Chapter Summaries

Rorschach equipped Bart’s tower with a remotely linked tower spirit and drove a round-the-clock construction project with Golems controlled by the Wisdom Core. The dwarves struggled to find work amid the automated building site, where the Golems continued working after dark.

• Rorschach and Andre finished installing the tower spirit’s magical control system, and Bart agreed to buy additional machines so it could understand and produce speech.
• Rorschach’s Golems cleared land and built a road on Lanster’s outskirts, drawing crowds who watched them work.
• Jansen’s dwarf engineering crew found that the Golems could follow Rorschach’s blueprints, leaving the dwarves with mostly manual labor.
• Rorschach monitored the project through crystal balls and worked through exhaustion to design and build at the same time.
• After night fell, Jansen told a dwarf that the tireless Golems did not need to rest, even though the crew did.

Rorschach faced scrutiny over his giant earth Golems, but gifts and a fee settled the visits from Lanster's resident mage and the Mage Guild. After learning the Golems' creation method, the Tower of Arcane Arts representative hinted how Rorschach could evade the temporary-construct limit, while City Hall decided not to interfere because of Rorschach's powerful connections.

• Munich's resident mage investigated Rorschach's Golems, then left with gifts after Rorschach showed him the food factory.
• The Tower of Arcane Arts and Mage Guild representatives questioned Rorschach, marked the Golems, imposed a management fee, and took Dulling Transmutation Dust for research.
• Rorschach explained that the Golems used deactivated Living Water Body microorganisms sealed inside soil and controlled by a Wisdom Core.
• The Tower representative told Rorschach that dismantling and reassembling the Golems' marked left legs could make them count as a new batch of temporary constructs.
• Rorschach and Andre anticipated a City Hall inspection, but a junior official warned his subordinate not to target Rorschach because of his ties to Mage Bart and the prince's investment.

Rorschach prepared to start a pilot ammonia-production plant, explaining its complicated equipment and process to Andre. The startup ended in an earth-shattering explosion across Lanster.

• Rorschach showed Andre the experimental setup and explained that the Wisdom Core’s limited computing power had halted further work.
• Rorschach’s clockmaker apprentice Gao Po studied under four professors in a hidden basement, believing he was being held captive.
• Rorschach taught Andre how the plant would produce hydrogen and nitrogen and combine them into ammonia under high pressure and heat.
• Rorschach began the pilot plant’s startup, but the equipment exploded across Lanster before he finished warning Andre.

Rorschach and Andre successfully operated their ammonia synthesis device, marking a major advance in industrial alchemy, though their celebration was interrupted by news of war. The chapter ended with Rorschach learning that the Kingdom of Valois had invaded the southern Empire.

• Rorschach stopped an explosion at the construction site with protective and reversal spells, then treated the injured workers and ordered an inspection.
• Rorschach and Andre completed a stable production run and collected ammonia water, which made Andre vomit when he smelled it.
• Rorschach explained that industrial ammonia could provide fertilizer and nitrogen for explosives, and declared the process a milestone for alchemy and food production.
• Andre questioned the missing waste-gas and wastewater systems, and Rorschach revealed that he had sent the waste into the Air Element Plane.
• Rorschach told Andre to learn the shutdown procedure and prepare to train new workers, then they heard that the Kingdom of Valois had invaded the southern Empire.

Rorschach received letters from Master Kano and Pascal describing rising war fever in Valois and the Mage Guild’s efforts to protect politically vulnerable mages. With international messages suspended and war approaching, he decided to focus on Bavaria’s defenses and write to people who might need help.

• Rorschach reached the Mage Guild in Munich, where staff said international transmissions had been suspended, and received a letter from Master Kano.
• Kano described Valois’s growing push for war, the Mage Guild’s struggle to remain neutral, and asked Rorschach to shelter several mages with sensitive identities.
• Pascal’s letter explained that Valois’s Assembly factions and Charles XVI were backing war for different political ends, while The Rock Maxim and the Club opposed the plan.
• Rorschach concluded that the letters offered little military intelligence and decided to upgrade Bavaria’s armaments and protect its valuable resources.
• Rorschach resolved to write to the old Village Chief about the Merkler family’s village and to advise Teacher Caroline to seek safety in Bavaria or the dwarves’ realm.

Rorschach proposed forming a special force for the Kingdom of Bavaria, and the royal family helped him equip and train soldiers who could fly using Mobile Devices. The new Sky Knights began learning to maneuver in the air, while their wristwatches linked them to Lanster’s Wisdom Core to track their positions.

