Chapter Summaries

Jia Xiu and his companions secured Oberon’s support and an optimized Countermeasure Spell for their operation against the God of Pain. Oberon revealed that the God of Pain had once taken his beloved away, and the group began assigning responsibilities for the hunt.

• Jia Xiu apologized when Oberon reacted fiercely to his proposal, but Oberon clasped his hands and enthusiastically agreed to help deal with the God of Pain.
• Oberon offered to steal Titania’s Countermeasure Spell materials and improvements, explaining that he would accept a symbolic punishment afterward to protect her position as chief god.
• Jia Xiu asked why Oberon hated the God of Pain, and Oberon recounted how his first chosen one left him for the God of Pain on his ascension day as part of the God of Pain’s orders.
• Oberon pledged to obtain the Countermeasure Spell, while the others claimed the planar travel procedure, a divine weapon, and a navigator; they then turned to Justina to ask what she would secure.

Jia Xiu struggled to adapt the Magic-Energy Computer for the interplanar operation against the God of Pain, while the rest of the team made faster progress. After golem experts explained that time-sharing required an intelligent component, Jia Xiu considered using the computational tree spirit as a biological golem substrate.

• Oberon gave Master Larven information on the Countermeasure Spell, while Odysseus assessed Space Maintenance Department personnel and ranked them for storm-prediction duties.
• Odysseus failed to make the reserve team and became depressed, though Jia Xiu hoped he would soon return to leading the department's work.
• Master Larven prepared modifications for every candidate divine artifact and studied the Countermeasure Spell with remarkable ease.
• Jia Xiu struggled to add time-sharing capabilities to the teaching Magic-Energy Computer, and golem experts said ordinary golems could not handle the required scheduling.
• Golem experts warned Jia Xiu that using intelligent people as golem components was forbidden, but Jia Xiu clarified that he meant biological golems and requested research on biological substrates.
• Jia Xiu considered using the computational tree spirit given to him by the Archdruid as part of a golem, then wondered why previous golem researchers had not tried it.

Jia Xiu studied golem techniques to find a way to combine a computation-specialized tree spirit with the Magic-Energy Computer. After tracing the short lifespan of transferred consciousness to its encapsulation spell, he recognized that its code resembled part of the Divine Authority Severing Spell.

• Jia Xiu abandoned the goal of building golems himself and focused on magical principles and enchantments that might support his computer project.
• Jia Xiu studied intelligent golems and found that layered enchantments could greatly improve the reaction speed of transferred consciousness.
• Jia Xiu replicated a consciousness-transfer spell in the Little Black Room and determined that its encapsulation failed after a limited time.
• Jia Xiu realized the encapsulation code resembled a step in the bargain-bin version of the Divine Authority Severing Spell.

Jia Xiu pieced together a new consciousness-transfer spell using divine magic and necromancy research, then tested it successfully on his tree spirit. He headed to the golem laboratory to integrate the transferred sapling’s processing function into the computer-connected golem.

• Jia Xiu studied the God of Knowledge’s spell and simplified its consciousness-transfer method for use with the biological golem.
• Jia Xiu identified soul interference as the cause of earlier transfer failures and incorporated research from the Necromancy School into his spell.
• Jia Xiu inferred that gods could guide faith but not fully control it, and speculated that the divine form of existence might need to change.
• Jia Xiu used his potted tree spirit and a bonsai as test subjects, and the consciousness transfer succeeded on the first try.
• Jia Xiu confirmed that the transferred tree spirit processed information successfully, then went to the golem laboratory to integrate its function into the computer-connected golem.

Jia Xiu’s team completed Plane Unit One and Daniel ascended into an Orthodox God, providing the divine authority needed for the plan to reach the God of Pain. After the preparations and drills were arranged, the first group began testing their observations of the void.

• Golem experts reported that the computer golem’s young tree spirit could not handle complex commands and would eventually grow out of its circuits, so Jia Xiu approved using larger spirits and transferring consciousness into golem materials.
• The team integrated the new components and, in less than three days, built Plane Unit One, which could meet the computational demands of plane travel.
• Daniel ascended into an Orthodox God, helped most by practical courses on farming and everyday tasks, and expanded Jia Xiu’s portion of the Memory Palace.
• Daniel’s divine authority was already divided and ready to be temporarily handed to anyone, leaving drills as the final preparation for the operation against the God of Pain.
• At the Space Maintenance Department, the passage gate opened and the first group began its observation test in the void.

