Chapter Summaries

Charles injected Demon Worm essence into a rat and used spells, nutrients, and magic power to keep it alive through a dangerous transformation. The rat survived and developed a larger body, tougher scaled skin, and a stronger bite, surprising Loran.

• Charles injected Demon Worm essence into a rat’s heart and healed the puncture with Vegetation Extraction.
• As the essence transformed the rat and damaged its body, Charles repeatedly treated its wounds and replenished its nutrients and energy.
• Charles cut away dangerous growths in the rat’s abdomen, healed the incision, and injected the remaining essence to restart its evolution.
• The rat grew to twice its size, developed crocodile-like scales and stronger limbs, and survived the transformation.
• Loran stopped her work and expressed surprise that Charles had successfully modified the rat.

Charles successfully fused a rat with Demon Worm genes, then trained and named the surviving, still-mutating rat Bruce. He took Bruce home to monitor its changes while his other experiments failed.

• Loran examined Charles's mutated rat and praised the experiment, noting its increased strength and defense but possible brain contamination.
• Charles recorded the surgery and its results, then tried modifying more rats, but every subsequent experiment failed.
• The surviving rat woke and acted aggressively, but Charles used Rat Speech, Rat Domestication, and familiar commands to train it.
• Charles brought the obedient rat home, fed it Demon Worm meat, and observed that its mutations continued.
• Charles named the black-skinned rat Bruce.

Charles paused his experiments and continued raising Bruce, whose mutation had made him a large, intelligent, knight-level rat. During patrol duty, Jody asked Charles to teach her how to advance faster as a wizard apprentice and offered to pay him.

• Bruce grew to the size of a dog, learned to walk upright, and developed intelligence comparable to a seven- or eight-year-old child.
• Charles trained Bruce, hired a language teacher for him, and preserved the remaining Demon Worm essence for future research.
• Charles set out on patrol with Jody and the knights after his experiments temporarily ended.
• Charles had summoned Delis again, but her Succubus Bloodline was still being restocked; their meeting nevertheless increased his charm.
• Charles recruited wandering knights to guard the rat farm and train Bruce.
• Jody explained that she hoped to become Loran's teacher's student, asked Charles for guidance in advancing from a second-class apprentice, and offered to pay him.

Charles and Jody investigated a Nightmarespawn Parasite outbreak in a slum shack, where three mutated parasites had killed an entire family and a neighbor. Charles used summoned rats to assess their strength, and the battle remained underway as the parasites quickly slaughtered most of the rats.

• A knight reported a Nightmarespawn Parasite in the slums, and Charles and Jody found soldiers surrounding a shack where a neighbor had been killed.
• A local official told Charles that the household had gone unseen for days and originally contained three adults and five children.
• Charles concluded that the parasites were at least middle-stage and that one had likely reached the late stage; Jody agreed to fight without waiting for reinforcements.
• Charles ordered the soldiers to evacuate nearby residents and summoned Berserk Red-Eyed Rats to scout the shack.
• Charles saw through Surveillance Marks that three mutated parasites were inside among numerous corpses, and the parasites killed most of the rats while he tested their defenses.

Charles and Jody attacked three Nightmarespawn Parasites hiding in a shack, using summoned allies, spells, and fire to drive them out. A monster from the Shadow Nightmare Realm emerged from the flames, and Charles and his allies overwhelmed it with magic and a diving Imp’s trident strike.

• Charles summoned an Imp and a Quasit, while Jody summoned Coyotes, and they sent their allies into the shack.
• The shack broke apart during the fight, and Charles cast Greased Ground before Jody blasted the building with a fireball.
• The flames engulfed the shack and the three Nightmarespawn Parasites, but a tentacled Shadow Nightmare monster sprang from a corpse.
• Charles and Jody struck the monster with a barrage of spells until the Shadow-Stealing Spell left it nearly unable to move.
• Charles ordered the Imp to dive at the monster, and it drove its trident into the creature’s forehead, smashing its head open.

