Chapter Summaries

Chapter Summary

Key Plot Points and Events

• Li Ziran signs the Oath Tablet, though the Corpse Witch deliberately alters two strokes of his name to avoid forming a genuine binding oath.
• Bowente welcomes him as a new member of the Dark Council and reveals that he changed Li Ziran’s future trajectory at the cost of his own life.
• Bowente explains that altering spacetime will eventually kill him, and that Li Ziran may one day hate him for forcing him into the Dark Council.
• Bowente claims he sought Li Ziran out to prevent him from aiding the Inquisition and, more importantly, from becoming one of the Light Society’s Twelve Red-robed High Priests.
• Li Ziran learns that the Judgment Spells in his Spirit World are one of the Light Society’s greatest inheritances. This makes him a potential chosen inheritor of light despite being a Witch Doctor.
• Bowente describes the Light Society as an ancient organization founded by a being born from light, whose twelve Chains of Light became the organization’s foundational spells. Their inheritors undergo soul transformation and become Red-robed High Priests.
• Bowente reveals that Li Ziran will eventually develop the Destroyer, Judgment, and Hive series—world-changing technologies that will help establish human civilization and make him famous throughout the world.
• He specifically claims that Li Ziran’s future Destroyer Giants will become weapons of mass destruction, capable of destroying cities or even tearing apart half a continent.
• Li Ziran briefly becomes absorbed in visions of future glory and ambition, but recognizes that Bowente’s praise may be a form of manipulation or brainwashing.
• To test Bowente’s honesty, Li Ziran asks how he will die. Bowente responds ominously that he may have been sent to kill Li Ziran, implying that others are also targeting him.

Character Development

• Li Ziran remains cautious and skeptical. Although Bowente’s revelations impress and disturb him, he refuses to accept them blindly.
• He gains a clearer understanding of the extraordinary value of his Judgment inheritance and his potential future influence.
• Li Ziran experiences a moment of ambition when imagining himself as the creator of civilization-shaping weapons, but quickly regains control and recognizes the danger of becoming intoxicated by grand promises.
• Bowente is presented as both sincere and manipulative. He appears willing to sacrifice his life to alter Li Ziran’s destiny, yet his actions and dramatic revelations make Li Ziran suspect that he is guiding or conditioning him.
• Bowente’s admiration for Li Ziran suggests that, in the future, Li Ziran becomes a legendary inventor and military figure.

Significant Themes

• Fate versus free will: Bowente claims Li Ziran is destined for both the Dark Council and the Light Society, while Li Ziran repeatedly questions whether destiny can truly control him.
• The cost of altering the future: Bowente’s time manipulation requires his death, emphasizing that changing fate carries a personal price.
• Manipulation through prophecy: Bowente uses visions of future greatness and catastrophe to influence Li Ziran’s choices.
• Light and darkness are not morally simple: Li Ziran, a Witch Doctor associated with death, may become a vessel of pure light, while the Dark Council may offer him more freedom than the Light Society.
• Power and responsibility: The Destroyer, Judgment, and Hive series could elevate humanity but also create devastating weapons, raising questions about whether technological progress leads to salvation or destruction.
• Identity and destiny: Li Ziran struggles with the possibility that his future self may be radically different from the person he currently believes himself to be.

Character Interactions

• Li Ziran challenges Bowente repeatedly about the Oath Tablet, time magic, the Light Society, and the consequences of changing the future.
• Bowente answers with unusual openness, apologizing for dragging Li Ziran into the Dark Council while simultaneously praising him as a future master.
• Their conversation shifts from suspicion to uneasy recognition: Li Ziran begins to believe Bowente may genuinely know the future, but still suspects that his revelations serve a hidden agenda.
• The chapter ends with their relationship becoming openly threatening when Bowente hints that he—or someone else—may have been sent to kill Li Ziran.

Chapter Summary

Key Plot Points and Events

• Bowente reveals that he comes from the future—or at least claims to—and that his mission is to eliminate powerful “geniuses” before they can shape the New World. Li Ziran is one of many targets, alongside figures such as Evan, Kahn, Ross, Darkcorner, and Anfuri.
• Bowente explains that he originally intended to kill Li Ziran through Shadow Elder, but Shadow Elder’s failure and Li’s potential have caused him to reconsider. He now wants to preserve and cultivate Li instead.
• Bowente describes Li’s supposed future achievements, including meeting a Giant descendant, creating the Frostcloud Giant, and becoming a renowned Witch Doctor and Puppet Master.
• Li begins to suspect that Bowente is manipulating reality and forcing him along a predetermined path. The Judgment Spell in his Spirit World warns him to stop absorbing Bowente’s visions and claims about the future.
• Bowente displays Emily and others through the Void Expanse, revealing that their souls have been replaced or their bodies commandeered. He claims they will become improved servants and followers for Li.
• Ivy has also been subjected to soul replacement. Bowente emphasizes that she will eventually bear Li’s descendants, making her “price” especially high.
• Li’s teacher, Watt, has been placed in the body of a powerful Molten Colossus. Bowente presents this as a reward and “better treatment,” while also revealing that Watt was forced to experience torture and war in his former Frog shell.
• Bowente refuses to restore Shadow Elder, arguing that Shadow Elder’s death was necessary for Li’s growth and that he taught Li the Puppet Curse and Judgment Spell.
• Bowente gives Li access to the Shadow Society’s inheritance and wealth. Although this is something Li desperately wants, he realizes that the offering is another method of controlling and “caging” him.
• By the end of the chapter, Li feels that he has become a prized animal being displayed and managed by others rather than an independent survivor.

Character Developments

• Li Ziran: Begins skeptical and analytical, trying to determine whether Bowente is telling the truth. As Bowente reveals his manipulation of Li’s allies, Li’s uncertainty turns into fear, anger, and disgust. He recognizes that becoming powerful under Bowente’s guidance would mean surrendering his autonomy.
• Bowente: Reveals himself as a calm, fanatical, and highly manipulative figure. He views people, bodies, souls, and even future achievements as commodities that can be exchanged or engineered. His admiration for Li is deeply possessive and controlling.
• Ivy: Her identity and future are threatened by soul replacement. Bowente’s claim that she will become Li’s partner and bear his descendants makes clear that her personal agency has been treated as merchandise.
• Watt: Though physically transformed into a Molten Colossus, he remains recognizable through his habitual way of walking. This reinforces Li’s emotional attachment to him and intensifies Li’s anger.
• Shadow Elder: His death is reframed as both a necessary trial for Li and a source of valuable inheritance. Bowente treats him less as a person than as a tool in Li’s predetermined development.

Significant Themes

• Free will versus predetermined destiny: Bowente attempts to define Li’s future and force him toward a specific path of power. Li resists the idea that future success has meaning if it is imposed upon him.
• Identity and the soul: Soul replacement raises the question of whether a person remains themselves when their body or soul is exchanged. Li insists that Ivy and the others are more than physical shells.
• Power as manipulation: Bowente uses gifts, protection, knowledge, and access to wealth as methods of control. His apparent kindness is another form of coercion.
• Dehumanization and commodification: Friends, teachers, bodies, souls, and inheritances are all treated as goods in a bizarre marketplace.
• Survival versus ambition: Li’s practical survival instinct conflicts with the temptation of immense future power and wealth. He realizes that accepting these benefits may turn him into someone else’s “pet.”
• The danger of knowledge: Learning about the future begins to distort Li’s judgment, so the Judgment Spell forces him to stop before Bowente’s narrative overwhelms his sense of reality.

Character Interactions

• Li and Bowente: Their conversation is a psychological confrontation. Bowente remains polite and calm while revealing increasingly horrifying information, whereas Li tries to maintain control and conceal his rage.
• Li and Ivy: Although Ivy is shown indirectly, her soul replacement becomes a deeply personal violation for Li. He views her as an irreplaceable individual rather than a body that can be improved or exchanged.
• Li and Watt: Seeing Watt in the Molten Colossus body briefly reassures Li that his teacher is alive, but Bowente’s description of Watt’s treatment also fuels Li’s fury.
• Li and Shadow Elder: Shadow Elder’s death becomes a complicated part of Li’s development: both a painful loss and the source of the techniques Li needs to survive.
• Bowente and Li’s companions: Bowente treats them as assets intended to support Li’s rise, demonstrating that his concern for Li extends only insofar as it serves his larger plan.

Chapter Summary: “The Evolution of the Memory Eye”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Li Ziran meets Bowente in a strange, vision-like space and suppresses his anger while negotiating from a position of apparent calm.
• Bowente offers Li a deal: if he leads a group in researching the Destroyer, Li will transcend ordinary life and become an ancient lifeform, gaining a more evolved soul.
• Refusing to be manipulated, Li shifts the discussion to compensation. He demands valuable abilities and resources, first asking for the Puppet Mirror and then the Frog Transformation spell.
• Bowente avoids giving him the requested items, claiming that the Puppet Realm is too dangerous to duplicate and that Frog Transformation is too valuable. Li recognizes this as deliberate bargaining and accuses Bowente of trying to gain his services without paying a meaningful price.
• When Li threatens to break contact, Bowente offers a Memory Statue instead. Li recognizes it as a Memory Ghost, connected to the Bauhinia Lineage’s power of Memory Theft.
• Upon touching the statue, Li’s scarlet Memory Eye reacts violently. It splits into four eyes arranged in a diamond, while strange chains and a ghostly whirlwind form inside his Spirit World. His already-damaged Spirit World begins reorganizing, and a new kind of spiritual power emerges.
• Li questions Bowente about the “chains” forming during soul evolution and soul reconstruction. Bowente denies their deeper significance, but his momentary panic reveals that Li has touched on an important secret.
• Li accepts the deal, but immediately turns the negotiation to his advantage. He takes a parchment containing clues about the Shadow Society and asks for information about the future-arriving companions, their weaknesses, valuable organs, and possible dragons or Phoenixes.
• Bowente becomes visibly unsettled and warns that revealing future information could violate the laws of time and space.

