Chapter Summaries

Richard calculated that his nuclear weapons project still faced a major energy shortfall and sought the Truth Society branch's Book of the Void to find another source of power. Long Mei Er warned him that his research was futile, but Richard insisted he had not reached a dead end.

• Pandora read the Lich Old Man's three questions while asserting that the Golden Retriever, whom she called Little Bell, still belonged to her for three more days.
• Richard inspected the laboratory equipment, calculated a remaining energy shortfall of about fifty percent, and considered using spells to draw energy from the void.
• Two days later, Richard asked Manager Long Mei Er to exchange for the Book of the Void at the Truth Society Delan Branch.
• Long Mei Er argued that Richard's research into matter and energy was a dead end and urged him to stop, but Richard said he wanted to persist and see how far he could go.
• Long Mei Er fell silent and picked up the trembling Big White Rabbit as Canon held back from speaking.

Richard accepted Long Mei Er’s mission to retrieve the missing first half of the Book of the Void and prepared to leave the next day. Meanwhile, Lich Old Man A Fu worried about guarding the injured Ancient Tree Species Tinwood and discovered that the skeleton had installed its own arms.

• Long Mei Er offered Richard the latter half of the Book of the Void in exchange for retrieving its missing first half from a city near the Southern Free Federation’s border, and Richard agreed to prepare for the mission.
• After Richard left the Conference Room, Long Mei Er’s aura cracked the conference table and frightened Big White Rabbit before he departed.
• Two days later, Richard assured Lich Old Man A Fu that Tinwood could not threaten Eden Garden for at least seven days and said he planned to return within that time.
• After Richard left, Lich Old Man A Fu found that the skeleton had attached all six of its back arms by itself and wondered what it was.

Richard prepared to travel to a city to retrieve a book, using his contact with Black-Faced Old Man Oscar to secure local intelligence and a contact. He then tried to recruit Bobobo Wei Qi, but found that a spell had caused Bobobo Wei Qi’s hair to grow uncontrollably, leaving Richard to depart alone.

• Richard wrote to Black-Faced Old Man Oscar, shared intelligence about the Truth Society, and asked for information about the city where his task would take place.
• Black-Faced Old Man Oscar offered Richard help from a local organization and sent him its address, contact person, and code phrase.
• Richard finished preparing for the task and went to Ash Academy to ask Bobobo Wei Qi to accompany him.
• Bobobo Wei Qi explained that the Wild Hair Evil Force Growth Spell had made his green hair grow uncontrollably, preventing him from leaving the academy.
• Richard consoled Bobobo Wei Qi and left Ash Academy without him.

Bobobo Wei Qi continued struggling with his uncontrollably growing hair while Richard left Blue Lake Manor and traveled northeast toward the mission destination. Pandora and the Lich Old Man worked on modifying a Magic Puppet, and the chapter left Richard still on the road with several stops ahead.

• Bobobo Wei Qi asked Jessica to cut his rapidly growing hair, and she chopped off the long green mass.
• Jia Lie addressed the manor servants after Richard departed, warned them to work diligently and guard against fires, then wondered why they seemed afraid of him.
• Pandora gave the Lich Old Man data for his Magic Puppet modifications, and he privately complained about her before she caught him muttering.
• At Ash Academy, Bobobo Wei Qi repeatedly cut and discarded his growing hair, despairing that it would not stop.
• Richard traveled northeast from Galan City toward Muller, Maple City, and Damkel City on his way to the mission destination.

Richard arrived at Saint Louis City and learned about the Pombo Family’s control over the city and its trade. As he approached the gate, he watched guards inspect incoming goods and accept a bribe to let a merchant’s carriage pass.

• Richard reached Saint Louis City and recalled intelligence about the Pombo Family’s power and military strength.
• Richard sent his carriage back and joined the line for people entering the city on foot.
• Richard observed that guards inspected goods, collected taxes, and confiscated prohibited weapons at the gate.
• A Pombo Family soldier inspected a merchant’s carriage carrying cloth and cotton, then accepted the required taxes and a bribe.
• The soldier ordered the barricade opened, and the merchant’s carriage continued through the city gate.

