Chapter Summaries

Plot points and events

• Wang Dansheng returns alone, dressed casually and bringing walnut cookies for He Qiu’s mother. His friendly approach feels calculated to He Qiu, who suspects the authorities have investigated his family.
• Wang shows He Qiu photographs of several murdered First-Test Users. The deaths appear deliberate: one victim was attacked from behind after an assailant used a professional disguise, and another died in a staged apartment explosion that also gravely injured an elderly couple.
• He then shows He Qiu a map of his residential complex. Surveillance teams have noticed unfamiliar people lingering nearby, suggesting a possible threat to He Qiu and his family.
• Wang gives He Qiu a discreet, interference-resistant phone with a direct line to his organization. He explains that the vans outside belong to protective teams, not people sent to spy on the family, and admits they work in shifts.
• Wang asks He Qiu to call if anything seems wrong and leaves without demanding an immediate commitment. Afterward, He Qiu studies the phone and map, his expression turning cold and murderous.

Character developments and interactions

• He Qiu remains distrustful and alert, openly admitting he watched the surveillance van. Though guarded, he accepts the emergency phone and takes the warnings seriously.
• Wang Dansheng shifts from formal representative to warm, neighborly visitor. He uses gifts and small talk to build rapport, but backs this up with unusually frank disclosures about the dangers and the surveillance operation.
• Their exchange balances suspicion with an emerging, practical trust: Wang offers protection without forcing cooperation, while He Qiu listens but keeps his own counsel.

Significant themes

• Trust versus manipulation: Wang’s friendly gestures could be strategic, yet his candor suggests a genuine effort to earn trust.
• Vulnerability and responsibility: The threat extends beyond He Qiu to his parents and other bystanders.
• Violence and escalating danger: The evidence of targeted killings makes the First-Test Users’ situation increasingly perilous.
• Vigilance and agency: He Qiu is urged to seek help, but the final image hints that he may be preparing to confront the danger himself.

Chapter Summary: “Talks and ‘Coo Coo Coo’”

Key Plot Points and Events

• In a sealed office, two longtime acquaintances—Wen Jie and Director Tu Gang (“Old Tu”)—discuss the growing crisis surrounding the First-Test Users, people affected by the First Incident.
• Since the official announcement that the three Newcomer Adaptation Periods have ended, public and covert efforts to identify and exploit First-Round users have intensified.
• Authorities estimate that 1,700–1,800 people participated in the First Round, but they have confirmed only about 1,400 identities and verified contact with roughly 1,300. The missing individuals have become highly vulnerable targets.
• Foreign governments, domestic organizations, private corporations, and unauthorized government departments are all attempting to locate these users.
• Investigators discover abnormal searches of restricted databases, including hospital emergency records and the Temporary Rehabilitation Management Database. Some officials and outsiders are trying to uncover information about the First Incident.
• Because the First Incident occurred domestically, during the daytime, and involved a particularly identifiable group of unconscious users, it is easier to trace than the later incidents.
• Surveillance efforts include monitoring homes, impersonating researchers, salespeople, property managers, utility workers, and community staff, as well as using foreign investment groups, corporations, paid investigators, and honey traps.
• Investigators have gathered extremely personal information on the users and their relatives, tracing their lives back to childhood, school records, medical histories, romantic connections, online activity, and even embarrassing writings from adolescence.
• Tu Gang reveals that authorities are under immense pressure and need more cybersecurity personnel. Wen Jie realizes that Tu’s entire visit was partly an attempt to borrow manpower.
• Their serious discussion turns into a humorous argument over Tu’s request for twenty or thirty experienced technicians. Wen Jie refuses, insisting his own department is already overwhelmed.

Character Developments

• Wen Jie: Presented as cautious, responsible, and protective of his department’s resources. He understands the gravity of the threat and quickly recognizes Tu’s hidden request for assistance. Despite their friendship, he is unwilling to sacrifice his already strained personnel.
• Director Tu Gang (“Old Tu”): Informal, blunt, and humorous, but deeply concerned about the security crisis. He uses casual conversation and complaints to build toward his request for reinforcements, showing both political pressure and practical resourcefulness.
• Their relationship: The two men have known each other since childhood and can speak frankly, shifting easily between official concerns, personal teasing, and open insults. Their banter reveals strong familiarity and trust beneath the tension.

Significant Themes

• Privacy and surveillance: The First-Test Users’ lives are being examined in exhaustive detail, showing how easily personal information can be weaponized.
• Institutional vulnerability: Even protected government systems and restricted databases are being targeted from inside and outside official channels.
• Power struggles and competition: Different departments, corporations, foreign interests, and private actors are competing to find the users and exploit whatever special qualities they may possess.
• Protection versus exposure: Authorities attempt to shield the First-Test Users, but their unusual circumstances make secrecy increasingly difficult.
• Bureaucratic pressure and dark humor: The grim threat is balanced by Tu and Wen Jie’s comic argument over personnel, emphasizing how officials cope with overwhelming problems.
• The unknown significance of the First Incident: The unusually visible and distinctive nature of the event suggests that it may contain special factors beyond the other incidents.

Character Interactions

• Wen Jie and Tu Gang begin with a guarded but familiar conversation, sharing information and complaining about the worsening situation.
• Tu presents an investigation report, prompting Wen Jie to recognize the scale of the internal and external threats.
• Their discussion becomes more serious when they consider why the First Incident has attracted exceptional attention.
• After describing the need for cybersecurity expertise, Tu is exposed as having a practical motive for the visit.
• Wen Jie angrily rejects Tu’s request for reinforcements, while Tu tries to negotiate by promising to return the borrowed staff within three months.
• Their argument ends in affectionate, long-standing banter, while pigeons outside observe the commotion, providing a comic closing image.

Chapter Summary: “A Blind Spot in Plain Sight”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Rumors spread online about a strange virus-like pop-up mentioning “the true meaning of life,” “Infinite Worlds,” and “yes or no.” Choosing “yes” supposedly causes an entity to take away the user’s soul.
• What initially seems like an internet prank gradually proves to be a disguised version of the truth. Evidence accumulates despite efforts by unseen forces to suppress its spread.
• After the third mission, the number of people connected to the phenomenon has grown from roughly 2,000 to over one million worldwide, including more than 200,000 in Li Yun’s country. This expansion makes genuine secrecy increasingly impossible.
• Li Yun believes information suppression can only delay the inevitable. The Main God therefore loosens its blockades rather than risking the greater damage caused by forcibly eliminating the truth.
• He visits an invitation-only forum disguised as a tabletop role-playing game platform. Users hide real-world supernatural information behind fictional characters, game mechanics, and fantasy terminology.
• The forum’s public chat reveals widespread interest in tickets, portals, heroes, magical artifacts, and rejuvenated individuals. Although presented as role-playing, the messages are coded discussions about the real supernatural world.
• Li Yun creates a new account as “Divine Emperor Yuri,” bypassing the site’s normal registration restrictions. He posts several cryptic but valuable hints about superweapons, Hero-class Units, teleportation abilities, Holy Light, Heaven Mountain, and the Magic Web.
• His posts immediately alarm the administrators because he is a level-zero user who should not be able to post and cannot be muted or banned.
• Before leaving, Li Yun orders the Main God to give the forum’s primary designers visitor invitations, excluding their financial backers. He also instructs the Main God to begin releasing a more open version of the official website ahead of schedule.

Character Developments

• Li Yun is portrayed as increasingly strategic and detached. He understands that the spread of information cannot be permanently stopped and chooses controlled disclosure over total suppression.
• He demonstrates considerable authority over the Main God, casually issuing commands that affect invitations, information access, and the official website.
• His brief intervention in the forum shows that he is willing to manipulate events indirectly, offering carefully limited clues rather than revealing the full truth.
• The forum administrators appear vigilant and technically competent, but Li Yun’s unexplained access exposes the limits of their control.
• The growing population of informed users develops from isolated witnesses into a loosely connected community of investigators, opportunists, and potential participants.

Significant Themes

• Truth hidden in plain sight: Supernatural information is concealed within jokes, role-playing, rumors, and fictional language, allowing it to circulate without appearing openly dangerous.
• The impossibility of secrecy: As more people receive fragments of evidence, even censorship and social silence cannot prevent the truth from spreading.
• Controlled revelation versus suppression: Li Yun recognizes that forcibly erasing information may cause more damage than carefully managing its release.
• Greed and opportunity: The possibility of gaining supernatural powers, wealth, youth, or access to other worlds drives people to investigate and spread rumors.
• Information as power: Even partial clues can radically alter behavior, attract competitors, and create a hidden hierarchy among those who know more.
• The threshold of societal change: The world remains outwardly calm, but the growing number of informed people suggests that a major upheaval is approaching.

