Chapter Summaries

Angel tried to improve his Magic Bread with the Mystic Ritual Box, while discovering that the phantom red cat ears on his head might grow into a Mystical Manifestation. As the ritual began at the busy Pirushu Outpost, he remembered the box’s previous disastrous mutation and feared it might happen again.

• Angel explained that his earlier Magic Bread had been made successfully, but the blessing effect had failed to improve its foul smell.
• Luigi described the Mystic Ritual Box’s food-enhancing ritual, and Laplace and Luigi summoned avatars to represent its four elements.
• Angel discovered phantom red cat ears on his head and, following Laplace’s advice, sensed they contained a mysterious aura that could grow as he continued making blessed food.
• Angel began the ritual with the Mystic Ritual Box, then remembered its previous mutation had filled the area with black mist and foul odors.
• Angel worried that the ritual box might mutate again at the bustling Pirushu Outpost.

Angel tried to use the Mystic Ritual Box to make Magic Bread, but the ritual mutated and released a powerful stench that he and Laplace contained. Afterward, Angel discovered that the Delicious Blessing’s beastification effect had also made him meow.

• Angel and Laplace watched the Mystic Ritual Box’s ritual enter its middle stage without the foul stench that had appeared during its previous activation.
• The Mystic Ritual Box began trembling, shattered the rose and cloud phantoms, and released blackish-gray gas and a violent stench.
• Angel cast Purification Field to contain the odor, while Laplace reinforced a mirror barrier around the box to trap the gas.
• Angel blamed the mishap on a rare mutation, and Laplace questioned whether he intended to try making food again.
• Luigi and Laplace showed Angel a mirror recording of himself ending his sentence with a meow, and Angel realized the beastification effect had affected his voice.

Angel examined the Mystic Ritual Box after its latest mutation and discovered a Dusk-colored change visible only through an energy perspective. Laplace suspected the change might be a ritual effect linked to Angel’s blessing, and they planned to investigate it before the blessing faded in a month.

• Angel reassured Piu that his blessing was useful despite the Mystic Ritual Box’s foul-smelling mutation, and Piu collapsed from the exhaustion of using his blessing twice.
• Sage Pika summoned a Crystal Shell mechanical soldier called the Transporter and used it to carry Piu upstairs for treatment.
• Laplace sensed a change in the Mystic Ritual Box, retrieved it from the black-mist barrier, and Angel found its porcelain surface tinged with Dusk when viewed through mental power.
• Laplace proposed that the Dusk might be part of a hidden ritual or a positive mutation connected to Angel’s blessing, and she offered to help him study it over the next month.
• Luigi interrupted to ask what Angel and Laplace meant by a previous mutation.

Angel revealed that the Dream Crystal Plain could connect people across the Day Mirror Domain, giving Sage Pika a way to communicate with those facing the Calamity Puppet’s trials. After learning about its wider possibilities, Sage Pika prepared to help persuade other races to cooperate against the coming threat.

• Angel stored the foul black vapor in Exile Space, while Sage Pika returned downstairs after Piu exhausted himself helping them.
• Sage Pika used Luigi’s hairpin to enter the Dream Crystal Plain, where Angel met him and showed him how to log off.
• Back in reality, Sage Pika deduced that people across the Day Mirror Domain could gather in the Dream Crystal Plain, and Angel confirmed his guess.
• Angel and Luigi explained that the Dream Crystal Plain could support real-time communication and that the consciousness of the dead could remain there as residents.
• Luigi described the Dream Crystal Plain’s ecology, Wonderland mechanism, and prospects for online trading, while Sage Pika resolved to help persuade allied races to prepare for the Calamity Puppet.

Gleipnir and the others chose Dream Mirror as the entity for their display page, deciding they no longer needed to use humanity’s reputation to promote the Login Device because the Calamity Puppet’s arrival made it strategically important. The Page Creation Hall began adding and promoting the page, and Gleipnir was urged to list products after many visitors added it.