Jia Xiu discovered that most Space Maintenance Department personnel could not perceive enough storm precursors to navigate, so he recruited a Blood Clan scholar whose fervent faith made him an exceptionally effective observer. With the navigator team trained and the new Magic-Energy Computer tested, Jia Xiu judged the Association ready to proceed with its plane-travel preparations and plan against the God of Pain.

• Jia Xiu found that only six department personnel completed their precursor sampling on time, and the late participants had missed parameters because they could not see enough halos.
• Jia Xiu tested Daniel's divided divine authority and confirmed that the problem was the participants' limited perception, not the divine authority.
• After Odysseus suggested religious fanatics, Jia Xiu recruited a Blood Clan scholar who prayed to the Mother of Sacred Blood and could perceive enough halos to fill the eighth navigator position.
• The Blood Clan scholar quickly mastered parameter sampling and became the fastest sampler after Jia Xiu, while Odysseus questioned whether future navigators would have to be religious believers.
• Once the navigator team had coordinated well and the Magic-Energy Computer had passed repeated tests, Jia Xiu decided preparations were sufficient despite uncertainty about the fight against the God of Pain.

Jia Xiu and the others carried out a carefully prepared planar traversal to the Exile Plane to confront the God of Pain. They arrived safely, located the god in its palace, and Larven placed it under an illusion as the operation moved toward its next stage.

• Jia Xiu, Larven, Justina, Odysseus, and the other participants checked their equipment and entered the traversal passage, with Ram and Mia prepared to support the operation from headquarters.
• The navigators made seven stops to calculate their route, then arrived safely in the Exile Plane without encountering storms or another evil god.
• Jia Xiu observed the plane’s frozen, desolate landscape and strange mist-like creatures while the team assessed their surroundings.
• Larven used long-range detection to confirm that the God of Pain was inside its palace.
• Larven cast an illusion on the God of Pain and reported that it had fallen under it, leaving Jia Xiu to enter the illusion and deepen its hallucination.

The God of Pain mistook Jia Xiu’s layered illusion for a hallucination and was lured into a trap that left him fighting a Radiant Knight. Jia Xiu’s group teleported to the God of Pain’s location while he remained caught in the second-layer illusion.

• The God of Pain saw a new believer named Hannas in his temple and agreed to compete by enduring each other’s constructed pain.
• Jia Xiu’s first-layer illusion trapped the God of Pain in repetitive torture until he realized he had been set up.
• The God of Pain broke free of the first layer, saw magic arrays and Hannas nearby, and mistook the Radiant Knight for the real culprit.
• The Radiant Knight attacked, and the God of Pain retaliated with dark spells, believing he was fighting a Holy Light god.
• Jia Xiu explained that the God of Pain was caught in the second-layer illusion and described the further layers prepared by his group.
• Jia Xiu’s group teleported to the God of Pain’s location.

Jia Xiu, Justina, and their allies began extracting and dividing the God of Pain’s divine authority while it remained trapped in an illusion. As the God of Pain’s divine kingdom collapsed, Jia Xiu saw void-storm-like vortexes and realized the phenomenon was closely connected to gods.

• Jia Xiu and Justina reached the God of Pain’s real temple and found its ordinary stone construction, stone and golem followers, and an unexpectedly plain fairy-like true body.
• Master Larven prepared spells to restrain the God of Pain if it escaped the illusion, while Jia Xiu agreed to serve temporarily as the vessel for its divided divine authority.
• Justina drove the Judgment Spear into the God of Pain’s heart, causing its divine kingdom to unfold and then shatter.
• Jia Xiu watched vortex halos appear amid the collapsing divine kingdom and concluded that void storms were closely tied to the existence of gods.

After the God of Pain lost its divine authority, Jia Xiu’s group secured the former god and returned safely from the Exile Plane. As the acting God of Pain, Jia Xiu studied the divine authority and began monitoring believers to investigate how faith worked.

• Jia Xiu confirmed that he had likely received all of the God of Pain’s divine authority, while Master Larven checked the Cube of Original Sin.
• Jia Xiu’s group packed the former God of Pain and its throne into an independent space, found no valuables in the temple, and shut down the stone golems.
• Jia Xiu’s group reunited with the waiting Navigators and returned safely to the Space Maintenance Department with a mist-form creature for research.
• Jia Xiu stopped the God of Pain’s prayers and compared its divine authority with Justina’s, finding no essential difference between them.
• Jia Xiu recruited participants through Juan’s contacts and began monitoring their Pain rituals and faith as part of his research.

Book, a stressed Magical Device Workshop worker and casual follower of the God of Pain, received an enchanted restraint device and mistook Jia Xiu’s observation for divine attention. Jia Xiu noticed Book’s unusual perception and continued investigating whether prayer merely grants gods permission to access faith, leaving him to consider how faith might be invoked without them.

