Chapter Summaries

At the Imperial Palace, Huangfu Hong and Zhang Yancheng confronted Gu Chenfeng, but Gu turned their accusations over the incident outside the city against them with a forceful defense. The rivals exchanged veiled threats about Chancellor Gu and Huangfu Hong’s grandson before parting, leaving their hostility unresolved.

• Huangfu Hong and Zhang Yancheng approached Gu Chenfeng and his companions, and Zhang accused Gu of unlawfully punishing young nobles and threatening the Second Prince.
• Gu Chenfeng recounted how Zhang You and the others had charged into his troops, destroyed a tribute military banner, and attacked Futu Army soldiers before he punished them.
• Gu Chenfeng cited the Second Prince, the citizens, and over a thousand Futu Army soldiers as witnesses, then challenged Zhang Yancheng to bring the matter before the Emperor.
• The officials backed down from pursuing the accusation, and Zhang Yancheng fell silent after Gu’s rebuke.
• Huangfu Hong mocked Chancellor Gu’s poor health, and Gu Chenfeng replied by asking after Huangfu Hong’s grandson, whose Dantian and limbs had been ruined.
• Huangfu Hong and Gu Chenfeng exchanged cold looks as Huangfu Hong departed.

At the victory banquet, Gu Chenfeng’s composure and sharp rebuttal impressed the court, while the Sea-Calming King tested him with a terrifying gaze that Gu Chenfeng resisted. Emperor Xuan began honoring the southern and northern armies, and the banquet moved to the distribution of rewards.

• After Zhang Yancheng and the other ministers left, the Gu Lineage officials and Gu Yanshuang were impressed by Gu Chenfeng’s performance.
• Emperor Xuan entered the great hall beside the Sea-Calming King, whom Gu Chenfeng recognized by his overwhelming presence.
• The Sea-Calming King’s gaze made Gu Chenfeng see a Jiao Dragon attack, but Gu Chenfeng used the Heaven-Opening Creation Art and an Azure Dragon phantom to withstand it.
• The Imperial Family entered, and Princess Yaoyin spotted Gu Chenfeng but became displeased when he did not linger on her.
• Emperor Xuan delivered a victory address and praised both armies before ordering rewards for their officers and soldiers.

At the victory banquet, Emperor Xuan lavishly promoted Gu Chenfeng and publicly suggested making him his son-in-law, stirring hopes and alarm among the court factions. As the feast grew lively, the second prince, Li Yuanrui, approached Gu Chenfeng with three hostile-looking young officers.

• Hongxi announced Gu Chenfeng's promotion to Third-Grade Cloud-Commanding General, his title as Count of Martial Might, and a generous stipend.
• Emperor Xuan praised Gu Chenfeng and asked whether he would become his son-in-law, startling him and stirring excitement among the princesses and court officials.
• Emperor Xuan deferred the marriage question to Gu Chenfeng's family and began the victory feast.
• Officials toasted Gu Chenfeng throughout the banquet, and he drank cup after cup of wine.
• Li Yuanrui approached Gu Chenfeng with three unfamiliar young military officers whose gazes suggested ill intent.

At the victory banquet, the Second Prince and the Sea-Calming King’s adopted sons provoked Gu Chenfeng into a confrontation that exposed the rivalry between the Southern and Northern Armies. The Sea-Calming King proposed a sparring match between the two forces, leaving the banquet poised for a public contest.

• The Second Prince introduced the Sea-Calming King’s adopted sons, Li Yanbao, Li Yanying, and Li Yanhu, to Gu Chenfeng.
• Li Yanying challenged Gu Chenfeng to offer him pointers, but Gu Chenfeng declined to spar.
• Li Yanbao accused Gu Chenfeng and the Northern Army of looking down on southern officers, sparking a heated argument between the two sides.
• Chief Steward Hongxi silenced the hall, and the Sea-Calming King apologized to Emperor Xuan for his adopted sons’ conduct.
• The Sea-Calming King proposed that the Southern and Northern Armies hold a sparring match at the banquet.

