Recaps

Benjamin traveled to a town where an anomalous finger in salt jars had caused 47 deaths, and sensed something wrong upon arrival. He was joined by eight other Level 6 Wizards as they prepared to investigate.

• Benjamin chose a remote forest-edge location marked for abnormal deaths and flew toward it.
• On the way, Benjamin sensed eight other Wizards heading to the same location.
• Benjamin reviewed reports describing a finger that reappeared in salt jars and caused families who ate the tainted food to die of kidney failure.
• Benjamin landed on a hill overlooking the town and sensed a subtle abnormality in the air.
• Eight Level 6 Wizards landed behind Benjamin.

Benjamin and eight other wizards investigated the deaths caused by an anomalous finger in a town’s salt jar. They discovered that it redefined victims and their soul remnants as inherently salty, then prepared to inspect the jar.

• Nine wizards agreed to consult the managing Artificial Human, Old Herman, before deciding how to investigate the anomaly.
• Old Herman reported that two more members of blacksmith Hans’s family had died after eating food from the affected salt jar.
• Old Herman led the wizards to the Town Hall morgue, where they examined the bloated, altered bodies.
• Benjamin dissected a corpse and found its tissues hardened and transformed despite having normal sodium levels.
• The young witch detected that the victims’ tissues and soul remnants had been conceptually redefined as salty, and the wizards concluded the finger was altering the meaning of saltiness.
• Old Herman offered to lead the wizards to the finger in Hans’s salt jar.

Benjamin and the other wizards investigated the finger in Hans's salt jar, but none of their scans detected anything unusual. After learning its genetic material closely matched Hans's family, a burly wizard swallowed it to test its effects, leaving the group awaiting the result.

• Old Herman brought Benjamin and eight other wizards to Hans's home, where Karl was grieving alone after witnessing his mother and younger sister die.
• The wizards examined the finger in the salt jar, but energy, magical-law, fate, and visual scans revealed no anomaly.
• A thin-faced wizard found that the finger's genetic material closely resembled Hans's family, though no one in the family or among the victims was missing a finger.
• The burly wizard removed the finger from the jar and swallowed it while Karl watched in horror.
• The burly wizard used dark green magic to examine his body's reaction and then opened his eyes with a strange expression.

The curse witch explained how the finger used genetic material to trigger a soul-level curse, and Karl began suffering after seeing it. Benjamin and the wizards stopped the curse and searched for the finger, but it had vanished, leaving them unsure why.

• The curse witch deduced that the finger had used the victims’ genetic material to establish an incomplete exchange between flesh and salt and trigger a soul-level curse.
• Karl began choking and screaming that everything tasted salty after seeing the finger, activating the curse.
• The wizards used protective and curse-removal spells while Benjamin coated Karl with Liquid Adamantine, and Karl recovered.
• Benjamin and the other wizards searched the house, town, and surrounding area but found no sign of the finger.
• Benjamin tasted the salt from the shaker and confirmed it was ordinary table salt.

Benjamin and the other wizards deduced that the aberration had no fixed body and manifested a finger to curse one family at a time. They planned to trap it by sealing the town and watching for its next appearance, leaving Benjamin to monitor the town from the central square.

• Benjamin and the wizards concluded that the finger was a temporary tool and that the aberration had merged into the town's environment.
• The curse witch and Benjamin reasoned that the aberration manifested when it acquired a family's genetic material and targeted households one at a time.
• Benjamin proposed using genetic material as bait to lure the aberration into a controlled environment.
• The wizards decided to seal the town with a barrier, assigning themselves construction tasks and Benjamin the job of monitoring for the finger.
• Benjamin sat beside the town fountain, spread his mental power across the town and its surroundings, and used the Fate System to search for anomalies.

Benjamin and the wizards used a crystal tube filled with the town’s genetic information and connected Fate Lines to lure an anomaly into their trap. The anomaly appeared as a finger in a salt jar, and the wizards began sealing it after discovering its curse worked on the concept of saltiness.

