Chapter Summaries

Roy refined Pilfa Magic Potions using extracted orc Behemoth bloodline and Sacred Mark Stone remnants, boosting his Life Energy and awakening stronger bloodline powers. He gave a diluted potion to Athedia, who advanced to Level 1 and successfully released a ranged battle-aura slash.

• Roy used Bloodline Expert to refine a golden-sheened Pilfa Magic Potion from orc bloodline and Sacred Mark Stone remnants.
• Roy drank the potion, raising his Life Energy Strength to sixty degrees and strengthening his Bloodline Awakening and Ferocious Transformation.
• Roy spent the Slaughter Moon refining more Pilfa Magic Potions and made diluted versions from his depleted supplies.
• Roy gave Athedia a diluted potion, and her Life Energy Strength rose from around ten degrees to over fifteen.
• Roy confirmed Athedia had reached Level 1, and she released a ranged battle-aura slash at his instruction.

Roy tested Athedia’s Golden Behemoth bloodline and saw her gain powerful combat abilities, then gave Luker a diluted Pilfa Magic Potion. Luker awakened an even stronger bloodline than Athedia, though his transformation quickly exhausted him.

• Athedia activated Bloodline Awakening and Ferocious Transformation, then unleashed a battle-qi slash that shattered part of a mountain.
• Roy encouraged Athedia and promised to provide Experience Stones so she could develop more combat specialties.
• Roy met Luker in Mulien City and gave him a diluted Pilfa Magic Potion, promising greater responsibilities and help rebuilding the Black Blade Clan if he advanced.
• Luker drank the potion and advanced to the hero stage, reaching 18 degrees of Life Energy.
• Luker awakened the Golden Behemoth bloodline, raising his Life Energy to around 90 degrees and then 180 degrees with Ferocious Transformation, but soon exhausted himself.

Roy trained Luker to handle challenges made in Roy’s name, and Luker defeated a stronger opponent by unleashing his bloodline power. Later, Roy gave Luker medicinal pastes and joined him to see Princess Maji, the emperor’s daughter, whose arrival drew a crowd.

• Roy told Luker to pose as his younger brother and take on ordinary challengers seeking Roy.
• Roy hid in the Loniro Mountains while Luker, calling himself Little Luker Black Blade, challenged a veteran Pigman hero in Mulien City and killed him with a powerful strike.
• Planje told Roy about Luker’s new identity, and Roy later gave the injured Luker medicinal pastes to test.
• Roy considered posing as a Witch Doctor and using healing spells to avoid suspicion.
• Roy and Luker went outside after hearing cheers and saw Princess Maji traveling through the city in a guarded carriage.

Roy rescued his younger brother Luker after Luker clashed with the guards escorting Princess Maji. The princess pardoned Luker on condition that Roy and his companions eliminate the Wyverns troubling villages west of the city, and Roy accepted.

• Roy asked his followers about rumors that Princess Maggie Quicks was close to someone, but they had uncovered no details.
• Roy secretly shoved Luker, who stumbled into a guard and caused the princess's carriage procession to stop.
• Luker knocked down the guard captain with his Golden Behemoth strength, but a shaman's shadowy spell and the other warriors subdued him.
• Roy stepped forward and asked the guards to release Luker, identifying him as his younger brother.
• Princess Maji pardoned Luker on condition that Roy eliminate the Wyverns attacking villages west of the city, and Roy agreed before leaving with Luker.

Princess Maji noticed Roy and Luker’s potential and invited them to become her followers after they slew a nest of Wyverns. Roy refused the offer to appear committed to the traditional path, while secretly hoping to gain entry to her circle.

• Princess Maji learned that Roy and Luker belonged to the Black Blade Clan and ordered her guards to watch them before considering an invitation.
• Roy and Luker hunted Wyverns for a mission, with Roy freezing one and Luker striking it down before they killed the rest of the nest.
• Roy planned to keep the Wyvern corpses for the Mimic Mushrooms to study and potentially reproduce their useful traits.
• Roy’s men displayed the Wyvern corpses and then disposed of them through merchants, after which Princess Maji invited the brothers to a banquet.
• Princess Maji offered Roy and Luker positions as her followers, but Roy declined and claimed he would pursue the Beast God Festival and Bloody Trial.

