Chapter Summaries

Claire gave Irene jewelry Mason had made and recounted the lessons she had learned during her travels. Irene shared the difficulties and achievements of ruling the Kingdom, and Claire praised her before advising her to delegate routine matters and focus on the overall direction.

• Claire gave Irene a wooden box containing Mason's earrings, necklace, and clothing ornament, and helped Irene put on the necklace.
• Claire recounted her recent experiences and advised Irene to consider different perspectives and guard against one-sided thinking.
• Irene described the obstacles of ruling the Kingdom and complained that she spent much of her time balancing factions.
• Irene told Claire that she had extorted one billion Silver Dragon Coins from the Church and removed its noble supporters from positions of influence.
• Claire praised Irene's work and advised her to delegate tasks to Sofite and other officials instead of handling every matter herself.

Merlin brought Claire to his heavily defended Mage Tower, the Tower of Spirit Demons, and explained how its security systems could repel powerful intruders. After Claire entered the tower’s identity registry, Merlin remembered the important reason he had summoned her and led her toward the gate.

• After leaving the palace, Claire learned Merlin had sent for her and returned to his home.
• Merlin took Claire to the Tower of Spirit Demons inside the Royal Capital Magic Academy.
• Merlin scanned Claire with a magic crystal and registered her identity so she could enter safely.
• Merlin revealed the tower’s sentries, lethal defenses, summoned guards, and layered underground arrays.
• Merlin boasted that the tower could withstand Archmages, then remembered his important matter and descended to the gate with Claire.

Merlin showed Claire around his Mage Tower, explaining its defenses, mobile tower, and energy sources. Inside, Claire saw its space-folded interior and learned about the mages and assistants who lived there; Merlin then offered to continue the tour.

• Claire passed through the Mage Tower's Air Door, and Merlin explained that the spell was sold by the Tower of Sages.
• Merlin showed Claire a Flying Tower and explained its use, risks, and energy limits.
• Merlin revealed that a high-purity Magic Crystal mine and an adult epic-level dragon's magic core powered his Mage Tower.
• Claire entered the tower and discovered that Space Folding Technology made its interior more than three times larger than it appeared outside.
• A young man told Merlin that Master Morey's first potion for enhancing elemental perception was complete.
• Merlin explained why the Mage Tower's assistants and lower-ranked mages generally could not leave, then offered to show Claire around.

Merlin showed Claire the Mage Tower’s advanced facilities, including folded spaces, research rooms, and self-sufficient living areas. Claire left impressed but abandoned her hopes of building a similar tower after learning it had cost several tens of billions of Gold Coins.

• Merlin showed Claire the tower’s spell-testing floor and a double-folded botanical garden with rare Magic Plants and accelerated time.
• Merlin guided Claire through containment rooms, time-adjustable training rooms, a library, and a tool room stocked with alchemical equipment.
• Merlin showed Claire the tower’s living areas and explained how its resources supported a self-sufficient closed-loop system.
• Claire asked Merlin how much the Mage Tower had cost, hoping her savings could fund a simpler version.
• Merlin estimated its cost at over fourteen billion Silver Dragon Coins, leaving Claire convinced her money would not cover even the foundation.

Merlin showed Claire the Mage Tower and introduced her to Morey, an Alchemy Grandmaster who offered to make her potions without a crafting fee. He then revealed that he had discovered a new plane and invited Claire to explore it with him.

• Merlin led Claire to Morey's laboratory, where Morey gave Merlin a completed Elemental Potion for testing.
• Merlin introduced Claire to Morey, who offered to make potions for her without charging a crafting fee if she supplied the ingredients.
• Merlin took Claire to a secured room containing a Spatial Teleportation Array and explained why she needed to suppress her magic there.
• Merlin told Claire that he had discovered the coordinates of a new plane and asked her to explore it with him.

Merlin invited Claire to explore a newly discovered plane, and they found a barren asteroid with complete Laws. Merlin explained that it could be moved and developed into a portable private world, leaving Claire excited by its potential.

