Recaps

Benjamin tracked a dying shark monster into the sea and analyzed the wizard techniques used to modify it. He concluded that an unknown wizard had built a powerful local network ahead of him, so he resolved to accelerate his own plans.

• Benjamin followed the Glimmer Eye’s signal southwest from Mist City and found the abandoned shark monster collapsing in the sea.
• Benjamin seized the monster and used the All-Purpose Eye and Fate System to analyze its modification techniques as it died.
• Benjamin determined that the techniques were crude, suggesting a wizard had supplied local collaborators with downgraded knowledge.
• Benjamin considered the rival wizard’s organized operation and the competition among mission-taking wizards for limited research resources.
• Benjamin decided to speed up his plans and flew back toward Mist City.

Eric continued studying medicine at the Old Bookstore while Benjamin considered why the Black-Robed Cultists had vanished after the battle in the Abandoned Industrial Zone. Benjamin concluded that the cultists might have a hidden base beyond his surveillance and decided to pursue the suspected mole inside the Psychic Association.

• Eric reviewed his medical book as Benjamin tested his understanding of blood pressure and venous return.
• Benjamin reflected on his failed search for the Black-Robed Cultists' base and considered whether they operated only at night or concealed their location beyond Mist City.
• Benjamin realized the cultists lived as ordinary residents during the day and weighed whether they relied on informants or a method that blocked psychic surveillance.
• Benjamin connected the cultists' knowledge of the Psychic Association's operation to a suspected mole with access to its plans.
• Benjamin watched the morning street and decided to focus his investigation on the suspected mole as the Association prepared to act.

Benjamin continued researching aberrations and the Sealed Rune Slate, while laboratory limits prevented him from expanding his workspace or moving dangerous samples into his Internal Grotto-Heaven. The Black Broker brought a smaller shipment amid the Psychic Association’s crackdown, and Benjamin learned the investigation into the abandoned factory had turned inward toward the Association’s own people.

• Benjamin finished documenting the Shadow Thief and used his findings to improve the lifespan and compatibility of the second-generation Glimmer Eye.
• Benjamin tested the Sealed Rune Slate in his cramped laboratory and avoided further expansion because aberrant energy could destabilize experiments and deeper excavation risked disturbing a deadly Deep-Earth Aberration.
• Benjamin sensed the Black Broker approaching and received him at the bookstore.
• The Black Broker explained that the Psychic Association had tightened controls on aberrant resources and Gene Serum while investigating its own personnel after the abandoned factory incident.
• Benjamin accepted a small shipment and the Black Broker’s intelligence note, then told him to visit less often until Benjamin contacted him.

The Black-Robed Cultists learned that a third party had taken the Shadow Thief and discussed how to track it down. Their leader ordered the Crevice Dweller released so its connection to the Shadow Thief could reveal where the captive was being held.

• The tall Black-Robed Cultist told the gathered cultists that the Shadow Thief had been missing for half a month and ordered them to reduce contact.
• After the meeting, the tall Black-Robed Cultist told the short person that a third party, rather than the Psychic Association, had captured the Shadow Thief.
• The tall Black-Robed Cultist ordered the short person to release the Crevice Dweller, which could sense the Shadow Thief and lead them to it.
• The tall Black-Robed Cultist planned to use the resulting anomalous disturbance to track the Psychic Association's response and identify the third party.
• The short person agreed to make arrangements and left, concealing the Crevice Dweller's wriggling black pattern in their palm.

Benjamin waited for the Crevice Dweller to attack him and examined its connection to the captured Shadow Thief. He trapped the anomaly in a spatial crack and sealed it, leaving the Old Bookstore secure with another anomaly contained.

• The Crevice Dweller emerged from a gap and tried to flatten Benjamin, but his Void Refinement body resisted its attack.
• Benjamin used the All-Purpose Eye and Fate System to study the Crevice Dweller and inferred that it was paired with the Shadow Thief.
• Benjamin created a nanometer-wide spatial crevice with Spatial Stabilization and forced the Crevice Dweller toward it.
• Benjamin pushed the Crevice Dweller into the spatial crack, sealed it with a formation, and secured it on a thin piece from his Internal Grotto-Heaven.

Benjamin fused the Shadow Thief and the Crevice Dweller, creating a Catastrophe-Level Shadow Anomaly. He subdued and sealed it, then returned toward Mist City with plans to study anomaly evolution and attempt more powerful fusions.

