Chapter Summaries

News of Roland’s advancement to the legendary realm spread across Atrelin and beyond, prompting celebrations and political shifts in Lainer World. Roland studied his new powers in the frontline camp, where he discovered that he could briefly shape matter through thought.

• News of Roland’s legendary advancement spread throughout Atrelin, and the Magic Network and publications celebrated his achievement.
• Rosa announced Roland’s advancement in Lainer World and ordered three months of national celebrations, tax relief, and the release of eligible prisoners.
• Rowan celebrated with his son Luo Wu as Lainer’s court and advisors grew more devoted to the Royal Family and encouraged the boy’s belief in future conquest.
• Roland examined his new legendary abilities and found that his thoughts could directly alter matter.
• Roland formed a small flower in his palm, but it soon dissolved into specks of light because he could not yet stabilize it.

After Roland advanced to Legendary rank, he discussed his unique creation authority and the project’s aftermath with Swein and Professor Anglando. He returned to Nevis City, where Antonia offered him the role of Atrelin’s Guardian Deity in exchange for a century of service and the support of established Legendary Mages.

• Roland told Swein that the Dream Spell might explain why his creation authority was unique, while Swein recorded his account for future mages.
• Professor Anglando reviewed the project’s papers, patents, and secrecy measures, then considered founding a labor company for Tronia’s workers.
• Roland instructed Anglando to pursue a Planar Teleportation Array for travel between Tronia and Lainer World and rejected Sinvira’s attempts to obtain secret research details.
• Roland said he would later improve the advancement ritual and offer Farn’s attempt as a reproducibility test that interested parties could join for a fee.
• Roland agreed to return to Atrelin by the end of the month, and he appeared in Nevis City to a warm welcome.
• Antonia privately asked Roland to succeed her as Speaker and guard Atrelin for a hundred years, offering him the backing of other Legendary Mages and access to powerful treasures and possible godhood.

Antonia explained the Star Sea and invited Roland to become Atrelin’s guardian, but Roland focused on learning why Legendary Mages explored beyond their worlds. After sharing information and contacts, Antonia left him prepared to pursue the National Grand Library as his first exploration.

• Antonia again asked Roland to guard Atrelin, but Roland asked her to explain the search for immortality in the Star Sea.
• Antonia described the vast planes beyond their galaxy and the worlds Legendary Mages explored for treasures and opportunities.
• Antonia and Roland discussed Atrelin’s discoveries, including the Star of Lainer and the vanished National Grand Library, which Roland considered as a first destination.
• Antonia gave Roland contact details for Aziz, Tinas, Falasha, and other Legendary Mages, along with information about the Star Sea.
• Antonia taught Roland that his first lesson as a Legendary Mage was to understand the vastness and dangers of the Star Sea.

Roland agreed to guard Atrelin under Antonia’s private commission while sharing his Ascension Ritual so other mages could develop it. Meanwhile, Gallo vowed to surpass Roland as a Lich, and an Atrelin operation to capture an Undead Mage ended with the target’s mind and soul mysteriously vanishing.

• Antonia persuaded Roland to accept a private, part-time duty to return and protect Atrelin if an emergency arose, and Roland agreed.
• Roland received congratulations and shared his Ascension Ritual, prompting Seris-related studies to become mainstream academic disciplines in Atrelin and its Colonial Worlds.
• Gallo learned of Roland’s ascension and resolved to become a Demigod Lich and eventually surpass him.
• Atrelin mages bombarded a building in the Doran Kingdom and captured an Undead Mage, but the target’s mind and soul suddenly vanished.

Atrelin’s Rotating Commissioners urged Roland to expand Seris-language education, while Roland proposed testing Seris Runes’ completeness in arcana before replacing Elvish. The meeting shifted to strange behavior among Rain’s former Undead Mages, and Roland agreed to investigate it with the Qi Reading Spell.

• The Rotating Commissioners argued that Seris had proven suitable for widespread adoption, and Roland raised concerns about disrupting Elvish-based education.
• Antonia proposed testing Seris Runes as a formal language in arcana to determine whether Seris was magically complete, and Roland agreed that practical verification was necessary.
• Antonia reported that Rain’s former Undead Mages had developed abnormal behavior, caused disorganized but seemingly purposeful disturbances, and shared unusual soul-imprint characteristics.
• The Commissioners debated whether the incidents stemmed from mass hysteria, religious control, or hidden undead influences but reached no conclusion.
• A Commissioner asked Roland to investigate using Prophecy School magic, and Roland chose to begin with the level 6 Qi Reading Spell.

