Chapter Summaries

Angel learned that Cloudtop Flower solidified ordered information streams, which sparked an idea for controlling Mystical Manifestations with precision. He saw that investigating this property could help turn Fantasy Alchemy into a genuine new path.

• Four-Zero-Eight explained that Cloudtop Flower’s wisdom-enlightening effects were limited and that its half-illusory, half-solid structure came from disordered and ordered information streams.
• Angel realized that solid information had an underlying logical framework, while Four-Zero-Eight said the Head-Mirror Race had no explanation for why Cloudtop Flower could solidify it.
• Four-Zero-Eight revealed that Mirror Mountain Academy had abandoned research into solidifying information because Cloudtop Flower’s property was unique to it and its solid forms were too fragile for combat.
• Angel connected Cloudtop Flower’s property to Mystical Manifestations and imagined ordering their information to control their details and properties.
• Angel concluded that this research could complete Fantasy Alchemy and establish it as a new path.

Angel bought Cloudtop Flowers to investigate their shifts between illusion and reality as a possible new path of alchemy, then arranged to store them in the Silver Forest Space. He continued browsing the Head-Mirror Race’s goods and learned how they created products of abilities, ending with surprise that Four-Zero-Eight had one of her own.

• Angel bought all one hundred Cloudtop Flowers in stock after learning their price, then considered how to keep them from wilting outside Cloud Soil.
• Angel returned to the Silver Forest Space and asked Laplace to store the Cloud Soil and Cloudtop Flowers there; he explained that he wanted to study them for alchemy.
• Laplace agreed, and Angel used a cloud-shaped mirror to release the Cloud Soil and plant the Cloudtop Flowers above the Black Forest.
• Angel bought several consciousness-stream-related magical materials while browsing the Head-Mirror Race’s catalogue, including Heart-Web Thread, Consciousness-Stream Gold, and Mimicry Grass.
• Four-Zero-Eight explained that products of abilities were goods made using abilities developed by Head-Mirror Race members, and Angel was surprised to learn that Four-Zero-Eight had one of her own.

Four-Zero-Eight showed Angel her character cards, which helped people act out roles through behavioral prompts and an aura without implanting memories. Angel saw potential in the unfinished “Traveler of Drifting Star” card, which depicted a Kaka person, a born transcendent.

• Four-Zero-Eight gave Angel her card album and explained that its cards helped users play the characters they depicted.
• Angel tried the “Cunning Merchant” card, which coated him in a Pirus merchant’s aura and offered role-specific responses when Four-Zero-Eight asked to buy his button.
• Angel returned the card and learned that the cards left no character memories, since Four-Zero-Eight designed them for ordinary people and newcomers.
• Angel examined cards depicting varied professions and difficult social roles, but thought they remained limited by their use as acting aids.
• Angel found the unfinished “Traveler of Drifting Star” card, which depicted a Kaka lifeform, and recognized potential in its portrayal of a born transcendent.

Angel learned how Four-Zero-Eight created character cards and proposed that experiencing lives unlike one’s own could spark inspiration. After trying her complete card about the Head-Mirror clan idol Oba, Angel felt inspiration stirring and asked whether Four-Zero-Eight would sell it.

• Four-Zero-Eight explained that her cards depended on personally understanding and imagining a character, leaving her Kaka traveler card unfinished for lack of firsthand experience.
• Angel argued that Four-Zero-Eight’s cards could inspire people by letting them experience another form of life, and she agreed to let him try her first card.
• Four-Zero-Eight took out “Tomorrow's Star Standing Proudly Atop Mirror Mountain,” which portrayed Oba, a celebrated idol of the Head-Mirror clan.
• Angel touched the card and experienced singing as a consciousness-based lifeform while thousands of Head-Mirror clan members cheered for him.
• Angel felt inspiration begin to stir, put the card down, and asked Four-Zero-Eight if she would sell it.

Angel borrowed Xiluo’s first character card after learning it could inspire him, while Xiluo revealed a new use for her ability’s products. Angel then examined Stone-Painting, which could reveal a physical object’s memory as a single image.

• Angel explained that Xiluo’s character card had sparked inspiration, and Xiluo offered to lend it and future cards for free instead of selling them.
• Xiluo explained that the card, “Tomorrow's Star Standing Proudly Atop Mirror Mountain,” was her first creation and a treasured keepsake of Oba’s concert, so Angel agreed to borrow it.
• Xiluo gave Angel her true name, and they agreed to address each other by name rather than formally as guest and Mr. Angel.
• Angel accepted the card and planned to study a replica inside the Dream Crystal Plain, where he could dismantle it without damaging the original.
• Angel read Stone-Painting’s description, and Xiluo explained that it could reveal one random memory image associated with a physical object, even an ordinary stone.

