Chapter Summaries

Jiang Han demanded compensation after Xiya and Angelite’s spell nearly roasted her brain, and Xiya brought her to meet Eve Harkins about a high-return investment for Ghost Witches. Eve explained that the arrangement was a legitimate reward for Ghost Witches lending money, leaving Jiang Han reassured that the offer was not a scam.

• Xiya admitted that she and Angelite had removed the reading-speed limit from Kraken’s Thought Computing Processor spell, nearly scorching Jiang Han’s brain.
• Jiang Han agreed to forgive Xiya if she received compensation, and Xiya took her to a Ghost Witch investment opportunity at the Harkins family workshop.
• Jiang Han recognized Eve Harkins and noticed that Eve’s magic had grown stronger.
• Eve explained that Ghost Castle used shareholder dividends to attract Ghost Witches’ loans and investment, making the high returns a genuine reward rather than fraud.

Eve Harkins showed Jiang Han and Histeria the new unicycle models and explained their features, prices, and investment returns. After investing in the project, Jiang Han bought four low-end unicycles for her family and friends to use.

• Eve Harkins introduced Jiang Han and Histeria to the factory and demonstrated a unicycle with civilian autocannons and an emergency Cat Lamp driving system.
• Eve Harkins showed them the low-end, mid-range, and high-end unicycle models and described their storage and travel features.
• Xiya and Jiang Han invested two hundred thousand each in the project, with Jiang Han using Cat Gems as collateral.
• Eve Harkins told Jiang Han the unicycles cost twenty-five thousand for the cheapest model, one hundred thousand for mid-range, and at least two hundred and sixty thousand for high-end.
• Jiang Han bought four of the cheapest unicycles for Ms. Ye, Ms. Xuan, her younger sister, and Jiang Luanxin and the others.

Jiang Han brought home four unicycles and gave one to Jiang Xuan, who had just been promoted to a work-from-home investigator. The other vehicles were intended for Ms. Ye and their family and friends.

• Jiang Han arrived home on a smooth-flying unicycle and thanked the Cat Lamp chauffeurs.
• Jiang Han visited Jiang Xuan and learned that she had become an investigator with a mostly work-from-home job.
• Jiang Han showed Jiang Xuan the unicycles and gave her one, delighting her.
• Jiang Han explained that the remaining unicycles were for Ms. Ye, Zhen Ling, Miaomiao, herself, Jiang Luanxin, and the others.

Jiang Han, Olivia, and Vera Lamp realized that the new unicycle could threaten Cat Lamp jobs by undermining the Griffin Carriage market. They worried a sudden wave of unemployed Cat Lamps would burden South City's cat nests and trees, and they left without deciding how to prevent it.

• Jiang Han watched Olivia and Vera Lamp inspect the Toot-Toot Unicycle and asked whether they planned to build another one.
• Olivia explained that the unicycle could hurt low-end Griffin Carriages, whose owners relied on Cat Lamps as signal lights.
• Olivia and Vera Lamp warned that Griffin Carriages employed 14% of South City's Cat Lamps, so a sudden loss of jobs could overwhelm cat nests and trees.
• Jiang Han suggested that Cat Lamps use unfair tactics against the unicycle, but Olivia said the witches would get caught.
• Vera Lamp proposed asking the witch behind the unicycle for food, but Olivia rejected telling the witch because it would humiliate the Cat Lamps.

Jiang Han struggled to manage the Cat Lamps’ food shortage and the influx of new arrivals without damaging their dignity or appearing incompetent. Davlin helped arrange more living space and staff, then offered to listen as Jiang Han wrestled with the crisis.

• Jiang Han considered asking Eileen for secret food supplies but feared seeming incompetent to the Cat Lamps and witches.
• Jiang Han decided the Moon Spring Giant Cat could attend the Cat Golf Course hole-opening ceremony in her place.
• Davlin reported that more than a hundred thousand Cat Lamps had arrived and that Giant Cat Island lacked enough space and food for them.
• Jiang Han ordered gardens opened, cat villages built, and five additional Witch or Cat Lamp civil servants hired.
• Davlin noticed Jiang Han was troubled, and Jiang Han said the problem involved internal Cat Lamp affairs.

Jiang Han sought a way to protect Cat Lamp jobs from competition by Ghost Witches’ lamp-equipped unicycles. Davlin and Melissa devised a plan to enforce the Lamp Restriction Decree and raise the unicycles’ costs, while Jiang Han prepared to contact Cat Carlo about mobilizing Cat Lamps.

