Chapter Summaries

After Misha and her family were arrested, Vite insisted on trying to save her, but Dove knocked him unconscious and carried him toward the border. Meanwhile, Ace investigated the strange life casket and learned that Vite was being evacuated to the High Tower.

• Dove told Vite that Misha and her family had been arrested and urged him to flee, but Vite refused to abandon her.
• Dove ambushed Vite with a Lesser Stun Spell, then knocked him unconscious with several punches and took him away in a carriage.
• Vite woke as Dove told him they were nearing the border and leaving the Milne City-State.
• Ace examined the life casket and concluded that its generation mechanism now relied on life force rather than negative energy.
• Valen told Ace that Vite’s senior had arranged to take Vite to Mira Port so he could reach the High Tower that winter.

Vite returned toward Milne City with Mr. Dove to rescue Misha, while Ace learned that her family had been falsely accused after a love rivalry. Vite and Mr. Dove slipped into the city through a sewer, but Vite admitted he did not know the cleaning spell.

• Misha endured torture with her parents in the Punishment Hall but refused to reveal that she was a sorcerer apprentice.
• Vite defied Mr. Dove and set out for Milne City, and Mr. Dove eventually followed him.
• Four wizard apprentices captured Hel, Gaul, and another man, then used the Guard Dog's illusions to learn the truth about Misha's arrest.
• Valen reported to Ace that jealous young noblemen had sparked the false accusation, which the Punishers exploited to arrest Misha's family.
• Mr. Dove and Vite found a way into Milne City through an unguarded sewer outlet and crawled through the sewage without using magic protection.
• After they reached the sewers beyond the patrol range, Mr. Dove told Vite to use a cleaning spell, and Vite said he did not know how.

Ace learned the truth about Misha’s family, captured Gosa’s memories, and destroyed much of the Punishment Hall, while Vite and Mr. Dove were caught in the resulting manhunt. Vite found Misha and her parents dead, but heard Misha’s voice coming from the conch shell she wore.

• Ace entered Gosa’s dream, tortured him for information, and learned what had happened at the Punishment Hall.
• Ace destroyed much of the Punishment Hall and left a message declaring that the Fire Thief Alliance would never surrender.
• Vite and Mr. Dove hid from the Punishers, then Mr. Dove attacked them with a spell and escaped on a Magic carpet.
• Vite transformed into a gray cat and searched the Punishment Hall ruins, where he found Misha and her parents dead.
• Vite heard Misha’s voice from the conch shell on her chest and sensed a trace of her soul in it.

Vite advanced to an Advanced Wizard Apprentice and used his newly created toxin Spell to save Mr. Dove from seven Hero-class Punishers, but Karim killed Mr. Dove as they fled. The chapter left Vite devastated beside Mr. Dove’s headless body.

• Misha’s longing awakened Vite’s Soul Secret Treasury Space, and Vite realized he had advanced to an Advanced Wizard Apprentice.
• Vite created the zero-ring Spells Epidemic Virus Cloud and Withering Ray, then rushed to find Mr. Dove.
• Vite found Mr. Dove pursued by Punishers, helped him escape, and led the pursuers into the poisonous cloud, killing seven Hero-class Punishers.
• Karim pursued Ace after Ace escaped, then casually sent an energy shield toward Vite and Mr. Dove.
• Mr. Dove shoved Vite out of the shield’s path and was decapitated, leaving Vite shocked and grief-stricken.

After Mr. Dove’s death, Vite fought off thirteen Suffering Believers in Milne City and fled to Mira Port, determined to survive and avenge Misha and Mr. Dove. As his body and soul began to fail, Ace discovered him and questioned his identity.

• Mr. Dove’s head and body transformed into those of an unfamiliar young woman, and Vite carried her head into the sewers as he fled Milne City.
• Thirteen Suffering Believers attacked Vite, but he used Withering Blades and poison to kill them before escaping toward Mira Port.
• After wandering Mira Port for two weeks, Vite vowed to take Ms. Dove to see Magic’s future and avenge Misha, while using negative energy to resist the Pain Flames.
• Vite collapsed in a seaside cave, where Ace appeared after sensing intense Magic fluctuations and found the unregistered Advanced Wizard Apprentice near death.

Vite awoke aboard the Knowledge Seeker and met Ace, who told him that Misha and Rita had died and condemned the Divine Noble system. Vite joined Ace’s cause in hopes of reviving them, but learned that his body and soul might be beyond saving and that he would die.

