Recaps

Velin showed Burborn, Madmonk, and Bamund a map of sixty-three resource sites and negotiated help and slave labor in exchange for sharing the sites’ profits. He distributed the locations among nobles and neighboring legions, leaving the Twenty-seventh Legion quietly profiting while hiding the deal from the Thirtieth Legion.

• Velin presented a map of sixty-three resource sites, and Burborn, Madmonk, and Bamund agreed to help him obtain labor and share in his resources.
• Burborn arranged to borrow four thousand soldiers from Madmonk to capture Goblins, while Velin offered to supply surplus Gray-skinned Goblin slaves for mining.
• Velin returned to camp and assigned seven resource sites to each of the legion’s other eight Viscounts in exchange for ten percent of their profits.
• Velin wrote to three legion commanders, granting the One Hundred Thirty-second and One Hundred Thirty-third Legions fifteen sites each for thirty percent of their profits, and Rassel twenty sites for ten percent while asking him to claim publicly that the cut was thirty percent.
• Three days later, Velin received the commanders’ replies, and the Twenty-seventh Legion discreetly continued making money from the resource sites.

Velin traded Dwarven weapons to the Centaurs for 150,000 Gray-skinned Goblin slaves and organized their labor to support resource extraction. Guidance of Fate warned him that necromancers would infiltrate West Hill Province in three months, so he summoned allies to prepare to eliminate them.

• Velin exchanged fifty thousand Dwarven weapons with Surilen for fifty thousand able-bodied Gray-skinned Goblins and one hundred thousand others, then arranged a future trade.
• Velin explained to Kyle that their three-year deterrence operation left only thirty-three months for extraction, and Kyle proposed strict labor groups and punishments for the slaves.
• Kyle organized forty-six resource extraction sites and specified their workers, troops, and monthly targets.
• On July 1st, 9736, Guidance of Fate warned Velin that six Gold-grade and twenty Silver-grade necromancers would infiltrate West Hill Province in three months.
• Velin decided to enlist Grev, O'dor, Kyle, and Third Uncle to stop the necromancers, then sent letters through guards to Belder.

Velin’s group ambushed the necromancers, but six Gold-grade mages escaped after the Kailarite Shard warned them of danger. The shard consumed Corien and the other necromancers, transformed Corien into a white monster, and the monster headed toward its target as O'dor tracked its spatial disturbance.

• Corien’s group used the Kailarite Shard, learned an ambush awaited them, and sent twenty-four Silver-grade necromancers forward as bait while six Gold-grade necromancers escaped underground.
• Kyle destroyed the baiting necromancers and Ferocious Tigers, earning a reward from the World Consciousness, while Grev entered the Shadow World to pursue the escapees.
• Corien’s group ignored another warning from the Kailarite Shard, which consumed the souls of Corien and the five other Gold-grade necromancers.
• The Kailarite Shard transformed Corien’s body into a white monster that tore open space and set out to retrieve its item.
• O'dor detected the monster’s spatial disturbance and headed north, followed by Kyle, Velin, and Bamund.

Velin and his companions entered an unknown Interlayer Space with Gerrard, an Ascetic Monk of the Church of Dawn, to hunt the Outer God’s followers. After crossing strange islands and reaching a deserted city, they endured a silent assault by hordes of faceless people and continued onward.

• O'dor uncovered five mummified corpses, and Kyle identified the aura surrounding them as belonging to an Outer God.
• Gerrard arrived, recognized Velin, and said he had come to help eliminate the Outer God's followers.
• Gerrard opened a passage into an unknown Interlayer Space and protected Velin, Kyle, Bamund, and O'dor with his domain as they explored its floating islands.
• Gerrard explained that the faceless inhabitants were refugees from other worlds contaminated by an Outer God's divinity.
• The group reached a silent, looted city, where countless faceless people emerged from underground and launched attacks against Gerrard's domain.
• After the faceless people's attacks stopped, Velin and his companions continued through the city.

