Chapter Summaries

Molly’s group defeated a swarm of Weird Sandworms while Richard watched their abilities and considered the tension over the expedition’s profit-sharing agreement. Molly then led the group to a ruined plaza, where another battle awaited.

• Camel and Su raised an Earth Wall and Air Shield to protect the group from the Weird Sandworms’ acid attack.
• Molly’s companions attacked and killed the Sandworms, while Richard observed their strength and reflected on their signed agreement to divide the expedition’s profits.
• After the battle, Molly offered Richard the chance to handle the next, weaker encounter alone, and he accepted.
• Molly led the group through the ruins to a small, crumbling plaza surrounded by collapsed pillars.

Richard detected a hidden threat beyond the black cockroaches and warned Molly before a Giant Locust emerged in the plaza. As Molly and her team prepared to attack its weak point, Richard killed it with a beam from his Metal Glove, leaving everyone staring at one another.

• Richard used Gaze of the Eye and Dark Vision to spot black, lightning-wielding cockroaches closing in on the plaza.
• Richard sensed another creature nearby, and the cockroaches retreated as a Giant Locust burst into the plaza.
• Molly judged the Giant Locust to be around Level 4 Wizard strength, activated her defenses, and identified the spot between its eyes as its weak point.
• Molly ordered her subordinates to attack the Giant Locust together, while Richard aimed his Metal Glove at it.
• Richard fired a beam through the Giant Locust's mouth and body, killing it before Molly and her team could cast their spells.
• Molly's group and Richard exchanged puzzled looks beside the dead Giant Locust.

Richard and Molly continued through the Ancient Ruins after Richard killed a Giant Locust, disrupting Molly’s plan to negotiate for a larger share of the gains. At the edge of the Core Area, Molly explained that Devil Magic-Devouring Vines blocked their path and offered to help Richard cross them, while secretly hoping to use the danger to gain leverage.

• Richard told Molly that killing the Giant Locust fulfilled their agreement, while Molly realized his strength had undermined her bargaining position.
• Molly set aside her frustration, and she and Richard resumed exploring the ruins.
• After a long journey and a wrong turn that led them into a moth attack, the group reached a grassland at the edge of the Core Area.
• Molly warned Richard that Devil Magic-Devouring Vines would attack powerful beings and that using spells could provoke a deadly response across the grassland.
• Molly offered to shield Richard’s spell source with a special method, hoping the vines would give her another chance to negotiate for benefits, but Richard answered her sincere-looking smile with one of his own.

Richard crossed the Devil Magic-Devouring Vine grassland easily, while Molly and her companions used a gray-mist spell to pass through cautiously. Richard went on ahead and agreed to wait at the far edge as Molly's group resumed their slow crossing.

• Richard refused Molly's offer of help and walked across the Devil Magic-Devouring Vines without difficulty.
• Molly and her companions joined hands and used gray mist to keep the vines from detecting them.
• Hulk moved too forcefully, agitating the vines, but Molly restored the mist and reprimanded him.
• Molly told Richard to go ahead, and he continued through the darkness after agreeing to wait for the group at the far edge.
• Molly ordered her companions to resume crossing carefully and warned she would break the legs of anyone who repeated Hulk's mistake.

Richard followed Molly's group into the ruins' Core Area, where they found a stone-pillar altar and prepared for a dangerous Energy Storm. Molly triggered the expected defense, but nothing happened, leaving the group confused.

• Molly's group emerged from the grassland battered, and Molly and the others punished Hulk for his mistakes.
• Molly led Richard and the group down into the ruins' Core Area and guided them toward a vast cluster of stone pillars.
• Molly stopped before eight patterned pillars surrounding a mist-shrouded stone platform and warned that an Energy Storm would activate when she approached.
• Richard and Molly's group raised defensive spells as Molly took three steps toward the pillars.
• The group waited behind their defensive barrier, but no Energy Storm appeared.

Molly led Richard and her group into the Eight Stone Pillars Space, but the expected Energy Storm never appeared. At the stone platform, they discovered the Energy Furnace was missing, and Richard suggested that its taker might not have been a person.

