Recaps

An avalanche and a tide of Eerie forced the convoy’s rear groups to retreat along a branch road, while the knights’ calm response suggested the academy had anticipated the ambush. The convoy encountered another blockade when robed figures activated elaborate Formation Inscriptions across the road.

• Ice Skulls and thousands of Frostbound Dead attacked the convoy at the fork, and a colossal snow-white worm emerged from the mountainside.
• Stillwater Knight signaled that the road ahead was clear and ordered Lantern Knight and Morning Bell Knight to lead the rear groups along a branch road.
• Lantern Knight and Morning Bell Knight ordered their groups to retreat without lingering, and the carriages escaped the Eerie tide.
• Harvey told Leon, Karin, and the others that the academy had likely prepared for the attack in advance.
• More than a dozen white-robed figures blocked the branch road with elaborate Formation Inscriptions.

The Knight Academy convoy fell into a Withered Glory Society ambush on a branch mountain road, but the Morning Bell Knight and Lantern Knight answered with hidden fortress cannons and a coordinated escape. As the survivors fled before another avalanche, Lu Yuan wondered how far the Academy’s firearms could develop.

• The Morning Bell Knight and Lantern Knight spotted the Withered Glory Society’s roadblock and revealed fortress cannons concealed in their lead carriages.
• The Morning Bell Knight struck his bell, freezing the heretics in place, and the gunners fired both cannons, destroying most of them and their formation.
• The few surviving heretics fled into the woods as the Lantern Knight lit the convoy’s guide lamps and ordered everyone to charge ahead before another avalanche struck.
• Lu Yuan watched the cannons retract and considered how firearms might eventually become even more powerful.

Lu Yuan’s convoy reached Watch City after escaping an ambush, and he saw the desperate refugee camps outside its walls. At the city gate, strict inspections and the guards’ suspicion confirmed the warnings he had received about the tense atmosphere inside Watch City.

• Oden remarked that firearms might become more powerful in the future as the convoy raced out of the mountain pass before a second avalanche buried the road.
• The Lantern Knight and Morning Bell Knight split the convoy at a fork, and Lu Yuan parted from Blanca, Harvey, Leon, and Karin to travel alone to Watch City.
• Lu Yuan and the Lantern Knight’s convoy reached Watch City after the night’s storm and found tens of thousands of refugees suffering outside its walls.
• Lu Yuan saw epidemic-control workers hauling dead refugees toward a cremation pit as the convoy passed the guarded barricades.
• At Watch City’s gate, inspectors searched the convoy despite the Lantern Knight’s documents, while Lu Yuan noticed that officials, soldiers, and Night Watchers regarded one another with suspicion.

Lu Yuan and the Knight Academy convoy entered Watch City, where routine street life contrasted with signs of eerie contamination and strict controls. Morning Bell Knight assigned Lu Yuan and other agents to a cover patrol, allowing them to leave the Academy compound and begin moving through the city.

• At the city gate, guards shackled a local man who had suddenly lost his memory and dragged him through a dark iron door while residents watched silently.
• The convoy entered Watch City, where patrols and sentry posts enforced martial law while shops and streets remained busy; a senior student warned that the apparent normality was deceptive and told the students not to consume street food or drink.
• Lantern Knight and Morning Bell Knight settled the convoy into the Academy compound as Lu Yuan kept his secret token and dossier close, planning to find the advance team named in the dossier.
• Morning Bell Knight assigned Lu Yuan and several other secret-mission bearers to a senior student's public neighborhood patrol as cover.
• The senior student led Lu Yuan and the others out of the compound and through the eastern inner-city streets and alleys.

Lu Yuan arrived in Watch City and learned his assignments: investigate the source of the Eerie potion’s ingredients and find a way to resist the memory loss caused by a suspicious location. He reached the Academy’s hidden base, concealed inside a smithing workshop, and was led into its supply room.

• Lu Yuan read the Rock Grand Knight Commander's scroll, which named the Academy's secret base and outlined his two assignments.
• Lu Yuan memorized his credentials and followed the route through Watch City's tense but orderly streets to Iron Furnace Street.
• Lu Yuan showed his North Campus badge to a blacksmith at the workshop, who led him through a rear door.
• Lu Yuan entered an isolation room where two Academy members were sorting supplies.

