Chapter Summaries

Chapter Summary: “Civilized Route”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Morel comes onto the deck to discuss the ship’s route, only to find Bai Zhu, Piyu, and Ging relaxing while Gela Jiang and Milluki play games. The crew has effectively turned the deck into a leisure area.
• Morel reprimands them for sunbathing and gaming while he handles navigation, reports, the tugboat crew, and Kakin’s Maritime Department. Bai Zhu jokingly argues that Morel’s competence allows everyone else to relax.
• Morel announces that Kakin has granted the ship a temporary docking permit at Ulo Port. The official reasons are resupplying and assisting with the investigation, but Kakin intends to verify the identities of several passengers.
• Bai Zhu, Ging, and Milluki are singled out for separate identity checks:
  • Bai Zhu at the main customs building
  • Ging at the Hunter Association’s temporary office
  • Milluki at the equipment inspection area
• Piyu explains that Ulo Port is controlled by the Kakin royal family and linked to the military, meaning communications will likely be blocked. Milluki suggests planting a digital backdoor, but Morel warns that Kakin may be trying to provoke him into making the first move.
• Bai Zhu agrees to undergo the inspections, calling it the “civilized route.” However, he implies that Kakin is acting boldly because they believe the group is restrained by their responsibilities and affiliations.
• Rather than going through customs normally, Bai Zhu decides to bring Mynah, the talking bird, in a suitcase. He secretly teaches the bird a provocative phrase.
• Mynah loudly shouts, “First Queen! Knife up the ass!” Bai Zhu smugly prepares to take the bird ashore as a deliberately insulting “greeting gift” to Kakin.

Character Developments

• Bai Zhu remains playful, provocative, and seemingly carefree, but reveals that he understands Kakin’s political strategy. His joking behavior masks a deliberate willingness to confront their intimidation tactics.
• Morel is established as the responsible operational leader. He manages the route, diplomatic complications, and crew safety, though the others’ laziness and Bai Zhu’s antics severely test his patience.
• Ging initially relaxes passively but quickly recognizes that Kakin intends to separate the group. He also appears amused by Bai Zhu’s strategy, despite understanding its risks.
• Milluki is defensive about his involvement in Kakin’s scrutiny and insists that his hacking activities were justified. He remains technically capable but impulsive, eager to establish a backdoor before Morel stops him.
• Piyu shifts from joking observer to alert analyst when the political danger becomes clear. Her concern about Bai Zhu being detained shows that she is personally invested in the group’s safety.
• Mynah functions as Bai Zhu’s comedic weapon, enthusiastically repeating offensive phrases and participating in his provocation.

Significant Themes

• Responsibility versus leisure: Morel’s hard work contrasts with the rest of the group’s relaxed attitude, emphasizing both the burden of leadership and the trust the others place in him.
• Provocation and psychological warfare: Kakin attempts to intimidate and control the group through separated inspections, while Bai Zhu counters by turning compliance itself into a public spectacle.
• Appearances versus intentions: Bai Zhu’s pajamas, jokes, and seemingly foolish plan conceal a serious understanding of Kakin’s expectations and vulnerabilities.
• Civilized behavior as defiance: Bai Zhu claims to be taking the peaceful, lawful approach, but deliberately uses that approach to embarrass and challenge Kakin.
• Group dynamics and loyalty: The team balances teasing and absurdity with genuine awareness of one another’s risks, affiliations, and responsibilities.

Character Interactions

• Morel repeatedly clashes with Bai Zhu over the crew’s lack of seriousness, while Bai Zhu deflects criticism with humor and flattery.
• Piyu and Milluki join in the banter but become more serious once the implications of Kakin’s identity checks are explained.
• Morel restrains Milluki from making a premature cyberattack, reflecting his cautious leadership.
• Bai Zhu exposes the fears and obligations tying the group together, suggesting that Kakin believes these constraints will prevent retaliation.
• Ging recognizes Bai Zhu’s plan with amusement, while Morel reacts with mounting frustration.
• Mynah’s final insult transforms Bai Zhu’s “civilized” plan into an intentionally provocative challenge to Kakin’s royal authorities.

Chapter Summary: “Supreme Big Slipper”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Bai Zhu arrives in the Kakin Empire by cruise ship and is immediately horrified by the harbor’s filth and crude public behavior. He tries to flee, declaring the destination canceled, but Ging stops him and reminds him that Kakin is supposedly his hometown.
• At customs, Bai Zhu observes security personnel intimidating Piyu. Morel and Gela Jiang subtly protect her, causing the guards to back down.
• Bai Zhu is taken into a secret inspection room. When he opens the suitcase containing his mynah bird, the bird loudly insults the customs officers and then invokes the First Princess Consort with an obscene phrase.
• A royal guard attempts to silence or kill the bird using Nen. Bai Zhu instantly overpowers him, revealing that his physical abilities have dramatically improved after upgrading his stats. He pins the guard to the floor with his flip-flop and proudly calls it the “Supreme Big Slipper.”
• The guard explains that First Princess Consort Unma wants Bai Zhu’s blood for royal medical research and requests that he change his pajamas and slippers before meeting her.
• Bai Zhu meets Unma in a secure underground room. She initially insults him in the Kakin royal dialect, but he remains unimpressed and casually eats a mint.
• Unma offers him one hundred million Jenny per milliliter of blood. Bai Zhu immediately changes from refusing to cooperate into an enthusiastic businessman, agreeing to provide as much blood as she needs.
• Unma concludes that Bai Zhu is merely a greedy, cowardly lowborn man. However, Bai Zhu’s calculating expression suggests he is concealing his true motives.

Character Developments

• Bai Zhu: Displays intense disgust toward Kakin’s environment, but also extraordinary confidence and combat ability. His upgraded physical stats allow him to defeat a royal guard before the man can react. He uses humor, shamelessness, and apparent greed as masks while carefully evaluating situations.
• Ging: Remains calm and blunt, stopping Bai Zhu from escaping and casually labeling him “low caste.” His detached attitude contrasts with Bai Zhu’s dramatic reactions.
• Piyu: Appears vulnerable when confronted by the harbor guards, instinctively shrinking back. Her companions’ silent support shows that she is protected by the group.
• Morel and Gela Jiang: Demonstrate quiet solidarity with Piyu, using their presence to discourage the guards from abusing her.
• The Mynah: Acts as Bai Zhu’s unruly but effective weapon, insulting officials and provoking situations with its memorized phrases.
• Unma: Initially arrogant and contemptuous, viewing Bai Zhu as beneath her. Her opinion shifts when she realizes he is motivated by money, though she fails to recognize his hidden calculations.
• The Royal Guard: Underestimates Bai Zhu based on his official combat records and casual appearance, then suffers a humiliating defeat.

Significant Themes

• Appearance versus reality: Bai Zhu’s pajamas, flip-flops, and apparently crude behavior conceal his rapidly increasing strength and intelligence.
• Class prejudice: Unma and the Kakin officials judge Bai Zhu as “lowborn trash,” while Bai Zhu turns their contempt to his advantage.
• Money and power: Unma assumes Bai Zhu can be controlled with wealth, while Bai Zhu appears willing to exploit the royal family’s desperation for his own purposes.
• Defiance of authority: Bai Zhu refuses to respect Kakin’s officials or royalty automatically, attacking a guard and mocking Unma’s status.
• Hidden agendas and manipulation: Both Bai Zhu and Unma try to assess and use one another, but Unma does not realize that Bai Zhu is deliberately performing the role of a greedy simpleton.
• Cultural disgust and social disorder: Bai Zhu’s reaction to Kakin’s harbor emphasizes the contrast between his standards and the empire’s lax, degrading public conditions.

Important Character Interactions

• Bai Zhu and Ging: Their exchange establishes Bai Zhu’s alienation from Kakin and Ging’s blunt, dry manner.
• Bai Zhu and the customs officers: The mynah’s insults create an immediate power imbalance and make the officers fearful.
• Bai Zhu and the royal guard: The guard threatens Bai Zhu’s bird, prompting Bai Zhu to respond with overwhelming force.
• Bai Zhu and Unma: Their meeting becomes a negotiation disguised as an insult-filled confrontation. Unma sees Bai Zhu as an easily purchased lowborn man, while Bai Zhu quietly studies her and accepts the blood deal for reasons not yet revealed.

Chapter Summary: “A Hundred Million per Milliliter, No Deception”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Bai Zhu negotiates with Unma, the First Queen Consort of Kakin, to sell his blood at an exorbitant rate: 100 million Jenny per milliliter.
• Refusing to let the royal family proceed informally, Bai Zhu drafts a deliberately excessive contract on a napkin. It limits blood draws to 50 milliliters per day, demands immediate payment, restricts usage, and imposes a 50-billion-Jenny penalty for military, biological-weapon, or mass-casualty applications.
• Unma accepts and seals the napkin contract. Bai Zhu gives 30 milliliters of blood and immediately receives three billion Jenny.
• Before leaving, Bai Zhu warns Unma that her fourth son, Tserriednich, has been associating with Pariston, hinting at internal royal intrigue and undermining her efforts to strengthen her eldest son.
• Bai Zhu exits while provoking Unma further through his irreverent behavior and his myna bird’s insulting remark.
• In the palace corridors, Bai Zhu notices a mysterious veiled figure whose presence causes the Nen-sensitive bird to fall silent, suggesting the figure possesses dangerous or overwhelming Nen.
• At the Hunter Association’s temporary office, Ging gives technically truthful but useless answers to Kakin investigators, protecting his actual purpose and relationship with Bai Zhu.
• At the port, Milluki defeats Kakin’s attempts to breach his encrypted terminal, humiliating the technicians and disrupting the inspection network.
• The group reunites. Bai Zhu proudly reveals that he earned three billion Jenny by selling blood, shocking Milluki and Morel.
• On the cruise ship, Bai Zhu presents the signed contract and insists that its extreme terms are not extortion but “commercial risk hedging.”
• His system awards him a hidden achievement, “Blood Vending Machine,” for selling more than 10 milliliters of blood to the same hostile force.
• The system also warns that his blood produces an unknown reaction characterized by intense rejection and contamination.
• In Kakin’s underground laboratory, Unma tests the blood. It turns the culture medium golden, while nearby Nen Beast embryos recoil from it as though sensing a natural predator.
• Rather than becoming cautious, Bai Zhu decides to sell even more blood and exploit the royal family’s desperation.
• He receives a message from Tserriednich stating that guards from the Second Princess have been sent to collect him. Bai Zhu realizes Tserriednich may be using him to test his sister’s reaction and becomes interested in the political situation surrounding Ella, the Second Princess.

