Chapter Summaries

After Caroline secured an alliance between humanity and the magical beasts, Xu Zhi visited her mechanical company to request a mech. Caroline agreed to design one that could withstand vacuum, but first asked Xu Zhi to take her there so she could study the environment.

• The Ixdar People and the magical beasts signed an alliance contract, and the beasts demanded citizenship, freedom, and yearly support.
• Caroline's plan brought the magical beasts into human society and gave her great authority, but it also exposed humanity to powerful enemies from neighboring domains.
• Xu Zhi visited Caroline's mechanical facility, test-drove a mech, and met Caroline, who had returned to a familiar, friendly manner with him.
• Xu Zhi asked Caroline to build him armor capable of surviving in vacuum, and Caroline requested that he take her there so she could assess the conditions.

Caroline learned that a vacuum was an airless environment and speculated that it was another world connected to humanity’s ancient destruction. She asked Xu Zhi to let her study it after the coming war, then reflected on her ambition and how far her intelligence still fell short of Levi's.

• Xu Zhi explained to Caroline that vacuum had no air and would be fatal to humans, shocking her and prompting her to infer that it belonged to another world.
• Caroline speculated that another civilization had destroyed humanity’s ancient civilization and asked Xu Zhi to explain the mysterious message she had seen at humanity’s origin.
• Caroline proposed forming a team to research vacuum conditions and pleaded to visit that environment after the war; Xu Zhi said they could discuss it later.
• Caroline worried that she was a schemer compared with Levi's, and Xu Zhi reassured her that her ambition and hard work were understandable.
• Caroline asked whether Xu Zhi had reached his position through effort, and he said he had not before leaving and teasing her about her receding hairline.

Caroline transformed her brain into a networked computer as the Ixdar People fought a devastating war against the magical beasts of the Stone Wall Great Domain. When the alliance faced surrender, Mikaelqi returned as a Heavenly Emperor and defeated the seven invading quasi-emperors, beginning the Ixdar People’s rise as the Divine Race.

• Caroline warned Miliweina to keep her transformation secret, then used her brainwaves to contact the Ixdar leadership and prepare for war.
• The Ixdar People suffered heavy losses but developed the Camilla Mechanical Armor, which killed a powerful quasi-emperor before seven others destroyed it.
• Seven quasi-emperors invaded the human capital and demanded humanity’s surrender while Caroline and Mikaelqi remained absent.
• Mikaelqi appeared as a crystal-encrusted Five-Colored Giant Dragon with the aura of a Heavenly Emperor and severely wounded all seven invaders.
• The seven quasi-emperors submitted and demanded equal contracts, as the Ixdar People entered a new era later remembered as the Divine Race.

Caroline developed pineal gland activation, brain programming, and gene modification technologies that divided the Ixdar People into those who could and could not benefit from them. After unrest subsided, the new technologies transformed communication and gave eligible citizens limited control over their bodies, while many Old Humans delayed having children until the benefits could reach every newborn.

• After the Stone Wall Great Domain joined Ixdar territory, the magical beasts entered the internet age, and Caroline introduced magic core loading technology.
• In Year 217, Caroline announced pineal gland surgery, but most people failed the eligibility tests and protests erupted against the resulting social division.
• During the Peterdar Riot Demonstration Event, Caroline argued that the inequality would end for future generations, and her speech helped bring the riots to a close.
• The eligible twenty percent underwent surgery, then Caroline introduced brain system interfaces and neural frequency programming for communication without speech.
• After ten years of genome research, Caroline released the Gene Bank, which let eligible citizens make limited genetic modifications.
• Many Old Humans chose not to have children until pineal gland technology could benefit every newborn.

The Ixdar People advanced their technology until they became a long-lived, powerful race who used brain-embedded programs to train and navigate automatically. Xu Zhi marveled at their civilization and wondered how it would develop after he admitted new closed-beta players.

• Ixdar scientists created Adam through genetic modification, but he commandeered a mechanical armor at age two, killed researchers, and was shot dead, prompting the Empire to ban the technology.
• Caroline Company revealed magical beasts’ meditation mechanism and released idle-training software, allowing humans to grow stronger while sleeping; the Ixdar People adopted meditation and largely rejected body training.
• The Ixdar People developed longer lifespans, formidable strength and mental spells, brainwave communication, and digitized body statistics, while using automatic training and navigation programs.
• Xu Zhi walked through the mechanical metropolis, compared the Ixdar People to a possible future for Earth and legendary Atlantis, and reflected that he no longer needed to destroy them.
• Xu Zhi considered admitting new closed-beta players and wondered how the Ixdar civilization would change after another century.