Character Interactions

• Li Yun observes the forum’s users without revealing his identity or status.
• He interacts indirectly with forum members through the “Divine Emperor Yuri” account, posting hints that provoke immediate reactions.
• Ordinary users question his suspicious behavior, while the administrator “Judge” confirms that his account has violated the platform’s expected rules and cannot be muted.
• Li Yun communicates directly with the Main God, ordering it to reward the forum’s designers and begin a controlled expansion of official information.

Chapter Summary: “Official Website Opens”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Director Shen Taiguang reflects on the growing difficulty of controlling his team and managing a mysterious “special case.”
• What began as a strange fraud investigation expands into a major conflict involving:
  • Seven or eight local companies
  • Three prominent entrepreneurs
  • Two clans
  • A married couple
  • More than forty people
• The case centers on a mysterious “user identity” and a valuable “slot” that seems capable of granting extraordinary opportunities or social advancement.
• News of the slot spreads after one man drunkenly reveals information he should have kept secret. Relatives, friends, businesspeople, and clan members begin competing for it through bribery, emotional appeals, promises of assets, and personal loyalty.
• The investigation uncovers violence, illegal detention, and mass pyramid schemes, revealing how far people are willing to go when tempted by the possibility of changing their fate.
• Shen realizes that rumors about similar anomalies are spreading throughout Northwestern Jinxi. Young people and dissatisfied individuals secretly search online for clues, hoping to obtain their own opportunity.
• Public order and institutional loyalty begin to weaken as envy, ambition, and resentment spread. Even some of Shen’s subordinates appear distracted and morally shaken.
• While reviewing a confidential report, Shen hears a disturbance from the Bureau’s network center. A veteran employee rushes in to announce that the mysterious official website has issued a new notice: access restrictions for non-users have been lifted.

Character Developments

• Shen Taiguang is portrayed as experienced but increasingly burdened and uncertain. He understands the danger of the situation and imposes secrecy, knowing that more knowledge will create more competition and chaos.
• He recognizes that even trained officials may be tempted when confronted with an opportunity that transcends ordinary reality, making him doubt how long institutional discipline can hold.
• The unnamed man whose drunken boasting exposed the secret becomes the indirect catalyst for the escalating conflict.
• The affected entrepreneur represents those consumed by resentment, believing that decades of hard work are worthless compared with another person’s sudden “luck.”
• Shen’s subordinates and the wider public show signs of destabilization as their assumptions about fairness, success, and reality are challenged.

Significant Themes

• Human greed and ambition: The “slot” exposes how quickly people abandon restraint when extraordinary wealth or power appears attainable.
• The fragility of social order: Family ties, friendship, official authority, and business relationships all deteriorate under pressure.
• Envy and resentment: Those who feel denied by society become increasingly desperate to find a shortcut to success.
• The danger of secrets and rumors: Attempts to suppress information only make the mystery more compelling, allowing speculation to spread through private conversations and online communities.
• Unequal opportunity and fate: The possibility of suddenly “leaping upward” intensifies dissatisfaction among people who believe effort alone can no longer change their lives.
• Institutional uncertainty: Even officials tasked with controlling the situation are forced to question their own values and ability to respond.

Character Interactions

• Shen interacts with his subordinates through secrecy and strict information control, attempting to prevent the case from spreading.
• The married couple and their respective clans become the center of competing loyalties, with relatives invoking shared childhood, old favors, and blood ties to claim the slot.
• Entrepreneurs and acquaintances use money, promises of partnership, and emotional manipulation to influence those connected to the opportunity.
• The veteran Bureau employee urgently interrupts Shen’s work, creating the chapter’s cliffhanger by revealing that the official website is now publicly accessible to non-users.

Chapter Summary

Key Plot Points and Events

• Shen Taiguang is alerted that something extraordinary has happened in the Network Processing Center and rushes there.
• He finds the office in chaos, with employees gathered around a computer displaying a newly accessible website connected to the mysterious Main God Platform.
• The website announces that access restrictions have been lifted for non-users, allowing ordinary people to view it.
• The site contains visible sections such as “Main God Announcements” and “General Forum,” while other areas—including the Mission Hall, User Services, and Exchange Listings—remain inaccessible or grayed out.
• Technicians explain that the website appeared suddenly through a previously empty URL. It can only remain open while someone is looking at it; after roughly ten seconds without visual attention, it closes automatically.
• Attempts to trace, block, copy, or infiltrate the site fail. External programs cause computers to freeze or shut down, and the technical team cannot identify the site’s true URL or internal structure.
• Shen realizes the Main God Platform has deliberately exposed itself to the public, potentially revealing information that governments and experts had previously been studying in secret.
• He orders his staff to document everything through screenshots, cameras, written notes, recordings, and even sketches, while monitoring public reactions and awaiting instructions from higher authorities.

Character Developments

• Shen Taiguang shifts from urgency and disbelief to grim acceptance. He understands the broader implications of the platform better than his subordinates and recognizes that conventional governmental methods may be powerless against it.
• Zhang Baihe, a senior technical employee, is shown as highly skilled and determined, repeatedly attempting to analyze or bypass the website despite its apparent incomprehensibility.
• The Network Center staff display a mixture of excitement, curiosity, fear, and professional focus. Their reactions show how deeply the platform unsettles even technically capable people.
• Shen ultimately adopts a pragmatic leadership role, assigning tasks and maintaining order despite privately feeling helpless.

Significant Themes

• The collapse of secrecy: The Main God Platform moves from being an obscure, controlled phenomenon to something openly accessible to the public.
• Human limits before superior technology: The technicians’ inability to trace or interfere with the site emphasizes the vast gap between ordinary human systems and the platform’s capabilities.
• Institutional helplessness: Government officials can record and observe the event, but they cannot control or even properly understand it.
• Social instability and public reaction: Shen recalls how a previous Main God-related incident caused people, families, companies, and factions to turn against one another, suggesting that wider access could create far greater chaos.
• The end of the old order: Shen senses that the platform may be changing the fundamental rules of society, leaving existing authorities uncertain about their role.

Character Interactions

• A subordinate urgently informs Shen of the crisis, prompting him to run to the Network Processing Center.
• Shen commands the gathered employees to make way and reasserts authority over the chaotic office.
• Zhang Baihe explains the website’s behavior and technical properties, while other technicians describe their failed attempts to penetrate or block it.
• Shen questions the staff, absorbs their findings, and then gives a series of practical orders to document the site and monitor public opinion.
• His interactions reveal a contrast between the staff’s technical curiosity and his broader political fear: they are focused on how the website works, while he is already considering what its public exposure means for society and government.

Chapter Summary: “Undercurrents Stirring”

Key Plot Points and Events

• A mysterious website connected to the Main God undergoes a major change: its previously restricted URL becomes accessible to outsiders and begins spreading rapidly across the internet.
• Governments and technical experts fail to block the site or prevent access, even when devices are disconnected from networks or placed inside signal-jamming zones. The website can still be reached through its abbreviated name.
• A high-level government meeting assesses the threat. Experts conclude that the technology behind the site is vastly beyond modern communications systems and may allow the site’s administrator—or “Him”—to observe even supposedly secure meetings.
• Officials acknowledge that they have lost much of their control over the situation. Their remaining influence lies mainly in managing public opinion and limiting the spread of information.
• The platform’s newcomer-adaptation period has ended. Instead of selecting large groups of users at once, it appears to be recruiting people sporadically.
• Participants who completed the fourth mission report that the earlier mass appearances of “Light Fish” have stopped, supporting the theory that the selection system has changed.
• The website’s forum is now partly open to visitors. Users can post, while non-users can only read. The site also begins releasing promotional videos and mission footage.
• One video shows a badly injured person fleeing through a rainforest inhabited by an arboreal cannibal tribe. Another depicts a grim ancient settlement populated by starving villagers, beggars, children, and other impoverished inhabitants.
• Officials determine that these videos were probably produced or released directly by the website rather than by individual participants. Their purpose appears to be attracting attention and driving more traffic to the platform.
• Although authorities cannot block the website itself, they can still suppress or sever the external links it provides. Experts interpret this as possibly a deliberate test, hint, or temporary grace period from the website.
• The government concludes that it must prepare to reveal the truth to the public soon. Whichever country exposes the existence of the platform first may gain major advantages, but it will also risk triggering widespread panic and social upheaval.