• Vite woke in a room aboard the Magic ship Knowledge Seeker, where wooden crew member Number 330 escorted him to the dining hall and then to Ace.
• Ace told Vite that Rita was Mr. Dove’s real name and explained that he had killed Gosa after learning of Misha’s death.
• Vite blamed himself for Misha and Rita’s deaths, but Ace argued that the Divine Noble system was responsible for persecuting wizards.
• Vite joined Ace’s cause and asked whether magic could revive the dead; Ace said that departed people might be found if their true spirits still existed.
• Ace warned Vite that negative energy and pain had severely eroded his body and soul, and that his condition might be irreversible.

As Vite’s decline worsened, he chose to become the first test subject in Ace’s lich transformation experiment. Ace also began investigating rebirth through a phylactery and launched a project to train warlock apprentices, while Bayern considered leaving High Tower to seek a way to advance.

• Ace failed to find a way to separate the intertwined forces destroying Vite’s body and soul, while Vite’s condition deteriorated during the journey to High Tower Territory.
• Ace tested the black, gleaming regular octahedron and discovered that his true spirit could leap into it, though its dormant vitality was insufficient to trigger rebirth.
• Upon reaching Hope Port, Vite decided to undergo Ace’s lich transformation experiment, and Ace sent him to rest at West Tower.
• Ace announced the Warlock Project, directing the Regional Magic Councils of the seven city-states to develop divine descendants into warlock apprentices.
• Bayern told Ace he planned to leave for the Old Continent after failing to become an official wizard, and Ace explained his undead transformation research as an alternative form of immortality.

Ace performed a lich transformation for Vite, preserving his true spirit and creating a phylactery that allowed him to return as a skeleton. Vite confirmed that he retained his identity and explained that as long as his phylactery survived, he could regenerate.

• Ace began the lich transformation ritual, extracted Vite's heart and Soul Secret Treasury Space, and captured his true spirit after Vite died.
• Ace used negative energy to make Vite's Remnant Soul ignite as Soul Fire, then observed the Soul Fire alter Vite's true spirit.
• Ace combined Vite's true spirit, heart, Soul Secret Treasury Space, and a rib to create a phylactery containing a skeletal infant.
• Vite awakened as a skeleton, learned to speak using Soul Power, and told Ace what he remembered from the transformation.
• Vite demonstrated that his Soul Secret Treasury Space could move between his body and phylactery, and explained that the phylactery could nurture a replacement and restore him if his body was destroyed.

Ace published research on lich transformation, then guided five Advanced Wizard Apprentices through advancement to quasi-formal wizards and explained their next steps. Daina asked whether she should continue specializing in magic crystal shaping and enchanted martial techniques, while her emotions again stirred the life force in Ace’s phylactery.

• Bayern read Ace’s paper on lich transformation, obtained the ritual knowledge, and left for Tsimari to join a voyage to the Old Continent.
• The High Tower Territory debated lich transformation, while Vite earned money by renting himself out and enrolled in the Primary Magic School.
• Ace reunited with Daina and noticed that her emotions made the life force inside his phylactery unusually active.
• Ace gathered the Advanced Wizard Apprentices and guided Betty, Auli, Daina, Caroso, and Polina through advancement to quasi-formal wizards.
• Ace explained first-ring spells and possible wizard specializations, and Daina asked whether she should continue her established fields of study.

Ace developed Projection Magic as a future direction for Daina and researched the regenerative vitality in Hercules the Fearless's severed finger. After learning that Ancesta and Arno had reached the limits of their strength, he proposed using concentrated vitality to help them advance to Formal Knights.

• Ace told Daina to combine alchemical thinking with elemental power to develop Projection Magic, and her trust helped strengthen the Life Casket's vitality.
• Ace built a more powerful Enchanted Microscope and, after many experiments, created Moonlight Fluorescent Agent to reveal double-helix rune structures linked to Hercules the Fearless's regeneration.
• Unable to decipher the runes, Ace made the Life Casket a pendant for Daina to wear so it could absorb her emotional power and build its vitality.
• Ace met Ancesta and Arno, who explained that their Virtue Meditation Method had strengthened them until their bodies and wills reached a limit.
• Ace said the knights could advance through enlightenment or by absorbing high-quality, concentrated vitality, and proposed creating such an environment for them.

Ace devised a ritual that used sacrificed Demonic Beast corpses and life-force nourishment to help Ancesta and Arno break through to Formal Knight. Their advancement revealed a Virtue Holy Light connected to the will of ancient knights, and Ace began considering whether virtue runes could help ordinary people become extraordinary.

