Chapter Summaries

Lin Daqiao explained how Storage Pouches worked and why they were valuable, then learned that Li Yan could project his Divine Sense despite being only at the second level of the Qi Condensation Realm. He urged Li Yan to test whether he could use the pouch, leaving Li Yan uneasy about revealing this ability.

• Lin Daqiao explained the grades, uses, risks, and scarcity of Storage Pouches and described how cultivation lineages supplied them to the Four Great Sects.
• Lin Daqiao showed Li Yan how to use Divine Sense to store and retrieve items, then asked whether Li Yan could project his Divine Sense outside his body.
• Li Yan admitted that he could project his Divine Sense two or three zhang and privately decided to attribute the ability to his Fragmented Poison Body.
• Lin Daqiao was shocked and recalled the dangerous history of a cultivator who had strengthened his Divine Sense with a fragmentary secret technique.
• Li Yan confirmed his ability, and Lin Daqiao asked him to try putting a small sword into the Storage Pouch.

Li Yan learned to use Divine Sense, his Storage Pouch, and the courtyard’s defensive formation while Lin Daqiao explained the sect’s customs and soul lamps. After examining his second-layer cultivation, Li Yan overused his Divine Sense and spiritual power, then discovered that recovering his depleted spiritual power took three hours and left him puzzled about his slow cultivation.

• Li Yan used Divine Sense to move his little sword and retrieve a spirit stone from his Storage Pouch, and Lin Daqiao taught him about spiritual artifacts, sect resources, and soul lamps.
• Li Yan worried that a soul lamp could leave the sect able to track or kill him, though he concealed his concerns from Lin Daqiao.
• After Lin Daqiao left, Li Yan bound the waist token with his blood and tested the courtyard formation’s illusion, attack, and defense modes.
• Li Yan found his residence bare, collected food and boiling water from the servants’ office, and discovered he could safely store the kettle in his Storage Pouch.
• Li Yan confirmed that he had reached the second layer of the Qi Condensation Realm and found that his spiritual power and Divine Sense had grown stronger.
• Li Yan exhausted his spiritual power and overused his Divine Sense while exploring the courtyard, then spent three hours recovering most of his strength and pondered the slow cultivation rate.

Li Yan discovered that his slow cultivation came from using the first-layer mnemonic after reaching the second Qi Condensation layer, then verified that the correct mnemonic restored his water spiritual power quickly. Li Wuyi brought him to the Small Bamboo Peak Treasure Pavilion, where Martial Uncle Gu examined him and remarked on his mixed spiritual roots and unusual physique.

• Li Yan entered his sea of consciousness and found that the Gui Water True Scripture had replaced the first-layer mnemonic with the correct second-layer one.
• Li Yan memorized the new mnemonic and confirmed through an hour of cultivation that his water spiritual power recovered much faster.
• Li Yan practiced flying in his courtyard, then resumed meditation after eating the next morning.
• Li Wuyi arrived and carried Li Yan to the Treasure Pavilion to choose cultivation methods and immortal arts.
• Martial Uncle Gu scanned Li Yan, examined his wrist, and noted that he had mixed spiritual roots despite possessing the Fragmented Poison Body.

Li Yan explored the Treasure Pavilion with Li Wuyi and chose a cultivation method, immortal arts, and introductory books. He left with his selections and monthly cultivation resources, ready to begin studying the immortal cultivation world.

• Li Wuyi brought Li Yan through the vortex into the Treasure Pavilion and explained the three pavilion sections.
• Li Yan struggled to enter the Scripture Pavilion until he used his spiritual power to pass through its barrier, confirming his spiritual power was unusually strong for his realm.
• Li Wuyi explained the pavilion’s offerings, and Li Yan inspected cultivation methods, immortal arts, and books while displaying his powerful Divine Sense.
• Li Yan chose the Myriad Origin Dao cultivation method, four green-grade immortal arts, and several books on history and cultivation basics.
• Li Wuyi explained the restrictions on higher floors and the other pavilion sections, then gave Li Yan three low-grade spirit stones and a bottle of fasting pills as his monthly resources.

