Chapter Summaries

Wang Nan returned to Star Luo City after leaving the Star Dou Great Forest and reunited with his parents. He gave Wang Xing pills from Yan Shaozhe and received a Level 5 Soul Tool, the Invincible Barrier, as a gift.

• Wang Nan hired a carriage and meditated on the journey to Star Luo City.
• Wang Nan saw Duke White Tiger’s army preparing to leave the city, and the emperor arrived to see Duke White Tiger off.
• Wang Nan returned home after eleven months away and reunited with his mother and Wang Xing.
• Wang Nan gave Wang Xing several bottles of pills that Yan Shaozhe had given him.
• Wang Xing gave Wang Nan a Level 5 Soul Tool, the Invincible Barrier, and asked him to talk about life at the academy.

Wang Nan returned to Shrek Academy and found that the Soul Tool Department had expanded and that Soul Tool lessons were being added to the curriculum. Fan Yu then introduced a joint program in which Soul Tool students would create custom equipment for Martial Soul Department Core Disciples.

• Wang Nan arrived at Shrek Academy and saw the Soul Tool Department’s new research and experimental buildings.
• Sun He announced that students would study Soul Tools and that their practical use would become part of promotion assessments.
• Sun He kept Wang Nan and the other Class One Core Disciples after class and brought them to the Soul Tool Department.
• Fan Yu explained that Soul Tool Department students who could not pass the combat assessment could train as Support Type Soul Engineers.
• Fan Yu paired the Soul Tool students with Martial Soul Department Core Disciples and set a three-month deadline to make Soul Tools that increased each partner’s combat power by twenty percent.

Wang Nan paired with Lin Xiao for the Soul Tool Department’s combat-strength project, then entered Shrek’s Promotion Assessment and chose to face a thousand-year Frigid Mane Lion. He blocked its deceptive opening attack and began countering as it tried the same trick again.

• Wang Nan was left without a Soul Tool Department partner until Lin Xiao volunteered to work with him.
• The second-year students gathered at Shrek’s Beast Fighting Zone, where Wang Nan chose a thousand-year Soul Beast for his assessment.
• A Frigid Mane Lion lured Wang Nan into its ice mist and struck at him, but he blocked its paw with his Coiling Dragon Staff.
• Wang Nan charged again, and when the Frigid Mane Lion repeated its ice-mist attack, his staff emerged from the mist and tapped its chest.

Wang Nan used his newly acquired Third Soul Skill to defeat the Frigid Mane Lion and set a new second-year assessment record. Afterward, he discussed a Soul Tool that could help him fight in the air with Lin Xiao, who revealed that Soul Tool Thrusters already existed.

• Wang Nan used Mountain Surge to disrupt the Frigid Mane Lion, then struck it three times and won the assessment with a score of 140 points.
• Sun He praised Wang Nan and advised him to seek more practical Soul Beast combat experience.
• Lin Xiao told Wang Nan she had watched his assessment to learn how to design a Soul Tool suited to him.
• Wang Nan explained that a device for brief aerial movement would help him, and Lin Xiao identified it as a Soul Tool Thruster.
• Lin Xiao said she had been able to make a Level Two Soul Tool Thruster two years earlier, surprising Wang Nan.

Wang Nan chose Soul Tool Thrusters after Lin Xiao explained their drawbacks, and Ma Xiaotao delivered cultivation resources and a Golden Tree branch from Yan Shaozhe. Ma Xiaotao left after praising Wang Nan’s Promotion Assessment performance and promising to fight him again.

• Lin Xiao explained why Soul Engineers rarely used Soul Tool Thrusters, but Wang Nan chose them and Lin Xiao agreed to consider building him a flexible set.
• Ma Xiaotao met Wang Nan and explained that she had come to deliver items from her teacher, not because of Martial Soul backlash.
• Ma Xiaotao gave Wang Nan cultivation medicines, medicinal herbs, incense, and an academy-refined Soul Power cultivation method.
• Ma Xiaotao gave Wang Nan a naturally shed Golden Tree branch, whose aura of light and life nourished him and stirred the Luminous Orb in his Spiritual Sea.
• Ma Xiaotao praised Wang Nan’s Promotion Assessment performance, left, and said she would come find him for a fight another day.

After passing the Promotion Assessment, Wang Nan received advice from Mu En on refining his self-created skills and began cultivating with a new method from Ma Xiaotao. As he ate outside the dormitory that night, an alarm sounded across Shrek Academy and teachers rushed toward the Outer Courtyard.

