Chapter Summaries

Ace worked in his father Romon’s forge while trying to find a way for their family to regain citizenship in Medimous. As Ace reflected on the city-state’s hierarchy and his own plans, the chapter ended with the author’s reader-comment policy notice.

• Romon went to the tavern and told Ace to polish a sword blank, while Ace warned him not to get drunk and fight again.
• Ace recalled awakening memories of his past life as a university researcher and learning about the world and Medimous City-State.
• Ace decided that becoming a citizen would give him access to greater knowledge and opportunities.
• Ace considered how freefolk could regain citizenship and remembered that Romon had lost it after failing a literacy examination.

Ace saved enough money to begin studying under Scholar Peter, while Romon took responsibility for the remaining tuition. Ace enrolled and began learning literacy, hoping to gain access to Peter’s knowledge and prepare for his future.

• Ace counted his savings and decided that Scholar Peter was the best teacher for learning broadly and pursuing the secrets of the extraordinary.
• Ace told Marina and Romon he wanted to enroll with Peter, and Romon admitted his past failures before offering to cover the remaining tuition.
• Ace and Marina traveled to Peter’s villa, where she paid for three months of lessons and Ace joined seven other students.
• Peter welcomed the students and introduced his assistant Morton, who would teach them their first literacy lessons.
• Morton began teaching the thirty-two common letters and their phonetic symbols, and Ace recognized that the script was alphabetic.

Ace quickly mastered grammar under Morton’s guidance and advanced to studying the books required for the Medimous City-State’s literacy examination. Copying books in Peter’s library gave Ace treasured family texts and a broader understanding of his new world.

• Ace memorized all thirty-two letters and borrowed Morton’s grammar textbook, then studied it intensely while Romon quietly worked to sell his inherited heavy armor.
• Ace arrived early each morning to ask Morton grammar questions and mastered the material in about ten days.
• Morton advanced Ace to the next stage of study and took him to Peter’s library to borrow Myth, which Ace was allowed to copy.
• Ace copied Myth and the other two required books over roughly ten days, learned Peter’s Flying Bird Script, and gained a general understanding of the world.

Ace studied the three books required for the Unified General Literacy Examination and prepared for his first attempt. The fiftieth examination began at City Hall Plaza, where Romon and Marina waited outside as Ace and the other candidates sat down to take it.

• Ace reviewed the history and civilization described in the three books, concluding that he needed to study the supernatural to find a path forward in this world.
• Morton praised Ace for finishing the books and advised him to focus on them before seeking advanced lessons from Teacher Peter.
• Ace practiced examination questions and handwriting for more than half a month, using Morton's recollections because no past papers were available.
• The fiftieth Unified General Literacy Examination began at City Hall Plaza, while Romon and Marina waited outside the guarded examination area.

Ace passed the Unified General Literacy Examination on his first attempt with ninety-eight points, earning an Excellent badge and qualifying to study with Peter. Peter welcomed Ace as his disciple and set a monthly tuition of fifty Silver Talers, allowing him to pay later if needed.

• Romon reassured Marina that Ace should treat the examination as practice, while Ace confidently completed the test and wrote an essay titled "Notes on Leaving Sander Plateau."
• Morton used Ace's examination attempt to urge his students to work harder, and Ace noticed that several noble children resented being compared to him.
• Three days later, Ace and Marina found that Ace had scored ninety-eight points and placed second; Marina pinned his Excellent badge on him and hurried home to tell Romon.
• Ace showed Morton his badge, and Morton brought him to meet Peter, who welcomed him as a disciple and explained the monthly tuition arrangement.

Ace secured permission to study under Teacher Peter and persuaded Romon to support his education, then followed his family to City Hall Plaza for a rare public gathering. The chapter left Ace watching Rhonamuth Media arrive and address the assembled people as king.

