Chapter Summaries

Chen Jue broke the base’s horsepower tester, then destroyed an unlimited-speed treadmill while demonstrating his strength and speed. Academician Huang prepared to find another way to measure him after two machines failed to withstand his abilities.

• Academician Huang realized the base’s testing equipment could not measure Chen Jue’s extraordinary strength and arranged a different test.
• Chen Jue’s horsepower test produced a reading of 5,236 horsepower before he broke the tester’s pull ring, astonishing the Candidates.
• The Candidates learned that Chen Jue had created the Ten Body-Tempering Forms and watched him with awe.
• Academician Huang had Chen Jue test an unlimited-speed treadmill, and Chen Jue accelerated it to 666 kilometers per hour.
• Chen Jue’s strides warped and wrecked the treadmill, while the onlookers marveled that he had not even broken a sweat.
• Chen Jue apologized for breaking another machine and asked Academician Huang whether they should continue testing.

Academician Huang brought Chen Jue to the base’s weapons testing range to measure his strength after ordinary testing equipment failed. Chen Jue’s throw broke the sound barrier and traveled an estimated 23.3 kilometers, leaving the team eager to calculate his power output.

• Academician Huang took Chen Jue to the base’s weapons testing range after requesting authorization and gathering portable equipment.
• Chen Jue reunited with Zou Ying, whose technical department had brought equipment to help test him.
• Zou Ying handed Chen Jue a tracking ball, and Academician Huang explained they would estimate his strength from its flight distance.
• Chen Jue’s running start cratered the ground, and he hurled the tracking ball at an initial velocity exceeding Mach 6.77.
• Technicians estimated that the tracking ball would land 23.3 kilometers away, and Academician Huang ordered them to calculate Chen Jue’s power output.

Chen Jue made another tracking-ball throw while researchers measured his Martial Dao Gang Qi and body heat. The tracking ball’s signal vanished after five kilometers, and Chen Jue explained that it had melted and vaporized from air friction.

• Chen Jue asked Zou Ying for more tracking balls so he could test another throw at full strength.
• Chen Jue activated his Martial Dao Gang Qi, and Academician Huang and the researchers recorded intense heat readings that exceeded their thermal instrument’s limit.
• Chen Jue sprinted and threw a tracking ball at an initial speed above Mach 46, creating two enormous craters as he accelerated and braked.
• The technicians lost the tracking ball’s signal after five kilometers and found that its emergency device had sent no signal.
• Chen Jue told Zou Ying the signal loss was his fault because the ball had melted and vaporized from friction with the air.

After Chen Jue’s Positioning Ball melted from atmospheric friction, he declined to add insulation and moved on to testing his running speed. He covered 1,000 meters in 0.411 seconds, while the footage revealed that his clothes had been torn away by the airflow.

• Chen Jue learned that his Positioning Ball had evaporated because it lacked the thermal insulation needed to withstand extreme heat, and he rejected Zou Ying’s suggestion to wrap another ball in insulation.
• Chen Jue estimated that Martial Dao Gang Qi could boost his power output by up to eight times, prompting Academician Huang to record a potential maximum exceeding 400,000 horsepower.
• Zou Ying gave Chen Jue a holographic wristwatch, and technicians prepared cameras and speed detectors along a 1,000-meter stretch of the firing range.
• Chen Jue sprinted the measured distance in 0.411 seconds, averaging Mach 7, and his powerful strides left craters along the course.
• Academician Huang compared Chen Jue’s more-than-twenty-meter strides to Shrink the Earth to an Inch, while Zou Ying turned away in embarrassment after the footage showed his clothes being ripped off.

After Chen Jue’s clothes burned away during his high-speed sprint, he changed into a new Aerospace Combat Suit and agreed to provide tissue samples for research. At the collection area, staff began taking his samples, but the first test tube unexpectedly became extremely heavy.

• Chen Jue discovered that his sprint had destroyed his clothes, then changed into a fourth-generation Aerospace Combat Suit supplied by Zou Ying.
• Academician Huang explained that Chen Jue’s physical data would help establish Transcendent Level standards and asked him to provide bodily samples for study.
• Chen Jue agreed, and Academician Huang arranged for him to use a cleared sample collection area at the base.
• Chen Jue plucked ten hairs into a test tube, but a staff member was shocked when the tube suddenly became unusually heavy.

