Chapter Summaries

Dongfang Bai received a vast collection of martial arts manuals from Wang Hao, while he continued gathering manuals across Guanzhong and began deducing new martial arts. The Great Ming court investigated Wang Hao’s identity and the mysterious Heavenly Demon Sacred Cult, then sent the Wheel-Turning King to meet Dugu Jian.

• Granny Song recognized Wang Hao’s portrait and teased Dongfang Bai about bringing him to meet her, while Dongfang Bai carried away the enormous scroll of manuals.
• Wang Hao received more than thirty thousand Fortune Points for the manuals and, after sweeping through Guanzhong’s martial powers, entered seclusion to deduce faster copying techniques and the Holy Spirit Swordsmanship.
• Xie Feng worked with local officials to relocate the disabled beggar children overseas, while Yushu’s ships avoided pursuit on their way to the Treasure Island of Ryukyu.
• Emperor Mingde’s investigators found that Xie Feng’s Imperial Golden Token had no official record, raising concerns that someone could forge such tokens.
• The Wheel-Turning King urged the court to focus on the Heavenly Demon Sacred Cult and Dugu Jian, so Emperor Mingde sent him to Guanzhong to meet the Sword Saint of Peerless City.

Wang Hao finished deducing six knockoff Holy Spirit Swordsmanship moves and developed Divine Sense Object Control, then tested his swordsmanship at a martial arts school. He discovered that young Xue Mei had sensed his Sword Intent and offered to teach her, but she refused to leave her master and school.

• Wang Hao concluded that his current realm limited him to six Holy Spirit Swordsmanship moves and created Divine Sense Object Control to print martial arts manuals at extraordinary speed.
• Wang Hao went to test his new swordsmanship against a martial arts school, but he overwhelmed its master and disciples and found them too weak to expose flaws in his technique.
• The school's master ordered Xue Mei to take Wang Hao to the secret chamber to read the manuals, including one hidden in a secret compartment.
• Wang Hao learned that Xue Mei had sensed his Sword Intent and recognized her potential to develop Martial Dao True Intention.
• Wang Hao offered to teach Xue Mei the sword, but she refused because she would not abandon her master or school.

Wang Hao left three sword marks at a martial arts school for Xue Mei to study, then toured Guanzhong’s forces to collect martial arts texts and trade pointers. After ten days, he prepared to visit Mount Hua but was challenged by the Wheel-Turning King, giving Wang Hao a chance to debut his boastful sword introduction.

• Wang Hao carved three sword marks into a wall and offered Xue Mei a chance to learn the Holy Spirit Swordsmanship if she developed Sword Intent before reaching the Grandmaster Realm.
• The school master agreed to protect the marks and ordered the school renamed the Tongzhou Sword School, while Xue Mei said she wanted to remain with him.
• Wang Hao memorized the school’s martial arts texts, then visited the Tyrant Tiger Sect and other Guanzhong forces, sparring with them and exchanging pointers for their manuals.
• After ten days, Wang Hao had visited every force in Guanzhong except the Mount Hua Sect when the Wheel-Turning King stopped him and demanded a fight.
• Wang Hao drew the Peerless Sword and recited its specifications, leaving the Wheel-Turning King baffled and diminishing his fighting presence.

Wang Hao defeated the Wheel-Turning King and advised him to create a sword art of his own before continuing to Mount Hua. There, he criticized Yue Buqun and Ning Zhongze’s Sword Intent, then recognized that a visiting monk had mastered the Golden Bell Shield.

• Wang Hao used the Holy Spirit Swordsmanship to defeat the Wheel-Turning King in five moves, breaking his sword and leaving a cut on his neck.
• The Wheel-Turning King accepted his defeat, asked Wang Hao for guidance, and followed him toward Mount Hua after being told to create a sword art of his own.
• Wang Hao arrived at the Mount Hua Sect, where Yue Buqun and Ning Zhongze welcomed him alongside Shaolin and Wudang observers.
• Wang Hao rebuked Ning Zhongze and Yue Buqun, saying their impure Sword Intent made the Mount Hua Sword Sect unworthy of the word “sword.”
• Yue Buqun invited Wang Hao inside to meet Martial Uncle Feng, and Wang Hao held back from killing him because of the other powers gathered there.
• Wang Hao noticed the old monk’s Golden Bell Shield had reached major completion and recognized that its techniques could help him refine his Nine Revolutions Body Tempering Instruction.