Roland investigated the ruins where an Undead Mage had been found and used magic to uncover signs that the dead mages’ minds had been erased. His calculations suggested that someone had turned them into puppets, and he reported the threat while continuing the investigation.

• Roland used Qi Reading Spell at the ruins and traced a strange, conscious-seeming aura to the Undead Mage’s corpse.
• After learning that autopsies had revealed nothing unusual, Roland cast Voice of All Things and heard no trace of the dead people’s souls.
• Roland concluded that the souls had been erased, like a demagnetized tape, and considered whether Rain or an evil god was responsible.
• Roland used Infallible Calculation and inferred that someone had seized the mages’ minds and concealed their control with modified intelligent agents.
• The Battle Mages recognized the possibility of a dangerous hidden puppet-master, and Roland reported his findings before continuing the investigation.

Roland suspected that Gallo had faked his death with a spell combining the Soul-Stealing Art and Lich magic, possibly working with Rain to cause the current crisis. Antonia ordered an investigation into Gallo’s exile records, which uncovered that Gallo had secretly researched soul-stealing and methods of controlling stolen souls.

• Antonia told Roland that Gallo had died around the time they tried to execute Rain, and that they suspected Rain had been involved.
• Roland recalled Gallo’s research into the Soul-Stealing Art and proposed that Gallo might have survived by using a new possession spell.
• Antonia considered the possibility that Gallo and Rain had survived death and admitted that he might have failed in his duty.
• Arcane Gendarmes arrived at Gallo’s place of exile and retrieved his records, books, notes, and browsing history for review.
• Investigators discovered that Gallo had resumed his studies during exile and secretly researched the Soul-Stealing Art, including ways to rewrite and control a stolen soul’s will.

Investigators found Gallo’s notebooks documenting his increasingly successful attempts to restore victims of the Soul-Stealing Art, which eventually led him to consider experimenting on humans. Roland and Antonia concluded that Gallo might have mastered the spell and become a threat to Atrelin, then began tightening surveillance on Undead Mages abroad.

• Investigators read Gallo’s records of experiments on mice and primates, which showed that damaged subjects could respond to control.
• Gallo’s final surviving notes revealed that he had instinctively cast the Soul-Stealing Art in battle and was considering human subjects for further experiments.
• Investigators learned that Gallo’s later research had not been preserved, so they returned the notebooks to Roland and Antonia.
• Roland and Antonia judged that Gallo might have mastered the spell and discussed how weakly Atrelin had supervised him.
• Antonia instructed the committee’s staff to act, while Roland’s plan set a covert net around Undead Mages abroad.
• Another case involving an Undead Mage soon arose.

Roland captured the Undead Mage, whom he identified as Gallo, and brought him to Nevis City for questioning. Gallo refused to reveal how he had developed his spells, so Roland ordered him immersed in holy water to strip away his undead nature and see what remained.

• City guards and a priest killed plague-infected poor people while a mage used a Nevis Arcana device to track their energy to the Undead Mage's hiding place.
• Roland confronted the Undead Mage and called him Andanis or Gallo, then stopped him from killing himself with the Level 7 spell Ice Coffin.
• Roland teleported the frozen Gallo to Nevis City, where Antonia and several Rotating Commissioners gathered to observe the questioning.
• Gallo admitted Roland might be able to reproduce his work but refused to explain it, insisting Roland would need time to investigate.
• Roland ordered Gallo immersed in holy water to strip away his undead nature and reveal what might remain.

Roland and Antonia confirmed that the Undead Mages were connected to Gallo or Rain through a spell that copied minds into other bodies, and warned that the enemy might be developing into a clustered lifeform. They ordered a full investigation, while Antonia wondered whether Anna’s prophecy concerned Gallo rather than Rain.

• Roland and Antonia examined Andanis as holy water weakened him, and staff found that his soul and mental signatures matched those of Gallo and Rain.
• Roland explained that Gallo or Rain had created a spell that copied a mind into another person, forming a new personality that shared a connection with other copies.
• The group considered whether the copies might form a decentralized clustered lifeform, and Roland ordered everyone to search for more evidence.
• Roland planned to study the mental fluctuations and develop a locating spell, while Antonia coordinated the broader response.
• Antonia recalled Anna’s prophecy and wondered whether it foretold Gallo harming Atrelin rather than Rain.

