Chapter Summaries

Yang Zhen figured out that Snake Road’s restrictions followed reflected light, not a mathematical algorithm, and used crystal mirrors and a flashlight to guide his group across safely. He and his companions vanished after reaching the far side, leaving the followers stranded and bewildered.

• Shameless Cat warned Yang Zhen that Snake Road used a dangerous Shanggan-era algorithm, while Mo Xueling explained its connection to arcanists.
• Yang Zhen realized Snake Road could be solved by redirecting a beam of light and refined crystal mirrors and a focusing flashlight.
• Yang Zhen placed a mirror on the first restriction, redirected the beam, and stepped safely onto the marked path as Hua Youyue followed.
• Yang Zhen and his companions placed mirrors and crossed Snake Road without error, prompting the crowd to follow them.
• Yang Zhen and his companions reached the far side and vanished, startling the crowd halfway across.

Yang Zhen and his companions emerged from the Snake Path into the ruins of a vast Shangheng-era sect, where Hua Youyue warned him that contemplating the era's mysteries could be dangerous. After entering the open mountain gate, Yang Zhen rushed to answer Shameless Cat's cries and discovered an assembly hall filled with over a thousand kneeling skeletons.

• Yang Zhen, Hua Youyue, Shameless Cat, Flirtatious Chicken, and the others emerged from the Snake Path into a magnificent sect ruin that Mo Xueling recognized as the true Spirit Peak.
• Hua Youyue cleared Yang Zhen's mind and warned him that thinking about the Shangheng era's mysteries could endanger him, as many newcomers had fallen into trances.
• Yang Zhen led the group through the open mountain gate and joked with Hua Youyue about founding a sect and having a large family.
• Shameless Cat cried for help, and Yang Zhen hurried away to rescue him.
• Yang Zhen reached a vast assembly hall and found more than a thousand skeletons kneeling in orderly rows.

Yang Zhen discovered that bowing to the dead had opened a hidden treasure vault in the ancient hall. Inside, he found a Saint Sword embedded behind the sect leader’s seat, but the sword froze his arms when he tried to pull it free.

• Shameless Cat and Flirtatious Chicken fought over the treasures among the kneeling skeletons until Yang Zhen separated them.
• Yang Zhen bowed to the old man at the head of the skeletons, and the millstone disc opened the hidden vault.
• Mo Xueling realized Yang Zhen had not known that his gesture would open the restriction, while Aleida and Shan Yang reconsidered their assumptions about him.
• Yang Zhen showed Hua Youyue a blue-glowing Saint Sword behind the sect leader’s seat and tried to pull it out.
• The Saint Sword froze Yang Zhen’s hands and arms, and Hua Youyue explained that a Saint Sword chose its own master.

Hua Youyue drew Moon Shadow and received the Heaven and Earth Sacred Sect’s inheritance from Mo Fan’s lingering presence. Yang Zhen became fixated on Mo Fan’s regret over the Nameless Domain and, after searching without success, suspected that the Divine Sense had come to the sect to steal something.

• Hua Youyue drew Moon Shadow, whose cold power froze the hall, and Mo Fan appeared to name her the sect’s 136th holy son or holy daughter and pass on the Nine Swords of Heaven and Earth.
• Mo Fan told Hua Youyue to sit in the leader’s seat, and Yang Zhen tried to take it first but froze his backside before Hua Youyue sat down and vanished into mist.
• As Mo Fan faded, he lamented that he had never unraveled the Nameless Domain, prompting Yang Zhen to leave with Shameless Cat and Flirtatious Chicken to search for it.
• Yang Zhen and Shameless Cat wandered the sect for several days without finding the Nameless Domain while others discovered inheritances and treasures.
• After Flirtatious Chicken urged Yang Zhen to think, Yang Zhen and Shameless Cat concluded that Mo Fan’s Divine Sense had come to the sect to steal something.

Yang Zhen entered the wooden cabin and was transported to a primordial wilderness where he tried to understand its strange nature. As the Spirit Road began to close, Hua Youyue was dragged toward the exit while Yang Zhen remained inside and prepared to act.

• Yang Zhen entered the cabin alone and was transported to a vast, timeless primordial wilderness.
• Yang Zhen found that his power still worked, but wandering only brought him back to his starting point, so he steadied himself and closed his eyes for several days.
• Hua Youyue waited at the Snake Road exit while Shameless Cat and Flirtatious Chicken fought, and she refused to leave without Yang Zhen.
• When the Heaven and Earth Sacred Sect ruins began shaking, Mo Xueling dragged Hua Youyue toward the Spirit Road exit as a destructive force swept through the ruins.
• Yang Zhen watched the primordial world turn upside down, worried about Hua Youyue, then pressed his hands to the ground and shouted, “收!”

