Chapter Summaries

Ronan used his knowledge to direct Zhao Xi to a buried metal component, where Zhao Xi uncovered Fire God Ants and severely decomposed corpses. The ants’ appearance suggested a possible spacetime gap between Spring City and Lake City, while the discovery of the bodies left the scene in urgent need of help.

• Xiao Jin suggested using the Heavy Load Platform to transport people and retrieve its parts, and Ronan asked him about Rongtong Processing Center’s location in Spring City’s U-Cave Market.
• Ronan told Zhao Xi to search four kilometers down the Mountain Road, and Zhao Xi jumped from the cliff in the Deep Blue Walker.
• Zhao Xi found a large buried metal component beneath the mud and exposed it with a powerful punch.
• Zhao Xi spotted several Fire God Ants, and Ronan explained that they could travel through spacetime fissures using pheromone guidance.
• Ronan called out Boss Yan, but Zhao Xi reported finding severely decomposed corpses and urgently asked for help.

Ronan’s group left the excavation site and walked through the rain to the Long Tail River Supply Point as the authorities investigated the discovered bodies and Mao Yan’s death. At the Supply Point, Zhao Xi detected several powerful Ability Users, and Ronan corrected his count to five.

• Lake City’s Close Defense Force arrived to investigate the buried Heavy Load Platform and corpses, while Ronan’s group continued toward the Supply Point.
• Ronan explained that the missing financial employee likely carried Fire God Ant Pheromone, and the group discussed the abnormal spatial-temporal gap between Lake City and Spring City.
• Fris reported that Mao Yan had died after his traumatic infection caused multiple organ failure, prompting Long Qi to question Wen Huilan about the investigation.
• Wen Huilan said the Close Defense Force and Lake City Branch would provide investigation reports before midnight, and the group reached the Long Tail River Supply Point.
• Zhao Xi detected several awakened Ability Users at the Supply Point, and Ronan corrected his count to five.

Ronan’s group arrived at Long Tail River Supply Point, where Lao Yao described how Planting Towers had transformed life for vagrants and changed the region. The chapter ended when a woman at a card game recognized Ronan as her junior brother and greeted him.

• Ronan asked Lao Yao and Fris about changes at the Supply Point, and Lao Yao described the abandoned farmland and orchards.
• Fris left Liu Fengming outside on guard while he and Zhao Xi removed their Exoskeleton Armor before entering the main building.
• Major Hong welcomed Ronan’s group and arranged their expenses and accommodations at the Supply Point.
• Lao Yao explained how Planting Towers had ended food shortages, while Long Qi challenged him about SCA’s policies and the vagrants’ return to the cities.
• Ronan remarked that Li Wei had merits for Planting Towers, and a woman at the card table turned to greet him as her junior brother.

Ronan met Mora, an Extraordinary Species who had arrived from Huai City, and suggested her three-hour journey might connect her to recent deaths. Mora drew Wen Huilan and Mountain Lord into her orbit at the card table, leaving the others wary as the livestream erupted.

• Mora explained that she had caught the last flight from Huai City after receiving Ronan's call, and Ronan said he already had preliminary results to share.
• Ronan signaled the three C-Rank Ability Users to leave Mora's card table, then pointed out that Huai City was only a three-hour round trip away.
• Mora invited Ronan to play cards and winked at the livestream audience, while Long Qi and the others reacted nervously to her attention.
• Ronan sat across from Mora, and Mountain Lord joined them; the rest of the group stayed back from the table.
• Mora pulled Wen Huilan close, examined her face and scarf, and said she had not lost out by refusing offers concerning her.
• Mora told Mountain Lord that offers concerning him might arrive soon, and Mountain Lord replied that they would find out.

Ronan proposed a card game and demonstrated how his Card Deck represented the Great Golden Triangle and its people. When he added Mora as a Character Card, he overcame her attempt to evade the capture and linked her star to the others, leaving Mountain Lord laughing.

