Chapter Summaries

Edwin and his counterparts concluded that the golden pellet might become an eye capable of observing the world from beyond it, prompting Edwin to seek stronger potions and advance technology. After the kingdom’s leaders examined his synthetic gasoline technology, they established a national company with Edwin holding ten percent of its shares and arranged to award him the Star of Wisdom and a hereditary barony.

• Edwin and the other Zhang Qis discussed the golden pellet and theorized that it could grant observation from outside the world.
• Edwin planned to obtain stronger potions, accelerate technological development, and investigate the fellow countryman who had contacted him.
• Count Hall brought kingdom officials and Royal Academy engineers to inspect Edwin’s research institute and gasoline plant.
• Edwin demonstrated how coal became gasoline and used calculations to convince the skeptical engineers of his technology’s validity.
• Count Hall’s letter informed Edwin that the kingdom would establish a national company for his fuel technology and give him ten percent of its original shares.
• The letter also announced that the King would award Edwin the Star of Wisdom and make him a hereditary baron.

Edwin received the Star of Wisdom medal and became Baron Konston at a royal ceremony that the Steam and Machinery Church and the royal family used to promote his internal combustion engine. A committee began planning a refinery in Midseashire and new ironclads powered by the engines, leaving Edwin to wonder why the Church was in such a hurry.

• Edwin prepared for his investiture after learning the King would award him a hereditary barony and the Star of Wisdom medal.
• King George III awarded Edwin the medal and named him Baron of Konston before nobles, ministers, and church representatives.
• Edwin attended a ball with Earl Hall, met government officials and nobles, and answered reporters’ questions about internal combustion engines.
• Newspapers praised Edwin and his invention, and Edwin realized the Steam and Machinery Church and the royal family had coordinated the publicity campaign.
• A committee chose Midseashire for the kingdom’s first large-scale refinery and launched plans to build ironclads powered by internal combustion engines.
• Archbishop Horamick offered the Church’s engineers and Beyonders to help the projects, while Edwin wondered why the Church was pushing them so quickly.

Edwin oversaw the Church of Steam and Machinery’s rapid development of synthetic gasoline and internal combustion engines, then demonstrated Griffin One to Loen’s leaders. The flight convinced King George III of the machines’ military potential, while news of the breakthrough reached Intis, whose president ordered agents to obtain Edwin’s technology at any cost.

• Edwin helped finalize plans for a synthetic oil refinery and an internal combustion engine production line with the Church of Steam and Machinery.
• Three months later, the refinery in Midseashire began producing synthetic gasoline, and the engine production line outside Backlund was completed.
• Edwin unveiled Griffin One at a royal hunting ground, flying it through rapid climbs and dives before landing before King George III and the assembled ministers and generals.
• King George III and Loen’s military leaders recognized the potential of aircraft and armored vehicles to transform warfare and give Loen overwhelming military superiority.
• In Trier, the president of Intis learned of Loen’s new machines and ordered agents to steal the technology or kidnap Edwin.

After MI9 warned Edwin that foreign agents might target him for his invention, he turned to developing electricity and questioned the origins of the potion sequences. Three masked figures then appeared through a rift and demanded that he go with them, leaving Edwin facing an attack.

• Davis told Edwin that foreign embassies and dormant agents were showing unusual activity and that MI9 would protect him.
• Edwin saw Beyonders guarding his residence, realized he could not visit the Bravehearts Bar, and focused on developing electricity and vacuum triodes.
• Edwin wondered whether the potion sequences were deliberately designed to advance humanity and doubted that they arose naturally.
• The lights and sounds around Edwin vanished as three masked figures emerged from a rift and ordered him to come with them.
• Edwin challenged the intruders, and the leader threatened to take him by force.

Edwin Conston fought off three intruders who underestimated his abilities and killed them in his study. He ended the attack by shooting the last assailant before the man could use his powers.

• A Marionettist tried to control Edwin, but Edwin reversed the spirit-body thread and forced him to attack his own companion.
• The intruders attacked Edwin with mental influence, compressed-air shells, and a dagger ambush, but Edwin dodged the attacks and shot the ambusher dead.
• The Puppet Master attacked with enchanted paper cards and a fire tornado, while Edwin countered with his gun and hidden automatic firearms.
• The Puppet Master charged Edwin in close combat, but Edwin read his movements, disarmed him, and shot him in the chest.
• The remaining Mystic leader began to speak, but Edwin shot him before he could use his ability.

