Chapter Summaries

As the Youth Civilization traveled south across the Sang River, Su Ming spent New Year's Eve missing home and received a snowmobile from Miao Xin. The train stopped for maintenance, where Hansite explained why he had left Brown Gold Island, while Gospel ended the chapter with an unexpected song.

• Su Ming and Zijin rested aboard the train, and Su Ming baked cookies that Qiluo devoured before demanding more.
• Miao Xin contacted Su Ming for New Year's, and he saw his lonely parents through their home camera before asking her to send them an AI-generated greeting.
• Miao Xin warned Su Ming that contacting his parents could endanger them while the International Services Department investigated, and she gave him a snowmobile for the other world.
• Su Ming summoned the snowmobile, then stopped the Youth Civilization beside the Sang River to maintain the train and let the White Bone Mark recover.
• Qiluo left to buy food, while Hansite told Younier about the trouble underground on Brown Gold Island and how a butterfly had led him to Su Ming and Zijin.
• Gospel sang an Earth song instead of a hymn, making Zijin laugh.

Su Ming searched for Qiluo after she failed to return and discovered that she had followed a trail of kidnappings across nearby villages. He found her message near the fourth village and learned that she had deliberately let the traffickers capture her so she could rescue their other prisoners.

• Su Ming rode a snowmobile to Rick Village and learned that Qiluo had gone looking into reports of missing girls.
• Su Ming followed Qiluo’s trail through two more villages and learned that the traffickers had abducted three young women from the surrounding area.
• Zijin explained that the lord’s people had little protection, while Hansite warned that Qiluo might have let the traffickers take her rather than escape.
• Su Ming found signs of activity near the fourth village and followed the animal-drawn sled tracks after discovering Qiluo’s hidden note.
• Su Ming read Qiluo’s message and learned that she had disguised herself as a frail girl and allowed the kidnappers to capture her to reach their hideout and rescue the other girls.

Su Ming tracked the kidnappers to Shafeng'er Town and identified Old Luo’s house as their likely hideout. After learning that four mid-tier fighters and an unknown apprentice were inside, he prepared to attack without exposing Zijin’s identity.

• Su Ming concealed his snowmobile outside Shafeng'er Town, entered, and used a drone to survey the streets and locate the Church of Light and tavern.
• Zijin explained that the town’s clergy likely belonged to the Northern Flow Commoner Faction, a group of church commoners exiled by the Divine Covenant Faction.
• At the tavern, Su Ming bought whiskey and questioned Rupert, who told him that four outsiders had been staying at Old Luo’s house for ten days and that the house had a large cellar.
• Su Ming rejected Zijin’s offer to fly in and help, deciding that her fame would expose her identity, and went to investigate Old Luo’s house himself.
• Su Ming contacted Qiluo, who reported that the hideout held a mid-tier warrior, archer, and unusually troublesome rogue, an apprentice of unknown class, and Old Luo.

Su Ming and Qiluo attacked Old Luo’s house and killed the human traffickers, then arranged to make the archer appear responsible for the necromancy. After Qiluo questioned the victims’ souls, Su Ming destroyed them, and she asked him to warn her before using such a painful psychic attack again.

• Qiluo broke free in unicorn form and attacked the warrior while Su Ming used Silent Vision to survey the house.
• Su Ming ensnared and killed the invisible thief, then helped Qiluo defeat the archer and restrained the warrior with bone fragments.
• Su Ming killed the archer with his shotgun and crushed the warrior inside a mass of bones; skeletons seized Old Luo and the Low Rank mercenary as they tried to escape.
• The Low Rank mercenary gained strength through an evil-god power, but Qiluo dispelled his self-hypnosis and caused him to collapse.
• Su Ming corrupted the archer’s corpse to frame him as a necromancer, while Qiluo questioned the victims’ souls and Su Ming destroyed them.

