Chapter Summaries

Zhang Qi learned that the Misaka Sisters’ accelerated growth had shortened their lives and worked with Heaven Canceller to create a treatment plan to restore their health and lifespans. After entrusting the next steps to the doctor, Zhang Qi headed toward the center of Academy City with Aleister’s USB drive and card.

• Zhang Qi found Aleister’s USB drive and black card in the envelope, then examined the injured Touma Kamijou and healed a Misaka Sister.
• Heaven Canceller took Touma into emergency treatment while Zhang Qi told Misaka Mikoto that the Sisters’ cells had aged rapidly and their lifespans were severely shortened.
• Misaka Mikoto urged the Sister to value her life, and the Sister showed confusion about whether she wanted to live.
• Zhang Qi offered to solve the Sisters’ condition with a biological laboratory, and Heaven Canceller offered to help provide the equipment.
• Zhang Qi and Heaven Canceller developed a treatment plan that could repair the Sisters’ defects and restore their lifespans to normal.
• Zhang Qi left the hospital, looked toward the center of Academy City, and vanished with Aleister’s USB drive and card in his pocket.

Zhang Qi bypassed Awaki Musujime and confronted Aleister Crowley in the hidden facility beneath Academy City. After seeing through Aleister’s unusual existence, Zhang Qi demanded to know why he had been given research results and the highest level of city authority.

• Awaki Musujime tried to guide Zhang Qi to the Chairman, but he revealed he knew her ability and psychological trauma.
• Zhang Qi vanished before Awaki Musujime could escort him, leaving her frightened by his superior spatial movement.
• Zhang Qi appeared inside the building and found Aleister Crowley suspended in a cultivation tank.
• Zhang Qi used High-Dimensional Perspective Observation to see that Aleister’s many possible states had been split and anchored together.
• Zhang Qi showed Aleister the envelope containing the silver USB drive and black card and demanded to know what Aleister wanted.

Zhang Qi questioned Aleister about the Silver Star research on the USB drive, while Aleister pressed him about the source of his power. Zhang Qi realized Aleister had revealed his own secrets to establish a basis for cooperation.

• Zhang Qi identified the USB drive as Aleister's Silver Star system, a complete framework for a magician's advancement, and demanded to know why Aleister had given it to him.
• Aleister praised Zhang Qi for understanding the research in only a few days, then asked where Zhang Qi's knowledge and power came from.
• Aleister questioned whether a world beyond this world existed, and Zhang Qi stayed silent as Aleister explained that his power left no trace in the world's history or magic.
• Zhang Qi reasoned that Aleister had inferred his origins from beyond this world and had reached a rank capable of sensing realms beyond reality's phases.
• Zhang Qi realized Aleister had shared genuine, risky information not merely as bait, but to expose their weaknesses and lay the groundwork for cooperation.

Aleister Crowley explained that conflicting phases let magicians alter reality and that his plan aimed to correct the world’s underlying flaw. When Zhang Qi deduced that Crowley was using the Misaka Sisters to spread Academy City’s phase worldwide, Crowley unleashed a powerful spell, and its clash with Zhang Qi’s AT Field triggered an escalating collision between phases.

• Aleister Crowley told Zhang Qi that countless overlapping phases caused contradictory rules and let Magic Gods reshape reality.
• Aleister Crowley said he wanted to correct the world’s fundamental error but withheld his plan’s details until Zhang Qi agreed to cooperate.
• Zhang Qi deduced that the Misaka Sisters were intended to relay Level Upper and help Aleister Crowley spread Academy City’s phase across the world.
• Aleister Crowley activated a vast magic circle that threatened Academy City’s 2.3 million residents, and Zhang Qi defended himself with his AT Field.
• The magic circle and AT Field resonated, drawing their phases together until they began an irreversible collision.

Zhang Qi contained a catastrophic collision between two Kabbalistic phases, which briefly manifested as worldwide disasters and the Tree of Life with the Archangel Michael. Afterward, he left the Windowless Building wounded, while Aleister Crowley concluded that Zhang Qi was powerful, came from beyond the world, and was constrained by his goodness.