Edwin defeated three Sequence 5 attackers, concealed their deaths from MI9, and absorbed their Beyonder Characteristics. His analysis revealed that the potion system was designed to draw Beyonders together and drive them to kill each other, leaving him with the realization that every Beyonder was trapped in a deadly arena.

• Edwin examined the three Beyonder Characteristics left by the dead attackers and hid the scene while robots cleaned his study.
• Thorn and two MI9 subordinates burst into the study, found Edwin unharmed, and left after apologizing for the intrusion.
• Edwin absorbed the three characteristics and identified the attackers as a Reaper, a Marionettist, and a Traveler, all at Sequence 5.
• Edwin analyzed the characteristics and discovered that they contained hidden beacons that attracted Beyonders to one another.
• Edwin concluded that the potion system encouraged Beyonders to kill and gather characteristics as part of a trap designed to make them converge and combine.

Edwin began analyzing Beyonder Characteristics as a system of rules he might translate and reprogram, while the spy attack triggered a purge across Backlund. He drew foreign powers into reverse-engineering outdated engine technology, then used the lull in surveillance to attend a gathering of Beyonders in search of new samples.

• Edwin sent the three corpses through spatial rifts using invisible spiritual threads.
• Military Intelligence Section Nine and the kingdom launched a sweeping purge of foreign spies in Backlund.
• Edwin proposed leaking outdated engine and gasoline technology, presenting superior blueprints as the kingdom’s next advance.
• The kingdom’s engineers approved Edwin’s plan, and foreign powers obtained the planted materials and began reverse-engineering them.
• As espionage and scrutiny of Edwin eased, he attended a local gathering of Beyonders to seek characteristics from unfamiliar pathways.

Edwin attended a secret Beyonder gathering in disguise and bought a wide range of mystical items and potion materials to support his research. After the gathering ended, he returned home through the spirit world to examine his purchases.

• Edwin disguised himself and entered a secret Beyonder gathering at the Brave bar.
• Edwin bought the Slowness Sting dagger, a lightning ring, a Purification Badge, and a Sequence 9 Farmer formula with ingredients.
• Edwin purchased every offered Beyonder item or potion formula he lacked, paying above market prices.
• The organizer, Eye of Wisdom, ended the gathering and arranged for attendees to leave in separate intervals.
• Edwin opened a passage to the spirit world, returned home, and began studying his purchases.

Edwin reverse-engineered Beyonder abilities and discovered a way to combine the powers of his different pathways, dramatically improving his control. Bishop Horamick arrived with the Sequence 4 potion Edwin had been waiting for.

• Edwin studied mystical items from the Beyonder gathering, using their abilities as samples to analyze the underlying structure of sequences.
• Edwin enlisted his counterparts across other worlds to help calculate and verify his analysis over two days.
• Edwin used the powers of his Apprentice, Marauder, and Mystery Pryer pathways together with Mechanic to transform clock parts into a precise pocket watch.
• Edwin realized that he had found an underlying interface that let him channel multiple sequence powers through his spirit body.
• Old Barkley told Edwin that Bishop Horamick of the Church of the God of Steam and Machinery had arrived, and Edwin suspected the Sequence 4 potion had come.

Edwin learned that becoming a Sequence 4 Alchemist required resisting divinity’s inorganic corruption through a ritual that drew on immense vitality. He drank the Church’s potion at its specially cultivated nursery, and its power erupted through both his spirit and body.

• Horamick told Edwin that Sequence 4 was a demigod level, explained the risks of divinity, and described the Alchemist’s vitality-drawing advancement ritual.
• Edwin agreed to advance immediately, and Horamick took him by carriage to a Church nursery outside the city.
• Church personnel presented Edwin with the finished Alchemist potion and warned him to remember what he cherished while drawing vitality from the land.
• Edwin drank the potion at the center of the grassland, and a tremendous force surged through his spirit and body as he sensed divinity.