• Rorschach told Albert and Otto that he could organize a special force and suggested reorganizing Bayern’s trade associations to support the war effort.
• The royal family gathered watchmakers and ordered them to manufacture ten sets of computation-core components under close supervision.
• Rorschach outfitted selected hunters and marksmen with Mobile Devices powered by Transmutation Dust and rifles developed for Smokeless Powder.
• A town mage instructed the new unit in flight, while warning members to monitor their magic reserves and avoid climbing too high.
• Albert named the flying soldiers the Sky Knights, who were intended to conduct aerial reconnaissance and harassment missions.
• Rorschach connected the Sky Knights’ wristwatches to Lanster’s expanded Wisdom Core so it could track their coordinates across the kingdom.

Rorschach helped train the Empire’s Mobile Device scouts as Valois’s Second Legion advanced into Wurtemberg and halted before the city. An Imperial northern army used the exiled nobles’ forces as a bloody diversion, then attacked Dillon’s exposed positions, leaving him to order a retreat.

• Rorschach advised the instructor to encourage Tanya, the top-performing Mobile Device trainee, despite her small size.
• Bart told Rorschach that the Empire’s southern army was holding the defensive line while its northern army moved south.
• Dillon led Valois’s Second Legion into Wurtemberg, built temporary fortifications, and sent cavalry to scout the Duma River.
• The exiled nobles’ forces charged Dillon’s positions under royal banners, and Valois’s soldiers fired on them as they repeatedly advanced.
• The Imperial northern army attacked after a fireball destroyed a Valois cannon, and Dillon ordered his troops to retreat.

Major General Karl defeated the Valoisian army’s advance at the cost of no decisive pursuit, choosing to move toward the Salo garrison while the wider Imperial campaign prepared to reorganize the South. The routed soldiers blamed Commander Dillon for the retreat, killed him, and left the National Assembly without control of the Second Legion as Charles XVI awaited the Empire’s intervention.

• Richard explained that the Valoisian infantry had been routed but their cavalry remained organized, and Karl ordered the main force to move toward the Salo garrison rather than risk an unsupported pursuit.
• Karl assigned Richard to tally casualties and captured artillery, while the vanguard cavalry harassed the Valoisian rear guard.
• Dillon ordered his routed troops to rest and fortify, but the soldiers spread rumors that he had betrayed them to the exiled nobles.
• The soldiers shot Dillon and paraded his head on a bayonet as a traitor.
• The National Assembly lost control of the Second Legion, while Charles XVI waited for the Empire to march into Valuana and dissolve the Assembly.

After Valois’s defeat, the Empire tightened its control while Bayern prepared for the wider war by expanding its military supply capacity. Rorschach showed industrial representatives his secret factories and challenged them to meet the enormous demand for guns.

• The Empire reorganized Bayern’s legions and imposed a smoother military command structure after tribunals removed local commanders and garrison mages.
• Rorschach led trade association representatives through Lanster’s industrial site, where he described plans for large-scale ammonia, fertilizer, acid, and explosives production.
• Rorschach refused to explain the site’s signal tower and warned the representatives to keep everything they had seen confidential.
• At a conference, Rorschach told the representatives that the Empire would wage war to destroy the Holy Kingdom’s system and productive capacity, drawing Bayern into the conflict.
• Rorschach cited estimates that Valois and the Empire’s northern industrial cities could each produce one hundred thousand guns annually, then asked whether Bayern’s industries could match that output.

Rorschach forced Bayern’s guild representatives to accept a plan to combine their workshops into large factories capable of meeting the kingdom’s wartime supply demands. After the representatives signed the contracts, Rorschach and Andre discussed the royal family’s urgency and their roles in the restructuring.

• Rorschach explained that monopolies and uneven development had kept Bayern’s handicraft industries prosperous despite their limited capacity.
• A Forge Union representative protested that Bayern could produce only about one thousand rifles a month, and Rorschach had him dragged out after rejecting his objections.
• Rorschach warned the guild representatives that businesses unable to meet military orders could be confiscated as traitors’ property.
• Rorschach proposed combining the guilds’ equipment and workers into large factories, and the representatives signed the contracts brought by Mr. Hasse.
• Rorschach and Andre left the meeting and discussed Prince Otto’s urgency and their approach to forcing the restructuring.

