Chapter Summaries

Lu PingAn’s group explored the fog-shrouded city and discovered that its zombies were undead creatures vulnerable to Life Burning Lamp Beams. As other Explorers lit a huge bonfire to gather valuable goods, zombies across the surrounding blocks began converging on them.

• Lu PingAn led a small group into the fog, where Mei Yuge and Eve found their abilities hindered while Cat Cat remained unaffected.
• Corpse Monsters attacked, and Eve tore them apart before Lu PingAn tested Sacred Fire and found that Life Burning Lamp Beams could stop the assembled zombies.
• Lu PingAn concluded that the fog and its undead were part of something alive without end, and warned Hua Xuejie not to push herself.
• Other Explorers used Lu PingAn’s torches to search the city, and one mercenary squad found a flower shop and a seed shop.
• The squad lit most of its Torch Flowers to keep zombies away while loading goods, drawing zombies from more than a dozen nearby blocks toward the bonfire.

Lu PingAn’s group used a Life-Burning Torch to push through a fog-filled city after he realized the Corpse Monsters were puppets of a vast living fog. The group charged deeper into the city, while the separated Xue Yi wandered toward its center and found a house with lights and cooking smoke.

• Lu PingAn explained how his Life-Burning Lamp Beam combined Draw Life with the Holy Fire Module to consume the fog’s biomass.
• Lu PingAn identified the Corpse Monsters as possessed vessels controlled by the living fog and warned his companions that destroying them would not kill the fog.
• Lu PingAn urged the group to conserve their torches, then charged through a city wall with his companions as the Corpse Monsters moved toward the outskirts.
• Lu PingAn worried that Xue Yi might still be trapped in the city and hoped she would realize the danger and escape.
• Xue Yi, lost after the fog swallowed her trail, reached the city center and saw a house with lights and cooking smoke.

Hua Xueyi found survivors in the fog-shrouded city and learned from a diary that a wish-granting severed hand had caused a murder spree. The survivors revealed that a wish for everyone to understand one another and live peacefully had turned the city’s people into white mist.

• Hua Xueyi used a falling stick to escape the repeating scenery and discovered a lit building where three distressed residents were sheltering.
• Hua Xueyi abducted one of the Long-Hand Tribe residents and questioned him, then took his diary after learning the group were survivors.
• Hua Xueyi read that a shoemaker known as the Eternal One had used a Three-Fingered Fishman Severed Hand to wish for eternal life and had killed people to gain their life.
• Hua Xueyi learned that one of the residents had wished for everyone to stop arguing, understand one another, and live peacefully forever.
• The resident told Hua Xueyi that the wish had caused everyone in the city to explode into white mist.

Hua Xueyi interrogated three bewitched thieves and learned that an evil Wish Granter had twisted a wish into the city’s merging catastrophe. She realized the object needed a third wish to unleash a world-level disaster and set out to find Su Da Er, only to discover the fog had reached her hiding place.

• Hua Xueyi tortured a Long-Hand Tribe member for answers, then killed him and two other thieves after confirming they were bewitched.
• The thieves revealed that the Wish Granter had kept them alive as backup wish-makers and would demand a wish from the world after granting three wishes.
• Hua Xueyi pieced together how the Wish Granter maliciously twisted the second wish, merging the city’s inhabitants into one consciousness.
• She learned that Su Da Er had taken the Three-Fingered Severed Hand without making a wish, and concluded he might still be resisting it.
• Hua Xueyi prepared to search the fog for Su Da Er, but found eyes waiting beneath the hut’s window and realized she had been discovered.

Lu PingAn and Hua Xueyi fought through a city overrun by Corpse Monsters while pursuing the hostile authority fragment known as the Monkey Hand. Lu PingAn discovered that the living mist was animating the city itself, and Eve spotted movement ahead as the group continued onward.

• Hua Xueyi sensed that time was running out and cut through the Corpse Monsters at high speed.
• Lu PingAn and the steel knight charged through monsters that continually fused back together, while Eve's Crystal Legion struggled to stop them.
• Lu PingAn found that his flames and long-range vision were ineffective, and he realized the city and its buildings were becoming part of the monster.
• Lu PingAn fired signals to find Hua Xueyi, but the mist and shifting streets disrupted their direction and prevented a response.
• Eve's Crystal Legion detected movement ahead and brought Lu PingAn good news.

Su Da Er struggled through the Great Mist carrying the Severed Hand, while Hua Xueyi fought an enemy that trapped her in shifting streets and used familiar faces to torment her. Hua Xueyi escaped by transferring points, found Lu PingAn among the wreckage, and confirmed he recognized her.