Edwin experienced the divinity connecting his spirit to the Collective Subconscious Sea and completed his advancement to Sequence 4 Alchemist. He demonstrated his new ability to transform matter and create a living golden robot, then left the stunned clergy to put his plans into motion.

• Edwin's consciousness entered the Collective Subconscious Sea and sensed that the divinity connected to his spirit resonated with the growing ocean of humanity's thoughts.
• Edwin returned to reality after advancing, and the grass and flowers around him had withered as his transformation consumed their life force.
• Edwin reshaped his mechanical watch into a golden robot and demonstrated his Sequence 4 Alchemist abilities to Bishop Horamick and the Shrine Priests.
• Edwin left the nursery, while Horamick told the Shrine Priests to focus on supporting him in spreading the internal combustion engine.

Edwin tested his Alchemist abilities, created a chip and Vibranium, and used his resources to launch internal-combustion vehicles in Backlund. After selling a unique luxury car, he prepared to bring electric light to the city and the wider world.

• Edwin used his Alchemist powers and synchronized computing ability to create a functioning chip from silicon.
• Edwin successfully transformed iron into Vibranium, whose properties he believed resulted from his knowledge influencing the world's rules.
• Edwin's companies and Church of the God of Steam and Machinery promoted internal-combustion vehicles, while government subsidies persuaded carriage owners to replace their horses.
• Edwin unveiled a one-of-a-kind luxury car called the Phantom at a private exhibition, where wealthy buyers bid enthusiastically for it.
• Edwin looked over Backlund and focused on undeveloped land, deciding to bring light to the city and the world.

Edwin used his Alchemist abilities and advances in electrical theory to build Backlund’s first coal-fired AC power station and thousands of tungsten bulbs. On New Year’s Eve, he switched them on around the city’s central oak tree, dazzling the crowd with a light bright enough to make the square seem like day.

• Edwin’s silent custom car and the spread of trucks showed how internal-combustion vehicles were transforming Backlund’s transport and logistics.
• Edwin built on electromagnetic theory to develop electricity, then oversaw construction of the world’s first coal-fired AC power station outside Backlund.
• Edwin handcrafted thousands of tungsten light bulbs and had workers hang them on the giant oak tree in the central square as his New Year’s gift.
• Reporters investigated the strange glass bulbs and the power station, but could not discover what the bulbs were for.
• On December 31, Edwin led the crowd in a countdown and threw the switch, illuminating the oak tree and Backlund Square with thousands of incandescent bulbs.

Edwin’s electric lights dazzled Backlund Square and brought his work on electromagnetism to public attention, drawing both praise and fierce opposition. As he watched the public debate, he entered the collective subconscious and sensed ripples spreading through it.

• Edwin’s brilliant New Year tree stunned the crowd, which erupted into thunderous applause and cheers.
• Edwin explained how generators and tungsten-filament bulbs produced electric light, citing his earlier papers in the Royal Academy of Sciences Journal.
• Scholars recognized Edwin’s work as the foundation of electromagnetism, while critics condemned electric lighting as wasteful and religious followers called it blasphemous.
• Edwin calmly let the debate spread, then entered the collective subconscious and sensed ripples caused by the bulbs and the public’s thoughts.

Edwin studied how faith shaped gods and Beyonder Characteristics, then planted an archetype of science in humanity’s collective subconscious. As he advanced electric-light production toward vacuum-tube technology, the Evernight Goddess appeared to him in a dream.

• Edwin concluded that gods relied on believers’ collective perceptions to define and stabilize them, while Beyonders faced the danger of losing themselves to faith.
• Edwin created and dispersed an archetype of science to encourage reason, experimentation, and progress and to study faith’s effect on Beyonder Characteristics.
• Edwin expanded his electromagnetism research and began building an industrial light-bulb production line to develop the vacuum technology needed for electronics and long-distance communication.
• After waiting for his technology and an anticipated visitor, Edwin fell into an unnatural sleep and encountered the Evernight Goddess beyond a grand black door.

Edwin deduced that the Evernight Goddess was a fellow transmigrator and learned that transmigrators were contingency vessels for a fallen being’s resurrection. After Edwin revealed his immunity to potion corruption, the Goddess reacted with primal fear.

