Recaps

Wu Youren killed Salim by burying him alive with a Quicksand Spell and parasitic wasps, then struggled to conceal the sudden surge in his power. After returning to camp and spending two more days clearing Weird Qi, he faced questions from the Court of State Ceremonial about Salim’s disappearance.

• Wu Youren and Little Snake used parasitic wasps and a Quicksand Spell to bury Salim alive, while Chen Quanxu helped with the attack.
• Wu Youren felt his power surge as he headed back to camp, destroyed his wristwatch, and told Instructor Hong he had hunted a Weird Race creature.
• Instructor Hong questioned Wu Youren about his aura and whereabouts, then arranged for the group to clear Weird Qi for two more days before returning to Red Pine.
• Wu Youren’s group cleared seven clusters of Weird Qi and obtained two more crystals before returning to Red Pine and entering quarantine.
• Court of State Ceremonial Knights arrived during the group’s dinner and named Wu Youren a prime suspect in Salim’s disappearance, while Ranxue and Manna defended him.

Wu Youren resisted the Court of State Ceremonial’s new efforts to manage him, then left Red Pine to cultivate in the Rust Zone as his Daoist aura neared a breakthrough. He emerged three days later transformed but ravenously hungry, with Little Ha missing and his supplies exhausted, and began searching for someone to rob.

• Daiqisi and the others rejected the Court of State Ceremonial’s accusations and defended Wu Youren, while a visiting group from Duke Heng’s household questioned them about Namuzha’s death.
• Wu Youren spotted Shi Linyuan and Lei Lixing among the spectators at a clash between Liang and barbarian squads, and the little earth snake left his wrist guard that night.
• Wu Youren returned to Red Pine, tended the greenhouse, and dismissed Talis when she arrived as his new liaison from the Office of Protocol.
• Wu Youren left Red Pine for the Rust Zone to cultivate, prepared a remote house with food and defenses, and entered deep cultivation with Little Ha beside him.
• Wu Youren woke three days later with a transformed body and extreme hunger, discovered that Little Ha had eaten its food and disappeared, and repeatedly ate and suffered cramps as he recovered.
• After exhausting his food supplies, Wu Youren searched the desolate Rust Zone for someone to rob and considered turning highway robber.

Wu Youren returned to Red Pine after reaching Qi Refining and learned that an immortal cultivator’s memories had revealed a path forward. When Instructor Hong invited him on a paid mountain mission, he refused because it might entangle him in the conflict between the two major camps, leaving Liu Jingming to marvel that Wu Youren could afford to say no.

• Wu Youren robbed a convoy for martial practitioners’ food, recognized Huo Laer and others from Earl Shengming’s Residence, and let them go after warning them to keep quiet.
• Wu Youren returned to Red Pine, found Liu Jingming in his room, and learned that Instructor Daiqisi and Talis had come looking for him.
• Wu Youren realized that an immortal cultivator’s memories had helped him enter Qi Refining and understand his cultivation path.
• Wu Youren warned Liu Jingming to keep his distance from Talis, then declined Manna’s invitation to visit Bellflower Mountain because he did not want to see the New Army again.
• Instructor Hong offered Wu Youren a paid mountain mission, but he declined after learning it might involve the conflict between the two major camps.
• Manna accepted Wu Youren’s reasoning that people from Liang could not avoid taking sides, and Liu Jingming remarked that Wu Youren was now in a position to say no.

Wu Youren left Red Pine to test his ideas in the wilderness, evaded Talis’s attempt to escort him, and advanced toward the mountains before turning back. On his return, he confronted Sister Hua and her companions over her unpaid debt, leaving a standoff poised to begin.

• Daiqisi teased Cynthia while feeding Little Ha, and Wu Youren sensed a terrifying presence when he tried climbing over the Martial Academy wall again.
• Wu Youren asked Hong Da for permission to leave Red Pine, and she charged him three thousand silver dollars in tax before he set out with supplies and weapons.
• Talis and her companions caught up with Wu Youren, but he warned them off and continued toward the mountains while they followed at a distance.
• Wu Youren camped cautiously, buried supply caches near the mountain foothills, then decided the time was not right to approach the ridge and headed back.
• Sister Hua ordered her companions to leave Wu Youren alone, but he fired a warning shot and confronted her about the debt she owed him.