• Mora challenged Mountain Lord to play cards, then asked Ronan to show the Card Deck he had made.
• Ronan projected a map of the Great Golden Triangle and divided it into Scene Cards, which Mountain Lord and Mora pulled from the projection.
• Ronan revealed Character Cards as stars connected by threads across the map, and Mountain Lord recognized the significance of the network.
• Ronan turned Mora into a Character Card despite her attempt to evade him, and her star joined the network in the map’s southwestern mountains.
• Mountain Lord laughed as Ronan said they were only playing a round.

Ronan turned the Great Golden Triangle’s network of Extraordinary Species and locations into cards and proposed a game in which players altered a mountain environment. Mora eagerly tested the rules, while Ronan ended by asking why she did not want to thank Li Wei.

• Mountain Lord laughed as Ronan drew Mora into the Information Chain Network, and Mora clung to Wen Huilan while coping with the experience.
• Ronan converted the network’s scenes and characters into cards and explained a building-block game where players could strengthen or sabotage a preset environment.
• Ronan chose the mountain region containing Hundred Peaks Monarch as the Basic Environment, and Mora agreed to test the game.
• Mora drew a Toothed Crocodile Legion Scene Card and a set of Character Cards, then sent Zhao Xi’s card toward the mountain’s core, where it was swallowed despite being set to pass through.
• Ronan explained that the environment included everyone judged C-Rank and began adjusting the cards before asking Mora why she did not want to thank Li Wei.

Mora discussed Li Wei’s conservatism and the possible purpose of the Planting Tower, while Ronan and the others tested how Character and Scene Cards interacted. Long Qi grasped the implications of treating humans and aberrant populations as resources, and Ronan expanded the card game’s mountain environment toward Lake City.

• Mora told Ronan that Li Wei might have withheld Fusion Reactor technology without pressure from resource exploitation, and questioned the need to preserve the human population with the Planting Tower.
• Mountain Lord’s aberrant wild dog survived in the card environment longer than Zhao Xi’s card, prompting Long Qi to tease Zhao Xi.
• Ronan reasoned that aberrant species could make energy use more efficient, surprising Mora with his understanding of the relationship between human and aberrant populations.
• Mora drew an Algae Island Scene Card, which began to conflict with the Toothed Crocodile Legion card as viewers reacted to the game and debated Li Wei’s remarks.
• Long Qi connected the discussion to the Inner World’s methods of using living beings as resources and became unsettled by Ronan’s apparent place in that system.
• Ronan expanded the mountain region’s card environment toward Lake City to depict humans confronting and coexisting with an aberrant environment, while Mora questioned whether anyone wanted to face reality.

Ronan declared that he could guide people along a path of evolving body, spirit, and self, potentially taking on a deity-like role as he helped change the world. While mapping Lake City and the Hundred Peaks Monarch, he proposed making Lake City an early focus for a plan to change reality.

• Ronan argued that people could face and change reality through action, and Mora suggested asking the Live Stream Room whether viewers were willing to do so.
• Mora compared Ronan to a deity, and Ronan explained that godhood was one possible path for people who acted on reality and received feedback.
• Ronan promised to guide people up the Sky Ladder and said he could temporarily assume a deity's duties, stunning Long Qi, the people around the table, and the live-stream audience.
• Ronan mapped the Hundred Peaks Monarch and Lake City, identifying the Hundun Cult's Root System and its members as channels through which the Monarch's power reached the city.
• Ronan noted Lake City's unusually high aberration prevalence and heritable mutations, then proposed a step-by-step plan to change reality there, prompting Mora to warn that Lao Gao might go mad.

Ronan offered to serve as a deity and promised people direction and feedback, leaving Mora to demand the personal guidance he had promised her. A card Mora threw revealed Mao Yan, who attacked the group before Liu Fengming stopped him, and Long Qi ended the livestream to protect Mora's privacy.

