Recaps

After reviewing the battle, Benjamin chose the engineering spell Self-Growing Soil Creation as a way to project the Incense Divinity Path’s power into long-range attacks. As he began constructing its spell formation, a medium sent toward the Mushroom People Origin Plane reacted through the Fate System.

• Benjamin assessed his injuries and concluded that the Black Giant Legion needed a path to advance beyond Level 6.
• Benjamin decided that his offense needed a powerful long-range, wide-area attack and selected the Earth Element spell Self-Growing Soil Creation from the Great Dao Library.
• Benjamin planned to connect the spell’s formation to the Incense Divinity Path so he could draw on its accumulated power.
• Benjamin ordered materials through the Magic Network Terminal and directed the Black Giant Priests to build the formation.
• A medium Augusta had sent toward the Mushroom People Origin Plane produced a reaction in the Fate System.

Jack prepared to take his Graduation Trial in the dangerous world left behind by the Disaster Era, carrying his parents’ mysterious black metal pendant and joining Thea on the journey. The students reached a mutated forest, where their teacher warned that they would need to survive on their own for five days.

• Jack woke from a recurring nightmare about the mutated beast that killed his parents and prepared for the Graduation Trial in his shabby home.
• Jack put on the black metal pendant left by his parents and left for school.
• Jack met Thea and her father, then traveled with Thea to school for the trial.
• Jack and his classmates boarded armored transport trucks and rode for four hours away from the city.
• The students arrived at a vast mutated forest, where their teacher warned them that the five-day trial would require them to find food, water, and shelter and face mutated beasts on their own.

During a deadly forest trial, Jack’s team was attacked by a powerful black figure that killed two students and fatally wounded Thea. A black metal device revived Jack and then Thea by consuming his life force, while Benjamin watched from afar and revealed that he had engineered the supposed system to manipulate Jack.

• The teacher warned the students that calling for rescue would halve their scores and might not save them, and Jack formed a team with Thea and two classmates.
• Jack’s team hunted several Level 1 mutated beasts and made camp beside a stream for the night.
• A black figure attacked the camp, killed the two classmates, mortally wounded Thea, and nearly cut Jack in half.
• The black metal on Jack’s chest activated, drained his life force, and repaired his injuries; Jack then used it to revive Thea at the cost of further aging and weakness.
• Benjamin watched from his laboratory in the Purgatory Sulfur Plane and explained that the metal was a medium disguised as a system, designed to make Jack trust the hope of resurrection.

Benjamin reviewed how the Medium worked and concluded that its limited capacity restricted the help he could provide Jack, so he planned to have Jack gather materials for an upgrade. In the forest, Jack discovered that every emergency bracelet had stopped working, leaving him unable to call for help.

• Benjamin monitored Jack and reviewed the Medium’s design, which gathered hosts’ negative emotions and transmitted only a small amount of spiritual power.
• Benjamin explained that he had used Jack’s vitality to fuel the Alchemy that rebuilt Jack’s body and healed Thea, nearly draining Jack in the process.
• Benjamin decided the Medium needed greater capacity and planned to persuade Jack to find materials for an upgrade.
• Jack watched over the still-unconscious Thea and tried to contact help after recalling the attack.
• Jack found that his emergency bracelet and the bracelets belonging to Thea and the other two classmates all failed to respond.

After the distress wristbands failed, Jack suspected an organized enemy operation and fled with the unconscious Thea to a hidden hollow. He recharged the System with an Energy Crystal and a mutated beast horn, then learned it could strengthen living bodies and objects.

• Jack concluded that the wristband failures pointed to an organized operation and decided not to approach anyone claiming to be rescue personnel.
• Jack dismembered two corpses, altered the campsite to conceal signs of their presence, and carried Thea and their packs deeper into the forest.
• Jack found a concealed hollow, set Thea down, and discovered that the System could recharge with energy sources other than life force.
• Jack placed the broken wristband power unit and a mutated beast's broken horn beside the black metal piece and used the System's instructions to activate an energy-absorbing array.
• Benjamin used the absorbed energy to upgrade the Interspatial Psychic Transmission Array, while Jack recharged the System.
• Jack learned that the System could strengthen living bodies or objects and felt hopeful.