Su Ming and Qiluo defeated a group of kidnappers, but Rupert and the tax escort guards tried to seize the necromancer’s bounty. After Rupert secretly urged them to leave, Su Ming and Qiluo rescued six kidnapped girls and set out to take them home.

• Su Ming finished animating the archer’s corpse, concealed his magical traces, and prepared to meet the approaching town guards.
• Rupert arrived with the guards, and Su Ming claimed he had fought the necromancers in self-defense while Qiluo explained she had been kidnapped.
• Four guards from Bennyfinn Whitaker’s tax escort arrived, and Rupert offered to claim the necromancer bounty while keeping most of it for the guards.
• Su Ming gave up the corpse rather than accept the guards’ unfair share, and Rupert revealed that the kidnapped girls would be in danger if they were left with Bennyfinn’s men.
• Qiluo cleared the cellar and rescued six frightened girls, and Su Ming found clothes for them before they all left together.

Su Ming and Qiluo escorted rescued girls across the icefield, but Bennyfinn Whitaker and his guards tried to seize them. Yise and Jielusi intervened, while Su Ming returned to town with the guards; Yise and Jielusi planned to take the girls to Dawn Territory.

• Su Ming and Qiluo led the girls through the snow, and Su Ming called Zijin when sleds carrying Bennyfinn Whitaker and his guards followed them out of town.
• Bennyfinn and the guards tried to claim the girls as maids, and Su Ming restrained himself while waiting for Zijin.
• Yise arrived and knocked Bennyfinn and his guards down, while Jielusi cited the territory convention to stop them from taking the girls.
• Su Ming left with Bennyfinn and the guards, offering them a warhammer in exchange for a ride back to Shafeng'er Town.
• Jielusi healed Qiluo's shoulder, and Yise and Jielusi decided to take the girls to Dawn Territory under an old provision for displaced people.

Su Ming used a stun grenade and other explosives to attack Bennyfinn and the town guards, killing Bennyfinn and looting his valuables. As guards searched Shafeng'er Town and a high-rank magus pursued Qiluo, Yise found Su Ming and led him toward an escape route.

• Su Ming sold the warhammer and Thorn Staff to distract the guards, then triggered the M84 stun grenade.
• Su Ming shot the disoriented guards and Bennyfinn, destroyed Bennyfinn's soul, and took his staff, pouches, necklace, and rings.
• Su Ming left white phosphorus bombs behind as he escaped, while Rupert kept the town guard from intervening.
• A high-rank magus chased Qiluo, and Su Ming directed her toward Zijin before hiding from the search teams.
• Yise approached Su Ming and led him through Shafeng'er Town, avoiding the weaker search parties.

After killing Bennyfinn, Su Ming escaped with Yise and hid from the tax protection squad in Shafenger. They left the church cellar when the search approached and moved to an attic, where Su Ming contacted Zijin and learned that Qiluo had reunited with her.

• Yise led Su Ming to a church, where Jonas concealed them in a cellar beneath the altar.
• Su Ming and Yise rested in the cellar, shared food, and discussed her work as a Watcher and his supposed profession as an alchemy scholar.
• Su Ming awkwardly tried to confess to Yise, who rejected him because her heart belonged to the Light.
• Jonas warned Yise that the searchers were nearing the church, so she led Su Ming out through the back and into a searched house's attic.
• Su Ming used his tablet to check the city and contacted Zijin, who told him to use Yise as a distraction if he was discovered.

Su Ming escaped the city with Yise’s help, reunited with Zijin and Qiluo, and returned to the moving train. There, Zijin identified the stones taken from Bennyfinn as valuable magic power crystal cores and demanded them for herself.

• Su Ming and Yise forced Rupert to smuggle them past the city gate, then Su Ming left Yise and rode his snowmobile to Zijin’s hiding place.
• Su Ming, Zijin, and the injured Qiluo traveled together through the night; Zijin drove while Su Ming fell asleep and Qiluo rode in the cargo bed.
• Su Ming woke aboard the Youth Civilization the next morning and learned Yise had secretly planted a tracker in his hair.
• Qiluo and Hansite assessed the battlefield spoils, and Zijin recognized Bennyfinn’s ring as magical while Hansite valued it highly.
• Su Ming unpacked Bennyfinn’s sealed stones, and Zijin identified them as rare magic power crystal cores and tried to claim them.

