Chapter Summaries

Ron developed Dew of Echoes and submitted its formula and theoretical framework for the Potion Professor evaluation. Civilization’s Grace then fused his skills into Narrative Potionology and granted him the expert trait Language of All Things, leaving him able to hear the stories and desires of materials and other things around him.

• Ron used Resonance Fluid made from Star Grass to harmonize Void Stamen and Order Crystal, brewing Dew of Echoes as a cheaper way to resist mental Contamination.
• Ron documented the Material Harmonics Spectral Analysis Framework and submitted it with his formula to Master Merlin for review.
• Master Merlin began assessing Ron’s work and said he would hear back about the preliminary review within three to five days.
• Civilization’s Grace strengthened Ron and fused Advanced Potionology with Extraordinary Identification into Narrative Potionology.
• Ron gained the expert trait Language of All Things and began hearing the stories of the Abyss, its materials, and Selna’s Void Shell Remnant Structure.

Ron taught his students Material Harmonics, a theory that used environmental imprints to explain and predict how materials affected potions, while Ink worked to create Living Armor for the Divine Judgment Trial. Ron then demonstrated his framework before the Review Committee, but Kenneth challenged its academic value and warned that it could encourage unsafe substitutions.

• Ron introduced Material Harmonics to Lillia, Liz, Herman, and Eve, and assigned them to develop a cheaper substitute for Star Grass.
• Ink, controlling Kellen, reshaped the painful memories sealed in Resentment Gold into a protective narrative as the Living Armor prototype neared completion.
• Master Merlin told Ron that his preliminary review had passed and summoned him to defend his work before the Review Committee.
• Nari showed Ron her Star-Returning Dew, a potion that purified abyssal Contamination, and told him that Euphemia had been hiding and crying.
• Ron presented his theory and demonstrated imprint detection, a low-cost Mental Restoration Potion substitute, and his Dew of Echoes to the Review Committee.
• Kenneth criticized Ron’s method as mere downgraded substitution and warned that it could promote cheap materials’ abuse and harm traditional formulas.

Ron earned School Alliance certification as a Potion Professor and published his material-environment research openly, drawing both support and covert opposition. As powerful groups debated how to respond, he completed the Living Armor on Furnace Star and prepared for a packed schedule of advancement rituals, a divine judgment trial, and the Gold Ring assessment.

• Ron answered the committee’s challenges, won nineteen votes in favor, and became a certified Potion Professor, gaining new class abilities and synergies.
• Master Merlin, Agnes, Ronald, and other committee members warned Ron that publishing his framework could provoke powerful interests, but he insisted that knowledge should be shared.
• Three days later, Ron’s paper and open environmental-imprint database appeared in the School Alliance’s journal, prompting support from students and potion organizations as commercial groups sent warnings and demands.
• Representatives of potion families and merchants plotted covert attacks, safety campaigns, and commercial competition, while the School Alliance chose to observe and Saint Salkado recorded Ron’s growing influence.
• Ron planned his upcoming commitments and used an optimized mental-restoration potion before sending his consciousness to Furnace Star to finish the Living Armor’s story-like imprint.
• The Living Armor awakened and responded to Kellen’s will, completing Ron’s breakthrough before he returned to the Main World at dawn.

Eve overcame her fear that absurdism meant abandoning love and began her advancement ritual, which led her to the Paradise prison. There she heard Norman Davenport’s account of being imprisoned for uncovering erased history, and Hector revealed that the system had deliberately driven Norman mad; Eve then prepared to enter the next cell.

• Ron explained that absurdism meant choosing to create meaning and love despite the world’s lack of inherent meaning, helping Eve break through her spiritual barrier.
• Ron used an anchoring coordinate during Eve’s advancement ritual to guide her consciousness to the Paradise prison, where Saint Hector introduced her to its prisoners and set her a trial.
• Eve entered Cell No. 17 and spoke with Norman Davenport, who said he had been imprisoned after discovering that historical records were deliberately altered.
• Eve promised Norman she would remember his name and bear witness to his truth, though she could not change the system that imprisoned him.
• Hector revealed that Norman’s teacher had deliberately implanted a disorder in his soul to silence him, and explained that Paradise contained people made to appear mad so they could never expose what they knew.
• Hector directed Eve toward the second cell to continue her trial.