• Molly led the group through the Eight Stone Pillars Space without triggering an Energy Storm, despite her warnings that one could strike.
• Molly explained that her intelligence might be outdated, then revealed that the magical item on the stone platform was the reason for their expedition.
• Molly cleared the black mist from the platform and found its central depression empty, prompting her companions to cry out in disbelief.
• Molly identified the missing item as an Energy Furnace, an ancient energy source that could supply a Wizard with mana without limit.
• Molly and her subordinates angrily vowed to kill whoever had taken the Energy Furnace, and Richard suggested the thief might not be a person.

Richard concluded that a native life-form had taken the Energy Furnace, and the group encountered a gigantic, electrically charged mouse that he suspected had swallowed it. Molly ordered an attack to reclaim the Furnace, but their spells barely harmed the creature.

• Richard reasoned that the Energy Furnace was likely taken by a creature living in the ruins rather than by another explorer.
• A nearly twenty-meter-tall Giant Mouse emerged from behind a pillar and approached the group.
• One-Eye and Wood argued over whether the Giant Mouse was the parent of a Gray Mouse they had captured.
• Richard used Gaze of the Eye and found that the Giant Mouse was filled with dense energy, then suggested it had swallowed the Energy Furnace.
• Molly refused to abandon the Furnace and ordered her subordinates to attack the Giant Mouse.
• Molly's group struck the Giant Mouse with spells, but its electrical energy absorbed and neutralized most of their force.

Molly and her subordinates attacked the Giant Mouse’s throat, but their spells barely harmed it, and Richard’s Blood Spears only provoked it. As Richard prepared to use Death Finger, Molly warned that the attack could damage the Energy Furnace inside the Giant Mouse and ruin their plans for the Ancient Ruins.

• Molly used her Third Eye to identify the Giant Mouse’s throat as its weakness, and her subordinates launched a barrage of spells at it.
• The attacks left the Giant Mouse mostly unharmed, though its fur was scorched.
• Richard fired twelve Blood Spears, which failed to penetrate the Giant Mouse’s defenses and stirred it into approaching the group.
• Richard aimed the Gloves of Extinction and prepared to fire Death Finger, but Molly stopped him.
• Molly warned Richard that Death Finger could damage the Energy Furnace swallowed by the Giant Mouse.

Richard, Molly, and Xize faced the Giant Mouse while trying to preserve the Energy Furnace inside it. Xize proposed stacking a powerful curse ten times, and the group joined the battle to give him a chance to cast it.

• Richard rejected Molly's cautious approach and demanded an alternative, warning that he would use his own method if needed.
• Xize proposed weakening the Giant Mouse with a curse, and Molly agreed despite its great cost and uncertain success.
• Xize said the curse had to be cast ten times, so Molly ordered her subordinates to hold off the Giant Mouse.
• Richard agreed to help and charged into battle alongside Molly and her group.
• The group unleashed powerful spells that stopped the Giant Mouse, whose defenses were immense but whose speed and attack power were comparatively limited.

Xize and the others fought to curse the Giant Mouse, which had swallowed the Energy Furnace, but it broke through their encirclement and fled. Molly rejected a pursuit into unknown parts of the Ancient Ruins, leaving the group to decide how to recover the furnace without risking a dangerous chase.

• Camel raised an earth wall while the others distracted the Giant Mouse, and Xize bowed three times before casting a gray curse at it.
• Xize repeatedly cursed the Giant Mouse as the group worked to keep it from reaching him, and he prepared one final spell after nine attempts.
• The Giant Mouse sensed the final curse, electrified its body, knocked One-Eye, Camel, and Hulk aside, and escaped as Xize's spell missed.
• Molly supported the exhausted Xize, who cast a faster pink spell after the fleeing Giant Mouse, but it continued out of sight.
• Richard asked how Molly would make up for the lost Energy Furnace, and One-Eye suggested following the Giant Mouse.
• Molly refused to pursue it into unknown parts of the Ancient Ruins, warning that the group could encounter dangerous threats.