Character Developments

• Bai Zhu demonstrates his shameless bargaining style, commercial cunning, and willingness to exploit powerful people. He remains playful and arrogant but is also careful about contracts, payment, liability, and personal safety.
• His confidence grows after earning three billion Jenny, and the system warning does not frighten him; instead, it encourages him to pursue even greater profits.
• Unma shifts from contemptuous superiority to reluctant acceptance of Bai Zhu’s terms. His warning about Tserriednich exposes her vulnerability and forces her to consider threats within her own family.
• Tserriednich emerges as a manipulative political player, apparently attempting to use Bai Zhu as a probe against the Second Princess.
• Ging remains evasive and controlled, revealing nothing useful to Kakin while maintaining a casual demeanor.
• Milluki is portrayed as technically dominant and smug, easily frustrating Kakin’s specialists.
• Morel becomes increasingly exasperated by Bai Zhu’s bizarre behavior and profitable schemes.
• The myna bird continues to function as a comic extension of Bai Zhu’s provocations while also revealing sensitivity to powerful Nen.

Significant Themes

• Commerce as power: Bai Zhu turns his own blood into a strategic commodity and uses contracts to gain leverage over the royal family.
• Greed and exploitation: The chapter humorously frames Bai Zhu’s outrageous demands as legitimate business while showing Unma’s willingness to pay enormous sums for a possible advantage.
• Political manipulation: Tserriednich, Unma, and Bai Zhu all attempt to use one another for information or strategic benefit.
• Hidden danger beneath profit: Bai Zhu’s blood is not merely valuable; it has an abnormal, potentially dangerous effect on biological and Nen-related life.
• Moral detachment: Bai Zhu formally restricts harmful uses of his blood but simultaneously treats the situation as an opportunity to “fleece” the royal family.
• Power concealed behind appearances: Ging’s harmless answers, Milluki’s casual hacking, and the veiled figure’s silent presence all suggest that the characters’ true capabilities and motives are much greater than they openly display.

Important Character Interactions

• Bai Zhu and Unma: Their negotiation is antagonistic but effective. Bai Zhu humiliates Unma with his lowborn arrogance and impossible contract, while Unma tolerates him because his blood may benefit her son.
• Bai Zhu and Tserriednich: Although they do not meet directly, Bai Zhu’s warning to Unma and Tserriednich’s later message establish an emerging strategic relationship based on mutual exploitation.
• Bai Zhu and the group: His announcement of the three-billion-Jenny payment shocks Milluki and Morel, reinforcing how unpredictable and financially opportunistic he is.
• Ging and Kakin officials: Ging gives polite but deliberately useless answers, frustrating the investigators without technically lying.
• Milluki and Kakin technicians: Milluki casually humiliates the technicians by defeating their security efforts and watching them fail repeatedly.
• Unma and the laboratory staff: Unma personally oversees the blood experiment, demonstrating her investment in the project and her eagerness to see results, while remaining unaware of the danger posed to the developing Nen Beasts.

Chapter Summary: “Old Friends Reunited? More Like Settling Old Scores!”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Bai Zhu receives a message arranging a meeting with the Second Prince’s forces. A heavily guarded convoy arrives at the harbor under a white flag, signaling a negotiation.
• Investigating the Second Princess, Camilla, reveals that she is rumored to be an unpredictable ruler with a fiercely loyal unit of Untouchables and a traumatic upbringing in a slum Church.
• Bai Zhu accepts the invitation, suspecting that Tserriednich is trying to use him to investigate Camilla and the political situation surrounding her.
• He brings Ging, Milluki, and Piyu to an abandoned Church outside the city, while Morel and Gela Jiang remain behind to guard the ship.
• Camilla reveals that she wants a copy of a recording from the Creation Society’s ship. She intends to use it as evidence that the Church and Creation Society experimented on her and forcibly enhanced her, hoping to exchange it for freedom from the Succession War.
• Bai Zhu refuses to trust her and demands to know what happened to Ella, the gentle friend he once knew. Camilla initially maintains a hardened, manipulative persona and allows her guards to threaten Bai Zhu’s group.
• When Bai Zhu mentions Feng Xia, Camilla’s composure breaks, exposing that she may have betrayed or abandoned former companions. Her personality briefly shifts back to the timid Ella Bai Zhu remembers.
• Concluding that the meeting is a trap rather than a genuine reunion, Bai Zhu leaves without agreeing to provide the recording.
• Before departing, he passes along Tserriednich’s message that he is looking forward to Camilla’s “surprise.”
• On the way back, Milluki is devastated by the possibility that Ella betrayed their old friends. A new message from the unknown sender then arrives, sarcastically asking whether Bai Zhu enjoyed Camilla’s hospitality.

Character Developments

• Bai Zhu: Becomes increasingly distrustful and emotionally guarded. Although he jokes and dresses absurdly, he remains observant and quickly recognizes the gap between Camilla and the Ella he knew. His mention of Feng Xia deliberately tests Camilla and exposes her weakness.
• Camilla/Ella: Is portrayed as psychologically fractured. Camilla’s current identity is hardened, calculating, and politically motivated, while Ella’s former gentleness still emerges under emotional pressure. Her silence regarding Feng Xia suggests guilt or betrayal.
• Milluki: Initially reluctant but joins the meeting because of his connection to Ella. He protects Bai Zhu during the standoff, then becomes deeply distressed when he suspects Ella abandoned their friends.
• Ging: Provides casual support and helps maintain confidence during the tense meeting, while also revealing that Piyu submitted Bai Zhu’s Hunter Association award application.
• Piyu: Acts as the group’s researcher and recorder, gathering intelligence on Camilla and documenting the encounter.
• Tserriednich: Remains offscreen but manipulates events through messages, using Bai Zhu to probe his sister and deliberately creating tension between the characters.

Significant Themes

• Identity and transformation: Camilla’s split between her public persona and the remnants of Ella reflects how trauma and power have changed her.
• Betrayal and lost trust: Bai Zhu and Milluki struggle to reconcile their memories of Ella with rumors that she betrayed their former companions.
• Manipulation and political exploitation: Both Camilla and Tserriednich attempt to use Bai Zhu for their own purposes, turning a supposed reunion into a strategic confrontation.
• Trauma and survival: Camilla’s damaged appearance, fractured behavior, and desire for freedom reveal the lasting effects of her abuse by the Church and Creation Society.
• The uncertainty of truth: Bai Zhu cannot determine whether Camilla is lying, whether Ella still exists beneath the mask, or what truly happened to Feng Xia and the others.

Character Interactions

• Bai Zhu and Camilla engage in a tense verbal duel, with Bai Zhu refusing to accept her claim that she is still Ella.
• Milluki openly intimidates Camilla’s guards, preventing the confrontation from becoming violent.
• Bai Zhu’s mention of Feng Xia destabilizes Camilla and reveals the emotional connection—and possible guilt—behind her hardened façade.
• Milluki’s quiet farewell shows his personal grief over Ella’s transformation.
• Tserriednich’s messages frame the entire meeting as part of a larger political game and suggest that further conflict is imminent.

Chapter Summary: “I Want to See the Chairman”

Key Plot Points and Events

• On the cruise ship, Bai Zhu analyzes the suspiciously precise timing of recent events involving Unma, Tserriednich, and Camilla. He suspects Pariston is manipulating multiple factions and may be using Bai Zhu himself to destabilize the Kakin royal family.
• Bai Zhu realizes he had overlooked Oito, the Eighth Queen Consort. Her possible connection to Beyond and Pariston suggests that the Succession War may be part of a much larger plan, perhaps one focused less on a particular prince and more on creating chaos.
• Troubled by the possibility of being controlled by unseen forces, Bai Zhu decides he can no longer remain passive. He resolves to seek help from Isaac Netero, the Hunter Association chairman.
• He asks Piyu to arrange a secret meeting with Netero, but she refuses, explaining that even the Zodiacs have difficulty reaching the chairman. Ging eventually offers to contact Netero using a concealed communication brooch.
• Before making contact, Ging questions Bai Zhu about his unusual behavior and forces him to explain that he can see incomplete fragments of the future.
• Ging also reveals that Bai Zhu briefly carried a strange, black Nen-like power after leaving Camilla’s location. Its nature resembles phenomena associated with the Dark Continent and the mysterious power observed at the Maritime Bureau.
• Ging agrees to help Bai Zhu meet Netero, provided he accompanies him. The chapter ends when Ging establishes contact and tells Netero that Bai Zhu wants to see him.

Character Developments

• Bai Zhu: Becomes increasingly suspicious and proactive. He recognizes that remaining neutral may allow others to manipulate him and decides to seek a powerful ally. He also partially reveals his prophetic abilities to Ging, though he remains uncertain about the strange power attached to him.
• Ging: Shows greater concern and involvement in Bai Zhu’s situation. Rather than dismissing Bai Zhu’s claims, he accepts the possibility that Bai Zhu can see the future and identifies the strange Nen-like aura as a serious threat. He agrees to act as Bai Zhu’s intermediary and safeguard.
• Piyu: Maintains her humorous, practical attitude while working on her article about Bai Zhu selling his blood. She refuses to take unnecessary risks but recognizes the sensitivity of Bai Zhu’s planned meeting.
• Mynah: Continues providing comic relief by repeating insults and comments, while also highlighting the absurdity of the situation.
• Netero: Appears only through communication at the end, but his immediate attention establishes the importance of Bai Zhu’s request.

Significant Themes

• Manipulation and hidden agendas: Bai Zhu realizes that several powerful figures may be using him as a disruptive tool in the Kakin succession struggle.
• The danger of foreknowledge: His ability to see fragments of the future is both an advantage and a burden, since knowing that events are being arranged around him does not reveal how to escape them.
• Uncertainty and altered fate: Bai Zhu’s presence has changed the expected timeline, making the original sequence of events unreliable.
• Power beyond human control: The unexplained Nen-like force connects the Kakin conflict to darker forces and possibly to the calamities of the Dark Continent.
• Trust and cooperation: Bai Zhu must decide how much truth to reveal, while Ging demonstrates cautious but genuine willingness to help.