• Edwin greeted the Evernight Goddess in English and explained how her behavior had revealed her identity as a transmigrator.
• The Evernight Goddess asked where Edwin came from, then admitted that she had been brought to this world as a resurrection contingency left by a certain being.
• Edwin deduced that the being’s imprints were embedded in Beyonder characteristics and that it had drawn multiple souls from Earth as fallback vessels.
• Edwin told the Goddess that he came from a parallel time and space and was immune to potion effects.
• At the Goddess’s request, Edwin revealed his still-human spirit body, and the Evernight Goddess trembled in fear.

Edwin confronted the Evernight Goddess in his spiritual domain, where she unleashed her mythological form and attacked him. After Edwin's summoned figures subdued her, the Goddess showed him the horrifying vision she perceived, revealing that his apparent allies were indescribable entities.

• The Evernight Goddess transformed into her mythological form and reshaped Edwin's spiritual domain into a realm of night.
• Edwin summoned the Giant of Light, Unit-01, and the Giant God Bio-Armor, which fought the Goddess and overcame her attacks.
• A blue-robed figure used the River Chart and Luo Script to trap the Goddess in a formation while the three giants restrained her.
• Edwin approached the subdued Goddess and asked why she feared him, and she asked what he was.
• The Evernight Goddess reflected her perception to Edwin, showing that the beings restraining her were indescribable things rather than the figures he saw.

Edwin showed the Evernight Goddess that he could alter Beyonder Characteristics with power beyond the Sequences, then offered to help her resist Potion corruption in exchange for learning about her and the world. She accepted the exchange and began recounting how she arrived in the Second Epoch and rose to become a Sequence 0 True God.

• Edwin realized the Evernight Goddess had mistaken traces of his other worlds for an alien threat, then withdrew the frightening manifestations around her.
• Edwin drew out a Beyonder Characteristic and altered it with an A.T. Field, shocking the goddess by demonstrating power beyond the known Sequences.
• Edwin offered to help the Evernight Goddess and asked to learn about her, the world, and their connection.
• The Evernight Goddess dropped her hostility and agreed to share her past in return for the possibility of an immeasurable future.
• The Evernight Goddess told Edwin that she had arrived in the Second Epoch as Amanises, Goddess of Misfortune, and described her rise from Flegrea's Subordinate Deity to Sequence 0 True God.
• Edwin listened as the Evernight Goddess explained that the Potion System diluted the first fallen being's divinity and will, gradually exposing potion takers to its original imprint.

Edwin learned from the Evernight Goddess that the weakening barrier threatened an apocalypse and that the world needed more Sequence 0 True Gods to oppose the Outer Deities. After proving he could extract the primordial imprint from a Beyonder characteristic, he secured a preliminary cooperation agreement with her, but realized he had to accelerate his plans because time was running short.

• The Evernight Goddess explained that the barrier was weakening and the world needed enough Sequence 0 True Gods to control the Western Continent’s sefirot before the Outer Deities descended.
• Edwin extracted a primordial imprint from a Beyonder characteristic and gave the resulting crystal to the Evernight Goddess.
• The Evernight Goddess felt an overwhelming urge to merge with the crystal, but Edwin caught it after she threw it away.
• Edwin said he needed more Beyonder characteristic samples to analyze imprints, and the Evernight Goddess agreed to cooperate in exchange for hope.
• Edwin awoke in his room, reflected on the agreement and the approaching apocalypse, and decided to accelerate his plans.

Edwin worked to advance electricity and communications while seeking higher Sequence Potions to awaken his Golden Core and learn about the Sefirah. Arianna arrived on behalf of the Evernight Goddess and delivered six Potions, from Sequence 9 Sleepless to Sequence 4 Nightwatcher.

• Edwin concluded that Sefirah and the Great Old Ones posed a catastrophic threat, and he planned to use his Golden Core to learn more about them.
• Edwin set up production plans for vacuum tubes and a radio tower, aiming to develop military communications, radar, broadcasts, and films.
• Edwin spent a busy week directing the Artisans and designing radio equipment and entertainment.
• Edwin sensed an intruder in his room and confronted the woman who appeared from the darkness.
• Arianna identified herself as the Evernight Goddess's servant and delivered six Potions ranging from Sequence 9 Sleepless to Sequence 4 Nightwatcher.