Wang Hao tricked Puyin into doubting Shaolin Temple’s Golden Bell Shield, then challenged Feng Qingyang with questions that exposed Mount Hua’s troubled history and implied it possessed legendary martial arts. He left after arranging to fight Feng Qingyang the next day, while the gathered factions eyed Mount Hua with renewed interest.

• Wang Hao described a fantastical version of the Golden Bell Shield, convincing Puyin that Shaolin Temple had lost its true inheritance.
• Puyin avoided answering the Wudang Daoist’s questions and followed Wang Hao into Mount Hua’s Righteous Qi Soaring to the Heavens Hall.
• Wang Hao questioned the hall’s name and embarrassed Feng Qingyang and Yue Buqun by pointing out Yue Buqun’s impure Sword Intent and incompatible cultivation.
• Feng Qingyang blamed Mount Hua’s decline on a plague, but Wang Hao challenged the explanation and drew mocking looks from the visiting representatives.
• Feng Qingyang offered to fight Wang Hao the next day, and Wang Hao hinted that Mount Hua had inherited several legendary martial arts before leaving the hall.

Yue Buqun learned from Feng Qingyang that Mount Hua had no known inheritance of the Quanzhen divine arts, while Feng urged him to improve his swordsmanship and study Taoist texts. That night, Wang Hao manipulated Puyin into believing Shaolin’s lost manuals were held by Yan Shisan, whom Wang Hao claimed was descended from the monk Fahai and Bai Suzhen.

• Yue Buqun asked Feng Qingyang about the Quanzhen Sect’s supreme arts, and Feng said Mount Hua had no known inheritance of them.
• Feng Qingyang ordered Yue Buqun to practice swordsmanship with him monthly and devote more time to Taoist texts to improve his Purple Cloud Divine Art.
• The visiting powers considered ways to pursue the rumored divine arts, while Wang Hao waited in his room for Puyin to approach him.
• Puyin asked Wang Hao about Shaolin’s four great divine arts, and Wang Hao claimed Yan Shisan possessed their original manuals.
• Wang Hao told Puyin that Yan Shisan descended from Fahai, a former Shaolin abbot who had married Bai Suzhen after leaving the temple, and Puyin believed the account.

Wang Hao tricked Master Puyin into trading Shaolin Temple’s Golden Bell Shield inheritance for a forged, supposedly original version, while building Shaolin’s interest in his claims about Yan Shisan and the temple’s four divine arts. Puyin left delighted, unaware he had been deceived, as Wang Hao used the real Shaolin methods to advance his own body-tempering cultivation.

• Wang Hao warned Puyin that Yan Shisan was a dangerous Sword Demon whose swordsmanship could threaten Shaolin Temple.
• Wang Hao claimed Yan Shisan’s Golden Bell Shield was too powerful for him to break and suggested exchanging Golden Bell Shield methods.
• Puyin agreed to share Shaolin Temple’s inheritance after Wang Hao recited a forged version of the first four stages that impressed him.
• Puyin revealed Shaolin’s complete remaining Golden Bell Shield methods and his own insights, believing the exchange would benefit the temple.
• Wang Hao mentioned the other three divine arts to Puyin, who left happily while hidden watchers observed him.
• Wang Hao used the Shaolin Golden Bell Shield methods to derive further cultivation techniques for the Nine Revolutions Body Tempering Instruction.

Wang Hao and Feng Qingyang fought at the Mount Hua Sect training ground, where Wang Hao’s Holy Spirit Swordsmanship proved superior and broke Feng Qingyang’s sword. After the duel, Wang Hao identified flaws in Feng Qingyang’s Sword Intent and state of mind, which Feng Qingyang admitted had been damaged by past events.

• Feng Qingyang invited Wang Hao, Puyin, and the others to watch their duel at the Mount Hua Sect training ground.
• Wang Hao and Feng Qingyang introduced their swords with matching pretentious speeches, while the Wheel-Turning King arrived to watch.
• Wang Hao opened with Sword One, and Feng Qingyang chose Mount Hua Swordsmanship after sensing that the Nine Swords of Dugu would be countered.
• Wang Hao defeated Feng Qingyang with Sword Six, severing the Violet Haze Sword after Feng Qingyang had barely blocked Sword Five.
• Wang Hao told Feng Qingyang that flaws in his Sword Intent and state of mind had cost him the fight, and Feng Qingyang admitted his state of mind had been broken.