Lu Yuan reached the Knight Academy’s hidden Outer City base in Watch City and learned that the advance team had withdrawn there because they could no longer trust the local authorities or Night Watchers. After passing a contamination screening, he entered the base’s vast steam-forging workshop.

• Lu Yuan showed the Rock Grand Knight Commander’s mark to two members of the advance team, who welcomed him into their hidden warehouse.
• The two members explained that suspected contamination and surveillance had made it unsafe to stay in the Inner City Safe Zone or trust local Night Watchers.
• Oden detected layered Inscription Arrays throughout the warehouse and criticized how easily Watch City had been infiltrated.
• Lu Yuan passed through the base’s screening corridor, where Wailing Crystal powder in the alchemical detection array showed no signs of contamination.
• The refined-steel gate opened, revealing the base’s enormous steam-forging workshop.

Lu Yuan arrived at the Academy’s hidden workshop base, where Lin En assigned him responsibility for analyzing an eerie potion and investigating a place that erased visitors’ memories. Their briefing was interrupted when the seal on a lead chest failed under the steam’s heat.

• Lu Yuan examined the disguised workshop base and noticed a Dwarf supervising the movement of a heavy, lead-sealed iron chest.
• Lin En greeted Lu Yuan, verified his token and recommendation scroll, and recognized him as the developer of the Wailing Crystal Detection Method.
• Lin En explained that Lu Yuan would oversee the potion-analysis section and help identify the source of the Heretics’ mysterious medicinal ingredient.
• Lin En described a suspected ingredient source beneath the Outer City where visitors inexplicably lost their memories.
• The Dwarf’s work crew discovered that steam heat had broken through the chest’s sealing inscriptions, and someone shouted for everyone to retreat.

A lead-sealed chest leaked gray-black medicinal mist in the North Campus base, leaving two team members confused and unresponsive. Lin En’s team contained the leak, but antidotes and Purification Inscriptions failed to help the victims, whose condition worsened.

• Gray-black mist escaped from a cracked iron chest, causing warning tubes to burst and two team members to become vacant and confused.
• Lin En told Lu Yuan to take shelter, then led core guards to rescue the affected team members and isolate the leaking chest beneath a sealed cover.
• The pharmacists gave the two team members high-grade antidotes and mental soothing potions, but their symptoms worsened.
• The pharmacists applied Purification Inscriptions to the victims, who stopped speaking and became even less responsive.

Lu Yuan discovered that the two unconscious team members were infected by parasitic spores that devoured memories and consciousness, not by poison or a Pathway-related curse. He used Deep Study to find a fever-inducing potion that could destroy the spores, then prepared to treat them.

• The pharmacists failed to revive the two team members or identify what had caused their consciousness to fade.
• Lu Yuan approached the patients despite Lin En's warning and used Gray-White Text to identify Spores at the Boundary of Illusion and Reality in their heads.
• Lu Yuan activated Deep Study and learned that the spores bypassed Pathways and defenses while consuming memories and reason.
• Deep Study derived a fever-inducing potion made from Crimson Yang Flower powder, Bitterroot Grass juice, Warmblood Grass, and clean water to kill the spores.

Lu Yuan treated two team members whose memories and consciousness had been damaged by mushroom spores, using a simple fever-inducing potion. He explained how the spores worked and realized the Heretics could exploit ordinary physical weaknesses, leaving Watch City vulnerable.

• Lu Yuan prepared a potion from Crimson Yang Flower, Bitterroot Grass, and Warmblood Grass, then gave it to the two afflicted team members.
• The potion raised their body temperatures, destroyed the spores, and restored their memories and awareness.
• The two team members woke and asked what had happened, shocking Lin En, the Dwarf, and the pharmacists.
• Lu Yuan explained that specially cultivated mushroom spores had affected their minds and that raising body temperature had killed them.
• Lu Yuan warned that the Heretics could target the body without using Transcendence Paths, a danger that could cause heavy losses in Watch City.

Lu Yuan and the others realized the Spores at the Boundary of Illusion and Reality could spread through Watch City’s heating pipes and set out to destroy them. They found the suspected source already burned, revealing that the Heretics had discovered their investigation and erased the evidence, though Lu Yuan noticed a lingering gray-black aura.