Character Developments

• Li Ziran demonstrates increasing control, intelligence, and ruthlessness. Rather than reacting emotionally to Bowente’s pressure, he uses business negotiation to regain the initiative.
• Li’s anger is concealed behind his characteristic smile, reinforcing his reputation as especially dangerous when calm and cheerful.
• His interaction with the Memory Statue causes a major evolution in his Memory Eye and Spirit World, suggesting that he is beginning to access a more advanced form of soul and memory power.
• Li also proves highly observant. He notices Bowente’s brief panic when discussing soul chains and correctly infers that Bowente is hiding important knowledge.
• Bowente is revealed as manipulative and miserly. Though he presents himself as powerful and knowledgeable, he tries to offer the smallest possible concessions while extracting maximum value from Li.
• Bowente is confident at first but becomes increasingly flustered when Li changes tactics, threatens to withdraw, and begins demanding specific information.

Significant Themes

• Power through negotiation: The chapter frames cooperation as a business transaction rather than a moral or personal alliance. Li insists that every service must be properly rewarded.
• Manipulation and control: Bowente attempts to force Li onto a predetermined path, but Li resists by demanding concrete benefits and refusing to accept vague promises.
• Evolution of life and the soul: The Memory Ghost, soul chains, Soul Severing, and Soul Reconstruction introduce the idea that spiritual evolution depends on restructuring or replacing parts of the soul.
• Knowledge as leverage: Information about the future, advanced organs, and hidden techniques is treated as a valuable commodity. Both characters attempt to conceal information while extracting it from the other.
• Memory and identity: The Memory Ghost’s connection to memory theft and the transformation of Li’s Memory Eye suggest that memory is not merely a record of the past but a source of power and a foundation of spiritual evolution.
• Time-space limitations: Bowente’s warnings imply that knowledge from the future is dangerous and that revealing too much may create consequences or contradictions in the flow of time.

Character Interactions

• Li Ziran and Bowente: Their conversation is a tense battle of wills disguised as a negotiation. Bowente offers power in exchange for obedience, while Li repeatedly raises the price and exposes Bowente’s unwillingness to give freely.
• Li’s sudden anger and threat to sever communication force Bowente to make a real concession.
• When Li accepts the Memory Statue, the balance shifts: Bowente believes the deal is secured, but Li uses his agreement to demand additional information and resources.
• Li also refers to Ivy, Emily, Iron Hammer, and the others as expendable tools, showing his pragmatic attitude toward the people connected to the proposed mission.
• The chapter ends with Li pressing Bowente for forbidden future knowledge, leaving Bowente defensive and uncertain about how much he can safely reveal.

Chapter Summary: The Revival of the Red Fan District

Key Plot Points and Events

• In only one week, Li Ziran transforms the ruined Red Fan District into a thriving commercial center.
• A thirty-story quartz-glass Li Ziran Beauty Salon is constructed, surrounded by pink buildings offering beauty, body modification, and related services.
• The district’s economy rapidly expands through:
  • Beauty and organ-modification services
  • A growing slave-catching industry
  • Connections with ten slave-transfer stations in Hippo Ancient City
  • Increased tourism and customer spending
• Li Ziran restricts high-quality organ modifications to members of the Iron Hammer Slave-Catching Group, strengthening the group’s influence and profitability.
• Emily manages the ladies, Iron Hammer develops the slave-catching organization, and Ivy and her sisters operate the Beauty Salon while studying introductory Witch Doctor knowledge from Li Ziran.
• Li Ziran is summoned to meet representatives from the district’s Mills. Emily explains that they can provide information and help select ladies suitable for gestating Demon Embryos.
• Despite the district’s success, Li Ziran remains suspicious of Emily and the other “future” individuals whose souls have apparently been replaced. Their loyalty and unnatural behavior seem too perfect, and he doubts their claim to be ordinary believers.
• Emily presents the district’s recent earnings—128 gold coins in three days—and predicts that income will increase tenfold within a month.
• Li Ziran attempts to obtain information about rare organs, especially the Cavefolk Eye of Ten Mutations, but Emily and the others reveal nothing. He concludes that they may genuinely lack knowledge of the special organs he expected them to know about.
• When Li Ziran refuses to begin Demon Embryo gestation immediately, Emily changes tactics and offers a possible solution to the Snow World’s spatial rupture: seeking help from the Goblins.
• She reveals that she has kidnapped and restrained a Goblin alchemist who previously attempted to extort Li Ziran. Li Ziran is impressed by her initiative, though he doubts the Goblin will cooperate.

Character Developments

• Li Ziran emerges as a calculating entrepreneur and planner. He successfully turns the district into a profitable industrial center while maintaining control over its people and resources.
• His outward manner remains calm, approving, and businesslike, but internally he grows increasingly suspicious of the soul-replaced individuals and their unexplained loyalty.
• Emily proves to be an effective manager, intelligent strategist, and devoted follower. She confidently handles finances, organizes the Mills’ representatives, and even resorts to kidnapping to help Li Ziran.
• Emily also displays a playful, coquettish side around Li Ziran, enjoying his praise and attention, though she becomes disappointed when he avoids allowing her to participate in embryo gestation.
• Ivy and her sisters continue developing the Beauty Salon and contribute technological innovations, including the ultrasonic communication bell.
• Iron Hammer remains important in Li Ziran’s thoughts because of his surgical obsession and possible connection to the mystery of organ transplantation.
• The soul-replaced ladies appear obedient and productive, but their behavior causes Li Ziran to suspect that they are hiding something or are influenced by a deeper form of faith.

Significant Themes

• Reconstruction and industrialization: The Red Fan District changes from ruins into a modern, highly organized commercial hub.
• Control through commerce: Li Ziran uses beauty services, organ modification, slave-catching, and exclusive membership benefits to build a tightly controlled economic system.
• Faith and loyalty: The mysterious devotion of the soul-replaced individuals raises questions about whether their allegiance comes from genuine belief, manipulation, or hidden knowledge.
• Appearance versus reality: The district appears prosperous and harmonious, yet Li Ziran senses concealed motives beneath the surface.
• Ethics of bodily modification and exploitation: Beauty surgery, organ transplantation, Demon Embryo gestation, and slavery are treated as business opportunities, revealing the chapter’s morally disturbing commercial world.
• Pragmatism and manipulation: Li Ziran and Emily both use praise, flirtation, calculated speech, and coercion to achieve their goals.

Character Interactions

• Li Ziran and Emily maintain a relationship combining business partnership, mutual dependence, teasing, and concealed suspicion.
• Emily seeks Li Ziran’s approval and repeatedly presents successful results for praise, while Li Ziran deliberately encourages her with formulaic approval.
• Li Ziran questions the representatives from the Mills but remains guarded, probing for information about rare organs.
• Emily tries to persuade Li Ziran to begin Demon Embryo gestation, but he deflects her with promises of beauty treatments and discounts.
• Emily finally gains Li Ziran’s attention by offering help with the Snow World rupture and showing him the kidnapped Goblin.
• Li Ziran’s interactions with Emily reveal that both understand and exploit the other’s preferences: she enjoys his approval, while he performs reassurance to maintain her cooperation.

Chapter Summary

Key Plot Points and Events

• Li Ziran, Emily, and the enslaved Goblin Baron travel through the unstable Snow World. Emily controls Baron through fear and repeated whipping, while Li Ziran observes her behavior and suspects she is hiding important information.
• Emily recognizes the enormous figure at the center of Snow World as the prototype of the Destroyer. She claims to have seen the Destroyer before and describes him as a being large enough to crush Hippo Ancient City, but she acts as though she does not realize that Li Ziran himself is connected to that history.
• At Emily’s command, Baron uses a giant robot and specialized runes to repair the Spatial Rift. His technique compresses and stabilizes the Snow World, though it shrinks the space by roughly one-third.
• Baron explains that the repair is only temporary because the space’s Origin Essence has been badly damaged. It will collapse completely in approximately three years and seven months. Emily becomes enraged and lashes him, but Li Ziran stops her and praises Baron’s work.
• Li Ziran thanks Emily and invites her to assist him in repairing the Giant’s body. Emily is thrilled by the opportunity, while Baron is forced to help as well.
• Li Ziran teaches Emily how to graft new skin onto the Giant’s damaged epidermis. Emily eagerly takes notes and proves to be a talented and enthusiastic apprentice, while Baron’s robot performs much of the labor.
• The group enters the Giant through its mouth to inspect and repair its internal organs. Emily falls into the Giant’s stomach acid, revealing that her physical human appearance is only a disguise: beneath it is a jellyfish-like soul covered in tentacles.
• Rather than rescuing her, Li Ziran uses spiritual force to pierce her soul and forcibly read her memories. The memory reveals two gigantic beings creating a new continent by tearing open the Void Expanse and drawing land from a motionless space.
• Li Ziran realizes that the giant creature in the memory is himself—the Destroyer, his greatest creation. Before he can learn more, Emily’s soul disintegrates, and a rune appears on Baron’s forehead before he vanishes as well.

Character Developments

• Li Ziran: Becomes increasingly suspicious of Emily and deliberately tests her claims about the future. He presents himself as friendly and appreciative while secretly planning to steal her memories. His discovery that he is the Destroyer’s creator profoundly shocks him.
• Emily: Displays a split personality: she is cruel, domineering, and violent toward Baron, yet reverent, shy, and eager to please Li Ziran. Her fascination with the Destroyer and excitement over learning from Li Ziran suggest a deep connection to the Destroyer project.
• Goblin Baron: Is reduced to a terrified servant under Emily’s control, but demonstrates exceptional technical skill by stabilizing Snow World. Despite his resentment, he obeys her orders and assists Li Ziran with the Giant’s repairs.
• The Destroyer/Giant: Gains greater significance as Li Ziran learns that the massive being from Emily’s memories is his own creation. The chapter suggests the Destroyer was involved in constructing or relocating entire worlds.

Significant Themes

• Appearance versus reality: Emily’s innocent human form conceals a strange soul, while the seemingly primitive Giant is revealed to be the legendary Destroyer.
• Control and coercion: Emily dominates Baron through violence, while Li Ziran manipulates Emily through praise and carefully concealed intentions.
• Creation and destruction: The Destroyer is associated with both catastrophic devastation and the creation of new continents and worlds.
• Memory and hidden history: Li Ziran’s attempt to read Emily’s memories reveals fragments of his forgotten or misunderstood past.
• Fragile restoration: Snow World can be repaired physically, but its damaged Origin Essence remains beyond recovery, emphasizing the limits of technical skill.