• Gleipnir explained that the completed display page needed an entity, and she proposed naming it after humans to attract attention.
• Angel said he could not represent humanity, and Laplace rejected the human entity because the Calamity Puppet’s arrival meant the Login Device no longer needed popularity-driven promotion.
• The group decided to form a faction and chose between Wonderland and Dream Mirror; Gleipnir, Angel, and Laplace voted for Dream Mirror.
• Gleipnir contacted the Page Creation Hall, which updated the display booklet with the Dream Mirror page and began promoting it to visitors.
• Many visitors added the Dream Mirror page, and the Page Creation Hall urged Gleipnir to list products because the page had no goods.

Dream Mirror listed its Login Device in the display catalogue, drawing the attention of Star's Eye, Gleipnir's longtime friend and patron. After Gleipnir went to meet her, Angel stayed behind to ask the Sage Pika about the Pirushu Clan's Grim Laugh Shells and the technology they used to record spells.

• Angel and the others prepared a detailed catalogue page for the Login Device and chose four cover styles, while the Sage Pika resented Luigi for giving him a ladies' hair clip.
• The Page-Making Hall promoted Dream Mirror's new listing, and Gleipnir received a message from the verified user Four Vortices, God-Eyed One.
• Luigi explained that the contact was Star's Eye, Guta Lace, Gleipnir's business partner and longtime friend, with whom Gleipnir had not spoken for nearly five years.
• Guta Lace invited Gleipnir to meet outside the Page-Making Hall, and Gleipnir left to see her after Angel noticed their exchange seemed to be a pretext for reconciling.
• Angel put off finding Sypolov and asked the Sage Pika about the Grim Laugh Shells' spell-recording technology and whether it could record images as well as sound.

Angel negotiated with Sage Pika to exchange 1,900 Login Devices for Pirushu Recording Shell knowledge, then chose Behemoth to learn the practical debugging techniques on his behalf. The chapter ended as Behemoth met Sage Pika and explained that it recognized him from paintings.

• Sage Pika explained that inventing a Video Recording Shell would take years, so Angel chose to buy Recording Shell knowledge and conduct the research himself.
• Sage Pika demanded Login Devices in exchange for the technical documents, and Angel agreed to trade 1,900 of them.
• Angel recorded the translated documents, and Sage Pika said six Pirushu scholars would need to teach the practical debugging techniques.
• Angel asked if someone else could learn the debugging and rejected Luigi and Laplace before choosing Behemoth, the Invention Mouse.
• Angel revealed Behemoth in its cage, and Behemoth told Sage Pika that it had admired his appearance in paintings.

Angel arranged for Behemoth to learn debugging techniques from a Recording Shell while Sage Pika watched, and Angel’s catlike blessing frightened Behemoth into hiding with Nakbi. Sage Pika then led Angel, Luigi, and Laplace into the Pirus’s concealed Scholar Space, where two scholars awaited them.

• Angel introduced Behemoth as a clever Invention Mouse recommended by Pisi and assigned it to learn debugging in his place.
• Angel showed Behemoth the sleeping Nakbi and promised to build them a house, persuading Behemoth to begin learning debugging.
• Angel unconsciously made a cat sound, terrifying Behemoth, which grabbed Nakbi and hid; Angel concealed his cat ears and decided to communicate with Behemoth through Mind Tether.
• Sage Pika asked about Nakbi, and Angel explained that it was a waste mouse named by Behemoth; Sage Pika concluded there was no reason to investigate further.
• Sage Pika led Angel, Luigi, and Laplace to a hidden mirror entrance and brought them into the Scholar Space, where two Pirus scholars had gathered to teach debugging away from the Giant City Spirit’s surveillance.

Angel left Behemoth with two Pirushu scholars to learn debugging, then prepared to attend the multi-race exhibition with Laplace, Luigi, and Gleipnir. They met Guta Lace, who joined them and was connected to Angel's Mind Tether as Gleipnir prepared to reveal her discovery.

