Chapter Summaries

The witch doctors used high-level Magic Crystals to increase Cave Wolf cell-fluid production and studied the crystals’ destructive effects, giving the Republic enough resources to expand both implant production and elf cultivation. After expanding Mother Tree No. 1’s incubation capacity, they left it with twenty thousand chambers, while the Rune Council set a new fifteen-year goal for universal Elvenization.

• The witch doctors breached the Cave Wolf’s skull and organs, raising high-energy cell-fluid output to twenty thousand shares while limiting extraction to avoid exhausting it.
• The witch doctors tested the Cave Wolf Magic Crystal’s Wind Blade and the High Salamander crystals, documenting their direct attacks, lingering patterned damage, and how the patterns spared each crystal’s contributor.
• The witch doctors used the Cave Wolf Magic Crystal to obtain another High Salamander Magic Crystal and planned to use all three crystals to injure the High Salamanders further and increase cell-fluid supplies.
• The witch doctors converted five thousand of Mother Tree No. 1’s incubation chambers to implant cultivation, enabling production of twenty-five thousand implant sets every half-year and speeding the Republic’s implantation program.
• The Rune Council revised its target to universal Elvenization within fifteen years, and the witch doctors continued building and grafting incubation chambers until Mother Tree No. 1 had twenty thousand.

The chapter traced the Republic’s advances from implant adoption and Treeborn Elf cultivation to expanded research and industrial capacity. It ended with Freya’s Land Power Project producing gas engines that could transform agriculture, industry, warfare, and transportation.

• The Republic completed universal implant modification in Rune Calendar 60 and projected that natural Troll births would cease by Rune Calendar 73, leaving mating separate from species expansion.
• In January of Rune Calendar 61, the third batch of Treeborn Elves was born, 20,000 embryos were attached to Mother Tree No. 1, and the first batch’s thousand graduates had become witch doctors with diverse career paths.
• The witch doctors began cultivating embryos in Mother Trees No. 2 and No. 3, then expanded the trees’ capacity by 90,000 incubation chambers between Rune Calendar 61 and Rune Calendar 65.
• Headquarters advanced its battleship, land power, air power, rare inert gas, airship, and external activated armor projects, while airships accelerated the secret deployment of Continental Base Station Trees.
• Freya turned thirty, entered adulthood, and led the Land Power Project to develop an air-breathing turbine gas engine and a piston gas engine for land use.

The Republic’s new engines and expanding airship network supported industrial growth and northern exploration. At 30,000 meters, Agatha Tusk’s crew abandoned the airship when she detected a giant flying creature, which then tore through the vessel before seeming confused by it.

• The chapter described how piston and turbine gas engines could expand industry, farming, and transportation while reducing reliance on Troll and moose labor.
• Exploration 23 carried scouts and supplies north through the stratosphere, where its passengers chatted about northern races and trained their external neural plexus organs.
• Witch doctor Agatha Tusk detected a massive approaching life-form and ordered the crew to evacuate in life-support capsules while the engineers set the airship’s systems to self-destruct.
• The crew separated the escape section from the airship and began falling toward the ground as the giant flying creature closed in.
• The creature smashed through the airship’s power compartment and gasbag, then turned to face the damaged vessel with a confused expression.

After the airship was destroyed, Agatha guided its escape pod to a crash landing near a Mammoth People city and freed the fifty-eight other survivors. Cynthia Tusk assumed command, ordered contact restored and reconnaissance launched, while Ugoosta’s forces prepared to intercept curious upright apes approaching the crash site.

• The High Salamander mangled the airship before leaving, and the damaged vessel later self-destructed in midair, destroying its cargo and continental base station components.
• Agatha steered the escape pod away from a nearby city and landed it in the snowbound countryside, then used Arcane Arts to free the other survivors from their disabled life-support pods.
• Agatha identified their location near Black Forest No. 034, and Cynthia Tusk invoked military regulations to take command, sending scouts to reconnoiter and engineers to restore the pod’s self-destruction function.
• Ugoosta deployed scouts and Battle Soldiers toward the nearby city, ordering one squad to intercept approaching upright apes and other squads to monitor the city’s roads.
• Three scouts positioned themselves to block the upright apes, while “Bigger Is Beautiful” prepared to target them with his armor’s weapon.

