Chapter Summaries

Jia Xiu had Bubu sign an undead contract and discovered it needed resentment to complete. He persuaded Bubu to punish Creekwood Town for its past injustice, then set up a hair-growth remedy in town after the curse made people lose their hair.

• Jia Xiu stopped the cultists, bound them with healing magic, and let Bubu sign the undead contract as his squire.
• Jia Xiu discovered Bubu’s contract remained incomplete because Bubu had no resentment to release.
• Jia Xiu convinced Bubu that Creekwood Town deserved a fair warning for having once doubted it, and suggested making the townspeople lose their hair.
• Emilia and her guards saw hair falling out and realized the undead’s curse had affected them.
• At dawn, Jia Xiu and Bubu posted an “Ancestral Secret Hair Growth Method” sign in Creekwood Town, offering free treatment to apprentices and charging directors 100 crowns.

Jia Xiu and Bubu opened a hair-growth stall in Creekwood Town, where Bubu’s effortless spellcasting helped them earn a fortune. After the town’s bald residents had their hair restored, Jia Xiu offered to take Bubu to a tailor, and Bubu asked him to tell a story.

• Jia Xiu discovered that Bubu could cast his hair-growth spell despite not understanding the spellbook, and Bubu accidentally grew his hair in several colors before learning to restore its original color.
• Jia Xiu and Bubu opened their stall, with Bubu rapidly handling apprentice-level customers while Jia Xiu charged 100 Kroner for slower, carefully presented director service.
• Creekwood Town’s residents flocked to the stall after waking up bald, and Jia Xiu earned tips while charging customers extra to touch Bubu.
• At the end of the day, Jia Xiu and Bubu counted their earnings, and Jia Xiu agreed to save Bubu’s share of the money.
• Bubu said it wanted to look after its appearance, so Jia Xiu offered to take it to a tailor; as they walked, Bubu asked him to tell a story.

Bubu chose a new outfit and named its makeshift sword Severance before Princess Emilia rewarded Jia Xiu for resolving the undead crisis. Emilia signaled that Jia Xiu could remain neutral, and after she left, Aunt Susan planned to show off his reward.

• Aunt Susan helped Bubu try on clothes until it chose a hunting outfit, boots, gloves, a cloak, and a pointed wizard hat.
• Aunt Susan made Bubu a sword from half a pair of scissors, and Bubu named it Severance.
• Princess Emilia visited the tailor shop and gave Jia Xiu a Blessing Wand as a reward for resolving the undead Bubu incident.
• Jia Xiu realized Emilia knew about the cultists and summoning ritual, and understood that she was offering him a path to remain neutral in the royal competition.
• Emilia wished Jia Xiu luck applying to Saint Delro Academy and left, while Aunt Susan urged him to have a portrait made with the wand.

Jia Xiu investigated Bubu’s instinctive spellcasting and realized that Bubu’s research value came from the fairy race’s unique runes. A prompt revealed the potential rewards and daunting requirements of studying fairy runes, so Jia Xiu negotiated with Bubu to begin further experiments.

• Jia Xiu tried to recreate Bubu’s hair-growth healing spell, but their different approaches to magic made the work difficult.
• Bubu studied Jia Xiu’s draft, identified several runes that felt wrong, and helped Jia Xiu realize that fairies used a distinct rune library.
• Jia Xiu received a research prompt for analyzing fairy runes, which promised a legendary reward but required Intelligence and Perception above 16.
• Jia Xiu decided to pursue easier research first and persuaded Bubu to cooperate with experiments in exchange for five elemental crystals.

Jia Xiu submitted a flood of low-quality Fairy Runes experiments and reached Warlock LV.4. He chose the Patron Alliance feat and decided to make Bubu his first sub-patron.

• Jia Xiu spent the night writing and submitting reports on how Fairy Runes changed Bubu’s spells, earning experience despite the harsh evaluations.
• Jia Xiu leveled up to Warlock LV.4, gained Complete Focus and another Teleportation Anchor, and raised his Intelligence and Perception.
• Jia Xiu searched the feat list and selected Patron Alliance, which let him form an alliance and borrow power from sub-patrons.
• Jia Xiu read the contract spell and realized signers would truly become sub-patrons, then turned to Bubu and proposed that arrangement.

