Chapter Summaries

Linsey tested the Steel Crest, then used the Decryption Game to find materials from the Star Sea Island Turtle and Ocean Undead Lord. He gained a Time Anchor that could free one person from the spacetime disorder and found a formula for a Phantom Shooter.

• Linsey tested the Steel Crest and continued digging through the meteorite, where the Decryption Game guided him to the Star Sea Island Turtle's shell.
• Linsey collected the Sea Turtle Shell and received a Time Anchor from the Hunting Notes, deciding to save it for later and help Alvitte and Arona if he could.
• Linsey tested weapons against the turtle's shell but managed to pry off only a piece that the workbench would not accept as a synthesis material.
• Linsey found the Ocean Undead Lord's hunting reward, the Words of Rose dagger, and collected its Phantom Eyes from a mass of lingering source essence.
• Linsey found a workbench formula that used the Phantom Eyes to craft a Phantom Shooter.

After Ocean Disaster summoned a meteorite and devastated the world, Linsey tried to lessen the lasting damage before traveling through the mist at the World's Edge. He concluded that he had been sent to Gold Water Marsh in an era before the City of Law existed.

• Linsey left the Meteor Crater and realized the meteorite and ongoing volcanic activity threatened the world for years, so he planted Sun Sunflowers on Meteor Mountain and scattered purifying, vitality-enhancing potions into the seawater.
• After doing what he could to help the world recover, Linsey set off toward the World's Edge and reached its fog-covered boundary two days later.
• Linsey used his Sky Compass to travel through the mist and contacted Alvitte to ask about worlds covered in shallow water.
• Alvitte identified Gold Water Marsh as a similar world, and Linsey guessed that time distortions had sent him there in an ancient era before the City of Law was founded.

Linsey entered the Great Rift World, a canyon spanning the world that he realized had been carved by an immensely powerful being, and accepted a mission to explore ancient places. His prospector’s pointer led him to a Uranium Ore mine, where he found the Fourteenth Expedition Team’s warning not to enter.

• Alvitte asked Linsey about expeditioners, and Linsey recounted his conversation with Sonia and the others while traveling through the fog.
• Linsey emerged into the Great Rift World and found clues indicating that a battle by powerful beings had created its enormous canyon.
• Linsey considered whether an Eighth Stage Awakened or a being from another universe had caused the canyon and accepted the Path of Adventure mission.
• Linsey traveled through the world by flight and, on the third day, followed his prospector’s pointer to a Uranium Ore mine.
• Linsey put on Multifunctional Survival Gear and found the Fourteenth Expedition Team’s warning, signed by Anda Phil, telling others to stay out of the cave.

Linsey explored the uranium mine and discovered that its deadly radiation could not be explained by ordinary uranium ore. He realized the radiation had been altered or fused with Source Material, and hurried deeper into the mine.

• Linsey entered the cavernous mine, followed the expeditioners’ tracks, and wondered how uranium radiation could have killed Awakened so quickly.
• Linsey witnessed the expeditioners’ final conversations and decisions, and resolved to photograph their sacrifice as a record.
• Linsey’s camera picked up white static, revealing that radiation was interfering with it despite the absence of a nearby mining site on his map.
• Linsey reconsidered the radiation through the world’s rules about Awakened and realized the uranium ore had been affected by or fused with Source Material.

Linsey mined Uranium Ore and built a Diffusion Separator to produce Enriched Uranium, whose crafting recipes included increasingly powerful nuclear weapons. As radiation began penetrating his gear, he prepared to reach a larger, deeper mining spot by boosting himself and using Earth Escape.

• Linsey mined Uranium Ore and learned that producing Enriched Uranium required a specialized Diffusion Separator.
• Linsey used materials from his adventures to build the separator and spent a large amount of Source Material to produce Enriched Uranium.
• Linsey examined recipes for nuclear weapons, including hydrogen bombs made with Sun Shards, and considered their dangers.
• Linsey gathered more than a thousand pieces of Uranium Ore as radiation intensified and began affecting his body through his gear.
• Linsey equipped buff gear, entered a Datafication state, and used Earth Escape to burrow toward the larger, deeper mining spot.

Linsey survived retrieving the highly radioactive Radioactive Source Stone and considered how to use it while recovering from radiation damage. After setting out for the region where time and space were chaotic, he wondered whether combining it with his Time Anchor could let others return to Dust Road World with him.

