Chen that the Creation Sect had nominated him as a Grandmaster candidate and passed new policies, and Li Chen decided to pursue Grandmaster standing.
• Heavenly Pivot reported a privacy decree requiring Elders’ Council approval for sensitive Heavenly Net operations, a response to Li Chen tracing and killing Xia Yutang through the network.
• Li Chen accepted the decree, explaining that the faction’s restrictions were reasonable despite the Creation Sect’s possible motives and that his own root server and virtual-reality sovereignty remained secure.
• Mei Xuan expressed surprise that Li Chen was not confronting Elder Pang, and Li Chen said he intended to look beyond that dispute toward larger goals.
• Li Chen planned to help his people move into lesser unity heaven and begin a social experiment aimed at realizing freedom heaven.

Li Chen refined his automated production system and used it to create and dispatch disguised incarnations to infiltrate the Underworld and the Immortal Alliance for access to powerful techniques and Dao Fruits. He also ordered a new offensive by the Rogue Cultivators, using the war to deploy his agents.

• Li Chen balanced his creation law with automated production and continued experimenting with dividing his mental will to operate multiple programs.
• He discussed with Heavenly Pivot how mastering a new law might let him operate multiple cores with the same power of law.
• Li Chen used Shape-Stealing Skin-Painting, Capture Shadows, Refine Souls, and Awaken Spirituality to alter Spirit Human Puppet incarnations into varied identities and bloodlines.
• Li Chen ordered Heavenly Pivot to send the incarnations into cities and blessed lands to infiltrate the Underworld and the Immortal Alliance and seek primordial spirit Dao Fruits.
• Li Chen authorized the requisition of spirit materials and ordered Heavenly Pivot to expand the incarnation force to more than a hundred thousand within a year.
• After Heavenly Pivot reported that the Rogue Cultivators were ready to attack, Li Chen ordered the offensive to begin.

Li Chen oversaw the recovery of an artificial human made from fallen Immortal Alliance cultivators, whose unstable body was being studied for innate spiritual roots and primordial spirit mysteries. When the being awakened with no memories, Li Chen named him Ziyi and took him away to teach him.

• The Puppet Masters stabilized the artificial human after another abnormal change and reported his condition to Li Chen.
• Hua Wucuo examined the artificial human and offered to trade life-domain resources to help stabilize his beneficial traits.
• Li Chen and Hua Wucuo discussed seeking expertise from Grandmasters who specialized in spiritual roots, innate dao bodies, and spirit humans.
• The artificial human awakened, realized he had no memories or past, and asked Li Chen who he was.
• Li Chen called himself the artificial human's master, had a Puppet Master dress him, and said he would teach him personally.
• Li Chen told the artificial human that his name was Ziyi, and Ziyi felt an inexplicable familiarity with it.

Li Chen explained that his research into reincarnation and the essence of life might help him create life through artificial means and attain the heavenly ghost dharma body. Meanwhile, an exhausted boy was found by Immortal Alliance disciples near the ruined Nine Ridges Mountain, where the Puppet Masters' attacks had devastated the surrounding region.

• Li Chen and Mei Xuan watched Ziyi learn to eat and discussed how hidden differences in life might explain spiritual talent and enable the artificial creation of geniuses.
• Heavenly Pivot wondered whether Li Chen's enlightenment made her his daughter and asked whether the corpse concubines were her mothers, leaving Li Chen at a loss for words.
• Li Chen told Mei Xuan that he was studying the Heavenly Ghost Returning-to-Hiding Method and reincarnation to investigate the essence of life and create life closer to natural creation.
• An Immortal Alliance patrol found a faintly breathing boy collapsed beneath a spirit peak and revived him.
• The boy murmured about his father and sister as the disciples blamed the Puppet Masters for ruining Nine Ridges Mountain and the nearby settlements.

Er Niu passed the West River Gate’s examination and joined its Outer Court as a refugee recruit. Later, disciples defending Nine Ridges Mountain came under attack by Materialized Heaven’s puppets, and the patrol charged the enemy squad directing them.

• The Nine Ridges Mountain patrol brought Er Niu to Steward Zhao, who sent him for an examination after suspecting he might be an Outer Dao spy.
• The examination found Er Niu was an ordinary mortal, and the West River Gate assigned him to the refugee camp as an Outer Court menial.
• Steward Zhao led Er Niu and other displaced youths to the Mountain Gate and told them their duties would begin in three days, with cultivation and Inner Court opportunities for those who excelled.
• Materialized Heaven’s Thunderhawk Fighters bombed the forest, and West River Gate disciples went to contain the spreading fire while watching for infiltrators.
• Poisoned Flying Needles and Gunner Puppets ambushed the disciples, killing Senior Brother Han and Junior Brother Mo.
• The patrol leader ordered a flanking assault, and the disciples charged the Mechanical Martial Artists, modified humans, and commander directing the puppets.