Chapter Summaries

Key plot points and events

• The Doctor teaches Xia Lun Symptom Reading, which the Game Panel confirms is the only way to read Grimoires. Though the apparent gift is tempting, Xia Lun distrusts the Doctor and decides not to use it—or read the surviving Prayerbook fragment yet.
• On the second night, Xia Lun takes the helm. Dream-trained Comprehensive Navigation lets him steer the ship competently toward Perilous Earth Island, three days away.
• While sailing, he works to secure the pirates’ support through conversation and leadership. His competence and confidence help turn their initial doubts into acceptance and reliance.
• The monster grows more active and interrupts Xia Lun’s jokes, scolding him to sail properly. The pirates are startled by the creature’s voice, but laugh when Xia Lun explains its complaint. A pockmarked sailor introduces mock voting as a way to pass the time.
• At sunrise, Captain Geliide takes over. Xia Lun confirms the ship’s position and says they will feed the monster a corpse that is not fresh, as agreed.
• The Game Panel records Xia Lun’s navigation progress rising to 60% and awards him 580 Memory Points for earning the recognition of ten people. Exhausted and unable to sleep at first, he reads the recognition list and eventually dozes off.

Character developments

• Xia Lun demonstrates practical skill, discipline, and political awareness. He understands that his authority is fragile and deliberately builds trust, while remaining cautious about the Doctor and the Grimoire. His night watch leaves him badly tired.
• Captain Geliide acknowledges Xia Lun’s sailing ability and maintains their working arrangement, trusting him enough to hand back control after her rest.
• The pirates shift from suspicion to acceptance and a growing sense of solidarity with Xia Lun, though they remain afraid of the monster.
• The monster reveals that it can hear Xia Lun’s jokes and responds with irritation, exposing a more talkative, oddly petty side.

Significant themes

• Trust and caution: Xia Lun refuses to act on knowledge from someone he distrusts, despite the potential reward.
• Leadership and earned loyalty: Competence and personal connection help Xia Lun strengthen his precarious authority.
• Fear alongside solidarity: The pirates’ terror of the monster persists, but their reliance on Xia Lun helps them face it together.
• Progress at a cost: Xia Lun gains skill and recognition, but exhaustion leaves him vulnerable.

Character interactions

• The Doctor offers Xia Lun Symptom Reading, but Xia Lun’s suspicion keeps him from following the advice.
• Xia Lun builds rapport with the watch crew through conversation, while his jokes amuse neither them nor the monster—though the monster’s complaint becomes a source of laughter.
• Captain Geliide praises Xia Lun’s navigation, confirms their position, and sends him to rest.

Plot points and events

• Xia Lun wakes refreshed at noon, shortly before the next corpse offering to the monster. He reassures the survivors, then throws two badly rotted bodies into the hold to test their agreement.
• The monster accepts the bodies and reveals that treasure lies in a cave near a palm tree on White Bird Beach. It also says that more corpses mean more information—and fewer survivors to divide the treasure among.
• Xia Lun realizes the monster’s corpse demands are meant to reduce the group and turn survivors against one another. The supposed negotiations are a cover for its plan to kill them all. He hides his alarm, keeps the monster cooperative, and resolves to use the remaining time to grow stronger.
• Xia Lun returns to sleep and enters his lucid dream. He chooses Swordsmanship training, where a shadowy teacher guides him through a thousand sparring rounds.
• The opponents grow progressively more skilled. Xia Lun initially dominates, then loses to advanced techniques such as the Glancing Strike. He treats defeat as instruction, gradually masters those techniques, and eventually wins consistently again.
• After the thousandth round, the teacher praises Xia Lun and introduces him to a “Brigadier General.” Xia Lun recognizes the title as belonging to the corrupt fugitive connected to the Prayerbook of the Drowned. Before he can ask questions, the dream breaks and he wakes.

Character development

• Xia Lun shows tactical restraint in dealing with the monster and recognizes the danger behind its offer. In training, his discipline and composure let him learn from both wins and losses, dramatically improving his swordsmanship.
• The monster reveals itself as manipulative and hostile: it wants to thin the survivors’ numbers and foster conflict, not simply collect food.
• The dream teacher shifts from strict instructor to a frail, reflective mentor, emphasizing that survival can matter more than fighting and expressing pride in Xia Lun.
• The Brigadier General becomes a newly significant and ominous presence through the teacher’s introduction.

Significant themes

• Deception and hidden motives: The monster’s apparent bargain conceals a plan to divide and eliminate the survivors.
• Preparation under pressure: Xia Lun responds to the coming threat by focusing on the one factor he can still control—his own strength.
• Growth through failure: Defeats expose gaps in Xia Lun’s technique, while persistence turns difficult lessons into skill.
• Survival over pride: The teacher’s final lesson reframes swordsmanship as protection, not merely victory.

Character interactions

• Xia Lun reassures Geliide and the other survivors before testing the agreement with the corpse offering.
• He probes the monster about the treasure, then conceals his suspicions and maintains the appearance of cooperation.
• In the dream, the teacher corrects and encourages Xia Lun while arranging increasingly challenging duels.
• Xia Lun respectfully supports the teacher at the end, then reacts with dread to the connection between the teacher’s next student and the Prayerbook’s fugitive.

Key events

• After waking from an exhausting dream of repeated sword fights, Xia Lun checks his Game Panel. His swordsmanship reaches Proficient, rising from 2% to 28% after he radically changed the memory’s course and fulfilled the First Mate’s wish by becoming the senior apprentice.
• This unlocks a Special Memory: Courtly Tournament, which he cannot enter while in a dungeon. With the monster threat approaching, he decides to postpone it and focus on the ship’s preparations.
• On deck, Xia Lun observes the crew at work: an old man handles a likely gunpowder barrel, the Priest cooks and rallies the pirates, and the Doctor assists a sick crewman, Daolunte. Xia Lun asks Daolunte who aboard may have studied the occult; Daolunte recalls occult-minded passengers from Scarlet Lantern Island, while the Doctor mutters about the Abyssal Hand and ascension.
• Xia Lun finds Captain Geliide on watch. She admits that waiting for the expected confrontation makes her anxious, despite her bravado. Xia Lun tells her that he is anxious too.
• Xia Lun asks what the Brigadier General feared. Geliide reveals that she has spent over twenty years wanting revenge on him and says he was reportedly terrified of a Wicker Man. Convinced the monster is likely the Brigadier General, she eagerly prepares to settle the score.
• Xia Lun says the monster may strike by tomorrow or the day after and that he has narrowed down who it could be hiding among. Geliide agrees to follow his plan.

Character developments and interactions

• Xia Lun gains substantial sword skill and confidence in close combat, but recognizes that dream training is taxing and keeps his attention on the imminent danger. He remains analytical, investigating the monster’s identity and possible occult connections.
• Geliide drops her composed façade to acknowledge her anxiety, then transforms it into fierce excitement when she learns the Brigadier General may be their enemy. Her longstanding personal vendetta now motivates her.
• The crew show growing respect for Xia Lun, greeting him warmly. His conversations with Daolunte and Geliide help him gather clues and build trust.

Significant themes

• Growth through commitment: Fully engaging with a challenge yields greater progress than simply accumulating practice.
• Fear and anticipation: The crew faces not only the danger of the coming fight but also the strain of waiting for it.
• Revenge and unresolved history: Geliide’s decades-old hatred shapes her response to the monster’s likely identity.
• Uncertainty and investigation: Xia Lun has strong clues but remains wary of how conveniently they have appeared, keeping the monster’s identity and hiding place in question.

