Chapter Summaries

Kroya used the excess spiritual essence leaking from Deimos to help a new Potion Spirit take form, then tested its protective powers at the knights' training ground. After defeating Count Kermoyer with Rainbow Light Swordsmanship, he sent his Sunflower Swordsman Corps against the apprentices to teach them the art.

• Kroya explained to Oak that he wanted to use Deimos's excess spiritual essence to change the light growing in the River of Negative Light, and Oak agreed to teach the Druids a spell for guiding it.
• The Druids purified Deimos's spiritual essence and added it to the river, where the light absorbed it and emerged as an ornate, shield-shaped Potion Spirit.
• Kroya tested the spirit's dispelling and protective abilities by attacking Count Kermoyer with Rainbow Light Swordsmanship, forcing him to surrender.
• Kroya shielded the apprentices with the Potion Spirit and told them they could learn Rainbow Light Swordsmanship by defeating his Sunflower Swordsman Corps.
• The Sunflower Swordsman Corps charged the apprentices, while Kroya and Count Kermoyer watched; Kroya noted that the spirit's shields could withstand their attacks.

The Church of Light’s effort to awaken Deimos with locust sacrifices failed, and the Earth Mother Goddess Church invaded the Holy Kingdom in retaliation. As locust-driven famine destabilized neighboring countries, nobles flocked to the Northern Frontier, where the Tower Spirit detected a disguised visitor from Starry Town entering through the Lake Gate.

• Bellamond and the War Priest Corps sacrificed locust souls to awaken Deimos, but the statue’s brief glow faded without an oracle.
• Aiona led the Thorn Inquisition across the Holy Kingdom’s border, defeated the War Priest Corps, killed Bellamond’s brother, and destroyed Deimos’s statue.
• Aiona accused the Church of Light of engineering the locust plague and marched deeper into the Holy Kingdom with the Thorn Inquisition.
• Locust famine and unrest spread through neighboring countries, prompting nobles to travel to the Northern Frontier in search of safety for their children.
• A disguised woman carrying a Starry Town emblem entered the Northern Frontier through the Lake Gate, and the Tower Spirit immediately pinpointed her location.

Evelyn visited Kroya’s Earth Academy with her apprentice Rambo, posing as his mother so she could enroll him and tour the campus. Impressed by the academy’s research and unusual facilities, she became interested in teaching there and ended at its spatial-tree dormitories.

• Kroya recognized Evelyn as a visitor from Starry Town and chose to let her inspect the academy rather than intervene.
• Evelyn summoned her apprentice in a washroom, dressed him as a noble, and enrolled him as Lampo Samuel, whose test showed excellent potential in earth and moon-phase magic.
• After examining the enrollment array, Evelyn asked Elena whether the academy was hiring teachers and planned to apply after touring the grounds.
• Evelyn and Rambo explored the peaceful campus, where a student explained his project to improve One-Horned Sheep wool, prompting Evelyn to offer knowledgeable advice.
• The student led Evelyn and Rambo to the dormitories, where Evelyn discovered that the buildings were formed within an enormous spatial tree.

Evelyn toured Kroya’s Earth Academy with Rambo and became captivated by its spatial magic, rewarding nursery, and lavish amenities. After buying an extravagant residence, she asked Tree Teacher to tell Kroya she would teach at the academy in exchange for keeping the house, even without a salary.

• Sam showed Evelyn and Rambo the banyan dormitory, where Evelyn bought a custom residence worth 175,300 magic crystals for Rambo.
• Sam took Evelyn and Rambo to the Earth Nursery, where Rambo received land and a Clear Spring Magic Grass for clearing it.
• Evelyn joined Rambo in cultivating the nursery and earned various rewards, becoming absorbed in farming.
• Evelyn ate more than 170 dumplings and other dishes at the academy restaurant, then enjoyed the peaceful lakeside atmosphere.
• After seeing her completed residence, Evelyn asked Tree Teacher to tell Kroya she would support him and teach at the academy in exchange for owning the house, without needing a salary.

Kroya agreed to help Starry Town fight the locust plague in exchange for access to Water Luminary Magic, floating islands, and forbidden research, while learning that Mifein was struggling amid the devastation. Convinced his territory could no longer stay inconspicuous, Kroya ordered his forces to expand his power and summoned the king of the Nolant Kingdom.

