Chapter Summaries

Zijin fought off Yise and three pursuing spellcasters while Su Ming used the Zhiyuan’s radar and Nether Shield to help the ship escape. The Zhiyuan surged to a speed that left its pursuers struggling to keep up, though its masts and sails began to strain.

• A blonde Watcher named Yise attacked the Zhiyuan, but Zijin drew her out over the sea and defeated her with a feint and an underwater strike.
• Zijin took Yise’s greatsword and returned to the Zhiyuan as three mounted spellcasters attacked her.
• Su Ming used the mast radar to spot four hidden humanoid targets near the ship and warned Zijin.
• Zijin attacked the hidden targets while Su Ming activated Nether Shield across the Zhiyuan’s bone sails and adjusted their angles.
• The Zhiyuan accelerated past thirty knots, leaving its pursuers struggling to follow as its reinforced masts and sails began to creak.

Su Ming and Zijin survived a devastating guided attack on the Zhiyuan, then discovered the hidden UFO blocking their path. Rather than retreat, Su Ming exploited the battleship’s slow-turning turrets and maneuvered the Zhiyuan to close in under sail.

• Su Ming used the White Bone Mark to repair the Zhiyuan after a barrage of ice blades shattered its Nether Shield, aft masts, and bone sails.
• Zijin returned to the ship exhausted and explained that the White Bone Mark’s power had been badly depleted; Su Ming restored the remaining sails and stabilized the Zhiyuan’s speed.
• The captive captain warned Su Ming and Zijin that the UFO had joined the battle, and Zijin revealed the concealed warship with a blast of Solar Flame.
• Su Ming recognized the UFO’s broadside firing position and calculated that its heavy turrets turned too slowly to track the Zhiyuan at close range.
• Su Ming brought the Zhiyuan within three kilometers, then turned sharply and reversed the remaining mainsails to catch the wind and accelerate again.

Su Ming and Zijin used the Zhiyuan’s speed and magic to defeat the UFO and evade the Songstress Class pursuing them, breaking through the enemy’s interception line. As the battle seemed to end, the White Bone Mark tried to turn the Zhiyuan toward the ship Fusang, and Su Ming and Zijin realized something he had brought from Earth had stirred it.

• Su Ming maneuvered the Zhiyuan through the UFO’s barrage, and Zijin destroyed its guns with magic while sparing the ship from more serious damage.
• The Zhiyuan passed the UFO, and Zijin carved its name into the hull before Su Ming took a commemorative photo.
• Su Ming studied the enemy formation and realized Katharine had left a deliberate gap to lure the Zhiyuan through.
• Su Ming dodged two barrages from a pursuing Songstress Class, and the Zhiyuan escaped the enemy interception line as its pursuers fell behind.
• Su Ming identified the Songstress Class as Fusang, then suppressed the White Bone Mark when it tried to turn the Zhiyuan toward that ship.
• Zijin and Su Ming realized that something Su Ming had brought from Earth had caused the White Bone Mark’s reaction.

Su Ming and Zijin turned the Zhiyuan into a spell-amplifying fortress and destroyed the Fusang’s weapons with Zijin’s Divine Decree, forcing its crew to retreat without casualties. As Archbishop Stanton belatedly approached, Su Ming steered the Zhiyuan east while Zijin went to sleep.

• Su Ming reconfigured the Zhiyuan and synchronized the White Bone Mark with Zijin to amplify her magic.
• The Zhiyuan dodged the Fusang’s broadside, and Zijin intercepted the few shells that threatened the ship.
• Zijin cast Six Points · Deathrattle · Divine Decree, wrecking the Fusang’s superstructure and cannons without killing its crew.
• The Fusang’s captain ordered a withdrawal, and Zijin noticed the heroic spirits’ points of light departing.
• Su Ming told Zijin that his experience commanding teams in war games helped him stay calm during battle, and Zijin decided to schedule his training.
• Archbishop Stanton arrived too late to catch the Zhiyuan, and Su Ming steered it east as Zijin went to sleep.

