This is an Eastern fantasy ensemble story with a strong protagonist growth arc. Chen Zhao sets out from Qingpu Town and ventures into the otherworldly realms left behind in the human world after the sky was mended. Using the crafts of a hundred trades, he refines their strange laws into supernatural abilities. First, he must bring back his missing senior fellow apprentice. Then he discovers that opening a road allows people from two worlds to meet and changes the way both sides have always lived.
In ancient times, the heavens and earth suffered a massive rupture. The Menders of Heaven gave the Nine Provinces relatively stable days and nights, seasons, and mountains and rivers. But portions of the old sky remained beyond mountain bellies, river reflections, ancient trees, and sea crevices, forming the fragments of the sky that exist today.
These fragments are neighboring realms within the same real world, with actual land, living creatures, and inhabitants. They are not recordings of the past, nor do they reset in a loop. In the current plan, time flows at the same rate on both sides. Entering a fragment cannot resurrect the dead or let anyone return to history and change the past.
Each fragment contains only a small number of stable supernatural differences. They may be very strange, but life within them must respond to those differences. Crossing between realms requires a natural opening or a compatible passage created by people. The fact that two places look similar does not mean ordinary people can reach one by simply swimming or digging.
A supernatural art is strongest in the region where it originated. Once taken elsewhere, it requires crafting, cultivation, or another established method to remain effective. This is the foundation of cultivation through the hundred trades and cross-realm resource trading.