Character Interactions

• Emily treats Baron as a disposable slave, whipping and threatening him whenever he fails to meet her expectations.
• Li Ziran intervenes when Emily attacks Baron, earning her gratitude and reinforcing her worshipful attachment to him.
• Li Ziran flatters Emily and invites her to become his assistant, turning her admiration into cooperation.
• Emily eagerly learns from Li Ziran during the skin-grafting process, while Baron and his robot serve as unwilling assistants.
• Inside the Giant, Li Ziran betrays Emily’s expectations by extracting her memories instead of helping her, exposing the ruthless and calculating side of their relationship.

Chapter Summary: “Into the Heartland of the Inquisition”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Li Ziran witnesses the terrifying power of a Giant identical to himself, whose single step nearly splits the Red Soil Continent. The sight makes him consider whether his own Puppet Art and organ research could eventually create something equally powerful.
• He confirms that the jellyfish-like soul replacing Emily’s soul appears connected to the future. The entity survives even in highly corrosive gastric acid, suggesting it is only the remnant or “dregs” of a soul.
• Li Ziran discusses the mystery with Baron, who has just been freed from the creature’s soul control. Li explains his encounter with Bowente, the mysterious note, and Emily’s memories of future events.
• Baron rejects the idea of a “Future Elemental Bug,” arguing that the world is governed by elemental laws. However, he warns Li that Bowente may be manipulating him and advises him to find a third party to oppose the Dark Council.
• Concluding that the Inquisition is the natural enemy of the Dark Council, Li decides to seek help from Cavis, an Inquisition member who once gave him the Judgment Scripture.
• Li travels to Hippo Ancient City and enters an Inquisition stronghold disguised as a row of Beast Race slave shops. He identifies himself as Ivy’s friend and is taken into the underground prison.
• The prison contains numerous supernatural beings suffering brutal torture, including a mysterious soul chained to a Cross.
• Li finally meets Cavis, who is living as an interrogator rather than the holy knight Li previously knew. Cavis recognizes him and allows him inside despite knowing that Li is inhabiting the body of a Corpse Witch.
• Li explains that Ivy and the others may be in danger and recounts his encounters with Bowente, the Bell Tower Society, and the supposed future-related conspiracy. Cavis reacts with skepticism and mocks the idea that such a powerful organization exists.

Character Developments

• Li Ziran: Becomes increasingly alarmed and uncertain as he confronts evidence that future events may be influencing the present. Rather than trying to solve the mystery alone, he learns to seek outside allies and takes the dangerous step of entering enemy territory.
• Baron: Though still resentful toward Li, he acknowledges that Li freed him from the soul shackles. He provides practical advice, emphasizing elemental principles and warning Li not to trust Bowente.
• Cavis: Is revealed to be far more severe and unsettling than his previous holy-knight image suggested. He works as an interrogator and torturer, yet remains calm, intelligent, and apparently willing to hear Li out because of his connection to Ivy.
• Bowente: Though absent, he becomes increasingly suspicious. Baron suggests that his invitation and claims may be part of a strategy to recruit a vulnerable third party into a larger conflict.
• Emily: Her fate becomes more mysterious. Her memories appear to contain knowledge of future events, while the jellyfish-like entity that replaced her soul may be a remnant from that future.

Significant Themes

• The nature and limits of time: The chapter questions whether the future can exist as an element, whether it can be observed, and whether future beings can influence the present.
• Elemental laws versus the impossible: Baron insists that even extraordinary phenomena must obey the world’s elemental structure, creating tension between established knowledge and Li’s firsthand experiences.
• Manipulation and distrust: Li must determine whether Bowente is offering genuine protection or using him in a larger struggle between powerful factions.
• Choosing allies: Since Li cannot confront the Dark Council alone, he deliberately seeks help from its enemy, showing the necessity of alliances even with dangerous or morally troubling groups.
• Institutional cruelty: The Inquisition’s prison presents a disturbing contrast between religious purity and torture. Its “Daughters of Judgment” are raised in isolation, while prisoners are brutally interrogated.
• Identity and transformation: Li’s use of a Corpse Witch body causes others to view him as an enemy, highlighting the gap between his intentions and his outward form.

Character Interactions

• Li Ziran and Baron: Their conversation moves from shared shock to philosophical disagreement. Baron refuses to validate Li’s theory about the future but still gives him important strategic advice.
• Li Ziran and the Daughter of Judgment: Li gains access to Cavis by invoking Ivy’s name. Her immediate change from dismissive shopkeeper to respectful guide shows Ivy’s influence within the Inquisition.
• Li Ziran and Cavis: Their meeting is tense but familiar. Cavis jokes that Li’s Corpse Witch body makes him an Inquisition target, calls him a thief for taking the Resurrection Spell, and then listens as Li asks for help. The chapter ends with Cavis openly ridiculing Li’s account of the Bell Tower Society and the Dark Council’s interest in him, leaving Li’s credibility uncertain.

Summary: “Li Ziran’s Way of Negotiating”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Cavis mocks Li Ziran for dreaming of becoming famous, accusing him of selfishness and revealing that Ivy and two other women sacrificed their chance to become holy maidens in order to preserve Li Ziran’s Beauty Salon during its destruction.
• Li Ziran is shaken by this revelation, though he still believes the women were right to choose him according to his own values.
• He asks Cavis for help uncovering who is manipulating events, why Ivy’s soul was invaded, and what the mysterious “future” seen in Emily’s memories actually means.
• Cavis angrily attacks Li Ziran’s arrogance, arguing that Li Ziran knows far too little about the wider world to draw definitive conclusions from similar memories.
• Realizing Cavis has no intention of helping, Li Ziran changes tactics and offers the Inquisition’s legendary Redemption Spell as a bargaining tool.
• Li Ziran demonstrates the spell, summoning golden light and countless Redemption Spell Bugs. The spell purifies the tortured creature in the chamber and silences the surrounding monsters, astonishing Cavis.
• Li Ziran explains that Shadow Elder destroyed his Spirit World and that the shattered Light Scripture allowed him to obtain the spell. He offers to teach it to Cavis.
• Cavis claims the spell cannot be taught because it depends on a rare, symbiotic Elemental Bug. He also warns Li Ziran that his Embryo trade and organ transplants violate the Inquisition’s principles and will eventually lead to his execution.
• Cavis attempts to intimidate Li Ziran by torturing a bound creature, but Li Ziran calmly removes the weapon and mocks the attempt.
• Li Ziran challenges Cavis’s assumptions about the Judgment Spells, arguing that they are ultimately based on organs, magic arrays, and communication with Elemental Bugs—processes that Witch Doctors understand well.
• He ends by forcing Cavis to choose between judging him and revealing what has attached itself to him.

Character Developments

• Li Ziran: Demonstrates emotional restraint, strategic thinking, and confidence under pressure. Although affected by guilt over Ivy and the others’ sacrifices, he suppresses his distractions and focuses on his objective. He shifts from requesting help to negotiating aggressively, using the Redemption Spell as leverage.
• Cavis: Initially appears as a furious, contemptuous judge who despises Li Ziran’s values and practices. His attitude changes after witnessing the Redemption Spell; anger gives way to shock, jealousy, and reluctant respect. Despite denying that the spell can be taught, he clearly recognizes its extraordinary power.
• Ivy and the other women: Though absent from the scene, they become central to the conflict through Cavis’s revelation that they abandoned the Inquisition’s holy-maiden selection to protect Li Ziran’s work.
• Shadow Elder: Remains an offstage threat. The destruction of Li Ziran’s Spirit World and Light Scripture is presented as the event that enabled his access to the Redemption Spell.

Significant Themes

• Negotiation through leverage: Li Ziran succeeds not by appealing to Cavis’s sympathy but by identifying what Cavis values—the sacred Judgment Spells—and offering something rare and powerful.
• Faith versus practical knowledge: Cavis treats the Redemption Spell as an ancient miracle beyond ordinary instruction, while Li Ziran reduces it to a system involving organs, patterns, and Elemental Bugs.
• Arrogance and limited perspective: Cavis condemns Li Ziran for making judgments about a world he barely knows, while Li Ziran accuses Cavis of calling things “impossible” simply because the Inquisition lacks understanding.
• Sacrifice and moral responsibility: Ivy and the others’ decision to give up their religious futures for Li Ziran forces him to confront the consequences of his influence and ideology.
• Control and defiance: The dungeon is meant to place Li Ziran under the Inquisition’s authority, but he refuses to be intimidated and reverses the power dynamic through intellect and confidence.

Character Interactions

• Cavis verbally humiliates and morally condemns Li Ziran, while Li Ziran listens without reacting until he can exploit Cavis’s interests.
• Li Ziran’s use of the Redemption Spell transforms Cavis from an aggressive interrogator into a fascinated and envious observer.
• Cavis tries to reassert dominance by torturing a captive creature, but Li Ziran calmly interrupts him, demonstrating that intimidation will not work.
• Their final exchange becomes a direct contest of authority: Cavis invokes the Inquisition’s sacred traditions, while Li Ziran challenges their understanding and demands either judgment or information.

Chapter Summary

Key Plot Points and Events

• Cavis explains that Bowente is a Ghostling, a failed former powerhouse who never reached the Title Realm and now seeks to possess a suitable host at the moment of that host’s breakthrough.
• He reveals that Li Ziran has likely entered into a Soul Replacement contract with Bowente. The supposed employment contract to join the Dark Council was actually a trap, and Li Ziran’s signature on the Oath Tablet may have served as the required Soul Mark.
• Li Ziran realizes that Bowente manipulated him by offering the recognition and status he secretly desired—especially acceptance into the Dark Council’s Upper House.
• Cavis leads Li Ziran into the Inquisition’s forbidden underground prison, Thorn Prison, where dangerous supernatural beings are restrained.
• Li encounters a tormented Vampire and a beautiful human woman who attempts to steal his memories. Cavis stops her with a slap.
• Cavis then reveals a mysterious transparent Thorn Cross containing a strange, self-contained world. Li experiences visions of his encounter with Bowente, including the Oath Tablet and the “future” he supposedly witnessed.
• The vision shows countless tiny beings living, dying, and reproducing inside the Ghostling’s enclosed world. Li begins to suspect that the souls said to have “traveled through the future” may actually be artificial or fabricated entities created within this sealed environment.
• Cavis challenges Li’s desire for power, destruction, and pleasure, exposing the extent of Li’s confusion and naivety.
• Cavis demands that Li demonstrate his miraculous organ and teach him the Redemption Spell. Li admits that he has not actually located the organ that communicates with the Redemption Bug, leaving Cavis visibly displeased.