Roy used Luker’s favorable reception by Princess Maji to place him near her and gather intelligence, while asking Planje to find a way to approach Yannis through her connections. As Luker and Planje quietly observed Yannis, Roy suspected that Yannis was not as interested in Maji as their frequent meetings suggested.

• Princess Maji repeatedly tried to recruit Roy, while Luker reported that she had invited him and given him lucrative missions.
• Roy told Luker to become Maji’s follower and discreetly observe her side, assuring him that the assignment would not betray their clan.
• Planje revealed that she had been monitoring Luker, and Roy explained that he intended to deal with Yannis after the Beast God Festival and the Bloody Trial.
• Roy directed Planje to use Luker and Maji’s connections to find a way to approach Yannis and observe his inner circle.
• Luker and Planje separately met Yannis and watched him without drawing attention, as Maji continued seeking him out.
• After noticing how often Maji initiated their meetings, Roy suspected that Yannis was not truly interested in her.

Roy investigated how alchemy could influence emotions and discovered that Lady Gumoze had studied a series of True Love Potions. The Noisy Beaker revealed that the potions could induce affection for a designated person for set periods, though Gumoze had never perfected them.

• Roy questioned Intelligent Brain Sailen about emotions, souls, and how bodily and spiritual elements shaped human desires.
• Roy reviewed theories linking the proportions of bestiality, humanity, and divinity in the soul to different life statuses.
• Roy asked the Magical Alchemical Items about True Love Potion, but they had no conclusive formula and offered only related records.
• The Noisy Beaker described Gumoze's potions, including One-Night Indulgence, Ten Days of Infatuation, Hundred Days of Sweetness, Thousand Days of True Heart, and Seven Year Itch.
• The Noisy Beaker explained that the potions induced affection for a chosen person for the stated duration, but Gumoze had not achieved complete success.

Roy developed an Apprentice-level potion that stimulated desire, then tested its effects on an animated stone golem. The test succeeded spectacularly, leaving him impressed by the potion’s power and wondering how rational beings might resist it.

• Roy recorded the concept of a soul-affecting potion and began researching its formula with help from his talents.
• On April 10, Roy finished brewing an Apprentice-level potion called One Night of Indulgence, which could influence emotions and desires through physiological effects.
• Roy learned that advanced versions of the potion could affect souls, even reaching Undead Creatures without flesh and blood.
• Roy asked Athedia to retrieve two boar-shaped stone golems, then mixed powder scraped from one into the potion and applied it to the other.
• The animated golem became agitated and pounced on its fellow statue, astonishing Athedia and prompting Roy to question whether rational beings could resist the potion.

Roy tested his Level 0 potion on Athedia and found that her Level 1 template resisted much of its effect. He then used an Animate Potion on the Humanoid Angel, awakening her and discovering a recipe identifying her as a Rose Angel.

• Roy ordered Sailen to record the potion recipe and learned that its effects on Level 1 creatures were unknown.
• Roy gave Athedia the potion; Sailen explained that her existing feelings for Roy overwhelmed its spiritual effects while her Level 1 template resisted the rest.
• Roy tested a new Animate Potion on the Humanoid Angel, which moved, embraced him, and gained Spiritual Power.
• Roy received recipe knowledge that included the Gold-tier Soul Recipe for a Rose Angel, identifying the Humanoid Angel's origin and spiritual composition.

After the True Love Potion briefly awakened the Rose Angel’s emotions, Roy realized it was an advanced Intelligent Body powered by love and faith. He left Athedia in charge of their hideout and went to Mulien City to ask Planje for help obtaining a personal possession of Yannis for his potion.

• Roy recognized that the Rose Angel’s affection had raised its spiritual status and considered how intense emotions and intelligence could produce an artificial soul.
• After the potion wore off, Roy realized the Rose Angel had been powered by its love for every creation in Chalk Country and speculated that despair over losing them had destroyed its soul.
• The next day, Roy told Athedia to guard the hideout and flee through a hidden underground passage with Sailen if danger became overwhelming.
• Roy went to Mulien City to meet Planje and seek something belonging to Yannis to use as an ingredient in the True Love Potion.
• Planje protested when Roy asked her to steal one of Yannis’s personal possessions.

