Chapter Summaries

Ace experimented on a Corrosive Jackal to discover how its acid spray worked, then developed and improved his own Acid Splash spell. He documented his findings and defined runes, magic, and mana, establishing himself as a spellcaster.

• Ace dissected a Corrosive Jackal, discovered mysterious patterns in its throat, and learned that fresh throat blood and white neck hide let him draw and activate the patterns.
• Ace deconstructed the patterns into three runes, found that they could strengthen his mental power and produce Acid Splash, and increased the spell’s range by tracing them with mental power.
• Ace tested different casting methods and materials, finding that patterned hide conserved mental power and that improved hard cards could cast Acid Splash effectively.
• Ace wrote a paper summarizing his Corrosive Jackal experiments and named the mysterious patterns runes, the nature rhythm magic, and its transcendent power mana.

Ace formalized his theories about runes, Spell Models, and magic, then experienced a breakthrough that strengthened his mental power. He completed his Spellbook and Rune Tome and planned to establish a Wizard Organization once he became a formal wizard.

• Ace classified runes and defined Spell Models, spells, casting materials, magical items, magic cards, Spellbooks, and Rune Tomes in his notes.
• After writing through the storm and hallucinations, Ace declared himself a Magic Apprentice and felt his mental power and perception of mana surge at sunrise.
• Ace tested Mana Meditation, confirming that half an hour of daily practice increased his mental power and that the same method helped it recover from exhaustion.
• A few days later, Ace completed a Spellbook and Rune Tome using materials from Corrosive Jackals and recorded his experiments in an encrypted magic diary.
• Ace decided that he would establish a Wizard Organization and train students after reaching the strength of a formal wizard.

Ace organized the growing manor by introducing slave identification and appointing Kelson to establish the Manor Affairs Department. Kelson studied Ace’s five-year plan for developing the estate into a town of nearly three thousand people, while Ace retained the slaves’ dependent status.

• Ace ordered Xixi to forge five hundred numbered iron identification tags for the manor’s slaves.
• Ace assigned Kelson to establish the Manor Affairs Department after recognizing his clerical skills and effective work as a secretary.
• Kelson organized the slave registration and personnel files, and Ace appointed him acting steward, directly responsible to Ace and Marina.
• Ace gave Kelson the Ace Manor Five-Year Development Plan, outlining a town with public facilities, industry, residential areas, commercial districts, farmland, livestock areas, and a fishing harbor.
• Kelson studied the plan and praised its scope, while Ace judged him capable of managing the manor and rejected freeing the slaves.

Ace began examining the manor’s slaves for his New Medicine and discovered that Gaul possessed unusually strong spiritual power. Gaul tried to escape with his tribe’s sacred relic, but its power plunged Ace and the pursuing veterans into a strange vision that ended with an old researcher addressing Ace.

• Ace’s manor development stalled after he ran out of Gold Taler, while Gaul recalled his capture and secretly prepared to escape with the sacred relic he had kept hidden.
• Ace began physical examinations of the slaves and sensed that Gaul’s spiritual power was far beyond that of an ordinary person.
• Gaul dug up the sacred relic and attempted to flee, but Ace used Sense Touch to find him hiding in the bushes.
• Gaul activated the relic against the pursuing veterans, covering the world in darkness and transporting Ace into a vision where an old researcher asked why his experiment had gone wrong again.

Ace escaped Gaul’s illusion and killed him with acid, then concealed the body and told Maren a false account of the attack. Back at his master’s residence, Ace began investigating the blood-red eyeball, which absorbed a thread of his mental power and flashed eerily.

• Ace broke free of Gaul’s illusion by connecting with a mysterious rhythm, then woke to find Gaul attacking him with a shortsword.
• Ace dodged Gaul’s strikes and used his Spellbook to turn sulfur into acid, killing Gaul and destroying his corpse.
• Ace took Gaul’s blood-red eyeball and woke Maren and the other veteran soldiers, claiming Gaul had tried to kill them while he stayed outside the witchcraft.
• Ace arranged for Kelson to take Maren’s group to the city-state, then returned to Marina and let her treat his wound.
• Ace hid the remaining traces of Gaul’s body and touched the blood-red eyeball with his mental power, causing it to absorb the power and flash.