Plot points and events

• As the whaling ship nears Perilous Earth Island, dense fog blankets the sea and leaves the deck almost impossible to see.
• Daolunte secretly communicates with the Abyssal Hand, his transformed mentor, using written questions answered with check marks and crosses. Convinced his mentor remains rational, Daolunte agrees that the time has come for a final confrontation.
• Daolunte plans to kill Xia Lun, whom he regards as a traitor, and free his mentor. He has also been promised secret teachings that might cure the venereal disease slowly killing him.
• The ship’s doctor unexpectedly appears. Daolunte initially thinks the doctor has overheard his secret, but the doctor’s vacant muttering suggests he noticed nothing.
• A tentacle delivers a matchlock and ammunition to the deck. Daolunte takes this as a sign to proceed, then strangles the doctor and throws his body into the cargo hold.
• Xia Lun remains at the helm and appears not to notice the murder. As Daolunte prepares to act, the First Mate—apparently dead or horribly mutilated—rises from the cargo hatch, leaving Daolunte stunned.

Character developments and interactions

• Daolunte reveals his loyalty to the Abyssal Hand, his desperation for a cure, and his belief that he can outwit Xia Lun. His resolve hardens into murder, though his panic after killing the doctor shows his nerves and lingering humanity.
• The Abyssal Hand communicates through silent marks and supplies Daolunte with a weapon, implying it is aware, cooperative, and directing events from below deck.
• The doctor, once a longtime companion who helped Daolunte, is killed despite Daolunte’s reluctance. His confused “genius” refrain offers no clear sign that he understands the secret.
• Xia Lun remains an ominously still presence at the helm; Daolunte sees him as a traitor and assumes he is unaware of the murder.
• The First Mate’s sudden reappearance overturns Daolunte’s sense of control and ends the chapter on a cliffhanger.

Significant themes

• Loyalty and betrayal: Daolunte sees himself as faithful to his mentor and Xia Lun as a traitor, while his own decision to murder a former companion shows how loyalty can justify brutality.
• Desperation and ambition: Fear of dying from disease drives Daolunte toward the promise of secret knowledge and a chance at “eternal life.”
• Uncertainty and concealment: The fog, hidden messages, and characters’ uncertain awareness create an atmosphere where no one can know who is watching or what is truly happening.
• Humanity and monstrosity: Daolunte questions whether his transformed mentor is still sane, yet commits a monstrous act himself while convinced he is serving a greater purpose.

Key plot points and events

• Daolunte finds a note delivered by the First Mate’s corpse. It reveals that the First Mate has used Secret Art to control the dead as “Walking Corpses,” and intends for Daolunte to kill Xia Lun, take the helm, and steer for Twin Bays.
• Realizing the First Mate has amassed at least fifty corpses, Daolunte grows confident and sneaks toward the helm with a Matchlock. He intends to get close enough to shoot Xia Lun, but forgets to load the gun.
• The figure at the helm proves to be a cotton-stuffed decoy. Xia Lun has set a trap, and catches Daolunte at gunpoint.
• Xia Lun claims he identified Daolunte because of how the crew voted, but this is a bluff: he had used the Game Panel’s list of approved names to narrow down likely infiltrators and deliberately assigned suspicious crew members to duties.
• Before Xia Lun can question Daolunte further, the First Mate’s grotesque corpse emerges from the fog. Daolunte tries to shout, but Xia Lun shoots him dead.
• The fog fills with a charging mass of Walking Corpses. Xia Lun orders the pirates to fire, and the standoff erupts into battle.

Character developments

• Daolunte shifts from terror to exhilaration when he learns the First Mate has an undead army. His confidence collapses when he discovers the decoy and realizes he has been trapped; he dies trying to call out.
• Xia Lun demonstrates strategic patience and deception, using the decoy and a deliberate assignment plan to expose the infiltrator. He reacts decisively to both Daolunte and the advancing dead.

Significant themes

• Deception and misjudgment: Daolunte mistakes a carefully staged situation for an easy victory, while Xia Lun’s supposed certainty is itself a bluff.
• Fear and composure: Daolunte’s nerves make him forget to load his weapon; Xia Lun acts quickly despite the sudden horror of the First Mate’s appearance.
• The spread of danger: The First Mate’s secret use of the corpses transforms the threat from a suspected conspiracy into an overwhelming physical assault.

Character interactions

• The First Mate’s note manipulates Daolunte into acting as his accomplice, promising him control of the ship and freedom for the First Mate.
• Daolunte stalks Xia Lun, believing him unaware, but Xia Lun turns the attempted assassination into an ambush.
• Xia Lun interrogates Daolunte at gunpoint, then kills him when he tries to alert the others to the First Mate.
• As the undead advance, Xia Lun rallies the crew with an order to fire.

Plot points and events

• Xia Lun kills the First Mate Walking Corpse with a single sword strike, proving the undead can be destroyed and briefly restoring the pirates’ confidence.
• With the monster battering through the reinforced Forecastle door and only minutes before it can reach the deck, Xia Lun orders the crew to push toward the cargo hatch and ignite the whale oil.
• The Priest urges them to hold formation and wait for help, but Xia Lun charges ahead. The Priest and several pirates overcome their fear and follow.
• Xia Lun uses Heightened Focus and a stockpile of flintlocks to shoot down most of the approaching Walking Corpses. His extraordinary accuracy stuns the crew and lifts their morale.
• The pirates join the assault, fighting with reckless ferocity despite severe wounds. Xia Lun also enters the melee, cutting down several corpses as the group advances toward the cargo hatch.
• Five faster, fresher Walking Corpses—apparently among those Xia Lun had previously thrown overboard—turn back to attack. Armed with multiple flintlocks, they pin the pirates down and kill several of them. One proves to be a highly accurate marksman.
• As the monster continues battering the door and the crew faces another volley, gunfire from the ship’s side wipes out the attackers. The pirates recognize the arrival of the captain and reinforcements.

Character developments

• Xia Lun shifts from controlled swordsman to forceful battlefield leader. He stays focused under pressure, uses the ship’s resources effectively, and finds himself exhilarated by the violence of real combat.
• The Priest moves from fear and caution to committed action, following Xia Lun with a harpoon. His past as a disgraced fugitive who killed the Bishop helps explain his willingness to embrace danger.
• The pirates transform from frightened, disorganized men into a bold and savage fighting force, inspired first by Xia Lun’s example and then by his display of marksmanship.

Character interactions

• Xia Lun directly challenges the Priest’s calls for caution; his determination persuades the Priest and other pirates to follow him.
• The pirates’ shouts of loyalty and violent enthusiasm reinforce Xia Lun’s leadership during the advance.
• Xia Lun’s spectacular shooting changes how the Priest sees him, making his abilities seem almost impossible.
• The crew’s progress is interrupted by the Walking Corpses’ coordinated gunfire, until the captain’s unexpected intervention turns the tide.

Significant themes

• Courage and contagious influence: Fear spreads through the crew, but so does resolve; Xia Lun’s example gives the pirates the will to act.
• Leadership under pressure: Xia Lun makes a risky decision because delay could let the monster escape and overwhelm them.
• Violence and survival: Both sides endure terrible damage, and the pirates’ willingness to suffer or die makes them formidable.
• Human capability versus the supernatural: Xia Lun’s skill astonishes the crew, while the undead’s coordination and firearms reveal that the threat is more dangerous than brute force alone.

Plot points and events

• Xia Lun’s reinforcements arrive and divide into teams: one prepares the lifeboats, one strengthens the fighters, and one evacuates the wounded and clears the remaining Walking Corpses.
• With the monster battering through the barricades, Xia Lun orders seven torches thrown into the cargo hold. He shoots a barrel of whale oil, igniting a massive fire that spreads through the ship.
• The pirates brace a second barricade with spears, using a tactic devised by the old man. A tentacle punches through and kills one pirate, but the others hold their positions.
• The monster’s strength fades in the heat and smoke. Xia Lun believes it is nearly dead and plans to retrieve the fireproof Prayerbook of the Drowned.
• As the ship burns, the old man urges a retreat, but Xia Lun insists on holding position for another minute. Then cool drops fall on Xia Lun’s face, suggesting it may be raining.

