Chapter Summaries

Chen Jue asked Li Wei and Li Xiang to teach him Supreme Ultimate Fist in exchange for guidance on their Elixir Way practice, and the two agreed. As Chen Jue began training with Li Wei, pushing hands rapidly increased his Supreme Ultimate Fist Stake Training proficiency.

• Li Wei demonstrated how to bounce and catch the 108-jin Lead-Mercury Ball using Supreme Ultimate Fist, impressing Chen Jue with his mastery of hard and soft strength.
• Chen Jue asked Li Wei and Li Xiang to teach him Supreme Ultimate Fist, offering to guide their practice of Embracing the Elixir because he had formed a Golden Elixir.
• Li Wei agreed to the exchange and invited Chen Jue and Li Xiang to stay at the villa and train with him.
• Chen Jue demonstrated his Dragon-Tiger Union posture, while Li Wei assessed his skill and proposed practicing pushing hands to refine his Hidden Strength.
• Chen Jue joined palms with Li Wei and discovered that his Supreme Ultimate Fist Stake Training proficiency was rising rapidly.

Chen Jue learned the hidden-softness variations of Tai Chi push hands from Li Wei, then demonstrated his Boat Boxing Eight Immortals Stance in a feat that stunned Li Wei and Li Xiang. The chapter left Chen Jue standing steadily atop the rim of the water vat as the two martial brothers watched in disbelief.

• Chen Jue practiced Tai Chi push hands with Li Wei and quickly comprehended the hidden-softness force, greatly increasing his Supreme Ultimate Fist Stake Training proficiency.
• Li Wei ended the practice and praised Chen Jue’s stamina, while Li Xiang marveled at his lack of fatigue.
• Chen Jue offered to demonstrate the Boat Boxing Eight Immortals Stance and asked Li Wei for permission to use the courtyard’s water vat.
• Chen Jue lifted the water-filled vat above his head, astonishing Li Wei and Li Xiang with his strength.
• Chen Jue emptied the vat into the waterfall pool, set it down, and stood on its rim while practicing the Eight Immortals Stance without making it move.

Chen Jue demonstrated the Eight Immortals Stance for Li Xiang, who impressed him with Baji spear work before teaching him the Cloak Hammer Technique. Chen Jue learned the basic hammer movements and discovered that the technique had appeared on his Attribute Panel as a new skill.

• Chen Jue performed the Drunken Eight Immortals Stance on a water jar, earning Li Xiang's praise.
• Li Xiang demonstrated Baji Spear Technique and balanced a heavy water jar on his spear tip.
• Chen Jue chose to learn hammer technique, and Li Xiang demonstrated the eight-move Cloak Hammer Technique.
• Chen Jue practiced with the War-Drum Urn-Gold Hammers while Li Xiang corrected his movements.
• Chen Jue saw [Eight-Style Cloak Hammer Technique Level 0 (5/100)] on his Attribute Panel and wondered which activities could become skills.

Chen Jue spent three days exchanging martial arts with Li Wei and Li Xiang, advancing his hammer technique and Supreme Ultimate Fist until he reached Transforming Strength. The three grandmasters parted ways when family and work obligations called them back to their lives, and Chen Jue resumed his journey.

• Chen Jue learned the Eight-Style Cloak Hammer Technique from Li Xiang and advanced it to Level 1, then joked with Li Wei and Li Xiang about Li Wei’s skill with a chef’s cleaver.
• Chen Jue, Li Wei, and Li Xiang spent three days discussing and testing fist techniques, weapons, and Daoist Internal Alchemy, benefiting from one another’s experience.
• Chen Jue perfected the Eight-Style Cloak Hammer Technique to Level 3 and awakened the finishing move Cloak Chaos Hammers.
• Chen Jue advanced his Supreme Ultimate Fist Stake Training and Tai Chi Thirteen Stances to Level 5, mastered Hidden Strength Soft Attack, and reached the realm of a Transforming Strength grandmaster.
• Li Xiang refined his Bagua Stake Training through Chen Jue’s Eight Immortals Stance, while Li Wei deepened his understanding of Planting the Golden Lotus in Fire.
• Li Xiang and Li Wei returned home and to work after being called back by their obligations, while Chen Jue packed his belongings and continued his journey.

Chen Jue traveled from Cangzhou to Shaolin Temple, where he recognized monks practicing Heart-Mind Boxing’s wheat-cutting stance. He met Master Jiande, who identified Chen Jue as an accomplished cultivator, and Chen Jue suspected the monk possessed Buddhism’s heavenly eye power.