Ace studied the Hallucinatory Eye, discovered hidden Soul Runes, and began investigating how they differed from ordinary runes. After city-state Inspectors investigated the suspected barbarian shaman, Ace continued his research and found that Soul Runes resisted combination with Mana Runes.

• Ace used spiritual perception to reveal a complex rune structure inside the Hallucinatory Eye and recorded his findings in his magic diary.
• Dickens Rona arrived with the city-state Inspectors, questioned Ace about the slaves, searched where the shaman had last been seen, and took Gaul's woman for investigation.
• Ace returned to studying the Hallucinatory Eye and replicated seven visible runes into the Rune Tome, while naming its hidden runes Soul Runes.
• Ace traced a Soul Rune in the air, exhausted his spiritual power, then discovered it could not combine with a Mana Rune.

Ace studied the Hallucinatory Eye and identified fourteen secondary runes, then tested combinations to develop stronger spell formulas. He finished with a more powerful meditation method and new combat and illusion spells, greatly increasing his strength.

• Ace found a Soul Mana Rune but paused his research into other Soul Runes because his mental power was insufficient to combine them.
• After a month, Ace replicated the Hallucinatory Eye’s visible runes, identified fourteen secondary runes, and organized them in his Rune Tome.
• Ace tested more than a hundred spell models, established which rune types could stack, and named effective combinations Rune Formulas.
• Ace created the Potent Secondary Meditation Method, which greatly improved his mental power and perception while excess mana strengthened his body.
• Ace developed stronger Acid Splash and Arrow spells, along with seven illusion spells, including Beguile Creatures, and added ten spell cards to his spellbook.

Ace tested his spells against the Corrosive Jackal, assessed his strengths and weaknesses, and decided to return to Medimoth City after receiving a letter from Peter. Peter welcomed him and proposed that he give a public lecture on logic at City Hall.

• Ace dispelled his charm on the Corrosive Jackal, used Lesser Illusion Gaze to exhaust it, and recorded his combat assessment in his magic diary.
• Ace decided he needed better melee, defense, and mobility, and planned to strengthen Acid Splash as a powerful finishing spell.
• Peter invited Ace back to Medimoth City to meet scholars, and Ace chose to return and discuss agriculture and judgment.
• Ace traveled to the city with two veteran mercenaries, met Romon, and went to Peter's villa.
• Peter told Ace that he planned to arrange a lecture on logic at City Hall within the next two weeks.

Ace borrowed Peter’s Mirror of Calm Contemplation and studied how it suppressed emotion while sharpening thought. After a week of research, Ace created the Secondary Mechanized Mind spell and tested its effects, then turned to preparing his upcoming speech on logic.

• Ace agreed to give his first public speech on logic two weeks later and discussed civilization’s history with Peter.
• Ace borrowed Peter’s Mirror of Calm Contemplation and used his spiritual power to examine its Soul Rune.
• Ace compared the mirror’s runes with those on the Hallucinatory Eye and worked out how to degrade some runes into secondary versions.
• Ace created a Secondary Mechanized Mind spell, used it to resist several spells cast on himself, and recorded the results in his magic diary.
• Ace began preparing material on judgments for his speech, with one week remaining before it.

Ace taught logic to the people and scholars of the city-state, building his academic reputation, before being summoned to meet the Crown Prince, Athena. Athena revealed that she was cursed by Demon Lord Gaogen and had to keep her identity secret until she came of age, leaving Ace burdened with dangerous knowledge.

• Ace gave a public lecture on judgment and promised to compile a logic exercise book for the many people who asked him questions.
• Ace taught scholars about reasoning, induction, hypotheses, verification, and the four fundamental laws of logic.
• Morton took Ace to the royal palace blindfolded, where Ace met Athena, the Crown Prince who had been hiding her identity.
• Athena arranged for Uncle Arnold to produce a Pact Scroll and reassured Ace that the royal family could protect his silence.
• Athena told Ace that Demon Lord Gaogen had cursed her and that fewer than twenty people could see her before she came of age.

Ace completed Logic and said farewell to Athena, then was attacked by Lar Bats while traveling to his estate. He survived by using his spells and a charmed bat, and learned in Buku Town that the bats migrated through the area every September.