Wu Youren stayed away from Red Pine, confronted people who tested him, and learned that Hong Da had warned him not to get involved in Tianjing. While hunting anomalies in the Rust Zone, he discovered that Little Ha’s strange dropping attracted Weird Qi, then reunited with Chen Quanxu, who questioned his tactics.

• Sister Hua and the other Knights identified Wu Youren and agreed to stay away from him after he fired a shot at them.
• Wu Youren camped outside the quarantine site, threatened a burly man who tried to take his food, and turned down an offer to advise the hereditary nobility.
• Ranxue visited Wu Youren, and Hong Da warned him to stick to killing anomalies and avoid getting involved in Tianjing.
• Wu Youren traveled to the Rust Zone, where Little Ha produced a strange dropping that attracted Weird Qi when Wu Youren opened its pouch.
• Wu Youren fled the area and moved his camp, then encountered Chen Quanxu, who noted that Wu Youren had advanced and questioned why he had waited at the isolation point.

Wu Youren and Chen Quanxu compared what they knew about Ability Users and weird items, then agreed to test the mysterious item Little Ha had produced by luring Weirds into a wasteland battle. Wu Youren was still fighting when the chapter ended, while several observers watched from a distance.

• Wu Youren told Chen Quanxu that he had obtained Ability User materials from Hong Da, and they exchanged what they knew about supernatural systems and weird items.
• Chen Quanxu identified the honeycombed pale blue-green item as a Marching Stone and learned Wu Youren knew Storage Eagles could produce them.
• Wu Youren showed Chen Quanxu the egg-shaped item Little Ha had produced, and Chen Quanxu warned him not to treat it as the Refinement and Analysis Pearl sought by the Hall of Extraordinary Masters.
• Chen Quanxu lured a huge mass of Weird Qi into the wasteland, and Wu Youren fought it with his saber while collecting Weird items.
• Wu Youren killed several Knight Weirds and thinned the mass of Weird Qi as three distant observers watched and considered moving in.

Wu Youren and Chen Quanxu hunted Weirds around the Rust Zone, collected Weird objects, and hid supplies while Wu Youren’s unusual cultivation gains continued. After Wu Youren returned to the quarantine checkpoint, the guard captain came looking for him, and a group from Jin Garden approached the gathering where he was eating with Red Pine instructors.

• A greedy martial artist approached Wu Youren’s battle, but fled after Wu Youren’s Knight sonic attack revealed his strength; Wu Youren then escaped the area.
• Wu Youren and Chen Quanxu buried supplies near the mountain and hunted Weirds in the wasteland and Rust District, gathering several Weird objects as Chen Quanxu watched over him.
• Wu Youren admitted that killing Weird objects improved his cultivation, and he lent Chen Quanxu the tangerine seed before returning to the quarantine checkpoint.
• Manna and Daiqisi met Wu Youren at the checkpoint, where he paid Hong Da’s tax and joined them for a meal with Luo Xi and other Red Pine instructors.
• Wu Youren learned that the guard captain had come looking for him, while the guard captain received a screenshot of Liu Jingming’s message and set out to find Wu Youren.
• Three vehicles arrived near Wu Youren’s gathering, and Luo Xi stood up to demand that their occupants approach without their headlights on.

Wu Youren confronted Jin’s chief guard, rejected his demand to go to Suotu, and warned him not to interfere in his life. After returning to Red Pine, Wu Youren resumed dealing with Liu Jingming, but the chief guard appeared again as the chapter ended.

• Jin’s chief guard approached Wu Youren at dinner and asked him to return to Jin Garden and accompany him to Suotu, but Wu Youren stayed silent and refused.
• Wu Youren challenged the chief guard over the neglect he had suffered in Jin Garden and threatened to expose sensitive information if the man kept pressuring him.
• The chief guard probed Wu Youren about Chen Quanxu, Little Ha, and the tax-exemption proposal, then left after Wu Youren told him not to bother him.
• Wu Youren told the Red Pine instructors that he had refused to join the Suotu investigation, citing the danger and their limited strength.
• After quarantine, Wu Youren returned to Red Pine, collected the proceeds from his crystal, and warned Liu Jingming not to use his wristwatch for confidential matters.
• The chief guard appeared at a distance while Wu Youren and Liu Jingming were talking.

