Chapter Summaries

Wang Quan and Ying Jiaren received unique Daoist Scriptures and protection from divination after returning from the historical fragment. As they exchanged scriptures, Wang Quan discovered titles linked to Princess Tianxuan and Yu Wanzhou, leaving him suspicious that their actions in the past had shaped the Present World.

• The great cultivator explained that further changes to Liu Yong's history required killing him in other historical fragments and rewarded Wang Quan and the others with unique Daoist Scriptures.
• The great cultivator sent Wang Quan and Ying Jiaren into the Underworld with a tortoise shell that concealed them from divination.
• The great cultivators forced a group of Primordial Spirit cultivators to enter a historical fragment and lay the groundwork for Flower-Scatter Daoist and other Legend Cultivators.
• Wang Quan and Ying Jiaren agreed to exchange scriptures so each could cultivate methods for both the Foundation Establishment and Purple Mansion realms.
• Wang Quan chose Emperor Tianxuan's scripture because its bloodline totem methods suggested a connection to Princess Tianxuan.
• Wang Quan found a Foundation Establishment scripture bearing the words Big Fish, recalled his sect-naming agreement with Yu Wanzhou, and questioned whether the matching titles were coincidences.

Wang Quan returned to Stone City, sorted the treasures he brought back from the historical fragment, and studied the cultivation methods taught by the Great Qian crown prince and Princess Tianxuan. He began deciphering a Daoist Scripture whose opening identified its author as a Great Shang princess named Tianxuan.

• Ying Jiaren and Wang Quan discussed whether Princess Tianxuan had written the Daoist Scriptures before returning to their respective territories.
• Ying Jiaren left to establish a legacy Purple Mansion, while Wang Quan returned to Stone City and entered seclusion.
• Wang Quan sent the Hundred-Treasure Pouches and their contents to Officiant and the others for storage and use.
• Wang Quan studied the crown prince's [Ten Suns Shining Overhead] and Princess Tianxuan's bloodline cultivation method.
• Wang Quan deciphered the first page of [Emperor Tianxuan's Scripture on Bloodlines, Totems, Mountains, and Waters] and read that its author had been a princess of Great Shang titled Tianxuan.

Wang Quan read Emperor Tianxuan’s account of her battles with [Young Master], her repeated failures across history resets, and the hidden meaning woven into her Daoist Scriptures. The Scriptures merged into Wang Quan and began transforming his bloodline and purple mansion, while their concealed information remained beyond his understanding.

• Wang Quan read that Princess Tianxuan had created her own cultivation method, fought powerful Extraterritorial Heavenly Devils, and was eventually slain by [Young Master].
• Emperor Tianxuan recorded how [Young Master] repeatedly suppressed her for a hundred and eight thousand years, even after history reset, because he knew her methods and could anticipate her deductions.
• Wang Quan studied the Scriptures’ methods for incorporating living beings, rivers, and totems into one’s bloodline, and compared their traits to Dao Seals.
• The Daoist Scriptures dissolved into Wang Quan, carrying unreadable information and anger and despair as they began transforming his bloodline and purple mansion.
• Wang Quan opened the second volume of Daoist Scriptures, titled [The emperor spoke of big fish and begonias above the highest heavens].

Wang Quan read Yu Wanzhou’s Daoist Scriptures and learned how she had made her mark in the historical fragment, along with her discoveries about [Young Master]. He ended the chapter realizing that [Young Master] sought to extract the world’s essence and limit its power, though the reason involved beings beyond the world.

• Wang Quan realized Yu Wanzhou had compiled a volume of Daoist Scriptures and wondered whether other powerful cultivators trapped in the historical fragment had done the same.
• Yu Wanzhou’s scriptures described the Present World’s cultivation system, and Wang Quan asked a senior whether anyone else had read the exclusive volume.
• The senior explained that no one else could learn the scriptures unless they killed the previous reader, and Wang Quan clarified that he was only asking.
• Yu Wanzhou recounted how she had joined Princess Tianxuan and a rotten old relic to fight [Young Master], then chose to remain in the fragment and make her name in history.
• Wang Quan read that Yu Wanzhou had spent tens of millions of historical resets investigating [Young Master] and learned that he wanted to extract the world’s essence and seal its power limits.
• Yu Wanzhou and her companions suspected that [Young Master]’s actions connected the [Second-Layer World], the [Third Layer], and other worlds of the Present World to beings outside the world.