Eve faced Elena Moonlight and a lucid prisoner in Paradise, learning how the End of Death turned dead geniuses’ dreams into eternal prisons and hearing warnings about truths concealed by the Wizard Kings. After Ron sealed the dangerous information in her memories, Eve chose to apply to inherit Professor Uter’s Void Shell Remnant Structure, while Ron feared the secrets it carried could put her in danger.

• Eve challenged Elena’s emotion-extraction work, and Elena realized she had been plundering her own emotions while trapped in an endless mission imposed after her death.
• Eve entered the third prisoner’s cell and heard his warnings that Paradise held evidence and warnings about forbidden truths, while those who crossed the Wizard King’s threshold faced a terrible price.
• Ron pulled Eve from the gray space, and Hector confirmed she had passed the trial and gained magic combining Absurdity with Empathy.
• Back in the underground chamber, Ron sealed most of Eve’s dangerous memories, and she asked whether Paradise’s prisoners could be rescued.
• Eve decided to apply to inherit Professor Uter’s Void Shell Remnant Structure so she could protect others, while Ron worried that its secrets might expose her to danger.

After Ron sensed the End of Death’s arrival, Salkado and Hector joined forces to stop him from conscripting Uter Gustav’s Void Shell. The End of Death relented but retaliated by releasing three dangerous prisoners into the Main World, leaving the Wizard Kings to hope Ron, Eve, and other young people could face what was coming.

• Ron left the Court of Truth after an immense presence stirred the forces of death across the star domain.
• The End of Death tried to claim Uter Gustav’s Void Shell, but Salkado intervened to protect it from conscription.
• Hector joined Salkado, and the two Wizard Kings held their ground until the End of Death agreed to set the conscription aside.
• The End of Death retaliated by releasing Elena Moonlight, Norman Davenport, and a nameless prisoner from Paradise to pursue their last wishes.
• Salkado and Hector recognized the danger of the three prisoners and parted after reconciling over their shared choice.

Ron and Mrs. Allen reconciled, and her advice helped Lillia pass her advancement trial and choose to return to the Emerald Great Forest to care for her. Meanwhile, threats gathered around the Higher Knowledge Library and the wandering Nameless One, while Lillia encountered the broken Elena Moonlight and took her in.

• Ron welcomed Mrs. Allen, thanked her for her teachings despite the Whispers of the Star Eater, and heard her say she did not regret becoming a Wizard or teaching her students.
• Mrs. Allen critiqued Ron’s Narrative Potionology, warning that it needed stronger foundations and years of experiments to mature.
• Mrs. Allen helped Lillia accept her own strengths, and Lillia sprouted a Moonlight Flower seed in the hostile trial environment and advanced to official Wizard.
• Eve planned to handle family affairs before returning to study with Ron, while Lillia chose to return to the Emerald Great Forest and care for Mrs. Allen.
• Norsen Davenport gained a librarian position at the Higher Knowledge Library while secretly planning to uncover forbidden truths, and Hector and Salkado monitored him and the unpredictable Nameless One.
• Lillia found the fragmented Elena Moonlight staggering in an alley and took her to her inn after Elena’s powers faltered.

Chloe warned Ron that his Gold Ring Assessment could involve a “singularity” that suppresses choice, and Ron prepared for the assessment by training at Nari’s Palace and entering Aselia’s sandbox. He escaped the sandbox’s first cognitive trap by rejecting its rules, but the second trap pressed him toward a black vortex before he stopped himself.

• Chloe contacted Ron, congratulated him on becoming a Potion Professor, and described her progress toward a breakthrough.
• Chloe warned Ron that her vision of a shadowless tower, a mirror that reflected nothing, and a contracting ouroboros pointed to a singularity that could make one predetermined outcome seem inevitable.
• Ron arranged his preparations for the Gold Ring Assessment, descended to Nari’s Palace, and began compressing his magic while remotely checking the Divine Judgment Trial preparations on Furnace Star.
• Aselia helped Ron configure sandbox scenarios designed to exploit his pursuit of optimal answers, and Ron entered the first scenario, the Infinite Nesting of the Prisoner’s Dilemma.
• Ron rejected the maze’s imposed rules and found an exit outside them, passing the first scenario.
• In the Collapsing Multiverse scenario, Ron saw possible versions of himself converge on a black vortex and stopped just before entering it.

