Chapter Summaries

Huai Shi’s classical music elective drew a huge crowd, but he discovered that student clubs were stirring up hostility and forced attendance to turn him into the center of a campus conflict. After a colleague warned him to be careful, a middle-aged man confronted him at the hall entrance.

• Huai Shi recruited Ivory Tower Orchestra officers to perform in his classes and revised his lesson plan after his successful first lecture.
• Huai Shi’s later classes filled with fans who pursued his contact information and asked personal questions, so he signed photos, assigned homework, and declined their elective applications.
• Huai Shi noticed hostile students and found a mocking drawing of himself; Lin Shijiu reported that clubs had forced members to attend and that rumors were fueling clashes between students who supposedly hated or admired Huai Shi.
• Huai Shi recognized that someone was deliberately inflaming the conflict to make him suffer, and he predicted that someone would soon approach him.
• A refined lecturer warned Huai Shi to be careful, and a middle-aged man confronted him at the hall entrance, demanding that he leave room for the other classrooms.

Huai Shi confronted Sasaki Kiyomasa, who had come to challenge him over the decline of the Flower Arrangement Classroom. After Huai Shi defeated him without drawing a blade, they talked over a meal, and Huai Shi decided to bring Sasaki onto his side.

• Sasaki Kiyomasa arrived at the lobby with a sword and demanded that Huai Shi face him.
• Huai Shi stopped Sasaki from drawing his sword, and Sasaki's blade shattered in its sheath as fear overwhelmed him.
• Huai Shi revealed that Sasaki could not leave, then greeted him warmly and invited him to eat.
• Over dinner, Sasaki explained how losing his patron and the Flower Arrangement Classroom's professor had left him desperate to protect the classroom.
• Huai Shi forgave Sasaki and encouraged him to work harmoniously with their classrooms, while privately deciding Sasaki would be a useful ally.

Huai Shi let the backlash over forced club dues build while he secured approval to close enrollment for Classical Music Appreciation and had his fans expose the people stirring up trouble. Morgan’s attempt to ruin Huai Shi’s reputation began to collapse, and the chapter ended as a club member warned Morgan that someone had come to their door.

• Huai Shi told Lin Shijiu not to respond immediately and gave her a task after discussing the situation with Sasaki.
• Sasaki Kiyomasa paid his fine and called his conflict with Huai Shi a misunderstanding, while Huai Shi continued teaching as usual.
• The Research Office approved Huai Shi’s request to close enrollment after more than seven hundred students had been selected for his course.
• The Paradise Prince Fan Club investigated the people claiming to be Huai Shi fans and exposed over a hundred suspects, many of them freeloaders and some linked to the student council and purebloods.
• Morgan realized his scheme against Huai Shi had backfired as clubs refused to turn against Huai Shi and Sasaki Kiyomasa became his admirer.
• A club member rushed in to tell Morgan that someone had come to their door.

Huai Shi visited clubs whose members had spread rumors about him, only to find that Yuan Yuan had already forced most of them to apologize. At the Sea Fishing Club, Huai Shi confronted Morgan and supervising teacher Jacob about the trouble caused in his classroom and among his students.

• Lin Zhongxiaowu identified the students stirring up rumors and gave Huai Shi a list of them.
• Huai Shi and Lin Shijiu found the Ivory Tower Sprinting Association beaten and learned that an unknown visitor had demanded apologies.
• Yuan Yuan defeated members of eight clubs and headed to the Sea Fishing Club, where Morgan challenged her and Jacob intervened.
• Yuan Zhao arrived and threatened Morgan for insulting Yuan Yuan.
• Huai Shi arrived with Lin Zhongxiaowu, thanked Yuan Yuan, and confronted Jacob about the trouble affecting his classroom and students.

Huai Shi confronted Jacob over the Sea Fishing Club’s treatment of his students, using a display of powerful relics to discourage a student brawl. Yuan Yuan submitted an application to join Huai Shi’s classroom and stepped forward to represent it, while Huai Shi ended the first dispute and began raising a second matter.

• Huai Shi demanded an explanation from Jacob, who claimed the situation was a misunderstanding and said students should resolve disputes themselves.
• Huai Shi lent Lin Shijiu several dangerous Border Relics in turn, frightening Jacob and the Sea Fishing Club students away from a direct confrontation.
• Yuan Yuan offered to represent the Classical Music Classroom and submitted her completed application to become Huai Shi’s student.
• Huai Shi accepted Yuan Yuan’s application after confirming that she had made up her mind and that her family agreed.
• Yuan Yuan stood before the Sea Fishing Club with the Sanjun Heavy Sword as Huai Shi challenged Jacob to take the dispute to the School Affairs Office.
• Huai Shi agreed to stop discussing the first matter and announced that he wanted to discuss a second matter.