• The clash between the phases caused earthquakes, tsunamis, extreme weather, and the appearance of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life across the world.
• Pope Matthai Reese saw the angel Michael with a golden trumpet and ordered Fiamma of the Right and the choir to stop the apparent apocalypse.
• The Tree of Life and Michael vanished, and the world's disasters abruptly ended.
• Zhang Qi revealed that he had contained the collision, then confronted Aleister Crowley for exploiting his refusal to risk Academy City's 2.3 million residents.
• Zhang Qi left the Windowless Building badly wounded, and Aleister told an unseen listener that he had confirmed Zhang Qi's power came from beyond the world and that he was a good person.

After Aleister Crowley manipulated Zhang Qi, rumors blamed him for a world-threatening magical disturbance, drawing hostile magicians to Academy City. As Zhang Qi dealt with them, a Kabbalistic ritual targeted him and pulled him into the Christian Tenkai.

• Zhang Qi recovered from his confrontation with Aleister Crowley and resolved to investigate the AIM field for clues to Crowley's plan.
• Stiyl Magnus told Zhang Qi that magical cabals around the world blamed him for a catastrophe, so Zhang Qi arranged for Touma Kamijou to protect Index during a vacation.
• Zhang Qi faced magicians who came after him over rumors of his power, killing a trio and driving off or removing the others.
• Two days later, Zhang Qi sensed a vast Kabbalistic ritual that sought to demote angels and make him take an angel's place.
• The ritual warped the world around Zhang Qi and transported him to the flawless white realm of Tenkai.

Zhang Qi realized Aleister Crowley had trapped him in Tenkai through an Angel Descent ritual, leaving him unable to escape without either endangering the world or returning in a weakened state. He considered another power that might let him break the trap and began preparing to use The World.

• Zhang Qi deduced that Aleister Crowley had exchanged him into Tenkai to keep him from interfering with his plans.
• Zhang Qi concluded that forcing his way out could unleash Tenkai's angelic power on the real world, while weakening himself would leave him vulnerable to Aleister.
• Zhang Qi recognized that his magic could not overcome the phase rules without risking a destructive phase collision.
• Zhang Qi summoned The World, the Stand he had gained after devouring DIO, and considered how its evolution could help him escape.

Zhang Qi used the angelic phase world to evolve The World toward the reality-overwriting power of World Over Heaven, shaking Christian authority across the globe. Aleister recognized someone was ascending by denying Christianity’s doctrine, but the strange fluctuation suddenly stopped.

• Zhang Qi drew the phase world’s holy energy into The World, whose golden exterior peeled away to reveal a primordial white form.
• Kaori Kanzaki’s battle with Gabriel halted when the angel froze and turned toward the sky.
• Cracks spread across the crucifix at St. Peter’s Basilica and sacred images in churches around the world began to deteriorate.
• Aleister Crowley realized someone was challenging Christianity’s doctrine and using that denial to ascend into godhood.
• The mysterious fluctuation abruptly stopped.

Zhang Qi stopped short of becoming a Magic God and used World Over Heaven to erase Tenkai, then defeat Gabriel and return its vessel to Kaori Kanzaki. He left the coast by tearing through space and appeared before the upside-down man in Academy City's windowless building.

• Zhang Qi halted his transformation into a Magic God and used World Over Heaven to erase the Tenkai phase, bringing himself to a coast where Kaori Kanzaki was recovering from her battle with Gabriel.
• Gabriel attacked Zhang Qi with a meteor shower, but World Over Heaven stripped the meteors of their heat and momentum before they could cause damage.
• Zhang Qi stopped time with [World], touched Gabriel, and rewrote reality so that the angel returned to Tenkai.
• Zhang Qi handed Gabriel's nun vessel to Kaori Kanzaki, then tore open space and appeared inside the windowless building before the man suspended in a cultivation tank.

Zhang Qi used [World Over Heaven] to collapse Aleister Crowley’s many possible selves into one, but Aleister vanished through a completed spell and sent his memories into Zhang Qi. The memories revealed Aleister’s past and his plan to erase magic and phases, ending with his discovery of an existence from another world.

• Zhang Qi entered the windowless building and used [World Over Heaven] to fix Aleister Crowley as a single existence.
• Aleister activated a spell that erased his existence, and [World] failed to stop it.
• Aleister’s memories showed his childhood rejection, his pursuit of magic, and his early years in the Golden Dawn.
• Aleister remembered his wife and daughter Lilith, then the telegram announcing Lilith’s sudden death while he was away performing a ritual.
• Aleister resolved to eliminate magic and phases, built Academy City around that goal, and eventually encountered an existence from another world.