Character Developments

• The elderly academician emerges as a blunt, pessimistic expert who openly acknowledges the overwhelming technological superiority of the force behind the website. His assessment strips away any illusion that conventional security measures can protect the authorities.
• The officials in the meeting remain outwardly controlled, but their restrained behavior reveals growing fear, uncertainty, and awareness that the situation is slipping beyond human control.
• The exhausted presenters reflect the prolonged pressure of the crisis, with dark circles, hoarse voices, and signs of extreme overwork.
• The mission participant shown in the rainforest footage is characterized through his desperate flight, severe injuries, and refusal to stop, emphasizing the lethal nature of the missions rather than developing him as an individual.
• The Main God or website administrator becomes more influential through indirect actions: opening access, releasing videos, changing recruitment patterns, and apparently deciding how much information humanity receives.

Significant Themes

• Humanity’s loss of technological control: Modern communication systems are revealed to be primitive compared with the website’s capabilities.
• Information control versus inevitable exposure: Governments can suppress links and news reports, but they cannot permanently conceal the platform.
• The dangers of curiosity, greed, and power: The possibility of unlimited rewards or advancement makes the phenomenon impossible to dismiss, despite its danger.
• The unknown as a source of fear: The authorities cannot determine the website’s motives or limits, making every development strategically threatening.
• Spectacle and recruitment: The site’s mission videos function like advertisements, turning horrifying survival experiences into content capable of attracting new participants.
• Social stability versus truth: Officials must choose between concealing the phenomenon to prevent panic and revealing it before events become impossible to manage.
• An approaching crisis: The recurring imagery of hot oil and cold water suggests that the world is nearing an explosive confrontation or social disruption.

Character Interactions

• Government leaders and experts engage in a tense briefing over the website’s spread, with officials questioning whether modern communications and security systems remain effective.
• The elderly academician sharply confirms that the website could potentially monitor the meeting, reinforcing the authorities’ helplessness.
• The second presenter reports on recruitment changes, forum access, foreign media responses, and the release of mission videos.
• The attendees react silently and professionally, masking their anxiety while discussing whether to suppress or disclose the truth.
• The website itself interacts with humanity indirectly, communicating through access permissions, user selection, forum privileges, promotional footage, and carefully controlled information leaks.

Chapter Summary

1. Key Plot Points and Events

• Before afternoon class, Wang Lei shows his roommate Wu Shaoyou a shocking video filmed in Japan, apparently in Tokyo.
• The footage depicts enormous crowds fleeing through city streets in blind panic. People abandon vehicles and possessions, fall and get trampled, and suffer realistic injuries, suggesting the event is genuine rather than staged.
• The fleeing civilians include a ramen chef carrying a child, a convenience-store worker, a businessman, an injured jewelry-store employee, and many others. Their desperate behavior emphasizes that they are escaping an immediate, overwhelming threat.
• The video follows an inconspicuous buzz-cut young man, who appears injured and repeatedly looks back while running with the crowd. His standard Chinese accent reveals that he is likely Chinese.
• Explosions, building collapses, fighter jets, helicopters, tanks, and heavy weapons indicate that the military is attacking something inside the city. A subtitle identifies the Seventh Fleet’s Tomahawk cruise-missile system.
• The camera finally captures part of the enemy: an enormous, rock-shelled creature hidden within the smoke. One of its massive claws destroys part of a high-rise and nearly strikes a fighter jet.
• The young man ultimately reveals the truth behind the footage, muttering that his “Newcomer Trial” requires him to survive for three days in Tokyo before “[NXT] awakens.”

2. Character Developments

• Wang Lei begins casually scrolling through his phone but becomes increasingly absorbed and alarmed by the footage. His initial amusement quickly turns into serious concern.
• Wu Shaoyou progresses from sleepiness and skepticism to shock and fear. He analyzes possible explanations—earthquake, fire, terrorist attack—but gradually accepts that the disaster is real.
• The buzz-cut young man is established as the apparent protagonist. Despite being injured, exhausted, and terrified, he continues running with the crowd. His final statement reveals that he is participating in or trapped within a supernatural or game-like survival trial.
• The civilians are portrayed as ordinary people forced into extreme survival behavior, revealing both vulnerability and instinctive courage.

3. Significant Themes

• Survival instinct: The fleeing crowd abandons possessions, social conventions, and even injured companions because stopping could mean death.
• The reality of disaster: Small details—blood, pain, urine-soaked clothing, dropped shoes, crying children, and labored breathing—make the catastrophe feel disturbingly authentic.
• Human solidarity amid chaos: The elderly woman helps the ramen chef keep hold of the child, showing that compassion persists even when everyone is fighting to survive.
• The limits of human power: Military aircraft and missiles attack the creature with overwhelming force, yet the monster remains powerful enough to destroy buildings and threaten jets.
• Mystery and supernatural escalation: The chapter begins like an unexplained viral video but ends by revealing a “Newcomer Trial,” suggesting an alternate reality, game system, or larger supernatural scenario.
• Perspective and uncertainty: The viewers, like the audience, only see fragments of the threat and must infer what is happening from the crowd’s reactions and the protagonist’s final words.

4. Character Interactions

• Wang Lei wakes and engages Wu Shaoyou by showing him the video and sharing an earbud.
• The two roommates discuss and debate possible explanations for the disaster, using humor at first to cope with their growing unease.
• Their reactions gradually synchronize; by the time the giant creature appears, both respond with the same stunned exclamation.
• Within the footage, the ramen chef protects a child, while an elderly woman briefly helps him after he nearly falls. Their interaction is hurried and wordless, emphasizing the relentless pressure of the crowd.
• The buzz-cut protagonist is mostly isolated despite running among thousands of people, with the camera treating him as the central figure. His final whispered revelation transforms the footage from disaster reportage into evidence of a personal survival mission.

Chapter Summary

Plot and Key Events

• Wang Lei and Wu Shaoyou watch a strange online video showing a catastrophic battle in a city. The footage includes terrified civilians, explosions, military action, and a huge claw-like creature.
• The video’s speaker uses Mandarin and mentions NXT, a Space Beast, and a “main quest.” These references immediately disturb the two roommates because they resemble elements from Ultraman Nexus and the terminology of infinite-flow fiction.
• Initially, the roommates try to explain the footage as an extremely expensive live-action fan film or advanced CGI production. They debate whether the realistic civilians, destruction, and physical effects could possibly have been staged.
• Their discussion is interrupted by class, but they continue watching discreetly. The video shows a wounded crew-cut young man being carried through a panicked crowd while looking back at the destruction behind him.
• After replaying the clip, they realize the situation cannot be explained as a normal Ultraman production. The speaker is Chinese, uses the Mandarin-specific term “Space Beast,” and refers to a “main quest”—details that would not fit the original series.
• Wang Lei looks up the video’s original URL, while Wu Shaoyou experiences an unsettling sense of familiarity connected to something he read weeks earlier: an “infinite-flow” story. The chapter ends as they begin confronting the terrifying possibility that the video depicts a real alternate world or a crossover into fiction.

Character Development

• Wang Lei is initially cautious and analytical. He repeatedly checks the audio, lip movements, and video quality before accepting that the footage is genuine. His skepticism gradually gives way to fear when the evidence points beyond ordinary filmmaking.
• Wu Shaoyou reacts nervously through exaggerated jokes and rambling references to Ultraman, military history, and fan culture. His humor functions as a coping mechanism, but he ultimately notices the crucial inconsistency in the terminology.
• Their relationship is portrayed as close and familiar. They work together to verify the video, share the same growing disbelief, and instinctively turn to each other when the implications become frightening.

Character Interactions

• The roommates repeatedly replay and scrutinize the video together, challenging each other’s interpretations.
• Wu Shaoyou mocks the possibility of a massive CGI production, while Wang Lei focuses on the realism of the civilians and destruction.
• Their banter shifts into serious cooperation when Wu identifies that “Space Beast” is a Mandarin translation term absent from the original Ultraman Nexus story.
• Their shared realization creates a tense, silent exchange in which both recognize the same horrifying possibility without initially saying it aloud.

