Recaps

After filling his body’s internal space with nuclear electricity, Chen Jue reached the limit of his current cultivation and discovered that he weighed over 80 tonnes. Meanwhile, bronze artifacts in Eagle Country and China reacted to a signal from 130 billion kilometers away, leaving the researchers stunned.

• Chen Jue knocked out the nuclear plant employees, kept their families from interrupting him, and absorbed electricity at the Kashiwazaki Nuclear Power Plant for more than twenty hours.
• Chen Jue filled his internal space with plasma energy, shut down the reactor, and stored the remaining nuclear fuel in the warhead for later burial.
• Chen Jue discovered that his weight had exceeded 80 tonnes and left a footprint five centimeters deep in the concrete floor.
• The Sun Wheel in Eagle Country’s Area 15 began vibrating and glowing, and researchers linked its reaction to an electromagnetic signal they could not detect.
• Bronze artifacts in the Long Province base also began vibrating, and a technician calculated that the signal source was 130 billion kilometers away.

Zhong Deyuan and the base’s senior staff traced the bronze artifacts’ resonance to a reply from an extraterrestrial civilization 130 billion kilometers away, triggered by Chen Jue’s Solar Flare. Chen Jue decided to visit the base to investigate, but his Attribute Panel responded just as he was about to leave.

• Zhong Deyuan ordered the technicians to map the signal source and compare its timing with Chen Jue’s Solar Flare.
• The analysis showed that a signal from 130 billion kilometers away had returned to Earth and caused the ancient bronze artifacts to resonate.
• Zhong Deyuan identified the response as a close encounter of the second kind and warned that humanity was not prepared to contact a technologically superior civilization.
• The base held a special meeting and reported the artifacts’ abnormal behavior to the higher-ups.
• After returning from Japan to Chen Village, Chen Jue read Zhong Deyuan’s message and decided to go to the base to investigate the artifacts.
• Chen Jue’s Attribute Panel, dormant since his breakthrough to the Void Level, finally responded as he prepared to leave.

After his breakthrough to the Void Level, Chen Jue examined his updated attributes and tested his new powers by flying at extreme speed across the country. He reached Western Capital and found an electromagnetic signal rising from the First Emperor’s tomb, seemingly guiding something.

• Chen Jue reviewed his new panel, which showed theoretical immortality, a consolidated Energy attribute, and new Shatter the Vacuum, Electricity Control, and Matter Interference abilities.
• Chen Jue flew from Jiang Province to Western Capital in less than a minute, leaving sonic booms along his route.
• Personnel at a Jiang Province base detected Chen Jue on radar, mistook him for a possible foreign weapon, and sounded the highest-level alarm.
• Senior officers watched Chen Jue stop instantly in midair and descend from 6,000 meters, leaving them stunned by what they believed was alien technology.
• Chen Jue examined an electromagnetic signal rising from the pyramid-shaped tomb of the First Emperor.

Chen Jue returned to the First Emperor's Mausoleum and discovered that its electromagnetic signal pierced into space and pointed toward Mars. Unable to investigate the mercury-shielded tomb, he turned back toward the base in Long Province, leaving the mystery for later.

• Chen Jue saw the electromagnetic column rising from the First Emperor's Mausoleum and failed to penetrate the underground tomb with his Mind Energy because mercury shielded it.
• Chen Jue flew beyond Earth's atmosphere and adapted to the vacuum of space using his Void Level body.
• Chen Jue followed the electromagnetic signal and saw that it pointed toward Mars, recalling the omen of Mars guarding the Heart in the First Emperor's thirty-sixth year.
• Chen Jue considered flying to Mars but decided to deal with matters on Earth first and returned toward the base in Long Province.

Chen Jue returned to the Long Province base by flying through the atmosphere at over Mach 100, alarming its defenses until Elder Zhong recognized his smartwatch signal. He demonstrated Void Level matter interference to the astonished base staff, and Zou Ying asked him to make a lithography machine.

• The base's radar detected Chen Jue approaching at hypersonic speed, and Elder Zhong ordered the defenses shut down after identifying his smartwatch signal.
• Zou Ying, Liu Chengdong, and Zhong Deyuan realized Chen Jue's flight confirmed the cultivation theories he had previously given the base.
• Chen Jue considered how cultivation might eventually enable travel through space and time, then descended gently into the base.
• Chen Jue reshaped his Aerospace Combat Suit into casual clothes and used matter interference to transform a piece of fabric into objects including a Glock pistol.
• Zou Ying examined the pistol and asked Chen Jue to help make a lithography machine.