After unexplained cardiac arrests sparked panic that Ixdar People’s brains could be hacked, Caroline revealed she had secretly replaced their innate C Language with a C++ system protected by a Dynamic Key she controlled. She explained that a Guilt-Death Mechanism suppressed attempts to harm others or break the moral program, then declared that the Ixdar People were ready to welcome the Super Ancient God.

• Across Ixdar cities, people died of cardiac arrest, and rumors spread that hackers could invade their brains and rewrite their memories.
• Hillary described the Brain in a Vat paradox, prompting widespread fear that people could not know whether their experiences were real.
• Caroline revealed that a hacker had tried to invade human brains soon after the pineal gland was activated and had died.
• Caroline disclosed that she had replaced the innate C Language with C++ and controlled its Dynamic Key, while rejecting AI or a committee as the key’s keeper.
• Caroline admitted that C++ could be deciphered, but said a Guilt-Death Mechanism caused cardiac arrest when people tried to harm others or break their moral restrictions.
• Caroline’s audience praised her as a god of technology, and she told the Super Ancient God that the Ixdar People were ready for his arrival.

Xu Zhi prepared to introduce new player species while the Ixdar People rose toward war, and Xia Ni Ming entered a new world as a shape-shifting Balloon Fish intent on gathering fear. He discovered the wreckage of an unknown machine and a dead figure holding an alien phone, leaving the players to suspect the world had a technological civilization.

• Xu Zhi judged that the Ixdar People would soon leave the Stone Wall Great Domain to wage war and decided their preparations would create an opportunity to introduce new player species.
• The player I'm Really Not a Demon, I'm a Good Person earned an achievement with his Balloon Fish species, which transformed into a flying Kongming Lantern and various frightening shapes.
• Xia Ni Ming entered the World Passage, planning to scare the natives, gather fear, and become an evil god through incense.
• After flying through a vast underground lava world, Xia Ni Ming found a meteor crater containing broken machinery and a skeleton clutching a rectangular full-screen phone.
• Xia Ni Ming sent a screenshot of the discovery, and the players suspected that the new world had once contained a technological civilization.

After a photograph suggested that the next world might be technological, Earth’s research institutes activated a secret plan to send agents into the Sandbox. Their recruits instead entered the Ancient Wood World, where they found no mechanical wreckage and sat around playing games.

• Netizens debated whether the new world could let humanity learn advanced technology, while Xu Zhi watched from his orchard.
• Research institutes analyzed the photograph, concluded it showed mechanical wreckage and a phone, and activated their hidden plan.
• Little Sweetie I Love entered the Sandbox expecting a technological world but arrived in the Ancient Wood World.
• Little Sweetie I Love falsely claimed to have found armor wreckage, then returned to warn others that the claims were a scam.
• A third entrant found Little Sweetie I Love and another player playing Gomoku, then posted an invitation to play Dou Dizhu.
• A fourth and fifth entrant arrived, and the players cursed as their concealed backup plan was exhausted.

Xu Zhi reflected on his former coworkers’ concern and prepared to visit Caroline, while Xia Ni Ming found himself stranded in a dangerous new world. As players and research institutes urged him to explore, he spotted goblins riding wolves through the mountains.

• Mount Akina Speed told the high-end player chat that he had raised race prices for the powerful newcomers in the Ancient Wood World.
• Xu Zhi declined his former coworkers’ offer of work, reassuring Li Ge and Xia Xiao Xiao that he was fine and had found a job in the countryside.
• Xu Zhi decided to watch the new player’s progress and visit Caroline after several decades had passed.
• Xia Ni Ming lamented that he had landed in a dangerous world instead of the Barren Ancient World or Ancient Wood World, while forum players urged him to explore.
• Xia Ni Ming livestreamed his flight through the new world and spotted goblins racing through the mountains on wolfback.

Xia Ni Ming used advice from online forum members to disguise himself as a goblin, establish a tribe, and begin developing its civilization. Ixdar People discovered his balloon species and captured him for research, but months later he had become a demon king who killed hundreds of millions of them.

