Chapter Summaries

Bayern’s experiments turned three former brigands into Mental Overclockers who could cast Lesser Magic Missiles, prompting Ace to consider expanding wizard recruitment across Salia. Ace called a secret council meeting to assess whether Divine Nobles could follow the path of Magic and what risks that posed.

• Bayern taught Harlan, Warren, and Tang Qi to use wizard spells after they achieved Mental Overclocking.
• Harlan, Warren, and Tang Qi successfully cast Lesser Magic Missiles, and Bayern secretly reported his experiment to Ace.
• Ace praised Bayern’s idea of developing hidden wizard organizations in Salia but instructed him to report future plans first.
• Ace proposed recruiting Mental Prodigies throughout Salia and identified four questions about whether Divine Nobles could follow the path of Magic.
• Ace summoned the Magic Council members to a secret meeting and ordered Bayern to bring the Divine Noble experimental subjects.
• The Advanced Wizard Apprentices gathered on the first floor of the West Tower and speculated about the meeting’s purpose.

Ace announced that he had become a Quasi-Formal Wizard and established definitions for Wizard ranks and rune grades. The Magic Council approved the Kindling Plan, sending apprentices to build branches across Salia while restricting the study and recruitment of Divine Nobles.

• Ace told sixty-five Advanced Wizard Apprentices that he had reached the Quasi-Formal Wizard stage and explained the proposed Wizard ranks, rune grades, and spell rings.
• Bayern presented three Junior Wizard Apprentices, then revealed that they were Divine Descendants who could use Magic.
• Auli challenged the claim based on her experiments, examined the three, and accepted Ace’s explanation that her earlier subjects had been Divinely Inspired rather than Divine Descendants.
• Ace and Bayern presented the Kindling Plan, which the gathered council refined and approved.
• The Magic Council elected Ace its chairman with unilateral authority and selected sixteen apprentices to establish branches in Salia’s eight city-states.
• The council decided to capture selected Divine Nobles for long-term experiments rather than develop them widely for the time being.

Caro arrived at the Magic Castle hoping to begin his studies, while Eddy registered for a Demonic Beast mission amid anxiety over the magic network outage. After the secret meeting, Ace studied his post-advancement growth and concluded that he needed a formal-level meditation method and a spell model to progress further.

• Caro learned that registration for the Primary Magic School would not begin until September, and Sulu offered him a place in Valen's Preparatory Class on credit.
• Eddy registered for the mission to clear out the Demonic Beast pack in the Northern Mining Area after hearing Leon reassure apprentices that the magic network would return in a month.
• Eddy visited Bayern's residence to rent a magic array and make Lesser Magic Stones.
• Ace sealed off the West Tower and used vitality and Supernatural Delicacies to strengthen his Soul Secret Treasury Space, while planning a Supernatural Delicacies Research Institute.
• Two weeks later, Ace's Soul Secret Treasury Space had grown nearly tenfold and reached a bottleneck, so he began considering what kind of spell model to assemble.

Ace restored the magic network and conceived a dream realm Spell to explore turning illusion into reality. Meanwhile, Ancesta led a group of apprentices and knight squires to the Northern Mining Area, where tensions surfaced between Caroso and Lou Xilu.

• Ace rejected elemental theory and the upgraded Advanced Magic Trick as foundations for his Magic research.
• Ace rebuilt the public dream space inside the Dream Crystal sphere, named it Gensokyo, and restarted the magic network.
• Ace decided to study Dream Rune Groups and develop a dream world in spiritual space to test the conversion of illusion into reality.
• Ancesta led twenty-five apprentices and knight squires, including Eddy, Caroso, and Donna, toward the Northern Mining Area to fight Strange Demonic Beasts.
• Eddy admired Caroso's Advanced Golem, while Lou Xilu teased him about Caroso's relationship with a wealthy witch.
• Caroso attacked Lou Xilu with the Stone Golem, but Lou Xilu evaded dozens of strikes, impressing Eddy.

Ancesta’s group cleared the Northern Mining Area of Strange Demonic Beasts, unaware that three masked followers of Pain had been watching them. After the group returned to Nightglow City, the intruders entered Mining Town, where Bent’s Perception Barrier Orb detected them.

• Lou Xilu and Caroso argued over Lou Xilu’s rumor about Caroso and Polina, but Ancesta stopped them before they fought.
• Ancesta led the group into the mining area, where they identified the Strange Demonic Beasts’ weaknesses and defeated them by making them devour weaker creatures.
• The group spent a week clearing the area and captured six Strange Demonic Beasts for research.
• Three hooded men wearing Pain Face masks emerged from hiding and used Pain’s Blessing to disguise themselves as ordinary people.
• The masked men entered Mining Town through the shadows, and Bent’s Magic Book and Perception Barrier Orb alerted him to an unknown presence.

