Chapter Summaries

Reborn as Mo Caihuan, a mortal in the lower realms of A Record of a Mortal's Journey to Immortality, she spent her childhood building martial skills and wealth while searching for a way to cultivate. At fourteen, she still had no spiritual roots and concluded that the lower realms lacked the resources and methods she needed to become immortal.

• Mo Caihuan realized she had been reborn as the mortal third young lady of the Mo Residence in a world where cultivators could easily destroy ordinary people.
• She learned martial arts, developed internal energy, studied medicine, earned money through writing, and killed an enemy before turning eleven.
• Mo Caihuan paid a cultivator to check her family for spiritual roots, but none of them had any.
• She used the Mo Residence's secret branch to make and sell goods, then funded poor scholars hoping to gain influence at court.
• At fourteen, Mo Caihuan reflected on possession, spiritual roots, and body-tempering techniques, but remained unable to cultivate because spiritual energy and resources were scarce in the lower realms.

Mo Caihuan abandoned her hope of becoming an immortal and resolved to unite the Heavenly South through weapons and industrial development. When the Dominating Mountain Manor moved to seize the Whale-Jiao Society, she questioned her family’s plan to placate them by betrothing Mo Yuzhu to their false messenger.

• Mo Caihuan decided to pursue fame as a mortal by uniting the Heavenly South, secretly developing firearms, and building chemical industries.
• Mo Caihuan’s loyal Whale-Jiao Society members researched gunpowder and firearms in the mountains as another year passed.
• Mo Caihuan learned that her father’s supposed disciple was a false messenger and that the Dominating Mountain Manor planned to annex the Whale-Jiao Society.
• The Mo Family proposed betrothing Mo Yuzhu to the false disciple to delay war, but Mo Caihuan pointed out that they had no plan for what would happen afterward.
• Mo Yuzhu and the others asked Mo Caihuan for a better strategy.

Mo Caihuan persuaded the Mo Residence’s madams to let her strike against the Dominating Mountain Manor and the Five Colors Sect, then killed the Manor’s spy Wu Jianming by breaking his Overlord Armor. She left with his silver and remained wary that the Five Colors Sect’s backing, Spirit Beast Mountain, might intervene.

• Mo Caihuan proposed destroying the Dominating Mountain Manor and then the Five Colors Sect, and the Fifth Madam recognized that she meant to activate the secret Infiltration Plan.
• Mo Caihuan assured the madams she could break Wu Jianming’s Overlord Armor, and the Fourth Madam allowed her to confront him.
• Mo Caihuan exposed Wu Jianming as a Dominating Mountain Manor disciple and shot him with her first-generation Flintlock, wounding him.
• Wu Jianming attacked Mo Caihuan, but she shattered his arm and killed him with repeated palm strikes that bypassed his armor.
• Mo Caihuan ordered the servants to send Wu Jianming’s body for dissection and took thirty thousand taels from his luggage.
• Mo Caihuan considered the Whale-Jiao Society’s growing wealth and worried that Spirit Beast Mountain might retaliate if she destroyed the Five Colors Sect.

Mo Caihuan’s infiltration plan destroyed Dominating Mountain Manor, and she decided to move against the Five Colors Sect before its cultivator allies could intervene. The Five Colors Sect countered her infiltration, setting up a more difficult struggle.

• Mo Caihuan won over lower-ranking members of Dominating Mountain Manor and the Five Colors Sect by curbing abusive petty leaders and promoting responsible replacements.
• Whale-Jiao Society spies helped ambush Ouyang Feitian’s force; a cannon killed him, and his troops surrendered, leaving Dominating Mountain Manor isolated and defeated.
• Mo Caihuan chose not to storm Dominating Mountain Manor’s defensible headquarters and instead planned a rapid campaign against the Five Colors Sect, despite the threat from Spirit Beast Mountain.
• The Five Colors Sect’s master tightened control over its branches and recalled experts to defend its headquarters, causing its members to discover and kill many of Mo Caihuan’s intelligence operatives.
• The Five Colors Sect’s master acknowledged that abusive petty leaders had angered the rank and file, while his deputy privately worried that cracking down on them would cut senior leaders off from bribes.

