Chapter Summaries

Lin Xiao accepted Lord Tong’s gift through Xue Chengfeng and gave him a talisman for contacting him about emergencies. After the Guchuan Dam was repaired, Lin Xiao returned to Xiushui Village and rejoined everyone on North Mountain, where he discovered Jiang Youfu had become an unexpectedly talented cook.

• Xue Chengfeng delivered Lord Tong’s gift to Lin Xiao, who accepted it and warned him not to risk jumping from the dam again.
• Lin Xiao gave Xue Chengfeng a Location Sound Transmission Talisman so he could report important situations.
• After seeing the Guchuan Dam repaired and the remaining labor made safer, Lin Xiao quietly left and returned to Xiushui Village.
• Lin Xiao noticed a new, spacious house near the mountain stream and went up North Mountain to ask the others about it.
• Liu Yunan explained that Jiang Youfu had started cooking and now prepared meals for everyone.
• Lin Xiao tasted Jiang Youfu’s potato and meat stew, praised it, and began eating while Lin Yun fetched him a chair and chopsticks.

Lin Xiao learned that his companions had built and furnished the school while he was away, then planned a visit to Jianghe with Jiang Youfu. He opened Prefect Tong’s gift and found a black disc that had once mysteriously carried Tong out of the mountains.

• Liu Yunan explained that the sect members had built the school and paid its expenses with money Lin Xiao had provided and by selling spare ink sticks.
• Lin Xiao praised their work, asked them to copy lower-tier cultivation manuals for the school, and arranged to visit Jianghe with Jiang Youfu the next day.
• Lin Yun told Lin Xiao that their father and the rest of the family were helping Old Master Lin make desks and chairs for the school.
• Lin Xiao showed everyone Prefect Tong’s gift and read the accompanying letter explaining how Tong had found the black disc in a hidden recess and later awakened outside a forest with it beneath him.

Lin Xiao obtained a teleportation formation disk and planned to ask Liao Pantu to guide him to the immortal cultivation world, while Qin Jianghe faced the deaths of three escort brothers in a mountain bandit attack. Qin Jianghe prepared to take another escort job to Suiyan Province and confront the bandits.

• Lin Xiao received a quest to befriend Foundation Establishment cultivators and appraised the Heaven and Earth Transposition Formation Disk, learning it could teleport him if he knew the destination.
• Lin Xiao realized Liao Pantu knew the immortal cultivation world’s location and returned to cultivating to prepare for the journey.
• Qin Jianghe heard from Fang Manliang that three escort brothers had died covering Chen Dali’s retreat from mountain bandits.
• Qin Jianghe ordered twice the funeral compensation for the dead brothers and said he would take the next escort job to Suiyan Province.

Qin Jianghe secretly left to pursue the mountain bandits after agreeing to let Gu Yuxiao join him, while Fang Manliang helped conceal his departure. Lin Xiao arrived at the escort agency, where Gu Yuxiao warned him that Qin Jianghe might face cultivators and began explaining the treasure that had protected her father.

• Gu Yuxiao asked to accompany Qin Jianghe after hearing that the mountain bandits resembled the people who had killed her father, and Qin Jianghe told her they would leave the morning after tomorrow.
• Qin Jianghe asked Fang Manliang to prepare rations and secretly departed that night, while Fang Manliang lied to Gu Yuxiao about where he had gone.
• After discovering Qin Jianghe was gone, Gu Yuxiao tried to leave alone, but the Fang brothers stopped her when they heard Lin Xiao had arrived.
• Lin Xiao and Jiang Youfu visited the Lingxiao Escort Agency, and Gu Yuxiao told Lin Xiao that Qin Jianghe had gone after the bandits alone and that cultivators might be among them.
• Gu Yuxiao began explaining that an old beggar had given her father a protective treasure, but she had not yet finished the story.

After learning that Gu Yuxiao’s father may have been killed by cultivators posing as mountain bandits, Lin Xiao took Gu Yuxiao and Fang Manliang to search for Qin Jianghe. They reached the bandits’ usual territory but found no sign of Qin Jianghe or the bandits.