Wu Youren rejected the Duke of Wei's concubine-born son's offer of investment unless it included ten march stones, while the chief guard tried to persuade him to cooperate. Their discussion revealed the existence of legacy weapons and deepened Wu Youren's despair about the power that could keep the hostages trapped; the chief guard then offered information about the relevant power levels.

• The chief guard asked to speak with Wu Youren alone and urged him to consider working together to prevent Jin and Liang from fighting again.
• Wu Youren demanded ten march stones as the price of accepting the chief guard's investment, but the chief guard said he had none.
• The chief guard offered intelligence and material assistance, while Wu Youren warned him that Red Pine might have people capable of overhearing them.
• The chief guard revealed that Jin had a legacy weapon too and explained that only a narrow circle could receive its protection.
• Wu Youren suspected that escaping the hostages' predicament would require power beyond Foundation Establishment, and the chief guard offered information about the various power levels.

Wu Youren negotiated an information-sharing arrangement with the guard captain, then set out into the wilderness and met Chen Quanxu in the Rust Zone. After Wu Youren recounted the guard captain’s visit, Chen Quanxu said the captain had been truthful and hinted that Wu Youren had once caused him considerable trouble.

• Wu Youren agreed to consider working with the guard captain, who gave him a wristwatch for secure communication and promised not to visit again.
• The guard captain spared Liu Jingming from joining the mountain trip, and Wu Youren left Red Pine the next morning after selling Manna a golden-yellow weird object.
• Wu Youren traveled into the wilderness, handled several minor threats, and met the scops owl, which had brought him a motorcycle and asked him to dispose of a corpse.
• Wu Youren told Chen Quanxu that the guard captain, Hao Wei, had visited and discussed Chen Quanxu with him.
• After hearing the details, Chen Quanxu said Hao Wei had broadly been truthful and remarked that Wu Youren had put him through the wringer.

Wu Youren and Chen Quanxu discussed the risks of trusting powerful people before Chen gave him a silent motorcycle and brought him to the wasteland to hunt weird entities. After Chen lured a huge horde toward Wu Youren, he took Little Ha away, leaving Wu Youren to face the approaching monsters alone.

• Chen Quanxu and Wu Youren discussed a calculating guard captain and agreed they should learn from his shamelessness without entrusting him with anything.
• Chen Quanxu offered Wu Youren a silent motorcycle, and Wu tested it before riding to the wasteland with supplies.
• Wu Youren hid in a cave during the day, then waited in the wasteland at night for Scops Owl to lure monsters toward him.
• After a commotion and gunfire on a distant ridge, Scops Owl returned and told Wu Youren to fight the horde while he carried Little Ha away.
• Wu Youren drew his saber as a vast tide of Weird Qi approached, revealing more than a hundred gray globes containing human body parts.

Wu Youren fought through a vast swarm of Corpse Weirds, burning through his internal breath while collecting Weird objects and crystals. When an enormous icy hand appeared amid his traps and explosions, he slashed at it as it reached for him.

• Wu Youren discovered that the Weird Qi contained a vanguard of Knight Corpse Weirds and began cutting them down with his saber.
• Wu Youren released his fire-element internal breath to kill the approaching Weirds, but realized that fighting at that intensity drained him faster than he could replenish his strength.
• Wu Youren accidentally shattered a crystal, releasing energy that stirred the surrounding Weird Race into a frenzy.
• Soldiers at a military outpost noticed Wu Youren's red saber Qi and wondered whether he was the Weird-Hunting Maniac.
• After fighting for nearly an hour and a half, Wu Youren collected twelve Weird objects and crystals and decided he would retreat after ten more minutes.
• Wu Youren detonated his traps as a sudden danger approached, then swung his saber three times at a gigantic icy hand reaching down to seize him.

