Chapter Summaries

Chu Tianshu refined Feng Jianhua’s flawed Heaven-Hating Art into the Sky-Spanning Divine Art, then heard from Yuan Chongxiao about a dangerous Supreme Yin Form Refinement chamber at Mo Shengyi’s villa. The chapter ended when a talking red-crowned crane arrived at the martial arts school.

• Chu Tianshu asked Feng Jianhua to show him the Heaven-Hating Art and used his token to improve it into the Sky-Spanning Divine Art, removing its dehydration flaw.
• Chu Tianshu considered how internal cultivation might dull his senses and decided to study his current bodily abilities before cultivating the new art.
• Yuan Chongxiao told Chu Tianshu that his group had destroyed a room prepared for Supreme Yin Form Refinement at Mo Shengyi’s villa, but they could not yet destroy its Yin-gathering iron coffin.
• Yuan Chongxiao said a visitor was coming to the martial arts school, and a red-crowned crane landed at the window and spoke to Chu Tianshu.

Mr. Helai, possessing an immortal crane, offered Chu Tianshu support to establish a grand pharmacy, and Chu agreed to begin with the paperwork and certificates. He then discussed the approaching Spirit Realm and dangerous cultivation breakthroughs with Feng Jianhua, who was promised help suppressing the flaw in his cultivation.

• Yuan Chongxiao explained that Mr. Helai had sent his soul into an immortal crane to reach Guangling after the cold disaster disrupted air travel.
• Mr. Helai offered to arrange Chu Tianshu's pharmacy paperwork, a research institute as a supplier, and a location allowance, and Chu accepted the help with the paperwork.
• Mr. Helai promised Chu a discount on common medicinal ingredients if he met the required order volume.
• Mr. Helai joined Feng Jianhua and said he planned to use the approaching Spirit Realm's lifted restrictions to attempt dangerous sorcerer cultivation.
• Mr. Helai encouraged Feng Jianhua, saying they would find a way within a few years to suppress the flaw that kept him from advancing.

Chu Tianshu trained his control over the Martial Stove God’s Qi and blood, drawing students and wounded martial artists to practice beneath his overwhelming pressure. After demonstrating that he could propel a ball of water more than ten meters, he shared ideas for completing the Heaven-Hating Art, leaving Feng Jianhua convinced the approach could work.

• Chu Tianshu arranged for Qi Lianyong to supervise Bai Mei’s electrical training and help him recognize when he should practice in cat form.
• Chu Tianshu trained on the sports field, blending his Qi and blood while his pressure forced nearby students and wounded people to struggle through their fist techniques.
• Feng Jianhua watched Chu Tianshu’s pressure and compared it to a martial artist’s bearing, noting that Chu’s power spread like a great umbrella.
• Chu Tianshu gathered water into a ball through physical force and launched it more than ten meters, then concluded he was ready to begin practicing internal arts.
• Chu Tianshu proposed ideas for filling in the missing parts of the Heaven-Hating Art, and Feng Jianhua realized the approach could work.

Chu Tianshu experienced his consciousness separating from his body and emerged into a strange world, where he sat by a road outside a city. When wokou attacked fleeing villagers, he killed their leader and faced the remaining raiders.

• Chu Tianshu steadied his thoughts amid the colorful mists and used the Vertical and Horizontal Mantra to bring his consciousness back into alignment with his body.
• By evening, Chu Tianshu sat up in the grass beside a road, delighted to see his body and the surrounding scenery from the outside.
• Villagers fled toward the nearby city, warning Chu Tianshu that pirates were coming, while soldiers spotted wokou pursuing the crowd and struggled to control the gate.
• As Chu Tianshu started toward the woods, the wokou leader slashed at him from horseback, but Chu Tianshu appeared behind him and killed him.
• Chu Tianshu stood on the horse and confronted the remaining wokou, sensing their malice grow as they faced him.

Chu Tianshu, acting as his master’s Weapon Soul, killed the wokou and waited in the woods until Yongchun’s magistrate found him. He accepted food in the city and watched displaced townspeople receive help, then sat quietly as they thanked him.