• Chen Jue walked southwest from Cangzhou, visiting cities and sampling their food and local customs along the way.
• After nearly a week, Chen Jue reached Shaolin Temple and toured its commercialized grounds and martial arts demonstrations.
• Chen Jue went behind the temple and saw young monks harvesting wheat with movements that revealed the wheat-cutting stance of Heart-Mind Boxing.
• Master Jiande introduced himself, confirmed the monks were practicing the stance, and recognized Chen Jue as a Daoist cultivator who had formed a golden elixir.
• Chen Jue introduced himself as a practitioner of the Boat Boxing lineage and concluded that Master Jiande might possess the Buddhist heavenly eye power.

Chen Jue visited Master Jiande’s mountaintop temple, where he saw the monks combine farming with Heart-Mind Boxing practice. After Jiande asked to experience Chen Jue’s Tathagata-like physical cultivation, the two prepared to exchange martial arts.

• Master Jiande recognized Chen Jue and invited him to watch the young monks work the fields.
• Chen Jue recognized the monks’ harvesting and hoeing as Heart-Mind Boxing stances practiced through farming.
• Master Jiande explained that the monks balanced strenuous labor with Buddhist study to temper Heart-Mind Boxing’s aggression.
• Master Jiande invited Chen Jue to exchange moves so he could address his doubts about Chen Jue’s physical realm.
• Master Jiande took up Heart-Mind Boxing’s opening stance, and Chen Jue answered with Supreme Ultimate Fist’s Lazy Tying the Coat stance.

Chen Jue sparred with Master Jiande on a cliff and pulled him back from the brink, prompting Jiande to attain sudden enlightenment and form a śarīra. After discussing Buddhist teachings and cultivation at the Stone Temple, Chen Jue left Shaolin at night with new insights.

• Master Jiande attacked Chen Jue with Heart-Mind Boxing, and Chen Jue countered with Supreme Ultimate Fist, breaking through Jiande’s stance and sending him toward the cliff’s edge.
• Chen Jue caught Master Jiande by the shoulder and pulled him back from falling, whereupon Jiande entered meditation and experienced sudden enlightenment.
• Master Jiande’s qi and blood gathered inward as he underwent a spiritual transformation and attained the Arhat Fruit Rank, forming a śarīra.
• Master Jiande thanked Chen Jue and offered to repay him by sharing Buddhist teachings and Zen principles at the Stone Temple.
• Chen Jue and Master Jiande discussed Buddhism and cultivation into the night, and Chen Jue then left the mountain behind Shaolin Temple.

Chen Jue reached Mount Wudang and met Daoist Liu Shiqing, who brought him to meet a martial uncle practicing the secretly transmitted Golden Toad Skill. The chapter left Chen Jue observing the Daoist’s extraordinary breathing and internal-organ training.

• Chen Jue walked southwest for two days and arrived at the foot of Mount Wudang.
• Chen Jue contacted Liu Shiqing, visited his Daoist temple, and waited while Liu Shiqing led morning observances.
• Chen Jue and Liu Shiqing spoke about martial arts, and Liu Shiqing invited Chen Jue to meet his interested martial uncle.
• Chen Jue followed Liu Shiqing to an orthopedic clinic and heard the martial uncle practicing Golden Toad Skill in its courtyard.
• Chen Jue watched the middle-aged Daoist perform the toad-like breathing exercise and recognized his advanced internal training.

Chen Jue met Huang Shizhen, a Wudang master who ran an orthopedic clinic, and revealed that he had formed a golden elixir. Huang asked to test hands with him, and their exchange ended with Chen Jue overpowering him and injuring his internal organs.

• Liu Shiqing introduced Chen Jue to Huang Shizhen, who recognized him as the man who had defeated Li Xiang and welcomed him to the clinic.
• Huang Shizhen sensed Chen Jue’s unusual fragrance and realized he had formed a golden elixir, a realm Huang had thought nearly impossible to attain.
• Huang Shizhen asked to test hands with Chen Jue, who agreed to exchange strength with him.
• Huang Shizhen used the Golden Toad Skill’s Swallowing the Sun and Moon technique to increase his force, but Chen Jue overwhelmed him and drove his boots into the earth, leaving him with an internal injury.

Chen Jue and Huang Shizhen exchanged techniques, but Huang Shizhen injured his heart and lungs while trying to draw in breath and stimulate his acupoints. Chen Jue treated him with Toad Jade Ointment and Hidden Strength Soft Attack, leaving Huang Shizhen mostly recovered and impressed by Chen Jue’s skill and stamina.

• Huang Shizhen coughed up blood and sank deep footprints into the courtyard earth after his exchange with Chen Jue.
• Liu Shiqing hurried to help, and Huang Shizhen asked him to fetch Toad Jade Ointment and medicinal liniment.
• Huang Shizhen explained that he had injured his heart and lungs but expected to recover with treatment and rest.
• Chen Jue offered to apply the medicine using Hidden Strength Soft Attack, and Huang Shizhen accepted.
• Chen Jue treated Huang Shizhen for more than ten minutes until he spat out bloody phlegm and felt much better.
• Huang Shizhen praised Chen Jue’s gentle, sustained Hidden Strength and marveled at his stamina.