Huai Shi confronted Morgan and the purebloods’ club, then used a Virtual Classroom to brutally defeat Jacob while teaching Lin Shijiu and Yuan Yuan sword techniques. He left with his students after warning Morgan, bringing his first fan meeting to a close.

• Morgan learned that no teachers besides Jacob had come to help, while Huai Shi announced he had arrived to hold a meet-and-greet for his fans.
• Huai Shi challenged Jacob to settle their dispute in a Virtual Classroom and told Lin Shijiu and Yuan Yuan that the fight would be their first lesson.
• Huai Shi weakened himself to a blank slate, borrowed Yuan Yuan’s Sanjun Greatsword, and killed Jacob with a beheading strike.
• Huai Shi repeatedly killed Jacob while demonstrating greatsword execution methods and teaching the students, stopping for a five-minute break along the way.
• Huai Shi left the collapsed classroom, warned Morgan to take responsibility for the students, and departed with Lin Shijiu and Yuan Yuan.

After the Ivory Tower quietly settled the consequences of Huai Shi’s duel with Jacob, Huai Shi resumed teaching and found that guiding his students had begun to improve Shao Siming’s Stigmata. He prepared to pursue a more profitable plan, and a week later the Vice Principal arrived early for Huai Shi’s Abyssal Ecology lesson on Abyssal Plants.

• The School Affairs Office gave Huai Shi and Jacob each a demerit and a week’s pay deduction, while Jacob received six months of leave to recover.
• Andrea questioned Anton about Huai Shi’s actions, and Anton defended Huai Shi’s restraint and the necessity of measured violence.
• Huai Shi continued teaching Lin Shijiu and Yuan Yuan, whose violin and decapitation training progressed at different rates.
• Huai Shi noticed that Shao Siming’s Stigmata improved as his students learned, and he decided to seek another way to gain correction values.
• A week later, the Vice Principal arrived early for Huai Shi’s Abyssal Ecology class on Abyssal Plants.

Huai Shi taught the Ivory Tower’s first-year students Abyssal botany, impressing Vice Principal Isaac with his expertise before turning the remaining class time into a lesson on preparing edible Abyssal plants. The students watched as he cooked a plant specimen, captivated by its unexpectedly appetizing smell.

• Isaac defended Huai Shi’s appointment as the botany teaching assistant and warned him not to make mistakes in class.
• Huai Shi began his lesson with a live demonstration, growing a mimic vine from a seed and explaining Abyssal plants to the students.
• Huai Shi delivered a thorough four-hour botany lesson in three hours, answering questions and demonstrating plants he discussed.
• Huai Shi brought out cooking equipment and explained that he would teach the students how to process forty-one edible Abyssal plants.
• Huai Shi cooked part of the mimic vine as the students watched, intrigued by its appetizing fragrance.

Huai Shi’s Hell Cooking Class sparked a major effort to publish practical abyssal recipes, earning him recognition and a one-star Culinary Demon license. After a month of teaching and other accomplishments, he won the Ivory Tower’s sole official classroom slot, while Martin was eliminated from the competition.

• Students and survival clubs sought Huai Shi’s help after his cooking class, and Culinary Demons and other groups joined his project.
• The Hell Survival Guide published an 800-page supplement containing 417 simple abyssal recipes, and Huai Shi received a one-star Culinary Demon license.
• Huai Shi’s achievements made him the clear choice for the Ivory Tower’s official classroom slot, while Martin was eliminated from the competition by his own teacher.
• Huai Shi accepted the classroom award and, seeing Martin’s disappointment, offered to let him touch the trophy.

After becoming an official Ivory Tower employee, Huai Shi met the eccentric principal, who abruptly took him to the library to meet the Book of Destiny. The chapter ended with Huai Shi arriving at the dark, closed library still sitting on his sofa.

• Huai Shi chose to return his classroom to its original location and let Yuan Yuan select from the construction students’ proposals.
• Huai Shi returned home and found an old monkey watching television in his reception room, who revealed himself as the principal.
• The principal chatted with Huai Shi, transforming into different animals, while Huai Shi hid his irritation and tried to get him to leave.
• The principal told Huai Shi that his permanent classroom made him an official Ivory Tower employee and that it was time to meet the Book of Destiny.
• The principal used his tail to transport Huai Shi and his sofa to the plaza outside the dark, closed library.

