Chapter Summaries

Lin Xiao, Qin Jianghe, and Liu Chun secured a partnership with Su Yaoguang’s Su Household, giving the Lingxian Sect another sales channel in the Immortal Cultivation Realm. Meanwhile, the sect’s members stayed busy producing goods, while Xiaoluan managed the beast garden and studied spirit beasts that might awaken intelligence.

• Lin Xiao and Qin Jianghe discussed expanding the Lingxian Sect’s sales channels, and Lin Xiao approached Su’s General Store about working together.
• Lin Xiao, Qin Jianghe, and Liu Chun negotiated with Su Yaoguang, offering the Su Household exclusive Intermediate-Grade Spirit Gathering Formations in exchange for expanding sales and secretly handling rare goods.
• The partnership gave the Lingxian Sect three distribution channels capable of carrying far more goods than the sect and its partners currently produced.
• Xiaoluan carefully controlled the spirit beasts’ breeding and set aside several showing signs of intelligence for separate observation and comparative experiments.
• Xiaoluan limited the beast garden’s meat output to the sect’s needs and what she chose to sell to the Yuan Household, while Big Peach helped keep the records.

Lin Xiao gave Xiaoluan the Mystic Ultimate Azure Flame after discovering the chicken could form a functional hand with Spiritual Power. Xiaoluan eagerly began refining the flame but insisted Lin Xiao still owed it the promised peachwood sword.

• Lin Xiao found Xiaoluan waiting outside the Artifact Refining Hall and asking for the peachwood sword he had promised.
• Xiaoluan formed a functional little hand from its wing, and Lin Xiao praised its ability to develop a new Law Technique.
• Lin Xiao gave Xiaoluan the Mystic Ultimate Azure Flame and explained that its outer flame could be eaten while its inner flame needed to be refined.
• Xiaoluan tasted the azure smoke, loved it, and learned that the flame could provide food indefinitely after being fully refined.
• Xiaoluan demanded its peachwood sword, and Lin Xiao admitted there was none left and offered to make an iron sword instead.

Lin Xiao used the Item Synthesizer to make Xiaoluan a peachwood sword, while an unexplained voice beneath the Ten-Li Peach Blossom Tree called Lin Xiao a bad guy and Xiaoluan a fool. He Yi then contacted Lin Xiao to discuss the reasons behind the Mortal Realm’s stagnation and its control by Immortal Cultivation Realm organizations.

• Xiaoluan demanded a peachwood sword, and Lin Xiao hurriedly took an old branch from the Ten-Li Peach Blossom Tree instead of the branch Xiaoluan had chosen.
• After Lin Xiao left, Xiaoluan heard a mysterious voice call Lin Xiao a bad guy and Xiaoluan a fool, but could find no one beneath the tree.
• Lin Xiao synthesized a Myriad Realms Unified Peachwood Sword and gave it to Xiaoluan, who happily accepted it and left with the sword.
• He Yi contacted Lin Xiao and asked whether the sect planned to promote itself widely and draw people to the Trade Center in Xiushui City.
• He Yi asked whether Lin Xiao knew why no one in the Mortal Realm had reached Spirit Transformation for years and why organizations from the Immortal Cultivation Realm controlled its supply channels.

Lin Xiao learned from He Yi that Myriad Connections had helped keep the Mortal Realm stagnant and that its informants and nine powerful cultivators from the Immortal Cultivation Realm could complicate the Lingxian Sect’s plans. After asking about long-distance communication, Lin Xiao hinted that he had a way to handle the newcomers, while He Yi continued his undercover visits to Xiushui City and observed its unusual harmony between mortals and cultivators.

• Lin Xiao asked He Yi why the Immortal Cultivation Realm had failed to compete for the Mortal Realm’s market, and He Yi explained that Myriad Connections controlled the Mortal Realm and deliberately maintained its stagnation.
• He Yi warned Lin Xiao that Myriad Connections had informants in the Mortal Realm and that nine other cultivators from major Immortal Cultivation Realm sects had come with him.
• Lin Xiao asked whether the Immortal Cultivation Realm had a communication method that could reach across the Spiritless Land, and He Yi said its voice-transmission items were range-limited while soul lamps only showed a person’s general condition.
• Lin Xiao told He Yi he had an idea for dealing with the situation, and He Yi returned to his assignment in Xiushui City.
• He Yi observed that Xiushui City’s mortals and cultivators mingled comfortably, and he saw mortal farmers hire Rogue Cultivators to work fields protected by the city.

He Yi inspected Xiushui City as part of his sect assignment, observing the new livelihood policies and gaining a deeper understanding of the Lingxian Sect’s approach. He continued making talismans and cultivating, while Liu Chun remained in charge of the talisman-making room.