• Gu Yuxiao told Fang Mancang and Fang Manliang that her father’s treasure had protected him from serious harm, making her suspect that something other than ordinary bandits had killed him.
• Lin Xiao agreed to search for Qin Jianghe and brought Gu Yuxiao along after confirming she knew the Concealment Technique.
• Fang Mancang stayed behind while Lin Xiao, Jiang Youfu, Gu Yuxiao, and Fang Manliang traveled by spirit boat toward the bandits’ territory.
• Gu Yuxiao became sick during the flight, and Jiang Youfu gave her a green fruit to settle her stomach.
• Lin Xiao searched the area with his Divine Sense but found neither Qin Jianghe nor any trace of the mountain bandits.

Qin Jianghe found the mountain bandits’ concealed stronghold, defeated them, and brought their wounded leader out to Gu Yuxiao as the man who had killed her father. He then explained how the bandit chief, a disgraced Cloud and Mist Sect cultivator, had hidden in the mountains using a stolen formation disk.

• Lin Xiao reasoned that Qin Jianghe should still be near the mountain bandits and led the others farther into the forest to search.
• Qin Jianghe followed the bandits’ traces to a hidden mountain passage concealed by a formation and discovered their valley stronghold.
• Lin Xiao and the others reached the valley after Qin Jianghe had defeated the bandits, and Fang Manliang recognized Qin Jianghe’s battered saber.
• Qin Jianghe gave Gu Yuxiao the wounded bandit chief, identified him as her father’s murderer, and left her to decide his fate.
• Outside the valley, Qin Jianghe told Lin Xiao that the bandit chief had left the Cloud and Mist Sect and stolen a concealment formation disk from its formation hall.

After Gu Yuxiao avenged her father, Lin Xiao and Jiang Youfu returned with Qin Jianghe to the Lingxiao Escort Agency and supplied him with cultivation resources and ways to contact the sect. The group reunited over a meal, while Fang Mancang planned to visit the sect when he could take time off.

• Jiang Youfu explained Senior Liao to Fang Manliang as screams sounded from the bandits’ valley.
• Qin Jianghe said he had crippled the bandit leader, and Gu Yuxiao emerged after avenging her father.
• Lin Xiao collected the stronghold’s valuables, and the five left the valley for Songyang County.
• Fang Manliang accompanied Gu Yuxiao to her father’s grave while Lin Xiao and Jiang Youfu returned with Qin Jianghe to the escort agency.
• Lin Xiao gave Qin Jianghe Location Sound Transmission Talismans, cultivation books, Spirit Stones, and talisman-making tools, and Jiang Youfu offered Jianghe and Fang Mancang encouragement to visit the sect.
• Jiang Youfu cooked dinner, and all six ate together after Gu Yuxiao and Fang Manliang returned.

Qin Jianghe began training Gu Yuxiao to manage the escort agency while Lin Xiao arranged for most of the stolen bandit wealth to be returned to the people through Prefect Tong Shuzheng. After Lin Xiao and Jiang Youfu returned to the sect, Lin Xiao focused on cultivation.

• Qin Jianghe asked Gu Yuxiao to learn bookkeeping so she could help manage the escort agency and let him return to the sect.
• Lin Xiao took most of the money and grain seized from the bandits to Liaoju Prefecture to entrust to Tong Shuzheng.
• Tong Shuzheng ordered compensation for people killed on the road and directed the remaining wealth toward flood relief.
• Tong Shuzheng and Xue Chengfeng watched Lin Xiao's letter disappear from the paper.
• Lin Xiao and Jiang Youfu returned to the sect after two days, and Lin Xiao began cultivating.

The Lingxian Sect harvested its first small crop of spirit grain and saved every grain for replanting as the village began a new farming season. Yamen runners then announced that Sun Yigao had placed first in the academy examination, earning Xiushui Village an exemption from miscellaneous taxes for the year.

