Recaps

Leo endured the volcanic heat to evolve his heat resistance, but a battle outside the crater exposed his hiding place to the powerful wizard Nox. After Nox attacked, Leo escaped the blast with Shadow Jump, though he remained in grave danger.

• Leo pushed his body through the volcano’s extreme heat, then began recovering with potions and his Healing Rune Array when Benji warned him that wizards were fighting outside.
• A wounded teacher from the Purple Flame Wizard Academy fell into the crater, and his glance revealed Leo’s hiding place to Nox.
• Leo climbed out of the crater and saw that Nox’s power left him with little hope of surviving a direct fight.
• Nox attacked without speaking, but Leo used Shadow Jump to escape the blast and reappeared fifty meters away.

Leo and Ice Woman were captured by Nox, a level two wizard, but Gru arrived and transformed into a Furious Giant to confront him. With Purple Flame reinforcements still fifteen breaths away, Nox faced Gru while Leo remained bound.

• Nox launched a sweeping attack at Leo, but Ice Woman blocked much of it with fifteen ice walls, allowing Leo to survive and restore his mana with the Black Pearl Potion.
• Nox recognized Ice Woman as the wizard with an innate ice physique and tried to capture her and Leo; her Ice Break Thousand Kills Grand Witchcraft briefly froze his earthen chains before they bound and injured both of them.
• Nox lifted the bound Leo and Ice Woman into the air, but Gru arrived from Tiyama City and attacked him with a powerful punch.
• Gru activated his Wild Giant Bloodline, then his Enraged Giant Bloodline, growing from a three-meter Wild Giant into a nearly ten-meter Furious Giant.
• Nox regarded Gru and the captured apprentices as unusually important, while Leo counted fifteen breaths until the Purple Flame reinforcements were due to arrive.

Nox and Gru fought to a stalemate while Leo and the injured Ice Woman waited for Purple Flame Academy’s reinforcements. Nox revealed that he had formed a large Teleportation Witch Array, and Gru answered by opening a smaller one of his own as an unknown wizard approached.

• Nox used air waves and a protective barrier to keep Gru’s Furious Giant at a distance, while neither wizard could seriously injure the other.
• Leo thanked Ice Woman for protecting him, and she said it was her mission despite her serious injuries.
• Gru summoned an enormous battle-axe and pressed Nox, who dodged while continuing to trace glowing lines beneath his feet.
• Leo recognized that Nox had completed a Teleportation Witch Array, and spatial force sent Gru flying as an unknown wizard’s aura emerged from the other side.
• Gru grew to eleven meters in a rage and opened a small Teleportation Witch Array in his hand.

Leo was rescued when three level three wizards converged on the battle between Purple Flame Academy and Black Skull Academy, and Gru carried him back to Tiyama City. There, Leo learned that Black Skull Academy had abducted young people from five neighboring academies and that Purple Flame Academy’s conflict with it had escalated.

• The Purple Flame Academy vice dean arrived to help Gru, while Nox summoned ten Black Skull Academy wizards and activated the Black Skull Stigmata Gift.
• Two more level three wizards appeared, freed Leo and Ice Woman, and joined the battlefield as a spatial rift opened above them.
• Gru took Leo away from the battle and flew him back to Tiyama City, while Ice Woman departed separately.
• Leo reunited with Samatchi, who told him Black Skull Academy had abducted people under twenty from five neighboring academies and concealed the kidnappings by triggering a beast tide.
• Samatchi explained that Purple Flame Academy and Black Skull Academy had fought dozens of battles over the past year, and Purple Flame Academy was sending reinforcements.

Samatchi offered Leo a bargain: he would teach him elemental wizardry in exchange for Leo helping his son Nigel once if trouble arose. After signing a binding contract, Leo began his lessons, but Samatchi’s first question left him confused.

• Samatchi introduced his son Nigel and explained that he feared Nigel would lose the family estate after his death.
• Samatchi asked Leo to promise to help Nigel once in exchange for instruction, and Leo agreed because he valued the chance to learn from a Peak Wizard Apprentice.
• Leo and Samatchi signed a contract requiring Samatchi to teach him fully and Leo to help Nigel if he faced trouble.
• Samatchi began teaching Leo elemental wizardry and asked what knowledge rested on and how it was acquired, leaving Leo puzzled.

Leo studied calculation and elemental knowledge under Samatchi, discovering that he could use his improved mind to understand the world through numbers and develop his own methods. After a year, he combined elemental study with body-refining training and began learning how wizards used knowledge and innovation to master witchcraft, leaving him at the beginning of understanding his own abilities.