• Merlin invited Claire to explore the plane with him, and Claire accepted.
• Merlin activated the stabilized Planar Teleportation Array, and he and Claire entered the passage.
• Claire and Merlin arrived in a lifeless, barren place with thin oxygen and little magic power.
• Merlin took Claire beyond the plane’s atmosphere, where they saw that the small world was an asteroid.
• Merlin explained that the asteroid had complete Laws and could become a movable private world for experiments, and Claire grew excited.

Merlin gave Claire a valuable Small Plane to help her study the Laws and prepare for advancing to Archmage, then invited her to watch him test an Elemental Affinity Potion. The chapter left them at a locked room on the Mage Tower’s upper floor, where a bolt of lightning burst out and blasted a hole in the wall.

• Merlin explained the uses and immense value of Small Planes, including their role as transit planes, and offered one to Claire as thanks for bringing him back from the void.
• Claire accepted Merlin’s Small Plane after he joked that it could be considered a dowry, and she memorized its Spatial Coordinates.
• Merlin concealed the Small Plane, and Claire said she could move it herself because she was a spatial mage.
• Merlin invited Claire to watch him test the Elemental Affinity Potion, and she agreed.
• Merlin led Claire to a heavily locked room filled with concentrated lightning elements, where a bolt shot through the opening door and blasted a hole in the stone wall.

Merlin showed Claire a captured Archmage-level Lightning Elemental Lord and explained that his spell system relied on contracting Elemental Creatures. He prepared to use Morey's Elemental Affinity Potion to try to subdue the creature, asking Claire to observe the surroundings.

• Merlin waited for the elemental fluctuations to subside, then entered alone and brought the Lightning Elemental Lord under control.
• Claire entered and learned that Merlin had captured the Archmage-level creature in the Elemental Plane.
• Merlin explained that his Special Summoning System used contracted Elemental Creatures and spells that strengthened them in battle.
• Merlin said he had been unable to subdue the Lightning Elemental Lord after becoming lost in the void.
• Merlin asked Claire to watch for changes in the environment while he drank Morey's Elemental Affinity Potion and attempted to form a contract.

Merlin used Claire's Mental Connection Method to communicate with the Lightning Elemental Lord and successfully formed a contract with it. The Lightning Elemental Lord left through a Space Channel, and Merlin explained that it had resisted because it feared the contract was meant to kill it.

• Merlin's Elemental Affinity Potion failed to change the Lightning Elemental Lord's attitude, and Claire suggested that improved affinity could not persuade an intelligent creature.
• Claire taught Merlin the Mental Connection Method, which he tested and recognized as a powerful way to communicate with contracted creatures.
• Merlin sent a spiritual thread into the Lightning Elemental Lord's mind and used the connection to approach and form a contract with it.
• Merlin released the Lightning Elemental Lord from its cage, and it entered a Space Channel and disappeared.
• Merlin told Claire that the Lightning Elemental Lord had mistaken the contract for an attempt to kill it after being imprisoned for five or six years.

Claire relocated a Small Plane but could not decide how to use it, so she searched the free trading market for something that might help. She contacted Isaac about his Demigod's Godhead, and the chapter ended as he retrieved it from his bag.

• Claire left Merlin's Mage Tower, studied Small Plane relocation, bought the necessary materials from Sophia, and moved the plane near the Wizard Plane.
• Claire considered several ways to use the Small Plane but found none practical and decided not to sell it.
• Claire noticed her Trade Points had remained at fifteen and suspected they had a cap, so she searched the free trading market for something to help transform the plane.
• Claire opened a temporary trading interface with Isaac and asked to see the Demigod's Godhead.
• Isaac rummaged through his beastskin bag and finally pulled out a glowing object.

Claire confirmed that Isaac’s glowing object was the Godhead he wanted and learned that Isaac had killed a Behemoth demigod to obtain it. Their conversation revealed that Isaac’s world shared concepts with Claire’s, and Claire offered the Wizard Plane in exchange for the Godhead.

