Chapter Summaries

After rejecting the Grey Elves’ offer of a princess and a saintess, Rorschach confronted Hill about the elves’ failure to understand what the Special Zone needed. He advised her to seek Deluyats’s protection, but admitted he did not know whether Deluyats was connected to the Earth Mother Goddess.

• At a banquet with the dwarves, Rorschach heard Rugg claim the Grey Elves might offer Hill or their saintess Silsha to win his favor.
• Rorschach rejected the elders’ proposal to send Silsha to Bayern and told them to get lost.
• After Andre accidentally revealed that his mission was complete, Rorschach sent him away to make sure the bean sprouts left his territory.
• At the lakeside, Hill apologized for the elders’ proposal, and Rorschach told her the Special Zone needed workers and practical support rather than symbolic offerings.
• Rorschach advised Hill to seek Deluyats’s protection, then showed her the power They had given him and said he did not know whether They were an incarnation of the Earth Mother Goddess.

Rorschach decided to expand Bayern’s system into Bohemia despite the costs, arguing that building trust and improving people’s lives would help prepare them to follow him in a future crisis. The chapter ended with trains delivering free machine-made coal to Prague, giving its residents a glimpse of the improvements that might come.

• Hill accepted that the elves needed to purge their corrupt elders, and she gave Rorschach the Wooden Mask as a congratulatory gift.
• The Dwarf Confederation’s masters joined Bayern’s factories and steelworks, where Jansen told a new dwarf to copy a Blast Furnace opening because it might prove useful later.
• Valan reported that the Alliance’s operations had largely failed, while the former Tam River Alliance states stayed neutral and many Imperial troops opposed continuing the war.
• Rorschach instructed Andre to work with Valan to improve Bohemia, saying that better lives and hopes would build the trust needed for people to follow them.
• Freight trains carried supplies north to Prague, where residents received free machine-made coal and a worker said the city might someday have central heating.

Valan inspected Bohemia’s new command center with Pavel and urged him to reconcile with his sister Libus so the Alliance could recruit General Richard Dalberg. Meanwhile, Rorschach considered asking Alexander about Richard’s unusual magical body and offered to discuss the Wooden Mask’s properties.

• A steel communications tower and a training program for young magical operators took shape at the fortress near Pilsen.
• Valan demonstrated that instructors could halt the trainees’ miniature constructs and told Pavel that officers would direct them in combat.
• Valan said the Alliance needed generals and urged Pavel to repair his relationship with Libus Krock, who had become close to Richard Dalberg.
• Pavel realized Valan wanted to recruit Richard, a capable Imperial general and friend of Rorschach, but wondered how to make amends with Libus.
• Rorschach pondered whether Richard’s magically created body could reproduce and drafted a letter asking Alexander for advice about it and the Wooden Mask.

Rorschach visited the Tower of the Forest and learned that Mother Goddess contamination had spread to nearly half of the Empire’s grain samples. Humboldt asked him to help develop the Air Element Plane as a safe new source of food, leaving Rorschach to consider the scale and urgency of the proposal.

• Rorschach traveled to the Tower of the Forest in a modified Pneumatic Car and saw the tower’s snow-free research grounds.
• Humboldt greeted Rorschach through a clone because his main body and Master Kouber were investigating across the Empire.
• Humboldt explained that nearly half of the Imperial Army’s collected grain samples showed suspected Mother Goddess contamination, with affected regions near the battlefield, the western coast, and northern Valois.
• Humboldt said the Tower of the Forest wanted to investigate the Air Element Plane as a safe source of food, based on Mage Caroline’s research.
• Rorschach questioned whether crops grown in the Air Element Plane could feed the world in time, and Humboldt insisted that trying was better than doing nothing.

Rorschach asked Master Humboldt to help investigate whether Richard, now a magical lifeform, could have descendants or be restored to a human body. Humboldt then examined the elves’ mask and discovered that its patterns matched the face of a summoned nature spirit exactly.

• Rorschach explained Richard’s situation, and Humboldt warned that Richard’s extended lifespan could create difficulties for his relationship.
• Humboldt proposed studying Richard’s resurrection and restoring his human body, while Rorschach offered to share Axiom Creation and help examine the Law Tree’s soul-reloading process.
• Rorschach asked Humboldt to identify the elves’ mask, which he had accepted as a commission to uncover its secret.
• Humboldt identified the mask’s material as Istarani oak and summoned a nature spirit after recognizing something familiar in its patterns.
• Humboldt compared the mask’s patterns to the nature spirit’s face, and Rorschach said they were exactly the same.