Velin, Kyle, O'dor, and Bamund witnessed Gerrard lead the Church of Dawn’s knights against the Faceless Ones in the ruined city. The Outer God escaped through a passage to the Astral Realm, and Gerrard returned the group to the real world as war loomed.

• The group reached a plaza where tens of thousands of mutated Faceless Ones advanced beneath a cocoon of light.
• Gerrard used two divine spells to summon three thousand knights of light and merge them into three hundred Soul Intent-rank fighters.
• The knights clashed with the Faceless army, while the cocoon’s radiance gathered the remnants into seven Legendary creatures representing emotions.
• The seven creatures opened a passage to the Astral Realm by burning themselves and writing Secret Script around the statue.
• The cocoon merged into the statue and fled toward the Astral Realm, but Crowns, the God of Radiance, shot it with a golden arrow before the rift closed.
• Gerrard sent Velin and the others back to the real world and apologized for failing to purge the Outer God’s followers.

After learning that the border guard duty would end in eight months, Velin ordered his nobles to maximize mining profits without weakening their troops. He then reviewed information on the Thirtieth Legion’s commanders and arranged a meeting with Count Kelt Sedes and Rassel.

• Gerrard gave Velin a hexagonal stone to take to the Holy Third Dawn Kingdom once he reached Soul Intent, then departed, while Grev reported that he had found no trace of the necromancers.
• Velin returned to the border camp, resumed training, and later traded with Suri for Gray-skinned Goblin slaves to expand mining.
• At the legion meeting, Velin learned that the guard duty would end in eight months and agreed with Kyle’s plan to outsource lower-value mining to the Thirtieth Legion for a share of the profits.
• Velin told the 135th Legion’s nobles to maximize resource gathering while preserving their troops’ combat strength, then dismissed them.
• Kyle gave Velin a detailed list of the Thirtieth Legion’s commanders, and Velin chose to approach Count Kelt Sedes and invited him and Rassel to meet the next evening.

Velin reflected on the uncertain fate of the Outer God and anticipated that several wars would soon end. He then hosted Kelt and Rassel, securing Kelt’s agreement to extract resources from twenty-six sites before the guard mission ended.

• Velin considered whether the earlier encounter with the Outer God had been a setup and predicted that the wars would end within two years.
• Kelt received Velin’s invitation and prepared to attend the banquet with three crates of wine as a gift.
• Velin welcomed Kelt, and Rassel joined them before they shared a meal prepared by Kyle.
• Velin explained that more than thirty resource sites could not be fully worked before the guard mission ended, and Rassel confirmed that his legion faced similar challenges.
• Velin offered Kelt twenty-six resource sites to outsource, and Kelt accepted, agreeing to give Velin twenty percent of the extracted resources after the Command Department’s share.

Velin and Kyle maneuvered Count Kelt and Commander Rassel toward supporting their plans, while Kyle found a blue-haired girl with rare mixed bloodlines and began developing her abilities. After turning her into a High-Bronze Tier Warrior, Kyle named her Blue and assigned her the variant Bowman class Wind Dancer.

• Velin toasted Count Kelt and agreed that Kelt could take over the promised places in three days, while Velin kept the Gray-skinned Goblin slaves.
• Kyle explained to Gray that Count Kelt and Commander Rassel supported Velin because they expected long-term profit from Qixing Territory.
• Velin spent a day relaxing, then met the blue-haired girl Kyle had bought for five hundred Gold Coins from a song-and-dance troupe.
• Velin told Kyle to keep the girl as his maid, and Kyle took her away to train her.
• After more than thirty hours, Kyle made the girl a High-Bronze Tier Warrior, named her Blue, and gave her the variant Bowman class Wind Dancer.

After the two-year alert mission ended, Velin’s legion began withdrawing while Kyle arranged for 150,000 Gray-skinned Goblin slaves to be handed to the Centaurs instead of killing them. Kyle also trained Blue, and he finished tallying the campaign’s remaining gains at roughly 2.1 billion Gold Coins.