During his physical assessment, Chen Jue's unusually dense hair and tough nails led him to consider how bodily tissues and Martial Dao Gang Qi could adapt and transform. He refined his control of Gang Qi by trimming a nail with precision, then moved on to bodily fluid collection.

• Chen Jue's hair samples startled the staff with their weight, and he wondered whether hair could develop stem-cell-like potential for transformation.
• Chen Jue reflected that changing bodily tissues to suit different environments was a principle of life's evolution.
• Academician Huang explained that ordinary nail clippers might not work on Chen Jue's hardened nails.
• Chen Jue used a fine strand of scarlet-gold Gang Qi to cut his nail with remarkable precision, demonstrating finer control of the energy.
• Academician Huang marveled at the possible medical uses of fine-scale Gang Qi manipulation, and Chen Jue asked what sample came next.
• Academician Huang said the next step was bodily fluid collection.

Chen Jue underwent bodily-fluid collection, but his extraordinary strength and toughness made ordinary equipment inadequate. After he drew his own blood using Martial Dao Gang Qi, Academician Huang realized that Chen Jue had demonstrated a reversible conversion between matter and energy.

• Chen Jue worried that bodily-fluid samples could be used to produce descendants or clones, until Academician Huang clarified that they needed only saliva, urine, and blood.
• Chen Jue accidentally broke a sampling cup with his spit, then collected saliva more gently and provided a urine sample.
• A staff member could not tie a tourniquet tightly around Chen Jue's arm or pierce his skin with a blood-drawing needle, and Chen Jue bent the needle when he tried himself.
• Chen Jue used Martial Dao Gang Qi to pierce his fingertip from within, filled a collection tube with blood, and closed the wound afterward.
• Academician Huang examined the blood's scarlet-gold flecks and concluded that Chen Jue's ability to break Gang Qi down into blood demonstrated the interconversion of matter and energy.

After Academician Huang connected Chen Jue’s martial dao gang qi to the mass-energy equation, Chen Jue gained new ideas about refining his cultivation and overcoming the gap between the transcendent and void levels. He chose to study in the library before meeting more experts, while samples collected from him were rushed to a testing center.

• Academician Huang explained how Chen Jue’s martial dao gang qi appeared to demonstrate the conversion between matter and energy.
• Chen Jue compared his bodily growth to the universe’s expansion and considered how to reduce the energy losses in his martial dao gang qi.
• Chen Jue recorded his new insights, which gave him a clearer direction for addressing the shortcoming between the transcendent and void levels.
• After finishing the sample collection, Academician Huang joked that physicists would want to discuss Chen Jue’s discovery with him.
• Chen Jue told Liu Chengdong he would spend a few days in the library before meeting the other experts, and Liu Chengdong took him to the cafeteria.
• Several samples collected from Chen Jue were rushed to a testing center in the base.

Chen Jue’s unusual bodily samples shocked the base’s technicians, while his thoughts about the Sun led him to resolve to reach the Void Level. After devouring books in the library, he found a religious text that seemed to echo his ideas about the void.

• Technicians found Chen Jue’s hair unusually tough and heavy, while tests of his saliva and blood produced astonishing readings.
• Chen Jue ate a huge dinner with Liu Chengdong, then walked outside and shared a sunset photo on WeChat Moments.
• Watching the Sun, Chen Jue connected its energy and longevity to Void Level cultivation and resolved to measure up to the stars.
• Chen Jue went to the expanded library, rapidly memorized the second-floor books, and began reading religious philosophy on the third floor.
• Chen Jue paused over The Scroll of Awakening Through Hard Practice and reflected on its references to Wusheng Laomu, True Emptiness, and the void.

After studying ancient cultivation texts and modern scientific research, Chen Jue reached the edge of a new understanding of the Void Level. Examining a flower on the base grounds, he saw the void within its cells and finally grasped the meaning of the Buddha holding up a flower and smiling.

• Chen Jue studied Patriarch Luo's scriptures and concluded that the ancient cultivation path left him just short of the Void Level.
• Chen Jue spent two days and nights reading the base's ancient texts, then rested before turning to modern scientific research.
• Chen Jue used his privileged computer access to read more than a hundred thousand scientific papers over three days.
• Chen Jue raised his Brain Domain attribute to 4.00, clearing his mental fatigue and sharpening his perception.
• Chen Jue sat beneath a tree, examined a small white flower, and saw the cellular voids within its petals as miniature universes.

