Chapter Summaries

Slymu, a Black Crystal Bug Planting Bug, was captured and enslaved by Richard and led the three wizards to his settlement. The wizards found it lacked Warrior Bugs and Priest Bugs, but Lawrence reported that strange things were among the bugs.

• Slymu planted Warrior Fungus spores in a cave and hid when three strange creatures approached.
• Richard found Slymu, branded him with a Slave Mark, and forced him to reveal where the Warrior Fungus seeds were kept.
• Richard enslaved other Planting Bugs along the tunnels, and the wizards discovered Priest Fungus could promote spiritual growth and restore soul injuries.
• Slymu guided Richard, Ellie, and Lawrence to a Black Crystal Bug settlement filled with glowing fungi and moss.
• Lawrence sent his Shadow Bat to scout the settlement, learned there were no Warrior Bugs or Priest Bugs, and reported that several strange things were among the bugs.

Richard, Ellie, and Lawrence infiltrated a Black Crystal Bug settlement and attacked the Spider Knights they found there. After defeating the defenders, Richard asked who would report the new bugs to the Floating City.

• Richard, Ellie, and Lawrence used concealment methods to enter the settlement and marked Transport Bugs carrying supplies toward other burrows.
• The wizards found Spider Knights urging the aged village chief to evacuate, then attacked them before they could leave.
• Richard killed a Spider Knight in close combat and destroyed the spider attached to its lower body.
• Two Spider Knights trapped Ellie in poisonous mist, but Richard rescued her and burned the mist away.
• Richard and Lawrence helped defeat the remaining Spider Knights, and Ellie finished off two fleeing enemies.
• Richard asked who would go to the Floating City to report the new bugs.

Richard studied a Spider Knight corpse and discovered how its two bodies were joined, gaining new insight into biological modification. When two more Spider Knights attacked his camp, he used that knowledge to disable them and prepared to capture them for sale.

• Ellie left for the Floating City with a Spider Knight corpse to report the new discovery, while Lawrence set out to scout the tunnels.
• Richard searched the settlement, brought out the Alchemy Golem to guard his camp, and sent Ulysses to scout the burrows.
• Richard dissected a Spider Knight and recorded how the Black Crystal Bug's nerves controlled the spider body through a modified neural relay.
• Two armored Spider Knights invaded, and the Alchemy Golem fought them until Richard emerged and drew their attention.
• Richard exploited the Spider Knights' neural weakness and used Shadow Shuttle to disable both attackers.
• Richard prepared nerve-paralysis poison, intending to sell the two Spider Knights.

Richard and Ellie followed clues to investigate Lawrence’s disappearance after Ulysses reported that bugs had captured him. Ellie used curse divination to locate Lawrence, leaving the pair prepared to follow the pointer into the underground nests.

• Ellie returned with a reward of five hundred Magic Essences, and Richard paralyzed the two Spider Knights with poison before restraining them further.
• Ulysses returned with Lawrence’s Shadow Bat and reported that a white bug had sealed Lawrence away; the bat revealed Lawrence’s offer of one thousand Magic Essences for a rescue.
• Richard decided to assess the danger before choosing whether to rescue Lawrence, and Ellie agreed to accompany him for two hundred thousand Magic Stones.
• Richard followed Lawrence’s magic markers to a deserted settlement, where he and Ellie found signs that Lawrence had been sealed by a Priest Bug.
• Ellie performed curse divination with Lawrence’s Shadow Bat, and the bone pointer indicated his approximate location for the next three hours.

Richard and Ellie tracked injured Black Crystal Bugs through the nest, defeated them, and forced one Warrior Bug to reveal their mission to retrieve the Bug God's Blood, a Mother Worm God Relic. The chapter ended with the Priest Bug continuing toward the relic while carrying Lawrence, sealed in starlight, as a sacrifice for the Mushroom Ground.

• Richard and Ellie followed the Bone Pointer deeper into the nest, where rising heat, humidity, magical power, and Life Force made their progress difficult.
• Richard and Ellie attacked the injured Warrior Bugs in a cave, killed most of them, and made the last survivor accept a Soul Contract.
• Richard questioned the captured Warrior Bug, who said its group came from the Prosperous Bug Kingdom to retrieve the priest's god-bestowed armament and the Bug God's Blood.
• The Warrior Bug revealed that Lawrence had been offered as a sacrifice to the Mushroom Ground on the group's return journey.
• The Priest Bug's group rested, then the Priest Bug ordered them to continue toward the Mother Worm God Relic and carried the sealed Lawrence onward as a sacrifice.