• Blue awakened after Kyle’s transformation, received the True Name Lyanna and codename Blue, and agreed to train as his assistant.
• In mid-December 9737, the alert mission ended, and the Twenty-Seventh Legion moved south while Velin ordered his troops to stay ready for a Dwarven ambush.
• Kyle asked Velin what to do with 150,000 Gray-skinned Goblin slaves, and Velin ordered him to hand them over to Sulun and the Centaurs.
• Rodis accepted the slaves as skilled miners after Amos proposed putting them to work in the Centaurs’ mines.
• Three days later, Kyle handed the slaves to Sulun, while Blue advanced to Low-level Silver Wind Dancer Bowman after three months of training.
• Kyle completed his campaign tally and found that the remaining gains were worth roughly 2.1 billion Gold Coins.

Velin returned to Xigas Province as the war continued, and he and his companions considered whether the Ilia Kingdom would join the Bashio Kingdom in a final campaign against the Dwarves. The Bashio Kingdom offered a valuable treasure to persuade Ilia to send troops, and Velin sensed Kyle’s prediction was coming true.

• Velin reviewed the profits from the campaign and accepted Count Kelt Sedes’s invitation to visit his territory after the war.
• On December 26, Velin and his army marched south and returned to Xigas Province by Dwarf Stone Pass.
• Velin, Orlando, and Kyle discussed how the Bashio Kingdom might need to reclaim territory from the Dwarves before the war ended, and Kyle predicted Ilia would launch a coordinated campaign.
• Alfred Silvis, Alex Simisis, and Io Lixis discussed the Ilia Kingdom’s planned campaign and arranged a meeting with the commanders and staff of five legions.
• On January 1, 9738, Velin learned that the Bashio Kingdom had offered a treasure to persuade Ilia to send troops, and he sensed Kyle’s prediction was coming true.

Velin learned that the war was likely nearing an end, but the Twenty-seventh Legion soon prepared for the Wind Campaign. Given a defensive assignment, he led the 135th Legion to Wild Crane Pass and established its garrison, where he and Kyle surveyed the surrounding plains.

• Velin watched an unnatural cold wave blanket sixteen countries, and Kyle explained that it came from a conflict between the Ice and Snow Divine System and the Dawn Divine System.
• The snow vanished in July, and Velin received orders to attend a meeting about the Wind Campaign.
• Burborn announced that the 6th Commander Department would support the main force and assigned the 135th Legion to defend Wild Crane Pass.
• After receiving supplies, Velin led the 135th Legion north and set up its middle, vanguard, and rear camps across the open plains.
• Kyle presented Velin with a terrain map, and they discussed how the flat land was suited to farming but difficult to conquer if developed.

Velin strengthened defenses around Duke Hador's Territory while the Dwarven forces avoided open conflict, and Duke Hador ordered an attack on Wild Crane Pass to placate the king. After learning of three petrified Blazing Fire Drake Eggs underground, Velin sent Orlando to retrieve them secretly.

• Velin arranged eight outposts, five fortifications, and two garrison sites to secure the area around Duke Hador's Territory.
• General Gord burned the southern Command Department's order to attack Wild Crane Pass and ordered his troops to remain defensive, prioritizing Duke Hador's commands.
• Velin explained to Kyle that Duke Hador had been appeased by the return of territory and compensation, making conflict unlikely despite the continued precautions.
• Duke Hador rejected the king's order to attack Xigas Province and told Gemir to have Gord send Andra's seven thousand troops against Wild Crane Pass instead.
• Velin learned that three petrified Blazing Fire Drake Eggs lay underground west of Wild Crane Pass and ordered Orlando to retrieve them without drawing attention.

Velin received three petrified Fire Drake Eggs while Dwarf General Andra debated whether his West Hill Province Legion had been abandoned. After the Human Army withdrew, Andra suspected a trap and halted his advance to send scouts.