• Evelyn revealed that she had been monitoring Kroya and offered Starry Town’s support, including access to the Wise One, ownership of conquered floating islands, and the book Death Miracle: Buried Magic (II), in return for Kroya helping fight the locust plague.
• Kroya agreed to deal with the locusts using his Mother Nest’s Leapers, and Evelyn promised assistance from Mage Associations in Nolant and neighboring countries.
• Evelyn showed Kroya footage of Mifein struggling to revive crops in the locust-ravaged lands, then proposed bringing an Elemental Plane to serve as a shared academy laboratory.
• Kroya returned to his Mage Tower and concluded that Mifein’s growing power and his own prosperous territory would attract scrutiny, making it pointless to keep a low profile.
• Kroya ordered his war corps and Count Kermoyer’s Knight Order to march out, directed them to make neighboring territories submit or replace their rulers, and demanded that the king come to see him.

Aistena used Starry Town's authority and Celesty's legendary magic to secure King Norant's decision to meet Kroya in the Northern Frontier. Meanwhile, Semir and Count Kermoyer's army defeated the locusts in the Western Frontier, distributed food, and began conquering nobles who resisted, leaving the remaining Dukes aware that Kroya intended to take their lands.

• Aistena presented King Norant with Starry Town's order to travel to Reef Island, forcing him to weigh the Mage Association against the Earth Mother Goddess Church.
• Celesty revealed a legendary magic orb containing the World-Destroying Netherfrost Calamity, and King Norant agreed to leave for the Northern Frontier.
• Semir's Peashooters burned through a locust swarm, while sonic magic flowers disrupted the locusts' wind barrier and let the army destroy them.
• Semir's soldiers cleared villages of locusts and left food and seeds, telling the grateful villagers that the Reef Duke had sent them.
• Count Kermoyer used the Sunflare Cannon to capture a resisting Count, and Semir's Rainbow Sunflower War Corps killed a Duke and his defenders after they refused to submit.
• The remaining Dukes learned that Kroya had begun conquering the Western Frontier.

King Norant allied with Kroya and agreed to expand the Nolant Kingdom with Starry Town's support, while Kroya received a book from the Earth Mother Goddess Church. The chapter ended as a deciphered prophecy brought strange blue stars over Reef Island and stirred the Azure Chapter of Kroya's Rainbow Poem.

• King Norant and Aistena killed one duke and forced the two remaining Western Frontier dukes to accept their deaths, leaving their territories to be inherited by members of their bloodlines.
• King Norant met Kroya, agreed to cooperate with the Mage Association, and offered Kroya the Western Frontier territories; Kroya proposed that Norant conquer neighboring countries with Starry Town's support.
• King Norant demanded a personal contract with Kroya, and Kroya agreed to sign one after Lady Evelyn appeared and helped oversee the negotiations.
• King Norant gave Kroya the book Death Miracle: The Scales of Life and Death, which matched a volume Kroya needed to continue his studies.
• The Woodstar Curving Vine King told Kroya that the prophecy on the Mage Tower's highest floor had been deciphered, and strange blue stars appeared over Reef Island as the Azure Chapter began stirring.

Kroya contained the strange starlight and deciphered Ilyst's prophecy, which named the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and revealed the Earth Mother Goddess's plan. He went to question the Bellamond siblings in the Golden Apple Dream, but Deimos appeared to protect them.

• Kroya returned to Reef Island, where the starlight revealed the Astral Spirit Bodies of buildings, and he used the island's Magic Array to bottle the excess light.
• Kroya read Ilyst's prophecy, which identified the Bellamond siblings as War, Mifein Norant as Death, Jimmy Orpheus as Plague, and Saint Atropos as Famine, and said the Earth Mother Goddess would create the horsemen to bring about the apocalypse.
• Kroya gave the azure starlight to the Tower Spirit for study, then learned that the Bellamond siblings were the two high priests captured from Deimos's dream.
• Kroya entered the Golden Apple Dream prison, took the siblings' unfinished Deimos idol, and demanded information about their god and the Earth Mother Goddess Church.
• Kroya used a desire-born snake to try to make the siblings reveal what they knew, but Deimos appeared with a pink-lit sword and confronted him.

