Recaps

John negotiated an annual scholar exchange between Faoken and the Imperial Supreme Research Institute, securing a research team for his territory while concealing his plans to recruit them permanently. He then gave Manny a map to the Floating City Ruins, revealing that the ruins lay beneath the dangerous Kogass Rift and leaving Manny eager to pursue his lifelong wish.

• John replaced his demand for five hundred academicians with three years of scholar exchanges and donations, and Manny agreed to the terms and signed the contract.
• John privately planned to use Faoken’s research freedom, resources, and funding to persuade visiting scholars to stay, while considering coercive schemes if they chose to leave.
• John gave Manny a map showing the Floating City Ruins beneath the Zhen Dan Empire ruins in Kogass Rift, thirty kilometers underground.
• John revealed that the meteor that fell 392 years earlier had been the shattered Floating City and assured Jonathan that Manny’s Crown Tier power could protect an excavation team from the radiation.
• Manny recognized the opportunity to pursue the Floating City Ruins, and John asked whether he was satisfied with the gift.

John learned the location of the Astral Orbital Barrier Device’s research facility but hesitated to investigate because he sensed danger. After spotting and identifying foreign agents surveilling him, he decided to prepare a trap before visiting the facility, then found an unexpected person in his hotel room.

• John received a Level Three laboratory access card and one personal favor from Manny in exchange for information about the Floating City Ruins.
• John reviewed the facility’s location and security, but his danger sense and questions about the Obsidian Pocket Watch made him hesitate to go there.
• John spotted a raven watching him near the Imperial Grand Hotel and asked Bruno to expand the Inspection Forces’ security perimeter.
• A woman in a suit tried to question the raven about whether John had retrieved the coordinates, but it refused to cooperate and vanished with her.
• John used his Magic Eye to observe the woman and raven, inferred they were agents from the Amika Continent seeking the authorization coordinates, and decided to prepare a capture trap before visiting the facility.
• John entered his hotel room and found an unexpected figure inside.

Sellviya visited John and traded her promised plantation reward for military training at Imperial First Military Academy, then confessed her love and kissed him. John was left uncertain how to handle their feelings, while a painful scene began at the Beyat Family estate.

• Sellviya told John she wanted to study military command at Imperial First Military Academy instead of receiving a plantation.
• John agreed to arrange her admission and proposed sending promising officers from Faoken and allied groups to train in Ereno.
• Sellviya said she would tolerate John keeping Meyer Sistana confined, then kissed him and confessed that she loved him and could not bear him leaving.
• John thanked Sellviya using her childhood nickname, Via, and she left the room smiling.
• John realized Sellviya had learned the truth about Celestine and that his efforts to spare her pain had revealed his feelings.
• At the Beyat Family estate, someone screamed after being struck.

After learning that John Maslow had outmaneuvered Doran, Arias whipped his son and gathered the Beyat Family’s senior members to announce his plan to leave the Old Guard Party for the Reformist Faction. He revealed that John had been chosen by the Demon King as a candidate and had begun the Demon King Trial, winning the family’s enthusiastic support.

• Arias punished Doran for losing his command and handing over three developed mineral veins after being tricked by John Maslow.
• Arias announced that he intended to lead the Beyat Family out of the Old Guard Party and establish close ties with John Maslow and Faoken Territory.
• Nethers Beyat warned that joining the Reformist Faction could leave the family exposed to destruction if the Old Guard Party won the coming power struggle.
• Arias praised Nethers’s analysis but said he would not change course because he knew a secret about John Maslow.
• Arias revealed that the Demon King had chosen John as a candidate and that John had begun the Demon King Trial.
• The senior members cheered Arias’s decision to join the Reformist Faction and stand against the Old Guard Party.

John reasoned through the likely outcome of the peace talks before Wendy’s malfunctioning Mage Pack sent her crashing into him and breaking three of his ribs. After he forgave her, Wendy returned to Ereno with an important matter to tell him, leaving him braced for her news.

• John predicted that the peace talks would lead to territorial compromises, mutual reparations, and renewed trade between the Empire and the Allied Forces.
• John sensed Wendy approaching, confirmed Sellviya was elsewhere, and went outside the hotel to meet her.
• Wendy’s Mage Pack malfunctioned during her dive, and she misheard John’s warning before crashing into his abdomen and breaking three of his ribs.
• After receiving medical treatment, John reassured Wendy and told her not to blame herself for the accident.
• John asked why Wendy had returned early, and she said she had something very important to tell him.