• Angel released Behemoth to study debugging with two Pirushu scholars and left Nakbi with him after Behemoth refused the distraction.
• Angel asked Sage Pika about the Eye of Thunder, and Sage Pika invited him to inspect it after the exhibition.
• Angel and his companions met Guta Lace, who offered to help them in the Day Mirror Domain and guided them toward the exhibition stage.
• Gleipnir said she would tell Angel about her discovery while they walked, and Laplace and Luigi approved connecting Guta Lace to Angel's Mind Tether.
• Angel connected Guta Lace to the Mind Tether, and she recognized it as a wizard's communication ability.

Guta Lace recounted seeing Rice God among human wizards who schemed against one another at a Glorystone Clan gemstone fair, prompting Angel and his companions to discuss the humans’ ties to the Earsi. After leaving Pirushu Outpost, they learned Sage Pika had not contacted Gleipnir about exhibiting and considered which floors to visit.

• Gleipnir explained that the Earsi and the Glorystone Clan had opposing abilities but maintained diplomatic and commercial cooperation.
• Guta Lace described how human wizards at a gemstone fair bartered rare bloodlines and undermined one another while a ponytailed man tried to mediate.
• Angel recognized the ponytailed wizard as Rice God, a conservative Blood Hunter from the Darkblood Church, and chose not to use Rice God’s contact insignia just to ask about the Earsi.
• Guta Lace suggested the Earsi might have helped the human wizards enter the Day Mirror Domain, but the group did not know how they were connected.
• The group left Pirushu Outpost and found no message from Sage Pika, so Guta Lace suggested viewing the exhibition from floors 5005 through 5010 instead of the 5000th floor.

Angel and his companions traveled to the 5,000th floor of the Ring Fortress after sensing that Sypolov was near its central display platform. As they crossed the Cloud Soil plaza, Guta Lace and Gleipnir discussed the Changhuo Clan’s plans, and Gleipnir began sharing clues she had found in Xiluda’s study.

• Luigi suggested checking Sypolov’s location, and Angel used the Dragon Scale to find him on the 5,000th floor.
• Angel explained his interest in obtaining or studying Heartfire, and Guta Lace warned him that the Yingji Race’s bloodline-based talent would be difficult to control.
• Guta Lace brought the group to the 5,000th floor, where the crowd made way for her as they left the jump pavilion.
• Luigi and Gleipnir noticed a Mind-Bewitching Host informant leave after seeing Guta Lace, who explained her hostility toward the Changhuo Clan.
• Guta Lace and Gleipnir discussed the risk of the Changhuo Clan stirring unrest in Sumer Wetland Fortress and the difficulty of stopping its incitement.
• Angel sensed that Sypolov was near the display platform, and the group crossed onto the Cloud Soil as Gleipnir began recounting clues from Xiluda’s study.

Gleipnir recounted how Fada’s warning led her to uncover secret messages in Xiluda’s study, beginning with the history of Prophet Tunita and Crystal City. She realized that Crystal City’s status as a cherished architectural wonder might make it a powerful ritual site, but the danger to Lita remained unresolved.

• Gleipnir told Guta Lace that Crystal-Eyed Race guards and the Giant City Spirit had watched Lita, confirming that danger likely came from within the race’s upper ranks.
• Fada denied warning Lita but used Xiluda’s travel notebook and hints about her study to guide Gleipnir toward hidden clues.
• Gleipnir deciphered secret stories in Xiluda’s study, including how Tunita’s encounter with Laplace’s true body inspired his ambitions before his limited lifespan left him unwilling.
• Gleipnir recounted how Tunita built Crystal City as a wonder where the Crystal-Eyed Race could live together and share Aggregation Energy.
• Gleipnir connected Xiluda’s records of ritual sites to Crystal City, suspecting that a wonder cherished by many could serve as a powerful ritual site.

Gleipnir explained how Tunita persuaded the Crystal-Eyed Race to fuse their dead into Crystal City by claiming their legacies could be inherited, then began revealing that the era of inherited genius was built on a vast lie. The chapter ended with Tunita’s death exposing the lie’s consequences as the Crystal-Eyed Race entered an uncertain future.

