Chapter Summaries

Benjamin tested his Rune Artifacts against beasts and terrain across the Savage Wilderness Plane, assessing their combat performance and limits. He discovered that sustained maximum output caused overheating and depleted local elemental energy, then continued his field trials while gathering materials.

• Benjamin tested his defensive and offensive Rune Artifacts against acid-spitting lizard beasts, then collected samples from their remains.
• Benjamin used a giant ape to test the Movement Rune's speed and maneuverability, finding that maximum output quickly overheated it before he killed the beast and gathered materials.
• Benjamin tested his Rune Artifacts against burrowing beasts and dangerous plants in different regions, recording results and collecting novel materials.
• Benjamin discovered that repeated high-intensity Fireball Spells depleted nearby fire elements, reducing later spells' efficiency and power.
• Benjamin concluded that Rune Artifacts depended on ambient elemental energy and moved quickly between attacks to work around local depletion.

Benjamin tested his Rune Artifacts by defeating a Thunderstorm Beetle, then discovered a team of Wizard Apprentices struggling against a powerful fire-element Magic Beast. He watched their battle from behind cover, evaluating their attacks as the fight continued.

• Benjamin used his Rune Artifacts to kill a Thunderstorm Beetle and collected its lightning-essence organ and score token.
• Benjamin considered asking Mentor Clark about obtaining a Space Ring because his beast-hide backpack was nearly full.
• Benjamin sensed a fierce clash nearby and flew toward it, stopping behind a red crystal ore deposit to observe.
• Benjamin watched a team of twelve or thirteen Wizard Apprentices battle a ten-meter fire-element Magic Beast.
• Benjamin assessed the apprentices' ice and water attacks and judged their Wizardry Models inferior in power and continuity.

Benjamin watched ordinary Combat Department Wizard Apprentices fail to defend themselves against a Fire-Element Magic Beast, then killed it alone with a Rune Artifact. A hidden apprentice witnessed the slaughter and fled, terrified of Benjamin.

• The Combat Department Wizard Apprentices' defenses collapsed under the Fire-Element Magic Beast's attacks, and the survivors fled after several were killed or injured.
• Benjamin approached the lava lake after the apprentices had escaped and drew the Magic Beast's attention.
• Benjamin bombarded the Magic Beast with fireballs from his Attack-Type Rune Artifact until it disintegrated, then collected its score token and essence fragments.
• A hidden apprentice watched the fight through a Scout-Type Wizard Artifact and was shocked that Benjamin killed the beast in two minutes.
• The hidden apprentice cast enhancement spells and ran in the opposite direction from Benjamin.

Benjamin repaired his Rune Artifact as best he could, identified ways to improve its combat use, and continued deeper into the red-ore wasteland in search of materials. There, he found evidence of organized native activity and wondered whether the traces had been deliberately left after the wizards cleansed the plane.

• Benjamin inspected his damaged Rune Artifact and realized excessive release strained its main body despite redundant runes.
• Benjamin decided to use pure energy bolts as his main attack and recognized that rapid casting could drain nearby elemental power and weaken an enemy's counterattack.
• Benjamin continued deeper into the wasteland, fought increasingly cunning Magic Beasts, and collected higher-grade materials.
• Benjamin found orderly grooves, stacked and polished bones, signs of artificial fire, freshly cut trees, and a trap that might target humans.
• Benjamin concluded that Natives lived in the region and suspected the wizards had deliberately left these remnants after cleansing the plane.

Benjamin discovered a small settlement of natives in the Gray Rock Plane and learned that survivors from several destroyed kingdoms had united in a hidden camp to resist the returning wizards. The chapter left the survivors alarmed by the apprentices’ ability to escape through space, a power they believed had once belonged only to their vanished gods.

• Benjamin secretly watched a group of natives hunt a large Magic Beast and noticed their metal weapons, language, and crude energy techniques.
• Benjamin followed the hunters to their concealed cave settlement, where he found fewer than a hundred residents and two heavily armored natives.
• Benjamin used Analysis Art to study the natives’ energy circulation, decided their methods were too rudimentary, and left to search for stronger natives.
• Survivors from several kingdoms gathered in a hidden camp and discussed how Noren Academy’s apprentices had entered the Gray Rock Plane again.
• A priest showed the leaders a ring taken from a Wizard Apprentice and explained that apprentices used it to escape through spatial abilities.
• The survivors grew dejected when they realized the wizards wielded spatial power, which they associated with their gods who had vanished in the earlier purges.

