Chapter Summaries

Chen Ming’s Totem Battle Markings transformed Su Yuntao’s martial soul and greatly strengthened his body, prompting others to seek the procedure. Meanwhile, Yu Xiaogang began training Shrek’s students with weighted laps and a medicinal bath, unaware that his methods were outdated and his formula was built from borrowed recipes.

• Chen Ming’s third procedure evolved Su Yuntao’s Gale Demon Wolf into a Gale Blood Demon Wolf, raising his potential and giving him powerful regeneration and berserk abilities.
• Chen Ming determined that Totem Battle Markings could enhance a compatible Spirit Master without harming their reason, though mismatched attributes could weaken a martial soul.
• After Su Yuntao’s results attracted clients, Chen Ming accepted requests to modify clan members in exchange for money and materials.
• Yu Xiaogang instructed Tang San and the Shrek students to run laps carrying baskets of stones, claiming the exercise came from ancient Spirit Hall training.
• Yu Xiaogang promised the students a medicinal bath made from formulas he had combined, while believing his version surpassed the original methods.

Chen Ming performed a major body modification on Huyan Li, implanting an artificial meridian system that contained a prefabricated cultivation method. After the operation, Chen Ming considered how his techniques could be used to mass-produce modified Spirit Masters.

• Huyan Li asked Chen Ming whether he would participate in the All-Continent Advanced Soul Master Academy Elite Tournament, and Chen Ming said he would serve as a judge and provide rewards.
• Huyan Li asked Chen Ming for a simpler cultivation method while enduring the painful operation.
• Chen Ming explained that he had turned Ah Yin's golden silk into artificial meridians that could carry a preprogrammed cultivation method.
• Chen Ming finished implanting a Golden Bell Shield and Iron Shirt method in Huyan Li, giving him defensive and offensive enhancements comparable to a ten-thousand-year Spirit Skill.
• Huyan Li felt encouraged by the results, while Chen Ming recorded his surgical methods and considered using them to create large numbers of modified Spirit Masters.

Chen Ming reflected on his research and his students’ poor ability to learn, while Yu Xiaogang’s confidence surged after gaining Tang Xiao’s backing. At Shrek Academy, Yu Xiaogang’s painful Medicinal Bath provoked Dai Mubai into grabbing him by the collar.

• Chen Ming considered the research he had conducted before the tournament and concluded that his students, except Feng Xiaotian, showed little initiative or creativity.
• Tang San absorbed the Medicinal Power in his bath and praised Yu Xiaogang’s method, unaware that Dai Mubai and Oscar were suffering in neighboring rooms.
• Dai Mubai complained that the Medicinal Bath felt like it was trying to kill him, and Yu Xiaogang claimed its formula surpassed the baths he had used before.
• Yu Xiaogang suggested Dai Mubai had weak kidneys, emboldened by Tang Xiao’s covert support and Tang Chen’s interest in Tang San.
• Dai Mubai leapt from the tub, seized Yu Xiaogang by the collar, and insisted that he was not weak.

Key plot points and events

• Dai Mubai questions Yu Xiaogang about the medicinal bath’s effects. Yu claims it is a tonic and says Ma Hongjun’s earlier reaction proves it; Dai accepts the explanation and resumes soaking.
• Oscar collapses in his bath, covered in rashes and struggling to breathe. The mixture is dangerously unbalanced, but the Asura God intervenes by activating marks in Oscar’s and Dai Mubai’s minds, changing their bodies so they can endure it. He treats them as expendable pawns whose lives can be sacrificed for his uncertain plans.
• The Asura God checks on Ma Hongjun and finds him with a group of much older women. Flender has arranged this as a quick way to relieve Ma Hongjun’s “evil fire” and get him back to cultivation.
• At a gathering, Tang Xiao confronts the leaders of the Breaking and Defense Clans. Yang Wudi and Niu Gao prepare to fight, convinced the Clear Sky Sect may intend to eliminate them.
• The chapter explains the clans’ deep resentment: the Defense Clan served the Clear Sky Sect for generations but was abandoned, while the Breaking Clan had long-standing disputes with the sect over its guarded medicine-making knowledge and suffered heavy losses after the Tang Hao incident.

Character developments and interactions

• Dai Mubai is initially suspicious and physically intimidates Yu Xiaogang, but Yu’s explanation persuades him to continue the bath.
• Yu Xiaogang maintains his confidence in his own formulation despite knowing little about its real effects; he is relieved once safely away from Dai.
• The Asura God grows detached and pragmatic, sacrificing Oscar and Dai Mubai’s vitality to preserve his broader plans.
• Ma Hongjun’s absence becomes a source of dark comedy: Flender’s practical attempt to manage his condition appears to have led to an unpleasant encounter.
• Yang Wudi and Niu Gao show resolve and defiance toward Tang Xiao, ready to resist despite recognizing his superior strength.

Significant themes

• Betrayal and lasting resentment: The Clear Sky Sect’s abandonment of its subordinate clans has turned former allies into enemies.
• Exploitation and sacrifice: The Asura God values his pawns only for their usefulness, even when his plans are faltering.
• Recklessness and unintended consequences: Yu Xiaogang’s flawed medicinal mixture endangers those who use it.
• Dark humor: The contrast between serious danger and the characters’ absurd explanations and circumstances provides much of the chapter’s comedy.