Important Character Interactions

• Bai Zhu and Mynah: Their exchanges provide humor amid Bai Zhu’s increasingly serious speculation.
• Bai Zhu and Piyu: Bai Zhu asks Piyu to arrange the meeting, but she mocks his request and refuses because of her limited access to Netero.
• Bai Zhu and Ging: Ging challenges Bai Zhu’s behavior, notices the strange aura surrounding him, and receives Bai Zhu’s partial confession about seeing the future. Their cooperation deepens when Ging agrees to arrange the meeting.
• Ging and Netero: Ging uses a secret brooch to contact Netero, setting up the chapter’s cliffhanger.

Chapter Summary

Key Plot Points and Events

• Netero responds to Ging’s private brooch communication and agrees to meet Bai Zhu on Gina Island, where his airship is refueling.
• Ging reveals that Bai Zhu has gained a reputation for causing large-scale incidents, though Bai Zhu insists they were accidents and that he remains law-abiding.
• Ging explains that the Hunter Association is politically divided. Netero’s faction includes Ging, Botobai, Cheadle, and other veteran Hunters, while Pariston has his own influential supporters.
• To reach Gina Island quickly, Ging uses an extraordinary spatial-travel technique, repeatedly transporting himself and Bai Zhu across the ocean.
• Bai Zhu is nearly overwhelmed by the experience, enduring violent movement through the air, over the sea, beside a thunderstorm, and onto an ice floe. He mocks Ging’s methods while recognizing the frightening scale of his ability.
• During the journey, Bai Zhu learns that Ging can reproduce and master other people’s abilities to an astonishing degree. Ging admits that Pariston may suspect he is hiding something, though he has not discovered the full truth.
• They eventually reach Gina Island, where Netero is fishing beside the coast despite having no bait and an empty bucket.
• Bai Zhu meets Netero for the first time and immediately senses the old Chairman’s overwhelming, predatory strength.
• Netero asks why Bai Zhu requested a secret meeting. Bai Zhu hints that he has information or an offer that may interest him.

Character Developments

• Bai Zhu: Remains sarcastic and defiant, but Netero’s presence forces him to become unusually respectful and alert. He gains a deeper appreciation of Ging’s strength and begins to understand the political tensions within the Hunter Association.
• Ging: Displays immense ability, confidence, and unconventional humor. His capacity to copy or learn abilities is presented as exceptionally dangerous, but he remains modest—or at least genuinely cautious—when comparing himself to Netero.
• Netero: Is introduced as outwardly relaxed and eccentric, yet terrifyingly powerful beneath the surface. His casual demeanor conceals the presence of someone Bai Zhu instinctively recognizes as a superior predator.
• Pariston: Does not appear directly, but his influence is established through discussion of the Association’s factions and his talent for gathering allies.
• Bai Zhu and Ging’s relationship: Their interactions become more familiar and antagonistic, with Bai Zhu openly mocking Ging while still relying on him and recognizing his power.

Significant Themes

• Hidden strength and deception: Ging’s carefree appearance conceals a remarkable ability, while the Hunter Association’s internal politics are shaped by hidden loyalties and secret capabilities.
• Power and hierarchy: Bai Zhu encounters increasingly powerful figures and realizes that even Ging—who appears overwhelmingly capable—considers himself weak beside Netero.
• Appearance versus reality: Netero looks like an ordinary old fisherman, Ging acts like a careless drifter, and Bai Zhu presents himself as a harmless troublemaker; all conceal far greater abilities or significance.
• Youth confronting overwhelming authority: Bai Zhu’s sarcasm and confidence falter when faced with Netero, signaling a shift from casual irreverence to cautious seriousness.
• Humor amid danger: The chapter balances extreme supernatural feats and threatening power dynamics with banter, physical comedy, and Bai Zhu’s sarcastic commentary.

Important Character Interactions

• Netero and Ging: Their exchange is blunt and familiar. Netero criticizes Ging for being late, while Ging refuses to be intimidated by the complaint, suggesting a long-standing relationship built on mutual recognition.
• Ging and Bai Zhu: Ging treats Bai Zhu roughly but informally, dragging him across the ocean while joking about his weakness and training. Bai Zhu responds with insults, but his observations show growing respect and caution.
• Netero and Bai Zhu: Netero calmly examines Bai Zhu, while Bai Zhu struggles to maintain composure under the old man’s terrifying aura. Their first meeting ends with Bai Zhu offering information or a proposition designed to capture Netero’s interest.

Chapter Summary: “The Chairman Fished Without Bait”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Netero summons Bai Zhu and Ging to a secluded cabin after observing Bai Zhu closely. Despite Bai Zhu’s nervousness, the meeting begins casually with tea and humor rather than confrontation.
• Netero jokingly challenges Bai Zhu to spar. Bai Zhu refuses, using exaggerated humility to avoid fighting someone vastly stronger. His banter with Ging and Netero eases the tension.
• Bai Zhu explains the suspicious events surrounding his arrival in Kakin:
  • Kakin Port inspections appeared to anticipate his arrival.
  • Queen Unma offered three billion for his blood.
  • Fourth Prince Tserriednich sent word that the Second Princess would seek him out.
  • Camilla, or “Ella,” lured him into a trap at a church.
• Ging confirms that Bai Zhu briefly emitted a strange, pitch-black Nen aura with a powerful repelling quality.
• Bai Zhu suspects Pariston is orchestrating the chaos and may be supporting a hidden Kakin royal descendant of Beyond Netero. He theorizes that Pariston is preparing the way for an unborn heir.
• Netero explains the history and mechanics of Kakin’s Succession War. The conflict requires royal bloodline, ritual, and the Seed Urn, and cannot normally begin until the urn’s dormant cycle ends—possibly years from now.
• Netero asks whether Camilla possessed a Guardian Spirit Beast. Bai Zhu realizes she did not, confirming that the Succession War has not begun prematurely.
• Netero deduces that Queen Unma wants Bai Zhu’s abnormal blood to interfere with the Seed Urn’s judgment and create a stronger Guardian Spirit Beast embryo for her eldest son, Benjamin.
• Bai Zhu recognizes that the royal family members are pursuing separate agendas, while Pariston is deliberately throwing him into the conflict to disrupt every faction and observe the results.
• The chapter ends with Netero asking Bai Zhu what he is truly afraid of. Bai Zhu realizes that his fear goes deeper than death, inconvenience, or being caught in political schemes, but he cannot articulate the answer.

Character Developments

• Bai Zhu: Initially defensive and prepared for negotiation, he relaxes in Netero’s cabin and reveals what he knows. He demonstrates growing strategic insight by connecting the actions of the royal family to Pariston’s manipulation. However, Netero’s final question exposes that Bai Zhu has not confronted his deepest personal fear.
• Netero: Appears relaxed, humorous, and grandfatherly, but gradually reveals his sharp understanding of Kakin’s history and current politics. His final question shows that he is probing Bai Zhu psychologically rather than merely investigating the plot.
• Ging: Acts as a quiet observer and corroborates Bai Zhu’s account by describing the unusual Nen he sensed. His calm presence reinforces the seriousness of the situation.
• Pariston: Though absent, he becomes the chapter’s central unseen antagonist. His strategy is revealed to be one of deliberate destabilization, using Bai Zhu as a disruptive “catfish” among competing Kakin factions.
• Kakin Royal Family: The princes and queens are shown to be preparing for future conflict in different ways, with Unma, Camilla, and Tserriednich each pursuing separate interests.

Significant Themes

• Manipulation and power games: Bai Zhu discovers that the royal family’s actions are only part of a larger game orchestrated by Pariston.
• The danger of being used: Bai Zhu has become a political tool whose blood, presence, and movements are being exploited by multiple factions.
• Hidden legacies: The possibility of Beyond’s bloodline in Kakin suggests that past figures continue to influence future conflicts.
• Order beneath chaos: Although Kakin’s politics appear chaotic, Netero explains that the Succession War follows strict supernatural and ritual rules.
• Self-knowledge and fear: The chapter shifts from external conspiracy to internal conflict when Netero asks Bai Zhu what he truly fears.

Character Interactions

• Bai Zhu uses humor and self-deprecation to deflect Netero’s challenge, while Ging teasingly reveals that this is unusual behavior for him.
• Netero and Bai Zhu move from playful conversation into a serious exchange of intelligence and political analysis.
• Ging quietly supports Bai Zhu’s account without dominating the discussion.
• Netero’s final question changes the dynamic: instead of analyzing enemies and schemes, he forces Bai Zhu to examine himself, leaving him speechless.

Chapter Summary: “What Are You Afraid Of?”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Netero asks Bai Zhu what he fears, but Bai Zhu initially avoids answering, knowing that simple answers such as poverty, trouble, or death would not satisfy him.
• Netero accurately identifies Bai Zhu’s deeper fears: the entity beneath the Caspian Sea escaping, the Kakin royal family using his blood to create a monster, Pariston manipulating him, and Bai Zhu worsening events through premature action.
• Bai Zhu admits that he never wanted to be a hero. His priorities are survival, earning money, and gaining personal benefits rather than taking responsibility for the world’s problems.
• Netero reassures him that Hunters are not obligated to save people. Pursuing one’s own interests—including simply staying alive—is a valid motivation.
• The discussion reveals why Bai Zhu is so valuable and vulnerable: he has no Nen, his abilities are unrecorded, and his blood can suppress Nen Beast embryos even outside his body. This makes him a target for the Kakin royal family, Nen researchers, and those investigating calamities or bloodlines.
• Netero explains the motives of several people surrounding Bai Zhu:
  • Unma is testing his blood.
  • Camilla is attempting to exploit their personal connection.
  • Tserriednich is probing Bai Zhu to determine which side he will support.
  • Pariston manipulates people by making them afraid of losing, causing them to investigate, seek allies, and unknowingly follow paths he has prepared.
• Bai Zhu realizes that much of his recent “problem-solving” has been driven by Pariston’s planted information. Even when Pariston is absent, Bai Zhu continues reacting to the dangers he creates.
• Netero tells Bai Zhu that the Caspian Sea situation is already being monitored by the Maritime Bureau, Kakin’s military, and the Hunter Association, while the succession ceremony and Unma’s plans are still developing. Bai Zhu does not need to carry every problem himself.
• Netero’s final advice is simple: Bai Zhu should get stronger. When Bai Zhu mocks the obviousness of the conclusion, Netero flicks him on the forehead and points out that understanding what must be done and actually doing it are different matters.