• Linsey crawled out of the contaminated mine, coughing black blood as Life Source Material worked to heal him.
• Linsey recalled that his gear had failed underground and that he had risked severe radiation exposure to dislodge and retrieve the Radioactive Source Stone.
• Linsey reviewed the stone’s crafting formulas, decided to keep it stored in his bag, and dismissed the Small Reactor as unnecessary for now.
• Linsey rested through the day, then ate restorative food and recovered enough to continue traveling at night.
• Linsey headed toward the temporal-spatial chaos region and considered whether combining chaotic space-time with his Time Anchor could help others return to Dust Road World.

Linsey traveled through the canyon and found Ye Haiya, who was trying to use its temporal current to resolve the chaotic spacetime. He revealed that he had a time-related item that might help her plan.

• Linsey gathered herbs and prepared a stimulant and a fast-acting healing potion while traveling through the canyon.
• Linsey contacted Alvitte, who said she had found hope for resolving the City of Law's problem before cutting off communication.
• Linsey hurried toward the green marker and encountered Ye Haiya, who had protected him from the temporal current.
• Linsey apologized to Ye Haiya for deceiving her in the past, and she forgave him and explained her plan to intensify the temporal current so it could clear the chaotic timelines.
• Linsey offered the Time Anchor from his pack as a time-related item that could help Ye Haiya's plan.

Linsey and Ye Haiya entered the canyon’s chaotic spacetime to place the Time Anchor at its core. After Linsey used his Faster Than Light skill to free them from the time axis, they arrived in the canyon’s ruined future, where Ye Haiya sensed the core node.

• Ye Haiya explained that she could not deliver the Time Anchor into the spacetime chaos because her power depended on absent subordinates, so Linsey agreed to enter and plant it while she guided him.
• Ye Haiya suggested Linsey could remain in the past and pursue power, but he chose to return to the future and continue his unfinished business.
• Linsey and Ye Haiya clasped hands and entered the canyon, where the time axis stretched their surroundings and left Linsey unable to read his Scouting Skill’s clues.
• Ye Haiya tried to pull Linsey free, but they remained trapped until Linsey used Faster Than Light to remove the speed-of-light restriction.
• They landed in the canyon’s ruined future, and Ye Haiya sensed that the temporal shift had brought them to the core node causing the chaos.

Linsey and Ye Haiya searched the scorched canyon for the distorted Time Node, but an approaching puppet maid interrupted them. Ye Haiya recognized the era and location of the Time Node, and urged Linsey to accept the puppet’s offer of shelter.

• Ye Haiya asked Linsey about the music that had freed them from the speed-of-light restriction, and he explained that the Skill consumed too much source essence to use again soon.
• Linsey and Ye Haiya discussed whether the canyon belonged to a future timeline, and Linsey recounted his encounter with the expeditioners.
• A hostile Red Dot approached as an unseen presence watched Linsey and Ye Haiya from above.
• The Puppet Maid arrived and offered to escort them to a Safe Zone, though Linsey’s map still marked it as hostile.
• Ye Haiya told Linsey to accept the offer because she knew their place in time and the location of the distorted Time Node.

Linsey and Ye Haiya traveled through the ruins of the Artisan Revolution Era while Ye Haiya explained how artisans gained the laws of creation and fought for their rights. As Linsey analyzed the clues, he saw a past battle in which puppets and engineering machines attacked Awakened despite peace talks being planned in the City of Law.

• Linsey and Ye Haiya followed a Puppet Maid through a scorched canyon toward a Safe Zone.
• Ye Haiya explained that Sekret had broken artisans’ technical limits, creating the Boundary-Breaking Creative Principle, and that artisans had rebelled against their former rulers.
• The Puppet Maid used Source Material Skill to turn discarded wood into a cart and carried Linsey and Ye Haiya across the ruins.
• Linsey analyzed clues about the cart, the Puppet Maid, and the scorched-earth ruins, then combined them to reveal a vision of the war.
• In the vision, Awakened fought an army of puppets and engineering machines, while some fighters feared that the puppets had gone out of control and urged an attack despite the planned peace talks.

Linsey and Ye Haiya uncovered signs that the Puppet Maids were involved in the craftsmen’s revolution, while Linsey learned that Alvitte planned to bring past reinforcements into the future rather than restore the timeline. The trailer reached its destination, and the Puppet Maid invited them inside.

