Chapter Summaries

Benjamin arrived at Noren Academy for an aptitude assessment and feared that the powerful wizards would discover his cultivation. He used the Great Dao Library to prepare a way to conceal his True Essence, then stepped forward to take the test.

• Benjamin counted the Level 2 Formal Wizards greeting applicants at Noren Academy and worried that the wizards might expose him as a cultivator.
• Benjamin recalled that the Great Dao Library offered vast knowledge, but the world's lack of Spirit Energy had left him barely at the first level of Qi Refining.
• Benjamin feared that the wizards would treat him as a research specimen if they discovered his unfamiliar power system.
• Benjamin used the Basic Volume of Inner Circulation to hide his True Essence and planned to restrain his mental power during the assessment.
• Benjamin reached the front of the line, steeled himself, and prepared to take the aptitude test.

Benjamin earned an overall Level Six talent rating at the Academy’s assessment, while several other apprentices displayed far higher scores. After passing the tests, he was ordered to go to Central Plaza to choose his primary specialization.

• Benjamin took the spiritual power refinement test and reached Level Six by concealing his excess strength with the Inner Circulation Method.
• Benjamin completed the remaining tests, and the core device announced his overall talent rating as Level Six.
• Apprentices with Level Eight and Level Nine results drew attention, including the eldest young lady of the Augusta Family and Young Master Horn.
• Academy staff ordered all apprentices who passed the assessment to proceed to Central Plaza for primary specialization selection.

Benjamin attended Noren Academy’s major-selection fair and examined the terms for the Combat and Logistics Departments. As he weighed his options, he suspected the ninety-seven returning Combat Department wizards were all that remained of their cohort after devastating battlefield losses.

• Benjamin was swept into Central Plaza, where a wizard phantom explained that apprentices had to choose between the Combat and Logistics Departments and would later serve the Academy on other planes.
• Benjamin reviewed the Combat Department’s school contracts, which offered substantial study resources in exchange for several years of military service.
• Benjamin found that Logistics Department branches offered little advanced knowledge or monthly support and required thirty years of service, leaving their area nearly deserted.
• Combat Department instructors courted Benjamin because of his Level 6 talent, but he remained wary of the fair’s dazzling promotions and noticed that exactly ninety-seven returning wizards had gathered.
• Benjamin reasoned that the returning wizards might be the only survivors of their cohort after repeated battlefield losses.

Benjamin asked returning Logistics Department wizards why only ninety-seven Combat Department wizards had returned for the Academy’s promotion, and learned that the battlefield had left only 153 survivors from an intake of more than five thousand. The chapter left him confronting the scale of the losses among both combat and logistics students.

• Benjamin left the lively Combat Department presentation and approached the returning Logistics Department wizards to ask about their fields of study.
• The wizards explained that they had been assigned to answer new students’ questions, and a Construct Studies wizard concealed their conversation behind an illusion barrier.
• Benjamin asked why only ninety-seven Combat Department wizards had returned, and Jack confirmed that the battlefield was more dangerous than he imagined.
• Jack told Benjamin that everyone present from their intake was all that remained from both departments.
• Benjamin counted 153 survivors from an intake of more than five thousand students.

Benjamin learned that the Academy’s recruitment campaign concealed a brutal battlefield mortality rate, then discovered that Noren Academy was a talent base for the Noren Workshop. Wizard Jack explained that the Academy’s promotion was also a test of wisdom, and left Benjamin to decide which department to join.

• Benjamin realized that the Academy’s celebrated returnees were rare survivors from thousands of recruits, and that many trained wizards died in battle.
• Benjamin asked whether the wizards feared death, and Jack explained that the promise of fulfilling their desires across countless planes made survival a price they were willing to pay.
• Jack revealed that the Logistics Department served Noren Workshop, the organization behind Noren Academy, and that their world was one of its talent-training bases.
• Benjamin questioned why the Academy promoted the Combat Department so heavily if Logistics was its true orthodoxy, and Jack said the campaign tested applicants’ wisdom and independent judgment.
• Jack ended the discussion and left Benjamin to make his own decision.