• Chu Tianshu killed the wokou, washed by a stream, and waited as his master's consciousness grew clearer.
• Magistrate Wang found Chu Tianshu and invited him to the city, offering a banquet and rewards for saving Yongchun.
• Chu Tianshu followed Magistrate Wang into the city and ate shaobing at a shop.
• When constables drove displaced townspeople away, Magistrate Wang ordered them to find work for the able-bodied men and women.
• The tall, thin youth returned with the townspeople, who kowtowed to Chu Tianshu in gratitude as he waited for his master to return.

Xu Zhicheng and Xu Ben were hunted by the Three Yin Wind Sha for a Fire God Gully weapons secret, and Chu Tianshu intervened when Xu Zhicheng begged him for help. After the Weapon Soul drew the secret from a basket, Chu Tianshu returned to awareness amid a crowd of armed enemies and wondered how he had already made so many foes.

• Xu Ben and Xu Zhicheng forged hand cannons in a blacksmith shop while discussing the dangers of their pursuers and whether to reveal their distinctive skills.
• The Three Yin Wind Sha used a strange bat to track the pair and attacked them, but Xu Ben fought back with his hand cannons while Xu Zhicheng escaped with their baskets.
• Xu Zhicheng reached Chu Tianshu and offered him the Fire God Gully weapons secret in exchange for saving Xu Ben.
• The Three Yin Wind Sha arrived carrying Xu Ben, but Chu Tianshu unleashed his presence and hurled a piece of bench wood that shattered one attacker's arm and freed Xu Ben.
• Chu Tianshu pulled hidden bamboo strips containing the secret from the basket, then returned to awareness and found himself surrounded by enemies.

Chu Tianshu read a secret method for improved firearms on the bamboo slips, then faced an attack from the gathered martial artists. He defeated them with overwhelming skill and preserved the writing on the slips.

• Chu Tianshu realized the Weapon Soul had been stirred by the desire connected to the firearm secret and studied the method on the bamboo slips.
• The old man in blue urged the others to attack Chu Tianshu, then led three fighters into a coordinated assault.
• Chu Tianshu destroyed the spear and killed the tall, thin man with the bamboo slips as he broke out of the encirclement.
• Chu Tianshu killed the concealed old man and old woman with silver needles, then struck down the old man in blue and the burly man.
• Chu Tianshu swept through the Three Yin Wind Sha and left them fallen among the broken roof tiles, then flicked the blood from the bamboo slips.

Chu Tianshu killed the Giant Whale Gang and Sea Sand Sect leaders, rescued Xu Ben and Xu Zhicheng, and left Yongchun with them after receiving a bounty and carriage. He gave Xu Zhicheng a pinwheel to conceal his scent and revealed that he intended to help Xu Ben seek revenge rather than simply sail overseas.

• Chu Tianshu killed Shui Kongqi and Zhou Yan with silver needles and saw colored specks of emotion rise from their bodies.
• Chu Tianshu treated Xu Zhicheng and Xu Ben, then led them over the county yamen wall and told Magistrate Wang that he had dealt with pirates.
• Chu Tianshu declined Magistrate Wang's offer of an official post and said he would take Xu Ben and Xu Zhicheng to sea.
• Magistrate Wang gave Chu Tianshu's group a generous bounty and a carriage, and the three left the county seat.
• Xu Ben and Xu Zhicheng told Chu Tianshu that corrupt soldiers had repeatedly plundered people fleeing Fire God Gully instead of protecting them.
• Chu Tianshu gave Xu Zhicheng a pinwheel that concealed his scent, acknowledged Xu Ben's desire for revenge, and told him to drive the carriage.

Chu Tianshu traveled by boat toward Southern Shaolin while cultivating the Sky-Spanning Divine Art and considering how the temple’s influence and ambitions could serve his plans. He arrived near the temple and hinted that he might help Southern Shaolin strengthen itself, comparing his approach to a medical technique for lengthening bones.