• Ace prepared sacrificial, refining, and absorption arrays in his laboratory, and Ancesta volunteered to undergo the ritual first.
• Logan brought his nutritional food agent, which Ancesta and Arno drank to replenish their life force before the advancement.
• Ace sacrificed five intermediate Demonic Beast corpses, and their refined life force formed a cocoon around Ancesta as his Mercy Rune solidified and he became a Formal Knight.
• Ancesta’s breakthrough revealed a Virtue Holy Light formed from the will of fallen riders, and its influence helped Arno’s Courage Rune solidify as he also advanced to Formal Knight.
• Ancesta and Arno described the light and the virtues they had sensed, while Ace concluded that a knight’s will was central to the path and considered its potential for ordinary people without Magic Talent.

Ace established the Magic Council’s highest decision-making body and began searching for a way for people without magical talent to gain extraordinary power. His experiments showed that Demonic Beast hearts could help produce blood qi, but the method was costly and unstable, so he entrusted Logan with finding a reliable catalyst while he investigated how blood qi could be cultivated.

• Ace announced the Magic Council’s formal and quasi-formal existences, and the eight formal members established the Magic Council Members’ Review Council as the territory’s highest decision-making body.
• Ace recruited volunteer test subjects to study how people without magical talent could gain extraordinary power, while funding the Caroso Institute’s research into implanting Demonic Beast flesh and blood.
• Ace found that Mimetic Virtue Runes permanently improved volunteers’ bodies and willpower, but the enhancement was limited and stronger runes killed the subjects.
• Ace discovered that eating Demonic Beast hearts containing Virtue Runes could enhance ordinary people and sometimes give them blood qi, but the result was unstable and expensive.
• Ace asked Logan to find a catalyst that could reliably produce blood qi, then failed to teach meditation to the thirteen people who had developed it because they could not use magic power.

Ace developed the Blood-Food Transport Method to help mortals cultivate Blood Qi, then investigated ways to overcome his meditation bottleneck by transforming into a dream creature. After testing the transformation on a clone, he completed spell models for Dream Form and Reverse Dream Transformation.

• Ace observed thirteen people eating Demonic Beast meat and devised the Blood-Food Transport Method, which used thirty-six postures to guide and store Blood Qi.
• Ace realized the Bright Moon Meditation Method was losing efficiency and decided he needed to study dream creatures beyond the world's outer edge to strengthen his dream core.
• Ace absorbed nearly a third of the space solute, almost doubling the size of his Soul Secret Treasury Space and expanding the True Illusion Dreamscape.
• Ace copied the Shadow Crows' dream rune sequence onto a rational clone, which transformed into a dream creature and hid in the magic net's dreamscape.
• Ace discovered the clone could not transform back because he had omitted the conversion section of the rune structure.
• Ace used Dream Crystals and repeated clone tests to create complete spell models for Dream Form and Reverse Dream Transformation.

Ambrio, Soron, and a witch discovered High Tower Territory and plotted to infiltrate it with Deception Powder. Meanwhile, Ace traveled to the Sea of Reality and Illusion, where he contracted with a creature in a fast-flowing Magicless space to escape being torn apart.

• Ambrio and Soron watched High Tower Territory while the witch warned that its defenses were well organized.
• Ambrio asked the witch for Deception Powder, and she agreed to help if he showed sincerity.
• Ace used a coordinate from the Book of Coordinates to send his avatar toward a Magicless space beyond the world.
• Ace’s information stream began to disperse in the Sea of Illusion, and the Magicless space repelled him.
• Ace established an equal contract with a creature inside the space, which then drew his avatar in.

Ace entered a strange, nearly magicless world where humans were hunted by the intelligent Mondo race, and discovered that a witch named Zi was summoning the Formless King. His arrival unleashed a storm and knocked out the people and beasts nearby, leaving Zi standing as Ace tried to communicate with her.

• Ace adapted to the strange flow of time and observed a hunting ground where Mondo nobles chased a human tribe.
• Ace used Tongue of All Languages to understand the Mondo beasts and learned that they treated humans as prey and pets.
• Zi performed a ritual to summon the Formless King, while Duan rejected the ritual and kept running from the beasts.
• Ace heard Zi's plea, gathered his information cloud, and caused darkness, lightning, rain, and an earthquake.
• Ace's whispers made the nearby beasts, humans, and animals unconscious, but Zi remained awake and seemed increasingly disturbed by his attempts to communicate.