• Benjamin flew out over the sea and built a stone platform covered in layered sealing arrays.
• Benjamin released the Shadow Thief and the Crevice Dweller, and the two anomalies fused into a Shadow Anomaly.
• The Shadow Anomaly reached Catastrophe Level in the midnight darkness and began eroding Benjamin’s manifested body.
• Benjamin summoned his Two-Faced Dharma Image, overwhelmed the anomaly, and sealed it in a black sphere.
• Benjamin stored the seal in his Internal Grotto-Heaven and left for Mist City, considering experiments with higher-level and multiple anomalies.

Benjamin studied how anomalous fragments could combine through compatible traits and realized he needed more research materials. Meanwhile, Harding and Dirk identified his Old Bookstore as the source of improved Gene Serum and entered to recruit its owner amid the Psychic Association’s search for strength against a Catastrophe Level anomaly.

• Benjamin tested three Danger Level anomaly fragments and found that their fear, chill, and dizziness effects balanced one another.
• Benjamin concluded that compatible anomalies could fuse through coordinated traits, but he lacked enough samples to test his theories further.
• Benjamin spotted Psychic Association members Harding and Dirk observing the Old Bookstore and anticipated that his shortage of materials would soon be resolved.
• Dirk and Harding connected the bookstore to improved Gene Serum and discussed recruiting its technically skilled owner to help the Association prepare for a Catastrophe Level threat.
• Harding and Dirk crossed the street and entered the Old Bookstore.

Harding and Dirk visited Benjamin at the Old Bookstore and offered him recruitment or cooperation with the Psychic Association. Benjamin chose cooperation to gain access to anomalous materials and research files, then prepared to revise the agreement and demonstrate his value.

• Harding told Benjamin that the improved Gene Serum had been traced to him and explained that the Psychic Association wanted to recruit or cooperate with him.
• Benjamin chose cooperation and requested anomalous materials and nonclassified research data in exchange for improving Gene Serum and assisting with difficult research.
• Harding gave Benjamin the standard cooperation agreement and said Dirk would deliver the revised terms to the Association's legal department.
• After Harding and Dirk left, Benjamin revealed that he had deliberately used the Black Broker to attract the attention of major powers and had anticipated the Association's offer.
• Benjamin went to the basement to prepare a revised agreement and a list of research achievements.

Two Black-Robed Cultists concluded that a mole had enabled the theft and sealing of their fused Catastrophe Level anomaly, and they decided to activate their unfinished backup plan before a Psychic Association Prophet exposed them. The tall cultist, Victor Rayne, then selected retired Psychic Association member Collins as a test subject for his dangerous experiments.

• The tall and short Black-Robed Cultists discussed the stolen Shadow Thief and Crevice Dweller, concluded their fusion had been sealed through a leak, and suspended offline contact.
• The tall cultist revealed that their vitality reserves would last less than a month and that the Psychic Association had sent a Prophet, prompting the two men to approve the final plan.
• The tall cultist inspected a fused-anomaly experiment whose host was losing control, watched it die, and destroyed its remains.
• The tall cultist revealed himself as Victor Rayne, a respected Psychic Association lecturer and anomaly researcher, and went to Mist City Psychiatric Hospital.
• Victor reviewed new patient files, chose retired Psychic Association member Collins as his next test subject, and regarded him as promising experimental material.

Benjamin completed a medicine batch for Harding and received a shipment of rare materials as the Psychic Association prepared for internal upheaval. A Ghost Ship oddity attacked Pier Three, and while Harding and Dirk fought it, Benjamin detected an unidentified man reporting to an unseen ally before escaping the port.

• Benjamin handed Harding twelve improved doses of medicine, and Harding gave him a reduced shipment that included a complete Danger Level oddity.
• Harding warned Benjamin that a mole might cause chaos before the Prophet arrived, then he and Dirk left the bookstore.
• Benjamin sensed explosions at the port, where a Ghost Ship oddity had appeared and begun destroying the docks and pulling workers aboard.
• Harding used Storm Eye to fly with Dirk toward the Ghost Ship, and they attacked it with lightning and Shadow Snake.
• An unidentified man contacted an unseen ally, received orders to withdraw, and escaped the port in a black sedan while Benjamin tracked him.

After the Ghost Ship retreated, the Psychic Association learned that the Black-Robed Cultist Organization’s base lay in a subspace beneath Mist City Psychiatric Hospital and launched a raid. Benjamin secretly marked the Association’s elites and followed them toward the hospital to search for the wizard’s trail.

