Chapter Summaries

Zhou Qing exposed Dales’s plan to make the people of Falling Star City fund the fight against the Fallen Ones, and Xiao Wu attacked Dales’s hidden guards. Dales explained his need to appease local families, but Zhou Qing demanded that his team receive seventy percent of the funds after those families were paid.

• Dales praised Zhou Qing’s team and expected their public display of strength to persuade the city’s commoners to donate.
• Zhou Qing accused Dales of planning to mislead the commoners and split their donations with local nobles and Soul Master families.
• Xiao Wu attacked the hidden Soul Grand Masters, breaking one’s arm and sending another through a wall.
• Dales defended the guards and explained that he needed local families’ cooperation to organize the campaign against the Fallen Ones.
• Zhou Qing invoked the team’s mission from Xiao Lang and demanded seventy percent of the funds remaining after Dales paid the local families.

Dales placated Zhou Qing and prepared a scapegoat while secretly claiming Hu Fangyuan’s Rakshasa Avatar plans and unfinished puppets. The next morning, he brought Zhou Qing and the others to Falling Star City’s square, where residents gathered to hear his announcement about the excavated Soul Sand.

• Zhou Qing explained that Dales had agreed to his demand because Dales feared their strength and wanted to believe they were alike.
• Dales cursed Zhou Qing and the Soul Grand Masters, then learned that Hu Fangyuan had not been found and ordered his informant to stay at Falling Star Slope.
• Dales gave his steward a Human Skin Mask resembling him so the steward could serve as a scapegoat.
• Dales found Hu Fangyuan’s Rakshasa Avatar instructions, stored the four unfinished puppets, and discovered a map marked “City of Slaughter.”
• Dales invited Zhou Qing and the others to the square, where residents speculated about the price they would receive for their Soul Sand.

At a public assembly, Dales demanded enormous advance taxes and donations from Falling Star City’s people, claiming they were needed to defeat the Fallen Ones. Zhou Qing challenged Dales to prove his own strength, and the crowd’s call for a fight left Dales with no choice but to attack.

• Dales announced that each person should pay one thousand Gold Soul Coins in advance taxes and donations, while local families publicly supported him.
• Tang San recognized Dales’s campaign against the Fallen Ones as a pretext to silence his own people and amass wealth.
• Dales praised Zhou Qing and his companions as powerful young Soul Masters, then asked them to display their strength.
• Zhou Qing refused to show his Soul Rings and challenged Dales to test the group in battle, while Xiao Wu eagerly backed the idea.
• Zhou Qing asked the crowd to decide whether they should fight, and the people of Falling Star City unanimously shouted for a match.
• Dales accepted and charged at Zhou Qing after releasing his three Soul Rings.

Zhou Qing, Xiao Wu, Romantina, and Tang San defeated Dales in front of the crowd, then Zhou Qing repeatedly let the badly injured city lord fall through the broken stage while pretending to help him. The audience watched and quietly enjoyed Dales’s humiliation as Zhou Qing concluded that it might be his fate.

• Zhou Qing stopped Dales’s charge by grabbing his tusks, while Xiao Wu kicked him in the snout.
• Dales used his third soul skill to extend his tusks, but Zhou Qing struck him with Yongchun and launched him into the air.
• Romantina hit the falling Dales with her staff, and Tang San redirected him toward Zhou Qing, who smashed him through the stage with a Moo Spring Ox phantom.
• Zhou Qing dragged Dales out of the hole and propped him up, then let him fall back through when he pretended to look for paper.
• The crowd counted down as Dales leaned backward and cheered when he fell through the hole again.
• Zhou Qing picked up the Amplifying Soul Tool and said that this might be Dales’s fate.

Zhou Qing, Tang San, Xiao Wu, and Romantina turned Dales’s speech assembly into a public campaign against the Fallen Ones, using praise and accusations to rally Falling Star City’s residents. Under pressure, Dales ended the assembly by calling for the city’s future peace and ordering everyone to set off.

• Zhou Qing forced Dales’s butler to bring a chair and keep Dales at the assembly, while Tang San confirmed that Dales would survive his injuries.
• Zhou Qing praised Dales as a hero while accusing Falling Star City’s former city lords of colluding with the Fallen Ones and exploiting the residents.
• Tang San spoke about the murdered pregnant women and claimed the Fallen Ones had accomplices in the City Lord’s Mansion, prompting the crowd to demand their extermination.
• Xiao Wu and Romantina promised to help defeat the Fallen Ones, and Norman recognized how the group had publicly mocked Dales while rallying the crowd.
• Zhou Qing made Dales address the crowd, and Dales hoarsely called for peace in Falling Star City and ordered everyone to set off.

After Dales was humiliated by Zhou Qing, he feared him and ordered his men to refine Rakshasa Avatars for a coming attack. Back at You Hui’s home, Zhou Qing explained Dales’s scheme and discussed how political corruption differed between the Star Luo and Heaven Dou Empires.