Wu Youren destroyed the Corpse Weird’s enormous hand, escaped a powerful pursuer, and met Scops Owl at a prepared trap zone. He learned the pursuers were from the Hall of Extraordinary Masters and that their Ability User had been poisoned, so they left without confronting them.

• Wu Youren shattered his saber to destroy the phantom hand, then burned and weakened the black shadow before collecting several strange items.
• Wu Youren escaped on his motorcycle while the pursuer chased him, using explosives that disrupted the pursuer and led him to accuse Wu Youren of using poison.
• Wu Youren reached his trap zone and waited, then began burying the motorcycle when Scops Owl appeared and explained that Little Ha was unconscious in the basement.
• Scops Owl identified the pursuers as an Ability User from the Hall of Extraordinary Masters and a Great Knight bodyguard, then suggested taking them down.
• Wu Youren refused to fight them, and Chen Quanxu explained that the poisoned Ability User and his bodyguard had stopped pursuing them.

Wu Youren recounted killing a Great Knight Weird and gave Chen Quanxu the Weird item Shadow-Splitting Yue, which could prolong Chen Quanxu’s life. After recovering and dividing their remaining loot, Wu Youren discussed replacing his shattered saber and asked Chen Quanxu about the Intelligence Agency.

• Wu Youren told Scops Owl that he had killed the Great Knight Weird and described the battle, including the enormous hand and his shattered saber.
• Chen Quanxu identified the Weird item as Shadow-Splitting Yue and said it could strengthen his ability to control people and beasts, helping prolong his life.
• Wu Youren gave Shadow-Splitting Yue to Chen Quanxu, and they agreed to divide the other Weird items and crystals after Wu Youren rested.
• Wu Youren woke in the afternoon, and Chen Quanxu took four crystals and one Weird item from the remaining loot.
• Chen Quanxu offered to help find a saber like Wu Youren’s shattered weapon, and Wu Youren asked how familiar he was with the Intelligence Agency.

Wu Youren returned to Tianjing with Scops Owl after they found no Intelligence Agency agent matching Sister Hua and stole a saber. While exploring the city, he was swept into a celebration for a young man’s awakening and ended up entering the family’s courtyard, where he gave two silver dollars and asked them to put down Liu Jingming.

• Wu Youren trained Little Ha while Scops Owl searched three Intelligence Agency locations but found no one matching Sister Hua.
• Wu Youren asked Scops Owl to steal a saber, then escorted him toward Tianjing with Shadow-Splitting Yue.
• After hiding his motorcycle outside the city, Wu Youren slipped past the checkpoint and wandered Tianjing, eating at a roadside stall.
• Wu Youren learned that a family was celebrating their son’s awakening and followed the crowd to their open banquet.
• The middle-aged host insisted that Wu Youren enter the courtyard, where Wu Youren gave two silver dollars and asked them to put down Liu Jingming.

Wu Youren attended an advancement banquet under the name Liu Jingming, hoping to gather information, but Little Ha drew attention and guests connected him to the dispute over Ailin. He tried to leave after Great Liang Martial Academy arrived, only to be hailed by people in off-road vehicles.

• Wu Youren gave two silver dollars and sat apart from the other guests, listening to rumors about the newly awakened Ability User while guests crowded around Little Ha.
• A Knight invited Wu Youren into the building after recognizing him, and Wu Youren tried to refuse before being escorted inside.
• Two female martial artists confronted Wu Youren about Ailin and Red Pine, and he apologized while insisting he had only come to look around.
• When Great Liang Martial Academy arrived, Wu Youren slipped outside and tried to leave through the courtyard gate, claiming his wristwatch was missing.
• Two off-road vehicles approached Wu Youren before he had left the street, and someone called for the young man with the bird to stay.

After evading a pursuit in Tianjing, Wu Youren left the city with Little Ha and later returned to the quarantine post as winter shortages caused tensions to rise. When other knight apprentices tried to seize his supplies, Red Pine instructors and Daiqisi intervened, and Daiqisi pulled him aside to talk.

