Recaps

Yi Chen received a large piece of Skin from the First Gentleman and accepted a place among the candidates to succeed him, despite the dangers of the coming selection. After reaffirming his choice to Professor Chamberson, Yi Chen learned that Principal Deslin wanted to meet him that night, and planned to ask her for guidance on reaching his perception limit.

• Principal Deslin reassured Chamberson that William would be fine and asked him to send William to her office that night.
• Yi Chen visited the dying First Gentleman alone, received an oversized piece of Gentleman's Skin, and was invited to become one of the candidates for the First Gentleman.
• A voice in Yi Chen's consciousness told him to accept, and he agreed to compete for the position.
• Yi Chen told Chamberson he had accepted the offer, while keeping the yellow skin secret and explaining that Duke Garryson could help him escape if necessary.
• Chamberson told Yi Chen that Principal Deslin had summoned him to Fetal Heart Chapel that night, and Yi Chen hoped to ask her how to improve his perception.

Yi Chen visited Principal Deslin in the academy’s isolated Astrology Room, where she viewed his hidden memories of the battle with Vice Dean Ayvat and questioned his understanding of the Skin Field. The Principal then brought Yi Chen’s consciousness onto a Fantasy Celestial Body to teach him perception, leaving him to begin the journey toward its highest peak.

• Yi Chen entered the Principal’s Office at midnight and found Principal Deslin without her Weeping Mask, holding a strange celestial body.
• Principal Deslin asked Yi Chen about the details he had concealed in his report, then used his memory to watch his battle with Vice Dean Ayvat.
• Principal Deslin praised Yi Chen for defeating Ayvat and said hiding the feat had prevented the First Gentleman from making him the sole candidate.
• Yi Chen discussed the Skin Field’s surveillance and said he hoped to gain the organization more initiative by negotiating with the Primal Affliction.
• Principal Deslin led Yi Chen to the Fantasy Celestial Body and brought their consciousnesses onto its surface to begin teaching him perception.

After spending more than seventy days gazing at the stars, Yi Chen reached the sensing limit and unlocked Star Magic. Principal Deslin sent him to prepare for his Limit Break, then let him stay in her office to solve the sensing riddle of his Triple-Attribute Relic.

• Principal Deslin worried that Yi Chen had remained on the Fantasy Celestial Body for two months, but his consciousness transformed into a shooting star and returned to his body.
• Yi Chen gained five points of sensing, reached the sensing limit, and unlocked the Star Magic system.
• After Yi Chen woke, Principal Deslin confirmed he had grasped Star Magic and advised him to take his time with his coming Limit Break.
• Yi Chen revealed that he had concealed a Triple-Attribute Relic, the Box of the Mad, whose intelligence and physique riddles he had solved but whose sensing riddle remained.
• Principal Deslin let Yi Chen stay in her office to solve the relic's riddle while she went out to clear her head.

Yi Chen used his heightened Sensitivity and Star Magic to decipher the Box of the Mad, transforming it into a brain-shaped relic. Deslin rushed back to the Astrology Room when Cerebral Fluid began leaking through the chapel, and Yi Chen contained the transformed relic and fluid in the Golden Box.

• After Principal Deslin left, Yi Chen inspected the Box of the Mad and used his Sensitivity to perceive its interior.
• Yi Chen recognized the sphere’s mismatched metal plates and brain-like patterns as a puzzle, then began rearranging them.
• Deslin left the school in disguise to enjoy forbidden food before deciding to return and check on Yi Chen.
• Deslin found the chapel staff gathered outside because brain-like fluid was leaking from the Astrology Room, and she ordered them to stay back.
• Deslin entered the Astrology Room and saw Yi Chen hovering with the Box transformed into a brain-shaped relic.
• Yi Chen stored the Mad Brain and compressed the Cerebral Fluid inside the Golden Box.

