Chapter Summaries

Chapter Summary: “Second Mode and Changes”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Researchers investigate a new phenomenon in which volunteers physically vanish in golden light and reappear several seconds later. Their implanted tracking devices disappear with them, and no signals are detected, suggesting they may be shielded underground—or transported off Earth.
• Scientific instruments detect faint changes in light radiation and an unfamiliar energy resembling the recently observed “spiritual energy.” Researchers speculate about vacuum zero-point energy, while acknowledging that the phenomenon is beginning to resemble a miracle or theological event.
• Authorities confirm that the new process is a form of physical-body transmigration, distinct from the previously known method of entering mission worlds through consciousness alone.
• Physical entrants and consciousness-based users can exist together in the same mission space and interact normally. Physical entrants retain their bodies and all physical marks, proving they are not merely projections or mental constructs.
• The Main God warns that death in a mission world while using physical-body mode results in genuine death. However, physical entrants can bring back materials, technology, information, and equipment with far fewer restrictions than consciousness-based users.
• Researchers debate the implications. The new mode dramatically increases both danger and potential rewards, effectively making users more expendable while offering unprecedented benefits.
• An elderly senior researcher orders the authorities to organize carefully controlled tests led by experienced users. Participation must remain voluntary, and the government must publicly warn users against reckless experimentation.
• The authorities recognize that banning the mode is unrealistic because the rewards are too tempting. Both governments and individuals are likely to continue taking the risk.
• Du Qifeng begins selecting his next mission while physically logged in. The Main God reduces the mission difficulty by one tier and presents several low-difficulty options, including Kisaragi Station, Life of Pi, Swordsmith, and Black Mountain Valley.
• Despite the apparently low difficulty, Du Qifeng remains cautious because the exact dangers of each world are unknown and physical-body death is permanent.

Character Developments

• The researchers shift from amazement to serious concern as they realize the phenomenon may involve genuine spatial transportation and unknown energy sources.
• Military-background tester Yang Hao’s associate provides crucial testimony that physical entrants and consciousness users are indistinguishable in the mission world and that physical death is real.
• The white-haired senior researcher emerges as a pragmatic leader. He acknowledges the danger but advocates controlled experimentation rather than prohibition, emphasizing preparation, volunteer consent, and public education.
• Du Qifeng demonstrates caution and maturity. Although the new mode offers greater rewards, he focuses on the permanent consequences of failure and carefully evaluates his choices.

Significant Themes

• Science confronting the unknown: Advanced technology begins to resemble magic or religion as researchers encounter phenomena beyond established scientific models.
• Risk versus reward: The physical-body mode offers vastly greater gains but transforms death from an incomplete or reversible consequence into true death.
• Human greed and temptation: Neither governments nor individuals can ignore the enormous rewards, even when they understand the danger.
• Control versus freedom: Authorities can warn and regulate participation, but they cannot realistically prevent people from choosing the new mode.
• Reality and existence: The coexistence of physical and consciousness-based users raises disturbing questions about whether the mission worlds are real alternate spaces rather than simulations.
• Institutional responsibility: The authorities attempt to balance scientific progress, national interests, user safety, and the possibility of disaster.

Character Interactions

• Researchers repeatedly question physical-mode volunteers through intercoms, asking about their sensations and trying to slow or analyze the transformation process.
• Scientists debate whether the phenomenon is technological, spiritual, or energy-based, with the conversation gradually shifting from curiosity to alarm.
• Physical and consciousness-based users interact directly in the mission world, demonstrating that both occupy the same reality.
• Officials and researchers argue over how aggressively the new mode should be used. Although some fear that users are becoming expendable resources, the group ultimately accepts supervised testing.
• Du Qifeng faces the Main God’s interface alone, weighing the tempting mission choices against the warning that physical-body death is irreversible.

Chapter Summary: Kisaragi Station

Key Plot Points and Events

• Exhausted salaryman Fujita boards the last train home after working overtime for three consecutive days.
• He falls asleep and awakens in an unnaturally silent carriage. The train has stopped at an unfamiliar station, and his watch remains fixed at 1:32, despite only twelve minutes supposedly having passed.
• The station is labeled Kisaragi Station, a place Fujita knows should not exist on his regular route. Identical signs appear on both sides of the tracks, replacing the familiar stations he knows.
• Before Fujita can reboard, the train doors close and the train departs at impossible speed, leaving him stranded.
• His phone appears dim and useless, and the surrounding station seems abandoned and outdated. He discovers a bloodstained school badge and a newspaper dated April 19, 1980, suggesting that he has entered a distorted or supernatural space.
• Terrified, Fujita begins shouting about being “spirited away,” but he is suddenly slapped and restrained by Du Qifeng, a young man wearing a baseball cap.
• Du warns Fujita to stay quiet, explaining that loud noises may attract monsters.
• The chapter reveals that Du is an experienced Main God mission participant and a strengthened Second Tier martial artist. He has already been trapped around the station, repeatedly returning to it no matter which direction he travels.
• Although the mission was rated only “one-star low,” Du senses a powerful and frightening threat approaching, leading him to suspect that the mission is far more dangerous than advertised.

Character Developments

• Fujita changes from an ordinary, exhausted office worker into a terrified, isolated survivor. His practical concerns about transportation costs and work quickly give way to confusion and panic as reality begins to break down.
• Du Qifeng is shown to have matured significantly. Unlike an inexperienced newcomer, he remains alert, restrains Fujita efficiently, and prioritizes silence and survival over impulsive action.
• Du’s confidence is tempered by genuine fear. Despite possessing supernatural enhancements and previous mission experience, he recognizes that Kisaragi Station contains a threat potentially beyond his ability to confront directly.

Significant Themes

• Isolation and helplessness: Fujita is abandoned in an empty station with no functioning escape route, emphasizing the terror of being cut off from ordinary society.
• Distortion of reality: The impossible time discrepancy, nonexistent station, duplicated signs, bloodstained objects, and outdated newspaper create a world where familiar logic no longer applies.
• The danger of false security: The mission’s low difficulty rating contrasts sharply with Du’s instinctive sense of overwhelming danger, suggesting that official systems and labels cannot be trusted.
• Survival through restraint: Du’s insistence on silence shows that panic and careless behavior can be more dangerous than ignorance in a hostile supernatural environment.
• Modern life versus the unknown: Fujita’s mundane corporate exhaustion and concern over taxi fare are abruptly juxtaposed with supernatural terror, making the ordinary world feel fragile.

Character Interactions

• Fujita briefly exchanges a polite nod with Du on the train, unaware that Du will later become his rescuer and captor.
• After Fujita is stranded and begins shouting, Du attacks him—not out of personal hostility, but to prevent him from attracting monsters.
• Du treats Fujita as an inexperienced civilian, calling him a “sir from Tokyo” while physically controlling and instructing him.
• Their relationship begins with fear and force rather than trust, but Du’s intervention establishes him as Fujita’s only immediate source of protection and knowledge.

Chapter Summary

1. Key Plot Points and Events

• Du Qifeng rescues a terrified middle-aged office worker, later identified as Fujita, while concealing his true motives: he wants to prevent the man from attracting danger and may use him as a distraction if necessary.
• From Fujita’s newspaper, badge, and discarded station tickets, Du determines that the mission world is likely set around April 1980.
• A strange fog spreads through the abandoned station and street, plunging the area into darkness. Du suspects the station and surrounding road form a Möbius-strip-like loop with no obvious escape.
• The pair notices a seemingly safe taxi waiting under the streetlights. Fujita enters immediately, and Du reluctantly follows after finding no apparent abnormalities.
• A massive explosion or beam of light suddenly illuminates the sky, causing the surroundings to distort like a malfunctioning television screen. The taxi driver’s disguise is revealed: he is a grotesque, green, fish-like alien.
• The alien attacks Du with a stun baton and an unusual firearm. Du counters with his guandao, using martial arts and his stored equipment to survive the close-range fight.
• Du is grazed by an invisible or nearly invisible projectile but realizes the alien’s physical speed is slightly inferior to his own. He deliberately closes the distance, knowing the firearm is most dangerous at range.
• After several exchanges, Du trades a serious injury for a slash to the alien’s gun hand, forcing it to drop the weapon.
• The alien attempts to bite Du at point-blank range. Du abandons his guandao, jams a dumbbell into its mouth, restrains its baton arm, and struggles to hold it in place despite his depleted inner energy and blood loss.
• Du orders Fujita to retrieve the dropped gun and kill the creature. Fujita finally moves, but before he can fire, another injured man arrives and shoots the alien.
• The newcomer identifies himself as a member of UGM, the Earth Defense Force Special Operations Unit. He apologizes for failing to detect the “Balmians” and asks Du to return a school badge he claims to have lost at the station.