• Xia Ni Ming fled from goblins, then followed forum advice to disguise a Balloon Fish as one and infiltrated their tribe.
• Xia Ni Ming made fire, built homes, and became Goblin King while forum members helped him develop the tribe.
• Two Ixdar People in Mechanical Armors discovered the tribe and identified Xia Ni Ming as an intelligent balloon creature without a magic core.
• Xia Ni Ming disguised himself as a scarecrow, but the Ixdar People captured him and took him away for the Humanity Optimization Project.
• Months later, Xia Ni Ming had killed hundreds of millions of Ixdar People and called himself a great demon king.

Xu Zhi met Caroline in Mechanical City Viriya and saw how her dream had transformed the Ixdar People into a powerful, highly automated civilization. Caroline showed him the Academy of Technology’s magical-beast park, where the Ixdar People used C Language to alter captured creatures’ minds and control them.

• Xu Zhi visited a coffee shop and waited for Caroline while the red-haired clerk served him Biver Milk Tea.
• Caroline arrived and told Xu Zhi that her dream of making every Ixdar person equal, strong, and godlike had come true.
• Caroline led Xu Zhi through the Ixdar civilization’s technology and the ecological park at the Academy of Technology.
• Caroline explained that Ixdar people could use C Language to alter magical beasts’ memories and neural reflexes, making the creatures easy to control.

Caroline showed Xu Zhi how the Ixdar People had developed the Humanity Optimization Project to end the divide between New and Old Humans, then revealed their Divine Mark cultivation system and the Perfect Human Plan. A strange balloon-shaped fish supplied the material needed for the optimization project, leaving the Ixdar People poised to begin a new era.

• Caroline explained that intelligent magical beasts had rights among the Ixdar People, while New Humans and Old Humans still lived together despite deadly conflicts between them.
• Caroline described the Humanity Optimization Project, which used embryo screening and reduced fertility to prevent the birth of humans unable to awaken their pineal glands.
• Caroline showed Xu Zhi the Divine Marks on her hands and explained how the Ixdar People encoded spell arrays into their skin to create a unique cultivation system.
• Caroline outlined the Perfect Human Plan, which would give Ixdar People powerful, perfected bodies but separate New Humans from Old Humans.
• Caroline revealed that a transparent molecular material derived from a balloon-shaped fish could screen offspring and complete the Humanity Optimization Project.

Xu Zhi and Caroline toured the zoo as Earth researchers watched Xia Ni Ming’s Balloon Fish race get studied and repurposed by an advanced alien civilization. Xia Ni Ming tried to gather intelligence for a reward, but his lewd screenshots got him muted.

• Xu Zhi and Caroline saw a Balloon Fish in the zoo, and Caroline explained that the species was being studied and turned into biological filter products.
• Earth’s researchers and forum users watched Xia Ni Ming undergo alien experiments and marveled at the silent scientists’ advanced technology.
• The aliens turned Xia Ni Ming into a safety balloon and sent him to the zoo, where tourists watched him in a cage.
• Xia Ni Ming took screenshots while observing the tourists, believing he was earning Sand Coins and helping Earth’s researchers.
• The officials muted Xia Ni Ming for spreading inappropriate pictures, leaving the researchers furious and disappointed.

Xia Ni Ming tried to survive captivity by turning his Balloon Fish into cute animals, while Xu Zhi toured Ixdar technology and agreed to test their new vacuum mecha. The Ixdar People launched their research institute as a spaceship, leaving Xu Zhi and Caroline ready to head into space.

• After being muted for selling videos, Xia Ni Ming resolved to rely on his own ingenuity and tried charming his captors by transforming into a cat and a puppy.
• Xu Zhi continued touring Ixdar research facilities with Caroline, who described the civilization’s rapid technological growth and expanding power.
• Caroline showed Xu Zhi the Vacuum Demonic Energy Mecha, built to withstand space and provide powerful combat capabilities.
• Xu Zhi agreed to take Caroline and researchers to survey the vacuum world and test the mecha.
• The research institute transformed into a fully equipped Mechanical Spaceship, and Caroline asked Xu Zhi how they would enter space.

Xu Zhi took Caroline and the Ixdar People aboard their Mechanical Spaceship on a journey through space, using Ermin’s teleportation array to bring them to Earth. He left them spinning beneath his living-room ceiling fan while they mistook it for spatial turbulence.

• Caroline agreed to leave the Ixdar People civilization in capable hands and join Xu Zhi’s three- or four-year trip.
• Xu Zhi warned the scientists to shut down the spaceship’s energy propulsion, then used Ermin’s teleportation array to transport the ship through a black rift.
• The Mechanical Spaceship appeared on Xu Zhi’s dining table, and he blocked the crew’s view of the outside.
• Xu Zhi hung the spaceship beneath his ceiling fan and turned it on while he continued eating.
• The Ixdar People staggered through the spaceship, believing the fan’s motion was spatial turbulence and eagerly recording their instruments’ data.