Wang Hao left his Holy Spirit Swordsmanship on Mount Hua’s training-ground stele and told Feng Qingyang and the others about cultivation realms, Shattering the Void, and the War God Temple. After crippling a man who showed killing intent toward him, Wang Hao went with the group to the Righteous Qi Soaring to the Heavens Hall to continue the discussion.

• Wang Hao carved six sword marks into a stele and left his Holy Spirit Swordsmanship as a gift for Feng Qingyang.
• Wang Hao explained his invented overseas cultivation realms and described Shattering the Void as ascending to a higher-level world.
• Wang Hao claimed that the War God Temple had appeared in High Antiquity and that the Great Heavenly Demon had learned the Heavenly Demon Strategy from the War God Illustrations.
• When a thin old man challenged his claims and showed killing intent, Wang Hao kicked him down and crippled his cultivation.
• Feng Qingyang and Puyin invited Wang Hao to the Righteous Qi Soaring to the Heavens Hall, and Wang Hao agreed to continue explaining.

Wang Hao spun an elaborate account of the War God Temple, its history, and the martial arts that could lead to the Shattering Realm, convincing his listeners while hiding that he was making much of it up. He left Puyin hopeful that Shaomu Temple’s four great divine arts could be combined, while the others grew more convinced that Wang Hao’s claims were true.

• Wang Hao told Feng Qingyang and the others that the Heavenly Demon cult leader had visited the War God Temple, studied its forty-nine illustrations, and found Guangchengzi’s immortal body there.
• Wang Hao recounted how Emperor Xuanyuan, Chiyou, and Guangchengzi had fought over the temple, and how Chiyou later mastered the illustrations and shattered the void.
• Wang Hao ranked several martial arts by their potential to reach the Shattering Realm and declared that he would develop Holy Spirit Swordsmanship beyond the sages’ achievements.
• Puyin asked whether Shaomu Temple’s four great divine arts could lead to the Shattering Realm, and Wang Hao said they would need to be combined to offer even a tiny chance.
• Puyin became excited by the prospect of combining the four arts, while the others took his reaction as confirmation that Shaomu’s divine arts and Wang Hao’s stories were genuine.

Wang Hao finished copying Mount Hua’s martial arts manuals and left the sect, while Feng Qingyang resolved to pursue a breakthrough and Yue Buqun began searching for the Quanzhen inheritance. On the road, seven Half-step Innate experts ambushed Wang Hao, but his Holy Spirit Swordsmanship overwhelmed their coordinated attack.

• Wang Hao copied Mount Hua’s martial arts manuals, noticed that many sword techniques were missing, and learned from Yue Buqun that a fire had destroyed more than half of the swordsmanship inheritance.
• Wang Hao bid farewell to Feng Qingyang, who decided to enter seclusion for half a year and try to reach the Innate realm.
• After Feng Qingyang left, Yue Buqun went to the sect’s rear mountain to search for the Quanzhen Sect’s inheritance.
• Seven Half-step Innate experts surrounded Wang Hao on the road and asked him to come with them, but he drew the Peerless Sword and attacked.
• The seven ambushers launched coordinated killing moves, yet Wang Hao’s Holy Spirit Swordsmanship formed a spreading sword net that enveloped their attacks.

Wang Hao defeated the seven Half-step Innate experts who had ambushed him, while Xie Feng captured the masked elder who abandoned them. After collecting their martial arts inheritances, Wang Hao prepared to assume a new identity and cultivate the Supreme Yoga Tantra, now that his strengthened body had brought his seven corporeal souls up to the required threshold.

• Wang Hao trapped the seven Half-step Innate experts in his sword net and outlasted them until the masked elder escaped and left the other six to fend for themselves.
• Wang Hao crippled the six experts, while Xie Feng returned with the badly injured masked elder after dealing with the enemy's ambushers.
• Wang Hao recognized that Xie Feng had mastered the first move of the Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms and ordered him to interrogate the captives about the operation before disposing of them.
• The seven experts revealed their martial arts inheritances, and Wang Hao copied them into his secret manual scroll in a nearby town.
• Wang Hao concluded that completing the second layer of the Nine Revolutions Body Tempering Instruction had strengthened his corporeal souls enough to begin cultivating the Supreme Yoga Tantra.

Wang Hao questioned the identity of the seven Half-step Innate fighters and discovered that the Confucian School had sent them. He met Qin Yan, a Xiantian Grandmaster, and bluffed about Literary Qi and legendary cultivation arts to test what Qin Yan knew; their conversation continued as Wang Hao described the War God Illustrations, the Longevity Instruction, and the Heavenly Demon Strategy.