• Jiang Han rejected sabotage and patent claims as ways to hinder the Ghost Witches’ unicycles, then realized the lamps rather than the vehicles threatened Cat Lamp employment.
• Davlin explained Final Witch’s Lamp Restriction Decree, which taxed vehicle lamps according to their brightness, and proposed enforcing it against the unicycles.
• Davlin invited Melissa, who said many Griffin Carriage Administration Bureau staff and low-end carriage auditors could lose their jobs if unicycles displaced griffin carriages.
• Davlin and Melissa proposed using regulations and fees to raise the Ghost Witches’ costs and organizing hundreds of thousands of Cat Lamps to keep them busy.
• Jiang Han remembered the Cat Lamps seeking work, recognized the plan, and said she would contact Cat Carlo.

After a match, Jiang Han joined Histeria and Xiya at Bay Club, where she learned that inspectors had imposed costly regulations on Eve Harkins’s unicycle business. As Eve developed a compliant headlamp, Jiang Han revealed she had hundreds of thousands of Cat Lamps available.

• Du Lingxuan, Chu Zi, Xuanbao, and Jiebao defeated a weaker team while Jiang Han watched, and Hanbao stayed in the strategy room with Histeria.
• Jiang Han and Histeria went to Bay Club, where Jiang Han ordered grilled Sea Emperor Dragon meat and Histeria brought up her complaint about witch policies.
• Histeria told Jiang Han that clerks from the Witch Association and Grand Council had inspected Eve Harkins’s unicycle company and imposed headlight installation and licensing fees.
• Xiya explained that the new regulations could raise operating costs and lower the value of their shares, but Eve was developing a cheap headlamp that could bypass the lamp prohibition order.
• When Xiya said Cat Lamps might work but would take months to gather in sufficient numbers, Jiang Han offered her several hundred thousand extra Cat Lamps.

Jiang Han promised Histeria that she could bring more than two hundred thousand suitable Cat Lamps to Ghost Castle, hoping to earn prestige and Meow Yi Ao’s reward. She arrived at Ghost Castle’s vast food-production estate with teleportation Cat Lamps, where Eve Harkins prepared to accommodate them.

• Jiang Han assured Histeria that she could supply more than two hundred thousand Cat Lamps, and Histeria agreed to support her promise if she succeeded.
• Jiang Han asked Xiya to have Eve Harkins prepare food, drinks, and a large storage space for the arriving Cat Lamps.
• That night, Eve Harkins, Xiya, Jiang Han, and Ghost Witch clerks passed through a gray-misted passage with more than a dozen teleportation Cat Lamps.
• Eve Harkins introduced Ghost Castle’s outer food-production estate, explaining that it could support the food and lodging of more than a million Cat Lamps.
• Jiang Han recognized the estate as the vast economic base behind Eve Harkins’s continuing wealth.

Jiang Han used her cat lamp abilities to assess the Ghost Witches’ land and opened a portal that brought 260,000 cat lamps to settle there. Eve Harkins thanked her with a Neofa ghost mirror, and Jiang Han hurried home to find a cat golf tournament underway.

• Jiang Han pretended to cast a cat lamp transformation spell and used her tail to inspect the leyline and soil, deciding the land could support several hundred thousand cat lamps.
• Jiang Han opened a portal, and 260,000 cat lamps poured through to settle on the Ghost Witches’ land.
• Eve Harkins hosted Jiang Han and gave her a Neofa ghost mirror in gratitude for her help.
• Jiang Han said goodbye to Xiya and returned home, where Longsleep Meow’s first cat golf tournament was underway.

Jiang Han returned home and saw Olivia’s new cat golf terrain disk before receiving praise and rewards for her work. Olivia demonstrated terrain disks that connected Jiang Han’s home to Giant Cat Island and offered to teach her a secret cat lamp spell.

• Olivia showed Jiang Han her cat golf terrain disk, where Ovi Lamp and Sha'er Lamp played a round.
• Olivia praised Jiang Han for keeping the meow-aos employed and earning the cats’ trust.
• Olivia revealed a terrain disk of Jiang Han’s home on Snow Cedar Lake Sky Island, and Jiang Han accidentally transported herself into its garden.
• Olivia joined the home and Giant Cat Island terrain disks with a rainbow bridge and demonstrated tools for shaping Sky Islands.
• Olivia gave Jiang Han the two terrain disks as part of her reward and offered to teach her a secret technique of the cat lamp lineage.

