Chapter Summaries

Wang Quan learned from Beitang Xue that Green Fly Coins could power the Golden Core Lesser Divine Ability Money Can Summon Gods, prompting him to consider stockpiling them. Beitang Xue then wrote to her disciple Qingqiu, inviting her to Stone City for easy work and riches.

• Wang Quan instructed the Officiant Daoist Nun to direct more resources toward loyal Spirit Monsters and help warriors advance.
• Beitang Xue offered to kill Wang Quan’s enemies for Green Fly Coins and explained that money could summon powerful projections through Money Can Summon Gods.
• Wang Quan gave Beitang Xue a bag of Green Fly Coins and decided he should stockpile more for future cultivation stages.
• Beitang Xue warned that she could not help kill Blessed Land Grotto Heaven cultivators, then asked Wang Quan where she could send a letter.
• Beitang Xue wrote to Qingqiu, praised Stone City as a place of easy work and wealth, and included her socks as a token.

Ma Qingqiu and his companions plotted to seize City No. 11 while enduring years of menial work, and Wang Quan watched the Bump Spirit Monsters advance their strange cultivation in Stone City. Ma Qingqiu's group prepared to lure the city lord to a cesspit, while Wang Quan remained troubled by news from Officiant Daoist Nun.

• Ma Qingqiu refused Beitang Xue's invitation to return to Stone City, insisting he would make a name for himself by capturing City No. 11.
• Ma Qingqiu and his companions continued emptying cesspits at the city lord's estate, where they had worked for over three years to infiltrate the leadership.
• Ma Qingqiu revealed that he and Fierce Tiger Daoist had persuaded the kitchen workers to lace a grand banquet with laxatives so they could ambush the city lord at the cesspit.
• Ma Qingqiu declared that he would claim Beitang Xue as his rightful Dao companion if he took control of the city, and Vertical Eye mocked him.
• In Stone City, Wang Quan reassured the Bump Spirit Monsters that the Fire Mulberry Tree would return in three to five months, then reflected on troubling news from Officiant Daoist Nun.

Wang Quan learned that the allied organizations [Reincarnation], [Afterlife], and [Future] were spreading rebellion, afterlife doctrines, and the New Method across the Polar Lands. After consulting Ying Jiaren, he confronted the imprisoned members in Stone City and challenged [Future]’s claims about its cultivation system.

• The Officiant Daoist Nun reported that newly arrived cultivators had promoted [Reincarnation], [Afterlife], and [Future], so Wang Quan had them arrested.
• Wang Quan contacted Ying Jiaren and learned that the organizations had appeared throughout the Polar Lands, where she had turned their members into Dao Soldiers.
• Ying Jiaren advised Wang Quan to decide the prisoners’ fate without speaking to them, but Wang Quan chose to meet them himself.
• Wang Quan summoned the imprisoned cultivators, and a [Reincarnation] member asked why they had been arrested despite coming to help him.
• The [Afterlife] cultivators insisted they would be reborn after dying, while the [Future] cultivators urged Wang Quan to support the New Method.
• Wang Quan questioned the [Future] cultivators about the New Method’s Golden Core limit and their habit of calling themselves patriarchs.

Wang Quan rejected the New Method and ordered action against the three great organizations’ rebels, while reaffirming his faith in orthodox cultivation. He left Stone City patrolling and convinced that neither the New Method nor martial arts could replace orthodox cultivators.

• The [Future] cultivators told Wang Quan that the New Method had already produced an immortal and would inevitably become the age’s dominant path, but Wang Quan questioned their right to replace orthodox cultivators.
• Wang Quan demanded information about the three great organizations, and when their captured cultivators refused to cooperate, he summoned spirit monsters to carry them away for soul extraction, flaying, and transformation into zombies.
• Wang Quan gave the Officiant Daoist Nun authority to form a team to arrest rebels and declared that Stone City would permit only his voice, refusing to accommodate the organizations even if the New Method became mainstream.
• Wang Quan patrolled Stone City and considered how orthodox cultivators supported its defenses and how martial artists studied their bodies, concluding that neither the New Method nor martial arts had the capabilities to replace orthodox cultivation.