Richard and Ellie followed the Black Crystal Bugs’ trail to Mushroom Ground, where they learned it was a strange space formed by a dead god’s corpse and paid the fungal Spirit of Nature with a Spider Knight. There they encountered two terracotta wizards who were pursuing the same group of bugs, and Richard concealed what he knew as one proposed that they hunt together.

• Richard considered whether the Black Crystal Bugs’ myth meant the Bug Nest World was more than a Micro World, then followed the bugs’ trail toward Mushroom Ground with Ellie.
• Ulysses explained that Mushroom Ground was a spatial anomaly within the same world, created by a god’s corpse, and Richard tested its toll by offering a Spider Knight.
• White mycelium consumed the Spider Knight and transformed it into a creature that entered Mushroom Ground, allowing Richard and Ellie to follow.
• Two terracotta wizards emerged from the tunnel wall and claimed they were hunting bugs, while Richard kept his Staff ready and pretended not to know about their target.
• The terracotta wizard said the group included a severely injured second-level bug that had killed a Second-Ring Wizard, then proposed that the four wizards hunt it together.

Richard and the Suogu brothers exchanged information and entered the Mushroom Ground, where its strange Life Force and lingering laws unsettled Richard. As the wizards prepared to ambush the injured Priest Bug’s group, the Priest Bug detected them and arranged a counterattack, leaving Richard suspecting that the World Origin Will had already noticed the invaders.

• Richard agreed to cooperate with the effigy wizards in exchange for information about the bugs and shared limited details about the Mushroom Ground.
• Suogu and Suoduo introduced themselves as brothers, then sacrificed a wounded Warrior Bug to enter the Mushroom Ground with Richard and Ellie.
• Ulysses explained that the Mushroom Ground contained powerful residual laws but no living creature that could deliberately target them.
• Richard sensed an unseen gaze while collecting fungi, but Ulysses said he detected no watcher.
• Suogu identified the injured Priest Bug as vulnerable, and the four wizards prepared an ambush before it sensed them and ordered its bugs to attack.
• Richard shifted back to make Suogu the Spider Knights’ likely first target and concluded that the World Origin Will had noticed their group.

Richard and Ellie fought the Bug Kingdom’s swarm after Richard realized the Priest Bug was weakened, but the Priest Bug revealed the Bug God’s Blood and the Mushroom Ground began drawing powerful Fungal Creatures toward them. As Ellie held off the bugs, Richard finished opening his secret realm.

• The Priest Bug immobilized Suogu, and Spider Knights and Warrior Bugs killed him while his soul escaped through a likely phylactery.
• Richard sent Ulysses to test the Priest Bug and learned it had little strength left, then attacked the bugs and exploited a Spider Knight’s hidden weakness.
• Suoduo failed to burrow through the fungus-covered ground as Richard and Ellie fought the swarm with fire spells.
• The Priest Bug took out the Bug God’s Blood, which healed and strengthened the bugs and caused the Mushroom Ground’s Fungal Creatures to rush toward them.
• Ulysses warned Richard to open his secret realm, Ellie covered him with Curse Flame, and Richard announced that the opening was complete.

Richard waited three days in the secret realm after escaping the Warrior Bugs, then returned to Mushroom Ground with Ellie. He found the amber broken and questioned Ulysses about its contents, just as Lawrence emerged from the mushroom forest with a proposed deal.

• Richard and Ellie entered the secret realm while Ulysses shrank and watched the Fungal Creatures approach the Warrior Bugs.
• The Priest Bug gave Staro the Divine Gift Armament and sent the other Warrior Bugs toward their nest before the Fungal Spider killed it and took the amber.
• The Fungal Creatures wore away the amber’s Golden Light, and Ulysses swallowed the Blue Spore when the seal broke.
• Lawrence survived by taking control of a fungal body and recognized that Richard’s arrival could help him obtain a new body.
• After three days in the secret realm, Richard returned with Ellie, found the shattered amber, and asked Ulysses what had been inside.
• Lawrence emerged from the mushroom forest and offered Richard a deal.

Richard traded Lawrence a Spider Knight for information about the amber, then discovered that Ulysses had swallowed a mysterious Blue Spore. After Ulysses’s body burst and the spore awakened as the World Mushroom, Ulysses subdued it and offered it to Richard as a servant.