Molly’s group saw the Giant Mouse trigger a series of lethal explosions and realized they could not safely pursue it through unknown territory. Xize proposed using the Aphrodite Curse to bring the rat back, leaving the group horrified at the possibility that one of them would become its target.

• The Giant Mouse’s panicked escape set off a chain reaction of explosions and dangerous energy bursts near Molly’s group.
• Molly warned everyone that chasing the rat into unfamiliar territory could get them killed, while One-Eye insisted they still needed to recover the Energy Furnace.
• Xize proposed casting the curse again, explaining that it would make the Giant Mouse return in a desperate, more dangerous state.
• Xize revealed that the pink spell he had placed on the rat was the first step of the Aphrodite Curse, which could make an intelligent creature fall uncontrollably in love.
• Xize said he was still preparing the curse’s second step and could choose himself or one of the others as the rat’s love interest, so everyone scattered in terror.

Xize frightened the group into thinking one of them would have to fall in love with a rat as the second bearer of the Love God Curse, prompting several to volunteer. He revealed that an insect, an ant, or even an object could serve instead, but Molly ended the chapter looking saddened by what she realized.

• Xize explained the curse’s effects and asked the group to choose someone as its second bearer.
• One-Eye refused, and Molly volunteered to take the curse.
• Hulk tried to take Molly’s place, but One-Eye, Ice Block, Camel, and Wood urged Xize to choose Hulk instead.
• Su offered herself, saying the curse might help her forget someone she had loved.
• Xize laughed and revealed that the second bearer could be an insect, a rat, or even an object, and admitted he had been teasing them.
• The group accepted Xize’s joke, while Molly looked at him sadly as though she had realized something.

Xize used a curse to make a crudely crafted Paper Mouse the Giant Mouse’s mate, then tore it apart to provoke the beast into returning in a rage. As the group prepared to face the approaching Giant Mouse, Richard realized the curse had severely drained Xize’s life force, and the beast emerged from the darkness.

• Richard noticed Molly had changed and realized Xize’s earlier use of the curse was likely costing him his life.
• Xize crafted a crude Paper Mouse and enchanted it as a mate for the escaped Giant Mouse.
• Xize tore the Paper Mouse into scraps, provoking the Giant Mouse into rushing back in furious grief.
• Xize sat down to rest and stopped responding, while Richard noticed that his hair had turned completely white.
• The Giant Mouse burst from the darkness, saw the scraps, and fixed its blood-red eyes on the group.

Xize woke and began recasting his curse on the enraged Giant Mouse, while the group fought to hold the beast back. The curse struck twice, but the Giant Mouse kept breaking free and attacking as Xize continued his spell.

• The injured Giant Mouse charged at the group, and it knocked One-Eye, Camel, and Hulk aside when their spells failed to stop it.
• One-Eye called out to Xize, who woke, explained that he needed to cast the curse twelve times, and began chanting.
• Camel, Hulk, Ice Block, Wood, Su, Molly, One-Eye, and Richard worked together to restrain and wound the Giant Mouse while Xize cast his first curse.
• The Giant Mouse recognized Xize as the enemy who had killed its Paper Lover and broke through the group's restraints to attack him.
• Xize's first gray curse beam struck the Giant Mouse, which went berserk and sent the group flying before they regrouped to restrain it again.

Richard, Molly, and the others endured the Giant Mouse’s attacks while Xize completed the twelve-part Curse of Abinu, which separated the creature’s soul from its body and left it in an unresponsive state. With the Giant Mouse subdued, Molly and the group prepared to extract its Energy Furnace.

• Molly, Su, One-Eye, Wood, Ice Block, Camel, and Hulk repeatedly restrained the Giant Mouse and protected Xize as he cast the curse, while Richard held back from using Death Finger.
• Xize floated into the air, losing much of his white hair as he released the twelfth and final streak of gray curse light.
• The curse struck the Giant Mouse, which collapsed motionless, and Xize explained that its soul had been separated from its body and would never awaken.
• Richard concluded that the curse had left the Giant Mouse suitable for extracting the Energy Furnace without damaging its body.
• Xize proposed removing the item, and Molly walked toward the Giant Mouse’s body.