Roy used Yannis’s bodily fluids to refine a potion designed to make someone fall in love with Yannis, then arranged for Planje to give it to Fenli, a maidservant who might already have a crush on him. He planned to use their feelings to drive a wedge between Yannis and Princess Maji, while continuing his research into a stronger love potion.

• Roy explained that he wanted to use a potion and romantic entanglements to create a rift between Yannis and Princess Maji and find an opportunity to act.
• Planje obtained the materials Roy needed, and Roy refined them into the potion One Night of Indulgence.
• Roy insisted the potion was meant to help people fall in love, while Planje doubted him and fled with the prepared dose.
• Roy chose Fenli, a rescued centaur maidservant who might already have feelings for Yannis, as the potion’s target.
• Roy resolved to let Fenli and Yannis’s relationship develop and considered researching a stronger potion called Ten Days of Infatuation.

Yannis trained as an emerging hero and grew closer to Fenli, a centaur maid he had rescued. After Planje secretly drugged Fenli, the two became intimate, leaving Yannis to brush aside thoughts of how his fiancée Maggie and her father Blaip might react.

• Yannis sparred with Durul, who praised his progress toward awakening his ancestral bloodline and mastering War Stomp and Thunder Slash.
• Fenli agreed to cover Planje's shift, and Planje offered her fruit juice that Fenli drank without suspicion.
• After drinking the juice, Fenli felt unwell and brought pastries to Yannis while he meditated.
• Yannis caught Fenli's scent, grabbed her, and the two became intimate.
• Yannis regretted the encounter briefly, then dismissed worries about explaining it to Maggie and Blaip.

After more than four months of potion-making and cautious development, Roy learned that Yannis would join a mountain hunt and waited nearby for a chance to make contact. At the manor, Fenli discovered she was pregnant, giving Roy another bargaining chip in his plans.

• Roy asked Planje about Yannis and learned that he was thriving with a maid while the orcs turned a blind eye.
• Roy raised his Spiritual Power to 30, or 34 with the Intelligence Gem ring, and told Sailen to limit risky expansion and reduce large Mimic Mushroom units.
• Sailen relayed Luker's news that Yannis would join a mountain hunt, and Roy chose to monitor events rather than attempt an assassination.
• Roy went ahead to hide near the hunting area, intending to make contact.
• Fenli suddenly felt unwell, and Planje recognized that she was pregnant and secretly sent the news to Roy.

Yannis traveled with Princess Maji and her party as she tried to win his affection, but her attention only led to jealousy and an argument with Fenli. Meanwhile, Roy learned that Tiger King Blaip and Marshal Masur were accompanying the expedition and recognized the danger they posed.

• Luker and Roy's other followers traveled as rangers with Princess Maji's group, and Luker grew jealous of the attention Yannis received.
• Princess Maji repeatedly offered Yannis water and rest, but he felt exhausted by her attentions.
• Yannis accepted Fenli's salted soybean juice and teased her, prompting Princess Maji to return and accuse them of drinking together.
• Princess Maji glared at Fenli, and the two women argued inside the marching tent while Planje, Masur, and Blaip heard about it.
• Roy learned through the Sound Transmission Shell that Blaip and Masur were Level 3 experts who could easily overpower him.

Roy continued training in the mountains, where Masur recognized him as Luker and decided to meet him. Meanwhile, Yannis learned that Fenli was pregnant and might be suffering a threatened miscarriage, leaving him shocked and grieving.

• Roy absorbed more Orc Warriors' Memory Crystals, worried about their chaotic memories, and drove away two scouts who warned him to leave the Hunting Ground.
• Masur heard about the expert beneath the waterfall, recognized Roy as Luker of the Black Blade Clan, and set out to meet him and recruit him.
• Princess Maji left after arguing with Yannis, while her guards blamed Yannis and the Centaur Race for their troubles.
• Yannis brooded over his dependence on Princess Maji and her father, then rushed out when he heard Fenli was being beaten by tiger-woman maidservants.
• Yannis knocked the maidservants away, and a Witch Doctor found that Fenli was pregnant and showed signs of a threatened miscarriage.
• Yannis realized he loved Fenli as he grappled with the shock that she might lose their child.

