Chapter Summaries

Chapter Summary: Corpse-Collecting Apprentice

Key Plot Points and Events

• In the Gray Earth Territory, apprentice Organ Witch Doctor Li Ziran collects thirteen freshly executed corpses from the gallows.
• He uses his unique Shapeshifting Curse: Frog to transform each corpse into a small emerald frog, allowing him to carry many bodies around his waist and transport them discreetly.
• Li pays Barbaro, a one-eyed Wolf and execution overseer, for access to the corpses. He deliberately gives Barbaro an extra silver coin to cultivate their relationship and secure a steady supply.
• Li’s corpse business is profitable: he extracts valuable organs and sells them to Necromancers. However, his main problem is the lack of a reliable corpse source.
• Barbaro offers Li exclusive access to the Gray Wolf Territory’s corpses for two years, especially promising a large supply if war breaks out between the Gray Wolf Tribe and the Thorn Gang.
• The offer comes with a dangerous condition: Barbaro wants Li to help sell a secretly captured slave. Li initially refuses, insisting that he only conducts legitimate business because slave trading is a heavily punished taboo.
• Barbaro reveals that he knows Li has secretly participated in several illegal smuggling deals. He then identifies himself through a secret Morse-code signal as a senior slave broker.
• Li abandons his pretense of innocence and agrees to hear the proposal. Barbaro reveals a hidden chamber beneath the execution platform containing a thirteen-year-old Medusa girl.
• Barbaro intends to remove and sell her petrifying eyes, then sell the girl herself.

Character Developments

• Li Ziran is established as clever, practical, and highly ambitious. He is both a Witch Doctor Apprentice and a merchant who carefully calculates profits, risks, and business relationships.
• His frog-transformation magic demonstrates ingenuity and gives him a major logistical advantage in the corpse trade.
• Li is skilled at deception. He pretends to fear Barbaro’s weak Battle Qi in order to flatter the Wolf and encourage future cooperation.
• Although he publicly rejects slave trading, his greed and curiosity quickly overcome his caution once Barbaro proves he knows Li’s criminal history and offers access to highly profitable goods.
• Barbaro appears to be a low-ranking Wolf bandit, but his control over corpses and knowledge of underground trade reveal him to be much more influential and dangerous than he first seems.
• Barbaro uses intimidation, bribery, blackmail, and a lucrative offer to manipulate Li into cooperating.
• The Medusa girl is introduced as a vulnerable captive whose supernatural abilities make her valuable to criminal traders.

Significant Themes

• Profit versus morality: Li claims to conduct “legitimate business,” but his livelihood depends on corpses, organ harvesting, smuggling, and ultimately potentially trafficking a child.
• Survival in a brutal society: Execution, corpse collection, slavery, and war are treated as ordinary economic opportunities in the Wasteland.
• Power hidden beneath appearances: Barbaro’s apparent insignificance conceals his authority and criminal connections, while Li’s timid demeanor hides a sharp, opportunistic mind.
• The commodification of life and death: Bodies, organs, magical abilities, and even a young girl’s eyes are treated as merchandise.
• Risk and opportunism: Li understands that dangerous opportunities can transform his business, but every major profit also brings the threat of exposure and punishment.
• Moral compromise: Li’s refusal to engage in slavery collapses as soon as the potential rewards become sufficiently attractive.

Character Interactions

• Li and Barbaro: Their relationship begins as a transactional exchange over corpses, with Li attempting to buy Barbaro’s favor through an extra coin. Barbaro then escalates the relationship by offering exclusive corpse access, threatening exposure, and revealing their shared involvement in illegal commerce.
• Li and the execution system: Li exploits the Gray Wolf Territory’s frequent executions, turning the region’s violent legal system into the foundation of his business.
• Li and the Medusa girl: They do not directly speak in the chapter, but Li’s reaction marks the beginning of his involvement in her fate. He views her primarily through the lens of value and opportunity, despite her age and vulnerable condition.
• Barbaro and the Medusa girl: Barbaro treats her as contraband and plans to profit from both her petrifying eyes and her body, emphasizing his ruthless exploitation of captives.

Chapter Summary: “This Deal Has Profit in It”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Li Ziran encounters a captive Medusa, a rare and extraordinarily valuable being whose petrifying eyes can turn living creatures to stone.
• Barbaro, the Medusa’s owner, wants to sell her while keeping her eyes for an organ-transplant procedure. He hopes Li Ziran can transplant the eyes and give him petrifying abilities.
• Li Ziran recognizes that Barbaro is severely undervaluing the Medusa. Rather than treating her as a source of magical organs, Li sees her greater worth in establishing a powerful petrifying bloodline through her offspring.
• Barbaro initially demands fifty silver coins, eventually lowering the price to forty-five. Li negotiates him down to forty while pretending the price is burdensome, despite knowing the Medusa could be worth hundreds of times more.
• Since Li has only four silver coins, he persuades Barbaro to accompany him to the Undead Nest, where he claims payment can be arranged after several days.
• Li offers to perform Barbaro’s eye transplant immediately and allows him to pay the five-silver-coin fee later, using generosity and flattery to gain Barbaro’s trust.
• When Barbaro lies on the magical operating canvas, Li activates the spell and transforms him into a frog instead of performing the promised transplant.
• Li also transforms the unconscious Medusa into a frog, binding both frogs to a pole. Although he briefly considers simply taking her, he decides that preserving his professional reputation is more valuable than a single dishonest gain.
• Li then applies paralysis potion to Barbaro and, reluctantly but compassionately, to Medusa as well, ensuring neither can escape or resist.

Character Developments

• Li Ziran is revealed as shrewd, opportunistic, and highly skilled at negotiation. He recognizes the Medusa’s true value immediately and carefully conceals his excitement to avoid weakening his bargaining position.
• Despite his willingness to deceive Barbaro, Li has a professional code. He refuses to steal the Medusa outright because his reputation is essential to his continued survival and business in the Wasteland.
• Li also shows a trace of compassion toward Medusa, feeling tenderness when he sees her unconscious and extending the paralysis potion to her despite the additional cost.
• Barbaro is portrayed as greedy but naïve and desperate. He wants to exploit Medusa’s eyes without understanding her broader value, and his eagerness for the transplant makes him easy for Li to manipulate.
• Medusa remains unconscious and largely passive in the chapter, but her rarity and potential establish her as the central prize of the transaction.

Significant Themes

• Value versus exploitation: The chapter contrasts Medusa’s true biological and hereditary value with Barbaro’s short-sighted desire to harvest her eyes.
• Deception and trust: Li succeeds because Barbaro trusts appearances, flattering words, and Li’s reputation more than he questions the procedure.
• Profit and survival: In the Wasteland, commerce is tied directly to danger. Li constantly balances immediate profit against the long-term importance of maintaining his reputation.
• Professional ethics and moral ambiguity: Li deceives and transforms both parties, yet he stops short of outright theft and treats Medusa more gently than Barbaro.
• Power through knowledge: Li’s medical and magical expertise allows him to control the negotiation and reverse the power dynamic completely.

Character Interactions

• Li and Barbaro engage in a tense but outwardly friendly bargaining exchange, with Li using false reluctance, compliments, and promises of delayed payment to manipulate Barbaro.
• Barbaro’s desire for Medusa’s petrifying eyes conflicts with Li’s understanding of her much greater worth, creating the chapter’s central commercial tension.
• Li gains Barbaro’s confidence by offering the eye transplant on credit, then exploits that trust by transforming him into a frog.
• Li’s final treatment of Medusa reflects a subtle distinction in his behavior: while he deceives both captives, he shows greater concern for Medusa’s welfare and potential than for Barbaro’s ambitions.

Chapter Summary: “Eye Transplant”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Li Ziran performs an extremely delicate eye-transplant operation on Barbaro, a wolf who had been blind for years but was currently in frog-transformed form.
• He removes a frog’s complete eye structure, including the cornea, eyeball, and 123-strand nerve network, placing it temporarily in a nurturing solution.
• Li Ziran carefully opens and cleans Barbaro’s damaged eye socket, discovering that the remaining nerve endings are still viable and have not completely decayed.
• He connects the donor nerves to Barbaro’s nerve network strand by strand, completing the most difficult stage of the procedure without complications.
• Li Ziran uses his only expensive bottle of Sacred Potion to heal the surgical wounds and fuse the transplanted tissues. The potion rapidly restores the eye and leaves no visible trace of the operation.
• The transplanted eye activates the powerful Petrifying Eye ability, but immediately afterward a strange white beam strikes Li Ziran’s hand. His arm begins turning to stone, suggesting that the eye carries a curse or dangerous side effect.

Character Development

• Li Ziran demonstrates extraordinary surgical precision, patience, and confidence. Although only a Witch Doctor Apprentice, his extensive experience modifying frogs—over 17,000 dissections—gives him abilities surpassing those of many Grand Witch Doctors.
• His concern for Barbaro’s nerves and vision shows that he is not merely experimenting; he is invested in restoring the wolf’s sight.
• Li Ziran also reveals his frugality and limited resources. He has saved his entire life for the Sacred Potion, yet willingly uses it to ensure the operation succeeds.
• His admiration for human alchemy contrasts with his resentment at the potion’s high price.
• His confidence and satisfaction at completing the operation quickly turn into alarm when the Petrifying Eye affects him.