Jia Xiu contracted Bubu as his Deputy Sect Master, inherited Elemental Affinity, and prepared for the Saint Dero exam in Larven. When the evil god Morpheus tried to find Bubu and its contractor, a mysterious force struck him and warned him to stop.

• Jia Xiu contracted Bubu, chose to inherit Elemental Affinity, and used his improved grasp of magic to study Mage Armor.
• Jia Xiu visited Aunt Susan’s farewell gathering, where Bubu and Peggy’s children challenged the old neighbor’s goose while Jia Xiu cooked chicken stew.
• Morpheus noticed that one of his altars had gone silent and traced the intercepted faith to Bubu, an Undead Fairy who had signed a contract.
• Morpheus tried to locate Bubu’s contractor, but his spell warped, summoned a Phantom hand that slapped him, and delivered a warning.

Jia Xiu arrived in Larven after a miserable, seasick voyage and reunited with his mentor, Margaret, who was startled by Bubu’s power. Margaret arranged lodging for him and planned to replace the wand Princess Emilia had given him.

• Jia Xiu and Bubu reached Larven by ship, and Jia Xiu struggled ashore after three days of seasickness.
• Jia Xiu met the woman Margaret had sent to collect him and rode with her to the city.
• Margaret was shocked to learn that Bubu, Jia Xiu’s attendant, was a powerful undead and warned Jia Xiu not to take such risks again.
• Jia Xiu told Margaret that Princess Emilia had given him his wand, prompting Margaret to offer him a different wand for his magical progress.
• Margaret brought Jia Xiu and Bubu to an inn she had booked for him, while Bubu wondered why Margaret seemed unhappy.

Jia Xiu spent the day reviewing before taking Saint Delro Academy’s entrance exam, where the unexpectedly math-heavy paper played to his strengths. As Piyede’s invigilators noticed Jia Xiu had already handed in his paper, they were left to wonder whether he had solved the difficult questions.

• Jia Xiu reviewed his mistakes at the inn while Bubu read a knight novel, and a boastful druid girl claimed she never needed to study.
• Jia Xiu found his assigned exam room and began Saint Delro Academy’s written exam after its protective seals were released.
• Jia Xiu found the paper increasingly focused on advanced mathematics, which suited his background, and worked through it with growing confidence.
• Margaret worried that Jia Xiu might struggle with the unusually difficult math questions, while question-setting team leader Piyede proudly explained why he had made the exam harder.
• An invigilator told Piyede that Jia Xiu had already handed in his paper.

Jia Xiu’s rapid completion of the Saint Dero exam astonished Professor Piyede, who tried to recruit him, while Margaret worried that she would lose her chance to mentor him. Piyede left Jia Xiu with a famous number-theory question to investigate, and Jia Xiu wondered whether future mathematical advances would owe something to him.

• Piyede inspected Jia Xiu’s exam and discovered that Jia Xiu had answered every question, including Piyede’s research problem with two proofs.
• Piyede announced Jia Xiu’s brilliance to the invigilators and ordered his assistant to find him, while Margaret regretted not securing Jia Xiu sooner.
• Jia Xiu took Bubu to a restaurant, where Bubu tried ice cream but could not taste it.
• Piyede found Jia Xiu and urged him to become his student, but Jia Xiu said he preferred spellcasting and asked Piyede about integer solutions to x^n + y^n = z^n for n greater than two.
• Piyede left the restaurant promising to think about the question, and Jia Xiu wondered whether future progress in number theory and geometry would partly be his doing.

After paying an unexpectedly steep bill in Larven, Jia Xiu prepared for the Saint Dero practical examination and received a private request from Princess Emilia. She introduced him to the friend she wanted him to help, leaving Jia Xiu surprised by the enormous figure working at an anvil.

• Jia Xiu paid 1 Crown and 20 Hel for his restaurant meal and realized how quickly Larven could drain his savings.
• Jia Xiu visited the Caster Association, found the warlock branch obsessed with Eldritch Blasts, and prepared spells for the practical examination.
• A messenger summoned Jia Xiu to Princess Emilia, and Bubu challenged her bodyguard Quido to a mock knightly duel.
• Emilia asked Jia Xiu to look after a close friend during the team assessments and offered him funding in return; Jia Xiu accepted.
• Emilia led Jia Xiu to meet her friend, whom he found hammering metal at an anvil and questioned whether he was really taking the Saint Dero exam.