• Jiang Youfu kept busy cultivating and improving his cooking while the sect used its mountain spoils to eat meat regularly.
• Lin Dayou ordered the Lingxian Sect to save its small harvest of spirit grain for seed, and the sect members plowed and planted in preparation for autumn.
• Yamen runners arrived in Xiushui Village with a red-silk announcement, prompting the village chief and villagers to gather.
• The runners announced that Sun Yigao had taken first place in the Hufang Province academy examination and that the county magistrate had exempted Xiushui Village from miscellaneous taxes for the year.
• The villagers cheered at the tax exemption, and Lin Xiao felt delighted by Sun Yigao’s achievement and confident about his future examinations.

Lin Xiao prepared to travel to the cultivation world to gather resources and strengthen Lingxian Sect before the three great sects discovered it. After telling everyone he would leave in two days, he faced Mo Yuanjiao’s offer to accompany him.

• The villagers of Xiushui Village celebrated their exemption from miscellaneous taxes after the runners departed.
• Lin Xiao learned from Liao Pantu that a Heart-Questioning Road required Heart-Questioning Stone from the Heart-Questioning Cliff, and he asked Liao Pantu to help him make a Soul-Nourishing Pendant for the trip.
• Lin Xiao arranged for Liu Yunan and Tuzi to handle sect and school affairs, then set his departure for five days later after reaching the Foundation Establishment Middle Stage.
• Lin Xiao prepared Cultivation Methods, Law Techniques, talismans, formations, and pills while Liao Pantu mined Spirit Stones for him.
• Sun Yigao returned with his parents, and Lin Xiao told the gathered group he would leave for the cultivation world in two days; Mo Yuanjiao then offered to go with him.

Lin Xiao prepared to leave the Lingxian Sect with Liao Pantu to explore the cultivation world, giving him a Soul-Nourishing Pendant and the supplies needed for their teleportation. The chapter ended as Liao Pantu activated the Heaven and Earth Transposition Formation and its glowing array unfolded beneath them.

• Lin Xiao refused Mo Yuanjiao’s request to join the trip and urged him to stay in the sect and cultivate.
• Liao Pantu gave Lin Xiao a storage ring holding more than fifty thousand Spirit Stones he had mined.
• Lin Xiao handed Liao Pantu a newly synthesized Soul-Nourishing Pendant, and Liao Pantu moved into it and demonstrated that he could still fly and appear to the disciples.
• Lin Xiao gave Liao Pantu the Heaven and Earth Transposition Formation Disk and the storage ring of Spirit Stones.
• Liao Pantu placed two thousand Spirit Stones into the disk, causing a glowing formation diagram to spread across the ground.

Lin Xiao and Liao Pantu arrived in the immortal cultivation world and took refuge in Liao Pantu’s lavishly furnished hidden cave abode. Lin Xiao fell asleep on a bed made from Soul-Nourishing Wood, unaware that three Qi Refining cultivators were investigating the formation outside.

• Lin Xiao and Liao Pantu were transported by the Heaven and Earth Shift Formation to Liao Pantu’s concealed cave abode.
• Lin Xiao toured the extravagant abode and recognized that its enormous bed was made from Soul-Nourishing Wood.
• Liao Pantu explained that the bed benefited his Soul Refining Instruction and urged Lin Xiao to rest before exploring.
• Lin Xiao lay on the bed and its soothing effect on his Divine Sense lulled him into a deep sleep.
• Three Qi Refining cultivators examined the formation outside the cave abode while one used a compass and the other two urged him to hurry.

Three Qi Refining cultivators bought information about Liao Pantu’s supposed abandoned cave abode, unaware that he had returned. Myriad Connections withdrew the information, while Lin Xiao awoke in Liao Pantu’s cave and learned about the Southern Spirit Domain.