• The Dark Blue Robed Wizard revealed that he had concentrated genetic samples from the townspeople and the other wizards into a crystal tube to serve as bait.
• Benjamin connected the town’s Fate Lines and fate fluctuations related to the anomaly to the tube, making the bait ready.
• The wizards took positions in the cellar, and the curse witch prepared to redirect the anomaly’s curse onto them.
• Benjamin spotted an extra finger in the salt jar, and the curse witch’s rune trapped it while shifting the curse’s focus to the wizards.
• The Life School wizard transformed into an elemental creature but still tasted salt, leading Benjamin to conclude that the curse acted on the concept of saltiness.
• The curse witch began sealing the finger as the other wizards helped reinforce the spell.

During the attempt to seal the Salty Finger, a second anomaly attacked the curse witch through newly drawn graffiti that could alter reality. Benjamin traced the attack to an abandoned estate, but the anomaly's true body remained hidden.

• As the wizards lowered their defenses to seal the Salty Finger, an unseen force twisted the curse witch's right arm and the anomaly escaped the finger.
• Benjamin detected an abnormal Fate Line leading northeast, and the wizards flew to an abandoned estate about a kilometer away.
• The wizards found fresh graffiti depicting all nine of them, with the curse witch's right arm painted over to match her injury.
• Benjamin concluded that the graffiti could alter reality and had tested its influence on the wizards before injuring the curse witch.
• Benjamin searched the Fate Lines for the anomaly's true body but could not locate it.

The wizards compressed the barrier around the town to force Salty Finger and the Graffiti Anomaly out of hiding. Salty Finger appeared first, and the Graffiti Anomaly surfaced soon after, turning its attacks toward Benjamin.

• The dark blue robed wizard proposed shrinking the barrier while the Level Six Wizards filled its inner wall with their Law Solidification Domains, leaving Benjamin to protect the townspeople.
• Benjamin monitored the town with his spiritual power and Fate System as the wizards contracted the barrier.
• When the barrier shrank to fifty kilometers, the Graffiti Anomaly tried to manifest graffiti around town, and Benjamin destroyed each medium before it could fully appear.
• As the barrier contracted to a radius of one kilometer, Benjamin sensed Salty Finger trapped in a small area and the Graffiti Anomaly struggling within the compressed space.
• At a diameter of fifty meters, Salty Finger appeared above Fountain Square, and the barrier blocked its curse waves from reaching the townspeople.
• The Graffiti Anomaly emerged in the air above the square, failed to affect the wizards protected by their domains, and turned its attention toward Benjamin.

Benjamin endured the Graffiti Anomaly’s reality-altering attacks until his body adapted, then seized and beat the anomaly into submission. He sealed it and the Salty Finger in separate containers, leaving the eight Level 6 wizards to secure them.

• Benjamin let the Graffiti Anomaly attack him and rapidly developed resistance to its attempts to rewrite his body.
• Benjamin captured the Salty Finger and sealed it in a rune-lined test tube.
• The wizards shrank the barrier until the Graffiti Anomaly manifested, and Benjamin grabbed it with his partially transformed true-form hand.
• Benjamin beat and kneaded the Graffiti Anomaly into a fist-sized ball, then sealed it in a law-material container.
• The eight Level 6 wizards sealed both containers, and the deep blue-robed wizard praised Benjamin.

The nine wizards divided the captured anomalies, with Benjamin taking Salty Finger and the others sharing Graffiti Anomaly before they entered the anomaly plane. Benjamin could not fit through Wizard Alston’s standard portal because his true existence exceeded a thousand meters, so Alston enlarged it and let him pass.

• The wizards agreed to give Salty Finger to Benjamin and divide Graffiti Anomaly into eight portions, which the curse witch separated and distributed.
• The deep blue-robed wizard reported the mission complete, and Wizard Alston opened a rift into the anomaly plane and warned the wizards to preserve the plane and stay in light at night.
• The wizards crossed the rift one by one, each carrying a source of light, until Benjamin discovered that the portal rejected him.
• Wizard Alston examined Benjamin’s disguised form, recognized that his existence exceeded a thousand meters, and expanded the rift.
• Benjamin stepped through the enlarged rift into the anomaly plane.

Benjamin cautiously explored the Dark Night Anomaly, found an abandoned settlement, and encountered locals whose guns and supernatural abilities could not threaten him. After sealing a strange entity bound to one man, he captured the fleeing survivors and used Soul Search to gather information about their world.

