Chapter Summaries

Liu Guang assigned the group tasks to prepare for a plan involving a World God, including seeking ways to restrain one and gathering Star Source. The chapter ended with Luolin offering to assemble up to three trillion Star Source for Liu Guang.

• Old Feis agreed to approach Mad Tiger because his ability let him escape into Subspace if a fight broke out.
• Liu Guang asked Luolin to find out whether anything could harm a World God, and Luolin contacted his company colleagues.
• Liu Guang sent Calamity to visit every location listed in the intelligence.
• Liu Guang told Lu Xiao to try borrowing Star Source from Nuan Meng and said he would contact Yilu to borrow some as well.
• Luolin reported that few things could harm a World God, but some could restrain one temporarily, and offered to gather two or three trillion Star Source.

Lu Xiao visited Nuan Meng to borrow star source, and she agreed after asking him to reveal his true appearance and explain the loan. He told her he needed the money to resolve a conflict with the Mother Goddess Elves, leaving the details of his plans concealed.

• Lu Xiao went to Nuan Meng's Dream-Making Studio and asked her to lend him star source.
• Nuan Meng agreed but asked Lu Xiao to remove his disguise so she could see what species he was.
• Lu Xiao revealed that he was human, and Nuan Meng recognized him from the Preliminary Tournament of the Species Ranking Tournament.
• Nuan Meng questioned why Lu Xiao needed money, and he said he needed star source to resolve a conflict with the Mother Goddess Elves.

Lu Xiao borrowed nearly all of Nuan Meng’s savings after agreeing to experience a Dreamscape she had woven. Inside it, he explored a bizarre crop before Nuan Meng approached him.

• Nuan Meng offered Lu Xiao two trillion Star Source, nearly all her savings, after learning he needed money.
• Nuan Meng required Lu Xiao to experience one of her Dreamscapes as a condition of the loan, and he agreed.
• Nuan Meng used her Superdream System and Authority to send Lu Xiao into the Dreamscape.
• Lu Xiao found himself in a golden field and discovered its wheat-like stalks bore beans and radishes.
• Nuan Meng appeared on a path, and Lu Xiao noticed her dream appearance looked human before turning his attention back to the strange crop.

Lu Xiao lived through years of ordinary life in Nuan Meng’s dreamscape, farming, working, and starting businesses before returning to her hometown after learning she was going to marry. Nuan Meng ended the dream early, and Lu Xiao left her studio while she watched him go and planned to meet him on Earth.

• Nuan Meng explained that Lu Xiao had to live in the dreamscape for one cosmic year, equivalent to 1,024 Earth years, and he agreed for the promised two trillion Star Source.
• Lu Xiao spent five years farming with Nuan Meng and her family, then moved to Xili, where he lost his startup money and took a job sorting dreamscape copies.
• Lu Xiao quit after receiving Nuan Meng’s letter and money, built a successful business, and then went bankrupt overnight.
• Nuan Meng sent another letter saying she was about to marry, and Lu Xiao returned to her hometown and resumed farming.
• Nuan Meng ended the dreamscape early, and Lu Xiao left her Gate-Making Studio with the black-and-gold chip.
• Nuan Meng watched Lu Xiao disappear, reflected on his need for a safe haven, and said they would meet again on Earth.

Lu Xiao explained how Nuan Meng had used a dream to test whether he would repay her and to escape pressure from her parents to marry, but he was not angry because he had known it was a dream and eventually woke himself. He then accompanied Calamity to Dark Tide, a nightclub run by the Dark Star Clan, where they entered a private booth and were presented with more than a thousand enslaved beings to choose from.

• Lu Xiao told Calamity that Nuan Meng had used the dream to test his character and repayment intentions, while also seeking a way out of her parents' marriage pressure.
• Lu Xiao said he was not upset because he had known the dream was not real and had eventually woken up, disrupting Nuan Meng's intended ending.
• Calamity invited Lu Xiao to accompany him, and they traveled to a location identified in their intelligence.
• Lu Xiao and Calamity paid to enter Dark Tide, a luxurious nightclub operated by the Dark Star Clan, whose business included selling enslaved beings.
• After paying for a private booth, Lu Xiao and Calamity were shown more than a thousand enslaved beings and began considering whom to choose.

Calamity and Lu Xiao spent lavishly at the Dark Tide nightclub, hoping to draw the attention of its higher-ranking beings. After Calamity staged an angry outburst and claimed he owned a mineral planet, a Dark Star Clan member brought them ten expensive beings from the Holy Celestial Maiden Race.