• The Lingxian Sect supplied villagers with spirit seeds, fertilizer, and formation plates, arranging to buy their spirit grain with Spirit Stones and deduct the cost of supplies.
• Xiushui City protected residents’ land from private sale and offered ways to exchange deeds or household assets for silver and loans.
• He Yi inspected the city’s facilities and watched for trouble, gradually understanding the reasoning behind the sect’s policies.
• He Yi made talismans for the sect’s orders and still had time to cultivate after his daily inspections.
• Liu Chun considered giving He Yi control of the talisman-making room, but He Yi told him he was unsuited to management, so Liu Chun dropped the idea.

Lin Xiao visited Liao Pantu to discuss the threat posed by Myriad Connections and the sects investigating the Mortal Realm. He proposed capturing their people to buy the sect time to grow, and Liao Pantu questioned whether the plan could avoid provoking stronger forces.

• Lin Xiao helped Hu Liang and the Artifact Refining Hall prepare most of the month's high-grade goods, while Hu Liang continued to work hard with support from the sect.
• Lin Xiao visited Liao Pantu in the medicinal garden, where Liao chided him for having lower cultivation than the sect's Spirit Transformation elder.
• Lin Xiao told Liao about Myriad Connections' reach into the Mortal Realm and proposed capturing its informants and the cultivators sent by major sects.
• Liao warned that missing investigators could prompt Myriad Connections and the major sects to send stronger people, and asked how Lin Xiao would respond.
• Lin Xiao argued that Myriad Connections likely communicated with the Mortal Realm infrequently because of the long journey through the Spiritless Land.

Lin Xiao and Liao Pantu tentatively planned to capture Myriad Connections' informants and keep them confined in Xiushui City, where they could work clearing land. Lin Xiao gathered intelligence from Mortal Realm sects and royal families and asked Li Zhanying to map the informants across the entire Mortal Realm.

• Lin Xiao proposed using He Yi's ties to the Talisman Sect to delay the major sects, then suggested housing captured informants in Xiushui City and having them clear farmland.
• Liao Pantu approved the preliminary plan and offered to capture the informants who would be difficult to catch once Lin Xiao finalized the details.
• Lin Xiao contacted familiar sects and royal families, who shared what they knew about the informants' identities, numbers, and cultivation realms.
• Lin Xiao traveled to the Pusi Kingdom's capital and gave Li Zhanying ten Jade Slips, asking him to record the informants' locations and cultivation realms throughout the Mortal Realm.

Li Zhanying gathered information on the Immortal Cultivation Realm’s spies from kingdoms and sects around the Pusi Kingdom and recorded it for Lin Xiao. Meanwhile, Venerable Guijia learned that Venerable Zhiyu was preparing to break through to Spirit Transformation and ordered an urgent report and the return of eight spies.

• Li Zhanying sent Sound Transmission Talismans to kingdoms and sects, prompting them to share information about spies from the Immortal Cultivation Realm.
• Golden Core and Nascent Soul cultivators carried the information to the Pusi Kingdom’s capital, where Li Zhanying recorded it in Lin Xiao’s Jade Slip.
• A subordinate told Venerable Guijia that contact with Twenty-Three and Twenty-Four had been lost and that Venerable Zhiyu had reached Nascent Soul Great Perfection and was preparing to break through.
• Venerable Guijia ordered the news sent to headquarters and insisted the Spirit Venerables read it themselves.
• Venerable Guijia sent Eleven through Eighteen back from the Mortal Realm, though their journey across the Spiritless Land would take most of a year.

Liao Pantu ambushed Venerable Guijia and his subordinate, trapping them inside the Spirit-Binding Cage that Lin Xiao had made from Execution Stone. He confirmed that the cage could suppress cultivators without harming ordinary people.

• Venerable Guijia ordered his subordinate to report urgent news to headquarters, but an unfamiliar barrier sealed the secret chamber.
• Liao Pantu silently sealed the Golden Core subordinate’s Spiritual Power and recorded his cultivation on a Jade Slip.
• Venerable Guijia emerged and Liao Pantu recognized him as a Nascent Soul Middle Stage cultivator, then pulled him into the Spirit-Binding Cage.
• The subordinate tried to flee but struck the barrier, and Liao Pantu yanked him into the cage beside Venerable Guijia.
• Venerable Guijia and his subordinate attacked the cage with Law Techniques and a Law Artifact, but none of their attacks worked.
• Liao Pantu recalled that Lin Xiao had made the cage from Execution Stone so it devoured Spiritual Power only while activated and did not harm ordinary people.

Liao Pantu captured Venerable Guijia and his subordinate with the Spirit-Binding Cage, then forced the subordinate to reveal his Myriad Connections identity and location. After Lin Xiao informed Li Zhanying that their leader had been captured, the Li Clan urged sects and royal families across the Mortal Realm to seize the remaining informants.

