Chapter Summaries

Su Li followed an unfamiliar party through the woods and found three creatures struggling to retrieve a chest while giant ants attacked. After he rescued the injured human youth from an ambush, the group remained wary, and none of them could understand his language.

• Su Li followed the party’s trail markers to their recently abandoned camp and took a piece of black bread.
• Su Li spotted an injured human youth, a short, stout creature, and a long-eared woman trying to pull a chest from vines as three giant ants emerged.
• The short, stout creature used flame powder to drive off the ants while the group worked together to move the chest.
• Su Li killed a giant ant sneaking up behind the wounded youth, then raised his hands to show he meant no harm.
• The long-eared woman tried speaking three languages, but Su Li understood none of them, and the youth cautiously lowered his crossbow by an inch.

Su Li earned the trust of Lumi and her companions, then joined their journey toward a settlement while carrying the crate they had been unable to move. The group traveled northeast, and Su Li learned their names as Dake struggled to pronounce his.

• Lumi had Su Li put down his weapon and step back while Gelu inspected and harvested the giant ant.
• Lumi gave Su Li water and bread, and Su Li used drawings to show that he wanted to reach a settlement.
• Lumi offered to travel with Su Li for three days, and Su Li lifted the heavy crate onto his shoulder.
• Dake tried to name Su Li, prompting Lumi to erase Su Li's drawings before the group set out northeast.
• Lumi introduced herself, Gelu, and Dake to Su Li, and Dake shortened Su Li's name to Su.

Su Li repaired Gelu’s knife and learned basic words as he traveled with Lumi, Gelu, and Dake. When demon rain forced them into a rock hollow, the rain made Cloudscript appear on Su Li’s broken sword, and Lumi copied its fourteen characters.

• Lumi taught Su Li words for water, fire, food, and danger as the group traveled.
• Su Li used his perception and broken sword to repair Gelu’s chipped knife, and Gelu rewarded him with smoked meat.
• Lumi spotted danger in the darkening sky and led the group to a rock hollow for shelter.
• Demon rain burned pits into stone and damaged nearby leaves, so Gelu blocked the entrance while Dake started a fire.
• Rain seeping onto Su Li’s broken sword lit fourteen Cloudscript characters, which Lumi recognized from books and copied onto a clay tablet.

Su Li discovered that magic-rain energy flowed through the characters on the broken sword and could be guided with his dark-gold nodes, but he stopped testing when the resonance cracked the cave ceiling. As transparent slimes attacked Gelu’s toolbox, Su Li spotted that their cores moved close to the surface while feeding and helped Dake drive them back with heat.

• Su Li guided magic-rain energy into the broken sword, making it hum and knocking a chip from the cave ceiling.
• Lumi showed Su Li that a profession test cost three silver wheels, but Su Li refused because he could not afford it.
• Scraping sounds alerted Su Li, Lumi, Gelu, and Dake to transparent slimes moving toward Gelu’s toolbox.
• Gelu scattered salt at the slimes while Dake used a burning stick, but the creatures kept circling toward the toolbox.
• Su Li noticed the slimes’ cores shifted close to the surface when they fed and told Dake to make the fire bigger.
• Dake built up the brazier, and the heat slowed the slimes and sent them retreating deeper into the stone hollow.

Su Li and the others fought off the slimes, and he discovered a mysterious bead inscribed with Cloudscript that reacted to his broken sword. On the third day, they reached a large settlement built among giant trees.

• Su Li stabbed and shattered three slimes while Lumi restrained two others with vine rope and Gelu weakened them with salt.
• Su Li and Gelu bargained over repairing Gelu’s broken precision needle in exchange for workshop access, meat, and one bottle of wine.
• Su Li found a heavy black bead in a slime’s remains, and he and Lumi recognized Cloudscript markings inside it that matched those on his broken sword.
• As the demonic rain faded, Su Li tucked the bead away and continued traveling with his companions.
• On the afternoon of the third day, Su Li and the others reached a red-earth road and a settlement of wooden buildings and bridges among giant trees.

Su Li convinced the Tree Bridge Town registrar to grant him a seven-day temporary pass after the lie-detecting feather exposed his false claim of amnesia. He began working with Gelu to repair an ore-testing needle, starting by examining its intricate structure in the public workshop.

• Lumi helped Su Li explain his lack of local language and currency, and the registrar tested his answers with a lie-detecting feather.
• Su Li changed his explanation to say he came from very far away and did not recognize the language or money, and the feather confirmed his answers.
• The registrar issued Su Li a seven-day temporary plaque, with Lumi guaranteeing him for three days and Gelu for four days if Su Li repaired the needle.
• Lumi paid Su Li four copper wheels for hauling, and Gelu led him to a public workshop, where Su Li struggled to lift an iron ingot.
• The next morning, Su Li inspected the broken ore-testing needle with his unusual perception and asked Gelu for a hammer.

Su Li recalibrated his hammering, repaired a damaged ore-testing needle, and earned work from Gelu. He began examining a pile of defective pots and discovered that the first had a flaw in its rune channels.

• Su Li practiced cold hammering on scrap iron until he could land ten consecutive blows without obvious deviation.
• Su Li used three hammer blows to form a replacement tip for the damaged needle, joined it to the original, and tested it with Gelu.
• Su Li adjusted the needle tip to improve its durability, and Gelu guaranteed the repair for seven days and offered him twelve Copper Wheels per repaired pot.
• Su Li examined the first defective iron pot and found that its inner rune channels were laid out incorrectly.

Su Li repaired rune-heating pots by patching their damaged metal bases, earning enough to exchange his first silver wheel. After improving his batch workflow, he examined a better-made pot brought by the horned woman and found a hidden crack beneath its intact runes that stopped it from igniting.

• Su Li identified a repeated flaw in the mass-produced pots and repaired their bases without touching the runes.
• A horned woman tested a repaired pot for leaks and paid Su Li twelve copper wheels.
• Su Li grouped the remaining pots into batches, increased his profit, and exchanged one hundred copper wheels for a silver wheel.
• Gelu saw Su Li bite the silver wheel and explained that its magic crystal was for anti-counterfeiting.
• The horned woman brought Su Li a higher-quality pot that would not ignite, and his Dark-Gold Node revealed a fine internal crack beneath its runes.