Angel bought Stone-Painting and two Hide-and-Seek cards after considering their uses, then arranged to test the Eye of Vigilance, a mystic treasure that could reveal the nature of others’ gazes. Xiluo led him to the shop’s designated Sealed Chamber, where the Payong Pure Fluid he had ordered was also waiting.

• Angel decided he could test Stone-Painting in the Dream Crystal Plain and bought the shop’s remaining copy.
• After learning how Hide-and-Seek’s stream-of-consciousness invisibility worked, Angel bought both cards in stock and asked Xiluo to watch for future supplies.
• Angel learned that the Eye of Vigilance could reveal goodwill, malice, and monsters hidden in people’s hearts, and asked to try it.
• Xiluo obtained the shop manager’s permission for Angel to test the mystic treasure at a designated location.
• Xiluo led Angel to the Sealed Chamber and told him that his ordered Payong Pure Fluid had arrived.

Angel visited Little Mirror Shop 4 to collect the Payong Pure Fluid and experience the secret treasure Eye of Vigilance. After putting on the glasses, he saw strange creatures appear whenever others looked at him, including one that approached him with affection.

• Xiluo led Angel into the enclosed secret room, where Manager Zero Zero Four gave him the Payong Pure Fluid.
• Zero Zero Four brought Angel into a library-like space and presented the Eye of Vigilance for him to try.
• Angel put on the glasses and saw a black furball appear on Zero Zero Four's shoulder whenever the manager looked at him.
• Angel examined the clerks and saw creatures reflecting their gazes: a cold cat-faced Butterfly, an indifferent mechanical dancer, and a friendly stage-carrying creature beside Xiluo.
• The friendly creature circled Angel and rubbed against the back of his hand.

Angel examined the mind monsters revealed by the Eye of Vigilance and began testing his theory that they reflected their owners’ feelings and thoughts toward him. He identified several visitors’ attitudes, including a Pointed Ones woman’s drive to reproduce and a Pirus merchant’s focus on profit, while the chapter ended with an Yingji Race youth whose mind monster seemed to recognize Angel.

• Angel felt the flounder-shaped mind monster rub his hand in his mind despite sensing no touch in his body, then watched other visitors to test what mind monsters revealed.
• A Pointed Ones woman looked at Angel, and her mind monster appeared as a dairy cow minotaur; Zero Zero Four explained that she had lost most of her memories but still pursued her mission to reproduce.
• Angel inferred that mind monsters reflected their owners’ feelings toward him, using Zero Zero Four, the shop assistant, Xiluo, and the Pointed Ones woman as examples.
• Angel observed a Pirus merchant’s dragon-bodied mind monster mimicking scales and deduced that the merchant was weighing Angel’s value; Zero Zero Four confirmed he was a typical profit-driven Pirus merchant.
• A Changhuo Clan member’s fly mind monster revealed greed and calculation, while an Yingji Race youth’s serpent-woman mind monster showed surprise that suggested she recognized Angel.

Angel learned that the amnesiac Hollow Man was a Water Envoy displaced from a world destroyed by planar Fusion, and heard how it had reached the Abyssal Sea Plane. After considering the plane’s history and his own theories about its lost mysterious object, Angel turned back to studying the other mind monsters’ gazes.

• Angel asked Zero Zero Four about the water-shaped Hollow Man and learned it retained basic common sense but had the mental age of a young child.
• Zero Zero Four identified the Hollow Man as a Water Envoy and explained that Water Envoys had fled their water world after it fused with the fire-based Chen Chi World.
• Angel recalled Feiwenda’s account of the Abyssal Sea Plane and learned from Zero Zero Four that a primitive silverfish civilization had arisen there after the earlier one disappeared.
• Zero Zero Four explained that a Water Envoy had formed a close bond with the Head-Mirror Race and that the Hollow Man had been bought to return to that Envoy.
• Angel decided not to pursue the Abyssal Sea Plane’s location and asked whether wizards were permanently stationed there, but Zero Zero Four did not know.
• Angel resumed examining the mind monsters and compared their indifference, curiosity, desire, and malice toward him.

Angel tested the Eye of Vigilance and learned how it revealed others’ attitudes through mind monsters, while Zero Zero Four explained its uses and the limits of current knowledge about the creatures. Angel ended by wondering what his own mind monster looked like.

• Angel realized the Eye of Vigilance could reveal hostility but could not prove whether anyone had acted on it.
• Zero Zero Four told Angel that vigilance against assassination was the Eye of Vigilance’s most common use, followed by curiosity and finding malicious friends.
• Zero Zero Four explained that mind monsters looked the same to every observer, though their forms did not always reflect their owners’ desires.
• Angel asked whether mind monsters could touch one another, and Zero Zero Four said they likely existed in separate perspectives and could not interact.
• Zero Zero Four described the scholar’s theory that mind monsters were projections dependent on living owners, and Angel wondered what his own mind monster was.

