Chapter Summaries

An Kai received Will-Bukelin’s royal letter and used a single-use instruction to learn and max out Mage Armor, discovering its powerful defenses and sinister appearance. He spotted Hanks approaching with two wary Tier Two opponents and prepared to meet them.

• Will-Bukelin opened the protected book with his blood, read his father’s letter, and left to seek revenge.
• An Kai used the single-use spell instruction to learn Mage Armor and raised it to Lv12 with skill points.
• An Kai tested Mage Armor, saw it form pitch-black plate armor, and learned that higher proficiency would improve its manifestation and defense.
• An Kai praised Will-Bukelin, then spotted Hanks approaching with two men and took out his Brute Force Staff.
• Hanks used their agreed hand signals to warn An Kai that both men were Tier Two, eighth stage.

An Kai killed an [Assailant] who ambushed him, then used a barrage of [Fireballs] to defeat the two men confronting Hanks. After Hanks recovered two Storage Rings, An Kai claimed the loot and persuaded him to accept a smaller share.

• The two men revealed that an Assassin network had exposed Hanks's plan and that an [Assailant] was sneaking up on An Kai.
• An Kai sensed the [Assailant], struck him with the [Brute Force Staff], and finished him with two [Fireballs] and another blow.
• An Kai charged at Hanks and the two men, bombarding them with [Fireballs] while Hanks fled the blast zone.
• Will-Bukelin heard the explosions near Chaos City, wished An Kai well, and entered the city.
• Hanks searched the wreckage and found two Storage Rings, then offered to take only twenty percent of the loot.
• An Kai took both Storage Rings and led Hanks behind the dune to distribute the loot.

An Kai and Hanks divided the loot from their ambush, then parted ways as both prepared to flee Chaos City. An Kai reached an oasis and saw that Chaos City had issued bounties for him and Hanks.

• An Kai found 361 gold coins, two Bounty Tower nameplates, and two class advancement scrolls on the bait targets, then rejected Hanks's offer to buy the scrolls and divided the loot with him.
• An Kai asked whether Hanks would return to Chaos City, and Hanks said he would before advising An Kai to leave the desert someday.
• An Kai headed deeper into the desert, while Hanks ran after Widow Wang and the others.
• Chaos City's Inner City issued 1,000-gold bounties for the person who killed the Evergreen Gang's Puppeteer and Astrologer, and for Reed.
• An Kai followed the Evergreen Gang's crude map to a small oasis and saw the wanted notices for himself and Hanks.

An Kai settled in a cave near Oasis, killed the local [Desert Crocodiles], and used a [Beast Meat Refining Station] to solve his hunger and prepare for secluded training. Five months later, his Seven-Colored Heart mark flickered, and he suspected someone had taken a path that led to their death.

• An Kai sealed the [Desert Crocodiles] cave and slaughtered the creatures inside with his staff and Freezing Spell sword.
• He hung and preserved the crocodile meat, then used a Magic Core and the [Beast Meat Refining Station] to make filling enhanced meat.
• An Kai gathered more Magic Cores and spent the following months training, summoning creatures, refining meat, and reading side stories.
• Five months later, An Kai noticed his Seven-Colored Heart mark flickering and murmured that someone had taken the path he expected.
• An Kai killed a noisy magical beast with a Fireball, returned to his cave, and chose to rest instead of meditate.

A Fifth-Tier Necromancer from Undead Town confronted Chaos City’s City Lord and demanded Will-Bukelin’s release, while a powerful figure with a Bone Staff forced the City Lord to let him go. The next day, An Kai saw that Chaos City had declared him a target and abruptly called out “Dong Lin.”

• The City Lord threatened the Necromancer from Undead Town, who repeatedly demanded that she release Will-Bukelin.
• Will-Bukelin told the Necromancer that his predicament had been his choice, but both Fifth-Tier Mages ordered him to be quiet.
• Bone Creatures emerged throughout Chaos City, and a figure wielding a Bone Staff warned the City Lord before demanding Will-Bukelin’s release.
• The City Lord threw Will-Bukelin out of the city, and the Necromancer wrapped him in a gray-black torrent and left; the Bone Creatures returned underground.
• The Bone Staff wielder announced that An Kai was the Mage Association president of Undead Town and urged him to return, while the City Lord ordered Undead Town’s people killed and An Kai hunted.
• At the Oasis the next day, An Kai read the refreshed side story about Will-Bukelin’s rescue and the City Lord’s orders, then abruptly stood and shouted, “Dong Lin.”