2. Character Developments

• Du Qifeng: Demonstrates increased combat skill, tactical awareness, and willingness to endure serious injuries to secure victory. He remains suspicious and pragmatic, but repeatedly risks himself to save others. His ability to judge an opponent’s speed and adapt his fighting style is crucial.
• Fujita: Begins as a panicked, helpless survivor who clings to Du for protection. Though initially frozen during the battle, he eventually overcomes his shock and attempts to help, showing that fear rather than cowardice was holding him back.
• The alien taxi driver: Is revealed to be a hostile Bาลmian infiltrator rather than a potential escape route. It fights intelligently, using deception, ranged weapons, and a stun baton, but becomes increasingly desperate after losing its gun.
• The UGM operative: Appears injured but composed and professional. His arrival reframes the incident as part of a larger alien threat and suggests that Du’s school badge may be connected to the wider mission or scenario.

3. Significant Themes

• Suspicion versus the desire for safety: The warm, illuminated taxi seems to offer an easy escape, but Du’s caution proves justified. The chapter emphasizes how desperation can make people ignore obvious danger.
• Instinct and adaptability: Du survives by reacting faster than conscious thought, changing from long-range weapon use to grappling when necessary.
• Improvisation and resourcefulness: Stored items—including a guandao, a training dumbbell, and the Poor Man’s Shield—become essential tools in the fight.
• Human weakness and courage: Fujita’s terror contrasts with Du’s discipline, but his eventual attempt to retrieve the gun suggests ordinary people can still act under extreme pressure.
• Hidden realities and distorted worlds: The fog, looping geography, screen-like distortion, and alien disguises reinforce the instability and unreliability of the mission world.

4. Character Interactions

• Du restrains and directs Fujita, treating him both as a person in danger and as a potential liability or decoy.
• Fujita repeatedly urges Du toward the taxi, embodying the instinctive attraction to light and apparent safety; Du’s hesitation creates tension between them.
• Du and the alien engage in a tactical battle of distance, timing, and weapon choice. Du deliberately sacrifices his own safety to disarm the creature.
• During the final struggle, Du commands Fujita to retrieve the gun, forcing the frightened man to participate in the fight.
• The UGM operative arrives after the battle, presents himself as an ally, and immediately begins questioning Du indirectly by requesting the school badge, introducing a new layer of uncertainty.

Chapter Summary: “Changes Afoot”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Du Qifeng returns from a mission world in True Body Mode, but unlike previous returns, he is not automatically healed by the Main God’s free white-light restoration.
• He discovers that his wound contains contamination from the strange “Ammonium Fish” creature he fought. The Main God informs him that repairing injuries in True Body Mode costs Universal Points.
• Before paying for treatment, Du Qifeng appraises a captured Magnetic Energy Pistol. Although it is a functional first-tier energy weapon, its exchange value is 200 Universal Points and one Common Exchange Card, while its buyback price is only 30 points. His attempts to appraise other objects reveal them to be worthless, ruining his hopes of making a profit from mission-world debris.
• Du eventually learns that cleansing the biological contamination from his body will cost 26 Universal Points, highlighting the financial risks of True Body Mode.
• Other users return to the platform with varying reactions: some are delighted, some devastated, some fail to return, and others begin organizing together after recognizing the danger of risking their actual bodies.
• From outside the platform, Li Yun observes the users and reflects on the broader significance of the new mode. Thanks to the Luo Heaven Dharma Net and the restored cultivation environment, the Main God can now pull users’ complete bodies into the dream-like mission worlds while still preserving a connection to reality.
• One test subject was completely assimilated into a mission world and became indistinguishable from its native inhabitants. Extracting him required a cleansing process, demonstrating the serious consequences of full immersion.
• Li Yun notes that True Body Mode produces much stronger mental-energy effects than spiritual projection and may help users break through toward the Fourth Tier, where the unity of body, mind, essence, and spirit becomes essential.

Character Developments

• Du Qifeng becomes more cautious and pragmatic. Instead of immediately paying for healing, he investigates whether his mission loot can offset the cost, only to discover that most of it has little value.
• His experience exposes the vulnerability of even a powerful Second Tier martial artist when the Main God’s formerly free services become expensive.
• Li Yun is portrayed as an observant overseer and experimenter. He views the users’ struggles scientifically, deliberately allowing them to face greater risks because pressure and genuine danger may accelerate their advancement.
• The returning users collectively begin transitioning from casual participants to people forced to take responsibility for the consequences of their choices.

Significant Themes

• The cost of progress: True Body Mode offers greater benefits but removes the safety and convenience of spiritual projection.
• Risk versus reward: Users must choose between remaining relatively safe and risking permanent injury, death, or assimilation for greater gains.
• Growing up and taking responsibility: The Main God is no longer protecting users from every consequence; they must manage their own resources and survival.
• Body-and-spirit unity: Advanced cultivation requires more than mental experience. Physical embodiment and the integration of essence, energy, and spirit become unavoidable.
• The Main God’s non-charitable nature: The system is presented as a tool for advancement, not a free service. Benefits come with costs, and users cannot remain dependent on past privileges.
• Experimentation and control: Li Yun and the Main God observe and manipulate users’ conditions to study development, making the users both cultivators and experimental subjects.

Character Interactions

• Du Qifeng interacts directly with the Main God through requests for appraisal and repair, revealing the system’s increasingly strict and costly rules.
• The Main God provides impersonal, transactional responses, contrasting sharply with Du’s frustration and emotional reactions.
• Returning users react to one another indirectly through their differing responses—panic, celebration, failure, or attempts to form protective alliances.
• Li Yun watches these developments from outside, interpreting the users’ behavior and using their experiences to evaluate True Body Mode’s effects.

Summary

Key Plot Points and Events

• Tactical footage shows special police raiding an old residential building suspected of housing dangerous ability users.
• Officers discover a blood-covered ritual scene: three corpses lie beneath white cloths, each with a crudely carved hole in the forehead. Candles and a complex blood pattern suggest deliberate, repeated killings.
• A skeletal male suspect is captured in a bedroom. Investigators find cash, bank cards, and several sealed gray-white objects that appear to be human remains or body parts.
• Two additional suspects attempt to flee through an alley. The young male uses water-manipulation abilities to attack the officers, while a young woman escapes over a wall before being captured.
• The male suspect is subdued with nonlethal force and openly declares that ability users are the future and that ordinary people have no right to arrest them.
• Police recover multiple phones, large sums of money, stolen identification cards, and forged documents bearing the suspects’ faces.
• Investigators connect the suspects to missing-person cases. Evidence indicates they had been tracking isolated ability users, abducting them, and possibly using mental enhancements to subdue them.
• The footage continues with multiple undisclosed cases of violence and murder before Li Ce pauses the presentation and asks the audience to respond.

Character Developments

• Li Ce takes control of the situation by presenting the evidence and forcing the gathered individuals to confront the growing threat. His calm, restrained manner contrasts with the horrifying footage, making his authority more intimidating.
• The police officers are shown as disciplined but visibly shaken by the brutality of the crime scene. Their professionalism remains intact despite disgust, fear, and the need to confront ability users.
• The captured male suspect is portrayed as fanatical and ideologically radicalized. His belief in the superiority of “users” reveals a dangerous hostility toward ordinary people.
• The young female suspect appears frightened and submissive after capture, contrasting with the male suspect’s defiance.
• The victims remain largely unidentified, but their deaths emphasize the vulnerability of isolated ability users and the scale of the hidden violence.

Significant Themes

• Escalating danger from ability users: The footage suggests that supernatural abilities are becoming linked to organized crime, murder, abduction, and extremism.
• Conflict between users and ordinary people: The suspect’s declaration reflects a widening ideological divide and the emergence of a supremacist movement among ability users.
• Hidden violence beneath social order: Missing-person reports, forged identities, and undisclosed cases reveal that severe crimes have been occurring outside public awareness.
• Institutional response and control: The police use surveillance, coordinated raids, nonlethal suppression, isolation, and investigation to contain the threat.
• Dehumanization and exploitation: The ritual killings and collection of bodily remains show victims being treated as objects rather than people.
• Fear and moral shock: The reactions of the officers and viewers underline how the evidence destabilizes their assumptions about the current situation.

Character Interactions

• Police teams communicate through brief tactical commands while coordinating the raid and pursuit.
• Officers reprimand one another for failing to handle the disturbing crime scene, emphasizing military-style collective discipline.
• The captured male confronts the police verbally, rejecting their authority and asserting the dominance of ability users.
• The female suspect remains silent and avoids confrontation while being restrained.
• Li Ce addresses the assembled audience after the footage, shifting the scene from passive viewing to collective judgment and discussion.

