Chapter Summaries

Anvis led Fiona and Annie out of the stronghold after revealing why he suspected their clan uncle had betrayed them. Before leaving, he declined Landon’s invitation but proposed future cooperation between Star Territory and the Spark Organization, leaving Landon and Lord Dark Raven to wonder about him.

• Anvis told Fiona he suspected their clan uncle had used a concealed Space-Time Beacon to let enemies into the Lord's Manor and had acted suspiciously after Father went missing.
• Anvis refused Landon’s renewed invitation to join the Spark Organization and led Fiona and Annie toward the exit.
• Fiona offered Landon and the others positions in Star Territory, and Ailisha asked whether they could join without leaving the Spark Rebel Army.
• Anvis said Star Territory and the Spark Organization could cooperate, but Landon objected to working with the ruling class.
• Before teleporting away, Anvis told Landon that revolution required building a better order, not merely destroying the old one.
• Lord Dark Raven comforted Landon after the trio vanished and privately noted that Anvis seemed strangely familiar.

Anvis explained to Fiona why Star Territory could cooperate with the Spark Organization and how they could place the blame on Adjutant Boley if necessary. As they left Star Territory with a powerful guard, Anvis began investigating why the Star Gazer had arranged for Fia to bond with Fiona.

• Anvis told Fiona that Star Territory’s true enemies were the Empire’s nobles and that the Fourth Princess would soon have little reason to object to their cooperation with the Spark Organization.
• Anvis suggested publicly blaming Adjutant Boley if Star Territory needed to disavow its ties to the Spark Organization, and Annie agreed that the accusation suited his position.
• Anvis said he would take Fiona to other territories in Carlas Province and introduced a cloaked Eighth Rank peak guard, his Force Dragon Avatar.
• Anvis used the Force Dragon Avatar to teleport Fiona, Annie, and himself away while erasing their spatial traces.
• Anvis considered Fia’s connection to the Star Gazer and began reasoning through how events would have unfolded without the Star Gazer’s intervention.

Anvis brought Fiona and Annie to White Light City and prepared to accelerate the Elemental Young Dragon’s growth so its breakthrough would reveal the Star Gazer’s location. He began the process by feeding it blood essence from his Force Dragon Avatar.

• Anvis decided to wait until Gray Mist’s Ninth Rank breakthrough to provoke the recovering Star Gazer, since Gray Mist could not yet defeat him.
• Anvis and his companions teleported to a forest outside White Light City and entered his upgraded portable Safe House.
• Anvis asked Fiona to summon the Elemental Young Dragon, which had nearly reached the Eighth Rank and developed a balanced attribute that let it control multiple kinds of Mana.
• Anvis used his Force Dragon Avatar to force a drop of its blood essence into the Elemental Young Dragon’s throat to hasten its breakthrough.

Anvis gave Fia refined Force Dragon blood to strengthen her, then brought Fiona into White Light City to inspect its development. He found the city bustling with Players and gathered information about their progress and remaining resurrection attempts.

• Anvis fed Fia a drop of refined Force Dragon blood, which rapidly strengthened her aura, and sent her back to the Summoning Space to rest.
• Anvis told Fiona that his companion was an Eighth Rank Force Dragon and that its blood could help Fia break through within a month.
• Anvis asked Fiona what she wanted to do, and she chose to follow him as the group disguised themselves and entered White Light City.
• Anvis explained that the White Light Club had built the city on territory he had acquired for the Players.
• Anvis scanned nearby Players' Panels and observed their high levels, dwindling resurrection attempts, and stalls selling goods from the mountains.

Anvis explained Outsider trade and the risks Players posed to Fiona while they traveled to meet the White Light Club and connect it with Oswivia. After Players detected them and fled, a group decided to follow Anvis and Fiona, hoping to exploit a quest and then report them to the City Guard.

• Fiona asked Anvis how an Orc Player had bought a Frost Iron Greatsword without paying in Gold Coins, and Anvis explained Cash Transactions.
• Fiona questioned how Outsider currency could be used to steal goods, and Anvis warned her not to entrust Players with large procurement funds.
• Several Players used Detection on Anvis and Fiona, and Fiona noticed their probing waves as they scattered.
• Anvis led Fiona toward the White Light Club Headquarters to connect the club with Oswivia, while his Avatar sent the Fourth Princess a letter explaining his plans.
• The Players discussed Anvis and Fiona's apparent abilities and decided to follow them, seek a quest, and report them to the City Guard afterward.

