Chapter Summaries

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.

Benjamin and the other wizards left the plane after Alston closed it off for recovery, and Benjamin burned Professor Victor’s notebook before departing. In Mist City, Eric prepared to leave the bookstore with a medical Psychic who sought his help, taking a hidden black box with him.

• Alston thanked the wizards, declared that the plane needed to recover without outside interference, and opened a rift for their departure.
• Benjamin burned Professor Victor’s notebook, reflected on the seeds he had left behind, and followed the wizards through the rift as it closed behind them.
• Eric moved Benjamin’s research materials into the bookstore and retrieved a hidden black box from beneath a bookshelf.
• A woman carrying a medical equipment case arrived and asked for Benjamin, then requested Eric’s help when she learned he had left.
• Eric agreed to go with the woman, packed the black box in a canvas bag, locked the bookstore, and followed her toward her waiting driver.

Benjamin began his Dao-Integration in seclusion, merging with the laws of the world until he nearly forgot himself. The Incense Divinity Path and the prayers of his believers anchored his fading consciousness, allowing him to remember his name and return.

• Benjamin spent three days reviewing reports and recovering before entering seclusion at the altar.
• Benjamin prepared safeguards for Dao-Integration and relied on the Incense Divinity Path as an anchor for his consciousness.
• Benjamin released his suppression and merged with the Dao, gradually forgetting his purpose, connections, and identity.
• The believers across the Purgatory Sulfur Plane prayed together, and their Vow Power gathered Benjamin's scattered consciousness.
• Benjamin affirmed that he was Benjamin and slowly opened his eyes.

After spending three hundred years reaching the Dao-Integration Realm, Benjamin discovered that laws had begun to yield to his understanding and assessed the growth of his powers. He emerged from seclusion to find the Purgatory Sulfur Plane thriving and greatly expanded.

• Benjamin awoke from his advancement and realized that three hundred years, one month, and ten days had passed.
• Benjamin sensed that his perception had reached the realm where mountains were still mountains, and watched his mastery of many laws surge toward and beyond full mastery.
• Benjamin learned from the Black Giant Priest that the Incense Divinity Path, population, production, and refining efficiency had all grown over the past three hundred years.
• The Black Giant Priest reported that the plane's facilities were operating well and the Fate System had improved its predictions by two orders of magnitude.
• Benjamin inspected the plane projection and saw that the developed Purgatory Sulfur Plane had become a mature medium-sized plane.

After emerging from three hundred years of seclusion, Benjamin discovered that Mentor Clark had contacted him repeatedly and learned from Viola that Clark was preparing to advance to Level 7. Benjamin considered whether he might follow Clark’s example in pursuing greater mastery of laws, then resumed work on managing the plane’s growing population.

• Benjamin checked three hundred years of accumulated messages and found twenty-three missed calls from Viola and three from Mentor Clark.
• Benjamin failed to reach Clark, so he called Viola and asked why his mentor had contacted him.
• Viola told Benjamin that Clark had completed his research data and returned to his private plane to prepare for his Level 7 advancement.
• Viola invited Benjamin to visit and hinted that she wanted him to test her new pain Magic Potions.
• Benjamin considered imitating Clark’s law research while still at Level 6, then told the Black Giant Priest to continue adjusting the plane’s population management structure.

Benjamin modified the Nest with abilities derived from his research on the bizarre and tested its improved conversion, defenses, and escape capabilities. After confirming its potential to threaten an ordinary Level 7 Wizard when fully grown, he began modifying the Patrollers to conceal them by melding with world laws.

• Benjamin implanted rule-frequency extraction, dispersed core information, and rule-level evasion into the Nest.
• Benjamin and the Black Giant Priest tested the Nest, finding that it absorbed organic matter and energy more efficiently and could evade physical attacks and spatial seals.
• Benjamin tested the Nest against rule sealing and concluded that the array could suppress its escape ability but could not destroy it.
• Benjamin estimated that the mature Nest could grow to inland-sea size and threaten an ordinary Level 7 Wizard with the Fate System's support.
• Benjamin brought out the Patrollers and began modifying them to use law-melding for deeper concealment.