• Baron Hawk realized a dismantled component had come from an access point near Watch City’s steam heating pipes, and the group feared the spores could contaminate the city if they reached the network.
• Lu Yuan confirmed that heat could destroy the spores, made more heat-generating potions, and joined Lin En and Baron Hawk’s team to investigate and collect samples.
• A concealed observer saw the group heading west and secretly warned the Heretics to speed up their plans or destroy the site.
• On the way to the access point, Lu Yuan and the others saw a fire break out there and hurried toward it.
• The guards said the fire had gone out on its own and no one had approached, while Baron Hawk and the others realized the Heretics had burned away the evidence.
• Lu Yuan noticed faint traces of gray-black aura lingering at the scorched entrance.

Lu Yuan followed the lingering Eerie aura from the burned maintenance entrance through Watch City's western district to a furnace plant. He identified it as the trail's destination, and Lin En prepared to enter with Lu Yuan, Baron Hawk, and a young guard while the others secured the area.

• Lu Yuan spotted a gray-black aura at the burned entrance and led Lin En and the others after it.
• Lu Yuan followed the aura through the western district and determined that it led away from the underground pipes toward the streets.
• The aura ended at a furnace plant, where Lin En realized the heat could have kept the spores inactive and allowed them to evade inspections.
• Lin En stationed the other guards around the plant and entered with Lu Yuan, Baron Hawk, and the young guard.

Lu Yuan and his companions found a Heretic contaminating an auxiliary furnace chamber, where an illusion trapped most of them. After the Heretic shut down the furnace and transformed into a giant Illusion-Reality Boundary Mushroom, Lu Yuan identified the creature as it began spreading spores and chilling the chamber.

• Lu Yuan followed the gray-black aura to an auxiliary furnace chamber and identified a worker as the Heretic carrying it.
• The Heretic triggered an illusion that made Lu Yuan, Lin En, and the young guard see the furnace transform, while Baron Hawk remained unaffected and blocked the worker's escape.
• Lu Yuan broke free of the illusion and woke Lin En and the young guard as the Heretic shut off the furnace and destroyed its starter button.
• The Heretic's body shriveled and burst open as an Illusion-Reality Boundary Mushroom emerged from it.
• Lu Yuan's Gray-White Text identified the mushroom as a special creature afraid of fire, while it grew rapidly, cooled the chamber, and released gray-white spores.

Lu Yuan and the others fought the Illusion-Reality Boundary Mushroom after it spread spores through the boiler room and devoured the trapped furnace workers. They burned it to ash and found a hard gray-black core, which Lu Yuan examined as the spores continued to fill the chamber.

• The Illusion-Reality Boundary Mushroom spread spores, consumed the ordinary furnace workers, and grew to the ceiling.
• Lu Yuan's group drank heat-inducing potions, while Lu Yuan realized the Hidden Witness protected him from the spores' hallucinations.
• Lu Yuan assigned Lin En to fight beside him and sent Baron Hawk and the young guard to restart the boiler.
• Lu Yuan shot the mushroom with his Enchanted Revolver, Flame, then used a flamethrower while Baron Hawk relit the furnace.
• Lin En threw Mithril Molotov Cocktails at the mushroom, and the combined flames burned it until it exploded and collapsed.
• Lu Yuan kept burning the remains, confirmed the mushroom was dead, and approached its hard gray-black core.

Lu Yuan identified and secured the Illusion-Reality Boundary Mushroom’s still-living core after destroying its body. The furnace plant guards arrived, and Lin En took charge of dealing with them.

• Lu Yuan realized the mushroom’s hard core was a rare, artificially cultivated seed that could regenerate.
• Lin En asked Lu Yuan to identify the core, and Lu Yuan explained that the mushroom could return unless the core was destroyed.
• Lu Yuan placed the core in a sealed glass bottle, and Lin En and the others agreed to let him keep it.
• The local Night Watchers and City Hall guards arrived at the auxiliary fuel chamber after hearing the explosion.
• Lin En confronted the guard leaders and showed them his Northern Territory Knight Academy badge.

Lin En arrested the Night Watcher and City Hall supervisors after the Knight Academy uncovered heretics and Eerie Inscriptions at the heating furnace plant. He explained that the Academy planned to use Wailing Crystals to screen Watch City's forces in stages, while Lu Yuan quietly kept his role in developing the detection method to himself.