• Joan gave Ace a borrowing permit after explaining his remaining tuition, and Ace visited the library, where Carter welcomed him and offered to help.
• Ace told Romon he wanted to continue studying under Teacher Peter, and Romon agreed to support his education with the family’s savings.
• Romon hurried Marina and Ace to City Hall Plaza, where residents gathered beneath the temple of the Elegant Goddess.
• Rhonamuth Media and Tadeus Media arrived by flying shuttle drawn by Pegasus, which amazed Ace.
• Rhonamuth addressed the crowd, declaring himself their king.

At Rhonamuth’s celebration, he announced that Goddess Meng had summoned him to Mount Kaya and used his Dream Theater to show his people the story of his life. Ace watched Rhonamuth’s divine origins and childhood, then saw Aleias demonstrate the overwhelming power of a hero.

• Rhonamuth praised Grandson Tedius, the nobles, citizens, and freemen, then announced that he would soon leave for Mount Kaya at Goddess Meng’s summons.
• Rhonamuth opened his Dream Theater and invited the people into its seven-colored vortex to witness the city’s founding story.
• Ace watched Aleias receive the infant Rhonamuth from Goddess Media and promise to raise him as the future king of the Rona City-State.
• Aleias explained to young Rhonamuth the difference between nobles and heroes, then summoned a Greatsword of Ice and carved a deep fissure through the road beyond the courtyard gate.

Ace witnessed the fall of Frost City as Alasong betrayed Aleias and unleashed the Ice Demons. Rhonamuth survived Demon Lord Gaogen’s attack with help from the Elegant Goddess, while Aleias’s fate remained unchanged.

• Aleias told young Rhonamuth that he was destined to become king of Frost City.
• Ice Demons invaded, and Aleias ordered Rhonamuth to lead the people to safety while he fought to defend the city.
• Alasong betrayed Aleias, attacked him, and declared his intention to build a new Frost City.
• Aleias unleashed his power and destroyed the demons on the battlefield, but Alasong survived under Demon Lord Gaogen’s protection.
• Rhonamuth returned and fought Gaogen, who transformed into a giant demon and wounded him as he fled.
• The Elegant Goddess healed Rhonamuth and annihilated Gaogen with a Seven-Colored Bead, then told Rhonamuth she could not save his father.

Ace witnessed Rhonamuth lead Frost City’s survivors to safety, found a new city-state in Salia, and establish a royal line under divine favor. Shaken by the power of gods and fate, Ace resolved to pursue knowledge of transcendence so he could shape his own destiny.

• The Elegant Goddess told Rhonamuth to lead the survivors from the Sander Plateau to Salia, while Ace realized gods and heroes ruled a dangerous world.
• Alasong cornered Rhonamuth and the fleeing residents at the coast, but Rhonamuth split the sea and led them across the seabed.
• Pontos rose from the ocean, crushed the Ice Demons, and wounded Alasong before agreeing to help Rhonamuth in exchange for a temple and fishing port.
• Pontos gave Rhonamuth an Island Beast to carry the survivors safely to Salia, where they established a prosperous city-state.
• The Elegant Goddess placed a crown on Grandson Tedius Medea, and Ace resolved to study transcendence and seize control of his fate.

Ace developed a book classification and management system, impressed Peter, and saw it adopted by the city-state’s libraries. After receiving money and a contribution badge, he began compiling a common-language dictionary and was offered a role overseeing the libraries’ book acquisitions.

• Ace wrote Book Classification and Indexing and presented it to Peter, who asked him to test its methods on his private collection.
• Ace organized Peter’s books into categories, catalogued them, and established a system for locating and tracking them.
• After inspecting the results, Peter rewarded Ace with ten Gold Talers and promised to recommend his methods to the Royal Library and City-State Public Library.
• Peter and Morton announced that the libraries had adopted the Ace Book Management Method, and Ace began compiling the Common Tongue Dictionary.
• Carter delivered twenty Gold Talers and a Bronze City-State Contribution Badge to Ace, then offered him a job overseeing book selection and classification; Ace accepted.

Ace began studying medicine with Peter while planning a dictionary, then joined Carter and Daina at the City-State Public Library to classify donated books. After two weeks of work, he picked up a military diary about the thirty-year war to conquer the barbarians.