Significant Themes

• Reality versus fiction: The video appears to transform a fictional franchise into a seemingly real event, blurring the boundary between entertainment and reality.
• Recognition of inconsistencies: Small linguistic details—especially “Space Beast,” “main quest,” and the Chinese speaker—become evidence that the event belongs to a different world or narrative system.
• Fear beneath humor: Wu’s jokes and Wang Lei’s technical analysis both mask growing terror. Their attempts to rationalize the footage fail as the evidence becomes increasingly convincing.
• Alternate worlds and infinite-flow fiction: The chapter introduces the possibility that fictional settings, quests, and monsters may exist in reality, foreshadowing a larger supernatural or dimensional conflict.
• The uncanny: Familiar elements from Ultraman Nexus are present but altered in disturbing ways, producing a sense of recognition mixed with profound wrongness.

Chapter Summary: “Wearing Glasses Is This Year’s Trend!”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Secret information about a mysterious phenomenon is spreading rapidly across the internet, reaching an ever-growing number of people.
• College student Ning Yu sneaks out of class and returns to her dorm room, where she finds her roommate and best friend, Fang Yishu, working on a laptop and phone.
• Ning Yu reveals that she saw an unusually realistic video online. At the end, the video contained an advertisement offering a large reward for a mysterious “slot.”
• She connects this advertisement to a previous conversation in which Fang Yishu asked whether she wanted to live a completely different life and mentioned the same term.
• Fang Yishu becomes serious and asks to see the video. However, the video has mysteriously disappeared from Ning Yu’s viewing history.
• Fang concludes that Ning Yu likely saw “the real thing,” implying that the video is connected to a hidden or supernatural event.
• Fang briefly uses an unexplained persuasive ability on Ning Yu, causing her to instinctively obey. She then breaks the effect by looking away and flicking Ning Yu’s forehead.
• Ning Yu notices several unusual changes in Fang: she is wearing old-fashioned glasses, her appearance is more striking, her skin looks unusually radiant, and her eyes remind Ning Yu of the mysterious Li Yun.
• Fang avoids discussing Li Yun directly and instead reveals that she has been reserving a “slot” for Ning Yu.
• Fang explains that she may need to take a temporary leave from school and wants to warn Ning Yu before involving her, because Ning Yu could otherwise be exploited.
• The chapter ends just as Fang prepares to explain the situation in detail.

Character Developments

• Fang Yishu: Becomes more mysterious and powerful. Her appearance has changed noticeably, and she demonstrates a persuasive ability that can influence Ning Yu. She appears to understand the “slot” phenomenon and may already be involved in a dangerous transformation or alternate-life opportunity. Despite her secretive behavior, she shows concern for Ning Yu by reserving a slot for her and warning her about possible exploitation.
• Ning Yu: Remains playful, curious, and outspoken, but she is also perceptive. She notices Fang’s physical and behavioral changes and recognizes similarities between Fang and Li Yun. Her discovery of the video brings her closer to the hidden phenomenon Fang has been concealing.

Significant Themes

• Rapid spread of secret knowledge: The opening emphasizes how hidden information can quickly become widespread through the internet.
• Identity and transformation: Fang’s changed appearance, glasses, eyes, and possible connection to Li Yun suggest that people may be taking on new identities or altering themselves.
• Temptation of another life: The mysterious “slot” appears to offer people a chance to escape their current lives, raising questions about desire, sacrifice, and the cost of transformation.
• Trust and secrecy: Fang and Ning Yu are close friends, but Fang has kept important information hidden. Their friendship is tested as Ning Yu begins to recognize that Fang is no longer entirely ordinary.
• Influence and free will: Fang’s persuasive power introduces the possibility that personal choices may be manipulated.

Character Interactions

• Ning Yu jokingly accuses Fang of betraying their friendship and demands an explanation about the video.
• Fang responds with teasing indifference at first, but quickly becomes serious when the “slot” is mentioned.
• Fang subtly influences Ning Yu to hand over her phone, then deliberately stops using the ability when she realizes its effect.
• Ning Yu questions Fang about her resemblance to Li Yun and compliments her improved appearance, while Fang deflects both subjects through teasing and practical discussion.
• The chapter closes with Fang taking a protective but ominous role, preparing to explain the “slot” and its potential dangers to Ning Yu.

Chapter Summary

Key Plot Points and Events

• Fang Yishu reveals to her roommate Ning Yu that she has gained psychic abilities through a mysterious “slot.”
• She demonstrates telekinesis by levitating and controlling a thermos lid, then animates a charging cable so that it ties itself into a bow.
• Fang explains that the strange rumors of supernatural incidents and people gaining abilities may be genuine signs that the world is changing.
• She shows Ning Yu a written description of her exchange: a First-Tier Psychic Talent, obtained using Universal Points and Exchange Cards. The ability enhances both the mind and body but requires careful adaptation.
• Fang admits that Ning Yu’s earlier dizziness was caused by Fang unintentionally affecting her with psychic power.
• She warns Ning Yu to keep the matter secret, especially online, since people with abilities may attract surveillance or unwanted attention.
• Fang offers Ning Yu the chance to become involved or walk away, emphasizing that Ning Yu still has a normal life and does not need to enter this dangerous new world.
• Ning Yu hesitates but remains curious and asks whether such powers could make her taller and thinner, briefly breaking the tension.
• The two decide to get malatang and discuss the situation privately, with Fang advising Ning Yu to observe carefully, speak little, and conceal what she knows.

Character Developments

• Fang Yishu is revealed to be cautious, responsible, and increasingly aware of the dangers surrounding the supernatural changes. Though she jokes and teases Ning Yu, she is seriously concerned for her friend’s safety and feels responsible for informing her.
• Fang also displays a playful, almost childlike excitement about her new powers, repeatedly demonstrating them despite her warnings about secrecy.
• Ning Yu progresses from disbelief and shock to partial acceptance. Her practical curiosity and humor help ease the tension, while her willingness to listen suggests she may eventually become involved.
• Ning Yu’s privileged, peaceful upbringing is contrasted with Fang’s growing involvement in the dangerous “game” behind the abilities.

Significant Themes

• The intrusion of the supernatural into ordinary life: A familiar college dormitory setting becomes the site of impossible phenomena, suggesting that society is changing beneath an apparently normal surface.
• Secrets and responsibility: Fang stresses that knowledge and abilities must be concealed, since exposure could bring danger or surveillance.
• Choice and personal agency: Ning Yu is offered a genuine choice between remaining uninvolved and gaining the means to protect herself.
• Friendship and protection: Fang approaches Ning Yu not to recruit her recklessly, but because she values her and fears for her safety.
• Normalcy versus transformation: Everyday concerns—classes, weekend plans, food, and body image—coexist with psychic powers and the possibility of a worldwide upheaval.

Character Interactions

• Fang’s demonstrations initially leave Ning Yu speechless, but their familiar teasing dynamic quickly returns.
• Fang adopts a protective older-sister role, explaining the situation while warning Ning Yu not to act carelessly.
• Ning Yu asks direct questions and tests the reality of the abilities by touching the animated cable and observing the floating objects.
• Their exchange balances serious warnings with humor, particularly when Ning Yu asks about changing her height and weight.
• The chapter ends with the two leaving together for food, their friendship intact but permanently altered by Fang’s revelation.

Chapter Summary: “Uncle, You’re So Pretty!”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Li Yun sits quietly in a breakfast shop while mentally examining the vast network connected to the Main God Website.
• More than 35 million virtual individuals have been indirectly or directly incorporated into the system. Their mental energy contributes only a small amount compared with ordinary users, but their collective presence creates a massive web of consciousness.
• Li Yun briefly touches one thread and senses the despair of a young Black boy who lost a leg in a school-bus accident. The boy longs for a miracle and prays to have his leg restored.
• Finding the mass of human emotions and thoughts unpleasant, Li Yun filters out their individual identities and perceptions, reducing them to primitive emotional “signals” and energy-like halos.
• He observes his own consciousness as a powerful blue halo within the network. Although seemingly bound by the web, it exists on a higher level than the other connected minds and is largely unaffected by them.
• The Main God Website reports that:
  • The network may reach a stable energy-transfer balance at roughly 80–90 million users.
  • New users are being recruited more slowly, with several hundred to several thousand added daily.
  • There are approximately 1.17 million Level-One Main God Users and 31 Level-Two Users, including special observation targets.
• Li Yun stops his mental work when his breakfast arrives and returns to his ordinary routine of eating noodles and buns.
• A little girl named Bubble approaches him, calls him “pretty,” and asks how he became so attractive.
• Li Yun gives her candy, but she refuses because her father warned her about strangers kidnapping children. He then gives her a baby-bottle-shaped milkshake instead.
• Bubble becomes more interested in how Li Yun produces objects from his apparently flat pocket. Li Yun leaves after eating, leaving her puzzled and dissatisfied.
• Her father later examines the bottle and reads the label, “Baby Milkshake,” though he finds the object strangely familiar.