Chapter Summary: “Deterrence Is the Foundation of Balance”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Following the “comet” incident, supernatural energy—variously called spiritual energy, elements, or aether—begins appearing more strongly in the real world. Users consequently experience less energy loss and can act more freely.
• This change causes a sharp rise in user-related crimes. Users exploit their powers for revenge, extortion, forced business transfers, gang-building, blood sacrifices, human experimentation, and other schemes.
• Investigations reveal that some seemingly bizarre crimes are connected to powerful families, officials, and organized networks. Ordinary police methods prove inadequate, prompting the Special Investigation Bureau and powerful government-affiliated users to intervene.
• Li Ce, a powerful Third Tier user and representative of official authority, addresses hundreds of influential users at a compulsory “educational” gathering.
• Rather than delivering the prepared diplomatic speech, Li Ce angrily condemns users who treat reality like a mission world and human beings like experimental materials. He warns that crimes will destroy social order and urges everyone to remain restrained.
• His overwhelming presence intimidates the audience. Even arrogant or hostile attendees are forced to acknowledge his strength, though a minority feel personally provoked.
• Li watches the event remotely and explains that deterrence is necessary to preserve balance. He argues that authority must combine fear and reward—“a carrot in one hand and a stick in the other”—because people respect power more readily than virtue.
• Afterward, the authorities quietly suppress particularly dangerous users and dismantle unstable factions. People who believed they could escape consequences by hiding in mission worlds or using the Main God Platform are also punished.
• The state’s vast ability to mobilize resources becomes evident, although the media remains conspicuously silent about the crackdown.
• The chapter ends with Young Master Huang warning Xia Guangjie to control the Huanjing Association and keep a low profile before the changing political climate sweeps them away.

Character Developments

• Li Ce is presented as a stern, influential Third Tier user whose authority rests not only on official status but also on unmistakable personal strength. His anger over the victims causes him to abandon the cautious script and speak bluntly.
• He demonstrates a willingness to offend a minority of users in order to establish order, revealing himself as practical and authoritarian rather than diplomatically gentle.
• Li, observing the speech, recognizes that Li Ce’s approach is strategically risky but ultimately supports the idea that deterrence is essential for controlling dangerous individuals.
• Li Yun provides a philosophical interpretation of governance, comparing human “education” to the taming of animals and arguing that people fear power more than virtue.
• Xia Guangjie appears relaxed and arrogant while speaking from a spring pool, but the warning he receives implies that his position and organization are vulnerable.
• Young Master Huang reveals influence and political awareness by warning Xia while making clear that his intervention is based on family connections rather than goodwill.

Significant Themes

• Deterrence as the basis of social order: The chapter argues that stability depends on convincing powerful individuals that disorder will bring immediate consequences.
• Power and responsibility: Supernatural abilities expand personal freedom but also magnify the danger of selfishness, cruelty, and social inequality.
• The erosion of ordinary morality: Users increasingly see themselves as superior to normal people, making abuse and exploitation more likely.
• Authority versus virtue: The characters debate whether people obey because they recognize moral legitimacy or because they fear superior force. The conclusion favors a combination of authority, punishment, and controlled benefits.
• State power and hidden governance: The government’s influence is shown through quiet arrests, suppression, surveillance, and resource mobilization rather than public announcements.
• Civilization versus savagery: Li Ce warns that if users abandon restraint, society will devolve into a world of enemies, madmen, and predatory factions.

Character Interactions

• Li Ce and the assembled users: He confronts them directly, using the victims displayed on the screen to shame and threaten those who abuse supernatural abilities. His strength prevents anyone from openly challenging him.
• Li and the Administrator: The Administrator criticizes Li Ce’s speech as unnecessarily provocative, while Li argues that limited offense is acceptable if it creates effective deterrence.
• Li and Li Yun: Their discussion develops the chapter’s central philosophy: governance requires both moral instruction and coercive authority.
• Young Master Huang and Xia Guangjie: Huang warns Xia to suppress instability within the Huanjing Association. Xia responds with mocking confidence, but Huang’s message makes clear that the authorities are already watching him and that his protection may be weakening.

Chapter Summary: “Sudden Inspection!”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Xia Guangjie receives a taunting phone call warning that the outsiders hidden in one of his villas near Yanjing have likely been arrested. The caller urges him to distance himself from them.
• Remaining calm, Xia immediately contacts Young Master Xu to arrange the disposal or transfer of a batch of “special goods,” suggesting he is involved in a larger covert operation.
• At an apparently abandoned suburban warehouse, driver Li Laosan and warehouse manager Old Zhang unload several heavily sealed wooden crates labeled as compound fertilizer and officially linked to an agricultural research institute.
• The crates are unusually heavy and coated with strange, sour-smelling mud containing unfamiliar grass seeds.
• A black SUV arrives, carrying three intimidating men posing as officials from the Market Administration Bureau. They demand a sudden inspection of the cargo.
• While opening the third crate, the workers hear movement inside. The crate contains soil, roots, and stones—and several bound, hooded, injured people. At least one is still barely breathing.
• The apparent inspectors quickly identify the soil as likely originating from the Sinkhole area, classifying it as controlled material. They remove two captives, reseal the crate, and contact reinforcements.
• The inspectors infer that the shipment was moved through ordinary freight channels using forged or manipulated agricultural paperwork, implying powerful connections behind the operation.
• The chapter broadens its focus to the growing global struggle for power among Main God Users. Many exploit weakened social structures, especially in lawless regions, becoming warlords or local tyrants.
• The chapter ends with Li Yun examining a mysterious liquid called “Holy Communion,” recognizing traces of vitality, blood, and spiritual energy. He sarcastically praises the idea that “every talent has its use,” implying human beings may be treated as experimental or exploitable resources.

Character Developments

• Xia Guangjie is shown to be composed, politically connected, and deeply involved in secret dealings. His calm response to the warning suggests experience with danger and betrayal.
• Li Laosan begins as a routine freight driver but becomes increasingly suspicious and terrified as the shipment reveals its horrifying contents.
• Old Zhang appears like an ordinary, cooperative warehouse manager, but the discovery leaves him shaken and helpless.
• The jacketed inspector is authoritative and calculating. His reaction to the abnormal soil reveals that he understands the true significance of the cargo and is likely part of a specialized organization rather than a normal government bureau.
• Li Yun appears detached and sardonic, viewing the strange “Holy Communion” as evidence of how people and abilities are being repurposed in the changing world.

Significant Themes

• Hidden power struggles and conspiracy: Ordinary institutions, freight systems, and official paperwork are being used to conceal dangerous materials and human trafficking.
• The collapse of conventional order: The spread of Main God Users destabilizes governments and social norms, allowing force, influence, and supernatural advantages to override law and morality.
• Exploitation of human potential: The captives, controlled soil samples, and “Holy Communion” all suggest that human life and talent are being converted into resources.
• Civilization versus brutality: The chapter contrasts the orderly appearance of official inspections and legal procedures with the violence and lawlessness beneath them.
• Unnatural environmental change: Rapid plant growth, strange soil, unexplained cries, and abnormal sprouts hint at the Sinkhole’s supernatural influence and its expanding consequences.

Important Character Interactions

• Xia Guangjie and the caller exchange veiled insults over his illegitimate family status and his connection to the hidden outsiders.
• Xia then contacts Young Master Xu, demonstrating his reliance on elite connections to manage dangerous situations.
• Li Laosan and Old Zhang cooperate uneasily with the supposed inspectors, both sensing that the inspection is unusual but unable to resist.
• The workers collectively discover the bound captives, their shared shock turning the warehouse staff from routine laborers into witnesses to a major conspiracy.
• The jacketed inspector takes control of the situation, ordering the remaining crates to stay closed and arranging an emergency response.
• Li Yun’s final reflection connects the warehouse incident to the larger transformation of society, where power users and supernatural systems redefine the value of people and resources.

Chapter Summary: “Holy Communion, Alchemy”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Zhou Mingzhe returns from a role-assumption mission set in an ancient Roman-style gladiatorial arena. Although rated “Low One-Star,” the mission required him to survive as a physically weakened captive and win five consecutive gladiatorial matches, including battles against lions, tigers, fellow slaves, barbarians, and trained gladiators.
• His return triggers intense physical and psychological aftereffects. He remembers the terror of being wounded and dying in the arena, despite the mission’s rule that death does not carry over into reality.
• An old servant brings him water and a silver container of “Spirit Dew,” a resource supplied by the Huanjing Association. Zhou recognizes that it is essentially a processed form of the mysterious “Holy Communion,” containing a faint blood-like essence.
• Though disgusted by its apparent origin, Zhou drinks the Spirit Dew because it rapidly restores his body and reduces the cooldown period before his next platform login. His practical self-interest overcomes his revulsion.
• The perspective then shifts to Li Yun, who secretly inspects a heavily guarded underground factory hidden inside a mountain.
• The factory processes blood, soil, plants, animal parts, and living creatures—some apparently acquired through dubious or illicit channels—into the Spirit Dew.
• Li Yun discovers that the factory’s central silver pool is not ordinary industrial equipment but a crude Alchemy ritual platform. It uses patterns, symbols, and spiritual materials to extract vitality and spiritual energy from living matter.
• The process is conceptually linked to Christian Holy Communion, especially the idea of consuming the body and blood of Christ. The factory attempts to reproduce a “divine” substance by transforming life and flesh into a consumable spiritual product.
• Li Yun concludes that the process follows the principle of “nurturing life with death”: extracting spirituality from weaker living beings and transferring it to stronger or wealthier users.
• He wonders whether the operation was newly developed in response to the emergence of spiritual energy or whether it had been planned earlier. The Main God confirms that impact sites and their inhabitants have become valuable targets because they were most strongly affected by the spiritual-energy tide.
• The Main God frames this exploitation as a natural balance of gain and loss, while Li Yun recognizes the global implications: powerful groups are likely competing to control spiritual “hunting grounds” across Africa, the Middle East, South America, and elsewhere.