Su Ming recovered from the naval battle, repaired the Zhiyuan, and reviewed the fight with Zijin while they sailed east. As Zijin recovered and began repairing the White Bone Fortress, Su Ming planned upgrades to the ship’s radar, propulsion, and hull, while Zijin warned him to keep its wing-sail technology secret.

• Su Ming woke at noon, checked the Zhiyuan’s position, and found it far out at sea with no nearby merchant ships on the central trade route.
• Su Ming checked on Zijin, prepared food for her, and repaired a worn bearing and a broken transmission screw before restarting the Zhiyuan’s power unit.
• Zijin joined Su Ming in the control room, where he explained that he was documenting and analyzing the previous night’s battle.
• By the third day, Zijin had recovered enough to begin repairing the White Bone Fortress’s core, while Su Ming planned improvements to the Zhiyuan’s radar, propulsion system, and hull.
• Zijin warned Su Ming that they needed to conceal the Zhiyuan’s wing-sail technology to prevent their enemies from copying it.

Su Ming and Zijin assessed the Zhiyuan’s strength and priorities while traveling through the Central Ocean, then Su Ming searched for used steamships through Little Spiky Head. When dragon-eagle scouts found the Zhiyuan, Zijin sent a warning signal as they approached.

• Zijin explained that merchant associations and scattered mercenary groups controlled the Central Ocean, and that few would challenge the Zhiyuan after its victories over major fleets.
• Su Ming identified gathering materials and shielding their undead fluctuations as their most important tasks, and Zijin produced fragments from the UFO that might conceal magical signals.
• The radar detected flying beasts searching the sea, so Su Ming adjusted its alert range and connected to Little Spiky Head.
• Su Ming searched a merchant’s warehouse for long-wave radar, left payment for goods he had taken, and contacted a dealer about an old steamship.
• When the Zhiyuan’s radar detected a target within fifty kilometers, Su Ming woke Zijin, who identified the approaching scouts as dragon-eagle riders and sent them a restricted-zone warning.

Su Ming and Zijin prepared to receive a liaison from the Four Directions Chamber of Commerce, expected to arrive in five hours, and arranged suitable clothes and a reception room. While shopping for Zijin, Su Ming recognized that Zijin had summoned Galio as a new skeleton servant, and he left Miao Xin to buy the rest of the clothing after realizing he had forgotten the other items.

• Zijin identified the signals as a meeting request from the Four Directions Chamber of Commerce, and she and Su Ming agreed to prepare for the visitors.
• Zijin estimated that the approaching ship was 110 kilometers away and would arrive in five hours, while Su Ming arranged a reception room and searched for clothes.
• Su Ming chose a beige-gray suit dress for Zijin and a black camouflage outfit for himself, then hired an errand runner to buy them.
• Su Ming measured Zijin and learned that the black skeleton servant was made from the corpse of a holy magus; he recognized it as Galio.
• The saleswoman said Zijin's dress needed alterations and would not be ready until the next day, so Su Ming took it as it was and sent Miao Xin with the runner to buy additional items.

Su Ming prepared clothes for Zijin, then waited with her for the Four Seas Chamber of Commerce, whose ship failed to catch up. He slowed the Zhiyuan the next morning and switched his vision to Earth after Miao Xin completed the trip to the dockyard with Little Spiky Head.

• Su Ming gathered measurements and materials, then summoned new clothes for himself and Zijin.
• Zijin tried on her suit dress and confronted Su Ming about the stockings and underwear; he insisted he had chosen them because she would look good.
• Su Ming and Zijin waited for the merchants, realized the Zhiyuan had outrun them, and decided to slow down the next morning so the visitors could catch up.
• Su Ming switched to Little Spiky Head, planned a trip to inspect a secondhand ship, and ordered a fast catamaran design powered by steam.
• Su Ming stopped the Zhiyuan the next morning, while Miao Xin reported that she had brought Little Spiky Head to the target dockyard.