Kroya persuaded Deimos to break free of the Lord of Light’s control and transform his power of war into a force for peace. Deimos then recounted his experiences aboard the crashed Void Luminary Ark, while Miya appeared as Kroya’s desire to see the Ark’s starlight began to manifest.

• Kroya told Deimos that the Lord of Light had taken control of his Divine Office, and Deimos confirmed that the Lord of Light also intended to awaken.
• Deimos clasped Kroya’s hand and gave his power over war to the Evergreen Olive Tree, creating abilities that could guide the dead and stop wars.
• Deimos told Kroya that he had once been a mortal Supplicant and had boarded the Void Luminary Ark when it crashed about two thousand years earlier.
• Deimos manifested memories of the Ark’s defenses, including Aether Particle Cannons, Seven Luminary Magic, and a Magic-Sealing Space that exposed the deities’ true forms.
• Kroya became eager to obtain the Ark’s starlight, and Miya appeared as the Ark began to manifest around them.

Kroya learned that the Azure Chapter could anchor his magic as a Constellation in the Astral Plane and let him launch attacks from afar. After Miya taught him about converting gods’ power into Void Luminary Power, Kroya tested his new ability and struck at the Earth Mother Goddess Church’s Saint, leaving Mifein astonished.

• Miya used Great Prophecy to recreate ancient azure starlight, and Kroya discovered that the Azure Chapter’s “Anchor of the Boundless Starry Sky” could project his magic into the Astral Plane as a growing Constellation.
• Kroya exhausted his magic creating a five-colored harp Constellation, and Miya gave him a tome about extracting Void Luminary Power from gods while revealing that the Creator had used it to create them.
• Miya told Kroya that gods anchored their Divine Kingdoms in the Astral Plane, then departed, leaving Kroya to consider creating an anchor of his own.
• Kroya connected to his Constellation from the Mage Tower and sensed powerful earth magic near Mifein, so he channeled an attack toward it from the Astral Plane.
• In the Beya Kingdom, Mifein resisted Shantis as she tried to take him back to the Mother Goddess’s temple, and a pillar of light struck her before she could subdue him.
• Shantis mistook the attack for a Church of Light spell and fled, while Mifein wondered how powerful his friend Kroya had become.

Kroya left the Mage Tower dressed as a bard, traveling to the Western Frontier to explore his territory and find ways to support its development. After recruiting the Fish-Tailed Sea Duck King as his companion, he played music on the train and arrived at the Frontline Base with a young warrior who offered to show him around.

• Kroya reflected on his newly learned constellation magic and decided that developing infrastructure and food production beyond the Northern Frontier was his most pressing task.
• Kroya dressed as a bard and went to the seabed, where the Fish-Tailed Sea Duck King submitted to him and received a transformation that made it look like a small, cute duck.
• Kroya boarded a crowded train to the Western Frontier, where a young warrior explained that people were heading there for work and food.
• Kroya played his harp during the journey, delighting the passengers and finding fresh inspiration for his own music magic.
• Kroya and the young warrior got off at Western Frontier Station and headed toward the Frontline Base together.

Kroya, disguised as the bard Arock, joined the Western Frontier’s pioneering team with Ropas and began work soothing its Magical Beasts and Magic Plants. When Kroya approached the Rock Apes with music, they did not attack, and a silver mist appeared around them as an immense creature emerged.

• Tio helped Kroya and Ropas choose jobs, and Ropas signed up to pilot Golems while Kroya chose to soothe Magical Beasts and Magic Plants.
• Kroya used the name Arock to register with his apprentice and chose a dorm room, where he added a few conveniences before Ropas arrived.
• Kroya and Ropas teleported to the Western Frontier’s mountain outpost, where a team leader warned them about the powerful Rock Apes.
• Kroya joined the chanter team and learned that the Rock Apes resisted their attempts to communicate as the pioneering work disturbed their territory.
• Kroya approached the forest playing his harp, and the Rock Apes gathered without attacking as a silver mist surrounded them.
• A creature more than twenty meters tall appeared before Kroya through the mist.