• Mora urged Ronan to explain his promise to give people direction and feedback, then reminded him that he had brought her there to learn from the Hundred Peaks Monarch.
• Ronan told Mora that she and the Hundred Peaks Monarch shared similarly chaotic underlying structures, and Mora stopped him from exposing more about her condition.
• Mora threw a Character Card past Long Qi, and it unfolded into Mao Yan, who attacked the group wearing an ink-black mask.
• Liu Fengming rushed into the hall in his Deep Blue Walker, struck Mao Yan, and made him dissolve into light along with the card.
• Long Qi ended the livestream, then left with Zhao Xi, Fris, Lao Yao, and Liu Fengming while Mora held Wen Huilan back.
• Mora and the Mountain Lord lamented the livestream's lasting consequences, and Ronan asked whether they still wanted to hear his advice.

Ronan explained that Hundred Peaks Monarch’s apparent order might depend on an external Fantasy Configuration, and suggested Mora could use it to overcome the limits of her own power. The chapter ended with him asking whether Mora knew anything about such an object.

• Mora challenged Mountain Lord for eavesdropping, then asked Ronan what she could learn from Hundred Peaks Monarch.
• Ronan said Hundred Peaks Monarch’s Fantasy Configuration coordinated its vast, chaotic system but was too weak to support further ascension, much like the limits Mora had reached after Gaining Talisman.
• Ronan argued that Hundred Peaks Monarch’s orderly power system might have been created by an external object rather than its own core, and suggested Mora had needed her power system to survive her time in a Life Support Capsule.
• Mountain Lord asked what had caused Hundred Peaks Monarch’s reversed cause and effect, and Ronan called Long Qi back to the card table.
• Long Qi reported that the Ability User Association Headquarters had canceled affiliated public accounts and recommended its personnel remain silent, but Ronan showed little reaction.
• Ronan suggested that Hundred Peaks Monarch relied on an external Fantasy Configuration that might help Mora, then asked whether she knew anything about it.

Ronan discussed ways to help Mora improve her abilities, then proposed using Hundred Peaks Monarch’s core Fantasy Configuration as a source of experience. He recreated a Character Card of Mao Yan and rewound the Basic Environment to the Old County Ruins, where he asked Mora for her hand as a reference.

• Mora suggested that Ronan use Super Configuration and Fantasy Configuration to rebuild and upgrade Instructor Xiu’s method of Gaining Talisman.
• Ronan warned Mora that forcing complex mechanisms onto the foundation of life was risky and advised her to strengthen and correct her own operational Logic.
• Ronan offered to help Mora compete with Hundred Peaks Monarch for its core configuration, and proposed first obtaining experience permissions from it.
• Ronan recreated Mao Yan’s Character Card and used it to rewind the Basic Environment to the Old County Ruins, roughly twenty hours earlier.
• Ronan told Mora to give him her hand so he could use it as a reference again.

Ronan reconstructed how Mora used her severed pinky to travel from Huai City Airport to the Old County Ruins and trigger the confrontation between Qi Shang and Mao Yan. Mora admitted the journey but questioned whether Ronan monitored her constantly, and he explained that the Psychic Map could infer the missing stages from a few key moments.

• Ronan examined Mora’s fingers, then created a projection of Huai City Airport to demonstrate her actions.
• Ronan showed Mora’s pinky severing itself, hopping through passengers and airport workers, and parasitizing a rabbit before it relayed through other creatures.
• Mora’s pinky reached the Old County Ruins on a Hundred-Eyed Falcon and parasitized one of Mao Yan’s subordinates, who attacked Qi Shang and set off a firefight.
• Qi Shang and his men died, while Mao Yan fled to a Safe House; Mora later retrieved her finger and killed Mao Yan after Ronan became involved.
• Mora asked whether Ronan monitored her and other Extraordinary Species, and Ronan said the Psychic Map could fill in much of a sequence from a few captured stages.