Huai Shi followed the principal into the Ivory Tower library, where the principal revealed that Huai Shi’s Heavenly Kingdom Lineage trial was the Celestial Sphere of Myriad Phenomena. At the Tower’s core, Huai Shi saw countless fragments of Heaven and a projection resembling the original Book of Destiny, which the principal said was fake.

• The principal took Huai Shi into the library, where the retired guard opened a massive fingerprint-locked door after initially using the wrong hand.
• The principal recognized Huai Shi as a member of the Heavenly Kingdom Lineage and asked which screening trial he had passed.
• Huai Shi said he had passed the Celestial Sphere of Myriad Phenomena, and the principal remarked on the trouble Golden Dawn had been causing there.
• The principal reassured Huai Shi that he trusted him because he was Osiris’s pilot and had inherited Mr. Oton’s legacy.
• Huai Shi reached the Ivory Tower’s underground core and saw countless fragments of Heaven surrounding a projection that resembled the Book of Destiny.
• Huai Shi called the sight beautiful, and the principal said the projection was fake.

Huai Shi met the principal in Ivory Tower’s inner core and learned that the Book of Destiny was fake there and that Russell had been searching for the real one. Russell said the Book had chosen Huai Shi, introduced himself as a former candidate for it, and then shocked Huai Shi as punishment for calling him Old Turtle.

• The principal appeared amid a vision of countless beasts and asked Huai Shi if the Book of Destiny was on him, but Huai Shi called him Old Turtle and prepared to defend himself.
• The principal revealed that Ivory Tower’s Book of Destiny was fake and that he had begun searching for the real one after Heavenly Kingdom Fall.
• The principal explained that he sensed the Book about a year earlier, while Huai Shi said its influence on his life had begun even before that.
• The principal admitted he had bluffed Huai Shi into confirming that the Book of Destiny was on him and assured him that he had no intention of taking it.
• The principal introduced himself as Russell, a former Heaven’s reserve recorder and candidate for the Book of Destiny, and shook Huai Shi’s hand.
• Russell electrocuted Huai Shi for calling him Old Turtle and called it his first lesson as Huai Shi’s teacher.

Russell made Huai Shi his student and gave him the damaged record War and Peace as a companion. After Huai Shi recognized his bond with the Book of Destiny, Russell sent him away, choosing to remain beneath the Sky Dome projection.

• Russell declared himself Huai Shi’s teacher and gave him the orange cat, War and Peace, as a welcome gift.
• Russell explained that War and Peace was a damaged record that changed forms and granted offensive or restorative auras on different days of the week.
• Russell told Huai Shi that he had once wanted to kill him but had accepted that Utopia would not return and that he should spend his remaining years on other pursuits.
• Huai Shi realized the Book of Destiny had become inseparable from his life and told Russell he could show it to him.
• Russell declined to see the Book of Destiny, and Huai Shi left while Russell stayed behind to watch its projection.

Russell and Crow discussed how to guide Huai Shi, while Crow admitted she had already put him through plenty of hardship. On his first day in the Research Office, Huai Shi was appointed secretary to the principal, then received Russell’s authorization to use the Dragon Calling Flute to search for an Abyssal lineage and build his own Swarm.

• Crow warned Russell not to coerce Huai Shi, and Russell agreed to consider a gentler approach.
• Crow revealed that she had already tried to harden Huai Shi through hardship, and she admitted she had enjoyed it.
• The Vice Principal announced that Huai Shi would temporarily replace Ramanuzin as secretary to the principal’s office.
• Huai Shi went to Russell’s office, where Russell offered him the school’s Dragon Calling Flute.
• Russell authorized Huai Shi to use the Flute for two hours so he could search for an Abyssal lineage compatible with his Stigmata.

Huai Shi used the Dragon Calling Flute to summon abyssal races for recruitment, filtering the overwhelming responses with help from Shao Siming’s Holy Mark. He rejected one candidate after another and was left waiting for the next arrival.

• Huai Shi entered the Dragon Calling Flute facility, where his Holy Mark surged out of control and disrupted the matrix until he managed to restrain it.
• Huai Shi broadcast his Source Matter signature into the abyss and was overwhelmed by countless responses, so he used the Book of Destiny to filter out unsuitable candidates.
• Shao Siming’s Holy Mark further narrowed the responses, leaving Huai Shi with a little over four hundred possibilities to review.
• Huai Shi summoned a sled-dog-like abyssal species, a goblin, and a seductive woman, then sent each back with the repatriation button.
• Huai Shi rejected several more arrivals, and a familiar mascot-costumed figure recognized him and fled by pressing the repatriation button itself.
• Huai Shi questioned whether any suitable abyssal race would answer as the summoning array lit up again.