Humboldt and Rorschach discovered that the ancient wooden mask could bond with a Spirit of Nature and let its caster direct it to cast spells. After Humboldt ended his summoning, Rorschach became eager to try using the mask himself.

• Humboldt reshaped his spell to summon a Spirit of Nature wearing the wooden mask, and explained that the mask predated the spell.
• Humboldt connected the summoned spirit to the spirit essences behind the monsters they had encountered in the ruined Elf Village, suggesting the traditions had evolved in different directions.
• Humboldt discovered that the spirit could communicate the Yabberish word “Bond” to him and Rorschach through touch.
• Humboldt bonded with the spirit and found that it could cast spells, but a Third Ring spell nearly caused it to break apart.
• Humboldt ended the summoning after the spirit stabilized, and Rorschach asked to try the mask himself.

Rorschach explored whether the mask and a Spirit of Nature could let people without magical talent cast spells, despite Humboldt warning that Mage society would resist. After demonstrating that he could summon a Spirit of Nature himself, Rorschach led the Tower of the Forest expedition toward the Air Element Plane, where the Mages first visited the space center to discuss cooperation on food security.

• Rorschach recalled his failed attempt to develop magical bloodlines and wondered whether the mask's effect could let everyone cast spells.
• Humboldt warned that the contract required a Spellcaster and that Mages would oppose technology that undermined their privileges, but Rorschach argued it could help low-tier Mages and apprentices.
• Rorschach learned Summon Nature Spirit by watching Humboldt demonstrate it and summoned a small rodent-shaped Spirit that cast Light Spell.
• Rorschach confiscated Humboldt's modified vehicle by shrinking it and storing it in his ring, then the expedition team took the Teleportation Array.
• The Tower of the Forest Mages toured Rorschach's space center before planning strategic cooperation on food security, and Rorschach wondered why everyone had become interested in his starship.

Rorschach showed Humboldt the enormous Number One starship and explained the limits of interplanar teleportation before bringing the inspection group to the City of Abundance. There, they discovered that the Devourer clan had built a prosperous civilization around the Well of Blessings and worshipped Rorschach as a saint, leaving him embarrassed.

• Humboldt admired the Number One ship, but Rorschach showed him its immense monthly resource costs.
• Caroline and Rorschach explained that semi-permanent Teleportation Arrays could not handle large-scale transport and discussed whether interplanar routes would endure.
• The group arrived at the City of Abundance, where the Devourer clan traded goods, used advanced materials, and defended its wealth with powerful weapons.
• The Devourers recognized Rorschach as their Saint and summoned the Great Sage King while speaking clumsy Common Tongue.
• Humboldt and the Tower of the Forest members teased Rorschach about the clan's worship, and Rorschach insisted he knew nothing about it.

Rorschach failed to convince the others that his emblem was not a holy symbol, then left the Air Element Plane to experiment with modifying a Spirit Mask. He created a mask-faced nature spirit with a visible magical circuit, and it began seeking a Spellcaster to bond with.

• Humboldt and the others concluded that Rorschach wanted to become a god, while Rorschach's explanations only made the misunderstanding worse.
• The Great Sage King arrived, flattered Rorschach, and agreed to the Mages' investigation during a banquet where the guests carefully examined the food and bones.
• Rorschach told Caroline he had obtained a crucial technique and returned to the Boundary Land to work on his artificial magical girl/boy project.
• Rorschach uploaded Summon Nature Spirit to the Law Tree and studied how its summoning, linking, and essence-condensation processes worked.
• Rorschach used a modified Spirit Mask to absorb a counterfeit nature essence, shaping it into a small mask-faced creature and forming a magical circuit within it.
• The creature's mask extended a root toward Rorschach to seek a contract, but he hesitated at the sight of its tendrils.

Rorschach tested a mask-based system that let ordinary people cast spells through a Spirit of Nature, then used Martin’s symbiote to create a potential substitute for the mask’s special materials. The chapter ended with Martin’s symbiote transformed into a puppy-like creature, just as Rorschach began explaining how to form a contract with it.

• Rorschach used a Boundary Land substitute to test the mask, finding that it could cast Third Ring spells but was overwhelmed by his magic power.
• Rorschach tested a replica mask with a non-Spellcaster substitute and found that it could handle Fifth Ring spells, though its performance varied by spell type and its energy supply was limited.
• Rorschach realized he needed a Material Plane material to replace the special oak wood used in the mask and summoned Martin to the forbidden biology laboratory.
• Martin showed Rorschach the well-raised symbiote he had kept in his pendant, and Rorschach promised to fulfill his earlier promise.
• Rorschach combined the symbiote with simulated essence and used a weakened Axiom Creation array to transform it into a puppy-like creature with a mask-like skull and invisible roots.
• Martin became delighted by the puppy-like creature and said he wanted to show it to Hannah before hearing Rorschach explain the final contract.