Li Yan received the cultivation texts sealed in his sea of consciousness, then met Li Changting and Zhao Min outside his courtyard. After escaping Li Changting’s insect wine, he tested a fasting pill and spent the next eight or nine days studying the ancient books without feeling hungry.

• The gray-robed old man sealed Li Yan’s requested jade slips and ancient books in his sea of consciousness and sent him and Li Wuyi away.
• Li Wuyi introduced Li Changting and Zhao Min, who had been waiting outside Li Yan’s courtyard.
• Zhao Min abruptly left, and Li Wuyi warned Li Yan that Li Changting’s wine contained living and dead Gu insects.
• Li Yan activated his courtyard’s restrictions and retreated inside, where he took a fasting pill and immediately felt full.
• Li Yan spent eight or nine days reading every ancient book in his sea of consciousness while the fasting pill kept him from feeling hungry.

Li Yan cultivated for more than half a year, tested the power of his spiritual energy, and learned how to practice the Cloud Rain Art from Lin Daqiao. He emerged from seclusion looking more mature but troubled, then headed toward the mountaintop.

• Li Yan cultivated the Gui Water True Scripture and found that his spiritual power could strike the unusually resilient walls of his courtyard without damaging them.
• Li Yan tested the dark bamboo outside and concluded that it was a spiritual material distinct from the bamboo used to build the courtyard.
• Li Yan struggled to cast the Cloud Rain Art and sought guidance from Lin Daqiao, who explained how to coordinate incantations, hand seals, and spiritual power.
• Li Yan cultivated in seclusion for more than half a year, leaving periodically to collect food rather than relying on Fasting Pills.
• Li Yan emerged from his courtyard in a dark green robe, looking older and troubled, and walked toward the mountaintop.

Li Yan discovered that his slowing cultivation and erratic Cloud Rain Art came from his Fragmented Poison Body, which produced several deadly poisons. Wei Zhongran explained the condition and gave Li Yan records to study, leaving him with a renewed path forward and spirit stones to repair his courtyard formation.

• Li Yan recalled how his spiritual power stalled and his Cloud Rain Art produced corrosive green rain and eerie blue mist that damaged his courtyard.
• Li Yan concluded that his Fragmented Poison Body caused the strange effects and summoned Wei Zhongran for help.
• Wei Zhongran examined the poisons, identified their ingredients, and explained that Li Yan's constitution produced them.
• Wei Zhongran took Li Yan to collect jade slips about the Fragmented Poison Body from several peaks and had workers replace his stone table and stools.
• Wei Zhongran gave Li Yan spirit stones to replenish the courtyard formation, while Miao Wangqing became curious about her master's regard for him.

Li Yan investigated why spiritual power leaked from his body and discovered twelve cracked meridian nodes, leaving him convinced his cultivation path was broken. A dream helped him realize that his Fragmented Poison Body had never fully separated, and he began to understand what had gone wrong.

• Li Yan studied three jade slips about the Fragmented Poison Body and suspected its fragmentation was linked to spiritual energy leaking from his body.
• Li Yan traced the loss of spiritual power to twelve cracked nodes along his main meridians.
• Li Yan searched the Gui Water True Scripture and the jade slips for a solution but found no guidance and feared his cultivation path had ended.
• Li Yan fell asleep, hoping he might ask his master to send him back to the mortal world if he found no answer.
• Li Yan recalled a passage about separated poison bodies and realized his twelve cracked sections were not truly separated bodies.
• Li Yan concluded that his Fragmented Poison Body had never been completed because he had never undergone the painful process of separation.