Character Developments

• Bai Zhu drops much of his usual joking, evasive persona and openly admits that he is motivated primarily by survival rather than heroism. He also recognizes how fear and uncertainty have caused him to overextend himself.
• He becomes more aware that his unique blood and unexplained abilities make him valuable experimental material, not merely a participant in political conflicts.
• Bai Zhu begins to understand Pariston’s psychological strategy: Pariston does not need to defeat him directly, because fear of possible loss pushes Bai Zhu into actions that benefit Pariston.
• Netero appears perceptive, blunt, and pragmatic. Rather than preaching responsibility, he accepts Bai Zhu’s selfish motives and focuses on helping him see the situation clearly.
• Ging remains observant and teasing, confirming details about Bai Zhu’s powers and reminding him that he profited from selling blood. His comments provide both information and comic pressure.
• Pariston is characterized as a manipulator whose greatest weapon is making others fear losing control.
• Unma, Camilla, and Tserriednich are shown as different kinds of threats: scientific exploitation, emotional manipulation, and political testing.

Significant Themes

• Fear as a form of control: Pariston’s influence demonstrates that people can be manipulated without direct commands, simply by making them fear possible losses.
• Self-preservation versus heroism: The chapter rejects the idea that power automatically creates a moral obligation to save others. Survival is presented as a legitimate goal.
• The danger of being misunderstood: Because Bai Zhu’s abilities cannot be classified through Nen, governments and researchers view him as an unknown resource to be studied or exploited.
• Knowledge and action: Recognizing the correct solution is not the same as having the discipline or strength to follow it.
• Burden and responsibility: Bai Zhu’s instinct is to investigate and resolve every threat, but Netero argues that some situations are already being handled and need not consume him.
• Power through uncertainty: Bai Zhu’s unpredictability protects him, but it also makes others curious and fearful, increasing the pressure surrounding him.

Character Interactions

• Bai Zhu and Netero: Their conversation is frank and confrontational but ultimately supportive. Netero sees through Bai Zhu’s evasions, accepts his selfishness, and offers practical guidance rather than moral judgment.
• Bai Zhu and Ging: Ging mostly observes but occasionally interrupts with sharp remarks about Bai Zhu’s blood-selling and questionable priorities. Their exchanges show familiarity, irritation, and underlying trust.
• Bai Zhu and Pariston: Though Pariston is absent, he dominates the conversation. Bai Zhu recognizes that Pariston has been steering his actions by scattering information and creating fear.
• Bai Zhu and the Kakin royals: The chapter clarifies that different royals view him differently—as a biological resource, a personal connection to manipulate, or a political variable whose loyalties must be tested.

Chapter Summary: “It Doesn’t Matter If You Give It to Me”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Netero tests Bai Zhu by striking at him during their conversation, exposing weaknesses in Bai Zhu’s physical abilities, reaction speed, and combat adaptability.
• Netero explains that Bai Zhu relies too heavily on powerful techniques intended to end fights in one blow. If an opponent survives or evades his opening attack, Bai Zhu has few reliable options afterward.
• Bai Zhu reflects on his fear of altering the future and causing unpredictable deaths or disasters. Netero’s example—knowingly entering his doomed battle with the Ant King—helps Bai Zhu realize that excessive hesitation is also a form of weakness.
• Bai Zhu decides to stop allowing others to manipulate him as a pawn. He resolves to train first and become strong enough that schemes against him carry serious risks for those behind them.
• After this emotional breakthrough, Netero reveals the “serious business”: the mysterious squid beneath the Caspian Sea has been pursued by the Maritime Bureau for decades, and two Association investigation teams recently disappeared.
• Netero then questions Bai Zhu about One-Eyed Owl, whom Bai Zhu claims was merely his landlord. Their humorous exchange establishes that Bai Zhu has a close but deliberately concealed connection to the creature.
• Bai Zhu describes Ring Island and its secrets:
  • Ancient ruins inhabited roughly two hundred years earlier
  • A plant resembling the World Tree
  • One-Eyed Owl’s home
  • A giant whale-like Sea Lord beneath the island
  • A door in an underground lake connected to ruins and possibly the Oasis site
  • A lighthouse capable of distorting time and space
  • A person from two centuries ago who remains trapped there
• Netero presses Bai Zhu about what lies beyond the underwater door, but Bai Zhu admits he does not know and withholds details about the barrier and possible dangers.
• The discussion connects Ring Island, Oasis, and the Caspian Sea ruins. The Specialist Association apparently entered the ruins and removed dangerous samples, including an insect egg.
• Bai Zhu reveals that he gave the egg to Ging, who later threw it into the sea when the Caspian squid pursued them. The squid reclaimed it.
• Bai Zhu argues that the squid may not be a disaster but a guardian or “gatekeeper” recovering dangerous materials that escaped from the ruins.

Character Developments

• Bai Zhu: Recognizes that his greatest weaknesses are not a lack of techniques but poor physical conditioning, slow reactions, and an overly rigid one-strike fighting style. Emotionally, he begins abandoning his fear of changing the future and chooses decisive action over constant calculation.
• Netero: Acts as both a combat instructor and a philosophical mentor. His advice emphasizes resilience, accepting risk, and becoming powerful enough that enemies cannot manipulate him safely.
• Ging: Continues to serve as a relaxed but perceptive companion. His teasing helps lighten the conversation, while his involvement in researching and disposing of the insect egg shows his practical role in the investigation.
• One-Eyed Owl and the Caspian squid: Their roles become more ambiguous. They may be connected to the ancient ruins and could function as guardians rather than simple threats.

Significant Themes

• Strength beyond raw power: Powerful attacks are meaningless if a fighter lacks stamina, adaptability, and recovery options.
• Fear of changing fate: Bai Zhu’s anxiety over altering known events has paralyzed him, but Netero teaches him that refusing to act is also a choice with consequences.
• Agency versus manipulation: Bai Zhu rejects being treated as a chess piece and resolves to become strong enough to disrupt anyone’s plans.
• Secrets and responsibility: The ancient ruins contain potentially catastrophic knowledge or organisms. Bai Zhu must balance protecting others with deciding how much information can safely be revealed.
• Reframing apparent monsters: The squid and One-Eyed Owl may not be enemies; their behavior suggests that some “threats” could actually be protecting the world from greater dangers.

Character Interactions

• Netero’s physical test and blunt criticism force Bai Zhu to confront his combat shortcomings.
• Netero’s story and attitude toward his future death inspire Bai Zhu to adopt a more courageous outlook.
• Bai Zhu and Ging exchange sarcastic remarks, showing their comfortable friendship and contrasting personalities.
• Netero humorously interrogates Bai Zhu about One-Eyed Owl, while Bai Zhu tries to disguise their unusual relationship as a simple landlord-tenant arrangement.
• The final discussion between Netero, Bai Zhu, and Ging shifts from personal training to a serious investigation of the ancient ruins, the Caspian squid, and the dangerous materials circulating in human society.

Chapter Summary: “Your Blood Is Awake!”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Netero warns Bai Zhu and Ging that Dark Continent materials become especially dangerous when people try to exploit or reproduce them.
• Bai Zhu realizes that Unma’s laboratory contains three potentially disastrous elements: his unusual blood, the Seed Urn, and a contamination source connected to the Caspian Sea.
• A Hunter Association research application reveals that Pariston has secretly arranged for researchers connected to his faction to study these samples in cooperation with Kakin’s royal bloodline research. The application bypassed Netero and entered Kakin through the vice chairman’s channels.
• Bai Zhu concludes that Pariston is using Unma’s laboratory to observe the effects of combining his blood with the Seed Urn and contamination source, effectively turning Unma into an unwitting experimental vessel.
• Bai Zhu initially wants to rush back and destroy the laboratory, but Netero explains that doing so would only cause the samples to be relocated and would provide Pariston with more data about Bai Zhu’s abilities and reactions.
• Instead, they decide to:
  • Have Bai Zhu pretend to negotiate another blood sale, using the deal to pressure Unma into revealing the experiment’s progress.
  • Have Ging investigate the researchers, their funding, and their equipment.
  • Have Netero suppress the research application within the Hunter Association.
• Bai Zhu remembers that Unma signed a contract limiting blood draws to fifty milliliters per day and imposing a fifty-billion-Jenny penalty if his blood is used for military, biological-weapon, or mass-destruction purposes.
• As Bai Zhu and Ging prepare to return to Kakin, an anonymous message sends them a photograph of golden culture fluid containing a developing beast claw with a black feather growing from it. The message reads: “Mr. Bai, your blood is awake.”
• Ging immediately transports them away using his rapid movement ability, ignoring Bai Zhu’s request for a countdown. Bai Zhu’s nausea is eased somewhat when he realizes the abnormal experiment may allow him to demand a much higher price or enforce the fifty-billion-Jenny penalty.

Character Developments

• Bai Zhu shifts from impulsive anger to calculated opportunism. Although horrified by the experiment, he quickly begins treating the danger as leverage for a more profitable contract. His personality is shown to combine genuine concern with theatrical greed and humor.
• Netero acts as a strategic mediator. He restrains Bai Zhu from making a reckless attack and emphasizes that Pariston is manipulating events rather than directly controlling every participant. Netero also recognizes Bai Zhu’s talent for exploiting contracts and negotiation.
• Ging remains observant and practical. He memorizes the names of the researchers, destroys the briefing to prevent its contents from spreading, and takes responsibility for investigating the conspiracy. His abrupt transportation style continues to clash comically with Bai Zhu’s discomfort.
• Pariston is revealed as a manipulator who uses institutional channels, funding networks, and other people’s ambitions to conduct dangerous experiments without directly exposing himself.
• Unma is portrayed as both reckless and vulnerable: she believes she has acquired a valuable resource, but has allowed her laboratory and royal status to become tools in Pariston’s experiment.