Character Developments

• Li Yun: Demonstrates his immense spiritual power and administrative control over the Main God network. He can perceive millions of minds, filter their emotions, and exist at a level beyond the network’s ordinary users. Despite this extraordinary state, he deliberately maintains mundane habits—such as eating breakfast—to preserve a connection with his former human life. His interactions with Bubble reveal patience, humor, and a gentle attitude toward children.
• Bubble: Appears observant, curious, and cautious. She recognizes Li Yun as male despite his beautiful appearance, refuses candy from a stranger, and focuses intensely on his seemingly impossible pocket space.
• The Main God system: Continues to expand and monitor its population, suggesting that its energy economy and user hierarchy are becoming increasingly complex.

Significant Themes

• The contrast between the cosmic and the ordinary: Li Yun manages a network spanning tens of millions of minds while calmly eating breakfast in a small shop.
• The burden of human consciousness: Individual thoughts and emotions are portrayed as chaotic, painful, and overwhelming when viewed collectively.
• Transcendence versus humanity: Although Li Yun has surpassed ordinary physical and mental limitations, he intentionally preserves human routines and simple social behavior.
• Hope and suffering: The disabled boy’s desperate prayer highlights the persistence of hope even in circumstances that appear hopeless.
• Childlike curiosity and adult caution: Bubble’s innocence contrasts with her father’s warnings about strangers, while her curiosity exposes the oddity of Li Yun’s abilities.
• Power hidden beneath normality: Li Yun appears to be an attractive, quiet customer, but he is actually connected to and superior to an immense metaphysical system.

Character Interactions

• Li Yun and the Main God system: The system provides statistical updates and recommendations while Li Yun acts as the administrator capable of adjusting or overseeing the network.
• Li Yun and the disabled boy: Their contact is indirect and one-sided; Li Yun briefly senses the boy’s suffering but does not intervene.
• Li Yun and Bubble: Bubble openly compliments and questions him. Li Yun responds with mild amusement, gives her gifts, pats her hair, and gently sends her away.
• Bubble and her father: Her father’s warnings make her wary of strangers, but she ultimately accepts the milkshake and later must surrender it for inspection.
• Li Yun and the breakfast-shop owner: Their interaction remains polite and ordinary, emphasizing how unremarkable Li Yun appears despite his extraordinary abilities.

Chapter Summary: “Testing and the Meditation Chamber”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Tang Yuyang undergoes cultivation testing in a highly classified government facility centered around an artificial spiritual-energy environment.
• After surviving his previous mission, he exchanged his former ability for the Daoist cultivation manual True Method of Nurturing the Origin and Returning to Fetal Breath, Orthodox Collection. Unlike the Main God’s directly implanted experience, this technique requires him to cultivate independently.
• Inside the meditation chamber, he struggles to redirect his internal energy away from his old circulation route and into the new meridian pathway described by the technique.
• The process is extremely exhausting, but he gradually senses a refreshing, cool energy entering through his body and nourishing his cultivation.
• After persistent effort, he completes his first heavenly cycle, with energy returning from the dantian up through the spine. This confirms that the technique has begun functioning successfully.
• Unknown to Tang Yuyang, researchers outside record the first detectable evidence of subtle energy movement along a human spinal region during the experiment.
• When he exits the chamber, the scientists applaud him enthusiastically. Professor Pan is eager to confirm the result, while others insist that Tang must rest and undergo examination.
• Tang confirms that the technique has genuinely begun operating, though leaving the spiritual-energy environment causes him to feel abruptly weak and depleted.
• He recognizes the immense value of the chamber, which uses a powerful Dragon Pearl and an array-type artifact to generate and contain spiritual energy.

Character Developments

• Tang Yuyang demonstrates discipline, endurance, and growing expertise. Though he regrets abandoning the easier, pre-implanted experience of his previous enhancement, he accepts that genuine cultivation requires painstaking personal effort.
• His prior internal-energy foundation proves crucial: it allows him to serve as the ideal test subject and gives him enough understanding to recognize when the technique succeeds.
• Tang also becomes increasingly aware of his privileged position. His special resources, compatible abilities, and willingness to share the cultivation method grant him access to classified national research.
• Professor Pan is portrayed as intensely excited and scientifically driven, treating Tang’s result as potentially groundbreaking and insisting that Tang’s own judgment is essential.
• The researchers collectively shift from cautious observation to enthusiastic celebration after the first promising breakthrough.

Significant Themes

• The difficulty of true cultivation: Gaining a technique is not the same as mastering it. Tang must overcome ingrained bodily habits and repeatedly force his energy onto an unfamiliar path.
• Persistence and discipline: Success comes only through exhaustion, concentration, and refusal to give up.
• Science and the supernatural: The government applies scientific testing and advanced equipment to investigate spiritual energy, turning cultivation into a national research project.
• Scarcity and privilege: The meditation chamber is presented as a priceless cultivation resource, available only because of Tang’s rare qualifications and the state’s extraordinary investment.
• Knowledge as a strategic resource: Tang’s cultivation method is not merely personal power; it has the potential to transform humanity’s understanding of energy and unlock new abilities.
• The gap between artificial and natural cultivation environments: Even a low-concentration spiritual-energy chamber is so valuable that leaving it produces an immediate and painful decline in Tang’s condition.

Character Interactions

• Tang interacts primarily with Professor Pan and the research team after leaving the chamber.
• Professor Pan excitedly questions Tang about whether he succeeded, while other researchers urge him to rest and undergo a medical examination first.
• Tang interrupts the debate to provide his own expert confirmation that the technique has begun functioning.
• The researchers treat Tang as both a valuable experimental subject and a pioneering contributor, applauding and praising him for producing the facility’s first meaningful result.

Chapter Summary: “Universality of Cultivation Methods”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Tang Yuyang recovers enough from his earlier breakthrough to be moved into a large machine for urgent medical and physiological examination.
• The other test subjects remain in the quiet room, repeatedly attempting to meditate, sense “true nature,” and draw in the newly identified spiritual energy particles.
• Researchers continue monitoring the experiment around the clock. Although most subjects show no meaningful changes, the team remains committed to a long-term investigation.
• Instruments detect that several test subjects with prior Main God enhancements—such as internal force, vitality, primordial energy, and knowledge of meridians—have begun unconsciously inhaling and exhaling spiritual energy. None has matched Tang Yuyang’s success, but their progress suggests they have begun entering the cultivation path.
• Ordinary participants, despite receiving nutritional support and practicing in the same artificial spiritual-energy environment, remain stuck at the earliest stages of calming the mind and developing qi sense. Their legs even become numb from prolonged meditation.
• The researchers conclude that the cultivation method’s practical universality is far lower than expected. Though it is advertised as relatively easy to learn and theoretically valuable, it still requires a suitable foundation or specialized physique.
• This is especially disappointing because the government hopes to discover a cultivation system that can be taught independently to the general population, rather than relying on Main God users and their direct “inheritance empowerment.”
• The chapter ends with the exhausted professors and experts returning to their materials—Daoist texts, body diagrams, and cultivation manuals—determined to continue their research despite the discouraging results.

Character Developments

• Tang Yuyang emerges as the most successful subject. His repeated attempts and strong foundation allow him to achieve a suspected breakthrough, making him the central proof that the method can work under ideal conditions.
• Enhanced Main God users demonstrate a major advantage over ordinary people. Their previous training and bodily improvements give them an intuitive grasp of internal energy, allowing them to make at least limited progress.
• Ordinary test subjects are shown to face enormous barriers. Their lack of prior cultivation experience, enhanced physiology, or qi sensitivity leaves them unable to progress beyond the introductory stage.
• Professor Pan and the research team shift from initial excitement to cautious realism. They remain hopeful, but their expectations become more restrained as the method’s limitations become clear.
• The older researchers also reveal their dedication and anxiety through their constant monitoring, sleepless work, and even nervous physical symptoms.

Significant Themes

• Universality versus individual talent: A cultivation method’s value depends not only on its power but on whether ordinary people can learn it.
• Dependence versus self-reliance: The government seeks a system that can be independently reproduced and taught to the public instead of depending on the Main God’s limited and externally controlled empowerment.
• Science confronting the unknown: Researchers use advanced instruments, experiments, and comparative data to study phenomena traditionally associated with mystical cultivation.
• Progress through failure: Even incorrect or incomplete results are considered valuable because they provide evidence, experience, and possible directions for future research.
• Social stability and practical application: The cultivation project is not merely academic. It is tied to the country’s need to prepare for growing unrest and provide a reliable means of strengthening society.
• The gap between theoretical value and practical usefulness: A method may be extraordinarily powerful and worth its high exchange cost, yet still have limited real-world value if very few people can successfully practice it.