After obtaining the Earth Treasury Chapter, Yang Zhen escaped the collapsed cabin using its technique and fell into a fight between cultivators. When the group attacked him for bearing the Yang surname, he used the technique to bind them with earth.

• Yang Zhen obtained the Heavenly Book: Earth Treasury Chapter, but its power collapsed his cabin and buried him beneath a mountain.
• Yang Zhen used the Earth Treasury Technique to travel underground, lost control of his direction, and fell into a battle between cultivators surrounding two women.
• Yang Zhen tried to leave the fight, but a young cultivator attacked him because he was surnamed Yang; the sword broke against his skin.
• The middle-aged cultivator ordered more than ten people to attack Yang Zhen, while the two women tried to intervene.
• Yang Zhen dodged a sword and used the Earth Treasury Technique to make the ground rise beneath the attackers, trapping them in the earth.

Yang Zhen learned that the Fang Household was targeting Yang Hongye’s family over a treasured work of calligraphy and painting, then decided to travel with the Fang Household to North Isle. Yang Hongye warned him that the Fang patriarch was a Spirit Wandering State expert.

• Yang Zhen restrained the Fang Household members with earth and stone and stopped the young cultivator from struggling by threatening to injure him further.
• Yang Hongye thanked Yang Zhen and offered to serve him, but he walked away and began questioning the Fang Household members.
• The middle-aged man revealed that he belonged to the Fang Household of Hanwu City, and Yang Zhen learned that the Fang Household wanted the Yang Household’s calligraphy for the old palace master of the North Isle Spirit Learning Palace.
• Yang Zhen asked when the Fang Household would travel to North Isle and learned they would leave the day after tomorrow.
• Yang Zhen freed the group and asked to ride with the Fang Household, prompting Yang Hongye to warn him about the Fang patriarch’s strength.

Yang Zhen accompanied Yang Hongye and Aunt Lian to the Fang Household, brushing off their warnings and planning to deal with any threat if necessary. At the Fang Household, Fang Yang arrived injured and told Old Fang that he had been stabbed, provoking his grandfather’s fury.

• Yang Hongye and Aunt Lian decided to accompany Yang Zhen to the Fang Household, and he accepted while treating Fang Quan as a hospitable friend.
• Yang Zhen claimed the Fang Household’s magnificent carriage for himself and brought the two women along as Fang Quan’s party traveled to Hanwu City.
• Aunt Lian and Yang Hongye warned Yang Zhen about Fang Quan and the Fang Household’s powerful ancestor, while Yang Zhen explained that he planned to use their trip to find passage to North Isle.
• Yang Zhen rested and considered making a small flying boat, while revealing that he would fight the Fang Household if they tried to take things too far.
• At the Fang Household’s reception hall, Fang Yang limped in and told Old Fang that someone had stabbed him, prompting Old Fang to smash his chair in rage.

Fang Yang demanded revenge on Yang Zhen, while Old Man Fang and Old Man Han discussed the Yang Household’s calligraphy and the Fang Household’s plans to acquire it. When Yang Hongye unexpectedly agreed to sell the calligraphy, Yang Zhen questioned her, saying she had promised to sell it to him.

• Fang Yang told Old Man Fang that Yang Zhen had humiliated him with an earth-snake technique, and Shan Yang said the technique had immobilized Uncle Quan.
• Old Man Fang learned that Yang Zhen was waiting in the reception hall and ordered him brought in, while Old Man Han and the Fang Household discussed the Yang Household’s calligraphy.
• Old Man Fang asked Yang Hongye whether she would sell the calligraphy, and she asked how many spirit crystals the Fang Household would offer.
• Yang Zhen entered the hall, and Yang Hongye’s agreement to sell the calligraphy shocked everyone.
• Yang Zhen asked Yang Hongye why she had agreed, reminding her that she had promised to sell the calligraphy to him.

Yang Zhen confronted the Fang Household patriarch and revealed overwhelming power after the Fang Household attacked him. He transformed his dragon and elephant phantoms into a massive tank to challenge the patriarch’s Holy Palace Phantom.

• Yang Zhen claimed he was Yang Hongye’s distant cousin and asked to travel with the Fang Household to North Isle.
• Yang Zhen slapped Fang Yang and formed a grand seat from the hall’s stone floor, shocking everyone with his speed and strength.
• The Fang Household patriarch ordered more than a dozen Void Refinement Realm experts to seize Yang Zhen, and Yang Zhen turned them into immobile terracotta warriors with the Earth Treasury Technique.
• Yang Zhen challenged the Fang Household patriarch while Han Jingtian watched, and the patriarch summoned the Household’s Holy Palace Phantom.
• Yang Zhen created a massive tank inside a six-pointed-star phantom, leaving the Fang Household patriarch stunned.