After completing the cube’s decryption, Yi Chen discovered he could manipulate space and quickly learned to pull objects toward him. After a week of rest, he set out to meet Doctor Vesali and discuss his breakthrough, feeling pressure from the achievements of Jin Almeida and Regan Ludwig.

• Yi Chen saw that the cube had evolved into a brainlike structure, and Principal Deslin advised him to wait before attempting a breakthrough.
• Deslin made Yi Chen clean the Astrology Room, where he unconsciously used Star Magic to pull a bucket through space.
• Yi Chen practiced manipulating Spatial Fluid, pulled the bucket from a distance, and recalled his ax after throwing it, though his attempt to retrieve it from farther away failed.
• Deslin was astonished by Yi Chen’s rapid progress, abandoned meditation, and went out to the Street District.
• After resting at Teacher Zed’s paradise for a week, Yi Chen learned Jin Almeida and Regan Ludwig had risen to prominent positions, retrieved his Twilight Silver Liquid, and headed to Major-Hospital-of-Hippocrates to meet Doctor Vesali.

Yi Chen visited Vice Principal Visari at the Major Hospital of Hippocrates and entered a Death Pool in Visari’s workshop to begin a breakthrough using the Biomass Brain. After the brain fused with his own, Yi Chen found himself transported into a vision of the Old World as the Mad Shell.

• A guard escorted Yi Chen into the Pathogen Center after his special Business Card granted him clearance.
• Visari asked whether Yi Chen wanted to become a Doctor, and Yi Chen said he had chosen to become the First Gentleman’s candidate for his own reasons.
• Visari led Yi Chen to a pool containing ten years’ worth of accumulated death essence and told him he could use it for his breakthrough.
• Yi Chen drank from the pool, entered it, and placed the Biomass Brain against his forehead.
• The Biomass Brain pierced Yi Chen’s skull and fused with his brain, transporting his awareness to a diseased world where he discovered he had become the Mad Shell.

Yi Chen inspected his unusual Mad Shell Virus body and began infecting a young man to experience how a Mad One formed. After taking control of the young man’s brain, he began absorbing knowledge while keeping the host alive and teaching him and the other Pathogens.

• Yi Chen examined his capsid, Absorb-Brain, iron chains, and Death Aura, then inferred that his viral evolution could help his physical body break through its limits.
• Yi Chen descended among the Old World’s Sick Ones and chose a young man with few visible abnormalities as his host.
• Yi Chen used refraction and environmental imitation to evade the Herpes Viruses in the young man’s nasal cavity and brain.
• Yi Chen attacked the Herpes Viruses in the brain’s core, established a neural connection, and threatened to use the host’s immune system against them if they approached.
• Yi Chen began absorbing the host’s memories and drove him to seek knowledge while maintaining his health and educating him and the other Pathogens.

Yi Chen formed the Hospital among the Sick Ones of the Old World and used their combined Mental Power to connect with the root of the disease source, beginning a transformation beyond ordinary Sick Ones. At the Major-Hospital-of-Hippocrates, Doctor Andre Vesali witnessed Yi Chen's Limit Break and recognized that his connection to the Old World was still deepening.

• Yi Chen learned from his hosts' memories about the Old World's layers, Source Plague Zones, and the catastrophe that had sealed the world.
• Yi Chen infected more than five thousand Sick Ones, indoctrinated most of them, and organized them into the Hospital, a group active in the Surface Layer.
• Yi Chen gathered the indoctrinated Sick Ones, who linked their Mental Power to amplify his connection to the disease source as he began his final Mad Evolution.
• At the Major-Hospital-of-Hippocrates, patients and staff suffered head symptoms as strange clouds gathered above the sealed white building and Death Aura spread.
• Doctor Andre Vesali observed Yi Chen suspended in the Death Studio, undergoing a transformation that he judged to surpass that of a Sick One.

Yi Chen drilled through the mental membrane in the relic’s imagined Old World and accepted the Diseased Origin, breaking the Human Limit. His breakthrough transformed his brain and body, caused a citywide disturbance in Zion, and left him with a new profession: Lecturer.