Rorschach tested whether Martin could cast spells through a magical contract with his spirit pet, and Martin learned the Repair Spell. He arranged for Martin to study at the Magic Tower, while setting a goal of making the spellcasting technology cheaper and less dependent on living organisms.

• Rorschach taught Martin the Yabberish word for “contract,” linking Martin to his spirit pet and letting the pet help him sense and manipulate magic power.
• Martin learned the Repair Spell, but his magic and Mental Power ran out before he could fully mend a torn sheet of paper.
• Rorschach arranged for Martin to take extended paid leave and study at the Magic Tower as a transfer student.
• Hannah welcomed Martin into her research group and insisted on tutoring him for the first-stage apprentice exam, which was less than ten days away.
• Rorschach concluded that his first trial had succeeded, set goals to reduce the technology’s cost and cultivation time, and imagined summon-training gyms and tournaments built around friendship and bonds.

Rorschach and Humboldt planned to expand Cloud Fungi Carpet cultivation in the Air Element Plane despite the challenges of transporting its harvest. The project moved forward with machinery and a four-phase expansion plan, while Rorschach approved a joint company but insisted his name be left off its proposal.

• Humboldt told Rorschach that Cloud Fungi Carpet could not be grown across the Material Plane’s open skies, but could be cultivated safely in controlled environments and on a large scale in the Air Element Plane.
• Humboldt warned Rorschach that poor grain reserves could cause famine in the countryside after spring began, giving the Mother Goddess’s followers an opportunity.
• The Automobile Factory and Precision Factory modified agricultural airships, and the Tower of the Forest planned to expand cultivation thirtyfold before pursuing larger phases.
• Zweilinger’s manager told Rorschach that the Devourer Kingdom would help provide labor and requested airships and armed escorts to transport and protect workers.
• The manager proposed establishing a joint company called United Fungi Products, and Rorschach approved it while ordering that his name not be mentioned.

Rorschach proposed using chained Teleportation Arrays to create a passage through the Transmutation Dust Layer Flow and improve transport between the ground and the Astral Realm. Kano judged the idea theoretically feasible despite its risks and agreed to persuade the others to test it.

• Rorschach contacted Kano and asked about increasing cross-planar transport capacity.
• Kano recalled a teleportation accident involving a ship carrying deep-sea metal sediment cores and explained that the Transmutation Dust Layer Flow posed a major obstacle.
• Rorschach sketched a plan to create a breach through the Layer Flow and link large, short-lived Teleportation Arrays into a passage.
• Rorschach proposed using Airships to carry ring-shaped array foundations so starships could teleport through the passage while maintaining speed.
• Kano warned that timing, accuracy, and vibration made the plan dangerous, but agreed to persuade the others to try it.

Tanya and the Sky Knights trained in metalworking and aerial assembly without knowing the purpose of their work. After they were allowed to witness the full process, they saw the Ring Portal activate and an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle emerge through it.

• Tanya completed her welding task carefully and earned praise from the instructor, who learned she was the regiment commander.
• The Sky Knights practiced assembling and dismantling ring-shaped components high in the air, and instructors identified defective sections.
• Over ten days, the trainees repeated the assembly drills as the portal's design changed and then stabilized.
• After signing secrecy contracts, the Sky Knights joined the full process and watched the portal charge and activate.
• An Unmanned Aerial Vehicle appeared at the center of the portal and shot into the sky as the portal shattered.

Rorschach and the Sky Ladder team revised their teleportation-ring design after an aerial test shattered the first segment, then successfully tested the improved system and built a five-level ring rank. The Sky Knights completed their first high-altitude installation and were recovered after seeing the world from several hundred kilometers above the ground.

• The first twenty-meter teleportation ring disintegrated during a high-speed test, and the Sky Ladder team began investigating the failure.
• Rorschach questioned why the team had not run ground load tests, prompting them to test and improve the ring design.
• The improved rings passed ground and aerial tests, and the Sky Knight Corps prepared for higher-altitude work in protective suits as Space Knights.
• The Sky Knights used a rocket and supporting mesh to assemble five levels of teleportation rings hundreds of kilometers above the ground.
• Tanya watched the refracted Transmutation Dust Layer Flow and starry sky before the crew recovered the knights.