• Xie Feng told Wang Hao that the seven veterans had been driven into seclusion by the Confucian School and recruited to attack him by one of its experts.
• Wang Hao sensed Qin Yan approaching, sent Xie Feng away with the manuals, and confronted the Confucian School’s Xiantian Grandmaster outside the inn.
• Qin Yan admitted he had sent the seven and invited Wang Hao inside to talk over tea.
• Wang Hao pretended to bargain over a method for nourishing Literary Qi, offering the Heavenly Demon Sacred Cult’s arts in exchange for Confucian texts.
• Qin Yan asked Wang Hao to explain the value of the divine arts, and Wang Hao described the War God Illustrations, the Longevity Instruction, and the Heavenly Demon Strategy.

Wang Hao used claims about the Great Heavenly Demon, a hidden successor, foreign powers, the Xuanyuan Sword, and the Dragon Vein to distract Qin Yan, but Qin Yan turned hostile and attacked him. Wang Hao escaped into the mountain forest after losing the fight and cutting off Qin Yan’s left hand, while Qin Yan pursued him and his strange Sword Qi left him badly weakened.

• Wang Hao told Qin Yan that the Great Heavenly Demon had chosen a hidden successor and was drawing foreign powers into the Central Plains, then asked about the Xuanyuan Sword and Dragon Vein.
• Qin Yan invited Wang Hao to return with him, and Wang Hao realized they would have to fight when Qin Yan revealed his hostile intent.
• Qin Yan found a flaw in Wang Hao’s Holy Spirit Swordsmanship, but Wang Hao used the Dao Comprehension Function to perfect the technique during their fight.
• Qin Yan activated his ancient sword, stunning Wang Hao with its strange Sword Intent and piercing his Dantian, but Wang Hao regained his senses and severed Qin Yan’s left hand before fleeing.
• Qin Yan swallowed a pill and chased Wang Hao into the mountain forest, while the ancient sword’s strange Sword Qi and Sword Intent weakened Wang Hao and hindered his escape.

Wang Hao escaped Qin Yan by leaping into the Yellow River, then reached shore and began treating his severe injuries. After learning about the ancient sword’s pseudo-spirituality, he decided to refine its Sword Qi and strengthened his cultivation method, while considering how to spread martial arts and earn more Fortune Points.

• Qin Yan struck Wang Hao with the ancient sword’s Sword Qi, destroying the meridians in Wang Hao’s right arm and making him drop the Peerless Sword.
• Wang Hao leaped into the Yellow River and escaped Qin Yan, who was too injured to search the river for him.
• Wang Hao reached shore, complained to Xiao Mengmeng about Qin Yan’s strange sword, and learned it had likely developed pseudo-spirituality through centuries of cultivation.
• Xiao Mengmeng advised Wang Hao to refine the remaining Sword Qi with his Innate Qi, and Wang Hao decided to do so after preparing a stronger cultivation method.
• Wang Hao spent ten thousand Fortune Points to deduce the Hong Kong Comic Version Golden Bell Shield to its eighth stage and incorporated it into the Nine Revolutions Body Tempering Instruction.
• Wang Hao considered spreading martial arts through the jianghu so others could develop new techniques and reduce the cost of his future deductions.

Wang Hao adopted the identity of Martial Arts Myth Wuming and prepared to sweep through the borderlands' martial world while repairing and strengthening his meridians. After arranging for the martial arts manuals he had collected to be sent to Dongfang Bai, he began preparing his sword and awaited Xie Feng's intelligence.

• Xie Feng reunited with Wang Hao after three days of traveling with Wangcai, and Wang Hao told him to call him Wuming, Heavenly Sword Wuming.
• Wang Hao explained that his meridians were still recovering and that he had begun cultivating a human magnetic field through the Supreme Yoga Tantra.
• Wang Hao planned to sweep through the borderlands' martial forces and then attack the Mount Heng Sword Sect, while Xie Feng set out to gather intelligence and recruit helpers.
• Wang Hao chose a longsword as his imitation Hero Sword and settled on the title Martial Arts Myth Wuming rather than Heavenly Sword Wuming for the time being.
• Wang Hao hired an escort agency to ship the collected martial arts manuals to Dongfang Bai's old residence, using an unrelated disguise to protect the delivery's destination.
• At an inn, Wang Hao used his Innate Qi, Divine Sense, and magnetic field to prepare the sword for remote control as he waited for Xie Feng's intelligence.