• Yi Chen used the linked minds of thousands of indoctrinated patients to drill toward the Focus of Infection Center, while many patients died from the strain.
• Yi Chen reached the radiant center of the relic’s world, broke through the Human Limit, and accepted the Diseased Origin.
• A brain-shaped black cloud formed over Zion and caused discomfort throughout the city as Jin, Instructor Baili, Regan, and the Power Station director witnessed the disturbance.
• Yi Chen’s brain tissue spread through his body and fused with his muscles, then the cloud-brain and Death Aura flowed into him.
• Yi Chen awakened with a stabilized Biomass Brain, a bond to the disease source, and a new profession of Lecturer.

After his breakthrough, Yi Chen recovered in the hospital and demonstrated his new Death Barrier to Principal Deslin. He left through a secret passage as a new frame of metallic Black Liquid appeared above his head.

• Duke Garryson sensed Yi Chen’s breakthrough and gave a customer a twenty-percent discount, while a horned girl in the Old World celebrated the signal from her Big Brother.
• Principal Deslin infiltrated the hospital and joined Vice Principal Visari as Yi Chen slowly relearned how to control his body.
• Yi Chen explained that his connection to the Disease Source had strengthened, then blocked Deslin’s arrow with a Death Barrier that destroyed it.
• Deslin invited Yi Chen to study Star Magic, and Visari offered him a secret exit to avoid the crowd gathered outside the hospital.
• Yi Chen told Visari that he had truly died once, promised to help with future death experiments, and left the hospital through the secret passage.
• As Yi Chen fully regained his human stride, a brass Long Frame filled with metallic Black Liquid condensed above his head.

Yi Chen reviewed the new Affliction and Epidemic Value system and his abilities after opening his Status, then considered the Skin Farm’s plans and the need to gain leverage. The hidden yellow skin urged him to combine the inferior skin from the Connector, and Yi Chen decided to ask Mr. Ivan to alter his clothes first.

• Yi Chen returned to his dormitory and examined the monitoring data for his new Lecturer profession, Open Source Status, Epileptic Syndrome, and Epidemic Value.
• Yi Chen reviewed his profession and affliction traits, along with Little Grape’s increased corpse development and abilities.
• Yi Chen reasoned that the organization’s path involved transforming through disease and that relics and Diseased Crystallization could help resist the Skin Farm’s control.
• Yi Chen decided he needed more leverage to protect himself and those close to him if the Gray Domain spread and the Skin Farm turned against them.
• The hidden yellow skin demanded that Yi Chen combine the inferior skin from the Connector, but Yi Chen said he would first have Mr. Ivan alter his clothes.

Yi Chen told Chamberson about his breakthrough and learned that his Epileptic Syndrome exceeded the affliction of the Relic’s original owners. After Zede ambushed him to test his new abilities, they headed outside the academy together, discussing Zede’s role in protecting Zion and his Fibromyalgia Syndrome.

• Yi Chen reported his breakthrough to Chamberson, who was astonished that Yi Chen had gained a higher-grade affliction from the Mad Ones’ Relic and warned him to prepare for the First Gentleman selection.
• Chamberson advised Yi Chen to increase his clothing’s Skin Content and register his breakthrough at Gentleman Hall.
• Zede ambushed Yi Chen, whose Death Pus Shield blocked the strike before shattering, and praised his new ability.
• Yi Chen invited Zede to accompany him to Gentleman Hall and Mr. Ivan’s shop, and Zede agreed while explaining that he remained underground to help protect Zion from deadly outbreaks.
• Yi Chen and Zede boarded a train outside the academy and began discussing their syndromes, including Zede’s Fibromyalgia Syndrome.

Yi Chen spent more than ten days at Ivan’s shop while Ivan remade his clothing with a high skin content, then tried on a grotesque prototype. He experienced a terrifying vision of the outfit consuming and replacing him before waking at the Basement table, leaving the cause of the dream unclear.