Wang Quan read Yu Wanzhou's warning that mastering many special Daoist Scriptures and cultivating the Fundamental Method might help people resist [Young Master]. After the scripture transformed his Inner Landscape, he began visualizing the extinct [Big Fish], gained many additional traits, and saw endless palaces in the heavens.

• Wang Quan considered whether future cultivators could change history by killing [Young Master], but concluded that eliminating all of his anchors had proved impossible.
• Wang Quan read Yu Wanzhou's advice to master at least a thousand special Daoist Scriptures and her warning that [Young Master] had not yet reached his full power.
• Wang Quan finished reading the Daoist Scriptures, which dissolved into light and transformed his Foundation Establishment Dao Platform and Inner Landscape.
• Wang Quan began studying [The Emperor Speaks: Big Fish and Begonia Rise Above the Clouds] and visualized the enormous, extinct [Big Fish] described by Yu Wanzhou.
• Wang Quan merged with the fish's outward form and gained at least thirty-six traits, then watched it transform into a bird and soar past thirty-three layers of astral winds toward endless palaces.

After returning from a fragment of history, Wang Quan examined his changed Dao Seal and realized his legend rating was increasing, suggesting he had changed history. He resisted the Chronicle of the Flower-Scatter Daoist's Struggles as it exaggerated his deeds, then resolved to strengthen his foundation and pursue a golden core.

• Wang Quan marveled at Yu Wanzhou's cultivation art and the vast airborne palaces he had seen in the historical fragment.
• Wang Quan checked his Dao Seal and found his lifespan had risen to 9,999 years, the two imperial scriptures were recorded as mastered, his yin virtue had fallen to one cubic unit, and his legend rating was increasing.
• Wang Quan concluded that the rising legend rating meant he had changed history.
• The Chronicle of the Flower-Scatter Daoist's Struggles wrote boastful accounts of Wang Quan defeating Liu Yong and reforming history, while Wang Quan tried to stop it.
• Wang Quan snapped the writing brush and resolved to use the dangerous magical duel to strengthen his foundation and make a push for the golden core.

Wang Quan emerged from seclusion, and Stone City celebrated with ten days of feasting. Amid the revelry, a cultivator relayed King Black Hand’s proposal that the New-Method Cultivators escape the Old Cultivation Method Cultivators’ harvesting by following him to the Underworld.

• Wang Quan emerged from seclusion because his cultivation methods made little progress in isolation, and Stone City’s lords declared ten days and nights of feasting.
• Warriors and spirit monsters celebrated, while a black goat spirit urged the sheep and goats to rebel against the sheepdogs before a passing cultivator secretly sheared their wool.
• A New-Method Foundation Establishment Ancestor brought black-wool thread artifacts to a gathering of New-Method Cultivators and said King Black Hand had offered them a path to rise.
• The cultivator told the group that King Black Hand’s plan was to lead them into the Underworld, where they could reach the Pinnacle of the Mountain Range and escape being harvested by Old Cultivation Method Cultivators.

New-Method Cultivators prepared to flee Stone City with King Black Hand, who was secretly forced to operate a blood-draining spinning-wheel Magic Treasure while plotting revenge. Mei Niang and the others reunited with Wang Quan and Ruo Jinghong, discussed the threat of evil beings entering the Present World, and recounted their magical duels before heading toward the Second-Layer World.

• New-Method Cultivators agreed to escape with King Black Hand and planned to bring friends, relatives, and companions along.
• King Black Hand and other evil beings operated Ruo Jinghong's spinning-wheel Magic Treasure, while Black Hand plotted to kill his original body and return to take revenge on Stone City.
• Mei Niang told Wang Quan and Ruo Jinghong that evil beings had entered the Present World through the Underworld, and Ruo Jinghong warned that they had faced little resistance.
• Mei Niang argued that the evil beings posed little danger because sunlight could destroy them, and Wang Quan moved on to ask about the magical duels.
• Mei Niang and the others recounted their duels, in which they advanced to the finals and joined Ying Jiaren in a fragment of history to hunt Liu Yong in the Foundation Establishment Realm.