• The Ghost Ship vanished into the fog, and Harding and Dirk reported its retreat before the Association President ordered every elite back to headquarters.
• At the headquarters meeting, the President revealed that the Prophet had arrived early and had located the cult’s base beneath Mist City Psychiatric Hospital.
• The President identified Victor Rayne as the cult’s leader and ordered the elites and two headquarters reinforcements to attack the subspace immediately.
• As the Association forces departed, Benjamin secretly marked several members with his mental power and tracked their movements.
• Benjamin used Void-Step to follow the teams to Mist City Psychiatric Hospital.

Benjamin followed The President and two headquarters reinforcements into the other space behind the anomalous thirteenth stair, then began collecting the anomalies hidden there. The President’s group went deeper into the space while Benjamin turned away to harvest its hidden materials.

• The Psychic Association evacuated Mist City Psychiatric Hospital and identified the staircase’s extra thirteenth step as the entrance to a Hazard Level anomaly called Staircase.
• The President, two headquarters reinforcements, and the unseen Benjamin entered the passage beneath the thirteenth step and arrived in a gray space filled with floating staircases and rooms.
• The female reinforcement silenced the space’s attacking whispers while the male reinforcement led The President deeper into the anomaly.
• Benjamin used the All-Purpose Eye to locate Whispering Anomalies and compressed them into tiny crystals with a sealing formation.
• Benjamin stored the crystals in a test tube, then headed away from The President’s group and began scanning and harvesting more hidden anomalies.

Benjamin watched Victor Rayne complete his transformation after Collins died defending him, and the Psychic Association’s attacks were stopped by the Disaster Level anomaly Blood Net. Victor discovered Benjamin hiding in the hall and teleported the three Association Psychics away, leaving the two men alone.

• Benjamin reached the central hall and watched the Association Psychics fight the fusion monster protecting Victor Rayne and the sphere of light.
• The President called out to Collins, who briefly resisted the fusion anomaly before losing control and collapsing into a dead body.
• Victor touched the sphere, began transforming, and thanked Collins as the old man died.
• The President and the two support Psychics attacked Victor, but Blood Net emerged and blocked their powers.
• Victor’s Blood Net detected Benjamin, and Victor teleported the three Association Psychics away, leaving Benjamin and Victor alone.

Benjamin received Victor Ryan’s research on Aberrant Fusion and discussed its flaws with him before destroying Blood Net with a single punch. The blow shattered the alternate space and Mist City Psychiatric Hospital, cleared the city’s fog to reveal blue skies, and Benjamin vanished before the President could question him.

• Benjamin learned that Victor Ryan had sensed the wizard who supplied the foundation for Aberrant Fusion technology, then accepted Victor Ryan’s notebook of research.
• Benjamin questioned Victor Ryan’s willingness to sacrifice innocent people, and Victor Ryan maintained that the sacrifices were necessary for humanity to escape the aberrations.
• Benjamin discussed the fusion technology with Victor Ryan to let him remain himself a little longer, until Victor Ryan’s consciousness began to fade and Blood Net attacked.
• Benjamin broke free of Blood Net and erased it with a punch that tore through the alternate space and collapsed Mist City Psychiatric Hospital.
• The shockwave blew away Mist City’s fog and revealed a blue sky, while the President, the reinforcements, Harding, Dirk, Eric, and the evacuees witnessed Benjamin’s power.
• Benjamin looked toward the President and disappeared completely by activating Void-Step.

A Black-Robed Cultist left Mist City after the alternate space collapsed, acknowledging Benjamin’s control and conceding the city to him. Benjamin sensed the wizard’s departure, returned to the Old Bookstore, and began reading Professor Victor’s notebook for its hidden spiritual information.

• The short Black-Robed Cultist admired the precise power control that had cleared a hole in the clouds and reflected on Professor Victor’s work and death.
• The Black-Robed Cultist abandoned his force in Mist City, accepted his loss, and walked into the sky on invisible steps.
• Benjamin sensed a disturbance in the Fate Lines but could not detect the departing wizard.
• Benjamin stored the anomalies in his underground laboratory, then opened Professor Victor’s notebook and read its final entries.
• The notebook questioned how anomalies defined humans, contrasting their perspective with the Psychic Association’s definition of anomalies.