Wendy revealed to John that she was a wandering princess of the Brown Kingdom and explained her family's royal ancestry, while John warned her against trying to reclaim the throne during the ongoing peace talks. When Wendy claimed her father had uncovered the truth behind the royal family's mysterious deaths, John confirmed the killings were tied to a noble of the Loran Kingdom.

• Wendy told John she was a descendant of the Brown Kingdom's Stoneheart King and showed him her family crest and family tree.
• John accidentally destroyed his chair while trying to conceal an unstable binding spell, and Wendy blamed the chair's poor quality.
• John warned Wendy that helping her claim the Brown Kingdom's throne could get him punished for interfering in another country's affairs.
• Wendy swore that her father had discovered the royal family's deaths were not caused by illness but were connected to a noble.
• John confirmed the deaths were connected to a noble of the Loran Kingdom.

John explained to Wendy how the De Vries Family had been manipulated into helping bring down the Brown Royal Family and why she could not safely reclaim the throne yet. He promised to help her return as queen when the Empire was strong enough, and after the peace talks ended, he received an unexpected invitation.

• John told Wendy that the De Vries Family had been turned into a pawn through a long conspiracy involving the Sankaster and Valdren Families and the Loran Kingdom.
• John warned Wendy that attempting to restore the Brown Kingdom without overwhelming Imperial support would bring several powerful factions together against her.
• John offered Wendy another path: remain at his side and reclaim her throne when the Empire was ready to support her; Wendy accepted his promise and kissed his cheek.
• Twenty-five days later, the peace talks ended with the First Imperial Air Force Army withdrawing from the Slock Kingdom border and the Loran Kingdom returning Gordon Town.
• The Allied Forces and the Empire agreed to roughly equal reparations, and John received an unexpected invitation after sending Sellviya and her companions to the Imperial First Military Academy.

John accepted an invitation to lecture at the Royal Women's Academy of Arts, where he recognized the event as a trap prepared by undercover Amikan commander Viola Sterling. Viola pressed her partner Evan Montana to help capture John, but Evan warned her that John was more dangerous than the Demon King and left her to face the mission alone.

• John agreed to attend the academy discussion after Bruno told him Ailafia wanted him to help the students understand war.
• John summoned Serbia and Galil, arranged for a forbidden device to be delivered, and identified Vienna Pavlova as an Amikan agent preparing to ambush him.
• Viola, whose real identity was Viola Sterling, planned to capture John and force him to reveal the Empire's secret weapon coordinates.
• Evan Montana confronted Viola and warned her not to act, saying the danger he sensed from John surpassed what he had felt from the Demon King.
• Viola refused to abandon her plan, and Evan transformed into a Death Omen Crow and left the academy office.

John brought Sellviya and Galil to a symposium at the Imperial Royal Women's Academy of Arts, suspecting that enemy agents would try to capture him there. When Professor Vienna appeared and feigned a broken projector, John recognized the danger and ordered Sellviya and Galil to attack her.

• John persuaded Sellviya to accompany him to the symposium and kept his counter-capture plan from Bruno.
• John decided that Dean Linus should have greeted him, while the assistant instructor led the group to the fourth-floor classroom.
• Professor Vienna announced that a broken magical projector would delay the symposium, then saw Sellviya and Galil and worried that her plan had become harder.
• John ordered Sellviya and Galil to take Vienna, and they lunged at her in the corridor.

Viola’s identity as a transcendent Mage was exposed, and Sellviya pursued her while John anticipated an attack on the academy. Sellviya pinned Viola with her Crimson Flame Erosion Spear, but a masked Crown Tier swordsman appeared and struck toward Viola, leaving Sellviya stunned by what she saw.

• Viola revealed her transcendent magic, attacked the approaching students with wind blades, and escaped through a window while Sellviya pursued her.
• John destroyed the wind blades before they reached the students and took Galil and a teaching assistant toward the Music Academy, expecting the enemy’s attack to begin.
• An academy-wide warning announced that unidentified attackers had invaded the Music Academy.
• Viola fled from Sellviya, but Sellviya struck her shoulder with a Crimson Flame Erosion Spear and pinned her against a wall.
• A masked figure attacked with Crown Tier sword energy, and Sellviya realized the strike was aimed at Viola, who was supposed to be pinned to the wall.