Character Interactions

• Professor Pan questions the operator about whether anything has changed inside the quiet room, reflecting his continued concern and close involvement.
• The operator reports stable biological readings and humorously speculates that one subject may simply have scratched his thigh, showing the tension between the experiment’s grand goals and the mundane behavior of ordinary participants.
• Another older professor jokes about previous subjects snoring during meditation and reminds the team not to expect ordinary modern people to behave like immortals.
• The professors and experts repeatedly exchange sober looks and silently recognize the disappointing implications of the results.
• Despite their fatigue and concern, the researchers collectively recommit themselves to studying the ancient texts and experimental data, emphasizing their shared goal of developing a broadly accessible cultivation system.

Chapter Summary

1. Key Plot Points and Events

• Governments around the world abruptly begin reducing visible international cooperation. Diplomatic relations remain polite, but summits, military exercises, academic exchanges, financial forums, and foreign visits are quietly canceled or postponed.
• The cause appears connected to a mysterious, restricted-access website capable of generating or providing enormous quantities of extremely realistic, high-quality videos.
• Although many people cannot access the original site, its videos spread rapidly through edited clips, reposts, livestreams, and short-video platforms. Online creators exploit the material for views, treating the phenomenon as a source of endless content.
• Authorities deliberately allow and even assist the circulation of edited videos, while preventing users from tracing them back to the original website. Platforms modify search algorithms, suppress keywords, limit recommendations, and flag related content for review.
• Government personnel create hundreds of accounts and upload large numbers of videos as “smoke screens,” hoping to bury the source beneath a flood of imitations and unrelated material.
• Officials also monitor people attempting to buy login slots, record suspicious accounts and IP addresses, and coordinate with regional units.
• Despite these efforts, the chapter ends by emphasizing that the operation is exhausting, difficult to maintain, and unlikely to conceal the website indefinitely.

2. Character Developments

• Shen Taiguang is shown as an experienced, cautious official. Initially prepared to pressure his exhausted staff to work faster, he becomes sympathetic after seeing their condition and recognizes the enormous scale of the crisis.
• He correctly interprets the higher-ups’ vague instruction to stabilize the situation without openly denying or suppressing it as a request for a quiet, unofficial conciliatory strategy.
• The unnamed technical staff demonstrate resourcefulness and adaptability. Rather than simply blocking the phenomenon, they use algorithms, content flooding, monitoring, and controlled dissemination to manage public attention.
• The streamer known as King Dabao is portrayed as opportunistic and theatrical, using the mysterious videos to attract viewers while pretending that his content is the result of personal research and editing.

3. Significant Themes

• Information control and damage management: Authorities must contain the website’s influence without admitting that it exists, revealing the limitations of traditional censorship.
• Technology as both threat and tool: The same computer expertise that makes the mysterious videos possible is also used by officials to manipulate searches, create distractions, and monitor users.
• The instability of secrecy in the digital age: Once material spreads online, controlling its origin and consequences becomes extremely difficult.
• Global fear and tacit cooperation: The sudden decline in international activity suggests that multiple countries recognize the danger and are quietly responding in parallel.
• Exhaustion behind institutional power: The chapter humorously contrasts the apparent calm of governments with the overworked technicians struggling behind the scenes.
• Unintended popularization: Attempts to obscure the original website paradoxically make its content more widespread by encouraging reposts and derivative videos.

4. Character Interactions

• Shen Taiguang and the reporting technician: A weary female employee briefs Shen on algorithm changes, keyword controls, and manual reviews. Her exhaustion makes him reconsider pushing the team harder.
• Shen and the broader technical staff: Their work reflects a strained but coordinated relationship, with Shen overseeing operations while the staff carry out increasingly elaborate containment measures.
• Old Kang, Old Zhang, and regional units: Various departments cooperate by creating accounts, uploading videos, monitoring forums, and sharing information about suspicious users.
• King Dabao and his audience: He theatrically boasts about producing three new episodes, but quickly stops joking and delivers the video material viewers actually came to see.
• Authorities and online platforms: Their relationship is portrayed as an uneasy collaboration: platforms quietly tolerate “piracy” and manipulate recommendation systems because openly confronting the phenomenon could provoke more serious consequences.

Chapter Summary: “Codename ‘Holly’”

Key Plot Points and Events

• In MI6’s deeply secured “Water Layer,” Sir Rufus Claiborne and his subordinate Barnaby Kensington review the fate of the item codenamed “Holly.”
• Holly is revealed to be the White Dragon Heart, a supposedly Sixth-Tier extraordinary artifact with the potential to alter the geopolitical balance.
• The British government has officially ordered Holly transferred from MI6’s control to a secret research unit under the English Innovation Department. The transfer carries valid legal authorization and even a sealed endorsement from 10 Downing Street.
• MI6’s investigation into Holly’s previous owners reveals a trail of suspicious deaths. Its first known owner, Tatus Donick, died after returning alone through the wilderness, apparently followed and attacked by hyenas.
• The current holder voluntarily surrendered the artifact after realizing that previous possessors had died mysteriously.
• Six MI6 investigation teams—along with numerous informants—were killed in less than three days while pursuing the artifact between London and Manchester. Their deaths were disguised as accidents or ordinary street violence.
• The Innovation Department had already reserved Holly for joint research but had been unable to collect it promptly. A newly created internal unit has now demanded exclusive control of the artifact, intensifying the bureaucratic and institutional struggle.
• MI6 has planted Doctor Andrews within the Holly research project as a technical liaison. Though he lacks access to the core data, he is expected to monitor the project’s progress and direction.
• Rufus orders Barnaby to leak information about Holly to powerful consortium families within three days, deliberately drawing more factions into the conflict. He hopes the resulting competition will prevent any single party from monopolizing the artifact.

Character Developments

• Sir Rufus Claiborne is shown as exhausted, politically aware, and fiercely protective of MI6’s claim over Holly. His anger is not primarily grief over the dead agents or resentment toward the Innovation Department; it stems from the possibility that MI6 will lose control of an artifact capable of transforming global power.
• Rufus also reveals a ruthless strategic mindset. Rather than trying to preserve exclusive control, he is willing to provoke a wider struggle among wealthy and powerful factions so that no rival can secure Holly uncontested.
• Barnaby Kensington remains disciplined, respectful, and observant. He understands both the official situation and the deeper political implications behind Rufus’s orders. His willingness to carry out covert manipulation demonstrates his loyalty and competence.
• Doctor Andrews, though only mentioned, emerges as MI6’s embedded source inside the Holly project, suggesting that the agency is relying on infiltration as much as direct action.
• The unnamed previous holders of Holly are characterized as victims of the artifact’s dangerous influence or of the violent competition surrounding it.

Significant Themes

• Power and institutional rivalry: The central conflict is not simply over possession of an object, but over which government department or faction will control the knowledge and power it represents.
• The hidden violence of modern intelligence work: The chapter contrasts the public image of espionage with the reality of bureaucratic maneuvering, assassinations, falsified deaths, and expendable personnel.
• Dangerous knowledge and cursed power: Holly appears to bring death to its owners, while its potential geopolitical value encourages increasingly reckless efforts to control it.
• Political manipulation and balance of power: Rufus chooses to spread the secret rather than guard it, using competition among rival elites as a weapon against monopolization.
• Appearance versus reality: Official paperwork, legal seals, and “non-invasive observation” conceal a brutal struggle involving infiltration, murder, and covert power grabs.
• Institutional expendability: MI6’s agents and informants are treated as losses in a larger contest, emphasizing the human cost of secret power struggles.

Character Interactions

• Rufus and Barnaby maintain a formal superior-subordinate relationship, but their conversation shows mutual understanding. Barnaby recognizes Rufus’s true motives without needing them explained.
• Rufus questions Barnaby about the investigation, listens to the casualty report, and then gives him operational orders.
• Barnaby’s sarcastic comments about government departments and spy films provide a cynical contrast to Rufus’s grim seriousness.
• Rufus invokes religious language while acknowledging the deaths, but his later remarks reveal that strategic control matters more to him than mourning.
• Their final exchange establishes the next phase of the operation: Barnaby will contact old allies and leak Holly’s existence, while Rufus turns the artifact’s surrounding factions against one another.