Charles and the knights defeated the Shadow Nightmare monster and three Nightmarespawn Parasites, then brought the monster's corpse to Loran for research. After patrols returned to normal, Charles began tutoring Jody and learned why she had chosen to study under Anderson.

• Charles and the knights killed the Shadow Nightmare monster and the three Nightmarespawn Parasites, with the Quasit beheading the last parasite.
• Charles ordered the parasites burned and sent the Shadow Nightmare monster's corpse to the manor for Loran to study.
• Loran took the rare corpse into her laboratory, and Charles and Jody's patrols remained peaceful over the following days.
• Charles began Jody's lessons by assessing her foundations and asking why she had chosen Anderson as her teacher.
• Jody explained that her family wizard was not suited to Abyssal Grimoire Studies and insisted that Anderson was an excellent teacher.

Charles examined Jody’s health and potion use, finding that her training had severely damaged her body and consumed substantial family resources. He designed a cheaper, gentler potion schedule for her and persuaded her to begin training in the Knight Breathing Technique.

• Charles found that Jody’s body had aged well beyond her actual age from absorbing magical power and taking many harmful potions.
• Jody explained that her family’s income and savings were being used to support her training, leaving her under considerable pressure.
• Charles recorded Jody’s potions and created a regimen that reduced the strain on her body and cost about half as much.
• Charles drew up a training plan and told Jody to start the Knight Breathing Technique with him the next day.
• Jody resisted the idea at first but agreed after Charles reminded her to think about her father and grandfather.

Charles trained Jody in the Knight Breathing Technique and adjusted her potions, improving her health and cultivation. Jody then told Charles that becoming a first-ring wizard required a Mind-Focusing Potion, which nearby academies awarded through a trial plane held every five years.

• Charles split off a Knight Seed for Jody and guided her through the exhausting Knight Breathing Technique.
• After more than half a month, Jody completed the technique once and felt healthier as Charles continued adjusting her potions.
• Jody thanked Charles for his help and said his training would support her goal of becoming a wizard.
• Jody explained that advancing from a first-rank wizard apprentice to a first-ring wizard required a Mind-Focusing Potion.
• Jody told Charles that Isata and nearby academies offered the potion through a trial plane held once every five years.

Charles learned that the Trial Plane was a deadly test for first-class apprentices seeking a Mind-Focusing Potion and decided he would risk entering to become a wizard. Jody warned him that veteran apprentices were far better equipped, leaving Charles worried about how he could afford to prepare before the Trial Plane opened in a year and a half.

• Jody told Charles that only about one in ten apprentices survived the Trial Plane, where they fought for a chance to obtain a Mind-Focusing Potion.
• Charles accepted that becoming a wizard was worth risking his life and suspected Isata might have a hidden motive for sending apprentices into the Trial Plane.
• Charles asked when the Trial Plane would open, and Jody said it would open in about a year and a half.
• Jody warned Charles that veteran apprentices had spent years collecting wizard artifacts, potions, and spell scrolls, while he lacked equipment and resources.
• Charles realized he needed many supplies but had few Magic Stones, so he asked Jody to lend him some, and she laughed at his request.

Charles worried about making money, and Loran advised him to earn Magic Stones by learning to draw spell scrolls. He began studying the craft and found that Demon Worms could provide scroll backing and ink, though using their materials came with difficulties and limitations.

• Charles told Loran that he was worried about finding a way to make money, and she reminded him not to rush toward the trials for a Mind-Focusing Potion.
• Loran recommended that Charles learn to draw spell scrolls and lent him her books and notes on the craft.
• Charles studied the materials and tools needed for scroll-making and looked for ways to obtain them.
• Charles decided to use Demon Worm skin as scroll backing and the worms’ flesh-and-blood essence as ink.
• Charles recognized that preparing Demon Worm materials was troublesome and that their ink could only be used for spells from Abyssal Grimoire Studies.