• Book reflected on the pressures of city life and work, and how a woman spreading worship of the God of Pain had introduced him to pain-based pleasure.
• Book bought an enchanted restraint device through a user-testing agreement and prepared to try it at home.
• Book sensed that someone was watching him and excitedly concluded that the God of Pain had noticed him.
• Jia Xiu, observing Book from Aurelius's Mage Tower, wondered whether his perception made him a candidate for the association’s navigator recruitment.
• Jia Xiu observed a delay between receiving Book’s prayer and feeling his faith, strengthening his theory that prayers grant permission to access faith rather than binding faith directly to gods.

Jia Xiu concluded that gods were inefficient intermediaries for the power of faith and resolved to research a godless alternative, though he lacked a way to study the faith dimension directly. He was then summoned to a heavily secured Association meeting, where he realized the nations and organizations were preparing for war against the Devil Race and found himself seated beside Master Larven.

• Jia Xiu theorized that prayer acted like a communication protocol and that gods functioned as modems, then set himself the goal of connecting directly to the dimension of faith without them.
• Jia Xiu decided to keep his plan secret, ended his observation of the God of Pain’s believers, and began organizing his data and writing his planar travel paper.
• The Association president invited Jia Xiu to a confidential meeting, and the extensive security and magical contract led him to infer that the gathering concerned war with the Devil Race.
• Jia Xiu entered the Association’s grand conference hall and recognized the king of Iris, the emperor of Ukmak, national commanders, religious bishops, and leaders of major organizations.
• Jia Xiu found his nameplate beside Master Larven’s seat and realized the Association had given him an unusually prominent place at the war meeting.

Jia Xiu sat through a solemn announcement of the continent’s first phase of war against the Devil Race and learned that the Magic-Energy Computer would support the campaign. Afterward, the Caster Association proposed a joint effort to develop computer-based spellcasting, and the Ukmak Emperor agreed to share the Empire’s research on one condition aimed at Jia Xiu.

• Jia Xiu listened as the leaders announced that the Ukmak Legion would lead a two-month campaign into the Northern Wasteland, besiege a city belonging to Devil Marquis Sidi, and test the first-phase computing center.
• The leaders described plans for a wartime weapons research organization, and Jia Xiu expected the computer team to take part in it.
• After the meeting, Master Larven asked Jia Xiu to stay behind with the Association representatives, the Ukmak Emperor, a Dwarf, and an Elf.
• The Association proposed combining the Dwarf Alliance’s mechanized spellcasting research, the Elves’ programmed spellcasting research, and the Empire’s cyclical magic-array research to develop Magic-Energy Computer spellcasting.
• The Dwarf and Elf agreed to share their unpublished research after the president challenged them, and the Emperor offered the Empire’s research while looking at Jia Xiu and stating that he had one condition.

Jia Xiu agreed to let the Ukmak Empire participate in the plane-traversal project in exchange for access to its magical research, and the Caster Association approved the deal. As the Empire released its research and teams arrived, Jia Xiu struggled to accommodate the expanding project and moved much of the collaboration online.

• The Ukmak Empire's emperor demanded that the Empire participate in the plane-traversal operation, explaining that its researchers had inferred the Association's breakthrough by monitoring passage activity and perception screening.
• The chairman said the Association's confirmed plane-traversal solution was worth more than research that might help with magic-energy computers, and the emperor offered to publish all the Empire's Magic Research Institute research in exchange for joining the project.
• The chairman asked Jia Xiu to decide whether the Empire could participate, and Jia Xiu agreed because the arrangement would advance the research and give him access to more papers.
• The chairman approved the Empire's participation, and the emperor quietly thanked Jia Xiu as the meeting ended.
• The Empire uploaded more than ten thousand papers a day, while Jia Xiu received research teams and materials from the Empire, the Elves, and the Dwarves.
• Jia Xiu found that his castle could not hold all the teams, so the researchers adopted online work, teleportation gates, and crystal-ball communication.

Ukmak Empire squads tested ways to kill devils while Jia Xiu’s influence experience accumulated, leveling him up and granting him an advanced Clone Technique. He put the clones to work on research into faith and divine power, hoping their spellcasting sensations would reveal a breakthrough.