Benjamin read Professor Victor’s theory that anomalies targeted humanity itself and his plan to fuse humans with anomalies, then considered how the failed research could advance his own work. After Eric returned from the factory amid the strange sky event, Benjamin asked whether he wanted to become a Psychic.

• Benjamin read Professor Victor’s notes arguing that anomalies arose from humanity’s discord with the world and would persist as long as humans existed.
• Benjamin learned that Professor Victor’s incomplete fusion experiments aimed to give humans anomalous traits, though the host’s will was usually consumed.
• Benjamin judged the professor’s research valuable and began recalculating its experimental data.
• Eric rushed into the bookstore after seeing the strange sky and complained that his factory boss had sent the workers home rather than shelter them.
• Benjamin dismissed Eric’s attempt to inspect the notebook, then asked him if he wanted to become a Psychic.

Ten years later, Benjamin’s research had transformed Psychic treatment and allowed Harding to retire safely, while Eric had become an accomplished doctor under Benjamin’s instruction. Benjamin told Eric to close the clinic so he could undergo his fifth round of sealing, leaving their next stage of work about to begin.

• Eric treated Mr. Collins for soul damage and directed him to seek Doctor Valentin if black lines appeared around his wound.
• Harding brought Benjamin new research materials and reported that Dirk had joined the Psychic Association’s northern response team as Shadow Snake Dirk.
• Benjamin’s improved sealing and Aberrant Separation techniques had reduced soul erosion and allowed Harding to have the Storm Eye safely removed.
• Harding delivered Dirk’s request for Benjamin to examine his fusion with Shadow Snake when he returned.
• Benjamin told Eric to put up the resting sign because he was ready for his fifth round of sealing.

After Benjamin sealed a fifth anomaly in Eric, he explained how the five anomalies could form a stable system and help Eric pursue perfect human-anomaly fusion. Their discussion was interrupted when Benjamin detected a change in the sky: Mist City was suddenly beneath a dark-purple, veined expanse visible only to people with heightened perception.

• Benjamin told Eric that the fifth anomaly coordinated his other four and urged him to learn to combine their powers.
• Eric and Benjamin discussed Benjamin’s approach to perfecting human-anomaly fusion, with Eric as the first test subject.
• Benjamin explained that Eric might transform his life form by mastering and fusing his five anomalies, though further work would still be needed to adapt the process for others.
• Benjamin abruptly burst out of the underground laboratory and through the bookstore roof, and Eric followed him.
• Eric saw that Mist City’s gray sky had become dark purple with slowly writhing black veins, while most ordinary residents seemed unaware of the change.
• Benjamin surveyed the city and sensed something, but did not answer Eric’s question about the sky.

Benjamin learned that Alston had fused the plane’s anomalies, causing new ones to form, and that the wizards were expected to contain them. Before leaving the plane, Benjamin said farewell to Eric and disappeared, leaving Eric to face Harding and the Association members.

• Benjamin received Alston’s broadcast explaining the anomaly fusion and instructing the wizards to contain the newly born anomalies in exchange for keeping those they captured.
• Benjamin warned Harding to prepare the city for increased anomaly activity, then refused the Association’s offer to escort him and told Eric he was leaving for good.
• Benjamin left Eric instructions about materials in the basement laboratory and Dirk’s seal, then refused Eric’s request to accompany him.
• Eric thanked Benjamin, and Benjamin revealed his true appearance before disappearing with Void-Step.
• Harding and three Association members arrived at the bookstore, where Eric told Harding that Benjamin had left.

Benjamin found a lifeless city whose energy marked it as a Destruction Level anomaly, then joined a group of wizards preparing to clear its secondary anomalies. He followed an unusual Fate Line into the eastern district, where three other wizards headed as well.

• Benjamin used the Fate System to choose a remote city as his destination and flew there for half a month.
• Benjamin discovered that the apparently ordinary city contained no life and was a Destruction Level anomaly confined to its own boundaries.
• Benjamin spotted four Level 7 Wizards and more than a dozen Level 6 Wizards gathered around the city.
• Red Flame announced that the wizards would subdue the secondary anomalies before competing to deal with the city itself.
• Benjamin followed an unusual Fate Line into the eastern district as three other wizards chose the same direction.

Benjamin and three other Level Six wizards encountered a Disaster Level entity whose umbrella created a domain of natural death, but two wizards quickly overpowered and sealed it. Excited by the powerful law entities awakening throughout the City of Emptiness, Benjamin crossed the bridge and followed the others into the city.