• Samatchi tested Leo with a hundred sets of calculation problems, and Leo completed them with full marks in two days.
• Samatchi began teaching Leo elemental knowledge and calculations, and Leo devoted himself to studying until Benji abandoned the lessons in fear of seeing existence as numbers.
• After a year, Gru returned to Tiyama City and demanded that Leo keep training his body and raise his defense above 100 points.
• Leo showed Gru an Electric Arc Rune Array he had designed to strengthen his body, but Gru kicked him away as he rambled about future training arrays.
• Leo continued studying in Samatchi's library and learned that elemental wizards adapted and innovated witchcraft according to their individual characteristics.
• Leo's elemental attributes proved mediocre, with lightning slightly stronger than his other elements, while his shadow talent remained powerful.

Leo studied elemental wizardry and considered the demanding path of combining it with body refinement, then focused on an experiment to make his body produce toxins. Samatchi suggested modifying an existing organ instead of creating a new one, leaving Leo absorbed in a new direction for his research.

• Leo compared his elemental spell output of 200 attack power with his body refinement output of 400 and learned that elemental body refinement wizards combined both systems.
• Leo declined to pursue elemental body refinement because he lacked the resources to cultivate two paths, and Samatchi said he had never known anyone nearby to succeed.
• Leo told Samatchi that he had dissected 17 species of poisonous creatures in 253 experiments while studying how to create a toxin-producing organ.
• Leo explained that he hoped an internal toxin-producing organ would replace the need to buy and consume poisons for body refinement.
• Samatchi advised Leo to modify an existing detoxifying organ rather than create a new one, prompting Leo to consider making his body's detoxification systems carry toxins.

Leo struggled with the temptation to experiment on humans from Earth, then confessed his thoughts to Gru, who offered to help him find suitable materials in exchange for a share of the results. Gru also revealed the heavy casualties in the battle at the volcanic crater, leaving Leo concerned that conflict would continue.

• Leo devised a new experimental procedure and considered using humans from Earth as test subjects, but his conscience overwhelmed him.
• Leo ran to Samatchi's training ground, pushed himself under five times gravity, and was knocked unconscious by Gru.
• Leo told Gru about his experiment and his thoughts of using humans as subjects; Gru warned him against harming civilians and the consequences of violating wizard rules.
• Gru offered to find suitable experimental materials and help Leo in exchange for a share if the experiment succeeded.
• Leo ate with Gru, who recounted the severe losses at the volcanic crater, including the deaths of all seven first-level wizards from Black Skull Academy.

Leo completed his tonsil-modification experiment after years of testing toxins on humanoid slaves, then used his Shadow Talent to manage the dangerous effects of modifying his own tonsils. With the first of his three planned experiments finished, he turned his attention to investigating the mysteries of his Shadow Talent.

• Gru brought ten humanoid slaves to Leo, who promised them commoner rights if they helped with his experiments.
• Leo tested the slaves' bodies and reactions to toxins; three died, several were left gravely ill, and he had Gru buy more subjects.
• After two years of experiments, Leo determined that tonsils were more suitable for modification than detoxification organs, and he released the four surviving slaves with commoner rights.
• Leo infected his own tonsils with Lanconxin, but the resulting swelling and fever became severe after he misjudged the toxin dosage.
• Leo used his Shadow Talent to absorb toxins from his body, easing his symptoms as his modified tonsils stimulated his cells to evolve.
• Leo recorded the tonsil experiment as complete and planned to study the essential mysteries of his Shadow Talent next.

After ten years of training in Tiyama City, Leo graduated from Gru’s body-refinement instruction and began honing his combat skills by luring beasts with an energy crystal. His hunt drew a level-one Triple-Armored Sharp-Helm Beast, which Leo eagerly prepared to face.

• Leo modified Gru’s tonsils with Lancoxin, then spent years strengthening his body with toxin stimulation and rune arrays.
• Gru formally graduated Leo after his defense reached 100 points, giving him a massive greatsword and telling him to pursue the rest of his path alone.
• Leo borrowed an energy crystal from Samatchi’s city lord’s residence and used it to attract beasts outside Tiyama City.
• Leo slaughtered the beasts with Gru’s greatsword, relying on his powerful defense to withstand their attacks.
• A level-one beast’s roar drove away the remaining beasts, and Leo spotted an adult Triple-Armored Sharp-Helm Beast approaching.