Li Yan discovered his Fragmented Poison Body was only half-formed and painfully separated its twelve meridian sections, confirming that spiritual power could still circulate through them. Over the following months, he cultivated the body and its toxins, received extra resources from the sect, and decided to seek a secluded place on Small Bamboo Peak to practice immortal arts safely.

• Li Yan realized his Fragmented Poison Body was an incomplete rough form and began testing how to separate its meridian sections.
• Li Yan used spiritual power to cut apart the meridian nodes, endured intense agony, and confirmed that spiritual power could pass through the separated sections without loss.
• Li Yan spent four months studying the twelve toxin sources and began stimulating them with Divine Sense, slowly strengthening his Divine Sense despite the pain.
• Wei Zhongran told Li Yan that the sect had approved extra spirit stones and Spirit Ascension Pills to support his cultivation of the Fragmented Poison Body.
• Li Yan found that his toxins destroyed furnishings whenever he practiced immortal arts in his courtyard, so he decided to find a secluded practice spot on Small Bamboo Peak.

Li Yan explored Small Bamboo Peak’s mountain paths while looking for a place to cultivate, and Sixth Senior Sister Gong Chenying warned him about forbidden areas. He ignored her limit and reached a towering stone stele that injured him with its overwhelming pressure, then left with a new resolve to gain power.

• Li Yan discovered that an apparent bamboo thicket concealed an illusion formation and encountered Gong Chenying, who warned him away from marked paths and the mountain summit beyond fifty li.
• Li Yan found several paths marked by small, uninscribed stones and saw disciples from other peaks entering and leaving them.
• Li Yan continued uphill past the fifty-li limit, admiring a scenic platform and searching for a place to practice.
• Li Yan rounded a bamboo grove and saw a vast square centered on a towering stone stele, whose pressure made him vomit blood and retreat.
• Li Yan recognized his own weakness, turned back down the mountain, and longed to obtain the power of immortals.

Li Yan practiced combining his Fragmented Poisons with immortal arts, learning the effects of two poisons while working to improve his slow, unfamiliar casting. After spending most of the day training, he stayed on the platform because it was the year's end on the Desolate Moon Continent.

• A tall old man in a distant cave sensed Li Yan's unusual spiritual power and Fragmented Poison Body, then wondered how his mixed spiritual roots could produce such pure spiritual power.
• Li Yan returned to the platform on Small Bamboo Peak and tested a Fragmented Poison with the Fireball Art, discovering that it adhered to surfaces and corroded them.
• Li Yan combined another Fragmented Poison with the Quicksand Art, turning bamboo to black liquid and learning that he could control when the poison took effect through his Divine Sense.
• Li Yan practiced immortal arts for several hours, restoring his spiritual power whenever he exhausted it and continuing until he was completely spent.
• Li Yan remained on the scarred platform instead of descending the mountain because it was the year's end on the Desolate Moon Continent.

On the year's end, Li Yan mourned the family and village celebrations he had left behind and knelt beneath the moon to wish his parents a happy New Year. Zhao Min joined him on the platform and asked about mortal customs, leaving the two sitting together as Li Yan described his hometown.

• Li Yan imagined his family and villagers celebrating the year's end and tearfully kowtowed to the moon, wishing his parents a happy New Year.
• Zhao Min appeared behind Li Yan and asked whether mortals celebrated the year's end.
• Li Yan questioned why Zhao Min had come to Small Bamboo Peak's rear mountain, and she explained that she had once often visited it as a disciple there.
• Zhao Min said she had never experienced life in a mortal town and asked Li Yan to tell her about the year's end.
• Li Yan sat beside Zhao Min and described the village, his family, and their preparations for the festival beneath the full moon.

Three years after the previous events, Li Yan had advanced to the middle stage of the seventh level of Qi Condensation while concealing his cultivation and strengthening his techniques and Divine Sense. He went to a Small Bamboo Peak gathering seeking advice about his dwindling resources, where he reunited with his senior brothers and sisters.