Ace fled the draining Magicless environment by sheltering in Zi’s dream, where he discovered that his actions could affect the space’s loose rules. He planned experiments using human blood energy to create magic power and purify mental power, leaving the giant beast civilization at risk of future consequences.

• As his magic power drained away, Ace transformed into information and hid inside Zi’s dream through their contract.
• Zi woke the tribespeople and led them away from the fainted giant beasts, persuading Duan and the others that hunting them could bring retaliation from the giant beasts.
• The tribe fled to a natural cave, while Ace observed the vast gap between his life level and Zi’s and discovered he could trigger natural phenomena in the space.
• Ace decided to use the fast-flowing Magicless world to test ways of improving magic digestion and purifying mental power.
• Ace chose humans to cultivate an improved Blood-Food Transport Method and generate blood energy, unknowingly casting a shadow over giant beast civilization.

Zi and Lu led the tribe through its first day of gathering after fleeing the Mondo Beasts, while the Mondo Beasts dismissed their encounter with the Formless King as exhaustion and superstition. The tribe returned with food and useful fibers, but a tiger killed one woman, leaving Zi to learn of the loss.

• The Mondo Beasts speculated that the Formless King had appeared, but their administrator dismissed their fears and sent them to sleep after giving them Black Tulip wine.
• Zi refused to manage tribal affairs, so Lu took command and led the able-bodied adults to gather food and materials.
• Lu taught the tribe to protect themselves from Mosquitoes, weave Reed baskets, and bring unknown berries to him or Ye for inspection.
• The tribe gathered enough berries for several days and collected Milkweed Neck, but a tiger killed a woman who had fallen behind.
• Lu led the tribe back to the cave, where Zi counted the clansmen and asked why one woman was missing; Lu told her they had encountered a tiger.

Ace taught Zi the Blood-Food Transport Method through dreams, and she used the knowledge to help the tribe recover. At Duan’s coming-of-age ceremony, he questioned whether prayer alone could earn The Formless King’s protection.

• Zi worshipped the black giant shadow in a dream, but Ace’s whispers overwhelmed her and made her faint.
• Ye was killed by a tiger, and Lu led the adult men to hunt it; three men died, but they returned with the tiger’s body.
• Ace taught Zi the Blood-Food Transport Method, and she asked Lu for the tiger’s blood and heart.
• Zi taught the tribe to make pottery and practice the method’s fixed postures, though most tribespeople eventually stopped practicing.
• At Duan’s coming-of-age ceremony, Zi led a ritual dance and asked him to pray to The Formless King, but Duan argued that the tribe should earn the King’s favor through its actions.

After cultivating Blood Energy and gaining the tribe’s support, Zi grew stronger while Duan challenged Chief Lu and was forgiven. Claiming The Formless King’s Will, Zi defeated Duan and withstood Lu’s spear, then revealed Blood Energy as the King’s gift to the tribe.

• Zi condensed Blood Energy after winter and began eating enormous quantities as her body developed.
• Duan challenged Lu for leadership, lost, and was spared expulsion when Lu accepted responsibility and forgave him.
• Ace assessed Lu and Duan’s potential to help the tribe grow and develop Blood Energy Warriors.
• Zi ordered Lu and Duan to fight her, saying it was The Formless King’s Will, and swiftly knocked Duan aside.
• Lu attacked Zi with his spear, but she caught its point without bleeding, convincing him she was carrying out a divine trial.
• Zi announced that Blood Energy was The Formless King’s gift to the tribe.

Zi trained three strong hunters in the Blood-Food Transport Method, joined the tribe’s hunt, and killed a wild boar. When another tribe claimed the carcass, she faced down its leader Wu and offered a share while warning him not to underestimate her people.

• Zi taught Lu and two other strong hunters the Blood-Food Transport Method, but refused to teach Duan until he reflected on his mistakes.
• Lu welcomed Duan into the hunting party, and Zi joined after defeating the men who tried to stop her.
• Ace observed the hunt and concluded that the pocket world was Magicless only on the surface, while noting its time flowed far faster than the main world.
• Zi hunted a wild boar alone, struck it with stones, and wounded it with her spear before gathering the tribe to track it.
• Zi and her people found Wu’s tribe surrounding the dying boar, and Lu tried to negotiate with Wu by offering a pheasant.
• Wu demanded half the boar, so Zi offered one hind leg and a pheasant and warned that her tribe’s women were as strong as she was.