• Su Da Er continued through the Corpse Monsters with the Severed Hand, unaware that he kept returning to the same alley.
• Hua Xueyi fought Corpse Monsters and rejected an illusion of Regiment Commander Lu, then realized the streets had brought her back to the house where it began.
• Hua Xueyi deduced that her opponent could not truly read her mind and used the old card in her necklace to make a remote point transfer.
• Hua Xueyi landed near Lu PingAn, who was crushing a golden figure resembling her, and prepared to defend herself when he reached toward her.
• Lu PingAn convinced Hua Xueyi he was real by recalling how she had nearly failed several subjects and had him arrange her graduation certificate through Xia Qin.

Lu PingAn realized the wish-granting force was pushing Hua Xueyi toward desperation so it could use her for a more powerful wish. He led her toward the city’s edge, but the controlled Long-Hand Tribe member and the Severed Hand blocked their escape.

• Hua Xueyi told Lu PingAn what she had learned, and he concluded that the wishes grew more dangerous as their granters’ desires intensified.
• Lu PingAn warned Hua Xueyi that the force had likely targeted her and might drive her into making a desperate wish.
• Lu PingAn decided they should leave rather than follow the apparent trail to save Su Da Er, and he took Hua Xueyi toward the city’s edge.
• Lu PingAn burned away the fog and used the Eye of Truth to find their route out, but collapsing buildings blocked their path.
• A corpse-like Long-Hand Tribe member appeared, holding the Severed Hand and warning them not to make a wish as its fingers began folding down.

Lu PingAn deduced that the Severed Hand’s wishes depended on people knowing or fearing it, but the entity launched an attack before he could refuse its offer to cooperate. As the battle escalated, Cat Cat fled to warn the mercenaries, while a Sixth Thief emerged from the fog and risked revealing the Severed Hand to them.

• Lu PingAn stopped Cat Cat from attacking Su Da Er and exposed the Severed Hand’s likely need for its targets to know about it.
• Lu PingAn guessed that the Severed Hand’s fourth wish could only affect those connected to its first three wishes, and the thickening fog suggested he was right.
• The Severed Hand offered cooperation, then split the ground and unleashed monsters when Lu PingAn refused to engage with its offer.
• Lu PingAn summoned two flaming trees to repel the threats, resisted the Severed Hand’s fate-linking power, and sent Cat Cat to warn the mercenaries to flee.
• A Sixth Thief escaped the fog and begged the mercenaries not to make a wish, prompting them to ask what had happened.

Lu PingAn led the assault on the Severed Hand, reasoning that forcing it to make another wish would weaken it. He unleashed the Hungry Ghost Blood Pool against its organic puppets, and as the vines swallowed Su Da Er, the Severed Hand began to make a wish.

• Lu PingAn used Little Flame’s flames and his allies’ attacks to push through the Living Corpses while explaining that the Severed Hand’s third wish would be weaker if forced to make it quickly.
• Lu PingAn tried beasts and other attacks against the puppets, but they died or reassembled, proving difficult to destroy.
• Lu PingAn charged toward the Severed Hand, joined by Hua Xueyi, while Little Flame’s flames burned through the remains surrounding them.
• Lu PingAn summoned the Hungry Ghost Blood Pool, whose Blood Vines devoured the organic matter on the battlefield and forced the Severed Hand to retreat.
• The Blood Vines caught and swallowed Su Da Er as light shone down and the Severed Hand began, “I wish...”

Lu PingAn unleashed the Blood Vine to consume the Hand of Desire’s life reserves and force it to make its third wish. The Hand then made a fourth wish, merging with the newborn lifeform and absorbing the city, leaving a giant egg behind.

• Lu PingAn unleashed the Hungry Ghost Blood Pool, and the Blood Vine spread across the city, devouring the Hand of Desire’s reserves and everything in its path.
• As its life chips dwindled, the Hand of Desire made its third wish, using the reborn mist-form lifeforms as Wish Granters to create a powerful new lifeform.
• Hua Xueyi and Eve left the world, while Lu PingAn watched the mist gather and realized a newborn was forming.
• The Hand of Desire made a fourth wish that targeted Lu PingAn, but he vanished and left only a key behind.
• The Hand of Desire merged with the newborn, making itself the creature’s sole will and absorbing the Blood Vine and the city.
• The mist dispersed, leaving a giant egg whose newborn began tearing open its shell.

