Chapter Summaries

Laplace warned Angel and Luigi that the Singers and Featherwood Clan were selling tools to reshape the Day Mirror Domain for their own survival, which seemed to signal a colonial invasion. Gleipnir explained that their plans would be overtaken by Calamity Puppet Xulifa, leaving the group focused on the greater disaster as she went to meet Lita.

• Laplace used Angel's Mind Tether to tell Angel and Luigi that the Cantor's Stele and Song Tower could reshape the environment to suit the Singers.
• Luigi examined the Featherwood Clan's Life Feather Seed and Purification Flower Seed and concluded that both groups intended to alter the Day Mirror Domain for themselves.
• Luigi suggested ambushing the Singers, but Laplace said the leaders of the various races should handle them and relayed Gleipnir's warning that colonization was unlikely to succeed.
• Angel realized that Calamity Puppet Xulifa had already reached the Mirror Ghost Domain and would soon force the Singers and Featherwood Clan to flee the Day Mirror Domain.
• Gleipnir said the group should focus on stopping the calamity and left to find Lita, while Luigi wondered whether the Singers sold sheet music.

Angel examined the Singers’ experience vouchers and the Featherwood Clan’s wares, becoming interested in the rare Constant Shards but deciding against joining a massive purchase queue. As Angel browsed other products, Luigi and Pisi considered whether the Invention Mice’s names came from inherited bloodline information, leaving open the possibility that Naksu had extraordinary potential.

• Laplace explained to Angel that the Singers’ “breaking barriers” effect could help with ordinary bottlenecks but could not safely shortcut a great barrier.
• Angel explored the Winged Forest display, discovered that the Featherwood Clan sold Constant Shards, and declined to join a queue of more than five thousand, deciding to seek them out later.
• Angel continued browsing the other races’ products while Luigi asked Pisi why Pifeifei and Naksu had chosen similar names.
• Pisi said Pifeifei had named itself Nakfei through an unexplained intuition, and Luigi reasoned that the names might come from ancient information carried in the Invention Mice’s bloodline.
• Luigi wondered whether Naksu could inherit a powerful bloodline and undergo ancestral reversion, suggesting it might have limitless potential and perhaps explaining Pirdan’s suspicion that Naksu was in disguise.

Angel examined the Pirushu catalog and learned how the Grim Laugh Shell used a Recording Shell to reproduce Mirror Ghost laughter. He arranged to ask Sage Pika about Pirushu inventions later, then Pirdan returned with Zigua, the merchant currently holding Naksu.

• Angel considered whether Naksu had named itself after a sound in Invention Mice’s pronunciation comfort zone.
• Angel asked Pisi how Recording Shells reproduced the spiritual effects of Mirror Ghost laughter, and Pisi explained that scholars calibrated recordings to reproduce the necessary frequencies.
• Angel asked to meet the Pirushu scholars behind the Recording Shell, and Luigi suggested seeking help from Sage Pika, whom Pisi described as a leading expert on the invention.
• Angel agreed to ask Sage Pika about Recording Shells and other Pirushu inventions when they met.
• Pirdan returned with Zigua and reported that the merchant holding Naksu had passed it to a lower-ranking merchant.
• Pisi recognized Zigua as the ethical merchant nicknamed Shy Gourd and explained that he wore a cloak because he feared his appearance would prejudice customers.

Pisi praised Zigua before the group examined Naksu, who had renamed itself Behemoth. Its resemblance to Pifeifei and its claim to the name raised questions, while Zigua explained that Behemoth had supposedly been sick and left dull-witted; Angel doubted that its mind had truly been damaged.

• Pisi praised Zigua’s sense of honor, and Zigua was thrilled to feel understood by him.
• Pirdan explained that Naksu had renamed itself Behemoth, and Laplace and Angel discussed the name’s connection to an ancient deity and human tribes on the Feran Continent.
• Zigua retrieved Behemoth in an iron cage from his Golden Silk Stomach Pouch, and Luigi uncovered a gray-brown Invention Mouse resembling Pifeifei.
• Luigi asked what name it preferred, and Behemoth answered that it wanted to be called Behemoth.
• Zigua said Behemoth had once been clever but became dull after a severe fever, while Angel doubted that the illness had damaged its mind.