Chen Jue agreed to create an atomic-precision lithography machine and then examined the ancient bronze artifacts at the base. Studying the Cloud-Patterned Bronze Five-Pillar Vessel, he realized its five colors enabled it to receive special electromagnetic signals outside known frequency bands.

• Zou Ying asked Chen Jue to make a lithography machine, and he said he could manipulate matter at atomic-level precision if given blueprints and materials.
• Zhong Deyuan ordered Liu Chengdong to contact the Optoelectronics Institute for the lithography machine's blueprints and materials.
• Zhong Deyuan brought Chen Jue to the Cultural Relics Repository and explained that a signal from roughly 130 billion kilometers away had been detected from the ancient bronze artifacts.
• Chen Jue examined the Cloud-Patterned Bronze Five-Pillar Vessel and asked Elder Liu whether it had been colored when unearthed.
• After Elder Liu showed him a color illustration of the vessel, Chen Jue concluded that its five-colored radiance let it receive unusual electromagnetic signals.

Chen Jue identified the Cloud-Patterned Bronze Five-Pillar Vessel as a cultivation and sacrificial ritual artifact tied to the Five Tones, Five Elements, and Five Viscera. He activated it with his Mind Energy and saw a masked figure seated on a cloud-patterned throne.

• Chen Jue asked Zhong Deyuan to clear the area and said he understood the vessel's purpose, despite an archaeological expert's doubts.
• Chen Jue plucked the five bronze pillars and produced distinct ancient Five Tones that made the listeners feel mentally alert.
• Chen Jue explained that the vessel was a cultivation ritual artifact and used Matter Interference to restore its corroded pigments.
• Elder Liu connected the vessel's colors and tones to the Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon, while Chen Jue said activating it required manifested mental consciousness.
• Chen Jue projected Five-Colored Radiance from his Mind Crystal onto the vessel, triggering a powerful resonance and revealing a masked figure with a five-colored crystal between their brows.

Chen Jue encountered an alien projected from the Cloud-Patterned Bronze Five-Pillar Vessel and cut off their attempted communication to protect humanity's information. After studying the alien's writing, he discovered a startling resemblance to Bird-Worm Seal Script and the character for “heaven” on the Imperial Heirloom Seal.

• The Cloud-Patterned Bronze Five-Pillar Vessel projected an armored humanoid who used golden energy to form square characters and tried to communicate with Chen Jue.
• Chen Jue ended the connection before replying, and Elder Zhong reported the alien encounter while the collection hall erupted in shock.
• Chen Jue drew the alien's characters from memory, and Elder Liu identified them as resembling an unknown form of Bird-Worm Seal Script.
• Elder Liu explained the Imperial Heirloom Seal's inscription and showed Chen Jue recorded versions of “Mandated by Heaven, may you live long and prosper forever.”
• Chen Jue noticed that the alien's characters resembled the inscription's character for “heaven,” which also reminded him of “荧.”

Chen Jue connected the ancient artifacts and Second Home’s civilization to Earth’s myths, then realized their histories showed a vast time discrepancy. As he planned to investigate the mystery and contact the newly detected Heavenly Realm civilization, Liu Chengdong and Zou Ying shocked Director Lin with news that the base could make an atomic-level lithography machine.

• Chen Jue theorized that Second Home’s ancient gods were connected to Earth’s myths and might be humanity’s true origin.
• Chen Jue asked Elder Liu when the bronze five-pillar vessel and the Earth Sun Wheel had been made, then identified the time difference as the source of his dissonance.
• Chen Jue wondered whether wormhole tunnels or a nuclear war explained the gap and planned to investigate the signal near the First Emperor’s Mausoleum.
• Chen Jue decided that he might need to communicate with the Heavenly Realm civilization on equal terms because of its destructive power.
• Liu Chengdong and Zou Ying told Director Lin that the base could manufacture a lithography machine with atomic-level precision, leaving him stunned.

Lin Weiguo sent lithography-machine materials and a small team from the Institute of Optoelectronics to the aerospace base after Liu Chengdong and Zou Ying confirmed Chen Jue’s claim. Chen Jue reviewed the chip-making process and began experimenting with wafer processing.

• Liu Chengdong and Zou Ying told Lin Weiguo that Chen Jue could make a lithography master machine with atomic-level precision, and Liu urged him to bring raw materials to the base.
• After confirming their claims, Lin Weiguo mobilized the Institute of Optoelectronics and headed to the aerospace base in Long Province with materials, documents, and a team of over a dozen people.
• Chen Jue left the cultural relics collection hall and sat on the steps, setting aside his questions about the artifacts’ temporal incongruity.
• Liu Chengdong told Chen Jue that the institute’s shipment would arrive within half an hour, and Chen Jue began rapidly reviewing chip-manufacturing documents on his wristwatch.
• Chen Jue scooped a slab of concrete from the ground and announced that he would start by trying wafer processing.