Olivia used a steaming-pot ritual to awaken Jiang Han’s psionic abilities, and Jiang Han woke to find Sha’er asking her to investigate Olivia’s surprising Cat Golf skills. The chapter left Jiang Han watching Olivia view a Cat Lamp-language golf tutorial that was popular with witches.

• Olivia put Jiang Han through a steaming-pot ritual with spices, wine, pinecone balls, and Sleeping Witch tail fur to develop her psionic powers.
• Jiang Han fell asleep in the cauldron and woke on the steaming-room floor beside Sha’er.
• Sha’er asked Jiang Han to find out whether Olivia had secretly watched Cat Golf tutorials, since her impressive play seemed suspicious.
• Jiang Han found Olivia watching a Cat Lamp-language Cat Golf instructional program that ranked 1145th and was watched mostly by witches.

Jiang Han learned to use her newly awakened leyline energy and discovered Olivia’s powerful Cat’s Traction Technique. Later, Vera explained that Olivia had gone to Anjie’s office to swipe a patent permit for the cats, leaving Jiang Han to realize they were plotting mischief.

• Jiang Han followed Olivia’s instructions and found the leyline-energy organ inside her heart chamber.
• Jiang Han sensed her pseudo-spells and discovered the Cat’s Traction Technique, which could manipulate force and space using leyline energy.
• Olivia warned Jiang Han that converting magic into leyline energy caused about sixteen percent loss and told her to use the technique only when ordinary spells would not work better.
• On the afternoon of September 13th, Jiang Han found Vera lounging in the living room and asked where Olivia was.
• Vera said Olivia had gone to Anjie’s office to swipe a patent permit so the cats could build a new unicycle.

Jiang Han attended a rehearsal for a diplomatic reception at Crystal Lake, where Caroline explained that the witches only needed to sit and watch the proceedings. The reception was for the Frost Demons, whose tastes made Histeria’s gruesome decorations seem appropriate.

• Jiang Han arrived at Crystal Lake and saw Histeria directing witches as they decorated the reception hall.
• Caroline escorted Jiang Han to her assigned seat among the invited witches and explained that the rehearsal required them only to sit.
• Jiang Han ordered sparkling lychee soda and learned that only pretty witches had been invited to the reception.
• Jiang Han questioned why Anjie had asked Histeria to arrange the decorations, including a long illustrated scroll of torture.
• Caroline explained that the diplomatic reception was for the Frost Demons, who enjoyed torture-themed surroundings.

Jiang Han learned about the Frost Demons and watched Angelite rehearse a diplomatic note with them. The Frost Demons arrived early, and Xiya explained that the public-facing diplomacy was only a performance while witches’ leaders decided actual policy.

• Caroline explained that Frost Demons were an evil spellcasting race known for tormenting victims to season their food.
• Xiya complained that Angelite had assigned her the task of arranging things for the Frost Demons, and she and Caroline joined the witches in joking about Angelite.
• Angelite began the rehearsal, taking questions from witch reporters before opening the door to admit the Frost Demons.
• Jiang Han and the other witches examined the Frost Demons, who stood beside Angelite and listened as reporters prepared questions for them.
• Xiya told Jiang Han that the rehearsal was only a display of diplomacy and that witch leaders determined how diplomacy was actually conducted.

Angel, Eileen, Olivia, and Jiang Han discussed how the witches would meet the Frost Demons’ request for a magical system while limiting how much the rival civilization could advance. They decided to teach the Frost Demons a deliberately narrow set of spells and prepare a welcoming diplomatic response.

• Angel and Eileen collected Twin Frost Basket gemstones while Olivia stole some, and Angel said the Frost Demons had offered 670 crates in exchange for a magical system.
• Eileen and Olivia warned that the Frost Demons were developing quickly and argued that the witches should help them without making them too powerful.
• Angelite explained the Barbarian Spell Teaching Rules: the witches would emphasize Magic Missile, Fireball, and other damage-focused spells to steer the Frost Demons away from broader magical study.
• Angelite told Eileen to prepare the Frost Demons’ system with practical spells such as Flash Dust, while Eileen proposed renaming it Flashburst Powder and removing key theories.
• Olivia suggested replacing the witches’ spell schools with simpler labels such as Fire, Water, Wind, General, Shield, and Scouting, and Angel praised the idea.