Wang Quan studied an Imperial Scripture that taught him how to refine an extraordinarily powerful golden core using millions of other golden cores. He suspected the new cultivation method could supply them and used his authority to encourage experiments into martial golden cores, hoping to create producers he could control.

• Wang Quan opened the box given to him by the ghosts and gods and read the Imperial Scripture about the moon that had once shone on its author.
• The scripture recounted how its author had witnessed the twin Ancestor Bright Moon and studied them to develop a method for refining a supreme golden core.
• Wang Quan learned that refining the described bright moon golden core required at least ten million golden cores and that its method might underlie modern supreme golden core techniques.
• Wang Quan reasoned that the new cultivation method could produce golden cores quickly, but feared that supporting it would let unseen backers benefit instead.
• Wang Quan changed incentive policies to encourage experiments in which martial artists studied orthodox cultivators, spirit monsters, and oddities and attempted to refine martial golden cores.

Wang Quan prepared to link the Second-Layer World to the Third-Layer World and found the Third Layer’s safe zone shrinking under stronger darkness and evil beings. He learned that the Black-and-White Rebel King’s revolt had infected the [All-Heavens Banners] and inspired the trapped evil beings to rebel, leaving him facing their demands.

• Wang Quan told the Second-Layer cultivators that he would link the worlds and establish the Third Layer’s safe zone the next day.
• Wang Quan found that the Third Layer’s temporary safe zone had shrunk from around a thousand li to five hundred, while evil beings contaminated Magic Treasures.
• Beitang Xue explained that the Black-and-White Rebel King’s power had strengthened the evil beings and darkness, and that the [All-Heavens Banners] were especially infected.
• Wang Quan saw evil heads on two [All-Heavens Banners] crying out for rest and an end to forced labor.
• Ruo Jinghong explained that rebels had incited the evil beings inside the banners to revolt after their demands for pleasure, food, and drink were met.
• Ruo Jinghong complained that the evil beings now demanded to work only eleven and a half double-hours a day, and Wang Quan heard that their unrest continued.

Wang Quan summoned the Great Sun into the Third-Layer World, burning away darkness and creating a vast new White Land. As immense beings in the Polar Lands reacted to the sunlight, one discovered a golden speck on the Scarlet Great Sun and declared that the world’s sun still had a chance to revive.

• Wang Quan promised Mei Niang he would destroy the evil beings in the All-Heavens Banners, and she rushed back to face them before he could.
• Ghost Emperor Heart and the others waited for the Great Sun, but saw its rays descend somewhere else and Ghost Emperor Heart guessed that Wang Quan was behind it.
• Wang Quan summoned the Real World's Great Sun into the Third-Layer World, where its light burned evil beings and darkness across a hundred thousand li, forming a new White Land.
• The Great Sun’s light spread farther as darkness surged toward the new White Land and powerful beings awakened in the Polar Lands.
• A being hurled a spear of sunlight into the Scarlet Great Sun, causing it to burst and release blood and black water that became towering evil beings.
• The being studied the Scarlet Great Sun, spotted a tiny golden speck on it, and declared that it was not dead and they still had a chance.

The Great Sun's last flame was strengthened by a rising mushroom cloud, while a new safe zone linked five worlds and rewarded the cultivators who helped establish it. Wang Quan prepared to return to the Real World, but Beitang Xue stopped him to ask about Emperor's Tomb City in the Underworld.

• Terrifying beings saw that the Great Sun still lived, and many gathered its scattered light as the darkness closed in.
• Ghost Emperor Heart and the other ghost gods worshipped the mushroom cloud, and beings across the worlds joined them as it rose toward the Great Sun.
• The mushroom cloud merged with the sun's last flame, increasing its area and giving the non-evil beings of the Third-Layer World more time.
• The cloud pillar connected five worlds, and cultivators including Ruo Jinghong, Mei Niang, and Beitang Xue gained benefits from the newly established safe zone.
• Wang Quan prepared to leave for the Real World, but Beitang Xue asked him to explain Emperor's Tomb City in the Underworld.

Wang Quan agreed to let Beitang Xue and her fellow Golden Cores use his cloud pillar to refine Magic Treasures. He also promised to send ghost gods to investigate whether Beitang Xue’s disciple in Ring No. 11 had developed hysteria.