Chen Jue used Matter Interference to turn concrete into a giant square monocrystalline silicon wafer and discovered it could carry faint electronic signals. Comparing an Intel chip design with the Bird-Worm Seal Script inscription, he and Liu Chengdong found their patterns strikingly similar.

• Chen Jue purified silicon from concrete by removing impurities and carbon monoxide with plasma energy.
• Chen Jue shaped the refined silicon into a meter-wide square wafer, and Liu Chengdong marveled at its size and design.
• Chen Jue noticed plasma energy moving through the monocrystalline silicon in faint signals, though the unetched wafer had no circuits to direct them.
• Chen Jue retrieved an Intel i9-13900K circuit design from the base's database and compared it with the Bird-Worm Seal Script inscription.
• Chen Jue and Liu Chengdong stared in astonishment as the inscription's lines and marks closely resembled the chip design.

Chen Jue connected Bird-Worm Seal Script with semiconductor circuitry and used Matter Interference to turn soil into Lantian water-cang jade, then fashioned it into a replica Imperial Heirloom Seal. He infused its inscription with plasma energy, triggering a wondrous resonance.

• Chen Jue compared Bird-Worm Seal Script patterns with semiconductor fabrication lines and suspected they shared a lost circuit-making technique.
• Chen Jue examined Lantian water-cang jade and used Matter Interference to create a block of it from the base’s soil.
• Liu Chengdong realized Chen Jue could potentially turn dirt into valuable jade, while Chen Jue reshaped the block into an Imperial Heirloom Seal.
• Chen Jue carved the inscription “Mandated by Heaven, granted longevity and eternal prosperity” into the seal and studied its circuit-like characters.
• Chen Jue infused the characters with golden plasma energy, and the artificial seal began to resonate.

Chen Jue activated the artificial jade seal and saw a recording of the First Emperor performing the Fengshan rites on Mount Tai, where an unexplained being formed a stele from smoke and fire. He gave the seal to Liu Chengdong for analysis and followed him to the R&D building as supplies and researchers arrived at the base.

• Chen Jue used plasma energy to activate the artificial jade seal and watched images of the First Emperor performing the Fengshan rites on Mount Tai.
• Chen Jue saw smoke and fire form a four-sided stele, then speculated that the rites had communicated with an unknown being or civilization.
• Chen Jue gave the still-hot jade seal to Liu Chengdong and asked him to have the R&D department analyze its recording technology.
• Liu Chengdong hurried toward the R&D building with the seal, and Chen Jue followed him.
• Zou Ying met Director Lin Weiguo and researchers from the Optoelectronics Institute as transport aircraft delivered supplies and personnel to the base.

Chen Jue met Lin Weiguo and the Optoelectronics Institute researchers at the underground facility where he was to build an atomic-precision lithography machine. After they questioned whether the dusty space was suitable, Chen demonstrated his ability to clear the air with an electrical charge, leaving them stunned.

• Zou Ying and Liu Chengdong told Lin Weiguo that one person had mastered an atomic-precision lithography machine and asked the researchers to keep the secret.
• Lin Weiguo and his colleagues arrived at the underground laboratory and recognized Chen Jue as the creator of the Ten Body-Tempering Forms.
• Chen Jue agreed to build the lithography machine and studied the engineering drawings Lin Weiguo sent him.
• Lin Weiguo warned Chen Jue that the dusty underground facility did not meet the cleanroom requirements for lithography.
• Chen Jue swept dust into the air and used an electrical arc and an attractive force to gather it at his fingertip.

Chen Jue used his extraordinary energy to remove dust from the underground facility and transform its floor and walls into a polished, antistatic surface, leaving Lin Weiguo and the researchers struggling to reconcile what they saw with science. The chapter ended with Lin ordering an air-cleanliness test.

• Chen Jue discharged golden electricity that gathered airborne dust, which he compressed into a gray brick.
• Lin Weiguo and the researchers stared in shock as Chen explained his abilities as a martial arts application of energy and plasma.
• Chen Jue spread a golden energy net through the facility, transforming its rough floors and walls into glossy, mirror-like surfaces.
• The researchers recognized the result as resembling an antistatic epoxy coating, though Chen had created it instantly.
• Lin Weiguo ordered Xiao Li to test the facility's air cleanliness.