• Yi Chen and Zede visited Ivan, who explained that remaking Yi Chen’s clothing required dissolving it, taking new measurements, and obtaining costly materials.
• Yi Chen spent more than ten days moving between the Basement and Ivan’s Tailor Shop for fittings and measurements.
• After waking to find Chasm-Street dark, Yi Chen entered the Nameless Tailor Shop and noticed something moving beneath a mannequin’s hood.
• Ivan led Yi Chen to try on the finished prototype, whose black patterns resembled writhing tentacles.
• In a vision, the clothing immobilized Yi Chen, erased his face and abilities, and let a wearer strip away his organs and bones.
• Yi Chen jolted awake at the Basement table with black, smoking drool on the tabletop.

Yi Chen suffered repeated, life-threatening nightmares after going without his clothing, then learned the dreams were part of a citywide outbreak of nightmare-related deaths. Professor Chamberson explained that the victims had all slept undressed and asked Yi Chen to help investigate.

• Yi Chen woke from a vivid nightmare, went to the Nameless Clothing Store, and told Mr. Ivan about it while trying on the unfinished garment.
• In another nightmare, Yi Chen attacked himself with his disease ability to escape, then woke in the Basement with his body covered in spikes and Dead Person Makeup.
• Professor Chamberson arrived and examined Yi Chen after the Principal asked him to check on his condition.
• Chamberson told Yi Chen that residents had been dying from apparent nightmares for three months and that Zion had ordered everyone to sleep dressed.
• Yi Chen realized he had missed the order because he had been with the Principal, and Chamberson told him to put on his finished clothing and report the outbreak to the Principal.

Yi Chen received his completed outfit, which could transform into a long coat after his skin content passed 50%. Ivan warned him to master Limit Release quickly if he wanted to compete for the title of First Gentleman, and Yi Chen went to the Knight Family’s manor to seek clothing modifications.

• Chamberson told Yi Chen that he was the first Nightmare Survivor and advised him to report his experience to the Principal once his outfit was finished.
• Ivan completed Yi Chen’s outfit ahead of schedule and deliberately startled him with a spaghetti joke during the fitting.
• Yi Chen’s outfit fused with his body, and he discovered he could transform it into a concealed long coat.
• Ivan explained Limit Release and warned Yi Chen to achieve it within a month or abandon the First Gentleman path.
• Yi Chen remembered his connection to a Knight Family member and arrived at a castle manor bearing a heavy hammer emblem.

Yi Chen enlisted the Bessarius Family and the Principal to develop armor using stellar ore, while revealing how he escaped the Nightmare. The chapter ended as he arrived at a gathering of Zion’s prophets, wearing the completed armor and drawing their attention.

• Siph Bessarius welcomed Yi Chen, identified Aivart Losa as Barry’s killer, and assigned Wolavi Bessarius to help design Yi Chen’s armor.
• Yi Chen and Wolavi Bessarius designed lightweight armor for Yi Chen’s right shoulder and arm, but lacked a suitable core material.
• Yi Chen visited the Principal, who offered stellar ore in exchange for his cooperation at a meeting about the Nightmare.
• Yi Chen explained that his Mad Brain, monastery chains, and inherited illusion arts helped him escape the Nightmare, prompting Deslin to raise the event’s danger level.
• Yi Chen arrived at Swan Hall wearing the finished silver armor as the gathered prophets examined him and Little Grape eagerly spotted their grapes.

Yi Chen and the prophets of Zion examined his memories of the nightmare and learned how dangerous its layered dreamscape could be. As they watched, the memory continued beyond its expected ending, and a nightmare presence began reaching into the classroom.