• Wu Youren escaped the two people searching for him in Tianjing, left the city with Little Ha, and met Chen Quanxu at the grove before returning to the Rust Zone with Scops Owl.
• Wu Youren spent several days dealing with scattered Weird Qi in the wasteland, then returned to the quarantine post when the year's first snowfall brought crowds and shortages.
• Two knight apprentices provoked Wu Youren over the meat he fed Little Ha, and he wounded them when they tried to strike him.
• Manna, Luo Xi, and Kenpa arrived to defend Wu Youren, while the military representative proposed settling the dispute with medicine and compensation.
• Daiqisi arrived and demanded that the troublemakers compensate Wu Youren, but their knights left without agreeing to pay.
• Daiqisi thanked Wu Youren for returning, then pulled him aside to talk.

Wu Youren returned with two Weird items and explained his trip to Tianjing to Red Pine’s instructors, who warned him that the city’s New Army had reason to suspect him after the Weird Qi blockade broke. At the quarantine site, Red Pine cut supplies after outsiders refused to compensate Wu Youren, forcing the group that bullied him to turn back under pressure from pursuing vehicles.

• Wu Youren presented two Weird items to the instructors, and Hong Da drove away other Knights’ attempts to probe the goods before letting everyone choose their share.
• Manna and the instructors questioned Wu Youren about Tianjing, and he admitted he had gone to look for mechanism materials and learn Weird-item prices.
• Daiqisi and Ranxue explained that the Weird Qi had broken through the blockade while Wu Youren was in Tianjing, making his presence suspicious to the New Army.
• Red Pine’s food and wound-medicine supplies dwindled at the quarantine site, and its employees said the Academy was short on supplies and outsiders could leave if they disliked it.
• After Red Pine’s people pressured the group that had bullied Wu Youren to leave, the group drove away but turned back when a long line of hostile vehicles followed them.

Wu Youren stayed at Red Pine, tending his greenhouse and quietly selling winter vegetables while worrying that Little Ha’s orange seeds might attract a World-Left Weapon. After learning that His Highness was ill and might be recalled, Wu Youren received an unusually huge surge of experience points and left for the quarantine station, unsure what awaited him.

• Wu Youren declined to join Kenpa and Luo Xi on a mountain expedition and focused on his greenhouse as the snow melted.
• Wu Youren contacted Daiqisi, who arranged to sell his fresh vegetables at the quarantine station at a high price.
• A month later, Liu Jingming told Wu Youren that His Highness was ill and that their group might be recalled.
• Wu Youren dismissed the recall rumor at first, but an enormous stream of experience points arrived that night and continued for hours.
• At dawn, Wu Youren told Liu Jingming he was taking vegetables to the quarantine station and might stay away for a day or two.

Wu Youren evaded trackers by hiding in the Rust Zone while experience points continued to arrive, as the New Army debated how to handle the southern pilot programs. After Jin Garden recalled its hostages and Commander Jeff traced Wu Youren’s communicator, Jeff found him in the snow and questioned why he had come there.

• Wu Youren left the quarantine site, skied toward the Rust Zone, buried his communicator watch, and spent hours obscuring his trail before making a cellar to hide in.
• At the New Army camp, the army commander announced that the Earl Who Pacifies the South had died and asked officers to support the southern pilot programs, but Commander Jeff and the others declined.
• Wu Youren stayed hidden for several days, then read Liu Jingming’s messages that Jin Garden was recalling hostages from the Martial Academies and that Liu Jingming would remain to contact Hostage Wu.
• When Liu Jingming asked why Wu Youren had impersonated him, Wu Youren switched off his watch, realizing it might have exposed his location; Commander Jeff set out to find him.
• Commander Jeff and several Knights reached Wu Youren’s hiding place on skis, and Wu Youren explained that he had mistaken Jeff’s show of force for an enemy attack.
• Jeff asked why Wu Youren had come to the Rust Zone, but Wu Youren instead asked whether Jeff had repaid Hong Da, then made clear that his whereabouts were none of Jeff’s business.

Commander Jeff sought Wu Youren’s advice on creating bottom-up resistance for the New Army’s pilot program, while Hong Da barred Jeff from pressuring the boy until he repaid his debt. Wu Youren proposed spreading money through networks of Knights and Knight Apprentices, leaving Jeff to consider the initial funding needed.