Character Development

• Zhou Mingzhe is shown as resilient, pragmatic, and increasingly hardened. The arena mission leaves him traumatized, but he suppresses the emotional aftermath through reason and immediately focuses on recovery.
• His willingness to consume the Spirit Dew despite nausea reveals a strong survival instinct and utilitarian mindset: if something is effective, he will use it regardless of moral discomfort.
• His relationship with supernatural resources is becoming more complicated. He understands that the Spirit Dew is disturbing and possibly made from life, yet he continues using it because of its tangible benefits.
• Li Yun demonstrates a detached, analytical perspective. He can observe blood, animal experimentation, and ritual processing without emotional disturbance, focusing instead on the system’s structure, origin, and supernatural principles.
• Li Yun’s understanding of Alchemy and spiritual “quality” places him far above ordinary humans. He treats the factory as an imperfect but impressive attempt to reproduce a deeper supernatural process.
• The Main God remains neutral and impersonal, presenting exploitation as an inevitable exchange rather than condemning it.

Significant Themes

• Survival versus morality: Zhou’s decision to drink Spirit Dew illustrates how desperation and practicality can override disgust or ethical concerns.
• The commodification of life: Blood, animals, plants, soil, and even human-like beings are reduced to raw materials for producing a valuable substance.
• Alchemy and transmutation: The chapter explores the attempt to extract vitality, spirituality, and “miracles” from ordinary matter through ritual and industrial processes.
• Holy Communion as a supernatural concept: Christian imagery is treated not merely as religious symbolism but as a possible metaphysical principle involving the transformation and consumption of divine flesh and blood.
• The strong devouring the weak: The factory embodies a brutal hierarchy in which spiritual resources are taken from weaker beings to benefit those with greater power or wealth.
• Industrialization of the supernatural: Ancient ritual concepts are combined with modern logistics, laboratories, security systems, and mass production.
• Global competition for spiritual resources: The emergence of spiritual energy has turned impact sites and their inhabitants into strategic commodities, suggesting future conflict between governments, organizations, and powerful users.
• Hidden exploitation and secrecy: The operation depends on concealed facilities, illicit supply chains, stolen research materials, and deliberate suppression of its true nature.

Character Interactions

• Zhou and the old servant interact with familiar informality. The servant treats Zhou’s near-death experiences as a recurring inconvenience, while Zhou openly orders water and Spirit Dew without explanation.
• Zhou’s interaction with the Spirit Dew is psychologically conflicted: his mind rejects it, but his body responds positively and even begins to crave it.
• Li Yun does not directly confront anyone in the factory. His interaction is primarily observational, as he moves unseen through the facility and analyzes its machinery, security, materials, and ritual pool.
• Li Yun and the Main God interact through conversation. Li Yun sarcastically points out that people are eagerly exploiting spiritually enriched regions, while the Main God responds with detached economic logic, emphasizing the value of meteorite fragments and the inevitable exchange of benefits and losses.

Chapter Summary

1. Key Plot Points and Events

• The chapter opens with Li Yun discussing “fairness” with the Main God. The Main God views user conflict, scheming, and survival struggles as a natural selection process: order creates a controlled environment, while chaos identifies the strongest “seeds.”
• Although Li Yun recognizes this logic, he objects to the blatant cannibalism occurring among the users. He admits that his intervention is personal—these people simply disgust him.
• Li Yun orders the Main God not to erase the facility outright. Instead, it should filter out uninvolved people and leave those deeply responsible for him to handle.
• He removes a restraint on his body and begins releasing a portion of his true power. His presence immediately produces severe environmental effects: electromagnetic disturbances, ionization, heat, pressure vortices, radiation, and rapidly evaporating water.
• The underground factory’s workers and security personnel become trapped in panic. Their communications fail, weapons cannot target Li Yun, nearby equipment shorts out, and several people are injured or set ablaze by the electrical field.
• Li Yun studies the changes in his body and realizes that reality itself is resisting and gradually “digesting” his high-energy existence. He deliberately suppresses further growth to avoid causing even more destructive consequences.
• His power release ultimately plunges the facility into darkness through a massive electromagnetic pulse. After judging the conditions sufficient, he prepares to attack and declares: “One hundred thousand horsepower. Killer Whale Overlord Fist.”

2. Character Developments

• Li Yun: Reveals a more openly interventionist and morally judgmental side. Though he understands the Main God’s detached philosophy, he can no longer tolerate the facility’s cruelty. He also demonstrates extraordinary control, restraining his power despite being capable of overwhelming the entire area.
• The Main God: Remains calm and analytical, offering to erase the facility but ultimately obeying Li Yun’s preference to let him deal with the perpetrators personally. Its perspective emphasizes survival, competition, and the absence of moral distinctions.
• Facility personnel: Initially professional and highly alert, they quickly become helpless once confronted with Li Yun’s supernatural presence. Their confidence in surveillance, weapons, and security systems collapses.
• The workers and captives: Though mostly passive in the chapter, their suffering and unconscious state provide the moral justification for Li Yun’s intervention.

3. Significant Themes

• Natural selection versus fairness: The Main God treats conflict and exploitation as necessary mechanisms for cultivating superior beings, rejecting conventional morality.
• Moral responsibility and hypocrisy: Li Yun acknowledges that he is partly connected to the larger system and may be hypocritical in objecting to its consequences, but witnessing cruelty forces him to act.
• Power and restraint: Li Yun’s greatest display of strength is not merely his destructive capacity but his ability to suppress it and limit collateral damage.
• Humanity confronting the incomprehensible: The workers perceive Li Yun less as a person than as a miniature star or divine entity. His existence disrupts ordinary physical laws and exposes the limits of human technology.
• Reality’s rejection of transcendence: The chapter explores how a being beyond normal material limits is gradually eroded by the world’s physical structure, even while simultaneously overwhelming it.

4. Character Interactions

• Li Yun and the Main God debate fairness, morality, and the proper role of an overseer.
• Li Yun commands the Main God to screen the facility’s inhabitants rather than destroy the entire location, establishing his authority over the situation.
• The security personnel attempt to report the disturbance, communicate with one another, and confront Li Yun, but electromagnetic interference renders their systems and weapons useless.
• A few workers desperately ask Li Yun to move away from the silver pool, but the lethal energy field prevents them from approaching or communicating effectively.
• The chapter ends with Li Yun ignoring the terrified personnel and announcing his devastating technique, setting up the next attack.

Chapter Summary: “Snow Mountain, Snowfield”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Li unleashes a seemingly ordinary punch that channels vibration and magnetic energy through the surrounding environment.
• The strike completely destroys an entire mountain. Rock, concrete, machinery, underground water, living beings, and other materials are reduced to fine gray-white powder without a conventional explosion.
• The destruction is unnervingly silent, aside from a deep subterranean hum caused by residual shockwaves. The resulting powder spreads across the former mountain site like a snowfield or avalanche.
• The Main God comments that Li has effectively “minced” the enemies and suggests that it would have been simpler to let him handle the killing.
• Li apologizes for failing to restrain himself, then reflects on how emotions influenced his actions. He realizes that acting on instinct and indulging in destructive impulses can provide a form of emotional release.
• Li walks across the newly formed powder plain, admiring the result and acknowledging that he may actually feel happy.
• The narrative then shifts to a group struggling through a severe snowstorm. Three people return to a manor after investigating the area and report that the telephone line has been severed.
• The damage appears to have been caused by an animal clawing the utility pole, and wild-beast tracks or claw marks are found nearby. With communications cut and travel through the blizzard dangerous, the manor’s inhabitants become increasingly isolated and uneasy.

Character Developments

• Li Yun/Li: Demonstrates overwhelming control over vibration, magnetic force, and destructive power. Despite his tremendous abilities, he is still learning to regulate the influence of emotion on his actions. His enjoyment of the destruction suggests a growing reconnection with ordinary human impulses and instinctive pleasure.
• The Main God: Acts as an observer and commentator, displaying unusual humor and perhaps a faintly exasperated attitude toward Li’s excessive methods.
• The manor’s old butler: Shows practical experience and concern by preventing the returning scouts from warming themselves too quickly, instead using warm towels to protect them from injury.
• The returning investigators: Their exhaustion and fear reveal the seriousness of the storm and the danger surrounding the manor.