Benjamin chose Alchemy Studies to learn the Wizard World's underlying principles and adapt his otherworldly techniques while concealing his cultivation. He met Mentor Clark, who offered him the Noren Workshop apprentice contract, and impressed the watching mentors by figuring out how to scroll through its text.

• Benjamin decided he could not safely cripple his cultivation and resolved to disguise it as local power while seeking a discipline that would reveal the world's nature.
• Benjamin chose Alchemy Studies because it could help him adapt the Great Dao Library's techniques and conceal his abilities.
• Benjamin introduced himself to Mentor Clark and confirmed his Level Six talent.
• Clark gave Benjamin the Noren Workshop apprentice contract and warned him that violating its terms would bring severe consequences.
• Benjamin worked out how to scroll through the contract, prompting Clark to grin proudly as the other mentors watched enviously.

Benjamin enrolled as an Alchemy apprentice, accepted the Workshop’s binding contract, and received his beginner’s books, tools, and rules. After reaching his dormitory, he reflected on entering an unfamiliar world and decided to adjust his plans because he had attracted too much attention.

• Benjamin accepted the Alchemy Workshop’s contract by binding it with his blood and mental power.
• Mentor Clark gave Benjamin the Basic Alchemy Manual, the Basic Meditation Method, a box of tools and materials, and instructions to master meditation before classes began.
• Benjamin found the Alchemy apprentice dormitory and saw a convulsing apprentice being carried away by golems.
• Benjamin entered his room, examined his new books and equipment, and recognized how different the Academy’s world was from his former cultivation system.
• Benjamin realized that the Logistics Department mentors’ intense attention had made him conspicuous, so he decided to adjust his future plans.

Benjamin studied the Basic Meditation Method and found that his cultivation experience let him inscribe its patterns far more easily than a sixth-grade apprentice should. He deliberately sabotaged his first attempt to conceal his abilities, then assessed the mental backlash and how talent affected recovery and progress.

• Benjamin read that the Basic Meditation Method required apprentices to inscribe patterns in their Spirit Seas to guide energy and build mental circuits.
• Benjamin entered his Spirit Sea and nearly completed the first pattern with unusual ease.
• Benjamin deliberately drew the final stroke crooked, destroying the pattern and triggering a mental shockwave.
• Benjamin steadied himself and realized he needed to disguise his exceptional control by failing like a beginner.
• Benjamin calculated that weaker apprentices suffered more from failed inscriptions, while talented apprentices could recover and make more attempts.

Benjamin studied the admissions handbook and Basic Alchemy Manual while pretending to struggle with meditation, then went to the Academy’s dining hall to eat and observe the new apprentices. As he sat down, another new Alchemy Department apprentice greeted him.

• Benjamin read the admissions handbook, learned that points could be used to rent a private laboratory, and decided to seek a way to earn them.
• He studied the Basic Alchemy Manual between meditation attempts and deliberately made each attempt fail while acting as though he had suffered setbacks.
• Benjamin went to the shared dining hall, where he found that ordinary food was free and observed the other apprentices’ condition and talent.
• He chose a quiet seat, filled his tray with food, and sat down to dinner.
• A new Alchemy Department apprentice greeted Benjamin and said they were new as well.

Benjamin met Amy, another new Alchemy Department apprentice, and suspected she had approached him to gather information. After Amy openly explained her talent for making friends and sharing what she had learned, Benjamin accepted her overture, leaving the two on friendly terms.

• Amy sat with Benjamin, introduced herself, and chatted about her failed attempts at meditation.
• Benjamin suspected Amy was testing him and realized she was trying to build a connection through their shared difficulties.
• Amy told Benjamin that one Alchemy Studies apprentice had inscribed the first part of the meditation pattern and that Benjamin had the highest talent among the three new students.
• When Benjamin questioned how she knew so much, Amy explained that she had gathered information by talking to newcomers and wanted to make friends.
• Benjamin acknowledged Amy's usefulness and introduced himself again, and Amy happily returned the introduction.

