Chapter Summaries

Lin Ze fought off a group of witch hunters who attacked him at an inn, then left town after binding their captain with magic. He questioned how dangerous the witch hunters could be and settled down to sleep in a thatched shelter.

• Lin Ze defeated the witch hunters in the inn, using a woodcutting blade and spells to bind their stocky captain.
• Lin Ze warned the remaining witch hunters to stay back, and they fled town on horseback.
• Lin Ze considered the threat posed by witch hunters after noticing the captain’s rune had no obvious magical fluctuations.
• Lin Ze found shelter near the town’s threshing ground, cast spells around it, and lay down to sleep.

Lin Ze fled Carl Town while witch hunters searched for him, disguising himself as a local country lad. When the hunters tracked him down on the road, he attacked their scouts, while their leader and a thin man watched from below the slope.

• Lin Ze left Carl Town and hid as a group of armed riders passed, suspecting they were searching for him.
• He changed his gray robe into hemp clothing and curled his hair to disguise himself, then rested in an abandoned shepherd's hut.
• Lin Ze saw the riders return with a tall, thin man and continued east along the slope instead of using the main road.
• The tall, thin man tracked Lin Ze's position, and three riders approached him on the slope.
• Lin Ze used Vine Growth, another spell, and Impedimenta to knock down the three riders while the bearded man and thin man watched.

Lin Ze defeated Grimm and Bali Kochas after they tracked him as a suspected wizard, then questioned Bali about the witch hunters and their orders. After learning Grimm taught the hunters their runes, Lin Ze bound him with vines and demanded to know who taught him.

• Grimm infused his sword with golden light and attacked Lin Ze, but Lin Ze blocked the sword qi with a stone wall and disarmed him.
• Lin Ze stopped Bali Kochas from fleeing, beat him until he answered, and wounded him when he tried to swear at Lin Ze.
• Bali Kochas told Lin Ze that the witch hunters served the lord of Avalon and were investigating reports of stolen livestock and cursed wells.
• Bali Kochas explained that tracking sticks followed traces of witchcraft and that about forty hunters were stationed in northern Avalon under Grimm's command.
• Lin Ze asked Grimm who had taught him his runes, bound him with vines when he refused to answer, and repeated his demand.

Lin Ze captured Grimm and learned that a half-orc tutor named Nake had taught him runes from a book, while Lord Alfred Pendragon ordered suspected wizards arrested and burned. Lin Ze walked with Grimm along the river, still questioning him about the tutor and the lord’s persecution of wizards.

• Lin Ze questioned Grimm, who explained that a half-orc named Nake had taught him to read and left him a book of runes.
• Grimm said he had pursued Lin Ze because the lord had ordered his men to seize wizards, whom he believed poisoned wells and killed children.
• Lin Ze loosened Grimm’s bonds, sent Grimm’s riders away, and took Grimm east with him.
• Grimm identified the lord as Alfred Pendragon and said the territory’s supreme ruler was Constantine; he also revealed that two captured wizards had been burned.
• As they walked upstream, Grimm said Nake had vanished after three years of teaching and that the lord had ordered his book burned.

Lin Ze and Grimm followed a trail of fresh giant footprints to a burning mill, where they found its owner dead and his son gravely wounded. After Lin Ze helped save the boy, the two continued east into the woods to pursue the giant.

• Lin Ze examined enormous, fresh footprints by the river, and Grimm warned that giants might have been driven south by dragons.
• Lin Ze persuaded the reluctant Grimm to follow the trail downstream, where they found Old David’s mill burning and Old David dead.
• Lin Ze extinguished the fire with Aguamenti while Grimm rescued Old David’s badly injured son from inside the mill.
• Lin Ze treated the boy with essence of dittany and bound his wounds with transfigured vines.
• Despite his fear, Grimm agreed to accompany Lin Ze east into the woods after the giant.