Significant Themes

• Knowledge and innovation: Li Ziran achieves advanced medical results without formally mastering the five spells traditionally required for transplantation.
• Patience and precision: The operation depends on microscopic control, experience, and absolute concentration.
• Sacrifice and cost: Li Ziran spends a precious and expensive resource to restore Barbaro’s sight, emphasizing the personal cost of healing.
• The danger of power: The successful transplant grants access to the Petrifying Eye, but its power appears linked to an unexpected curse.
• Science versus magic: The procedure combines surgical technique, biological understanding, witchcraft, and alchemy, blurring the boundary between medicine and magic.

Character Interactions

• The central interaction is between Li Ziran and Barbaro. Barbaro is unconscious or unable to assist, while Li Ziran acts as surgeon and protector, restoring his damaged eye.
• Their relationship is conveyed indirectly through Li Ziran’s determination to preserve Barbaro’s nerves, avoid complications, and spend his rare Sacred Potion on him.
• The chapter ends with the transplanted eye producing a dangerous effect on Li Ziran himself, creating a new conflict between the healer and the power he has implanted in Barbaro.

Summary of “A Gift for a Gift”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Li Ziran, a Witch Doctor specializing in organ transplantation, attempts to transplant a Medusa eye into Barbaro, a wolf-like character who has been transformed into a frog.
• During the operation, Li Ziran’s arm begins petrifying due to a curse carried through the Medusa bloodline. Recognizing that the curse is beyond his expertise, he decides he must eventually consult his teacher.
• Before leaving, Li disguises the failed surgery. He paints Medusa’s remaining eye to make it appear destroyed and injures Barbaro’s other eye just enough to create convincing pain without causing permanent damage.
• Li uses his own blood to reverse Barbaro’s frog transformation, restoring him to his wolf form. The transplanted Medusa eye appears to function, though Barbaro initially believes the surgery has only partially succeeded.
• Barbaro accidentally activates the Petrifying Eye, firing a beam at Li and turning his entire body to stone. Li soon recovers, revealing that his Witch Doctor abilities allow him to escape the petrification.
• Li has deliberately used himself as a test subject, hoping to confirm the eye’s power and encourage Barbaro to value the transplant.
• Barbaro, overwhelmed by the eye’s success and guilty about Li’s petrified arm, offers the remaining Medusa as compensation. He sells it to Li for only three silver coins and gives him information about a nearby swamp filled with corpses from potential battles.

Character Developments

• Li Ziran is shown to be highly skilled, resourceful, and morally flexible. Although he genuinely helps Barbaro, he also manipulates the situation by staging the surgery’s apparent failure and arranging for Barbaro to test the Petrifying Eye on him.
• Li’s limitations become clearer: he is knowledgeable in medicine, transformation, and organ modification but cannot truly understand curses or divination. His petrified arm becomes a lasting consequence of the operation.
• Barbaro changes from an anxious, dependent patient into an excited possessor of a powerful weapon. His guilt over harming Li quickly mixes with gratitude, admiration, and a desire to establish friendship.
• Barbaro’s trust in Li grows dramatically. He calls Li the greatest Witch Doctor he has met and promises future compensation, while also offering useful information to help Li profit from collecting corpses.

Significant Themes

• Exchange and compensation: The chapter’s title reflects the reciprocal nature of the encounter. Li gives Barbaro a functioning Medusa eye, while Barbaro gives Li the Medusa corpse, money, and valuable information.
• Trust built through deception: Li’s relationship with Barbaro depends on carefully constructed illusions. He deceives Barbaro about the surgery’s failure while also proving his own reliability.
• Knowledge and limitation: Li possesses advanced practical knowledge but cannot master every branch of magic. His expertise in organ modification contrasts with his inability to understand curses.
• Risk and experimentation: Li treats himself as a test subject, accepting serious danger to verify the transplanted eye’s abilities.
• Power and responsibility: Barbaro receives a dangerous new ability without understanding how to control it, immediately petrifying Li by accident.

Character Interactions

• Li and Barbaro’s relationship shifts from a transactional doctor-patient arrangement to an emerging friendship.
• Li manipulates Barbaro’s perception through staged injuries and emotional acting, while Barbaro responds with sincere gratitude and guilt.
• Barbaro’s accidental attack exposes the danger of the new eye, but Li’s recovery prevents the incident from destroying their relationship.
• Their final exchange combines business and camaraderie: Barbaro takes most of Li’s money, leaves him one coin as a “gift,” and directs him toward a profitable corpse-collecting opportunity.

Chapter Summary: “The Person He Used to Be”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Li Ziran reflects on his recent trade with Barbaro. He has exchanged a One-eyed Frog—containing a Medusa’s Eye—for valuable information about a newly formed swamp filled with Medusas.
• The Elemental Tide is explained as the force shaping the Red Soil Continent. Its unstable distribution can create magical terrain, tear open space, and shift entire regions over vast distances.
• Li Ziran considers the dangers of traveling alone through the Wasteland, including hurricanes, scarce resources, bandits, slave traders, and hostile inhabitants.
• He waits for a merchant caravan or traveling group to escort him to the swamp, hoping to capture Medusas. Selling just two Medusa slaves could earn enough money to purchase two Devouring Curse inheritances—one for himself and one for his former teacher, Watt.
• While waiting, Li Ziran maintains his surgical instruments and recalls his past. He was once a surgical doctor and science student in his previous life, knowledge that now allows him to perform magical organ transplants.
• A group of Coiled-Horn Goatmen eventually offers him transportation. Li Ziran negotiates with their leader, offering one low-grade Healing Potion in exchange for passage to the swamp.

Character Developments

• Li Ziran is shown as cautious, pragmatic, and highly observant. He survives through calculated bargains, concealed information, and strong interpersonal connections rather than brute force.
• His moral outlook is unconventional: he believes customers bear responsibility for the consequences of their purchases, so he does not warn Barbaro about the Petrification Curse connected to the Medusa’s Eye.
• Li Ziran’s past as a surgeon strongly influences his current identity. He uses scientific reasoning to understand magic, particularly the Frog Transformation spell, though he struggles with intuitive forms of magic such as Healing Wave.
• Despite being classified only as a Witch Doctor Apprentice, Li Ziran has unusual practical abilities. His mastery of Frog Transformation and organ transplantation makes him more capable and commercially valuable than his formal rank suggests.
• His loyalty to Watt is revealed through his desire to buy a Devouring Curse for his former teacher, whose spiritual growth stalled because he never inherited one.
• The Goatmen leader is introduced as an opportunistic but practical trader who recognizes the value of Li Ziran’s potion and attempts to negotiate for more.

Significant Themes

• Survival through mistrust and compromise: In the Wasteland, complete sincerity is dangerous. People survive by concealing information, bargaining carefully, and protecting their own interests.
• The value of relationships: Li Ziran believes connections are more important than immediate profit. His dealings with Barbaro, Watt, and the Necromancer demonstrate how alliances create long-term opportunities.
• Science and magic: Li Ziran applies his former scientific and medical knowledge to a magical world, using experimentation and technical reasoning to reproduce spells and perform supernatural surgery.
• Orthodox versus unconventional power: Most beings cultivate strength through the Elemental Tide, while Witch Doctors and Organ Witch Doctors pursue alternative methods such as curses, transformations, and organ transplantation.
• Identity and memory: Li Ziran’s memories of his former life as a surgeon remain central to his present self. His scalpel and surgical skills connect the person he once was with the survivor he has become.
• Scarcity and exploitation: The Wasteland’s lack of water, safety, and stable resources encourages slavery, banditry, and the commercial exploitation of rare beings such as Medusas and Goatmen.

Character Interactions

• Li Ziran and Barbaro: Their trade benefits both sides. Barbaro receives a genuine Medusa’s Eye, while Li Ziran gains information about the swamp. Li Ziran deliberately withholds the danger of the Petrification Curse, reinforcing the transactional nature of their relationship.
• Li Ziran and Watt: Through memories, Li Ziran reveals both frustration with Watt’s vague teaching methods and deep gratitude toward the mentor who rescued him from slavery and gave him spiritual power.
• Li Ziran and the Necromancer: Li Ziran’s first successful heart transplant creates a lasting friendship. The Necromancer buys corpses from him and teaches him about potions, establishing a mutually beneficial relationship.
• Li Ziran and the Goatmen leader: The leader offers him a ride after noticing his witch-doctor robes. Li Ziran uses a Healing Potion to negotiate passage but refuses to offer a second bottle, maintaining control of the bargain.

