Chapter Summaries

Lu built relations with the neighboring tribes while Zi’s hunting prowess raised the Lu Tribe’s reputation. When summer brought a surplus of meat that threatened to spoil, Ace taught Zi preservation methods, and the tribe began preparing to make smoked meat, dried fruit, and glazed pottery.

• Lu explained that sharing meat with the Wu Tribe helped establish good relations and gave the newcomers information about Luca Grassland and its winter mating gathering.
• Over the following days, Zi helped the Lu Tribe hunt and became famous among neighboring tribes for her strength.
• Lu worried that the tribe’s growing meat supply would spoil, so Zi prayed and entered Ace’s dream to ask how to preserve food.
• After repeated attempts, Ace taught Zi how to make smoked meat, dried fruit, and vacuum-preserved food using glazed pottery.
• Lu went to trade meat with the Wu Tribe for salt while Zi fired smooth, grayish-white pottery jars and wondered whether they were porcelain.

Zi’s tribe prepared food and supplies for winter while planning to trade surplus provisions for people at the coming Mating Assembly. Lu became the second blood-energy cultivator, and Zi worried that preserved food would not provide enough vitality for new warriors as winter began.

• Lu returned with salt and alkali after visiting the Wu Tribe and trading with the powerful Kham Tribe, and he told Zi’s group about their houses, cloth, and customs.
• Zi’s tribe made and sealed forty vats of smoked meat and dried fruit to store food for winter and trade at the Mating Assembly.
• Lu cultivated the Blood-Food Transport Method and became the tribe’s second blood-energy cultivator.
• The thirty-five members of the tribe began cultivating, and the first snow fell a month later.
• Zi worried that smoked meat provided too little vitality for new warriors, but Lu reassured her that he and Zi could protect the tribe until winter passed and they could hunt fresh prey again.

Lu expanded the Lu Tribe through food-for-people exchanges, while Ace spread faith in The Formless King through Zi the Witch’s whispers. After Duan became the tribe’s third warrior and pledged himself to the King, his ambition ignited the emotions Ace had gathered in the dream.

• Lu refused to intervene when Bear Tribe members drove out their elderly, then traded cooked meat with the Wu Tribe, Tree Tribe, and Horn Tribe for people.
• Zi the Witch’s ritual and Ace’s whispered influence spread faith in The Formless King and discouraged hostility among the tribes.
• The Lu Tribe grew to sixty-one people, then continued trading for men and women as winter came.
• By spring, the Lu Tribe had eighty-one members and had become Luca Grassland’s second-largest tribe.
• Duan cultivated blood qi and became the Lu Tribe’s third warrior, then knelt and praised The Formless King.
• Ace saw Duan’s ambition ignite the gathered emotions in the dream and realized a person’s strongest desire could spark the fire of emotion.

Lu supported Duan's plan to visit the Kham Tribe, and Zi opened her right eye to take them into Ace's dream realm to meet The Formless King. After witnessing Ace's overwhelming presence, Lu and Duan returned to the cave with their faith and submission strengthened.

• Lu told Duan and Zi that food storage would help the Lu Tribe grow stronger and urged them to keep faith in The Formless King.
• Duan announced that he would go to the Kham Tribe to learn the secret of its strength, and Lu supported him while warning him against foreign gods.
• Zi opened her right eye, summoned a storm, and transported Lu and Duan into Ace's dream realm.
• Ace sensed the pocket world's response to his presence and considered whether the dream's growing reality could help him make the True Illusion Dreamscape real.
• Zi warned Duan that the King's realm could overwhelm his reason, then led him and Lu to the towering black figure, which Lu recognized as The Formless King's living divine kingdom.
• At sunrise, Zi, Lu, and Duan returned to the cave, where Lu and Duan instinctively kept their distance from Zi.

Duan returned from the Kham Tribe after escaping an attack that left much of the tribe burned and its people dead or injured. He warned Lu that the Lu Tribe had to leave Luca Grassland immediately.

• Duan became a devoted follower of The Formless King and left for the Kham Tribe with gifts from Lu.
• Over the following year, the Lu Tribe strengthened its ties with Luca Grassland’s other tribes, while Zi spread the King's gospel and four new Blood Energy Warriors emerged.
• Duan learned many skills in the Kham Tribe, but when Tulu and the others tried to kill him to protect their secrets, he escaped by setting huts ablaze and knocking down his attackers.
• Duan rode south on a tamed wild horse, with a herd of wild horses following him, while the Kham Tribe struggled to put out the fire.
• Duan reunited with Lu and urgently warned him that the Lu Tribe had to leave Luca Grassland.