Su Ming and Zijin met with Charles Kegan, who asked them to help stop a powerful sea creature that had devastated maritime trade. As Zijin studied the reports, Su Ming learned that the creature could withstand magic and conventional attacks and move quickly underwater.

• Su Ming inspected a derelict steamship at an abandoned dockyard and decided he could repair its faulty engine and propulsion system.
• Three Dragonhawks approached the Zhiyuan, and Zijin used signal flares to learn that a liaison from the Four Directions Chamber of Commerce had arrived.
• Charles Kegan introduced himself to Zijin and brought her a chart documenting more than thirty ships sunk in the past three months.
• Charles showed Zijin a survivor’s depiction of a tentacled sea creature and records of failed tracking and suppression operations.
• Charles asked Zijin to help the affected parties defeat the creature, while she continued reading the reports with Su Ming.

Su Ming and Zijin negotiated with Charles over joining a hunt for a powerful sea monster, weighing the risks against the supplies and resources on offer. Charles revealed that the Star Empire and Temple of Light were involved, then recognized Zijin’s Divine Favor Scepter and became their enthusiastic admirer.

• Charles asked to meet the wielder of the White Bone Mark, and Zijin introduced Su Ming as the person behind the nickname Bone King.
• Su Ming asked Charles to have his official nickname changed to Mechanic, while Zijin revealed that people called her Belladonna.
• Zijin and Su Ming reviewed reports that even the Saint Rank expert Yexiya had failed to kill the sea monster, and they agreed to investigate it while seeking resources to upgrade their ship.
• Charles offered supplies and said the participating factions, including the Star Empire and Temple of Light, would support the operation and suspend the pursuit of Zijin and Su Ming.
• Zijin showed Charles the Divine Favor Scepter, and he recognized it, lost his composure, and declared himself their fan.

Su Ming and Zijin negotiated with Charles over supplies, prisoners, and communications while weighing whether to investigate the sea monster. After Zijin used a new purification spell on Charles and his companions, they examined the Federation’s proposal and considered taking supplies before avoiding the mission.

• Charles offered to secure supplies for the investigation, and Su Ming and Zijin submitted a list while refusing to let the Federation send an observer.
• Su Ming considered keeping Captain Harding for his seafaring knowledge, but he and Zijin decided to accept the Kalo Magic Guild’s ransom instead; they also agreed to establish long-distance communications if the Federation provided communication crystals.
• After Charles and his guards prepared to leave, Zijin restrained them and cast her new spell, Astral Purification, on the men and their Dragonhawks before letting them go.
• Zijin opened Charles’s gift box and shared its strawberries, while she and Su Ming reviewed the documents and discussed the dangers of confronting the sea monster.
• Su Ming warned that others hoped to profit from the investigation or see them harmed, and Zijin suggested tricking them into providing supplies before they ran.

Su Ming and Zijin analyzed clues hidden in the sea monster drawings and planned how to prepare the Zhiyuan to fight it, while Su Ming investigated ship upgrades and Zijin worked on a more efficient summoning method. They ended with a promising way to reconstruct items later when sufficient materials became available.

• Su Ming recognized Arabic numerals hidden in the sea monster drawings and concluded that turning them around revealed a message about how to deal with the monster.
• Su Ming and Zijin connected the numerals to Earth and agreed to investigate the sea monster for clues about space.
• Su Ming and Zijin discussed the Zhiyuan's need for better detection, speed, and hull strength, along with the limits of their spells against the monster.
• Zijin reinstalled the salvaged rune tower on the Zhiyuan, while Miao Xin discovered that the secondhand ship dealer was disguising a badly damaged vessel as nearly new.
• Su Ming decided to abandon the dishonest dealer and considered how to obtain enough materials for additional steam engines.
• Zijin developed a segmented method for Summoning of All Things, and Su Ming found he could perform it after practicing in simulations.