• Beitang Xue explained that the cloud pillar’s shifting time and space could shorten Magic Treasure refinement, and asked to use it for five jointly funded treasures.
• Wang Quan agreed to let the Golden Cores use the cloud pillar, while noting that Stone City was already refining over a thousand First-Tier Magic Treasures.
• Beitang Xue told Wang Quan that her disciple had claimed to be thriving in Ring No. 11 of Emperor’s Tomb City, and worried that he might have developed hysteria.
• Wang Quan agreed to send two ghost gods to check on Beitang Xue’s disciple and bring him back if he had hysteria.

Ox Head and Horse Face reached City No. 11 and found Ma Qingqiu and his companions reduced to working in the city lord’s privy. Beitang Xue’s letter urged Ma Qingqiu to return to Stone City, but he broke down over how useless he felt.

• Wang Quan sent Ox Head and Horse Face to deliver Beitang Xue’s letter to her disciple in City No. 11.
• After a year-long journey, Ox Head and Horse Face reached the city and found Ma Qingqiu and the skeletal Fierce Tiger Daoist hauling buckets of excrement in the city lord’s residence.
• Ox Head and Horse Face offered to help Ma Qingqiu and asked how he had fallen on such hard times.
• Ma Qingqiu read Beitang Xue’s letter, which invited him to return to the Far Western Land and follow Wang Quan in Stone City.
• Ox Head invited Ma Qingqiu to go to Stone City, but Ma Qingqiu lamented that he could do little beyond getting Mei Niang covered in his saliva.
• Fierce Tiger Daoist tried to comfort Ma Qingqiu by saying he could still help draw some of Mei Niang’s fire away, and Ma Qingqiu sobbed too hard to reply.

Ma Qingqiu persuaded the Ox and Horse Ghost Gods to help kill the city lord, while Wang Quan focused on Stone City and its expanding projects. Over three months, the Underworld settlement, martial arts, and the Third Layer developed, and the [Ghost Emperor Heart] visited Wang Quan.

• Ma Qingqiu told the Ox and Horse Ghost Gods how her failed plot against the city lord left her group broke, then persuaded them to help kill him by promising them power and a place in the city.
• The Ox and Horse Ghost Gods agreed to make themselves city lords and Ma Qingqiu their wife, while Ma Qingqiu and the cultivators secretly planned to exploit them.
• Wang Quan sent three batches of Ghost Gods to Ring No. 11 to find Beitang Xue's disciple, then turned his attention to Stone City, cultivation, and other duties.
• The Stone Bull Ghost God established a small town in the Second Layer of the Underworld and drew ghosts and monsters from the First Layer to settle there.
• The Martial Grandmasters developed a new heart martial arts realm beyond Grandmaster-Limit Breaking, allowing them to fight some elite Spirit Monsters barehanded.
• Mei Niang, Ruo Jinghong, and the others built up the Third Layer's safe zone, moved in Spirit Monsters and martial artists, and deployed more than a hundred [Mortal World Cannons] across the White Land; [Ghost Emperor Heart] then visited Wang Quan.

Wang Quan and [Ghost Emperor Heart] discussed the coming calamity and agreed to help resurrect [Ghost Emperor Heart]'s original body. After [Ghost Emperor Heart] left to investigate Wang Quan's warning, Wang Quan's Dao Seal began to reveal clearer information.

• [Ghost Emperor Heart] warned Wang Quan that a great terror would devastate the Real World and asked him to evacuate City No. 95 and relinquish his authority so a vertebra of his original body could escape.
• [Ghost Emperor Heart] revealed that Emperor's Tomb City was built upon his divided body and that he intended to restore it.
• Wang Quan agreed to help, predicting that [Ghost Emperor Heart]'s original body might revive in seven hundred and seventy years and warning that beings deep in the Underworld could also exploit the calamity.
• [Ghost Emperor Heart] left aboard his dragon ship to verify Wang Quan's claims, while his secret preparations for resurrection remained spread across the Third-Layer World.
• After two and a half years, the Dao Seal Wang Quan had studied began to clear and display readable information.