Chen Jue studied medicine at Huang Shizhen’s clinic while exchanging Daoist and martial arts knowledge with him and Liu Shiqing. After learning that Huang Shizhen’s Golden Elixir Uncle-Master Luo was still alive on Mount Hua, Chen Jue gained a clearer sense of his own body and cultivation.

• Chen Jue asked Huang Shizhen to let him observe and learn medicine at the orthopedic clinic, and Huang Shizhen agreed.
• Huang Shizhen told Chen Jue that his Uncle-Master Luo was a living Golden Elixir adept cultivating in seclusion on Mount Hua, and offered to introduce them.
• Chen Jue spent five days studying Huang Shizhen’s examinations, treatments, bone-setting, and acupuncture while discussing Daoist cultivation with him.
• Chen Jue taught Huang Shizhen Elixir Way cultivation methods, while Huang Shizhen taught Chen Jue the Golden Toad Skill’s secret breath-swallowing method.
• Chen Jue’s study of anatomy and cultivation gave him a faint sense of inner sight, allowing him to roughly visualize parts of his body as he circulated qi and blood.

After reaching Mount Hua, Chen Jue climbed the mountain on foot and watched a lively fortune-teller entertain tourists and sell Eight-Treasure Tea. When the crowd thinned, Chen Jue sat down at the old man’s stall and asked him for a reading.

• Chen Jue bought new hiking boots in Huayin, sampled local food, and rested before visiting Mount Hua.
• Chen Jue climbed Mount Hua on foot, crossed the South Heaven Plank Walk, and examined the inscription at Quanzhen Rock.
• An old fortune-teller mocked a tour guide’s explanation of the inscription and drew tourists to his stall with face readings and jokes.
• The old man claimed to be eighty-six, gave cheeky health advice, and sold a young tourist three boxes of Eight-Treasure Tea for more than its online price.
• Chen Jue watched the old man’s sales pitch, then sat at his stall and asked for a reading.

Chen Jue sought Senior Luo’s guidance at Quanzhen Rock, where the old diviner read his hands and cast several divinations. Senior Luo discovered that Chen Jue’s acquired fate was unpredictable because his Dao heart and path remained unsettled.

• Chen Jue waited for Senior Luo to return and asked him to clarify the doubts troubling his cultivation.
• Senior Luo read Chen Jue’s palms, describing his difficult early life and deducing that his name had been changed from Chen Jue meaning “awakening” to Chen Jue meaning “resolve.”
• Senior Luo cast a divination and first declared Chen Jue a baleful lone star, then found that repeated readings shifted unpredictably between auspicious and ominous signs.
• Senior Luo concluded that Chen Jue had borrowed the false to cultivate the true without yet comprehending his own Dao, leaving his nature unsettled and his future impossible to discern.

Chen Jue received guidance from Old Luo on seeking his own Dao, then learned the Hidden Dragon Sleeping Elixir Skill and practiced it overnight. After reaching Level 1, he left Huayin and resumed walking toward the Western Capital.

• Old Luo told Chen Jue that each person had to seek their own Dao and explained why he did not follow the Quanzhen rules and precepts.
• Chen Jue shared how he had achieved Core Formation through the Dragon-Tiger Union, and he and Old Luo exchanged contact details.
• Old Luo charged Chen Jue 168 yuan for their discussion, but Chen Jue transferred 250 yuan, prompting Old Luo to shout after him as he descended Mount Hua.
• Chen Jue asked Old Luo for materials on the Hidden Dragon Sleeping Elixir Skill, and Old Luo sent him a version while warning him to stop if anything felt wrong.
• Chen Jue practiced the skill in his hotel bed, gained proficiency as he slept, and reached Level 1 by morning.
• After checking out and eating Broad Knife Noodles, Chen Jue set off on foot toward the Western Capital.

After leaving Mount Hua, Chen Jue traveled west, practiced the Hidden Dragon Sleeping Elixir Skill, and explored the Western Capital’s landmarks and food. He then reached Hezhou ahead of Zhou Anping’s wedding and found his old dormmate working at a university food stall with his future wife.

• Chen Jue quickly raised the Hidden Dragon Sleeping Elixir Skill to Level 1 and found that practicing it improved his rest and energy.
• Chen Jue explored the Western Capital, sampled local food, and sensed that the mercury beneath the First Emperor's Mausoleum resembled a great lead-and-mercury elixir.
• Chen Jue left the Western Capital and walked southwest toward Fog City after realizing Zhou Anping’s wedding was a week away.
• Chen Jue reached Hezhou on November 3 and found Zhou Anping and his future wife serving students at a food stall outside a university.
• Chen Jue greeted Zhou Anping by ordering chicken wishbones and jokingly asking for them to be delivered to Room 348.