Su Ming salvaged equipment and supplies for the Zhiyuan, then planned to widen its hull to withstand a sea monster’s crushing attacks. He canceled a ship-design order and devised a way to obtain plans for a trimaran, while his life with Zijin settled into a shared routine.

• Su Ming used Two-Stage · Crystal Summoning to take the Zhiyuan’s power systems, control equipment, and other items, then transferred food and necessities from the Little Trench Coat.
• Su Ming cooked rice and vegetables while Zijin checked the mice for anything abnormal, and he teased her about holding her book upside down.
• After studying Charles’s combat log, Su Ming concluded that the Zhiyuan needed a wider hull and asked a design studio to make it a trimaran.
• Su Ming canceled the design order and arranged to ship Little Spiky Head in a crate, hoping to use it to obtain information about the Independence-class design.
• Zijin continued rewriting the communication crystal’s runes, asked Su Ming to make something with chili, and worked alongside him the following morning in their shared workshop.

Su Ming arranged for Little Spiky Head to be shipped from Earth, then faced four mercenaries who boarded the airship and attacked him and Zijin. He quickly subdued them and discovered Zijin had only pretended to be incapacitated.

• Su Ming made noodles for breakfast with Zijin and sent the leftovers to the imprisoned Captain Harding.
• Su Ming used Little Spiky Head to arrange the skeleton’s shipment from Earth, with Miao Xin assigned to watch over the crate.
• Four Dragonhawks approached the airship, and four mercenaries boarded and ambushed Su Ming and Zijin.
• Su Ming used spells, a thorn whip, and a bone spear to overpower the attackers.
• Zijin revealed that her apparent collapse had been an act and told Su Ming the mercenaries were not pretending.

Su Ming killed three mercenaries during an attack and struggled with guilt over using lethal force. After guards discovered the attackers had been tricked into carrying a bomb, Zijin explained the three dimensions of a spellcaster’s power and revealed Su Ming’s potential was at least that of an Upper-Rank Magister.

• Su Ming killed three mercenaries and stopped before killing the terrified survivor when Zijin told him to leave one alive.
• Zijin and Charles tried to calm Su Ming, who regretted killing the mercenaries and believed he was the villain because they had been carrying out a warrant.
• A guard found a remote-controlled alchemy bomb among the dead mercenaries’ equipment, and the survivor confessed that someone had paid and equipped them for the attack without telling them about the bomb.
• Zijin suspected the mastermind had staged the attack to disrupt cooperation between her group and the Four Seas Chamber of Commerce.
• Su Ming learned that the mercenaries were considered powerful, though he had defeated them without difficulty and had only become a professional ten-odd days earlier.
• Zijin explained that spellcaster power depended on magic power capacity, technique and tactics, and magic power intensity, and estimated Su Ming’s potential intensity at least matched an Upper-Rank Magister.

Zijin and Su Ming negotiated supplies and political arrangements with Vice Chairman Charles, learning that the Star Empire would cover the initial costs while the Temple of Light offered talks. With the federation unable to provide enough metal, they agreed to retrieve supplies from the Dwarf Continent across sea-monster waters, leaving Su Ming to prepare for a crossing in forecast strong winds.

• Zijin gave Charles the communications tower’s runic spectrum and call sign, and Charles handed her a box of magic crystals.
• Charles explained that the Star Empire would pay the initial costs and suspend military operations threatening the White Bone Fortress, while the Temple of Light offered conditional reconciliation talks.
• Zijin rejected Pope Augustus Avery’s invitation, which guaranteed her safety if she brought the counterfeit Gospel but ignored the wanted order and past conflicts.
• Charles told Zijin and Su Ming that the federation could provide only ten tons of steel and no copper or aluminum, so the Dwarf Continent’s chamber of commerce offered to deliver supplies near sea-monster waters.
• Su Ming agreed to make the crossing after learning that strong southeasterly winds were forecast for the following two days.