Character Developments

• Li Ziran loses confidence in his understanding of Bowente and the Dark Council. He recognizes that his hunger for belonging and recognition made him vulnerable to deception.
• Despite the revelation, Li remains composed and quickly looks for a way to use Cavis as an ally against the Ghostling.
• Li begins questioning the reality of his memories and visions, particularly Emily’s memories and the supposed future journey.
• Cavis shifts from hostile interrogator to reluctant informant and guide. He demonstrates extensive knowledge of Ghostlings and reveals the Inquisition’s hidden prison.
• Cavis also exposes his own frustration with the Dark Council, admitting that the Inquisition has been unable to penetrate Hippo Ancient City’s true power structure despite seven years of effort.
• Cavis’s patience wears thin when Li admits he cannot yet produce the organ needed to teach the Redemption Spell, though he remains controlled rather than immediately violent.
• Bowente is revealed as a manipulator who uses promises of advancement and carefully constructed experiences to prepare Li as a future host.

Significant Themes

• Deception and false reality: Li’s memories, contracts, and visions may all have been engineered to manipulate him.
• The desire for recognition: Li’s secret wish to be accepted by the Dark Council allows Bowente’s deception to take root.
• Soul identity and possession: The chapter explores what makes a person an individual when memories, souls, bodies, and identities can be exchanged or manufactured.
• Knowledge versus ignorance: Cavis repeatedly emphasizes Li’s lack of understanding, while Li’s confidence and improvisation conceal how little he truly knows.
• Power and exploitation: Ghostlings seek hosts, the Dark Council uses status as bait, and even supernatural creatures are imprisoned and controlled for others’ purposes.
• The unreliability of memory: Emily’s memories and Li’s own experiences are called into question, suggesting that perception may be an instrument of manipulation.

Character Interactions

• Li Ziran and Cavis: Their relationship develops into a tense, transactional alliance. Li needs Cavis’s knowledge to deal with Bowente, while Cavis wants Li’s help with the Redemption Spell.
• Li Ziran and Bowente: Though Bowente is absent, his influence dominates the chapter. His “contract,” visions, and promises are revealed as parts of a long-term scheme.
• Li Ziran and the memory-stealing woman: Her attempted attack demonstrates the dangers of Thorn Prison and triggers Cavis’s protective intervention.
• Cavis and the imprisoned beings: Cavis moves through the prison with authority, ignoring the creatures’ hostility and controlling them through restraints and magic.
• Li Ziran and Emily: Li’s certainty that Emily’s memories were genuine is undermined when Cavis shows him an alternative vision, forcing him to reconsider whether her identity and experiences were real.

Chapter Summary: “Wood Who Ate Living Beings”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Li Ziran follows Cavis through the thick, Ghostling-infested fog to a ruined wine barrel filled with foul black liquid.
• Inside the barrel is a horrific undead creature named Wood, bound to a Thorn Cross by an iron chain. Wood’s body is almost entirely decayed, with only a few vital organs remaining, including a slowly beating heart.
• Cavis asks Wood to identify the organ capable of summoning a Redemption Bug. In exchange, he offers Wood a fresh liver, which Wood immediately replaces his own rotten liver with through an effortless organ-transplant technique.
• Wood confirms that the Redemption Bug has reappeared after fifty-three years and learns that Li Ziran promised Cavis this organ as payment for protection from a Ghostling.
• Li Ziran tries to negotiate by suggesting that the organ be divided in half, arguing that organs in the Elemental World can regenerate from elemental energy. Wood is intrigued by Li Ziran’s knowledge of organ manipulation.
• When Wood examines Li Ziran, he discovers that the body present is only a spiritual clone and identifies the Redemption Bug organ as a small flesh ball located in Li Ziran’s true head.
• Wood demands to see Li Ziran’s true body. Cavis hesitates, fearing that Wood might escape or attack them.
• Wood deliberately provokes Cavis by pretending he cannot help, prompting Cavis to agree to take him outside while keeping him bound to the barrel and Thorn Cross.
• Cavis limits Wood’s outing to two hours and makes him promise not to eat living beings. Wood eagerly agrees, while reassuring Li Ziran that he will obtain the “power of redemption.”

Character Developments

• Li Ziran remains cautious and reluctant to surrender the valuable Redemption Bug organ, but he honors his promise in principle by seeking a way to divide or partially transfer it. His expertise as an Organ Witch Doctor becomes more apparent.
• Cavis is shown to be deeply respectful and somewhat fearful of Wood. Although determined to obtain the Redemption Bug organ, he carefully weighs the danger of freeing Wood and imposes strict conditions.
• Wood is introduced as a grotesque but extraordinarily skilled master of organ manipulation. Despite his decayed appearance, he is clever, manipulative, curious, and intensely eager to leave his confinement. His appetite for living beings makes him dangerous.
• Li Ziran’s spiritual clone is revealed to be insufficient for locating the organ precisely, emphasizing the limitations of his current manifestation and the importance of his true body.

Significant Themes

• The value and danger of knowledge: Wood’s expertise makes him indispensable, but his knowledge comes with terrifying risks.
• Bargains and obligations: Li Ziran’s promise to Cavis, the Soul Exchange Contract, and the negotiation with Wood all highlight the consequences of agreements.
• Body and identity: The distinction between Li Ziran’s spiritual clone and true body raises questions about what constitutes the real self.
• Decay and survival: Wood’s nearly destroyed body continues functioning through extraordinary organ replacement, illustrating both the horror and adaptability of life in this world.
• Trust versus manipulation: Cavis tries to control Wood through conditions, while Wood uses fear, humor, and provocation to manipulate Cavis into granting him freedom.

Character Interactions

• Li Ziran and Cavis: Their alliance is strained by Li Ziran’s reluctance to give up the Redemption Bug organ, though both still rely on the original bargain.
• Cavis and Wood: Cavis treats Wood with reverence and caution, while Wood alternates between frightening and teasing him to gain leverage.
• Wood and Li Ziran: Wood immediately takes interest in Li Ziran’s organ knowledge, jokes about eating his organs, and eventually identifies the location of the Redemption Bug organ.
• Li Ziran and Wood: Their exchange establishes mutual curiosity: Li Ziran is impressed by Wood’s surgical mastery, while Wood recognizes that Li Ziran may be an accomplished Organ Witch Doctor himself.

Chapter Summary: “Cutting into the Giant’s Temple”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Cavis secretly frees Wood from his containment in the mist-covered cellar. He removes the wine barrel and Thorn Cross, shrinks them, and creates an illusion to conceal their absence.
• Cavis warns Li Ziran repeatedly that Wood is extremely dangerous. Many Inquisitors who interacted with Wood supposedly died after being used as “fertilizer” for the bizarre organisms living in his barrel.
• The pair escape through a concealed Teleportation Gate hidden beneath a Mill in Li Ziran’s Red Fan District and travel to the Ice Plains Snow World.
• Upon seeing the Giant, Wood immediately senses the organ he wants and directs Cavis toward the Giant’s head.
• Wood identifies the temple as the location of the “miraculous organ,” but a golden force prevents him from touching the Giant directly. Cavis explains that he cannot allow Wood to make contact with the flesh.
• Li Ziran takes over the operation. He transforms the Giant into a Frog using the Shapeshifting Curse, cuts open its temple, and pours in a special liquid that hardens and numbs the flesh.
• He then uses Poison Fireballs to melt through the skull, creating an entrance into the Giant’s head.
• Wood warns that damaging even one blood vessel could kill the Giant and directs Li Ziran toward a triangular organ hidden among the meridians and vessels.
• Using surgical tools and precise techniques, Li Ziran moves the meridians and ties back the blood vessels without injuring them, leaving Wood astonished by his expertise.

Character Developments

• Li Ziran remains calm, practical, and confident despite the danger of operating directly on the Giant’s temple. His medical knowledge and precise control reveal a highly developed understanding of anatomy and surgery.
• Cavis shows both fear and loyalty. He is deeply wary of Wood but willingly assists him, suggesting a complicated relationship in which Wood may be his master or former authority figure. His obedience is tempered by strict caution.
• Wood is portrayed as grotesque, manipulative, and intensely curious. His body is partly preserved within a barrel filled with parasitic organisms, and he eagerly seeks the Giant’s miraculous organ. Although he tries to control the operation, he becomes increasingly surprised by Li Ziran’s abilities.
• The Giant remains mostly passive, but the operation reveals its vulnerability, especially at the temple and within the network of vessels sustaining its head.

Significant Themes

• Dangerous knowledge and forbidden experimentation: The characters are cutting into a living Giant to obtain a mysterious organ, emphasizing the risks of anatomical and supernatural experimentation.
• Control versus containment: Wood’s restraints prevent him from touching the Giant, showing that even his allies recognize how dangerous his freedom would be.
• Expertise overcoming intimidation: Li Ziran’s calm surgical precision contrasts with Wood’s confidence and Cavis’s fear, allowing him to control the situation.
• The grotesque fusion of biology and magic: The barrel’s parasitic ecosystem, the Giant’s anatomy, shapeshifting, poison fire, and supernatural organs all blur the boundaries between medicine, monstrosity, and witchcraft.
• Hidden identities and origins: Wood repeatedly questions who taught Li Ziran his medical skills, hinting that Li Ziran’s knowledge may be unusual or impossible to explain in the current world.