• Sword King of Lower Spring, Master Yiye, and Daoist Hanglin secretly discussed how their three sects would deal with the Phantom Sect before the next realm-seeking harvest.
• Li Yan reached the middle stage of the seventh level of Qi Condensation, improved his arts and Divine Sense, and used the Gui Water True Scripture to disguise his cultivation as the early stage of the sixth level.
• Li Yan realized his monthly spirit stones and Spirit-Raising Pills no longer met his needs and decided to ask his senior brothers about finding more resources.
• Li Yan remembered the quiet full-moon meetings he had shared with Zhao Min each year and smiled as he headed to the main hall.
• Li Yan entered the gathering and greeted his senior brothers and sisters, including Lin Daqiao, Li Wuyi, and Wei Chi Tuo.

Li Yan attended a gathering of Wei Zhongran’s disciples, where Wei Zhongran announced preparations for next year’s secret-realm expedition and who would be eligible to compete for a place. The chapter left the disciples facing an internal competition for forty-nine slots, while Li Yan and two senior brothers were barred from entering the realm.

• Li Yan greeted his senior brothers and sisters at Small Bamboo Peak and met three newly admitted outer disciples who treated him as their junior martial uncle.
• Lin Daqiao praised Li Yan’s rapid cultivation progress, while Wen Xinliang brought up Li Yan’s killing of Strategist Ji and his skill at setting traps.
• Wei Zhongran arrived, noticed Li Yan had advanced to the early phase of the sixth level of Qi Condensation, and announced that forty-nine Foundation Establishment cultivators would be chosen for next year’s secret-realm expedition.
• Wei Zhongran ruled that Li Wuyi and Lin Daqiao could register for the peak competition but must withdraw if selected, and that Li Yan would not participate.
• Wei Zhongran urged Wei Chituo, Yun Chunqu, Gong Chenying, and the others to compete for places, while Li Yan recalled the realm’s ancient treasures and powerful fourth-rank demon beasts.

The four sects and the secret realm’s demon beasts negotiated rules for entering the realm, which would now open every fifteen years mainly to Foundation Establishment cultivators. Wei Zhongran gave Li Wuyi a rare Dustless Pill before leaving for secluded cultivation, and Li Yan went with Lin Daqiao to learn how to take assignments on Small Bamboo Peak.

• The four sects negotiated with the demon beasts, agreeing to retain two passages and open selected areas of the secret realm every fifteen years.
• Wei Zhongran assigned Li Wuyi to manage Small Bamboo Peak during his secluded cultivation and gave him a Dustless Pill to aid his breakthrough.
• Li Wuyi accepted the pill gratefully, while Wei Zhongran encouraged Wei Chituo to rely on his own efforts.
• Li Yan reflected on Wei Zhongran's generosity, and Li Wuyi dismissed the disciples after the meeting.
• Li Yan asked Lin Daqiao how to take assignments on the peak, and Lin Daqiao took him toward the Assignment Hall on a spirit artifact.

Lin Daqiao brought Li Yan to Small Bamboo Peak’s Mission Hall and explained how its paths, access tokens, and mission system worked. Li Yan learned that Heavenly Stele had destroyed the original signs and that raising certain demon beasts required much higher cultivation, leaving him curious about the unusual beasts.

• Lin Daqiao explained that the four stone markers used cracks to indicate the Mission Hall and three mission sites, and warned Li Yan about the powerful, ill-tempered Heavenly Stele.
• Lin Daqiao and Li Yan entered the Mission Hall through a bamboo grove that admitted them using their sect tokens.
• Lin Daqiao explained the Mission Hall’s mission boards, privacy formations, acceptance rules, and procedures for turning missions in.
• Lin Daqiao warned Li Yan not to accept demon-beast-raising missions until he reached at least the tenth level of qi condensation.
• Li Yan inspected the demon-beast missions and saw warnings that some required the tenth level of qi condensation or even middle-stage foundation establishment.