• Wu Youren reminded Jeff that his unpaid debt to Hong Yan harmed his credibility, and Jeff tried to enlist the boy’s help with the pilot program.
• Hong Da intervened from afar and forbade Jeff from making trouble for Wu Youren until he repaid what he owed her.
• Jeff offered Wu Youren a future death-exemption token in exchange for solving two problems, and Wu Youren agreed to answer Jeff’s first question.
• Jeff asked how to create resistance from the bottom up, and Wu Youren proposed secretly distributing money widely to Knights and Knight Apprentices so they could organize.
• Jeff considered the cost and concluded that the plan would require an initial sum of money.

Wu Youren stayed in the Rust Zone after Jeff tried to recruit him with a huge supply of provisions, while Jeff and others continued to court him. Chen Quanxu arrived in an owl’s body, and Wu Youren prepared to go kill Weirds with him as they checked on the orange seed.

• Wu Youren refused Jeff’s demand to go south and asked for a death-exemption token if Jeff came for him again.
• Jeff delivered roughly four thousand jin of supplies, including ammunition and Weird-Exterminating Grenades, while Wu Youren refused the off-road vehicle.
• Wu Youren spent ten days moving and hiding the supplies, and Jeff later told him that he had helped secure another Marching Stone for Hong Da.
• Manna and Daiqisi brought Wu Youren fresh vegetables and told him to contact them if he wanted to kill Weirds.
• Wu Youren woke to find Chen Quanxu in a larger scops owl’s body, and they agreed to go kill Weirds while checking whether the orange seed had produced anything.

Wu Youren learned from Chen Quanxu that World-Left Weapons came from a poorly understood previous human era, then demonstrated his self-taught spellcasting methods. His buried tangerine seed had transformed into a valuable Flawless Crystal, though its origins remained unclear.

• Chen Quanxu explained that World-Left Weapons had once supported both combat and everyday life, and that the Rust Zone declined as they became less effective.
• Chen Quanxu described how little reliable history survived, while Wu Youren asked how many human eras were known.
• Wu Youren formed seals and used spoken sounds to help cast a spell, surprising Chen Quanxu with methods he had devised himself.
• Wu Youren unearthed a metal box containing the tangerine seed, which had turned misty white and crystalline.
• Chen Quanxu identified the transformed seed as a Flawless Crystal and said it was extremely valuable.

Wu Youren and Chen Quanxu discussed the Flawless Crystal and waited to see what would happen to the next orange seed. The next day, barbarians attacked Wu Youren’s camp, and after he escaped on skis, their Great Knight pursued him.

• Wu Youren gave Chen Quanxu the Flawless Crystal, and Chen Quanxu planned to use it sparingly to absorb resentment qi.
• Wu Youren and Chen Quanxu decided to observe the next orange seed together and stayed at the camp.
• A band of fewer than twenty barbarians discovered Wu Youren’s camp, and their Great Knight sent six men to seize his supplies and snow harrier.
• Wu Youren fled after explosives beneath his tent killed two Knights, then used skis to outrun the pursuing barbarians.
• The Great Knight caught up to Wu Youren and continued the pursuit as Wu Youren accelerated toward a thicket.

Wu Youren defeated the Great Knight and his guards, then captured the wounded leader after killing most of the fleeing barbarians. Scops Owl proposed testing whether a flawless crystal could absorb the Blood Curse, and asked Wu Youren if the Great Knight was his first kill.

• Wu Youren killed two Knights who charged to defend the Great Knight, and a third Knight warned that Wu Youren's strength rivaled a Great Knight's.
• The wounded Great Knight shoved a subordinate toward Wu Youren and tried to crawl away, but Wu Youren killed the subordinate and severed the Great Knight's hand tendons.
• Wu Youren trapped and killed another Knight, then chased down seven of the eleven fleeing Knight Apprentices before abandoning pursuit of the last four.
• Wu Youren secured the Great Knight in a net and gathered weapons from the battlefield.
• Scops Owl returned with a flawless crystal and explained Chen Quanxu's hypothesis that it might absorb the Blood Curse; Wu Youren cautioned that the crystal could be contaminated.
• Scops Owl asked whether the Great Knight was the first one Wu Youren had killed.