Yang Zhen confronted the Fang Household patriarch at the household gates, refusing to kneel or apologize and demanding to ride on the Fang Household’s boat. He blasted the patriarch into a wall with the cannon hidden in his phantom, then prepared to continue fighting as the enraged patriarch pulled himself free.

• Old Fang summoned the Fang Household’s Holy Palace phantom and offered to spare Yang Zhen if he knelt and bowed to the Fang Household.
• Han Yan'er and the Han Household patriarch discussed Yang Zhen’s confidence while Yang Hongye and Aunt Lian worried about the danger.
• Yang Zhen asked the assembled crowd whether they were going to fight, then demanded that Old Fang let him hitch a ride on the Fang Household’s boat.
• Yang Zhen fired a cannon from his phantom and sent the Fang Household patriarch crashing into a wall before the household members could protect him.
• The Fang Household patriarch pulled himself out of the wall and roared at Yang Zhen, who prepared to turn the household upside down.

Yang Zhen blasted the Fang Household’s patriarch into the street, then confronted the Hanwu Guard sent to stop him. After he struck the guard leader and the guards charged, Yang Hongye and Aunt Lian urged him to flee, while Yang Zhen laughed as the attackers closed in.

• Yang Zhen fired another True Essence shell at Old Man Fang and blasted him through the Fang Household’s wall onto the street.
• The Hanwu Guard surrounded Yang Zhen, and their leader accused him of causing trouble and threatened to take him to the city lord’s dungeon.
• Yang Hongye warned Yang Zhen not to provoke the Hanwu Guard, but he accused them of siding with the Fang Household and blasted their leader away.
• The enraged guard leader ordered his men to kill Yang Zhen, while Yang Hongye and Aunt Lian stepped forward and urged him to escape.
• As waves of violent air rushed toward him, Yang Zhen laughed, leaving the crowd stunned.

Yang Zhen faced the city lord after wreaking havoc at the Fang Household and defeating the Hanwu Guard commander. The city lord punished the commander, then warmly greeted Yang Zhen, leaving everyone confused about his intentions.

• Han Yan'er wanted to fight Yang Zhen, but Han Jingtian stopped her as the Hanwu Guards attacked him.
• The city lord arrived and demanded to know whether Yang Zhen was the Sage of Saunter.
• The Hanwu Guard commander accused Yang Zhen, and the city lord slapped him twice for abusing his position and acting blindly.
• The city lord clasped Yang Zhen's hand and said he had been waiting for him, prompting Yang Zhen to pull away warily.

Yang Zhen’s unexpected connections won him the Hanwu City lord’s favor, and he used that influence to turn the lord’s attention toward the Fang Household. The city lord asked Yang Hongye to explain what had happened, leaving the crowd wondering whether he would act against the Fang Household.

• Yang Zhen denied knowing the city lord, then agreed they were on the same side after learning the city lord had met Spirit Maiden Hua and her companions.
• Han Jingtian tried to introduce himself through Yang Zhen’s supposed connection to Mo Xueling, but Yang Zhen said he did not know her.
• The city lord invited Yang Zhen to his residence and offered to arrange his trip to North Isle.
• Yang Zhen hinted that he did not deserve to be called a friend of Hanwu City, prompting the city lord to suspect the Fang Household was involved.
• Yang Zhen nodded, and the city lord demanded that Yang Hongye explain what had happened.

Yang Hongye revealed that the Fang Household had ambushed the Yang Household, killing nearly half its members, including her father. Yang Zhen challenged the Hanwu City lord to help destroy the Fang Household or let him cripple it, then ominously warned of the chaos to come.

• Yang Hongye nearly held back the truth until Yang Zhen encouraged her and promised to support her.
• Yang Hongye accused the Fang Household patriarch of luring the Yang Household to the Great Jiang Kingdom and ambushing them, killing nearly half their people, including her father.
• The Fang Household patriarch admitted he had no intention of hiding the attack and taunted Yang Hongye over her household's weakness.
• Yang Zhen asked the Hanwu City lord whether he would take out the Fang Household or let Yang Zhen cripple them, and he revealed that the city lord needed his help.
• The city lord asked what would become of the Fang Household if Yang Zhen acted, and Yang Zhen warned that those who acted like thieves would send chickens flying and dogs leaping.

Yang Zhen forced the Fang Household to answer for its treatment of Yang Hongye, then helped her take control of the Yang Household. After the lord of Hanwu City dealt with the Wang Household, Yang Zhen agreed to inspect the city lord’s ancestral stele, whose failing protection threatened the residence.