Roland and Leilide completed a spell that could identify souls connected to the name Gallo, while Gallo prepared to use his avatars to pursue godlike power. Arcane gendarmes then discovered that everyone in a suspected cult gathering reacted to the spell.

• Leilide sent Roland his proposed improvements, and Roland refined the Call-Name Spell until it resonated with human souls called by name.
• Antonia and Roland agreed that Gallo would need time to develop a countermeasure, and Roland gave the spell to those pursuing him.
• Gallo realized that his avatars were disappearing rapidly and suspected Roland's group had found a way to track him.
• Gallo planned to combine the souls of his avatars to ignite divine fire and use his improved possession spell to make humans and undead part of himself.
• Arcane gendarmes raided a compound in a coastal town and used the Call-Name Spell, causing all roughly twenty people gathered there to glow red.

Gallo used a new form of Life Transfer to pour stolen life, souls, and mana into a boy, who escaped after fighting the Arcane Gendarmes. The Arcane Committee recognized that Gallo had made a major breakthrough, and Roland began considering how to end the threat by exploiting the phenomenon of the Taboo Name.

• The Arcane Gendarmes attacked a room of enemies, but an unseen High Mage protected them with a Mana Shield.
• A seemingly ordinary boy revealed High Mage-level mana, struck the Gendarmes with Chain Lightning, and fled through a window.
• The Gendarmes and local guild members found the people left behind dead and desiccated, as though their life and mental energy had been drained.
• Arcane Committee experts concluded that Gallo had transferred the victims' life, souls, and power into the boy, making him a new puppet.
• The Committee discussed developing a curse to track or destroy Gallo's incarnations, while Roland considered using the Taboo Name phenomenon instead.

Roland used miniature dolls linked to Gallo through the True Name Pact to prepare a trap for his clustered life form. After Gallo’s first incarnation was captured and drawn into an illusory world, Roland and Antonia began watching to see whether the plan could ensnare them all.

• Roland had the Mage Tower create miniature Gallo dolls from his original flesh and blood, linking them through the True Name Pact and verifying them with the Call-Name Spell.
• Roland instructed the staff to conceal the dolls behind an illusion Magic Array and wait for Gallo to connect his clustered life forms.
• Antonia concluded that Roland’s plan could exploit flaws in Gallo’s spell to seize control of his mental network, though eliminating the intelligent spirits would remain difficult.
• Roland said they should lure and capture every spirit before wiping them out, and the Mage Tower raised the operation’s security and danger protocols to legendary-level standards.
• The Tower Spirit reported that Gallo’s first incarnation had been captured and was reproducing within Roland’s illusory Truman Show.

Gallo created another double from a captured human while grappling with the mental backlash of his expanding network. He decided to make a newly established base in eastern Doran the focus of expansion, though his growing network was becoming too vast for him to oversee.

• Gallo found a captured human breaking free of the Nightmare Soul Suppression spell and erased his consciousness, creating another double.
• Gallo suffered a severe headache from the chaotic memories and mental powers accumulating in his mind, then recovered and considered using rune-beast techniques to make powerful vessels.
• Gallo sensed that Atrelin was pursuing his doubles and learned that one captured double had escaped and established a base in eastern Doran.
• Gallo chose the eastern base as the new focus of expansion, while recognizing that the growing network was making deep thought and direct oversight increasingly difficult.

As Gallo’s network of avatars expanded, his original body suffered increasingly frequent mental disruptions. Roland’s forces tracked him to his mausoleum hideout, where Gallo destroyed his body to transfer his soul, only for the Tower Spirit to report that the transfer had been captured.

• Gallo expanded his avatar network and strengthened his mental system, but his original body began suffering frequent interruptions and mental shocks.
• Roland sent arcane gendarmes to capture or eliminate Gallo’s original body while custom puppets were secured in the Gallo’s World facility.
• The arcane gendarmes raided Gallo’s mausoleum hideout and trapped him with Spatial Lock, interrupting his Greater Teleportation spell.
• Gallo cast Sever the self, fought off the gendarmes with Cloudkill, and blew up his mummy body as Roland arrived.
• Gallo’s soul transferred through a phylactery-like ritual, and the Tower Spirit announced that it had captured his abnormal soul fluctuations at the Gallo’s World facility.