Anvis offered the White Light Club’s Light and Shadow guild a chance to cooperate with the Fourth Princess, but its manager asked for two days to decide. As Anvis, Fiona, and Annie explored White Light City, two Players tried to guide them as part of a plot to track them and draw in the City Guard.

• Anvis gave the Light and Shadow manager a letter proposing that the guild support the Fourth Princess, and the manager requested two days to consider the offer.
• Anvis left with Fiona and Annie without mentioning Lanno, who had joined the Fourth Princess’s faction while secretly building his own forces and seeking reformist noble support.
• Two Players approached the group, claiming to offer newcomers a guided tour, and Anvis asked them to lead the way to the largest inn and trade market.
• Qi Dalong introduced himself and offered help, but Anvis declined his services, so Qi Dalong left.
• The two guides contacted their accomplices and said they had alerted the City Guard, then instructed them to stay close and plant a tracker.

Anvis realized the Players were trying to track him and his companions, then repeatedly stopped them from obtaining a quest. A City Guard inspection detected nothing, leaving Anvis’s concealment intact as the guards questioned the group.

• The Players planned to lure over the City Guard and secretly mark Anvis and his companions with a quest or tracker.
• Anvis overheard the Players’ messages and recognized their plan to obtain a daily quest by offering Star Glow Ice Drop.
• Anvis interrupted both Players before they could pitch the nonexistent Star Glow Ice Drop, and Fiona and Annie refused their approaches too.
• A City Guard squad led by a captain surrounded Anvis and his companions, with Xiao Cao disguised among the guards.
• The captain used a detection token, which showed no signs of concealment, hostile faction, or wanted status among the three companions.

Anvis’s group was caught in an ambush by Players who tried to provoke a fight with the City Guard, but a Watchers Association member named Last Dragonborn intervened and captured the attacker. Anvis learned that the small organization might hold significance for him, and Last Dragonborn explained its purpose as he warned the fleeing accomplices.

• Player Emperor of Grass used a mist attack to ambush the City Guard squad and tried to make Anvis retaliate.
• The City Guard captain called for support and activated the squad members’ badge defenses while searching through the mist.
• Last Dragonborn bound Emperor of Grass with a cyan flame spell and dispersed the mist with a gale.
• The City Guard captain thanked Last Dragonborn and took the captured thief away for interrogation.
• Last Dragonborn warned the two accomplice Players, who left White Light City with Anvis’s group.
• Anvis asked about the Watchers Association, and Last Dragonborn described it as a small organization devoted to peace.

After the Last Dragonborn rescued Fiona and Anvis from attacking Players, Anvis joined the Watchers Association and discovered its receptionist Helena was a powerful Child of Destiny among the Contactees. He recognized her potential to let him influence the Contactees’ fate, though he could not tell whether he had encountered her in his previous life.

• Fiona asked why the Players had attacked, and the Last Dragonborn guessed they wanted bounties or loot.
• Anvis asked to join the Watchers Association, and its president, Rivers, welcomed him.
• Rivers led Anvis, Fiona, and their companion to the association’s headquarters in White Light City.
• Helena greeted the group and introduced herself as a First Order Apprentice Watcher.
• Anvis recognized Helena’s radiant Thread of Fate and realized she was a Child of Destiny among the Contactees.

Anvis joined the Watchers Association in White Light City and grew closer to Helena while keeping watch on events across the Empire. After Pomona rescued Duke Carlot, Anvis chose to wait before contacting him, leaving the Duke's reunion with Fiona dependent on Gray Mist's breakthrough.

• Anvis registered with the Watchers Association, received his Emblem Waist Tag, and paid for three rooms at its inn.
• Anvis and Fiona spent half a month touring White Light City while he fed Fia Force Dragon bloodline essence and suppressed her power near a breakthrough.
• Anvis monitored the Empire and learned that the war between the two Princes and Princesses remained limited to low- and mid-level fighters.
• Pomona returned to the Olivenndi Family, claimed to have found Duke Carlot, and led the Family Guardian to rescue him from the Divine Power Seal.
• Anvis decided not to contact Duke Carlot yet and planned to tell him to take Fiona back after Gray Mist's breakthrough.
• Anvis befriended Helena and learned that Loren Wind Whisperer had found her as an abandoned infant and raised her in his orchestra.

Helena told Fiona about her past as an opera performer and mourned the destruction caused by the Empire’s civil war. Anvis warned that the conflict involved many powerful factions and could last for years, while his attempt to control Marquis Delaka neared its critical moment.