Kroya explored the Mistveil Dragon’s hidden Rock Ape village and discovered an earth wine jug whose wine could calm disturbances in the land. He arranged to trade the wine for salt, then joined the Rock Apes and frontier workers in a celebratory feast.

• The Mistveil Dragon transported Kroya and the others to her Rock Ape Nursery, where they saw the intelligent apes farming and raising fish and Slimes.
• The Rock Ape King led the visitors through the village and its orchards to a cave with a waterfall of fragrant fruit wine.
• Kroya examined the earth wine jug, learned that its wine helped make land suitable for crops, and agreed to arrange a salt trade with the Rock Apes.
• The Rock Apes brought food and wine to the Frontline Base and held a feast with the human visitors.
• Kroya ate with the Rock Apes, played his Harp, and joined the dancing beneath the stars.

After the bonfire party, Kroya watched Ropas trade a rib for an undead merchant’s crystal rib, then healed him and arranged for him to learn golem operation. Kroya composed a piece that granted resolve, added a final movement about sleep, and went to bed with the Fish-Tailed Sea Duck King as his pillow.

• Kroya told the merfolk lady to use the Rock Ape Tribe’s wine to improve the soil and recruit the tribe to help farm the region.
• Ropas warned Kroya about ghosts, and a Withering Merchant appeared and offered him a crystal rib in exchange for one of his own.
• Ropas cut out his rib and completed the trade; the merchant’s crystal rib merged into his body, and Kroya healed him after it vanished.
• Ropas explained that he wanted to master the Engineering Golem and earn more money, while Kroya promised to keep them friends and arranged for an instructor to teach him the next day.
• Kroya composed four movements about the day that granted listeners resolve, then decided the piece needed sleep and returned to his quarters.
• Kroya carried the Fish-Tailed Sea Duck King to bed as a hugging pillow and fell asleep, adding “Rest Bestowed by the Stars” as the final movement.

Kroya investigated Agatha’s Crystal Fingerbone and discovered it summoned a Fang Rice Tree, while the drawing she had received revealed a mysterious magical system. The parchment then projected a map showing a Crystal Skeleton activating across the Western Frontier and the Frontier Expeditionary Corps.

• Kroya stayed in bed despite the Golem crews’ early assembly call, but Ropas later woke him with news that the third dining hall was offering free food.
• At the dining hall, Kroya overheard Agatha describe a witch who had given her a Crystal Fingerbone and agreed to accompany her to see what it did.
• Agatha buried the fingerbone, and Kroya watched it summon a Fang Rice Tree bearing unusual rice; he identified the bone as its summoning anchor.
• Agatha showed Kroya a drawing covered in circles and Magic Runes, and he offered gold and benefits for it, but she initially refused because she had promised the witch.
• After Kroya revealed he was the Reef Duke and promised to welcome Agatha’s family to the Northern Frontier, she gave him the drawing.
• The parchment flashed and projected a map of the Western Frontier, where a Crystal Skeleton’s 206 bones began glowing as a chilling voice asked Kroya how he would face Equivalent Exchange.

Kroya questioned the Withering Envoy about Equivalent Exchange and learned that the Goddess of the Netherworld traded treasures for suffering that had ended, hoping to ease the burden on the River of the Underworld. After discovering that Kreha and Theodore had been watching him, Kroya warned them against spying, and Kreha offered him an authority that could let the dead remain in the living world.

• The Withering Envoy captured the Fish-Tailed Sea Duck King, but Kroya restrained her with his Rainbow Poem and brought her to his mansion to question her.
• The Withering Envoy explained that Equivalent Exchange used the tree of life to trade a price for a gift, and Kroya guessed that it was connected to Kreha and the power of an Outer God.
• The Withering Envoy revealed that Agatha had gained a Fang Rice Tree bone in exchange for her past suffering, and explained that ended suffering could help cleanse the River of the Underworld.
• Kroya agreed to tolerate the Goddess of the Netherworld's missionary work in his territory, provided her followers did not glorify suffering or mislead people.
• Kroya traced the Withering Envoy's connection to Kreha and Theodore, confronted them for spying, and threatened to make them and their church pay if they did it again.
• Kreha apologized by offering Kroya an authority that would allow the dead to remain permanently in the world.