Li Yan accepted a mission to water fifty mu of Ink King Bamboo and met his Sixth Senior Sister, Gong Chenying, who assessed his Cloud Rain Art before taking him to the bamboo grove. The mission’s precise requirements and steep penalties left Li Yan worried about losing spirit stones as he prepared to begin.

• Li Yan chose and accepted the single-person mission to water fifty mu of Ink King Bamboo with his dual-element Cloud Rain Art.
• Li Yan entered the Spirit Plant Garden valley and found Gong Chenying at a bamboo courtyard filled with training equipment.
• Gong Chenying inspected Li Yan’s waist token and asked him to demonstrate his Cloud Rain Art, confirming that he could control it at minor mastery.
• Gong Chenying took Li Yan by jade boat to the Ink King Bamboo grove and showed him the fifty-mu patch he had to water.
• Gong Chenying explained that Li Yan had to dissolve four Snow Evening Crystals into each half-mu’s rain, warning him of deductions for damaged bamboo and lost crystals.

Li Yan struggled through a costly Ink King Bamboo watering mission, gradually improving his spellwork and experimenting with a poison-enhanced rain. The experiment appeared to kill a small patch of bamboo, but by the next day the harvested stalks had unexpectedly revived and grown vigorous.

• Li Yan repeatedly failed to coordinate the Cloud-Rain Art with spreading Snow Eve Crystals, losing spirit stones and damaging bamboo before deciding to harvest it himself.
• Li Yan continued practicing despite his losses, refined his timing, and spent twenty days improving the bamboo while learning to use his spells and spiritual power more effectively.
• Li Yan mixed an adhesive paralytic poison into a tightly controlled Cloud-Rain Art experiment, and the rain killed a small patch of Ink King Bamboo without affecting nearby plants.
• Li Yan harvested the ruined bamboo and meditated to restore his spiritual power, then returned more than ten hours later to find the stalks lush and vigorous again.

Li Yan discovered that applying shattered poison accelerated Ink King Bamboo’s maturation and refined his control of spiritual power, then learned that most of Small Bamboo Peak had left to prepare for the sect selection tournament. Far away, Gong Chenying and her team defeated three Earth-Armored Tigers and prepared to use their poison techniques on their next outings.

• Li Yan used shattered poison to shorten Ink King Bamboo’s maturation period by about eighteen days and found that practical work improved his control of spiritual power.
• Li Yan handed in his assignment to Yun Chunqu at the Spirit Plant Garden and learned that his fellow disciples had formed teams to temper themselves for the coming sect selection tournament.
• Gong Chenying fought one Earth-Armored Tiger while Lin Daqiao and two Foundation Establishment cultivators battled the other two.
• Gong Chenying killed her tiger with a golden axe and a powerful kick, breaking the remaining tigers’ resolve.
• The three young men killed the other Earth-Armored Tigers, and Gong Chenying ordered the team to collect their remains and use their poison cultivation methods from then on.

Li Changting, Zhao Min, and other Phantom Sect cultivators hunted demon beasts across the mountains as they prepared for the competition. Far away, a gray-robed old man wondered whether Li Yan had escaped and charged out of his cave to face crimson lightning.

• Li Changting and her four companions used swarms of insects to overwhelm Azure Wind Wolves, while Zhao Min killed another group with her sword and martial strength.
• Li Changting teased Zhao Min about Li Yan and Miao Wangqing, then questioned her about walking with Li Yan; Zhao Min denied anything had happened.
• Wei Chi Tuo and Miao Wangqing hunted fish-eating crocodiles, while other cultivators set poisoned traps, defeated Thunder Rocs, killed violent apes, and used formations against jade-horned snakes.
• A gray-robed old man in a distant ice ravine wondered whether Li Yan had escaped and said that meeting again would depend on fate.
• The old man sent crimson lightning into the cave entrance, then charged out to meet it.