After connecting the Second Layer of the Underworld and the Third-Layer World, Wang Quan gained Legend Rating and discovered that his legend had begun to solidify, granting protection against death and altered historical records. He decided to develop Stone City in the Real World, but the meeting he called ended with the Officiant Daoist Nun reminding the assembled cultivators to refine his plan rather than challenge his decision.

• Wang Quan received three points of Legend Rating, crossed the threshold for Legend Solidification, and examined his updated Dao Seal.
• Wang Quan learned that his Anchor Point could let him revive in the period before connecting the Fifth-Layer World, while Legend Solidification prevented future beings from changing his recorded history.
• Wang Quan concluded that the Real World should be Stone City's foundation and summoned Ruo Jinghong, Mei Niang, the Officiant Daoist Nun, and the others to a meeting.
• At the meeting, the cultivators debated whether Stone City should expand into the Second- and Third-Layer Worlds or focus on the Underworld, while few supported developing the Real World.
• The Officiant Daoist Nun silenced the arguing cultivators with a cannon blast and told them that Wang Quan wanted them to improve his plan to develop the Real World.

Wang Quan made the Real World and Stone City the priority for future development, ordering the city to begin clearing the anomalous weather in ten days. As the operation approached, his detailed task assignments sparked resistance, which Big Wind-Driller and Little Wind-Driller crushed by sending dissenters to be sacrificed in a ritual that suppressed the anomalies.

• Wang Quan declared that Stone City would focus on the Real World, mobilize ninety percent of its strength for development, and begin clearing anomalous weather in ten days.
• Ruo Jinghong, Mei Niang, and other cultivators invested resources in safe zones in the Third-Layer World and the Second Layer of the Underworld.
• Wang Quan used [Inverted Wisdom] and ten thousand crystal brains to assign every living being specific tasks for the expansion plan.
• New arrivals urged others to refuse to leave Stone City, but Big Wind-Driller and Little Wind-Driller chained the dissenters and threw them outside.
• Spirit Monsters beheaded the dissenters on a sacrificial altar, and the offerings' power descended to suppress the anomalous weather.

On day eleven, Stone City's forces sent cultivators and Spirit Monsters to battle abnormal weather beyond the walls, using spells, weapons, and a giant cannon. The cannon destroyed a pond-like threat and blasted apart a Black Hair Wind as the battle continued.

• Ox Demons and other creatures sounded horns, trumpets, drums, and cries to stir Stone City's forces before cultivators led squads out to expand their territory.
• A Black Hair Wind swept over the squads, turning into scarlet-eyed black cats that cultivators fought with Wind Stabilization Pearls, mirrors, lightning, Yang Spirits, and flying swords.
• Cultivators from other markers and arriving Monsters, Spirit Monsters, and martial artists joined the battle, while they also confronted raging flames and a pond that tried to devour everything.
• At the Officiant Daoist Nun's command, Butterfly Spirits lit a giant cannon, which fired a shell that shattered the pond and left a deep, cracked crater.
• Spirit Monsters reinforced and aimed the cannon as its crew loaded another shell, then fired it into a Black Hair Wind, blasting the wind apart and killing the creatures holding the cannon and chains.

Wang Quan coordinated Stone City's expansion, using its battles against abnormal weather to temper his foundations while the city’s inhabitants cleared territory and built up its land. After three years, mounting pressure forced him to stop micromanaging and lead an elite squad against the sources of the abnormalities.

• Wang Quan used one hundred and eight mirrors and nearly a hundred thousand crystal brains to direct every team outside Stone City and study the spells and abnormal weather.
• Stone City's inhabitants advanced through weakened abnormal weather, while its second-generation Spirit Monsters became a fearless fighting force and were revived as ghosts or zombies when they died.
• Inside Stone City, cultivators produced spirit soil and plants to expand the land, strengthen the city walls, and regulate the Earth Veins.
• Over the first year, Stone City doubled in area, and its population kept rising despite battlefield losses as the second-generation Spirit Monsters bred a third generation.
• After three years, rising pressure and depleted reserves made the expansion more dangerous, so Wang Quan stopped micromanaging and led Ruo Jinghong and other Dao Seal Purple Mansion cultivators to clear the sources of the abnormalities.