Angel used Hyperperception to probe Behemoth and concluded that the seemingly dim Invention Mouse was hiding its intelligence and staying because of a bond with its own kind. After discussing possible explanations with Luigi and Laplace, Angel wondered whether Behemoth was enduring captivity to help the entire Invention Mouse race.

• Angel sensed Behemoth's fear and secretly questioned it through mental messages, while Behemoth pretended to sleep and conceal its thoughts.
• Angel guessed that Behemoth stayed because of a bond with another life, then ruled out Pirus and Pifeifei as the one it cared about.
• Angel told Luigi and Laplace that Behemoth was likely pretending to be foolish, though he still did not know whom it was bonded to.
• Luigi proposed that Behemoth might be connected to the atavistic Invention Mouse, and Laplace suggested its bond might extend beyond one individual.
• Angel considered that Behemoth might be staying to free the entire Invention Mouse race from Pirus's control.

Angel discovered that Behemoth was bonded to the golden hamster, whom Behemoth called Nakbi, and Luigi bought Behemoth for five hundred Condensed Crystals. Behemoth asked Angel to help it leave with Nakbi and offered itself in return.

• Angel guessed that Behemoth's other self was the Invention Mouse race, but Behemoth dismissed the idea and began to sleep.
• Angel created an illusion of the golden hamster, and Behemoth reacted strongly, revealing its bond with the mouse.
• Luigi decided to buy the golden hamster and purchased Behemoth for five hundred Condensed Crystals.
• Behemoth told Angel that it wanted to leave with Nakbi, the name it had given the golden hamster.
• Angel asked what Behemoth could offer for their help, and Behemoth offered itself willingly.

Angel asked Behemoth to prove its worth by proposing a way to transfer the opening of a Golden Silk Stomach Pouch, and Behemoth immediately began drafting several designs. Luigi bought Nakbi and brought it to Angel, then proposed teaching Nakbi to speak so they could learn why Behemoth cared about it.

• Angel asked Behemoth to devise a solution for transferring a Golden Silk Stomach Pouch’s opening before they would help it find Nakbi.
• Behemoth accepted the test and began writing and drawing detailed designs inside its cage.
• Luigi bought Nakbi from the Pirus vendor for two Crystal Cores and stored it in his space.
• Angel and Luigi discussed Behemoth’s research ability and wondered why it cared so deeply about Nakbi.
• Luigi brought Nakbi’s cage out and proposed teaching it to speak, then showed Angel an object without revealing what it was.

Luigi gave Nakbi a Pointed Fruit that could let beasts speak, and Laplace judged it safe because its power was too weak to carry a hidden risk. Nakbi fainted before eating it, while Behemoth later contacted Angel with possible ways to relocate the Golden Silk Stomach Pouch’s opening.

• Luigi showed Angel the Pointed Fruit Parrot had given him, intending to use it so Nakbi could speak and explain its relationship with Behemoth.
• Laplace explained that the fruit carried almost no risk because it was a weak substitute for fruits tied to Uma’s Beast-Taming authority.
• Angel used an illusion to encourage Nakbi to eat the fruit, but Nakbi fainted from exhaustion after seeing its spiraling patterns.
• Luigi let Nakbi sleep and put it in his space, while Angel waited for Behemoth to finish its work.
• Behemoth contacted Angel five minutes later and described two possible solutions for relocating the Golden Silk Stomach Pouch’s opening, beginning with adding a conduit connected to it.

Angel judged Behemoth’s inventive solutions for relocating the Golden Silk Stomach Pouch’s opening to be excellent and let it pass its test. Luigi then made Behemoth write a love poem before he would let it reunite with Nakbi, and Angel found its poetry was about as good as Luigi’s.