Mo Caihuan’s Whale-Jiao Society destroyed the Five Colors Sect and took control of its territory, then learned that Spirit Beast Mountain might retaliate. A captured elder offered an Ascension Token that could secure help from the Covering Moon Sect, and Mo Caihuan prepared to pursue that path.

• Mo Caihuan ordered a nighttime hot-air-balloon raid that destroyed the Five Colors Sect’s headquarters while the Whale-Jiao Society seized its branches.
• Yan Ge brought Mo Caihuan a captured Five Colors Sect elder, who warned that Spirit Beast Mountain backed the sect.
• The elder offered his family’s Ascension Token in exchange for a comfortable life, and Mo Caihuan agreed to the deal.
• Three days later, the elder delivered the token and told Mo Caihuan that the cultivators’ market was at Old Aunt Mountain’s Double Clamp Ravine.
• Mo Caihuan located Old Aunt Mountain on her map and considered the next step toward finding cultivators.

Mo Caihuan traveled with Ximen Shan to the cultivators’ market at Old Aunt Mountain to seek the Covering Moon Sect’s protection for the Whale-Jiao Society. After an elder promised help while quietly coveting their Ascension Token, Mo Caihuan publicly called attention to the sect’s supposed pledge, leaving the elder’s scheme exposed.

• Mo Caihuan took Ximen Shan and two society members by hot-air balloon to Old Aunt Mountain, where she and Ximen Shan concealed the balloon and followed him through a misty restriction into the cultivators’ market.
• Ximen Shan introduced himself at Rising Moon Tower and presented an Ascension Token, which Mo Caihuan handed to the shop attendant.
• A Covering Moon Sect elder examined Mo Caihuan and Ximen Shan, confirmed they had no spiritual roots, and heard their request for protection from Spirit Beast Mountain’s retaliation.
• The elder promised the Covering Moon Sect would handle the matter and told them to return home, while privately deciding to keep the Ascension Token for herself.
• Mo Caihuan suspected the elder’s informal promise was improper, so she knelt and loudly praised the Covering Moon Sect for redressing their grievances in front of customers and passersby.
• The elder’s expression darkened when Mo Caihuan’s public announcement drew attention to her promise and disrupted her plan.

Mo Caihuan became Fairy Cangyue’s nominal disciple and received a martial arts manual and a talisman for protection from Spirit Beast Mountain. At the market, Daoist Wealth offered her a business supplying mortal goods to female cultivators, explaining that his status as an unaffiliated cultivator made him wary of attracting attention.

• Mo Caihuan exposed the Immortal Ascension Token, and Fairy Cangyue brought her and the old man to a quiet room to discuss its benefits.
• Fairy Cangyue made Mo Caihuan her disciple in the Covering Moon Sect, took her to meet the sect master, and received the Foundation Establishment Pills Mo Caihuan obtained.
• Fairy Cangyue gave Mo Caihuan a Sound Transmission Talisman and the Overbearing Blade Art manual before sending her and the old man out of the shop.
• Mo Caihuan read through the manual, then explored the market with the old man and found that its shops served cultivators and did not accept silver.
• Daoist Wealth invited Mo Caihuan and the old man to the Heavenly Fragrance Tower and offered to buy a steady supply of mortal goods for female cultivators.
• Daoist Wealth explained that he wanted Mo Caihuan to procure the goods because her connection to the Covering Moon Sect offered cover, while several unaffiliated cultivators he knew had disappeared.

Mo Caihuan struck a spirit-stone trade deal with Rich Daoist, then discovered a painfully slow way to draw spiritual qi into her body despite lacking spiritual roots. She returned to Jia Yuan City as the Whale-Jiao Society continued developing industry in Lan Province rather than expanding outward.

• Mo Caihuan and Rich Daoist negotiated a deal to exchange goods for spirit stones, arranged monthly deliveries at Old Wharf Street in Jia Yuan City, and agreed on an initial order worth ten spirit stones.
• After Rich Daoist described the Covering Moon Sect and spirit-stone prices, Mo Caihuan left the market and traveled home by way of Qingyun Prefecture and the waterway.
• Mo Caihuan studied the Overbearing Blade Art and tried using her inner force to draw spiritual qi from a spirit stone, but her first attempts failed.
• Mo Caihuan emptied her meridians and found that spiritual qi could enter her body slowly, suggesting she might be able to cultivate through body-tempering.
• The Whale-Jiao Society kept expanding its blast furnaces in Lan Province while Mo Caihuan returned focused on developing the province rather than launching an outward campaign.