Leo fought a Triple-Armored Sharp-Helm Beast, using Shadow Jump and strikes at its vulnerable hindquarters to overcome its formidable defenses. After Leo severed both hind-leg tendons, the beast caught him with a concealed counterattack and sent him crashing through the woods with broken ribs.

• Leo unleashed his full strength and wounded the Triple-Armored Sharp-Helm Beast’s neck, then escaped its tail strike with Shadow Jump.
• Leo attacked the beast’s vulnerable rear, inflicting a severe wound that enraged it and provoked a devastating storm attack.
• After the beast’s rampage weakened it, Leo cut one hind-leg tendon and then severed the tendon in its other hind leg.
• The Triple-Armored Sharp-Helm Beast concealed its killing intent and struck Leo with its tail, breaking ribs and hurling him through the woods.
• The Triple-Armored Sharp-Helm Beast collapsed with both hind legs disabled and lay panting heavily.

Leo survived the Triple-Armored Sharp-Helm Beast, recovered, and spent years honing his combat skills by hunting beasts around Tiyama City. When Gru summoned him back for apprentice selection, Leo reunited with Alice and learned they had been assigned to compete together in the Six-Academy Joint Championship.

• Leo used Shadow Jump to recover from the Triple-Armored Sharp-Helm Beast's attack, severed its tail and hind legs, and defeated it.
• Leo recovered in a cave by eating the beast's meat while the Healing Rune Array repaired his injuries, and Benji challenged his dissatisfaction with his performance.
• Leo spent years fighting beasts around Tiyama City, improving his combat awareness and body while killing 15 of the 178 level-one beasts he encountered.
• Gru contacted Leo and ordered him to return to Tiyama City for the final apprentice selection of his garrison assignment.
• Leo found Alice waiting in the hall, where she told him the academy had assigned them to team up for the Six-Academy Joint Championship two years later.

Leo learned that the Six-Academy Joint Championship would pit sixty thousand wizard apprentices against one another in a lethal ten-year contest, then prepared for it by selling his stored treasures and buying lightning-enhancing equipment. He left Skye’s shop with a wizard robe and staff after Skye priced the gear and three energy crystals at exactly one million Wizard Coins.

• Alice told Leo that the championship would allow killing, last ten years, and require him to survive, while she planned to protect him.
• Gru explained that the championship was mainly a way for the academies to select apprentices worth investing resources in.
• With two years remaining, Leo sold the treasures stored in his Shadow Space and earned nine hundred and seventy thousand Wizard Coins.
• Leo visited Skye to buy equipment for the championship and chose three energy crystals, a wizard robe, and a lightning-enhancing staff.
• Skye explained that the robe and staff could boost lightning attacks by up to one hundred and fifty points, then charged Leo exactly one million Wizard Coins for the set and crystals.

Leo prepared for the contest for supremacy, then teleported with Alice into the battlefield, where they immediately killed newly arrived wizard apprentices and began hunting survivors. Alice warned Leo that Black Skull Academy apprentices were especially skilled and dangerous.

• Leo learned the contest would last ten years and that the Purple Flame Academy would guarantee advancement to a level one formal wizard for its top ten survivors.
• Leo spent the remaining time studying elemental witchcraft with Samatchi before his and Alice’s twenty-year assignment in Tiyama City ended.
• Leo and Alice teleported to the contest zone, where Alice froze seven Big Ben Wizard Academy apprentices and Leo shattered them to claim their rings and badges.
• As the slaughter spread among the sixty thousand apprentices, Alice led Leo through the battlefield and attacked a wizard apprentice concealed inside a tree.
• Leo killed the wounded Black Skull Academy apprentice after he offered his badge and ring, and Alice warned Leo to be wary of Black Skull’s superior killing skills.

Leo and Alice waited to ambush three Heluoluo Wizard Academy apprentices, but a flying top-tier apprentice interrupted the fight. Leo recognized him as the man who had once thrown him onto an altar and lost control as painful memories and a desire for revenge resurfaced.

• Leo and Alice used an Ice Mirror to watch three Heluoluo Wizard Academy apprentices lying in wait, then stayed hidden for half a month.
• When the Heluoluo apprentices attacked two women from Whisper Secret Realm Wizard Academy, Leo and Alice prepared to strike as soon as the women died.
• A flying top-tier wizard apprentice appeared above the battlefield, forcing the Heluoluo apprentices to stop fighting and defend themselves.
• Leo recognized the flying apprentice as the man who had thrown him onto an altar, triggering memories of the suffering he had endured.
• Leo's aura wavered as mana surged through him, and the five apprentices on the battlefield turned toward his hiding place.