• Lin En accused the Night Watcher and City Hall supervisors of dereliction after finding extensive Eerie Inscriptions in the auxiliary boiler room, and they admitted negligence and submitted to investigation.
• Lin En had the supervisors bound with sealing chains and escorted away, then reported the heretic activity and notified City Hall and the Night Watcher leadership.
• Lu Yuan, Lin En, and Baron Hawk left for the workshop base, and Lin En said a citywide spore screening was too dangerous and impractical for now.
• Lin En outlined the Academy's plan to screen the Night Watchers first, then the city garrison, City Hall, and finally the Outer City garrison using limited Wailing Crystals.
• Lu Yuan listened without revealing that he had developed the Wailing Crystal purification and detection method, and a new gray-white entry appeared in his vision.

Lu Yuan learned how grave Watch City's crisis was and began planning how to gain influence at the Academy outpost and secretly open the Sea of Knowledge. He left the chapter preparing to investigate the city's defenses, convinced the Heretics were planning a major upheaval.

• Oden warned Lu Yuan that Illusion-Reality Boundary Mushroom spores could be hidden throughout Watch City, then fell asleep from exhaustion.
• Lu Yuan decided to join as many Northern Territory Knight Academy missions as possible and raise his clearance until he could access lists of potentially contaminated officials and enemies.
• Lu Yuan planned to use the Sea of Knowledge's [Deprivation] ability against those on the lists, extracting their contamination or supernatural power.
• Lu Yuan reasoned that Watch City's defense inscriptions might be weak enough to let him open the Sea of Knowledge undetected, but resolved to examine the inner city and Outer City inscriptions first.
• Lu Yuan considered starting an organization in the Northern Territory but saw few potential allies because the powerful supernatural beings in Watch City already belonged to established groups.

Lu Yuan studied the dormant Illusion-Reality Boundary Mushroom's Core at his new workstation after returning to the heavy steam forging workshop. Deep Study revealed that it had been artificially cultivated in nutrient solution and gave him a method to awaken it or suppress its growth.

• Baron Hawk refused to reveal the details of his upcoming task, and Lu Yuan returned with him and Lin En to the workshop base.
• Lu Yuan, Lin En, and Baron Hawk completed contamination screening before entering the Core District.
• Lin En went to question the furnace plant guards, while Baron Hawk returned to the forge and Lu Yuan went to the potion analysis workstation.
• Lu Yuan examined the sealed mushroom core, confirmed it was dormant, and removed it from its bottle for closer study.
• Lu Yuan used Deep Study to learn that a special nutrient solution could awaken the core and that a frost-and-salt mixture could suppress it.

Lu Yuan studied the mushroom core’s cultivation formula and requisitioned rare herbs so he could prepare a way to grow and suppress it. Lin En returned from interrogating the No. 3 Furnace Factory guards and reported that they were uncontaminated and had followed City Hall regulations.

• Lu Yuan confirmed that his Deep Study could analyze the living mushroom core and copied the herbs needed for its formula onto a requisition form.
• Mona approved Lu Yuan’s request but explained that the workshop had to retrieve the rare herbs from an outside Herb Repository.
• Lu Yuan asked Mona to send the herbs to his western potion analysis workstation and returned there to wait.
• Lin En arrived with City Hall documents and personnel lists and told Lu Yuan that the interrogated guards had confessed and showed no Contamination.

Lu Yuan and Lin En connected the mushroom core’s cultivation needs to a City Hall official who controlled Watch City’s water infrastructure and suspected him of aiding the Heretics. They prepared to arrest him while secretly monitoring the other officials tied to the renovation plan.

• Lin En explained that a City Hall renovation plan had sealed off auxiliary boiler room number three, creating an opportunity to tamper with it.
• Lu Yuan said the mushroom core showed signs of large-scale cultivation in a special liquid, suggesting the Heretics needed a spacious site with water.
• Lu Yuan asked to join the arrest operation, and Lin En agreed while handing him the renovation approval and suspect list.
• Lu Yuan recognized that the official overseeing Watch City’s pipe network and waterworks had access to underground drainage channels, abandoned reservoirs, and unused municipal property.
• Lin En said the other officials on the list would be secretly watched and restricted until the Academy obtained hard evidence against the main suspect.
• Lu Yuan secured the mushroom core, and he and Lin En assembled the armed squad and left to begin the search and arrest mission.

Lu Yuan and Lin En traveled through Watch City to arrest waterworks chief Herbert Field over projects linked to Heretics. After presenting their approved wartime authorization at the guarded castle compound, they were allowed to enter.