• Yang Zhen collapsed the Fang Household reception hall with an earth-element attack, and the lord of Hanwu City stopped him from confronting the household further by promising to secure an explanation for Yang Hongye.
• Yang Hongye called Yang Zhen her cousin after he corrected her, and he named her head of the Yang Household while warning that the Wang Household would face his judgment if its explanation proved inadequate.
• Yang Hongye swore that the Yang Household would honor Yang Zhen and his descendants, and thunder sounded in response to her oath.
• The lord of Hanwu City brought seven Spirit Wandering State experts to the Wang Household, seized most of its businesses for the Yang Household, and the Wang Household patriarch died after fighting three experts.
• Yang Zhen learned that Shameless Cat had helped secure benefits from the city lord’s residence and agreed to inspect its ancestral stele, whose failing power threatened the residence’s future.
• Yang Zhen overheard two Spirit Wandering State elders doubting his ability to solve the problem, then teased them with a proposed move called Tank Battles Plane until they made excuses to flee.

Yang Zhen learned that the Ancestral Stele in Hanwu City's ancestral grounds was leaking Literary Talent Qi, and the city lord hoped he could repair it. As Yang Zhen headed there, Han Yan'er arrived, eager to spar with him.

• Yang Zhen asked two Spirit Wandering State experts about the Ancestral Stele and learned that it had been protecting the city lord's lineage for generations but was now losing its Literary Talent Qi.
• The lord of Hanwu City hurried Yang Zhen toward the ancestral grounds, where the city lord and other experts hoped he could help restore the stele.
• The commander of the Hanwu Guard reported that Han Jingtian had brought Han Yan'er to visit.
• Yang Zhen greeted Han Yan'er and offered to spar, and she eagerly agreed.
• Han Jingtian noticed that everyone was heading to the ancestral grounds, and Han Yan'er's eyes lit up at the mention of them.

Yang Zhen examined the Hanwu City lord’s ancestral grounds and discovered that a spring had damaged its Coiling Dragon’s Three Surges formation. He advised the lord to fill it in, then revealed that Yuan Zheng had also created a formation to cut off the lord’s descendants, leaving its remedy uncertain as they went to inspect the ancestral stele.

• Yang Zhen recognized the ancestral grounds’ Coiling Dragon’s Three Surges formation and noticed that a spring had broken it.
• Yang Zhen told Hanwu City’s lord that the spring had let Yuan Zheng steal Literary Fortune Inscription Qi and grow stronger, while drawing yin winds and Evil Qi into himself.
• Hanwu City’s lord ordered the spring filled in after Yang Zhen said doing so would restore the damaged formation.
• Yang Zhen revealed that Yuan Zheng had also made a formation to cut off the lord’s descendants.
• Yang Zhen said the remedy was uncertain and led the group to inspect the ancestral stele.

Yang Zhen examined the ancestral stele in Hanwu City and agreed to repair its formation while teaching monk Yuan Zheng a lesson. He approached the stele with Han Yan’er’s Sun Shadow Sword, leaving everyone wondering whether he would carve new Literary Talent Qi Inscriptions.

• Yang Zhen inspected the city lord’s ancestral stele and recognized its righteous Earth Treasury formation and ancient essay.
• Yang Zhen explained that he could repair the stele’s affliction and make the remedy last for generations while punishing monk Yuan Zheng.
• Yang Zhen borrowed Han Yan’er’s Sun Shadow Sword and boasted that he could wield any longsword except Moon Shadow.
• Yang Zhen studied the patterns on the ancestral stele with Sun Shadow as the city lord and others watched.
• Han Jingtian and Han Yan’er wondered whether Yang Zhen planned to carve new Literary Talent Qi Inscriptions.

Yang Zhen began carving new Literary Talent Qi Inscriptions onto Hanwu City's Ancestral Stele, astonishing the onlookers with his Sun Shadow Radiant Sun technique and his skill. He carved the characters for “true” and “fragrant,” leaving everyone baffled by the phrase “true fragrance.”

• The lord of Hanwu City worried that carving new inscriptions could injure Yang Zhen, but Han Jingtian reassured him that Yang Zhen knew his own limits.
• Yang Zhen released vast Literary Talent Qi and circled the Ancestral Stele with the Sun Shadow longsword.
• Han Yan'er recognized Yang Zhen's Sun Shadow Radiant Sun technique and admired his cultivation talent.
• Yang Zhen carved new Literary Talent Qi Inscriptions into the stele, using a single character to cover half its surface.
• The onlookers debated what Yang Zhen's first character meant, then watched him carve “fragrant” and announce the baffling phrase “true fragrance.”