Zhang Qi understood how Aleister had used the chaos of Angel Fall and his own self-erasure to pass his existence and legacy to him. Though Zhang Qi accepted Aleister’s goal of freeing humanity from the gods, he resolved to pursue it his own way and began taking stock of Aleister’s resources.

• Zhang Qi resisted Aleister’s memories and personality after Aleister vanished from the incubation chamber.
• Zhang Qi realized Aleister had occupied his place during Angel Fall and then erased himself so Zhang Qi would inherit his causality, soul, fate, and social ties.
• Zhang Qi considered stripping away Aleister’s legacy but feared the resulting disruption would endanger Academy City and countless people.
• Zhang Qi accepted Aleister’s goal of a world free from the gods’ interference, while promising to achieve it by his own methods.
• Aiwass asked whether Zhang Qi had done something, and Zhang Qi turned to assess Aleister’s knowledge and position as Chairman of Academy City.

Zhang Qi rejected Aleister Crowley’s plan to eliminate magic and decided to reform Academy City rather than let its abuses continue. In Backlund, Edwin Howard discovered that Roselle’s diary was written in Chinese and learned that supernatural powers came from potions held by the churches.

• Zhang Qi concluded that Aleister Crowley’s Archetype Control confined humanity within science and aimed to replace every other phase with a scientific one.
• Zhang Qi reviewed Academy City’s problems, including unethical experiments and conflict between espers and non-espers, and resolved not to let the system continue unchanged.
• Edwin Howard read two pages of Roselle Gustav’s diary and recognized its Chinese characters as his own language.
• Edwin learned from Roselle’s diary that this world had supernatural powers gained by drinking potions, which were held by the churches.

Edwin Howard considered how the churches’ control of potions might affect technological progress while guiding Howard Company toward sharing its low-end production with smaller factories. The research institute delivered a successful new substance, whose familiar scent left Edwin declaring it was a new era.

• Edwin Howard wondered whether the God of Steam and Machinery’s authority had hindered the spread of electric lighting.
• Julian reported that Chanel had expanded across the Kingdom of Loen, but Howard Company’s factories could not keep up with demand.
• Edwin rejected Julian’s proposal to focus on high-end goods and instead offered small factories licenses for low-end products, with Howard Company supplying materials and handling sales.
• Edwin explained that helping factories survive would create jobs, support workers’ spending, and improve public health in Backlund.
• Julian delivered a bottle from the research institute, and Edwin recognized its pungent scent as a sign of success and called it a new era.

Edwin reflected on his years of research into turning coal into synthetic fuel after learning that his experiment had produced its first promising batch. He concluded that scaling up the work would require national backing and decided to seek Count Hall's support.

• Julian left Edwin alone with the bottle of orange-yellow liquid after reporting that he had nothing else to add.
• Edwin recalled how his search for natural petroleum had failed and how he had funded research into the Bergius Hydrogenation Process using coal.
• Edwin considered why Roselle Gustav had apparently never found petroleum, weighing supernatural interference against the possibility that oil lay too deep to reach.
• Edwin decided the synthetic gasoline remained valuable regardless of whether natural oil existed in the world.
• Edwin recognized that industrial-scale production would require state-controlled coal and special steel, so he resolved to approach Count Hall for support.

Edwin visited Count Austen Hall to present a new liquid fuel and demonstrate a red motor car powered by it. Count Hall was intrigued but grew suspicious when Edwin claimed one liter of gasoline could carry the car more than ten kilometers.

• Edwin traveled to Count Austen Hall’s villa in Queens after arranging an audience a week earlier.
• Edwin presented Count Hall with a bottle of liquid fuel and explained that it burned more efficiently than coal.
• Count Hall questioned whether the fuel had any commercial value because it seemed to serve only as a more expensive way to produce steam.
• Edwin led Count Hall outside to a red motor car and invited him to ride in it.
• Edwin claimed one liter of gasoline could take the car more than ten kilometers, prompting Count Hall to suspect he was trying to swindle him into investing.