Mei Niang and the others recounted their ten-year hunt for Liu Yong and explained how they spent their contest points on magic treasures to expand Stone City’s population. Mei Niang proposed that she and Wang Quan lead by example, leaving Wang Quan alarmed.

• Ruo Jinghong and the others described how they hunted Liu Yong for ten years in a historical fragment until they wore him down and killed him.
• Mei Niang joked about holding prodigies’ descendants hostage and showed off the power of her refined Purple Palace Magic Implement.
• Ruo Jinghong explained that the group had pooled their points to obtain first-tier magic treasures, and Mei Niang described the treasures’ uses for building strength and producing offspring.
• Mei Niang argued that Stone City needed a much larger population and proposed using magic treasures to produce a billion living beings a day.
• Mei Niang called for 108,000 sets of brood pouches so she and Wang Quan could set an example, and Wang Quan’s expression changed drastically.

Wang Quan and the cultivators fueled a population boom in Stone City, while [Ghost Emperor Heart] created a miniature Great Sun in the White Land Forbidden Zone to impress Beitang Xue. As the female cultivators dragged him toward the ship’s cabin, he begged Beitang Xue to save him and offered a secret about people who had descended into a fragment of history.

• Mei Niang persuaded Wang Quan to help set an example for Stone City’s population growth, but he refused to attach brood pouches himself.
• Ruo Jinghong hired an Orthodox Cultivator to take Wang Quan’s likeness and produce humans, spirit monsters, and other beings, inspiring Stone City’s population to surge.
• The Officiant Daoist Nun arranged for newly born Bump Spirit Monsters to be brainwashed into joining the Way of Idiocy.
• [Ghost Emperor Heart] gathered sunlight into a miniature Great Sun in the White Land Forbidden Zone and ordered its inhabitants to worship it.
• Beitang Xue arrived with female cultivators, and [Ghost Emperor Heart] explained that he had made the miniature Great Sun so she could walk on it.
• The female cultivators dragged [Ghost Emperor Heart] toward the cabin, and he pleaded with Beitang Xue to save him in exchange for a secret about people who had descended into a fragment of history.

Wang Quan assessed whether Stone City’s cultivators could survive Heaven’s Collapse by relocating to the Second-Layer World, then demonstrated his growing power by transforming into a giant fish and devouring hundreds of evil beings. He left the surrounding evil beings stunned by the reversal.

• Beitang Xue agreed to save [Ghost Emperor Heart] during the next historical fragment after it promised to reveal a way to truly change history.
• Wang Quan surveyed the besieged safe zone and reasoned that Stone City’s cultivators would need to move inland and establish a new safe zone after Heaven’s Collapse.
• Wang Quan used a mirror artifact to probe the scarlet Great Sun, but the mirror exploded and its fragments became evil beings that the safe zone destroyed.
• Ruo Jinghong joined Wang Quan on a cloud, and they watched the evil beings lurking in the dark sky.
• Wang Quan transformed into a giant fish, left the safe zone, and swallowed hundreds of evil beings in one bite.

Wang Quan devoured evils in his big-fish form until they burst his belly, while Ruo Jinghong repeatedly sewed him back together so he could keep eating. After his belly burst a thousand times and Ruo Jinghong ran out of hair to use as thread, Wang Quan and the evils both fled, leaving the area outside the safe zone empty.

• Wang Quan grew larger as he devoured evils and gave a pair of leather boots to Ruo Jinghong.
• The evils overwhelmed Wang Quan by forcing their way into his belly until it burst, but he claimed he would return after finding a way to repair it.
• Ruo Jinghong arrived with needle and thread, sewed Wang Quan's belly shut, and urged him to resume eating the evils.
• Wang Quan's belly burst repeatedly as he consumed more evils, and Ruo Jinghong kept sewing it shut using thread braided from her hair.
• After a thousand bursts, Ruo Jinghong ran out of hair, so Wang Quan and the evils announced they would fight another day and fled in opposite directions.