Lin Ze and Grimm investigated a cave and discovered the remains of Albert Pendragon beneath a huge pelt. When the cave began to shake, they tried to flee, but a colossal creature opened a dark-gold eye beneath the stone hall.

• Lin Ze and Grimm followed deep footprints through the woods to a cave marked by a broken tree and trampled shrubs.
• They entered the cave and found bones, claw marks, and a crushed human body beneath a pile of pelts.
• Lin Ze found a silver band engraved with A.P., and Grimm identified its owner as Albert Pendragon, the lord's younger brother who had vanished three years earlier.
• Grimm examined an enormous gray-white pelt as the cave began to tremble, then warned Lin Ze that something inside was waking.
• The ground erupted and hurled Lin Ze and Grimm into the air, revealing a gigantic dark-gold eye beneath the stone hall.

Lin Ze encountered a gigantic dragon that awakened a powerful response in his dragon blood, then followed it to a stone fortress in a hidden valley. A gray-haired man there welcomed him as a Dragonborn, leaving Lin Ze unsure why he had been brought to the settlement.

• Lin Ze escaped the collapsing cavern with the unconscious Grimm as an enormous black-scaled dragon emerged from underground.
• The dragon’s presence triggered Lin Ze’s dragon blood, covering him in dark-gold patterns and scales before it let him move again.
• The dragon invited Lin Ze to climb onto its back, and he rode with it for about fifteen minutes to a valley.
• Lin Ze saw farmland and a stone fortress in the valley, and the dragon’s growl prompted the gates to open.
• A gray-haired man welcomed Lin Ze as a Dragonborn and led him toward the fortress.

Lin Ze learned that Whitewater Valley’s people believed he was the Dragonborn destined to lift the curse on the Black Forest, and that an ancestor had left him an item that could help him return home. After agreeing to investigate, he heard how the forest had spread and killed his father, but the curse remained unexplored.

• Colin told Lin Ze that Whitewater Valley called people like him Dragonborn and believed he could lift the curse on the Black Forest.
• Colin explained that the forest had been cursed five hundred years earlier, was steadily expanding, and could not be burned or safely cut down.
• Colin said the valley’s ancestors had left Lin Ze an item tied to his return home, but would only give it to him after he resolved the curse.
• Lin Ze agreed to try to help, and Colin thanked him on behalf of the valley’s people.
• Colin showed Lin Ze a map of the forest and told him that his father had entered it with seven others, returned alone three days later, and died two days afterward.

Lin Ze investigated the expanding woods in Whitewater Valley and discovered clues pointing to an old boundary marker and a growing disturbance beneath the soil. He planned to enter the woods the next day after making preparations.

• Eve brought Colin two strange, dark mushrooms she had found on the northern slope, and Colin suspected they had been affected by the woods.
• Lin Ze compared generations of records and learned the woods’ expansion had accelerated after the valley cleared land two hundred years earlier and moved an ancient boundary marker.
• Colin told Lin Ze that the marker was a rune-carved pillar said to have been left by the devil who cursed the valley.
• Lin Ze and Colin visited the northern slope, where Lin Ze felt a faint tremor coming from deep in the ground near the woods.
• Lin Ze decided to prepare and enter the woods the next day, then returned to the fort and ate mushroom soup with Colin and Eve.

Lin Ze entered the Black Forest to investigate its strange tremors and discovered living slime and attacking branches. He found a slime-covered boundary marker, but the forest fell silent and mist obscured his way back as he tried to copy its writing.

• Eve prepared dry rations for Lin Ze and followed him toward the Black Forest, agreeing to wait at its edge while he went in alone.
• Lin Ze found living slime covering a root and used Lumos to make the glowing slime retreat into the trees.
• A branch tracked Lin Ze and reached for him, so he raised an earth wall and tore the branch from its trunk.
• Lin Ze found a boundary marker in a shallow pit and caused the slime covering its carved writing to withdraw.
• The forest went silent and mist hid Lin Ze’s route back, so he began making a magical rubbing of the marker’s writing.