Captain Fours stopped a suspicious carriage at the city gate and discovered weapons hidden beneath it, including enchanted crossbows intended to fight Wizards and Magic Knights. As Richard watched from the crowd, Pete and Relf were suddenly killed by an unseen attacker.

• Fours stopped the carriage after noticing its deep ruts and questioning its new, inexperienced grooms.
• Fours ordered soldiers to search the carriage, which appeared to contain only cloth and cotton.
• Fours became more suspicious when the man in charge offered him ten silver coins to let the carriage pass.
• Fours sent Pete and Relf beneath the carriage, where they found weapons hidden underneath, including a rune-marked crossbow.
• Fours drew his sword, but Pete and Relf's heads suddenly exploded as Richard watched from the crowd and silently mouthed, "Wizard."

Fours exposed two Wizards disguised as grooms, forcing them to flee with their cargo before the Magic Knights ambushed them outside Saint Louis City. Richard watched as the Knights arrived to confront the surviving Wizards, curious to see how they would fare against real Wizards.

• The brown-eyed Wizard attacked Fours, but Fours dodged and warned the soldiers that Wizards were attacking.
• The soldiers shut the city gate with an iron portcullis, and the two Wizards fled with their carriage and cargo.
• Richard questioned why the Wizards were protecting their cargo as they escaped from the city.
• The Magic Knights struck the carriage with volleys of javelins, killing the horses and three members of the group while the two Wizards survived.
• Three squads of Magic Knights rode out from Saint Louis City, including deputy commander Xide, and Richard watched to see how they would fight the Wizards.

Vice-Commander Xide and the Pombo Family’s Magic-armored Knights tried to capture two Wizards outside Saint Louis City, but the Wizards refused to surrender and a battle erupted. The Knights repeatedly charged despite heavy injuries, while the Wizards’ mana dwindled.

• Xide surrounded the two Wizards with three squads and offered to take them into Saint Louis City, but they refused, distrustful of the Pombo Family.
• Xide ordered the Knights to dismount and advance, and the Wizards raised Ice Walls that the Knights pushed down.
• The Wizards attacked with fireballs, but the Knights dodged and rushed closer before the Wizards unleashed Stone Cones.
• The squad captains formed Energy Shields that blocked most of the Stone Cones, and the Knights charged through the remaining attack, suffering injuries as they reached the Wizards.
• The Wizards repeatedly blasted the Knights back with Wind Spells, but the Knights charged again, even as wind blades wounded two of them.

Xide captured the Brown-Eyed Wizard and wounded the Gray-Eyed Wizard, then offered him a chance to surrender. Annie Pombo arrived and presented the wounded wizard with a harsher ultimatum, leaving him to choose between serving her family and dying.

• The Magic-armored Knights shattered the Wizards’ shields, knocked the Brown-Eyed Wizard unconscious, and captured him.
• Xide stabbed the Gray-Eyed Wizard, withdrew beyond his reach, and offered treatment and advancement if he surrendered to the Pombo Family.
• Annie Pombo arrived with two Wizard Apprentice attendants and asked Xide about the captured wizards.
• Xide warned Annie that the Gray-Eyed Wizard’s behavior suggested he might have a scheme, but she dismissed his concern and approached the prisoner.
• Annie demanded that the Gray-Eyed Wizard sign a Spell Contract, take a Magic Potion, and become her family’s servant, or die.

Annie tried to persuade the Gray-Eyed Wizard to surrender, but he revealed himself as a living weapon intent on attacking the Pombo Family. After a Magic-armored Knight Squad captain sacrificed himself to break the creature’s arm, Annie destroyed the Gray-Eyed Wizard with repeated fireballs.

• Annie identified the Gray-Eyed Wizard’s motive as revenge against the Pombo Family and mocked him for failing to smuggle weapons into the city.
• The Gray-Eyed Wizard refused to surrender and revealed a deathly pale arm emerging from his chest, declaring that he was the real weapon.
• Annie’s first two Energy Shields were pierced, and her third shield struggled to hold back the arm.
• A captain of the Magic-armored Knight Squad charged the arm, had his life force drained, and broke it before dying.
• Annie retreated and blasted the Gray-Eyed Wizard with nine fireballs, reducing him to dust and partly destroying the captain’s corpse.