• Chu Tianshu practiced the Sky-Spanning Divine Art aboard the boat, using acupoint-striking techniques to make his internal force surge and change course.
• Xu Ben told Chu Tianshu that Southern Shaolin was close, and Chu Tianshu reviewed the temple’s history and its influence among ordinary people.
• Xu Ben and Xu Zhicheng recalled Southern Shaolin’s past business conflict with Fire God Gully and questioned whether the monks would manufacture firearms on a large scale.
• Chu Tianshu argued that Southern Shaolin’s connected lay disciples could make the sect more useful than its small number of monks suggested.
• Chu Tianshu said he would see whether he could use his methods to help Southern Shaolin grow stronger, then explained a medical technique that could lengthen bones while treating deformities and disabilities.

Chu Tianshu visited Southern Shaolin’s reclaimed fields and examined the boulder Abbot Miaofan had unearthed, then confronted the abbot about the temple’s precarious situation. He left Miaofan startled by identifying himself as a successor of the School of Diplomacy.

• Chu Tianshu watched Southern Shaolin monks tend their fields and considered how farming and other labor supported their martial arts.
• Chu Tianshu inspected the rocks at the woodland boundary and studied the cracks and palm print left by Abbot Miaofan’s internal power.
• Abbot Miaofan approached Chu Tianshu, introduced himself, and recognized the young man’s extraordinary bearing.
• Chu Tianshu challenged Miaofan’s explanation for reclaiming land and warned that Southern Shaolin faced imminent peril.
• Chu Tianshu told Miaofan that he was a successor of the School of Diplomacy.

Chu Tianshu persuaded Abbot Miaofan that Southern Shaolin should use its strength to strike first, starting with the wokou, and asked how two Miaofans would fare against his master. The chapter ended with the master’s answer still unknown.

• Chu Tianshu presented himself as an heir of the School of Diplomacy and promised to help Southern Shaolin escape its predicament and become the dominant power in the region.
• Abbot Miaofan explained how Southern Shaolin’s growing enterprises and the spread of wokou and foreign sabers had made the sect a target for coastal factions and Flowing Cloud Manor.
• Chu Tianshu urged Abbot Miaofan to stop hesitating and attack the wokou first, arguing that the campaign would be righteous and would strengthen Southern Shaolin.
• Abbot Miaofan described the danger posed by Chen Zuqi, whose martial skill and past victories had made the wokou revere him.
• Chu Tianshu asked whether six masters of the Miao generation could make Chen Zuqi withdraw, then asked his master how many moves two Miaofans would need to defeat him.

Chu Tianshu tested his strength against Abbot Miaofan and overpowered Southern Shaolin’s master techniques with his exceptionally potent internal power. Miaofan agreed to discuss Chu Tianshu’s offer with his fellow disciples, while Chu Tianshu said he would return the next day and hinted that he brought more than his own martial arts.

• Chu Tianshu challenged Abbot Miaofan to a sparring match after Miaofan estimated how long he could withstand him.
• Miaofan used the Nine Diagrams and Six Seated Postures to evade Chu Tianshu, but Chu Tianshu tore his robes and disrupted his movement by striking a tree.
• Miaofan attacked with the Indra Claw and Tidal Sound Palm Technique, but Chu Tianshu met both techniques and showed that his internal power was superior.
• Chu Tianshu thanked Miaofan for going easy on him, and Miaofan praised his strength and invited him to discuss Southern Shaolin’s prospects with other disciples.
• Chu Tianshu said he would return the next day and revealed that he had brought more than his own martial arts.

Abbot Miaofan and his brothers debated whether Southern Shaolin should fight Flowing Cloud Manor or surrender, then Chu Tianshu brought them to the monastery’s weapons workshop to demonstrate the Fire God Secret Formula. The musket’s power won Miaofan and Miaokong’s support, leaving Chu Tianshu to begin cultivating Miaokong as an ally.