Character Interactions

• Cavis repeatedly warns Li Ziran not to trust Wood or feed him organs, establishing distrust between Li Ziran and Wood.
• Wood directs Cavis’s movements and calls him “little knight,” while Cavis addresses him as “Master” but refuses to let him touch the Giant, revealing obedience mixed with restraint.
• Li Ziran ignores Wood’s attempts to dominate the situation and instead performs the dangerous procedure himself.
• Wood initially mocks or tests Li Ziran, expecting him to fail, but becomes genuinely shocked when Li Ziran navigates the Giant’s internal structures without causing damage.

Chapter Summary: “Transplanting the Redemption Organ”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Li Ziran performs an extremely delicate internal surgery inside the Giant Frog’s skull while Wood and Cavis observe.
• After searching through the dense flesh, Li Ziran discovers a previously unknown, mutated organ embedded in the Frog’s temple. The organ is inhabited by countless Redemption Bugs and contains the structures capable of activating the Redemption Spell.
• Using his spiritual power, Li Ziran crystallizes the organ’s surface and confirms that it is a newly formed organ rather than one recorded in his medical knowledge.
• Cavis agrees to trade his assistance against the Ghostling for access to the Redemption Spell. Li Ziran proposes transplanting a portion of the organ into Cavis so that Cavis can inherit its redemptive power.
• Li Ziran transforms Cavis into a Frog to make the operation possible. After Cavis lowers his magical defenses, Li Ziran hangs him from a bone beam and prepares the surgery.
• He anesthetizes Cavis, opens the area above the eye, carefully separates nerves and blood vessels, and removes one-tenth of the Redemption Organ.
• The organ fragment regenerates with the help of Sacred Potion. Li Ziran extracts three nerves and a tiny blood vessel from it, then implants and connects the fragment inside Cavis’s head.
• Despite a sudden burst of blood, the vascular connection succeeds, followed by a successful neural connection. Li Ziran closes the wound with sutures and healing potions.
• The surgery ends successfully, but the group must wait for the anesthetic to wear off to determine whether Cavis can truly inherit the Redemption Spell.
• Wood then abruptly asks why Li Ziran did not kill Cavis and offers advice about dealing with the Ghostling in exchange for a piece of liver.

Character Developments

• Li Ziran demonstrates extraordinary surgical skill, precision, and composure. His work causes Wood and Cavis to recognize him as a true master of organ surgery rather than merely a knowledgeable practitioner.
• Li Ziran’s confidence is balanced by professional caution. He refuses to take unnecessary risks and carefully chooses the incision point, reflecting his concern for successful results and his ethical responsibility to customers.
• Wood shifts from impatient curiosity to deep respect after witnessing Li Ziran’s technique. His knowledge of organs remains impressive, but he acknowledges Li Ziran’s superior practical mastery. He also continues to behave eccentrically, treating the mutated organ as something potentially delicious.
• Cavis becomes increasingly trusting of Li Ziran. Although he initially guards against being transformed and remembers Li Ziran’s previous mistreatment, his desire to obtain the Redemption Spell overcomes his hesitation.
• Cavis’s willingness to surrender his defenses and undergo the dangerous procedure shows both desperation and growing confidence in the transaction.
• The Ghostling remains an off-screen threat, but its influence shapes the negotiations and prompts Wood’s warning at the end.

Significant Themes

• Mastery through experience: Li Ziran’s surgical ability is portrayed as the result of extensive practice and accumulated knowledge, not superficial talent.
• Professional ethics and trust: Li Ziran treats the operation as a business transaction but insists on minimizing risks and giving his “customer” confidence. His competence gradually earns Cavis’s trust.
• Transformation and transplantation: The chapter literalizes the idea of gaining new power by physically implanting an organ, blending medicine, magic, and biological mutation.
• Discovery beyond established knowledge: The Redemption Organ is a completely unknown, mutated organ, emphasizing that the world contains biological and magical phenomena beyond conventional understanding.
• Desperation and sacrifice: Cavis accepts transformation, surgery, and significant danger because obtaining redemption is worth surrendering what remains of his former body.
• The fusion of science and magic: Surgical instruments, anesthetics, blood-vessel connections, and neural networks operate alongside spells, magical potions, Elemental Bugs, and spiritual power.

Character Interactions

• Wood initially bombards Li Ziran with questions, but Li Ziran’s silence and concentration eventually force him into respectful observation.
• Wood and Cavis both witness Li Ziran’s surgery, though Wood focuses on anatomical technique while Cavis focuses on whether the organ can grant redemption.
• Li Ziran and Cavis negotiate a direct exchange: Li Ziran provides access to the Redemption Spell, while Cavis promises to handle the Ghostling.
• Cavis distrusts Li Ziran enough to block the Transformation Spell, but he ultimately lowers his defense and permits the procedure.
• Wood’s admiration for Li Ziran grows as he recognizes similarities between Li Ziran’s delicate surgery and the large-scale excavation techniques used on Giants.
• The chapter ends with Wood undercutting the solemnity of the successful operation by jokingly offering Ghostling-related advice in exchange for food.

Chapter Summary: “Hey! Why Don’t You Try It First?”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Wood proposes cooperating with Li Ziran to capture and control the Ghostling from the Abyss. He explains that Ghostlings retain a single vital organ from their former bodies—often a pair of eyeballs in the case of Demon-born Ghostlings. If this organ is found, the Ghostling can be subdued and made into an ally.
• Wood uses the Bauhinia Lineage as proof, claiming that its founder gained power by being possessed and controlling a Ghostling. He offers to identify the Ghostling while Li Ziran performs the necessary organ transplantation.
• Li Ziran refuses Wood’s demand for payment, especially when Wood asks for livers. He remembers that Cavis warned him against trusting Wood and suspects that Wood is far more dangerous than he appears.
• Wood attempts to persuade Li Ziran to kill Cavis and cooperate with him instead, but Li Ziran ignores him and continues treating the Giant’s damaged temple.
• Wood reveals that he knows about the Ghostling accompanying Li Ziran, despite never being told its name is Bowente. He recounts an event from forty-nine years earlier involving a supposed “Savior” who ruled North Sea Port and predicted a catastrophic flood.
• The supposed Savior gathered followers, resources, and companions in preparation for the disaster, but the catastrophe never came. Wood implies that the man was actually being manipulated or used by a Ghostling, which later possessed or consumed his companions. Li Ziran correctly identifies the story as a possession game.
• Wood warns that if Bowente is a Ghostling transformed from a Time Demon, it likely has multiple potential targets rather than relying only on Li Ziran. He gives Li Ziran a possible way to identify it: Demon-shaped Ghostlings have pupils with two layers, and powerful ones may contain an entire controlled world behind their eyes.
• Cavis awakens after his surgery and transforms back into his normal form. He confirms that the surgery removed the Redemption Bug, though he jokingly claims that Li Ziran’s treatment failed.
• Li Ziran uses the Redemption Spell on Cavis. Tiny monk-like manifestations emerge and draw golden mist from Cavis’s body, allowing Cavis to obtain and sense the Redemption Spell.
• Afterward, Cavis helps Li Ziran investigate the Giant’s stomach. He extracts a tiny white Ghostling from a corroded twig submerged in gastric acid. The creature burrows into Cavis’s hand, and Cavis happily announces that they will bring it to the Inquisition’s dungeon.

Character Development

• Li Ziran remains cautious, pragmatic, and difficult to manipulate. He refuses Wood’s tempting offer because he recognizes Wood’s unpredictable and sinister nature. He also demonstrates increasing insight into Ghostling behavior, quickly interpreting Wood’s historical tale as a possession scheme.
• Wood is shown to be manipulative, knowledgeable, and increasingly desperate to influence Li Ziran. His detailed knowledge of Bowente and Ghostlings suggests a deeper connection to the events surrounding them. His desire to obtain organs and his eagerness to possess a Ghostling reinforce his dangerous nature.
• Cavis becomes more trusting of Li Ziran after receiving the Redemption Spell, though he retains his sarcastic humor. His excitement over the spell and the newly captured Ghostling reveals his strong interest in supernatural power and Inquisition resources.
• Bowente remains offstage, but the chapter raises the possibility that he is not merely targeting Li Ziran. If he is a Time Demon-derived Ghostling, his possession strategy may involve manipulating several people at once.

Significant Themes

• Trust and manipulation: Li Ziran must distinguish genuine cooperation from Wood’s attempts to exploit him. The chapter emphasizes that knowledge and helpfulness can conceal dangerous motives.
• Possession and identity: Ghostlings do not simply attack their victims; they may manipulate entire communities, create false beliefs, and use people as vessels or resources.
• Power through control: The Bauhinia Lineage, Cavis’s Redemption Spell, and the captured Ghostling all demonstrate how supernatural beings can be transformed into tools or sources of power.
• Skepticism versus belief: The people of North Sea Port blindly trusted the false Savior, while Li Ziran avoids accepting Wood’s claims without examining their implications.
• Moral ambiguity: Capturing and using Ghostlings is presented as both dangerous and potentially advantageous, blurring the line between defeating supernatural threats and exploiting them.

Character Interactions

• Li Ziran and Wood: Their exchange is a battle of manipulation and resistance. Wood repeatedly offers information and bargains, while Li Ziran refuses to be pressured or bribed.
• Li Ziran and Cavis: Their relationship combines cooperation, mutual caution, and teasing. Li Ziran honors his promise not to give Wood Cavis’s organs, while Cavis relies on Li Ziran for surgery and magical assistance.
• Wood and Cavis: Wood considers Cavis an obstacle and urges Li Ziran to kill him. Cavis, meanwhile, fears Wood’s influence and immediately checks whether he has done anything suspicious.
• Li Ziran and Bowente: Although Bowente does not appear directly, Wood’s revelations cause Li Ziran to reassess the nature of the Ghostling following him and to question whether he is only one target in a larger possession scheme.