After the attack, Annie ordered the dead captain buried with honor and demanded that the captured wizard be interrogated. She blamed Xide for failing to protect her, but relented when Gao Wen asked her to give him another chance, then left with her attendants.

• Annie ordered Xide to give the dead Magic-armored Knight Squad captain a burial with the highest honors and commanded that the captured Brown-Eyed Wizard be kept alive and interrogated.
• Annie used an Enhancement Spell to strike Xide, then called him trash for failing to protect her despite her earlier warning about the gray-eyed man.
• Annie told Xide that avoiding every danger was not her responsibility and questioned why her family had invested so many resources in him.
• Gao Wen knelt before Annie and asked her to let Xide make amends, promising to punish him if he failed again.
• Annie spared Xide, warned that she did not want to see him again, and insulted her two attendants for failing to help her.

After the city’s confrontation, Richard entered Saint Louis City and assessed the dangers that might hinder his search for the Book of the Void. He went to the Poet and Wine tavern to contact Oscar’s intelligence agency, but the chapter ended with him ordering food and settling at a table.

• Gao Wen believed Xide had done nothing wrong but told him to take a few days off until Annie’s anger faded.
• Richard entered Saint Louis City, reflecting on the Magic-armored Knights’ ability to kill a Wizard and the city’s complicated situation.
• Richard decided he needed the Book of the Void within three days and left his inn to seek information from the intelligence agency Oscar had mentioned.
• Richard arrived at the Poet and Wine tavern, where bards performed for a noisy crowd.
• Richard ordered mushroom soup, a Special Sausage, and vegetable salad, then sat at a small table in the corner.

Richard met a local intelligence contact in Saint Louis City and learned updated information about the Pombo Family. He decided to attend the family’s Wizard Apprentice selection the next day as a possible way to infiltrate them.

• Richard used a coded conversation with a furtive young man to reach a gaunt old intelligence contact.
• Richard gave the contact his code name, Gray Raven, and received information about Saint Louis City and the Pombo Family’s forces.
• The gaunt old man told Richard that the Pombo Family would hold a Wizard Apprentice selection test at noon the next day.
• Richard suspected the family had dismissed the two Wizard Apprentices who had accompanied Annie Pombo outside the city.
• Richard agreed to attend the selection and assess the opportunity to infiltrate the Pombo Family.

Richard learned that conventional tests would identify him as a Wizard Apprentice, then went to the Poet and Wine tavern to eat and prepare for his plans. There, he recognized Gao Wen · Nuowa · Telangke in disguise and suspected that the Pombo Family commander was secretly cooperating with the Soma Alliance intelligence agency, leaving Richard wary that Gao Wen’s plans could affect his own.

• Richard told the gaunt old man that he was fundamentally a Wizard Apprentice because his inner mana source held little stable mana.
• Richard returned to the Poet and Wine tavern, ordered a meal, and noticed a burly man requesting mushroom soup and Special Sausage.
• Richard recognized the disguised man as Gao Wen · Nuowa · Telangke, chief commander of the Pombo Family's Magic-armored Knights.
• Richard suspected Gao Wen was secretly contacting the Soma Alliance intelligence agency and considered whether he had betrayed the Pombo Family or shared interests with the agency.
• Richard wondered whether Gao Wen had arranged the attack outside the city to remove a vice-commander and enable the Pombo Family's temporary recruitment, then continued eating while watching him.

Gao Wen disguised himself as a diner and followed a man offering entertainment to Garcia's hideout in Pombo City. Garcia explained that the Pombo Family's increasingly strict searches had forced them to relocate, and Gao Wen learned that the Magic-armored Knights under his command could not warn them in advance.

• Gao Wen ordered mushroom soup and Special Sausage, paid the waiter, and waited in silence for someone to approach him.
• An older man in grayish-brown clothes offered Gao Wen entertainment, and Gao Wen asked about something from the north before following him.
• The man led Gao Wen through the streets to the alley and door Richard had visited earlier, where Garcia let Gao Wen inside.
• Gao Wen inspected Garcia's new hideout and joked that Garcia might one day establish it in the Pombo Family's estate.
• Garcia said the Pombo Family's searches were becoming stricter and that his people kept relocating because guards, soldiers, and Wizards—not Gao Wen's Magic-armored Knights—were conducting them.