• Gleipnir recounted how Tunita secretly ordered Sacred Corpse Crystals fused into Crystal City and used a dead guard’s recovery to win public support.
• Tunita demonstrated that a wandering boy had inherited the dead guard’s knowledge and abilities, persuading the Council of Elders to accept the practice after further trials.
• Luigi claimed his earlier theory about the Sacred Corpse Crystals had been correct, but Gleipnir warned that the story was incomplete.
• Angel questioned what price the heirs paid for their inherited legacies, and Gleipnir said the cost would come in the future.
• Gleipnir described a century of thriving inherited geniuses that made Tunita the Crystal-Eyed Race’s greatest prophet and led nearly everyone to accept the new burial custom.
• Tunita died of old age, and Gleipnir revealed that the shining age he had created was a vast lie that trapped the Council of Elders.

Gleipnir explained how the Crystal-Eyed Race’s inheritance ritual changed from Tunita’s time, when boys gained knowledge without losing themselves, into a means for the dead to return through boys’ bodies. She recounted how the Grand Elder revived the ritual to bring back a close friend, then clarified that Kuanda’s warnings about Sacred Corpse Crystals had protected Guta Lace from the Giant City Spirit; Guta Lace ended by asking whether Kuanda herself was one of the returned dead.

• Gleipnir explained that Tunita’s original rituals let boys inherit knowledge and abilities without losing their identities, while later rituals erased the boys and let the dead return through their bodies.
• Angel described the ritual he had witnessed, in which Kasata summoned a deceased old friend, and Guta Lace realized the friend might return by taking a boy’s body.
• Gleipnir recounted how the Grand Elder’s close friend died defending the Mirror Gate, then described how the Grand Elder revived the ritual after a fifteen-year-old boy resonated with the friend’s Sacred Corpse Crystal.
• Guta Lace connected the ritual to Kuanda’s warnings, and Gleipnir explained that Kuanda had been protecting her from the Giant City Spirit’s scrutiny.
• Guta Lace asked Gleipnir whether Kuanda was a dead spirit who had returned through a Sacred Corpse Crystal.

Gleipnir revealed that Prophet Tunita’s Crystal City Ritual was a plan to resurrect him through a boy who resonated with his Sacred Corpse Crystal, and that Lita was the chosen boy. Xiluda left Crystal City to seek a way to save Lita, and Angel ended the discussion by asking what the Crystal-Eyed Race’s rebirth ritual actually was.

• Gleipnir told Guta Lace that Kuanda’s body and soul showed no signs of a mismatch, making it unlikely she had returned from death.
• Gleipnir explained that Tunita devised the Crystal City Ritual as a resurrection plan, and that its final step required a boy to resonate with his Sacred Corpse Crystal.
• Gleipnir revealed that Lita had resonated with Tunita’s crystal three years earlier, while Xiluda secretly refused to give up on saving him.
• Xiluda tried to take Lita out of Crystal City, but the Giant City Spirit’s mark made escape impossible, so she sought to destroy the ritual at its source.
• After learning of a mirror space in the Dark Mirror Domain that might hold a safe inheritance method, Xiluda left to investigate and entrusted Gleipnir with her puzzle pieces.
• Luigi asked Gleipnir how she would help Lita, and Angel asked what the Crystal-Eyed Race’s rebirth ritual essentially involved.

Angel explained why possession could renew the Crystal-Eyed Race’s lifespan and proposed preventing Tunita from possessing Lita by drawing Tunita’s consciousness into the Dream Crystal Plain. Gleipnir identified two possible ways to do so, but both faced serious obstacles, and she asked the group which approach they favored.

