Chapter Summaries

After the tsunami, Tang Cheng recovered enough to help with cleanup and the completion of the Nation-Protecting Grand Formation. Meanwhile, a Divine Land aerospace carrier reached Cherry Blossom Country and deployed troops to rescue people of Divine Land and take control of designated cities.

• Tang Cheng recovered his Magic Power and used healing spells on himself before joining the cleanup and efforts to complete the Nation-Protecting Grand Formation.
• A massive aerospace carrier left Divine Land carrying nearly two army groups and modern weapons for Cherry Blossom Country.
• The carrier crossed the sea and arrived over Cherry Blossom Country, whose communications and military defenses had been badly damaged by the geological disaster.
• The troops divided into groups and dropped from the carrier to search for people of Divine Land and take control of designated cities.
• The chapter noted that many people of Divine Land lived in Cherry Blossom Country and worked in its restaurants and delivery services.

Rescue teams began operations across the devastated half of Cherry Blossom Country Island while cultivators searched for the missing Li Xingkong. After waking on the ocean floor, Li Xingkong reached the surface, assessed his injuries, and reflected on the sword strike that had split the island.

• The aerospace carrier deployed rescue teams and equipment across the damaged island while searchers set out to find Li Xingkong.
• The search party followed Li Xingkong’s fissure past Mount Fuji and through a city split apart by his sword strike, but found no trace of him.
• Li Xingkong woke on the seabed, where his depleted Magic Power had allowed him to sink after he collapsed from exhaustion.
• Li Xingkong used his recovering Magic Power to rise nearly two thousand meters to the ocean surface.
• Li Xingkong examined his injuries, realized he would recover with rest and food, and reviewed what he had learned from his powerful sword strike.

After recovering from the seabed, Li Xingkong returned to Divine Land’s aerospace carrier above Edo City, where its forces were conducting search and rescue operations and taking control of the devastated city. He healed most of his injuries and contacted Earthly Capital, while Old Tang considered what tangible benefits Divine Land could offer him in return for his help.

• Divine Land’s search party found Li Xingkong after he surfaced, gave him a hovercar, and took him back to the aerospace carrier.
• Li Xingkong examined and repaired the mana circuits damaged by his overuse of the Sword Control Technique.
• Divine Land’s troops rescued survivors across Edo City, treated Divine Land citizens, and set aside other survivors for later arrangements.
• Divine Land’s forces met little organized resistance while rescuing people and arresting criminals who exploited the disaster.
• After recovering from most of his injuries, Li Xingkong contacted Earthly Capital and reassured Old Tang that he was safe.
• Old Tang reflected on Divine Land’s debt to Li Xingkong and wondered what tangible benefits could sustain their relationship.

Divine Land took control of Cherry Blossom Country’s major cities and ordered its forces to demand surrender from the country’s military bases. Most bases surrendered, but those that resisted were devastated by a bombardment, leaving Divine Land’s troops to advance and clear them out.

• Divine Land’s troops occupied Cherry Blossom Country’s major cities and surrounded its damaged military bases.
• Li Xingkong heard a report at the aerospace carrier’s command center that the cities were under control and the forces had reached the bases.
• The command center ordered the bases to surrender, warning that any base that refused would be leveled.
• Nearly half of the bases surrendered, while several others organized defenses and refused to yield.
• Divine Land’s new tanks bombarded the resisting bases with repeated volleys of Fireball Spells.
• After the bombardment, cultivator troops advanced into the bases and were ordered to kill anyone who resisted.

Cultivators searched the ruined base and uncovered an underground laboratory where Cherry Blossom Country had conducted radiation experiments on animals. They found dozens of mutated creatures and documents explaining the experiments, but the chapter left the creatures’ fate unresolved.

• The cultivators found an entrance to the base’s underground facility and carefully sent reconnaissance and protection teams ahead.
• The cultivators reached a biological laboratory, confirmed it had no signs of life, and gathered its documents and strange materials.
• The reconnaissance team reported living creatures on the next underground level, and the main force went to investigate.
• The cultivators found dozens of deformed animals in cages and read observation logs describing their mutations.
• The documents revealed that Cherry Blossom Country had spent decades experimenting with radiation in hopes of creating evolved organisms or monsters.

