Chapters 1-100¶

Jie Ming, a transmigrator carrying a cultivation golden finger, the Great Dao Book Pavilion, arrives at the floating Noren Academy to take the wizard aptitude test while hiding his cultivator nature.

Arc map¶

#	Arc	Chapters
1	Enrollment and hiding in plain sight	1-11
2	First classes and the Essence Gold gambit	12-24
3	The investigation / Level-Two Cultivation Protocol	25-29
4	Building a foundation; Talisman-Rune Artifacts are born	30-38
5	The Limestone Realm trial	39-61
6	Detection research and forging the Five Aggregates Rainbow Mirror	62-69
7	The five-year cycle: Shadow Plane commission, farewells	70-74
8	Light Transformation, advancement theory, potioncraft	75-79
9	Foundation Establishment and "creation from nothing"	80-83
10	Severing Mortal Ties	84-85
11	Noren Workshop comprehensive test: the Elosia plane war	86-100

Arcs¶

1. Enrollment and hiding in plain sight (Ch1-11)¶

Jie Ming arrives at the floating Noren Academy with only Qi Refinement Layer One and fears his cultivator nature will make him an experimental subject.¹
He passes the aptitude test as a level-six talent.¹
He works out that the glamorous Combat discipline is a meat grinder, with only 97 survivors.²
He picks Logistics/Alchemy under Mentor Clark and signs the Noren Workshop contract for 30 years' service.¹
He moves into a dorm and meets the gossip-savvy Amy.³
He ignites his spiritual flame and finds that wizard meditation pulls in elemental energy his true essence can convert, giving him cultivation fuel in a spiritless world.⁴

2. First classes and the Essence Gold gambit (Ch12-24)¶

Clark's first alchemy class includes a gory "accident."⁵
Jie Ming works the task board and grinds points.⁶
He discovers that gold can be refined into Essence Gold.⁸
He plans to sell Essence-Gold-coated iron sheets.⁷
Victor is introduced.⁹
The testing center's results stun everyone.¹⁰
He breaks through to Qi Refinement Layer Two and perceives Purple Qi of the East, grasping that cultivation refines concepts.¹¹
Amy's gossip reveals the whole academy is buzzing about an anonymous apprentice's material, and his points balance reads 500, "Sold Out."¹²

3. The investigation / Level-Two Cultivation Protocol (Ch25-29)¶

A separator explodes in a lab, and Jie Ming rushes in, his Essence Gold film shrugging off corrosive dust.¹³
Unseen, the academy's high-level wizards run soul scans, social graphs and a fate reading, and conclude he is a clean, lucky native genius.¹⁴
Clark proposes the Level-Two Cultivation Protocol, and it passes.¹⁴
Jie Ming is escorted to a secret chamber expecting dissection and instead receives permissions and privileges.¹⁵
Clark explains the Star Ring Federation and Star Orbit Tribunal protections and voices disappointment that Jie Ming is not linked to an outside entity.¹⁶
Jie Ming vows to hide the Pavilion forever and feels unprecedented relief.¹⁶

4. Building a foundation; Talisman-Rune Artifacts are born (Ch30-38)¶

Jie Ming works in a mid-level lab on the material-sorting task Clark feeds him.¹⁷
He reaches Qi Refinement Layer Three and builds his first self-made spell model, Alchemy Technique.¹⁸
His copied flame talisman fizzles, and he conceives fusing cultivation talismans with wizard runes.¹⁹
Ch35 opens after a three-year time skip: He has nine Truth Runes and is a peak third-level apprentice.²⁰
Clark announces a Workshop-wide evaluation in five years and an academy trial in six months.²⁰
Ch36 is the naming scene for the Talisman-Rune Artifact.²¹
He tests attack, defense and mobility prototypes, and Ch38 ends at the trial's opening ceremony.²²

5. The Limestone Realm trial (Ch39-61)¶

Jie Ming field-tests his artifacts on beasts, and an onlooker watches him erase a lava beast in two minutes.²³
The POV shifts to the native coalition's revenge council, led by the mysterious Priest Oswald, who has a spatial-lockdown power.²⁴
The natives purge apprentices across the realm, with showcase chapters for Augusta and Horn, then bait thousands into a valley trap.²⁵
The academy plaza watches ejected apprentices discover the lone monster on the screens.²⁶
Jie Ming is forced into the fight and rains fire from above, and the siege breaks.²⁷
Oswald is revealed as a high-level wizard who engineered the whole thing and holds the natives' Sky God in a glass orb.²⁸
The final rankings put Augusta 1st, Bill Lyn Black 2nd, Amy 35th, Jie Ming 36th and Victor 48th.²⁹
Every apprentice silently waits for Jie Ming to claim his reward first, and he resolves to build detection artifacts next.³⁰

6. Detection research and forging the Five Aggregates Rainbow Mirror (Ch62-69)¶

Jie Ming studies detection-spell theory.³¹
He reaches Qi Refinement Layer Seven and builds an Eye of Detection prototype.³²
He chooses the escape treasure Five Aggregates Rainbow Mirror from the Pavilion.³³
He leaves the academy to gather five light concepts across the plane: dawn, moonlight, starlight, thunder-light and rainbow.³⁴
He condenses the embryo and smelts the concepts.³⁵
The palm-sized mirror materializes, though it lacks Light-Form Escape for now.³⁶