• Lu Yuan and Lin En rode with armed squad members through Watch City's snowy streets in steam carriages.
• They crossed from the Outer City into the inner city and arrived at the castle where city officials were housed.
• Lin En explained that City Hall had isolated officials by rank, while Lu Yuan doubted the measure could protect them from Heretics.
• Lin En told the Watch Brigade captain that Herbert Field's projects involved Heretics and presented the Northern Territory Knight Academy's authorization to arrest him for investigation.
• The captain inspected the approved original document, returned it, and let Lu Yuan's group pass through the gate.

Lin En and Lu Yuan entered the castle to arrest waterworks chief Herbert, while City Hall officials tried to block them. Lin En invoked wartime martial law to take Herbert into custody, and Lu Yuan noted the obstructive officials for possible future investigation.

• Lin En presented his pass at the castle’s inner gate and led Lu Yuan and the team toward Herbert’s office.
• Several City Hall officials gathered to obstruct the arrest, and Lin En accused Walter Page and Connor Hughes of sharing responsibility for the city’s failures.
• Lu Yuan scanned the officials with the Gray-White Text but found no clear signs of heretic belief, Transcendence, or visible Contamination.
• Lin En cited the discovery of Heretic Eerie Inscriptions at the No. 3 heating furnace plant and invoked wartime martial law to overrule the officials.
• Lin En’s team arrested Herbert and escorted him in a separate carriage covered in Sealing Inscriptions to prevent the spread of Contamination.

Lin En arrested Herbert and forced City Hall to turn over records of the waterworks officer’s projects and everyone who approved or participated in them. Back at the Iron Furnace Street workshop, Herbert was taken for questioning while Lin En’s team examined the files and Lu Yuan returned to his alchemy notes.

• Lin En ordered Walter and Connor to gather Herbert’s project records and demanded the names of the officials and workers involved.
• Walter led Lin En and Lu Yuan to First Level councilor Edmund Webb, who signed an order authorizing access to the complete records.
• Lin En’s team loaded Herbert’s files and the prisoner into three steam carriages and returned to the workshop on Iron Furnace Street.
• Workshop personnel took Herbert to be interrogated while Lin En and the team sorted and examined the files.
• Lu Yuan found his delivered luggage at his workstation and began reading the alchemy notes String Knight had given him.

Lu Yuan studied the String Knight’s Pharmacology journal before Lin En brought him a map showing the vast scope of Herbert’s potentially contaminated construction projects in Watch City. Lin En asked for Lu Yuan’s help determining where mature Illusion-Reality Boundary Mushrooms might have been planted, and Lu Yuan asked how they planned to investigate before the Wailing Crystals arrived.

• Lu Yuan read the String Knight’s journal and increased his Pharmacology skill by 0.8.
• Lin En told Lu Yuan that Herbert’s projects implicated many officials and an earl, and that repairs across nearly half of Watch City needed inspection.
• Lin En explained that the investigators had postponed searching for the Heretics’ hidden mushroom cultivation site and wanted to find every place where mature mushrooms had been planted.
• Lin En warned that mushrooms could have been hidden in boiler rooms, water systems, pipes, or tall buildings and triggered together.
• Lu Yuan asked how Lin En planned to deploy investigators while the Wailing Crystals had not all arrived.

Lu Yuan joined Lin En's squad to inspect Watch City's critical infrastructure for black aura while the city reinforced its steam systems and patrols. At the border of Withered City, A.M. confirmed its defenses had fallen to a new Taboo, learned that Lu Yuan was in Watch City, and headed there with his companions.

• Lin En explained the shortage of personnel and the plan to inspect reservoirs, sealed drinking-water pipes, and high points for black aura.
• City Hall issued an order to keep steam boilers and pipelines running and immediately reinforce guards and patrols.
• Lu Yuan reviewed the route and agreed to leave with Lin En's squad to inspect the sites.
• A.M. saw that Withered City's defenses had been breached and ordered a report to the Empire's upper ranks, warning them about the Visarion Empire.
• A.M. learned that Lu Yuan was in Watch City and that his Pathway might be Ancient Language, Dark Sacrificial Studies, or Forbidden Studies.
• A.M. left for Watch City with his two companions, saying the Empire's new god and the Forbidden Society's plan depended on a certain person.