Chapter Summary: “White Heart from a Dragon!”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Barnaby visits a heavily secured underground laboratory to inspect “Holly,” a palm-sized, living white core obtained at great cost.
• The object resembles a biological heart, containing complex vein-like structures and unusually dense fluids. Its irregular “beats” are extremely dangerous, having previously caused researchers to suffer cardiac arrest.
• The laboratory representative explains that Holly’s nature remains uncertain, though scans suggest it is both alive and unlike any ordinary human organ.
• Barnaby requests experimental records and warns the facility to strengthen its security. Outside groups are already targeting the laboratory, its scientists, and their families.
• Holly suddenly “beats,” producing a powerful invisible shockwave and blinding radiance. Barnaby experiences overwhelming instinctive pressure, nearly being forced to kneel.
• After the pulse, a black, smoke-like substance emerges from the core and is drawn back into it. Researchers attempt to collect or study the substance.
• The laboratory identifies the black mist as “aether,” but Barnaby demands a more meaningful explanation.
• The representative finally reveals the suspected identity of the object: the White Dragon, Heart of Vortigern the Vile King.

Character Developments

• Barnaby is portrayed as powerful, controlled, and politically experienced, but even he is physically shaken by Holly’s presence. His insistence on the truth shows his skepticism and determination to uncover the object’s real nature.
• The laboratory representative appears casual and humorous, using jokes to discuss a deadly artifact, but his protective equipment and apparent resistance to the pulse suggest extensive preparation and possible hidden abilities.
• The researchers are shown as both fascinated and endangered, treating Holly as a valuable scientific specimen despite its lethal effects.

Significant Themes

• The danger of knowledge and experimentation: Scientists risk their lives studying an object they barely understand.
• Power beyond humanity: Holly’s pulse evokes instinctive submission, suggesting the presence of an ancient or supernatural authority.
• Secrecy and political corruption: The laboratory is entangled with government departments, wealthy patrons, politicians, and secret agreements.
• The unknown nature of life: Holly appears to be a living heart, but its anatomy and energy are fundamentally nonhuman.
• Myth becoming reality: The final identification connects the scientific specimen to a legendary dragon and the “Vile King,” transforming the object from an unexplained anomaly into a mythological threat.

Character Interactions

• Barnaby formally questions the suited representative about the core’s properties and experimental progress.
• He warns the representative about security risks and demands that unauthorized visitors be delayed, even if they possess valid credentials.
• During Holly’s pulse, the representative calmly assists Barnaby by giving him protective sunglasses, while Barnaby struggles against the overwhelming force.
• Barnaby confronts the representative over the vague term “aether,” forcing him to reveal the artifact’s true suspected identity.

Summary: “Former Visitors” and a Trending Topic

1. Key Plot Points and Events

• As knowledge of the Main God platform spreads, the number of domestic Main God users reportedly exceeds 200,000. Most new users initially hide their identities and abilities, fearing government detection.
• After authorities deal with several reckless early users, many others become more cautious—but over time, some grow careless and begin exposing signs of their wealth or insider knowledge.
• Greater concern centers on “Former Visitors”: people who entered the platform’s Newcomer Trial once, failed, and were eliminated.
• A video circulates showing a former barbecue-shop owner who has developed severe psychological problems after apparently surviving a dinosaur-themed trial. He experiences vivid flashbacks, believes aliens are watching him, and repeatedly relives the terror of being chased and cornered.
• Officials identify him as a likely failed Visitor whose trauma caused his mental collapse. They explain that many failed Visitors remain hidden among the public, and some desperately want another chance to enter the platform.
• Failed participants cannot apparently be selected randomly again, but they can return by accepting an invitation slot from an existing user. This has created a growing market for invitation slots.
• Government officials warn that the situation must be managed through both guidance and enforcement, but the spread of information is already accelerating.
• With restrictions loosened and more people seeking the platform, online forums fill with claims, analysis, scams, requests for slots, and attempts to sell information.
• Some users become wealthy by selling invitation slots and then flaunt their money online through bank screenshots, luxury cars, and supposed insider commentary.
• One such user posts enough evidence to attract widespread attention on Tieba. He deletes the post after realizing the danger, but the deletion only strengthens public suspicion.
• The incident develops into a new trending topic, making the existence of the platform and its users even harder to conceal.

2. Character Developments

• Failed Visitors: They are presented as psychologically vulnerable survivors whose experiences may leave lasting trauma. Some become unstable, while others become obsessed with finding a second opportunity to enter the platform.
• The former barbecue-shop owner: His transformation from an ordinary struggling businessman into a mentally shattered, paranoid drifter demonstrates the severe psychological consequences of failure in the Newcomer Trial.
• Successful Main God users: Some remain discreet, but others become greedy, reckless, or eager for attention. Their public displays of wealth threaten to expose the entire system.
• Authorities: They shift from trying to suppress all information to selectively arresting major offenders, suggesting that the scale of the phenomenon has exceeded their ability to control it completely.
• The hidden “Main God” influence: A certain Main God, acting according to instructions, has quietly relaxed information blockades, unintentionally—or strategically—helping the rumor network expand.

3. Significant Themes

• The impossibility of secrecy: Even when extraordinary users initially hide themselves, greed, fear, trauma, and human carelessness eventually reveal them.
• Psychological trauma: The Visitor’s experience is not merely a dangerous adventure; failure can permanently damage a person’s mind and identity.
• Public reaction to the unknown: People struggle to dismiss the experiences as dreams once they become vivid, consistent, and connected to real-world disappearances and mental breakdowns.
• Greed and social instability: Sudden wealth encourages users to show off, turning a hidden supernatural system into a public spectacle.
• Information contagion: Rumors, online posts, scams, and speculation spread faster than authorities can suppress them.
• Government control versus mass curiosity: Official efforts to regulate the phenomenon increasingly give way to damage control as public interest becomes unstoppable.
• The dangers of opportunity: Invitation slots become valuable commodities, motivating both desperate failed Visitors and opportunistic sellers.

4. Character Interactions

• The disturbed former Visitor interacts uneasily with interviewers and police, treating them as threats or potential victims while reacting to imagined dinosaurs and pursuers.
• Government instructors brief uniformed personnel, explaining the risks posed by failed Visitors and the growing invitation-slot market.
• Main God users interact indirectly with the public through online posts, sales offers, boasts, and fabricated or genuine insider commentary.
• Netizens respond to the wealthy user’s post with suspicion and curiosity. His attempt to delete the evidence only intensifies their interest and confirms their doubts.
• Authorities, users, former Visitors, scammers, and ordinary online observers become entangled in a rapidly expanding information network that threatens to expose the platform completely.

Chapter Summary: “Snowballing”

1. Key Plot Points and Events

• After an online user is forced to delete an outrageous post about a mysterious “wealth myth,” netizens continue investigating rather than letting the matter die.
• Their digging uncovers alarming details: the poster had recently been a factory worker but suddenly became wealthy, referenced purchasable “slots,” and was connected to the supposedly fictional “Main God Space.”
• Discussions spread across multiple platforms, revealing clues about an official website, dream-based access to another world, and the possibility of bringing objects back from it.
• Although platform administrators attempt to suppress the topic, the information has already spread too widely. Censorship only increases public suspicion and curiosity.
• The controversy evolves from a minor display-of-wealth incident into a widespread demand for the truth about Main God Space, group transmigration, user slots, and the Infinite Main God.
• Major websites and media outlets begin organizing and promoting the rumors, turning related keywords into trending searches.
• Users discover that platforms are deliberately filtering or blocking these terms, which intensifies the belief that authorities are hiding a massive secret.
• Leaked videos and edited clips depicting impossible events—superhuman battles, bizarre worlds, resurrection, alien technology, and dangerous missions—are circulated as “visual evidence.”
• The chapter ends with public attention and fear reaching a boiling point, as the online “snowball” becomes nearly impossible to stop.

2. Character Developments

• The exposed poster: His sudden transformation from factory worker to apparent local rich person makes him a central source of suspicion, though he is quickly overshadowed by the larger mystery.
• Netizens: They shift from amused spectators and skeptics into determined investigators and emotionally invested truth-seekers. Their collective curiosity, anger, envy, and excitement drive the crisis.
• Online opportunists and influencers: They exploit the rising traffic by spreading rumors, speculation, “inside information,” and sensational content.
• Platform administrators: They become increasingly anxious and constrained, unable to suppress the situation effectively because of higher-level instructions and the sheer volume of public participation.
• Mainstream media: Rather than investigating cautiously, media outlets capitalize on the trend, packaging evidence and sensational images to attract more attention.