After Duan warned that the Kham Tribe would seek revenge, Zi used Ace’s aura to unite the six tribes of the Luca Grassland against them. The new Luca Alliance prepared to defend itself and sent Zi north to scout the Kham Tribe.

• Duan warned Lu that he had escaped the Kham Tribe after they tried to burn him alive, and Lu ordered the tribe to prepare to flee or fight.
• Zi argued that the Lu Tribe should unite the other tribes, then learned to tame a horse while Duan’s people made bone saws and wooden shields.
• The Bear, Horn, Wu, Tree, and River tribes arrived, and Zi used a trace of Ace’s aura to persuade them to form an alliance of faith.
• Duan proclaimed the Luca Alliance, and Lu and Duan counted more than five hundred and fifty people among the six tribes.
• Lu chose to defeat the Kham Tribe rather than flee, while the tribes made shields and traps and Zi rode north to scout.

Zi discovered that the Kham Tribe was marching south to avenge the destruction of its settlement, and Duan helped lure its warriors into Lu’s prepared traps. The six tribes defeated the invading force, and Ace sensed a faint magic reaction in the blood-soaked battlefield.

• Zi learned that Kask was leading the Kham tribesmen south to attack the Lu Tribe and sent word to Lu.
• Duan persuaded the chiefs to let him lure the Kham force toward the connected pits, then arranged a false ambush with Zi.
• Duan provoked the Kham warriors, and Zi’s group ambushed Rimuss and his fifty pursuers before retreating with Duan.
• Kask pursued Duan’s group into the trap ground, where Lu’s warriors sprang their ambush and killed nearly all the Kham invaders.
• Ace sensed a faint magic reaction rising from the battlefield after the six tribes celebrated their victory.

Zi's dream helped unite the six grassland tribes into the Luca Tribe, while Ambrio infiltrated the High Tower Territory and took control of Caro's Shadow Crow. Caro awoke after enduring a nightmare of pain, unaware of the crow's new contract with him.

• Zi opened her Hexagram-patterned eye, and the battlefield fell into a dream that erased the enemies' corpses and memories.
• Lu declared the victory a triumph for The Formless King, and, with Zi's support, the six tribes merged into the Luca Tribe.
• Ambrio used Deception Powder to infiltrate the High Tower Territory as a shadow, then possessed a Shadow Crow by sacrificing its true spirit with Pain Flame.
• Caro told his tavern friends about liches and possible paths to becoming extraordinary before leaving for home on his Magic flying carpet.
• Ambrio's Shadow Crow incapacitated Caro, burned away their old contract, formed a new one, and hid in Caro's shadow.
• Caro woke the next morning after dreaming of crows wreathed in flames pecking at him.

Caro woke with a painful, incomplete memory of getting drunk, while Ace studied the Pocket World and found that its time flowed far faster than the main material plane. In the Pocket World, Duan led the Royal Selection Tribal Alliance toward victory and Ace subdued the aura formed by its worshippers, which took the shape of a wolf.

• Caro woke in a dark room with a headache and no memory of how he had gotten home, while a crow-shaped shadow briefly appeared over his own.
• Ace calculated that one Pocket World year equaled roughly one to one and a half hours in the main material plane and reviewed the progress of blood-energy cultivation.
• Ace noted that the crude Blood-Food Transport Method had developed into a warrior cultivation method, but still lacked a path to a level equivalent to a High-Level Apprentice.
• Duan led more than a thousand mounted members of the Royal Selection Tribal Alliance against the Buli Tribal Alliance after eleven years of conflict.
• Ace sensed the tribal aura produced by the worship of more than three thousand people and, through Zi the Witch's ritual, appeared as a huge black figure.
• The wolf-shaped tribal aura challenged Ace's shadow, but the shadow suppressed it and forced it to expose its belly.

Ace discovered that tribal essence nourished his true spirit as the Royal Selection Tribal Alliance defeated the Buli Tribal Alliance and founded the Kingdom of Royal Selection. As Duan’s people celebrated, the Mondo Kingdom’s army surrounded them, intending to destroy the rising human kingdom.

• Ace’s dream avatar found that the black wolf’s breath replenished his magic and improved his spiritual power, and Ace set aside part of the dream world for the wolf.
• Duan led the Royal Selection Tribal Alliance through a long war against the Buli Tribal Alliance, rejected its envoy’s plea for peace, and accepted its surrender after its leader’s death.
• Zi crowned Duan Human Co-Lord, and the black wolf devoured the Buli Tribal Alliance’s tribal essence, strengthening Ace through their shared true spirit.
• Ace used accumulated emotion and faith to refine a small amount of a pure spiritual substance that enhanced spiritual power.
• Duan declared the establishment of the Kingdom of Royal Selection, but the Mondo Kingdom’s forces surrounded the humans and prepared to wipe them out.