A silver-masked Crown Tier mage rescued Viola, learned that her unit had no coordinates for the Star Spell target, and killed her. Tolovsky failed to catch the mysterious mage after the Crown of Omniscience disrupted his magic, then ordered an investigation and began considering the Astral Orbital Barrier Device.

• Sellviya survived the mysterious mage’s warning slash and hurried back to report the encounter to John.
• The silver-masked woman questioned Viola, cut off her arm, and learned that the United States of Amika had ordered surveillance and sabotage but had no coordinates.
• The silver-masked woman killed Viola and escaped Tolovsky when the Crown of Omniscience interfered with his attack.
• Tolovsky bound the unresponsive Crown of Omniscience, memorized the woman’s magical aura, and ordered the Eye of Truth Corps to investigate spatial Crown Mages.
• Tolovsky learned that John was at the Royal Women's Academy of Arts, asked Kaspar to arrange a meeting, and turned his attention to the Astral Orbital Barrier Device.

John learned that the failed attack on him had involved Fiona Lesco, an unidentified Crowned Rank swordswoman, and the Arcane Ring he had once hidden in the Astral Realm. Tolovsky explained the ring’s origins and suspected Fiona wanted its coordinate, leaving John to face a conspiracy tied to his lost memories and an ancient arcanist bloodline.

• John identified the attackers’ communications devices as belonging to the United States of Amika and ordered Galil to collect them for research.
• Galil suspected Amika had targeted John to reignite the war and resolved to hunt down its agents.
• Sellviya reported that Fiona Lesco had helped Vienna escape after defeating her with a strange spatial sword technique.
• John recognized Fiona from the sequel’s background material and was summoned to the Stargazing Spire by Tolovsky.
• Tolovsky said Fiona had escaped his attempt to kill her and identified the Arcane Ring as the likely object of her search.
• Tolovsky explained that John had hidden the Arcane Ring in the Astral Realm and anchored it to someone in the Empire, while Fiona might descend from an ancient arcanist.

John secured Tolovsky’s agreement to send Balga Istania to Faoken Territory as his protector, in exchange for fixing the flaws in Temporal Stasis within two years. Meanwhile, Dries Ostan confronted his heir Iver about his mistress and revealed that he knew Iver had been poisoning him.

• John asked Tolovsky about the Arcane Ring’s anchor point, and Tolovsky gave him an Astral Realm Chart that John could not yet safely study.
• John offered to fix Tolovsky’s Temporal Stasis Star Spell in exchange for a combat-focused Crown Tier mage to protect him in Faoken Territory, and Tolovsky agreed to assign Balga Istania for two years.
• John accepted the agreement despite anticipating trouble from Balga’s hatred of Beastfolk and volatile temperament.
• Dries Ostan summoned Iver and demanded that he kill his lowborn mistress or let Dries have her killed.
• Iver promised to deal with his mistress, while fearing that Dries had uncovered her role in supplying him with poison.
• Dries asked Iver whether he was frightened because Dries knew he had been poisoning him for years.

Dris exposed and killed his son Ivel for conspiring with Theodore, then witnessed Liana awaken the Ostan Glory War Soul and appointed her his successor. After Dris died, Liana accepted command of the navy and issued her first order as duke.

• Dris revealed that he had monitored Ivel's poisoning attempts and secret alliance with Theodore, then defeated Ivel despite his corrupting potion.
• Dris used his Crown Tier power to annihilate Ivel and explained that Theodore had intended to manipulate him and seize the Ostan Family's power.
• Liana arrived in time to witness Ivel's death, awakened the Glory War Soul, and received Dris's support as his heir and the navy's next grand marshal.
• Dris ordered the six fleet marshals to begin the Purge Operation against Theodore and his followers, then gave Liana his final instructions before dying.
• Liana took the Sea Dragon Seal, saw the Reformist Faction's flag raised at the port, and announced her first order as Ostan Duke and commander of the navy.

After Dries Ostan’s death, Prime Minister Wolf Caster ordered his faction to withdraw and warned that Emperor William would exploit the succession to expand imperial power. William mourned Dries, ordered surveillance of Wolf and protection and testing for Liana, and vowed to pursue reform even if it turned him into a monster.