Team Two and Team Five wiped out a group of upright apes, while Mammoth City 034 detected the Black Forest escape pod and sent Antelope People to investigate. After scouts captured some Antelope messengers and learned that the group had been discovered, Cynthia took command and ordered the team to destroy the pod and prevent the city from spreading what it knew.

• Team Two and Team Five attacked the eighty-seven upright apes from both sides, killing nearly all of them before the scouts concealed the traces.
• During a prayer ceremony, Mammoth City 034 detected an unknown object and fifty-nine powerful lifeforms, then dispatched Antelope People to investigate its landing site.
• The Antelope scouts arrived near the crash site, where Black Forest teams captured more than ten of them and learned that Mammoth City 034 had discovered the group.
• Cynthia ordered Agatha and the engineers to restore the escape pod's destruction function and decided the team could not wait for instructions from headquarters.
• Cynthia ordered forces to intercept the city's scouts, destroy the escape pod's core, and mobilize regional scouts and base personnel to stop messengers from reaching other cities.

Cynthia organized an aid signal and prepared nearby forces to respond to the crash and possible action against City 034, but linked sound-conducting lines made the message travel far faster than she expected. The first armored reinforcements reached the crash site, while news of the crash reached headquarters and prompted an urgent report to the Military Commission.

• Cynthia sent a request for aid to nine continental base stations and directed reconnaissance agents to intercept messengers from City 034.
• The survivors estimated that reinforcements would take hours to receive the signal and planned for support to gather before headquarters issued further orders.
• The signal reached linked base stations through metal sound-conducting lines far faster than Cynthia expected, prompting sixty-four combat-armored elves and 114 reconnaissance-armored elves to mobilize.
• Eight armored personnel from the northwest base station arrived within the crash survivors’ perception range in less than two light-hours, leaving Cynthia and the others surprised by their speed.
• The messages crossed the mountain barrier and reached headquarters, where officials learned of the giant-bird attack and escape-pod crash and ordered a report to the Military Commission.

Headquarters debated whether to eliminate the witnesses in Twin Kings City 034 and ordered Cynthia to contain the city while disguising the operation as a monster attack. As reinforcements arrived at the crash site, Cynthia received command authority and sent Lieutenant Aleksta’s squad to intercept traffic before the escape pod was destroyed.

• Nesta and the Republic’s leaders debated the risks of exposure, then ordered Cynthia to seal off Twin Kings City 034 and delay an attack until reinforcements arrived.
• Nesta summoned nearly four thousand Wind Wolves and assembled airships, elven warriors, and witch doctors for the northern mission.
• Cynthia’s team continued repairing the escape pod’s self-destruct system while a scout detected seven approaching elves.
• Cynthia verified Lieutenant Aleksta’s identity and received headquarters’ orders granting her command over the crash site and nearby forces.
• Cynthia ordered Aleksta and six soldiers to intercept traffic toward Twin Kings City 034, then had the escape pod’s self-destruct system activated and Agatha destroyed the remaining special materials.

Cynthia organized the survivors and arriving reinforcements into an information network and layered blockade around Twin Kings City 034. The Mammoth People’s breakout attempts were intercepted, and the chapter ends as twenty-seven armored units move to confront five hundred warriors north of the city.

• Cynthia led the survivors southeast to establish an underground command center near City 034, assigning Agatha and the engineers to build its supply and support functions.
• The two city lords disagreed over whether to attack or defend, then chose to fortify the city and send groups of Protected People out to carry messages.
• Cynthia’s forces and scouts from nearby base stations formed a widening interception ring that caught escapees beyond the city’s immediate surroundings.
• Cynthia arranged a warning ring and hunting teams, which intercepted more than two thousand escapees and later a breakout force of over five thousand.
• When five hundred Mammoth warriors ran north, Cynthia redirected nine hunting teams, and Ugoshta led Hunting Team 01 back to join the interception.
• Twenty-seven armored units reached a position ten kilometers north of the city and prepared to face the five hundred Mammoth warriors.