• Helena explained how she gained an ability to convey emotions through song after the Ma'eilimu incident and later joined the Watchers Association as a receptionist.
• Helena told Fiona that Hui Stone City had fallen into street fighting after the Earl of Heden's army besieged it, and she hoped the war would end soon.
• Fiona explained that the First Prince and Fourth Princess were competing for the throne and guessed the civil war could last several years.
• Anvis continued monitoring Marquis Delaka, whose weakening consciousness was close to realizing he was trapped in an illusion.
• Anvis told Fiona that the civil war involved numerous factions and might not end for years, comparing the struggle to Gloria III's decades-long path to the throne.

Anvis explained how intelligence gathering and association missions could reveal events across the Empire, then noticed an unusual shortage of Magic Construct materials tied to mass procurement. He left to deal with Marquis Delaka and investigate the shortage, while Fiona and Helena discussed what they hoped a new Empress would do.

• Anvis advised Fiona to build an independent intelligence network and use association missions to learn about events across the Empire.
• Anvis noticed a mission seeking large quantities of Magic Construct materials and connected it to sudden shortages and mass procurement by Federation merchant guilds.
• Anvis told Fiona to call for help if needed, then returned to his room to deal with Marquis Delaka and divine the cause of the shortage again.
• Fiona praised Anvis to Helena, who said she hoped a new Empress would bring a longer period of peace.
• Anvis returned his main consciousness to the Floating City in the Deep Dream World and reflected that the civil war had kept the imperial family from searching for Marquis Delaka.

Anvis entered the Floating City's illusion to plant a Twisted Seed in the imprisoned Marquis Delaka, whose eyes were closed in the real world. He appeared before Delaka in the illusion, where Delaka immediately attacked him.

• Anvis traveled to the ruined Seventh District, where Marquis Delaka remained sealed inside a distorted region of light.
• Anvis asked Bohemia to project his consciousness into Delaka's illusion, and Bohemia warned that the projection would probably be destroyed within thirty seconds.
• Anvis entered the illusion and saw Marquis Delaka fighting the Revelation Golems on a battlefield.
• Anvis teleported in front of Delaka and waved, but Delaka hurled a Star of Destruction at him while raising magical protections.

Anvis struggled to implant a Twisted Seed in Marquis Delaka, whose Ninth Rank will resisted the effect despite his weakened state. By adjusting the Seed to offer Marquis Delaka power in exchange for faith, Anvis succeeded just before the illusion’s control failed.

• Marquis Delaka destroyed Anvis’s projections while taunting him and claiming he had sent an emergency signal, though Bohemia confirmed he had not sent one in reality.
• Marquis Delaka tried and failed to trace Anvis’s true body, then continued destroying each projection that appeared.
• Anvis realized Marquis Delaka’s Ninth Rank will made the Twisted Seed nearly impossible to implant through force, so he stopped sending projections to their deaths.
• Anvis revised the Twisted Seed so Marquis Delaka would carry out his commands unless they endangered his life and would receive power in exchange for faith.
• Marquis Delaka’s resistance weakened, and Anvis successfully formed the Twisted Seed before the illusion’s control failed.

Anvis left Marquis Delaka to repair the Floating City and investigated a shortage of Construct materials, but Gray Mist’s fate-mist warning stopped his divination. In the Iter Federation, Lolan XV learned Gray Mist was likely to break through within a week and accepted the unrest his schemes had caused as necessary.

• Marquis Delaka reported that the Circle of Truth was likely a small organization supported by one Ninth Rank being, and Anvis learned that nearly every powerful faction had impersonated it.
• Anvis left Marquis Delaka in charge of the Floating City's repairs, using Bohemia to provide blueprints and arrange materials.
• Anvis returned to the Yar Continent and began a formal divination into the shortage of mid- and low-rank Construct materials.
• Gray Mist's fate-mist blocked Anvis from tracing the shortage's source, so Anvis ended the divination rather than provoke him before his likely breakthrough.
• Hilla told Lolan XV that Gray Mist had over a ninety percent chance of reaching Ninth Rank within a week and that his ideas had fueled unrest and attacks on nobles.
• Lolan XV said he understood Gray Mist's scheme and accepted that some people would have to be sacrificed.

Lolan XV ordered Hilla to investigate Gray Mist and oversee the Federation-wide production of Construct Prosthetics, while a Player team discovered a secret construct factory in Dragon Claw City. The team was ambushed, and its captain escaped with a construct body sample.