• Wolf learned that Dries Ostan was dead, Theodore Ostanen had been captured, and Liana Ostan had secured the navy’s support.
• Wolf rejected Michel Lart’s proposal to attack the Ostan Family and ordered their agents to lie low for at least three months.
• Wolf burned the reform plan he had once made with Dries and predicted William would use the succession to bring the navy under imperial control.
• William heard the reports of Dries’s death and recalled how Dries had once defied orders to save the Empire’s eastern coast.
• William ordered the Inspection Forces to monitor Wolf Caster, sent The Nameless to protect and test Liana, and arranged to attend Dries’s burial at sea.
• William vowed to carry out Dries’s reforms despite becoming a brutal ruler, then shattered the mirror before him.

After learning that Dries Ostan had died and Liana Ostan had taken over the duchy, John prepared to act and called an evening meeting at Binote Manor. Meanwhile, Duke Mosesiris revealed his plan to exploit the Empire’s power struggle, march on the capital, and seize the throne.

• Ian told John that Dries Ostan was dead, Ivel had disappeared, and Liana Ostan had inherited the duchy.
• John decided to attend Dries’s burial at Storm Fortress and summoned Barnabos and the other members to a meeting at Binote Manor that night.
• Duke Mosesiris’s supervisors reported on the power vacuums left by Dries’s death and the rival factions’ expected struggle.
• Mosesiris ordered his agents to make William, Wolf, and Liana weaken one another before the Blood Lion Legion marched east under the pretext of defending the throne.
• Mosesiris declared that he would take the throne and rule the Empire.

John summoned the 303rd Division’s officers and intelligence allies to reveal the threat of revived forbidden experiments and reject both sides in the coming party struggle. He announced that he would found a third faction, the People’s Party, and left the attendees to decide whether to join.

• Laiya secured the Binote Manor secret chamber for John’s meeting with the 303rd Division’s officers, Sellviya, Galil, Ian, and Barnabos.
• John announced that Ostan Duke had been poisoned, his heir Iver had vanished, and his daughter Liana had inherited the title.
• John revealed records showing 130,000 victims of the Empire’s forbidden experiments and warned that Old Guard Party members planned to revive the program in pursuit of long life and immortality.
• Sellviya vowed to stop the experiments, while John said he would support neither the Old Guard Party nor the Reformist Faction because both preserved the Empire’s oppressive class system.
• John condemned inherited privilege and declared that honor and power should belong to the people rather than noble families.
• John displayed the People’s Party flag and announced his plan to establish the party, leaving everyone free to choose whether to join.

John secured the support of all fourteen founding members for the People's Party, including Laiya after promising to protect the imperial family while insisting that power be returned to the citizens. After they signed a confidentiality contract, he announced that he planned to revise the Maslow Quotations because he had falsified some of their core ideas.

• Miles joined the People's Party after Igonila threatened him with a dagger beneath the table.
• Sellviya rejected the idea of being a follower, then joined as an equal member after John refused her demand for special status.
• Laiya asked whether John would kill William and the Perus Imperial House, and he promised to protect them if real power was returned to the citizens.
• Laiya joined the People's Party, bringing the founding membership to fourteen.
• John and the other founders marked a confidentiality contract with their blood and magic.
• John told the group that he had falsified ideas in the Maslow Quotations and proposed revising them.

John revealed that he had altered the Maslow Quotations to conceal their true message of humanity’s liberation, then urged the People's Party’s founders to unite against oppression despite their weakness. The thirteen pledged to follow him, leaving the party committed to its dangerous struggle.

• Hawk supported John’s decision to revise the quotations, and the others unanimously agreed.
• John projected the original passage calling for humanity’s liberation, and the group recognized the quotations’ true doctrine.
• John described the party’s political and military weakness and the powerful enemies it faced.
• John urged the founders to use the coming conflict between the Reformist Faction and the Old Guard Party to grow the People's Party and unite anyone who shared its convictions.
• John vowed to pursue liberation despite the danger, and all thirteen pledged to stand beside him until death.

John organized the People's Party's development plan and prepared to approach Liana Ostan, who had unexpectedly inherited the dukedom. At Dries Ostan's burial at sea, he watched Liana's composure and found her alone afterward, where he offered her his umbrella and condolences.

• John adopted Hawk's three-year plan for expanding the People's Party, assigned responsibilities to its members, and decided he alone would contact Liana Ostan.
• Parliament announced Dries Ostan's death and Liana's succession, and William, Wolf, Mosesiris, and John attended the duke's burial at sea.
• Liana maintained a composed public bearing at the funeral, honored her father with a speech, and sent his coffin and naval cap into the sea.
• After the funeral, John stayed aboard the ship while Liana stood alone in the rain, then approached her with an umbrella and offered his condolences.