Lu PingAn confronted the Hand of Desire after it emerged as a giant monster built from human flesh and other materials. When crazed mercenaries wished to become part of it, they triggered the Wish Chain, empowering the monster with supernatural abilities and making the battle more dangerous.

• Lu PingAn and Big Cat recognized that the newborn creature resembled a god made from an entire city's sacrifices, and resolved to fight it.
• The Hand of Desire emerged from its egg, demanded wishes, and attacked Lu PingAn after he called it ugly.
• Lu PingAn sent wolves and mechanical fighters to probe the monster, then unleashed the Hungry Ghost Blood Pool when its brute strength proved manageable.
• The monster resisted the Blood Vine and began devouring it, while Lu PingAn concluded that its temptation could be ignored if no one made a wish.
• A group of crazed mercenaries wished to become part of the monster, died in a burst of blood, and activated the Wish Chain.
• The Wish Chain enlarged the monster and gave it the intelligence and powers of supernatural Professionals.

Lu PingAn fought the Hand of Desire’s giant monster after its third wish began another wish cycle, while trying to prevent anyone else from becoming a Wish Granter. His Flame Forest was destroyed by the monster’s amplified Super Heavy Strike, leaving him exposed and the battle unresolved.

• Lu PingAn realized the Hand of Desire had bewitched mercenaries throughout the city and that the wish cycle had restarted, but he refused to flee.
• Lu PingAn summoned named car bombs and man-eating wolves, sending his forces across the city to keep potential Wish Granters away from the battlefield.
• Lu PingAn created the Purgatory Second Layer: Flame Forest and hid among its burning trees as the monster charged in.
• Lu PingAn used named model planes carrying flesh bundles to obscure the monster’s detection, but the explosions barely hurt it.
• The monster struck Lu PingAn with Super Heavy Strike, first blasting a crater into the forest and then reducing the entire scene to ruins with a second blow.

Lu PingAn fought the enormous wish-born monster, which could regenerate from nearly any injury and overpower him with its immense life force. As he realized his usual abilities could not defeat it, he prepared to gamble on a desperate move.

• Lu PingAn assessed the monster’s strengths and weaknesses, but its Blood Vine armor and rapid regeneration made it nearly impossible to harm.
• He filled the battlefield with summons to drain the monster’s stamina and hinder its detection, while learning that the other Professionals had mostly gone mad.
• The Wish Master probed Lu PingAn’s desires, and he recognized that he wanted a peaceful life and used his power to protect others without losing his peace of mind.
• Lu PingAn continued creating cannon fodder with Naming, but found that his attacks and rule-based abilities could not overcome the monster’s overwhelming power.
• After exhausting nearly all his options, Lu PingAn realized he had no choice but to gamble.

Lu PingAn exploited the Wish Granter’s Scholar rules to turn its wishes against itself and force it into agony. He ended by making a final wish to merge with the creature.

• Lu PingAn recalled the Scholar taboos: avoid becoming both referee and participant, and speak carefully because explanations bind their speaker.
• Lu PingAn wished to cancel the Wish Granter’s previous wish, causing the creature to lose the life it had gained and suffer from resisting its own authority.
• Lu PingAn wished for everyone to understand one another and live together in peace, a wish the Giant God could neither fulfill nor safely distort.
• The Giant God writhed and screamed as its compulsion to grant wishes clashed with its refusal to fulfill Lu PingAn’s words.
• Lu PingAn made his final wish: for himself and the Giant God to merge together.

Lu PingAn defeated the Lord of Desire by tricking it into merging with scrap metal and disposable creations, causing it to destroy itself. After the battle, the group reflected on their narrow victory and the devastation left behind.

• The Giant God granted a wish to merge with Lu PingAn’s Big Ship, mistaking it for a powerful lifeform.
• Lu PingAn removed the Big Ship’s spiritual endowment, turning the material inside the Giant God into useless scrap that disrupted its body.
• Lu PingAn’s mass-produced Named Dummies repeatedly wished to merge with the Lord of Desire, overwhelming it with more unwanted matter.
• The Lord of Desire ran out of materials for Wish Evolution and collapsed back into minced flesh, allowing Lu PingAn to finish it off.
• Lu PingAn’s group recovered the fragment and discussed how fortunate they had been to arrive before the Lord of Desire gained more time and wisdom.
• Lu PingAn surveyed the lifeless battlefield and reflected on the cost of surviving the crisis.