• Wang Nan told Mu En that he had passed the Promotion Assessment, and Mu En advised him to incorporate his own will into his skills and learn to adjust their patterns.
• Mu En left for Seagod Lake with a young woman and a little boy, and Wang Nan returned to the dormitory to talk with Gongyang Mo about their assessments.
• Wang Nan studied the cultivation method Ma Xiaotao had given him and completed one full cycle of Soul Power after half a day of practice.
• Wang Nan found food boxes Gongyang Mo had left for him and ate outside the dormitory before an alarm rang and teachers hurried toward the Outer Courtyard.

Feng Ling attacked Shrek Academy and fought Yan Shaozhe while the academy was already facing a battle on Sea God Island. She withdrew after Xian Lin'er joined the fight, then met two black-robed figures in the forest and learned that the Holy Cult’s plan could proceed because Mu En had been badly weakened.

• Yan Shaozhe ordered everyone at Shrek Outer Academy back to their dormitories as teachers searched the area, and Wang Nan took shelter inside.
• Feng Ling confronted Yan Shaozhe, revealed their past relationship, and fought him with her Evil Phoenix powers, overpowering his golden phoenix attack.
• Xian Lin'er arrived and told Yan Shaozhe that Mu En was injured, while the attacker on Sea God Island had retreated and elders were searching for a disciple.
• Feng Ling unleashed a purple beam toward the Dormitory Building, but Yan Shaozhe and Xian Lin'er blocked it as she escaped from the academy.
• Feng Ling met two black-robed figures in a forest, learned that Mu En’s injuries had left the Holy Cult unopposed for up to ten years, and left with them heading west.

Mu En suspected that powerful figures were cultivating Evil Soul Masters after Ji Tongxuan was abducted from Shrek Academy. Sun He explained the Shrek Oversight Group to Wang Nan and asked whether he would join its reserve ranks.

• Mu En told Yan Shaozhe and Xian Lin'er that Feng Ling and her companion had used their visit as a smokescreen to abduct a student and might be cultivating Evil Soul Masters.
• Mu En ordered Shrek to warn the empires, alert the Oversight Group, search for the Evil Soul Masters' base, and broaden recruitment.
• Sun He told the students that Ji Tongxuan had been held under watch after his Martial Soul went berserk, but a powerful soul master abducted him during the previous night's attack.
• Wang Nan deduced that the intruder was Long Xiaoyao, who had broken into Sea God Island while Mu En and the elders were present.
• Sun He explained that the Shrek Oversight Group disciplined soul masters who harmed others and asked Wang Nan whether he wanted to join as a reserve member.

Wang Nan joined the Shrek Oversight Group and received his emblem before setting out on his first Inspection Mission. Xuan Zi took him, Gongyang Mo, and other Core Disciples to a desolate plain near a distant village, where they stopped to rest.

• Sun He warned Wang Nan about the dangers of joining the Oversight Group and explained how its missions worked.
• Wang Nan chose to join, received the Oversight Group emblem, and learned he would assist other Inner Courtyard Disciples on missions.
• Sun He told Wang Nan to gather at the academy gate the next morning, and Gongyang Mo said he would be leaving too.
• Wang Nan and Gongyang Mo met Yu Chenyu and other third-year students at the academy gate the next morning.
• Xuan Zi arrived to lead their first Inspection Mission and carried the group through the air at great speed.
• Xuan Zi brought the students to a desolate plain near a distant village and told them to rest and eat.

Xuan Zi led Wang Nan and the other young Soul Elders to a village massacred by Evil Soul Masters and made them fight the perpetrators. After the students buried the victims, Wang Nan wondered whether the world had gotten any better.

• Xuan Zi revealed that Evil Soul Masters had slaughtered the village and ordered the students to eliminate them.
• Dai Yueheng attacked the first Evil Soul Master, and four more emerged from the house.
• Wang Nan found murdered children inside a house and killed an Evil Soul Master with his Coiling Dragon Staff, destroying the house in the process.
• The other students joined the fight and killed the remaining Evil Soul Masters.
• The students gathered and buried the villagers' remains at the village entrance as Xuan Zi explained the Shrek Oversight Group's duty.

After three months of training and Soul Tool adjustments, Wang Nan helped Lin Xiao demonstrate her Level Three Soul Tool Thruster during her Promotion Assessment. Lin Xiao passed, and Qian Duoduo decided to keep every student who took the assessment.