• Three young Qi Refining cultivators hurried to reach the rumored Nascent Soul cave abode after buying its location from Myriad Connections.
• A Golden Core cultivator at Myriad Connections headquarters learned that Liao Pantu had returned to his cave abode and ordered the information withdrawn from Yuanling City.
• The Yuanling City branch reported that it had sold the information once to three Qi Refining cultivators, and the yellow-robed cultivator ordered them watched to protect Myriad Connections’ reputation.
• The yellow-robed cultivator privately planned to have the branch employee expelled for giving him information without authorization.
• Lin Xiao woke in Liao Pantu’s cave, and Liao Pantu explained that the Southern Spirit Domain had thirty-six cities and eighteen sects but was considered remote.

Lin Xiao learned that the Heaven and Earth Transposition Formation Disk had spent more than 1,700 Spirit Stones on their journey, while Liao Pantu prepared to take him out to explore the city. After Liao Pantu let three Qi Refining cultivators enter the cave’s illusion formation, Lin Xiao urged him to hurry so he could finish his tasks before returning home to cultivate.

• Lin Xiao asked Liao Pantu about the Heavenly Net Sect, and Liao Pantu explained how he had joined it before later leaving for the Lingxian Sect.
• Liao Pantu pointed out that sleeping on the soul-nourishing tree bed had slightly strengthened Lin Xiao’s Divine Sense, then offered to show him the city.
• Liao Pantu found three Qi Refining cultivators trying to enter his cave abode and adjusted the illusion formation to scare them away without killing them.
• Lin Xiao appraised the Heaven and Earth Transposition Formation Disk and realized their trip had cost more than 1,700 Spirit Stones.
• Liao Pantu bragged that his ceiling held at least a hundred thousand Spirit Stones, while Lin Xiao insisted he still needed to be thrifty and asked to leave for the city.

Lin Xiao left Liao Pantu’s cave abode and traveled to Yuanling City, where he learned about its defenses and paid the entry fee to enter. He arrived safely inside the city, while Liao Pantu warned him that some cities had abused their entry restrictions to rob cultivators.

• Lin Xiao left Liao Pantu’s cave abode and learned that its exit opened in a different place each time.
• Lin Xiao flew for several hours to Yuanling City, and Liao Pantu explained that the Southern Spirit Domain’s cities had powerful defensive arrays.
• At Yuanling City’s south gate, Liao Pantu told Lin Xiao that entry cost five Spirit Stones and that large-scale use of spiritual power was forbidden inside.
• Liao Pantu returned Lin Xiao’s storage ring, and Lin Xiao paid five Spirit Stones to pass through the gate.
• Lin Xiao checked that the rest of his Spirit Stones remained safe, and Liao Pantu warned him about a city that had once used its entry restriction to steal all visitors’ Spirit Stones.

Lin Xiao entered Yuanling City and explored its practical shops and bustling cultivator gathering place, Seven Stars Street. After Liao Pantu warned him that a newcomer could be robbed, Lin Xiao abandoned his plan to earn money capturing Fire Rhinoceros Beasts and began gathering information instead.

• Lin Xiao transferred his Spirit Stones into the system's private vault, which assured him only he could access it.
• Lin Xiao walked through Yuanling City's streets as Liao Pantu warned him not to offend the influential craft-shop families and explained that flying was allowed despite the ban on spell battles.
• Lin Xiao saw a Jiang Household cart carrying spirit pigs, and Liao Pantu suggested buying one before refusing to explain the household's scandalous history.
• Liao Pantu guided Lin Xiao to Seven Stars Street, where cultivators gathered to recruit teams, hire escorts, trade beasts, and seek opportunities.
• Lin Xiao considered joining a team to capture Fire Rhinoceros Beasts for five hundred Spirit Stones, but Liao Pantu warned that he might be robbed, so Lin Xiao began listening for information instead.

Lin Xiao gathered information in Yuanling City and learned that the Icefield Mystic Realm, which opens in five days, may contain one of Liao Pantu’s soul fragments. He also saw Yuan Zhiyun, the Yuan Household’s young master, but decided to pursue connections with smaller lineages instead.