Zhang Wuji and Zhou Zhiruo learned that powerful divine arts had surfaced after the Mount Hua gathering, and Zhou ordered an investigation into Puyin, who had obtained the original Golden Bell Shield. Ambushed by eight Half-step Innate experts, Puyin used its fourth-stage secret technique to become a towering golden giant and began slaughtering his attackers, leaving them trapped with no clear escape.

• Chongxu asked Zhang Wuji about the Heavenly Demon Sacred Cult and several divine arts, but Zhang Wuji knew little beyond a possible connection between Zhu Yuanzhang's Cultivation Method and the Longevity Instruction.
• The old Taoist recounted what he had witnessed at Mount Hua, and Zhou Zhiruo ordered the Wudang Sect to investigate Puyin and his actions after leaving the mountain.
• Puyin was ambushed repeatedly on his journey back to Shaomu Temple, and eight Half-step Innate experts finally trapped him in a mountain valley after explosives collapsed one exit.
• Puyin activated the fourth-stage secret method of the original Golden Bell Shield, transforming into a sixteen-foot golden giant despite the technique's severe pain and cost to his life force.
• Puyin crushed one attacker with a palm strike and withstood the other seven men's attacks, causing them to retreat toward the blocked exits.

The Three Hongs arrived too late to save Puyin, who died after entrusting them with the first four stages of the Golden Bell Shield carved onto prayer beads. After reading Xie Feng’s intelligence about frontier martial forces supplying weapons to grassland peoples, Wang Hao decided to launch a lightning war against them.

• The Three Hongs found Puyin in his transformed, sixteen-foot body, and he gave them the prayer beads before dying.
• Hong Jie and Hong Xu discovered Puyin’s remains had an Indestructible Vajra Body and found evidence of a battle powerful enough to exceed Half-step Innate strength.
• Hong Xu ordered Hong Jie to carry Puyin’s remains and Hong Sheng to protect the prayer beads at all costs.
• Wang Hao read Xie Feng’s report and learned that most frontier martial forces were trading iron, steel, bows, and crossbows to grassland peoples.
• Wang Hao changed the plan and ordered a lightning war to eliminate the frontier forces involved in the trade.

An Innate Shaomu Temple monk avenged the Three Hongs by killing four of their masked attackers, while one escaped. Wang Hao nearly eradicated the frontier forces that had collaborated with the grassland tribes, spared Abbess Dingyi and the Mount Heng Sword Sect, and left exhausted to find an inn.

• Hong Sheng succumbed to his wounds after the masked men killed Hong Xu and Hong Jie and seized the chance to claim the Golden Bell Shield inheritance.
• A burly Shaomu Temple monk arrived, killed four masked men with a sound wave, and stayed to guard the Three Hongs' bodies and Puyin.
• Wang Hao used his controlled swords to wipe out more than half the frontier martial forces in three days, then nearly eliminated the rest in half a day.
• Wang Hao reflected on his growing sword-control abilities and the killings that had followed his adoption of Wuming's persona.
• Abbess Dingyi attacked Wang Hao, but he restrained her, warned her that the Mount Heng Sword Sect was not a target, and left.
• Dingyi lowered her sword and reconsidered the accusations against Wang Hao as he went to seek rest.

After Wang Hao’s slaughter of the frontier powers, he reassured the survivors with evidence of their crimes and arranged a martial gathering where they could exchange manuals. As he recovered and advanced his cultivation, influential figures elsewhere secretly set out to find Wuming, leaving the frontier facing the prospect of new trouble.

• Wang Hao had Xie Feng distribute evidence explaining why the steppe-colluding powers had been killed and invite the remaining powers to exchange one martial arts manual for ten of the same level.
• Tie Zhan urged the Mad Saber Sect to attend the gathering and bring its manuals, while ordering his family to make amends for past abuses.
• Wang Hao rested, restored his Divine Sense, refined the Sword Qi in his body, and copied the manuals Xie Feng had collected.
• Wang Hao planned the exchange partly to rebuild the frontier martial world’s strength and deter the steppe tribes from invading.
• Powerful figures and old recluses elsewhere, intrigued by Wuming’s origins and swordsmanship, secretly headed toward the frontier to seek him out.
• Wang Hao’s Supreme Yoga Tantra advanced until his human-magnetic-field-controlled sword could match a Half-step Innate expert, and he neared activating his fourth field.