Roy waited beneath a waterfall for Masur, a powerful Orc marshal, and endured his test by revealing the strength and skills of his disguise. Impressed, Masur began showing Roy his ultimate technique, Lightning Storm.

• Roy stayed beneath the waterfall, confident that his preparations would protect him if the Orc high command found him.
• Masur arrived with attendants, sensed Roy's powerful aura, and introduced himself before challenging him to show his mettle.
• Roy calmed himself under Masur's intimidating pressure and decided to endure the test rather than flee.
• Roy revealed the disguised power of a Golden Behemoth and attacked Masur, who carefully limited his strength to match Roy's apparent level.
• Roy dodged Masur's strike and countered with his combat skills, impressing Masur with his talent and spirit.
• Masur praised Roy as a peerless genius, then prepared to demonstrate his Lightning Storm technique.

Roy fought Masur, discovered that the Sword Saint could unleash immense power by converting his life force, and survived Masur’s invitation to join him. Roy collected the lingering lightning energy and returned to learn that Fenli had gone into premature labor, deciding to save her baby.

• Masur compressed mana and life force into lightning, but Roy broke his connection to the surrounding mana and survived the attack.
• Masur praised Roy, invited him to join him, and told him he could find him in Mulien; Roy declined.
• Roy recognized the lingering lightning as a clue to the Orc World’s highest-level Magic Martial Skill and gathered it into a Lightning Serpent using an Animate Potion.
• Roy infused the Lightning Serpent with Spiritual Power and engraved his Secret Rune into it.
• Planje told Roy that Fenli had gone into premature labor, and Roy said he would find a way to save the baby.

Planje treated Fenli and saved the child in her womb, while Yannis punished those responsible and rewarded Planje with a place at Fenli’s side. Planje then encouraged Fenli to think of herself as a future queen, and one of the punished servants died from their injuries.

• Planje warned Fenli that her recovery and unborn child remained at risk, then told Roy the Witch Doctors might not be able to help.
• Yannis lashed the maids and nurses responsible for Fenli’s condition and threatened to kill them if Fenli or her child died.
• Bernie cautioned Yannis that the offenders had been sent by the Tiger race, but Yannis rejected his advice.
• After several days, Fenli and her child recovered, and Yannis assigned Planje to care for her.
• Planje urged Fenli to consider her child’s standing and the possibility of becoming queen of the centaurs.
• Planje heard that one of the punished servants had died from their injuries and reflected that events had unfolded naturally.

Roy planned to use a Knowledge Potion to teach Fenli practical skills that could help Yannis’s territory while allowing Roy to cultivate combat mushrooms. Fenli unknowingly drank the potion and began producing useful ideas, leaving her eager to test her new knowledge.

• Roy decided to use Memory Stones and Experience Stones to make Fenli a Knowledge Potion and teach her about Mimic Mushrooms.
• Roy planned to conceal where Fenli’s knowledge came from, limit how much it benefited Yannis, and retain control of any gains.
• Fenli studied under Planje’s encouragement and showed a natural talent for mathematics, chemistry, administration, and invention.
• At year’s end, Yannis discovered Fenli’s double-entry bookkeeping and followed her warning about missing harvest records to investigate embezzlement with Durul.
• Planje secretly gave Fenli the brain-nourishing potion disguised as medicinal soup, and Fenli developed ideas about blast-furnace steelmaking and mushroom cultivation.

Fenli discovered a supposedly extinct Carnivorous Mushroom at the market, unaware that Roy had secretly arranged the encounter to give her the mushroom and knowledge to cultivate it. After Fenli began testing it, the mushroom grew rapidly and consumed a Wyvern's remains within days.

• Princess Maji argued with Yannis after finding him doting on the pregnant Fenli, then left in anger.
• Fenli encouraged Yannis to pursue Maji, reminding him of the benefits of marrying her, while Yannis promised Fenli that he truly loved her.
• Planje took Fenli, who was pregnant, to Mulien's market, where she bought supplies and spotted a mushroom she recognized from an ancient book.
• Fenli bought all of the old orc's wares, including a disguised Dormant Spores fruiting body that Roy had planted for her.
• Fenli began cultivating the Carnivorous Mushroom, which grew quickly and consumed a Wyvern's remains within a few days.