Chen Jue reunited with his college roommates in Hezhou for Zhou Anping’s wedding and reflected on their changing lives. A song and the sight of three rivers converging helped him understand that his Dao lay in ordinary life and that Quanzhen meant finding truth in the plain and simple.

• Chen Jue visited Zhou Anping’s fried chicken stall, heard about his work and upcoming wedding, and spent the night at a nearby hotel.
• Zhou Anping took Chen Jue around Hezhou for breakfast, and Chen Jue later reunited with Wang Biao, Cheng Wei, Jiang Fan, and Huang Zhe.
• Chen Jue’s roommates attended Zhou Anping’s wedding, where they teased him as the only bachelor and noticed how different he looked from their college days.
• At Wenfeng Ancient Street, Chen Jue watched the Jialing, Fu, and Qu Rivers converge and reflected on how their currents resembled the course of life.
• After hearing an old martial arts theme song, Chen Jue recalled the people he had met during his journey and realized that his Dao was hidden in ordinary life and that the plain and simple was true.

After comprehending the Dao at the confluence of three rivers, Chen Jue gained the [Immortal in the Mortal World] status and followed clues from a martial artist to Dragon Pool Bay. The woman asked whether the Tianchen Group had sent him.

• Chen Jue achieved enlightenment at the river confluence, gained the [Immortal in the Mortal World] status, and returned to the hotel for the wedding banquet.
• Chen Jue practiced the Sleeping Dragon Elixir-Sleeping Art overnight, then visited the Fu River and heard someone practicing martial arts in a nearby park.
• Chen Jue saw a spirited woman practicing Xingyi Dragon Form, but she hurried away on a bus when he tried to speak to her.
• Chen Jue recognized Lin Tianchen's bodyguard in a passing Mercedes-Benz and hired a taxi to pursue it, then deduced the woman’s bus route when the vehicle disappeared.
• Chen Jue found the woman at the Dashi Township bus terminal and followed her into the mountains to Dragon Pool Bay.
• The woman told Chen Jue the pool’s flood-dragon legend and asked whether the Tianchen Group had sent him.

Chen Jue met Linglong, an Xingyi Dragon Form practitioner who had formed a martial Golden Elixir, and they cleared up their suspicions and began exchanging insights. Lin Tianchen and John arrived to recruit Linglong with a mysterious crystal, but she refused, and Chen Jue approached after sensing Primordial Qi from the object.

• Chen Jue introduced himself to Linglong, who recognized his Mortal World True Immortal foundation, and she revealed her mastery of the Xingyi Dragon Form and martial Golden Elixir.
• Linglong explained that she had avoided Chen Jue because someone had been harassing her, and the two began discussing the Dao.
• Linglong sensed her pursuers, went to meet Lin Tianchen and John, and learned that the Extreme Sports Association had commissioned the search for her.
• John showed Linglong a sealed tube containing a crystal that he claimed held the secret of eternal life and offered it as an inducement to join the association.
• Linglong rejected the offer and expressed disgust with John and Lin Tianchen, while Chen Jue came around the bend after sensing Primordial Qi from the crystal.

Chen Jue confronted Lin Tianchen over the investigation of his room and swiftly defeated Lin Tianchen’s bodyguards and Lin Tianchen himself. John kept his device, while Chen Jue stood victorious beside the mountain road.

• Chen Jue emerged after sensing primordial qi from the device John carried, but John refused to lend it to him.
• Chen Jue asked Lin Tianchen whether he had searched Chen Jue’s room and investigated him, and Lin Tianchen denied it and ordered his bodyguards to drive Chen Jue away.
• Chen Jue slapped the four bodyguards unconscious as Lin Tianchen and John watched.
• Lin Tianchen attacked Chen Jue with Snake-Form Hidden Strength, but Chen Jue deflected his strikes and knocked him unconscious with a punch.

Chen Jue and Linglong left Dragon Pool Bay after she incapacitated Lin Tianchen, then traveled to her home in the mountains. By a stream, Linglong explained that she had crippled her former senior brother because he had repeatedly plotted against her.

• John offered Chen Jue a metal tube and a business card, inviting him to visit the Extreme Sports Association and learn about immortality.
• Lin Tianchen regained consciousness and accused Chen Jue of being stronger than he expected, but Linglong struck his forehead and left him unconscious again.
• Linglong told John to handle the injured men, then left Dragon Pool Bay with Chen Jue to continue their discussion elsewhere.
• John summoned a cleanup team to deal with the men and contacted his president to report meeting Chen Jue.
• Linglong brought Chen Jue to an orchard farmhouse, where an old woman mistook him for her boyfriend.
• By a stream, Linglong told Chen Jue that Lin Tianchen had secretly tried to harm her and that she had left him permanently impaired rather than killed him.