Chapter Summaries

Angel gave Spotty Dog a silver bell made from Nightmare Stone, then returned to the Star Pool Ruins and discussed taking it back to Heart's Desire. Before leaving, he examined Gloria’s madness affliction but found it was a genuine illness, leaving the question of whether Spotty Dog could help unresolved.

• Angel sent the black-and-white maids back to Heart's Desire and used Dangros's flame to shape a Nightmare Stone into a silver bell for Spotty Dog, which could play illusions and contact him.
• Angel brought Spotty Dog to Lord Rhein, the Tree Spirit Lord, and Iron Armor Granny at the Star Pool Ruins, then said he would take it to Davaxia himself.
• Angel returned to the group after remembering that wizards had been infected by Minavaro's mist and asked to examine one of them.
• Iron Armor Granny revealed Gloria, who had been sealed inside a transparent box after becoming infected, and Angel determined that her madness was a genuine illness rather than a parasitic abnormality.
• When the Tree Spirit Lord asked whether he could treat Gloria, Angel looked at the sleepy Spotty Dog and told it to wake up.

Angel studied the green light Spotty Dog produced and used it to cure Gloria’s madness, then went to meet Davaxia as the creature emerged from the Star Pool. He appeased Davaxia with a compliment and a treat, opening the way to a smoother conversation and new information about Heart’s Desire.

• Angel examined Spotty Dog’s green light and discovered it combined the Green Patterns Bridge, Passage, Containment, Restraint, and Dissolution.
• Angel released Nightmare Realm aura and placed the green light into Gloria, curing her madness, though Iron Armor Granny said she had suffered some brain damage.
• Angel told Iron Armor Granny and Tree Spirit Lord he could replicate the treatment after two more days of research.
• Davaxia rose from the Star Pool, and Angel calmed his hurt feelings by calling him adorable and giving him Demon Nourishing Meat.
• Angel learned recent information about Heart’s Desire from Davaxia, while Rhein watched their easy rapport with surprise.

After Spotty Dog returned to Heart's Desire, Angel left the Star Pool Ruins with Lord Rhein and learned about the upcoming Tidal Realm conference and the value of getting along with elemental companions. Angel wanted to attend Heart's Desire's Moon Sacrifice banquet next month, but he still needed a way to withstand the Nightmare Realm creatures' pressure.

• Angel sent Spotty Dog back with Davaxia, then told Lord Rhein that the Heart's Desire monsters were unlikely to leave soon.
• The Tree Spirit departed for the Dream Wilderness, and Iron Armor Granny told Angel about Tree Chat's internal testing features.
• Angel planned to study the structure Spotty Dog had given him before visiting the Tree Spirit's place, while Lord Rhein handled the aftermath at the ruins.
• Lord Rhein asked about Dangros, and Angel hesitated to correct his assumption that Dangros might become Angel's elemental companion.
• Lord Rhein told Angel that the Tidal Realm conference would begin soon and that they could discuss its details later.
• Angel admitted that he wanted to attend Heart's Desire's Moon Sacrifice banquet, but said he needed a way to withstand the creatures' innate pressure.

Angel received Regina’s Fresh Milk Water Mushrooms while studying Green Patterns, then sensed that Kant had entered Dream Wilderness. He placed Kant beside Sanders and decided to let Sanders handle his questions, leaving Kant thrown out of Sanders’s cottage with directions to a nearby city.

• Regina visited Angel with Fresh Milk Water Mushrooms and asked whether Bauxia had contacted him; Angel said she had not.
• Angel ate one of the mushrooms and sensed a newcomer entering Dream Wilderness through his Gatekeeper authority.
• Angel recognized the newcomer as Kant, placed his entry point beside Sanders, and chose to wait before meeting him.
• Kant arrived in Dream Wilderness, questioned Sanders about the strange place, and mistook him for an impostor when Sanders seemed confused.
• Sanders expelled Kant from the Magic Cottage and left him a letter directing him southwest to a city where he could ask about Dream Wilderness.

Angel derived a green pattern that could remove outside influences from a living being’s mental level and left the ruins to return to Savage Cave and treat the Madness Disorder patients. After bringing Dangros through the Mirror World, he arrived at the Life Pool, where the patients were held in wooden-vine cocoons.

• Angel determined that the green pattern structure could remove external effects from a living being’s mental level, including the twisted intent causing Madness Disorder.
• Angel left the ruins during a blizzard and protected Dangros from the freezing winds with a constant-temperature force field and Swift Spirit’s help.
• Angel asked Dangros about the question it had promised to ask; Dangros asked what the Dream Wilderness was, and Angel offered to take it there.
• Angel and Dangros passed through the mirror into the Mirror World and traveled to Tree Spirit Hall, where the Tree Spirit welcomed Angel.
• Angel reached the Life Pool and saw at least thirty or forty Madness Disorder patients bound in wooden-vine cocoons above it.