Character developments and interactions

• Xia Lun remains composed and tactical, directing the rescue and attack. His confidence grows as the fire weakens the monster, but he may have misjudged the situation by assuming victory is secure.
• Geliide supports the plan by organizing supplies and reinforcements, and celebrates when the fire takes hold.
• The old man contributes the spear-and-barricade tactic and later warns Xia Lun to withdraw as the fire spreads.
• The Priest leads fanatical followers toward the Forecastle and interprets the flames as a sacred revelation.
• The pirates act with discipline despite casualties, while the monster shifts from threats to desperate pleas before becoming harder to understand.

Significant themes

• Ingenuity and teamwork: Coordination, preparation, and the old man’s defensive design help the pirates overcome the threat.
• Fire as both weapon and symbol: It destroys the monster and ship while inspiring the Priest’s religious fervor.
• The danger of overconfidence: Xia Lun believes the monster is finished, but the unexplained drops hint that events may not be under control.
• Sacrifice and fanaticism: The pirates hold their positions despite a comrade’s death, while the Priest frames their ordeal as divine purpose.

Chapter Summary: “Fire and Punishment (II)”

Key Plot Points and Events

• A sudden torrential rainstorm erupts while Xia Lun and the pirate believers are burning Monster’s ship. The rain produces painful clouds of scalding steam and extinguishes the flames.
• With the fire gone, the plan to burn Monster to death fails. The believers’ religious fervor quickly collapses into fear and despair.
• Xia Lun realizes that Monster may be capable of summoning storms. This deduction is confirmed when he receives 300 Memory Points for deciphering part of the story’s background.
• Monster taunts Xia Lun from behind the reinforced door, claiming that luck remains on its side. Xia Lun tries to negotiate, offering to help Monster survive if it surrenders the Wax Book, but Monster refuses and accuses him of lying.
• As the ship tilts more dangerously, the priest suffers a psychological breakdown. He interprets the storm as divine punishment caused by their use of the Evil Flesh Codex and by hearing Monster’s song.
• The priest abandons the fight and flees. His panic spreads among the pirate believers, many of whom drop their weapons and run.
• With the defenders abandoning their positions, Monster’s attacks become stronger. Despite Xia Lun’s efforts to brace the reinforced door, it finally breaks.
• Geliide arrives and orders the fleeing pirates to return, warning that Monster must not escape. Xia Lun calls for the backup plan, but before it can be implemented, Monster bursts through the door and escapes.

Character Developments

• Xia Lun: Remains composed and determined despite the failed plan, severe burns, and the increasingly dangerous situation. He correctly suspects that Monster controls the weather and continues trying to negotiate while physically resisting the door.
• Monster: Demonstrates strategic intelligence, supernatural control over storms, and psychological manipulation. It exploits the believers’ fear and refuses to surrender the Wax Book, even while acknowledging that the sinking ship may kill it.
• The priest: Descends from religious fanaticism into madness. He interprets the disaster through the lens of divine punishment, abandons reason, and triggers the collapse of the group’s morale.
• The pirate believers: Their zeal proves fragile. Once the fire is extinguished and the priest panics, their faith turns into terror, causing them to flee.
• Geliide: Shows practical leadership by attempting to rally the fleeing pirates and prevent Monster’s escape, though she arrives too late to stop the breach.

Significant Themes

• Faith versus fear: The believers’ devotion depends heavily on the presence of fire. Once it disappears, their faith rapidly disintegrates.
• Psychological manipulation and mass panic: The priest’s interpretation of the storm as divine punishment spreads fear throughout the group, demonstrating how superstition can destroy collective resolve.
• Human plans versus uncontrollable forces: Xia Lun’s carefully arranged plan is undone by the sudden storm, emphasizing the characters’ vulnerability to supernatural power and bad fortune.
• Reason versus fanaticism: Xia Lun attempts rational negotiation and tactical resistance, while the priest responds to the crisis with religious hysteria.
• The power of Monster: The storm suggests that Monster is not merely physically dangerous but possesses broad supernatural abilities, making it a far greater threat than previously understood.

Character Interactions

• Xia Lun and Monster engage in a tense verbal standoff over the Wax Book, with both threatening mutual destruction and refusing to trust the other.
• The priest’s panic influences the pirate believers, turning a previously united force against Monster into a fleeing crowd.
• Geliide tries to restore order and commands the pirates to return to their positions.
• Xia Lun coordinates with Geliide by shouting for the backup plan, but Monster breaks through before they can act.

Key plot points and events

• Xia Lun uses Heightened Focus to dodge the monster’s charge and counter with precise sword strikes, severing a tentacle and destroying the tendrils supporting one side of its body. He then shoots its newly formed eye, blinding it again.
• The monster grows yet another eye and charges the old pirate, who has arrived with a powerful support-mounted musket. The old man fires a devastating shot that nearly cripples the creature, but a tentacle kills him and destroys his weapon.
• As reinforcements led by Geliide close in, the wounded monster reveals its trap: burning Walking Corpses carrying gunpowder barrels ignite them, causing a huge explosion that tears open the deck and sends pirates and monster into the hold.
• Xia Lun survives near the blast and finds the ship badly damaged, the hold ablaze, and many pirates wounded or dead. With the ship listing and sinking a real danger, he chooses to rescue the survivors who can still move rather than finish the monster from safety.
• After helping them escape by rope, Xia Lun stays behind to confront the creature. His rescue earns him 50 Memory Points and 200 Memory Points for the pirates’ admiration. As he heads onward, he hears a familiar laugh nearby.

Character developments and interactions

• Xia Lun proves his skill and composure in battle, then reveals a stronger sense of responsibility: although he could have killed the monster with another barrel, he risks himself to save the wounded. He remains determined to face the creature.
• The old pirate dies after sacrificing himself to land a nearly fatal shot. His courage is driven by his desire to protect his family on the island.
• Geliide and the reinforcements arrive ready to kill the monster, but the explosion turns their apparent advantage into catastrophe. The surviving pirates’ respect for Xia Lun deepens after he helps them escape.
• The monster, though gravely injured, remains cunning and vindictive, using the hidden barrels to turn the battlefield into a mass-casualty trap.

Significant themes

• Sacrifice and protection: The old man risks his life to protect his family, while Xia Lun puts himself in danger for the wounded pirates.
• Moral choice under pressure: Xia Lun rejects the easier, safer option of killing the monster at the cost of the survivors.
• The cost of battle: The explosion leaves widespread death and injury, underscoring how quickly apparent victory can collapse into disaster.
• Courage and respect: Acts of selflessness reshape how others see Xia Lun, earning admiration amid the devastation.

Chapter Summary: “Avenger”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Xia Lun finds Captain Geliide gravely wounded beneath the wreckage. Her ribs have pierced her lungs and her abdomen is catastrophically damaged, making her death unavoidable.
• Despite her condition, Geliide remains defiant and urges Xia Lun to escape before the ship sinks. She proposes taking an unexploded gunpowder barrel and detonating it beside the injured monster, sacrificing herself to destroy it.
• Xia Lun refuses, explaining that the monster possesses a secret-art text he intends to obtain. Their goals therefore give him a personal reason to stay and fight.
• The monster approaches and asks Xia Lun to translate its demand for a conversation among the three of them. It reveals that it understands human speech and wants to confront Geliide before dying.
• The monster identifies itself as Captain Haya, the former captain of the whaling ship. Ten years earlier, Geliide and her crew raided Haya’s vessel, murdered members of his crew, and abused his daughter before throwing her into the sea.
• Haya survived and has spent years planning revenge. He deliberately spread false information that the brigadier general was aboard the ship, luring Geliide into his trap.
• Geliide realizes that her intended suicide attack would have been meaningless: the brigadier general was never present, and Haya—not the brigadier general—is her true enemy.
• While translating Haya’s confession and keeping him distracted, Xia Lun carefully approaches and uses a grappling hook to retrieve the lower half of the Prayerbook of the Drowned embedded in the monster.

