Orange-crest is thrust into the sect's beginner quarterstaff class, a place where human initiates posture and follow rigid forms. When paired with Yang Wei, a noble scion with flawless technique, the monkey realizes he cannot win a fair contest of martial arts. So, he cheats. After Yang Wei breaks his wrist, Orange-crest waits for the noble to turn his back and smashes him in the forehead with a fist-sized rock. This face-slapping moment establishes the monkey's combat philosophy of survival over honor. The escalation continues when Orange-crest steals a bag of spirit stones from Disciples Hao and Wang. Instead of just running, he leads them on a chase into the territory of a Sun-Swallowing Bear. The bear mauls the disciples, and Orange-crest uses a desperate qi-command to freeze the beast just long enough for the humans to escape. This sequence perfectly chains cause to effect. The monkey's theft draws the sect's internal affairs investigators, while his unexpected mercy confuses the humans, proving that his feral morality is far more complex than the sect's rigid laws. The unresolved thread is the sect's growing hostility, forcing Li Xun to accelerate his plans for the Initiate's Tournament to protect his student from being quietly assassinated by offended nobles who view a beast's mercy as an insult rather than a gift.

Determined to claim Yang Wei's beautiful blue belt and staff, Orange-crest challenges the noble to a wagered duel. The monkey uses a bag to blind Yang Wei and an immobilizing spell to hold him, but his strikes bounce harmlessly off the human's flesh. The noble reveals an Immovable Mountain earth-defense technique taught by his legendary general uncle, turning his body to stone and crushing Orange-crest's shoulder with a single, devastating punch. This defeat is a massive emotional gut-punch, shattering the monkey's illusion that human tricks can overcome raw, cultivated power. The consequence is immediate and explosive. Daoist Snowclad Heart, a lackey for the corrupt Elder Lu, mocks Li Xun and his pet. Pushed past his breaking point, Li Xun challenges Snowclad Heart to a duel. Li Xun consumes his experimental Quaternary Heart-Fire Pill, turning his own body into a living, melting furnace. He shatters Snowclad Heart's core-formation ice fan and punches a fistful of molten metallic poison directly into the man's dantian, crippling him. This power-revelation scene cements Li Xun as a terrifying, self-destructive rogue, but it also triggers the absolute wrath of the sect's leadership, sealing his and the monkey's doom and proving that human pride is far more dangerous than any wild beast.

Desperate to bridge the gap between Orange-crest and the noble prodigies before the tournament, Li Xun designs a radical bodily refinement bath using a Tear of Stone, an ore imbued with the heavy grief of the earth. But Orange-crest, impatient and greedy for power, secretly drinks his experimental centipede-core spirit wine right before jumping into the cauldron. The conflicting energies of the wine and the bath violently react, petrifying the monkey into a solid, unyielding stone statue. This disaster breaks Li Xun. To save his disciple, the proud alchemist surrenders to Elder Lu, accepting a brutal six-month penance as a slave in the Medical Pavilion. Li Xun exhausts his own qi, lifespan, and pride, working sixteen-hour shifts to refine pills while secretly researching a cure under the stern Elder Weeping Lotus. This node shifts the emotional core of the story. It is no longer just about a monkey getting stronger. It is about the crushing weight of human consequence and the silent, agonizing sacrifice a master makes for his student. The tension hangs on whether Li Xun's deteriorating body will give out before he can reverse the petrification, transforming the story from a quirky cultivation comedy into a desperate race against time and institutional cruelty.

Trapped in a lightless void within his stone shell, Orange-crest faces a spiritual tribulation. He is confronted by two manifestations of his future. Shan, a beautiful human boy, offers ascension and integration into human society. A colossal, drunken ape offers supreme, isolated beasthood. The human demands subservience to the Heavenly Dao, while the ape offers lonely freedom. In a brilliant reversal, Orange-crest rejects both. He uses his illusion arts to trick the human, grabs both manifestations, and forces them together, declaring he will only be himself. This choice shatters the stone, returning him to flesh with the heaven-defying ability to transmute his body into heavy, invulnerable stone at will. Simultaneously, deep beneath the mountain, the ancient Patriarch Jin Qingyi intercepts a heavenly censor's report detailing the existence of a forbidden stone monkey. To protect his sect from celestial wrath, the Patriarch casually alters the memo, framing a rival demon sect in the Thousand Poison Vale. This dual climax reveals the massive cosmic stakes, proving that the monkey's chaotic choices are now rippling all the way to the heavens, shielded only by the whims of an ancient immortal who views celestial bureaucracy as a minor annoyance.