Chapter Summary: “Battle with the Ram-headed Laborers”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Li Ziran travels through the dangerous Wasteland with a caravan of Ram-headed People, riding a large-horned ram.
• He engages the Ram-headed chief in casual conversation, deliberately giving vague or selectively useful information. He mentions a wandering bard in Gray Wolf Territory who trades low-grade healing potions, earning the chief’s interest and goodwill.
• The group passes through a devastated region where a pond has dried into cracked earth, likely due to the Wasteland’s volatile elemental forces. Evidence of a recent firestorm and the approaching swamp reveals how quickly the landscape changes.
• When they reach a swamp, the Ram-headed People refuse to leave. Li realizes they intend to rob him, disguising their threat as a request for another healing potion.
• As two attackers approach, Li activates hidden frogs tied to red cords at his waist. The frogs summon undead Bone Claws from the mud, dragging the attackers into the sludge and breaking their weapons.
• The Ram-headed People recognize Li’s undead magic and initially hesitate, fearing the reputation of necromancers. However, the chief convinces them to attack, reasoning that Li must be wealthy and may kill them if they let him escape.
• Li releases more red cords, awakening thirteen corpses as weak skeletons. Although they delay the attackers, the Goathead Chief easily destroys one and continues leading the charge.
• Li falsely promises another healing potion, intentionally increasing the robbers’ greed and recklessness. He retreats through the shallow swamp while secretly circling the same area rather than entering deeper water.
• Once the Ram-headed People are positioned within the swamp’s magical zone, Li stops and casts Shapeshifting Curse: Frog on the Goathead Chief. A green magical membrane surrounds the chief, and his body begins shrinking.

Character Developments

• Li Ziran is revealed as cautious, resourceful, and experienced in dealing with criminals. He reads the chief’s intentions quickly and uses deception, controlled retreat, and battlefield positioning rather than relying solely on strength.
• His necromantic abilities become clearer. His red cords, made from the hair of the dead and infused with magic, can transform corpses into temporary skeleton warriors. However, his limited supply of thirteen corpses restricts his options.
• Li also shows psychological cunning: he deliberately promises another potion to make the Ram-headed People more reckless and lure them into a favorable position.
• The Goathead Chief shifts from friendly and opportunistic to openly violent. Greed overrides his fear of necromancy, and he takes personal command of the attack.
• The Ram-headed People are portrayed as opportunistic but superstitious. Their fear of undead magic briefly restrains them, though their chief’s confidence and promise of wealth drive them to attack.

Significant Themes

• Deception and survival: In the lawless Wasteland, apparent friendliness can conceal predatory intentions, and survival depends on recognizing danger early.
• Greed as a weakness: The chief’s desire for potions and the belief that Li is a wealthy “fat sheep” causes the attackers to ignore warning signs and pursue him recklessly.
• Adaptation to hostile environments: The Wasteland constantly destroys and reshapes its terrain through elemental disasters, making awareness of the landscape essential.
• Reputation and fear: Necromancers are feared throughout the Wasteland because of their association with undead magic and plagues. This reputation protects Li temporarily, but greed ultimately overcomes the attackers’ caution.
• Limited resources and strategy: Li’s thirteen corpses and weak skeletons cannot defeat the entire group directly, forcing him to rely on traps, terrain, and timing.

Character Interactions

• Li and the Ram-headed chief maintain a superficially polite conversation about wizardly earnings and healing potions, while Li quietly withholds meaningful information.
• The chief’s request for another potion exposes the caravan’s true intentions. Li responds diplomatically, but both sides understand that the conversation has become a negotiation backed by force.
• After Li’s Bone Claws appear, the attackers’ fear contrasts with the chief’s attempt to rally them through greed and intimidation.
• Li’s false promise of a potion intensifies the group’s pursuit, allowing him to manipulate their behavior.
• The chapter ends with Li reversing the power dynamic: after appearing cornered, he uses the swamp’s magic to target and transform the Goathead Chief.

Chapter Summary: “Snake Women”

Plot Points and Events

• Li Ziran defeats the Goathead Chief by trapping him inside a Transformation Array and transforming him into a frog. He then captures the remaining Ram-headed People, turning many of them into frogs and tying them to his waist with red ropes.
• Most of the Ram-headed People escape because Li Ziran’s Transformation Spell only works within the limited range of his array. He is disappointed that he cannot capture more.
• He collects the broken red ropes used to bind the Skeletons. These are valuable Death Ropes, infused with Undead Force, and can be repaired or exchanged with Necromancers.
• Before he can finish looting the battlefield, Li Ziran is ambushed by arrows. He transforms into a tiny frog and escapes through the swamp.
• He discovers that the attackers are Snake Women, swamp-dwelling hunters who can transform into water snakes and possess the racial ability Iris, which allows them to see through magical disguises.
• Rather than fleeing, Li Ziran decides to move deeper into the swamp, hoping to encounter Medusa and potentially capture Snake Women for sale as slaves.
• He uses one of his captured frogs as bait. The Snake Women attack and kill the transformed Ram-headed Person, giving Li Ziran a brief opening to advance.
• However, he soon realizes that he is being pursued by a disciplined unit of at least thirteen water snakes, far more than the three he initially observed.
• Li Ziran releases several frogs as decoys, creates an opening, and escapes into deeper water and aquatic vegetation.
• While hiding and planning to establish another Transformation Array in the swamp’s center, he is suddenly approached from behind by a huge snake-like creature. The chapter ends as its forked tongue reaches through the grass beside him.

Character Developments

• Li Ziran is shown to be resourceful, calculating, and highly opportunistic. He treats captured enemies as valuable commodities rather than moral concerns, preferring to sell living prisoners for corpses.
• His confidence in his Transformation Spell is tempered by its limitations: it depends heavily on the range of his array and is ineffective against creatures with the ability to see through disguises.
• He demonstrates strong survival instincts, quickly recognizing when to retreat, use decoys, or exploit enemy openings.
• His interest in finding Medusa reveals that he is willing to take significant risks for rare opportunities and potential profit.
• The Ram-headed People are reduced from attackers to prey, illustrating the dramatic reversal of power once Li Ziran gains control of the battlefield.

Significant Themes

• Predator and prey: The chapter repeatedly reverses the roles of hunter and hunted. Li Ziran first dominates the Ram-headed People, then becomes prey when the Snake Women ambush him.
• Survival and opportunism: Li Ziran follows a harsh survival code, valuing speed, profit, and tactical advantage above compassion.
• The limits of power: His Transformation Spell is powerful within the array but nearly useless outside it, while the Snake Women’s Iris directly counters his disguises.
• Commodification of life: Captured creatures, corpses, Skeletons, and Snake Women are all treated as trade goods, emphasizing the brutal economy of the Wasteland.
• Risk versus reward: Li Ziran knowingly enters greater danger because the swamp may lead him to Medusa and provide rare opportunities for profit.

Character Interactions

• Li Ziran overpowers the Goathead Chief and the Ram-headed People, capturing them for sale.
• He uses a captured Ram-headed Person as bait to distract the Snake Women.
• The Snake Women cooperate as a coordinated hunting unit, tracking Li Ziran through water ripples and systematically closing off his escape routes.
• Li Ziran’s confrontation with the Snake Women remains unresolved, ending with the appearance of a much larger and more dangerous serpent directly behind him.

Chapter Summary: “Opening the Spirit World”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Li Ziran encounters a massive aquatic Snake Woman while searching underwater for the enslaved Ram-headed People.
• He successfully avoids the first snake by remaining perfectly still among the water plants, exploiting its poor eyesight.
• However, the snake is part of a larger group. A second Snake Woman ambushes him and constricts him with Snake Constriction, crushing his body and leaving him apparently helpless.
• Facing imminent death, Li Ziran reflects on his past as a slave and his instinctive fear of dying, despite having previously accepted death as part of life in the Wasteland.
• As he loses consciousness, he enters a freezing, dark mental space and hears a mysterious voice repeating “Gulubalam!”
• By repeating the chant, Li Ziran receives a surge of spiritual power and discovers that he has opened his previously inaccessible Spirit World.
• The new power somehow kills the constricting Snake Woman. Li Ziran escapes and finds that his spiritual abilities have increased dramatically.
• He immediately casts a Transformation Spell, turning the dead water snake into a green-skinned frog with unprecedented speed and ease.
• The chapter ends with Li Ziran suspecting that the mysterious Devouring Curse caused his breakthrough and looking toward the one-eyed frog, who may be connected to the event.

Character Development

• Li Ziran demonstrates caution and intelligence by using the Snake Woman’s weak eyesight against it, but the second ambush exposes his vulnerability.
• His near-death experience reveals that, despite his previous acceptance of death, he still deeply fears dying and longs for warmth and survival.
• Li Ziran undergoes a major magical breakthrough by opening the Spirit World, apparently gaining immense spiritual power and greatly improving his spellcasting.
• He becomes more powerful but also more confused, since he does not understand how the breakthrough occurred or who taught him the mysterious chant.
• The one-eyed frog is positioned as a potentially important supernatural influence or source of the Devouring Curse.

Significant Themes

• Predator and prey: The Snake Women’s coordinated hunting emphasizes the brutal survival structure of the Red Soil Continent, where weakness means being consumed.
• Fear and the will to live: Li Ziran’s acceptance of death collapses when death becomes immediate, showing that survival instinct persists beneath resignation.
• Transformation through crisis: His breakthrough occurs at the moment of greatest danger, suggesting that extreme pressure can unlock hidden abilities.
• Mystery and spiritual awakening: Opening the Spirit World marks a new stage in Li Ziran’s magical development and raises questions about unseen forces guiding him.
• Power and uncertainty: Although Li Ziran gains extraordinary strength, he has little control or understanding of its source.