The Divine Land's troops explored a highly radioactive basement level and encountered researchers who claimed radiation had healing benefits. When the researchers turned violent and began devouring one another, the troops killed them all.

• The troops shielded themselves from radiation and explored the third basement level, where they found the researchers bathing in radiation.
• The researchers' leader offered their experimental findings in exchange for joining the Divine Land and demonstrated that radiation had healed his broken finger.
• Li Xingkong and headquarters considered keeping the researchers for further study.
• The leader suddenly went berserk and attacked and devoured another person, while the other researchers began showing similar symptoms.
• The Divine Land's troops concluded that the radiation damaged the mind and killed everyone on the third level.

After returning from the operation in Cherry Blossom Country, Li Xingkong reflected on the destructive scale of his power and his future beyond Earth Star. Old Tang rewarded him with access to the Divine Land’s cultivation technique repository, where Li Xingkong hoped to find methods worth adding to his system.

• Li Xingkong returned to the Divine Land aboard the aerospace carrier after the ground forces secured Cherry Blossom Country.
• Li Xingkong considered how his increasingly powerful attacks could cause devastating destruction and concluded that he might eventually need to leave Earth Star.
• Old Tang contacted Li Xingkong and offered him a reward for saving people during the operation.
• Li Xingkong went to the Earthly Capital, where Old Tang gave him a key to the cultivation technique repository.
• Old Tang explained that the repository contained techniques and spells developed by cultivators across the Divine Land, and Li Xingkong realized some might be worth recording in his system.

Li Xingkong entered the Earthly Capital’s cultivation method vault and had the system scan its collection for valuable methods. The system identified the Scarlet Blood Art as a promising method for coordinating cultivation among multiple people or clones, leaving Li Xingkong with a new idea about its potential use for high-level cultivators.

• Li Xingkong used Old Tang’s key to enter the cultivation method vault on the Earthly Capital’s lowest level.
• Li Xingkong summoned the system to scan the vault’s cultivation methods and identify worthwhile ones.
• The system praised the pace of cultivation-method development on Earth Star and explained that peaceful conditions encouraged innovation.
• The system flagged the Scarlet Blood Art, and Li Xingkong read that it linked several cultivators’ minds and assigned them complementary cultivation tasks.
• The system explained that the Scarlet Blood Art could benefit high-level cultivators with multiple clones, whose foundations could surpass their main bodies.

After communications were restored, Cherry Blossom Country's exiled leaders and business elites discovered that Divine Land had taken control of the island and blocked their attempts to reclaim power and property. Divine Land defended its intervention as lawful and invited the leaders to return under strict supervision.

• Divine Land rebuilt Cherry Blossom Country's damaged facilities and restored communications, but ignored orders sent by the exiled leaders.
• The leaders learned that Divine Land's army controlled the island and had eliminated the Self-Defense Forces and Eagle Country's military bases.
• Divine Land required business owners to pass background checks before reclaiming their companies, leaving many elites unable to recover their assets.
• Eagle Country and several other countries began a public-opinion campaign accusing Divine Land of unlawfully occupying Cherry Blossom Country.
• Divine Land cited postwar treaties to justify stationing troops and invited Cherry Blossom Country's leaders to return, warning that they would face punishment for any unlawful acts.

Divine Land dismantled Cherry Blossom Country’s government and divided the islands into isolated regions to test a wide range of political and legal systems. The chapter ended with Cherry Blossom Country cut off from the outside world while Divine Land’s experiments proceeded.

• Divine Land removed Cherry Blossom Country’s officials and placed its former administration under control.
• Divine Land divided Cherry Blossom Country into four regions, assigning each different political systems and local governing models.
• Divine Land invited universities to select scholars and experts to design and study the regional experiments.
• Divine Land arranged for legal systems to be tested alongside the different forms of government.
• Divine Land left one area’s government and laws to online votes, while giving each Divine Land citizen’s vote the weight of a thousand Cherry Blossom Country votes.
• Divine Land blocked sea, air, and other travel, leaving Cherry Blossom Country isolated.