Jia Xiu met Emilia’s childhood friend Ram, a human-ogre hybrid who wanted to study forging and enchanting at Saint Delro Academy. After learning about Ram’s talent and extraordinary luck, Jia Xiu agreed to help him prepare for the exam and considered introducing him to Margaret’s group.

• Emilia introduced Ram to Jia Xiu and explained that he wanted to apply to Saint Delro Academy.
• Jia Xiu discovered that Ram had eaten durian rind, and Emilia pulled it from his throat.
• Emilia explained that she had rescued Ram from a freak show when they were children and wanted to help him pursue his studies.
• Ram told Jia Xiu that he wanted to forge and learn enchanting in honor of Torgan, and Emilia showed Jia Xiu a shield Ram had made.
• Jia Xiu recognized Ram’s forging talent and Great Luck trait, agreed to help him without compromising his own exam, and considered bringing him into Margaret’s group.

Jia Xiu discovered that Bubu could grow stronger through training and celebrated passing Saint Dero’s written examination with it. A druid from his examination room then pulled him aside and unexpectedly knelt to ask for help.

• Bubu gained one strength point after its sword fight with Quido, who praised its swordsmanship talent.
• Jia Xiu promised to find Bubu a swordsmanship teacher and returned with it to the inn after saying goodbye to Princess Emilia.
• Jia Xiu found his name among the apprentices who passed Saint Dero’s written examination and bought ingredients to make Bubu ice cream.
• The druid who had called Jia Xiu “Low purity” approached him and led him to an empty corner of the inn.
• The druid dropped to one knee and asked Jia Xiu for help.

Jia Xiu met Mia Oak, a brilliant but combat-inexperienced druid, and agreed to help her pass the practical exam in exchange for her writing his coursework. At Saint Delro Academy, Jia Xiu, Mia, and Ram formed a team and learned their next test would be an illusory dungeon exploration.

• Mia Oak clung to Jia Xiu and asked him to help her pass the practical exam, offering to write his coursework in return.
• Jia Xiu tested Mia's extraordinary calculation skills and used Insight to discover her high Wisdom and Numerical Sensitivity, Poison Immunity, and Calculation Mastery traits.
• Mia explained that she wanted to study nature at Saint Delro Academy but lacked combat experience, so Jia Xiu agreed to help her prepare.
• The next day, Jia Xiu asked Mia and Ram about their combat abilities as the three gathered with the other candidates.
• A mage announced that the next round would require candidates to complete a Sun Ruins dungeon exploration commission in an illusory world.

Jia Xiu planned to investigate the exam’s systems rather than rush into the Sun Temple dungeon, and assigned Mia and Ram separate scouting tasks. After entering Phantom World, he tested how its NPCs reacted by punching one and was immediately confronted by guards.

• The academy announced that examinees had to earn thirty crowns in three days by completing commissions in Phantom World, while warning them against failing in dungeons or breaking the rules.
• Jia Xiu learned that Mia, Ram, and he had been placed in separate exam batches, then told Mia to investigate commissions and city services while Ram wandered for anything unusual.
• Jia Xiu entered Phantom World, saw examinees head toward the Sun Temple, and chose instead to explore the city for possible flaws in its magical simulation.
• Jia Xiu punched a roadside NPC to test the world’s freedom, and guards appeared at once to arrest him.

Jia Xiu tested Phantom World for loopholes and became convinced the exam rewarded spotting ways around its apparent combat challenge. At the examination center, Margaret saw Professor Piyede consumed by mathematics, while Jia Xiu laid out his plans to Mia and Ram.

• Jia Xiu repeatedly tested Phantom World, found that the guards could not be fought but could sometimes be escaped, and recorded the results in his notebook.
• Jia Xiu questioned the Caster Association clerk with increasingly strange registration requests, made her freeze by ordering egg fried rice, and headed for the Adventurer Association.
• Margaret noticed that Professor Piyede had returned to the examination center disheveled and obsessed with mathematical proofs, and worried about what Jia Xiu had done to him.
• The second-round exam leader told the proctors that the test would focus on combat and restoring the academy’s emphasis on real fighting.
• Jia Xiu told Mia and Ram that the exam deliberately contained loopholes and outlined a series of plans to exploit them.