Roland began the procedure to destroy Gallo after the Mage Tower captured nearly all of his avatars inside Gallo's World. Gallo tried to use their souls to become a Demigod Lich, but realized too late that his apparent ascension was an illusion and Roland was watching him from beyond it.

• Roland learned that Gallo's mental fluctuations had vanished from the outside world and ordered the plan to eliminate him to begin.
• Roland sealed the laboratory and used the flesh puppets and Gallo's World to trap Gallo's avatars, exploiting their connection to his phylactery.
• Inside Gallo's World, Gallo gathered the soul power of his avatars and tried to ignite divine fire to become a Demigod Lich.
• Gallo felt his mental power weakening without his soul's essence improving and began to see beyond the virtual world.
• Gallo saw Roland holding a blazing sun and looking down at him from beyond the false universe.

Roland eradicated Gallo by draining the souls sustaining his mental world and sealed the resulting divine fire in a Soul Stone. He then agreed to share the method behind Gallo’s attempted apotheosis with Grand Mage Shagengs and others, considering how it could help create genuine deities through worship and faith.

• Gallo realized he was trapped in a laboratory as a mouse-sized Flesh Puppet and watched the puppets die as his mental power faded.
• Gallo’s soul repeatedly revived in dying Flesh Puppets until he lost the ability to think or move and the execution killed him for the last time.
• Roland gathered Gallo’s soul fire into a mass of divine fire and sealed it inside a pure Soul Stone.
• Antonia told Roland that Gallo had sought to become a Demigod Lich and suggested sharing the research with Mechanical Wizards and Shagengs.
• Roland considered applying Gallo’s method to his Apotheosis Art and agreed to have Antonia invite Shagengs and others to discuss a trade.

Roland let Lainer World bear Atrelin’s growing financial demands while the Seris School secured technology and benefits in return. Meanwhile, Shagengs’s team studied Gallo’s divine fire, and Soreno’s exposure to it revealed a secret that could explain how Gallo created avatars and became a god.

• Roland returned to Lainer World and accepted its continued exploitation by Atrelin while the Seris School pursued technology transfers and other benefits.
• Grand Mage Shagengs and his team discovered that Gallo’s divine fire could advance their research into soul transfer and possibly god creation.
• Soreno worked late analyzing data on the divine fire’s mental fluctuations, then heard a mysterious whisper and forgot the incident.
• Soreno dreamed of the Doran Kingdom battlefield and a letter claiming that Gallo’s avatars were created through a godlike meme hidden in his legacy.
• Soreno awoke with new insights, organized his monitoring data into spell models, and understood the secret behind Gallo’s transformation.

Roland established his plans for Lainer’s state-managed pantheon and, years later, oversaw Luo Guang’s coming-of-age as Guardian Crown Princess. With Rowan ruling East Lainer, he announced a campaign to unite Lainer under an empire, and Luo Guang eagerly volunteered to lead the vanguard.

• Roland proposed regular National Memorial Ceremonies and a pantheon of useful deities, while insisting the Goddess of Light Church remain subject to secular government rules.
• Roland explained the path of offerings and faith to Rosa and resolved to experiment with creating gods on a greater scale than Gallo had achieved.
• Years later, Luo Guang completed her coming-of-age ceremony and was invested as Guardian Crown Princess of East Lainer, with Rowan placing a crown upon her head.
• Rosa had abdicated, and Rowan had taken the throne and become the kingdom’s ruler.
• Rowan announced a campaign against West Lainer and the Black Dragon Dynasty to unite the realm as the Lainer Empire, and Luo Guang volunteered to lead the vanguard.

Rowan prepared to unify Leiner while Atrelin’s leaders approved the plan for their own financial and political interests. He chose a gradual war to strengthen his rule, but the chapter ended with news that Dogula City had surrendered.

• Rowan assigned Luo Guang the task of training a new magical army with veterans returning from the Sinvira Battlefield.
• Rowan’s plan to reunify Leiner provoked protests from West Lainer, the Black Dragon Dynasty, and other factions, but Atrelin’s leadership decided to let him proceed.
• Atrelin’s commissioners agreed to return West Lainer to the kingdom and demand the Black Dragon Dynasty in exchange for financial gain.
• After learning of Atrelin’s decision, Rowan rejected a swift settlement and told his advisors to use a gradual war to address the kingdom’s problems and shift its costs elsewhere.
• A palace eunuch informed Rowan that Dogula City had surrendered.