Lin Ze found himself back on the street and in the home from his previous life, where his parents welcomed him and everything seemed familiar. He recognized the flaws in the memories recreating them, rejected the illusion, and walked out.

• Lin Ze emerged from the woods onto the street where he had rented a room in his previous life.
• Lin Ze's parents called to him, and his mother led him home while his father followed.
• Lin Ze ate a meal with his parents and listened to his mother's familiar chatter.
• Lin Ze announced that he had to go and explained that the details of the scene did not match his memories of his parents.
• The room froze, and Lin Ze opened the door and stepped outside.

Lin Ze entered a living forest and discovered a stone pillar bearing the Chinese words “You've come.” The forest’s consciousness showed him a vision of a gray-robed man planting a staff among seven pillars, then asked Lin Ze to help it discover what it was.

• Lin Ze walked through the living forest as its trunks bent aside and countless eyes watched him.
• He found a clean stone pillar in a clearing and read the Chinese inscription “You've come.”
• The pillar showed Lin Ze a vision of a gray-robed man standing among seven pillars and driving a staff into a fissure filled with roots.
• The vision shattered, and a voice speaking Chinese identified itself as the forest’s consciousness.
• The forest’s consciousness told Lin Ze that the man had brought it from somewhere far away and asked what it was, saying Lin Ze was the only one who could see the vision’s contents.

Lin Ze entered the woods’ consciousness and asked it to stop expanding into the settlement, but it refused and attacked him. After Lin Ze used Fiendfyre and narrowly sent the growing flames through a rift, he tried to resume negotiations.

• Lin Ze spoke with the woods’ consciousness and learned it saw its growth as natural and refused to make way for the people living nearby.
• Lin Ze threatened to prune the woods, and it returned him to his body as dark green eyes opened across the trees.
• Lin Ze blasted a tree with Reducto, then used Fiendfyre to repel roots that attacked him.
• The woods confined and fed the Fiendfyre, causing it to grow beyond Lin Ze’s control.
• Lin Ze opened a rift with Boundary Break and sent the flames into the void before proposing that they talk again.

Lin Ze fought the forest consciousness as its roots poisoned him and drained his magic. Dawn scorched the roots and trunks, but they regenerated stronger, leaving Lin Ze weakened as they surged toward him again.

• The forest floor collapsed and its roots ensnared Lin Ze, piercing him with barbs that drained his magic and spread blue-black poison beneath his skin.
• Lin Ze blasted the roots with Reducto and tried to escape across the trees, but the forest attacked him with roots and branches.
• The forest consciousness told Lin Ze that it wanted to consume the magic inside him and urged him to stop struggling.
• Lin Ze cast Dawn, scorching the roots and shutting the trees' eyes, but the forest regenerated and grew stronger.
• The forest's roots surged toward Lin Ze as Dawn drained his magic and the poison spread through his body.

Lin Ze escaped the enchanted woods but collapsed from poisoned root wounds, only to wake tied up in a barn. After recovering his wand and freeing himself, he confronted Ainsley, a steward whose rune-etched rod suppressed magic, and revealed that her weapon was not enough to stop him.

• Lin Ze escaped the woods through a Boundary Break, severing the roots that had hooked into his leg, then treated his wounds and drank an antidote before losing consciousness.
• Lin Ze woke tied to a wooden frame in a barn, where his wand and Undetectable Extension Box had been taken from him.
• Lin Ze used Accio to retrieve his wand, broke the ropes, and hid the wooden case as he heard his captors approaching.
• Ainsley entered with three armed men and introduced herself as the steward of a neighboring territory, then used a rune-etched metal rod to suppress Lin Ze's magic.
• Lin Ze walked through the rod's pressure and told Ainsley that her weapon was still not enough to stop him.