Bent discovered that three masked, extraordinary intruders had entered Mining Town and prepared to stop them before they could expose the High Tower Territory. Ancesta diverted a force to aid him, while Bent identified the intruders as possible servants of the Lord of Torment and fled as they sensed him watching.

• Bent reported the masked intruders, tested their intentions with a militia patrol, and prepared enchanted explosives and Betty's activated mechanical arm.
• The three masked men discussed capturing a town resident and torturing them for information, then infiltrated a household and murdered its family.
• Ancesta received Bent's request for aid, sent Donna and five others onward to Nightglow City, and led the remaining apprentices and knight attendants toward Mining Town.
• Bent used Lesser Insight Perception to observe and record the intruders, recognized their masks and methods as resembling a legend about the Lord of Torment, and leaped into the air when they sensed him.

Bent fought three masked men to protect Mining Town, lured them into an abandoned mine, and survived a deadly clash before Ancesta arrived. Ancesta discovered that the remaining hooded attacker wore a mask bearing Bent’s agonized face and launched an assault, but the man dismissed his strength as weak.

• Bent fought the three masked men while ordering the junior apprentices to evacuate Mining Town’s residents.
• Bent lured the attackers into an abandoned mine and killed two with Lesser Flame Torrent, while the last escaped into the shadows.
• Bent sent his location to Ancesta and searched the darkness, where a burst of fire left a scorched crater.
• Ancesta reached the mine, found signs of Bent’s mechanical arm and no trace of him, then attacked a figure emerging from the dark.
• Bent appeared wounded, ambushed Ancesta with shadow claws, and revealed himself as the hooded masked man wearing a mask with Bent’s agonized face.
• Ancesta attacked the hooded man with a heart-power lance, but the man recovered and taunted him.

Ancesta defeated and captured the Faceless Man after learning that Bent had died resisting the Suffering Believers, then reported the invasion to the High Tower Territory. As the territory entered a state of emergency, Ace struggled to assemble a three-dimensional Spell model in the West Tower.

• Ancesta overpowered the Faceless Man, tore away his mask, and brought him captive to Mining Town.
• Caroso saw Bent’s face on the Mask of Suffering, and Ancesta told the assembled apprentices that Bent had died protecting Mining Town and passed him vital intelligence.
• Donna and the others reached Nightglow City, passed its security checks, and learned that the territory was under emergency orders and Ancesta had captured an invader.
• An advanced apprentice told Donna that two more advanced apprentices had been sent to escort the captive and that the territory might soon face war.
• Bayern entered the West Tower while Ace studied a three-dimensional Spell model and compared it to an inferior path within a domain.

Ace investigated a dream-illusion spell while trying to perfect its foundation, then took charge after intruders attacked the Northern Mining Area. His examination of Bent’s Mask of Suffering revealed a link between Bent’s torment and the captive’s recovering Magic.

• Ace rejected the incomplete dream-illusion spell model and decided to keep developing it rather than pray to the mysterious existence again.
• Bayern reported that three intruders had entered the Northern Mining Area, two had been killed, Bent had died, and Ancesta had captured the survivor.
• Ace ordered a territory-wide inspection, demanded the captive be brought to him, and decreed that Bent would be honored with a bronze statue in Springwater Plaza.
• Ancesta and two senior apprentices escorted the faceless captive to the West Tower, where Ace examined Bent’s Mask of Suffering.
• Ace found tiny Bent trapped in a cage inside the mask and discovered that pressing the mask onto the captive made Bent’s torment intensify as the captive’s Magic began to revive.

Ace interrogated a Devil Worshipper, learned Hell Language, and turned his attention to the Child of the Ocean’s blessing. Meanwhile, Caroso and Polina identified and named a new curse Spell, the Invisible Assimilation Curse.

• Ace learned that three members of Touch of Suffering had come to capture Strange Demonic Beasts as sacrifices and seek a powerful Pain Priest.
• Ace confirmed that the Devil Worshippers had no contract-like restraints, then learned Hell Language with the Book Spirit’s help.
• Ace took out the Blessing Light Orb to study it, while Caroso and Polina examined Strange Demonic Beast tissues in Caroso’s laboratory.
• Caroso and Polina identified four Soul Runes behind the beasts’ devouring and transformation, and determined that they formed a curse Spell.
• After testing the curse on nearly three hundred Demonic Beasts, Caroso and Polina confirmed its effects and named it the Invisible Assimilation Curse.

Caroso published his research on Strange Demonic Beasts, advanced to Advanced Wizard Apprentice, and continued working toward a Perfect Transformation Technique. Ace’s study of the Blessing Light Orb revealed a link between higher- and lower-tier runes, while Caroso’s experiments gave Strange Demonic Beasts a way to revert to a fluid state.

