Chapter Summaries

Lin Shan visited Yan Ruxin, gave her books taken from the Cat Clan, and prepared to relocate the Human Race. After intercepting Cat Clan messages and killing a spy, he led the fifty-thousand-person migration column toward the Purple Soul Flower Forest.

• Lin Shan shared a meal with Yan Ruxin and the children, then told them the Human Race would leave the next day.
• Lin Shan gave Yan Ruxin books taken from the Cat Clan, and she identified them as texts about spirituality and exploring the Ash Fog.
• Lin Shan guarded the Cat Clan's route, destroyed several message-carrying butterflies, and killed a Human Race spy who sent one.
• Lin Shan returned to find the camp dismantled, accepted the Clan Artifact from Zhang Zhonghua, and ordered the migration column to move out.
• The Human Race began its sixty-kilometer journey toward the Purple Soul Flower Forest, with Lin Shan leading and the other Transcendents guarding the column's flanks.

Lin Shan led the Human Race procession beyond its cleared territory, where swarms of venomous bugs and Fallen killed thousands despite his efforts. At night, as he watched over the survivors, a distortion appeared nearby, and Lin Shan shouted for everyone to scatter.

• Lin Shan guided the procession into unfamiliar territory, where venomous bugs attacked and killed people.
• Lin Shan tracked the bugs to three Fallen, burned them, and returned to find the crowd arguing over the dead.
• Lin Shan told people they could stay to collect the bodies or keep moving, and everyone eventually continued onward.
• The procession survived attacks from anomalies and packs of Fallen, losing several thousand people before nightfall.
• Lin Shan flew above the gathered survivors to watch for danger, then sensed a distortion and teleported toward it, warning everyone to scatter.

Lin Shan used the Red Lantern to hold back a Sequence 8 specter’s darkness long enough for thousands of people to escape, then crawled out severely injured. The procession resumed its journey after dawn, though the specter remained nearby and unseen.

• A Sequence 8 specter emerged from a spatial node and its darkness began dissolving the people gathered around it.
• Lin Shan tore open a path through the darkness and shouted for the crowd to flee, enduring the specter’s pressure as his bones shattered.
• Lin Shan channeled specter physique source into the Red Lantern, setting the darkness ablaze and easing the pressure until most survivors escaped.
• Lin Shan crawled out as the dark curtain closed, then told Zhao Xiao An he was fine and returned to the front of the procession.
• Lin Shan saw Xiao Yuan grieving for the missing children, and Yan Ruxin silently thanked him for his help.
• The procession encountered only a few Fallen before dawn, ate dry rations, and continued on its way.

Lin Shan brought the Human Race to a safe new settlement near the Purple Soul Flower Forest, then used the Parchment to search for spirit medicine. Three months later, after losing his powers when he touched a strange blade of grass and smashing an egg in a bird’s nest, he was pursued by a powerful two-headed bird.

• Lin Shan led the battered procession to a river at the edge of the barrier and declared the site their new home.
• Jin Tianzong presented plans for a town, while Zhang Zhonghua explained how clan fortune affected resources and the Human Race’s development.
• Lin Shan left the pioneers to plan the settlement and used the Parchment to locate forty-nine spirit medicine plants within five hundred kilometers, paying four years and one month of lifespan.
• Three months later, Lin Shan touched a black blade of grass while gathering spirit medicine, briefly lost his supernatural power, and fell into a strange bird’s nest, breaking one of its eggs.
• Lin Shan’s power returned, but the impervious two-headed bird pursued him through the sky, leaving him riddled with wounds.

Lin Shan escaped the two-headed bird by entering a small house that led into Inner Space, but he found himself trapped in its endless darkness. After searching for a way out and then sensing an anomaly, he waited nearby until his specter physique advanced to its second stage.

• Lin Shan descended toward a small house to escape the pursuing two-headed bird, but it snapped his spine and hurled him inside.
• Lin Shan found no exit in the house’s seemingly endless darkness and learned from the Parchment that he needed to reach sequence 8 to tear open Inner Space.
• Lin Shan decided against spending 60 years of lifespan to locate a sequence 8 anomaly and flew through the darkness searching for one.
• Lin Shan sensed an anomaly, stayed about nine hundred meters away, and waited for it to open a passage.
• Lin Shan’s specter physique broke through to its second stage, and larger, patterned phantom blood wings emerged behind him.