At the banquet, the Sea-Calming King provoked a contest between the northern and southern armies, and Gu Chenfeng accepted a best-of-three challenge with valuable treasures at stake. When the first match began, Gu Yanshuang took Gu Chenfeng’s place and attacked Li Yanying, leaving the outcome undecided.

• The Sea-Calming King proposed a contest between the northern and southern armies, and Gu Chenfeng accepted a best-of-three format.
• The Sea-Calming King offered a demon eye as a prize, and Emperor Xuan added a top-grade Flying Source Weapon and a Great Pill.
• The officials and armies moved to the square, where Li Yanying entered the arena to represent the southern army.
• Gu Yanshuang stepped forward to face Li Yanying, while Li Yuanqi argued that she could represent the northern army and that Gu Chenfeng was wounded.
• Gu Yanshuang revealed her Nine-Star Source Core Realm cultivation and launched a spear attack at Li Yanying.

Gu Yanshuang fought Li Yanying to a draw in the first contest between the Southern and Northern Armies, revealing her hidden strength after being pushed to the arena’s edge. The Sea-Calming King’s adopted son Li Yanbao then challenged the Northern Army to a cavalry contest between the Sea-Shaking Army and the Futu Army.

• Li Yanying revealed his quasi-Source Spirit Realm strength and drove Gu Yanshuang toward the edge of the arena.
• Gu Yanshuang unleashed Nine Revolutions Flame Dragon Wrath, breaking Li Yanying’s attack and sending him backward.
• Li Yanying found an opening and struck Gu Yanshuang’s spear, sending both fighters beyond the barrier and ending the match in a draw.
• Gu Chenfeng gave Gu Yanshuang a healing pill, and she regretted that she had not won.
• Li Yanbao challenged the Northern Army to prove whether the Sea-Shaking Army or the Futu Army was Great Li’s finest cavalry.

The Sea-Shaking Army and the Futu Army challenged each other’s reputations before Emperor Xuan, and both sides assembled elite cavalry for a public contest. Gu Chenfeng let Luo Heng and Li Yuanqi lead the Futu Army, and the two armies launched their attack as the chapter ended.

• Li Yanbao challenged Gu Chenfeng to a contest between one hundred Sea-Shaking Army cavalrymen and one hundred Futu Army cavalrymen.
• The Sea-Calming King proposed that the armies use wooden weapons, and Emperor Xuan allowed the contest to proceed.
• The Futu Army and Sea-Shaking Army arrived with their elite cavalry and formed up inside the contest area.
• Luo Heng and Li Yuanqi volunteered to lead the Futu Army in Gu Chenfeng’s place because his injuries had not healed.
• Gu Chenfeng quietly gave Li Yuanqi an item and instructions before both armies gathered their auras and their commanders ordered them to attack.

The Futu Army gained the upper hand against the Sea-Shaking Army through its cohesion and battle experience, but Li Yanbao used Water Dragon Pills to restore and strengthen his troops. As the armies prepared to clash again, Luo Heng ordered the Futu Army to take Spirit Liquid.

• The Futu Army and the Sea-Shaking Army traded repeated cavalry charges, and neither won an early advantage.
• The Futu Army’s coordination and willingness to sacrifice gradually gave it the advantage, leaving it with nearly eighty riders against the Sea-Shaking Army’s little over sixty.
• Northern commanders praised the Futu Army, while Gu Chenfeng remained watchful and recognized that the Sea-Shaking Army had more prepared.
• Li Yanbao ordered the Sea-Shaking Army to take Water Dragon Pills, restoring the riders and Qilin Horses and boosting their formation’s power.
• Li Yanbao led the revitalized Sea-Shaking Army into another charge, and Luo Heng ordered the Futu Army to take Spirit Liquid.

The Futu Army used Holy Water to renew its strength and initially overwhelmed the Sea-Shaking Army, but Li Yanbao turned the arena into a water battlefield with Water-Gathering Talismans and broke their formation. With the Futu Army on the verge of defeat, Li Yuanqi crushed a Jade Talisman.