• Richard traded Lawrence a Spider Knight and five hundred thousand Magic Stones for a body and information about the amber, and Lawrence revealed that Ulysses had taken the thing sealed inside it.
• Blue mycelium emerged from Ulysses as its belly swelled, so Richard carried it and Lawrence into his Secret Realm while the Mushroom Ground trembled.
• Lawrence learned that Ellie was Great Wizard Black Tower’s grand-disciple and that Richard’s teacher led the War Beast Department, and he said their connections could improve their chances in the war.
• Richard confronted Ulysses for secretly eating the Blue Spore and let its body burst before transferring its soul into a prepared crow body.
• Ulysses explained that the awakened mushroom seed had drained its energy, then invaded the World Mushroom’s mental space and forced it to surrender to Richard.

Richard bound the World Mushroom to his secret realm, where it began connecting to the realm’s rules and transforming the Sacred Tree Elves into its Companion Race. After two years of fighting through the Bug Nest with Ellie and Lawrence, Richard received the Command Department’s order for all Wizards to return.

• Richard ordered Ulysses to make the World Mushroom sign a strict Fate Contract and gave Ulysses a Priest Fungus to help restore its soul.
• The World Mushroom rooted itself in Richard’s secret realm, spread its mycelium, and offered to transform the Sacred Tree Elves into its Companion Race under Richard’s control.
• Richard and Ulysses left the sealed secret realm, and Lawrence signed a Soul Contract promising to keep the matter confidential.
• Richard, Ellie, and Lawrence fought through the middle and lower Bug Nest for two years, killing at least a thousand bugs and collecting valuable remains.
• The Command Department ordered all Wizards to return, and Richard welcomed the chance to leave the underground Bug Nest.

Richard and his companions left the underground bug nest and returned to the Floating City, where he sold his captured bugs and found a rare Nomie Crystal. He fashioned the crystal into his Staff to conceal spell fluctuations, then returned to his room, where Ellie pulled him into the bedroom.

• Richard, Ellie, and Lawrence reached the upper bug nest and learned that the Command Department planned to seal off the lower tunnels rather than purge the remaining bugs.
• Richard returned to the Floating City, received a month of leave, and sold his intact captured bugs for nearly three hundred thousand Magic Stones.
• Richard found a Nomie Crystal at a market stall and bought it for one hundred thousand Magic Stones.
• Richard crafted the Nomie Crystal into his Staff and tested it, finding that it greatly suppressed the Heart of Annihilation’s spell fluctuations.
• Ellie dragged Richard into the bedroom before he could finish telling her about his Staff.

Richard studied an intact Spider Knight but could not decipher its neural interfacing technique, so he asked Gerald to lead an academic discussion with Anna and Jacques. The chapter ended as Jacques arrived and Richard explained the proposal to him.

• Richard spent half a month studying the Spider Knight's neural interfacing but made no progress.
• Richard visited Gerald in the Chimera Factory and showed him a complete Spider Knight anatomical chart.
• Richard proposed a teacher-led academic discussion about the chart, and Gerald agreed to limit it to Richard, Anna, and Jacques.
• Gerald contacted Anna and Jacques, who arrived with mechanical modifications, and Richard told Jacques about the discussion.

Gerald held an academic seminar where his students connected their research on Spider Knights and Chimeras, helping Richard advance his Black Crystal Bug studies and refine a theory about the Miracle Furnace. After testing a Queen Bug Guard technique and receiving a mission, Richard joined Ellie and Lawrence to infiltrate Hive Twelve as Black Robe Wizards gathered at the front lines.

• Gerald led Richard, Jacques, and Anna through a seminar on Spider Knight anatomy and energy circulation, and they shared discoveries across their different fields.
• Richard concluded that the Miracle Furnace could extract techniques from tools after prolonged use, then adapted a Queen Bug Guard technique and tested a powerful whip-like strike that dislocated his arm.
• Richard, Ellie, and Lawrence agreed to infiltrate Hive Twelve together after Ellie arranged for their assignments to match.
• The group set out for Hive Twelve, whose defenses were comparatively weak because it was outside the White Wizard Legion's main attack direction.
• Under Eternal Night, Black Robe Wizards gathered at the front lines before the towering bug hive, preparing to enter.

Richard infiltrated the Black Crystal Bug Nest while the White Wizards distracted its defenders, using his cloak and Shadow Infiltration to evade patrols. After the bugs began a massive search, a Level Two Warrior Bug attacked the shadow where Richard was hiding.

• The White Wizards launched an assault to draw the bugs’ attention while Richard and the Black Wizards infiltrated the Bug Nest.
• Richard used Shadow Shuttle and a Microwave Imaging Crystal Ball to enter the nest and study routes toward its underground section.
• Richard hid from two Warrior Bugs, learned that the bugs did not yet know Black Wizards had infiltrated, and continued toward the lower nest.
• Richard crossed a tunnel crowded with bugs by concealing himself in the shadows.
• A Warrior Bug squad announced a massive search for an infiltrator, and a Level Two Warrior Bug sensed Richard nearby and slashed at his hiding place.