During Larven's second-round entrance exam, the inspection team praised Thomas and misread several examinees, while Mia followed Jia Xiu's advice and launched a tax-consulting scheme. The chapter left the professors stunned as Mia began targeting examinees returning from their commissions.

• The inspection team discussed the first batch's performances, including a reckless examinee trapped in a dungeon and Thomas's swift organizing and commission work.
• The professors praised an examinee for carefully inspecting a treasure chamber, but Margaret explained that he had gotten lost and circled back there four times.
• Margaret told the professors that Mia had sold her academy coat to fund paper, pens, furniture, and a banner for a plan of her own.
• Mia set up Mia Tax Consulting outside the Adventurers' Guild and advertised help avoiding its commission cut and the city lord's income tax.
• The inspection team watched Mia's scheme unfold and stared in disbelief.

Mia used her knowledge of regulations and tax loopholes to offer candidates a way to reduce the Adventurer Association’s commission, drawing the proctors’ attention. The test-setting team leader realized she had already circumvented his exam design and asked Margaret for a copy of the recording to study.

• Saint Delro Academy’s proctors discussed the Adventurer Association’s fees and watched Mia’s stall to see how she would address them.
• Mia advised a solo candidate to register an adventuring party, claim eligible incentives, and use other regulatory exemptions to reduce his costs.
• When the candidate struggled with the paperwork, Mia offered to handle it for five percent of each commission and assured him she would take responsibility if anything went wrong.
• The test-setting team leader entered the examination hall, found the proctors watching Mia, and ordered them back to their posts.
• The team leader asked Margaret for a copy of Mia’s recording, claiming he wanted to research whether her methods broke any rules.

Thomas Reinhardt’s team defeated a cyclops and he believed their achievements would secure first place, until Mia’s fee-saving service made her earnings far surpass his. With the exam’s final round approaching, Thomas resolved to challenge her for the top rank.

• Thomas led his team through the Sun Temple dungeon and defeated a cyclops using grease, vines, a curse, and fire.
• Thomas collected a cyclops fang as proof of the highest-difficulty commission and confidently expected to rank first.
• At the Adventurer Association, Thomas discovered Mia was helping candidates reduce fees in exchange for a five-percent commission, so he rushed to accept more difficult jobs.
• Two days later, Thomas submitted a rare amulet commission and calculated that his earnings of 326 crowns had beaten Mia’s.
• Mia revealed that her table held 270 crowns and her bags contained much more, leaving Thomas stunned and determined to defeat her in the final round.

Jia Xiu sent Ram into the second batch of the Phantom World exam after the rules were changed to block Mia’s method of earning crowns. Meanwhile, Thomas learned he had placed first in the practical exam but third in the written test, and Ram began robbing stores inside the Phantom World.

• Jia Xiu spotted Mia among the successful first-batch examinees and encouraged Ram to pass the next round.
• The examiners changed the rules so the second batch could earn crowns only through Adventurer Association commissions.
• Thomas learned he ranked first in the first batch’s practical exam, while Mia ranked second, but Jia Xiu had beaten him on the written test with a perfect score.
• Thomas told Gudrian Reinhardt to report the next batch’s results, especially Jia Xiu’s, and then went to rest.
• The exam-setting chief assured a proctor that crimes in the Phantom World would trigger the guards, but learned Ram had already robbed three stores.

Ram robbed shops during the exam and used the stolen goods to post and complete his own commission, while the test-setting team struggled to explain the guards’ repeated failures to catch him. The team leader collapsed after realizing Ram had found a way around the exam’s rules.

• The test-setting team leader watched Ram rob three shops and suspected he was a professional bandit, then summoned Mage Leonardo to explain why the guards could not catch him.
• Ram followed Jia Xiu’s instructions, escaped pursuing guards amid a chain of traffic accidents, and jumped from a high platform onto a carriage without being injured.
• Mage Leonardo and Mage Buonarroti blamed the guards’ failures and collisions on realistic city systems, while the team leader worried that Ram’s stolen goods might count toward commissions.
• Mage Sancy assured the team leader that commission targets could only be found in dungeons, but Ram entered the Adventurer Association and posted a commission to recover the goods from the robbed shops.
• Ram turned in the stolen goods as the commission’s completed objective, and the team leader lost his footing and collapsed.