• The Futu Army soldiers and their Horned Beasts took Holy Water, restoring their strength, while the First Prince noticed he had not received any and took a pill instead.
• Luo Heng and Li Yuanqi led the strengthened Futu Army in repeated charges that pushed back Li Yanbao and the Sea-Shaking Army.
• Li Yanbao ordered his troops to use Water-Gathering Talismans, creating a river within the arena and forming the Water-Covering Formation.
• Li Yanbao led the Sea-Shaking Army across enormous waves, breaking the Futu Army’s formation and eliminating more than half its riders.
• The Sea-Shaking Army surrounded Luo Heng and Li Yuanqi’s remaining troops and drove them toward the arena boundary, where Li Yuanqi crushed a Jade Talisman.

Li Yuanqi crushed Gu Chenfeng’s Jade Talisman, which unleashed a charge by riderless Horned Beasts and gave the battered Futu Army a chance to defeat the Sea-Shaking Army. The Futu Army won the battle, and Li Yuanqi recognized Gu Chenfeng’s crucial role in the victory.

• With the Futu Army nearly overwhelmed, Li Yuanqi crushed the Jade Talisman Gu Chenfeng had given him.
• Dozens of riderless Horned Beasts formed a Triangle Formation and charged the Sea-Shaking Army from behind, while the Sea-Calming King identified Li Yuanqi’s Beast-Taming Technique.
• Luo Heng and Li Yuanqi led the eighteen remaining Futu Army riders in a counterattack alongside the Horned Beasts.
• The Futu Army drove Li Yanbao and the entire Sea-Shaking Army beyond the yellow light, winning the battle.
• Li Yuanqi and the surviving Futu soldiers proclaimed that the Futu Army was invincible, and Li Yuanqi looked toward Gu Chenfeng with amazement and admiration.

After the Northern Army took the lead, Li Yanhu challenged Gu Chenfeng to a strategic battle using his Divine Mechanism War Chess Formation. Gu Chenfeng accepted and entered the formation, where the contest began.

• The Futu Army won its battle, leaving the Northern Army ahead and making the third match decisive for the Southern Army.
• Li Yanhu built the Divine Mechanism War Chess Formation and challenged Gu Chenfeng to command armies against him, using Gu Chenfeng’s lineage and reputation to pressure him into accepting.
• Gu Yanshuang and Huang Quan warned Gu Chenfeng against taking Li Yanhu’s challenge, but Gu Chenfeng chose to face him.
• Li Yanhu explained that each side would command ten thousand identical ordinary soldiers in a changing battlefield, with an incense stick’s time to prepare before fighting until one army was annihilated.
• Gu Chenfeng and Li Yanhu sat in opposite formation eyes as the military strategy contest began.

Gu Chenfeng faced Li Yanhu in the Divine Mechanism War Chess Formation, where Li Yanhu quickly deployed his forces to encircle him. As the Northern Army grew anxious, Gu Chenfeng’s motionless army finally advanced straight ahead.

• Gu Chenfeng and Li Yanhu began their military strategy contest inside the illusory formation, while spectators watched their armies as points of light.
• Li Yanbao and Li Yanying mocked Gu Chenfeng, and the Sea-Calming King said Li Yanhu would defeat him easily; Princess Yaoyin silently urged Gu Chenfeng to succeed.
• After the formation revealed its terrain, Li Yanhu sent scouts and divided his troops into several forces advancing along different routes.
• Huang Quan and Li Yuanqi recognized Li Yanhu’s skillful plan to pressure Gu Chenfeng from the front, flank him, and strike from the rear.
• Gu Chenfeng’s ten thousand troops remained still as Li Yanhu’s forces advanced, then finally moved straight ahead without scouting or splitting up.

Gu Chenfeng kept his ten thousand troops together and appeared to make a disastrous defensive stand on a plain, drawing Li Yanhu’s forces into an attack. He then unleashed long-range explosive firepower that devastated the advancing detachments, leaving Li Yanhu’s army in retreat too late to escape.