Character Interactions

• Li Ziran has a direct predator-prey encounter with two Snake Women: he evades one but is captured by another.
• The mysterious voice communicates with him through the repeated chant “Gulubalam!”, creating a spiritual connection that helps him access the Spirit World.
• Li Ziran’s interaction with the one-eyed frog at the end implies that the frog may be responsible for, or at least aware of, his awakening and the Devouring Curse.

Summary of “Goddess of Fortune Bless You?”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Li Ziran uses his transformation magic to summon frogs beneath the swamp, intending to capture the Snake Women as valuable slaves.
• The Snake Women attempt to flee, but a hidden Slave-Catching Group ambushes them with fireballs, Cold-Iron Arrows, Fishmen, Pigmen, Mages, and Dark Elf archers.
• Most of the Snake Women are captured by the group, while Li Ziran manages to retain only seven slaves. He realizes the group had been waiting for the perfect moment to take advantage of his efforts.
• The group’s leader, Captain Karen of the Bauhinia Flower, summons Li Ziran from the water and claims that they “saved” him.
• Recognizing that the group expects compensation, Li Ziran offers three Ram-headed People as a token of gratitude. He keeps the more valuable Goathead Chief and Medusa hidden.
• Instead of revealing his prized slaves, Li Ziran presents himself as a Witch Doctor skilled in organ transplantation and transformation magic.
• The slave-catching group shows immediate interest, particularly the blond Fire Mage, who needs a Medusa’s eyes transplanted.
• The chapter ends with Li Ziran stunned that the group possesses another Medusa, making him question whether Medusas are unusually common—or strangely undervalued.

Character Developments

• Li Ziran: Becomes more calculating and cautious. Although angry that the Slave-Catching Group steals most of his prey, he suppresses his resentment and adapts diplomatically. He hides his strongest assets, offers lesser slaves as gifts, and uses his medical abilities to negotiate for his survival.
• Captain Karen: Revealed as polite, refined, and outwardly charming, but also shrewd and demanding. His invocation of the Goddess of Fortune subtly signals that Li Ziran owes him compensation.
• The blond Fire Mage: Demonstrates considerable magical power and a practical, distrustful attitude. He is interested in Li Ziran’s organ-transplantation skills but refuses to let him experiment on anything valuable without proof of ability.
• Snake Women: Shift from organized defenders to desperate prey once Li Ziran and the ambushing group attack them. Their capture establishes the Slave-Catching Group’s efficiency and strength.

Significant Themes

• Survival through adaptability: Li Ziran understands that resentment is useless when facing a stronger force, so he negotiates rather than fights.
• Exploitation and commerce: Nearly every creature is treated as a commodity, and even rescue is framed as a transaction requiring payment.
• Appearance versus reality: Karen’s pleasant appearance and courteous language conceal a calculating personality. Li Ziran likewise presents himself as harmless while hiding his true abilities and valuable slaves.
• Luck and fortune: References to the Goddess of Fortune function as both religious language and a coded demand for compensation. Fortune is portrayed as something created through opportunism and negotiation.
• Value and rarity: The chapter questions what makes a creature valuable. Li Ziran considers Medusas highly important, while the slave-catching group apparently treats them as replaceable resources.

Important Character Interactions

• Li Ziran and the Snake Women clash during his attempted capture of them, but the hidden group interrupts and takes control of the battle.
• The Fishmen and Dark Elves work together with the Fire Mage to capture the Snake Women, demonstrating the group’s coordinated and professional structure.
• Karen speaks to Li Ziran in a friendly but pressuring manner, forcing him to acknowledge that he owes the group for intervening.
• Li Ziran offers slaves and then his medical services in exchange for protection, carefully avoiding the sacrifice of his Goathead Chief or Medusa.
• The Fire Mage tests Li Ziran’s claim by proposing a Medusa-eye transplant, creating a possible opportunity for Li Ziran to remain with the group while also revealing that they possess another Medusa.

Chapter Summary: “Get Up and Bow to the Captain, Now”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Li Ziran prepares to perform an organ transplant in front of Karen, Mage Hogg, and the Slave-Catching Group. He reveals specialized surgical tools, Thumb Bottles filled with Frog Sweat, and his knowledge of Tadpole Script, impressing the onlookers.
• Hogg reveals that the available Medusa is already dead and has been dead for roughly half a day. Li Ziran agrees to examine the corpse before deciding whether transplantation is possible.
• The Medusa’s remains are dumped onto the canvas. Her body has been brutally mutilated and mixed with parts of other corpses, but Li Ziran discovers that her neural network, retina, and Petrifying Eye remain viable.
• Karen selects a frightened Fishman laborer as the transplant recipient. Li Ziran transforms the Fishman into a frog, suspends him, removes the Medusa’s eye, and prepares it for implantation.
• Li Ziran performs the operation rapidly and skillfully, using potions, surgical techniques, and his spiritual power. He adapts the eye to the Fishman’s transformed body and reconnects the neural pathways.
• He uses a Sacred Potion to heal the wounds. The Fishman’s original pupil is replaced by a red-and-white, triangular pupil, indicating that the transplant has succeeded.
• When the Fishman remains unconscious, Hogg uses a small fireball to wake him and orders him to rise and bow to Karen.

Character Developments

• Li Ziran demonstrates genuine expertise and confidence as a Witch Doctor. His precise preparation, anatomical knowledge, and efficient surgery convince even skeptical observers that he is highly capable.
• He also reveals a practical, ambitious side: he hopes to secure future business and access to corpses through the Slave-Catching Group. He views the Medusa as both a valuable personal slave and a possible key to understanding his Petrification Curse and the Devouring Curse.
• Karen remains calm and authoritative. He permits the dangerous experiment, chooses the Fishman subject without hesitation, and maintains control over the group throughout the demonstration.
• Mage Hogg begins the chapter distrustful of Li Ziran and concerned about wasting the rare Medusa. By the end, he recognizes Li Ziran’s skill, though he remains uncertain because he cannot detect conventional witchcraft.
• The chosen Fishman changes from a terrified, unwilling subject into the first apparent success of Li Ziran’s transplantation technique, though he is still unconscious at the chapter’s end.

Significant Themes

• Skill as a source of power and status: Li Ziran understands that demonstrating ability is essential to gaining respect, clients, and influence.
• Science and magic overlapping: The procedure resembles advanced surgery, relying on tools, anatomy, potions, neural connections, and transformation magic rather than obvious spellcasting.
• Moral detachment and exploitation: The Medusa’s mutilated corpse and the unwilling Fishman are treated as resources or experimental material. The group’s leaders show little concern for consent or suffering.
• Ambition and opportunism: Li Ziran views the transplant not only as a medical challenge but also as a way to build wealth, obtain corpses, retain the Medusa, and solve his own supernatural problems.
• Power and hierarchy: Karen’s authority is unquestioned, and the final command to bow emphasizes the rigid dominance structure within the Slave-Catching Group.

Character Interactions

• Hogg questions Li Ziran’s ability and the viability of the dead Medusa, while Karen silently authorizes the experiment and later pressures Hogg to acknowledge Li Ziran’s competence.
• The watching laborers move from curiosity and skepticism to fear when Karen selects one of them as the test subject.
• Li Ziran treats the frightened Fishman as a practical surgical subject rather than a willing participant.
• Hogg ultimately reinforces Karen’s authority by igniting the Fishman awake and ordering him to stand and bow, marking the transplant’s success as a triumph for the captain and the group.

Chapter Summary: “Respect”

Key Plot Points and Events

• During an experiment, Li Ziran successfully implants a Medusa eye into the fishman Guobu, granting him the Petrifying Eye.
• Guobu instinctively activates the eye, turning nearby water grass to stone and breaking it apart. When he accidentally looks across the crowd, another fishman begins petrifying as well.
• The slave-catching group reacts with shock and fear. Fire Mage Hogg orders Guobu to close his eyes and immediately tries to recruit him by offering higher pay.
• Guobu’s new ability dramatically changes his status among the laborers, who now envy and fear him.
• Li Ziran is satisfied with the experiment and plans to remain with the group long enough to handle the Goathead Chief, buy corpses, and travel to the Undead Nest before the swamp is consumed by the Wasteland.
• Karen, the manager of the Thornflower Slave-Trading Corps, approaches Li Ziran and attempts to establish a closer relationship. He invites Li to dinner and asks about organ transplantation.
• Over a lavish meal of roasted goose and expensive wine, Karen and Li exchange polite but largely deceptive conversation. Both understand that their alliance is based on mutual advantage.
• Hogg also becomes more respectful toward Li after witnessing his abilities. Li invents a background involving Storm City, slavery, and an Amphibian Frog Clan teacher.
• The conversation turns toward their former masters. Li claims his teacher expelled him to force him to become stronger, while Hogg shares memories of his strict fire-magic master.
• Karen, emphasizing the value of companionship, once again invites Li to join his slave-catching group and promises him excellent treatment.

Character Developments

• Li Ziran: Demonstrates his skill and strategic intelligence. He views the experiment pragmatically, judging its success and planning how to exploit his new position. He remains cautious, hides his real past, and uses etiquette and fabricated stories to gain influence.
• Guobu: Transforms from an ordinary fishman laborer into someone feared and valued because of the Petrifying Eye. His helplessness reveals that he has little control over the power and may pose a danger to those around him.
• Karen/Kevin: Reveals himself as socially skilled, ambitious, and highly adaptable. He recognizes Li’s value immediately and tries to recruit or bind him through praise, food, wine, and promises of protection. His noble manners conceal the pragmatic nature of his goals.
• Hogg: Initially focused on controlling the danger Guobu presents, he becomes noticeably more respectful and flattering toward Li after witnessing his abilities.
• The fishman laborers: Their reaction shifts from ordinary curiosity to envy and fear, showing how quickly power changes social standing.