Chapter Summary

• In Bowente’s illusory space, one of thirteen clay tablets—representing a contracted individual—is nearly fading. Bowente restores it and observes Li Ziran controlling the Snow World while fleeing with Cavis. He then captures Lain, the Ashes Mage, and brings him into the illusion.
• Bowente calmly offers Lain red tea, but Lain refuses and threatens to burn the space to ashes. Bowente dismisses him as a powerful but decaying mage whose body can still be useful.
• Bowente brutally removes Lain’s eyes and transfers one of his own strange, soul-containing eyes into Lain’s body. Lain’s consciousness is forced out and placed inside a short, fat Dwarf body. He discovers that his Ash Elemental power has been stolen along with his original body.
• Using Lain’s former body, Bowente demonstrates the Ash Element and examines his “creation” with satisfaction. He then alters Lain’s soul, injecting foreign elements into it and transforming him into a Demon capable of absorbing Soul Elements. Lain experiences the change with terror and helplessness.
• Bowente calls Lain his “dear Demon” and departs when the illusion is breached. A group of black-robed figures led by a golden-armored Holy Knight enters, apparently pursuing Lain and Li Ziran.
• Lain’s new body involuntarily attacks the invaders, forming a Soul Formation that destroys more than a dozen black-robed souls. The Holy Knight uses a form of Redemption to burn away the corruption in Lain’s soul and extracts a dark clay tablet.
• The tablet is revealed to be Li Ziran’s Soul-Trafficking Pact with Bowente. Li Ziran destroys it with the Corpse Witch’s Poison Fireball, freeing himself from the contract.
• When Cavis asks whether Lain should be handed over to the Inquisition, Li Ziran remembers Wood’s advice. Instead of surrendering Lain, he takes a scalpel and personally removes both eyes from Polo Bart, who is resting on a recliner.

Character Developments and Interactions

• Bowente is shown as refined and courteous on the surface but cruel, predatory, and deeply manipulative. He treats Lain as raw material, steals his body and power, and reshapes his soul into a Demon.
• Lain is reduced from a proud Title Magister to a helpless victim. His fear, pleas, and inability to resist emphasize the vast power gap between him and Bowente. His forced transformation leaves him horrified by his own body and abilities.
• Li Ziran successfully destroys his Soul-Trafficking Pact, severing Bowente’s hold over him. His final decision to dissect Polo Bart’s eyes suggests he is following Wood’s instructions and becoming more ruthless or purposeful.
• Cavis acts as Li Ziran’s companion and questions him about Lain’s fate, highlighting Li Ziran’s authority in deciding what happens next.
• The Holy Knight and Li Ziran cooperate temporarily: the knight extracts the pact, while Li Ziran destroys it. Their interaction also reveals the religious faction’s interest in controlling or judging Demons.
• Lain’s transformed body acts independently of his will, demonstrating that his stolen powers and altered soul can be weaponized against others.

Significant Themes

• Loss of identity and bodily autonomy: Lain remains conscious while his body, powers, and soul are taken and rewritten.
• Transformation and corruption: The chapter presents Demonization as a terrifying violation rather than an empowering evolution.
• Cruelty beneath civility: Bowente’s elegant manners and tea-drinking contrast sharply with his sadistic actions.
• Contracts and liberation: The destruction of Li Ziran’s pact represents a break from Bowente’s control, though freedom is achieved through violence.
• Moral ambiguity and escalating ruthlessness: Li Ziran’s choice to remove Polo Bart’s eyes suggests that survival and strategy increasingly require him to imitate the brutality of his enemies.

Chapter Summary: “I Want to Join the Inquisition”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Li Ziran examines the sapphire-blue eyeballs extracted from the suspected Time Ghost, Bowente, and notices they do not match Wood’s description. This raises doubts about whether Cavis captured the correct entity.
• Although the extraction appears suspiciously easy, Cavis insists that the Inquisition’s spiritual techniques prevented the ghost from escaping.
• Li Ziran asks to participate in the interrogation so he can investigate Ivy’s condition and determine whether the captured soul is truly Bowente. Cavis initially refuses, claiming that soul judgment is an Inquisition secret.
• To gain access, Li Ziran proposes joining the Inquisition. He offers the Red Fan District as a potential base and hints that he possesses the Resurrection Spell and Redemption Spell.
• Li Ziran pressures Cavis by suggesting he could approach a higher-ranking Inquisition official and reveal his Light Spells. He also proposes eventually collecting all twelve Light Spells and the sacred organs that contain them.
• Cavis is reluctant but becomes increasingly tempted by the possibility of someone possessing every Light Spell. He finally grants Li Ziran a nominal position as a jailer in the Hippo Ancient City Inquisition.
• Cavis takes Li Ziran to the Inquisition’s judgment room, where he brutally tortures the captured Demon soul before using a Judgment Mirror to interrogate it.
• The soul identifies itself as Bowente and says Ivy can be restored by finding and purifying her soul. It claims that Ivy’s soul is hidden in a soul bottle behind a medicine shelf in the first underground level of Li Ziran’s Beauty Salon.
• Li Ziran asks the image in the Judgment Mirror where it hid its eyes. The image suddenly freezes, suggesting that the soul’s identity or answers are false.

Character Developments

• Li Ziran becomes more cautious and manipulative. He does not trust Cavis or the captured soul and uses the prospect of the twelve Light Spells to force his way into the Inquisition.
• He reveals a strategic willingness to exploit Cavis’s ambition, recognizing the latter’s greed and desire for greater authority.
• Cavis shifts from hostility toward Li Ziran to reluctant cooperation. Although he distrusts Li Ziran and dislikes his arrogance, the possibility of obtaining all twelve Light Spells awakens his ambition.
• Cavis is shown to be highly skilled and confident in spiritual capture and torture, but his judgment is influenced by personal desire.
• Ivy remains absent and under supernatural control, but her possible restoration becomes a central motivation for the investigation.
• Bowente—or the entity claiming to be Bowente— appears unable to withstand Li Ziran’s final question, exposing a possible flaw in its disguise or fabricated memories.

Significant Themes

• Trust and deception: Li Ziran repeatedly questions whether Cavis captured the correct ghost and whether the interrogated soul is genuinely Bowente.
• Power and ambition: The twelve Light Spells represent unprecedented authority, tempting even Cavis despite his principles and dislike of Li Ziran.
• Manipulation and negotiation: Li Ziran gains access to the Inquisition not through loyalty but by identifying and exploiting Cavis’s desires.
• Identity and truth: The mismatch involving the eyes and the soul’s reaction to Li Ziran’s question suggest that appearance and testimony cannot be trusted.
• Institutional power: The Inquisition is portrayed as a secretive organization with control over sacred organs, spiritual judgment, and supernatural imprisonment.

Important Character Interactions

• Li Ziran and Cavis argue over whether Li Ziran can join the Inquisition, with Li Ziran gradually forcing Cavis to consider the advantages.
• Cavis warns Li Ziran to conceal his knowledge of the Redemption Spell and avoid asking about Light Spells, while also jokingly warning him not to seduce women in the Inquisition.
• During the judgment, Cavis interrogates the soul through the Judgment Mirror, while Li Ziran observes for inconsistencies.
• Li Ziran’s question about the hidden eyes disrupts the soul’s response, ending the chapter on a cliffhanger and strongly implying that the captured “Bowente” may be an impostor or incomplete manifestation.

Chapter Summary: “Wood’s Organ Feast”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Li Ziran and Cavis question the image in the Bronze Mirror about its missing eyes. The image freezes, then shatters into mist, revealing that the apparent captive was only a fake. The soul cries out that it is Lain before disappearing completely.
• Cavis is shocked that his capture failed, but Li Ziran recognizes that the enemy—likely connected to the Time Ghost Bowente—is far beyond Cavis’s ability to restrain.
• Li Ziran pressures Cavis into taking him to Wood. He exposes the danger of Cavis’s newly implanted Redemption Organ, explaining that without proper cultivation and care it could reject his body and burst through his skull. This gives Li Ziran leverage over the reluctant knight.
• In the Thorn Prison, Li Ziran discovers that the jailer’s parchment has transformed into a map showing seventeen living beings imprisoned in the fog. He follows it to Wood’s cell without needing Cavis’s guidance.
• Wood is found immersed in black oil inside a wine barrel, in an even more decayed state than before. Cavis feeds him a dried organ, allowing Wood to emerge and temporarily repair himself.
• Wood mocks Li Ziran over his failure to capture the real enemy. Li Ziran asks what Bowente is and how his restraints can be escaped, but Wood demands organs as payment. Cavis refuses to provide more than one, warning that Wood can only consume one organ per day and is extremely dangerous.
• Wood withdraws beneath the oil after giving only a few vague words. Li Ziran and Cavis leave the prison and visit the Inquisition archives, where Cavis shows him Wood’s file.
• The file contains photographs documenting Wood’s grotesque meals: organs taken from Elves, Goblins, souls, and other beings. One image shows what appears to be Bowente’s Spectral Eye, which Wood had eaten.
• Cavis reveals that Wood devoured thirty-six jailers over fifty years, as well as numerous prisoners. The “livers” he feeds Wood are actually Thorn Grass pulp mixed with a trace of blood, intended only to keep him alive while he remains starved.
• Despite Cavis’s warnings that Wood is luring him into a trap, Li Ziran decides he must continue dealing with Wood, believing Wood may possess the information needed to oppose Bowente.

Character Developments

• Li Ziran becomes more assertive and manipulative. He uses his knowledge of organ transplantation to threaten Cavis indirectly and demonstrates that he is willing to risk contact with Wood for valuable information.
• He also shows increasing confidence in his ability to survive dangerous situations, believing that Wood’s interest in organs is manageable and that he can counter any threat through his surgical abilities.
• Cavis is revealed to be less powerful than he initially appeared. His capture of the enemy fails, and he becomes vulnerable because of the unstable Redemption Organ in his body. Though frightened of Wood, he still tries to protect Li Ziran from making a disastrous bargain.
• Wood is established as a decayed, cannibalistic, and highly dangerous figure. He is physically deteriorating but remains calculating, sarcastic, and capable of controlling the terms of conversation.
• Bowente/ the Time Ghost is indirectly characterized as a superior threat whose abilities exceed those of this branch of the Inquisition.