Character Developments

• Xia Lun: Becomes increasingly pragmatic and strategic. Although disturbed by Geliide’s imminent death, he does not act out of simple heroism; he openly admits that securing the secret-art text is his primary motivation. He also demonstrates cleverness by exploiting Haya’s arrogance to steal the text.
• Geliide: Shows remarkable physical toughness and courage, standing and carrying the gunpowder barrel despite fatal injuries. However, Haya’s accusations expose a frightened, guilty side beneath her fearless pirate persona. She is forced to confront the consequences of her past crimes and the failure of her planned sacrifice.
• Captain Haya/the monster: Reveals himself as a calculating, patient avenger rather than the brigadier general. His revenge is highly organized: he survived the original attack, monitored Geliide, manipulated her movements, and created the false rumor that brought her to him. His confidence becomes arrogance, allowing Xia Lun to maneuver close to him.

Significant Themes

• Revenge and the consequences of violence: Haya’s transformation into a monster is rooted in the cruelty inflicted on his family and crew. The chapter presents revenge as both a driving force and a destructive cycle.
• Justice versus vengeance: Geliide’s death would not have been heroic justice but merely a consequence of Haya’s carefully engineered revenge. The chapter questions whether personal vengeance can ever restore what was lost.
• Guilt and memory: Geliide initially does not remember Haya or the White Whale, emphasizing how perpetrators may forget violence that permanently defines their victims’ lives.
• Pragmatism over heroism: Xia Lun rejects a sentimental sacrifice and acts according to his own interests. His survival-minded calculation contrasts with Geliide’s willingness to die for revenge.
• Appearance and hidden identity: The assumed “brigadier general” is revealed to be someone else entirely, showing how misinformation and mistaken identity shape the conflict.

Character Interactions

• Xia Lun and Geliide argue over whether she should sacrifice herself with the gunpowder barrel. Geliide sees the act as settling her blood feud; Xia Lun insists that he has his own reason to fight.
• Xia Lun serves as the translator between Geliide and Haya, controlling the flow of information while secretly positioning himself to seize the prayerbook.
• Haya taunts Geliide by recounting the atrocities committed against his family and crew, forcing her to recognize him and understand that she has been deliberately lured into the trap.
• The chapter ends with Xia Lun exploiting the tense confrontation: while Haya revels in revealing his identity, Xia Lun quietly hooks and retrieves the monster’s secret-art text.

Chapter Summary: “Showdown”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Xia Lun successfully retrieves the missing lower half of the Prayerbook of the Drowned, completing the grimoire. The information panel reveals that he qualifies to learn the secret art Transcendent Regeneration, though he must sleep and spend 1,000 Memory Points first.
• With his terminal illness potentially curable, Xia Lun hides the book and turns his attention to defeating the Monster.
• He studies the armory deck and deliberately engages the Monster in conversation, hoping to learn more about its motives and weaknesses while using the spacious cabin as a battlefield.
• Their conversation reveals a misunderstanding: the Monster attacked Xia Lun because Xia Lun had previously injured it by throwing an axe and cutting down the mast. The Monster also accuses Xia Lun of being a traitor.
• While they talk, the Monster secretly stalls for time and resurrects the dead pirates as Walking Corpses.
• Xia Lun realizes the deception and launches a surprise attack. Using Backstab Slash, he cuts the Monster’s main body in half with a single strike.
• The Monster survives by rapidly growing tiny tentacles from its wound and flees deeper into the ship. Xia Lun orders Geliide to hold off the Walking Corpses while he pursues the wounded creature.
• The Monster ambushes Xia Lun with six flintlock pistols, but Xia Lun activates Heightened Focus, dodges or deflects the attack, and emerges unharmed through the smoke.
• The chapter ends with Captain Haya, now transformed into an Abyssal Hand, horrified by Xia Lun’s apparent immunity to gunfire and questioning what he truly is.

Character Developments

• Xia Lun remains controlled, strategic, and ruthlessly efficient. Even while excited about curing his illness, he immediately prioritizes survival and defeating the Monster.
• His combat ability is dramatically emphasized: he can sever the Monster in one blow with a shortsword and withstand a close-range barrage of six pistols.
• Xia Lun’s unusual nature becomes more apparent. His strength, reflexes, and resistance to bullets make both Geliide and Haya question whether he is still human.
• The Monster is shown to be calculating but also fearful. It manipulates the conversation to summon Walking Corpses, yet panics after Xia Lun’s overwhelming attack and retreats rather than continuing the fight.
• Geliide is shocked by Xia Lun’s power but follows his instructions, taking responsibility for delaying the Walking Corpses.
• Captain Haya, transformed into the Abyssal Hand, becomes the apparent attacker at the end of the chapter and reacts with disbelief when Xia Lun survives the gunfire.

Significant Themes

• Humanity versus monstrosity: Xia Lun’s increasingly superhuman abilities contrast with the Monster’s fear of him, blurring the distinction between human and creature.
• Strategy and deception: Both sides attempt to stall and manipulate the other, but Xia Lun’s battlefield analysis allows him to recognize the Monster’s trap.
• Survival and transformation: The resurrection of the pirates, the Monster’s regenerative escape, and Haya’s transformation into an Abyssal Hand reinforce the chapter’s focus on unnatural change and persistence beyond death.
• Hope amid horror: The completed grimoire offers Xia Lun a possible cure for his illness, giving him a personal reason to survive the grotesque confrontation.
• Miscommunication and absurdity: The exchange about why the Monster attacked Xia Lun reveals that their conflict partly arose from mutual misunderstanding, adding dark humor to the otherwise violent showdown.

Character Interactions

• Xia Lun and the Monster engage in a tense verbal exchange, each trying to understand or manipulate the other while secretly preparing for combat.
• The Monster accuses Xia Lun of betrayal, while Xia Lun challenges its motives and past actions.
• Xia Lun reassures and directs Geliide, telling her not to overexert herself and to retreat if necessary.
• Geliide reacts with astonishment to Xia Lun’s one-strike victory, openly questioning his humanity.
• Haya confronts Xia Lun with gunfire, but Xia Lun’s survival leaves Haya terrified and confused.

Key plot points and events

• Xia Lun emerges from the gunfire seriously wounded, while the monster is too frightened to press its advantage. The damaged ship is sinking, and walking corpses are closing in.
• To gain a way to heal, Xia Lun reads the Prayerbook of the Drowned using Symptom Reading. The book dissolves, but he acquires Transcendent Regeneration—a power that rapidly heals injuries while worsening his mental state.
• His wounds begin to heal, though the process consumes so much energy that he becomes gaunt and ravenously hungry. He resists the urge to eat the monster, recognizing that it was once human.
• Geliide, nearly overcome by illness after fighting off the corpses, prepares to die fighting. Rather than let the threat continue, she ignites a nearby gunpowder barrel, destroying the undead.
• With its escape plan ruined, the monster loses heart. Xia Lun kills the Abyssal Hand, earning 1,500 Memory Points; Geliide’s sacrifice earns him her recognition and 300 points.