Significant Themes

• Respect and power: Respect in this society is determined less by morality than by usefulness, strength, and the ability to affect others. Guobu’s status changes instantly once he gains the Petrifying Eye.
• Manipulation and self-interest: The characters use courtesy, praise, gifts, and promises to pursue their own aims. Li and Karen both understand that their friendly conversation is largely a calculated exchange.
• Nature versus morality: Karen claims that organ transplantation and witchcraft are morally questionable, but also argues that their value depends on who controls them. Li privately recognizes the hypocrisy behind such statements.
• Survival and adaptation: The Wasteland forces everyone to seek advantages wherever possible. Abilities, alliances, fabricated identities, and economic rewards all become tools for survival.
• Teacher-student relationships: Li and Hogg bond over memories of strict masters, while Karen views isolation as unnatural and emphasizes the importance of social bonds.

Important Character Interactions

• Li Ziran and Guobu: Li’s experiment gives Guobu immense but dangerous power, though Li remains emotionally detached and focuses on the practical results.
• Li Ziran and Karen: Their conversation is outwardly respectful and friendly but fundamentally transactional. Karen wants Li’s expertise, while Li wants access to the group’s resources and protection.
• Li Ziran and Hogg: Hogg’s attitude shifts from casual questioning to deference. Their shared stories about strict teachers create temporary camaraderie.
• Karen and Hogg: Hogg supports Karen’s efforts to recruit Li, though Karen’s reaction to Hogg’s exaggerated explanation of forced independence suggests differing views on human connection.
• Karen and Guobu: Karen indirectly benefits from Guobu’s transformation, treating the creation of the Petrifying Eye as a major gain for his organization.

Chapter Summary: “Recruitment”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Karen tries to recruit Li Ziran into his Slave-Catching Group, emphasizing the group’s ambitious future and promising him valuable benefits.
• His main offer is to obtain a Devouring Curse, a rare and essential spell that allows witch doctors to absorb souls and convert them into spiritual power. Li Ziran has been searching for one for years.
• Despite the temptation, Li Ziran initially refuses permanent membership, explaining that he dislikes restraints and values his independence.
• Hogg attempts to persuade him by describing how joining the group accelerated his own career as a Mage. Through the group’s resources and connections, Hogg advanced from apprentice to near-intermediate status, learned the Elder Elven Language, mastered Chain Fireball, and studied under three High Mages.
• Li Ziran remains unmoved, arguing that he has no ambitions or attachments beyond his master and is content to live freely with modest needs.
• Karen accepts that Li Ziran may not truly want to join but maintains their friendship, reminding him that the group once saved his life.
• Li Ziran offers to repay that debt by helping them within his abilities, especially while the temporary swamp remains accessible.
• Karen makes an even more attractive offer: access to a renowned potion expert who might accept Li Ziran as a disciple. Since Li Ziran relies heavily on potions for his organ-transplant witchcraft and wants to understand potion-making principles, the offer strongly affects him.
• Although freedom remains more important to him, Li Ziran finally agrees to discuss membership details, asking what obligations—including the number of daily modifications he would need to perform—would be required.

Character Developments

• Li Ziran: Demonstrates strong self-awareness, independence, and negotiating skill. He deliberately delays his response to gain leverage and refuses to sacrifice freedom for wealth or prestige. However, his desire to obtain a Devouring Curse and learn potion-making reveals that he does have significant intellectual ambitions, even if he rejects institutional commitments.
• Karen: Shows himself to be an astute negotiator who understands Li Ziran’s motivations. Rather than relying only on money, he offers rare resources tailored to Li Ziran’s needs and ultimately manages to reopen negotiations.
• Hogg: Presents the practical benefits of belonging to the group. His pride in his achievements and personal growth makes him persuasive, but Li Ziran recognizes that Hogg’s success has also tied him more tightly to the group and may threaten his original aspirations.
• Hogg’s reflection: His advancement highlights both the value and danger of organized power: support and resources can produce rapid success, but dependence may gradually erode personal freedom and one’s original goals.

Significant Themes

• Freedom versus opportunity: Li Ziran must choose between independence and access to rare knowledge, magical resources, and professional advancement.
• The cost of success: Hogg’s story shows how wealth, teachers, and recognition can enable rapid growth, while also binding a person to the organization that provided them.
• Maintaining one’s original purpose: Li Ziran worries that group obligations could cause someone to lose sight of their true ambitions.
• Negotiation and leverage: Both sides carefully test one another, with Li Ziran using hesitation and refusal to improve the offer, while Karen identifies and exploits his deeper interests.
• Talent and recognition: Hogg’s accomplishments and Li Ziran’s memories of being called a “genius” suggest that ability and glory are temporary unless continuously supported by effort and meaningful purpose.

Character Interactions

• Karen and Li Ziran engage in a prolonged, courteous negotiation, with Karen repeatedly increasing the value of his offer.
• Hogg supports Karen’s recruitment attempt by appealing to practical ambition and sharing his personal success story.
• Li Ziran respectfully acknowledges Hogg’s achievements but rejects the idea that advancement and recognition are worth surrendering autonomy.
• Karen and Hogg are briefly left speechless by Li Ziran’s unusual lack of ambition, creating an awkward atmosphere that Karen breaks with laughter.
• By the end, Li Ziran’s interest in the potion expert allows Karen to regain the initiative, and the conversation shifts from whether Li Ziran will join to what the terms of membership will be.

Chapter Summary: “The Slave-Catching Group’s Warehouse”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Li Ziran formally joins Karen’s Slave-Catching Group, agreeing to improve members’ abilities, inspect captured slaves for valuable organs, and advise on organ modification.
• To demonstrate sincerity, Li casts the Never-Betrayal Divine Curse. However, both sides remain cautious and establish a three-month probation period to evaluate his usefulness and determine his pay.
• Karen welcomes Li warmly, even holding his hand as they walk through the swamp, an unexpectedly intimate gesture that surprises the other group members.
• Li tours the group’s temporary camp and evaluates its various creatures:
  • Gray-Copper Dwarves serve as inexpensive laborers and potential sources of useful corpses.
  • Giraffe Scouts provide long-range surveillance and ground-vibration detection.
  • Ultrasonic Bats offer excellent sonar but are undesirable because of the diseases they may carry.
  • Gibbons are being whipped and trained in the camp’s taming area.
• Karen shows Li several tents, including his new workshop. The workshop is made from valuable Icefield Snow Rat leather, providing a cool and stable environment for his work.
• Karen’s own lavish fire-element cultivation tent, made from Fire Fox fur, Fire Rat supports, volcanic rock, mithril, and the blood of magical beasts, reveals his considerable wealth and generosity.
• Rather than remain idle, Li asks to inspect the slaves so he can begin contributing. Karen gives him unrestricted access to the warehouse and permission to remove slaves without approval.
• This extraordinary authority makes Li suspicious. He believes Karen may be setting a trap, since such trust is implausible between people who have known each other for less than a day.
• Inside the warehouse, Li finds rows of iron cages containing numerous captured creatures, including Swamp Fishmen, Snake Women, Black-Spotted Scale Snakes, lizards, and massive Marsh Crocodiles.
• Three chained burlap sacks trigger a reaction from the blind frog at Li’s waist. Li instinctively recognizes that the sacks contain Medusas, setting up the chapter’s major discovery.

Character Developments

• Li Ziran: Becomes an official but temporary member of the Slave-Catching Group. He remains practical and opportunistic, intending to leave once he obtains what he needs, but Karen’s kindness and the excellent working conditions affect him emotionally. Despite appreciating the generosity, Li remains highly suspicious and carefully analyzes every advantage offered to him.
• Karen: Presents himself as sincere, generous, and unusually trusting. He provides Li with a luxurious workshop, welcomes him warmly, and grants him authority over the warehouse. However, his excessive generosity appears calculated or suspicious, leaving Li uncertain about his true motives.
• The Slave-Catching Group: Is shown to be well-organized and resourceful, using cost-effective creatures for labor, surveillance, and defense. Its members are puzzled by Karen’s unusually affectionate behavior toward Li.

Significant Themes

• Trust versus suspicion: The apparent friendship between Li and Karen is undermined by their short acquaintance and opposing interests. Li recognizes that the curse cannot replace genuine trust.
• Exploitation and commodification: Slaves, magical beasts, corpses, and organs are all treated as resources with monetary value. Li evaluates every creature according to the usefulness and price of its organs or remains.
• Generosity as possible manipulation: Karen’s luxurious accommodations and unrestricted access seem kind, but their excess makes Li suspect that the generosity conceals a trap.
• Pragmatism and self-interest: Both men cooperate because the arrangement benefits them. Li intends to gain access to rare corpses, while the group wants to exploit his skills.
• Civilization versus brutality: The camp’s crude conditions, animal smells, whips, cages, and slave-taming practices contrast sharply with the expensive magical materials and sophisticated abilities possessed by its members.