Cynthia’s forces annihilated the Mammoth People’s first breakout attempt, then used surveillance and carefully redeployed hunter-killer groups to prepare for City 034’s final assault. The city’s north-focused breakout met the elves’ counterattack, while Cynthia’s cannons disrupted the Ancestral Altar and the approaching airship fleet remained ten light-minutes away.

• The elves killed all five hundred Mammoth warriors during their retreating attack, bringing their own force to thirty-six, and war machines began clearing the battlefield.
• Agatha completed the command base with three engineers, giving Cynthia surveillance over City 034 and increasing her available forces to 232 as reinforcements arrived from all nine bases.
• Cynthia detected preparations for a full breakout, identified the north as the main force and the south as support, and redeployed forty-six hunter-killer groups northward.
• The Ancestral Altar blinded and weakened the elves before launching fireballs, but the Totems restored the soldiers, who counterattacked and cut down the charging warriors with Wind Blades.
• The altar struck the armored elves with purple beams, but Cynthia’s three heavy cannon shells disrupted it, allowing the elves to resume firing and defeat the east and west breakout forces.
• Cynthia sent armored soldiers toward the city to threaten the altar and unarmored scouts south to support the stalemated front; at 4:39 a.m., the airship fleet was still forty-five kilometers away.

Elven armored soldiers attacked the altar in City 034 to keep its shamans from aiding the northern breakout, but the altar guards stalled them and the shamans unleashed lightning before firing sustained beams across the northern battlefield. The squadron commander and another elf were struck by the altar’s electricity, and the chapter leaves the beams cutting into the ongoing fight.

• Eighteen armored soldiers entered City 034 from the east and west and attacked the altar’s shield, forcing the shamans to abandon it and strengthen the northern breakout.
• Nine soldiers fought nearly a hundred blessed Mammoth altar guards; the defenders’ shields and chain hammers stalled the assault while the elves inflicted heavy casualties.
• The altar guards delayed the soldiers long enough for the altar to release an enhancement aura over the Mammoths, a weakening aura over the elves, and begin charging another attack.
• The squadron commander and two other armored soldiers pushed up the altar steps, but expanding electric rings struck them and left the commander unable to answer his team’s calls.
• The altar released sustained beams across the northern battlefield, striking the forces locked in close combat.

Elven forces defeated the Mammoth-led army, captured the city, and uncovered evidence that powerful beings called gods might exist. After the Twin Kings awakened their protector, the Sky-Splitter, Nesta and Azshara considered the threat and resolved to seek strength rather than rely on divine mercy.

• Ugosta and the other armored elves broke the attackers’ momentum, driving the Mammoth warriors and foreign races back toward the city until an airship fleet arrived.
• Nesta shattered the city’s protective barrier, rescued fifteen surviving elven fighters, destroyed the central altar, and ordered the Mammoths killed while the remaining Protected People surrendered.
• Nesta collected golden altar fragments before the elves departed, and the Twin Kings later awakened the Sky-Splitter, who identified the attackers’ power as the laws of wind and tearing and ordered retaliation if they struck again.
• Nesta and the witch doctors studied the golden relics and discussed whether the Mammoth protector was an aspiring god, while Nesta and Azshara agreed their people needed strength to face powerful beings.
• Azshara reminded Nesta that their civilization had existed for only sixty-six years, and she promised they would confront the future together.

After a lightning blast from the Mammoth altar’s broken droplet destroyed Nesta’s headquarters, the Republic evacuated its citizens and prepared them for the truth about the northern Omnipotents. Nesta’s speech revealed the threat and his own responsibility, then urged the Republic to face its weakness with confidence and humility; the citizens responded with applause.

• The Mammoth altar droplet shattered and unleashed lightning, but Nesta and Azshara survived after knocking each other clear of the blast.
• Nesta, Azshara, Rough Tusk, and Sharp Tusk ordered a Republic-wide evacuation, dispersing citizens among underwater, mountain, and island fortresses.
• Intelligence linked the droplet’s destruction to the Protector, while Nesta and Azshara agreed that the citizens should learn the truth about the northern powers.
• After Sharp Tusk’s group reached the islands, the four leaders agreed to end the deception that the evacuation was only a drill.
• Nesta told the citizens that the Mammoth People and other northern races had powerful Omnipotents, accepted responsibility for bringing the droplet to headquarters, and called on the Republic to keep growing.
• The audience applauded Nesta’s speech, and he felt relieved that the citizens had not lost their spirit.