Significant Themes

• Power and leverage: Li Ziran gains control over Cavis not through physical strength but through surgical knowledge and awareness of the Redemption Organ’s weaknesses.
• The limits of institutional authority: The Inquisition appears powerful, yet its local branch cannot properly confront Bowente, emphasizing the gap between reputation and actual ability.
• Knowledge gained through danger: Wood may be monstrous, but he possesses information that no one else can provide. Li Ziran is willing to approach a predator because the potential knowledge is valuable.
• Consumption and bodily violation: The chapter repeatedly presents organs, souls, and bodies as objects to be transplanted, harvested, or eaten. Wood’s feasts represent an extreme corruption of Li Ziran’s own medical and surgical interests.
• Deception and false appearances: The captured “Lain” is only a fake, while the truth about Wood’s food and Cavis’s organs is hidden beneath misleading appearances.

Character Interactions

• Li Ziran confronts Cavis after the failed capture, criticizing his incompetence and forcing him to allow access to Wood.
• He adopts a respectful tone toward Wood by calling him “Master,” but quickly shifts to bargaining, offering organs in exchange for information.
• Wood teases both men, exploiting Cavis’s respect and Li Ziran’s curiosity. He deliberately offers little information while encouraging Li Ziran to pay more.
• Cavis repeatedly tries to stop Li Ziran from feeding Wood, warning him that Wood’s apparent bargains are traps.
• The chapter ends with Li Ziran rejecting Cavis’s caution and resolving to find a way to communicate with Wood, especially after discovering evidence that Wood may have consumed part of Bowente’s eye.

Chapter Summary: “I Have High Hopes for You!”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Li Ziran remains trapped in the Inquisition’s archive room, trying to find a way to meet Wood and enter Thorn Prison without Cavis supervising him.
• While searching the archives, he encounters two Inquisition girls, Jenny and Winnie, who are investigating Mutants and collecting evidence to convince the Inquisition to place them on the Judgment list.
• The girls believe the Mutants are connected to the Dark Council and are especially concerned about the mysterious Li Ziran Beauty Salon, which they wrongly view as a dangerous organization responsible for stealing organs.
• Li Ziran realizes that the girls’ investigation threatens his own business, but he pretends to support their cause. He exaggerates the danger posed by Mutants and suggests that they capture modified creatures for interrogation in Thorn Prison.
• Jenny explains that Li Ziran’s prison-keeper credentials can open the entrance to Thorn Prison. Using his spiritual power, he activates the parchment key and suppresses the Thorn Mist, revealing the stairway into the prison.
• Impressed by his ability, the girls begin to admire Li Ziran. He encourages them with insincere praise before descending into Thorn Prison.
• Once alone, Li Ziran abandons the pretense of helping them, focuses on the dangers within the prison, and uses the enchanted parchment to navigate through the mist toward Wood.

Character Developments

• Li Ziran: Demonstrates cleverness, manipulation, and confidence. He turns an accidental encounter into an opportunity to gain access to Thorn Prison. His powerful spiritual ability also earns him admiration, though he privately regards the girls’ trust as something he can exploit.
• Jenny and Winnie: Revealed as inexperienced but zealous investigators. They sincerely believe they are protecting the Inquisition, yet their theories about Mutants and Li Ziran’s organization are largely mistaken. Their admiration for Li Ziran grows rapidly after witnessing his power.
• Cavis: Though absent for most of the chapter, he remains an obstacle because he distrusts Li Ziran and intends to prevent him from causing trouble or acting independently.

Significant Themes

• Deception and manipulation: Li Ziran uses flattery, false agreement, and fabricated plans to persuade the girls to help him.
• Misunderstanding and irony: The girls condemn Li Ziran’s Beauty Salon as a sinister organization while speaking directly to its owner without recognizing him.
• Power and reputation: Li Ziran’s spiritual strength gives him instant authority in the girls’ eyes, showing how power influences trust and status.
• Institutional paranoia: The Inquisition’s fear of Mutants and the Dark Council leads its members to form exaggerated theories and pursue misguided investigations.
• Ambition: The chapter contrasts the girls’ sincere but misguided ambition with Li Ziran’s practical, self-serving determination to reach Wood.

Character Interactions

• Li Ziran initially attempts to speak politely with Jenny and Winnie but is dismissed as a flirt.
• He then reveals his identity as a new prison keeper and gains their attention by offering to help with their investigation.
• He echoes their suspicions about Mutants and the Dark Council, winning their trust despite secretly being the person they fear.
• After opening Thorn Prison, he gives them encouragement and hugs them, further strengthening their admiration before leaving them behind.
• The chapter ends with Li Ziran entering the Thorn Mist alone, preparing to meet Wood.

Chapter Summary

Key Plot Points and Events

• Li Ziran visits the third Thorn Cross, where he observes a Ghostling’s artificial world: a gas-filled sphere containing countless light-like souls that live and die within it.
• He then meets Wood, a grotesque prisoner suspended in a barrel and bound by chains. Wood confirms that he devours living creatures—not for power, but to experience the taste of their elemental composition.
• Li Ziran asks about Bowente, revealing that he can still sense a connection to the Ghostling despite being unable to locate him in the Spirit World.
• Wood explains that Bowente is a Ghostling born in the Abyss and was once the favored student of a Demon’s teacher. He suggests that Bowente’s connection to Li Ziran is hidden in a deeper layer of the soul, rather than the Spirit World.
• Wood reveals that the “Savior” incident fifty years earlier was caused by the Time Ghost and recognizes a familiar quality in Li Ziran’s pupils, implying a possible connection to Soul Exchange.
• Wood presses Li Ziran about why he saved Ivy and the Mermaid girls. Li Ziran admits that he does not want to live alone and finds comfort in their companionship and purity.
• To resolve Bowente’s soul entanglement, Wood advises Li Ziran to use his surgical skills on his own soul, cutting it open to expose the Ghostling’s interference.
• Li Ziran recounts his past as a slave, including the first time he killed: he mutilated and killed three members of his slave owner’s household in an act of desperation.
• He explains that his teacher, a drunken Frog, rescued him, taught him transformation and surgical techniques, and helped him adapt to the world.
• Wood ultimately admits he cannot directly solve the problem without access to Bowente, but offers Li Ziran hope by suggesting that his own tongue can identify the elemental composition of organs—and asks whether Li Ziran is interested in having it.

Character Developments

• Li Ziran: Displays caution, curiosity, and increasing emotional self-awareness. Although he presents himself as practical and detached, he admits that he values companionship, fears isolation, and finds peace in the presence of Ivy and the other girls. His account of slavery and murder reveals the traumatic foundation of his calm surgical demeanor.
• Wood: Is portrayed as grotesque, intelligent, manipulative, and philosophically detached. He treats cannibalism as culinary appreciation rather than violence and uses questioning to probe Li Ziran’s emotions and secrets. Despite his disturbing nature, he provides valuable information and insight.
• Li Ziran’s teacher: Though absent, he is shown to have been a compassionate and formative influence who saved Li Ziran from slavery and taught him how to survive without losing all connection to purity and kindness.
• Bowente: Remains unseen but becomes more mysterious. He is identified as an Abyss-born Ghostling who may be hiding within another body and whose contract with Li Ziran exists at a deep soul level.

Significant Themes

• Isolation and companionship: Li Ziran’s actions are driven partly by his refusal to remain completely alone, challenging his image as a cold and emotionless Witch Doctor.
• Trauma and adaptation: His brutal past shaped his detachment, but his teacher and later relationships helped him adapt to the world rather than succumb entirely to despair.
• The body as material: Wood views organs and living beings as combinations of elements, while Li Ziran, despite his surgical practices, still recognizes their humanity. Their opposing perspectives highlight questions about morality and dehumanization.
• Truth, secrecy, and exchange: Wood repeatedly insists that information must be traded for sincerity, forcing Li Ziran to reveal increasingly painful truths.
• Self-knowledge and inner surgery: Resolving the soul contract may require Li Ziran to examine and dissect his own inner wounds, suggesting that physical surgery mirrors psychological and spiritual confrontation.
• Survival versus morality: Both Li Ziran and Wood have adapted to a brutal world, but Li Ziran retains emotional boundaries that Wood appears to have abandoned.

Character Interactions

• Li Ziran and Wood engage in a tense exchange of questions and secrets, with Wood repeatedly delaying answers until Li Ziran reveals personal information.
• Wood challenges Li Ziran’s claim that he did not “save” the Mermaid girls, exposing his emotional attachment to them.
• Li Ziran resists Wood’s attempts to uncover his fears but eventually reveals his experience as a slave and murderer.
• Their conversation shifts from hostility to a strange intellectual rapport: Wood recognizes Li Ziran’s unusual nature, while Li Ziran relies on Wood’s knowledge despite distrusting him.
• The chapter ends with Wood offering a disturbing but potentially useful trade: his tongue, capable of identifying organs’ elemental makeup, in exchange for Li Ziran’s interest or cooperation.

Chapter Summary: “Clues from Six Flavors House”

Plot Points and Events

• Li Ziran visits Thorn Prison to question Wood about Bowente and the Time Ghost connected to him.
• Wood taunts Li Ziran with the possibility of trading his unusual, highly valuable tongue for one heart from an organization called Six Flavors House.
• Cavis arrives angrily and forces Li Ziran to leave Thorn Prison, warning him that the prison’s inmates and secrets are too dangerous.
• Outside, Cavis confiscates Li Ziran’s parchment map and disables its formation, preventing him from returning to Thorn Prison. He explains that he has contacted his teacher for help monitoring the Time Ghost.
• Although initially frustrated, Li Ziran realizes Wood’s mention of Six Flavors House may have been deliberate rather than mockery. He decides to investigate whether it is a real organization.
• After searching unsuccessfully through Hippo Ancient City, Li Ziran returns to the Three Carriages Alchemy House and summons its owner, Master Baron, to a nearby café.
• Li Ziran offers Baron exclusive control over distributing Soul Plasma among the Goblins. In return, he asks only for information about Six Flavors House.

Character Developments

• Li Ziran remains cautious and pragmatic, refusing to trust Wood’s offer without considering the risks. However, he demonstrates strong investigative instincts by recognizing the possible importance of Wood’s final remark.
• His frustration at losing access to Thorn Prison shifts into renewed determination once he identifies Six Flavors House as a potential lead.
• Wood continues to behave as a manipulative and teasing figure. His offer of the tongue may conceal a genuine clue or bargain, suggesting that he is more calculating than his mockery implies.
• Cavis reveals how seriously he regards Thorn Prison. His anger shows both distrust of Li Ziran’s reckless actions and concern over the dangers Li Ziran may encounter. By disabling the map, he firmly limits Li Ziran’s movements while still promising to help with the Time Ghost.
• Baron remains suspicious of Li Ziran because of their previous dispute, but he is intrigued by the offer of an exclusive Soul Plasma distributorship.