Character developments

• Xia Lun reveals both his extraordinary composure under pain and his willingness to take extreme risks. He gains a powerful healing ability, but learns that it has a severe physical cost and threatens his mental stability. He also shows restraint by resisting his hunger.
• Geliide is shown as fiercely courageous and loyal. Despite her failing health and lack of ammunition, she chooses to sacrifice herself for the group and affirms their bond as allies.
• The monster shifts from cautious fear to renewed hope when Geliide appears to falter, then collapses into despair when she destroys its plan.

Significant themes

• Alliance and loyalty: Geliide’s declaration, “Because we’re allies,” makes solidarity the chapter’s emotional climax.
• Power at a cost: Xia Lun’s regeneration heals his body but drains his strength and threatens his mind.
• Composure and self-control: Xia Lun suppresses pain, fear, and even a powerful hunger to make deliberate choices.
• Courage and desperation: Both protagonists act despite near-certain danger, while the monster’s survival depends on exploiting others’ weakness.

Character interactions

• Xia Lun and the monster engage in a tense standoff, each waiting for the other to make a move.
• Xia Lun questions Geliide’s decision to blow up the barrel, but she explains that their alliance is reason enough.
• Geliide’s action clears the way for Xia Lun to finish the weakened monster.

Plot points and events

• As the whaling ship explodes and sinks, a lifeboat crew debates whether to flee or wait for Xia Lun. The doctor insists on giving him one more minute; Xia Lun then hauls himself aboard, exhausted but alive. He confirms there are no other survivors, thanks the doctor for using Symptom Reading to save his life, and urges everyone to row.
• The five survivors escape the whirlpool and reach Perilous Earth Island the next day. They choose to search for the monster’s rumored treasure before joining their companions at the Red Hook Tavern.
• After a day of digging, they uncover a chest of gold and gems just as Xia Lun’s six-day survival objective expires. He is pulled from the scenario into cold darkness.
• When the brown-haired pirate touches Xia Lun, his body dissolves into seawater. The others discover that about a fifth of the treasure has vanished with him. The priest interprets this as a sign that Xia Lun was a divine envoy returning to report, and the survivors accept his explanation.
• The group divides the remaining treasure and goes their separate ways. Years later, the priest has founded a church and orphanage and risen to bishop; the two pirates have become successful merchants. The doctor boards an expedition ship under the name Ishmael.

Character developments and interactions

• Xia Lun survives the shipwreck through his own endurance and the doctor’s help, then disappears when his scenario objective is complete. His return is mistaken for a miraculous departure.
• The doctor shows sharp judgment and loyalty by insisting the crew wait for Xia Lun, then helps row them to safety. In the aftermath, he appears transformed into a confident, professional figure.
• The priest moves from despair and guilt to renewed purpose. He turns Xia Lun’s disappearance into a religious revelation, and later builds a lasting institution around that belief.
• The pirates initially clash over whether to flee or wait, but ultimately cooperate. Their shared ordeal strengthens their resolve, and they handle the treasure without fighting over it.

Significant themes

• Faith and interpretation: The priest gives a spiritual meaning to an event the others cannot explain, and his conviction shapes their actions.
• Survival and transformation: The disaster leaves the survivors exhausted but changes their priorities and strengthens their character.
• Mystery and ambiguity: Xia Lun’s sudden disappearance, the missing treasure, and the doctor’s new identity remain unexplained.
• The power of belief: The survivors’ shared interpretation of Xia Lun’s departure helps them divide the treasure peacefully and gives the priest’s future ministry its foundation.

Chapter Summary: “Settlement”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Xia Lun awakens in the dream-space after completing the Sea Battle Royale scenario. Memories of the voyage flash before him, including the storm, the monster Abyssal Hand, the pirates’ deaths, and Captain Geliide’s final sacrifice.
• The settlement system evaluates his performance:
  • He survives the required six days.
  • Solves the mystery of the torrential rain.
  • Gains the pirates’ admiration and Abyssal Hand’s fear.
  • Kills the first mate, gunner, Deep-Sea Walking Corpses, and Abyssal Hand.
  • Explores Perilous Earth Island and discovers the Mentor’s hidden treasure.
• These accomplishments raise his scenario rating from F to S-, described as “Unbelievable,” and grant him 800 bonus Memory Points, bringing his total to 3,400 before purchases.
• His “Manifestation Authority of Memories” reaches the maximum of 200%, allowing him to manifest not only objects he has seen but also objects he has never encountered, as long as they are non-sentient. Manifested items can be stored in an illusory inventory.
• Xia Lun spends 2,500 Memory Points to acquire Captain Geliide’s specialty memory, Nonhuman Toughness, leaving him with 900 points before additional treasure rewards are added.
• He learns that the hidden treasure grants another 1,000 Memory Points, raising his total to 1,900. He also gains partial information toward the Treasure Hunter specialty.
• His enhanced Transcendent Regeneration becomes more practical: he can now choose whether to regenerate, and regeneration requires less mental energy and nutrition.
• While browsing manifestable objects, Xia Lun discovers that he can theoretically manifest enormous structures, including the 80,000-point whaling ship Langpeide.

Character Development

• Xia Lun reflects on the deaths of his companions and shows genuine grief before focusing on the rewards.
• His combat abilities improve substantially:
  • Firearms Use rises from 26% to 28%, with his skill expanding from precise shooting to effective rapid fire.
  • Swordsmanship jumps from 28% to 55% after his Heightened Focus allows him to understand and optimize force transmission.
  • Navigation advances from 92% to 99%, nearing the Basic level.
  • Stealth is newly unlocked at 15%, based on his earlier sneaking, ambushes, and movement through fog.
• His Mass Murderer specialty progresses from 7/100 to 10/100, apparently counting the monster he killed as a “person.”
• Reflexive Evasion improves, granting instinctive reactions against tentacles and gunfire, along with slight increases in reaction speed and explosive strength.
• He becomes increasingly strategic. Rather than viewing combat as the only path to advancement, he recognizes the importance of exploration, deduction, negotiation, and treasure hunting.
• He plans to combine Nonhuman Toughness with Transcendent Regeneration, creating a powerful ability to remain functional despite severe injuries and rapidly recover afterward.

Significant Themes

• The value of exploration over brute force: Although combat earns major rewards, the treasure alone provides 1,000 Memory Points, encouraging investigation and discovery.
• Memory as power: Memories can be transformed into skills, specialties, objects, and even massive structures, making past experiences tangible resources.
• Growth through experience: Xia Lun’s abilities advance not merely through formal training but through intense situations, instinctive adaptation, and moments of heightened awareness.
• The cost and ambiguity of violence: Xia Lun’s violent accomplishments bring power, but the game categorizes him as an “All-Powerful Aesthetician of Violence” and tracks his kills as a specialty progression, highlighting the disturbing way the system rewards slaughter.
• Survival and bodily transcendence: The combination of Nonhuman Toughness and Transcendent Regeneration emphasizes Xia Lun’s gradual movement beyond ordinary human limitations.
• Grief beneath progression: Even while excited by his rewards, Xia Lun pauses to mourn the pirates, showing that his advancement does not completely erase his emotional attachment to those who died.

Character Interactions

• Xia Lun’s relationship with Captain Geliide is central to the settlement. Her admiration grants him Nonhuman Toughness, and he recognizes that her final resistance against the Walking Corpses was made possible by that ability.
• His interactions with the pirates collectively earn their respect, contributing to his improved scenario rating.
• His conflict with Abyssal Hand, the “Mentor,” is especially significant: Xia Lun kills the supernatural monster, earns its fear, obtains its hidden treasure, and receives an enhancement to Transcendent Regeneration.
• His encounters with the first mate, gunner, pirates, and Deep-Sea Walking Corpses shape his combat proficiencies and specialty progression, even though most of these characters appear only through the settlement’s memory montage.
• The chapter ends with Xia Lun confronting the astonishing scale of the system’s possibilities when he discovers that even the Langpeide whaling ship can be manifested—though at an enormous cost of 80,000 Memory Points.