Significant Themes

• Overwhelming power and restraint: Li’s single punch illustrates power far beyond conventional weapons, while his apology highlights the difficulty of controlling such strength.
• Violence as direct expression: The chapter presents violence not only as destruction but also as a language through which Li expresses instinct and emotion.
• Humanity and emotion: Li’s reflections suggest that emotional impulses, even irrational or destructive ones, are part of what makes a person human.
• Contrast between supernatural and ordinary danger: The mountain’s spectacular destruction is juxtaposed with the mundane but threatening problem of a severed telephone line and dangerous wildlife.
• Isolation and uncertainty: The snowstorm, broken communications, and possible beasts create an atmosphere of confinement and vulnerability at the manor.

Character Interactions

• The Main God observes Li’s attack and sarcastically criticizes the excessive brutality of reducing everything to “dumpling filling.”
• Li responds casually, apologizing while explaining that emotional instinct affected his control.
• The two share an understated exchange about whether Li is happy, with Li admitting that emotional release can be enjoyable.
• At the manor, the returning scouts report the severed communications to their companions, while the old butler takes charge of their immediate care.
• The chapter ends with the manor’s residents recognizing that they may be trapped, cut off from the outside world, and exposed to unknown dangers in the snow.

Summary of “Snowstorm Manor”

Key Plot Points and Events

• He Qiu enters the Immersion Mode scenario Snowstorm Manor, awakening in the body of Detective Horton, an extremely obese and unattractive man.
• The manor has been isolated by a violent blizzard. Communications are cut, transportation has failed, and the guests must wait up to seven days for a supply convoy.
• The Main God’s mission reveals that the manor is trapped in a repeating cycle: the owner and several guests will mysteriously die, He Qiu’s previous incarnation as the detective was poisoned with red wine, and the murderer is among the guests.
• He Qiu and two others inspect the damaged communication line and discover it has been torn apart, apparently by claw marks from a wild beast. This confirms that someone—or something—is deliberately sabotaging the manor’s escape and communication options.
• At dinner, the guests are tense and barely eat, while He Qiu consumes enormous amounts of food. A disdainful female guest mocks his appearance and appetite, but the others seem accustomed to Detective Horton’s unpleasant reputation.
• Rather than imitate a conventional detective and wait for murders to occur, He Qiu decides to disrupt the scenario and make the situation harder for the murderer to control.
• On the first night, he secretly leaves his room, checks that the upper floors and the host’s quarters are quiet, and breaks into the kitchen storeroom.
• He discovers large supplies of meat, canned food, flour, and other provisions, as well as an adjacent wine cellar. Taking advantage of Horton’s extraordinary appetite and his own martial cultivation, he begins secretly eating the manor’s stored food.

Character Development

• He Qiu / Detective Horton: Initially shocked by his bizarre appearance and body, He Qiu quickly adapts to the situation. Though he doubts his own intelligence, he demonstrates practical thinking and initiative by recognizing the danger of waiting passively for murders. His plan is to alter the scenario’s conditions—beginning with consuming the manor’s supplies—rather than follow the expected detective narrative.
• The female guest: She is introduced as sharp-tongued, elitist, and openly disgusted by Horton’s appearance and eating habits. Her mockery establishes social hostility among the guests.
• Mr. Kafner, the butler: He remains polite but uncomfortable, serving He Qiu while avoiding confrontation. His reserved behavior adds to the atmosphere of suspicion.
• The unseen manor owner: The host is reportedly ill and has not appeared, making him an immediate source of mystery. His absence is especially suspicious given that the scenario centers on his eventual death.

Significant Themes

• Suspicion and hidden identity: The isolated manor creates a classic closed-circle mystery in which the murderer must be one of the guests.
• Cycles and fate: The words “restart” and “break the cycle” imply that the events repeatedly occur in the same pattern, with the dead retaining unresolved obsessions.
• Appearance versus ability: He Qiu’s grotesque body causes others to underestimate or ridicule him, yet his actions show that he is observant, resourceful, and physically capable.
• Disruption of predetermined narratives: Instead of behaving like a conventional detective, He Qiu seeks to interfere with the scenario before the murders unfold.
• Isolation and survival: The blizzard, failed communications, damaged transport, and limited food create an environment where cooperation breaks down and survival becomes increasingly important.

Character Interactions

• During dinner, the guests’ anxiety is contrasted with He Qiu’s vigorous eating, making him the center of uncomfortable attention.
• The female guest insults him through sarcastic remarks about his appetite, while Mr. Kafner responds awkwardly rather than defending him.
• He Qiu internally dismisses the guests’ judgments and focuses on identifying the murderer and surviving the cycle.
• His secret nighttime break-in marks his first deliberate action outside the group’s awareness, setting him apart from the other guests and potentially giving him an advantage.

Chapter Summary: “Brute-Force Strategy”

Key Plot Points and Events

• He Qiu spends the entire night secretly consuming the estate’s food supplies, including meat, flour, wine, and the valuable Stone Baguette. By dawn, he is barely able to walk and leaves the kitchen in disarray.
• The next morning, the guests discover that nearly all the estate’s food has disappeared. The estate owner explains that the supplies were not merely stolen but apparently eaten by someone.
• The guests inspect the devastated kitchen and become increasingly alarmed. Since a blizzard has blocked the roads, they may be trapped without food for an unknown number of days.
• Panic replaces the polite atmosphere of the previous evening. The guests begin suspecting and fearing one another, with some openly considering violence.
• He Qiu enters while visibly bloated and lets out several conspicuous belches, making it obvious to the audience—but not yet formally to the others—that he is responsible for the disappearance.
• He pretends that his stomach trouble kept him awake and casually asks about breakfast, provoking further anger and suspicion.
• He Qiu displays Detective Horton’s pistol as a threat. He knows, however, that the weapon is actually an unloaded gimmick and likely functions as an antique lighter.
• Rather than investigate through deduction or follow chains of clues, He Qiu decides to use a direct, “brute-force” strategy: allow the food shortage to create pressure and prepare for possible physical conflict or a battle royale.
• He assesses the other nine people, including the estate owner and butler, and concludes that none of them appear capable of fighting him. He then urges everyone to focus on surviving the coming seven days.

Character Developments

• He Qiu: Reveals himself as reckless, gluttonous, calculating, and physically confident. His deliberate destruction of the food supply is an attempt to simplify the survival scenario and force everyone into the open. He also uses humor, deception, and intimidation to control the atmosphere.
• The Estate Owner: Appears exhausted, angry, and powerless. His announcement exposes the seriousness of the crisis, but he has little practical control over the guests or the missing supplies.
• The Guests: Shift from refined, socially restrained individuals into frightened and suspicious survivors. Their concern for food quickly overrides manners, trust, and social status.
• The Butler: Remains quiet and functional, assisting the estate owner by guiding the guests through the kitchen and confirming the evidence.
• The Old Military Gentleman: Reacts physically to the situation, apparently realizing that the disappearance of the food may have been caused by someone among them.

Significant Themes

• Civilization versus survival: The guests’ polished behavior collapses as soon as food becomes scarce and escape becomes impossible.
• Distrust and paranoia: Isolation transforms ordinary uncertainty into suspicion, with everyone becoming a potential thief or killer.
• Strength over intellect: He Qiu rejects traditional detective work and prefers intimidation, endurance, and direct confrontation.
• Performance and deception: He pretends to be ill and harmless while subtly displaying a weapon and evaluating everyone’s weaknesses.
• The absurdity of crisis: The dramatic survival situation is undercut by He Qiu’s excessive eating, comic belching, and grotesque physical state.
• Control through scarcity: By consuming the supplies, He Qiu deliberately turns the estate into a pressure cooker and attempts to dictate the rules of the game.

Character Interactions

• The estate owner confronts the assembled guests with the news of the missing food, prompting outrage from the noblewoman and suspicion from the jeweler.
• The guests inspect the kitchen together, bonding temporarily through shared alarm but ultimately becoming more distrustful of one another.
• He Qiu’s arrival intensifies the hostility: his belching and comments about breakfast contrast sharply with everyone else’s fear and hunger.
• His displayed pistol causes the guests to treat him as a potentially dangerous figure, even though he knows it is not functional.
• He Qiu addresses the group directly, positioning himself as both a supposed detective and the dominant physical force in the emerging survival game.