Rorschach explored how to use Transmutation Dust to create a breach and decided to feed its released energy into the Law Tree in the Boundary Land. He discovered the Ancient Sage had knowledge of the Boundary Land, but the Tower Spirit said the sealed memories could be revealed only with the Sage’s permission.

• Rorschach discussed the risks of triggering a chain reaction in Transmutation Dust with the Tower Spirit, then considered containing the energy from an eruption.
• Rorschach realized the Boundary Land could absorb energy and decided to direct Transmutation Dust’s energy into the Law Tree.
• Rorschach wondered whether the Boundary Land might be exposed to the Astral Realm, and the Tower Spirit warned that doing so could cut off Spellcasting Cloud users.
• Rorschach questioned how the Tower Spirit knew about the Boundary Land and found that the Ancient Sage’s memories held sealed information about it.
• The Tower Spirit said Rorschach would learn the truth only when the Ancient Sage gave permission, then cryptically referred to life, existence, and their meaning to him.

Rorschach agreed to leave the Ancient Sage’s sealed memories untouched as Ship One launched through the ring stages and entered the Transmutation Laminar Flow. Rorschach assembled the Astral Gate from the collectors, opening a route between the Astral Realm and the Material Plane, and Ship Zero received orders to return home.

• Rorschach accepted the Tower Spirit’s warning and promised to respect the Ancient Sage’s seal until the secrets were revealed.
• The Space Center launched Ship One through the Zero Ring Stage, and the ship cleared the first and second stages.
• Ship One entered the Great Vortex and deployed its Transmutation Dust Collectors, but the rift remained unformed until the machines were positioned correctly.
• Rorschach’s avatar used Mage Hand to assemble all twelve collectors into the Astral Gate, opening the Astral Realm to the Material Plane.
• Cavendish and the Ship Zero crew received Smollett’s message, and Ship One ordered them to return through the Astral Gate.

Cavendish and his two crewmates returned from the Astral Realm aboard Ship Zero, where an improved teleportation system brought them safely to the Byrne Lanster Space Center. As the world celebrated their return, William II and Gregory discussed preparations for an unspecified matter.

• Cavendish dismissed a crewman's sighting of a figure outside Ship Zero as they passed through the Astral Gate.
• The ground relay guided Ship Zero through Ring Five and a series of teleportation gates, bringing the vessel safely down at the Lanster Space Center.
• Mage Snow welcomed Cavendish and his crewmates back to the ground at the Byrne Lanster Space Center, where officials and reporters gathered.
• Newspapers published photographs of Cavendish drinking an Energy Potion, and Hercules and Fonda Company each claimed he had used their product.
• William II asked Gregory whether he was prepared for an unspecified matter, and Gregory said everything was ready.

Emperor William II relied on Gregory and his cult to suppress opposition while sending Gregory on a secret mission to Opfer. Meanwhile, Saga Eriksson investigated strange dreams and voices in the city and ordered the afflicted and suspected cultists to be purified by fire.

• William asked Gregory how many people had been executed, and Gregory reported that eleven disloyal people had been punished, including an Imperial Speaker and an envoy from Wurtemberg.
• Gregory left the Imperial Capital on William’s orders to carry out a secret mission in Opfer, a city poised to defect.
• Saga Eriksson accepted the Mage Guild’s request to investigate abnormal phenomena in Opfer and traveled there from the Tower of First Flame.
• Saga learned that residents were having nightmares, hearing a woman’s voice, and sometimes going mad, and he ordered the afflicted to be calmed or purified.
• Saga ordered the city’s suspected followers of an unknown faith to undergo the purification procedure without delay.

Saga and the Tower of First Flame purged cultists and severe contamination from Opfer and the surrounding villages, burning settlements and unleashing sacred flames across the city. Gregory, who called himself the Empire’s Pope, confronted Saga and forced him to hear the civilians’ screams beneath the flames.

• Fire-Bearers searched the villages around Opfer, capturing suspected cultists and ritual objects before finding grotesque monsters in a granary.
• The Fire-Bearers learned that wounded veterans had drunk potions from a mysterious monk, then burned the contaminated village and its surviving inhabitants’ settlement.
• Saga searched Opfer for sources of corruption and used the Tower of First Flame’s sacred fire to destroy cult sites across the city.
• Gregory introduced himself as the Empire’s Pope and challenged Saga over the civilians harmed by the blaze.
• Gregory made Saga hear the shrill screams and sobs of civilians, rupturing his eardrums and overwhelming his mind.