Alice and Leo encountered Abigail, who killed three Heluoluo Academy apprentices, before Adelaide and six Black Skull Academy apprentices ambushed them. Alice was trapped by Adelaide while Leo was cornered by the other six.

• Abigail killed three Heluoluo Academy apprentices by hurling them high into the air, then told Alice that the top apprentices from the other academies had appeared.
• Alice left with Leo and denied his hostile feelings toward Abigail, warning him that he was too weak to challenge Abigail.
• Adelaide and six Black Skull Academy apprentices surrounded Alice and Leo, and Alice identified Adelaide as Black Skull Academy's top apprentice.
• The Black Skull apprentices attacked, but Alice used Thousand-Kill Ice Seal to disrupt them and tried to flee with Leo.
• Adelaide blocked Alice with stone giants while Leo escaped with Thunder Flash, but six Black Skull apprentices trapped him behind a barrage of fireballs.

Leo used shadow ambushes and his exceptional body-refinement defenses to kill six Black Skull wizard apprentices, then disappeared before more wizards could arrive. Alice and Adelaide were still locked in a fierce battle, with neither gaining a decisive advantage.

• Leo used illusions and shadow jumps to ambush and kill Jialuolin and Keniyasi, then killed Xinima with his greatsword.
• Leo broke through Lamanlade’s rock defense and killed him, surviving burst fireballs from the two remaining apprentices.
• Leo endured a direct burst fireball and killed the last Black Skull apprentice before healing himself and vanishing into the shadows.
• Alice attacked Adelaide with ice spells while his seven stone golems blocked her attacks and let him counterattack.
• The battle between Alice and Adelaide drew elemental power and stirred fierce winds across the area.

Leo launched a surprise attack on Adelaide, whose layered defenses had withstood Alice’s assault, and used a shattered energy crystal to break through his remaining barrier. Adelaide’s wizard artifacts activated, including a teleportation array, as Leo drove himself to unleash another attack.

• Leo assessed Adelaide’s Stone Golems, protective barriers, and wizard artifacts, then prepared his lightning-enchanted greatsword as a secret trump card.
• Alice destroyed Stone Golems and kept Adelaide occupied while Leo emerged from the shadow behind him.
• Leo’s Thunder Plow Sweep shattered Adelaide’s first protective barrier, but the second stopped his greatsword.
• Leo shattered the energy crystal in his sword’s hilt and used the resulting power to cut through Adelaide’s second barrier.
• Adelaide’s wizard robe activated its protections, and his ring shattered as a teleportation array began to activate.
• Leo roared and forced more strength into his body and sword as he tried to finish Adelaide before he could escape.

Leo killed Adelaide with Thunder Plow Sweep, revealing the terrifying attack power he could unleash by consuming an energy crystal. After Alice acknowledged his strength, they tried to flee the battlefield but found themselves surrounded by more than two hundred apprentices from Soul Death Knell Wizard Academy, and Alice claimed she could wipe them out.

• Leo used Thunder Plow Sweep to kill Adelaide and destroy the remaining Stone Golems, exhausting the energy crystal that powered his attack.
• Leo collected Adelaide's academy badge and wizard ring, and Alice told him she had underestimated him and believed he would become an excellent wizard.
• Leo and Alice left the battlefield, but more than two hundred wizard apprentices surrounded them and tracked their attempts to change direction.
• Leo and Alice replenished their mana with Black Pearl Potions, and Alice identified the encircling apprentices as members of Soul Death Knell Wizard Academy.
• Alice told Leo to protect her because she had a way to wipe out the surrounding apprentices.

Leo prepared to defend Alice while two hundred apprentices from the Dead Poets Society Guild surrounded them in a coordinated formation. After Leo refused their offer to join them, they launched a massive attack that left him unable to fight back, while Alice continued casting her spell.

• Leo strengthened his body, readied his greatsword, and took a position in front of Alice as she began chanting.
• Leo assessed the encirclement and realized the apprentices’ ten staggered rings left no safe route through their formation.
• The Dead Poets Society Guild invited Leo to join them, but he refused because he could not abandon Alice.
• The guild leader ordered the two hundred apprentices to attack, and they sealed off the ground and sky as elemental forces surged around Leo and Alice.
• The apprentices’ opening attack disoriented Leo and shook his grip on his sword as a terrifying spell pressed down on him and Alice.