Chapter Summary: “Relic Within the Soul”

Key Plot Points and Events

• During the snowbound villa crisis, He Qiu uses his preparations of frozen “grape bricks”—a mixture of red wine and flour—to provide food for the starving guests.
• By controlling the food supply, he prevents the desperate survivors from turning against him and avoids several dangerous schemes:
  • The villa owner attempts to lure him into revealing the villa’s secrets.
  • A noblewoman tries to seduce him into a private meeting.
  • The jeweler offers jewels in exchange for extra rations.
• After seven days, a supply convoy finally reaches the villa. The guests are alive but severely weakened, while the villa owner has apparently died of a heart attack.
• Just as rescue seems imminent, reality begins to collapse. The people, furnishings, and entire villa rapidly decay and disappear, revealing that the scenario was an artificial or repeating historical construct rather than a normal physical event.
• He Qiu returns to his original body in the ruins of the real villa. He then encounters the spirit or residual consciousness of Horton, the detective whose body he had temporarily possessed.
• Horton explains that the villa owner was a greedy murderer who gathered people matching certain conditions in order to steal their lives. He Qiu’s unusual strategy—eating and distributing the available food—disrupted the scheme and broke the repeating cycle of death.
• Horton thanks He Qiu, asks him to burn the book connected to the villa owner’s crimes, and fades away peacefully.
• Before He Qiu can retrieve the book, it ignites and the Main God announces that the mission has been completed. He Qiu is forcibly returned, though he briefly sees the item’s name: “Secret Scripture of the Seven Chapters of the Mysterious Lord (Copy · Fragment).”

Character Developments

• He Qiu: Demonstrates caution, resourcefulness, and practical survival instincts. Rather than pursuing the villa’s mysteries or becoming involved in manipulation, he prioritizes food control and minimizing risk. His actions unintentionally become an act of mercy that saves the survivors from the scenario’s predetermined deaths.
• Horton: Revealed to possess far more awareness and dignity than his outwardly foolish, obese appearance suggested. His spirit is relieved that the murderous cycle has ended, and he acknowledges He Qiu’s intervention with humor and gratitude.
• The Other Guests: Their apparent scheming and hostility collapse under starvation. They are reduced to fragile survivors, emphasizing how much of their earlier cruelty depended on comfort and abundance.
• The Villa Owner: Though absent in person by the end, he is identified as the mastermind behind the deadly cycle and the owner of the forbidden scripture.

Significant Themes

• Survival over social manipulation: A situation initially framed as a contest of intrigue becomes a straightforward struggle for food and endurance. Basic survival renders elaborate schemes meaningless.
• Appearance versus reality: Horton appears foolish and insignificant, yet his spirit is perceptive, refined, and burdened by the villa’s history. Likewise, the guests’ civilized appearances conceal their capacity for desperation.
• Breaking fate and repetition: He Qiu’s actions disrupt a predetermined cycle in which the guests repeatedly die. His mundane solution—using food to preserve life—overcomes a supernatural conspiracy.
• Mercy and unintended heroism: He Qiu does not set out to save everyone, but by refusing to exploit or betray the others, he prevents the villa owner from achieving a one-sided victory.
• Decay and the passage of time: The villa’s rapid collapse symbolizes the destruction of a false historical construct and the release of those trapped within it.
• Forbidden knowledge: The mysterious scripture represents the source of the villa owner’s crimes and hints at a larger supernatural or mystical threat beyond this mission.

Character Interactions

• He Qiu maintains wary distance from the villa owner, noblewoman, jeweler, and other guests, refusing their attempts to manipulate or bargain with him.
• His control of the food supply creates an uneasy but effective balance among the starving survivors.
• Horton directly recognizes He Qiu as an outsider and thanks him for ending the cycle, teasing him about his unconventional “food-based” strategy.
• Their final exchange is respectful and lightly humorous, ending with Horton’s request that He Qiu destroy the scripture before the Main God intervenes.

Chapter Summary: “Search-and-Rescue Team”

Key Plot Points and Events

• A remote mountain and an illegal factory hidden within it are mysteriously destroyed, leaving behind a broad, snow-like plain of gray ash. The incident initially goes unnoticed because minor earthquakes have become common since the Meteorite Fragments fell.
• Authorities conduct only a superficial geological survey after detecting suspected shallow seismic activity. They find no obvious geological damage and are quietly removed from the area by people connected to the factory.
• The Huanjing Association and other “manufacturers,” who have been exploiting Meteorite Sinkholes and spiritual resources, immediately begin covering up their involvement and severing connections to the destroyed site.
• Three days later, Sheng Xin, acting director of the Huanjing Association, arrives to inspect the ruins. The factory had been funded by wealthy heirs connected to his faction, making its destruction a major financial and political loss.
• Workers report that the factory, equipment, personnel, and surrounding mountain have seemingly been reduced to fine ash. Excavation and seismic detection reveal nothing beneath the plain.
• Sheng Xin suspects that another powerful user attacked the site with an advanced Main God Platform weapon, possibly a high-energy particle disintegration device.
• Although withdrawal would be safer and more practical, Sheng orders the search team to continue looking for survivors and evidence. He promises full compensation to the families of the dead or injured and demands that the entire area be searched.

Character Developments

• Sheng Xin is presented as calculating but not entirely indifferent. He is angry over the loss of his faction’s private investment and frightened by the destructive power involved, yet he understands the importance of appearing responsible and protective toward his subordinates.
• His reaction shows that he is politically experienced: he balances self-interest, fear, reputation, and family obligations rather than acting impulsively.
• The search-and-rescue personnel are deeply unsettled by the unnatural destruction. Their inability to explain the ash or identify any survivors emphasizes how far beyond ordinary technology the incident appears to be.
• The unnamed authorities and Association members are shown as practiced in concealment, damage control, and protecting illegal operations.

Significant Themes

• Conspiracy and institutional corruption: The factory operates through powerful connections, illegal resource extraction, and underground markets, while authorities are quietly manipulated or excluded.
• The danger of supernatural/advanced technology: The complete disintegration of a mountain and factory demonstrates the terrifying power available to high-level users.
• Self-interest versus responsibility: Sheng Xin’s concern for survivors is mixed with financial and political motives, raising questions about whether his compassion is genuine or strategic.
• Cover-ups and hidden power struggles: The public sees only a minor seismic disturbance, while secret organizations recognize the event as a possible attack in an unseen conflict.
• Human vulnerability: Even people involved in powerful organizations can be erased without warning, leaving only ash and uncertainty behind.

Character Interactions

• Local personnel cautiously report the destruction to Sheng Xin, visibly intimidated by his authority.
• Sheng interrogates them about the factory, the excavation, and possible survivors, pressing them to explain an event they cannot understand.
• The workers expect to withdraw, but Sheng overrides them and orders a more thorough search using stronger detection equipment.
• His promise to preserve compensation for the victims’ families functions both as genuine reassurance and as a display of leadership intended to maintain loyalty.

Chapter Summary: “Changes and the Ghost Market”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Li Yun dismisses the threats and political unrest surrounding the newly established “factory.” He recognizes that supernatural powers are beginning to challenge existing institutions, but considers such conflicts inevitable and not worth his attention.
• The chapter shifts to Fang Yishu, who secretly travels through the city’s sewers late at night. She uses her adaptive cloak and spiritual vision to avoid detection, noticing surveillance equipment and traces left by both supernatural creatures and humans.
• She reaches a concealed iron door guarded by a disguised gatekeeper. After presenting an access card, she is admitted to a hidden underground marketplace.
• The marketplace, known as the Ghost Market, occupies an abandoned underground structure filled with unfinished buildings, candlelight, hidden stalls, users, brokers, and supernatural goods.
• Fang examines the available merchandise, including wilderness plants, animal products, spiritual weapons, talismans, and potions. Most items appear to be ordinary or unreliable, and she identifies several likely frauds.
• Brokers attempt to approach her, but Fang refuses to reveal what she is seeking, recognizing that exposing her needs in such a dangerous environment could make her vulnerable.

Character Developments

• Li Yun: Remains detached and pragmatic. He sees the growing instability caused by supernatural evolution but prioritizes his own work and profit over political or institutional struggles.
• Fang Yishu: Demonstrates improved stealth, caution, and supernatural awareness. Her training with her teammates has made her instinctively consider ambushes and tactical possibilities, though she notices this change in herself with some amusement.
• Fang also shows skepticism and discernment, recognizing fraudulent goods and refusing to trust unsolicited brokers.

Significant Themes

• Social and institutional change: As supernatural individuals grow stronger, traditional authorities and systems begin losing their control and credibility.
• Power and profit: The chapter suggests that wherever power creates opportunities, people will exploit gray areas for financial gain.
• Hidden economies: The Ghost Market represents a parallel society operating beneath ordinary civilization, where supernatural resources and services are traded beyond official oversight.
• Caution and deception: Concealed identities, disguised guards, unreliable merchandise, surveillance, and predatory intermediaries emphasize the dangers of the supernatural underground.
• Growth and adaptation: Fang’s increasing tactical instincts reflect how supernatural conflict and survival pressures are changing her behavior.

Character Interactions

• Fang interacts briefly with the disguised gatekeeper, who verifies her access card and admits her to the market.
• She observes numerous silent stallholders selling supernatural materials and finished products.
• Brokers attempt to learn whether she is new and what she wants, but she avoids them to protect her intentions.
• Her internal reflection about her teammates—particularly the strategist—shows how their past training continues to influence her instincts and conduct.