Xu Zhi spun the Ixdar People's Mechanical Spaceship beneath a fan, then carried it into the sky while the scientists believed they were crossing a spatial storm. Miliweina analyzed their data and discovered that a gigantic human hand had been tossing their ship around.

• Xu Zhi considered getting a housekeeper, then stopped the fan and took down the Mechanical Spaceship.
• The Ixdar scientists believed the ship had survived a dangerous spatial storm and recorded their data.
• Xu Zhi weighed the spaceship at fifty-three jin, packed it in a sack, and flew toward the clouds.
• The scientists detected steady movement and began analyzing their recent data.
• Miliweina used Li Bing's brain to verify her calculations and found that a gigantic hand had been tossing their ship like a basketball.

Caroline and the Ixdar scientists reconstructed what had happened to their spaceship in spatial turbulence: a colossal humanlike being had tossed it, hooked it onto a scale, weighed it, and released it. The simulation left them stunned and frightened as they struggled to understand the unknown being and the nature of the space around them.

• The scientists told Caroline that their spaceship had encountered an enormous object while passing through spatial turbulence.
• Caroline ordered the laboratory scientists to rerun the simulation using their combined computational power.
• The Ixdar scientists calculated that a giant humanlike hand had tossed the spaceship, and they estimated the being's forearm was 3,710 meters long.
• The scientists simulated a hook catching the spaceship and suspending it from a beam scale, where a counterweight was adjusted across seven notches.
• The completed simulation showed the giant weighing and releasing the spaceship, leaving the Ixdar People stunned and fearful.

Caroline and the Ixdar scientists confronted evidence of a giant who had lifted and weighed their spaceship, forcing them to reconsider the limits of their civilization’s knowledge. They began investigating the being and left with competing theories about its role, while Caroline named it the Void Angler.

• Caroline admitted that the sight of the giant had shattered her pride in Ixdar technology and resolved to return the scientists to their original pursuit of truth.
• Caroline ordered Miliweina and the scientists to begin studying the giant’s actions and the spaceship’s data.
• The scientists proposed that the golden object was a divine fishing rod or scale and argued over whether the giant guarded passages between worlds or rescued travelers for payment.
• Caroline concluded that the universe held vast, unknowable beings and called the giant the Void Angler.

The Ixdar People entered the vacuum world aboard the Mechanical Spaceship and began a multi-year exploration mission, while Xu Zhi returned to Earth. As Caroline’s absence coincided with the rise of the Hai Naga in the Lava World, Xu Zhi feared the Ixdar People might perish pursuing their dreams.

• Caroline thanked the Super Ancient God for bringing the Ixdar People into the unknown world, and Xu Zhi pointed out that they had reached the vacuum.
• Xu Zhi launched the Mechanical Spaceship into space, where Caroline ordered the crew to activate propulsion, defenses, concealment, and weapons.
• After a month of flight, Caroline reported that radiation could power the ship and described plans for a three-to-four-year mission, including vacuum tests and mecha trials.
• Caroline took Xu Zhi into the Magic-Powered Mechanical Model ZK004 and piloted it out into space.
• Xu Zhi returned to the orchard, decided the Cthulhu Evil God creature could become Magic-Powered Mechanical Armor, and watched the Hai Naga rise as a new civilization in the Lava World.

Hai Landong died and returned to life through Miko’s sacrifice, while Miko secretly took control of his identity and led the Sea Race to avoid war with the Ixdar People. After Caroline returned from the unknown world, she met Hai Landong, who warned her of an impending destruction and asked whether she remembered Adam, the berserk genetic infant.

• Hai Landong died, and Miko gave up her life to revive him with the Heart of the Ocean.
• Hai Landong defeated Fenba but chose peace with the Ixdar People after Miko discovered a terrifying secret in Fenba’s magic core.
• Miko revealed that she had secretly guided Hai Landong’s rise and decided the Sea Race should withdraw from the Battle of Fate.
• The Sea Race developed brain firewalls and avoided connecting its members, while the Ixdar People dismissed the strategy as ineffective.
• Caroline returned to the Lava World with data and went to visit the Sea Race’s scientific civilization.
• Caroline met Hai Landong, who warned her of a destined destruction and asked whether she remembered Adam.