Chapter Summary: “A Bountiful Harvest”

Key plot points and events

• In the post-scenario dream space, Xia Lun explores the items he can recover using memory points. He learns that enormous structures are available but would require a costly expansion of his limited space.
• He manifests his familiar short sword, Night Plume, and his custom revolver, which carries the special trait Death Precision and comes with twelve bullets. He also buys a gunpowder barrel and retrieves the Voidwood Box, which he recognizes as having saved him from suffocation during the scenario.
• Among the other items, he recovers a willow effigy made by Geliide. He considers whether rare items—especially the Prayerbook of the Drowned—might be valuable to other players, but decides to ask the intelligence broker White Line about trading memory points.
• Xia Lun uses the once-per-scenario lottery casket and draws a damaged sextant whose effects are entirely harmful: it makes stray bullets more likely to hit him and slightly damages his intelligence.
• He spends memory points to enhance his information panel, which will take eighteen hours to upgrade. While reviewing available specializations, he discovers that he has master-level faulty occult knowledge. Its source includes himself, the bearded pirate Moen, the rot-faced sailor Daolunte, and the monster called the Abyssal Hand.
• This shared knowledge, along with the monster’s accusation that Xia Lun is a traitor, leads him to suspect his scenario identity may have been connected to the monster—perhaps as its occult apprentice. He postpones investigating the mystery.
• After leaving the game, Xia Lun finds that nearly six days of scenario time have passed in under thirty seconds in reality. His illness is cured, so he switches off the mechanical broadcaster that had been warning him about his approaching death.
• Overwhelmed by the realization that he is safe and alive, Xia Lun goes outside into the winter night and snow. He welcomes the cold and celebrates his survival—until his stomach growls, abruptly reminding him that he needs to eat.

Character development

• Xia Lun shifts from careful resource management and curiosity to a growing sense of relief and freedom. Having survived the scenario and overcome his illness, he can finally stop living under constant threat.
• He remains analytical: he weighs the usefulness and cost of items, considers possible profits, and follows clues about his hidden identity. Yet he chooses to set aside questions he cannot answer immediately.
• His celebration of survival is intense but fleeting; ordinary bodily needs quickly bring him back to everyday life.

Significant themes

• Survival and renewal: Xia Lun’s joy in feeling the cold and seeing the snow emphasizes his return to life after a near-fatal ordeal.
• Power balanced by cost: Valuable weapons, structures, and knowledge require scarce memory points, while the lottery can produce dangerous or useless rewards.
• Mystery and identity: The shared occult specialization and the monster’s words hint at a deeper connection between Xia Lun and the Abyssal Hand.
• The contrast between game and reality: Six days of danger in the scenario pass in mere seconds outside it, making the transition back to ordinary life feel disorienting.
• Returning to the mundane: Hunger punctures Xia Lun’s moment of triumph, grounding the supernatural experience in everyday physical needs.

Character interactions

• Xia Lun has no direct face-to-face interactions in the chapter, but reflects on possible dealings with White Line, the broker who sold him the game.
• He reconsiders his links to Geliide, whose effigy he keeps as a memento, and to Moen, Daolunte, and the Abyssal Hand, whose shared occult knowledge may reveal a hidden connection.
• The mechanical broadcaster offers a final reminder of his former danger; Xia Lun responds by shutting it off now that he is cured.

Chapter Summary: “The Visitor, Whitewash City, Foresight”

Key Plot Points and Events

• The heavy snowfall in Whitewash City ends, and Xia Lun is enjoying a meal at home when an unexpected visitor arrives.
• The visitor is a red-haired young woman, the daughter of a director at Jade Pharmaceuticals, accompanied by a bodyguard. She initially claims she wants to purchase some of Xia Lun’s assets, but soon reveals that she actually wants to borrow money.
• She explains that her father has been “replaced” or mentally controlled after opposing an attempted acquisition of Jade Pharmaceuticals. She believes occult forces are responsible and asks Xia Lun for financial help to save him.
• As evidence, she shows Xia Lun photographs of crimson symbols drawn beneath her father’s desk and elsewhere. The symbols resemble interlocking triangles.
• Xia Lun recognizes the markings as similar to symbols he saw near the river before his apparent drowning. This makes him suspect that his former illness and near-death experience may have been connected to supernatural forces rather than being accidental.
• He consults his upgraded Information Panel, hoping it might identify the symbols, but discovers that the panel will not fully upgrade for another six and a half hours.
• Xia Lun pretends to reject the woman’s story, then offers her a smaller amount of money instead of the loan. He claims he is willing to believe her, both to gain more information and because the symbols concern him personally.
• The woman gives him five milky-white potions as payment. Xia Lun recognizes them as underwater-breathing potions like those available through the supernatural game “Investigator.”
• After the woman leaves, Xia Lun discusses the situation with his butler. The detective investigating the symbols has found that they are not based on any known historical or cultural design and only began appearing within the last five years.
• The investigation has also linked the symbols to an organization called the Foresight Club.

Character Developments

• Xia Lun: His attitude shifts from relaxed and self-indulgent to intensely suspicious once he recognizes the symbols. He uses his usual calm, deceptive manner to conceal his fear and curiosity. He is increasingly willing to accept supernatural explanations after his experience in the game and begins actively investigating the connection between the symbols, his illness, and his drowning.
• The red-haired woman: She appears nervous and desperate but remains determined to rescue her father. Her increasingly frantic claims make her sound unstable, yet her physical evidence and possession of supernatural potions suggest that her story may be genuine.
• The butler: He remains observant, practical, and loyal, helping verify the visitor’s identity and providing updates from the detective’s investigation. His measured responses support Xia Lun’s decision to take the woman seriously.
• The woman’s bodyguard: His presence creates an initially suspicious atmosphere. Xia Lun notices a callus on the man’s thumb, implying experience with firearms or combat.

Significant Themes

• The boundary between madness and truth: The woman’s claims sound absurd, but the chapter suggests that seemingly irrational beliefs may reflect real supernatural events.
• Supernatural forces hidden within ordinary society: Occult symbols, mysterious organizations, and magical potions exist beneath the modern world’s surface.
• Foresight and investigation: Xia Lun relies on observation, deduction, the Information Panel, and detective work rather than accepting events at face value.
• Manipulation and hidden motives: Both the woman and Xia Lun conceal information. She presents a desperate plea while withholding the full story, and Xia Lun pretends disbelief while strategically encouraging her.
• Whitewash City as a breeding ground for danger: The city’s extreme crime and disorder make bizarre events easier to dismiss as ordinary madness or violence, allowing secret organizations to operate unnoticed.

Character Interactions

• Xia Lun and the woman begin with a misunderstanding: he assumes she may be seeking an illegal business arrangement, while she struggles to explain her father’s condition.
• He challenges her credibility and questions whether her request is truly her own idea or her father’s, prompting her revelation that her father has allegedly been replaced.
• Her desperation contrasts with Xia Lun’s controlled skepticism. Although he refuses to lend her the requested money, he offers financial assistance and accepts the potions, creating a tentative alliance.
• After her departure, Xia Lun and the butler analyze the encounter. Their conversation confirms that the symbols are a genuine investigative lead and establishes the Foresight Club as the next major mystery.