• Linsey used a private message to warn Ye Haiya that the Puppet Maid and the surrounding ruins were suspicious.
• Linsey learned that Alvitte was in the same era and planned to lead reinforcements into the future to suppress the war.
• Linsey recognized that Alvitte’s plan could be a way to seize control of her own fate and began weighing its feasibility.
• Ye Haiya recalled that the craftsmen’s final major war would pit them against the City of Law and identified the ruins as the site of an internal conflict among craftsmen.
• The Puppet Maid stopped the trailer and invited Linsey and Ye Haiya inside.

Linsey and Ye Haiya followed the Puppet Maid into a fortified base built by the craftsmen at the uranium mine Linsey had worked in days earlier. They discovered the craftsmen had completely harvested and decontaminated the site, and the chapter ended with Linsey identifying their required identity bracelets as Source Material Inhibitors.

• The Puppet Maid led Linsey and Ye Haiya to a metal fortress built into the gorge, and Linsey recognized it as the site where he had mined Uranium Ore.
• The Puppet Maid verified its identity and warned Linsey and Ye Haiya that the base contained defensive installations; they agreed to enter together despite the risk.
• Linsey saw that the craftsmen had preserved the expeditionary Anda Phil's warning inscription and told Ye Haiya that the craftsmen's use of the ore could make the base dangerous.
• Linsey and Ye Haiya followed the Puppet Maid through the transformed mine and found that the craftsmen had removed all the Uranium Ore and cleared the residual radiation.
• The Puppet Maid asked Linsey and Ye Haiya to register as residents and gave each of them an identity bracelet, which Linsey recognized as a Source Material Inhibitor.

Linsey and Ye Haiya refused the Puppet Maid’s Source Material Inhibitor Bracelets and began to leave, but the base’s creator invited them to meet. They followed the Puppet Maid deep underground and found a giant machine, whose voice asked whether they came from the past or the future.

• Linsey identified the bracelets as devices that would suppress Awakened skills, and he and Ye Haiya refused to wear them.
• The Puppet Maid allowed Linsey and Ye Haiya to leave, but a man speaking through a duct invited them to discuss their questions.
• Linsey and Ye Haiya decided to meet the man, who said he was the base’s builder and creator of the Puppet Maid children.
• The Puppet Maid led them down six more underground levels to a sealed room containing a massive machine.
• The man’s voice asked Linsey and Ye Haiya whether they came from the past or the future.

Ye Haiya and Linsey questioned the artisan trapped inside a mechanical shell and learned that the base’s time-energy sustained both its machinery and his life. The chapter ended with Linsey challenging the artisan to explain why his dolls and machines had attacked the canyon’s residents.

• Ye Haiya confronted the hidden artisan while Linsey inspected the machine and the base’s energy and cooling systems.
• The artisan revealed that enemies had destroyed his body, forcing him to transfer his consciousness into the machine, and asked what became of the artisans in Ye Haiya’s era.
• Ye Haiya told him that the artisans had their own World Main City and demanded to know why he had not investigated the future himself.
• The artisan explained that the local ore had run out and that he used extracted time energy to power the base and keep himself alive.
• Ye Haiya realized that ending the time-space turbulence would cut off the artisan’s energy and likely kill him.
• Linsey asked why the artisan’s dolls and machines had attacked ordinary residents in the canyon.

Linsey revealed that the base’s core was a self-aware machine, not a human craftsman, and learned that its mechanical inhabitants had lost their creator and were seeking guidance. As Linsey sensed hostility from the Puppet Maid, a quest appeared asking him to give the newborn Mechanical Species an answer—or an ending.

• Linsey told Ye Haiya that the base’s core was a computer with self-awareness and confronted it about pretending to be human.
• As the puppets mobilized, Linsey prepared to send the base skyward, but the core stopped the Puppet Maid and pleaded for a chance to explain.
• The core said the war had been fought on its master’s orders and that the master had died with the other craftsmen.
• The Puppet Maid explained that she was a combat unit, while the core said the machines had lost their creator and did not know what to do next.
• Linsey sensed hostility from the Puppet Maid, and a quest appeared about the newborn Mechanical Species seeking a path.

Linsey chose to guide the confused Machine Race rather than destroy them, hoping to make them powerful allies in the future. He told them stories to help them think for themselves, while considering leaving a skill creation behind before he and Ye Haiya returned to their own timeline.