Significant Themes

• The danger of exploiting the unknown: Netero’s warning reflects the broader threat of Dark Continent materials being commercialized or weaponized before their consequences are understood.
• Ambition and escalation: The idea that obtaining “a small piece of meat” leads people to imagine raising an entire litter highlights humanity’s tendency to expand limited discoveries into uncontrollable projects.
• Manipulation through institutions: Pariston exploits the Hunter Association, Kakin’s royal research, and private funding networks while keeping his own involvement indirect.
• Contracts versus power: Bai Zhu’s blood contract becomes a weapon of its own, allowing him to challenge royal authority through legal and financial consequences rather than direct violence.
• Moral danger disguised as commerce: Bai Zhu jokes about “commercial risk hedging,” but the humor contrasts with the serious possibility that his blood is helping create a monster.
• Unintended consequences and responsibility: Netero stresses that Pariston may open the doors, but the people who enter do so willingly, making Unma and the researchers responsible for their own choices.

Character Interactions

• Netero and Bai Zhu clash over whether to respond immediately with violence or wait and use strategy. Netero restrains Bai Zhu while encouraging him to exploit the contract.
• Ging and Bai Zhu work together uneasily: Ging handles intelligence gathering and transportation, while Bai Zhu uses negotiation and financial pressure. Their contrasting personalities create repeated comic exchanges.
• Netero teases Bai Zhu for lacking a traditional hunter’s fighting style but possessing strong instincts for extortion and bargaining.
• Bai Zhu’s discovery of the experimental photograph changes the group’s urgency, prompting Ging to transport them immediately.
• The chapter ends with Bai Zhu laughing at the prospect of profiting from the dangerous experiment, while Ging is unsettled by his reaction—underscoring both their partnership and their very different attitudes toward risk.

Chapter Summary

Key Plot Points and Events

• After an exhausting night of repeated long-distance spatial movement, Ging and Bai Zhu stop on a rocky islet near a joint fleet blockading the Caspian Sea.
• Ging reviews a list of suspects connected to several investigations:
  • Four people transporting contaminated samples.
  • Three involved in cultivating Nen Beast embryos.
  • Two linked to a Kakin Royal Family bloodline research project whose funding ultimately passed through the Association vice chairman’s office.
• Ging decides to investigate the final two suspects first by following them and, if necessary, knocking them unconscious for questioning.
• Bai Zhu questions Ging about his Nen ability. Ging explains that he can analyze and reconstruct certain Nen abilities after observing them, though he does not reproduce them exactly.
• Ging discusses how abilities can be misleadingly classified, using Morel’s Purple Smoke Soldier and Gela Jiang’s TUBE as examples. Both abilities appear to be primarily Emitter-based but actually rely heavily on Conjuration, Manipulation, and the processing of an external medium.
• Ging explains that Morel’s pipe and Gela Jiang’s supposed “rainy-day restriction” are largely tools or misleading habits rather than absolute requirements.
• Ging admits that his ability has limitations: he cannot easily copy powers rooted in personal experience, severe restrictions, innate physical conditions, or Specialist traits. He also cannot yet understand Bai Zhu’s technique, whose Nen operation remains completely opaque to him.
• Ging and Bai Zhu use spatial movement to cross over the blockade fleet and land on a cruise ship.
• Morel, Gela Jiang, and Milluki confront them about disappearing during the night and triggering the ship’s alarms. Bai Zhu presents a photograph and says they should hold a meeting before explaining.

Character Developments

• Ging is portrayed as extraordinarily perceptive and technically knowledgeable about Nen. His ability to dissect and reconstruct other abilities makes him a potentially terrifying opponent, though he acknowledges that his skill is not limitless.
• Bai Zhu remains physically exhausted and increasingly unsettled by Ging’s capabilities. His admiration and suspicion grow as he realizes Ging may be able to understand almost any Nen ability after minimal observation. He becomes particularly defensive when Ging mentions studying his technique.
• Morel and Gela Jiang are indirectly characterized through Ging’s analysis. Their abilities rely on deception, habits, and controlled external mediums rather than functioning exactly as outsiders assume.
• Milluki provides a more ordinary, bewildered reaction to Ging and Bai Zhu’s unexplained nighttime disappearance, emphasizing how strange their behavior appears to the rest of the group.

Significant Themes

• Observation and reconstruction: The chapter explores how Nen abilities can be understood through their underlying principles rather than their outward appearance.
• Deception and misdirection: Morel’s pipe and Gela Jiang’s weather-based reputation conceal the true mechanics of their powers, showing how Nen users deliberately manipulate opponents’ assumptions.
• Limits of knowledge: Although Ging seems nearly capable of copying anything, the chapter establishes boundaries involving personal experience, strict conditions, physical traits, and Specialist abilities.
• Security and vulnerability: Bai Zhu’s unease reflects the danger of having one’s abilities analyzed by someone as perceptive as Ging.
• Appearance versus reality: The apparent categories and conditions of Nen abilities do not always match their true operational foundations.

Character Interactions

• Bai Zhu repeatedly challenges Ging’s claims, calling his ability abnormal and questioning whether he can truly learn techniques by watching them.
• Ging calmly explains Nen theory, correcting Bai Zhu’s assumptions about Morel and Gela Jiang while demonstrating his deep understanding of ability construction.
• Bai Zhu jokes defensively about Ging wanting to dissect him for research, while Ging lightly responds that Bai Zhu is similarly unusual.
• Upon their return, Morel confronts Ging with a pipe, while Gela Jiang and Milluki demand an explanation for their disappearance. Bai Zhu defuses the immediate confrontation by showing them a photograph and insisting that the group meet first.

Chapter Summary: “So You Turned Into a Bird?”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Morel, Gela Jiang, Milluki, Piyu, Bai Zhu, and Ging hold a late-night strategy meeting. Bai Zhu’s mynah bird humorously interrupts by shouting, “Idiot! Overtime!”
• Ging explains that Chairman Netero’s supposed inspection trip is a cover. Netero has secretly been monitoring the Caspian Sea, where a dangerous maritime monster has destroyed ships and stolen contaminated samples for over thirty years.
• The Hunter Association has lost two investigation teams, while Kakin, Oikima, and the Maritime Bureau have sealed and monitored the sea. The competing factions conceal information from one another, making the monster’s movements difficult to track.
• Ging reveals a photograph of a culture specimen grown using Bai Zhu’s blood. A beast claw has developed around Black Feather, accompanied by the message: “Mr. Bai, your blood has awakened.”
• Morel analyzes the specimen and concludes that Bai Zhu’s Black Feather and the Nen Beast embryo are competing for control of the same body. The specimen may eventually fuse with the Black Feather through a Chimera-like process.
• Because Bai Zhu’s blood suppresses Nen, the resulting creature could prey on and consume other Guardian Spirit Beasts. This may have been the First Queen Consort’s attempt to replace Benjamin’s Guardian Spirit Beast, potentially creating a weapon capable of eliminating the other princes’ beasts.
• Bai Zhu initially wants to storm the palace and seize the culture tank, but Ging stops him. Direct action would expose Bai Zhu’s abilities and allow the researchers to relocate or continue their experiments elsewhere.
• The group decides to investigate the Caspian Sea Ruins and sever the laboratory’s supply chain instead. Piyu proposes tracing Kakin’s marine engineering archives, procurement records, contractors, shipping routes, and accidents to uncover the Royal Family’s hidden operations.
• Ging divides the group into two teams:
  • Caspian Sea team: Ging, Gela Jiang, and Milluki, who will assist Netero, investigate the seabed, monitor sample routes, and search for the ruins’ entrance.
  • Kakin team: Bai Zhu, Morel, and Piyu, who will investigate the researchers, equipment procurement, marine archives, and pressure Unma for information about the experiment.
• Milluki objects to the assignment because he wants to remain with Bai Zhu, revealing a personal preference that is more emotional than practical.

Character Developments

• Bai Zhu becomes increasingly alarmed and protective regarding the experiment using his blood. His first instinct is direct intervention, but he ultimately accepts Ging’s more strategic approach.
• Ging acts as the meeting’s pragmatic leader, balancing the danger of the experiment against the need to preserve their larger investigation. He prevents Bai Zhu from acting impulsively and organizes the two-team operation.
• Morel demonstrates his analytical expertise by identifying the specimen’s competing biological and Nen processes. He warns that the creature could become a predator of Guardian Spirit Beasts.
• Piyu shifts from comic relief to an important investigator. Her media identity and Hunter License give her a way to investigate Kakin’s marine operations publicly, while her archival strategy exposes the broader industrial network supporting the experiments.
• Milluki contributes technical analysis by enlarging the photograph and examining the mutation, but his main development is personal: he openly admits that he simply wants to stay with Bai Zhu.
• Gela Jiang provides comic relief but also participates seriously in the investigation once the threat becomes clear.
• Netero remains offscreen, but his secret surveillance of the Caspian Sea establishes the seriousness of the threat and suggests that the official narrative conceals a much larger operation.

Significant Themes

• Strategy versus impulsiveness: Bai Zhu wants immediate action, while Ging argues that intelligence gathering and cutting off resources will produce better results.
• Scientific exploitation and weaponization: Bai Zhu’s blood is being used to create a creature that could alter the balance of power among the Kakin princes.
• Secrecy and competing agendas: The Association, Kakin, Oikima, the Maritime Bureau, and Pariston all possess incomplete information and conceal their discoveries from one another.
• The dangers of uncontrolled evolution: The culture specimen may evolve through conflict and predation, transforming a failed experiment into something more dangerous than intended.
• Trust and personal attachment: The team’s joking interactions contrast with their reliance on one another, especially Milluki’s blunt confession that he prefers being with Bai Zhu.
• Industrial systems as evidence: Even when governments hide laboratories and research, procurement records, contractors, factories, and accidents leave traces that can reveal the truth.