Jack underwent a basic physical enhancement through the system, gaining strength after consuming a large amount of food. He resolved to find the shadow and take revenge, while Benjamin decided to let Jack act on his own before gathering more information about his world.

• Jack chose to enhance his body, and Benjamin carefully rearranged the vitality in Jack’s tissues through the black Medium.
• The enhancement drained the system’s energy and left Jack ravenously hungry, so he devoured most of the food in his luggage.
• Jack discovered his body had grown stronger and estimated his physical strength had reached the level of a Level 5 Apprentice.
• Jack realized he still lacked a special ability, but vowed to gain more power, protect Thea, and find the shadow to take revenge.
• Benjamin judged the enhancement sufficient for now and chose to let Jack proceed while he waited to learn more about the world.

After enhancing himself with energy stones, Jack ambushed and killed two men searching for him, then fled when gunfire revealed a larger armed group had arrived. The group leader organized a search, leaving Jack hunted in the forest.

• Jack returned to the campsite, took two energy stones from his dead classmates’ bracelets, and used them to trigger a second body enhancement.
• Jack heard two men approaching his hiding place and killed the first with a surprise strike before defeating the second in a close fight.
• Jack searched the bodies for supplies, but a gunman fired at him, forcing him to flee through the forest under fire.
• More than twenty armed pursuers arrived, and their leader divided them into groups of five to search for Jack.

The Descent Faction prepared a sacrificial formation in the forest while planning to use the approaching beast tide to distract the military. After discovering the attack and the forged distress signals, the old commander ordered reserve forces into the forest to rescue the students and stop the formation.

• The black-clad leader ordered his forces to keep pursuing the escaped trainee and learned that the formation was eighty percent complete.
• The leader revealed that he had deliberately lured the military into the forest and intended to use the beast tide to keep it from interfering with the Descent Faction’s plan.
• The military commander learned that a mole had forged distress signals and helped the Descent Faction infiltrate the trial zone to prepare a spatial passage.
• The command post received reports that Camps Eleven and Twelve had gone silent and Camp Three was under attack.
• The old commander ordered all reserve units to enter the forest and move toward Camps Eleven, Twelve, and Three, despite the coming beast tide.

Jack used the system to strengthen his body, killed three black-clad pursuers, and discovered that food helped his body continue growing stronger. After enhancing his damaged knife, he encountered a wounded classmate being chased through the forest and wondered whether the pursuit was a trap.

• Jack charged the system with Energy Stones, strengthened his body, and discovered that his strength and senses had increased, though his special ability had not awakened.
• Jack evaded five armed pursuers, ambushed three black-clad men, deflected a bullet with his knife, and collected their supplies before fleeing.
• Jack ate an energy bar and realized his body continued growing stronger as it absorbed the earlier enhancements with sufficient nutrition.
• Jack used the system to enhance his damaged short knife, which was restored to better-than-new condition.
• Jack spotted the first person in their class to reach Level 5 Apprentice fleeing while a group of black-clad men pursued him, and questioned whether the scene was a trap.

Jack rescued Gavin by killing the black-clad pursuers and taking their weapons and Energy Stones, then led him toward the military as artillery sounded nearby. Jack stayed behind to face the next pursuers, hoping to collect more resources and test his enhanced strength.

• Jack realized the black-clad men had been pursuing Gavin, then ambushed and killed more than a dozen of them with his short blade while deflecting their bullets.
• Jack collected the pursuers’ Energy Stones, guns, rations, and other supplies, then escaped into the forest with Gavin.
• Gavin struggled to keep up with Jack and explained that the black-clad men had attacked him after he killed one of them.
• After hearing artillery and detecting more pursuers, Jack sent Gavin toward the military and stayed behind to confront the approaching men.

Jack slaughtered the men in black pursuing him, then killed their leader after discovering he was the man who had murdered Jack’s classmates and wounded Thea. He reached a military camp under attack and saw a powerful old soldier fighting off dozens of Transcendents.