Nesta directed the Republic’s preparations for oceanic warfare and arranged for four Wolf Kings to capture the Mammoth hero Alexei, while developing plans to bring displaced northern races under the Republic’s influence. The Wolf Kings captured Alexei and destroyed his Altar Guardian vanguard, leaving his coalition army stalled as the Black Forest received news immediately.

• Nesta instructed government officials to address citizens’ needs and ordered the military to expand the undersea fortress and develop deep-sea combat forces.
• Nesta and Azshara agreed to hire four Wolf Kings to capture Alexei, offering them Totems that enhanced their combat abilities and included a hidden safeguard.
• Nesta outlined a long-term plan to settle and eventually recruit displaced races, then sent the Wolf Kings north after they accepted the mission.
• The four Wolf Kings lured Alexei’s vanguard into an ambush, annihilated the Altar Guardians, captured Alexei, and returned to their territories; the Wind Wolves suffered heavy losses.
• Alexei’s adjutant halted the coalition army after the vanguard’s reports disappeared and sent messengers to Twin Kings City, while the Black Forest learned what had happened that same day.

After the northern war and the evacuation ended without further retaliation, Nesta’s Republic restored its hidden city and resumed development. The undersea fortress remained active as a submarine base, while plans advanced for marine and sky Druids and the Republic’s next expansion.

• Nesta and the council discussed the wolf pack’s refuge, intelligent marine beasts, aerial magical beasts, and the cooling Volcanic Range; Nesta also revealed he intended to pursue a path beyond the third tier and proposed a public election for his successor.
• The Twin Kings sent reinforcements against the wolf pack, which fought the Mammoth People across dangerous habitats before retreating deeper into the wild; the mammoth army eventually withdrew.
• After the half-year refuge period ended without retaliation, the elves returned, and witch doctors restored the concealed railway lines and rebuilt headquarters from its forest disguise.
• The Republic restarted agriculture, industry, and livestock production, while the undersea fortress continued operating and began producing several first-generation submarine models.
• The Republic began developing marine Druids and deep-sea armor, and senior shaman-doctors set out to capture kin of the giant bird and revive the sky Druid path.

After Nesta’s impeachment hearing ended with him cleared, he resigned as Council Chairman and explained to Azshara that he needed to enter seclusion and prevent the Republic from depending on him. Azshara decided to pursue the chairmanship herself, and Nesta agreed to support her.

• The temporary representative entity held Nesta’s impeachment hearing, heard testimony about the emergency in Twin Kings City 034, and ruled that impeachment would not be carried out.
• Nesta helped establish the voting weight scheme for the Council Chairman election, then submitted his resignation three days later.
• An elf on the inner rail transit criticized a young elf for suggesting that Nesta should become king, warning him to respect the Republic’s rules.
• Nesta told Azshara he intended to relinquish power and enter seclusion because the Republic should function without relying on any one person.
• Azshara announced that she would strive to become Council Chairman, and Nesta agreed to support her.

After resigning as speaker, Nesta entered long-term seclusion to overcome a cultivation bottleneck and discovered a way to integrate his transformed cells through a digital visualization body. He reached Tier 4, confirmed the changes to his abilities, and continued cultivating after learning Azshara was inspecting vassal city-states on the Northern Plateau.

• Nesta resigned, and Azshara was elected the Republic’s second grand speaker.
• Nesta entered seclusion in the Mother Tree to investigate why his physical and mental cultivation had stalled.
• Nesta used the Meditation Space to link the thoughts of transformed cells through binary rules and construct a digital elf visualization body.
• The new visualization body integrated his cells’ thoughts, triggering a major breakthrough that Nesta recognized as advancement to Tier 4.
• Nesta examined his improved control, perception, and mental power, and concluded that integration had caused his advancement.
• Nesta learned Azshara was inspecting vassal city-states on the Northern Plateau, sent her a message, and resumed cultivating.

Nesta tested whether his body could function while his brain was dormant, briefly transforming himself into scattered cells before his brain woke. Meanwhile, Azshara assessed the Republic and chose research to save its forty-three dying Trolls as her first major priority.