Chapter Summary: “Sale and Prayer”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Fang Yishu explores a chaotic black market where formal rules and currency have largely disappeared, leaving barter, secret exchanges, and personal judgment as the basis of trade.
• She encounters a mysterious, fully veiled vendor selling a jar labeled “Spirit Water,” with purchases required to be at least one hundred grams but no price or explanation provided.
• Fang secretly uses her Second Tier mental abilities to inspect the vendor and the jar. She discovers that the water contains faint traces of spiritual energy, incense, blood, and disturbing remnants of suffering and death.
• Although the substance is likely genuine and potentially valuable, the sinister spiritual residue makes Fang wary. She pretends to lose interest and leaves without revealing what she sensed.
• To avoid suspicion, she stops at another stall selling freshly cut timber and acts like an ordinary shopper until she feels the vendor’s attention has passed.
• Fang reflects on the black market’s hidden networks, manipulation, and morally dubious dealings. She recognizes that many participants are not merely selling goods but building connections and pursuing secret interests.
• After searching several floors, she finds nothing worthwhile. She buys two ordinary-looking ores, only to suspect that they may be bait intended to lure buyers.
• Frustrated by her poor luck, Fang prays to the “Main God” through her Moon White Stone bracelet, asking for an overlooked bargain.

Character Development

• Fang Yishu demonstrates caution, intelligence, and strong observational abilities. Rather than impulsively buying the valuable-looking Spirit Water, she investigates its origins and hidden dangers.
• Her mental sensitivity allows her to detect spiritual traces and emotional residues that ordinary traders cannot perceive.
• She is also skilled at concealment and social acting, masking her alarm and pretending to be unimpressed so she does not draw attention.
• Despite her competence, Fang remains somewhat playful and humanly frustrated, ending the chapter by jokingly praying for better luck.

Significant Themes

• Moral ambiguity and corruption: The market operates without fairness or protection, revealing a world where profit, secrecy, and survival replace ordinary rules.
• Hidden danger beneath apparent value: The Spirit Water seems useful because of its spiritual energy, but its connection to suffering and blood makes its true nature disturbing.
• Caution versus greed: Fang’s decision to walk away shows the importance of restraint when valuable opportunities carry unknown risks.
• Invisible networks of power: The market is portrayed as a meeting point for agents, factions, and secret exchanges rather than merely a place for buying goods.
• Luck and uncertainty: Even someone with Fang’s abilities cannot guarantee success, leaving her dependent on chance as well as judgment.

Character Interactions

• Fang observes traders bargaining over unusual goods and witnesses covert exchanges between anonymous buyers and sellers.
• She indirectly confronts the veiled female vendor by asking about the Spirit Water’s price, though neither openly reveals their capabilities or suspicions.
• The vendor briefly notices Fang but does not pursue her.
• At the timber stall, a masked seller enthusiastically attempts to attract Fang’s interest, giving her an opportunity to blend back into the crowd.
• Fang’s final interaction is with the unseen “Main God,” whom she addresses in a half-serious prayer for good fortune.

Summary

Key Plot Points and Events

• Thousands of desperate people gather in a cavern hidden inside a mountain, drawn by rumors of a deity who can grant them survival, revenge, and a new chance at life.
• Pale-faced vampire followers move to the front, while ordinary “mortals” crowd behind them. The atmosphere is oppressive, tense, and full of suppressed hope.
• Skander Beshavich, a Peak Third Tier vampire enhancer, arrives dramatically by transforming from a swarm of winged creatures into human form. The crowd hails him as the “God of Vengeance in the Night.”
• Speaking from a raised stone platform, Skander tells the people that their shared suffering comes from a debt “deeper than blood.” He claims that he, too, once had no path forward but found another one.
• He explains that a true deity exists above them and can offer a chance to survive, escape oppression, settle grudges, and overcome personal obstacles.
• The ritual requires participants to enter a stone pit, focus on their greatest desire and hatred, and walk around it once. Skander warns that the god will not favor everyone, but someone will receive the promised opportunity—or perhaps everything they seek.
• The price is total submission: the chosen person must surrender their faith, life, and possessions to the deity and obey any command, even death. Although they are told they may leave without consequences, no one does.
• Skander begins the ritual by sprinkling powder and drawing symbols around the pit, cutting his palm, and letting his blood fall into it.
• He chants an elaborate prayer to a mysterious “true god,” describing it as an eternal, omnipresent being connected to the Star Realm, infinity, life, death, and the boundaries between worlds.
• The vampire followers join him, cutting themselves and offering their blood and lives while repeatedly declaring, “We offer blood and life. We ask our Lord to bear witness.” The chapter ends as the bloody worship continues.

Character Developments

• Skander Beshavich is presented not merely as a leader but as a zealous intermediary. He combines charisma, intimidation, theatrical power, and genuine-seeming devotion to persuade the crowd.
• His scar and exposed appearance emphasize that he identifies with suffering and hardship, helping him appear as someone who has personally found the path he now offers others.
• Skander’s faith appears absolute rather than pragmatic. Unlike those who believe merely because belief costs nothing, he is willing to sacrifice blood, life, and autonomy to his god.
• The vampire followers are shown as disciplined and devoted. Their coordinated ritual behavior contrasts with the fearful uncertainty of the mortal crowd.
• The gathered people are characterized by desperation, resentment, and a longing for survival. Though initially hesitant, they remain because their lack of alternatives outweighs their fear.

Significant Themes

• Absolute faith versus convenient belief: The chapter contrasts casual, pragmatic belief with total religious devotion, suggesting that true faith demands complete commitment.
• Desperation and manipulation: Skander exploits the crowd’s poverty, suffering, anger, and hopelessness by promising exactly what they most desire.
• The price of salvation: Survival and revenge are offered, but only in exchange for complete obedience and ownership of one’s life.
• Blood and sacrifice: Blood functions as both a literal offering and a symbol of surrender, binding the worshippers to the deity.
• Hope amid oppression: The “chance” offered by the god may represent genuine salvation, but it is deliberately framed as dangerous and morally costly.
• Faith as submission: The ritual presents belief not as comfort or peace, but as an agreement to obey an unknowable power without reservation.

Character Interactions

• Skander and the crowd: He speaks directly to their shared pain, challenges them to recognize their desperation, and offers them a choice between leaving and surrendering everything. His calm authority gradually controls the cavern.
• Skander and the vampire followers: He acknowledges familiar vampires in the crowd and leads them in the ritual, demonstrating their loyalty and reinforcing his authority.
• The crowd and the vampires: The mortals are awed and intimidated by the vampires’ supernatural nature. The vampires’ glares keep the crowd obedient, even as curiosity and hope spread among them.
• The worshippers and the mysterious deity: Through blood offerings and prayer, Skander and the vampires attempt to attract the deity’s attention and secure its judgment over the gathered people.

Chapter Summary: “Prayer to God”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Skander’s ritual continues as crowds of ordinary people contribute drops of blood to a circular pit. The ritual depends not on the quantity of blood, but on the number of participants and the sincerity of their intent.
• The stone around the pit gradually turns white, triggering fear, submission, and excitement among Skander’s vampire-like descendants. They sense the presence of their Progenitor.
• A faint white phantom appears above the pit. Though featureless and seemingly insubstantial, it exerts overwhelming pressure and is treated as a divine being.
• Skander instructs the crowd to enter the white circle, confront the entity, and think of their deepest desires. The first participant, a disabled young man, endures terrifying physical sensations but remains inside the circle.
• More people attempt the ritual. Although the circle seems able to accommodate an unlimited number of participants, only a small portion can withstand its effects. The rest kneel, pray, cry, laugh, or scream as they worship the white light.
• When the ritual reaches an unseen threshold, several people inside the circle suddenly become unresponsive, their eyes reflecting the white light. The phantom then vanishes, briefly revealing an incomprehensible form resembling a giant tree.
• The ritual’s survivors react in different ways: some collapse, vomit, tremble, lose consciousness, or howl. Skander’s pale-faced followers sort out those exhibiting unusual symptoms, identifying them as the likely “chosen” participants.
• Skander announces that Divine Grace will open again in seven days and orders the crowd to leave. He delegates care of the selected individuals to Soro before retreating to rest.
• The remaining crowd departs in awe and confusion, while the chosen few are left behind under guard.

Character Developments

• Skander is revealed as both a ritual leader and an intermediary between the crowd and the mysterious divine entity. He maintains an outward image of authority and reverence, but the ritual visibly exhausts and harms him. His sweat, bleeding, and fear suggest that he is not fully in control of the power he invokes.
• The participants transform from desperate petitioners into potential “chosen ones.” Their reactions show that the ritual may alter them physically or spiritually, though the full consequences remain unknown.
• Soro is established as one of Skander’s trusted subordinates. His education and intelligence make him valuable, though Skander’s lack of enthusiasm suggests he needs more capable people than he currently possesses.
• The vampire-like descendants display instinctive fear and submission toward the white phantom, emphasizing their lower status within the supernatural hierarchy.