Alice used Great Space Teleportation Witchcraft to summon a vast horde of Fire Elemental Spirits, breaking the attack by Soul Death Knell Academy and saving Leo. After Alice recovered in a cave, Leo found a weapon of mass destruction in Adelaide’s wizard ring, prompting painful memories of Earth and hope that more things survived its destruction.

• Alice opened a spatial rift and unleashed countless Fire Elemental Spirits, which shattered Soul Death Knell Academy’s formation and killed many apprentices.
• The surviving Soul Death Knell apprentices retreated, and Alice passed out after exhausting her mana and mental power.
• Leo caught Alice and brought her to a clean cave, where she woke three days later.
• Leo showed Alice the wizard rings he had collected, then discovered a weapon of mass destruction in Adelaide’s ring.
• Leo wondered how the bomb had survived Earth’s destruction and relived memories of his life there.

After witnessing a devastating large-scale combination witchcraft attack, Leo decided to stop hunting apprentices and investigate a new path inspired by his homeland. Alice agreed to stay with him and protect him while he tested his ideas.

• Leo excitedly studied the weapon of mass destruction and filled a notebook with ideas about a path his homeland had left for him.
• Alice recovered and joined Leo at the cave, where they sensed large-scale witchcraft on a distant mountain and watched the battle through her Ice Mirror.
• Lightning, torrential rain, freezing snow, and shaped ice attacks destroyed the mountain and killed many of the Wizard Apprentices inside.
• Alice identified the battle as an attack by Heluoluo Wizard Academy on Big Ben Wizard Academy and explained the role of large-scale combination witchcraft in expeditions.
• Leo decided to stay in the cave to conduct experiments instead of hunting apprentices, and Alice agreed to remain with him.

Leo settled in a hidden cave with Alice and began studying the atomic bomb, hoping to combine mastery of atomic energy with radiation-driven body refinement. He discovered that radiation caused harmful cellular changes and continued his experiments despite limited equipment and little progress.

• Leo gave up hunting other Wizard Apprentices and made a hidden cliffside cave his base, while he and Alice set up separate laboratories.
• Leo dismantled the atomic bomb, recorded its construction, and removed its 70 kilograms of uranium-235 despite having only protective barriers against radiation.
• After brief exposure to the uranium, Leo developed tiny cancerous growths that his body quickly expelled, showing him that nuclear radiation could not be safely used to refine himself without controlling cellular evolution.
• Leo stored the uranium in a prepared container and began planning experiments to study fission and control radiation-induced cellular changes.
• As the experiments yielded little progress with his primitive laboratory, Leo spent his days filling notebooks and occasionally talking with Alice about the Wizard World and her travels.

Leo discovered that his shadow absorbed uranium-235 and, after years of tracking his bodily data with Benji’s help, found signs that this process accelerated his evolution. He left the discovery as a tentative hypothesis and focused on verifying it, while Benji deferred explaining his world’s supreme god until Leo reached level one.

• Leo tested whether his shadow would absorb 0.1 milligrams of uranium-235, and it swallowed the material without any immediately observable change.
• After three days of monitoring, Leo merged with his shadow and observed that it reduced radiation-related harm in his body by 50%, but he still found no change in the shadow itself.
• Benji revealed he had been following Leo’s work and agreed to help measure changes in Leo’s body.
• Over the next three years, Leo increased the uranium-235 dose to 10 grams and found that his shadow still appeared unchanged.
• Leo compared years of bodily measurements and found several rates of change above normal, leading him to suspect that merging with the shadow after it absorbed nuclear material accelerated his evolution.
• Benji said even his world’s supreme god had a fixed Shadow Talent, and promised to explain more once Leo reached level one.

With the tournament nearing its end, Leo prepared a modified atomic bomb as a last-resort weapon while Alice strengthened their cave defenses. When thousands of Wizard Apprentices surrounded their hideout and provoked Alice, she and Leo went out to fight.

• Leo and Alice realized that nine years of the tournament had passed and prepared for its final year in hiding.
• After considering how to defend against a large force, Leo modified an atomic bomb with wizard runes and an energy crystal, despite Benji warning him of the consequences.
• Alice's warning array detected an approaching Wizard Apprentice, so Leo packed their belongings and prepared to flee using a teleportation array.
• Two days later, thousands of Wizard Apprentices surrounded the cave and mocked Alice for hiding with Leo.
• Furious, Alice confirmed Leo's plan would work, then charged out of the cave with Leo following her.