Chen Jue transformed the underground facility into a cleanroom beyond Class 1 cleanliness, then began assembling a lithography machine with materials supplied by the Optoelectronics Institute. He chose a dry-lithography design and used his abilities to construct the machine, including an ultraminiature laser lens.

• Xiao Li measured the air and reported that the facility had fewer detectable particles than the Class 1 standard allowed.
• Lin Weiguo and the Optoelectronics Institute researchers marveled at the spotless room and the antistatic coating Chen Hao had created.
• Chen Jue opened the supply containers and reviewed the Optoelectronics Institute’s lithography machine designs.
• Chen Jue chose dry lithography because its principle was simpler and its design would be harder to copy.
• Chen Jue used plasma energy and Matter Interference to assemble a lithography machine, reinforce its power system, and begin building its core laser lens.

Chen Jue finished building a compact dry lithography machine with a one-nanometer laser lens, leaving Lin Weiguo and the researchers stunned by its design and silent metal casing. Lin Weiguo suspected the casing was a multilayered metal single crystal.

• Chen Jue used Microscopic Perspective and intensive mental computation to create a nanoscale laser lens and redesign the lithography machine’s components.
• Chen Jue unveiled a white lithography machine nearly ten times smaller than a conventional EUA machine, and Lin Weiguo and the researchers marveled at its seamless, polished casing.
• Chen Jue explained that the machine used dry lithography and could run after they loaded a numerical control program and set machining precision to 0.1 nanometers.
• Lin Weiguo, Zou Ying, and the researchers noticed that tapping the machine’s metal casing produced no sound, and Zou Ying tested it with her smartwatch.
• Lin Weiguo concluded that the casing was a single crystal made by stacking several metals in a multilayered structure.

Chen Jue revealed that the lithography machine's casing was made from an unprecedented five-layer single-crystal material, then helped Lin Weiguo's team power up the machine and load a chip design. The machine displayed 0.1-nanometer precision, leaving the researchers awed by its capabilities and troubled by the gap between its precision and their available chip designs.

• Chen Jue explained that he had casually made the lithography machine's casing from five metallic elements bonded into a single-crystal structure, which astonished Zou Ying, Lin Weiguo, and the researchers.
• Liu Chengdong asked whether Chen Jue could mass-produce the material, but Chen Jue said it required his unique ability and declined to provide it at scale.
• Lin Weiguo and the researchers began a verification run, connecting the machine to the underground facility's specially modified power supply.
• Lin Weiguo followed Chen Jue's instructions to load an EDA program and chip design, and the technicians discovered that the machine supported 0.1-nanometer precision.
• Lin Weiguo realized that the institute lacked chip designs suited to the machine's precision and recalled the technological gap that had once made him feel helpless.

Chen Jue and the Optoelectronics Institute successfully tested a nanoscale lithography machine that rapidly produced powerful chips. Meanwhile, researchers discovered that Area 15 in Eagle Country was transmitting Earth’s coordinates and human genetic information to an approaching extraterrestrial source, which was expected to reach Earth in about a week.

• Chen Jue watched Lin Weiguo and the researchers activate the nanoscale lithography machine, which produced wafers at astonishing speed.
• The researchers tested a chip that surpassed every high-end chip on the market, and Zou Ying and the team celebrated breaking the Western blockade.
• Chen Jue instructed the researchers on operating the machine before Zhong Deyuan brought him to inspect an encrypted signal from beyond the Solar System.
• Zhong Deyuan told Chen Jue that the unidentified signal source had moved over eight hundred million kilometers toward the Solar System in less than two hours and could reach Earth in about a week.
• A staff member identified several high-powered radio telescopes in Eagle Country’s Area 15 as the signal source and reported that they were transmitting Earth’s coordinates and human genetic code.
• Zhong Deyuan nearly fainted with fury, and Chen Jue condemned the people in Eagle Country as traitors to humanity.

Chen Jue blamed himself for Eagle Country detecting the extraterrestrial signal and flew there to deal with the bronze artifacts and radio telescopes. Beyond the lunar wormhole, Eugene’s team discovered a hidden structure beneath Artemis’s Crescent, but learned their outpost had been destroyed and Eugene was coming toward them wounded.