• Venerable Guijia failed to escape the Spirit-Binding Cage, and he and his subordinate exhausted their Spiritual Power trying to break it.
• Liao Pantu carried the cage toward Xiushui City and used his Spirit Transformation pressure to make the subordinate reveal his Myriad Connections code name and station.
• Liao Pantu marked the subordinate's location as captured on his Jade Slip, while Venerable Guijia remained imprisoned.
• Lin Xiao informed Li Zhanying that Venerable Guijia, Myriad Connections' leader in the Mortal Realm, had been captured.
• The Li Clan called on sects and royal families across the Mortal Realm to capture the remaining Myriad Connections informants, and most of them took action.

The Mortal Realm's sects and kingdoms joined forces to capture Myriad Connections' informants, while Venerable Zhiyu's careful preparations let the Heavenly Heart Sect conceal his imminent breakthrough. The captives were gathered in Xiushui City, where the Lingxian Sect eagerly anticipated putting them to work clearing land.

• The Mortal Realm's sects and kingdoms launched a coordinated sweep that uprooted Myriad Connections' informant network.
• Venerable Zhiyu and the Heavenly Heart Sect captured their informants, having used the Heaven and Earth Clasp to conceal his advancement to Nascent Soul Great Perfection.
• Venerable Zhiyu delivered the Tuiyi Kingdom's captives to Pusi Kingdom and returned to enter seclusion to attempt a breakthrough to Spirit Transformation.
• The informants were gathered in Xiushui City, where they numbered fourteen thousand eight hundred, including one Nascent Soul Cultivator and a thousand Golden Core cultivators.
• The Lingxian Sect welcomed the captives as laborers who could clear the wilderness behind North Mountain for cultivation.

Lin Xiao had the captured spy cultivators housed in an isolated area of Xiushui City and left their management to Liao Pantu. After their escape attempt failed and they settled into cultivation, the Spiritual Qi around the fifty buildings suddenly vanished.

• Lin Xiao entrusted Liao Pantu with managing the spy cultivators, who were confined to an isolated area of Xiushui City with access only to farmland and nearby mountains.
• Venerable Guijia gathered the spy cultivators and led an attempt to break the barrier, but their attacks were neutralized and retaliatory lightning injured them.
• The spy cultivators searched for a way to break the array but found nothing and gradually gave up on escaping.
• The spy cultivators cultivated in the area for nearly ten days, encouraged by its abundant Spiritual Qi and the lack of chores.
• Less than half a month after their arrival, the spy cultivators discovered that the Spiritual Qi around them had suddenly disappeared.

After Spiritual Qi vanished in Xiushui City, Myriad Connections' captured informants realized they might be trapped for at least six years with dwindling resources. On the tenth day, Venerable Guijia and the Golden Core cultivators ordered lower-level cultivators to surrender their supplies, prompting quiet resistance.

• The informants calculated that headquarters might not be able to rescue them for at least six years because the reporting team had already left the Mortal Realm.
• The cultivators spent the first days after Spiritual Qi vanished meditating, pacing, and using their remaining resources to cultivate.
• Venerable Guijia and a thousand Golden Core cultivators ordered Foundation Establishment and Qi Refining cultivators to hand over all their Cultivation Resources for centralized allocation.
• The lower-level cultivators recognized the order as an attempt by higher-level cultivators to seize their supplies and resented it.
• One lower-level cultivator quietly stirred discontent, pointing out that no one could use means of attack there.

The Myriad Connections cultivators defied Venerable Guijia’s orders as their organization in the Mortal Realm collapsed amid growing internal conflict. At the Cage Compound, Yuan Jinsheng offered the imprisoned spies paid work clearing wasteland, with Spiritual Qi available to those who worked.

• The low-level cultivators refused to hand over their resources, and most ignored the high-level cultivators’ summons to the square.
• The growing defiance left Myriad Connections’ organization in the Mortal Realm nearly collapsed, with conflicts worsening over the following month.
• Liao Pantu sent his disciple Yuan Jinsheng to manage the Cage Compound, where the Spiritual Qi had been reduced to zero.
• Yuan Jinsheng set up a hiring stall and explained that the spies’ access to Spiritual Qi had been cut off because they were outsiders using the Mortal Realm’s scarce resources.
• Yuan Jinsheng offered one Spirit Stone for every ten mu of top-grade farmland cleared and told the spies that workers would have access to Spiritual Qi.

Yuan Jinsheng recruited cultivators imprisoned in the Cage Compound to clear land, offering them access to Spiritual Qi while they worked. Venerable Guijia refused to join, but a Golden Core elder warned him that their captors might be connected to the formidable Immortal Ascension Domain.