The natives planned a counterattack against the Wizard Apprentices after Oswaldo revealed he could create a spatial blockade. They left the council determined to lure the Apprentices into traps and kill them all.

• Oswaldo revealed that his god had given him spatial abilities and demonstrated that he could teleport a Knight.
• Oswaldo said he could create an area where the Wizard Apprentices could not use spatial abilities, though he had not mastered the power.
• The scarred Knight commander proposed scattering point tokens as bait and using small warrior groups to lure Apprentices into traps.
• The leaders planned to exhaust the Apprentices’ powers, conceal the natives’ numbers, and call in reinforcements when needed.
• The scarred Knight commander vowed to leave no Apprentice alive, and the gathered warriors cheered.

Benjamin continued collecting unusual materials in the Gray Rock Plane while Native warriors launched increasingly coordinated ambushes against Wizard Apprentices. After easily defeating six attackers in a swamp, he set out to find their settlement, unaware that a massive purge of the apprentices was underway.

• Native warriors ambushed a seven-person apprentice team with poisoned arrows, disabled their escape magic, and gradually overwhelmed them.
• More than a dozen armored Native knights trapped a four-person exploration team in a canyon where flight and spatial magic failed, then attacked them.
• Benjamin was ambushed in a swamp by four hunters and two knights, but his shields deflected their weapons and his Rune Artifact killed them with fireballs.
• Benjamin collected the Natives' armor and bone spears and used Analysis Art to study the primitive runes on them.
• Benjamin suspected a nearby Native settlement was behind the increasingly frequent ambushes and continued deeper into the swamp to search for it.

The Indigenous Coalition turned Gray Rock Plane into a deadly hunting ground, overwhelming apprentice teams with traps and coordinated ambushes. Augusta stood out as a powerful exception, demolishing even carefully prepared attacks as she pursued high-value point tokens.

• Native hunters used poisoned weapons, bait, and spatial interference to trap apprentices and prevent their escape.
• A senior apprentice team and other groups were driven into defensive positions, then fell as their supplies and spiritual power ran out.
• The Indigenous Coalition’s attacks spread across the wilderness, leaving many apprentices dead and the plane blood-soaked.
• Augusta led her team through the plane, striking down native ambushers with lightning and advancing unhindered.
• Augusta destroyed a massive ambush involving a magnetic interference zone, explosive runes, cursed totems, elite knights, and Shamans, then continued toward the next high-value point token.

Augusta and Horn’s battlefield victories raised the apprentices’ morale as the Indigenous Coalition’s trap steadily drained their resources. The Coalition’s leaders grew uneasy when every scout and battalion sent to a northwestern region vanished, leaving behind a scorched wasteland they could not explain.

• Augusta and Horn continued breaking through Native defenses, and reports of their victories turned the apprentices’ fear into excitement.
• Priest Oswaldo and the Indigenous Coalition’s leaders reviewed their plan to trap the apprentices and exhaust their artifacts, potions, and mental strength.
• The Coalition’s leaders identified Augusta, Horn, and other celebrated apprentices as targets whose deaths would hurt the Wizards most.
• The leaders learned that scouts, an assassination team, and three vanguard battalions sent to the northwestern region had all disappeared.
• A Knight commander reported that the region had been burned into a wasteland, with the remains of Magic Beasts and Natives reduced to ash.

Benjamin annihilated a Native force that attacked him in the wilderness, while Wizard Apprentices learned of a supposed location for the Indigenous Coalition's leaders and decided to march there despite recognizing it as a trap. The Apprentices’ growing confidence and hunger for points set them on a dangerous course as the Coalition’s leaders remained away.

• The Coalition’s leaders chose to launch their final assault without waiting for Ant and Lurs, despite a young Knight’s misgivings.
• Benjamin used overwhelming firepower to destroy a group of Natives, then found a dying armored leader whose words he could not understand.
• Benjamin sensed and killed several Natives hiding at the rear of the battlefield.
• Wizard Apprentices heard that a reconnaissance Wizard had supposedly discovered the Coalition leaders’ hidden valley, and many recognized the information as likely bait.
• The Apprentices decided to follow Horn and Augusta to the valley, believing the geniuses could overcome any trap and that killing the leaders would earn them points.