Benjamin completed the first Truth Rune, drew elemental power into his Spirit Sea, and discovered he could convert some of it into True Essence through his cultivation method. He gained a source of energy for his Cultivation methods and a way to control his apparent progress as an apprentice.

• Amy and Benjamin parted after sharing a relaxed conversation, each privately judging the other as clever and potentially useful.
• After several days, Benjamin completed the final pattern of his first Truth Rune, which stabilized as an anchor in his Spirit Sea.
• Benjamin recognized the rune’s central pattern as the Alchemy rune for transformation and realized the Meditation Method’s later runes used Alchemy’s fusion and refinement runes.
• Benjamin drew elemental power into his Spirit Sea and ignited his Spirit Fire.
• Benjamin secretly guided some incoming elemental power into his Inner Circulation system, where it became True Essence.
• Benjamin realized elemental power could fuel his Cultivation methods and let him disguise his Meditation progress to match his sixth-level talent.

Benjamin attended his first Alchemy Studies class at Noren Academy, where Mentor Clark introduced Alchemy’s principles and assigned the apprentices basic shaping with gold. He learned that he could take electives from other Logistics Department schools by spending points.

• Benjamin explored the Alchemy Workshop before class and found apprentices from other schools gathered around a level-nine soul-talent apprentice.
• Benjamin spoke with Amy, who explained that apprentices could take Logistics Department electives for five points, with materials costing extra.
• Mentor Clark began the lesson by explaining that Alchemy involved understanding, decomposition, and reconstruction, and that it demanded precise mental control.
• Mentor Clark introduced basic shaping and explained why gold was a safe, suitable material for beginners to practice on.

Benjamin struggled to shape gold in his first Alchemy lesson, gradually learning that success required understanding a material rather than forcing it. After Clark criticized his unstable energy output, an apprentice’s scream and a crash interrupted the class.

• Clark demonstrated how to use spiritual power to shape an irregular lump of gold into a precise cube and gave each apprentice materials and an Alchemy Disk.
• Benjamin’s first attempts chipped and melted the gold, while Amy managed to shape hers more steadily.
• Benjamin changed his approach, sensed the gold’s structure and resistance, and eventually formed a crooked, misshapen cube.
• Clark inspected Benjamin’s work and advised him to practice his basic Meditation Method, stabilize his spiritual power, and study materials’ structure.
• A pained scream and the sound of metal shattering came from elsewhere in the laboratory.

During the first Alchemy class, Clark punished an apprentice whose unsafe experiment caused metal to fuse into his flesh, then assigned the students to practice shaping gold. After class, Benjamin decided he needed a private laboratory and went to check the Workshop’s task board for ways to earn points.

• An apprentice’s unstable Alchemy experiment exploded, embedding flesh-eroding metal fragments in his body.
• Clark reprimanded the apprentice, deducted fifteen points, and ordered two golems to carry him away for treatment.
• Clark ended the class by assigning the apprentices to practice shaping gold into different forms.
• Benjamin asked Amy how apprentices could earn points, and she suggested checking the task area for short-term laboratory rentals.
• Benjamin found that ordinary Workshop tasks paid poorly and decided to find out how much a laboratory rental would cost.

Benjamin discovered the Academy had refunded him six points, then studied how to refine Adamantine from gold and spent more than ten days preparing. After mastering the technique, he rented a sealed laboratory and began putting his plan into action.

• Benjamin found six refunded points in his account and learned that renting a small low-grade laboratory for a month cost two hundred points.
• Benjamin consulted the Great Dao Library and learned that he could refine the gold cube into Adamantine, a stable material useful for defensive and storage treasures.
• Benjamin confirmed that the gold from his world could be refined into Adamantine and decided to conceal his work by continuing to study Alchemy.
• Benjamin spent more than ten days studying Alchemy and practicing with the gold cube until he had mastered the Adamantine refinement technique.
• Benjamin rented a sealed laboratory with a window facing the rising sun and shut the door after the metal golem explained its rules.