Kroya received Kreha’s permission to bring a tributary of the River of the Underworld into his small plane, chose Agatha as her favored one, and learned more about the continent’s looming Holy War. At the reclamation front, Ropas merged his soul with a Golem using a flesh-bitter fungus, and Kroya revealed himself as the Reef Duke to grant Ropas the audience he wanted.

• Kreha explained that the River of the Underworld could cleanse the dead’s negative energy, agreed to bring a tributary to Kroya’s plane, and offered to make Agatha her favored one.
• Kroya and Kreha discussed Underworld rewards and the possibility of a future Holy War, and Kreha described how the Void Luminary Ark’s allies had helped him.
• Kroya visited the reclamation front and saw Ropas’s flesh-bitter fungus drawing his mind and soul toward a Golem’s core.
• Ropas insisted on fusing with the Golem to earn a chance to rise, and Kroya let him proceed after warning him to consider the risks.
• Ropas survived the transformation in a symbiotic bond with the fungus, and Kroya revealed that he was the Reef Duke.

Ropas received a humanlike golem body and a position at Reef Island, while Kroya investigated a village where five orphaned children had found a wish-granting lamp. Inside the lamp’s desert realm, Kroya discovered the Friendship Ivy and captured the Lamp Demon.

• Kroya offered Ropas a position at the Golem Administration Office and sent him to the Golem Main Factory, where Semir fitted him with a humanlike golem body made by Lady Miya.
• Kroya followed signs of five Crystal Skeleton bones to a village and posed as a bard before learning that five orphaned children had found a wish-granting oil lamp.
• Kroya showed his identification cards to the village chief and Jessica, then questioned Aisla about the Lamp Genie that had been taking the children to a strange desert.
• Kroya, Jessica, and the village chief entered the lamp’s desert realm, where Kroya recognized the Gray Sand Desert and found the Friendship Ivy.
• Kroya tracked down and captured the Lamp Demon with the Gopherwood Harp before it could finish welcoming its guests to its Paradise.

Kroya discovered that Ivy could summon his friends across space and time, bringing them together for a feast while time stood still. After they learned the Earth Mother Goddess and Father of Light were behind the disaster and that two Church of Light holy spirits had been revived, Ivy urged the group to adventure together and warned that two Legendary beings were attacking a city in the Gray Sand Desert.

• Kroya learned that the Lamp Demon had been summoned to play with orphaned children and that its games had formed a portal linked to the Silver Sea.
• Kroya gave Ivy sunlight magic potion, and Ivy invited his friends through spatial passages, including Miya, Aistena, Mifein, Kermoyer, and Knight Theodore.
• Ivy explained that time had stopped outside the gathering, while Theodore comforted Kermoyer and the village chief and Jessica realized Kroya was the Reef Duke.
• Mifein revealed that the Church of Light had received two thorn branches capable of resurrecting its dead holy spirits, and Miya warned that the church had likely manipulated him.
• Theodore proposed killing the two Legendary holy spirits, and Ivy gave everyone leaves containing its power and warned that two Legendary beings were attacking a city in the Gray Sand Desert.

Ivy granted Kroya and his companions temporary Legendary power so they could stop two Church of Light Holy Spirits from destroying Gray Sand City. Kroya discovered that the Sun’s power carried a growing urge to destroy, while his group trapped the Holy Spirits in his rainbow domain and began overwhelming them.

• Ivy prophesied an approaching disaster and offered to make five members of Kroya’s group temporary Legends, then gave each of them divine armor and weapons.
• Miya, Theodore, and Legendary visitors from the Underworld trained the group to fight the Church of Light’s Holy Spirits while Kroya adapted to the transformed powers of the Rainbow Poem.
• Kroya sensed that the Sun’s power could unravel sunlight and that its growing destructive urge might be tied to the Sun’s chapter of the Poem of the First Source.
• Ivy explained to Miya that the Sun deity had once vented his destructive urge by creating reborn demons, and said sacrificing two Legends could temporarily satisfy it.
• Two Church of Light Holy Spirits arrived outside Gray Sand City and prepared to cast Salt Stake, but Kroya’s group transported them into a rainbow field and attacked.
• The Holy Spirits struggled against Kroya’s companions and the domain’s magic, while Kroya analyzed the mage Holy Spirit’s Salt Stake spell.