The people of the Divine Land voted to establish a Skynet-governed zone in Cherry Blossom Country, then created a bizarre and punitive body of laws for it. The vote produced a system focused on surveillance, revenge, and harshly targeting the wealthy.

• Netizens voted on possible forms of government for the zone, and Skynet won with a plan for cultivators to build a surveillance formation.
• The voting zone was placed around the Yasukuni Divine Toilet in Edo, and the first leading law barred Cherry Blossom Country people and dogs from entering.
• Voters proposed replacing the Divine Toilet's spirit tablets with heroes of the War of Resistance and using the original tablets as flooring.
• The people enacted numerous strange, harsh laws, though ordinary residents going about their daily lives would not be affected.
• Netizens established severe punishments for economic crimes and personal gain, including collective punishment of families and the redistribution of wealth concentrated among the richest.

Divine Land’s experiment in Cherry Blossom Country let experts compete to design regional systems and laws, testing how people responded to different forms of government. As the selection ended, Li Xingkong remained immersed in the cultivation technique repository, studying its techniques.

• Divine Land used the experiment to explore how cultivators’ growing independence might require laws that offered more than social stability.
• Experts fiercely competed to design the regions’ systems, with the feudal areas drawing the most interest and a prominent feminist securing the matrilineal clan region.
• Legal professionals and other applicants competed for authority to shape regional laws, and Divine Land distributed the legislative positions in under a week.
• Li Xingkong stayed in the cultivation technique repository after the regional divisions were complete, studying distinctive techniques and discussing their principles with the system.

After studying cultivation methods for over a week, Li Xingkong returned to Old Tang and learned that Divine Land had destroyed the Cherry Blossom Wind Group for plotting against him. He accepted the group’s assets and heard that Tang Cheng had survived the tsunami but had gone missing.

• Li Xingkong studied the One Heart Spell and the flawed Fusion Technique in the cultivation method library, then reported several valuable methods to Old Tang.
• Old Tang elevated the classification of the methods Li Xingkong identified and gave him documents about the Cherry Blossom Wind Group.
• Old Tang explained that Divine Land had dismantled the group after discovering its plans to take revenge on Li Xingkong, and offered him its seized assets and captured personnel.
• Li Xingkong accepted the assets, deciding he could give them to his parents, and asked Old Tang about Tang Cheng and the others.
• Old Tang said Tang Cheng had recovered from the tsunami but was missing, while many cultivators had disappeared or died during the disaster and the Divine Land Grand Formation was nearly complete.

After returning home to rest, Li Xingkong planned to refine artifacts, cultivate spells, and study spatial equipment. Old Tang then told him the Nation-Protecting Grand Formation was complete, and Li Xingkong prepared to attend its globally broadcast ceremony.

• Li Xingkong gave his parents the enormous compensation from the Cherry Blossom Wind Group, and they began spending it on things they had long wanted.
• Li Xingkong planned to refine the Chasing Lightning Sword, expand his Foundation Establishment Stage spells, and study spatial theory for making spatial equipment.
• Old Tang informed Li Xingkong that the Nation-Protecting Grand Formation had been completed.
• Li Xingkong decided to attend the formation's completion ceremony, which would be held at its final core and broadcast worldwide.

Li Xingkong attended the completion ceremony for the Nation-Protecting Grand Formation and examined how its simple formation nodes worked. The ceremony began with foreign guests realizing how far the Divine Land had advanced, while Li Xingkong focused on the formation's ability to intercept attacks outside the country's borders.

• Li Xingkong flew to the Yellow Sea venue and saw the vast Nation-Protecting Grand Formation, with a small gap left for the ceremony.
• Foreign reporters and guests watched cultivators patrol the venue and began to grasp the Divine Land's military and technological advantage.
• Li Xingkong arrived as the ceremony was about to begin, showed his invitation, and sat in a corner without greeting anyone.
• Li Xingkong studied the formation's nodes and identified their defensive, identification, and energy-storage spells.
• Li Xingkong concluded that the formation could intercept nuclear strikes beyond the Divine Land's territory and reduce damage within the country.