• Dales recovered from his injuries, remained terrified of Zhou Qing, and decided Zhou Qing had to die.
• Dales gave three Soul Grand Masters a refining method and four unfinished Rakshasa Avatars, ordering them to join their companion at Falling Star Slope and temper the puppets.
• Zhou Qing and the others returned to You Hui’s home while the townspeople continued paying taxes and donations.
• Zhou Qing explained that Dales planned to label people who knew the truth as Fallen Ones and silence them during an extermination operation, while exploiting the campaign to collect money.
• Zhou Qing argued that Heaven Dou’s smaller, more autonomous kingdoms had less tightly connected networks of corrupt interests than the Star Luo Empire.

Zhou Qing explained that he wanted to test whether the people of Falling Star City would resist the nobles’ oppression, rather than simply take revenge on Dales. He asked You Hui to help govern the city if the experiment succeeded, and planned to gain support from the local Spirit Hall.

• Zhou Qing told his companions that he wanted to change the world by challenging the privileges that allowed nobles to oppress commoners.
• Tang San doubted that commoners could unite, while Zhou Qing said he wanted to test whether Falling Star City’s people had the courage to oppose their oppressors.
• Zhou Qing asked You Hui to take charge of Falling Star City if Dales fell, and Romantina and Zhou Qing encouraged the nervous You Hui to accept.
• Tang San suggested asking Qingzhu Zhu for help, but Zhou Qing said she was too young to assist.
• Zhou Qing proposed seeking support from Spirit Hall Branch Master Norman, and You Hui revealed that Norman was her great-uncle.

Zhou Qing revealed how Dales used the Fallen Ones as cover for a scheme that drained Falling Star City's commoners, and Norman agreed to help You Hui pursue justice. After Zhou Qing declined Spirit Hall's invitation, Norman wondered if he should kill the perceptive child for the peace of the continent.

• Zhou Qing told Norman he would support You Hui in suppressing the city's clans and nobles after the turmoil ended.
• Zhou Qing explained that Dales was tied to the Fallen Ones and had helped kill Zhou Qing's and You Hui's parents, so Norman agreed to help You Hui.
• Zhou Qing revealed that the Soul Ancestor-level Fallen One had already died and that Dales used the crisis to collect donations from the people while rewarding the wealthy.
• Zhou Qing explained that Dales's men had been branded as Fallen Ones to hide his connections and eliminate witnesses, shocking Norman with the scale of the scheme.
• Norman invited Zhou Qing to join Spirit Hall, but Zhou Qing declined, and Norman considered killing him for the peace of the continent.

Norman let Zhou Qing and his companions leave without reporting them to Spirit Hall, while Zhou Qing planned to expose Dales’s alliance with the Fallen Ones and rally Falling Star City’s citizens against him. At the City Lord’s Mansion, Zhou Qing sensed that the man posing as Dales had the same aura as Dales’s butler.

• You Hui protected Zhou Qing from Norman, but Norman admitted he could not defeat Zhou Qing and allowed the group to leave without sending their information to Spirit Hall.
• Dales collected Tax Donations from the city’s residents, taking ownership of nearly sixty percent of their homes, then promised to buy the Soul Sand and Soul Crystals they excavated.
• Zhou Qing predicted Dales would offer only a pittance for the minerals and explained that the group could lead the citizens in seeking justice by using surviving Fallen Ones as evidence of Dales’s alliance with them.
• Dales greeted Zhou Qing and his companions at the City Lord’s Mansion and claimed he had only been overheated two days earlier.
• Zhou Qing sensed that the man before him looked and sounded like Dales, but carried the same aura as Dales’s butler.

Zhou Qing, Tang San, and their companions met with Dales, Norman, and Luo Xing to plan a campaign against the Fallen Ones at Falling Star Slope. Zhou Qing urged caution and reconnaissance, but Dales pushed for a quick direct assault, and the meeting turned to when the force would depart.

• Norman warned that the displaced people at Falling Star Slope might have learned evil arts, while Dales dismissed them as ordinary bandits.
• Luo Xing asked Zhou Qing, Tang San, Xiao Wu, and Romantina to lead teams, but Zhou Qing declined because they lacked experience and should stay together.
• Dales proposed a direct assault, and Luo Xing agreed to lead it despite concerns about casualties.
• Zhou Qing argued that the force should investigate the slope's defenses, supplies, and escape routes before attacking.
• Dales insisted on acting quickly and offered compensation for casualties, while Zhou Qing restrained Xiao Wu and asked when they could leave.
• Norman and Luo Xing also pressed Dales to set a departure time for the campaign.