Gao Wen urged Garcia to move their operation against the Pombo Family forward, but the two parted without agreement. Richard then returned to question Garcia about Gao Wen’s plans and warned that he needed advance notice so they would not disrupt his own plans.

• Gao Wen argued that his cooperation with Garcia should act sooner against the Pombo Family, while Garcia cautioned that they were not ready and might lose the wavering centrists.
• After discussing the plan for more than half an hour, Gao Wen and Garcia left the room still disagreeing about whether to act early.
• Garcia returned to the room, where Richard had appeared without warning and asked whether Gao Wen had just been there.
• Garcia confirmed Gao Wen was cooperating with them and assured Richard that the operation would not happen within the next few days.
• Richard asked Garcia to notify him if Gao Wen planned to act so he could prepare, then departed as suddenly as he had arrived.
• Garcia concluded that Richard could not really be a Wizard Apprentice, given how easily he moved through the stone building unseen.

Richard attended the Pombo Family’s Wizard Apprentice selection test, where a boastful young man in azure clothes irritated Peggy, the test overseer. Peggy led the applicants to begin the test, while Richard followed after the others and the young man.

• Richard waited quietly among more than thirty Wizard Apprentices gathered at the Pombo Family estate for the selection test.
• A young man in azure clothes mocked the other applicants and complained about the Pombo Family’s Wizards as they entered.
• Peggy fixed the young man with a hostile stare until he nervously praised her and agreed she could test him.
• Peggy introduced herself as the selection test’s overseer and led the Wizard Apprentices out to begin.
• The young man said he would go last to avoid Peggy’s grudge, withheld his name, and walked out after Richard.

Richard passed the initial wizard-level test and began a second test to freeze a vat of water. As he carefully kept his performance unremarkable, Peggy turned the young man’s complaint about cold water into a challenge to freeze a boiling vat.

• Peggy tested the Wizard Apprentices with a Crystal Ball, and Richard passed while three impostors were removed from the group.
• Peggy told the thirty-one remaining candidates to freeze the water in sixteen vats, and five failed to meet the standard before time ran out.
• Peggy shattered the first group’s ice and melted it back into water before calling the remaining fifteen candidates forward.
• The young man complained that the water was too cold, so Peggy heated his vat until it boiled and ordered him to freeze it.
• Richard began his test and adjusted his spellcasting to appear like an ordinary Wizard Apprentice.

Richard and Brando survived Peggy’s wizard apprentice tests and qualified for temporary employment by the Pombo Family. They learned that only four of the eight qualifiers would remain after an evaluation period, while Brando complained that Fording had outperformed him.

• Peggy ended the first test early, eliminated six apprentices, and allowed the remaining nine to pass, including Richard and Brando.
• Peggy gave the apprentices an hour to recover before Hek brought out iron blocks for the second test.
• Peggy’s iron-melting test eliminated twelve more apprentices, leaving Richard, Brando, Fording, and five others qualified for temporary employment.
• Peggy announced that the eight qualifiers would undergo a one-to-three-month evaluation, after which no more than four would stay.
• Brando told Richard his name and complained that Fording had performed best in both tests, claiming he could have beaten him if he had not spent so much mana earlier.

Peggy offered one of the eight remaining candidates a chance to pass the assessment by repairing a magical necklace. A short Wizard Apprentice attempted the repair, but the necklace exploded when Peggy activated it, and Peggy sent him to be tested as a possible assistant to Master Yaheng.

• Peggy offered direct qualification to anyone who could repair the necklace’s magic patterns within half an hour, but Richard stayed silent because he did not want attention.
• A short Wizard Apprentice volunteered, chose tools from a case brought by Goben, and worked on the necklace for nearly an hour.
• Peggy activated the necklace after the apprentice said it should be repaired, and it began cooling the room before suddenly erupting into a fireball.
• Peggy extinguished the fireball and ordered Goben to take the apprentice to Master Yaheng for an ability test, while Richard watched them leave and pondered.