Noren Academy's Wizard Apprentices charged into a valley and were caught in a devastating Native Coalition ambush. Trapped by vast spatial confinement and a flight ban, the surviving apprentices faced an assault by nearly ten thousand elite warriors.

• Augusta, Horn, and several thousand Wizard Apprentices charged into the valley believing they had found the Native leaders.
• Native warriors concealed on the slopes launched a barrage of enchanted Demon-Breaking Arrows, shattering shields and throwing the apprentices into chaos.
• Priest Oswaldo's spatial confinement and the Shamans' flight ban trapped the apprentices across the valley, while targeted Native squads restrained Augusta and Horn.
• The young knight commander ordered the Coalition's elite warriors to attack as the remaining apprentices made a desperate stand behind Horn's Rock Fortress.

At Noren Academy, the plaza’s light curtain showed Wizard Apprentices being expelled from the Gray Rock Plane after their teleportation rings saved them from death. A newly arrived failure watched an unassuming apprentice destroy a Native army with a casual wave, then passed the plaza’s knowing welcome on to another newcomer.

• A newly expelled apprentice learned that the rings forcibly removed users facing death, ending their trial, while those who withdrew voluntarily could preserve their results.
• The apprentice noticed the light curtain’s largest screens showed a brutal battle in a valley and a lone apprentice walking across a wasteland.
• More than a hundred Native soldiers surrounded the lone apprentice, who incinerated them all with a casual wave.
• A veteran failure explained the spectacle with a knowing pat on the newcomer’s shoulder, and the newcomer understood the vast gap in power between apprentices.
• When another apprentice appeared in the plaza, the newcomer patted him on the shoulder and told him to keep watching.

Benjamin rescued two fleeing Wizard Apprentices by destroying the Native squad pursuing them, then learned that a massive battle was underway in a valley sealed by spatial confinement. He decided to avoid the war and continue hunting for materials, but the Indigenous Coalition surrounded him with dozens of squads.

• Benjamin changed course toward the growing elemental fluctuations and found two Wizard Apprentices fleeing an elite Native squad.
• Benjamin killed the pursuers with fireballs and stone spikes, then asked the surviving apprentices what was happening nearby.
• The apprentices explained that a valley was under spatial confinement and that Native squads were hunting down those who escaped; they then left the Gray Rock Plane using their Escape Rings.
• Benjamin decided the war was too risky and turned away to resume searching for rare materials.
• Benjamin detected dozens of Indigenous Coalition squads, including powerful Knights and Shamans, closing in to encircle him.

Benjamin escaped the Indigenous Coalition’s ambush and spent several days attacking its troops, officers, Shamans, and supply teams with his Rune Artifacts. His assault disrupted the siege of Noren Academy apprentices in a Gray Rock Plane valley, giving them a chance to rally and counterattack.

• Benjamin realized the Indigenous Coalition had sealed the airspace around him and charged toward the weakest part of its encirclement.
• Benjamin broke through the surrounding troops with fireballs and decided to strike at the Indigenous Coalition’s formation, command, and supplies.
• Benjamin spent the following days harrying the Coalition’s flanks and rear, using his Rune Artifacts to attack troops and key targets before retreating.
• The Indigenous Coalition’s unexpected attacker caused confusion and fear as its troops struggled to stop his repeated assaults.
• The besieged apprentices at Noren Academy saw Benjamin attacking the Coalition and used the resulting chaos to shore up their defenses and counterattack.

Benjamin disrupted the Indigenous Coalition’s ambush, but the apprentices’ defenses in the valley collapsed under the main force’s assault. He rose above the battlefield and unleashed his remaining Attack-Type Rune Artifacts on the Coalition.

• The Indigenous Coalition commander sent troops and elite squads to surround Benjamin after he broke through the flank.
• The apprentices’ defenses faltered as the Shamans weakened Horn’s Rock Fortress and the Knights battered its walls while Augusta’s squad was pinned down.
• The commander ordered an all-out assault on the apprentices, and Benjamin noticed the danger inside the valley.
• Benjamin activated his Movement Rune Artifacts and used Alchemy to rise high above the battlefield with massive rocks for protection.
• Benjamin activated nine Attack-Type Rune Artifacts and poured a torrent of wizardry down on the Indigenous Coalition.

Benjamin used rotating Fireball Rune Artifacts to bombard and rout the Indigenous Coalition, saving the besieged apprentices. After landing, he sent the apprentices after the fleeing Natives and noticed Augusta and Horn watching him with unusual expressions.