• Miaofan told Miaoyin, Miaokong, and Miaoguo about Chu Tianshu’s proposal and his defeat, and the monks debated the risks of fighting Flowing Cloud Manor or negotiating peace.
• Miaofan and his brothers agreed to send secret letters to Southern Shaolin’s lay disciples to learn their views.
• After midnight, Chu Tianshu arrived with Xu Zhicheng and Xu Ben, shared pastries with Miaofan, and asked him to bring Miaokong to the weapons workshop.
• Xu Ben inspected the workshop, made two rounds of ammunition, and demonstrated their power by firing a hand cannon at trees from over a hundred paces away.
• Miaofan asked whether Xu Ben could make long muskets, and Xu Ben said the workshop’s bladesmiths could learn to make them.
• Miaokong recognized the weapons as part of the Fire God Secret Formula, while Chu Tianshu used his ability to assess Miaokong’s feelings and judged him to be a potentially useful ally.

Zhao Yannian led Southern Shaolin fighters in a surprise attack on the Giant Whale Gang’s Pingtan branch, rescuing captive women and seizing its boats. Chu Tianshu and Miaokong arrived with armed monks and ordered the force to head for Ox Mountain Island, where they planned to attack the Japanese raiders.

• Zhao Yannian’s fighters infiltrated the harbor and killed nearly all the Giant Whale Gang members at its Pingtan branch, including its one-eyed leader.
• Zhao Yannian’s men found abducted women in the hold, freed them, and inspected the captured boats while awaiting Southern Shaolin’s reinforcements.
• Miaokong arrived with Chu Tianshu and more than two hundred selected fighters, then Chu Tianshu ordered them to sail for Ox Mountain Island.
• Chu Tianshu brought out a Divine Fire Gun and said he wanted to shoulder it and shoot the Japanese raiders.

Kichinosuke planned to expand the Ox Mountain Island wokou’s trade after a coming attack on Southern Shaolin, but a Southern Shaolin fleet launched a surprise assault. Chu Tianshu and Chan Master Miaokong helped rout the wokou, and Chu ordered the fleet to surround the island and prevent any escape.

• Kichinosuke dismissed Matsushita’s complaints about the wokou’s idle life and revealed plans to profit from an impending attack on Southern Shaolin.
• Kichinosuke and Matsushita went to inspect ships flying Giant Whale Gang flags, then realized the fleet was attacking when its men opened fire.
• The wokou tried to resist with arrows and Sonic Arts, but the fleet’s gunfire killed many of them.
• Chu Tianshu shot through the wokou’s shields, killed Matsushita with iron prayer beads, and wounded Kichinosuke after the chief deflected his bullets.
• Chan Master Miaokong used Southern Shaolin’s Lion’s Roar as Chu Tianshu charged onto the island and overwhelmed the wokou with his pressure.
• Chu Tianshu ordered the fleet to surround Ox Mountain Island, reload, and stop every wokou boat from escaping.

Zhao Yannian’s forces captured Ox Mountain Island, killing or hunting down the Japanese pirates and rescuing the abducted captives. Afterward, Chu Tianshu discussed using captured swords and expanding production of the Divine Fire Gun, while Chan Master Miaokong assigned Zhao Yannian responsibility for Pingtan County and warned that Chu needed protection.

• Zhao Yannian’s fleet encircled Ox Mountain Island, and landing parties searched for the pirates hiding there.
• Three monks using the Yaksha Staff Formation killed a pirate leader, while one young monk struggled with having killed a person before deciding to keep fighting the pirates.
• The search parties cleared the island, and Chan Master Miaokong asked Zhao Yannian to comfort the more than a hundred rescued captives.
• Chu Tianshu gathered Japanese swords as spoils and explained to Zhao Yannian that they could be used until guns became widespread.
• Chu Tianshu explained that outside workshops could manufacture Divine Fire Guns while Southern Shaolin’s workshops kept ammunition production secret.
• Chan Master Miaokong assigned Zhao Yannian responsibility for Pingtan County and said the four monks would accompany Chu Tianshu to protect him from Chen Zuqi.

Chu Tianshu returned to Southern Shaolin after the campaign against the wokou and reviewed the temple’s expanding operations and intelligence network. Back at the temple, he investigated why its hard-style practitioners did not cultivate internal arts and discovered that the world’s basic internal methods resembled Spirit Communication Aperture Opening.