Dales sent a substitute with the Soul Masters toward Falling Star Slope while remaining in Falling Star City, where he killed an attendant and wondered why Zhou Qing had resisted him. At camp, Zhou Qing suspected the Dales leading the group was fake and explained his theory of the Mind-Sense Qi Field.

• Dales confirmed that the group had departed, killed an attendant he accused of being a spy, and questioned why Zhou Qing had been able to wrestle with him.
• Dales ordered the group to camp by a lake more than ten li from Falling Star Slope, and Tang San explained why the location was safer.
• Zhou Qing asked Tang San to secretly watch Dales on the return trip, then said he suspected the group's Dales was a fake because his Aura Field differed.
• Zhou Qing described how Soul Power, a Soul Master's body, and their Essence, Qi, and Spirit could produce an invisible force he called the Mind-Sense Qi Field.

Zhou Qing explained the Mind-Sense Qi Field and outlined a plan to use the fake Dales to expose the real Dales and install You Hui as Falling Star City's next city lord. At the main camp, Dales proposed attacking Falling Star Slope that night and claimed the stronghold held only fifty able-bodied adults, including four Soul Grand Masters.

• Zhou Qing explained that the Mind-Sense Qi Field drew on conviction and the harmony of body and breathing, leaving Tang San unsure of his own convictions.
• Zhou Qing told Tang San to watch Fake Dales closely and described how exposing his crimes could turn Falling Star City against the real Dales and help You Hui become city lord.
• Romantina worried that You Hui would become city lord and leave her behind, then joined Zhou Qing, Tang San, and Xiao Wu when they were summoned to the main camp.
• Dales proposed a night raid on Falling Star Slope, and Luo Xing questioned the haste because the defenders and their supplies were still unknown.
• Dales said his scouts had found fifty able-bodied adults at the stronghold and warned that four of them were Soul Grand Masters.

Zhou Qing and the others watched Dales and Norman organize a search of Falling Star Slope while considering whether a meteorite beneath the lake could provide rare materials. The Sky Dream Ice Silkworm scanned the lake and revealed that some of its fish had become Ten-Year Soul Beasts.

• Xiao Wu questioned Dales about his four Soul Grandmaster subordinates, and Dales claimed they had returned to Star Luo City for family matters.
• Dales arranged for Luo Xing and twenty Adventurers to search one side of the lake while Norman and thirty Spirit Hall members searched the other.
• Zhou Qing, Tang San, Xiao Wu, and Romantina discussed the meteor legend and whether Meteorite Iron could be found beneath the lake.
• Zhou Qing asked the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm to scan the lake, revealing fish and shrimp, including fish that emitted Soul Power and had become Ten-Year Soul Beasts.

Zhou Qing and Tang San discovered a perfectly round object inside a massive meteorite and considered whether it was Primordial Beginning Refined Iron. Sky Dream Ice Silkworm offered to help retrieve the meteorite, and Zhou Qing said his Gray Pouch could hold it.

• With Sky Dream Ice Silkworm's help, Zhou Qing, Tang San, and Xiao Wu spotted a fist-sized sphere inside a shattered meteorite at the bottom of the lake.
• Tang San speculated that the sphere might be Primordial Beginning Refined Iron, a rare substance described in Tang Sect legends, but admitted he could not confirm what it was or how it could be used.
• Zhou Qing wondered whether the sphere might be something other than metal, while Tang San explained that the meteorite itself would be difficult to raise because it weighed nearly a hundred tons.
• Romantina briefly regained control of her body, then Sky Dream Ice Silkworm took over again and teased Zhou Qing before asking about the meteorite and the sphere.
• Sky Dream Ice Silkworm offered to help retrieve the meteorite, and Zhou Qing said his Gray Pouch could fit the entire meteorite inside.

Sky Dream Ice Silkworm created an ice passage to the meteorite beneath the lake, and Zhou Qing, Tang San, and Xiao Wu descended to inspect it. When a mysterious sphere emerged from the meteorite and resonated with Zhou Qing, Tang San recognized it as Tao Rong Iron and concluded that it had chosen Zhou Qing as its master.

• Sky Dream Ice Silkworm used Extreme Ice to freeze the meteorite and form a passage to the lake bottom.
• Zhou Qing, Tang San, and Xiao Wu slid down the passage, lighting their way with their Martial Souls and a tinderbox.
• Tang San examined the meteorite and determined that it contained rare metals.
• Zhou Qing felt something inside the meteorite calling to him, and a black sphere emerged as his Martial Soul and Innate Internal Scripture Chart activated.
• Tang San identified the sphere as Tao Rong Iron and reasoned that it had chosen Zhou Qing as its master.

Zhou Qing refined the Refined Iron into a controllable substance of Pure and Impure Qi, reaching Soul Power level twenty while Tang San and Xiao Wu also advanced through cultivation. He demonstrated the Refined Iron’s transformations, and Tang San suspected it would need further refinement before becoming a true wish-fulfilling divine weapon.