Ron passed Aselia’s three tests of free will and returned to his body, where he prepared for the coming Gold Ring Assessment. At Furnace Heart City, Ink-controlled Kellen won the Divine Judgment Trial by revealing the evolving Body of Resentment, leaving the Walker clan victorious and the Luger clan defeated.

• Ron rejected the mirror vortex’s focus on outcomes, arguing that the process of reaching an end gave existence its meaning, and passed Aselia’s first test.
• Ron resisted the Prophet’s Game by distinguishing accurate prediction from control, then learned that the Gold Ring Assessment would use subtler, unknown traps.
• Ron returned to Nari Palace and checked his cultivation progress at 452%, with one week remaining before the Gold Ring Assessment.
• At Furnace Heart City’s Divine Judgment Trial, Bern presented the finely crafted Resonance Sword, which the edict priest praised as effective but traditional.
• Ink-controlled Kellen presented Resentment Gold, transformed it into the Body of Resentment, and demonstrated that it could grow stronger by absorbing attacks and materials.
• The edict priest declared Kellen the winner, granting victory to the Walker clan and condemning the Luger clan to defeat.

After winning the trial, Kellen rejected the Walker Family’s dream of a marquis title and chose to govern the West City mines, then traveled there with Ron’s consciousness inside Ink. In Mine No. 7, Ron discovered signs that Furnace Star’s depths held abyssal energy and that the High Priest had forbidden further excavation.

• Kellen defied Patriarch Walker’s demands and chose the post of West City Mine Governor, arguing that control of the mines offered more lasting power than an Upper City title.
• The decree priest confirmed Kellen’s appointment and declared House Ruger exterminated, with its men sent to the Furnace, its women to the Mine, and its property transferred to the Walker clan.
• Three days later, Kellen arrived at the mining district, where Ron examined the Soot Workers, the mines, and the decaying Governor’s Mansion.
• Ron sensed primordial abyssal energy beneath the district and suspected Furnace Star had a connection to the Great Abyss.
• Ron sealed Mine No. 7, obtained its map, and found a High Priest’s order forbidding further excavation at its deepest point.

Ron uncovered widespread fraud in the mining district’s accounts and took control of its operations, then used an approved Tomb Mold purification project to send Nari’s cells toward a suspected fragment of Mother on Furnace Star. With the fungal network spreading and the fragment still unexplored, Ron turned his attention to the Gold Ring Assessment, which was due to begin in three days.

• Ron inspected the mines with his Language of All Things trait, exposed the overseers’ underreported output, and reassigned Bach while establishing independent verification.
• Ron contacted Nari, who identified the mine’s pulsing aura as likely part of Mother’s Lung or Heart of Chaos and prepared a cell avatar to approach it.
• Ron designed the Tomb Mold purification project as cover for exploring the mine, won official approval, and arranged for Nari’s cells to reach Furnace Star disguised as a meteorite.
• Bach’s collection team delivered the meteorite’s soil samples to the cultivation base, where Nari’s cells fused with Tomb Mold to create a spreading hybrid strain.
• Ron received notice that the Gold Ring Assessment would begin in three days, left Kellen’s operations in Ink’s hands, and prepared to attend.

Nidil refused to interfere with Ron Ralph’s Gold Ring Assessment, but the King of Absurdity secretly raised its difficulty to the maximum and promised Ron a Star Ring Rank title if he succeeded. Ron accepted the challenge and, after arriving in the Seventh Floor’s chaotic Vortex Zone, faced an attack from a seemingly dead Mutant.

• Nidil rejected her subordinates’ proposal to sabotage Ron’s assessment, warning that the Court of Truth and School Alliance closely monitored it.
• The King of Absurdity altered all three stages of Ron’s assessment to maximum difficulty and promised him direct advancement to Star Ring Rank if he passed.
• Ron accepted the special challenge after reasoning that the King’s advance warning was itself a test.
• Three days later, the deputy examiner sent the participants to separate areas of the Seventh Floor to find dimensional beacons and reach the gathering point within seven days.
• Ron landed in the Vortex Zone, where scrambled time made his Crisis Premonition unreliable and a delayed attack wounded him.
• The ground shifted and a Mutant that appeared dead sprang up and lunged at Ron.

Ron used Chaos Adaptation and reverse foresight to retrieve the dimensional beacon, then survived the Shadowless Tower by overwhelming its closed narrative with memories of powerful beings. He passed the first stage of the Gold Ring Assessment and teleported onward as Hector and the King of Records watched.