Important Character Interactions

• Li and Karen negotiate their partnership and probationary employment.
• Their exaggeratedly warm, brotherly behavior unsettles the other group members.
• Karen gives Li a dedicated workshop and assures him that he may request anything he needs.
• Li responds by insisting that he should inspect the slaves and prove his worth, subtly balancing gratitude with professional obligation.
• Karen then grants Li access to the group’s central warehouse, deepening both their cooperation and Li’s suspicion.
• The chapter ends with Li recognizing the likely presence of Medusas, suggesting that the warehouse may contain the rare organs or opportunities he has been seeking.

Chapter Summary: The Medusa Girl Woke Up

Key Plot Points and Events

• The One-eyed Frog—secretly the transformed Medusa girl—suddenly awakens and begins struggling violently at Li Ziran’s waist while he is in Karen’s slave warehouse.
• Karen gives Li Ziran the warehouse keys and asks him to consider which slaves might be useful. The keys provoke the imprisoned slaves, who beg to be released and reach toward him.
• Jon, a massive Rhine Lionfolk slave who manages the warehouse, violently suppresses the disturbance with his whip. Karen introduces Jon to Li Ziran as a trusted associate.
• Li Ziran notices Jon’s slave mark and reflects bitterly on how even a powerful warrior race has been reduced to slavery.
• The Medusa at Li Ziran’s waist begins growing despite the Transformation Spell. Fearing exposure, Li pretends to be drunk and urgently leaves for the latrine.
• The Medusa expands to nearly adult size before Li reaches the toilet. She casts Petrification, freezing most of Li’s body and partially paralyzing his speech.
• The Medusa reveals that she is Medusa royalty and accuses Li of digging out her eye. She also claims that Li bears the curse of Medusa royalty.
• Unable to move or speak properly, Li learns that the girl can communicate through mental speech and can detect whether he is lying.
• The girl drags and kicks Li into the filthy latrine, where she demands to know the location of her missing eye.
• Li admits that he took one of her eyes but insists he did so to save her life. Instead of accepting his explanation, she accuses him of harming and slaughtering other Medusas.

Character Developments

• Li Ziran: Becomes increasingly desperate and improvisational as he tries to conceal the Medusa’s identity from Karen and Jon. His guilt and discomfort intensify when confronted directly by the awakened girl, though he maintains that taking her eye was necessary to save her.
• The Medusa girl: Awakens fully, regains her adult form, and demonstrates frightening powers, including petrification and mental communication. She is hostile, suspicious, and deeply traumatized by the loss of her eye, but her accusation suggests a larger history involving violence against other Medusas.
• Karen: Displays confidence and control over the warehouse while remaining perceptive about Li’s secrets. He appears willing to tolerate Li’s mysterious behavior because he trusts that Li will eventually reveal the truth.
• Jon: Is introduced as a powerful, intimidating Rhine Lionfolk and warehouse enforcer. Though initially threatening, he shows restraint and obedience toward Karen. His sharp observation allows him to notice that Li’s “drunkenness” and frog are suspicious.
• The slaves: Their desperate reaction to the keys emphasizes their brutal imprisonment and their hope that Li might offer freedom.

Significant Themes

• Slavery and exploitation: The warehouse, the wounded slaves, Jon’s slave mark, and the disposal of “unmanageable” prisoners reveal a society where powerful beings are treated as commodities.
• Secrecy and trust: Li must hide the Medusa’s identity from Karen and Jon, while Karen suggests that friendship requires eventual honesty.
• Guilt and moral ambiguity: Li believes he harmed the Medusa to save her, but she sees him as a perpetrator. The chapter leaves the morality of his actions unresolved.
• Power and vulnerability: The Medusa is both physically vulnerable because of her missing eye and overwhelmingly dangerous because of her petrifying ability. Jon likewise embodies immense strength despite being enslaved.
• Trauma and misunderstanding: The Medusa’s anger comes from fragmented memories and perceived betrayal, while Li struggles to explain himself under supernatural restraint.

Character Interactions

• Karen and Li discuss the warehouse and the possibility of selecting useful slaves, with Karen granting Li access through the keys.
• Jon and Li exchange a tense formal greeting, establishing mutual caution beneath polite behavior.
• Karen protects Li’s privacy when Jon suspects the frog is unusual, implying that Karen understands Li is concealing something.
• Li and the Medusa girl engage in a hostile confrontation: she petrifies him, forces him into the latrine, and demands answers, while he tries to justify taking her eye.
• The chapter ends with their conflict unresolved, as the Medusa interprets Li’s admission as evidence that he has butchered other Medusas.

Chapter Summary: “The Task of Tooth Modification”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Li Ziran is confronted by Medusa, who blames him for performing an eyeball transplant on her. She begins petrifying him and threatens to subject his soul to the Crushed Stone Punishment, an ancient torture in which a soul is shattered into countless stones and condemned to eternally reunite and scatter.
• Karen interrupts by knocking on the bathroom door and asking Li Ziran for help. Medusa reacts with intense fear and hatred upon hearing Karen’s voice, revealing that Karen or his group previously harmed her far more severely than Li Ziran did.
• Karen explains that the Slave-Catching Groups plan to raid a swamp inhabited by more than a hundred Medusas and many immature Medusa girls. They intend to use a summoned Corpse Dragon to destroy the swamp’s defenses and capture the creatures for profit.
• Medusa shows interest in Karen’s plan, and Li Ziran realizes he may be able to use the opportunity to escape or help her people. She releases most of his petrification but warns him that leaving her side will cause him to turn to stone again.
• To conceal Medusa, Li Ziran transforms her into a small frog-like creature, ties her to his belt, and leaves the bathroom with her.
• He pretends to accept Karen’s mission. Karen reveals that the Corpse Dragon is a mutated corpse of a slain wyvern and that its teeth and stomach must be modified so it can swallow Crocodile Warriors without killing or dissolving them.
• The plan is to install a Teleportation Array inside the Corpse Dragon’s stomach, allowing swallowed captives to be transported out alive. Li Ziran is recruited to modify the dragon’s teeth, while other specialists handle the stomach and provide expertise.
• Karen reveals that the Slave-Catching Group expects to gain a twenty-percent share of the captured creatures, making the mission highly profitable.

Character Developments

• Li Ziran becomes increasingly cautious and manipulative. Although terrified of Medusa’s punishment, he quickly analyzes the situation and looks for ways to exploit the conflict between Medusa and Karen.
• He demonstrates his willingness to deceive others by pretending to casually accept Karen’s assignment while secretly considering escape and possible ways to aid Medusa.
• Medusa is established as both dangerous and intelligent. She can petrify Li Ziran at will but also controls the degree of the transformation, releasing him only under strict conditions. Her fear of Karen suggests a painful history and gives her revenge a deeper motivation.
• Medusa also shows strategic thinking by ordering Li Ziran to accept Karen’s proposal, likely hoping he can infiltrate the slave-catching operation and rescue the captured Medusas.
• Karen is portrayed as an enthusiastic but ruthless slave trader. He is profit-driven, highly practical, and excited by the prospect of capturing enough swamp creatures to sustain his group for years.
• Karen also reveals that Li Ziran’s skills are valuable, particularly his ability to modify living or organic structures.

Significant Themes

• Revenge and punishment: Medusa’s hatred toward Li Ziran and especially Karen demonstrates how past violence continues to shape present choices. The Crushed Stone Punishment represents revenge taken to an inhuman extreme.
• Exploitation and commodification: The Slave-Catching Groups view living beings entirely as merchandise, calculating their value in coins and planning methods to preserve their resale value.
• Deception and survival: Li Ziran must constantly pretend, bargain, and manipulate in order to stay alive. Both he and Medusa use others while concealing their real intentions.
• Power and vulnerability: Despite Li Ziran’s intelligence and magical abilities, Medusa’s petrification leaves him nearly helpless. Meanwhile, Medusa’s fear of Karen shows that even a powerful creature can be traumatized and vulnerable.
• Cooperation between enemies: Li Ziran and Medusa distrust each other, yet their mutual danger forces them into a temporary alliance against Karen and the slave traders.

Character Interactions

• Li Ziran and Medusa: Their relationship shifts from confrontation to reluctant cooperation. Medusa threatens and controls him, while Li Ziran deceives her appearance and considers using her abilities for his own survival. Despite the imbalance of power, each recognizes that the other may be useful.
• Li Ziran and Karen: Li Ziran hides his true motives while Karen treats him as a valuable specialist and business partner. Karen’s trust allows Li Ziran access to the slave-catchers’ operation.
• Medusa and Karen: Their brief interaction is dominated by Medusa’s fear and fury. Karen appears to be connected to serious past abuse or injury inflicted upon her, making him a far greater enemy in her eyes than Li Ziran.
• Li Ziran and the Slave-Catching Groups: Li Ziran is recruited as an organ-modification expert, but he views the groups less as allies than as a potential means of escape, access to resources, and possibly rescue for the Medusas.