Significant Themes

• Faith and desperation: The crowd willingly bleeds, suffers, and imitates acts of worship in hopes of receiving divine favor.
• Power and hierarchy: Skander commands the crowd, yet he too submits to the unseen entity. The descendants occupy an intermediate position between ordinary humans and the Progenitor or god.
• The ambiguity of salvation: The ritual is presented as an opportunity, but it resembles a sacrifice. Those selected may have received divine grace—or been subjected to something dangerous and incomprehensible.
• Mass psychology and fanaticism: The crowd’s fear rapidly becomes collective religious fervor. Hope, terror, and imitation turn the ritual into a spectacle of worship.
• Human insignificance before the divine: The phantom remains indifferent to the thousands below, reinforcing the image of humanity as an ant-like mass before an unknowable power.

Character Interactions

• Skander and the crowd: Skander guides the participants while presenting the ritual as a test of resolve. His authority makes the crowd obey despite their fear.
• The crowd and the white phantom: The participants project their hopes and desires onto the silent entity, treating its indifference as sacred judgment.
• Skander and Soro: Skander entrusts Soro with the selected “honored guests,” showing practical reliance on him but also emotional detachment.
• The guards and the chosen participants: The pale-faced descendants treat the survivors differently from the rest of the crowd, recognizing that their lives—and possibly their status—have changed permanently.

Summary: “Divine Grace and Changes”

Key Plot Points and Events

• After leaving the others, Skander nearly collapses under a sudden surge of warmth and spiritual energy. He realizes that his Vampire bloodline is beginning to break through from the Third Tier toward the Fourth.
• This advancement is not the result of combat or a mission reward, but of “Divine Grace” received after he organized a large-scale ritual in a karst cave.
• Skander had adapted the official Random Draw process for impoverished, war-torn regions where people lacked Internet access and basic infrastructure. By acting as organizer, priest, and intermediary, he used collective ritual intent to gather potential participants for the Main God’s draw.
• Because the Main God’s system followed a vague principle of fairness, Skander received an additional reward for facilitating the process.
• After witnessing Divinity descend, Skander chose worship rather than greed. He abandoned his original plan to become a “God of Vengeance in the Night” and instead began building a loose church centered on worship of the Main God and its Tree-related Divinity.
• The divine energy restores the physical damage and depleted blood energy he had suffered. His body begins transforming: his flesh shows signs of crystallization, threads emerge from his pores like a cocoon, and winglike structures begin developing beneath his back.
• Skander forces himself to reach his meditation chamber rather than immediately surrendering to the transformation. He intends to recover mentally, sever lingering connections to his bloodline descendants, and establish the strongest possible foundation before advancing.
• If successful, he will cease being merely a human with Vampire enhancement and become a true Vampire Kind creature.
• The chapter ends by expanding the scope of events: similar prayers and rituals in war-torn regions, especially the Middle East, are beginning to produce supernatural responses after the recent celestial and meteorite incidents.

Character Developments

• Skander is shown as highly intelligent, pragmatic, and adaptable. He recognizes that religious belief and divine systems can be used strategically in regions where conventional technology and communication are unavailable.
• He shifts from pursuing personal power through a vengeance-based divine identity to serving and spreading the worship of a greater god. This change reflects both genuine awe and rational self-preservation.
• His faith is presented as partly sincere and partly practical: he willingly worships after sensing Divinity, but he also experiments with the relationship between organized worship and divine rewards.
• His physical transformation marks a major stage in his evolution. He is approaching a permanent change in species and status, not merely a temporary increase in power.

Significant Themes

• Faith and divine reciprocity: Worship is not entirely ignored by the gods; collective belief can produce tangible effects and rewards.
• Religion as an adaptive institution: In societies cut off from modern infrastructure, ritual and faith become practical substitutes for technological systems such as online applications.
• Power through organization: Skander gains influence not only through personal strength but by organizing large populations and directing their collective intent.
• Humanity versus transcendence: His struggle to resist instinctive transformation emphasizes the painful, involuntary nature of ascension.
• The emergence of the divine: The Main God’s separated Divinity, linked to the World Tree and the collective subconscious, is becoming perceptible to spiritually sensitive people. This suggests that divine activity is spreading beyond isolated individuals.

Character Interactions

• Skander’s immediate interactions are mostly internal: he suppresses his bodily instincts, evaluates the meaning of the Divine Grace, and plans his next stage of advancement.
• His relationship with the Main God is indirect but significant. He is not a conventional believer in the Main God itself, but is connected to the Tree’s Divinity and benefits from the god’s broader system.
• His role as organizer and intermediary links ordinary worshippers, potential Random Draw participants, the Main God, and its Divinity.
• The wider population’s prayers and rituals parallel Skander’s experience, indicating that many individuals and emerging sects may soon become connected to the same divine phenomenon.

Chapter Summary: “Unexpected Incident During the March”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Taiga Haruki, an exhausted convenience-store worker living in an internet café, takes a lucrative part-time job marching for the “Main God Platform,” a mysterious movement promising miracles and access to ten thousand daily “slots.”
• He joins a large procession in Shibuya, where participants wear black-and-white haori, carry promotional signs, distribute flyers and crystal-ball souvenirs, and chant slogans supporting the Main God Worship Sect.
• The march appears unusually well organized. Police largely ignore it, and multiple groups merge into one enormous procession moving through Tokyo.
• At Aoyama Avenue, the march abruptly stops when two men are seen running across Tokyo Bay. One is fleeing; the other, dressed in black hakama and wearing a Hannya mask, pursues him with an unsheathed sword.
• The injured fugitive reaches the crowd, but the masked pursuer follows, brutally cutting off his arm in front of the marchers.
• The masked man identifies the victim as Tsukatatsu and explains that he belongs to the “Shark Group.” He states that members who receive a slot cannot retire and that their lives belong to the organization.
• He kills Tsukatatsu with a final sword strike, then walks back across the water and disappears beneath the harbor.
• The march collapses into panic. Participants flee silently, police cordon off the area, and the promotional event’s atmosphere of faith and enthusiasm is replaced by shock, fear, and denial.

Character Development

• Taiga Haruki: Introduced as poor, overworked, skeptical, and motivated mainly by the promised wages. His practical desperation leads him to participate in an ideology he does not believe in. During the killing, he becomes a horrified observer, unable to look away and beginning to recognize the disturbing reality behind the movement.
• Tsukatatsu: Revealed as a former or attempted deserter from the Shark Group. Despite his extraordinary physical abilities and desperate escape, he is portrayed as powerless against the organization’s enforcement.
• The Hannya-masked pursuer: Presented as a terrifying supernatural or highly trained executioner. His calmness, physical feats, and ideological loyalty suggest that the Shark Group possesses unusual abilities and operates according to ruthless internal rules.
• The Marchers: Initially act as enthusiastic participants in a collective religious-commercial spectacle, but their confidence vanishes instantly when confronted with real violence. Their later silence suggests fear, denial, or unwillingness to become involved.

Significant Themes

• Faith versus exploitation: The march promotes miraculous transformation, but the promised “slots” appear connected to coercion, violence, and organizational control rather than genuine salvation.
• Crowd psychology and conformity: Uniforms, slogans, shared symbols, and coordinated movement create a sense of collective power. The same crowd quickly becomes helpless and chaotic when confronted with violence.
• Poverty and desperation: Taiga and many other marchers participate because they need money, showing how financial hardship can draw people into suspicious or dangerous schemes.
• The supernatural entering ordinary life: Impossible events—running across water, extraordinary speed, and a sword-wielding masked killer—occur in a familiar urban setting, forcing ordinary people to confront a hidden world.
• Dehumanization and indifference: The murdered man is reduced to a spectacle, while the crowd and authorities retreat into silence. Taiga’s comparison of the scene to animals at a market emphasizes how easily human beings can become anonymous victims.
• Institutional passivity: The police tolerate the strange march and react only after the public killing, suggesting that authorities either know about the movement or are unable—or unwilling—to confront it.

Character Interactions

• Taiga briefly speaks with an elderly woman who dismisses the Main God Platform as another foolish obsession among young people. Her skepticism reflects Taiga’s own doubts.
• Organizers direct Taiga and the other workers, reinforcing the march’s disciplined, carefully staged appearance.
• The crowd interacts with pedestrians by handing out flyers and souvenirs, attempting to recruit curiosity and public acceptance.
• The Hannya-masked executioner directly confronts Tsukatatsu, taunting him for believing he could leave the Shark Group before killing him.
• The mass of marchers functions almost as a single character: enthusiastic and obedient at first, then panicked, self-protective, and silent once confronted with death.