Duan led the Kingdom of Royal Selection’s survivors through a desperate escape from the Mondo Beasts, while Ace was prevented from directly intervening in their war. Three months later, with Duan’s remaining Chosen Warriors surrounded, Zi ignited her Blood Energy in a final bid to protect humanity.

• Duan and his clansmen were trapped in the ruined city by the Mondo Beasts, as the black wolf born from Zi’s clan qi battled the beasts’ gathered aura.
• Ace briefly acted through Zi’s right eye, killing more than thirty Mondo Beasts with a black beam cannon before the miniature world’s consciousness warned him not to intervene again.
• Duan decided to break out at night, split the clansmen into two fleeing groups, and escaped with more than eighty Chosen Warriors of the King.
• Three months later, more than a thousand Mondo Beasts surrounded Duan and fewer than sixty Chosen Warriors, demanding that they surrender their methods of communicating with the gods and cultivating Blood Energy.
• Zi invoked the Great Formless King, then ignited her Blood Energy with her will and advanced toward the Mondo Beast General.

Zi's Heartfire helped humanity escape the giant beasts, but it consumed her life, leaving Duan with her Dreamy Eye and a flame mark. Two hundred years later, humanity had conquered the Mondo Kingdom, while Ace changed how he handled faith to avoid being shaped into a human-made god.

• Zi's Heartfire burned the giant beasts as she led Duan and the others to safety, and Ace discovered that desire fueled the fire and that it could burn life, souls, and magic.
• Zi died after giving Duan a flame mark, and Duan vowed that humanity would never be enslaved.
• Caro, unknowingly controlled by Ambrio, went toward the Harbor District with a Shadow Crow perched on his shoulder.
• Over two hundred years, humanity learned to control Heartfire, defeated the Mondo Kingdom, and built a human nation over its ruins.
• Ace separated faith from clan qi, allowing the Dreamy Eye to absorb faith while he took in only refined clan qi.

Ace developed the Dawn Bright Moon Heart Flame Meditation Method by igniting his heart flame from his deepest desires and using it to purify foreign magical power. The new method let him convert meditation energy in a day rather than half a month.

• Ace condensed the vitality in his body into blood qi, boosting his physical and mental strength close to the peak of Level 1 life.
• Ace identified greed for knowledge and pride in his path as the deepest foundations of his will, then combined them into a flame seed.
• Ace ignited his blood qi with the flame seed and formed his heart flame.
• Ace drew the heart flame into his True Illusion Dreamscape and adjusted its output to burn away foreign magical power's alien properties while preserving its essence.
• Ace absorbed the purified dawn and bright moon essence, completing in hours a conversion that had previously taken half a month, and named the method the Dawn Bright Moon Heart Flame Meditation Method.

Ace’s meditation strengthened his body and soul, but a sudden warning led him to perform an astrological divination. It revealed great fortune beyond the world and great misfortune within, while Ambrio prepared to destroy Caro’s work.

• Ace reached 91 marks of soul strength and 82 marks of physical strength, and believed he could attain Level 1 life within a year.
• After dropping a glass and sensing danger, Ace visited Taluna to learn about astrological divination.
• Ace projected the stars into his True Illusion Dreamscape and used them to create a prophecy spell.
• Ace received the warning, “Beyond, great fortune. Within, great misfortune,” and decided to go beyond the world to a pocket world and advance quickly.
• Ambrio revealed that Caro had created eight beings comparable to Heroes and more than a hundred with Hero-class strength, then left the High Tower Territory undetected.

Ace entered the pocket world in his true body, explored the dream realm and its rules, and reunited with his clone inside the Right Eye of God. After studying the dream kingdom’s faith mechanism, he ignited its accumulated desires and faith into a sphere of divine power.

• Ace cast Dream Form of the true body and tested transformations between the dream plane, shadow plane, and main material plane before entering the pocket world.
• During a ritual to choose the noblest witch, the Right Eye of God opened a gate to the dream realm, prompting the Chosen Warriors and Co-Lord Xi to rush toward the altar.
• Ace arrived in the pocket world and sensed its subconscious welcoming him, but rejected its temptation to remain there.
• Ace’s clone opened the dream gate through the Right Eye of God, and a trace of Ace’s magic power strengthened Xi’s heartfire and carried him into the gate.
• Ace reunited with his clone in the dream kingdom and studied how its deceased believers lived on within the dream world.
• Ace ignited the dream world’s accumulated desires with faith, creating a blazing sphere of divine power.

Ace transformed the dream world into a divine kingdom and created a Human Divine Position, but refused to become a god before studying the process. On the main material plane, Ambrio flew toward the witches’ camp, where Soron confronted him.