• Yi Chen met the six remaining prophets of Zion, and Deslin Baldivia explained that they would study his nightmare memories to assess the invasion.
• Yi Chen agreed to cooperate on the condition that the prophets could not access memories beyond the nightmare, and Deslin began extracting and displaying the memory.
• Oginga Sabah and Missy Hatfilia helped reconstruct the fragmented images while Ennio Vargas supplied their missing sounds.
• The prophets watched Yi Chen escape the nested Nightmare Room using chains, a needle-studded technique, an umbilical cord, and Dead Person Makeup.
• The replay continued past its expected end, showing a half-bodied Yi Chen in the Basement as black, tentacle-like matter spilled from his mouth and spread into the classroom.

Principal Deslin stopped the Nightmare from spreading through Swan Hall and preserved a sample for investigation. Yi Chen defended himself against Yuri’s call for a brain dissection and agreed to accompany Deslin to the Pathology Research Building before pursuing the Nightmare’s source.

• As the Nightmare Tentacles prepared to attack, Principal Deslin used Spatial Stripping to annihilate the Nightmare substance and sealed one drop as a sample.
• Deslin ordered everyone in Swan Hall to inspect themselves for Nightmare infection, and the Prophets shared the samples and evidence they had collected.
• Yuri’s Mechanical Maid proposed regular intelligence checks and a brain dissection for Yi Chen, but Deslin and the old man rejected the claim that the Nightmare had parasitized him.
• After the Prophets left, Deslin flew Yi Chen to the Pathology Research Building, and Yi Chen agreed to wait for the analysis and an official investigation mission.
• Yi Chen said he hoped to consult his Sick One friend about the Nightmare and joked that he wanted another chance to fight its tentacles.

Dean Gregory Alaus examined the Nightmare Substance and warned Yi Chen not to investigate it outside the city until he achieved Limit Release. After leaving the hospital, Yi Chen was intercepted by Jin Almeida, who dragged him toward Keximani to spar, while a Mechanical Maid watched him from the orchard.

• Dean Gregory Alaus studied the Nightmare Tentacle in a containment workstation, then sealed it again and ordered a medical consultation about the threat to Zion.
• Dean Gregory refused Yi Chen's request to leave the city, advising him to strengthen himself and achieve Limit Release first.
• Yi Chen accepted Principal Deslin's advice and decided to improve his clothing skills and combat ability before pursuing the Nightmare.
• Jin Almeida ambushed Yi Chen with an exploding piece of pork belly, then dragged him toward Keximani to spar with him.
• As Yi Chen and Jin passed through the orchard district, a Mechanical Maid glared at Yi Chen with her mechanical prosthetic eye.

Yi Chen and Jin were invited by Prophet Yuri to his underground slaughterhouse, where he offered them a reward for surviving a test of their abilities. Jin eagerly accepted, while Yi Chen felt drawn to the arena and its promise of a chance to hone his skills.

• A Mechanical Maid invited William Berens to meet Yuri and warned him not to reveal anything about the Prophet Assembly or the Nightmare.
• Instructor Baili explained that Yuri had sealed himself away to control his powerful Killing Instinct and used his Mechanical Legion to detect and prevent murders.
• Baili led Yi Chen and Jin through Keximani's underground passages to Yuri's Prophet's Abode.
• Yuri welcomed them to his bloodstained arena and offered a Slaughter Reward if they survived his test.
• Jin accepted Yuri's challenge immediately, while Yi Chen considered the arena ideal for honing his techniques and adapting to his modified clothing.

Yi Chen and Jin defeated Prophet Yuri’s mechanical maids, prompting Yuri to unseal his body and fight them in the arena. Yuri overwhelmed both of them, but their attacks left him badly wounded.