• Calamity bought more than thirteen hundred deity slaves and ordered food and drinks while he and Lu Xiao searched for a way to attract the Dark Tide's attention.
• Calamity and Lu Xiao forced the slaves to eat the excess food as their spending climbed to ten billion star source.
• One deity slave lost control and wrecked the food, so a Dark Star Clan member executed him and offered Calamity a discount.
• Calamity angrily demanded better merchandise, then said the remaining slaves could work on his mineral planet to demonstrate his supposed wealth.
• A Dark Star Clan member brought Calamity and Lu Xiao ten god-level beings from the Holy Celestial Maiden Race, whose high price usually meant better treatment.

Calamity and Lu Xiao spent Liu Guang’s public funds buying nearly two thousand beings at Dark Tide and other establishments, and Liu Guang organized the captives into an intelligence group called Shadow. The three returned to Dark Tide to target Spiritwood, where a Dark Star Clan team leader revealed that the clan had captured a Great Old One Mother God Elf.

• Calamity spent nearly sixty billion at Dark Tide, buying ten members of the Holy Celestial Human Race and other goods while Lu Xiao gathered information from the captives.
• Lu Xiao learned that two hundred members of the Holy Celestial Human Race had recently arrived and that Dark Star Clan team leaders brought them to buyers for selection.
• Calamity spent all three hundred billion in public funds Liu Guang had allocated, purchasing nearly two thousand beings, including eighteen gods.
• Liu Guang arranged for the captives to become the first members of Shadow and planned to train them.
• Liu Guang, Lu Xiao, and Calamity chose Dark Tide as their main battlefield because Spiritwood visited it whenever he came to the planet, then returned in disguise.
• A Dark Star Clan team leader welcomed Calamity back and revealed that the clan had captured a Great Old One Mother God Elf, exciting Calamity.

Liu Guang learned that the Dark Star Clan had captured a Mother God Elf and paid to meet her, only to discover she was not Yilu. Meanwhile, Yilu and the other Mother God Elves searched the Black Market’s second planet for their missing companion, Serin.

• Liu Guang signaled Calamity to send the Dark Star Clan leader to him, then offered the leader a hundred billion as a tip.
• Liu Guang asked how the Mother God Elf had been captured, and the leader said a Dark Star Clan World God had used an Authority Weapon to control her.
• Liu Guang paid to see the captive Mother God Elf and recognized that she was not Yilu.
• Yilu and her companions searched the Black Market’s second planet for Serin after losing contact with her.
• The Star Chasers’ Law Enforcement Team searched for Serin but found no sign of a struggle.

Liu Guang, Lu Xiao, and Calamity gained the Dark Star Clan team leader’s trust while secretly working to free the Mother God Elf. They identified her vine restraints as a likely living plant and prepared to pass Lu Xiao’s Human Heart Authority to Liu Guang to help bribe it.

• Liu Guang pretended to enjoy the team leader’s hospitality while Lu Xiao and Calamity helped restore the Mother God Elf’s consciousness, suspecting the space was under surveillance.
• The team leader brought Holy Celestial Maiden Race members and other captives for Lu Xiao and Calamity, and Lu Xiao bribed him into treating their group as honored guests of Dark Tide.
• Lu Xiao and his companions made the team leader their unwitting insider by using Instigation to build a closer relationship without making him aware of its influence.
• The group realized the Mother God Elf could not be taken out of Dark Tide and began looking for a way to free her from her living vine restraints.
• Lu Xiao gouged out his left eye, which carried the Human Heart Authority, and had a captive wash it with liquor before handing it to Liu Guang.

Lu Xiao and Liu Guang used a staged drunken spectacle to conceal their role in freeing Serin from her restraints. Serin escaped the Dark Tide before the Dark Star Clan could recapture her, and she set her sights on the three bulls.

• Liu Guang gouged out his eye to use the authority of "Human Heart," then staged a drunken outburst that ended with him crushing his heart and smearing it on Serin.
• Liu Guang returned his eye to Lu Xiao, and the trio left the Dark Tide with the Holy Celestial Human Race merchandise they had received.
• Serin regained her awareness and enough divine power to break free of the vine as Dark Star Clan members arrived to collect her.
• A bribed Dark Star Clan member deflected suspicion from Lu Xiao and his companions while Serin rushed out of the Dark Tide.
• Serin reached the street as the pursuers stopped in the face of an approaching Star Chaser's aura, then recalled the three bulls' life auras and resolved to deal with them.

Serin’s disappearance was explained when Dark Star Clan surveillance showed that she had entered Dark Tide willingly, leaving Morningstar unable to press her accusation. As Morningstar took the humiliated Serin away, they appeared in front of Lu Xiao and his group at the Hotel entrance.