• Caroso told Polina he hoped to use the devouring and transformation abilities of Strange Demonic Beasts to create a Perfect Transformation Technique, and Polina urged him to publish his current findings.
• Ace observed the Blessing Light Orb and discovered that one of its second-circle Spell models contained the Simulated Rune Group, which could help him derive first-circle Spells from zero-circle models.
• Ace wondered whether first-circle Spells could affect his Soul Space, then removed Bent's Mask of Suffering and questioned why Suffering Believers needed the masks.
• Caroso published his paper, earned enough academic points, and completed an Advanced Apprentice Promotion Ceremony under Ace’s guidance, joining the Magic Council.
• Over the next half year, Caroso combined the Transformation Rune with runes from Strange Demonic Beasts and developed a way for them to revert to a fluid state after devouring and assimilating another creature.

Caroso devised a Transformation Primordial Stone that let him implant a Strange Demonic Beast clone into his body and transform into powerful Demonic Beasts. Meanwhile, Ace summoned the crystalline creature again with magical delicacies, and it demanded to know what he wanted and what he had offered.

• Caroso combined the Projection Ritual and Familiar Ritual to replace a Strange Demonic Beast's soul with his clone spirit.
• Caroso altered the creature's cellular runes, sealed it inside his left arm, and created the Implantation Spell and Transformation Primordial Stone.
• Caroso discovered that the Transformation Primordial Stone could be divided into four portions, each allowing transformation into a different powerful Low-level Demonic Beast or same-rank transcendent creature.
• Ace concluded that the crystalline creature valued flavor and variety, then offered his remaining Life Source Essence and ten magical delicacies through the summoning array.
• The crystalline creature considered whether to downgrade its true body to enter the Inner World or resume traveling between worlds, then answered Ace's summons and demanded a sacrifice.

Ace learned from the crystalline dragon that only Level 2 spell models could shape his nascent Mindscape and affect his Path of the Mind, while Level 1 models could strengthen him without fixing his path. After the dragon left, Ace studied Dragon Language and assembled Level 1 spell models as a paper on Shapeshifters spread through the High Tower Territory.

• Ace asked the crystalline creature about runes, spell models, and other supernatural languages, and offered it food and two sheets of Magic paper.
• The crystalline creature explained that Level 0 runes were only shadows of rules and that Level 2 spell models could shape Ace’s nascent Mindscape, then gave him Dragon Language and spatial matter.
• The crystalline creature abandoned its divine fire and descended into the Inner World, while Ace learned that its supernatural language was Dragon Language.
• Caroso’s paper on Demonic Beast Grafting and Supernatural Transformation sparked discussion, and wizard apprentices began calling the Strange Demonic Beast a Shapeshifter and hunting Low-level Demonic Beasts.
• Ace studied Dragon Language, assembled several Level 1 spell models, and replicated the True Word Spell using Level 0 runes and structures from the three supernatural languages.

Ace developed several One-Ring spells and considered how to deepen magical research into dreams, elements, and life. After concluding that wizard scholarship needed a more systematic research environment, he held an academic presentation at Magic Castle.

• Ace created Dream Force Field by combining degraded Dream runes with illusion runes, and hoped to use it to explore the transformation of dreams and reality.
• Ace charted the derivations and combinations of known magical elements, then created the Four-Element Ring spell from their relationships.
• Ace created Perception Technique, Spatial Displacement Spell, and Touch of Frost, which could freeze an enemy's soul and potentially trigger Soul Burst.
• Ace read research on Transcendent Transformation in Magic and considered developing a One-Ring version by cultivating a Level 1 shapeshifter familiar.
• Ace argued that wizards needed a systematic research environment to investigate subjects including elements, life, souls, and alchemy.
• A few days later, Ace held an academic presentation at Magic Castle.

Ace presented his research on advancing to formal wizardry, defining rune and spell levels and explaining advancement requirements and magical specializations. He ended by telling a legend about an abandoned High Tower, prompting Valen to connect the story to wizards pursuing truth together.

• Ace arrived at the Magic Castle symposium and distinguished quasi-formal wizards from formal wizards, defining formal wizards by their ability to construct researched spell models.
• Ace introduced Level 0 and Level 1 Soul Runes and explained how rune levels determined spell rings and formal wizard status.
• Ace outlined the requirements for becoming a quasi-formal wizard, including advanced spiritual power, high-frequency magic power, and sufficient bodily vitality.
• Logan suggested that magic cuisine could help older apprentices such as Bayern restore vitality and improve their chances of advancement.
• Ace advised apprentices to specialize in one of six magical categories while keeping their methods diverse, and Eddy committed himself to Contract Summoning.
• Ace told a legend about people who abandoned a tower built to reach the sky, and Valen suggested that the tower represented wizards seeking truth together.