• Jin and Yi Chen destroyed Yuri’s two mechanical maids in under ten minutes, while Yi Chen refused Mad Brain’s prompt to enlighten the disabled maid.
• Yuri left his wheelchair, unsealed one foot and one hand, and pulled a Spine Cleaver from his personal maid before challenging the two fighters.
• Jin revealed that he had trained in the Cancer Palace, and Yuri apologized for underestimating him before unsealing his complete form.
• Principal Deslin sensed the bloodshed at Keximani, while the old dean told her to focus on the doctors’ meeting unless trouble required their intervention.
• Instructor Baili and his followers were stopped from entering the arena while Yuri fought Yi Chen and Jin.
• Yuri defeated and severely injured both fighters, but Yi Chen and Jin left him covered in cuts, scorch marks, and deep corrosion wounds.

Yi Chen and Jin trained against Mr. Yuri, who offered Yi Chen arena access and a deal: Yi Chen would let him study his body in exchange for instruction in combat technique. Ten days later, the two were still training, and Yi Chen was beginning to undergo a qualitative change.

• Yi Chen and Jin fought Mr. Yuri until they reached their limits, then Jin spoke with him and returned smiling, having found a new direction for his training.
• Mr. Yuri told Yi Chen that the Death Substance in his brain could block the Nightmare Factor and offered him unlimited use of the arena until he mastered combat technique.
• Mr. Yuri recognized Yi Chen's resemblance to Hogney Zede and proposed dissecting and analyzing Yi Chen's body to perfect a maid mold in exchange for teaching him technique; Yi Chen agreed.
• A memory fragment of Yi Chen standing amid corpses surfaced during their conversation, but his maniacal brain scattered it before he could see more.
• Yi Chen and Jin continued training for ten days, exhausting the supply of practice maids, while Yi Chen's body began to show signs of qualitative transformation.

Jin and Yi Chen discussed their next steps before Yi Chen met with Prophet Yuri for a transaction and learned more about the spreading nightmare. Yi Chen planned to explore it, while Yuri prepared to teach him something useful.

• Jin fed Yi Chen nutrients made from a tumor and discovered that her brain cancer could not infect his mind.
• Jin agreed to wait while Yi Chen settled his transaction with Yuri, then planned to join him and Regan at the Power Station to enter a dream.
• Yuri met Yi Chen on the spiral staircase and led him to a sealed mechanical workshop for an examination.
• During the examination, Yuri told Yi Chen that the nightmare could infiltrate Zion within three months and might threaten the entire city.
• Yi Chen said he intended to apply for Nightmare Exploration because he was interested in the nightmare, and Yuri promised to teach him something useful.

Yi Chen learned Prophet Yuri’s slaughter technique by using the prototype servants to enhance his tactile sense and identify Slaughter Lines. After seeing faint lines on Yuri, Yi Chen left to practice on his own and consider attempting Nightmare Qualification under Deslin’s supervision.

• Prophet Yuri explained that efficient slaughter required identifying and cutting precise Slaughter Lines, then led Yi Chen to a secret room filled with humanoid prototypes.
• Yi Chen spent three days touching the prototypes, training himself to sense their anatomy without relying on sight.
• Yi Chen began seeing Slaughter Lines on the prototypes and found the lines on Prophet Yuri blurred and shifting like red mist.
• Prophet Yuri told Yi Chen his training was complete and refused his request to use the arena again.
• Yi Chen agreed to practice elsewhere and discuss attempting Nightmare Qualification with Deslin; after Yi Chen left, Prophet Yuri returned to designing maids.

Yi Chen and Jin recruited Regan to join a trial Nightmare Exploration, then persuaded Principal Deslin to approve their participation. The three prepared to enter the dream under supervision at the Power Station.

• Yi Chen and Jin discussed their weapons and the possibility of relying on their own strength during a Nightmare Event.
• Yi Chen and Jin met Regan outside the Power Station, and Regan agreed to hear about their plans over hotpot.
• Yi Chen told Regan about his previous nightmare and asked him to join the trial exploration, while Regan's girlfriend urged him to go.
• Yi Chen, Jin, and Regan met with Principal Deslin and explained why their Sensitivity and nightmare experience made them suitable candidates.
• Regan proposed using the Power Station's monitored dream-entry room, and Deslin agreed to supervise their exploration.