Rorschach planned to secure skilled workers and expand industrial production while avoiding the Mage Guild’s scrutiny. He told Andre to wait until the Guild or Empire openly joined the war before mass-producing magical weapons, and revealed that the Tower of Arcane Arts had promised an interest-free loan for his Mage Tower.

• Rorschach instructed Andre to win over workshop workers with better treatment and use royal commissioners to enforce compliance, while he arranged to relocate the Blast Furnaces and build a Steel Mill and Coking Plant.
• Rorschach directed the payment from the Sky Knights’ equipment toward a dedicated workshop and named Gao Po its chief engineer.
• Andre proposed producing more Transmutation Dust and alchemical weapons, but Rorschach warned that mass arming ordinary people could draw the Archaic Arcane Senate’s punishment.
• Rorschach predicted that Valois would soon conscript Mages as the Empire joined the war, ending the Mage Guild’s neutrality and creating an opening for weapons production.
• Rorschach said Bavaria’s army should defend its sovereignty and disclosed that the Tower of Arcane Arts had offered him a fifty-thousand-Gold-Eagle interest-free loan for his Mage Tower.

Rorschach taught Andre magic by showing him how to combine spells to halt and reverse damage, then trained him to use Lagging Spell to defend against fast-moving threats. He left Andre practicing the technique under increasingly difficult attacks.

• Rorschach brought Andre to the forest and had him demonstrate Repair Spell and Fireball.
• Rorschach reversed the damage caused by Andre's Fireball and explained how a sequence of spells could reduce an object's heat and motion before repairing it.
• Rorschach gave Andre Learning Scrolls for Lagging Spell and Ice Ray and explained how their principles could be combined.
• Andre learned Lagging Spell by slowing a pebble, then Rorschach launched stones and branches at him to test his perception and casting speed.
• Rorschach healed Andre's scrapes, urged him to improve his reactions, and explained that Lagging Spell could hinder an enemy's weapon at close range.

Rorschach ended Andre’s grueling Ice Ray training and devised a plan to make spellcasting easier to learn and more standardized. He began testing whether the Tower Spirit could analyze and assist with a complex spell series, leaving the experiment underway.

• Andre failed to counter Rorschach’s Fireball with Ice Ray, so Rorschach healed him and ended their practice for the day.
• Rorschach arranged to give Andre one or two practice sessions every ten days and encouraged him to review spells on his own.
• Rorschach conceived a plan to lower the threshold for spellcasting by standardizing spells and making them easier for more people to learn.
• Rorschach went to the research building and used the Tower Spirit, a computing machine, and a storage matrix to analyze a complex spell series.
• Rorschach considered testing whether the Tower Spirit could assist Andre, who already knew how to cast spells.

Rorschach developed a tower-spirit-assisted spellcasting system and taught Andre the Major Accident Reversal Technique. Andre successfully used it to stop a fireball, while a faint voice announced that he had become the first Magic Boy.

• Rorschach created an Arcane Seal that directed casters to the tower spirit and designed characteristic values to identify spell entries.
• Rorschach tested the Major Accident Reversal Technique and discovered that he could sense spells cast through the tower spirit.
• Rorschach gave Andre a Learning Scroll for the Major Accident Reversal Technique and showed him how to trace its Arcane Seal.
• A fireball struck a machine, and Andre instinctively cast the technique to suppress the destruction.
• Andre heard a faint mechanical voice congratulate him for signing a contract and becoming the first Magic Boy.

Rorschach tested how the tower spirit improved Andre’s spellcasting and traveled with him to inspect a new steel mill. In Valois, Maxim urged the National Assembly to mobilize the whole kingdom against the Empire, while Joseph gathered holy knights to defend their homeland.

• Andre repeated Ice Ray and, after Rorschach showed him how to trace the Arcane Seal, cast a stronger ray with the tower spirit’s assistance.
• Rorschach took Andre to inspect the New Steel Mill in Bayern and test whether distance affected the tower spirit’s aid.
• The Speaker resigned after reporting the defeat at Salo, the generals’ defiance, and the Empire’s military buildup, prompting the National Assembly to erupt into arguments.
• Maxim and The Rock’s supporters drew the Assembly’s attention, and Maxim proposed a state of emergency, voluntary regional mobilization, and arming all citizens willing to defend Valois.
• Joseph rallied the assembled holy knights in the northern Wasteland and called on them to protect the Lord’s realm and its people.