• After learning the Machine Race had been created by a dead craftsman and could become either enemies or allies, Linsey decided to guide them instead of destroying them.
• Linsey told Ye Haiya he hoped to earn the Machine Race's favor and gain them as allies, and Ye Haiya accepted that their actions might affect history.
• When the Machine Race asked about their future, Linsey explained that he could not predict what they would become and offered to tell them stories to help them form their own ideas.
• Linsey told the Machine Race adapted stories of Ne Zha and tales from I, Robot, while leaving them room to choose their own path.
• After hearing the stories, the Machine Race's servants brought Linsey and Ye Haiya food and water, and Linsey asked Ye Haiya whether his skill creation would keep operating if he left it behind.

Linsey and Ye Haiya discussed whether skills could persist after they returned to the correct timeline, then explored the human Safe Zone inside the underground base. Linsey discovered that the humans viewed one another as threats and that the servant machines sheltered them under orders from their deceased master; he also deduced the base used aerial surveillance and invited the Puppet Maid to his room to discuss how he had found out.

• Linsey asked Ye Haiya whether skills that affected others would remain effective after they returned to the correct timeline, and Ye Haiya said she did not know.
• Linsey and Ye Haiya were assigned rooms on the fifth underground level, where Linsey found that the hostile Red Markers belonged to humans in the Safe Zone, while the servant machines were marked as friendly.
• A human insulted Linsey, while another said people in the Safe Zone only wanted to stay alive; the Puppet Maid explained that war, hardship, and hatred had driven the humans there.
• The Puppet Maid said the machines continued caring for humans because their deceased master had ordered it, and that their future policy depended on the Calculation Core's results.
• Linsey inferred that the base had aerial surveillance after recalling the Puppet Maid's arrival, and the Puppet Maid demanded to know how he had discovered it.
• Linsey invited the Puppet Maid to his room that night to discuss how he knew about the surveillance system.

After spending the night in the Safe Zone, Ye Haiya observed the residents’ mental deterioration and learned that Linsey had given the Puppet Maid philosophical questions to ponder. Over breakfast, she discovered his food used Source Material and privately asked what his Source Material Skill was.

• Ye Haiya watched the Safe Zone’s residents behave erratically and reflected on how they had traded freedom for safety.
• The Puppet Maid wandered downstairs muttering philosophical phrases and then left the residence.
• Linsey gave Ye Haiya a meat-filled flatbread and said he had discussed questions about identity and existence with the Puppet Maid.
• Ye Haiya tasted Linsey’s unusually delicious flatbread, and he admitted he had used Source Material to make it.
• Ye Haiya messaged Linsey on the Friend Channel to ask what his Source Material Skill was.

Linsey admitted to Ye Haiya that he and his companion had killed the Seventh Stage Dragon Beast that threatened her city, and Ye Haiya thanked him before they discussed his plans for the Machine Race. Ye Haiya offered to help transfer ruling authority to Linsey, leaving them secretly plotting to bring the species under his command.

• Ye Haiya confronted Linsey about the two people who had killed the Dragon Beast attacking her city, and Linsey admitted that he and his companion were responsible.
• Ye Haiya thanked Linsey for saving her city and its people, changing the relationship between them.
• Linsey explained his Real-Time Strategy Module and his plan to transform an inhabited City Center and build a faction with the Machine Race.
• Ye Haiya recognized that Linsey's ability differed from an organizer's skills and suggested developing the Machine Race's respect through teaching.
• Ye Haiya offered to help Linsey transfer ruling authority once he earned the Machine Race's respect.
• A servant machine gave Linsey an extra meat pie, unaware that Linsey and Ye Haiya were discussing how to take control of the Machine Race.

Linsey and Ye Haiya continued working to influence the Machine Race while Ye Haiya slowly regained strength by earning the machines’ respect. When the Calculation Core summoned Linsey to learn about radioactive ore connected to the Machine Race’s origins, Linsey began explaining uranium refining and nuclear power.

• Ye Haiya advised Linsey to guide the Machine Race’s Calculation Core through teaching, since its influence over the others was both a weakness and a point of entry.
• Linsey and Ye Haiya continued plotting in secret while the Machine Race regularly visited them for knowledge and stories.
• Rota summoned Linsey to the Calculation Core, which had discovered that radioactive ore from the base might be connected to the Machine Race’s birth.
• The Calculation Core asked Linsey to help uncover the Machine Race’s origin and answer the question of who they were.
• Linsey began explaining uranium ore and focused on how nuclear power plants could produce energy.