Benjamin used his private laboratory to refine gold into Adamantine with a cultivation technique, nearly exhausting his True Essence in the process. After meditating to recover, he confirmed his first extraordinary material and held the fingertip-sized Adamantine in his hand.

• Benjamin inspected the laboratory's protective arrays and discovered its Magic Network Terminal offered laboratory supply trading and access to shared knowledge.
• Benjamin shaped a stone into a small furnace with his Alchemy Disk and prepared to refine gold using the Geng Metal Refinement Method.
• Benjamin fed True Essence into the gold while guiding the refinement with his spiritual sense and the laboratory's heating array.
• Benjamin stripped the impurities from the gold, producing a tiny piece of Adamantine just before his True Essence ran out.
• Benjamin meditated to recover, then identified the heavy, cold metal as Adamantine and examined his first extraordinary material.

Benjamin discovered that refining gold into Adamantine caused unexplained losses of mass, then used the material to create isolation-coated iron sheets for sale through the Academy’s Magic Network. He submitted the products for testing and left the laboratory eager to turn knowledge from the Great Dao Library into wealth.

• Benjamin examined the empty cauldron and laboratory waste, noticing that much of the material’s mass had vanished during Adamantine refining.
• He searched the Academy database for isolation materials and realized that Adamantine’s stability could make it a valuable, high-end product.
• Benjamin bought a cubic meter of white iron and used Alchemy’s fusion technique to coat iron sheets with a thin layer of Adamantine.
• He listed the products for Academy testing and handed them, along with test samples, to the magic puppet.
• Before his laboratory access expired, Benjamin destroyed his stone furnace, cleaned the lab, and left excited by the prospect of profiting from the Great Dao Library’s knowledge.

Benjamin’s attempt to profit from adamantine stalled because the Workshop left his material awaiting inspection, forcing him to take a grueling cleaning job for points. The work taught him about Wizard engineering, while his cultivation surged toward breakthroughs in both systems.

• Benjamin found that his adamantine-based isolation material was still awaiting inspection and could not yet be sold for points.
• Needing points for his studies, Benjamin took a job cleaning the residue from Distillation Tower No. 3.
• Benjamin used his mental strength during the work to study the tower’s pipes, runes, and energy interfaces, then compared them with knowledge in the Great Dao Library.
• After work, Benjamin found his True Essence had grown denser and his Qi Refining cultivation was nearing a breakthrough.
• Benjamin realized he had inscribed the three Alchemy Truth Runes and reached the peak of Level 1 Wizard apprentice, but his innate mental-strength reserve was exhausted.
• Benjamin sensed that the energy in his body could no longer be suppressed and that his next Qi Refining breakthrough was imminent.

Benjamin struggled to suppress an imminent breakthrough until he could earn enough points to rent an isolated laboratory. At the task hall, he watched Victor claim a potion-making task before taking a low-paying ore-sorting job of his own.

• Benjamin realized his True Essence was nearing a breakthrough and decided he needed points to rent a laboratory before advancing.
• Benjamin went to the task hall to find a new task because his distillation-tower cleaning job would not reopen for ten days.
• Victor claimed the Basic Stabilizing Potion task and advised Benjamin to choose tasks quickly.
• Benjamin assessed Victor as an efficient, self-interested apprentice who might be useful if offered benefits.
• Benjamin accepted a task to sort ten tons of common ore in Warehouse No. 5 for two points.

A skeptical Noren Academy testing wizard examined an apprentice's crude white-iron isolation material and found its physical and energy impact resistance inferior. Its resistance to erosion and other effects, however, exceeded the testing instruments' expected limits, leaving the wizard stunned.

• A gray-haired Level 1 Formal Wizard began the standard tests on a sample labeled White Iron-based Isolation Material.
• The instrument rated the material's physical impact and energy impact resistance as inferior.
• The instrument rated its Elemental Erosion resistance excellent, equivalent to a three-ring Formal Wizard.
• The instrument found exceptional mental erosion and mind-control resistance at a four-ring level.
• The instrument reported that the material's corrosion and curse resistance exceeded its range and recommended upgraded testing.