• Carter invited Ace to meet him at the City-State Public Library the following month.
• Ace told Peter he wanted to study medicine and proposed compiling a two-volume dictionary with Peter’s help.
• Carter met Ace at the library and introduced him to Daina, who worked there and hoped to become a female Scholar.
• Carter explained the library’s book-selection process, and Ace began classifying donated books.
• Ace spent his days working at the library and his evenings discussing word definitions with Peter.
• Daina told Ace that an untitled military diary had been rejected for the collection, and Ace took it to read.

Ace discovered a diary describing a Wisdom Potion that could grant ordinary people shaman-like powers, and he began gathering materials to test it. He bought two Panic Crows and planned to ask Romon to help him find a Man-Hitting Willow tuber.

• Ace read a diary recounting how its author brewed a Wisdom Potion, survived a weeklong fever, and gained heightened senses and telekinetic abilities.
• Ace secretly kept the diary, verified its seller’s identity, copied its contents, and burned the original.
• Ace found descriptions of Man-Hitting Willows and Panic Crows in a demonic-beast compendium and suspected their brain-related properties could stimulate the mind.
• Ace visited the Third District and bought one large and one small Panic Crow after bargaining with a young demon hunter.
• Ace returned without finding a Man-Hitting Willow tuber and decided to ask Romon to help him obtain one.

Ace developed a jade-green potion that improved mice’s memory and reactions, then took it himself and saw his abilities improve. After a sudden, painful episode, he discovered he could move objects with his mind, but the power left him with a severe headache.

• Romon asked Connie to obtain a Man-Hitting Willow crown tuber, and tavern gossip spread that the tubers could help with family harmony.
• Ace tested ten potion formulas on mice, found that a jade-green mixture kept them alive, and confirmed that it improved their intelligence, memory, and reactions.
• Ace took the potion three times daily for more than half a month and noticed rapid improvements in his abilities and dictionary work.
• After waking on God-King Day and drinking the potion, Ace suffered intense heat and pain before recovering his breath.
• Ace made a tao cup and other small objects float with his mind, then collapsed with a severe headache as Marina comforted him.

Ace completed the Common Tongue Dictionary with Peter, earning recognition as a City-State Scholar and securing citizenship for his family. He proposed using carved wooden printing blocks to publish the Dictionary widely, and Peter agreed to invest in the plan with him.

• Ace recorded his questions about extraordinary power in a diary and developed a basic method for training his mental power.
• Ace and Peter finished proofreading the first edition of the Common Tongue Dictionary at the end of October.
• Gailuo praised the Dictionary, and Ace received a Golden City-State Contribution Medal, City-State Scholar status, a stipend, and a villa in the First District.
• Ace's family moved into the First District, and Romon and Marina celebrated their son's achievements.
• Ace planned to take the City-State Language Examination and study medicine with Tailos, while Peter agreed to help arrange it.
• Ace proposed making and selling the Dictionary with wooden printing blocks, and Peter offered to invest with him and split the profits equally.

Ace partnered with Peter to launch a profitable woodblock-printing business while developing his spiritual power through a disciplined training method. After a year of progress and growing success in Buku Town, Ace returned to the city-state at Peter’s request to study medicine with Tailos and examine unusual medicinal materials.

• Ace recruited Morton and Peter’s students to prepare woodblocks, then had Romon print and sell the Common Tongue Dictionary through a workshop in their former house.
• Ace and Peter planned further woodblock editions of popular works, while their printing business expanded with sales of Myth and Epic and a library commission for The Founding of Medimous.
• Ace developed the Five-Step Meditation Method, bought an estate in Buku Town, and trained daily with his mother Marina and two old soldiers nearby.
• After nearly a month of meditation, Ace found his martial skills improving, and by year’s end his spiritual power could lift five kilograms and reach three meters.
• Romon sent Ace a letter saying Peter had arranged for him to study medicine under Tailos and that fresh medicinal materials awaited him.
• Ace packed up with Marina and the two old soldiers and left Buku Town by carriage.