Wang Quan and Ruo Jinghong discussed their plans to cultivate and expand Stone City's refuge in the Second-Layer World. Near the banquet's end, Officiant and Dream reported that every New-Method Cultivator in Stone City and their descendants had fled to the Underworld, leaving Wang Quan stunned.

• Ruo Jinghong and Wang Quan discussed preparing for Heaven's Collapse by enlarging safe zones in the Second-Layer World and pursuing higher cultivation.
• Ruo Jinghong said she planned to open a Legacy Purple Mansion, reach Golden Core, and expand her Daoist Scriptures; Wang Quan agreed to work toward similar goals.
• Mei Niang invited Ruo Jinghong and Wang Quan to relax, but both returned to the Present World.
• Wang Quan studied Daoist Scriptures in the Fire Mulberry Tree while crystal brains and kidneys strengthened his intelligence and foundation.
• Officiant and Dream hurried to Wang Quan and reported that all New-Method Cultivators in Stone City, along with their descendants, had fled to the Underworld.
• Wang Quan initially dismissed the flight, then frowned when Officiant confirmed that every one of them had left.

Wang Quan consulted Ying Jiaren about the New-Method Cultivators who had fled Stone City, then entered the Underworld to pursue them. He found the city’s ghosts celebrating after a clash with the fugitives and raced north, where he encountered a mountain range shrouded in wailing black clouds.

• The Officiant Daoist Nun told Wang Quan that many New-Method Cultivators and their descendants had fled into the Underworld, but Wang Quan refused to send others after them.
• Wang Quan contacted Ying Jiaren, who advised him to pursue the fugitives and harvest them if they found a good place to live, while using their hardship as a warning to Stone City.
• Wang Quan changed Stone City's rules to require New-Method Cultivators to take turns battling the abnormal weather, with death for those who disobeyed.
• Wang Quan entered the Underworld and learned that the city's ghosts and monsters had attacked the arriving fugitives, seized some of them, and driven the rest north.
• Wang Quan flew north and encountered towering mountains covered in black smoke and clouds of wailing resentment.

Wang Quan encountered the resentful ghosts and monsters of Black Wind Ridge, who mistook him for an enemy after humans attacked them. He recruited them and refined their lingering resentment into a magical artifact so they could pursue the fleeing people with him.

• The ghosts and monsters of Black Wind Ridge accused Wang Quan of joining the humans who had attacked them and threatened to steam him as an offering.
• Wang Quan explained that he was pursuing the people who had fled his city, and the ghosts told him those people had passed through Black Wind Ridge attacking ghosts and monsters.
• The ghosts recognized Wang Quan as the Flower-Scatter Daoist and agreed to follow him to Emperor's Tomb City in exchange for a chance at revenge.
• An old ghost warned Wang Quan that their dead companions' resentment would drag them deeper into the Underworld if left behind.
• Wang Quan offered to refine the resentful dead into magical artifacts, and they agreed before he transformed the black clouds into a tract of black earth.
• Wang Quan told the ghosts to get on the artifact and chase down the fleeing people.

Wang Quan led a vast army of ghosts and monsters in pursuit of the New-Method Cultivators who had betrayed him and joined a pitch-black Evil. He crushed the fleeing cultivators and continued hunting the rest, convinced that they deserved no further mercy.

• Wang Quan recruited surviving ghosts and monsters along the route, and their numbers swelled into an immense army.
• Wang Quan caught up with several thousand injured New-Method Cultivators and condemned them for betraying him and siding with Evil.
• A female cultivator defended the New Method and denounced the Old Cultivation Method, while Wang Quan refused to keep arguing.
• Wang Quan ordered the ghosts and monsters to crush the group, and they flattened the hill and killed the cultivators.
• Wang Quan continued pursuing scattered New-Method Cultivators, eventually ordering his army to crush them instead of offering explanations.
• Wang Quan reflected on the cultivators’ defiance and wondered who had given them the courage to oppose orthodoxy.