In Kempston, Rorschach explained the Church’s conspicuous paladin mobilization and tested his spell system before receiving a report of magical disturbances near the Bavarian border. He then agreed to negotiate a deal with Imperial Army Second Lieutenant Adolphe to supply Light Phlogiston in exchange for sugar and priority access to raw materials.

• Andre told Rorschach that the paladins were marching openly, and Rorschach explained that the Church sought to turn the campaign into a public holy war.
• Rorschach tested his spell system through Andre and found that he could sense Andre’s casting more strongly, but the process consumed his own magic and interfered with the experiment.
• A Sky Cavalry training officer reported Mobile Device malfunctions near Bavaria’s northwestern border and praised Tanya for saving her comrades despite breaking her leg.
• Second Lieutenant Adolphe told Rorschach that the Imperial Army had traced Basf’s Light Phlogiston production and offered sugar quotas and priority raw materials in exchange for supplies and support building factories at the front.
• Rorschach agreed to the proposed partnership and directed Adolphe to discuss the details with Mr. Hasse.

Rorschach realized the Empire was preparing a secret mana-siphoning weapon to face the approaching Sacred Expedition and decided to watch the battle near Andorilla. He created a clone to travel toward the battlefield, leaving his own body behind.

• Rorschach connected the Imperial Army's request for Light Phlogiston to its plans to use hydrogen-filled airships to transport a large-scale mana-siphoning device.
• Rorschach studied the Order of Paladins' route and concluded that the forces would meet on the plains outside Andorilla.
• Rorschach decided to observe the battle through a clone rather than risk his own body.
• Rorschach used Earth Shaping, Living Water Body microorganisms, Transmutation Dust, and part of his soul to create a lifelike clone near Kempston.
• The clone ignored the prepared horse, leaped into the trees, and sprinted west toward the battlefield while Rorschach mounted his own horse.

Rorschach infiltrated the Holy Army by joining its chaotic Army of Atonement and observed how the church organized its forces. As the army reached the battlefield outside Andorilla, he discovered that the sinners had been placed at the very front as cannon fodder.

• Rorschach traveled to Andorilla and joined the Army of Atonement without identification, claiming he had killed his family for their own good.
• Rorschach observed the Holy Army's marching magic, its paladins and Faith Guard, and the varied equipment of the Auxiliary Army.
• The Imperial Army crossed the border and formed up on the plains before Andorilla, prompting the Holy Army to deploy for battle.
• The Faith Guard shoved the Army of Atonement into the front line, where its members received Atonement Vouchers instead of holy water.
• Rorschach read the vouchers' fine print as the sinners raised their weapons, inspired by the sermon and the promise of pardon.

Rorschach watched the Church’s Army of Atonement advance under the protection of a bell that shielded nearby soldiers from bullets, while the Empire struggled to counter the divine art. At headquarters, Major General Karl prepared the Imperial forces and sent Richard to an airship to meet the Chief Imperial Staff Mage.

• The Church’s mobile bell protected its advancing soldiers from Imperial gunfire, and the bell-ringing priest repeatedly struck it as the Army of Atonement charged.
• Rorschach realized the bell’s protection weakened with distance, so he hid among the fallen atoners and cast Armor of Spirit on himself.
• The Imperial Army’s next volley killed Rorschach’s temporary comrades, while the Church’s Faith Guard and Auxiliary Army advanced without casualties and fired back at close range.
• Richard urged Major General Karl to let him join the battle, but Karl ordered the artillery into position and directed the infantry reserve to fill the flanks.
• Major General Karl sent Richard to the moored airship, where the Chief Imperial Staff Mage was waiting.

The Imperial Army used an airship to unleash an anti-magic attack that stripped the Holy Kingdom’s paladins and priests of their divine powers, leaving them vulnerable to artillery. Rorschach’s clone was also caught in the attack and lost control of his body.

• The paladins and Imperial cavalry clashed, but the Imperials used their faster horses to harass the paladin formations before withdrawing under pursuit.
• Rorschach’s clone, calling himself Ninja Xia, used True Earth Escape to bury himself as cavalry raced across the battlefield.
• Richard and the Chief Staff Mage observed from an airship, and the Imperial cavalry withdrew as the paladins gathered in the center.
• The airship unleashed a beam that disrupted magic, disabling divine arts, holy artifacts, and the paladins’ horses.
• The Imperial artillery bombarded the powerless paladins, their command post, and their reserves, while Rorschach’s clone lost control of his body.