• Gu Chenfeng advanced with his troops in a single formation while Li Yanhu’s four detachments took positions around him.
• Gu Chenfeng stopped on a low-lying plain and formed an arc-shaped defensive camp, prompting both armies’ generals to assume he had made a grave tactical error.
• Li Yanhu’s detachments surrounded Gu Chenfeng’s army, and Li Yanhu declared the outcome settled before ordering three detachments to attack.
• Gu Chenfeng warned Li Yanhu that wealthy armies could blanket their enemies in firepower, then held his position as Li Yanhu’s forces charged.
• Gu Chenfeng’s army launched black explosive projectiles at extreme range, destroying more than half of Li Yanhu’s white forces before they could retreat.

Gu Chenfeng defeated Li Yanhu in the Divine Mechanism War Chess Formation by using imagined machine guns and artillery, wiping out Li Yanhu’s army without losing a soldier. Li Yanhu admitted defeat, while the Northern Army celebrated and the Sea-Calming King and Emperor Xuan watched Gu Chenfeng closely.

• Gu Chenfeng’s black lights swallowed the last white lights on the formation map, leaving his ten thousand soldiers untouched.
• Li Yanhu recalled how Gu Chenfeng’s unfamiliar weapons had cut down and annihilated his forces, then collapsed from the shock and withdrew his Spiritual Power.
• Gu Chenfeng explained that he had used technology from his previous world, imagining firearms and artillery inside the formation to overcome Li Yanhu’s limited understanding of warfare.
• Li Yanhu told Li Yanbao and Li Yanying that Gu Chenfeng had not cheated and that he had lost completely.
• The Northern Army celebrated Gu Chenfeng’s victory as the generals and Princess Yaoyin watched him leave the platform.
• The Sea-Calming King’s expression stiffened, and Emperor Xuan watched Gu Chenfeng’s retreating figure with a meaningful gaze.

After his Northern Army victory, Gu Chenfeng considered the political consequences and visited Liu Fuyan at the Myriad Treasures House. He invited her to return to the Gu Lineage, but she chose to keep running the business, and the chapter ended with the two alone together.

• Gu Chenfeng chose the South Sea Demon King's Demon Pupil as his reward and gave the other treasures to his eldest sister and Luo Heng.
• Emperor Xuan appointed the Sea-Calming King as Grand Commander and named Gu Chenfeng, Li Yuanqi, Li Yanbao, and Li Yanying as inspectors for the coming Dragon Abyss Gathering.
• Gu Chenfeng weighed Emperor Xuan's ambiguous support and the Gu Lineage's precarious position, then secretly left the Prime Minister's Residence.
• Gu Chenfeng surprised Liu Fuyan at the Myriad Treasures House, and the two reunited after months apart.
• Gu Chenfeng asked Liu Fuyan to return to the Gu Lineage, but she declined so she could continue managing the Myriad Treasures House.
• Gu Chenfeng offered to demonstrate a new alchemy method, and Liu Fuyan eagerly agreed.

Gu Chenfeng learned that his grandfather had survived a battle at the Gu Lineage ore vein, then went with Mo Nancang to make further plans. At the Four Directions Gate, Yan Sihai feared the Gu Lineage had abandoned him until two visitors appeared and one greeted him.

• Mo Nancang told Gu Chenfeng that his grandfather had been injured in a battle but had likely escaped.
• Gu Chenfeng and Mo Nancang agreed to remain near the Imperial Capital while keeping Mo Nancang's presence secret.
• Yan Sihai worried that the Huangfu Lineage or rival sects would target the Four Directions Gate after the Gu Lineage withdrew its support.
• Two bamboo-hatted figures suddenly appeared behind Yan Sihai, whose Qi Perception could not gauge their strength.
• Yan Sihai begged the visitors to spare his family, elders, and disciples, and one greeted him teasingly as Gate Master Yan.