Lin Ze fought off Ainsley’s armed men in the granary, revealing that their weapons could barely hurt him. Ainsley’s sister, Sera Morrison, arrived with soldiers, dismissed everyone else, and introduced herself to Lin Ze as a northern border patrol officer who had come to meet the Dragonborn.

• Ainsley activated her glowing rod as four men attacked Lin Ze with a hatchet, a ball and chain, clubs, and a dagger.
• Lin Ze used his strength and dragon scales to defeat the attackers, leaving them injured across the granary.
• Sera Morrison arrived with eight armored soldiers, ordered them and Ainsley out, and remained alone with Lin Ze.
• Sera introduced herself as a northern border patrol officer and asked Lin Ze if he was the Dragonborn people in Whitewater Valley had been discussing.

Saira explained the kingdom’s witch hunts and asked Lin Ze to investigate disappearances near an old northern watchtower. In exchange, she offered the item Lin Ze had been promised for helping Whitewater Valley, and showed him a bone.

• Saira told Lin Ze that King Constantine had ordered wizards arrested and sent to the royal capital, where more than twenty captured in the north had vanished from public view.
• Saira explained that the witch hunts began after Constantine stripped an unknown wizard of the title of Witch King.
• Saira asked Lin Ze to investigate an old watchtower where soldiers and villagers had disappeared and most returning investigators had gone mad.
• Lin Ze asked what he would receive for helping, and Saira said she had obtained the item promised by Whitewater Valley’s chief.
• Saira pulled a bone from inside her clothes.

Lin Ze recognized an unusual finger bone Saira had received from Colin and learned that it might be connected to finding a way home. He agreed to investigate the abandoned watchtower near Bitterwater Swamp and prepared to leave with Saira the next day.

• Lin Ze recognized the finger bone Saira had brought from Colin and placed it in his Undetectable Extension Box.
• Saira told Lin Ze that guards and craftsmen had disappeared at the old watchtower, three survivors had gone mad, and the surrounding villages had mostly emptied.
• Lin Ze agreed to investigate the watchtower, while Saira offered to accompany him and Ainsley objected before leaving with attendants.
• Lin Ze and Saira headed back to Whitewater Valley, and Saira explained they would cross Bitterwater Swamp by a hunters' path to reach the watchtower.

Lin Ze and Saira told Colin that the Black Forest was a living magical system they could not stop and urged Whitewater Valley to prepare to evacuate. Saira reduced the valley’s grain levy and offered help relocating its residents, then she and Lin Ze departed for the south.

• Lin Ze told Colin that the Black Forest was a living magical creature that he could not destroy, and recommended that Whitewater Valley’s residents move away.
• Saira told Colin she had secured a further thirty-percent reduction in the valley’s grain levy and said the patrol could help relocate residents who chose to leave.
• Eve asked Saira about the southern land, and Saira said it was more fertile and easier to irrigate but subject to stricter rules.
• Eve gave Lin Ze flatbreads and dried meat, and Lin Ze and Saira left Whitewater Valley the next morning.
• After they left the valley, Saira asked Lin Ze about the Black Forest’s consciousness, and he explained that wizards differed from ordinary people.

Lin Ze and Saira traveled north from Whitewater Valley, crossing rough terrain and learning more about each other’s work. After finding signs of recent activity in an abandoned quarrying village, they continued to a sheltered hollow and made camp for the night.

• Saira warned Lin Ze not to eat the sour berries and tied up the pony’s ears before they crossed a stretch where bandits might appear.
• During a midday rest, Saira described the hardships of patrol work, and Lin Ze jokingly claimed to be a dark wizard; Saira said she trusted her instincts about him.
• Saira led Lin Ze through the ruins of a former quarrying village and found fresh wood ash, which she suspected had been left by bandits.
• Lin Ze and Saira reached a sheltered hollow before nightfall, shared their meager rations, and lit a fire.
• Sela prepared the camping gear and told Lin Ze to take the first watch while she rested.