• Benjamin tested how the Dark Night Anomaly reacted to light and used Fate Lines to locate a settlement while avoiding broad spiritual scouting.
• Benjamin reached the abandoned settlement and was fired on by four armed locals, but he caught or deflected their bullets and assessed their weapons.
• A tall, thin man summoned a snake-like strange entity, which Benjamin suppressed and sealed into a bead, leaving its host gravely weakened.
• The other three locals fled, but Benjamin pulled them back with an invisible force and restrained them.
• One captive fired at Benjamin during an apparent interrogation, injuring himself with ricocheting bullet fragments, and Benjamin used Soul Search on another to learn about the world's language, society, history, and strange entities.

Benjamin learned about the world’s anomaly classifications, technology, and the city of Mist City from the memories of four bandits he killed. He headed toward Mist City to hide, study anomalies, and gather material for his attempt to reach the Dao-Integration Realm.

• Benjamin searched the four dead bandits and took their money pouch before leaving the abandoned settlement.
• Benjamin learned that anomalies were classified into five levels and that the Dark Night Anomaly had once wiped out a city of more than one million people.
• Benjamin discovered that this world’s technology resembled the late twentieth century, but high-speed and high-altitude flight were dangerous because they attracted anomalies.
• Benjamin learned that marine anomalies supported ocean travel, while gene drugs and sealed anomalies gave people dangerous paths to enhanced power.
• Benjamin identified Mist City as a refuge for criminals and Psychics and set out toward it to study anomalies and seek research materials.

Eric noticed Benjamin had opened an Old Bookstore in the Old District and began considering learning medicine so he could escape factory work by opening a clinic. Benjamin settled into his hidden clinic and laboratory, while Mist City's dangerous night fell and he kept watch from the bookstore.

• Eric saw the newly opened Old Bookstore and, after visiting it, met its owner, Benjamin.
• Eric reflected on his factory job and his mother's lessons, then decided to save money and seek an apprenticeship in medicine.
• Benjamin revealed that he had obtained a complete false identity, rented the house, and built a clinic and laboratory in its basement.
• As dusk arrived, Benjamin withdrew his mental probing, secured the bookstore, and read reports of a disappearance and nighttime safety warnings.

Eric continued visiting Benjamin’s Old Bookstore and sensed that the suitcase-carrying stranger who arrived there was dangerous. After Eric left, Benjamin exchanged optimized genetic drugs for payment, research materials, and information about new horrors and black-robed figures outside Mist City.

• Eric visited Benjamin’s bookstore for the fifteenth day in a row and suggested installing electric lights.
• A strangely unsettling man entered, and Eric sensed that he regarded Benjamin as a superior.
• Benjamin told Eric it was getting late, and Eric left the bookstore despite his curiosity.
• Benjamin showed the man ten tubes of optimized genetic drugs, whose success rate was five percent higher than the original formula.
• The man paid Benjamin with old currency, delivered requested research materials, and reported new horrors east of the city and figures in black robes.
• The man left with the drugs, and Benjamin kept the money and materials as part of their ongoing trade.

Benjamin prepared anomalous fragments for research and arranged for Eric to watch the Old Bookstore while he attended a Psychic Association lecture. As Association staff began assessing reports about his improved Gene Serum, Benjamin rode toward the exhibition center, pleased that his bait had been cast.

• Benjamin examined newly acquired anomalous fragments and considered the research value of prohibited Gene Serums.
• Benjamin asked Eric to watch the Old Bookstore and oversee electricians while he attended a public lecture organized by the Psychic Association.
• Eric arrived the next morning, took Benjamin's instructions and keys, and stayed at the shop as Benjamin left for the exhibition center.
• At the Psychic Association headquarters, Dirk and Harding reviewed rising missing-person reports and discussed a newspaper clipping about Gene Serum with a reportedly improved success rate.
• Harding decided to monitor the serum for a month before judging whether it was genuine, and said the Association would investigate whoever had optimized it.
• Benjamin boarded a crowded public bus and thought that he had cast his bait.

Benjamin attended Victor Rayne’s public lecture on anomalies and learned that they evolved by imitating human civilization and were linked to human sapience. After the lecture, he followed a select group of attendees into a secretive hall inside the Psychic Association, where a more serious gathering was about to begin.