• Lolan XV told Hilla to gather information on Gray Mist and supervise Construct Prosthetic production, promising her rare resources for a future breakthrough.
• A Player team posing as ore sellers tracked the Gilded Vine Merchant Guild’s shipments to a warehouse in Dragon Claw City.
• The Players infiltrated the warehouse and discovered a concealed passage leading to an automated factory producing humanoid constructs.
• The team found that the constructs disappeared through a hole in a dark wall, but the captain suspected the easy infiltration was a trap.
• Niu Lilue and Tao Taojiang died as jet-black Construct Knights attacked, and the captain escaped with a construct body sample after most of the team sacrificed themselves.

The Speaker explained that he was distributing Construct humanoids to free ordinary civilians from labor and increase the number of Professional candidates, offering to fund the first batch and fifty years of maintenance himself. As knowledge of the Construct factories spread, Anvis obtained one of the unusual Construct bodies through his subordinates.

• Factions across the Federation tested the humanoid Constructs and found them mediocre in combat but suited to long-term mental control.
• Silver Moon VII asked Lolan XV why he had expanded Construct production, and the Speaker argued that Constructs could replace civilian labor and help produce more Professionals.
• A member of parliament questioned how the Federation could afford the plan, and the Speaker pledged to cover the initial Constructs and their maintenance for fifty years.
• Two days later, Anvis learned about the production lines and obtained a Construct body through his network of subordinates.

Anvis discovered that Olbins had designed mind-bearing construct modules connected to Gray Mist’s plan and suspected the constructs were intended for ordinary people. When Gray Mist’s rise to Ninth Rank was blocked by a mysterious mesh, Anvis triggered a costly fate ritual to alert the missing Star Gazer.

• Anvis recognized the construct’s design as similar to Explorer mechs from his previous life and sent its body and blueprints to Olbins for an explanation.
• Olbins told Anvis that he had designed the construct’s control module and could mass-produce modules that even ordinary people could control.
• Anvis connected the constructs’ mass production and weak combat abilities to a possible plan involving ordinary people, though Gray Mist’s information blockade kept him from reaching a firm conclusion.
• The Web of Fate trembled as Gray Mist appeared poised to become a Ninth Rank Diviner, but a strange mesh separated Gray Mist from the Web.
• Anvis released Fia’s restraints, allowing her aura to reach Eighth Rank, then destroyed his Mercury Dice to spend Fate Feedback and use the Web of Fate to wake the Star Gazer.

The Star Gazer awoke when Gray Mist reached Ninth Rank, then separated him from the Web of Fate as Gray Mist confronted his former teacher. Meanwhile, the Empire’s civil war erupted against Oswivia, and the Federation announced free Construct Human bodies for its residents.

• A ripple through the Web of Fate awakened the injured Star Gazer and caused his temporary refuge beyond history to collapse.
• The Star Gazer pulled Gray Mist away from the Web of Fate, and Gray Mist mocked him for breaking the warning he had taught his student about fate.
• A Ninth Rank retainer attacked Oswivia with a black stone dagger, wounding her and contaminating her Spiritual Power before fleeing.
• The First Prince launched a total assault on Oswivia and led two Ninth Rank retainers toward her palace while space was sealed against her allies.
• The Speaker announced universal Construct Human distribution, and Federation service points began handing out bodies and headbands to residents and Players.

As Gray Mist’s coordinated crises destabilized the Three Great Empires and weakened the Star Gazer’s restraints, the Star Gazer chose to exile Gray Mist into the future rather than stop his breakthrough outright. Just as he acted, he noticed Anvis, whose encounter with the Star Gazer’s projection left its purpose unclear.

• The councilors accepted the Speaker’s plan to equip citizens with construct humanoids while focusing on the Spark Rebel Army’s growing conquests and the displaced kingdoms attached to the Federation Parliament.
• Heretic Cultists and awakened ancient beings drove the Holy Messiah Empire’s Overlapping Zones to expand, adding to the crises Gray Mist had set in motion.
• Gray Mist’s schemes caused the Web of Fate around him to destabilize, increasing the power he could gain by breaking through to Ninth Rank.
• The Star Gazer calculated that stopping Gray Mist was unlikely, so he decided to exile him into the future despite the cost to his recovery.
• The Star Gazer locked onto Gray Mist through the Web of Fate and began dissolving his spiral beard to unleash the exile, making Gray Mist uneasy and prompting him to speed up his breakthrough.
• Anvis stared at a projection visible only to him as the Star Gazer recognized him as a little one of the Olyvendi Family.