Jiang Han searched Ange’s library for historical precedents to support a plan for witches to fund Cat Lamp adventuring parties in exchange for a share of their profits. She found accounts of earlier Cat Lamp expeditions and left the library with books to study.

• Jiang Han asked Ange to use the library to research civil administration and management, and Ange granted her access to the first two floors.
• Jiang Han explained that she wanted precedents for a proposal to have witches fund Cat Lamp adventuring parties and share in their profits.
• Jiang Han and a Mist Cat Lamp searched the library and found a volume about witches hiring Cat Lamps in the modern era.
• Jiang Han found a book describing how Kerke Sky Island funded more than a hundred Cat Lamp expedition teams through investment tickets and divided the teams’ profits among investors.
• Jiang Han borrowed the books after the Mist Cat Lamp confirmed she could take them as long as she recorded the loan.

Jiang Han investigated ways to find work for cat lamps, but Cat Carlo warned her that improving their independence crossed a dangerous boundary in their relationship with witches. She advised Jiang Han to follow Cat Yeta’s example and have cats produce goods for witches, leaving Jiang Han to reconsider her plan.

• Jiang Han reviewed witch records and visited the giant cats to gather information about cat lamps and potential work for them.
• Jiang Han told Cat Carlo she intended to teach cat lamps labor methods, and Cat Carlo urgently warned her not to pursue the idea carelessly.
• Cat Carlo explained that cat lamps had to remain steadfastly attached to witches, so new work should benefit witches rather than make cats self-sufficient.
• Cat Carlo recommended asking Cat Yeta, who had balanced cat-lamp productivity with the witches’ expectations by producing supplies for witches to trade.
• Cat Carlo recounted how the witches destroyed the Woodland Fairy Clan after it developed self-sufficiency and sought to leave witch rule.

Jiang Han helped Cat Carlo settle several administrative matters before they summoned Cat Yeta to discuss cat affairs. Cat Yeta emerged from a strange mirror at the stump farm, leaving Jiang Han and Cat Carlo facing the many-tailed cat.

• Jiang Han advised Cat Carlo to have the Moon Spring Giant Cats secure Fox Fox's bar opening permit and to assign Gray Mist Cat Lamp to help the catfolk establish a safe hunting ground.
• Cat Carlo invited Jiang Han to summon Cat Yeta, then bounced awkwardly out through the door and led Jiang Han to an empty stump farm.
• Cat Carlo drew a crooked summoning rune with her tail and called for Cat Yeta in Cat Lamp language.
• A Black Lake-like mirror opened in the air, and Cat Yeta emerged in tattered yellow, looking down at Jiang Han and Cat Carlo without speaking.

Jiang Han and Cat Carlo met with Cat Yeta to discuss better employment for Cat Lamps and ways to improve their combat usefulness. Cat Yeta revealed her Thousand-Tail Collection ability and produced a bookshelf of research materials for Jiang Han.

• Jiang Han and Cat Carlo greeted Cat Yeta, who remarked that Cat Carlo had grown fatter and Jiang Han taller.
• Jiang Han explained that she wanted to create more work for Cat Lamps and build business relationships between them and witches.
• Jiang Han described Cat Lamps' poor combat morale and asked Cat Yeta for research on their cowardice and the Group Cat Bravery Spell.
• Cat Yeta used her Thousand-Tail Collection ability to turn six tails into a fluffy bookshelf filled with books.
• Jiang Han rubbed the cat-fur bookshelf, and Cat Yeta gave her a slight glare.

Jiang Han asked Cat Yeta to help her recruit a Mysterious Guest Giant Cat as a powerful support partner. After learning the cat's costly demands and formidable abilities, Jiang Han received a contract and left the recruitment to Cat Yeta.

• Jiang Han asked whether Mysterious Guest Cat Lamps shared Cat Yeta's ability to sort and store items with their tails.
• Cat Yeta explained that the ability belonged to Mysterious Guest-type Giant Cats, and Jiang Han asked her to introduce one willing to sign a partnership contract.
• Cat Yeta described the Giant Cat's expensive requirements, including daily expenses, a share of battle spoils, cat golf, and a cat steamer.
• Cat Yeta outlined the Mysterious Guest Giant Cat's abilities to switch places with her witch partner, unleash spell-firing Mysterious Guest Bad Cats, and grant buffs or inflict debuffs when cats were summoned.
• Cat Yeta handed Jiang Han a contract and offered to summon and handle the Mysterious Guest Giant Cat.