• Jack killed the pursuing men in black, unlocked simple system charging, and enhanced his body again.
• Jack recognized the black shadow as the man who had killed his classmates and struck Thea, then attacked him and his two companions.
• Jack’s enhanced body resisted the Transcendents’ abilities, and he killed the black shadow and one companion while crippling another.
• Jack followed the black shadow’s call for help to a ruined military camp, where dozens of powerful men in black besieged an old soldier.
• Jack hid behind a tree and observed the old soldier fight back against the attackers.

Jack infiltrated the enemy camp during the old man's battle with the black-clad leader and used his system to absorb the energy powering the formation. The formation collapsed, freeing the old man from its suppression and leaving him ready to confront the leader.

• The old man fought the black-clad leader and learned that Jack had escaped and revealed the formation's location to the military.
• The black-clad leader explained that the formation suppressed the old man and that he intended to use the Tier 6 Transcendent as a sacrifice.
• Jack sneaked toward the metal tower while the old man drew the enemy's attention with a sudden assault.
• Jack killed the three guards, attached the black metal block to his knife, and stabbed the formation core while ordering the system to absorb its energy.
• The formation core drained and the tower collapsed, removing the dark-red suppression around the old man.
• The old man faced the black-clad leader and declared that it was time to settle the score.

Benjamin discovered that the men in black’s crude Spatial Passage Array used exceptionally advanced technology and was designed for ultra-long-range travel. After Augusta shared evidence of a separate civilization backing the Birdfolk’s Sky Cities, they agreed to delay entering the Plane Cluster until they could gather more support.

• Benjamin analyzed the Spatial Passage Array and found its core framework far more advanced than his own spatial knowledge.
• Benjamin contacted Augusta and shared his conclusion that the array could reach distant Plane Clusters or other structures of space and time.
• Augusta sent Benjamin reconnaissance data showing that the Birdfolk had primitive society but technologically advanced Sky Cities.
• Augusta explained that her Medium had been discovered and destroyed, and that the Birdfolk’s technology came from a source distinct from the array and the Wizard System.
• Benjamin and Augusta concluded that multiple advanced civilizations were secretly involved in the Plane Cluster and agreed to wait until Augusta could arrange support from Level 7 Wizards.

After surviving the Descent Faction’s attack, Jack and Gavin joined the military and became renowned recruits while Jack’s strength grew rapidly. Benjamin and Augusta discussed the plane’s resistance to outside powers and planned to recruit Mentor Clark to help establish a teleportation array.

• Jack learned that only twenty percent of the students in the forest had survived, and he and Gavin were specially recruited by the military.
• After months of training, Jack awakened his superpower and he and Gavin earned the nickname “Twin Stars.”
• Jack and Gavin discussed a new northern spatial passage and the growing threat from the Dinosaur-kin before Jack went to meet Thea.
• Benjamin observed Jack’s progress and explained to Augusta that the plane’s active origin destroyed attempts to open a spatial passage with foreign power.
• Benjamin told Augusta that Jack would need to grow stronger before he could set up a teleportation array, and Augusta suggested recruiting Mentor Clark.
• Benjamin agreed to ask Mentor Clark to join their operation.

Benjamin assembled Clark, Castillo, Viola, and Augusta's allies for an investigation into a dangerous Plane Cluster, then continued studying Jack Plane's supernatural powers. Years later, Jack was conscripted with Gavin and other top Transcendents to investigate a new spatial passage threatening a vital Energy Crystal mine.

• Benjamin invited Clark and Castillo to join the mission, then secured Viola's agreement to accompany Augusta's group.
• Several years later, Jack reached Tier 6 at age twenty but worried that his progress had slowed, while Thea encouraged him and told him to attend a military meeting.
• Jack reunited with Gavin, who described newly emerging races and the spread of spatial passages across the world.
• A lieutenant general ordered Jack, Gavin, and the city's top Transcendents to investigate a new passage near a vital Energy Crystal mine and stop any enemy actions under compulsory conscription.
• Jack and Gavin agreed to compete over who would kill more enemies.

After reaching rank eight, Jack returned to find Thea near death from a sudden loss of vitality and suspected the system's past healing had left a lasting effect. As he turned to the black metal block for help, Benjamin sensed Thea's condition through the Medium and reacted strangely.