• Benjamin entered the Mist City Exhibition Center and took a seat near the exit for the public lecture.
• Victor Rayne explained how the Ghost Ship anomaly changed with shipbuilding technology and proposed that anomalies imitated human symbols and arose from fields of human sapience.
• Benjamin listened closely to Victor’s lecture on anomaly classifications, avoidance, emergency measures, and reporting incidents.
• After the lecture, Benjamin watched most attendees socialize and leave, then waited among the people who remained.
• A waiter led the remaining attendees through a hidden corridor to a large hall, where Benjamin took a seat and surveyed the room.

Benjamin attended the Psychic Association’s internal auction and bought anomaly research materials before winning a sealed Danger Level anomaly for seven thousand gold coins. As he left with his purchases, he sensed dangerous attention behind him, while Harding and Dirk went to provide him with “after-sales service.”

• Elena Walker opened the auction, and Benjamin bought a black stone sealing tablet, anomalous fragments, a research manuscript, and other anomaly-related items.
• Benjamin outbid the other attendees for the final lot, a sealed Danger Level anomaly, and won it for seven thousand gold coins.
• Benjamin paid with coins he had gathered or created through alchemy, packed his purchases into his suitcase, and left the auction early.
• Benjamin sensed several dangerous gazes following him as he walked out of the exhibition center.
• Harding called Dirk away from the surveillance footage, and the two set out to follow Benjamin and guarantee his safety.

Benjamin returned to the Old Bookstore after Psychic Association members secretly dealt with people following him, then gave Eric a medical textbook he created. He suspected a dangerous auction attendee had held back because of the Association and waited for the coming turmoil in Mist City.

• Psychic Association members ambushed the people stalking Benjamin and took them away before he could use them as experimental subjects.
• Benjamin returned to the Old Bookstore and found that Eric had arranged for the shop's electrical wiring and bulbs to be installed.
• Eric asked Benjamin for a basic medical book instead of payment, and Benjamin used Alchemy to create a textbook and gave it to him.
• Eric thanked Benjamin and left the bookstore with the book, while Benjamin examined the sealed metal box and considered his auction haul.
• Benjamin recalled that a sinister auction attendee who had shown killing intent was absent from the group of stalkers and suspected the person knew the Psychic Association would intervene.
• Benjamin concluded that the shadow's familiarity with the Association could signal trouble ahead and decided to wait in Mist City.

Benjamin developed the Glimmer Eye, a tiny anomaly-like investigative organism that could gather information while evading other anomalies. After Black Broker brought him supplies and news of a dangerous new anomaly in the Old District, Benjamin secretly attached a Glimmer Eye to him and prepared to investigate.

• Benjamin used anomaly fragments and the detection principles of the Glimmer Eye to create a concealed investigative organism with a lifespan of about a month.
• Black Broker visited Benjamin with experimental materials and an uncommon Hazard Level anomaly fragment.
• Black Broker reported that a new anomaly in the Old District had killed the first Psychic Association team sent to confront it and might be at the peak of Hazard Level.
• Benjamin accepted Black Broker's goods and paid him, then secretly attached a Glimmer Eye to the inside of his coat collar.
• Benjamin sent the delivered bottles and metal boxes to the basement and considered the new anomaly a promising research sample.

Harding led the Psychic Association’s operation to capture the Hazard Level Shadow Thief, using a shadowless victim and the team’s own shadows as bait. The lights came on across the factory, and the team waited for the anomaly to appear.

• Harding briefed the elite teams on the Shadow Thief’s shadow-consuming ability and its suspected role in deaths and disappearances in the Old District.
• Harding explained that the team sent before them had vanished, so the Association had prepared a sealed factory site with a grid of special lights.
• The Association brought in a paralyzed victim whose shadow had disappeared completely, and Harding asked him to help lure the Shadow Thief.
• Harding ordered the operation to begin, and eight high-powered lights illuminated the factory, leaving the team members’ shadows exposed as bait.

Harding and the capture team lured the Shadow Thief into a sealing array, but it spread across the factory’s shadows and took control of the machinery. Harding unleashed Storm Eye to fight back, leaving the confrontation unresolved.