An Kai learned that Dong Lin had framed him and that the major powers in the desert were all hunting him, so he abandoned his plans to leave seclusion. He upgraded his attributes and spells, then resumed cultivating while plotting revenge; meanwhile, the Orc Army prepared to welcome the Twenty-Eighth Prince.

• An Kai realized the Orc Army, the Town of the Dead, Chaos City, and the Bounty Tower had all placed bounties on him, and he blamed Dong Lin for redirecting Chaos City's hostility toward him.
• An Kai reviewed five months of cultivation, during which Meditation raised his attributes and all five of his spells reached level 13.
• An Kai tested his improved spells, finding that Freezing Spell could take 53 forms, Fireball could burn a body to ash, Summoning produced a Withered Tree Demon, and Mage Armor had fully formed over his feet.
• An Kai calculated that reaching 191 in his attributes would take at least another two and a half months, then resumed cultivating and considered how to take revenge on the Town of the Dead or Chaos City.
• The Orc Army's No. 1 assembly point prepared to welcome the Twenty-Eighth Prince.

An Kai used the side stories to plan revenge against the Orc Twenty-Eighth Prince, then spent a year and a half in seclusion growing stronger and scouting Orc gathering places. He finally left the Oasis with five objectives, including killing the prince, exploiting the resulting chaos, and investigating the Town of the Dead’s disappearance.

• An Kai learned that the Orc Twenty-Eighth Prince had arrived in the Desert, and he began plotting to kill him and frame Chaos City.
• An Kai killed two Desert Crocodiles, gained an attribute point through meditation, and discovered the beasts had grown stronger as the Desert grew hotter.
• An Kai learned that five Tier Four guardians protected the prince, so he delayed his attack and decided to spend another year preparing.
• An Kai raised his intelligence to 251 and his five spells to Lv15, while using the side stories to locate and mark Orc gathering places.
• An Kai left seclusion intending to kill the prince, plunder Chaos City, gather supplies for the Mage Tower, investigate the Town of the Dead, and seek Hanks’s help deciphering Shak Language.

After finishing his secluded training, An Kai traveled toward an orc settlement while planning to seize power in Chaos City. He destroyed the settlement and left one orc alive, accusing him of opposing Chaos City.

• An Kai emerged from seclusion with greatly improved attributes and spells, including a powerful Fireball and defensive Freezing Spell.
• An Kai summoned a Guardian Treant, then rode it toward an orc settlement after it failed to find a magic core at the lakeshore.
• An Kai considered taking over Chaos City by provoking a war between the orcs and the city's Inner City, then seizing the four outer-city gangs.
• An Kai attacked the orc settlement with repeated Fireballs and killed its inhabitants except for one survivor.
• An Kai stood on the surviving orc and accused him of daring to oppose Chaos City.

An Kai attacked orc settlements, collected their resources, and replaced a [Guardian Treant] he had frozen and shattered after searching it for a Magic Core. At the desert headquarters, the Twenty-Eighth Prince revealed to General Blade that he was exploiting the attacks to advance the orcs’ plans and intended to blame Chaos City.

• An Kai stomped an orc to death, then had the [Guardian Treant] recover Magic Cores and Orc Insignias from the settlement.
• An Kai traveled to another settlement, waited for the side story to refresh, and attacked after learning the Twenty-Eighth Prince had killed only 368 people toward his trial goal.
• An Kai killed the settlement’s orcs and collected 12 Tier One Magic Cores and 31 Orc Insignias with the [Guardian Treant].
• An Kai froze the [Guardian Treant], searched it for a Magic Core, shattered it, buried its remains, and summoned a replacement.
• The Twenty-Eighth Prince dismissed the desert commander-in-chief’s concerns and ordered him to withdraw Tier Four garrison commanders for the prince’s protection.
• The Twenty-Eighth Prince told General Blade he welcomed the attacks as a way to serve the orcs’ plans and would blame Chaos City for them.

The Twenty-Eighth Prince planned to declare war on Chaos City, while An Kai waited for the conflict to create an opening in the Outer City. After Chaos City severed contact with the Outer City, An Kai summoned a Guardian Treant and set out to take advantage of the separation.