7. The five-year cycle: Shadow Plane commission, farewells (Ch70-74)¶

Ch70 marks five years at the academy: Seniors leave, new apprentices arrive and frontline wizards return.³⁸
Clark commissions mass Essence Gold for the Shadow Plane war, paid in high-level military merits.³⁷
The chapters lay out the merits system, the four factions, sixth-level beings and plane origins.³⁹
A farewell ceremony is held for the seniors.⁴⁰
Jie Ming grinds, then takes a rare rest that ends with "Looks like the vacation's over."⁴¹

8. Light Transformation, advancement theory, potioncraft (Ch75-79)¶

Jie Ming runs his first Light-Form Escape test, traveling a thousand miles in an instant and then being totally helpless.⁴²
He analyzes the wizard advancement path: Spiritual sea expansion potions, the advancement potion and the lifespan cost.⁴³
He works out power equivalences between cultivation and wizard levels.⁴³
Potioncraft lessons end in a lab explosion.⁴⁴
Amy reveals that the first-class alchemy accident was staged by Clark.⁴⁵
Amy is dragged past Jie Ming as a fake casualty and winks at him.⁴⁵

9. Foundation Establishment and "creation from nothing" (Ch80-83)¶

Ch80 opens after a three-year time skip.⁴⁶
Jie Ming brews a Foundation Establishment Liquid and advances without needing it.⁴⁶
A black hole opens in his dantian and devours his power.⁴⁶
He discovers an inner space that generates spiritual qi from nothing.⁴⁷
A long cosmology lecture covers the three worlds' particle bases, why cultivation should be impossible here, the End of Dharma and ninth-level wizards.⁴⁸
The Mirror gains spirituality, completing his reconnaissance system, and the Noren Workshop test is fast approaching.⁴⁹

10. Severing Mortal Ties (Ch84-85)¶

Clark hands Jie Ming a trivial job: Dispersing aptitude-enhancement potions over a district by airship.⁵⁰
The district is his hometown, and the receiving lord is the one who sent him to the academy.⁵¹
Clark has quietly given him a last chance to see his family before he leaves the plane for good.⁵¹
The reunion is muted, with a dozen-plus siblings, a father with new companions and a step-mother who reports him to the authorities.⁵¹
He leaves gold coins and finishes the dispersal, calm but conflicted.⁵¹

11. Noren Workshop comprehensive test: the Elosia plane war (Ch86-100)¶

Ch86 opens nine years into his academy life, and the top 10% depart for the Workshop headquarters plane, a floating sci-fi metropolis.⁵²
Ch87-88 introduce the tenth-level-aptitude geniuses from other academies, including David Colmar, Seraphina Nightshade, Kaelern Vania and Anya Starfall.⁵³
The briefing describes Elosia as a medium plane cluster with sixth-level gods and a seventh-level "God Above Gods."⁵⁴
The reward is permanent ownership of the plane proportional to contribution, and the test lasts up to a year.⁵⁴
The entry is violent, a high-level wizard fakes death against the gods, and Jie Ming retunes his modular artifacts.⁵⁵
Jie Ming reunites with Amy and Victor, and the plan is to find the wizard stronghold and advance to first-level formal wizard.⁵⁶
The trio raids an orc shrine, interrogates a captive, learns orcish and the common tongue, and uses misdirection.⁵⁷
The trio heads for the mountains and begins brewing advancement potions, and Ch100 ends mid-explanation of Extraction Technique.⁵⁸

Chapters 1-11 ↩↩↩
Chapters 3-5 ↩
Chapter 10: Amy ↩
Chapter 11: Entry ↩
Chapters 12-14 ↩
Chapters 12-24 ↩
Chapters 15-24 ↩
Chapters 15-17 ↩
Chapter 19: Victor ↩
Chapters 20-21 ↩
Chapters 22-23 ↩
Chapter 24: Damn it! ↩
Chapters 25-26 ↩
Chapters 26-27 ↩↩
Chapter 28: Level-Two Cultivation Protocol ↩
Chapter 29: Cleared ↩↩
Chapter 31: Authority ↩
Chapters 32-33 ↩
Chapters 33-34 ↩
Chapter 35: News ↩↩
Chapter 36: Talisman-Rune Artifacts ↩
Chapters 37-38 ↩
Chapters 40-43 ↩
Chapters 45-46 ↩
Chapters 47-51 ↩
Chapter 52: The True Trial ↩
Chapters 53-57 ↩
Chapters 57-58 ↩
Chapter 60: Rankings ↩
Chapter 61: Uncrowned King ↩
Chapter 62: Where the Difficulty Lies ↩
Chapters 63-64 ↩
Chapters 64-65 ↩
Chapters 66-67 ↩
Chapters 68-69 ↩
Chapter 69: The Power of Wealth ↩
Chapters 70-73 ↩
Chapter 70: A New Cycle ↩
Chapters 71-73 ↩
Chapters 73-74 ↩
Chapter 74: Rest ↩
Chapters 75-76 ↩
Chapters 76-77 ↩↩
Chapter 78: Potioncraft ↩
Chapter 79: All a Setup ↩↩
Chapter 80: Foundation Establishment ↩↩↩
Chapter 81: Creation from Nothing ↩
Chapters 82-83 ↩
Chapter 83: Half a Step Further ↩
Chapters 84-85 ↩
Chapter 85: Severing Mortal Ties ↩↩↩↩
Chapter 86: Nine Years ↩
Chapters 87-88 ↩
Chapter 89: Elosia ↩↩
Chapters 90-91 ↩
Chapters 94-95 ↩
Chapter 96-97: The Small Stronghold ↩
Chapter 100: Preparing for Advancement ↩