Mo Caihuan expanded the Whale-Jiao Society’s schools and businesses while cultivating with spirit stones, but her plans were interrupted when Han Li arrived with a letter from Mo Juren. After Han Li was shown to a guest room, the mistresses revealed a hidden message warning that he might be responsible if Mo Juren’s body-seizure attempt had failed.

• Mo Caihuan established Jiayuan Academy and private schools, requiring Whale-Jiao Society leaders and members to study and helping the society grow.
• Daoist Wealth and Yan Hu bought glassware from Mo Caihuan, who used her new spirit stones to cultivate by absorbing spiritual qi through five points on her body.
• The Fourth Mistress warned Mo Caihuan that the family’s spending had exceeded its funds as they reviewed the accounts.
• Han Li arrived with Mo Juren’s letter, and the Fourth Mistress questioned him before having Xiaolü take him to a guest room.
• The four mistresses used medicinal liquid to reveal a hidden message in Mo Juren’s letter identifying Han Li as a possible threat if the body-seizure attempt failed.

After Mo Juren’s death was revealed, his wives and daughters mourned him and confronted Han Li about his role in it. Mo Caihuan heard Han Li’s account of the failed body-seizing plot and gave him the Warm Sun Jade, along with several glowing stones.

• Mo Juren’s wives and daughters learned of his death and arranged a mourning hall.
• Han Li arrived at the Mo Residence, admitted that he had caused Mo Juren’s death, and initially spoke arrogantly to the family.
• Mo Caihuan warned Han Li that she had ties to a cultivation sect, then questioned him about his history with Mo Juren.
• Han Li explained that Mo Juren had tried to seize his body after Yu Zitong taught him the method, and that he had fought back when the plan began.
• Mo Caihuan accepted Han Li’s explanation and gave him the Warm Sun Jade in a blue pouch containing several glowing stones as well.

Han Li traded medicinal pills for Spirit Stones and sought out a cultivators' market, while Mo Caihuan expanded her industrial projects and the Whale-Jiao Society. On her twentieth birthday, she examined her blood under a microscope and discovered golden patterns in it.

• Mo Caihuan offered Han Li twenty Spirit Stones, and Han Li exchanged pills for them before leaving the Mo Residence.
• After Mo Juren's death, Mo Caihuan took over the Whale-Jiao Society, while Han Li learned about the Foundation Establishment Pill and the Ascension Conference.
• Mo Caihuan developed the Whale-Jiao Society's trade and industry, sold an ancient battlefield to the Covering Moon Sect for a hundred thousand Spirit Stones, and spent the money on materials.
• Over the next twenty years, Mo Caihuan advanced Jia Yuan City's factories and began generating electricity with steam engines and magnetic materials.
• On her twentieth birthday, Mo Caihuan examined a drop of her blood under a microscope and found golden patterns in it.

Mo Caihuan discovered golden Dao Patterns in her body and learned to copy them onto talisman paper, eventually creating a talisman that stuck objects together. She used the glue talismans to build a Spirit Stone printing press, which began operating with steam power.

• Mo Caihuan saw golden patterns inside magnified cells and guessed they were Dao Patterns, but her first attempt to copy them set ordinary paper and a pencil on fire.
• She bought talisman-making materials and, after more than a hundred attempts, successfully drew an unfamiliar talisman that stuck itself and the table together.
• Mo Caihuan consulted a book on formations and restrictions, identified the pattern as one that solidified spiritual energy, and decided to use the talisman as glue.
• She made more glue talismans and used one to fix chopped brush bristles into a printing pattern with help from a hired Qi Refining Stage cultivator.
• Mo Caihuan mounted the patterned talisman on a roller, coated it with ink made from spirit beast blood, and started a steam-powered Spirit Stone printing press.

Mo Caihuan struggled to improve her talisman press and find a way past her body-tempering bottleneck, then turned her attention to building an electrical district and developing firearms. She left Mo Yuzhu with a new path to pursue: testing revolvers and possibly combining firearms with internal energy.