Chapter Summary: “I Give You Absolute Freedom”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Li Ziran is placed in charge of creating a Corpse Dragon, despite having little knowledge of necromancy and no confidence in the mission.
• Karen, leader of the slave corps, gives Li complete freedom to act and promises him the role of chief surgeon, while claiming thirty percent of the eventual profits.
• Karen reveals that the target is an independent Swamp Kingdom that will soon vanish as the Elemental Tide changes the terrain. The kingdom reportedly contains:
  • 127 adult Medusas
  • Over 800 Crocodile Warriors
  • More than 3,000 Snake Women
  • Over 10,000 Swamp Fishmen
• Seven slave corps, led by the powerful Cannon Slave Corps, are preparing to attack the swamp with a combined force of around two thousand people.
• Li immediately recognizes that this is not a simple hunt but a large-scale military conflict. He suspects the attacking slave corps are exploiting the swamp’s imminent collapse and the resulting weakness of its inhabitants.
• Although he publicly agrees to participate, Li privately decides to look for a way to escape and investigate the situation himself.
• He asks Karen for a powerful assistant as a pretext to buy time, then retreats to a toilet to secretly consult the One-eyed Frog, which transforms into a Medusa girl.
• The Medusa reveals that Karen has deceived and captured her people before, contradicting his presentation of the operation.
• Most importantly, she reveals that the swamp is not ruled by Medusa. It is controlled by a far more dangerous being: a Swamp Dragon.

Character Developments

• Li Ziran becomes increasingly cautious and distrustful. Rather than blindly accepting Karen’s confidence, he analyzes the risks and realizes the mission may be suicidal.
• He continues to struggle with necromantic magic, which he considers his greatest weakness, but understands that he must engage with it if he wants to survive and succeed.
• Li demonstrates practical intelligence by pretending to cooperate while secretly planning to investigate the truth and potentially escape.
• Karen appears charismatic, confident, and unusually permissive, insisting that his corps operates without fixed plans. However, his behavior also suggests cunning manipulation and a willingness to exploit others.
• The Medusa girl is revealed to be emotionally distressed and hostile toward Karen, whom she considers responsible for her people’s plight. She becomes an important source of hidden information.
• Li’s relationship with Karen shifts from reluctant cooperation toward guarded suspicion.

Significant Themes

• Freedom versus control: Karen claims that absolute freedom produces the best results, but Li questions whether freedom without preparation is actually irresponsible exploitation.
• Survival and exploitation: The Wasteland operates according to a harsh Survival Law in which stronger individuals profit from and control weaker ones. Both slave-catching and Li’s own position are shaped by this system.
• Appearance versus reality: Karen’s confidence and the official scouting reports conceal crucial information about the swamp and its true ruler.
• Knowledge as power: Li’s survival depends on gathering accurate information rather than trusting authority or appearances.
• The danger of underestimating opponents: What appears to be a vulnerable swamp kingdom may actually be protected by a Swamp Dragon, making the planned invasion far more dangerous than expected.
• Conflict between medicine and magic: Li’s expertise lies in surgery and living anatomy, while creating a Corpse Dragon requires unfamiliar necromantic principles.

Character Interactions

• Karen repeatedly reassures Li and grants him complete freedom, but Li interprets this as a possible trap and doubts Karen’s motives.
• Li challenges Karen about the lack of a plan and demands detailed information about the mission and its competitors.
• Karen presents the swamp as an easy target because of the combined strength of the participating slave corps, while Li remains skeptical.
• Li secretly questions the One-eyed Frog/Medusa about Karen’s past actions and the swamp’s true leadership.
• The Medusa condemns Karen and reveals the existence of the Swamp Dragon, fundamentally changing Li’s understanding of the mission.

Chapter Summary: “Giant Cannon Fire Elephant”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Li Ziran travels through a treacherous swamp with Karen’s group to reach the Cannon Slave Corps camp. The mud repeatedly swallows his feet, forcing Hei Guduo, his newly assigned buffalo-woman attendant, to pull him free or carry him.
• Li learns from Medusa that the group is operating within the territory of a giant dragon. He is puzzled that Karen remains enthusiastic about modifying the Bipedal Corpse Dragon despite the danger.
• The group encounters the Cannon Slave Corps’ fortified position, which overlooks the swamp from elevated ground. Its defenses include a lake, islands, armored Crocodile Warriors, and 278 enormous Giant Cannon Fire Elephants.
• The elephants use their fire-infused legs and specialized trunks to launch explosive black stone shells with remarkable accuracy. They bombard Crocodile Warriors attempting to attack the camp.
• Karen explains that each Fire Elephant is worth three gold coins and proudly imagines eventually creating an even stronger elephant corps.
• Li is led underground into the camp, where Blue Elephants guard the entrances. He enters a vast illuminated cavern containing the enormous Bipedal Corpse Dragon and a compact Dwarf-built Pocket Factory.
• Dwarves use the spatially compressed factory to manufacture components and transport them into the Corpse Dragon’s body.
• Karen assigns Li the task of modifying the Corpse Dragon’s bite so it cannot tear Crocodile Warriors apart while retaining its combat power. Karen promises him access to any necessary materials and prepares to introduce him to Cannon and a professional Tusk Appraiser.

Character Developments

• Li Ziran remains outwardly cooperative but internally skeptical and opportunistic. He is intimidated by the dragon territory and underground environment, yet he immediately analyzes the Fire Elephants’ biological mechanisms and imagines profiting from their organs and corpses.
• Hei Guduo becomes Li’s official attendant and laborer. Though she is emotionally distant and does not speak, she repeatedly assists him physically, demonstrating her great strength and reliability.
• Karen continues to display authority over the slave corps. His subordinates obey him nervously, suggesting that his power comes from more than simple leadership. He is confident, ambitious, and determined to build stronger military forces.
• Hogg, the Fire Mage, is shown to be one of the few people willing to speak openly around Karen, though even he retreats when Karen rejects his suggestion to dry the swamp.
• The Dwarves are presented as highly skilled engineers and masters of spatial studies through their Pocket Factory.
• Li’s professional role expands: he is now expected to apply his biological and mechanical knowledge to the Corpse Dragon’s weaponry, despite privately doubting whether he can meet Karen’s expectations.

Significant Themes

• Power and militarization: The Fire Elephants and Corpse Dragon represent the chapter’s focus on turning living creatures into weapons and military assets.
• Freedom versus control: Although the members of the slave corps may technically possess or seek freedom, they obey Karen out of fear and dependence, creating an atmosphere of coercive loyalty.
• Pragmatism and profit: Li views creatures primarily through their practical value, imagining how their bodies, organs, and abilities could be sold or repurposed.
• Science, magic, and biological engineering: The chapter blends elemental magic, anatomy, machinery, and spatial technology. The Fire Elephants’ bodies function as natural artillery, while the Dwarves’ factory and Corpse Dragon modifications demonstrate technological innovation.
• Danger hidden beneath impressive power: The spectacular defenses of the Cannon Slave Corps are impressive, but Li remains aware of the dangers posed by dragons, the swamp, and the oppressive underground setting.

Character Interactions

• Li and Hei Guduo interact mostly through action rather than conversation: she rescues and carries him through the mud while maintaining an emotionally detached attitude.
• Karen treats Li as a valued specialist, encouraging him while also assigning him a difficult and potentially dangerous task.
• Karen dismisses Hogg’s proposal to use fire magic to dry the swamp, emphasizing his control over resources and his intolerance for waste.
• Li and Karen admire the Fire Elephants together, though their perspectives differ: Karen sees them as valuable military assets, while Li privately considers their corpses and organs as potential sources of wealth.
• Karen’s final discussion with Li establishes a working partnership based on Li’s technical expertise, while also revealing that Karen intends to provide him every resource necessary to modify the Corpse Dragon’s tusks and bite.

Chapter Summary: “Enter the Corpse Dragon’s Mouth”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Li Ziran learns that the project is far more secretive and important than Karen has admitted. The presence of a specialized Tusk Appraiser, Tago, confirms that the Corpse Dragon’s teeth require highly technical work.
• Karen introduces Li to Commander Xiang Ben, the enormous leader of the Cannon Slave Corps. Xiang Ben treats Li with surprising courtesy and respect, even carrying him on his ear toward the Corpse Dragon’s mouth.
• Li examines the Corpse Dragon’s enormous, deadly teeth up close. He realizes that replacing or modifying them is necessary because anything swallowed would be pulverized by the dragon’s densely packed fangs.
• Suspicious of the excessive respect shown to him, Li begins testing the people around him. He requests a rope and deliberately steps on Xiang Ben’s tusk—an act that should insult an Elephantfolk commander—but Xiang Ben shows no anger and even assists him.
• Li climbs into the Corpse Dragon’s rear tooth socket. He plans to study the dragon’s neural network, an area in which he has the most expertise, and hopes to involve Tago so he can better understand the hidden purpose of the project.
• When Li finds the protective membrane around the tooth too tough to cut, he asks for an assistant skilled with teeth and sharp blades, implicitly calling for Tago. Instead, Karen sends an elite mantis slave.
• The mantis effortlessly slices open the membrane. Karen then extracts and secures the exposed neural tissue with impressive skill, revealing that he is much more capable than he previously appeared.
• Li notices that the exposed nerve has no luster. He initially pretends this is alarming, but then realizes the obvious truth: the creature is a corpse, so its nerves are dead. This creates a fundamental problem for the proposed surgery.