Angel used the Green Pattern to cure the madness afflicting patients suspended in Tree Spirit’s Wooden Vine Cocoons, beginning with the Formal Wizards. After Tree Spirit left briefly upon receiving a message, Angel continued treating the remaining patients.

• Tree Spirit explained that the patients’ instinctive attraction to the Life Pool’s aura suppressed their frenzy, but their breathing drained his reserves and risked spreading the madness if they were moved.
• Angel told Tree Spirit that his Green Pattern was ready to use, though he did not understand why it worked, and Tree Spirit advised him to keep practicing.
• Angel used the Green Pattern to cure Duncan, who regained clarity before collapsing unconscious from damage to his sea of consciousness.
• Angel cured the other Formal Wizards, and Tree Spirit told him to throw the recovered patients into the outer ring once they were well.
• A pure-white dove delivered a message, prompting Tree Spirit to leave briefly; he returned to remind Angel to keep the cured patients out of the Life Pool area, then vanished again.
• Angel set aside his concern about the message and continued treating the apprentices.

Angel meditated beside the Life Pool while Toby and Dangros absorbed its energy, but Toby’s excess caused the Tree Spirit to confront him. After the Life Pool’s water improved Toby’s Snakebird form, the Tree Spirit assigned Angel to help Isos’s disciple craft something in exchange for Isos’s spatial cultivation journal, and arranged for Toby to stay with Gloria while Angel traveled alone.

• Angel meditated beside the Life Pool as Toby absorbed its energy in griffin form and Dangros quietly took some in, then Dangros fell asleep unharmed.
• The Tree Spirit returned and found Toby rising from the Life Pool in Snakebird form; Angel learned the pool’s water had improved Toby’s control of the form while the Tree Spirit lamented the loss of centuries’ worth of stored water.
• The Tree Spirit sent the recovered apprentices away and told Angel that Isos’s disciple needed an alchemist to help craft an item from a mysterious blueprint.
• Angel accepted the task after learning its reward was Isos’s journal of spatial insights from his apprentice days.
• The Tree Spirit told Angel to travel alone and showed him Gloria asking Toby to stay and keep her company while Angel was away.

Angel left Demon Illusion Island with an urgent alchemy task from Isos, while Rhein and the Tree Spirit prepared for the Budding Believers’ arrival. The chapter ended with Angel setting out for Sandworm Market in the Duchy of Laxum to deliver Isos’s letter to his restless disciple.

• Angel learned that Dangros was asleep because he was digesting the life energy he had absorbed, and the Tree Spirit restored the depleted Life Pool at the cost of five hundred years of reserves.
• Rhein warned the Tree Spirit that Budding Believers were expected to reach the plateau within days, so Angel should leave Savage Cave and avoid their search.
• Gloria showed Angel her regenerating bread hand and urged him to try it, but he refused because it was made from her flesh and might carry hidden risks.
• The Tree Spirit gave Angel a letter from Isos and told him to deliver it to Isos’s disciple before the disciple left the address marked on the envelope.
• Angel agreed to leave promptly and identified his destination as Sandworm Market in the Duchy of Laxum.

Angel traveled toward the Duchy of Laxum and gave Abruie a ride to the Guman Kingdom, where she was headed to take charge of Savage Cave’s branch at White Shell Sea Market. During the journey, Angel recognized Gu Yina’s puppet doll as a horrifying object made from her dead younger brother’s skin and realized Abruie might be in danger.

• Angel accepted a mission to find Isos’s disciple in the Duchy of Laxum and agreed to give an apprentice a ride toward White Shell Sea Market.
• Tree Spirit announced he would stay on Demon Illusion Island and train Toby with Gloria, while Angel departed with Swift Spirit.
• Angel rescued Abruie from a fall near the Chasm and retrieved her flying broom before continuing toward the Guman Kingdom.
• Abruie told Angel that Gu Yina had borrowed her evolved tricolor deer, which returned injured, and had encouraged her to take the White Shell Sea Market assignment.
• Abruie showed Angel the puppet doll Gu Yina had given her, and Angel recognized it as a human-skin doll made from Gu Yina’s dead younger brother, Chaila.

Angel left Abruie near White Thunder Market after placing a Nightmare Illusion of Gu Yina’s past in her mind, then continued toward Sandworm Market with Swift Spirit and the newly evolved Dangros. The chapter ended as a camel-bell caravan emerged from a sandstorm to guide Angel into the market.