Important Character Interactions

• Piyu teases Bai Zhu about possibly transforming into a giant bird, while Bai Zhu counters by joking that she has become a rabbit.
• Milluki repeatedly jokes about the “birdman” specimen and narrowly avoids provoking Bai Zhu into hiring an assassin against him.
• Morel explains the specimen’s potential Chimera fusion to Bai Zhu and the others, turning the group’s initial humor into serious concern.
• Bai Zhu confronts Ging over whether they should simply ignore the experiment. Ging restrains him both physically and strategically, arguing that attacking the palace would expose their abilities.
• Piyu and Morel build on Ging’s plan by identifying ways to trace the experiment through public records and industrial infrastructure.
• Milluki openly rejects the team assignment and tells Bai Zhu that he wants to stay with him because their time together is more interesting, ending the chapter on a personal and unresolved note.

Chapter Summary: “No One Could Do Without Me at Sea”

Key Plot Points and Events

• The group holds a strategy meeting to divide responsibilities for a secret investigation into the monster and mysterious ruins beneath the Caspian Sea.
• Milluki initially refuses to go, arguing that his role maintaining the cruise ship’s communications, surveillance, security, and data systems is too important. Ging counters that Milluki is the only person capable of integrating the Association’s, Kakin’s military, and the Maritime Bureau’s incompatible underwater systems.
• Morel and Gela Jiang persuade Milluki by emphasizing that the mission depends on his unique technical abilities. Milluki agrees, but only after adding strict equipment requirements, including two submersibles, independent sonar power, isolated military systems, and manual shutdown controls.
• Bai Zhu is assigned to remain in Kakin, continue negotiations with Unma, and trade another batch of blood for cultivation records. Ging warns him not to provoke the royal family unnecessarily.
• Morel will contact Kakin officials and investigate access to classified information. Piyu will gather evidence through her reporter and Association identities while monitoring surveillance.
• The team establishes daily communications and emergency regrouping conditions, including contamination spreading, the specimen escaping, or unusual activity from the Caspian Sea monster.
• Milluki disables read receipts on the threatening photograph sent to Bai Zhu, reasoning that the sender is testing their reaction. The group decides not to respond.
• Ging, Milluki, and Gela Jiang secretly depart by sea. Their departure is concealed when Morel creates Purple Smoke Soldiers that imitate them and perform their usual activities aboard the ship.
• Surveillance personnel are fooled into believing the entire team remains aboard. Once the watchers relax, Bai Zhu, Piyu, and Morel begin investigating Kakin-related activity.
• Piyu discovers that a deregistered undersea-equipment company recently shipped something to a charity fund connected to the First Queen. The cargo is listed as a “Deep-Sea Incubation Chamber,” suggesting a connection between the royal family, underwater technology, and the creature or research operation.

Character Developments

• Milluki shifts from reluctant participant to essential mission specialist. His pride is triggered not by generic praise but by being told that no one else can perform the required work. He demonstrates his expertise by immediately identifying technical risks and drafting a detailed equipment list.
• Bai Zhu remains humorous, provocative, and commercially aggressive, proposing to demand fifty billion from Unma. However, he also shows strategic awareness and accepts the need to avoid revealing the team’s plans.
• Ging acts as the practical leader, assigning roles, setting emergency protocols, and prioritizing intelligence gathering over direct confrontation.
• Gela Jiang presents himself as a straightforward, physically capable problem-solver. His joking confidence contrasts with Milluki’s technical caution, but the two are established as complementary partners.
• Morel demonstrates his tactical value through the Purple Smoke Soldiers, using observation and deception to protect the team’s movements.
• Piyu takes on an investigative role, combining journalism, Association authority, and surveillance countermeasures to pursue leads in Kakin.

Significant Themes

• Interdependence and specialized talent: Every member contributes a different skill, and the mission cannot succeed through brute strength alone. Milluki’s technical expertise becomes as important as Ging’s tracking or Gela Jiang’s physical ability.
• Manipulation and persuasion: Milluki is convinced through calculated praise and by appealing to his desire to be recognized as indispensable.
• Deception and counter-surveillance: The fake departures, smoke replicas, disabled read receipts, and controlled communications show both sides attempting to conceal their intentions and monitor reactions.
• Political distrust: The Association, Kakin Military, and Maritime Bureau refuse to share systems or information, forcing the team to operate secretly.
• Science, contamination, and hidden experimentation: The emergency protocols and the discovery of the “Deep-Sea Incubation Chamber” suggest that the investigation involves dangerous biological research linked to the royal family.
• Humor amid danger: Banter about takeout, surfboards, game consoles, and Bai Zhu’s irritating personality lightens the tense preparations while reinforcing the characters’ relationships.

Character Interactions

• Bai Zhu repeatedly teases Milluki about his usefulness, prompting Milluki’s irritation but also highlighting their developing familiarity.
• Ging dismisses Milluki’s excuses and bluntly explains why his skills are indispensable.
• Gela Jiang uses exaggerated confidence and physical humor to encourage Milluki, while Milluki questions his competence.
• Morel offers the final persuasive argument, emphasizing that Milluki will have access to systems no one else can connect.
• Bai Zhu and Piyu trade insults over his role as the team’s “annoying” negotiator.
• The group’s joking exchanges create a sense of camaraderie, even as their mission involves political conspiracies, surveillance, contamination risks, and a potentially dangerous sea monster.

Chapter Summary: “Spying for Information Is Like Being a Male Escort”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Morel criticizes Bai Zhu’s sloppy outfit—newsboy cap, wrinkled jacket, uneven pants, and pajamas—before they visit influential Kakin organizations connected to Unma.
• He explains that Bai Zhu’s appearance could prevent them from being taken seriously or even get him removed by security before negotiations begin.
• Morel and Piyu decide Bai Zhu needs new clothes, grooming, and professional styling so he can access places such as the Royal Family Foundation or the royal palace.
• Morel compares intelligence gathering to escort work: people must first feel comfortable enough to let an investigator sit down before they will reveal information.
• Piyu books Bai Zhu a VIP grooming appointment, leading to a comedic argument when she nearly includes hair-removal treatment. Bai Zhu frantically cancels the services.
• Morel emphasizes that investigations depend on status, connections, money, and an approachable appearance—not simply force. He specifically criticizes Bai Zhu and Ging for relying too much on violence and neglecting social presentation.
• Bai Zhu reluctantly agrees to change his appearance, though he insists on practical clothes, loose-fitting garments, and shoes suitable for running. He refuses cosmetic treatment but allows Piyu to manage his hair.
• The following morning, Piyu takes him to a private shopping and styling appointment. Bai Zhu initially considers completing several Kakin-related system objectives, but abandons the idea after seeing one that involves completing a “free flight.”
• He ultimately decides that enduring two hours of hairstyling is preferable to publicly completing the system challenge and becoming a viral spectacle.

Character Developments

• Bai Zhu: Reveals his resistance to vanity and discomfort with being treated as an object of presentation or sale. However, he gradually acknowledges that his careless appearance is hindering the investigation and agrees to cooperate. His practicality remains evident in his insistence on comfortable, functional clothing.
• Morel: Acts as a pragmatic mentor, teaching Bai Zhu that social status and appearances are essential tools in espionage. His advice is mixed with crude jokes and teasing, but his central goal is to prevent Bai Zhu from sabotaging the mission through poor judgment.
• Piyu: Demonstrates initiative and competence by arranging clothing, grooming, transportation, and private appointments. She is also playful and relentless, deliberately escalating Bai Zhu’s anxiety about the makeover.
• Ging: Does not appear directly, but Morel uses him as an example of someone whose poor manners, untidy appearance, and antisocial habits undermine his abilities.
• Bai Zhu and Ging’s contrast: Bai Zhu admits that, despite his own sloppiness, he may still be more presentable than Ging.

Significant Themes

• Appearance as power: Clothing and grooming influence access, credibility, and how institutions treat people, especially in elite Kakin society.
• Information gathering versus brute force: Morel stresses that successful investigation requires diplomacy, status, and psychological comfort rather than intimidation or violence.
• Practical identity versus social expectations: Bai Zhu values utility and mobility, while Morel and Piyu insist that appearance can be a strategic necessity.
• Humor and embarrassment: The chapter uses makeover anxiety, innuendo, and Bai Zhu’s exaggerated resistance to grooming to lighten the seriousness of the espionage mission.
• Self-presentation as strategy: Bai Zhu must temporarily reshape his public image to gain access to powerful people and recover valuable cultivation records.

Character Interactions

• Morel and Bai Zhu engage in constant teasing, with Morel mocking Bai Zhu’s clothes and Bai Zhu objecting to Morel’s provocative jokes and makeover plans.
• Piyu joins Morel in pressuring Bai Zhu, treating his transformation as an appointment to be managed rather than a decision open to debate.
• Morel and Piyu work together as the mission’s logistical and public-relations planners, while Bai Zhu reluctantly becomes their subject.
• Morel’s criticism of Ging creates a shared point of comparison, allowing Bai Zhu to recognize that his own habits resemble Ging’s more than he would like.
• Bai Zhu’s decision to cooperate marks a temporary compromise between his personal preferences and the demands of espionage.

Chapter Summary: “A Seasoned Hunter”

Key Plot Points and Events

• After Bai Zhu and Piyu leave the harbor, Morel remains behind to investigate the mysterious deep-sea equipment connected to their mission.
• Surveillance continues around the cruise ship through a telephoto lens and three Purple Smoke Soldiers impersonating Ging, Milluki, and Gela Jiang. Their convincing routines prevent observers from becoming suspicious.
• Morel hides his iconic pipe, changes into inconspicuous clothing, distributes cash among several pockets, and goes undercover as an ordinary businessman.
• At a harbor hotel, he bribes a bartender for information about an illegal underground market in the Drainage District, located beneath an abandoned ice factory.
• He learns that the market sells military surplus, forged or deleted port records, transport documents, and specialized equipment. The market’s main rules are not to ask about the origins of goods, cause trouble, or bargain with people wearing red scarves.
• Morel notices that he is being followed but uses cigar smoke and the crowded old district to lose his pursuers.
• He enters the underground market with an iron token and observes a wide range of smuggled military and maritime goods, including diving suits, sonar parts, cargo manifests, and a Deep-Sea Incubation Chamber reportedly taken from the princess’s ship.
• To gather information without exposing his true objective, Morel pretends to be searching for equipment for an undersea cable project. He visits multiple stalls, changing his story and collecting information about submersibles, transport routes, operators, and crews.
• He buys an outdated military nautical chart and gains access to construction records, using negotiation and ridicule to lower the price.
• At a tea stall, a one-eyed broker confronts him, correctly recognizing that Morel’s supposed cable-work explanation is false. Morel admits he used the story to attract knowledgeable sellers.
• The broker offers information about the Deep-Sea Incubation Chamber for ten million Jenny. Morel pays and receives part of a damaged modification document.
• The document reveals that the chamber contains:
  • Nen-based isolation layers
  • A twelve-channel circulating blood supply system
  • An emergency incineration system designed to burn its contents if a Nen reaction becomes dangerous
• Morel realizes the chamber was designed not for ordinary organisms, but for a dangerous or unusual specimen that might require feeding and controlled destruction.
• The chapter ends with Morel asking where the chamber was sent. The broker says that information requires a separate payment.