• Wang Nan tested Lin Xiao's Soul Tool Thruster and showed that he could fly and maneuver using its components.
• Qian Duoduo and Fan Yu explained that the Promotion Assessment would judge Soul Engineers through one-on-one combat, with each opponent allowed only the assessed student's Soul Tool.
• Wang Nan used Lin Xiao's Thruster to dodge Ye Xiaosheng's Soul Light Rays, fly across the arena, and close in with his Coiling Dragon Staff.
• Fan Yu stopped the match, and Qian Duoduo praised the Thruster's ability to give a Soul Master flight and declared that Lin Xiao had passed.
• Qian Duoduo decided to keep all the remaining successful students, giving the assessment a one hundred percent pass rate.

Wang Nan learned that Shrek Academy would select five Outer Courtyard Reserve Members for the upcoming Soul Fighting Competition, while Ma Xiaotao prepared to obtain her fourth Soul Ring. At the selection tournament, the Core Disciples began a chaotic free-for-all, and widespread Soul Tool attacks caught Xuan Zi’s attention.

• Ma Xiaotao sparred with Wang Nan, then told him she had reached rank forty and would leave the next day to obtain her fourth Soul Ring.
• Ma Xiaotao explained that the academy’s selection tournament would choose Reserve Members for the Soul Fighting Competition, and that Inner Courtyard Disciples could be selected directly.
• A few days later, Xuan Zi gathered the eligible Core Disciples and announced that the final five survivors of a group free-for-all would win.
• Wang Nan retreated to the edge as the battle began, and the participants quickly unleashed a barrage of Soul Tool attacks.
• Xuan Zi stopped to watch as Soul Tool fire filled the Soul Fighting Zone.

Wang Nan used a Soul Tool Shock Cannon to disrupt the selection competition, while Dai Yueheng and Ling Luochen joined forces with him and Gongyang Mo. Xuan Zi ended the contest with five students remaining and told the survivors to wait for two more people.

• Wang Nan and the other students dodged the Soul Light Ray barrage, which eliminated two weaker students; Dai Yueheng blocked the attacks with a Soul Tool Shield.
• Wang Nan fired his Soul Tool Shock Cannon at five gathered students, but Xuan Zi caught the shell and carried all five out of the arena.
• Dai Yueheng eliminated two more students, then charged at Wang Nan as the remaining fighters dwindled to nine.
• Ling Luochen trapped Dai Yueheng in ice, and Wang Nan agreed to join forces with him and Gongyang Mo.
• Dai Yueheng charged the opposing group while Gongyang Mo supported him and Wang Nan scattered them with his cannon; Dai Yueheng eliminated four before Xuan Zi stopped the contest.
• Xuan Zi warned the students to adapt to battlefield conditions, sent the eliminated students away, and told Wang Nan and the other survivors to wait for two more people.

Wang Nan was selected as a reserve contestant for the All-Continent Advanced Soul Master Academy Soul Fighting Competition, then learned that the Three-Year Agreement with Gathering Treasures Pavilion had come due. Elder Lin Huiqun welcomed him and presented him with a promised gift, which he had just opened.

• Dai Yueheng exchanged pleasantries with Wang Nan and invited him to visit his home near Star Luo City.
• Xuan Zi announced that Wang Nan and the others had been selected as reserve contestants for the Soul Fighting Competition and would train with him weekly.
• A Gathering Treasures Pavilion representative told Wang Nan that the Three-Year Agreement had come due and invited him to visit the Pavilion.
• Wang Nan met Elder Lin Huiqun, who reminded him of her promise and had a woman bring a brocade box to the table.
• Wang Nan opened the box and found a milky-white pearl inside.

Wang Nan bought a ten-thousand-year Crimson-faced Ape Right Arm Bone from Gathering Treasures Pavilion and began absorbing it that night. As the fusion progressed, he discovered that its ability let his body and Coiling Dragon Staff merge, greatly improving his control over the weapon.

• Lin Huiqun explained the Mermaid's Tear and offered Wang Nan the Crimson-faced Ape Right Arm Bone for nine hundred thousand Gold Soul Coins.
• Wang Nan bought the soul bone using his credit limit and received Inner Courtyard Disciple treatment at Gathering Treasures Pavilion.
• Wang Nan absorbed the soul bone in his dormitory and experienced the Crimson-faced Ape's memories.
• Wang Nan realized the soul bone could fuse his body with the Coiling Dragon Staff and channel Soul Power between them.