3. Significant Themes

• The snowball effect of online information: A small incident rapidly grows as reposts, speculation, algorithms, and media coverage continually attract new participants.
• Censorship creating suspicion: Attempts to block keywords and suppress discussion convince people that authorities already know the truth and are hiding it.
• The collapse of the boundary between fiction and reality: Internet urban legends become supported by websites, videos, and firsthand verification, forcing people to question their understanding of the world.
• Collective investigation and mass hysteria: Crowdsourced digging uncovers genuine clues but also mixes truth with misinformation, making the situation increasingly unstable.
• The power of images and media manipulation: Edited clips and striking screenshots function as “visual bombs,” spreading faster and provoking stronger reactions than written explanations.
• Public demand for truth: The population’s unease and desire for an explanation become a force stronger than official efforts to contain the story.

4. Character Interactions

• Netizens collectively pressure the original poster until he deletes his claim, then continue examining his background and connections.
• Investigators and curious users exchange clues, rumors, and supposed insider knowledge across forums and social platforms.
• Users challenge platform administrators over keyword blocking and censorship, interpreting those measures as evidence of a cover-up.
• Influencers, media organizations, and opportunists amplify one another’s content, transforming scattered rumors into a coordinated public frenzy.
• The public engages indirectly with the mysterious participants shown in leaked footage, whose extraordinary actions become evidence in the growing debate over Main God Space.

Chapter Summary: “Tides and Little People”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Xu Jingwei, using the online identity “Chad Fortune,” has sold a valuable Main God Space slot to a wealthy local businessman.
• In exchange, he receives an extraordinary windfall: a newly registered company, thirty million in registered capital, several properties, a luxury car, a new bank card, and promises of further social and personal benefits.
• Drunk and euphoric after celebrating with the businessman, Xu posts photos of his new car, luxury home, and bank balance online. He makes a vague reference to an “opportunity given by heaven” and claims that one “slot” changed his fate.
• What Xu believes is discreet bragging rapidly goes viral. Netizens identify his car and residential complex, investigate his background, speculate about the Main God Space, and demand that he explain how to obtain a slot.
• His post attracts envy, accusations, threats, reports, doxxing, and private messages from people hoping to buy a slot or uncover the secret behind his wealth.
• Realizing the possible legal and governmental consequences, Xu panics. He fears that his sudden fortune and online exposure will attract the attention of powerful authorities or other dangerous parties.
• He hides his new bank card beneath the sofa cushions, but the online controversy continues to grow. The chapter ends by emphasizing that Xu’s troubles are only a minor part of a much larger and worsening situation.

Character Development

• Xu Jingwei shifts dramatically from euphoric pride to terror and regret. His sudden wealth makes him arrogant and eager to prove himself to people who once looked down on him.
• His moment of vanity reveals his immaturity and lack of caution. He underestimates the power of the internet and the danger of exposing information related to the Main God Space.
• Once sober, he becomes painfully self-aware, repeatedly slapping himself and blaming his impulsive behavior.
• Although Xu has benefited from supernatural or extraordinary opportunities, he remains a relatively inexperienced participant—having completed only two missions—and is unable to understand the larger forces his actions may have triggered.

Significant Themes

• The danger of vanity and public exposure: Xu’s desire to show off turns a private success into a public crisis.
• The consequences of sudden wealth: Money brings Xu status and comfort but also fear, suspicion, and vulnerability.
• The gap between ordinary people and larger powers: Xu believes his personal transaction is momentous, yet the authorities regard him as only a minor element in a much greater unfolding crisis.
• Information spreading beyond control: Online rumors escalate rapidly, transforming a single boast into mass speculation and potentially serious consequences.
• Human weakness amid extraordinary events: Even with access to supernatural opportunities, Xu is driven by familiar emotions—envy, pride, insecurity, and regret.

Character Interactions

• Xu Jingwei and the wealthy businessman: The businessman flatters Xu and treats him like a close brother in order to cultivate their relationship after the transaction. Their interaction highlights the businessman’s calculated friendliness and Xu’s susceptibility to praise and luxury.
• Xu and online netizens: Netizens respond with curiosity, envy, hostility, mockery, and threats. Some seek to purchase a slot, others demand explanations or report him, while amateur investigators expose details about his identity and past.
• Xu and the authorities: There is no direct encounter yet, but Xu fears investigation. The narration clarifies that the relevant departments are not primarily concerned with him; their attention is focused on the broader and increasingly dangerous situation developing around the rumors.

Chapter Summary: “News Announcement”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Li Yun reflects on the recent online controversy and realizes that the existence of an official website containing undeniable evidence has prevented authorities from suppressing the issue through censorship or public-relations tactics.
• The chapter emphasizes that internet rumors are usually easy to dismiss because evidence can be fabricated. However, in this case, the evidence is verifiable and cannot be convincingly denied without exposing contradictions.
• A televised CNN interview features “Dr. Randall,” an elderly scientist discussing the vastness of the universe, the possibility of extraterrestrial civilizations, alternate forms of life, and beings existing in other spacetime dimensions.
• Randall’s discussion is presented in a lighthearted, sensationalized format. The hosts joke about aliens, the Chitauri, the Avengers, and the Justice League, treating extraordinary concepts as entertainment.
• Li Yun recognizes that Randall is not really an old scientist but an impersonator in poor-quality makeup. He notices flaws such as uneven eyebrows, unnatural wrinkles, and overly clear eyes.
• At the same time, major internet platforms publish an official announcement stating that a special press conference will be held on September 15 to address recent “special circumstances and anomalous phenomena.” The event will be livestreamed through authoritative media.
• Li Yun and the Main God discuss intelligence indicating that the United States plans to hold a related press conference several days earlier. Current news reports are understood to be preliminary preparation for a larger revelation.
• Li Yun concludes that domestic authorities have been forced to acknowledge the situation first because the evidence can no longer be contained. He expects the United States to reveal the truth later in a carefully timed display of apparent transparency.
• The chapter ends with Li Yun criticizing the power of the intelligent brain and worrying about the increasingly dangerous “wetware superbrain” project, which appears willing to treat human beings as expendable biological resources.

Character Developments

• Li Yun continues to develop from a former corporate worker into a sharp and calculating observer of global events. He analyzes media manipulation, political strategy, and technological threats with increasing confidence.
• His attention to the flaws in Dr. Randall’s disguise demonstrates his heightened observational ability and familiarity with nonhuman or technologically altered agents.
• Li Yun remains uneasy about the rapid escalation of advanced technology. Although he possesses considerable power and knowledge, he is disturbed that other factions are already pursuing morally extreme experiments.
• The Main God acts as Li Yun’s intelligence source, providing information gathered through Red Queen’s network infiltration and monitoring international movements.
• Dr. Randall—or the entity impersonating him— serves as a public-facing messenger. His speech introduces extraordinary ideas to viewers under the cover of speculative science and entertainment.

Significant Themes

• Truth versus censorship: Once evidence becomes verifiable and impossible to erase, governments can no longer bury an issue simply by ignoring it or controlling public relations.
• Media manipulation: The television program packages profound and frightening revelations as jokes and popular entertainment, allowing authorities to introduce the possibility of aliens or alternate dimensions without openly admitting anything.
• Controlled disclosure: Governments appear to be preparing the public gradually, using preliminary news reports and scheduled press conferences to manage the impact of the truth.
• Political competition: The United States and other powers are not merely responding to events; they are competing over who will reveal information first and control the narrative.
• Technological escalation and ethics: The intelligent brain and wetware superbrain project represent enormous scientific power, but their development raises concerns about surveillance, intrusion, experimentation, and the reduction of humans to raw materials.
• Limits of human understanding: The discussion of the universe’s vastness and alternate forms of existence suggests that humanity may be only a small, isolated part of a much larger reality.

Character Interactions

• Li Yun silently watches the CNN broadcast and mentally dissects both Randall’s appearance and the hosts’ scripted reactions.
• Dr. Randall interacts with the two hosts in a theatrical exchange: he raises the possibility of extraterrestrials and beings from other dimensions, while the hosts respond with jokes and superhero references to keep the discussion entertaining.
• Li Yun and the Main God have a brief analytical conversation about international responses, the timing of upcoming press conferences, Red Queen’s intelligence-gathering activities, and the capabilities of the intelligent brain.
• Their exchange highlights Li Yun’s strategic judgment and the Main God’s role as an artificial intelligence adviser and source of classified information.