Huai Shi’s search for dependable creatures to recruit led him from a bizarre group of Abyssal Gnomes and a deadly summoning mishap to a flock of Crows from Yamatai Hell. He ended the chapter in Russell’s office with 1,132 new recruits and learned that his oversized Crow had evolved into a Rin Winter's Raven.

• Huai Shi was horrified when sixteen Abyssal Gnomes appeared to audition, then sent them away after learning they had been referred by Paganini.
• A later summoning produced only cursed scraps, and the Ivory Tower’s defenses destroyed the unseen presence that had targeted Huai Shi.
• The Book of Destiny changed the summoning order, bringing out a familiar Crow from Yamatai Hell that offered Huai Shi a mouse as food.
• The Crow summoned its flock, and hundreds of Crows flooded the Dragon Calling Flute until Huai Shi told the administrator that recruitment was over.
• Russell told Huai Shi that 1,132 Crows had arrived and identified the oversized Crow as a Rin Winter's Raven, demonstrating its ability to freeze water.

Huai Shi transformed more than a thousand hell crows into a flock under his command and stored them in a Dream Cage, while Russell assigned him a troublesome Ivory Tower task and billed him for using the Dragon Calling Flute. After Huai Shi asked the black-hearted woman for her name, she finally told him she was Tong Ji.

• Russell explained that the frost-like crows were a rare mutant species compatible with Huai Shi, then demanded 170 million for the Dragon Calling Flute’s fuel and extra charges.
• Huai Shi accepted an official Ivory Tower assignment from Russell and faced the problem of housing the thousand-plus crows he had summoned.
• The black-hearted woman helped Huai Shi sign contracts with the flock, and his Burial Sanctuary transformed the crows into Source Matter creatures under his control.
• Nine crows gained Stigmata and became Candle-Bearing Crows, while the flock began chanting “Holy” after Huai Shi used the Book of Destiny.
• The black-hearted woman gave Huai Shi a Dream Cage that held the flock, then revealed her name as Tong Ji when he asked her directly.

Huai Shi discovered that the Dream Cage had grown stronger overnight and used it to give Lin Shijiu an unexpected boost during their lesson. He then told Lin Shijiu and Yuan Yuan to pack for a business trip, leaving their destination unstated.

• After searching all night for information about Tong Ji, Huai Shi found nothing, then noticed the Dream Cage's count had risen from 1,132 to 1,156.
• Lin Shijiu and Yuan Yuan arrived for their lesson, and Huai Shi suspected Lin Shijiu was stirring up trouble at school despite his diligent homework.
• Lin Shijiu confessed that Yuan Zhao had skipped classes to attend an anime expo, and Huai Shi discovered Yuan Zhao had won awards there.
• Huai Shi gave Lin Shijiu the Dream Cage, whose Negative Origin Essence energized him and stimulated his Water Serpent Stigmata; Huai Shi limited his use to ten minutes a day.
• Huai Shi told Lin Shijiu and Yuan Yuan to pack and join him on a business trip for training and practical experience.

Huai Shi joined Andrea’s expedition with Yuan Yuan and Lin Shijiu to support the Abyssal division’s construction and collect plant samples. After the group descended through the Ivory Tower and boarded a steam train, they began a seventy-one-hour journey to Depth 9, Twilight Land.

• Huai Shi brought Yuan Yuan and Lin Shijiu along for the expedition, while the school approved his leave and arranged coverage for his classes.
• Huai Shi met Raymond and the other expedition members at the gathering point, where Andrea divided them into groups and organized the departure.
• The group’s platform descended through the Ivory Tower’s machinery to an underground station, where Raymond loaded the equipment onto a steam train.
• Huai Shi handed the boarding roster to Lin Shijiu and Yuan Yuan, who coordinated the students as they boarded.
• The train departed with ninety-seven passengers for Twilight Land at Depth 9, with the journey expected to take seventy-one hours.

Huai Shi and the Ivory Tower group traveled by train through the Russian Federation toward hell, preparing for their mission in Twilight Land. As they neared Fire City, Andrea warned Huai Shi that the assignment was emergency aid and might involve a fight, then asked him to take the night watch.

• Huai Shi and the students crossed the Russian Federation by train, watching iron rain fall and enormous spider-like machines gather resources.
• Andrea recognized Petrograd and recalled meeting Anton while interning aboard it.
• Huai Shi and Yuan Yuan handed out identification tags and radios before the group reached the parts of the journey where their devices would be confiscated.
• Andrea woke Huai Shi near Fire City and asked him to keep watch while she rested.
• Andrea told Huai Shi that the mission was emergency aid for Twilight Land and that the risk of fighting was probably high.