Angel asked Zero Zero Four and Xiluo to inspect his mind monster with the Eye of Vigilance, and they saw green luminous mist rising from behind him into a spatial rift. Their account reminded Angel of the Nightmare Realm and an old acquaintance, and he asked Zero Zero Four to describe the rift’s shape.

• Angel asked Zero Zero Four to use the Eye of Vigilance to look at his mind monster.
• Zero Zero Four saw green motes forming a vast stream of luminous mist that rose behind Angel and led to a hidden spatial rift; a bloodshot eye briefly stared through it.
• Zero Zero Four asked Xiluo to inspect the scene as well, and she confirmed the mist and rift while sensing goodwill beyond them.
• Zero Zero Four told Angel what he and Xiluo had seen, including his guess that Angel’s mind monster was behind the rift.
• Angel connected the green mist and eye to the Nightmare Realm and his own past, then asked Zero Zero Four what shape the rift had.

Angel examined the spatial rift reproduced by Zero Zero Four and suspected it was connected to the Queen, then rented Xiluo’s character card under a formal agreement. Back in Silver Forest Space, he struggled to simplify spell structures for new magic patterns and decided to set that research aside temporarily to pursue alchemy instead.

• Zero Zero Four used Angel’s ownerless illusion node to recreate the spatial rift and the bloodshot eye, leading Angel to suspect the rift corresponded to the Queen who had wounded his soul.
• Angel declined to rent the Eye of Vigilance for now, saying he might study it later when he had more time.
• Angel and Xiluo agreed to a rental contract for “Tomorrow's Star Standing Proudly Atop Mirror Mountain” at one hundred Condensed Crystals a day, and Xiluo offered to lend him “Traveler of Drifting Star” when it was finished.
• Angel left Little Mirror Shop 4, returned to Silver Forest Space, and began researching how to create new magic energy arrays from spell structures.
• After ten hours, Angel remained unable to simplify spell structures and realized developing a method could take a great deal of time.
• Angel decided to pause his magic energy array research and try pursuing alchemy instead.

Angel abandoned his alchemy preparations when Dudu Bi entered the Dream Crystal Plain, hoping the magic-pattern artificer could help him create new magic pattern nodes. He found Dudu Bi sunbathing on Silver Coral Island and brought him to a conjured building to talk, while Dudu Bi also had something he wanted to discuss.

• Angel noticed Dudu Bi had entered the Dream Crystal Plain and decided to seek his advice about creating new magic pattern nodes.
• Dudu Bi logged in and relaxed on Silver Coral Island, where he saw the Hound Butler leave on a raft.
• Angel found Dudu Bi sunbathing and greeted him as Aguro, then awkwardly explained that he had come looking for a friend.
• Dudu Bi described the silver-haired man with dog ears and a tail, and Angel identified him as the Hound Butler, who had already gone out to sea.
• Angel invited Dudu Bi to talk and created a translucent spherical building on the beach, then led him inside.

Angel examined the magic pattern nodes Dudu Bi had created and confirmed that eight were original within the Southern Wizarding World. Dudu Bi explained the Simplification and Association methods he used, leaving Angel hopeful that he could learn the simplification formula he had been seeking.

• Angel asked Dudu Bi to show him the magic pattern nodes he had derived, and Dudu Bi agreed to share them openly.
• Angel created illusion tools that Dudu Bi used to draw twenty-six magic pattern nodes, including two three-dimensional ones.
• Angel recognized twenty of the nodes and determined that the other eight were original, at least within the Southern Wizarding World.
• Angel asked whether Dudu Bi's method involved simplifying spell models, and Dudu Bi identified it as the Simplification Method.
• Dudu Bi explained the Simplification Method, the Association Method, and the little he knew of the special method, saying he used both simplification and association to derive nodes.
• Angel learned that Dudu Bi relied mainly on the Simplification Method and hoped he could learn its formula.

Angel asked Dudu Bi to teach him magic-pattern simplification, then enlisted his help designing a magic array to amplify soul fluctuations inside a Sacred Corpse Crystal. Dudu Bi agreed to develop the soul-locking pattern while Angel searched for a soul-carrying medium, and Angel left promising to contact Dudu Bi’s sister, Granny Yitai.