Richard infiltrated the insect nest to destroy a hatching pool, using Ulysses to draw away the guards. He escaped after stealing hatching liquid and eggs and planting bombs, which exploded behind him.

• Richard released Ulysses underground and learned that Priest Fungi had helped restore some of its strength.
• Richard used an Imaging Crystal Ball to search for valuable targets and spent months locating and investigating a hatching pool.
• Richard and Ulysses lured the settlement’s defenders away by having Ulysses attack insects several kilometers from the pool.
• Richard slipped into the settlement, collected about ten kilograms of hatching liquid and two insect eggs, and planted two timed Annihilation Bombs.
• Two patrolling insects discovered the hole by the pool, and the bombs exploded as Richard watched from a tunnel before leaving.

Richard and Ulysses lay low after stealing hatching fluid, while the Black Mushroom Bug Kingdom enlisted Reinhardt, its Chosen Bug, to hunt the wizard raiders. By communing with the Spirit of the Earth, Reinhardt traced a wizard to a secluded cave and ordered the Warrior Bugs to search for a rare mushroom found there.

• Richard drank detoxified hatching fluid and told Ulysses they would lie low with their stolen supplies.
• A Priest Bug rebuked the Golden Armored Warrior Bugs for failing to find the wizard raiders and introduced Reinhardt as the Mother Worm God's Chosen Bug.
• Reinhardt told the Warrior Bugs she had advanced to two stars and joined their search for wizard monsters.
• At a ruined hatching pool, Reinhardt communed with the Spirit of the Earth and saw a Black Robe Wizard enter a secluded cave and meet a disguised bird.
• Reinhardt drew a Big Blue Bug Mushroom and ordered the Warrior Bugs to find caves where it grew.

Richard and Ulysses fled through the bug nest as Reinhardt led a growing pursuit, forcing Richard toward a dangerous place he had hoped to avoid. Reinhardt discovered that the tunnel Richard chose led to the Source Sea Abyss.

• Richard abandoned his cave after warning arrays were triggered, while Reinhardt found signs that the wizard had recently been there and ordered a pursuit.
• Richard and Ulysses realized the bugs had spread through the surrounding tunnels, and Richard headed toward a place he had long avoided.
• Reinhardt confronted a Warrior Bug’s fear, rallied his troops with the Black Crystal Bugs’ history of victory, and ordered them to capture Richard.
• Richard fought off pursuing bugs with a black fireball but found himself trapped by a large search force, including Priest Bugs able to track him.
• Richard flew into a tunnel with no viable escape routes, and Reinhardt followed after a mushroom pointed out his path.
• A Warrior Bug recognized that the tunnel led directly to the Source Sea Abyss.

Richard fled Reinhardt and the pursuing bugs toward the Source Sea Abyss, where the Primordial Sea’s violent life energy and ancient creatures made survival dangerous. Richard entered the abyss to escape, but Reinhardt followed him into the steam-shrouded depths, leaving Richard startled.

• Reinhardt led the bugs after Richard through the tunnel, confident the Source Sea Abyss was only a trick meant to slow them down.
• Richard and Ulysses turned to attack the pursuing swarm, but Reinhardt’s divine blessing and Starlight Barrier forced them to flee.
• Reinhardt pursued Richard through the tunnel as they exchanged spells, and Richard used a Warrior Bug as a scapegoat to evade Reinhardt’s Starlight Seal.
• Richard reached the Source Sea Abyss and jumped into its steam-shrouded depths after challenging Reinhardt to follow.
• Reinhardt plunged into the abyss, and Richard’s expression changed when he saw a streak of Holy Light enter the steam.

Richard escaped Reinhardt by descending into the Source Sea Abyss, where Ulysses sensed a hidden space and led him to a Precursor Ruin. Richard recovered valuable origins and crystal fragments before Ulysses rescued him as the unstable ruin collapsed.

• Richard convinced Reinhardt to abandon the pursuit by pretending he was willing to die in the abyss, then woke Ulysses after Reinhardt left.
• Ulysses sensed faint spatial fluctuations and led Richard deeper into the abyss, where he opened a rift to a hidden space.
• Richard discovered a Precursor Ruin containing a damaged Incubation Pod and extracted Soul Origin and Life Origin from its liquid.
• Richard broke the cracked crystal platform, gathered the crystal fragments, and prepared to leave as the ruin began collapsing.
• Ulysses seized Richard and carried him out just before the Precursor Ruin shattered.