Chen Jue discovered that the true void within the body lay in the empty space between atomic nuclei and electrons, and his perception expanded beyond the microscopic world. His [Five Senses and Six Perceptions Skill] reached [Perfection], awakening [Ālayavijñāna] and unlocking the [Time-Space Seal], leaving him poised to break through the barriers of time and space.

• Chen Jue used the cells in a flower petal to realize that the void within the body existed between atomic nuclei and electrons.
• Chen Jue entered meditation and used [Inner Vision] to perceive the atomic world within his body, losing his ordinary sense of time and space.
• Chen Jue's [Five Senses and Six Perceptions Skill] surged to [Perfection], awakening the [Ālayavijñāna] status.
• The progress of [Unknown Seal] rose to 100 percent, and Chen Jue unlocked the one-time [Time-Space Seal] status.

Chen Jue mastered the microscopic void through his eighth consciousness and understood how to advance from the transcendent level to the void level. He left the base after giving Liu Chengdong and Elder Zhong electronic and handwritten cultivation methods, promising to return after his breakthrough.

• Chen Jue realized that Ālayavijñāna let him control his body's microscopic world and revealed the path from the transcendent level to the void level.
• Chen Jue went to the cafeteria and told Liu Chengdong and Elder Zhong he was leaving to cultivate and would return after breaking through.
• Chen Jue promised to complete the theory for advancing to the void level and the follow-up methods for the Ten Body-Tempering Forms.
• Chen Jue rapidly typed the cultivation material on a high-spec computer and wrote out a handwritten copy for Liu Chengdong and Elder Zhong.
• Chen Jue declined to meet the archaeology experts, saluted Liu Chengdong and Elder Zhong, and left the base.

Chen Jue traveled from the base toward Hangzhou while contemplating how to cross the threshold into the Void Level. Exploring his body’s atoms on the train, he discovered that its elements resembled those found in stars.

• Chen Jue left the base with his belongings and an Aerospace Combat Suit, then traveled by high-speed train toward Hangzhou.
• At the station, Chen Jue saw ordinary people practicing the Body-Tempering Exercise and hoped it would reduce sickness and suffering.
• On the train, Chen Jue reflected that he understood the Void but still lacked a way to interfere with the vacuum inside atoms and enter the Shatter the Vacuum realm.
• Chen Jue used [Perspective] to examine his atoms and identified oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and helium in his body.
• Chen Jue realized that the elements making up his body closely resembled those found in stars like the sun.

Chen Jue connected the microscopic nature of his body to nuclear fusion and found a possible path to Shatter the Vacuum through laser confinement. After reaching Hangzhou, he reunited with his old roommate Jiang Fan, who suspected Chen Jue had written the Ten Body-Tempering Forms.

• Chen Jue concluded that nuclear fusion, rather than nuclear fission, could let him intervene in his body's atoms and achieve Shatter the Vacuum.
• Chen Jue studied the base's research on laser confinement fusion and planned to attempt the technique somewhere deserted after returning home.
• Chen Jue withdrew his microscopic Perspective as the train arrived in Hangzhou and messaged his old roommate Jiang Fan to meet.
• Jiang Fan picked Chen Jue up at East Station and explained that his wife had recently given birth to their second child.
• Jiang Fan asked Chen Jue whether he was the author of the Body-Tempering Exercise because the author shared his name.

After revealing that he created the Body-Tempering Exercise, Chen Jue went with Jiang Fan to visit his newborn children in Hangzhou. He left with their gifts prepared: two custom gold longevity locks bearing their names.

• Jiang Fan recognized Chen Jue as the creator of the Body-Tempering Exercise and excitedly questioned him about his identity.
• Jiang Fan brought Chen Jue to a Hangzhou hospital to meet his newborn children and joked that their roommates would be godfathers.
• Chen Jue searched a jewelry store for a suitable gift but rejected its lightweight locks and high workmanship fees.
• Chen Jue withdrew 8,888 yuan for a red envelope and bought twenty 100-gram investment gold bars at a bank.
• Chen Jue asked Jiang Fan for his children's names, then used Martial Dao Gang Qi to shape two gold bars into engraved longevity locks and threaded them with red cords.