• Orlando returned with three Fire Drake Eggs, and Velin told him to keep a closer eye on Hebrew and make him train.
• Andra and his Dwarf officers discussed intelligence that General God might be using their seven-thousand-man force as expendable pawns, but Andra chose to attack Wild Crane Pass and retreat if necessary.
• Andra arranged his troops into a vanguard, middle army, and rear guard after supplies arrived.
• Kyle reported the Dwarves' movements to Velin, who ordered Viscount Edgar to withdraw and the entire Human Army to assemble.
• A Dwarf Warrior told Andra that the Human Army had withdrawn, and Andra halted his advance and sent a hundred-man unit to scout.

Velin learned that the Dwarf force at Wild Crane Pass numbered only seven thousand and sent sixteen thousand troops under Viscount Moncas to destroy it. Andra recognized that her force had been abandoned, sent Mitchd away with one thousand soldiers, and led the remaining troops to face the advancing Human Army.

• Kyle's intelligence revealed that the West Hill Province Legion had only seven thousand troops and that the Dwarves in Marius City were not moving.
• Velin ordered Viscount Moncas to lead sixteen thousand troops, including the Magic Energy Cannon unit and Lord Grev, against the Dwarf vanguard.
• Velin declined Rassel's offer of twelve thousand reinforcements, while Kyle wrote a reply in Velin's handwriting.
• After learning the Human Army was advancing, Andra ordered Mitchd to withdraw with one thousand troops under the pretext of collecting supplies.
• Viscount Moncas advanced with his force the next morning, and Andra led the remaining Dwarf troops out to meet the Human Army.

Moncas’s army defeated the Dwarves at Wild Crane Pass after Grev killed Andra, while a wider war engulfed the region and the Dwarf command dissolved the defeated legion. With the pass quiet, Bamund visited Velin on serious business, and Velin’s joke about buried treasure unexpectedly seemed to hit close to home.

• Moncas’s forces killed thousands of Dwarves, and Grev beheaded Andra and cut down the enemy banner, prompting the surviving Dwarves to flee.
• Moncas ordered care for his wounded, while Edgar, Sigro, and Algenon discussed their casualties and resolved to seek Velin’s cultivation-boosting dried meat.
• The Dwarves revoked the West Hill Province Legion’s designation, reassigned Mitchd’s surviving troops to Marius City patrols, and imprisoned the officers.
• Isia and Bashio launched major offensives against the Dwarves, while fighting at Wild Crane Pass remained quiet.
• Bamund visited Velin, said he had come on serious business, and reacted with surprise when Velin asked whether treasure was buried beneath Wild Crane Pass.

Velin searched for a treasure said to lie beneath the Misty River and discovered that Wild Crane Pass referred to an ancient river channel far from the present river. With Kyle, he located a hidden underground passage leading toward a hollow, and the two began descending to investigate.

• Bamund told Velin that their granduncle had found information about a treasure at the bottom of the Misty River near Wild Crane Pass, and Velin agreed to search for it.
• Velin reorganized the troops at Wild Crane Pass, appointed Orlando to command the Star Prayer Camp river patrol, and assigned Kyle to find the treasure's entrance.
• After Kyle found no entrance at the present-day Wild Crane Pass, Velin reasoned that the river might have changed course and asked him to search nearby for the ancient channel.
• Kyle discovered that the ancient river channel lay in West Hill Province, over fifty kilometers from the present Misty River, where undead contamination had destroyed the Teleportation Array.
• Velin and Kyle traveled to the ancient channel, where Kyle used Holy Flame to destroy nearby undead and Velin sensed a hollow three hundred meters underground using Woodheart Passage.
• Velin opened a plant passage into the underground hollow, and he and Kyle descended through it as the plant disguised itself as shrubs.

Kyle repaired an ancient Teleportation Array with Velin’s help, combining Natural Script, Heavenly Script, and Secret Script. After confirming the passage was safe, they entered it and headed toward ancient elven ruins where Velin’s treasure might be stored.