• Serin connected to the Starry Sky Network while the Star Chasers' World God arrived and watched her.
• Morningstar confronted the Star Chasers' World God, then challenged the Dark Star Clan's World God to explain Serin's disappearance.
• The Dark Star Clan's World God showed surveillance footage of Serin entering Dark Tide alone and speaking with its staff.
• Serin denied the footage, but Morningstar and the onlookers saw that she had come of her own accord.
• Morningstar disappeared with Serin in green fluorescence as Lu Xiao and his group reached the Hotel entrance.

After Morningstar and Serin confronted Lu Xiao, Liu Guang, and Calamity, Liu Guang explained that he had intervened to save Serin, and Morningstar concluded that a Rule Controller had likely corrupted her. Morningstar offered Liu Guang a place on the Deliberative Council as her family’s advisor, and he inferred that she wanted his help returning her family to Mother Goddess Star; the chapter ended with him asking to travel with her toward the First Planet after offending the Dark Star Clan.

• Morningstar stripped away the trio’s disguises, and Liu Guang explained how he had saved Serin from the influence that had made her act strangely.
• Serin thanked Liu Guang, and Morningstar asked the three to keep the incident secret.
• Morningstar offered Liu Guang a place on the Deliberative Council as an advisor to her family, but Liu Guang declined at first.
• Morningstar described her family’s influence and military power, and Liu Guang guessed that she wanted him to help bring them back to Mother Goddess Star.
• Liu Guang asked Morningstar to travel with the group toward the First Planet because they had just offended the Dark Star Clan.

Liu Guang explained that the Mother God Elves’ invitation to the Deliberative Council could let a military family extend its influence onto the Mother Goddess Star. He suspected the Clan’s factions were fighting over an Authority that could create a new Rule Controller and leader, leaving their conflict unresolved.

• After Morningstar and Serin left, Liu Guang told Lu Xiao and Calamity that Serin’s family commanded the Mother God Elves’ forces in the Woll Galaxy and wanted a foothold in the Deliberative Council.
• Liu Guang explained that the family could use him as an Outsider to bypass restrictions on its members entering the council, even if he did not cooperate with them.
• Liu Guang said that his entry into the council could open the way for the family’s troops to return to the Mother Goddess Star.
• Liu Guang connected the infighting to the Authority Lu Xiao had discovered, reasoning that whoever obtained it could become a Rule Controller and lead the Clan.
• Liu Guang concluded that the Mother God Elves and the woman who sent them to the Woll Galaxy were the opposing sides, and that collecting the 'life' Authority was likely a pretext.

Lu Xiao and Liu Guang traveled to Second Planet to meet Morningstar before heading to First Planet to buy an item capable of restraining a World God. Kaitlin privately warned Lu Xiao to keep Demon Clan members away from the Succubus Clan and not to team up with the Mother God Elves in the next Species Ranking Tournament.

• Old Feis returned from negotiations with Mad Tiger, who was eager to target the Neutral Faction.
• Serin and Yilu took Lu Xiao and Liu Guang to Second Planet to meet Morningstar, whose attitude toward Liu Guang had grown colder.
• Lu Xiao encountered Kaitlin in the hotel lobby, and the Star Chasers stopped their near-fight.
• Kaitlin visited Lu Xiao privately, asked him to protect Demon Clan members from the Succubus Clan, warned him against teaming up with the Mother God Elves, and said the starry expanse was not so wonderful.

Lu Xiao and Liu Guang weighed Kaitlin’s warnings about Succubi, the Dark Star Clan, and the Starry Sky while preparing to buy an item that could restrict a World God. After borrowing Star Source from Morningstar, they joined the Mother God Elves aboard a warship bound for the newly opened First Planet.

• Lu Xiao wondered why Kaitlin had warned him against Succubi and involvement in the Starry Sky, then decided to leave the questions for Liu Guang.
• Liu Guang returned and told Lu Xiao that Morningstar had tried to draw him into her family through Serin, but Lu Xiao doubted the plan would work on him.
• Lu Xiao told Liu Guang about Kaitlin’s visit, and both men remained concerned by her warning about the Starry Sky.
• Liu Guang borrowed four trillion Star Source from Morningstar, bringing their funds to ten trillion, while Luolin sent them the name and effects of the Whisperer's Cognition.
• When the First Planet opened, Lu Xiao and Liu Guang traveled there with the Mother God Elves, and Morningstar gave each man a ball of emerald-green light.

Lu Xiao and the Mother God Elves arrived on the First Planet for an auction where the Whisperer's Cognition was listed. While they waited in a private box, Lu Xiao decided to stir things up by provoking Yilu.