• Jack learned that Gavin had been seriously injured and waited outside the treatment room, unable to see him.
• Months later, Jack recovered, became a rank-eight Transcendent, and learned that Gavin had left for a long-term assignment on the western front.
• Jack returned from an assignment in the eastern district and learned Thea was near death because her vitality had suddenly weakened.
• Jack rushed to Thea's hospital bedside and suspected her condition was a lingering aftereffect of the system healing her during the Graduation Trial.
• Benjamin detected Jack's heightened emotions through the Auxiliary Control Crystal, reviewed the recorded footage, and sensed Thea's body through the Medium.

After Thea recovered, Jack was betrayed and captured by officials who wanted his life-enhancing system, then learned they had allied with a Spirit Race being disguised as Gavin. Faced with their demand that he cooperate, Jack called out to an unseen observer for help.

• Jack used the system to restore Thea's life force, and she woke up.
• A month later, Thea watched Jack train before he collapsed and saw her cold expression as he lost consciousness.
• Jack woke restrained without the metal block and discovered officials had isolated the system and planned to use his power.
• The officials admitted they had tested their suspicions on Thea and urged Jack to join their project, while Thea also pressed him to cooperate.
• The officials revealed that the person who exposed Jack was a Spirit Race being wearing Gavin's body, and they proposed an alliance to strengthen humanity.
• Jack agreed that he could cooperate with another world, then shouted for the unseen observer to help him; Benjamin heard him and laughed.

Benjamin took control of Gavin’s body, freed Jack, and helped him kill the elders and Thea while capturing the Sacred Spirit. After Jack confronted Benjamin about his identity as the system, Benjamin asked him to become his disciple.

• The Sacred Spirit tried to stop the elders from destroying the metal block, then attempted to flee when Benjamin took control of Gavin’s body.
• Benjamin transformed Gavin’s appearance, disabled Jack’s restraints, and killed the armed security personnel as the elders’ protections failed.
• Benjamin captured the Sacred Spirit and left Jack to decide how to deal with the elders and Thea.
• Jack killed the elders and Thea, then questioned Benjamin about his identity and admitted he had never trusted him.
• Benjamin revealed himself as Jack’s system and asked Jack to become his disciple, leaving Jack stunned.

Jack learned that Benjamin was a wizard who wanted him as a disciple, but a monster outbreak forced them to flee the base. Benjamin warned Jack that the world could still seal the Sacred Spirit’s spatial passage, though its situation would keep worsening and eventually require his help.

• Benjamin told Jack he was a wizard and offered to make him his disciple and ruler of the world.
• Benjamin sensed danger, grabbed Jack, and led him through a wall as tentacles flooded the base.
• Benjamin explained that the Sacred Spirit had prepared a spatial portal and intended to leave no one alive.
• A rune-covered tentacle attacked, and Benjamin teleported himself and Jack to an uninhabited wilderness a thousand miles away.
• Benjamin told Jack the portal could still be sealed at a cost, but warned that the world would need him as conditions worsened.

Benjamin told Jack that he planned to travel to the Northwestern Theater to establish a foothold and prepare a spatial passage, and Jack reluctantly agreed to go with him. Back in his laboratory, Benjamin shared intelligence about the world’s many invasions with the other wizards, who began planning for possible battles against powerful lifeforms.

• Benjamin warned Jack that the Sacred Spirit’s attack would draw the human strongest, then said he planned to head to the Northwestern Theater and open a spatial passage.
• Benjamin revealed that he had gathered intelligence showing twenty-seven invasion traces and at least fifteen higher civilizations behind them, and concluded that humanity’s survival depended on its Tier 18 strongest.
• Benjamin marked a possible human stronghold on a map and said he would raise Jack’s strength; Jack objected that he had not agreed, but ultimately agreed to go with him.
• Benjamin returned to his laboratory on the Purgatory Sulfur Plane and invited the wizards he had previously notified to a meeting.
• Benjamin presented the invasion intelligence, and Instructor Castillo, Clark, and Wizard Augusta discussed preparing cannon fodder and arranging support if Level 9 Lifeforms appeared.

At Anvil, Benjamin trained Jack in runes while managing the base and investigating the growing threat from invading species. After defeating an Avian-kin group, Benjamin learned that both the Avian-kin and Insect-kin were hunting humans, leaving him concerned that several civilizations were escalating their plans.