• Ace refined the dream world’s faith into divine power and separated five forms of divinity, including humanity and four aspects associated with the King.
• Ace and Co-Lord Xi arranged a nationwide sacrifice, whose accumulated faith produced a rune that helped Ace create the racial Divine Position of humanity.
• Ace created a godhead and transformed the dream world into a divine kingdom, then sent a rational incarnation into the divine light.
• Ambrio flew to the witches’ camp as a Shadow Crow, evading Soron’s sword, and Soron warned him against acting arrogantly.

Ambrio and the witch agreed to target the High Tower Territory’s growing population of powerful scholars, with Ambrio setting out to draw the Punisher Organization into the plan. At the Punishers’ headquarters, Karim’s meeting classified the Dark Crow Devil as a major threat and warned that he might represent a new blasphemous system.

• Ambrio told the witch that the High Tower Territory’s extraordinary scholars threatened their plan and had to be eliminated.
• The witch recalled how Lust had answered her desperate plea for strength, and she agreed that the scholars’ new attachments had no place in the world they had arranged.
• Ambrio flew north to leak news to the Punisher Organization, while the witch quietly wondered why someone had appeared too late.
• At the Punisher headquarters in Milne City, a report described the Dark Crow Devil’s attacks, strength, and ability to escape, and recommended raising his Punishment Sequence to ninth place.
• Karim announced that Lady Ashley, the Divine Artisan, judged the Dark Crow Devil to represent a new Blasphemous System distinct from the Fire Thief Alliance’s Mechanical System.

Nicholas ordered Ahmed to find the mysterious Dark Crow Devil, whom the Fire Thief Alliance hoped to recruit as an ally. In Ace’s miniature world, humanity’s victory over the giant beasts unified its racial fortune and allowed Ace’s avatar to merge with the human Subconscious Sea, gain the World Origin’s gifts, and become humanity’s Sole God.

• Ahmed told Nicholas that the Punisher Organization had killed Tesla and described the Dark Crow Devil’s unfamiliar abilities, then volunteered to search for him with a new miniature mechanical device.
• Xi defeated the giant beasts’ allied armies, founded humanity’s first empire, and ruled as King of All Kings while the Formless King became Overgod Ai.
• Ace observed that the Human Divine Position remained unstable and sent the aging Xi to lead an expedition against the remaining giant beasts.
• The giant beasts used the Blood Energy Cultivation Method to fight back, killing Xi and most of his Chosen Warriors, after which humanity’s kingdoms fragmented.
• After decades of bloody campaigns, Charlie wiped out the giant beasts and was crowned King of All Kings, causing the Right Eye of God to ascend and vanish.
• Humanity’s unified Subconscious Sea called to Ace, whose avatar merged with it and received the miniature world’s origin, becoming the Sole God of Humanity.

Ace absorbed humanity’s tribal essence and the Pocket World’s origin, strengthened his True Illusion Dreamscape, and advanced to Level 2 life. He sought to use the people’s faith to form a divine portfolio of dreams and manifestation, but conflict and ancestor worship threatened to dilute his authority, so he considered intervening.

• Ace absorbed the Pocket World’s origin and humanity’s tribal essence, strengthening his True Illusion Dreamscape and raising his mental and physical strength.
• Over nearly twenty years, Ace’s Divine Avatar supplied him with tribal essence, and he condensed the divine portfolios of War, Formlessness, Fear, and Supremacy.
• Ace’s true body broke through into the Pocket World, absorbed its origin aura, and expanded his Mindscape.
• Ace decreed that Overgod Ai would be called Supreme Dream God Ai and sought to create a divine portfolio tied to dreams and manifestation through human faith.
• Disputes between the human kingdoms spread, and their people began deifying their ancestors, leading Ace to consider intervening before his authority weakened further.

Ace helped the Church consolidate authority across the human kingdoms, then spent decades gathering dream divinity in the Pocket World. With his new Eye of Delusion Breaking (Pseudo) spell, he prepared to obtain the dream priesthood, and the Church leaders proclaimed a worldwide Dream Rite.

• Ace became Natasha III’s aide and advised her to establish the Office of Heretical Faith Judgement and its Judgement Knights.
• Natasha III issued the July Edict defining heresy, and the Church used excommunication and executions to extend its authority over the kingdoms.
• Nobles plotted to assassinate Ace and Natasha III; Ace died of his wounds, and the Church increased its power by stationing Judgement Knights throughout the kingdoms.
• Ace created and activated the Three-Ring Spell Eye of Delusion Breaking (Pseudo), which let him inspect rune structures and uncover secrets within the Pocket World.
• Ace’s Divine Avatar declared that humanity’s rite could awaken the dream priesthood, and Natasha III and the Church’s senior leaders proclaimed the Dream Rite.