• Mo Caihuan refined the talisman-printing process with a protected sorter, but realized that powering the press with Spirit Stones would require advances in formations and quantification.
• Mo Caihuan sought body-tempering pills through Daoist Wealth and considered asking Han Li for help, but such pills were too rare and custom refining them was too expensive.
• Mo Caihuan planned a new Whale-Jiao Society headquarters and urban district with electricity, running water, and flush toilets, hoping electricity might also help her break through her cultivation bottleneck.
• Mo Caihuan comforted Mo Yuzhu, who worried that her swordsmanship and training had accomplished little, and suggested she try firearms instead.
• Mo Caihuan told Mo Yuzhu that the Whale-Jiao Society had developed revolvers and promised to send her two prototypes to test.

Mo Caihuan received an invitation from the Sword-Casting Manor and sent Yan Ge to represent the Whale-Jiao Society, while the society’s mining and steam-engine industries continued to expand. When a Covering Moon Sect elder guarding the Ancient Battlefield fell unconscious from an unexplained heat, Mo Caihuan rushed to the mine and found an empty black cauldron beside her.

• Mo Caihuan discussed firearms with her eldest sister, who had mastered the revolver, and promised to make her an instructor if she developed Gun-Fu.
• Mo Caihuan received the Sword-Casting Manor’s invitation to its Sword-Appreciation Assembly and sent Yan Ge in her place to investigate its interest in the society’s mines.
• The Whale-Jiao Society’s use of steam engines expanded mining and steel production, marking the beginning of the steam era.
• A society member reported that the Covering Moon Sect elder at the mine had suddenly fallen unconscious and become dangerously hot, so Mo Caihuan summoned her second sister and rode to the site.
• Mo Caihuan entered the elder’s scorching stone chamber, noticed a small black cauldron with its lid off, and replaced the lid.

Mo Caihuan contained the appetite inside the Leftover Cauldron, only to discover that the remnant soul had escaped into her spiritual abode. Calling itself Food Immortal, it offered to help her break through her body-tempering bottleneck in exchange for food, and Mo Caihuan began with a prescription to sharpen her senses.

• Mo Caihuan sealed the struggling Leftover Cauldron and learned from her martial aunt that it held the appetite of a Nascent Soul expert who had died on an ancient battlefield.
• The elder thanked Mo Caihuan, promised to do one thing for her, and retreated to rest while Mo Caihuan and Mo Fengwu returned home.
• That night, Food Immortal revealed that it had escaped the cauldron into Mo Caihuan’s spiritual abode and drained her five Low-Grade Spirit Stones.
• Food Immortal offered to help Mo Caihuan overcome her body-tempering bottleneck if she fed it, and gave her the General Knowledge Formula to improve her senses.
• Mo Caihuan collected and drank the prescribed medicine at the Benevolent Heart Clinic, then shared duck blood vermicelli with Food Immortal, which asked for more food and a new Leftover Cauldron.

Mo Caihuan followed Food Immortal’s advice to use Peiyuan Pills and break through her bodily restrictions, making substantial progress before her supply ran out. When Daoist Wealth failed to arrive as expected, she and Yan Hu became worried.

• Food Immortal explained that Demon Beasts concentrate life energy in parts of their bodies and advised Mo Caihuan to use Peiyuan Pills to strengthen hers.
• Mo Caihuan bought three high-quality Peiyuan Pills and agreed to learn Food Immortal’s bloodline-based Undying Body technique, beginning with her stomach.
• Mo Caihuan used a Peiyuan Pill to break through the restriction in her stomach and began working on her other organs during half a month of secluded cultivation.
• Mo Caihuan cleared roughly seventy to eighty percent of her bottleneck, and Food Immortal advised her to buy three more Peiyuan Pills.
• Daoist Wealth failed to appear on the fifteenth, and Yan Hu arrived in Jia Yuan City on the seventeenth asking whether he had come to collect the goods.

Mo Caihuan learned that Daoist Wealth had been captured by the Black Fiend Cult and enlisted her martial aunt to rescue him. After his return, they became sworn siblings, and Mo Caihuan asked for his help quantifying cultivation, while he requested the Thousand Mechanism Bell.