• Benjamin sensed that the three other wizards were Level Six as the group entered the City of Emptiness and its dark, rain-soaked streets.
• A three-meter-tall umbrella bearer subjected two wizards to rapid aging through its Law of Death domain, but they resisted the effects.
• Benjamin identified the umbrella as the Disaster Level entity's true body and recognized its exceptionally powerful mastery of the Law of Death.
• Two Level Six wizards bound the umbrella bearer with tentacles and its own shadow, then compressed it into a black bead and sealed it.
• Benjamin regretted missing the chance to intervene but welcomed the awakening energy fluctuations deeper in the city, then crossed the bridge after the other wizards.

Benjamin followed his Fate Line to an amusement park’s Magic Mirror Palace, where a mirror produced a hostile duplicate that had copied all his memories, knowledge, and abilities. He confirmed the copy’s power was much weaker than his own, but recognized its complete knowledge made it unusually valuable.

• Benjamin sealed a Forgetting creature in a crystal after resisting its memory-erasing power with the Body Tempering Method.
• Benjamin continued alone along his Fate Line, having gathered many bizarre creatures but not yet finding the important gain he expected.
• Benjamin entered the abandoned Children’s Park and followed the Fate Line to the Magic Mirror Palace.
• Benjamin saw his reflection act independently, then watched a hostile duplicate emerge from an ornate mirror.
• Benjamin dodged the duplicate’s copied Li-Fire Extinction Divine Light and caught its punch, while his All-Purpose Eye measured its abilities.
• Benjamin determined that the duplicate had copied his memories, knowledge, skills, and way of thinking, though its power was far weaker than his own.

Benjamin subdued his hostile clone in the Mirror Palace and learned it had overcome its implanted hatred through the Body Tempering Method. The clone explained Dao-Integration and assessed Benjamin’s chances of success, then began teaching him as battles shook the City of Emptiness outside.

• Benjamin restrained the clone until its hatred faded, and both recognized that the Body Tempering Method had developed resistance to the consciousness-distorting anomaly.
• The clone explained that it could not leave the anomalous city or world, but its plane-level Dao-Integration experience could guide Benjamin.
• The clone estimated its own Dao Assimilation risk above ninety percent and Benjamin’s success rate above ninety-five percent, thanks to his Mortal Aura, living beings’ faith, and research.
• The clone taught Benjamin that Dao-Integration meant confirming one’s existing unity with the world’s laws, while trying to meld into them reinforced a false sense of separation.
• Benjamin and the clone discussed Dao-Integration and related concepts for an unknown length of time as battles intensified outside, then Benjamin declared that his Dao had hope.

Benjamin absorbed his clone, completing the final preparation for Dao-Integration and awakening a third eye that could perceive fate. As the wizards gathered to confront the enormous City of Emptiness, they struggled to find a way to destroy it before Alston finished his fusion without damaging the world.

• Benjamin and his clone clasped hands, and the clone willingly dissolved into energy that Benjamin absorbed.
• Benjamin's Dharma Image expanded, gained intricate earrings and a third eye, and drove the aberrant projections away from the surrounding area.
• Benjamin recognized the danger of relying too heavily on fate, closed his third eye, and returned to human size.
• Benjamin surveyed the City of Emptiness as the wizards gathered above the city with their sealing containers.
• A Level 7 Archwizard asked for a solution to destroying the vast aberration before Alston completed his transformation, but the wizards remained silent.

Benjamin used an Anti-Magic Disk to suppress elemental power across a vast region, allowing the wizards to destroy the City of Emptiness without causing excessive damage to the plane. The wizards sealed the weakened city into a crystal, and Benjamin received one-third of its core as agreed; the purple clouds were fading to reveal an azure sky.

• Benjamin negotiated with the Level 7 Wizards and secured one-third of the City of Emptiness's main body if his method worked without harming the plane or Alston's fusion.
• Benjamin activated the Anti-Magic Disk, restraining elemental power across a region nearly ten thousand kilometers in diameter.
• Red Flame and the other wizards unleashed their attacks, reducing the City of Emptiness to ruins and exhausting its energy.
• Benjamin ordered the wizards to seal the collapsing city, and they compressed it into a billiard-ball-sized crystal.
• Red Flame separated one-third of the sealed core for Benjamin, who stored it and saw the purple clouds thin above the plane.