Li Xingkong watched Divine Land complete its vast protective formation, giving it a way to redirect energy across the country. At the completion feast, he sampled cultivation cuisine and saw foreign reporters try to force their way into the cultivators-only food area.

• Li Xingkong admired the formation's design as Divine Land's number one leader placed its final formation eye and activated the completed barrier.
• The completed formation linked its regions and gained the ability to redirect energy to areas under attack.
• After the ceremony, Li Xingkong sampled dishes reserved for cultivators and enjoyed their unusual flavors and textures.
• Foreign reporters demanded entry to the cultivators-only area, believing its food held the secret to becoming stronger.
• The security officer refused to let the ordinary reporters enter because the food could kill them, while the reporters plotted to get inside.

Reporters forced their way into the cultivators' food section and discovered that its dishes were genuinely dangerous for ordinary people. After the security guard healed and removed them, they watched Li Xingkong and the other cultivators eat the food without harm and feared their abilities.

• The security captain let the reporters enter the cultivators' food section after warning them not to eat anything.
• The reporters mocked the food descriptions and tried to pick up and taste the dishes.
• Li Xingkong effortlessly handled the steel-wire dish, but a reporter bit into it, cut his tongue, and fell into pain and confusion.
• Several reporters injured themselves or fell unconscious after trying the food, and the cameramen fled while their livestreams continued.
• The security guard healed the reporters and tossed them out, leaving them frightened as they watched Li Xingkong and the other cultivators eat.

After the grand array successfully blocked tests of most conventional weapons, Li Xingkong began studying spatial theory so he could make a spatial bag. He learned that the simplest design used a remote warehouse connected by a beacon, while the more advanced methods remained beyond his abilities.

• Divine Land tested the grand array with rockets, naval guns, missiles, and simulated poison gas, and it intercepted them; laser and infrasound weapons still affected the area inside.
• Li Xingkong returned home and obtained a basic text on spatial theory from the system, focusing on the sections relevant to spatial bags.
• Li Xingkong read that civilizations with spatial knowledge could reduce their need to occupy vast tracts of empty space and instead control a few valuable planets.
• Li Xingkong learned that spatial bags had three methods of construction, with the second and third beyond his current ability.
• Li Xingkong studied the simplest method, which linked a spatial bag to a remote warehouse through a spatial beacon, but could leave the warehouse vulnerable to theft.

Li Xingkong studied the three types of space bags and focused on learning the spatial theory needed to create the first type. While he remained absorbed in his studies, the Divine Land prepared to turn its attention to Ryukyu.

• Li Xingkong compared the security, limitations, and complexity of three types of space bags, concluding that only the first was within his abilities.
• Li Xingkong planned to use a warehouse on the moon and identified a spatial beacon and portal technology as the main challenges.
• Li Xingkong immersed himself in spatial theory, which cultivators also needed to understand space-related cultivation methods and preserve human form.
• The Divine Land completed adjustments to its grand array and prepared to target Ryukyu.

After Java blamed Divine Land-descended residents for unrest and ignored Divine Land’s warning, Divine Land launched a massive attack to punish it and deter nearby countries. A vast barrage raced toward Java as the world watched the aerospace carrier’s livestream.

• Divine Land searched online for a pretext to act against Ryukyu, but Java’s renewed persecution of Divine Land-descended people gave it a reason to strike.
• Divine Land condemned Java and warned it to stop, but Java continued its actions, expecting the warning to go unanswered.
• Divine Land sent an aerospace carrier to Java’s coast, where it destroyed more than a dozen Java fighter jets that approached it.
• Divine Land began livestreaming from the carrier as heavy weapons along its southeastern coast fired a massive barrage toward Java.
• Nearby countries watched the barrage cross the sky, and a streak of light appeared on the carrier’s livestream as the shells neared Java.