• Claire recognized the Godhead Isaac showed him and cautiously considered the danger of revealing it after the trade.
• Isaac explained that he had killed a Behemoth after its demigod advancement left it weakened, then kept its Godhead because its Laws were uncommon.
• Isaac told Claire that the gods lived in the Astral Realm but had fallen asleep before he was born, and that gods mastered complete authority while demigods mastered only part of it.
• Isaac said he had no particular needs and asked Claire what he could offer for the Godhead.
• Claire offered to trade the Wizard Plane, which contained complete Laws and living creatures, for Isaac’s Godhead.

Claire learned that Isaac’s world was a prison where demigods were hunted for their Godheads, so he traded information about a trader who could conceal a Godhead’s aura. He retrieved the Godhead on a Small Plane, where it suddenly began glowing without causing spatial fluctuations.

• Isaac explained that the Land of the Gods' Abandonment trapped its inhabitants and that newly advanced demigods were hunted for their Godheads and divine corpses.
• Claire offered Isaac information about a trader with a device that could conceal a Godhead’s aura, and Isaac traded him a Godhead.
• Claire went to his basement and used a Spatial Teleportation Array to reach the Small Plane before removing the Godhead from his trading space.
• The Godhead appeared as a rotating white crystal that released wisps of divinity, then erupted in intense white light.
• Claire sensed no spatial fluctuations and recognized that the light resembled what he had seen when he devoured a damaged Godhead.

Claire watched the Demigod's Godhead transform the Small Plane, first spreading plant life and then rooting itself at the plane's core. A vast vine broke through the world barrier to draw in energy, while accelerated cycles of growth and decay produced a more complex, stable ecosystem, though no animals had appeared yet.

• Claire saw white mist from the Demigod's Godhead sink into the earth and cause green plants to spread and evolve.
• The Godhead sank to the Small Plane's core, where an emerald vine burst through the world barrier and extended into the void.
• Claire realized the vine was gathering energy from outside the plane and feeding it back, accelerating the spread of greenery.
• Claire observed the plants wither and regrow through rapid life cycles, creating more varied species, water systems, rocks, and growing mineral deposits.
• Claire searched for signs of animal life but found none, not even insects.

Claire discovered that the Small Plane had become a living world filled with vegetation, rivers, and Magic Plants, with a colossal Magic Vine supplying magic power. After the divine spark transformed into the World Heart and gave her control over the plane’s Laws, Claire sealed it and concealed the Small Plane.

• Claire explored the transformed Small Plane and found low-level Magic Plants growing around the Magic Vine.
• Claire discovered that the divine spark had grown into a polygonal sphere at the Small Plane’s core.
• Claire touched the divine spark, learned it had become the World Heart, and used it to move across the plane instantly.
• Claire used the World Heart to alter grass and strengthen a Whirlwind Spell, confirming that she controlled the Small Plane’s Laws.
• Claire sealed the World Heart and moved the Small Plane to a concealed location protected by Concealment Arrays.

Claire returned to Merlin's Mage Tower to research the Small Plane and its World Heart, but the books offered no answers about how a divine spark had changed it. Merlin explained what little he knew and revealed that some mages believed World Hearts were connected to gods.

• Claire returned to the royal capital and searched the Magic Academy and Merlin's Mage Tower for information about the Small Plane.
• After five days, Merlin emerged from confinement and went to the library to speak with Claire.
• Claire asked Merlin what a World Heart was, and he explained that it was a world's core, allowing its possessor to control that world's Laws.
• Merlin said fewer than ten World Hearts had been discovered and that the known ones were controlled by top Mage Towers.
• Merlin described theories that World Hearts were more likely to exist in smaller planes and might be connected to gods.

Claire learned from Merlin how World Hearts might relate to the gods’ Divine Kingdoms and how to transform a Small Plane into a balanced, life-bearing world. After gathering Merlin’s data, she reshaped her Small Plane and accelerated time so its ecosystem could develop further.