Charles summoned demon worms on his farm and had Bruce tan their hides while he refined their blood into ink. He had Delis search the Abyss for materials to use as a sorcery pen, leaving Bruce to continue processing the demon worms.

• Charles summoned a demon worm, killed it with Bone Needle Bee, and ordered Bruce to tan its hide.
• Bruce skinned the demon worm and scraped its hide while Charles refined its blood into ink and burned the dried flesh.
• Charles stored more than thirty bottles of refined blood and found a large pile of Demon Worm Skin in another room.
• Charles assigned Delis the task of finding suitable demonic materials in the Abyss to use as a sorcery pen.
• Bruce continued tanning the hide and eating scraps of demon worm meat as Charles settled into his work and meditation routine.

Delis captured a Vrock and made a hollow wing bone into a natural sorcery pen for Charles. Charles used it to successfully create a Summon Demon Worm scroll, and he considered whether Delis might send him more demon materials in the future.

• Delis lured a Vrock into her cave, beat it, and forced its magic and bloodline power into its wings.
• Delis killed the Vrock and sent Charles a hollow bone from one of its wings through the sacrificial channel.
• Charles cleaned and shaped the bone into a pen, then prepared Demon Worm Skin and magical ink.
• Charles drew a Summon Demon Worm sorcery scroll with the bone pen and saw that it worked.

Charles refined his scroll-making technique and accumulated over two hundred zero-ring witchcraft scrolls, which he sold through Jody's family's caravan. He awaited Jody's father's arrival with equipment he had asked him to purchase using the proceeds from earlier shipments.

• Charles practiced drawing scrolls for months, raising his success rate and producing around fifteen scrolls each day.
• Charles gathered more than two hundred scrolls, mostly unsavory zero-ring witchcraft, and brought them to Jody at the manor.
• Jody told Charles that her father's caravan would arrive within a couple of days and was astonished by how many scrolls he had made.
• Charles explained that Jody's father bought his scrolls wholesale for three Magic Stones each, earning Charles about six hundred Magic Stones every half month and Jody two or three hundred.
• Charles looked forward to the caravan's return because he had asked Jody's father to purchase equipment for him with the proceeds from earlier scroll shipments.

Charles and Jody were pulled into the Shadow Nightmare Realm while leaving Loran's underground laboratory, despite the realm's aura receding. They found themselves trapped in a passage that seemed impossible to leave and faced the choice of going deeper underground.

• Charles received an apprentice wand with six Energy Missile casts and a wizard's robe containing Cleansing Spell and Air Shield.
• Loran warned Charles and Jody that the Shadow Nightmare Realm would soon surge one last time before departing.
• Charles and Jody vanished when they stepped into the shadow at the laboratory passage's entrance, and Loran realized she could not get out either.
• Jody learned they were in the Shadow Nightmare Realm, and Charles led her toward the passage to the surface.
• Charles discovered the passage was looping, and Jody's attempt to walk ahead left her still less than two steps away from him.

Charles and Jody found the way back to the surface had vanished, leaving them trapped among shifting underground passages. After divining that none of the routes would return them to the surface, Charles chose the stone stairway as the safest path, and they climbed stairs that screamed beneath their feet.

• The surface passage disappeared, so Charles and Jody chose to descend through the passage they had originally found.
• Charles and Jody encountered three branching routes, then discovered that the same choices lay behind them.
• Charles used Crow Divination to learn that none of the routes led back to the surface and chose the stone stairway because it was selected most often as the safest.
• Jody gave Charles a recovery potion, and they began climbing the stone stairway past broken runes.
• Charles and Jody heard screams from the stairs and saw black mucus seep from them, but continued upward without being harmed.

Charles and Jody crossed a passage where glowing spores and mycelium filled their minds with disturbing visions and fragments of secret knowledge. They reached a fleshy gate guarded by a waking monster.