Ace proposed collaborative research and later tested a mysterious spell copied from the Blessing Light Orb, finding that it transformed souls and bodies into merman-like believers. His search for the tiny beings hidden in souls led him to draw a giant resembling himself from the depths of his Soul Secret Treasury Space, where it opened its eyes.

• Ace proposed a collaborative research center with project and mentor systems for wizard apprentices.
• The Magic Council Committee began overseeing construction of the research center outside Nightglow City while Ace focused on his own research.
• Ace cast a three-dimensional rune structure copied from the Blessing Light Orb and saw it transform an ordinary monkey’s soul and body.
• Ace used an Enchanted Microscope to observe a miniature Thunder Monkey within a mutated soul and found the transformation worked best on a convicted slave, who became a believer of the Child of the Ocean.
• After killing the convicted slave, Ace intercepted a tiny person escaping from his soul and wondered why he could not find one in his own soul.
• Ace followed his contract with the Book Spirit into his Soul Secret Treasury Space and drew out a giant resembling himself, which opened its eyes.

Ace beheld his True Spirit and understood that the Soul Secret Treasury Space was a nascent Mindscape created by it. He then discovered that the Suffering Believer sustained his Remnant Soul by burning other beings’ True Spirits.

• Ace united with his True Spirit, gaining command of the Soul Secret Treasury Space and realizing how the nascent Mindscape had formed.
• Ace examined the Mask of Suffering and found that Bent had vanished, leaving only a fading Flame of Suffering.
• Ace studied the Faceless Man and sensed that his soul lacked a True Spirit, sustained instead by a Flame of Suffering.
• Ace placed the Mask of Suffering on the weakened Suffering Believer and observed its flame resonate with the flame in the believer’s Remnant Soul.
• Ace brought a condemned slave’s True Spirit near the mask, and the Mask of Suffering seized and burned it, strengthening the Suffering Believer.
• Ace concluded that Suffering Believers sustained their Remnant Souls by burning True Spirits, and that devil worshippers surrendered their True Spirits in exchange for power.

After clearly seeing his true spirit, Ace discovered new powers and uncovered the nature of projections. He used a True Spirit’s Shadow to create a clone, then connected with a second shadow and detected the wizard Subconscious Sea beyond the world.

• Ace found that clearly seeing his true spirit improved his meditation, Spellcasting, perception, and control of his Soul Secret Treasury Space.
• Ace tested the Projection Ritual on a Thunder Monkey and discovered that projections contained a two-dimensional True Spirit’s Shadow rather than a true spirit.
• Ace drew his true spirit into his Soul Secret Treasury Space and formed two True Spirit’s Shadows, one of which he solidified and used to create a rational spiritual clone.
• Ace connected with the second shadow, whose true-spirit-level vibration crossed spatial barriers and revealed the wizard Subconscious Sea in the Sea of Reality and Illusion.

Ace developed spells that created a temporary mirror-image avatar and foresaw events, while improving his Soul Secret Treasury Space by digesting spatial solute. With the High Tower and wizard administration established, he prepared to leave in search of a better meditation method after beginning research into living-creature teleportation.

• Ace discovered that Clear-Sighted True Spirit let him control multiple bodies with one consciousness, and confirmed he could produce two and a half True Spirit's Shadows at Level 1.
• Ace successfully created the first-ring Timed Mirror Image Technique, which produced a temporary avatar able to communicate with him across any distance.
• Ace's rational avatar developed the first-ring Astrology Foresight Technique, which could predict movement, detect hostility and lies, decipher coded text, and reveal concealment within its limits.
• Ace digested spatial solute through the chaotic interlayer of his Soul Secret Treasury Space, expanding it until it was nearly twice as large.
• Ace concluded that the Advanced Apprentice Meditation Method had become ineffective and decided to seek opportunities to create a new one, while preparing to study living-creature teleportation spells.

Ace studied the Reflection World and True Spirit contracts, then developed the first-ring spells Shadow Transformation Technique and Shadow Crow Flash. During a field test of Shadow Crow Flash, his Spatial Stomach shattered amid the teleportation, leaving him unconscious.

• Ace entered the Reflection World through a Shadow Crow, recorded its mirrored coordinates, and later confirmed that its air and soil were lethally toxic.
• Ace discovered that Shadow Crows marked with his coordinates could serve as destinations for reverse summoning, then researched mental resonance and improved Familiar Contracts.
• Ace concluded that Familiar Contracts relied on True Spirit projections and contracted twenty powerful Shadow Crows after finding he could create twenty-one projection threads.
• Ace developed Shadow Transformation Technique and Shadow Crow Flash, which let him become a shadow creature and exchange places with a contracted Shadow Crow within five hundred meters.
• Ace tested Shadow Crow Flash, but his Spatial Stomach broke apart during the teleportation, interrupting the lock-on and causing him to lose consciousness.