• Chen Jue concluded that the Sun Wheel he had left in Area 15 had helped Eagle Country detect the extraterrestrial signal, then took coordinates and a route map from Zhong Deyuan and flew toward Eagle Country.
• Eugene’s exploration team surveyed the crescent-shaped lake in Second Home and found a pyramid-like structure with strong electromagnetic radiation at its center.
• The team established a camp and used its equipment to map the buried structure, which its leader identified as the Wall of Sighs and the entrance to the Garden Where the Gods Sleep.
• The team leader told the explorers that the goddess associated with the ruins controlled both birth and death, and claimed she held the secret of the gods’ immortality.
• A technician reported that Eugene’s outpost had been attacked by a woman and the Russians, with only three survivors, and that Eugene was badly injured and needed a vehicle and medical supplies.

Eugene reached the temporary camp near Crescent Bay after escaping Blood Dragon, and ordered his followers to enter the Pyramid before she caught up. He replaced his severed arm with one taken from his clone Lark and prepared to pursue the promise of eternal life.

• Eugene fled across the desert with life ore pressed to his severed shoulder, while Blood Dragon pursued him and suspected his group had found something important.
• Blood Dragon kept following despite worsening radio interference and reflected on how her martial dao gang qi kept sand from touching her.
• Eugene reached the camp and learned that his group had found Artemis's Crescent Spring, which he believed could prolong his life.
• Eugene ordered Tom to prepare to enter the Pyramid immediately, despite his injury and the danger posed by Blood Dragon.
• Eugene commanded Lark to sever his own left arm, then used life ore and medicine to attach it to his shoulder.

Eugene’s expedition entered the Pyramid beneath Crescent Lake as Linglong’s Russians pursued them. Meanwhile, aboard the USS Ronald Reagan in Japan, a mysterious black-armored figure appeared and killed a sailor with scarlet-gold energy.

• Eugene reattached his severed arm with the life ore’s help and regained sensation as his group crossed Crescent Lake toward the Pyramid.
• Linglong found the crescent-shaped oasis, sensed a call from the Pyramid, and ordered her Russians to pursue Eugene’s group and kill them.
• At Eagle Country’s naval base in Japan, sailor Jackson left his radar post to smoke while the USS Ronald Reagan was docked.
• A hovering figure in black armor offered Jackson a light, then burned him to ash with scarlet-gold plasma energy.

Chen Jue infiltrated the USS Ronald Reagan, killed its crew members on watch, wrecked its propulsion system, and drained both pressurized water reactors to replenish his energy. As the Seventh Fleet launched a search, its assault team discovered that the carrier’s reactors had stopped operating.

• Chen Jue entered the carrier’s combat command room, killed Jackson and Pete, and used its console to locate the ship’s power center.
• Chen Jue entered the power center, killed the sailors on duty, raised the reactors to peak power, and destroyed the bearings in all four propeller drives.
• Chen Jue entered both pressurized water reactors and absorbed their energy, raising his energy value to 1.12.
• Chen Jue left the power center as alarms sounded and Marine Corps teams converged on the USS Ronald Reagan.
• Brigadier General Trick ordered a search after footage showed the carrier’s crew members had vanished and no enemy was found.
• An assault team reported that both pressurized water reactors had stopped operating.

Commodore Trick learned that the USS Ronald Reagan’s reactors had shut down, but engineers found no radiation at all, leaving the cause uncertain. A black, human-sized flying target evaded the carrier’s defenses, and after it struck the flight deck, the entire carrier tilted nearly upright out of the water.

• Commodore Trick ordered a nuclear alert and sent engineers to investigate the reactors after learning they had shut down.
• The engineers reported that their instruments detected no radiation, and an intelligence officer explained that an absolute-zero reading was abnormal.
• An assault team spotted a black, human-sized flying target above the carrier, which radar and the AI tracking system could not detect.
• Commodore Trick ordered the assault teams to fire at the target using visual aim.
• The target shot skyward, broke the sound barrier, and slammed into the front of the flight deck, causing the USS Ronald Reagan to rise stern-first and tilt almost vertically.

Chen Jue levered the USS Ronald Reagan upright, terrifying the crew and the Eagle Country command room, then kicked it back into the harbor before it could crush the pier. The carrier slid away as the watching officers realized Chen Jue appeared to be using it as a surfboard.

• Chen Jue forced the USS Ronald Reagan upright, twisting its frame and throwing sailors, aircraft, and vehicles across its deck.
• Sailors on the pier panicked as the carrier's shadow threatened to swallow the naval base.
• Chen Jue sprang onto the carrier's deck and stomped, reversing its fall and sending it crashing back into the harbor.
• The impact sent a towering wave toward the pier, while the command room's occupants narrowly escaped being crushed.
• Brigadier General Trickle asked what Chen Jue intended to do, and an intelligence officer guessed he planned to surf on the aircraft carrier.