• Yan Hu told Mo Caihuan that Daoist Wealth had missed their meeting, and she suspected the Black Fiend Cult might have taken him.
• After three more days, the Secret Helm delivered Daoist Wealth’s distress message from Fengyin City, and Mo Caihuan asked her martial aunt to rescue him.
• Mo Caihuan’s martial aunt returned two days later with Daoist Wealth, having killed his captors.
• Daoist Wealth offered to continue their business by hiring others and became Mo Caihuan’s sworn elder brother.
• Mo Caihuan explained her plan to quantify cultivation, and Daoist Wealth agreed to help if she gave him the Thousand Mechanism Bell.

Mo Caihuan used a Thousand Mechanism Bell and mathematical methods to develop a mechanism that mass-produced talismans, then sought the Covering Moon Sect’s protection in exchange for most of her output. Cang Yue secured the sect’s support and introduced Mo Caihuan to a book on puppetry, though Mo Caihuan still lacked the power to control puppets.

• Daoist Wealth explained the Thousand Mechanism Bell and bought an antique one for three hundred Spirit Stones, while Yan Hu obtained Peiyuan Pills.
• Mo Caihuan combined measurements and mathematical formulas to study arrays and build a mechanism that printed Glue Talismans, Swordlight Talismans, and Diamond Talismans.
• Daoist Wealth arranged for Qi Refining cultivators to sell the talismans and advised Mo Caihuan to seek the Covering Moon Sect’s protection.
• Mo Caihuan offered Cang Yue seventy percent of her talismans and one thousand Spirit Stones each year in exchange for the sect’s protection.
• Cang Yue took Mo Caihuan to meet the sect leader, showed her the sect and a Short-Distance Teleportation Array, then helped her copy an ancient book about puppetry and arrays.
• Cang Yue explained that puppetry was studied in countries far west of the Heavenly South, but Mo Caihuan could not control puppets without magic power or spiritual sense.

Mo Caihuan used array formations to advance the Whale-Jiao Society’s technology and build a modern district in Jia Yuan City, while continuing to seek a way to strengthen her mortal body. Food Immortal introduced the Hundred-Storehouse Immortal Art, but Mo Caihuan chose to focus on completing her life-energy array disk first.

• Mo Caihuan failed to find the rare materials for the Leftover Cauldron or a storage pouch she could use, and Food Immortal suggested seeking materials in Great Jin.
• On her airship ride home, Mo Caihuan studied array formations and discovered how to convert spirit stones into other forms of energy.
• Five years later, Mo Caihuan and Daoist Wealth celebrated the completion of Jia Yuan City's modern new district, while the Whale-Jiao Society’s underground facilities concealed spirit-stone machinery and an array disk laboratory.
• Mo Caihuan developed practical array disks and tested a body-tempering array that converted spiritual qi into absorbable life energy.
• Food Immortal told Mo Caihuan about the Hundred-Storehouse Immortal Art, which used a bodily teleportation array to retrieve hidden magical treasures, but she decided to finish her life-energy array first.

Mo Caihuan continued developing the Hundred-Storehouse Immortal Art and tempering her body despite Food Immortal’s warnings, while the Whale-Jiao Society expanded its control over the Yue Kingdom. The emperor ignored the growing crisis as he focused on reaching Core Formation, and the Society pressed ahead with tax reforms.

• Mo Caihuan studied arrays with her students and chose to pursue body tempering alongside her research, hoping to build strength for the coming war.
• Food Immortal warned Mo Caihuan that body tempering was too difficult and urged her to focus on arrays, but she refused to abandon it.
• Mo Caihuan used the Life Magic Array to channel life force into her cells and planned to form a short-range Hundred-Storehouse array in her stomach.
• By the time Mo Caihuan was thirty, she had advanced theories such as dialectics and contradiction, increasing her influence as the Whale-Jiao Society controlled half the Yue Kingdom.
• Minister Wen killed himself at the palace gates while warning the emperor that the Whale-Jiao Society had taken control of much of the country’s taxes and territory.
• The emperor dismissed the warning and focused on gathering blood sacrifices to reach Core Formation, while the Whale-Jiao Society continued expanding and replaced agricultural taxes with commercial taxes.