Character Developments

• Morel demonstrates his experience as an investigator and undercover operative. He carefully conceals his identity, prepares multiple cover stories, distributes his money strategically, and uses market customs to avoid danger.
• He remains calm and flexible under pressure, turning insults, bargaining, and deception into tools for extracting information.
• Morel’s analysis of the equipment shows his technical intelligence and ability to infer the nature of a threat from incomplete documents.
• The one-eyed broker is established as a shrewd and knowledgeable information dealer. He recognizes Morel’s false story immediately and controls the exchange by withholding the most valuable details.
• The mysterious parties connected to the cruise ship remain hidden, but the chapter strengthens the implication that they are transporting a dangerous living specimen rather than ordinary cargo.

Significant Themes

• Investigation through deception: Morel gathers intelligence by creating believable lies and adapting them for different audiences.
• Experience versus brute force: His success depends on patience, preparation, negotiation, and reading people rather than direct combat.
• The hidden economy of power: The underground market reveals how military equipment, official records, and state secrets circulate through smugglers and brokers.
• Dangerous science and containment: The chamber’s blood-feeding system and emergency incinerator suggest an engineered organism or Nen-related entity that must be carefully controlled.
• Information as currency: Knowledge is treated as a commodity, with every answer carrying a price and every participant protecting their sources.
• Surveillance and counter-surveillance: Morel is watched by outside observers while simultaneously probing the networks involved in the shipment.

Character Interactions

• Morel bribes the bartender, who gives him access to the underground market but warns him about its rules.
• He bargains aggressively with the chart seller, trading cash for outdated military charts and limited access to construction records.
• He avoids openly questioning the red-scarf seller about the Deep-Sea Incubation Chamber, choosing instead to gather information indirectly.
• The one-eyed broker challenges Morel’s cover story and turns their tea-stall conversation into a high-priced negotiation.
• Morel studies the broker’s document, questioning the chamber’s purpose and pressing for its destination, but the broker refuses to reveal more without another payment.

Chapter Summary

Key Plot Points and Events

• Morel meets a one-eyed black-market broker to obtain information about a deep-sea incubation chamber. The broker demands that Morel transport six crates of military breathing valves through the blockade zone as payment.
• Morel examines the invoices and realizes the valves were recently stolen from Kakin’s military warehouses. He refuses the job, exposing the broker’s attempt to shift responsibility for the stolen goods onto him.
• When the broker’s thugs threaten him, Morel points out that violence violates the black market’s rules. Three inspectors arrive, allowing him to present evidence of both the military contraband and the broker’s earlier fraud involving an incomplete modification list.
• The inspectors force the broker to refund Morel. After bargaining, Morel recovers seven million Jenny and persuades the broker to provide additional intelligence.
• The broker reveals that the deep-sea incubation chamber was moved through underground flood-control tunnels rather than the harbor. Refrigerated trucks escorted by royal guards transported it to a charity hospital funded by the First Princess.
• Morel obtains the hospital’s address and a maintenance map showing that renovated drainage tunnels connect the outskirts of the old city directly to the hospital basement.
• He also learns that two researchers connected to the case are preparing to flee: one has purchased a false identity, while another plans to escape by smuggling boat to Oikima. Morel decides to take Bai Zhu to find the smuggler that night.
• After leaving the market, Morel realizes he is being followed. He deliberately enters an isolated alley, uses his En and cigar smoke to detect the hidden pursuer, and confronts them directly.

Character Developments

• Morel demonstrates sharp investigative ability, recognizing military equipment from technical details despite falsified paperwork. He remains calm under pressure and uses the black market’s rules to protect himself without resorting to violence.
• His negotiation skills improve his position: he turns a potentially dangerous transaction into a refund, valuable intelligence, and a tunnel map.
• Morel also shows caution and strategic restraint. He avoids asking unnecessary questions about the researchers’ fake identities to prevent exposing his own investigation.
• The one-eyed broker is revealed as both a fraud and a thief. He attempts to sell incomplete information and use Morel as a scapegoat for moving stolen military property, but loses authority when the inspectors and crowd recognize his misconduct.
• The black-market inspectors, particularly the short-haired woman, act as enforcers of the market’s fragile rules and prevent the dispute from becoming violent.
• The unknown follower is portrayed as competent enough to trail Morel discreetly, but Morel ultimately detects and corners them.

Significant Themes

• Knowledge as power: Morel’s technical understanding lets him identify forged documents and expose the broker’s scheme.
• Rules and order within criminal society: The black market survives because its participants trust its trading rules. Violating those rules threatens everyone, making the inspectors’ intervention significant.
• Deception and counter-deception: The broker tries to manipulate Morel, while Morel carefully conceals how much he knows and feeds the situation to his advantage.
• Investigation and pursuit: The hidden route, fleeing researchers, and tail following Morel deepen the mystery surrounding the incubation chamber and suggest that larger political forces are involved.
• Calculated risk: Morel consistently balances bold action with self-preservation, refusing dangerous work while still advancing his investigation.

Character Interactions

• Morel clashes verbally with the one-eyed broker, exposing his lies and forcing him to negotiate.
• The broker’s thugs attempt to intimidate Morel, but Morel relies on composure and the black market’s rules rather than fighting.
• Morel presents his case to the inspectors and the surrounding crowd, turning public opinion against the broker.
• The short-haired inspector arbitrates the dispute and settles the refund.
• Morel trades money and information with the broker, ultimately gaining the location of the hospital and a tunnel map.
• At the end of the chapter, Morel confronts the unidentified follower and demands to know who sent them.

Chapter Summary

Key Plot Points and Events

• Morel catches a young thief, Shuto, trying to escape from behind a drainage pipe. Using his smoke ability, Morel binds and lifts him into the air.
• Shuto admits he followed Morel through the black market to steal his money after noticing Morel display a cash box several times.
• During a search, Morel finds a hospital payment bill and a transport record hidden in Shuto’s clothing. The bill concerns a patient in Isolation Room Seven at Royal Charity Hospital, while the transport record lists three refrigerated trucks entering a flood-control passage.
• Morel realizes the hospital records are connected to the intelligence investigation he is pursuing. Shuto refuses to explain who is hospitalized or how he obtained the transport document.
• Rather than interrogating or harming him, Morel returns Shuto’s belongings and lets him go, warning him not to steal from people who are too dangerous.
• After escaping a short distance, Shuto unexpectedly turns back. He uses the environment and his agility to evade Morel, shedding his coat as Morel tries to grab him.
• Shuto successfully steals Morel’s cash box and disappears into the crowded black market. The spectators cheer and place bets on whether he can escape the Drainage District.
• The chapter ends with Morel discovering that his left pocket is empty.

Character Developments

• Morel: Initially treats Shuto as an insignificant petty thief, but becomes interested when he discovers the connection between Shuto, the hospital, and the refrigerated-truck shipment. His decision to release Shuto shows restraint and a willingness to recognize desperation beneath criminal behavior. However, he underestimates Shuto’s skill and is ultimately outmaneuvered.
• Shuto: Revealed to be impoverished, resourceful, observant, and highly agile. His theft is motivated by desperation, likely to pay for a family member’s medical treatment. Although frightened and physically weak, he is defiant, protects the hospital information, and possesses exceptional escape instincts. His decision to return and steal the cash box demonstrates both nerve and confidence.
• The black-market spectators and enforcers: They recognize Shuto as a familiar local thief and treat the confrontation as entertainment, suggesting that he has built a reputation for daring escapes.

Significant Themes

• Desperation and survival: Shuto’s poverty, hunger, injuries, and possible sick family member explain why he risks stealing despite the danger.
• Appearance versus ability: Morel initially dismisses Shuto as a weak “bean sprout,” but Shuto’s intelligence, agility, and courage prove that physical frailty does not equal helplessness.
• Moral ambiguity: Shuto is a thief, yet his motives appear tied to family and medical expenses. Morel, while operating in a dangerous criminal environment, shows unexpected compassion.
• Observation and underestimation: Shuto studies Morel’s habits and notices the cash box, while Morel focuses on the larger mystery and fails to anticipate a second theft.
• The black market as spectacle: Violence and crime are treated as entertainment, with onlookers encouraging the chase and betting on Shuto’s escape.

Character Interactions

• Morel interrogates Shuto while restraining him with smoke, but their exchange gradually shifts from threat to reluctant understanding.
• Shuto refuses to reveal information about the hospitalized person, prioritizing that individual’s safety over his own.
• Morel recognizes Shuto’s desperation and returns his knife and papers instead of punishing him.
• Shuto later repays Morel’s mercy by returning to steal the cash box, creating a humorous but tense reversal in their relationship.
• The onlookers function as a mocking chorus, observing the encounter, encouraging Shuto, and turning his escape into a public wager.