• Ace finished Logic and its workbook, gave them to Athena, and accepted her Ring of Protection as a parting gift.
• Ace left the city-state and encountered a swarm of Lar Bats that killed and devoured his horse.
• Ace used his spells to repel the bats, charmed their strongest member, and killed most of the swarm while keeping some as experimental materials.
• Ace reached Buku Town and learned from the innkeeper that Lar Bats migrated through the region each September and attacked travelers.

Ace secured the manor’s harvest and developed brewing and composting while deciphering new runes from the Lar Bat and bracelet. His experiments produced several new spells and strengthened his meditation, leaving him anticipating the changes caused by magic as he continued his research.

• Ace ordered Kelson to rush the wheat harvest, while he patrolled the manor with the charmed Lar Bat to detect migrating bat swarms.
• After the harvest, Ace established a brewery and wheat-processing workshop, gave baijiu to the Manor Guard, and planned to sell liquor and flour the following spring.
• Kelson reported a record harvest of 300 jin per mu, and Ace tasked him with storing the grain and preparing for future trade while also organizing composting and latrine construction.
• Ace deciphered five runes and developed new abilities, including Ultrasonic Perception, Torrent of Acid, a protective membrane, Hand of Magic, and improved magic missiles and tangible illusions.
• Ace enhanced his meditation method with the Magic Crystal Rune, discovered his blood could write runes, and recorded his questions about the nature of magic and runes in his diary.

Ace developed new medical methods and practiced surgery while assisting Hicks in Dess Town. After treating a boy’s torn Achilles tendon, Ace left the clinic with payment and prepared to travel across the Salia Peninsula to practice medicine and collect runes.

• Ace used Lesser Charm Beast to gain Hicks’s trust and became his clinic assistant, where he gathered medicinal formulas and documented diseases and treatments.
• Ace transformed the clinic’s treatment methods, developed basic surgical procedures, and learned to perform simple operations.
• A father brought his son to Hicks Clinic after the boy fell in the snow, and Ace diagnosed a torn Achilles tendon.
• Ace operated on the boy and stitched his injured leg while Hicks reassured the father and arranged the boy’s recovery at the clinic.
• Ace took a bag of Gold Taler from Hicks and left Dess Town to begin traveling across the Salia Peninsula.

Ace traveled along the Pontos Coast hoping to encounter sea raiders or mermen, then used his improved Illusion Gaze to turn a raider ambush into a massacre. He defeated the surviving raider leader with Calming Technique and Beguile Creatures.

• Ace drove toward Tsimari Fishing Port, scanning the coast for low-level Demonic Beasts and potential subjects for his experiments.
• Thirty-three sea raiders split into three groups to ambush Ace’s carriage and seize him as a hostage.
• Ace spotted the raiders with Minor Ultrasonic Perception and cast Illusion Gaze, making the groups mistake one another for monsters and fight among themselves.
• The raider leader fought through the illusion and killed several of his companions, but he was left alone amid the bodies.
• Ace dispelled the illusion, calmed the leader with Calming Technique, and controlled him with Beguile Creatures.

Ace learned about the ranks of the Divinely Inspired and traveled with Yus to the pirates’ island to test Yus’s father, a seasoned Divinely Inspired. There, Ace attacked the father, who broke through the illusions and charged him, but Ace’s invisible shield stopped his sword.

• Yus explained that his father was a seasoned Divinely Inspired whose strength was close to Hero-class.
• Ace ordered Yus to lure Old Tos away and kill him, then sailed with the pirates toward their island disguised as a captive.
• Yus’s father welcomed him at the island harbor, but Ace used Lesser Illusion Gaze to attack the father and beguile the pirates.
• Yus’s father resisted the illusion, knocked Yus unconscious, and cut down the pirates as Ace hid in the shadows.
• Ace attacked with Lesser Acid Splash, but Yus’s father cleaved through the acid and struck Ace’s invisible shield with his burning short sword.

Ace defeated the seasoned God-Chosen Sharp by exploiting his ignorance and manipulating his perceptions, then captured and studied him. After dealing with the remaining sea raiders, Ace left the island and continued his research into magic power and God-Chosen.