• Lin Xiao heard that several mystic realms would open near Yuanling City and learned the Icefield Mystic Realm would open in five days.
• Liao Pantu recognized the Icefield Mystic Realm as a place where one of his soul fragments was trapped and explained that he could not recall other realms without hearing their names.
• Lin Xiao suggested collecting mystic realm names to help Liao Pantu remember, and Liao Pantu agreed.
• Lin Xiao gathered the Icefield Mystic Realm’s location and other details, then heard that Yuan Zhiyun, a Foundation Establishment Early Stage cultivator, had arrived.
• Liao Pantu told Lin Xiao that the Yuan Household was Yuanling City’s most powerful lineage and had ties to the Heavenly Profound Sect, but Lin Xiao chose to start with smaller lineages.

Yuan Zhiyun sought a team to capture an Ice Plains Spirit Essence, but no one volunteered. Lin Xiao left the square to arrange a roast suckling pig at the Immortal Fragrance Pavilion, where Liao Pantu told him to set up an isolation formation.

• Yuan Zhiyun announced that she would recruit four people to join her in capturing an Ice Plains Spirit Essence in the Icefield Mystic Realm, but the crowd hesitated and no one stepped forward.
• Lin Xiao left Seven Stars Street Square and went to the Jiang Household Livestock Firm, where he paid to have a spirit pig delivered to the Immortal Fragrance Pavilion.
• Lin Xiao arrived at the Immortal Fragrance Pavilion, learned that Master Luo had died and Master Qian was now head chef, and ordered a silver-tailed fish dish and a small pot of Pinhui Spirit Wine.
• After the attendant left, Liao Pantu told Lin Xiao to set up his isolation formation, and Lin Xiao did so in the private room.

Lin Xiao and Liao Pantu shared roasted spirit pig at the Immortal Fragrance Pavilion while the staff discussed Lin Xiao’s apparent age and connection to Master Luo. Their meal was interrupted by a dispute between a lean cultivator and a Wu Household member over a broken promise of entry into the Heavenly Profound Sect.

• Liao Pantu admitted that he had persuaded Lin Xiao to order wine because he wanted a drink after decades of confinement.
• The shopkeeper told the waiter that powerful seniors often disguised themselves as young people.
• The Jiang Household Livestock Firm delivered Lin Xiao’s spirit pig, and the kitchen served roasted suckling pig, silver-tailed fish, and spirit wine.
• Lin Xiao and Liao Pantu raced to claim the tenderloin and savored the roasted pig together.
• Lin Xiao heard a commotion downstairs and watched as a lean Foundation Establishment cultivator accused a Wu Household member of reneging on a promise of a place in the Heavenly Profound Sect.

Liu Chun accused the Wu Household of breaking its promise to give him a place in the Heavenly Profound Sect, while Wu Sanbao denied the claim before a crowd at the Immortal Fragrance Pavilion. Lin Xiao left without learning who was telling the truth and decided to stay in Yuanling City while preparing for the Icefield Mystic Realm; Sun Yigao’s village school also began enrolling students.

• Wu Sanbao told the onlookers that the Wu Household had treated Liu Chun fairly and had never promised him a Heavenly Profound Sect place.
• Liu Chun said he had given up the Talisman Master Assembly to serve the Wu Household because it promised him a place and his full stipend.
• Wu Sanbao claimed the Wu Household had merely helped Liu Chun when he was destitute, and Liu Chun blamed his stalled cultivation on years of making talismans for them.
• A woman in a neighboring private room proposed that Liu Chun and Wu Sanbao each make a Heavenly Mandate Oath, but Liao Pantu shut the window and urged Lin Xiao to leave.
• Lin Xiao stored the leftover food, left the Immortal Fragrance Pavilion with Liao Pantu, and decided to remain in Yuanling City for several days before traveling to the Icefield Mystic Realm.
• Sun Yigao’s village school in Xiushui Village began formally enrolling students after its custom-made desks and chairs arrived.