• Charles saw runes reveal that he still felt guilty about his mother's death during the Third Blood Moon.
• Charles and Jody shared visions of a painful heart transformation and Charles killing Jody, then found mycelium growing on their heads.
• Charles realized glowing specks filled the passage and suspected they were connected to the mycelium spreading across their bodies.
• Charles received strange fragments of information, including a claim that the Third Wizard King had fallen and his head had become a planet.
• Charles and Jody pushed through the glowing specks and found a fleshy gate with a huge, many-eyed brain monster hanging from it.
• The monster woke and fixed its eyes on Charles and Jody.

Charles and Jody encountered the Omniscient Carbuncle in the Shadow Nightmare Realm, where it offered them a chance to return to the Wizard World by solving riddles. Charles answered its first riddle incorrectly and was punished with a distorted sense of balance.

• The Omniscient Carbuncle spoke to Charles and Jody, examined them, and invited them to play a riddle game for a chance to return to the Wizard World.
• Charles and Jody agreed to play after the Carbuncle said each had to answer one riddle correctly to go home.
• The Carbuncle presented Charles with a riddle about moving forward, backward, or sideways to reach the light.
• Charles guessed that the answer was a cliff, but the book revealed the answer was “truth.”
• The Carbuncle punished Charles by making flat ground feel like the edge of an abyss, causing him to fall.

Omniscient Carbuncle tormented Jody and Charles with riddles, punishing their wrong answers and Jody’s inability to answer. Charles finally guessed a riddle correctly, surprising Omniscient Carbuncle.

• Jody guessed time instead of knowledge, so Omniscient Carbuncle made her perception of time accelerate.
• Charles guessed war instead of greed and was punished with the sensation of being hacked and hewn in battle.
• Jody could not answer the riddle whose answer was secret, so Omniscient Carbuncle accelerated her perception of time again.
• Charles noticed the face on the book wink and guessed me, which was correct.
• Omniscient Carbuncle laughed in surprise when Charles answered correctly.

Charles tried to escape Omniscient Carbuncle’s game while protecting Jody, but the creature refused to let her answer and instead challenged Charles to ask a question it could not solve. Charles’s elephant-in-a-box brain teaser only delighted Omniscient Carbuncle, and their contest continued.

• Omniscient Carbuncle devoured the book chained before it, and the book cried out that it was finally free.
• Omniscient Carbuncle asked Charles whether he wanted to return to the Wizard World and threatened him with punishment for betraying it.
• Charles asked Omniscient Carbuncle to question Jody again, but it refused and insisted that Charles answer instead.
• Omniscient Carbuncle changed the game and told Charles to ask it a question, promising to let Charles and Jody go if it failed to answer.
• Charles asked how many steps it took to put an elephant in a box, and Omniscient Carbuncle answered one by using teleportation before accepting Charles’s three-step explanation and recording it in a book.

Charles outwitted the Omniscient Carbuncle with a riddle about an elephant, freeing himself and Jody and opening a passage back to the Wizard World. Before they could leave, the Carbuncle offered another question, and Charles asked how an ordinary old woman crossed a river guarded by the most powerful crocodile while signaling Jody to move toward the passage.

• The Omniscient Carbuncle put Jody inside a wooden box and challenged Charles to ask another question.
• Charles asked which animal had missed the gathering of the most powerful lion, and the Omniscient Carbuncle incorrectly guessed the Star-Devouring Dragon King and Ancient Desert God Huas.
• Charles answered that the elephant had missed the gathering, amusing the Omniscient Carbuncle, who recorded the riddle in a book.
• The Omniscient Carbuncle released Charles from his negative effects, freed Jody from the box, and opened a passage to the Wizard World.
• The Omniscient Carbuncle offered to answer another question without punishing them, so Charles asked how an old woman crossed a river guarded by the most powerful crocodile while signaling Jody toward the passage.