• Benjamin strengthened Jack's body and taught him rune theory while overseeing Anvil's defenses and operations.
• Benjamin learned from the base's intelligence reports that powerful, numerous Insect-kin with a collective consciousness had defeated the base's former defenders.
• Benjamin flew north and killed most of a group of more than fifty Avian-kin approaching Anvil.
• Benjamin used Soul Search on the Avian-kin leader and learned that the Insect-kin were sacrificing humans to widen a Spatial Passage and might drain the plane's Plane Origin.
• Benjamin killed the Avian-kin leader and returned toward Anvil, resolving to seek more intelligence about the escalating invasions.

Benjamin rescued a group of refugees from the Insect-kin and discovered the invaders’ belief that the Jack Plane might provide a route to the Central World. The advanced civilizations had focused on the Jack Plane because its fragile spacetime laws could allow a passage to the center of the World Cluster.

• Benjamin killed the pursuing Insect-kin and rescued the fleeing refugees with help from nearly a hundred human fighters.
• Benjamin ordered his fighters to improve their flight training, then watched them treat and supply the survivors.
• Benjamin searched the slain insect leader’s memories and learned that the Insect-kin’s souls formed part of a collective consciousness.
• Benjamin discovered that the Jack Plane might contain a passage to the Central World, the unreachable center of the World Cluster.
• Benjamin learned that advanced civilizations had turned toward the Jack Plane because its evolving spacetime laws might make opening that passage possible.

Benjamin concluded that the Jack Plane’s weakened spacetime laws might allow a passage to the central world and resolved to strengthen his forces. After rescuing the surviving humans in the area, he warned Jack that their growing population made them a major resource and would bring danger.

• Benjamin suspected that the Spirit Race and Insect-kin’s movements were linked to the Jack Plane nearing another stage of evolution, and he decided to intensify Jack’s training while opening a spatial portal as soon as possible.
• Jack taught the refugees at Anvil Base, where they praised Benjamin’s support and the humane conditions provided under his Wizard Standard Prisoner-of-War Treaty.
• Jack reflected on Benjamin’s food-making Alchemy technique and decided to study harder until he could master it.
• Benjamin praised Jack’s progress in basic education, then told him that all surviving humans in the area had been rescued and warned that their community had become a valuable resource.

Six months after Anvil Base became the last human settlement in the northwest, Jack defended its eastern corridor against a coordinated assault by the Insect-kin, Dinosaur-kin, and newly allied Vine-kin. The enemy commanders ordered a renewed charge into the base, determined to uncover the secret the humans were protecting.

• An alarm sounded at Anvil Base, and its residents took their assigned defensive positions as Jack guarded the eastern corridor.
• Jack killed two invisible Insect-kin infiltrators, then fought coordinated groups of Dinosaur-kin attackers.
• A Vine-kin joined the assault and blasted Jack backward, while commanders from all three races arrived in the corridor.
• The Insect-kin and Dinosaur-kin began retreating after heavy losses, but a powerful energy blast struck the Vine-kin, which healed after shielding the passage.
• The enemy commanders concluded that the humans were deliberately prolonging the fighting to hide a dangerous secret inside the base.
• The Dinosaur-kin commander ordered the three races to charge deeper into Anvil Base and discover what the humans were doing.

Benjamin confronted three commanders from the Vine-kin, Dinosaur-kin, and Insect-kin after they broke through the base’s defenses. He defeated them, but the Insect-kin’s final threat and a shaking ground left the danger unresolved.

• The three commanders reached a sealed metal door and watched Benjamin emerge from behind it.
• Benjamin stopped the Dinosaur-kin’s blade with two fingers, broke it, pinned the Vine-kin’s vines, and threw the Insect-kin into the Dinosaur-kin.
• The commanders used substances that boosted their power at the cost of their bodies and charged Benjamin together.
• Benjamin’s Li-Fire Extinction Divine Light pierced the Vine-kin and Dinosaur-kin, then he killed the Insect-kin with a slap.
• The surviving Insect-kin head warned Benjamin that he could not hold the base, and Benjamin crushed its soul after searching it.
• The ground began to shake.