• Chu Tianshu and Miaokong traveled back by boat with fewer than twenty monks, and Miaokong proposed allowing monks who wished to fight the wokou to become secular disciples.
• Chu Tianshu reviewed reports of victories in Zhao'an, Zhangpu, Haicheng, and near Dongshan County, then advised Miaokong to keep public reports vague and strengthen the ferryman monks’ intelligence network.
• Chu Tianshu crossed the water and climbed to Southern Shaolin, where he greeted the warrior monks practicing in the Arhat Hall’s training ground.
• Chu Tianshu recalled finding that Southern Shaolin had produced no one who practiced both internal arts and external hard-style arts, despite the two paths seeming compatible.
• After examining the temple’s manuals and consulting Abbot Miaofan and the other elders, Chu Tianshu concluded that the initial methods of internal cultivation resembled Spirit Communication Aperture Opening.

Chu Tianshu investigated how Spirit Communication Aperture Opening had led this world’s cultivators to develop internal Qi instead of Mind Power, then worked to refine a cultivation method that could connect the two. As Southern Shaolin’s resistance against the Japanese pirates gained support, an unknown swordsman appeared at the Arhat Hall, leaving Chu Tianshu to ask what kind of person he was.

• Chu Tianshu deduced that cultivators in this world had turned from Mind Power toward internal Qi to avoid the madness and dangers associated with the Mist and Rosy Clouds Realm Layer.
• Miaogao and Miaoji told Chu Tianshu they could not grasp the Sky-Spanning Divine Art’s introductory chapter, but demonstrated their progress with the Golden Toad Sect’s Immortal Force.
• Chu Tianshu praised the hard-technique monks’ improved fist skills and planned to simplify the divine art while using them to build a stronger force.
• Miaokong told Chu Tianshu that Southern Shaolin had cleared the coast of Eight Min and damaged the Japanese sword trade, but had found no sign of Chen Zuqi’s adopted sons.
• A young swordsman in black appeared atop the wall after circling around the mountain, and Chu Tianshu asked what kind of person he was.

Xiahou Feishan infiltrated Southern Shaolin while searching for someone, but Chu Tianshu challenged and defeated him. Xiahou agreed to answer three questions and serve Chu Tianshu by killing wokou, and the chapter ended with Chu sealing their agreement with Xiahou’s handprint.

• Master Miaokong recognized Xiahou Feishan as the Xiahou family’s second young master after spotting the maple-leaf mark on his scabbard.
• Xiahou Feishan agreed to Chu Tianshu’s terms: if Chu defeated him, Xiahou would answer three questions and work against the wokou until he killed three experts like Miaokong or a thousand true wokou.
• Xiahou Feishan launched himself into the air, and Chu Tianshu pursued him with a leap that shattered part of the wall.
• Xiahou Feishan drew his ordinary iron sword and unleashed a sword technique that filled the courtyard with fiery red maple leaves.
• Chu Tianshu broke Xiahou Feishan’s sword, disarmed him, and struck him down in the training yard.
• Chu Tianshu pressed Xiahou Feishan’s hand into blood on a sheet of paper to seal the agreement, then asked his questions.

After Chu Tianshu defeated Xiahou Feishan, Xiahou explained that he had come to Southern Shaolin seeking the mysterious swordsman who killed famous killers. Chu Tianshu learned that Xiahou wanted the swordsman to kill him over heartbreak concerning Ying'er, then asked him to explain how he had cultivated Sword Dao Divine Intent.

• Chu Tianshu gave Xiahou Feishan water and food, then asked the monks to repair the damage Xiahou had caused.
• Chan Master Miaokong explained the history of the swordsman who had killed dozens of famous killers, and Xiahou revealed that the man had defeated him.
• Xiahou said the swordsman planned to target the Flowing Cloud Manor Master and Chen Zuqi, and that he had come hoping to find him.
• Xiahou admitted he wanted a quicker way to die after learning Ying'er had married his elder brother, and Chu Tianshu stopped him from dwelling on it.
• Chu Tianshu asked Xiahou to describe how he had cultivated Sword Dao Divine Intent.