At Duke Dries Ostan's funeral, John Maslow negotiated an alliance with his daughter Liana, offering Faoken's resources and military support in exchange for shipbuilding expertise and backing for his local reforms. Liana accepted his token and agreed to receive his envoy in three days, while warning him about Duke Mosesiris.

• John identified Liana as the Reformist Faction's only naval banner and argued that she needed a dependable ally to secure her authority.
• John offered Faoken's timber, salt, steel, and possible Lizardfolk troops in exchange for Ostan shipyard technology and 350 skilled craftsmen.
• John proposed publicly supporting reforms in Faoken, including common-born officers' promotion, nonhuman troops, and a Local Council Consultative System; Liana asked for time and a detailed proposal.
• John recalled Duke Dries's final signed document praising him, and Liana accepted his badge and agreed to meet Major Wendy in three days.
• Liana warned John that Duke Mosesiris sought the throne, while John shared intelligence about Count Glendor's meetings with navy lieutenant generals.

After securing Liana’s cooperation, John prepared Wendy to negotiate a secret alliance with the Ostan Duchy and returned to Ereno. There, he told Galil that the time had come to lift the curse and keep his promise to her.

• John assigned Wendy to lead Faoken’s trade talks with Liana and drafted three documents, including a secret plan to counter the Old Guard Party.
• John explained that Liana needed his support and ordered Wendy to investigate Ostan Territory’s finances for signs of tampering.
• John attended Dries Ostan’s funeral banquet, then returned to Ereno with Wendy aboard William’s train.
• After organizing his outstanding business, John summoned Galil and told her to gather the Drow warriors in Ereno so he could lift their curse.

Galil led a disguised Drow caravan to Lunalia to take part in a purification ritual, while Mayor Buller tried to keep his town safe from the dangerous visitors. After sensing Amikan forces nearby, Galil ordered her mages to attack and kill them.

• Kalia paid Mayor Buller to lodge her caravan at the Laurel and Silver Coin and arrange a private visit to Moon Lake.
• Buller warned his nephew not to provoke the caravan, then speculated that its members might die near Moon Lake and leave their wagons behind.
• Galil revealed her Drow identity and told her deputy that nine other caravans were traveling to Lunalia for the cleansing ritual.
• Galil sensed an unfamiliar presence in the western forest and identified it as Amikans who had attacked Governor John.
• Galil ordered Jaba to gather every Mage of Upper Tier or higher and kill all the Amikans.

Galil and the Drow ambushed an Augmented Corps unit from the United States of Amika near Lunaria Town, killing nearly all of its soldiers. They captured a technician carrying valuable intelligence and technical files, then prepared to return to Officer John.

• A hundred Augmented Corps soldiers advanced toward Lunaria Town to test their equipment and capture people with a Unique Formula.
• The soldiers detected a Transcendent Tier mana source, and Galil and the Drow attacked them under cover of darkness.
• Galil killed the captain and the Drow eliminated most of the unit, while their Shadow Arts defeated the soldiers’ targeting systems.
• A technician offered intelligence files and technical data in exchange for his life, and Galil chose to take him prisoner.
• Galil ordered the Drow to collect equipment, clean up the battlefield, and keep the surviving technician alive for Officer John.

Galil reported that she and the Silver Moon Legion had freed the Drow from their curse and destroyed an Amikan Augmented Corps unit, leaving John alarmed by the consequences and Galil’s newfound admiration for him. In Ereno, Prime Minister Wolf suspected John was helping the Emperor and ordered the Cabinet to approve the formation of John’s 303rd Independent Division.

• Galil reported that her troops had lifted the Drow’s curse and eliminated an Amikan unit, capturing a prisoner with valuable intelligence.
• John praised Galil and the Silver Moon Legion, then dismissed them before Galil’s reverent attention made him fear she had romantic feelings for him.
• Michel told Wolf that John had met with Liana Ostan and that John’s deputy had visited her and toured an Ostan shipyard.
• Wolf concluded that John was clearing the way for someone else and said Emperor William was testing John’s loyalty and political instincts.
• Michel explained that the Cabinet and Defense Department had delayed equipment and personnel approvals for John’s 303rd Independent Division, and Wolf ordered him to approve it.