Ace returned to Medimoth City, arranged to study medicine with Physician Tailos, and spent a week observing the clinic’s crude treatments. Horrified by the unnecessary amputations, bloodletting, and enemas, he decided to research medicine himself to improve his chances of surviving future illness or injury.

• Romon welcomed Ace and Marina home, showed Ace five caged Corrosive Jackals, and agreed to send them to the family estate in Buku Town.
• Ace visited Teacher Peter, who arranged for him to study under Physician Tailos for fifty Silver Talers a month.
• Ace began assisting at Tailos’s clinic and chose to study there for half of each month.
• Ace witnessed patients receive amputations, bloodletting, and enemas, then attended Tailos’s lecture defending those treatments.
• After a week at the clinic, Ace concluded that its methods were crude and resolved to study medicine and conduct his own research.

Ace ended his medical studies under Tailos and outlined a new approach to medicine, proposing to test his ideas on a manor populated by slaves. Just as he prepared to leave for Buku Town, Morton stopped him with news that the king had invited him to a royal banquet for compiling the dictionary.

• Ace thanked Tailos for his instruction and told him he would not continue studying under him.
• Ace explained his medical principles to Peter, who agreed to help him lease four hundred slaves for three years as an experimental community.
• Ace wrote “New Medicine” as the guiding philosophy of his practice and planned to go to Buku Town to study Corrosive Jackals and build his manor.
• Ace sent Romon to buy three hundred young adult slaves and one hundred adolescent slaves.
• Morton stopped Ace’s convoy and told him the king had invited him to a banquet because of his dictionary.
• Peter gave Ace a black robe, and Ace and Morton prepared to hurry to the royal palace with Ace’s medals.

Ace attended the royal banquet with Peter, learned about the city-state’s recent victories, and watched heroes exchange wondrous items. After Peter told him about the scholars’ gathering the next day, Ace chose to present a talk on logic to find like-minded researchers.

• Peter brought Ace to the royal banquet and introduced him to the scholars, while Ace wandered the hall and heard soldiers discuss their victories and recent news.
• The king arrived, and the banquet began its exchange of wondrous items; Peter showed Ace the Mirror of Calm Contemplation and explained its effects.
• Heroes displayed wondrous items, including a sword that could cut steel and arrows that could never miss, but Ace had nothing to trade for them.
• Peter told Ace that the scholars would gather at the public library the next day and advised him to prepare a presentation on the dictionary or medicine.
• Ace rejected those topics and began writing a presentation titled “What Is Logic and Its Decisive Significance in Academic Research.”

Ace attended a gathering of the city-state's foremost scholars and introduced logic as a discipline for objective academic thinking. He left the meeting to thunderous applause after outlining concepts and their relationships.

• A library attendant stopped Ace from entering the scholars' meeting until Daina helped him obtain Tang Sen's approval.
• Ace introduced himself as Scholar Peter's disciple and described his work on the Common Tongue Dictionary and Book Classification and Indexing.
• Ace presented logic as a discipline for neutral, objective thinking and explained how concepts abstract essential attributes.
• Ace defined the intension and extension of concepts, described several concept categories and relationships, and urged scholars to use logic in research.
• The scholars applauded Ace's presentation, while Peter and Bayern discussed the value of his ideas.

After establishing a settlement and organizing its slaves, Ace began experimenting on captive Corrosive Jackals to learn how their acid attacks worked. He tested whether feeding them sulfur restored their ability to spray acid and recorded his results.

• Ace left Medimoth City with hired soldiers, slaves, and supplies, then bought wasteland near the river and sea for an experimental estate.
• Ace established a riverside settlement, divided the slaves into work teams, and put Marina in charge of land reclamation.
• Ace restrained a Corrosive Jackal and discovered that it could no longer spray acid, though its spiritual power fluctuated as it tried.
• Ace bought sulfur and fed it to the jackals, but they showed no immediate change.
• Ace divided the five jackals into control and sulfur-fed groups, conducted further tests, and recorded his conclusion in an experiment journal.