• Dirk spotted the Shadow Thief gliding toward the man on the stretcher, and Harding and the team used lights to funnel it into the sealing array.
• The team removed the Shadowless One and the bait, prompting the Shadow Thief to attack; Dirk slowed it with a black filament, while Harding’s Storm Eye aura drove it back.
• The Shadow Thief spread into a dark membrane and used shadows to control the factory’s machines and debris.
• Harding unleashed Storm Eye, summoning a violent storm that pushed back the controlled objects while the Shadow Thief’s membrane remained connected to their shadows.

While the Psychic Association tried to suppress the Shadow Thief, Black-Robed Cultists attacked the factory from three directions and fought the Association’s forces. Benjamin watched unseen, recognized the cultists’ assault as a likely distraction, and turned his attention toward the foggy sea.

• Harding ordered the capture teams to strengthen the sealing formation, compressing the Shadow Thief toward the center of the factory.
• Black-Robed Cultists approached from the east, deflected the watch unit’s gunfire, and attacked with Psychics and armed fighters.
• Two elite Association members stopped a cultist’s black fog attack and battled the five Black-Robed Psychics while the watch unit exchanged fire with the cultists.
• The Association fought Black-Robed Cultists attacking from the north and south as well as the east, while Benjamin used Void-Step and his Anomalous aura to remain unnoticed.
• Benjamin assessed the Association’s superior strength and equipment, then suspected the cultists had prepared more than a three-sided attack and looked toward the sea.

A Shark Monster with Wizard-world biological modification technology disrupted the Psychic Association’s battle and helped the Shadow Thief escape. Harding stayed behind to stabilize Dirk, while the monster fled into the sea and the force behind the rescue remained unknown.

• A Shark Monster burst into the factory, destroyed a sealing-array node, and attacked Harding and Dirk while Benjamin recognized Wizard technology in its construction.
• Harding unleashed more of the Storm Eye’s power as Dirk released Shadow Snake, but the monster endured their attacks and its shriek destabilized Dirk.
• The Shadow Thief escaped through the gap in the array, and the Shark Monster fled toward the sea after taking a storm strike.
• Harding abandoned pursuit to stabilize Dirk’s backlash, while the Shadow Thief and Shark Monster disappeared into the night.

Benjamin pursued the escaped Shadow Thief while the Association’s team captured Black-Robed Cultists, only for the prisoners to die when the eerie entities inside them went out of control. Their attack revealed a likely informant within the Association, but Harding postponed the investigation and ordered the team to restore the sealing barrier and recover the bodies.

• Harding suppressed the Shadow Snake inside Dirk, while Benjamin realized the Glimmer Eye caused instinctive discomfort and needed further improvement.
• Benjamin followed the Glimmer Eyes’ signals and pursued the Shadow Thief through the Abandoned Industrial Zone.
• The Association’s capture teams entered the factory with prisoners, reporting that the east and north sides had been cleared and that no enemies were found in the south.
• The three captured Black-Robed Cultists suddenly died, and Dirk determined that a preset mechanism had released the eerie entities sealed inside them.
• Dirk pointed out that the attackers knew too much about the Association’s plans, suggesting that the Association had an informant among its ranks.
• Harding ordered the team to restore the sealing barrier, reseal the entities in the bodies, and take the corpses to headquarters for examination.

Benjamin lured the Shadow Thief into an alley, studied its ability to devour his shadow, and captured it with a sealing formation. After checking his scattered Glimmer Eyes, he found the Shark Monster had stopped at a location still out at sea and vanished to investigate.

• Benjamin tracked the Shadow Thief to a dim alley and offered his shadow as bait while observing its behavior.
• The Shadow Thief repeatedly bit Benjamin's shadow, but his Body Tempering Method repaired the damage and quickly developed resistance.
• Benjamin recorded the Shadow Thief's energy and feeding patterns as it became unable to bite through his shadow.
• Benjamin sealed the Shadow Thief, compressed it, and stored it in a rune-covered metal box.
• Benjamin checked his Glimmer Eyes and found that the Shark Monster had stopped moving at a location out at sea.
• Benjamin vanished to investigate the Shark Monster's location.