Significant Themes

• Trust and manipulation: Li Ziran must determine whether Wood is mocking him, offering a real transaction, or guiding him toward a hidden objective.
• Knowledge as power: Wood’s tongue, capable of discerning elemental composition, represents a valuable form of knowledge that could help Li Ziran locate and counter supernatural organs.
• Limits of independence: Cavis’s intervention demonstrates that Li Ziran cannot freely pursue every lead, especially within dangerous institutions such as Thorn Prison.
• Pragmatic alliances: Li Ziran and Baron set aside their previous conflict to pursue mutually beneficial business. Their relationship illustrates how cooperation can emerge even where trust is incomplete.
• Hidden networks and clues: Six Flavors House becomes a mysterious new lead, potentially connecting Wood, rare organs, and the larger supernatural world.

Character Interactions

• Li Ziran and Wood: Wood provokes Li Ziran by offering his treasured tongue, then mentions Six Flavors House as a possible price. Their exchange is marked by suspicion, teasing, and concealed intentions.
• Li Ziran and Cavis: Cavis reprimands Li Ziran, expels him from Thorn Prison, and disables his map. Their conflict reflects Cavis’s strict sense of responsibility versus Li Ziran’s willingness to take risks.
• Li Ziran and Baron: Their tense negotiation revisits Baron’s earlier attempt to overcharge Li Ziran. Li Ziran appeals to their shared values and past cooperation, offering Baron a lucrative opportunity in exchange for information.
• Li Ziran’s central objective: Though he loses direct access to Wood, he gains a new investigative path by asking Baron to identify Six Flavors House.

Chapter Summary: “Tongue Feast”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Li Ziran asks Baron about Six Flavors House, claiming the information may be connected to the ghost haunting him. He also discusses a separate Soul Plasma trade with Baron.
• Baron explains that Six Flavors House appears to be an old, obscure restaurant with eleven branches, including one in Hippo Ancient City. However, its true history involves six humans with unusual tastes who founded it to obtain rare “fine food.”
• Baron gives Li Ziran the restaurant’s address and invites him to meet in Snow World in three days if he accepts Baron’s proposed deal.
• Li Ziran finds Six Flavors House hidden in a decaying alley. The restaurant is ancient and deserted-looking, with faded murals, battered furniture, and a three-story structure.
• He meets a shriveled Dwarf caretaker who recognizes the name Wood and leads him upstairs.
• Passing through a railing triggers a strange supernatural effect: crushing gravity immobilizes Li Ziran, after which the Dwarf pulls him forward while his body becomes weightless, seemingly entering a soul state.
• The Dwarf shows him a private room reserved for Wood and transfers a menu directly into his mind. The menu contains more than a hundred unusual organs from various creatures, including Flower Elf Wing, Frozen Black Dragon Blood, Demon Eye, and Eternal Liver.
• Li Ziran searches specifically for tongues and finds only three options: Wood Giant’s Tongue, Black Eel’s Tongue, and Hellhound Tongue.
• The Hellhound Tongue resembles Wood’s own tongue, especially its central crack and green patches. Li Ziran realizes Wood sent him to obtain the organ for a possible transplant.
• Li Ziran orders the Hellhound Tongue and asks for it to be packed, but the caretaker informs him that takeout is forbidden, leaving the outcome unresolved.

Character Developments

• Li Ziran demonstrates his calculating and opportunistic nature. He uses both his Soul Plasma business and his inquiry about Six Flavors House to gain information from Baron.
• His knowledge as an Organ Witch Doctor becomes increasingly important. He recognizes the organs’ possible abilities and quickly interprets the Hellhound Tongue as a surgical component rather than food.
• Li Ziran becomes more convinced that Wood’s actions are deliberate and connected to his own surgical expertise.
• Baron is shown to know more about Six Flavors House than most people and recognizes that Li Ziran’s inquiry is motivated by more than simple curiosity.
• Wood, though absent, influences the chapter heavily. His private reservation and recommendation reveal that he has anticipated Li Ziran’s arrival and may be guiding him toward a specific procedure.
• The Dwarf caretaker appears frail and almost corpse-like, yet controls the restaurant’s supernatural mechanisms and serves as the gatekeeper to its hidden functions.

Significant Themes

• Hidden identities and concealed purposes: Six Flavors House presents itself as a restaurant but is actually a strange institution dealing in rare supernatural organs.
• The body as a source of power: Organs are treated as valuable magical resources that can grant abilities, strengthen vitality, or potentially be transplanted.
• Trust and manipulation: Li Ziran must interpret Wood’s indirect message while questioning whether the restaurant’s services are truly beneficial or dangerous.
• Appearance versus reality: The restaurant looks ruined and insignificant, but it contains powerful supernatural spaces and an extraordinary menu.
• Soul and physical transformation: The transition into a soul-like state suggests that entering Six Flavors House requires crossing boundaries between body, spirit, and reality.

Character Interactions

• Li Ziran and Baron: Li Ziran probes Baron about Six Flavors House while negotiating Soul Plasma business. Baron sees through Li Ziran’s ulterior motive but still provides the address.
• Li Ziran and the Dwarf caretaker: The caretaker evaluates Li Ziran, recognizes Wood’s name, guides him through the restaurant, and presents the magical menu. He remains polite but firm when refusing Li Ziran’s request for takeout.
• Li Ziran and Wood: Wood never appears directly, but his prior relationship with Li Ziran determines the visit. His private dining room and recommended Hellhound Tongue imply that he expects Li Ziran to perform a transplant or similar operation.

Chapter Summary: “Raising Bodily Flesh and Tissue”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Li Ziran visits Six Flavors House to obtain a Hellhound’s tongue, intending to transplant it into a new body. The restaurant agrees to prepare it, but the dish will take three hours and is paid for by Mr. Wood.
• Realizing that neither his Corpse Witch body nor Giant shell can properly use the tongue, Li Ziran decides to construct an entirely new living body using Puppet Art, organ manipulation, and transplanted biological materials.
• He travels to Snow World and orders Anfuni to obtain a complete set of fire- or lightning-element Magister organs from the Elves. He also inventories his own collection of rare organs, but finds it far too incomplete to create a full body.
• Li Ziran therefore dismantles his Giant shell, harvesting its flesh, bones, blood, marrow, nerves, blood vessels, heart, and Resurrection Gallbladder. He uses the Transformation Spell to shrink and adapt the materials for his new body.
• The Giant’s brain proves impossible to reduce sufficiently, forcing Li Ziran to seek another source of brain tissue.
• Anfuni returns with three Spirit Elders instead of the requested organs. They apparently volunteered themselves for the sacrifice. Li Ziran declares that he will not kill them, though the chapter does not yet reveal how he intends to use them.
• Returning to Hippo Ancient City, Li Ziran asks Baron to locate a slave dealer with a large stock of unusual slaves. In exchange, he offers the dealer’s race agency rights over Soul Plasma.
• Baron takes Li Ziran to the Dwarf Garda’s warehouse and orders him to display all of his finest slaves, treating the opportunity as a chance for Garda to gain enormous wealth.

Character Developments

• Li Ziran shows greater ambition and adaptability. He recognizes that his current bodies limit his abilities and commits to abandoning the Giant shell in favor of a body specifically designed for his needs.
• He demonstrates both confidence and emotional hesitation: although he values the Giant’s strength and security, he sacrifices it because he believes a superior body will ultimately make him stronger.
• His refusal to kill the three Spirit Elders suggests that, despite his ruthless experimentation, he may intend to preserve or repurpose them rather than treat them as disposable materials.
• Anfuni appears deeply distressed, likely because the Elves supplied the Spirit Elders instead of organs and may have forced or permitted them to volunteer. Her silent, sorrowful reaction indicates moral discomfort or personal conflict.
• Baron becomes strongly invested in helping Li Ziran. The promise of Soul Plasma agency overwhelms his concerns about violating the slave dealer’s warehouse, revealing his opportunistic nature and loyalty to lucrative opportunities.
• Garda is alarmed and furious when Baron opens his warehouse without permission, but Baron convinces him that cooperating with Li Ziran could make him rich.

Significant Themes

• Transformation and self-reinvention: Li Ziran rejects the limitations of his existing forms and attempts to create a body tailored to his own talents and future development.
• Sacrifice for advancement: The destruction of the Giant represents the cost of pursuing greater power. Li Ziran must give up a valuable and familiar body to gain new possibilities.
• Control over life and flesh: The chapter treats organs, bodies, slaves, and even living beings as components that can be acquired, modified, and recombined, raising questions about morality and the boundaries of living creation.
• Pragmatism versus attachment: Li Ziran’s affection for the Giant conflicts with his rational decision to dismantle it, showing his willingness to suppress emotion for long-term goals.
• Power, commerce, and exploitation: Soul Plasma, slave markets, rare organs, and agency rights all connect advancement with trade and unequal power relationships.

Character Interactions

• Li Ziran and the Six Flavors House proprietor: Their polite exchange establishes the restaurant’s strange rules and provides Li Ziran with the Hellhound’s tongue he needs.
• Li Ziran and Anfuni: Li Ziran demands immediate assistance from the Elves, while Anfuni later returns with three Spirit Elders and visibly struggles with the situation. His promise not to kill them leaves their relationship and the Elders’ fate unresolved.
• Li Ziran and his Giant shell: Though the Giant is not an independent character, Li Ziran’s dismantling of it is emotionally significant. He views it as both a treasured source of strength and an outdated vessel.
• Li Ziran and Baron: Li Ziran’s urgency clashes with Baron’s initial concern over business boundaries, but the promise of Soul Plasma agency quickly turns Baron into an enthusiastic accomplice.
• Baron and Garda: Baron forcibly takes control of Garda’s warehouse, while Garda protests in outrage. Baron frames Li Ziran’s arrival as a stroke of fortune that Garda must exploit.