• Gleipnir explained that the Crystal-Eyed Race’s bodies aged faster than their souls and spirits, allowing possession of a young body to renew their lives, while humans’ balanced nature made advancement easier.
• Guta Lace challenged Angel’s idea of fairness by pointing out that some long-lived races also possessed a balanced trinity, though Gleipnir said such cases were rare.
• Gleipnir considered forcibly removing Lita from Crystal City, including the dangerous last resort of sending him into the Empty Mirror Sea, before Angel offered another plan.
• Angel proposed pulling Tunita’s consciousness from the Sacred Corpse Crystal into the Dream Crystal Plain so he could no longer possess Lita.
• Gleipnir said the plan required either reaching Tunita’s Sacred Corpse Crystal in a restricted zone or having Lita send Tunita’s consciousness away during the closely watched ritual, and she asked the group for their thoughts.

After awakening as the disgraced Young Marquis Qin Hu, a modern soldier realized he had been framed and sent to the front, where camp officials were trying to kill him. He resolved to survive, save Qin An, and find a way to win over Centurion Li Xiaokun.

• Qin Hu regained memories of his life as Champion Marquis and learned that Chen Ruoli had impeached him after he was accused of molesting Princess Chang'an.
• Qin Hu concluded that Duke Chen and others had conspired to exile him so they could claim the Champion Marquis's estate.
• Qin Hu and Qin An were sent into a blizzard to patrol while two sentries extinguished their warming fire and returned to the tent.
• Qin Hu saw that the camp's harsh treatment could kill both him and Qin An, and he asked how much silver they had left.
• Qin Hu decided to save Qin An by bribing Centurion Li Xiaokun, the man in charge of the vanguard battalion.

After transmigrating into the disgraced young Champion Marquis Qin Hu, a former special forces soldier realized he had been framed and sent to the front to die. As a deadly snowstorm struck his camp, he set out to keep himself and his servant alive by approaching the vanguard battalion’s centurion.

• Qin Hu recovered memories of his new life, including how Chen Ruoli had accused him of crimes and he had been exiled to serve at the front.
• Qin Hu and Qin An went out to patrol in the freezing snow while two sentries extinguished their warming fire and returned to the tent.
• Qin Hu realized that people in the camp were trying to torment him to death, and he vowed to survive and return to the capital for revenge.
• Qin Hu learned that Qin An had only twenty taels of silver and decided to use the money to save him.
• Qin Hu identified centurion Li Xiaokun, who commanded the vanguard battalion, as the person he would approach.

After transmigrating into the disgraced Champion Marquis Qin Hu, a modern soldier discovered that powerful relatives had framed him and that his army comrades were trying to kill him through neglect. Facing a deadly winter patrol with his servant Qin An, he decided to seek help from centurion Li Xiaokun.

• Qin Hu recovered memories of his former life and learned that Chen Ruoli had impeached him after he was accused of molesting Princess Chang'an, leading to his exile in Youzhou.
• Qin Hu recognized that Duke Chen, Princess Chang'an, and his elder male cousin had joined forces to ruin him and claim the Champion Marquis estate.
• Qin Hu and Qin An trudged through a freezing night patrol while two sentries extinguished their warming fire and left them exposed to the wind.
• Qin Hu resolved to survive, return to the capital, and settle scores, then asked Qin An how much money they had left.
• Qin Hu chose to approach Li Xiaokun, the vanguard battalion's centurion, for help.

Angel, Luigi, and Laplace prepared for the exhibition gathering while learning about the display platforms and a delay to the presentations. They went to find Sypolov at Klos All Things House, whose unusual office stood open to visitors.

• Guta Lace speculated that Sypolov's visit to Klos All Things House could signal another war, but Gleipnir dismissed her guess as probably wrong.
• Guta Lace gave Angel and his companions space in the God-Eyed Race's temporary residence area, where Angel set up an illusory Magic Cottage.
• Guta Lace explained that the gathering's forty-five display platforms would host simultaneous presentations, with the top platform reserved for opening and closing announcements.
• Gleipnir received notice that the presentations had been delayed by fifteen minutes and suspected the arrival of Winged Forest and the Singers was related.
• Angel, Luigi, and Laplace left to find Sypolov while Gleipnir stayed to answer questions and Guta Lace avoided the Hound Butler.
• Angel, Luigi, and Laplace reached the open gate of Klos All Things House and saw its red flag bearing a black bat emblem.