• Angel reviewed Behemoth’s biological conduit and Enhanced Golden Silk Glove solutions, recognizing their inventive value despite their expense and flaws.
• Behemoth explained that its knowledge came from studying Pirus’s academic archive, and Angel told it that it had passed the test.
• Luigi brought out Nakbi, whom Behemoth recognized, but demanded that Behemoth pass a poetry test before seeing him.
• Luigi challenged Behemoth to write a love poem, and Behemoth reluctantly began writing despite having no experience with love or poetry.
• After ten minutes, Angel saw Behemoth had written two ornate, awkward sentences, and he told Luigi its poetry was about as good as his.

Gleipnir joined Luigi and the others, explaining that she had hidden Lita in her Astral Chess Box because the Crystal-Eyed Elders' Council was watching him. She warned that Lita faced death if he stayed, but said the approaching Calamity Puppet was an even greater threat, then led the group to meet Sage Pika.

• Gleipnir appeared and identified Pili, who had gotten lost in the plaza; Pisi went to fetch his former student.
• Gleipnir told Laplace that she had placed Lita inside the Astral Chess Box to hide him from the Elders' Council and the Giant City Spirit.
• Gleipnir revealed that the Elders' Council had decided Lita would die if he did not leave, but said the Calamity Puppet's arrival threatened the entire Day Mirror Domain.
• Pisi brought Pili, who explained that Sage Pika had finished negotiating with the Crystal-Eyed elders and wanted the group to meet him.
• Pili led Luigi, Angel, Laplace, and Gleipnir through a guarded alley toward Sage Pika's office, where a side door opened and a strange energy aura emerged.

Angel and his companions learned that the Pirushu Clan had brought the living mysterious object known as the Evil Witch’s Eye to the gathering. Sage Pika revealed that it was bound to a Pirushu who was recovering upstairs, and Angel suspected that the bond had made the eye acknowledge its owner.

• Angel sensed a mysterious aura from a Crystal-Eyed Race elder leaving the row house, and Pili confirmed that the Crystal-Eyed Race members had come for negotiations.
• Gleipnir identified the Pirushu Clan’s mysterious object as the Evil Witch’s Eye, and Sage Pika welcomed Angel, Luigi, and their companions into the house.
• Sage Pika explained that the Crystal-Eyed Race had agreed to use the Giant City Spirit to conceal the Evil Witch’s Eye’s aura during the gathering.
• Sage Pika revealed that the Evil Witch’s Eye was a living object bound to a Pirushu, who had used it on a Crystal-Eyed Race elder and was now recovering upstairs.
• Angel reasoned that if the eye had entered a self-only state, stealing it could cause dangerous consequences and its Pirushu owner would be comparatively safe.

Angel, Gleipnir, and their companions met Sage Pika to discuss matters involving the Pirushu Clan, while learning that the Evil Witch's Eye bestowed effects that could be harmful as well as helpful. Gleipnir postponed the major matter and had Angel raise a request for a dedicated page in the display booklet, leaving Sage Pika troubled by the proposal.

• Sage Pika explained that the Evil Witch's Eye had no fixed effect and that its bestowal could be either a blessing or carry malice.
• Sage Pika asked whether Angel was a human wizard and said the Evil Witch's Eye was connected to wizards, though its origins remained unclear.
• Gleipnir told Sage Pika that the matters they had brought all concerned the Pirushu Clan and secured his claim that he could decide for the clan and Grand Duke Pi Xiu.
• Gleipnir set aside the major matter and asked Angel to present one of their small matters instead.
• Angel requested a dedicated extra page in the display booklet, and Sage Pika furrowed his brows at the difficult proposal.

Angel confronted Sage Pika over Pirus’s refusal to add pages, then revealed that the Singers and the Featherwood Clan had concealed the true purpose of their products. Sage Pika learned that both races were using their goods to transform the Day Mirror Domain as part of a silent invasion.