Chapter Summary: “Shuto, Run!”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Morel realizes that Shuto is unconsciously using Nen. During their earlier close encounters, Morel sensed aura gathering around Shuto’s legs, waist, back, and hands. Though uncontrolled and uneven, it resembles a crude form of Ten, formed through instinct rather than instruction.
• Morel examines Shuto’s belongings and is impressed by his resourcefulness. Shuto has modified his shoes with iron sheets to confuse pursuers, sewn hidden pockets into his coat, and carried a concealed blade despite his poverty.
• Determined to recover the stolen cash box, Morel tracks Shuto through the crowded drainage district using cigar smoke. The smoke follows Shuto’s wet footprints, grease marks, and hospital scent.
• Shuto repeatedly escapes through the market, using crates, ladders, shelves, pipes, machines, and crowds to slow Morel down. He throws a rotten fish at pursuing thugs and takes advantage of the market’s chaos.
• The local black-market traders and thugs openly interfere with the chase. Some give false directions, offer to help Shuto, or obstruct Morel for money. Morel responds by paying people off rather than fighting through the crowd.
• Morel’s smoke repeatedly corners Shuto, but Shuto’s quick instincts allow him to evade it. When smoke blocks his intended landing spot, he changes direction midair, swings from pipes, and drops through the market onto dismantled diving pods.
• By the end of the chapter, Morel continues pursuing Shuto while recognizing that the boy’s natural talent is exceptional.

Character Developments

• Shuto: His survival instincts, athleticism, and ingenuity are emphasized. He is not merely a skilled thief; his body instinctively manipulates aura to strengthen movement and reactions. Despite having no knowledge of Nen, he demonstrates remarkably precise timing and adaptability under pressure.
• Morel: He shifts from treating Shuto as a simple thief to viewing him as a rare potential talent. Morel remains amused and confident, but he becomes increasingly interested in Shuto’s abilities and considers the boy valuable enough to train.
• The market residents and thugs: They are shown to be opportunistic but sympathetic toward Shuto. They turn the chase into entertainment, helping him either for amusement, profit, or local loyalty. Their willingness to obstruct Morel demonstrates the community’s distrust of outsiders.

Significant Themes

• Innate talent versus formal training: Shuto uses Nen unconsciously, showing that extraordinary ability can emerge from instinct and survival rather than education.
• Resourcefulness and survival: Shuto’s modified clothing, improvised tools, and creative escape routes reflect a life shaped by poverty and danger.
• Community resistance: The market collectively protects or assists Shuto, contrasting with Morel’s outsider status and suggesting a strong local bond.
• Predator and prey dynamics: Although Morel is the more experienced and powerful pursuer, Shuto’s unpredictability and environment-based tactics keep the chase competitive.
• Potential hidden beneath poverty: Morel recognizes that Shuto’s difficult circumstances have forged abilities that, with training, could become genuinely formidable.

Character Interactions

• Morel analyzes Shuto’s movements and equipment while pursuing him, gradually developing respect for his abilities.
• Shuto refuses offers from the thugs and insults those trying to manipulate or distract him, showing his independence and distrust.
• The market crowd alternately mocks, assists, and obstructs Morel, turning the pursuit into a public spectacle.
• Morel pays off those whose carts or stalls are damaged, revealing his pragmatic nature and willingness to avoid unnecessary conflict.
• The chapter ends with Morel still chasing Shuto, but now viewing the pursuit as an opportunity to discover and potentially cultivate a gifted young Nen user.

Chapter Summary: “I Got Your Money Back”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Morel pursues Shuto, a thief who has escaped with a cash box, through a crowded market in the Drainage District.
• The market residents deliberately obstruct Morel while placing bets on whether Shuto will escape. Morel pushes past a burly man, two gamblers, and other obstacles, often responding with dry humor rather than immediate violence.
• Shuto uses the environment skillfully, crossing a sewage ditch on a thrown board and squeezing through machinery in an equipment area.
• Morel uses his smoke to block exits, but Shuto discovers a loose iron plate leading into a dangerous underground waterway. Despite warnings from nearby stall owners, he jumps into the pipeline.
• The betting crowd declares Shuto’s escape a success and distributes the winnings. Their amusement ends when Morel realizes the lower waterway connects to Black Market Patrol strongholds and may be extremely dangerous.
• Morel descends into the pipelines and tracks Shuto using smoke, footprints, scent, and other traces. He finds evidence that Shuto is still fleeing and has passed through several branching tunnels.
• A scream and a heavy splash signal that Shuto has encountered someone else. Morel soon meets a short-haired woman wearing the Black Market Patrol’s insignia.
• The woman carries Shuto’s severed arm, which is still gripping the cash box. She tells Morel that the thief has been punished and that his money has been recovered.

Character Developments

• Morel: Initially treats the chase as a minor annoyance and even plays along with the market’s betting spectacle. His attitude becomes serious once Shuto enters the forbidden lower waterways. He demonstrates physical strength, tactical intelligence, and careful use of smoke-based tracking abilities, while remaining composed and sarcastic.
• Shuto: Revealed as agile, resourceful, and familiar with the Drainage District’s hidden routes. He takes increasingly dangerous risks to escape, showing desperation and determination, but ultimately encounters a much more dangerous opponent.
• Market residents and gamblers: They are established as opportunistic and tightly connected, actively helping Shuto for entertainment and profit. However, they become wary when Morel’s mood changes and his true seriousness becomes apparent.
• Short-haired Black Market Patrol woman: Introduced as a ruthless and efficient enforcer. Her calm manner contrasts sharply with the brutality of Shuto’s punishment.

Significant Themes

• The danger beneath apparent disorder: The market seems like a chaotic place for petty crime and gambling, but its lower levels conceal violent organizations and lethal territory.
• Community complicity and self-interest: The residents protect Shuto not out of loyalty, but because they benefit from the chase and the betting.
• Escalation: What begins as a trivial pursuit over stolen money develops into a potentially deadly confrontation once Shuto enters the Black Market Patrol’s domain.
• Power and consequences: Shuto’s cleverness helps him evade Morel, but his reckless choice to enter the lower waterways brings him into contact with forces far beyond his control.
• Humor masking danger: Morel’s jokes and casual attitude initially make the chase seem playful, but his silence and anger reveal how quickly the situation has turned serious.

Important Character Interactions

• Morel verbally spars with the burly man who grabs him and demands a toll, exposing the market’s brazen exploitation.
• He negotiates with two gamblers who block his path, joking that they are using him as part of their betting game before physically forcing his way through.
• Shuto ignores warnings from stall owners and chooses the dangerous pipeline route rather than surrendering.
• Morel questions the market residents about the lower level, learning that even they fear the Black Market Patrol’s territory.
• The chapter ends with the short-haired woman confronting Morel and returning the cash box—along with Shuto’s severed arm—announcing that she has already dealt with the thief.

Chapter Summary: The Fourth Prince’s Sincerity

Key Plot Points and Events

• Morel discovers Shuto severely injured in the underground pipes. Shuto’s left arm has been severed and cauterized, making reattachment impossible.
• Lina Pokkle introduces herself as the manager of the black market and an agent operating under Fourth Prince Tserriednich. She reveals that the prince knew Morel would investigate the Deep-Sea Incubation Chamber, Royal Hospital, and underground transport routes.
• Lina offers Morel valuable information about the hospital’s underground layout, the incubation chamber’s destination, and the researchers involved in the cultivation process. In exchange, Tserriednich wants details about the Caspian Sea and a private meeting with Bai Zhu.
• Morel rejects the negotiation, prioritizing Shuto’s condition. He intimidates Lina and her armed subordinates with his smoke-based Nen, immobilizing them without initially attacking.
• Morel learns that a burly thug severed Shuto’s arm and burned the wound. The thug claims Shuto had stolen repeatedly from the market and had taken Morel’s cash box.
• Morel condemns the black market’s brutality and argues that Shuto earned the money by successfully escaping with it. He retrieves the cash box from Shuto’s severed hand and places it on Shuto’s body.
• Carrying Shuto and the severed arm, Morel leaves while warning Tserriednich to show genuine sincerity rather than sending subordinates to negotiate.
• As a final punishment, Morel uses smoke to launch the thug’s own knife into his arm, inflicting an injury comparable to Shuto’s.
• Lina reports to Tserriednich that the test is complete and that Morel refused to negotiate unless Tserriednich came personally to meet Bai Zhu.
• Tserriednich agrees to go himself and orders Lina to bring the cultivation tanks from the hospital.

Character Developments

• Morel: Demonstrates fierce protectiveness, moral outrage, and unwavering confidence. He refuses to treat Shuto as disposable, challenges the black market’s authority, and demands that Tserriednich personally demonstrate his commitment. His controlled use of Nen shows both restraint and terrifying power.
• Shuto: Although unconscious, he is shown to possess considerable survival instinct and courage. His theft of the cash box and hospital records suggests resourcefulness, while his injuries highlight the brutality of the underworld.
• Lina Pokkle: Initially confident as Tserriednich’s representative, Lina recognizes Morel’s strength and becomes increasingly cautious. She successfully tests his limits but realizes that he cannot be pressured through ordinary threats.
• Tserriednich: His interest in Morel and Bai Zhu becomes more serious. Rather than retaliating after Morel’s refusal, he accepts the demand to meet personally, signaling a willingness to escalate or prove his sincerity.

Significant Themes

• Sincerity versus manipulation: Morel refuses information offered through intermediaries, insisting that meaningful cooperation requires personal commitment from Tserriednich.
• Justice and brutality: The black market justifies mutilation as enforcement of its rules, while Morel exposes the cruelty behind that supposed order.
• Power and intimidation: Morel’s Nen establishes that physical numbers and territorial authority mean little against overwhelming individual strength.
• Protection of the vulnerable: Morel’s treatment of Shuto contrasts sharply with the market’s willingness to sacrifice him for discipline and reputation.
• Testing and countertesting: Tserriednich uses Lina to assess the Hunters, but Morel reverses the situation, forcing the prince to reveal how far he is willing to go.

Character Interactions

• Morel and Lina: Their negotiation becomes a contest of authority. Lina speaks for Tserriednich, while Morel refuses to acknowledge her authority and demands that the prince come himself.
• Morel and the burly thug: Morel interrogates him about Shuto’s injuries, condemns his actions, and ultimately gives him a similar wound as punishment.
• Morel and Shuto: Morel treats Shuto as someone worth saving, bandaging him, carrying him out, preserving the severed arm, and allowing him to keep the stolen money.
• Lina and Tserriednich: Lina reports the results of the test, while Tserriednich responds decisively by preparing to meet Morel and Bai Zhu in person with the cultivation tanks.