Gu Chenfeng settled Mo Nancang at the Four Directions Gate, reassured Yan Sihai, and used a period of quiet in the Imperial Capital to cultivate and strengthen his techniques. After receiving an imperial order to inspect the troops in three days, he went to the Myriad Treasures House disguised as Ge Hong and found something amiss.

• Gu Chenfeng left Mo Nancang at the Four Directions Gate, demonstrated his power to Yan Sihai, and promised to send experts to protect the sect.
• Gu Chenfeng’s victory over the Southern Army spread through the Imperial Capital, while Huangfu stayed quiet and the Northern Army’s support for him grew.
• Gu Chenfeng cultivated the Azure Dragon Transformation Technique, developed the Azure Dragon’s Eye, studied the Five Elements Sacred Origin Art, and practiced his sword techniques.
• Gu Chenfeng refined pills and received an imperial decree ordering him to inspect the troops outside the Imperial Capital in three days.
• Gu Chenfeng disguised himself as Ge Hong and arrived at the Myriad Treasures House, where he noticed something unusual.

Gu Chenfeng arrived at the Myriad Treasures House and discovered that Jin Yulin was pressuring Liu Fuyan to replace the branch’s staff. Liu Fuyan rejected his demands, and Jin Yulin challenged the Myriad Treasures House to a Pill Duel.

• Gu Chenfeng found the Myriad Treasures House closed and learned that the Myriad Treasures Sect’s young master was inside conducting an inspection.
• After the disciples tried to turn him away, Gu Chenfeng left while secretly extending his divine sense through the building.
• Jin Yulin demanded that Liu Fuyan dismiss the branch’s entire staff and replace them with headquarters personnel.
• Liu Fuyan refused, citing the sect’s rules and her thirty-percent equity contract, while Jin Yulin’s elders used their pressure to intimidate her and Zhang Qi.
• Jin Yulin challenged the Myriad Treasures House to a Pill Duel to decide who would run it.

Jin Yulin challenged Liu Fuyan’s Myriad Treasures House to a Pill Duel, then used Qian Xi’s superior fourth-grade pill to force her to surrender its operating rights. When Liu Fuyan rejected Jin Yulin’s sexual demands and tried to leave, his men blocked the way until an unknown young man burst through the wall and entered.

• Jin Yulin invoked the sect’s Pill Duel rules to challenge Liu Fuyan’s branch, and Qian Xi introduced himself as an elder of the Pill Pavilion.
• Qian Xi swiftly refined a superior-quality Iceheart Spirit-Gathering Pill, and Liu Fuyan conceded that no alchemist at her branch could compete with him.
• Jin Yulin claimed the Myriad Treasures House’s operating rights and offered to return them if Liu Fuyan and Zhang Qi spent the night with him.
• Liu Fuyan rejected Jin Yulin, declared she would leave the sect, and tried to depart with Zhang Qi.
• Jin Yulin ordered his elders to stop the women, but an ordinary-looking young man smashed one elder through a stone wall and stepped into the room.

Gu Chenfeng arrived to protect Liu Fuyan and challenged Jin Yulin’s claim to the Myriad Treasures House through an alchemy contest. He began refining an Iceheart Spirit-Gathering Pill and left Qian Xi stunned by producing a supreme-grade pill.

• Gu Chenfeng revealed that he worked for the Myriad Treasures House and rejected Jin Yulin’s demand for respect as the Myriad Treasures Sect’s young master.
• Liu Fuyan urged Gu Chenfeng to leave, but he reassured her and she told Jin Yulin he was not worthy of comparison with him.
• Jin Yulin claimed the Myriad Treasures Sect had won the Myriad Treasures House’s operating rights through an alchemy contest, and Gu Chenfeng disputed the claim because the House’s alchemists had not competed.
• Gu Chenfeng used flames in his palm to refine the ingredients and manifested an energy pill furnace with Divine Sense Manifestation.
• Gu Chenfeng completed a supreme-grade Iceheart Spirit-Gathering Pill, shocking Qian Xi.