• Sage Pika explained that authority over the gathering was shared by Pirus, the Mirror Sea Scholars, and the Crystal-Eyed Race, while Luigi accused him of making excuses about adding pages.
• Angel set aside the dispute over pages and turned the discussion to the Singers and the Featherwood Clan, whose products had been added to the catalog.
• Angel revealed that the Singers’ Cantor’s Stele and Song Tower could alter the environment to suit their race, and that their true purpose was to prepare for war.
• Sage Pika realized that Pirus could be blamed for helping the Singers infiltrate the Day Mirror Domain and asked whether the Featherwood Clan’s products served a similar purpose.
• Angel confirmed that the Featherwood Clan’s Life Feather Seeds and Purification Flower Seeds also supported the invasion, leaving Sage Pika to recognize both races’ actions as a silent war of infiltration.

Gleipnir revealed to Sage Pika that the Day Mirror Domain faced Doomsday, explaining that the Singers' and Featherwood Clan's invasion was only a minor concern. She traced the danger to the Gosen Mirror Domain nearing collapse, leaving Sage Pika wondering whether its collapse was connected to the Day Mirror Domain's impending Doomsday.

• Sage Pika prepared to contact other races about stopping the Singers' and Featherwood Clan's invasion, but Gleipnir urged him to wait.
• Angel explained that the invasion would not become a war, and Gleipnir said an even more important matter made it seem minor.
• Gleipnir told Sage Pika that Doomsday had descended upon the Day Mirror Domain, and Sage Pika believed her warning.
• Gleipnir explained that the Gosen Mirror Domain was on the verge of collapse and that its proximity had led the Singers and Featherwood Clan to target the Day Mirror Domain.
• Sage Pika wondered whether the Gosen Mirror Domain's collapse was itself Doomsday and whether it was connected to the danger facing the Day Mirror Domain.

Gleipnir explained that the Gosen Mirror Domain’s failed trial had set Xulifa’s apocalypse in motion, and Sage Pika agreed to help Luigi establish a domain-wide deployment in exchange for adding pages. After Gleipnir left to oversee page production, Luigi revealed that a red trumpet-flower hairpin held the promised answer, and Sage Pika clipped it onto his beard just as footsteps sounded upstairs.

• Gleipnir told Sage Pika that completing Xulifa’s trial was the only way to stop the apocalypse and erase the Sealed Spaces, but the Singers and Featherwood Clan scouts did not know what the trial involved.
• Gleipnir proposed deploying personnel throughout the Day Mirror Domain to communicate with people trapped in trials, and Luigi hinted that he had a way to enable near-real-time communication.
• Luigi withheld the method until Sage Pika agreed to help him add pages, and Sage Pika arranged for Gleipnir to lead the page-making effort.
• After Gleipnir left with Pili, Luigi showed Sage Pika a red trumpet-flower hairpin and said the answer was inside it.
• Sage Pika clipped the hairpin onto his beard, and footsteps came from the second-floor staircase.

Sage Pika introduced Angel and the others to Piu, the great scholar who owned the Evil Witch's Eye, and Piu explained its random, temporary blessings and their possible side effects. The group learned that Pili's blessing purified her bloodline while making her sense of direction unreliable.

• Piu returned to Sage Pika, who introduced him to Luigi, Laplace, and Angel as a leading scholar of anatomy, pathology, and microbiology.
• Piu removed his oversized hat and revealed the Evil Witch's Eye, a pair of pupils in a vertical slit between his brows.
• Luigi suffered a bloody scar after observing the Evil Witch's Eye with spiritual power, and Sage Pika explained that repeated exposure could create a life-draining parasitic eye.
• Piu explained that Evil Witch's Blessing Art granted random, time-limited blessings in bloodline, element, or mysterious categories, while consuming the user's mental capacity.
• Piu described how his father's blessing only turned existing hair black and how Pili's blessing purified her bloodline during void travel but disrupted her sense of direction.