• Angel warned Abruie that White Thunder Market was monitored, then sent a Nightmare Illusion into her mind depicting Gu Yina and the children’s past.
• Swift Spirit told Angel that Abruie’s puppet doll carried an aura that made it uncomfortable, and Angel dismissed the concern.
• Angel released Dangros, discovered that it had evolved and gained longer reach and hotter fire, and had it practice controlling its new flames.
• Gondola crossed the Duchy of Laxum, where Angel identified exposed bones as the remains of enormous sandworms.
• Angel and Dangros waited at a Sandworm Market caravan station, and a camel-rider caravan emerged through the sandstorm.

Angel traveled with a camel-bell caravan to Sandworm Market, learned how its guides and passphrases worked, and arrived at the market’s oasis hidden in an alternate space. After locating the entrance to Sandworm Long Street, he used his wizard-level pressure to pass the sandworm statue and entered the bustling underground market to find Isos's disciple.

• Angel joined the camel-bell caravan after its leader recognized Dangros, and he learned that the bells enabled the camels to teleport through sandstorms.
• The caravan checked travelers’ passphrases at its stations, and the leader explained that Wizard Market passphrases appeared in the Mesomia Good People Gazette.
• The caravan collected more travelers and teleported everyone to Sandworm Market, an oasis in an alternate space.
• Angel searched the market’s streets, learned that Sandworm Long Street lay beneath the entrance, and returned to the sandworm statue.
• Angel released a thread of wizard-level pressure, causing the statue to admit him to Sandworm Long Street.
• Angel entered the underground market and learned that its twelve alleys dealt in sandworms of increasing grades, with Isos's disciple staying in the eighth alley.

Angel searched Sandworm Market for No. 818, the shop belonging to Isos's disciple, and learned it was a mobile Magic Cottage that sold spatial pouches. After buying information and a token from Elysium Pavilion, he prepared to use a Guidance Spell to locate a wandering wizard stronghold.

• Angel discovered that No. 818 was a mobile shop and learned from the shopkeeper at No. 817 that its owner was Isos's disciple.
• A waiter at Elysium Pavilion told Angel that wandering wizards often visited No. 818, prompting him to seek information about Cross.
• Angel paid an intelligence broker ten magic crystals and learned that No. 818 sold disposable spatial pouches and spatial extension bags.
• Angel paid fifty magic crystals to learn that Sandworm Market had two wandering wizard strongholds, both mobile Magic Cottages that could be found with a token and Guidance Spell.
• The female apprentice offered Angel a Cross-emblem token for fifty magic crystals and a short staff imbued with Guidance Spell for thirty more.

Angel followed the Guiding Technique to Cross Tavern, where Red-Haired Dox challenged him before letting him explain that Isos had sent him to find Kael. Dox confirmed Kael was in Sandworm Market and led Angel away, but instead of taking him deeper into the market, Dox headed outside.

• Angel used the Guiding Technique to reach the Tenth Alley and found Cross Tavern.
• Dox stopped Angel at the tavern door, recognized him as an official wizard using a Transformation Technique, and demanded to know his intentions.
• Angel said he had come to find Kael and showed Dox Isos's letter as proof.
• Dox accepted the letter's authenticity, introduced himself, and agreed to take Angel to Kael.
• Dox led Angel out of Sandworm Market, surprising him by heading away from the market.

Abruie crashed her flying broom in the Guman Kingdom borderlands and fled a Royal Knight Order squad hunting her, aided by a Crown Parrot she summoned. With the pursuers tracking her by energy, she headed for the Duchy of Laxum, hoping to activate the spell Angel had placed in her glabella and draw his attention.

• Abruie crashed her broom, summoned a Crown Parrot instead of a Keen-Eyed Demon Falcon, and learned the parrot would help without forming a contract because she was too weak.
• The Crown Parrot spotted a squad from the Guman Kingdom Royal Knight Order approaching, and Abruie fled into the forest using Cat Walk.
• The Crown Parrot warned Abruie that hunting dogs could track her energy and boosted her speed with wind power, but said the spell would last only two hours.
• Abruie revealed that she had offended the Guman Kingdom's eldest princess and realized her friends and mentor were too far away to help in time.
• Abruie remembered the spell Angel had placed in her glabella and turned toward the Duchy of Laxum, hoping to activate it and alert him.

Angel followed Dox from Sandworm Market to a hidden black market, where he found the spatial nodes leading to Kael. After Angel chose the correct node, Kael appeared half an hour later, soot-covered and disheveled.