• Nesta spent six months transforming his spinal cord and neural connections into multifunctional cells, then prepared a reversible test of brain dormancy.
• Nesta’s brain shut down for three seconds as the digital elves took over his body, and he used the interval to test transformations and consider replacing blood, organs, and other bodily systems.
• Mother Tree No. 1 detected an unusual surge in Cave Wolf cell fluid from Nesta’s meditation chamber, then confirmed that his vital signs were normal.
• Azshara met with Republic officials to assess its population, institutions, and professions before setting her short-, medium-, and long-term priorities.
• At the Republic Nursing Home, a student elf listened to Feodosta recount his past and grieved that dying Trolls had no path to become elves.
• Azshara chose the plight of the forty-three dying Trolls as her first major initiative and gathered witch doctors to research ways to save them.

Azshara helped the Republic’s dying Trolls enter gentle hibernation while pursuing political reforms and overseeing a decade of exploration and technological growth. After advancing to the fourth rank in Rune Calendar Year 76, she strengthened the Republic’s research prospects, while questions about the future paths of its warriors and other groups remained unresolved.

• Azshara’s researchers created a Totem-based hibernation method, and Feodosta and forty-two other dying Trolls entered cultivation chambers to await future treatment.
• Azshara’s attempt to use the Northern Ancestral Altar and the will of the people to preserve the dying Trolls failed, so she shifted focus to reorganizing grassroots communities into elected citizen bodies.
• Azshara established reform guidelines for roughly seven hundred self-governing communities, while the Republic’s expeditions and research advanced through the following years, including circumnavigation, southern exploration, and ocean warfare.
• After Nesta awakened from seclusion and left her advancement materials for the Council, Azshara rapidly advanced to the fourth rank and helped drive major improvements in rune research, Totem applications, and technology.
• Azshara began considering whether Totems could simulate the digital elf’s thought-integration process, while Freya advanced to the third rank and Giant Tusk reported that his strength had nearly reached its limit.

Nesta transformed himself into a twelve-meter Totem-armored body, then refined it during seclusion into a 4.7-meter form while preparing to explore the next stage of Arcane Arts. Outside, Azshara and other witch doctors advanced technology as the Republic’s population grew beyond 100,000 by Rune Calendar Year 81.

• Nesta disintegrated his organs and bones, rebuilt his body from multifunctional cells, and formed armor-like Totem structures across his surface.
• Nesta expanded the cultivation pod and created a twelve-meter combat body with bionic organs, weapons, and a brain protected at its core.
• Nesta left Azshara a message warning her not to modify her brain, then studied fourth-tier Arcane Arts and reduced his body to about 4.7 meters and 18 tons.
• In Rune Calendar Year 76, Azshara advanced to the fourth tier, and in Year 77 the Raptor Druid and flight-capable reconnaissance armor were developed.
• In Rune Calendar Year 79, Rough Tusk and Sharp Tusk advanced to the fourth tier, and in Year 80 large transport aircraft and a second-generation jet made major strides.
• By Rune Calendar Year 81, Mother Tree No. 1 had welcomed 20,000 new additions, bringing the Republic’s population to 111,348.

From Rune Calendar Years 82 to 86, the Republic advanced its military strength, captured a severely injured high-level magical beast, and gained new elf births while the Rhine Kingdom rose and fought off an invasion. After completing his bodily reconstruction, Nesta began examining how to convert his brain without losing the emotions and higher needs that made him himself.

• Azshara and the witch doctors developed new transformed bodies as the Republic investigated and ranked twelve weakened dormant magical beasts for capture.
• The Rhine chieftain confederation descended into civil war, then became the Rhine Kingdom under a new king who faced invasion from the Mammoth Republic, the Tusk Kingdom, and seven neighboring powers.
• Azshara led a large military force to capture a giant dormant serpent, and the Republic mourned its losses as Mother Tree Four began cultivating new elves.
• In Year 86, the Rhine King withdrew after anomalies struck the territories of seven second-tier tribes, which migrated and left behind some of their tributary races.
• Nesta finished adjusting his reconstructed body and concluded that brain conversion had to preserve its functions gradually, beginning with a small number of cells in regions already replaced by visualization integration.