Ronan used his ability to reconstruct the past and expose a hidden connection between Mao Yan and the Amaterasu Cult. The chapter ended with him asking Madam Wen whether she knew of the connection.

• Mora said she had been hired to kill Mao Yan but refused to reveal who hired her.
• Ronan replayed the moment Mao Yan was struck and revealed phantom rootlets had protected and repaired him.
• Ronan traced the root system’s direction and identified Ban City as its likely source.
• Zhao Xi recognized the connection as the Amaterasu Cult, and Ronan told Mora that Mao Yan had been connected to it.
• Ronan turned to Madam Wen and asked whether she knew about Mao Yan’s connection to the Amaterasu Cult.

Ronan questioned the Spring City detainees and uncovered the Evil Luo Order’s involvement in the events surrounding Qi Shang, Mao Yan, and Zhou Liang. When Yan Lu named Wu Jun’s lover as Luo Yuan, Ronan asked Mora what card the Blood Demon would assign him in the new Card Deck.

• Ronan urged Wen Huilan to question the Spring City detainees using the name of the Amaterasu Order, and they began giving new testimony.
• Fris reported that Yan Lu and the others belonged to the Evil Luo Order and suspected Qi Shang had exposed their refuge and the 70 Format Laboratory.
• Fris explained that the cult had used Fire God Ant pheromones to help track Zhou Liang, and Ronan asked whether Yan Lu’s inspection trip had been backed by the cult’s leadership.
• Fris revealed that Wu Jun and Yan Fen had lost control of the cult’s affairs, while tribal elders persuaded Yan Lu to travel to Lake City using promised connections.
• Yan Lu’s testimony identified the possible Lake City contact as Luo Yuan, Wu Jun’s lover, and Ronan asked Mora what suit and number the Blood Demon would give Luo Yuan in the new Card Deck.

Ronan pressed Mora and Mountain Lord over their ties to Luo Yuan while using Character Cards to map the people converging on the Long Tail River Supply Point. He left Luo Yuan’s card untouched as Mora warned that nearby arrivals could turn the situation into chaos.

• Mora sarcastically discussed assigning Luo Yuan a place in the Card Deck and admitted he was her partner.
• Ronan showed Mora a Character Card and accused her of provoking him to demonstrate the value of their cooperation.
• Ronan challenged Mora and Mountain Lord to choose sides, then let their cards drift toward the present while keeping Luo Yuan’s card in hand.
• Ronan asked Mora who was closest through the Information Chain Network, and she named Joker, President Gao Da, Blood Demon with Nick, and others drawn by the Thunder Pool Experiment Field.
• Long Qi tried to retrieve the network’s live-stream records but found that the association had cancelled the account and removed the replay.

Ronan confronted Mora about her reconnaissance and the hidden plans behind the gathering of Extraordinary Species in Lake City. As Fire God Ants vanished into gaps in the mountain projection, Hundred Peaks Monarch began moving, and Lao Yao identified its core area as Three Peaks Top.

• Ronan challenged Mora's account of her intentions and questioned Wen Huilan about the planned route and Gao Wenfu, while Fris and Long Qi debated who Lake City might be preparing to sell out.
• Mora revealed that Lieutenant General Joseph was expected to meet Ronan in Lake City and suggested C2834 might also be involved, bringing the known number of nearby Extraordinary Species to nine.
• Ronan accused Mora of using her attacks and warnings to test his psychic sensing, while Long Qi wondered whether the Extraordinary Species had gathered to eliminate Ronan before he ascended the God Seat.
• Ronan dealt out the Character Cards, and the five Fire God Ants walked through the mountain projection before disappearing into different gaps in its light-and-shadow structure.
• The functional hall trembled as Hundred Peaks Monarch moved, and Lao Yao identified the disturbance's source as Three Peaks Top, the core area of the Activation Zone's main peak.

Yuan Wuwei showed Songkan evidence that Hundred Peaks Monarch was agitated in the mountains near Lake City, while Ronan assessed the danger from the Supply Point. Ronan chose to stay overnight and visit the Main Peak Area the next day, leaving Mora relieved but still uncertain about his plans.