Chapter Summary: “Plans, Review, Manifestation”

Key Plot Points and Events

• While waiting for his Information Panel to finish upgrading, Xia Lun retrieves his private diary from a safe and uses the time to review his recent experiences.
• He organizes what he knows about the mysterious Foresight Club, recording:
  • Its origins in Greyroad State conspiracy theories.
  • Its distinctive interlocking-triangle symbol.
  • The possibility that Bird, a director of Jade Pharmaceuticals, is connected to it.
  • Bird’s daughter, who previously asked Xia Lun for help after suspecting her father had been mind-controlled or replaced.
• Xia Lun updates his personal goals:
  • Short-term: Recover physically, obtain the Nonhuman Toughness specialty through dreams, complete the Courtly Tournament Special Memory, and contact the information broker White Line.
  • Mid-term: His illness has been cured.
  • Long-term: Discover the truth behind his illness and use the game to gain supernatural abilities or other benefits.
• He begins a detailed review of the Sea Battle Royale scenario, focusing on several unexplained elements:
  • The nature of his entry into the game and why he retained his illness but not the Underwater Breathing Potion’s effects.
  • The recurring specialty memory known as Erroneous Occult Knowledge.
• Using Heightened Focus, Xia Lun reaches a major deduction: his original scenario identity was likely the monster’s occult apprentice, alongside Bearded Pirate and Daolunte.
• He concludes that the monster was probably not his enemy. The intended route may have involved cooperating with the monster against the pirates’ tyranny.
• Xia Lun realizes that his own panic caused him to attack the monster immediately, unintentionally changing factions, becoming pirate leader, and drastically increasing the scenario’s difficulty.
• Despite this mistake, his reckless strategy produced greater rewards, including the monster’s death, the Prayerbook of the Drowned, pirate recognition, and the cure for his lung disease.
• After finishing his review, Xia Lun meditates while waiting for the Information Panel upgrade. During meditation, he suddenly has a new idea: perhaps he can manifest game items in reality.

Character Development

• Xia Lun is shown to be disciplined, analytical, and committed to self-improvement. He habitually reviews both mistakes and successes rather than relying solely on emotional impressions.
• He becomes more self-aware about his tendency to act violently or impulsively under pressure, recognizing that his distrust was intensified by his experiences in Whitewash City.
• His review demonstrates growing strategic sophistication: he can reconstruct hidden relationships, infer intended game routes, and distinguish between accidental success and deliberate planning.
• He also remains ambitious, setting increasingly supernatural goals connected to the game and investigating the deeper truth behind his illness.

Significant Themes

• Self-reflection and growth: Rational review is presented as the foundation for turning experience into improvement.
• Uncertainty of identity and reality: Xia Lun questions whether the game involves physical transmigration, soul transfer, or some combination, especially because only certain statuses carry over.
• Hidden connections and reconstructed truth: The recurring occult knowledge and Xia Lun’s relationship with the monster suggest that the game contains a deeper history obscured from his conscious memory.
• Unintended consequences: Xia Lun’s initial attack transformed an apparently manageable scenario into an extremely difficult one, though it ultimately yielded greater rewards.
• Preparation versus improvisation: His written plans contrast with the chaotic decisions he made in the scenario, emphasizing the need to think before acting.
• The boundary between game and reality: The closing revelation raises the possibility that supernatural objects or powers acquired in the game can be brought into the real world.

Character Interactions

• Xia Lun and Bird’s daughter: She previously sought Xia Lun’s assistance because she believed Bird had been controlled or replaced. Xia Lun now suspects she may be connected to the larger Foresight Club mystery because she seems strangely familiar.
• Xia Lun and the scenario monster: Xia Lun had assumed the monster was an enemy and attacked it, but his review suggests they were originally allies or teacher and apprentice.
• The monster, Bearded Pirate, and Daolunte: Xia Lun theorizes that all three were linked through occult apprenticeship. Bearded Pirate may have used this connection to incite the first mate’s mutiny.
• Xia Lun and Geliide: After attacking the monster, Xia Lun allied with Geliide, manipulated the voting process, and became pirate leader, effectively switching sides within the scenario.
• Xia Lun and White Line: White Line is identified as a future contact and potential source of game-related information or items, though they have not yet met in this chapter.

Chapter Summary: “Attributes, Sanity, Crisis”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Xia Lun discovers that he can summon and dismiss stored items at will, including the Voidwood Box, revolver, and shortsword Night Plume. He experiments with the sword and realizes that his imagination may allow him to manipulate weapons creatively during combat.
• The upgraded Information Panel becomes available and successfully identifies objects:
  • The Voidwood Box is classified as a “Paradox Item” that can conceal objects and bring them into scenarios without manifestation.
  • A photograph containing an interlocking triangular symbol is revealed to depict an esoteric ritual called “Calling.”
• The ritual can summon an individual from another dimension and place them in another person’s body, but it severely damages sanity.
• Xia Lun connects the ritual to his drowning, terminal illness, and the possibility that someone intended to replace him through soul-swapping. He realizes that the unknown group behind the ritual may retaliate after his recovery.
• The Information Panel displays Xia Lun’s attributes:
  • Strength: 11
  • Constitution: 10
  • Agility: 16
  • Charisma: 14
  • Perception: 18
  • Intelligence: 12
• His sanity is listed as “Calm (0/0), critical error,” leaving him unsure whether he is immune to sanity loss, already beyond normal sanity, or somehow excluded from the system.
• His physical health is revealed to be only temporarily stable. The curse “The Decay Has Come” is still active and will eventually destroy his lungs.
• Although the curse has been temporarily suppressed, Xia Lun has only about five months of maximum survival time remaining.
• After briefly experiencing a terrifying hallucination-like vision, Xia Lun regains his composure and decides that anxiety is useless without action.
• He formulates a one-month preparation plan: contact the information broker White Line, purchase useful scenario items, acquire Nonhuman Toughness through dream entry, and obtain another skill through the Courtly Tournament recollection.
• The chapter ends as Xia Lun calls White Line.

Character Development

• Xia Lun becomes more confident in the possibilities offered by the Information Panel and his ability to manifest equipment, but this excitement is quickly replaced by fear after learning the truth about the ritual and his curse.
• He demonstrates strong analytical thinking by linking the ritual to his past drowning and illness and inferring that a hidden organization may be targeting him.
• Despite the revelation that his life is still limited, Xia Lun chooses determination over despair. He reframes the curse as another obstacle to overcome and commits himself to rapid preparation.
• His curiosity about supernatural powers is tempered by caution. Although he wonders whether his abnormal sanity status could let him learn esoteric arts without consequences, he rejects reckless experimentation.

Significant Themes

• Knowledge versus ignorance: The Information Panel gives Xia Lun vital answers, but each discovery exposes more dangerous truths.
• The cost of power: Supernatural abilities, rituals, and esoteric knowledge offer great advantages while carrying risks such as sanity loss and bodily decay.
• Urgency and mortality: The countdown on Xia Lun’s survival time transforms his situation from long-term investigation into an immediate race against death.
• Action over fear: Xia Lun acknowledges his terror but decides that preparation and decisive action are the only meaningful responses.
• Identity and bodily replacement: The “Calling” ritual raises questions about possession, soul-swapping, and whether Xia Lun himself was meant to be replaced.
• Control versus uncertainty: Although Xia Lun gains new abilities and information, his health, sanity, and enemies remain largely beyond his control.

Character Interactions

• Xia Lun primarily interacts with the Information Panel, using it to examine objects, assess his attributes, and uncover hidden dangers.
• His imagined enemies—the unknown ritualists and the Foresight Club—remain off-page, but their presumed plot directly shapes his decisions.
• He prepares to contact White Line, an information broker who is expected to help him obtain items for future scenarios.
• Xia Lun’s interaction with himself is also significant: he moves from excitement, to alarm, to disciplined resolve, using self-reflection and humor to prevent panic.