Su Ming trained with Zijin to learn how his thorn weapon could transmit contact spells from a distance, giving him a way to overcome heavily armored opponents. After struggling to construct new spells, he turned to Miao Xin on Earth, who had received drone firmware and flight-control software from her father.

• Su Ming read the God of Light’s doctrine and learned that its faith granted real powers, while Zijin and Qiluo bickered over their religions and fought in the workshop.
• Zijin advised Su Ming on fighting well-equipped enemies, then showed him how to cast a contact spell through the thorn weapon in whip form.
• Su Ming practiced transmitting spells through the whip and later studied Arcane Collapse and Wondrous Item Disjunction, but could not get their spell flows to work.
• Hansite told Su Ming that Lady Lilima had arranged for the train to be ready before Su Ming returned the previous night, leaving him quietly pleased.
• Su Ming contacted Miao Xin, who told him her father had obtained drone firmware and flight-control software for her.

Su Ming and Zijin played a cooperative cooking game while Qiluo tried to charm them with moon magic, but the spell instead led to a fight and Qiluo’s punishment. Later, Miao Xin found hidden assets belonging to the arrested director of Pine Mountain Sanatorium, and a conversation about death helped Su Ming make progress in his cultivation.

• Su Ming asked Miao Xin to find a casual cooperative computer game, and he and Zijin began playing a cooking game together.
• Qiluo cast Moon’s Amorousness and then Moon Divine Art: Lust on Su Ming and Zijin, but their arguments over the game continued until Zijin kissed Su Ming and then beat him after the spell wore off.
• Zijin and Su Ming tied Qiluo up above a pot of braised meat, and Zijin ordered Su Ming to watch her as punishment.
• Miao Xin found keys, identity documents, bank cards, and other items hidden by the director of Pine Mountain Sanatorium, then asked Su Ming to teach her to drive.
• While Miao Xin watched a funeral procession and wondered about her own funeral, Su Ming reflected that death treated everyone equally and made progress in his magic practice.

After learning that his old friend Si Ran had died, Su Ming grieved and found it easier to cast Deathly Word spells. He defeated Zijin in a sparring match by disrupting her Omniscient Vision, prompting her to remove the inscription from one eye and rely more on her natural senses.

• Su Ming recognized Si Ran’s parents at a funeral and realized from the urn’s photograph that his old friend had died.
• Su Ming stayed in the locomotive cab, where he formed the Deathly Word spell Grey Thoughts Exhaust the Heart, and Zijin clarified that Qiluo’s lust spell had controlled her and that she had no romantic feelings for him.
• Su Ming prepared to investigate Lisi City, then sparred with Zijin to drain his magic and conceal his necromancer identity.
• Su Ming used Grey Thoughts Exhaust the Heart to suppress Zijin’s Omniscient Vision, outmaneuvered her, and won the match.
• After noticing how much she had missed through reliance on magical perception, Zijin removed the inscription from her right eye and chose to preserve her natural senses.
• Hansite found Zijin by the river and suggested celebrating with an extra meal.

Su Ming tracked Old Luo’s contact, Akosita, to a house in Lisi City and disguised himself to infiltrate it as the city’s security officers arrived. As Akosita’s mercenaries prepared to flee with their captives, Yise and Jielusi learned that the raid had disrupted their planned attack.