Lin Shan escaped a dark space, gathered the final spirit medicine, and returned to the Human Race’s clan lands. He learned the population was nearing seventy thousand and agreed to stay in the Clan Hall while he continued training.

• Lin Shan escaped the dark space after its supernatural power injured his arm, then discovered that the surrounding ash-filled desert contained spiritual sand.
• Lin Shan traveled for a month to retrieve the Red Coral Grass from a lake, where leeches drained his supernatural power before dying from his blood.
• Lin Shan used the Parchment to locate the clan lands and returned after three days of flight.
• Lin Shan found Si Zhennan in the unfinished Clan Hall and learned that the Human Race’s population had grown to nearly seventy thousand.
• Si Zhennan offered Lin Shan a room on the Clan Hall’s third floor, where the Clan Artifact and the clan’s books were kept.

Lin Shan moved into the Clan Hall library and examined the Clan Artifact, which recorded the Human Race’s growing history and his own achievements. After settling in and washing, he explored the developing settlement and saw the people’s renewed energy and the completed central district.

• Si Zhennan brought Lin Shan to the Clan Hall’s third floor and showed him the room where the Clan Artifact was kept.
• Lin Shan opened the Jade Tome and saw Chen Liyun’s name added to the pioneers and a historical record of his own deeds.
• Si Zhennan arranged a room and supplies for Lin Shan, including new clothes and a Spirit Energy Lamp developed by Yan Ruxin and Minister Jin.
• Lin Shan washed beside an irrigation channel, changed clothes, and walked through the construction zone toward the central district.
• Lin Shan saw the settlers working with renewed enthusiasm and was impressed by the completed district’s buildings.

Lin Shan visited the Clan Territory and learned how the Human Race’s seven departments governed its growing settlement. After his accidental contact with Jiang Dang exposed the danger of his supernatural nature, Lin Shan fled to the Clan Hall, where he overheard that General Zhao planned to join an Ash Fog expedition.

• A guide named Jiang Dang explained the settlement’s grain barter, work arrangements, land tax, and seven-department system to newly arrived transmigrators as Lin Shan listened.
• Jiang Dang greeted Lin Shan and collapsed after shaking his hand, becoming covered in ice crystals, though Lin Shan confirmed he was still alive.
• The crowd accused Lin Shan of murder, and he escaped by spreading enormous blood-red wings and flying away.
• Lin Shan entered the Clan Hall and overheard Division Chief Chen learn that General Zhao planned to search for medicinal herbs during the next Ash Fog expedition.
• A woman told Division Chief Chen that Minister Zhang had failed to dissuade General Zhao and had been beaten by him.

Lin Shan reunited with Chen Liyun, taught him how to use a Spirit Marker, and gave him ingredients for a Sequence Potion before he returned to meet the Human Race's ministers.

• Chen Liyun recognized Lin Shan as the Pioneer who had stood beside him during the migration and explained how Spirit Markers helped explorers navigate the ash fog.
• Chen Liyun asked Lin Shan to persuade Zhao Xiao An not to go exploring, but Lin Shan said she should be allowed to take risks as a Transcendent and Pioneer.
• Lin Shan gave Chen Liyun two packets of potion ingredients and instructions to use them with a Purple Soul Flower to advance if he returned alive.
• Lin Shan met Zhang Zhonghua, Jin Tianzong, Si Zhennan, and Yan Ruxin, along with the other ministers.

Lin Shan returned to the Clan Territory, began using spirit medicines to accelerate his potion digestion, and discovered that tiny humanlike figures were growing in the soil. He left Si Zhennan to investigate their source while learning that nearly a month had passed during his seclusion.

• Lin Shan met Zhang Zhonghua, Zhao Xiao An, and Wu Wang, learned that the Clan Artifact's golden thread had guided them back to the Clan Territory, and said he planned to enter seclusion.
• Lin Shan ate a spirit medicine, causing his heart to shatter and regenerate as its spirituality tempered him and accelerated the digestion of his potion.
• Lin Shan visited Si Zhennan and found a tiny, lifelike woman planted in a flowerpot, one of three such figures discovered in the soil.
• Lin Shan identified the tiny woman as human, told Si Zhennan to investigate missing people and find the source, and said the woman had died and become a plant.
• Si Zhennan told Lin Shan it was November 27, Year 3 of the Human Calendar, nearly a month after Lin Shan had returned.