Chapter Summary: “Preparations: Information Broker, Café, Snail Statue”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Xia Lun meets the information broker White Line at the Milk-Foam Café in Whitewash City’s Canal District.
• White Line uses a supernatural ability called Psychological Invisibility, causing people to consciously ignore him and allowing the two to converse privately despite sitting in a crowded café.
• White Line explains important mechanics of the Investigator game:
  • Supernatural abilities acquired in the game can be used in reality.
  • Players should prioritize upgrading their Information Panel, which eventually allows the exchange of Manifestation Authority.
  • Memory Points are best spent on manifesting useful items rather than improving proficiencies or talents.
  • Skills are powerful but can damage a player’s mind.
  • Mental health is as important as physical survival because repeated exposure to dream-like scenarios can blur reality.
• White Line warns Xia Lun not to fight sinister Monsters directly, citing the terrifying Abyssal Hand, which can corrupt minds merely by being seen.
• Xia Lun reveals that his firearms proficiency is at Mastery level, shocking White Line, who has only encountered a few characters with such expertise during more than thirty scenarios.
• Xia Lun attempts to persuade White Line to invest one million Memory Points and other resources in him, promising enormous returns within six months. White Line rejects the proposal, pointing out that Memory Points cannot be traded and that the requested sum is impossibly large.
• The conversation returns to White Line’s original purpose: presenting his “special goods.” He opens a large suitcase and reveals four boxes containing an item called the Snail Statue.

Character Developments

• Xia Lun demonstrates increased confidence and composure after completing his first game scenario. Supernatural phenomena no longer surprise him, and he carefully hides the extent of his abilities and experience.
• He remains pragmatic and goal-oriented, using humor, persuasion, and calculated deception to seek resources that might help him survive the Withering curse.
• His revelation of Mastery-level marksmanship establishes that he is far more capable than White Line expected.
• White Line is portrayed as a veteran player with over twenty years of experience, extensive intelligence connections, and a cautious, knowledgeable attitude toward the game.
• His eccentricity is emphasized through his mask, disguise, Psychological Invisibility, coin tricks, and refusal to pay for café coffee.
• Despite his humor, White Line sincerely tries to protect Xia Lun by giving him practical advice about game mechanics, Monsters, Memory Points, and mental deterioration.

Significant Themes

• Knowledge as power: White Line’s intelligence network and understanding of the game are among his greatest assets, while Xia Lun seeks to gain an advantage through information and preparation.
• Survival over strength: The game rewards investigation, evasion, information gathering, and resource management more than direct combat.
• The cost of power: Talents, proficiencies, and skills may require Memory Points and impose severe psychological consequences.
• Mental health and reality: The game threatens not only players’ bodies but also their ability to distinguish dreams from reality.
• Trust and transactional friendship: Xia Lun and White Line share a long-standing bond built on mutual assistance, but their interaction also involves bargaining, risk, and calculated self-interest.
• Hidden identities and deception: White Line’s disguise and Psychological Invisibility reflect the broader importance of concealment and manipulation in the world of the game.

Character Interactions

• Xia Lun and White Line exchange friendly banter over White Line’s supernatural concealment and his refusal to pay for coffee.
• White Line adopts a mentor-like role, explaining the game’s systems and warning Xia Lun about dangerous Monsters and reckless investment.
• Xia Lun responds respectfully but conceals his true capabilities, particularly his successful experience against an entity White Line considers nearly unbeatable.
• Xia Lun attempts to turn their friendship into a major financial investment, but White Line rejects the proposal bluntly and realistically.
• The chapter ends with White Line shifting from adviser and friend to merchant as he unveils the mysterious Snail Statue.

Chapter Summary: “Preparation: Vortex, Attraction, Preparation”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Xia Lun meets the information broker White Line to purchase four Snail Statues, grotesque objects made from human flesh and corpses.
• The Snail Statues are Paradox Items that can be burned to attract scenarios containing items related to a spoken wish. Burning more statues increases the chance of success but also makes the next scenario more difficult; four statues guarantee finding a cure-related method.
• White Line explains that Xia Lun must phrase his wish carefully. Broad, easily fulfilled wishes have higher success rates than overly specific or ambitious ones.
• Xia Lun bargains with White Line, ultimately offering the Manifestation Authority for the Evil Flesh Codex in exchange for the statues.
• White Line is shocked to discover that Xia Lun already possesses this authority and has upgraded his Information Panel. Xia Lun reveals that he obtained it by manipulating a pirate faction and helping them kill the powerful supernatural entity known as the Abyssal Hand during his first scenario.
• White Line’s disbelief causes his Psychological Invisibility to fail in the café, briefly exposing him to the public. He quickly restores the skill and erases the witnesses’ awareness of the incident.
• Xia Lun transfers the authority and receives the Snail Statues, declining additional money and treating the remaining value as payment for a new request: investigating the Foresight Club.
• Xia Lun provides photographs bearing the organization’s emblem. White Line examines them and confirms that the emblem is connected to an occult ritual, suggesting the Foresight Club is real rather than merely a conspiracy theory.
• Xia Lun suspects the Foresight Club caused his illness and may also be targeting Bird from Jade Pharmaceuticals and others.
• White Line theorizes that Xia Lun’s illness may be an occult curse. He lacks a curse-removing item but confirms that burning the Snail Statues could attract one in the next scenario.
• Xia Lun leaves to prepare for the next scenario, while White Line remains stunned by Xia Lun’s extraordinary ability to complete a scenario through combat alone.

Character Developments

• Xia Lun demonstrates increasing confidence, strategic intelligence, and bargaining power. He remains calm while discussing gruesome objects, revealing his supernatural achievement, and negotiating with White Line.
• His mastery of combat is emphasized: he indirectly orchestrated the destruction of the Abyssal Hand despite being a newcomer, overturning White Line’s assumptions about what a first-time player can accomplish.
• Xia Lun becomes more proactive in investigating the source of his illness. Rather than relying only on the game to cure him, he begins pursuing the Foresight Club as a possible culprit.
• White Line is shown to be knowledgeable and experienced, explaining the mechanics and limitations of the Snail Statues. However, Xia Lun’s accomplishments deeply unsettle his understanding of the game.
• White Line’s normally controlled demeanor briefly breaks down: he loses his invisibility, becomes embarrassed, and struggles to accept Xia Lun’s success. Nevertheless, he ultimately agrees to investigate the Foresight Club.

Significant Themes

• Preparation and risk management: Xia Lun must balance the increased chance of finding a cure against the greater danger created by burning more Snail Statues.
• The power of wording and intention: The chapter stresses that wishes must be logically possible and carefully phrased, suggesting that precision and strategy are essential to surviving the game.
• The limits of conventional expectations: Xia Lun’s first-scenario victory challenges the established hierarchy and assumptions of experienced players.
• Hidden conspiracies and occult causation: The Foresight Club may be a genuine supernatural organization, linking Xia Lun’s illness to a larger conspiracy.
• The price of power: Xia Lun sacrifices a valuable manifestation authority and limits his ability to purchase future items, showing that curing his illness requires significant resources.
• Appearance versus reality: The Snail Statues look like mutated creatures but are human remains, while the supposedly fictional Foresight Club may be real.

Important Character Interactions

• Xia Lun and White Line: Their exchange combines business negotiation, mutual testing, and growing recognition of each other’s abilities. White Line provides crucial information, while Xia Lun surprises him with his authority and achievements.
• Xia Lun deliberately uses his success against the Abyssal Hand as leverage, though he presents the events in a restrained and matter-of-fact way.
• White Line’s emotional reaction temporarily exposes him in public, giving Xia Lun an opportunity to observe the strength of his invisibility skill.
• Their relationship develops beyond a simple buyer-and-seller arrangement when Xia Lun hires White Line to investigate the Foresight Club, with the remaining value of the transaction serving as payment.