• The Twenty-Eighth Prince ordered his forces to prepare to surround Chaos City and threaten it with war, while learning that civilians had disappeared from the Bukelin Duchy.
• An Kai recalled killing more than five thousand orcs and decided the orcs would blame Chaos City rather than pursue the vanished Town of the Dead.
• The Twenty-Eighth Prince’s forces surrounded Chaos City and demanded the killer of their orcs, but the City Lord refused to hand anyone over and accepted the threat of war.
• An Kai learned that Chaos City would sever contact with the Outer City, leaving it independent in ten days, and saw a chance to take control of the Four Great Gangs.
• After contact was severed, An Kai added an attribute point to his Intelligence, summoned a Guardian Treant, and set out.

Hanks returned to Chaos City with Widow Wang and his four followers, only to find a brutal gang demanding an entry fee at the gate. An Kai’s fireball barrage killed the gang, and Hanks agreed to pay him 2,400 gold coins for saving them.

• Hanks brought Widow Wang, Reed, and three other followers back to Chaos City, confident he could take advantage of the Inner City’s isolation.
• Hanks’s group found a heavily armed gang killing travelers and collecting entry fees at the entrance.
• The gang’s Tier Three, Third Level [Heavy Armor] leader demanded that Hanks hand over Widow Wang.
• An Kai’s fireballs struck the entrance, killing the [Heavy Armor] leader and his eight subordinates as Hanks and his group fled.
• An Kai demanded 2,400 gold coins from Hanks for saving the six of them, and Hanks agreed.

An Kai waited outside Chaos City while outsiders looted its outer city, planning to rob them as they left. After reuniting with Hanks, he heard Hanks’s theory about the Orcs gathering in the Desert and learned that the world had Five Great Continents.

• An Kai reunited with Hanks outside Chaos City, while outsiders rushed past the entrance guard and began looting the city.
• An Kai sent Reed and his three companions into Chaos City to report on the distribution of strength in one day.
• An Kai explained that he planned to wait at the city’s only exit and rob the professionals who left with their loot.
• Hanks told An Kai he had returned to Chaos City to secure Widow Wang’s future, and An Kai asked him to exchange 2,400 gold coins for magic stones.
• Hanks shared his theory about why the Orcs were gathering in the Desert and told An Kai that the world had Five Great Continents.

Hanks explained the continents, the Wasteland Region, and why the orcs were moving into the Desert while An Kai dealt with a hidden orc. The chapter ended with Hanks revealing that he had been a spy planted in the Desert by the seven countries surrounding it.

• Hanks told An Kai that the world was called the Divine Punishment Continent and described its five continents and the Eastern Continent’s Wasteland Region.
• An Kai spotted a hidden orc and killed him by turning a [Freezing Spell] spear into a storm of blades.
• Hanks explained that the orcs were exploiting humanity’s troubles to establish themselves in the Desert and prepare for a return to the Eastern Continent.
• An Kai compared Hanks’s account with his memories of a future called Godfall and wondered why Hanks knew so much about the orcs and surrounding countries.
• An Kai asked Hanks who he was, and Hanks admitted that he had been a spy planted in the Desert by the seven countries.

An Kai recruited Hanks to help him take control of Chaos City’s Outer City and spent the day ambushing class holders who fled the city. At night, he recognized Reed and his three companions running out and stopped the [Guardian Treant] from attacking them.

• An Kai asked Hanks to become City Lord of the Chaos City Outer City, and Hanks offered to provide a candidate and 2,400 gold coins instead.
• Hanks agreed to the arrangement, and An Kai spent the night guarding Chaos City from a bed atop a summoned [Guardian Treant].
• The next day, An Kai sent the [Guardian Treant] to defeat two fleeing class holders and took their Storage Rings.
• An Kai destroyed the [Guardian Treant] to harvest its Magic Core, then summoned a replacement while Widow Wang and Hanks watched.
• That night, An Kai stopped the [Guardian Treant] from attacking Reed and his three injured companions as they ran out of Chaos City.

An Kai entered Chaos City with his group and began taking control of the former Four Great Gangs. After wiping out the Evergreen Gang’s attackers, he left Polpi with six hours to gather the leaders of Chaos City’s Ten Great Gangs or die.

• An Kai waited outside Chaos City for five days, confirmed no other factions had intervened, and then led his group toward the city in disguise.
• An Kai and his companions passed through the ruined streets and arrived at the Evergreen Gang’s compound, where they found its members barbecuing a mount and mocking the newcomers.
• An Kai ordered Hanks and the others to kill the Evergreen Gang members, then charged into the compound and killed the burly gang leader.
• After the fight, Polpi begged An Kai to spare him and offered to identify the leaders of Chaos City’s Ten Great Gangs.
• An Kai gave Polpi six hours to gather the gang leaders, threatening to kill him if he failed.