Character Developments

• Li Ziran becomes increasingly suspicious and analytical. Rather than trusting Karen or Xiang Ben, he deliberately provokes them and studies their reactions. His curiosity and professional instincts remain strong despite his unease.
• Karen appears inconsistent. He acts confident and composed earlier, but becomes visibly anxious once the operation begins. His quick handling of the neural tissue demonstrates that he possesses considerable medical or anatomical expertise.
• Commander Xiang Ben is introduced as an immensely powerful Elephantfolk warrior, yet he behaves gently and respectfully toward Li. His refusal to react to Li’s deliberate insult deepens the mystery surrounding the project.
• Tago, the Tusk Appraiser, is openly hostile toward Li and provides the only interaction that feels genuine to him. However, Tago is kept out of the initial procedure.
• The mantis slave demonstrates exceptional cutting ability, slicing through the dragon’s protective membrane with ease.

Significant Themes

• Suspicion and hidden agendas: Li senses that everyone is concealing important information and that his participation is not accidental.
• Masks versus reality: The characters’ polite behavior and excessive respect seem staged, while their true motives remain concealed.
• Expertise and manipulation: Li tries to expose the project’s secrets by testing others, but their skills and prepared responses repeatedly prevent him from gaining control.
• Life, death, and anatomy: The discovery of the necrotic nerve highlights the contradiction at the heart of the project: they are attempting surgery on a gigantic corpse rather than a living dragon.
• Power and hierarchy: Despite Li’s low reputation and small size, powerful figures treat him as essential, suggesting that he may possess a unique role or that the project depends on him for reasons he does not yet understand.

Character Interactions

• Karen mediates between Li and the hostile Tago, introducing Li to Xiang Ben as the “Organ Witch” he recommended.
• Xiang Ben treats Li almost like an honored guest, carrying him safely toward the dragon’s mouth and helping him climb, which only increases Li’s suspicion.
• Li deliberately challenges Xiang Ben’s honor by stepping on his tusk, but the commander responds with patience rather than anger.
• Li attempts to summon Tago as an assistant, hoping to draw him into the mystery, but Karen instead sends the mantis slave.
• Karen becomes visibly worried about the operation and aggressively urges the mantis slave to act, revealing a level of urgency and concern that contrasts with his earlier composure.
• The chapter ends with Li confronting the central problem: the Corpse Dragon’s neural network is dead, making the intended transplant operation far more complicated than expected.

Summary: “The Essence of Undead Operation”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Li Ziran and Karen examine a decaying Corpse Dragon whose teeth they are supposed to modify or transplant.
• Li Ziran realizes he has made a fundamental mistake: the dragon is dead and no longer possesses functioning nerves. His medical knowledge applies to living organisms, but not to undead creatures.
• He admits that completing the operation would require an understanding of necromancy and undead mechanics—knowledge he lacks.
• The mantis-blade soldier becomes increasingly frightened because failure could lead to severe punishment or the destruction of the Cannon Slave Corps.
• Karen asks whether Li Ziran could succeed if he understood how undead beings operate. When Li Ziran cautiously says yes, Karen reveals himself to be a powerful Psychic Mage.
• Karen forcibly enters Li Ziran’s mind, dismantling his spiritual power and exposing him to the structure of the Corpse Dragon’s necromantic system.
• Li Ziran perceives the dragon’s internal flow network: pale necromantic energy travels through its body from a summoning formation composed of two inverted hexagrams.
• He learns that undead power is created by completely stripping away elemental energy, making it fundamentally opposed to the elemental forces sustaining living beings.
• Karen’s intervention effectively grants Li Ziran the inheritance of an Undead Mage, transforming him into an Undead Apprentice.
• With this new understanding, Li Ziran claims he can complete the tooth transplant, though he privately suspects Karen may have used the operation to test or exploit his abilities.

Character Developments

• Li Ziran: Moves from confidence based on medical and anatomical knowledge to genuine uncertainty when confronted with death and necromancy. After receiving Karen’s forced instruction, he gains insight into undead energy and becomes an Undead Apprentice. His confidence returns, but so does his suspicion and fear of Karen’s motives.
• Karen: Reveals that his apparent expertise as an Organ Witch Doctor is partly based on his ability to invade and manipulate minds. His Psychic Mage powers make him far more dangerous and influential than Li Ziran had realized. He also demonstrates a willingness to forcibly reshape another person’s spiritual understanding.
• The mantis-blade soldier: Becomes increasingly desperate and fearful, emphasizing the high stakes of failure. He pressures Li Ziran and Karen because his own life and the fate of the Cannon Slave Corps depend on the mission’s success.
• Medusa: Briefly identifies Karen as a Psychic Mage, confirming the significance of his powers, though her warning is quickly silenced.

Significant Themes

• Life versus death: Li Ziran’s medical principles fail because the Corpse Dragon no longer operates through living nerves. The chapter stresses that death is not merely a damaged form of life but an entirely different state.
• Science and unfamiliar systems: Li Ziran’s anatomical knowledge is valuable but insufficient without understanding the magical foundation of the undead. Success requires combining medical reasoning with necromantic principles.
• Knowledge through violation: Karen transfers understanding by invading Li Ziran’s mind, raising questions about whether knowledge gained through coercion can be considered a gift.
• Elemental life versus necromantic death: Living beings depend on elemental energy, while undead creatures function by eliminating elemental traces and generating a colder, purer force.
• Trust and hidden motives: Karen’s actions may have solved Li Ziran’s problem, but they also expose his manipulative nature. Li Ziran begins questioning whether the entire operation was designed to help him or to test and steal his expertise.

Character Interactions

• Karen initially encourages Li Ziran and treats him as an experienced Organ Witch Doctor, placing pressure on him to find a solution.
• Li Ziran honestly admits his limitations, while the mantis soldier attempts to frighten him into continuing.
• Karen then questions Li Ziran about the possibility of success and uses his answer as justification for invading his mind.
• Through the psychic transfer, Karen gives Li Ziran direct access to the Corpse Dragon’s operating principles.
• Afterward, Karen presents the experience as an inheritance and asks Li Ziran to perform the transplant. Li Ziran agrees, but internally remains wary that Karen is exploiting him.

Chapter Summary: “Black Nightmare Fang”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Li Ziran must modify the Corpse Dragon’s teeth so they retain their combat power without shredding the Crocodile Warriors. He recognizes that finding suitable replacement teeth would require countless experiments.
• Medusa suggests using their Petrification Rays to dull the dragon teeth by forming a tartar-like coating. Li Ziran persuades Karen that a large number of Medusas are necessary.
• Karen reluctantly reveals more than thirty enslaved adult Medusas, exposing reserves the slave regiment had kept hidden. Among them is the aunt of the One-eyed Frog, badly abused and clearly enslaved.
• Li Ziran selects three young Medusas to petrify a tooth. However, the Corpse Dragon’s magic resistance is too weak, and the entire tooth petrifies instead of merely developing a dulling coating.
• Karen proposes using Necromantic Power to counteract and reshape the elemental Petrification Ray. He joins Li Ziran in manipulating the Corpse Dragon’s undead energy network.
• Their combined efforts transform the petrified tooth into an inky black fang emitting smoke. A Taigo Clan tusk appraiser identifies it as the legendary Black Nightmare Fang.

Character Developments

• Li Ziran demonstrates caution, technical creativity, and adaptability. Though initially uncertain, he takes responsibility for the failed petrification and quickly works with Karen to salvage the situation.
• Karen reveals a deep understanding of undead energy, anatomy, and magical networks. His willingness to expose his hidden Medusa reserves shows how important the dragon-tooth modification is to him.
• Medusa shifts from being merely a dangerous figure to an unexpectedly helpful adviser. Her practical knowledge provides the basis for the experiment.
• The One-eyed Frog recognizes its aunt among the enslaved Medusas, revealing a personal connection to the regiment’s cruelty. Li Ziran sympathizes but admits he cannot rescue her.
• The Medusas are shown as abused and forcibly controlled slaves, emphasizing the brutality of the slave regiment.

Significant Themes

• Knowledge versus experience: Understanding the Necromantic Network is only the beginning; successful surgery requires precision, experimentation, and adaptation.
• Risk and reward: Karen expects Li Ziran to justify the heavy price paid to obtain his help, creating pressure for Li Ziran to produce results.
• Exploitation and slavery: The enslaved Medusas, including the One-eyed Frog’s aunt, reveal the human and emotional cost behind the regiment’s military strength.
• Unexpected cooperation: Li Ziran and Karen combine different forms of expertise, turning an apparent failure into a miraculous success.
• Transformation through failure: The accidental petrification becomes the foundation for creating something more powerful and valuable than originally intended.

Important Character Interactions

• Li Ziran consults Medusa mentally and relies on her knowledge of dragon magic resistance.
• He negotiates with Karen, carefully watching for signs that Karen may be invading his thoughts.
• Karen debates with the giant elephant commander before obtaining the enslaved Medusas.
• The One-eyed Frog emotionally identifies its aunt, while Li Ziran suppresses its reaction to avoid danger.
• Li Ziran directs the three Medusas during the experiment, then works alongside Karen to channel Necromantic Power into the damaged tooth.
• The final transformation shocks the gathered observers, especially the Taigo Clan appraiser, who recognizes the result as the extraordinary Black Nightmare Fang.