Pi Xiu explained the Evil Witch's Blessing Art's unpredictable effects and why mysterious-type blessings were rare, then offered to let Angel experience the Evil Witch's Eye. Pi Xiu recalled that the Eye had once reacted excitedly to envoys from Teluga City, but he did not know whether they held the key to a perfect blessing.

• Pi Xiu explained that Pili's bloodline purification blessing had left her lost and unable to benefit, and described the strange exchanges and side effects caused by the Evil Witch's Blessing Art.
• Angel asked why mysterious-type blessings were rare, and Pi Xiu explained their broad, often useless effects and hidden side effects, including Sage Pika's attraction to undead.
• Sage Pika invited someone to experience the Evil Witch's Eye, but Luigi declined because he needed to prepare a musical score for his assessment, and Laplace suggested Angel try it.
• Angel asked whether a perfect blessing was possible, and Pi Xiu said there was no known one but recalled the Eye once becoming excited around envoys from Teluga City.
• Pi Xiu said the Telu People had left without receiving blessings, and he did not know why the Eye had reacted to them or whether the incident was connected to a perfect blessing.

Piu used the Evil Witch's Eye to give Angel the mystic blessing he had chosen, after they signed contracts and discussed the Eye's unpredictable effects. Angel sensed that the blessing would last thirty days and began probing its mystic fluctuations to learn what it did.

• Luigi and Angel considered whether the Evil Witch's Eye's interest in the Telu People was connected to their blank history or possible human origins, and Sage Pika proposed investigating Teluga City later.
• Sage Pika arranged for Piu to test the Evil Witch's Blessing Art on Angel, and Piu and Angel signed contracts detailing the risks and limits of the blessing.
• Piu offered Angel a choice of bloodline, elemental, or mystic blessing, and Angel chose mystic so he could study its mystic fluctuations.
• Piu activated the Evil Witch's Eye, which wrapped Angel in thirty layers of mystic fluctuations before falling still.
• Angel sensed that his blessing would last thirty days and began probing it for the blessing's effect.

Angel received a culinary blessing and experienced a vivid vision of beastfolk bringing food to Meat Mountain Granny, who noticed him before he escaped a surrounding darkness. After discussing the vision and the beastification phantoms that appeared during the blessing, Angel’s companions asked him to make food, leaving him under pressure to demonstrate his culinary abilities.

• Angel watched a vision of beastfolk preparing food and seeking Meat Mountain Granny’s culinary advice, then saw Granny notice him and fell into darkness before returning to his senses.
• Piu, Laplace, Luigi, and Sage Pika discussed Angel’s unusual vision and the beastification phantoms that had appeared during his blessing.
• Angel explained that Meat Mountain Granny had looked at him with confusion and distaste, but said he was more interested in understanding the beastification phantoms.
• Angel wondered whether beastification was a side effect of his culinary blessing, while Luigi asked him to demonstrate his culinary spells by making food.
• Piu and Sage Pika watched with curiosity, and Laplace wondered whether Angel’s next use of Granny Cocoro’s Ritual Box might produce food.

Angel explained that his blessing permanently enhanced the flavor of food he made, then tested it by using an orange to create Magic Bread. Beast ears appeared during the spell, and the Orange Bread smelled so foul that Angel quickly stowed it away.

• Angel told Luigi that his blessing boosted the deliciousness of his food and could improve future attempts at the same dish.
• Angel and Piu discussed whether the beastification illusion was connected to the blessing, and Angel decided to test it by making food.
• Angel chose a grilled orange as the material for Magic Bread and began casting while Luigi, Laplace, Sage Pika, and Piu watched.
• Red catlike phantom ears appeared on Angel as the Orange Bread took shape.
• The bread gave off a powerful rotten, sour smell, causing Luigi, Sage Pika, and Piu to retreat before Angel tossed it into his bracelet.