An Kai captured Frank, an old acquaintance who claimed to know where Chaos City's former Four Great Gangs hid their resources, and prepared for the rival gangs to arrive. Polpi led the gang leaders into the Evergreen Gang headquarters, where An Kai had set a trap for them.

• Polpi fled to recruit the leaders of the other nine gangs, while An Kai waited at the Evergreen Gang headquarters and had Hanks clean the courtyard.
• Reed found Frank in a secluded room and brought him to An Kai, who recognized him from the Mountainbreaker Gang.
• Frank pleaded for his life by offering to reveal the former Four Great Gangs' hidden resources and identified a grayish-brown Storage Ring among the Evergreen Gang's victims.
• An Kai ordered Reed to keep Frank alive and take him to search for resources the next day, then prepared the courtyard with [Freezing Spell].
• Polpi led the rival gang leaders into the clean headquarters, telling them their boss would give up territory in exchange for the deputy City Lord position, and closed the gate behind them.

An Kai crushed the outsiders who entered the Evergreen Gang's compound and put Hanks in charge of plundering Chaos City. He then began secluded training in a courtyard near the city entrance while Hanks appointed Reed and Polpi to govern and collect resources.

• An Kai had Polpi identify the frozen intruders and smashed every one whose background began with “outside the city.”
• An Kai found little gold and ordinary advancement certificates among the Storage Rings, and Polpi explained that the Inner City had already stripped the gangs of their wealth.
• An Kai and Hanks agreed to divide the spoils eighty-twenty, and An Kai left Hanks to plunder the city and search for the other gangs’ resources.
• Hanks made Polpi Deputy City Lord and Reed City Lord, then ordered them to collect protection payments and report anyone who refused.
• An Kai prepared a retreat near the city entrance and began secluded training with the [Beast Meat Refining Station].

After two months of secluded training, An Kai raised his attributes and spells, then headed to the City Lord’s Manor to collect his share of the spoils. The Desert Orcs and Chaos City Inner City had gone to war, while Chaos City Outer City stood nearly empty.

• An Kai gained fifty-nine attribute points through meditation and spent two months having Hanks decipher scraps of Shak Language text.
• An Kai exchanged one hundred Tier Two Magic Cores for skill points and raised all five of his spells to level 17.
• An Kai tested his new Summoning spell by summoning a Flower Vine Spirit, then smashed it and took its Magic Core.
• An Kai learned from the side stories that the Desert Orcs and Chaos City Inner City had gone to war, with the Inner City at a disadvantage.
• An Kai went to the Evergreen Gang’s former headquarters to divide the spoils and found three chests of Lower-grade Magic Stones.

An Kai collected his share of the Evergreen Gang’s plunder and used magic stones to build up his skill points, while Hanks concealed that he owned a magic stone mine. An Kai stayed in Chaos City and planned to intensify the protection-money collections; the chapter ended as he met Hanks in an empty courtyard.

• Hanks gave An Kai a ledger and 4,371 lower-grade magic stones as An Kai’s share of the plunder, then pretended to ask for a larger cut.
• An Kai took the magic stones and left, while Hanks kept his magic stone mine secret and celebrated his profits with Widow Wang.
• An Kai reasoned that Hanks probably did not own a mine, decided to remain in Chaos City, and used a crate of magic stones to gain 1,542 skill points.
• An Kai counted and stored the 2,829 magic stones left in two crates, pleased with his growing resources.
• An Kai decided to collect protection money every two months and went to meet Hanks, who said he had been looking for him.

An Kai used Chaos City Outer City's isolation to collect protection money and train while the Desert Orcs and Chaos City Inner City fought. When the Orcs redirected two Tier Four Orcs toward the Outer City, An Kai fled and urged Hanks to do the same.

• An Kai reminded Hanks that they were robbers and warned him that ruling Chaos City Outer City made him a target for both the Desert Orcs and the Inner City.
• An Kai told Hanks to collect protection money again in two months, then returned to his residence to train.
• Two months later, An Kai received 2,143 Lower-grade Magic Stones and continued training as residents fled and the war raged.
• Over the next year and a half, An Kai trained and accumulated resources while the war between the Desert Orcs and Chaos City Inner City reached a stalemate.
• An Kai read that the Orc Twenty-Eighth Prince had sent two Tier Four Orcs to conquer Chaos City Outer City, so he packed his [Beast Meat Refining Station] and set his courtyard ablaze.
• An Kai rushed to Hanks, told him to run, and left; Hanks hurried back inside to pack while Widow Wang mocked him.