• Ron followed the traces of events that had already occurred, avoided the Mutant, and used Soul-Calming Incense and Mage Hand to retrieve the dimensional beacon without entering its time Anchor Point.
• Ron arrived in a white wasteland, where the trial required him to survive seven days and the Shadowless Tower began erasing changes and memories.
• Ron discovered that the tower’s narrative claimed it was the only eternal existence, then resisted its erasure by recounting his memories and connections to powerful beings.
• The tower’s narrative overloaded, cracks spread across it, and a shadow door appeared as an exit; Ron stepped through and cleared the first stage.
• Hector and the King of Records watched Ron’s performance, praised his approach, and discussed the path Hector had offered him and the coming storm.

Ron reached the teleportation hub unharmed while the other survivors arrived badly injured, then used divination to warn his new team not to trust the Mirror of What Ought to Be blindly. The second trial began in the Chaos Corridor, where the group followed the mirror’s supposedly optimal route and encountered a Time-Eating Leech; Ron disrupted it with a precisely calculated magic resonance.

• Ron met four injured survivors at the hub, explained that his first assessment had not required combat, and refused to describe its details.
• The deputy examiner announced that ten of seventeen candidates had passed, healed the injured survivors at a cost they would owe later, and gave the five survivors thirty minutes to rest and choose codenames.
• Ron introduced himself as Diviner and read cards warning of deception and a dangerous choice, then cautioned the others against blindly trusting the Mirror of What Ought to Be.
• The deputy examiner assigned the five survivors to escort an Order Core through the Chaos Corridor and instructed them to follow the mirror’s golden path, which supposedly offered a 97.3 percent chance of success.
• The group followed the path and encountered a Time-Eating Leech that slowed their movements, but Ron released a calculated high-frequency magic resonance that disrupted the creature and drove it back into the shadows.

Ron and the team faced a deceptive choice when the Mirror of What Ought to Be directed them onto two paths, while his divination warned that both led to disaster. He exposed a hidden Path of Possibility, took the Order Core across it, and the others followed as the mirror’s predicted routes collapsed and the mirror itself began to crack.

• Ron used Sonic Resonance to disrupt the Time-Eating Leech’s field, then helped the team defeat six Deformed Round-Singing Starfish, including an unexpected sixth one.
• The Mirror of What Ought to Be judged Shadow Person’s criticism correct and Ron’s lightning attack risky, deepening the team’s distrust of him.
• At a fork, the mirror assigned Shadow Person and Grid to escort the Order Core along the Crystal Bridge and sent Ron, the chain, and Eyeball to fight chaos sources in Vine Pass.
• Ron read his divination cards as a warning against splitting up, and the mirror’s paths destabilized as its deduction accuracy fell.
• Ron slowed the mirror’s projection with Time Manipulation, revealed a hidden Path of Possibility, and carried the Order Core onto it.
• The chain, Grid, Eyeball, and Shadow Person followed Ron; the Alpha and Beta paths collapsed, and cracks spread across the mirror as it reported a logical conflict.

Ron, Grid, and Eyeball survived the second stage after the chain and Shadow Person fell into the chaotic void, and Ron learned the dead examinees’ names and reasons for joining. After the survivors exchanged contact information, the third trial began, sending each into a separate challenge tailored to their weaknesses and fears.

• Ron led the group along the unstable Road of Thorns until a Dark Sun Rank chaos creature, the Multi-Armed Fiend, attacked them.
• Grid and Eyeball refused to turn back for the chain, while Shadow Person tried to sacrifice him to her shadow; the chain dragged her into the void with him.
• Ron, Grid, and Eyeball reached the Finish Beacon with the Order Core intact, passed the second stage with an excellent rating, and watched the Mirror of What Ought to Be shatter.
• Ron asked for the dead examinees’ identities, learned that Ude Klaus had entered to help his sick daughter and Yvette had sought treatment for shadow corrosion, and agreed to visit their loved ones with Christina and Urit.
• Nidil reviewed Ron’s defiance of the mirror’s optimal solution and considered changing her approach to him as she prepared to observe the third trial.
• The deputy examiner announced the individual limit challenge, and Christina, Urit, and Ron entered separate trial spaces.