• Su Ming recalled how Si Ran had helped him recover from his failed entrance exam by guiding him through the punishing game Hell Let Loose, and resolved to visit her grave with moth orchids.
• Su Ming and Qiluo reached Lisi City and found Akosita’s address; Su Ming sent Qiluo to report the suspected criminals to the security office.
• Su Ming disguised himself as a restaurant worker and entered Akosita’s courtyard just before Alessandro and several security officers arrived to search it.
• Akosita’s mercenaries knocked out the officers and Su Ming, then began packing to flee; Su Ming noticed their injured fighters and a small alchemical puppet heading toward the cellar.
• Yise and Jielusi woke and saw Akosita’s group preparing to escape; Zephlin explained that Alessandro, Lord Morton’s second son, had led the security officers into the house.

Su Ming and the Temple of Light rescued Princess Dafulin from Akosita’s mercenaries, but an explosion killed the girls held in the cellar and several others. As Su Ming and Qiluo fled, Yise learned that Dafulin had been traveling with Empress Katharine and asked whether she had also been attacked.

• Yise and the priests surrounded the mercenaries, but a novice took Princess Dafulin hostage.
• Su Ming shot Alessandro by mistake, then used Silent Vision to kill the mercenary holding Dafulin and carry her to safety.
• Akosita set fire to oil flowing into the cellar, and Qiluo’s Ring of Vacuum extinguished the flames.
• A priest discovered alchemical explosives, and the blast killed the captive girls, the first warning priest, and the security chief and officers; Jielusi’s Holy Protection shielded Su Ming and Dafulin.
• Su Ming and Qiluo left, while Qiluo captured Alessandro’s departing soul in a bottle.
• Yise asked Dafulin why she had been there, and Dafulin said she was accompanying Empress Katharine to Bubing City; Yise urgently asked whether Katharine had been attacked.

After learning that Katharine had escaped an attack at Galloping Horse Slope, Su Ming and the Youth Civilization hurried to cross the Lower Ridge Mountains before search parties or a blizzard could endanger them. The train climbed the mountain in stages, with Zijin’s magic helping it over steep terrain, and continued into a gentler gorge.

• Yise learned from Dafulin that Katharine had escaped an attack at Galloping Horse Slope, and she left with Jielusi to search for her.
• Su Ming told Zijin about the attack and urged the Youth Civilization to cross the mountains before the area was searched; Qiluo warned that a blizzard would arrive before dawn.
• Zephlin discovered that Alessandro’s body was a puppet controlled by a puppeteer through a soul-storage structure.
• Su Ming and the crew prepared the Youth Civilization, then used drones, terrain magic, and careful boiler management to climb the Lower Ridge Mountains.
• Zijin used Levitation to help the train start on a steep slope, then rested after the spell drained her magic power.
• The Youth Civilization crossed the alluvial fan and entered a gentler mountain gorge, where Gospel increased the train’s speed.

Su Ming and Zijin traveled by snowmobile to search for the missing Katharine, using their knowledge of her tactics to predict where she might be. They reached the search area and drew on Zijin’s necromantic aura to lure her or her pursuers, preparing for a possible fight.

• Su Ming’s train emerged from the canyon into the ice field, while Zijin erased the Omniscient Inscription from her right eye and asked to search for Katharine.
• Su Ming and Zijin reasoned that Katharine would likely cross the difficult Lower Ridge Mountains to evade her pursuers, and Zijin marked a probable location northeast of Galloping Horse Slope.
• Su Ming agreed to take Zijin there by snowmobile, and Zijin explained that Katharine had once warned her and helped her escape the convent academy.
• During the journey, Zijin told Su Ming that her alchemical origins had left her with limited Soul Capacity, explaining why she needed his help to bear the White Bone Fortress’s burden.
• After reaching the predicted area, Su Ming deployed a drone, but darkness prevented it from finding anything; Zijin removed her magic-suppressing cloak to draw Katharine or her pursuers toward them.

Qiluo tried to guide Alessandro’s living soul fragment back to its owner, but her spell destroyed it with nether butterflies. Meanwhile, Su Ming and Zijin found the injured Katharine and her baby, then returned with them to the Youth Civilization as a blizzard approached.