• Kyle analyzed the abandoned Teleportation Array and determined how to replace its damaged scripts without changing its spatial coordinates.
• Kyle practiced writing Natural Script, then spent eighteen hours repairing the array’s thirty-six spatial-coordinate characters while Velin watched and brought him fruit.
• After resting, Kyle replaced the stabilizing characters with Heavenly Script and repaired the energy characters with Secret Script.
• Kyle installed ten high-grade magic crystals, activated the array, and sent an energy duplicate through the passage to check for danger.
• Kyle confirmed that Ancient Ruins lay beyond the passage, and he and Velin entered it.

Velin and Kyle explored an ancient underground ruin, found evidence that it may have belonged to the fallen Zerzura Kingdom, and collected its surviving weapons, armor, gate, and floor tiles. After Kyle detected a dangerous distortion around three floating corpses, they found a safe route across the plaza and reached the main hall.

• Velin and Kyle entered the overgrown ruin, where Velin dated a broken crystal to at least thirty thousand years old and removed the damaged gate for study.
• Kyle identified a sword bearing the name Zephyr Ambrose and explained the history of the Zerzura Kingdom, leading Velin to suspect the ruin was one of its descendants’ hiding places.
• Velin and Kyle collected thousands of weapons and armor sets from the first two areas, and Velin also took the floor tiles.
• Kyle tested the distorted space around three floating corpses with energy clones, which collapsed as they approached.
• Kyle found a relatively safe route through the plaza, guided Velin across it, and reached the main hall entrance.

Velin and Kyle found three treasures sealed inside pillars of light but could not break them, so Velin sent the information to Bamund. Earl Hurricane read the report and sent his daughter Shirley to meet Velin and test whether her Zesita bloodline could open the pillars.

• Velin tried to touch the treasures, and Kyle's attacks failed to damage the pillars of light.
• Velin and Kyle took apart the great hall, returned to the Misty River, and then went back to the 135th Legion.
• Velin sent a letter in the family's secret script to Bamund, who forwarded it to Earl Hurricane.
• Earl Hurricane studied the ancient book fragments and concluded that the missing passage might explain how to open the pillars.
• Earl Hurricane sent Shirley to meet Velin and test whether her bloodline could retrieve the treasures.

Velin avoided a final round of looting while the kingdoms negotiated peace and prepared his legion for its eventual return. After the Aslak Agreement ended the seven-year war, he distributed battle merit records to his officers and reflected on the conflict.

• Velin sent Shirley Ex with Kyle to the Misty River pillars, where they discovered that only Zesita royal blood could unlock them, and chose not to ask his grand-uncle for the stored items.
• As the ceasefire negotiations began, Velin kept the 135th Legion at Wild Crane Pass instead of joining the armies' final looting, and ordered his soldiers not to massacre civilians or offend the churches of the Dwarven Mountain God.
• The Ilia Kingdom and the Ironforge Mountain Dwarf Kingdom signed the Aslak Agreement, setting territorial transfers, payments, and a century-long commitment to avoid war.
• At the Twenty-seventh Legion's final meeting, Velin collected more than forty battle merit tables from Commander Burborn and later distributed them to the 135th Legion's nobles.
• Velin reviewed the battle merits and recalled the war as the conflict between the Ilia Kingdom and the Ironforge Mountain Dwarf Kingdom officially ended on June 18, 9739.

Velin hosted Xylos Province nobles and agreed to help build a trade network linking their territories with Cadro Province, then prepared to pursue an auctioned Magic Crystal. After thanking Grev and beginning the journey home with the 135th Legion, Velin approached Cadro Province, where Audrey Silvis waited to welcome the returning army.