• Yuan Jinsheng received applications from many imprisoned cultivators, including Golden Core cultivators, eager to work in an environment with Spiritual Qi.
• Yuan Jinsheng considered how the Lingxian Sect could hire workers without taking on the costs and responsibilities of training more disciples.
• A Golden Core elder asked Venerable Guijia whether he would sign up after Gui Shisan and others did.
• Venerable Guijia objected to clearing land for the Mortal Realm cultivators who had captured them.
• The Golden Core elder suggested the Cage Compound's ability to cut off Spiritual Qi might indicate intervention from the Immortal Ascension Domain and warned that their captors were beyond their ability to oppose.

Yuan Jinsheng led the spy cultivators through the Cage Compound’s back gate to clear farmland behind the North Mountain Range. They found rich Spiritual Qi outside, but lightning punished their escape attempts, and they began working under close supervision.

• Venerable Guijia wrestled with whether working for a cultivator from the Immortal Ascension Domain would cost him face, while fearing life without Spiritual Qi.
• Yuan Jinsheng and a hundred assistants organized more than ten thousand spies into teams and led them toward the Cage Compound’s back gate.
• The back gate opened into wilderness rich with Spiritual Qi, and lightning struck spies who tried to escape or resist.
• Yuan Jinsheng warned the spies that trouble would send them back to the Cage Compound, but no one stepped forward to quit.
• The assistants divided the farmland into work areas and monitored the spies, while Yuan Jinsheng promised them half a shichen of meditation outside after each day’s work.

On February 1, Xiushui City’s trade center opened for business as crowds of cultivators and sects arrived, drawn by the city’s commercial district and reports of a Spirit Transformation Stage cultivator. The city’s staff activated their emergency plan to house the visitors in the purpose-built northwestern accommodation area.

• Sects and royal families arrived in Xiushui City to deliver trade orders, open their stores, and sell goods from their inventories.
• Major sects used Spirit Ships to bring Rogue Cultivators and their families to the city, earning fares and contributing to the surge in visitors.
• Rogue Cultivators chose to relocate to Xiushui City for its cultivation resources and the possibility of meeting a Spirit Transformation Stage cultivator.
• The city lord’s manor staff held an emergency meeting and activated their plan to accommodate the many visitors.
• The visitors were directed toward the northwestern area, which Lin Xiao had designed with mountains, courtyards, and cloud-shrouded formations for visiting cultivators.

Xiushui City opened the Nine Firmaments Mountain Range, where sect cultivators booked discounted cave abodes with dense Spiritual Qi. As the city settled its influx of visitors, the Trade Affairs Center began receiving the first deliveries from the sects and imperial families.

• Lin Xiao named the new cultivation lodging area the Nine Firmaments Mountain Range, and Liao Pantu questioned the grand name.
• The staff explained the cave abodes’ regular prices, discounted rates, and guest capacities, prompting many sect cultivators to register.
• The city lord’s manor arranged lodging for newcomers while its staff worked to maintain order in the growing city.
• The various sects and imperial families queued at the Trade Affairs Center on the agreed delivery date with goods made over the previous month.
• Li Zhouxuan’s assistant called the first queue number, Crimson Firmament Sect.

The Trade Affairs Center used the Heaven and Earth Fairness Scale to assess the sects’ goods in detail, earning their trust as they received payment. Afterward, the sects and imperial families bought goods from Bai Zhu and tested the Center’s inspection service, while Li Zhouxuan set a fee for outside inspections.

• The sects and imperial families waited anxiously, then entered one by one and left with full payment in Spirit Stones and agreements for future orders.
• Li Zhouxuan used Lin Xiao’s Heaven and Earth Fairness Scale to sort goods by grade and provide detailed records of their quality and flaws.
• The sellers used the Scale’s records to verify disputed judgments and grew more confident in Xiushui City’s capabilities.
• After settling their accounts, the sects and imperial families went to Bai Zhu to buy goods from the Trade Affairs Center.
• Li Zhouxuan allowed them to inspect goods bought or sold at the Center and set a fee for inspecting other items.

Bai Zhu continued helping with sect affairs as Xiushui City drew crowds of merchants, cultivators, and visitors. A cultivator punished by the city’s protective array wondered why Myriad Connections had concealed the city’s existence from the Immortal Cultivation Realm.

• Liu Yunan assigned Bai Zhu varied sect duties, appreciating his diligence while recognizing that he struggled to lead others.
• Xiushui City attracted merchants, visitors, and cultivators eager to trade, settle, or explore its facilities.
• Wen Liyun visited the bustling city with Wen the Eldest to buy school supplies after the household children were admitted to Lingxian Academy.
• The city’s protective array struck a cultivator with lightning when he violated its rules, alarming him with proof of the Mortal Realm’s powerful defenses.
• The punished cultivator suspected Myriad Connections had hidden Xiushui City from the Immortal Cultivation Realm and began considering why.