Wang Quan watched as his ghosts and monsters fought the defecting New-Method Cultivators, who eventually broke into a rout when their leaders fled. White-Haired Ancestor and Black Hand escaped with the surviving Golden Core Ancestors, still promising to return and confront Wang Quan.

• The defecting New-Method Cultivators prepared to fight the approaching ghosts and monsters, while White-Haired Ancestor ordered them not to attack Wang Quan.
• The New-Method Cultivators and the ghosts and monsters battled across a vast battlefield, with both sides unleashing spells and strange attacks.
• White-Haired Ancestor noticed Black Hand and the other evil beings retreating, then gathered his followers and fled with them.
• The other Golden Core Ancestors realized their leaders were abandoning them and retreated, causing the lower-ranked New-Method Cultivators to rout.
• White-Haired Ancestor pulled Black Hand away from glaring at Wang Quan, and Black Hand fled with the surviving leaders toward the promised paradise beyond the world.

Wang Quan stopped the army of ghosts and monsters before the ghost gods and sent it to Emperor's Tomb City, while Black Hand led the surviving New-Method Cultivators to meet the ghost god lords. The cultivators learned that their supposed paradise would begin with mining a newly discovered vein.

• New-Method Cultivators who died joined the ghosts and monsters, and some surviving cultivators killed themselves to become ghosts and monsters too.
• Black Hand fled with the White-Haired Ancestor and the remaining Golden Core Ancestors as the ghosts and monsters overwhelmed their companions.
• Wang Quan halted the pursuing army before the ghost gods, warned the ghosts and monsters away, and sent them to Emperor's Tomb City.
• The ghosts and monsters reached City No. 95, where Death-Heralding Ravens gave them jars to live in and assigned them work.
• Black Hand showed the White-Haired Ancestor and the other cultivators how he could whip the laborers, then told them the ghost god lords had ordered them to mine a mineral vein.

Golden Core Ancestors who had been lured from Stone City were forced to mine under brutal conditions, while the White-Haired Ancestor persuaded a chosen group to cultivate. Six years later, the cultivators had grown stronger and embraced the mines, while the rest remained trapped and were silenced when they protested.

• Golden Core Ancestors regretted leaving Stone City as Lantern Monsters whipped them whenever they rested, and one tried to persuade the others that mining and beatings were useful tempering.
• The White-Haired Ancestor proposed selecting intelligent cultivators who would take turns cultivating while the others endured the lashes, and the ancestors chose one thousand and one for the task.
• The selected ancestors spent years interpreting the Fundamental Method through guesswork, while the White-Haired Ancestor claimed an Innate Single-Qi Great Grappling spell and dismissed the others' complaints.
• Six years later, the White-Haired Ancestor and his companions had grown powerful and refused to leave the mines, insisting the resources and teachers there were too valuable.
• When the other Golden Core Ancestors protested and demanded freedom, the White-Haired Ancestor ordered them to mine and sewed their mouths shut with his companions.

Wang Quan infiltrated the Pinnacle of the Mountain Range's construction disguised as a Lantern Monster and persuaded Black Hand to authorize shortcuts that sabotaged the weapon. After more than a year of studying its refinement method, he could not seize control because of its immense Dharma Power requirements, but he had planted hidden dangers he could trigger if it was used against him.

• Wang Quan disguised himself as a Lantern Monster and discovered that some ghost gods still bore wounds from his earlier strike with the [Sky Patrol Magic Treasure].
• Wang Quan learned that the Tenth Reincarnation King intended to forge the Pinnacle of the Mountain Range to withstand the [All-Under-Heaven Dao Court]'s powerful magic treasures.
• Wang Quan persuaded Black Hand to reduce construction specifications for faster progress, and Black Hand put him in charge while planning to blame him for any failures.
• Black Hand searched for its original body to kill it while Wang Quan openly studied the weapon's construction.
• Wang Quan spent more than a year comparing the refinement method with [Emperor Tianxuan]'s Daoist Scriptures and confirmed that their frameworks shared the same lineage, though the weapon's method was faster and cruder.
• Wang Quan abandoned taking control of the unfinished weapon because he lacked sufficient Dharma Power, but retained hidden dangers he could detonate to escape a future attack.