Wang Nan completed the fusion between his Right Arm Bone and the Coiling Dragon Staff, then entered a three-month Deep Meditation. He woke in the dormitory with his Spiritual Power expanded into a sea and learned from Elder Zhuang that he had been motionless for three months.

• Wang Nan's consciousness watched his body fight an Ape-eating Eagle and practice with a branch while the Soul Bone's fusion continued.
• Gongyang Mo and Sun He found Wang Nan in Deep Meditation, and Xuan Zi decided he would miss the Soul Fighting Competition to protect the benefits of his training.
• After a month, Wang Nan remained in Deep Meditation as the Golden Tree Branch sustained him, and Xuan Zi took the other Disciples to the competition.
• Wang Nan regained control in his Spiritual Sea, where his Spiritual Power had grown into a vast sea with a small island at its center.
• Wang Nan woke in the dormitory, and Elder Zhuang told him that he had not moved for three months.

Wang Nan woke from a three-month Deep Meditation, discovered that he had grown stronger and reached the level-forty bottleneck, and learned that the Golden Tree branch had been absorbed. After recovering and catching up with Sun He, he returned toward the dormitory and found Ma Xiaotao looking for him.

• Elder Zhuang explained that Wang Nan’s three-month Deep Meditation had greatly benefited his growth and left him with Life Energy to absorb.
• Wang Nan examined his strengthened body, realized he had reached level forty, and found that the Golden Tree branch had crumbled into golden wood chips.
• Sun He checked on Wang Nan, offered to help him obtain a Soul Ring, and advised him to rest and catch up on missed theory classes.
• Sun He took Wang Nan to the cafeteria, where Wang Nan learned that Zhang Lexuan had led Shrek Academy to win the Soul Fighting Competition.
• Wang Nan spotted Ma Xiaotao searching near the Dormitory Building, and she said she had been looking for him.

Ma Xiaotao visited Wang Nan after his meditation and gave him a soul tool, while Wang Nan considered the future potential of soul tools. Dai Yueheng learned that Dai Huabin had completed Martial Soul Fusion with a Zhu Family girl, making the succession to Duke White Tiger uncertain.

• Ma Xiaotao visited Wang Nan, gave him a Rechargeable Soul Tool necklace, and hurried back.
• Wang Nan examined the necklace, considered how soul tools might develop, and returned to meditation.
• A soldier reported to Dai Yueheng that Wang Nan’s family included two Soul Kings and had fled to Star Luo City centuries earlier.
• The soldier told Dai Yueheng that Dai Huabin had completed Martial Soul Fusion with a Zhu Family girl.
• Dai Yueheng accepted that Dai Huabin would likely inherit the ducal title and ordered the soldier to obey his brother’s requests.

Wang Nan traveled with Dai Yueheng to the Duke's Mansion, where Dai Yueheng tried to befriend him and show his gratitude. There, Wang Nan met the young Huo Yuhao, who stared at him nervously.

• Wang Nan left Shrek Academy to obtain his Fourth Soul Ring and accepted Dai Yueheng's offer to ride with him toward Star Luo City.
• During the day-and-night journey, Dai Yueheng discussed Soul Tools and other topics Wang Nan enjoyed, deliberately drawing closer to him.
• Dai Yueheng invited Wang Nan to the Duke's Mansion for a meal and showed him around the residence.
• Wang Nan saw Huo Yuhao among the servants and recognized him, while Dai Yueheng explained that his mother had taken the boy in.
• Huo Yuhao stared at Wang Nan, then lowered his head nervously when Wang Nan turned toward him.

Wang Nan and Wang Xing searched Star Dou Great Forest for a suitable fourth soul ring, then agreed to travel with a veiled young woman calling herself Yan Huo. The three encountered a Tyrant Dragon in the Mixed Zone.

• Wang Xing and Wang Nan entered the Mixed Zone and searched for five days without finding a suitable soul beast.
• Wang Nan and Wang Xing left their camp at dawn on the sixth day to resume their search.
• Yan Huo asked Wang Xing and Wang Nan to travel with her, explaining that she sought a fourth soul ring and had an elder secretly guarding her.
• Wang Xing, Wang Nan, and Yan Huo entered the Mixed Zone together and soon encountered a Tyrant Dragon.