Su Ming discovered that Zijin had kept the Star Empire UFO captain imprisoned and starving, then rescued him and sent him away with the supply ship’s crew. The pair sailed toward the Star Rain, a nearby warship, while Su Ming decided they needed weapons before risking a fight.

• Zijin threatened the Blue-Eyed Chamber of Commerce crew and began dismantling their supply ship, while Su Ming learned they had captured the UFO’s captain.
• Su Ming found the captain imprisoned on the lowest deck, had him fed and treated, and sent him away aboard a lifeboat with the supply ship’s crew.
• Scholar Bay Owl broke up the abandoned supply ship, and the next morning Su Ming set course east toward the sea monster’s active area.
• Su Ming and Zijin spotted the Star Rain on radar and decided to approach it openly without starting a fight.
• Su Ming refused Zijin’s offer to provoke the Star Rain and said they needed to obtain weapons from Earth first.

Su Ming sailed the Zhiyuan toward monster-infested waters while studying Ailisha’s records and trying to reconstruct her past forms. He concluded that Ailisha and the White Bone Fortress had existed concurrently, leaving Scholar Bay Owl’s earlier timeline unresolved.

• Su Ming dismissed modern naval weapons as impractical and continued considering artillery and rockets for future use.
• The Star Rain and its escorts halted as the Zhiyuan passed through the route they had cleared, then Su Ming converted the Zhiyuan to sail mode near monster-infested waters.
• Zijin explained that the White Bone Fortress could be replenished with corpses and described how the Plain of Despair had lost strategic importance after trade routes changed.
• Su Ming taught the black skeleton to operate the bridge, then studied runic formulas and examined Ailisha’s Temple of Light records.
• Su Ming traced Ailisha’s education and rise to saintess, noting that her records ended when the White Bone Fortress appeared twenty-seven years earlier.
• Su Ming revised his timeline to show Ailisha sealed and the White Bone Fortress active from twenty-seven years ago, while Ailisha had been active from forty-four to twenty-seven years ago.

Su Ming deduced how Zijin’s living and undead forms were connected, then met the dwarven ships Ale and Double-Headed Axe at sea. After Zijin caught him trying to photograph her, they fought aboard the Zhiyuan, and she revealed that Su Ming’s medicine had greatly improved her health.

• Su Ming concluded that Scholar Bay Owl and Undead Bay Owl were Zijin’s alternating forms, and linked the undead form to the White Bone Fortress.
• The Zhiyuan encountered the merchant ship Ale and the warship Double-Headed Axe, and Su Ming and Zijin inspected their capabilities.
• Zijin flew to meet the approaching ships, while Su Ming realized he had nearly been caught taking a photo of her with his phone.
• Zijin returned, pinned Su Ming in a brief fight, and admitted that holding Brute Strength Spell for too long had strained her body.
• Zijin said Su Ming’s medicine had cured several longstanding ailments, and Su Ming identified weaknesses in her close-combat technique.

Su Ming and Zijin oversaw a supply transfer from the Ale while Su Ming exposed Beianqi as a mechanic and learned she worked for the Five Fangs. After the transfer, Beianqi asked to buy the Zhiyuan’s propulsion technology.

• Su Ming told Zijin to study force fields through mechanics problems and learned she was the only living titled scholar.
• Beianqi arrived from the Ale to organize a supply transfer, but Su Ming recognized her as a mechanic and refused to let her near the Zhiyuan.
• Beianqi revealed that she worked for the Five Fangs, which was eighty kilometers away and had stayed back to avoid a misunderstanding.
• Zijin spotted no alchemical equipment on the Double-Headed Axe, while Su Ming found no nearby ship on radar and considered adding long-wave radar.
• Su Ming and Zijin spent four hours transferring supplies between the ships, and Beianqi asked to buy the Zhiyuan’s propulsion technology.