• Yuan Wuwei sent Songkan a photo showing that Raven was safe and then shared a nightmare post about a girl losing a card game to Extraordinary Species.
• Yuan Wuwei showed Songkan survey images of Hundred Peaks Monarch's core Activation Zone and its violently moving Root Systems, warning that the Monarch was agitated.
• Ronan examined a reconstruction of the mountains and asked Lao Yao about the South Slope Road leading from the Supply Point toward Three Peaks Top.
• Lao Yao warned Ronan that the route was dangerous and that Aberrant Species might gather in response to Hundred Peaks Monarch's mood.
• Ronan decided to stay at the Long Tail River Supply Point overnight and visit the Main Peak Area the next day, then told Mora he had homework and Evening Practice to complete.

Ronan left Mora and the others with the Basic Environment and Card Deck, and they played out a simulated conflict that grew into the destruction of Lake City and the surrounding region. Long Qi realized the simulation exposed useful combat lessons while also revealing that the world carrying all these forces seemed nearly indestructible.

• Ronan departed and told the group to keep the Basic Environment and Card Deck and figure out how to play with them.
• Mora gathered the others around the table and began a card game that simulated characters and environments according to real-world logic.
• Long Qi watched his character survive the Aberrant Nest and learned practical techniques for using his Exoskeleton and Format Fire.
• Mora played Heart 9, and Shakaer of Fan City killed Long Qi's character and destroyed the group's Safe Zone defense line.
• As the group added more cards, the battle spread into Lake City, where Extraordinary Species and military forces devastated the metropolitan area and the surrounding wilderness.
• After the deck was exhausted, Long Qi concluded that Ronan's Basic Environment collected and calculated information, and that the world carrying the simulated destruction remained stable.

After the chaotic card game, Mora used Long Qi to restart the Basic Environment, and he tried to slow the next round by drawing everyone into conversation. A discussion about a wind turbine used in a film led to the revelation that Tu Ge had guarded the film crew, leaving Mountain Lord visibly unsettled before he urged everyone to resume playing.

• Mountain Lord and Mora agreed that the previous round had been a mess, while Long Qi and several others struggled with the strain of watching the Extraordinary Species fight.
• Mora had Long Qi contact Standard Bearer for authorization, and the game reset with every card returned to the Card Deck; Long Qi complained that the process had drained his energy.
• Long Qi tried to slow the new round by asking Lao Yao about a tree-shaped landmark on Sky Ridge, and Lao Yao explained that it was a wind turbine wrapped in mutant fungus.
• Lao Yao confirmed that the turbine had appeared in a scene from Winter Holly and said he had guided the film crew, while Tu Ge had handled their security.
• When Lao Yao named Tu Ge, Mountain Lord reacted sharply, studied Wen Huilan and Mora, and then told everyone to pick up the pace and smash the game.

As Long Qi and the others endured an all-night card game with Mora and Mountain Lord, He Yueyin called with news of widespread anomalies in the Mental Ocean. The disturbances were linked to exhausting battle dreams and a livestream, leaving the group to confront the possibility that their game was affecting people across the world.

• Mora and Mountain Lord rapidly learned the game, repeatedly demanded restarts, and exhausted the players around the table.
• Fris questioned Wen Huilan about her history with Tu Ge, while Mountain Lord and Mora discussed when Tu Ge had first appeared.
• He Yueyin called Long Qi because she could not reach Luo and asked whether anyone had noticed disturbances in Lake City's Mental Ocean.
• He Yueyin reported global Mental Ocean fluctuations, nightmares of battles among sleeping people, and a connection between many dreams and a livestream watched earlier that night.
• Mora recognized the pattern as a possible reversal of the Sunlight Nightmare, and He Yueyin revealed that more than twenty million same-frequency anomalous samples had been collected.