• Serin explained the rules limiting how tall different levels of life could reveal their original bodies, and Lu Xiao realized Morningstar had protected him and Liu Guang.
• Serin told Lu Xiao that the Mother God Elves were visiting because the Star Chasers had listed the Whisperer's Cognition in an upcoming auction.
• The group arrived at the First Planet and saw Great Old Ones reveal their twisted original bodies as they entered the spaceport and palace.
• A Star Chaser escorted the Mother God Elves to a private box decorated to resemble the Mother Goddess Star, where Serin described the Star Chasers' neutrality and trade in weapons.
• As the group waited for the auction to begin, Lu Xiao turned his attention to Yilu and decided to stir things up.

At the Star Chasers' auction, Morningstar bid aggressively on a potion called Biological Base, which could restructure a living being's innate life sequence. Lu Xiao learned that the potion could turn its user into a higher lifeform, while Morningstar remained determined—and nervous—as the bidding passed a hundred trillion star source.

• Lu Xiao told Yilu that Liu Guang liked her, leaving Yilu flustered and Serin confused while Liu Guang resented the added trouble.
• The Star Chasers' auction began, and Lu Xiao's group waited through the earlier lots until Biological Base appeared.
• Morningstar immediately bid ten trillion star source for the potion, and the price quickly climbed as several bidders competed.
• Lu Xiao asked the Omniscient Mirror what restructuring a life sequence meant and learned that it could free a being from its innate authority and transform it into a higher lifeform.
• The bidding passed a hundred trillion star source, with three parties still competing as Morningstar continued to raise her bids despite her nerves.

Morningstar faced a bidding war for the “Biological Base” potion against the Zerg and the Horned Lizard Race, whose World God was raising the price to spite her. With the price nearing her 170 trillion star source budget, Liu Guang proposed a bidding strategy to make the Horned Lizard Race believe she had lost interest.

• The Horned Lizard Race World God Amana kept raising the price to antagonize Morningstar, an old enemy of the Mother Goddess Elves.
• Serin explained to Lu Xiao that the Horned Lizard Race and the Mother Goddess Elves had become bitter rivals after the elves rejected their marriage alliance proposals.
• The Zerg withdrew from bidding as the price climbed past 160 trillion, leaving Morningstar worried she would have to use her clan’s resources.
• Liu Guang learned that Morningstar’s budget was around 170 trillion and told her to wait almost two and a half minutes before each bid, raising the price by only 100 million star source to signal that she no longer wanted the potion.

Morningstar won the auction for the Biological Base after using Liu Guang’s advice to hide how badly she wanted it. As Lu Xiao learned more about the Mother Goddess Elves and the universe’s Rule Controllers, he began to understand the forces shaping the universe.

• Liu Guang advised Morningstar to bid less often, and she outlasted Amana as the price for the Biological Base rose past a hundred and sixty trillion.
• Morningstar thanked Liu Guang for helping her win, then explained that she had never needed to consider a budget before.
• Over two days of auctioning, Lu Xiao and Liu Guang watched more than a thousand items go under the hammer while Lu Xiao questioned Serin about the Mother Goddess Elves.
• Serin told Lu Xiao that Mother mainly served as a deterrent and that the Rule Controllers avoided intervening because it could draw every other Controller into conflict.
• Serin explained that Life and Death were siblings born alongside Time, while Technology had risen to become a supreme power and inspired species across the universe to pursue it.
• Lu Xiao compared the universe’s power structure to a decaying company, where Rule Controllers held the paths to advancement and other species were left with limited options.

Lu Xiao questioned Serin about the Mother Goddess Elves and learned that Morningstar belonged to the Ji Family, which controlled the Woll Galaxy’s military. He and Liu Guang misjudged the Ji Family’s internal position and Morningstar’s motives, while Morningstar valued Liu Guang’s insight and sought to keep him close.

• Lu Xiao asked Serin about the Mother Goddess Elves, and she answered only when Morningstar allowed her to.
• Serin revealed that Morningstar’s full name was Ji Morningstar and that the Ji Family had risen to become the Third Family by controlling the Woll Galaxy’s military.
• Lu Xiao considered how a partnership with the Ji Family could help Liu Guang work with the Mother Goddess Elves, since the family controlled their military.
• Lu Xiao reflected that he and Liu Guang failed to understand why the Ji Family ranked only third despite its military power.
• Morningstar had taken notice of Liu Guang after he advised Yilu and later showed broad vision during Serin’s abduction.
• Morningstar had used Serin in an attempt to bind Liu Guang to the Ji Family and had lent him four trillion Star Source without asking for a deal.