• Angel learned that Dudu Bi’s simplification methods relied on long experience and offered no universal formula, so he reconsidered how to solve his problem quickly.
• Angel explained that he wanted to detect a dormant soul inside a Sacred Corpse Crystal by amplifying its fluctuations, and Dudu Bi identified the need for a soul-carrying medium in the magic array.
• Dudu Bi proposed that Angel find a single pattern to carry the soul while he developed a pattern for directionally locking soul fluctuations, after which they would build the array together.
• Dudu Bi asked Angel to help him meet Granny Yitai, and Angel agreed to contact her soon.
• Angel discussed the array’s design with Dudu Bi, left him magic-pattern books and reference patterns, then departed the Dream Crystal Plain.

Angel asked Laplace to find a communicative dead soul so he could test which magic pattern could carry soul power. Laplace obtained the soul of a beauty-obsessed Lairen, and Angel and Laplace entered its mirror realm to find her.

• Angel explained his plan to test soul-bearing magic patterns and asked Laplace to borrow a communicative dead soul.
• Laplace contacted Gleipnir, who found a Lairen soul and sent it to Angel inside a bloodstained mirror.
• Laplace explained that Lairen were deceitful but would speak honestly once their requests were fulfilled, and that this soul wanted to become beautiful.
• Angel and Laplace entered the mirror and found themselves in a ruined room inside a once-wealthy household.
• Angel spotted fresh dragging marks in the room and corridor, then led Laplace left to follow them toward the Lairen soul.

Angel and Laplace found Kesha, a mirror-bound Lairen spirit who had been teaching Changhuo Clan members to lie and discern lies. Angel arranged to fulfill her desire for beauty by offering her a wig, leaving Kesha to choose between two identical options.

• Angel and Laplace entered the main hall, where the second-floor corridor collapsed and a woman stepped out of an oil painting.
• Kesha threatened Laplace for floating, but froze under Laplace’s pressure and changed to a fawning attitude.
• Angel asked Kesha to introduce herself, and she explained that she was a mirror-bound spirit who taught lying and could discern lies.
• Kesha described her past, her binding to the mirror, and the abilities that had made Nawat keep her as a teacher.
• Angel asked Kesha to make a request, then offered her a wig to satisfy her wish to become more beautiful.

Angel prepared to test whether several magical patterns could carry a soul medium, with Kesha agreeing to help inside the Square Mirror. He selected five patterns and summoned Kesha to begin the experiment.

• Angel returned to the Square Mirror and followed Kesha to her spotless former classroom, where she explained how the Lairen Clan survived alongside the Changhuo Clan by carefully setting boundaries and building trust with other races.
• Kesha left a signaling square on the blackboard and returned to the hall to admire the wig Angel had given her.
• Angel searched the Encyclopedia of Enchanting and copied five potentially soul-related patterns: the Soul-Calming Rune, Spirit Stream Rune, Soul Seal Rune, Heart-Earth Rune, and Dusk Rest Rune.
• Angel tapped Kesha's blackboard signal and asked her to cooperate with the experiment.

Angel tested five magic patterns with Kesha to find one that could prevent her soul power from leaking, but the first four failed. The Spirit Stream Rune appeared to slow the leakage, leaving Angel with a possible lead.

• Angel activated the Soul-Calming Rune, and Kesha felt warmth but confirmed that her soul power still leaked away.
• Angel tested the Dusk Rest Rune, which forcefully calmed Kesha, but it did not restrain her soul power.
• Angel tried the Heart-Earth Rune, which restored Kesha's soul power faster than it leaked, but did not stop the leakage.
• Angel tested the Soul Seal Rune, but Kesha detected no effect on her soul power.
• Angel activated the Spirit Stream Rune, and Kesha reported that her soul power was leaking more slowly.

Angel learned that a control-type rune slowed Kesha’s soul-power dissipation and began searching for more soul-control runes, but he paused his experiments when Luigi reported that Glaimo would soon arrive in the Uriel Instance. Meanwhile, a young master reached his grandfather’s castle and learned that his grandfather disliked the Radiant Church before going to deliver a letter.

• Kesha confirmed that Angel’s Spirit Stream Rune slowed her soul-power dissipation to about half its usual rate, so Angel decided to investigate control-type runes.
• Angel selected around twenty soul-control runes from the introductory Encyclopedia of Enchanting and asked Kesha to prepare soul-infused blood ink for the scrolls.
• Luigi and Laplace visited Angel after Luigi received a Wonderland notification that Glaimo would arrive after eight o’clock to begin the one-attempt fifth main quest.
• Angel praised Kesha’s prepared ink, told her he would return to the rune experiments later, and entered the Dream Crystal Plain to watch Glaimo’s arrival.
• A young master and Butler Prang arrived at his grandfather’s castle, where Auntie Sim revealed that the grandfather avoided the Radiant Church.
• Butler Prang reminded the young master to deliver his classmate’s letter to his grandfather.