• A Ukmak Empire squad ambushed Bearded Devils hunting in the forest, used petrification arrows and a healing spell to test their reactions, then confirmed the devils had died.
• Jia Xiu reached noble LV.14 after a steady stream of experience notifications from the Empire’s small-unit operations against the Devil Race.
• The Sect Master granted Jia Xiu an advanced Clone Technique whose intelligent, persistent clones could cast spells and share what they learned with him.
• Jia Xiu assigned his main body to the computer team’s work and used clones to research faith and divine power.
• Jia Xiu had the clones test spells with divine power and record the casters’ sensations, hoping to find a breakthrough in those experiences.

Jia Xiu’s clones accelerated research into divine power and the Magic-Energy Computer, but the computer project stalled over how to recombine mana strings. Just as Jia Xiu turned to studying the Quaternary Insect, Margaret arrived with Ram’s new understanding of the creature, which might solve the problem.

• Jia Xiu used his clones and the upgraded Magic Grimoire to speed up spell research and identify how divine mana, the God of Pain’s powers, and prayer-channel communication worked.
• Jia Xiu concluded that a chat spell could not rely on prayer channels, while the Magic-Energy Computer team had solved most of its design except for recombining mana strings.
• Jia Xiu redirected his attention to the Quaternary Insect and had his clones study biology while he sought expert help from the Association.
• Margaret told Jia Xiu that Ram had developed a new understanding of Quaternary Insects that might solve the problem, and said he had understood it rather than tested it out.

Jia Xiu visited Ram in the Quaternary Insect laboratory and learned that Ram’s dissection work suggested the insects had been designed and manufactured. The chapter ended as Ram began explaining how his discovery might help integrate mana strings.

• Jia Xiu watched Ram carefully dismantle Quaternary Insects and asked about his discovery.
• Ram told Jia Xiu that the Quaternary Insects seemed designed from the start because they had no clear biological ties to other bugs and every part appeared useful.
• Jia Xiu interpreted Ram’s explanation and learned that damaging any part of a Quaternary Insect caused it to die quickly.
• Jia Xiu asked whether Ram’s findings could help integrate mana strings, and Ram said he had found where the insects broke down mana.

Jia Xiu investigated Ram’s theory that a specific Quaternary Insect organ separated mana fluctuations and suspected the organ might produce pheromones. He assembled a chemistry team to isolate its secretions, and they quickly extracted many substances but had not identified one that affected mana.

• Ram pointed out an organ in the Quaternary Insect and inferred from its connected blood vessels that it caused mana fluctuations to separate.
• Jia Xiu learned that Druids had several competing theories about the organ, including that it emitted something to compensate for the insect’s poor senses.
• Jia Xiu suspected the organ might secrete pheromones and decided to test whether it produced chemical substances.
• Jia Xiu assembled a team of chemists, provided them with a separate site and research materials, and tasked them with isolating substances from the organ.
• Within ten days, the chemistry team isolated numerous substances, but none had been shown to separate mana fluctuations.

Jia Xiu agreed to help Antoine test whether a special substance in Quaternary Insects could only be extracted while they were alive. He brought the chemistry team and several Druids together to prepare an experiment using the God of Pain’s power, and a Quaternary Insect was placed on the laboratory table.

• Jia Xiu let the chemistry team continue its research and asked them to provide raw experimental data.
• Antoine proposed that the desired substance might change after a Quaternary Insect died and asked Jia Xiu to help extract it from a living insect.
• Jia Xiu consulted several Druids, who proposed suppressing the insect’s death signal by occupying its neural transmission with amplified sensory information.
• Jia Xiu realized the God of Pain’s divine power could amplify the insect’s senses and told the Druids and chemistry team to prepare the experiment.
• Antoine and the Druids gathered in Jia Xiu’s laboratory, where they placed a Quaternary Insect on the experimental table.

Jia Xiu and Antoine extracted a substance from a Quaternary Insect that broke down magic power, then began studying its effects on magic strings. Jia Xiu confirmed that aether, the fifth element, was connected to magic fluctuation breakdown and fusion, and asked to expand his research team.

• Jia Xiu maintained divine arts and Druid spells while Antoine dissected a living Quaternary Insect and extracted a substance from it.
• Antoine used a burning crystal to show that the extracted substance erased part of a magic-powered flame, confirming it caused magic power to break down.
• Jia Xiu ended the spell, let the Quaternary Insect die, and verified that the solution still drained magic power, though its influence reached only a few centimeters.
• Jia Xiu tested spells near the solution to observe changes in magic and dispersed magic strings.
• Caster Association department heads complained to the president that the Magic-Energy Computer project was consuming too many resources.
• Jia Xiu arrived and asked to expand his team, saying he had confirmed that aether, the fifth element, caused magic fluctuation breakdown and fusion.