Chen Jue visited Jiang Fan’s family after the birth of his godson, bringing handmade gold Longevity Locks and reflecting on the newborn’s primordial qi and the mysteries of life. Over dinner, Jiang Fan confided his worries about family and money, while Chen Jue concluded that ordinary people only needed to be alive; Jiang Fan then passed out after asking him to help train his children.

• Chen Jue gave Jiang Fan and his wife red envelopes and handmade gold Longevity Locks engraved with their children’s names, then held his newborn godson.
• While holding the baby, Chen Jue sensed its remaining primordial qi and wondered about the origins of consciousness, souls, and life.
• Chen Jue spent time with Jiang Fan’s family and later joined him for dinner at a Northwestern-style restaurant.
• Jiang Fan described the pressures of raising children, paying a mortgage, and working overtime, while Chen Jue said ordinary people only needed to be alive.
• Jiang Fan showed Chen Jue a pocket edition of the Body-Tempering Exercise, asked him to train his children if they could not pass it, and passed out; Chen Jue signed the book.

After returning to Chen Village, Chen Jue prepared to attempt his Void-Shattering True Art, a dangerous breakthrough meant to transcend the limits of martial dao. He climbed Leigong Peak and began the technique in an abandoned stone temple, directing a thread of gang qi into his dantian.

• Chen Jue returned to his hometown, gave the rural minivan driver over 1,000 yuan as advance fare, and settled into his old home.
• Chen Jue reviewed his martial arts and body with [Inner Vision], then wrote down calculations and a hypothetical diagram for nuclear fusion inside his body.
• Chen Jue left home at dusk, placed wildflowers at Old Mr. Huang's grave, and climbed Leigong Peak.
• Chen Jue reached the summit and found an abandoned stone temple whose couplet invited seekers to pursue awakening and mystery.
• Chen Jue cleared the temple, sat facing west, and began shrinking his scarlet-gold martial dao gang qi before piercing it into the Shangqu Acupoint below his navel.

Chen Jue ignited nuclear fusion within his body to achieve the Void Level and transform into an energy state. As his body’s heat summoned a storm over Leigong Peak, lightning struck him in the stone temple.

• Chen Jue pierced the Blood Gate in his dantian with a Gang Qi needle, using the acupoint and the hydrogen-rich bladder nearby to trigger fusion.
• He confined hydrogen atoms in his bladder with Mind Energy, and a brief microscopic fusion reaction successfully ignited.
• Chen Jue extended the process throughout his body, using Gang Qi needles to spark fusion at his acupoints, blood vessels, tissues, and cells.
• His body became a blazing, star-like energy state, while his Attribute Panel displayed new bonuses and began updating.
• The heat rising from the stone temple formed dark clouds over Leigong Peak, and blue-violet lightning struck Chen Jue.

Chen Jue absorbed repeated lightning strikes as his breakthrough drove a controlled nuclear fusion reaction, while villagers watched the storm over Leigong Peak. Across the ocean, Eagle Country detected the reaction and suspected China had achieved controlled nuclear fusion.

• Chen Jue's breakthrough created a storm cloud above Leigong Peak, and he discovered that his body absorbed the lightning striking him to replenish its energy.
• Wang Dalong drove villagers through the storm, and they watched lightning repeatedly hit Leigong Peak as he told them stories about immortals there.
• Eagle Country's nuclear monitoring system detected an unusual reaction in coastal Jiang Province in China.
• Jonathan and the researchers examined the results, and Jonathan concluded that China might have mastered controlled nuclear fusion ignition technology.

Jonathan warned the White House that a detected ignition reaction suggested Eagle Country’s rival had achieved stable controlled nuclear fusion, while Chinese officials prepared to investigate the reaction near Chen Village. Chen Jue completed shattering the atomic vacuum in his brain, but his body still lacked enough energy and remained dangerously hot.

• Jonathan called the White House and reported that the Atomic Energy Research Center had detected an unusual nuclear ignition reaction that might signal stable controlled fusion.
• The White House asked Jonathan to bring a detailed report and said it would arrange a meeting with the president and Energy Department Director George.
• Chinese officials, already aware of the unusual transcendent human near Chen Village, followed nuclear response procedures and sent Deputy Director Liu Chengdong by transport plane.
• Chen Jue shattered the last atomic vacuum in his brain and paused his cultivation after lightning energy entered his body.
• Chen Jue realized the lightning could not fill the vast energy deficit in his body, then leaped from Leigong Peak into Chen Village Reservoir to cool down.