• Claire suggested to Merlin that planes containing World Hearts might once have been the gods’ Divine Kingdoms, and Merlin judged the idea worthy of research.
• Claire asked Merlin how to make her Small Plane a life-bearing rear base, and he advised her to balance its Laws by using their world as a model.
• Merlin gave Claire the data he had used to design his own Small Plane, and Claire returned to Griffin Territory before entering her plane through a spatial array.
• Claire used the World Heart to reshape the plane’s flat terrain, create lakes and rivers, and add forests, desert, and more complex geological layers.
• After working for four or five days, Claire accelerated time beneath her so the plants could cycle and spread into more suitable habitats.

After Claire accelerated the Small Plane’s transformation, she discovered that the Magic Vine had created a vast lake of liquefied magic power. She and Isaac developed a way for Claire to draw on that power remotely, and she tested the Magic Tool by casting spells continuously without tiring.

• Claire sensed that the Small Plane’s Laws had strengthened and found that the Magic Vine’s magic power had condensed into a lake of magical liquid.
• Claire devised a plan to connect herself to the lake through spatial nodes and asked Isaac to create a Magic Tool for the connection.
• Isaac set aside other Academy of Sciences projects and began drafting blueprints for Claire’s Magic Tool.
• Several days later, Claire tested the device over the sea by casting fifth-circle Archmage-level spells for nearly half an hour without showing any sign of depletion.

Claire tested the Magic Tool that drew power from his Small Plane and decided to build a spell system around an effectively unlimited magic reserve. He went to Sophia to seek one or two Magic Ore mines so he could strengthen the Small Plane.

• Claire used the Magic Tool to unleash spells for half an hour without consuming his own magic power, then returned to his residence as a Sea Beast emerged and decided to leave its nest.
• Claire checked the Small Plane and found that the magic lake had barely lost any power, which the Magic Vine was replenishing.
• Claire chose to make the Small Plane the core of a spell-torrent system, allowing him to cast powerful spells continuously as long as his mental strength could keep up.
• Claire returned to the Mage World and told Regan he was going to the royal capital to find Magic Ore for the Small Plane.
• Claire asked Sophia for connections to one or two Magic Ore mines, and Sophia said she would not provide them for free.

Claire agreed to buy the largest Magic Ore deposits and heard Sophia’s plan to acquire more beneath mines in the Kingdom of Zesilia. Claire proposed using currency exchange and leverage to short the Kingdom of Zesilia’s currency, leaving Sophia shocked.

• Claire told Sophia she could afford the largest Magic Ore deposits with her four or five hundred million Gold Coins.
• After Claire described Mermaid Port’s success, Sophia invited her to invest in buying land in the Kingdom of Zesilia that concealed valuable Magic Ore beneath Iron Ore and a Copper Mine.
• Claire considered the mining deal and learned the Magic Ore could be worth four or five hundred million Gold Coins, but she said a fifty-fifty split would yield too little.
• Claire asked about Sophia’s liquid funds and proposed exchanging their money into Silver Dragon Coins, then using leverage in the Kingdom of Zesilia to short its currency.
• Sophia cried out in disbelief when Claire revealed her plan to short the Kingdom of Zesilia’s currency.

Claire explained to Sophia how they could borrow and leverage funds to manipulate the Kingdom of Zesilia’s currency, then buy it back after a panic-driven crash for a large profit. After agreeing to split their earnings fifty-fifty, they began discussing details, and Claire visited Irene and other acquaintances in the royal capital.

• Claire proposed borrowing money through the Mina Merchant Association and using leveraged loans to gather Zesilian currency.
• Claire explained that they could trigger panic by dumping the currency, then buy it back after it depreciated and use it to repay their loans.
• Sophia agreed to Claire’s demand for an equal share, and they sat down to discuss the plan’s details.
• Claire visited Irene at the royal palace, then spent several days in the capital visiting Yana, Hubert, and other acquaintances.