Edwin demonstrated his internal combustion engine to Count Hall, who recognized its potential for the Kingdom of Loen’s ironclad warships and took the technical documents and fuel sample for urgent review. While Edwin investigated a Beyonder gathering in Backlund, Archbishop Horamick Haydn of the Church of the God of Steam and Machinery arrived unexpectedly.

• Edwin took Count Hall for a drive in his automobile, impressing him with its speed and power.
• Edwin showed Count Hall the internal combustion engine and explained how it used fuel to produce far more power than a steam engine.
• Count Hall connected the engine’s potential to the Kingdom of Loen’s secret ironclad project and demanded its specifications and fuel information.
• Edwin handed Count Hall prepared documents and a fuel sample, and Count Hall left to begin preparations.
• Edwin learned of the Eye of Wisdom’s Beyonder gatherings and prepared to investigate them.
• Archbishop Horamick Haydn of the Church of the God of Steam and Machinery came to visit Edwin.

Archbishop Horamick Haydn invited Edwin to join the Church of the God of Steam and Machinery, offering him the Savant potion and support for advancement. Edwin suspected the god’s motives and prepared to refuse, but a voice in his mind ordered him to accept.

• Horamick Haydn praised Edwin’s internal combustion engine and transformed a teacup into metal to demonstrate his Sequence 4 Alchemist ability.
• Horamick explained the Beyonder Sequences and the Church’s knowledge-centered Paragon pathway, then invited Edwin to join.
• Edwin asked what the Church expected in return, and Horamick admitted that a divine revelation had ordered the Church to recruit him at all costs.
• Horamick offered Edwin the ingredients for the Sequence 9 Savant potion, but Edwin decided to delay joining until he understood the Church’s motives.
• As Edwin prepared to refuse, an emotionless voice spoke in his mind and ordered him to accept.

Edwin accepted the Church of the God of Steam and Machinery’s invitation after a mysterious voice identified itself as a fellow transmigrator by praising his twice-cooked pork. Archbishop Horamick Haydn prepared and gave Edwin a potion, but Edwin showed no apparent reaction after drinking it.

• A mysterious woman praised Edwin’s twice-cooked pork, leading him to suspect she was another transmigrator from Earth.
• Edwin accepted Horamick Haydn’s invitation to serve the Lord of the God of Steam and Machinery.
• Horamick prepared the potion in Edwin’s laboratory by mixing the ingredients with ordinary chemistry equipment.
• Edwin drank the dark-golden potion, but nothing happened, and he asked Horamick whether he was supposed to feel something.

Edwin drank the Sequence 9 Savant potion without noticing any effect, then learned to use Spirit Vision and surprised Archbishop Horamik with his gaze. After consuming the Sequence 8 Archaeologist potion, Edwin absorbed its power, and the golden pellet in his consciousness stirred with a desire for more.

• Holamick explained that Edwin felt nothing from the Savant potion because he already embodied the qualities of a Savant, then taught him the Acting Method for digesting potions.
• Holamick taught Edwin to open Spirit Vision, and Edwin saw the laboratory’s spiritual auras and Horamik’s Ether Body.
• Horamik felt an inexplicable fear under Edwin’s gaze, while Edwin withdrew his Spirit Vision and asked about supernatural factions and Beyonders.
• A church deacon delivered materials, and Horamik prepared the Sequence 8 Archaeologist potion for Edwin.
• Edwin drank the potion, absorbed its power when it failed to alter his anchored spirit body, and felt the golden pellet in his consciousness stir and ask for more.

Edwin discovered that Beyonder potions awakened and nourished the Golden Core within his consciousness, allowing him to digest several potions almost instantly. After advancing to Sequence 5, he stopped when Horamik ran out of suitable ingredients, and the Golden Core began to crack open like an eye.

• Edwin told Horamik Haydn that he had digested the Sequence 8 Archaeologist potion, and Horamik assumed Edwin had mastered archaeology.
• Edwin drank the Sequence 7 Appraiser potion and absorbed its spiritual power into the Golden Core, prompting Horamik to offer more potions.
• Edwin instantly digested the Sequence 6 Mechanical Expert potion, then found his destined star and advanced to Sequence 5 after drinking the Astronomer potion.
• Horamik said the Church lacked enough ingredients for a Sequence 4 potion, so Edwin agreed to stop for the day.
• Horamik fled the laboratory, and Edwin saw a tiny crack opening in the Golden Core like a partly opened eye.