Molly and her subordinates cut into the Giant Mouse and retrieved the Energy Furnace while Richard and Xize examined artifacts from the Ancient Ruins. Richard suspected the ruins were an energy supply system and studied a scroll that might contain its blueprint, leaving him intrigued by what it revealed.

• Molly and her subordinates struggled to cut into the Giant Mouse, then searched its body for the Energy Furnace.
• Richard and Xize gathered artifacts from hollow stone pillars and identified many as ancient spell materials and damaged spell tools.
• Richard found a scroll written mostly in Original Script and inferred that it might diagram the ruins’ energy supply system.
• Molly located the Energy Furnace in the Giant Mouse’s chest, and Hulk placed it in an azure Stone Box.
• After sealing the Energy Furnace, Molly’s group turned to look at Richard.

Richard and Molly’s group ended their exploration of the ruins and disputed who would get the Energy Furnace. After Molly changed the terms of Richard’s proposed chance game, Richard agreed to roll the die himself.

• Molly proposed ending the exploration and dividing the gains, and Richard agreed.
• Richard and Molly both claimed the Energy Furnace, but Molly insisted that she must have it or receive first choice of equally valuable items.
• Richard proposed using dice to determine who had priority, and Molly agreed to let Su roll while he guessed odd or even.
• As Su prepared to reveal the result, Molly stopped Richard and proposed that he roll instead while one of her people guessed.
• Richard accepted Molly’s revised terms.

Molly won the dice game against Richard and claimed the Energy Furnace after trusting Hulk’s prediction. Richard accepted the result and chose more than twenty items from the ruins, leaving Molly suspicious of his intentions.

• Richard sealed the stone cup against detection and asked Molly to guess whether the die showed an odd or even number.
• Xize questioned Richard to rule out cheating, but Molly’s group could not determine the die’s result.
• Hulk insisted that the die showed three, and Molly chose odd as her answer.
• Molly lifted the cup and revealed a three, winning the Energy Furnace from Richard.
• Richard let Molly keep the Stone Box and selected more than twenty other items, while Molly grew wary of his calm acceptance.

Richard and Molly divided the ruins’ remaining treasures, but a Crystal Man emerged from the depths and revived the Giant Mouse. The Crystal Man and the mouse turned on the group, forcing Molly to order a retreat as they charged.

• Richard and Molly divided the remaining items after Molly claimed the Energy Furnace.
• An explosive attack came from the ruins’ Core Area, and Richard warned Molly’s group that an enemy had emerged.
• A Crystal Man made of translucent crystal fired compressed Air Missiles and approached the Giant Mouse’s corpse.
• The Crystal Man used its lamp-post-like weapon to heal the Giant Mouse, undoing Xize’s curse and bringing the creature back to life.
• Richard deduced that the Crystal Man had helped the mouse and had come to take revenge on the group.
• Molly agreed with Richard’s call to retreat, but the Crystal Man and the revived Giant Mouse leaped after them.

Richard and Molly's group fought a powerful Crystal Man in the relic, and Richard's Death Finger killed the Giant Mouse after the Crystal Man reflected the attack. Richard restrained the enraged Crystal Man with the Gloves of Extinction and led everyone in a retreat, but the Crystal Man caught up with them and blocked their path.

• One-Eye, Ice Block, and the others attacked the Crystal Man and Giant Mouse, but their spells had little effect and several of them were injured.
• Richard hit the Crystal Man with Death Finger, and the Crystal Man reflected the attack into the Giant Mouse, killing it.
• The enraged Crystal Man powered up, so Richard transformed the Gloves of Extinction into fragments that restrained it and ordered Molly's group to retreat.
• The group reached the edge of the relic's Core Area, where Molly said they should be safe from the Crystal Man.
• The Crystal Man flew out of the pit and landed in front of the group, blocking their way.