• Dox led Angel to a black-market entrance concealed by a boulder and a cactus that required extraordinary blood to open.
• Angel bought an Orange-Peel Sandworm larva and used its blood to activate the cactus, then gave the larva to Dangros.
• Dox guided Angel through the crowded black market to an abandoned magic-blood mine where Kael had hidden several spatial nodes.
• Angel identified and touched the correct spatial node without triggering a spatial rift, surprising Dox.
• After half an hour, Kael appeared before Angel and Dox with soot on his face and torn clothes.

Angel and Dox visited Kael, who insisted on solving a spatial formula left by Isos before opening the letter Angel had brought. As Kael struggled with the problem and Angel exchanged swordsmanship insights with Dox, Angel sensed an unfamiliar sound underground.

• Kael emerged from an exploded laboratory, recognized Isos's letter, and explained that he had to solve its spatial formula before opening it.
• Kael led Angel and Dox through his sixteen laboratories to a furnished chamber in the ruins beneath Sandworm Market, which he said the Lawrence Family had largely developed.
• Angel and Dox exchanged cultivation knowledge and swordsmanship insights while Kael worked on the formula.
• Angel observed Kael's solution and realized Isos had hidden the only exit inside a trap, though Kael might need hours or days to find it.
• Angel suddenly furrowed his brows and asked Dox whether he had heard a sound.

Angel strengthened his intuition and discovered that Abruie was calling for help from the edge of the Duchy of Laxum, where other Savage Cave members might also be in danger. He agreed to go rescue her, and Dox joined him as they traveled toward the ruined temple aboard Angel’s Gondola.

• Angel heightened his spiritual senses despite Dox’s warnings and heard Abruie pleading for help through the Nightmare Dreamscape.
• Dox used a Truth-Verification Technique to confirm Angel was still himself, and Angel explained that Abruie had activated energy he had left on her to reach him.
• Angel decided to help Abruie and left Kael a letter before preparing to depart.
• Dox recognized the location near the Duchy of Laxum and offered to guide Angel there.
• Dox was impressed and envious of Angel’s Gondola and its speed as Swift Spirit propelled them toward the ruined temple.

Angel and Dox reached the Desert Temple, where Guman Kingdom knights had found Abruie hiding beneath the sand. Angel subdued the knights with illusions and rescued Abruie, then waited for her to wake from a nightmare revealing Gu Yina’s truth.

• Angel and Dox arrived at the ruined Desert Temple and spotted Guman Royal House knights searching the area with hunting dogs.
• The hunting dogs discovered Abruie beneath the sand, but Angel used a mirage and audio illusion to make the knights and dogs faint.
• Angel found Abruie asleep with a Crown Parrot beside her; the parrot tried to wake her and flee, but Angel caught it and knocked it unconscious.
• Angel lifted Abruie out of the sand and waited as she cried in the dream revealing Gu Yina’s truth.

Angel helped Abruie confront the truth about Gu Yina, and the Crown Parrot’s blunt words led Abruie to form an equal contract with it. Abruie then began explaining why Guman Kingdom knights had hunted her, starting with the intelligence she learned from Old Potter.

• Angel explained that he had shown Abruie scenes in a dream and left her to decide whether to face the truth about Gu Yina.
• The Crown Parrot woke and defeated Dox in another argument, then criticized Abruie for making excuses to avoid the truth.
• Angel witnessed an equal contract between Abruie and the Crown Parrot, despite their arguing over who would be master and servant.
• Abruie told Angel that she had visited Princess Town, formerly Heilandi Market and Melandri Market, where she met Old Potter at a secret stronghold.
• Abruie began recounting urgent intelligence Old Potter had been trying to send to Savage Cave, but the chapter ended before she revealed it.

After learning that Lady Mero had been captured by the Guman Royal House, Angel decided to head to Princess Town to investigate and help her. Dox joined him after feeding the captured Royal Knights to his Golden-ring Sandworm and promising Angel a valuable larva as a reward; their Gondola reached the outskirts of the region around Princess Town.

• Abruie explained that Lady Mero had been captured after the boy she rescued offended the eldest princess's daughter, and Angel agreed to go to Princess Town to investigate.
• Dox offered to handle the unconscious Royal Knights, questioned them about the princess and her castle, then had his Golden-ring Sandworm, Little Gold, devour them.
• Dox promised Angel a Golden-ring Sandworm larva called Little Jin as a reward, and Angel accepted the tempting offer.
• Dox insisted on accompanying Angel and speculated that the princess's daughter was connected to Elysium Pavilion, while the Crown Parrot scolded Abruie and vowed to reform her.
• Angel, Abruie, and Dox flew aboard Gondola toward Princess Town and reached the sandbreak forest near the Guman Kingdom.