After recovering two fragments, Lu PingAn assessed the devastation and learned that powerful Professionals had died during the Fragment Contention War. A clone of Shuichi invited him into a high-level intelligence network, where Lu PingAn joined the fragment ranking list anonymously and began gathering information.

• Lu PingAn surveyed the destroyed city and asked that neighboring cities be notified because dangerous fragments and magic plants still threatened the area.
• Lu PingAn learned that one Tier 8 and three Tier 7 Professionals had died, with several deaths likely connected to the fragments and the search for the Falling Star.
• Big Cat hinted that Lu PingAn would soon gain a new source of intelligence, and three days later an owl delivered a clone of Shuichi to him.
• The clone showed Lu PingAn a high-level chat log and a ranking list where Shuichi ranked first with eleven fragments and advertised trades.
• Lu PingAn chose to appear on the ranking list as Anonymous 101 so he could gather intelligence without revealing his identity.

Lu PingAn tracked the Rebirth Merchant Guild's Big Ship while his team rested, and learned that the newly acquired fragment appeared to have Life and Scholar attributes. Fang Wen broke through to the Rule-level with the rule "Phantom Body," leaving Lu PingAn pleased but facing the challenge of finding facilities suited to her abilities.

• Lu PingAn used the network to locate the Rebirth Merchant Guild's Big Ship and let his staff rest for two days while the Courtyard prepared to shut down for upgrades.
• Miss Lu told Lu PingAn that the powerful enemies' remains could not be used as materials, though the team's spring and lake continued to provide ingredients for potions.
• Lu PingAn learned that Life-type fragments were highly sought after and suspected his new fragment had Life and Scholar attributes.
• Fang Wen became the team's first new Rule-level member, revealed her Beast Tamer profession and "Phantom Body" rule, and explained that she no longer needed to specialize so narrowly in Mechanical Awakeners.
• Lu PingAn welcomed Fang Wen's breakthrough and considered the facilities and increased compensation needed to support her.

Lu PingAn examined the Prayer Pool and Wishing Well, which could grant wishes in exchange for points or lifespan, and discovered that the merged fragments had connected the Courtyard’s four waterside buildings with the world. Cat Cat tried to wish away her verbal tic, but a Copper Coin was insufficient, leaving her angry and Lu PingAn eager to test the buildings’ limits.

• Lu PingAn learned that the Prayer Pool sold wish-granting coins with cooldowns, while the Wishing Well exchanged lifespan for Life Points.
• The Rebirth and other fragments linked the Courtyard’s four waterside buildings through a river of high-grade Water of Life that reached into the void.
• Lu PingAn sensed that the world might let him become a quasi-god if he offered up the fragments, but he chose to focus first on testing the buildings.
• Cat Cat wished to stop saying “meow” and spent a Copper Coin, but the wish failed to change her soul-deep condition.
• Cat Cat attacked Lu PingAn in frustration and refused his suggestion to try again with a Silver Coin.

Lu PingAn surveyed how the Courtyard had grown into a complete independent secret realm and learned that its new Wishing Well could turn lifespan into Life Points, giving the Courtyard a way to expand its economy. The chapter ended with someone claiming the Prayer Pool could safely turn ordinary people into Professionals using only a Copper Coin.

• Lu PingAn saw that the Courtyard had developed into a vast world with distinct districts, a river, and a complete ecosystem.
• Lu PingAn realized that the fusion of the fragments had transformed the Courtyard into an independent secret realm approaching a God's Ark.
• Big Cat explained that the Wishing Well could convert lifespan into Life Points, providing a new source of currency and wealth for the Courtyard.
• Someone told Lu PingAn that the Prayer Pool could use a Copper Coin to safely transform an ordinary person into a Professional, potentially enabling mass production.

Lu PingAn discovered that people could use wishes and lifespan to safely become Tier 0 Professionals, and that their spent life force strengthened the Courtyard. Big Cat warned him to keep the ability’s source secret until he reached a higher rank and offered to teach him how to spread it more safely.

• Lu PingAn learned that former fishermen had traded a year of lifespan for wishes to become Tier 0 Professionals, with failed attempts causing no deaths.
• Lu PingAn concluded that the wishes removed the dangerous transformation threshold and let people skip lengthy training and advancement prerequisites.
• Lu PingAn sensed that the fishermen’s spent lifespan had strengthened the Courtyard.
• Lu PingAn considered offering the ability widely, but Big Cat urged him to conceal its source because powerful enemies could target him.
• Big Cat told Lu PingAn that he needed to reach Quasi Rule-level before learning how to spread the ability, which had once been a privilege exclusive to gods.