• Sharp broke through Ace’s protective illusion and unleashed a powerful burning ring, but the attack exhausted him and Ace trapped him in an illusion that left him unconscious.
• Ace used Lesser Charm Beast to capture Sharp and took his Burning Short Sword.
• Ace recorded his meditation progress, measured his spells’ mental power costs, and studied how magic power and rune structures differed in God-Chosen.
• Ace charmed the surviving sea raiders, executed those who had killed, and buried part of their treasure on the island.
• Ace had the remaining raiders row him ashore, then sent them to the Dess Town Guild Hall to turn themselves in.

Ace deciphered new fire-related runes, created his first magical weapon, Glimmer, and left Thirty Li for Tsimari Fishing Port. There, he learned that the town’s Bonfire Festival would include a chance to receive blessings from Lord Pontos.

• Ace studied Sharp’s heart and discovered a developing Soul Rune structure along with the Fire Element, Scorching, Radiance, and Explosion Runes.
• Ace developed Lesser Firebolt, Lesser Light, Lesser Flash, and Enchantment Spell from his research.
• Ace forged and enchanted a magical short sword, engraved it with the name “Glimmer,” and prepared to leave Thirty Li.
• Ace drove to Tsimari Fishing Port and settled into its largest inn.
• Perrin offered to show Ace around and explained the Bonfire Festival, where Lord Pontos would bless a few lucky attendees.

Ace joined the Tzimali people’s Bonfire Festival and discovered that their worship of Pontos involved a power tied to the statue. After the worshippers knelt, a divine blessing shot toward Ace, who tried to block it with Glimmer.

• Ace changed into local clothing and followed Perrin through the festival, enjoying the dancing, food, and crowds.
• Ace entered a meditative state while sensing the celebration, but recoiled after his spiritual perception touched the presence connected to Pontos’s statue.
• Ace watched spiritual and magical power gather around the statue and wondered whether the multicolored energy was the power of faith.
• At ten o’clock, Ace and the crowd prostrated themselves before the statue, whose gathered light vanished and left small glowing fragments drifting through the air.
• A fragment of light flew toward Ace when his spiritual power touched it, and Perrin recognized it as Pontos’s blessing.
• Ace drew Glimmer and tried to block the approaching blessing, fearing the danger of touching an unknown divine creation.

Ace received an unexplained blessing at the Tzimali Bonfire Festival and investigated the Blessed Ones, learning that their intense wishes could come true and that they accumulated magic power. He followed the Blessed warrior Taggart and his companions out of the city, drove them into a panic with illusions, and knocked them unconscious at a reef.

• Ace examined the rainbow orb attached to Glimmer, found that it sought conscious spiritual power, and refused to let it reach his body.
• Ace questioned Perrin and other locals, learning that Blessed Ones could fulfill intense wishes but mysteriously disappeared in old age.
• Ace used Ultrasonic Perception to locate Blessed Ones and observed that Taggart had gained extraordinary strength and intuition after receiving a blessing.
• Ace followed Taggart and his companions as they killed merfolk, then used Illusion Gaze to make them flee from an imagined horde.
• Ace followed the group to a reef and used Dizzying Spell to knock them unconscious.

Ace investigated the Blessed Ones and developed a way to extract and preserve their light spheres, then spent months practicing medicine and painting in Tsimari. He completed a mural inspired by the Bonfire Festival, leaving him poised to resume his spiritual advancement.

• Ace examined Taggart and other Blessed Ones, removed some light spheres, and used Beguile and Illusion Gaze to control their memories before sending them away on a false bounty mission.
• Over the following month, Ace concluded that light spheres transformed their hosts into devout believers of Pontos and created a bronze Meditation Rune Array mirror to draw Glimmer’s light sphere into storage.
• Ace practiced medicine at Hel’s clinic and painted portraits in Tsimari, earning praise from locals who believed Pontos had blessed his talents.
• For three months, Ace treated patients by day and painted a vast mural of the Bonfire Festival by night, deepening his understanding of art and spell models.
• Ace abandoned his portrait stall when his inspiration returned, completed the mural with the gathered crowd watching, and wrote, “Within the darkness, I am the light.”