Ron passed the Gold Ring Assessment’s third trial by understanding and breaking the concept behind the shrinking Ouroboros, earning an Excellent rating. While Eve and Lillia discussed their feelings for Ron, an unfamiliar woman emerged from the bedroom and left Eve stunned.

• Ron used Nari’s bloodline message and Deep Listening to discover that the trial’s projection twisted motherly love into devouring and eternal possession.
• Ron used Temporal Sequence Disturbance to desynchronize Ouroboros’s head and tail, collapsing the loop and defeating Nari’s projection as the Three-Headed Hound exhausted itself protecting him.
• The examiner awarded Ron an Excellent rating and granted him, Christina, and Urit Gold Ring Explorer badges and Otherworld Pioneer qualifications.
• At an inn, Lillia and Eve discussed how becoming official Wizards had changed their bodies, then spoke about their feelings for Ron.
• Lillia admitted her former romantic feelings for Ron had become admiration, while Eve confessed she wanted to be his life partner and resolved to grow strong enough to stand beside him.
• A young woman emerged from the bedroom, and Eve recognized her with shock.

Eve discovered that the escaped Elena was living with Lillia under the name Luna and chose not to report her, while Lillia unknowingly benefited from Elena’s potion-making expertise. After Ron passed the Gold Ring Assessment with an Excellent rating and gained Pioneer Qualification, Chloe warned him that the fate singularity around him was growing and waiting for a moment tied to his coming journey to the World of Chaotic Blood.

• Eve recognized Luna as Elena, who silently begged her not to reveal her escape, and Eve decided to let her rest rather than tell Hector.
• Elena’s sleep-talking advice helped Lillia fix her potion and convinced Lillia that Luna was a hidden Potion Professor worth caring for.
• Bolin praised Ron’s understanding of the assessment’s time cycle and ordered Ron Ralph’s files placed under Red Monitoring.
• The King of Records reviewed Ron’s unusual advancement, marked him a high-priority potential key variable, and recommended that the Court of Truth approach him without coercion.
• Ron, Christina, and Urit received their Gold Ring Assessment results, with Ron rated Excellent, and Ron gained Gold Ring Explorer status and Pioneer Qualification.
• Chloe warned Ron that the fate singularity had grown more active and that his choices on the road to the World of Chaotic Blood could determine its outcome.

Ron defended his ownership of the Diving Device and arranged for Explorer One to operate it while he entered seclusion. After reconnecting with Andre, his father, and Edmund, he learned they had avoided contacting him so they would not burden him, then revealed his planned eighteen-year absence and proposed a magical anchor to protect his homeland.

• Ron rejected Nidil's demand to transfer the Diving Device, asserting that it was his private inheritance from Professor Uter.
• Ron presented Explorer One as the device's autonomous operator, and Nidil approved its use while promising protection for his family and priority cultivation resources.
• Ron calculated that reaching the Dark Sun Rank would take at least eighteen years and contacted Andre, who summoned Grand Duke Ralph and Edmund.
• Grand Duke Ralph and Edmund explained that they had not used Ron's costly beacon because they feared becoming a burden, and they described the family's prosperity and security.
• Ron told Andre, his father, and Edmund that he planned to enter deep meditation for at least eighteen years, and proposed building magical anchor points beneath the royal palace and Ralph Castle to preserve his protection.

Ron arranged permanent Anchor Points to protect the Farouk royal family and the Ralph Family, while learning that no ordinary method could extend his loved ones’ lives beyond the laws set by the End of Death. After the Anchors activated, he prepared to enter seclusion, knowing his family would be protected during his absence.

• Ron explained to Andre, the old grand duke, and Edmund that two linked Magic Arrays would protect the royal family and the Ralph Family while serving as his anchor to his home.
• Andre and Edmund planned how to build the Arrays discreetly, and the old grand duke gave Ron the Ralph Family’s ancestral badge and asked him to return in eighteen years with stories.
• Ron asked Aselia how to extend mortal lifespans, and she explained that the Endpoint Laws limited ordinary human life to 120 years and forbade methods that circumvented death.
• Ron created an Anchor Core from his bloodline essence, Sands of Time, and an energy crystal, then scheduled its transmission to Farouk after the Arrays were completed.
• One month later, the Anchor Core activated in the royal palace and Ralph Castle, linking the Arrays through corona and starlight and protecting both families.
• Ron sensed the two Anchor Points had succeeded and went toward the Diving Device to begin his seclusion.