• The Refined Iron merged with Zhou Qing’s Aura Field and entered his body, prompting him, Tang San, and Xiao Wu to cultivate for two hours.
• Tang San reached Soul Power level nineteen, Xiao Wu caught up to him at level nineteen, and Zhou Qing emerged from cultivation at level twenty.
• Zhou Qing explained that the Refined Iron had circulated through his Acupoints thirteen thousand five hundred times and could be reshaped with a thought.
• Zhou Qing transformed the Refined Iron into life-sized figures of Tang San and Xiao Wu, and Xiao Wu angrily made him promise not to copy her likeness again.
• Tang San reasoned that the Refined Iron might require nine transformations through Zhou Qing’s cultivation method before becoming a wish-fulfilling divine weapon.

After Sky Dream Ice Silkworm launched Zhou Qing, Tang San, and Xiao Wu out of the lake, they sensed a disturbance at Falling Star Slope. Norman and Luo Xing’s failed assault on the Mountain Stronghold ended with a violent surge of chaotic Heaven and Earth Energy.

• Zhou Qing stored the Tao Rong Iron and, following Sky Dream Ice Silkworm’s instructions, climbed the Ice Path with Tang San and Xiao Wu.
• Sky Dream Ice Silkworm flooded the Ice Cellar and used the water pressure to blast the three out of the lake, leaving Zhou Qing hung in a tree, Tang San in the mud, and Xiao Wu knocked unconscious against a tree.
• After recovering Romantina’s body, Sky Dream Ice Silkworm returned to the Sea of Spirit, while Zhou Qing declined to summon him again to investigate a disturbance near Falling Star Lake.
• At Falling Star Slope, Norman and Luo Xing’s infiltrators were discovered and killed by four Soul Grand Masters, so the two leaders withdrew rather than attack the Mountain Stronghold directly.
• When a violent gale erupted from the Mountain Stronghold, Luo Xing recognized Earth Roar, while Norman suspected an expert was disrupting Heaven and Earth Energy.

Luo Xing and Norman led their men to Falling Star Slope, where four people encased in skeletons emerged from the Mountain Stronghold and attacked fleeing residents. The group injured the Skeleton People, but Luo Xing realized they could rapidly regenerate by absorbing blood as one rose from a devastating wound.

• Luo Xing and Norman brought more than fifty people out of the woods and suspected the Mountain Stronghold had noticed them.
• Four Skeleton People fled the stronghold, drinking the blood of their victims, and Norman identified them as Fallen Ones.
• Norman ordered his men to capture the fleeing residents and split into groups to investigate the Skeleton People.
• Norman and Luo Xing led fourteen Soul Masters into battle, and their attacks appeared to overwhelm the four Skeleton People.
• Luo Xing saw the Skeleton Person he had badly wounded rise again as its skeleton absorbed blood and repaired both itself and the person inside.

Norman and Luo Xing fought four Fallen Ones whose skeletons controlled their hosts, healed them, and stole Soul Power from their victims. Norman sent a messenger to Falling Star City while he and Luo Xing stayed to hold the Fallen Ones back, and Zhou Qing and Xiao Wu headed toward Falling Star Slope after learning of the danger.

• Luo Xing and Norman realized the Skeleton People’s bones controlled their hosts and could heal them by absorbing the Soul Power of anyone they killed.
• Norman persuaded Luo Xing and the others to stay and fight, warning that the Fallen Ones could grow strong enough to threaten Falling Star City.
• Norman sent a white-dove soul master across the lake to report the threat to the city lord, then prepared to hold off the four Fallen Ones with Luo Xing.
• Zhou Qing rescued the exhausted messenger from the lake, and Tang San revived him on shore.
• The messenger warned them about the four Fallen Ones before fainting, and Zhou Qing sent Tang San to find Fake Dales while he and Xiao Wu ran toward Falling Star Slope.

Zhou Qing and Xiao Wu arrived at Falling Star Slope and helped Norman, Luo Xing, and the other Soul Masters fight four powerful Fallen Ones encased in skeletons. After the battle turned in their favor, Zhou Qing secretly collected a belt and the shattered skeletal remains in his Gray Pouch.

• Zhou Qing and Xiao Wu learned that four Fallen Ones could drain blood and grow stronger by poisoning Soul Masters, then hurried to Falling Star Slope.
• Zhou Qing charged into the battle and destroyed one Skeleton Person with a punch, then badly wounded a second.
• Xiao Wu broke one Skeleton Person's knee and engaged the last one while Norman, Luo Xing, and the other Soul Masters restrained their opponents.
• Zhou Qing watched a Skeleton Person's skeleton repair itself, then saw the Fallen One inside wither after its heart had been shattered.
• Zhou Qing secretly put the dried corpse's belt and the shattered skeleton fragments into his Gray Pouch for later study.