• Benjamin activated three groups of Fireball Rune Artifacts in rotation and unleashed a nearly uninterrupted barrage on the Indigenous Coalition.
• The bombardment shattered the Native formations, and Benjamin moved through the sky to find fresh elemental energy while continuing the attack.
• The Natives broke and fled as Benjamin and the apprentices attacked from above and below.
• Benjamin continued firing until no mobile Native figures remained, then descended after the anti-flight force dissipated.
• Benjamin scolded the apprentices for not pursuing the fleeing army, and they hurried after it.
• Benjamin noticed Augusta and Horn watching him with unusually emotional expressions.

Benjamin and the other Wizard Apprentices were teleported out of the Gray Rock Plane after the trial ended, leaving the Native Coalition to reckon with its defeat. When the leaders blamed Oswaldo for redirecting the detachment that brought Benjamin to them, Oswaldo revealed an overwhelming power that forced everyone around him to their knees.

• Augusta and Horn bowed to Benjamin and left the valley with their followers, while Benjamin inspected his badly damaged Rune Artifacts.
• Benjamin and the other Wizard Apprentices received notice that the trial had ended and were teleported out of the Gray Rock Plane.
• At Noren Academy, the apprentices and the overseeing high-level wizard watched Benjamin's battlefield performance in astonishment, and the wizard compared him to Clark.
• The Native Coalition's surviving leaders returned to camp and reviewed their devastating defeat, concluding that Benjamin had likely been drawn to them after an attack by a detachment Oswaldo had redirected.
• The leaders confronted Oswaldo, but he ignored them until his glance unleashed immense pressure that made them and the soldiers outside the tent fall to their knees.

Oswaldo revealed that he had manipulated the Coalition leaders’ memories and had lured the armies into a trap, then showed them the Sky God imprisoned in a sphere. After Oswaldo vanished, the shattered leaders realized their world was at the mercy of beings from a higher plane, and the old knight commander accepted cooperation as their last hope.

• The leaders questioned Oswaldo, who lifted his suggestion and made them realize their memories of him had appeared from nowhere.
• Oswaldo revealed the Sky God trapped inside a transparent sphere, and the Natives recognized their deity.
• A priest killed himself after the revelation, while Oswaldo gave the leaders a sphere containing the god’s power and said it could be used to communicate.
• Oswaldo contacted wizards from Noren Academy and vanished, leaving the Natives despairing over their world’s defeat.
• The old knight commander picked up the sphere and declared that obeying the higher-plane beings was their world’s last hope.

High-ranking wizards reviewed Benjamin’s performance in the Gray Rock Plane and discussed his unusual Wizard Artifacts. Clark decided to make cross-plane trials a regular part of Noren Academy’s training, while the wizards prepared to restore the plane and arrange the next trial.

• Oswaldo and the other wizards watched Benjamin’s actions in the Gray Rock Plane and praised his combat abilities and spell effects.
• A wizard judged Benjamin’s firepower close to that of a talented apprentice, while Clark confirmed that Benjamin’s shield, Flight Spell, and Fireball Spell effects came from Wizard Artifacts.
• Oswaldo asked Clark to make him similar Wizard Artifacts, but Clark said he could not, and Oswaldo realized Benjamin’s exclusive technology could not be commissioned yet.
• Clark assigned a wizard to contact the Gray Rock Plane and help restore its population, then proposed making the cross-plane trial a regular Academy program.
• Clark left the trial’s resource costs to the Dean, and the wizards moved on to discuss scattering aptitude-enhancing potions.

The Gray Rock Plane trial rankings revealed Bert Vera Augusta in first place and William Blake in second, while Benjamin, Amy, and Victor also placed highly. As the three congratulated one another at the teleportation square, the returning apprentices turned their attention toward them.

• The apprentices returned to Noren Academy and saw Bert Vera Augusta ranked first and the little-known William Blake ranked second.
• Benjamin recognized William as the Level Nine Soul Purity talent and guessed he had infiltrated the Indigenous Coalition's territory to seize its point tokens.
• Oswaldo proudly celebrated William's second-place result with the other high-ranking wizards, who focused on the trial's survival rate and weaknesses.
• Benjamin placed thirty-sixth, Amy thirty-fifth, and Victor forty-eighth in the rankings.
• Benjamin and Amy congratulated each other, and Victor approached to congratulate them as well.
• The three noticed that nearly every apprentice in the square had turned to look at them.