Wang Quan coordinated thirty-six million Yang Spirits on the Fire Mulberry Tree to destroy abnormal weather phenomena while studying their properties. Ruo Jinghong secured six hours of rest, then found her Dao companion Tongtong carrying Mei Niang's Yang Spirit and confronted her.

• Wang Quan directed thirty-six million Yang Spirits to unleash Thunderfire and other spells from the Fire Mulberry Tree, destroying abnormal weather phenomena while he studied them.
• Ruo Jinghong told Wang Quan that coordinating the campaign had left her exhausted after three years without rest, and he granted her six hours off.
• A Yang Spirit mocked Ruo Jinghong's relationship, so Wang Quan reassigned him to a dangerous area where he would have to die for three to five years.
• Ruo Jinghong went to find Tongtong and discovered Mei Niang's Yang Spirit riding her in battle.
• Ruo Jinghong kicked at Mei Niang's Yang Spirit, who argued that Tongtong had allowed her to ride, and Tongtong explained that Mei Niang needed her special properties to recover from an injury.

Wang Quan proposed linking the Far Western Land’s cities with narrow passages so they could support one another and expand more effectively. Mei Niang set out to persuade another city, while Wang Quan and Ying Jiaren began coordinating their expansions toward each other.

• Ruo Jinghong beat Mei Niang’s Yang Spirit, and Wang Quan later summoned Mei Niang to discuss slowing expansion.
• Wang Quan proposed connecting the cities of the Far Western Land with winding passages, and Mei Niang agreed to persuade them to cooperate.
• Mei Niang traveled toward another city through the Underworld as Wang Quan redirected Stone City’s pioneering teams to carve passages toward the surrounding cities.
• Wang Quan led an expedition toward Bitter Cold City and asked Ying Jiaren to expand toward Stone City.
• Ying Jiaren ordered Bitter Cold City’s inhabitants to advance ten thousand li each day or face execution, and she rejected a New-Method Cultivator’s protest.

Ying Jiaren ordered New-Method Cultivators and spirit monsters to open a passage through the Polar Lands, invoking Wang Quan’s request to connect its cities. After deadly resistance was crushed by Human Sovereign Banners, the conscripts set out, leaving Ying Jiaren committed to carrying out Wang Quan’s plan despite the casualties and political objections.

• Ying Jiaren gave non-Dao Seal Cultivators a choice of accepting death willingly or facing certain death, then sent the spirit monsters and a New Method representative back to Bitter Cold City.
• New-Method Cultivators received Ying Jiaren’s order to open a passage one hundred li wide, and Human Sovereign Banners killed those who resisted, including a Foundation Establishment Ancestor and a Golden Core Ancestor.
• After more than a million New-Method Cultivators died in further attempted rebellions, the survivors and spirit monsters left the city to clear the route.
• The New-Method Cultivators blasted through anomalous weather with fireballs as spirit monsters served as shields, zombies advanced alongside them, and Orthodox Cultivators used Spirit Soil Art to thicken the ground.
• Ying Jiaren told the Dao Seal Cultivators that Wang Quan wanted all the Polar Lands’ cities connected and dismissed their concerns about casualties and political consequences.

Ying Jiaren forced Bitter Cold City's Dao Seal Cultivators to send nearly all its living beings, especially the New-Method Cultivators, to open up new territory. The cultivators accepted the order and convinced themselves that the campaign would bring them resources, territory, and bodies to exploit.

• A Dao Seal Cultivator argued that Bitter Cold City's leaders controlled the New-Method Cultivators and could send them to war and harvest their remains without outside interference.
• Ying Jiaren rejected a proposal to wait until the New-Method Cultivators grew stronger, threatening to kill anyone who challenged her authority.
• Ying Jiaren summoned twelve Fire Crows and declared that Flower-Scatter Daoist Wang Quan had earned their obedience by contributing most to Bitter Cold City's development.
• When none of the Dao Seal Cultivators dared fight her, Ying Jiaren ordered them to serve as military overseers and send every living being not needed to run the city to open up new territory.
• After Ying Jiaren returned to a Fire Mulberry Tree, the Dao Seal Cultivators agreed to enforce her order and celebrated the expected gains from the campaign and the New-Method Cultivators' deaths.