• Velin welcomed nobles from Xylos Province and agreed with Rassel and the others to build roads connecting their region with Cadro Province for trade.
• Velin learned that an auction in Deans City would offer a Magic Crystal containing analyses of three hundred Elemental Spells, and he ordered Orlando to buy every Magic Crystal he found there.
• Velin thanked Grev for seven years of service and gave him a farewell gift worth roughly four million Gold Coins.
• Velin led the nobles and officers of the 135th Legion in seeing Grev off, then began the legion's journey home in mid-September.
• Audrey Silvis waited outside Cadro Province's Provincial Capital with Governor's Mansion officials for the army's return.

After the 135th Legion returned from war and was formally disbanded, Velin reunited with Raimondo's family at Qixing Manor and learned how the territory had been managed during his absence. He then set out with his troops and returned to Qixing Territory after seven years away.

• Audrey welcomed Velin and the returning 135th Legion, and three days later Velin returned its banner after the disbandment order arrived.
• Raimondo, Dorisa, and their children welcomed Velin to Qixing Manor, where he toured the grounds and gave Niv and Ailowen Gold Coins.
• Raimondo told Velin that the Provincial Capital's West City District remained under his control and that Qixing Territory had changed greatly.
• Velin bid farewell to Raimondo's family the next morning and traveled with more than four thousand Qixing troops.
• Velin returned to Qixing Territory after two days, having been away for seven years.

After seven years away, Velin returned to Qixing Territory and saw how thoroughly Belder had developed the roads, farmland, and Star Prayer City. At a welcome gathering, Velin praised Belder’s work and learned that the territory had accumulated about eighty million Gold Coins in surplus.

• Velin traveled toward Star Prayer City through carefully planned farmland, clean canals, and roads lined with waste collection points, and Kyle explained that Belder had leveled nearby hills.
• Velin and more than four thousand soldiers from Star Prayer Camp reached Star Prayer City, where Belder and the territory’s officials, Guardian Knights, and their families welcomed him.
• Velin praised Belder for governing Qixing Territory and noticed Belder’s melancholy, while Belder’s three children watched Velin with admiration.
• Cassius led the troops to their camp as Belder guided Velin to the Manor, where he explained the local ingredients used in the dishes prepared for the gathering.
• Velin asked Belder about the territory’s accumulated wealth, and Belder reported a surplus of around eighty million Gold Coins after most resources had gone toward construction.

Velin met with Belder to hear about Qixing Territory’s southwestward expansion and discuss staffing for two new counties. He also learned that his cousin Brian had married years earlier, then planned investigations into talented people recommended for service.

• Velin spoke with Belder’s daughter Isophyl, who said she dreamed of becoming a knight and riding a griffin.
• Belder reported that Qixing Territory had added 13,000 square kilometers and 130,000 residents, including people relocated from Qixing County and Blue Gauze County.
• Velin assigned Belder and Andrew’s Blue Gauze County to provide lower-level officials for one new county each.
• Belder told Velin that Brian had married Eleanor Ex in the second year after Velin left, and Velin forgave Belder for not telling him sooner.
• Velin met more than a dozen talented people and planned to have Kyle send Shadow Guards to investigate their backgrounds.

Velin returned to Star Moon Castle after the war and began assigning officials and soldiers to their posts while planning a new city for a future spatial trade route. He reunited with his household, rode Xing Star Snow Wind in flight, and learned that Chef Caranza was fifty-five.

• Velin planned to build a new city in West Wind County for the Spatial Channel and intended to secure support from his maternal grandfather.
• Orlando took over West Wind County, Hebrew returned to Orlando Town, Cassius stayed to guard Star Prayer City and compensate fallen soldiers' families, and Lavia returned to Blue Gauze City.
• Velin arrived at Star Moon Castle, where Hilda, Sisina, and the household staff welcomed him.
• Velin flew on the Mutated Griffon and remembered that its chosen name was Xing Star Snow Wind.
• Velin greeted the two Wind Wolves and Eunice, then joined Hilda and Sisina for lunch.
• Hilda told Velin that Chef Caranza was fifty-five, and Velin asked her to invite him over.