• Qiluo discovered that Alessandro’s soul fragment was still connected to a living person and used an ancient guiding spell to send it back, but nether butterflies tore it apart.
• Su Ming and Zijin searched for Katharine until they spotted her blue-brown signal flare and found her hiding in a snowdrift.
• Katharine revealed she had brought a month-old baby, and Su Ming helped her onto the snowmobile while Zijin used terrain magic to hinder their pursuers.
• Su Ming carried the baby against his chest and contacted Miao Xin for infant supplies as the group drove back through worsening weather.
• At the Youth Civilization, Qiluo demanded stuffed lotus root, while Younier brought powdered formula for the baby.

Su Ming and his companions cared for Katharine and the baby aboard the Youth Civilization after rescuing them from the blizzard, and Su Ming treated Katharine’s wounds before the train continued onward. When Katharine woke, she explained that the baby could be used to negotiate for prisoners, but warned Su Ming that Divine Might Prison was supported by a much larger force than he had expected.

• Younier prepared milk for the baby while Su Ming and Zijin treated Katharine’s wounds, and Su Ming sutured a severe leg injury without anesthetic.
• Miao Xin obtained medicine from Pine Mountain Sanatorium, and Su Ming put Katharine on an intravenous drip before he and Zijin tried to sleep while caring for the baby.
• After the Youth Civilization set off through the blizzard, Su Ming and Zijin fed the crying baby, and Su Ming brought him to Katharine when she woke.
• Katharine thanked Su Ming for rescuing her and the baby, then revealed that she had lost her political power and that the child was not Xialike’s son.
• Katharine warned Su Ming that more than a dozen archbishops and over two hundred priests were connected to Divine Might Prison, and explained that the nearby Sea of Divine Grace was an academy used to discipline troublesome divine officials.

Su Ming learned that the Sea of Divine Grace was a school where the Temple of Light’s elites trained using prisoners, forcing him to reconsider his rescue plan. Katharine offered to join the assault on the prison and revealed family secrets and old connections, while the group prepared to move forward with new information.

• Katharine explained that the Sea of Divine Grace trained the temple’s spoiled young scions and used Divine Might Prison’s inmates for labor and combat practice, so Su Ming realized their original plan would not work.
• Katharine agreed to provide Su Ming with details about the prison and academy, then proposed that they join forces to destroy the Sacred Mountain.
• Su Ming woke after the train stopped for shunting and found Zijin and Katharine arguing; Katharine gave Zijin a Temple of Light cardinal’s identity card that would make Gospel obey her.
• Katharine clarified that her marriage to Xialike was only in name and identified Yignaxiu as Tuanzi’s father, while she said Weiaoyasi had fathered her daughter Yise.
• Katharine revealed that she had targeted Su Ming during the Battle of Agate Sea to rescue Ailisha, and Su Ming protested that he had nearly been killed.

Su Ming and Zijin cared for Katharine and her newborn aboard the Youth Civilization while Yise and Jielusi pursued them through the blizzard. Yise and Jielusi found soldiers tied to the attack on Katharine and fought them, with the soldiers’ formation breaking under Jielusi’s fear spell.

• Katharine told Su Ming that Chloe had faked her death and fled with an egg, and Zijin tried to feed crushed peanuts to the one-month-old Tuanzi before Su Ming stopped her.
• Katharine worried about her daughter Yise, but Su Ming assured her he had already sent Yise a message and then described his romantic interest in Yise and Jielusi.
• Su Ming and Zijin agreed to take turns caring for Tuanzi, while Hansite helped Su Ming prepare stuffed lotus root fritters.
• Yise and Jielusi reached a garrison squad searching near an avalanche site, and Yise accused Captain Granville of pursuing Katharine and taking part in the assassination attempt.
• Granville and his soldiers attacked Yise and Jielusi; Yise killed two soldiers from hiding, and Jielusi’s fear spell shattered the soldiers’ formation.