Key plot points

• The Breaking and Defense Clans follow the Strength Clan’s marks, expecting to find survivors, but instead encounter Tang Xiao, Clear Sky Sect master.
• Tang Xiao says he has come on Tang Chen’s orders to bring the two clans back into the sect and offer compensation for the Clear Sky Sect’s past wrongdoing.
• Yang Wudi and Niu Gao reject his appeal, convinced the meeting is a trap. Yang reveals that he has moved some of the Breaking Clan to safety and threatens to give its medicine-refining techniques to Spirit Hall if the clan is killed. Niu Gao realizes the Defense Clan has no such escape plan.
• When negotiations collapse, Tang Xiao defeats the clans by force. Yang Wudi dies standing after striking Tang Xiao, while Niu Gao and many others are left gravely injured or dead.
• Tang Xiao demands their submission, declaring that strength decides disputes in the Soul Master world. Niu Gao tells him the Strength Clan was wiped out and the Speed Clan joined Spirit Hall months earlier.

Character developments and interactions

• Tang Xiao tries to restrain his anger and act with more caution than Tang Hao had, mindful of the damage another reckless decision could do to the sect. But when persuasion fails, he resorts to overwhelming force, then regrets that events came to violence.
• Yang Wudi remains fiercely defiant, condemning the Clear Sky Sect and refusing to treat compensation as sufficient. He fights Tang Xiao and dies resisting him.
• Niu Gao backs Yang’s resistance, but his confidence falters when he discovers his clan is unprepared to escape. Even while wounded, he delivers the news about the other clans.
• Tang Xiao’s attempt at reconciliation becomes a confrontation: Yang and Niu meet his offers with suspicion and taunts, while he ultimately compels the survivors to submit.

Significant themes

• Violence as both solution and escalation: Tang Xiao wins through superior strength, but the victory deepens resentment rather than earning loyalty.
• Power versus justice: Tang Xiao openly invokes the Soul Master world’s rule that the stronger party prevails, while Yang insists that moral judgment and public memory cannot be erased by force.
• The cost of past wrongdoing: The Clear Sky Sect’s history with the clans makes reconciliation difficult, and its offer of compensation cannot undo the damage or restore trust.
• Pragmatism and foresight: The Breaking Clan’s preparations and the Speed Clan’s move to Spirit Hall contrast with the Defense Clan’s lack of a backup plan.

Chapter summary

Key plot points and events

• Tang Xiao secured young spirit masters from the Breaking and Defense Clans for the tournament, despite both clans’ lingering resentment toward the Speed Clan. Their candidates were only Soul Elders, and Tang Xiao doubted they could compete effectively against stronger teams.
• With the tournament approaching and team registration imminent, Tang Xiao needed an academy’s qualification. He decided to take Blue Tyrant Academy’s by force, reasoning that the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan was already an enemy of the Clear Sky Sect.
• After sending the two recruits to Shrek and returning the other clan members to Clear Sky territory, Tang Xiao infiltrated Blue Tyrant Academy. Threatening its teachers, he learned that Dean Liu Erlong had withdrawn from academy affairs.
• Liu Erlong had lost control of her Fire Dragon Avatar more than a year earlier and burned her carefully tended garden to ash. Since then, she had secluded herself in the ruined garden and focused on cultivation.
• Tang Xiao, expecting Liu Erlong to look middle-aged, was startled when he finally saw her. The chapter ends before explaining his surprise.

Character developments

• Tang Xiao is portrayed as more measured and thoughtful than Tang Hao, but his judgment remains shaped by Clear Sky Sect’s arrogance. He regards Spirit Hall as the only true enemy and dismisses the other great sects as insignificant.
• Liu Erlong appears to have become isolated after her uncontrolled transformation destroyed her garden. Her withdrawal suggests unresolved distress or a major personal change, though its cause is not yet revealed.
• Bai He and the Speed Clan remain tied to Tang Xiao’s conflicted feelings: he avoids confronting them partly because Bai He is his uncle and once cared for him as a child.

Significant themes

• Sect loyalty and prejudice: Tang Xiao’s decisions reflect the Clear Sky Sect’s belief in its own superiority and its contempt for rival sects.
• Power versus practicality: The recruits’ specialized training makes them powerful in narrow ways, but their modest cultivation may not suit a major tournament.
• Loss and withdrawal: Liu Erlong’s burned garden symbolizes the aftermath of her loss of control and her retreat from ordinary life.
• Personal ties versus political conflict: Tang Xiao’s family bond with Bai He complicates the sect’s hostility toward the Speed Clan.

Character interactions

• Tang Xiao’s memories of Bai He restrain him from acting against the Speed Clan, despite the sect’s grievances.
• He compels the Breaking and Defense Clans to provide tournament candidates, then delivers those candidates to Shrek.
• At Blue Tyrant Academy, Tang Xiao intimidates teachers to obtain information about Liu Erlong, setting up their impending encounter.

Key plot points and events

• Liu Erlong has become a low-level Soul Douluo, but grief and resentment have left her looking prematurely aged and emotionally volatile.
• Tang Xiao approaches her with news of Yu Xiaogang and asks her to let Shrek Academy compete under Blue Tyrant Academy’s name, presenting it as Yu Xiaogang’s final wish. Though she still resents the Clear Sky Sect and remains conflicted about her family, she agrees.
• Shrek’s tournament entry is consequently registered under Blue Tyrant Academy. Yu Xiaogang and Flender are shaken to learn the academy belongs to Liu Erlong, but Tang Xiao’s power leaves them little choice but to proceed.
• Because Tang San is only rank thirty-three and needs to be stronger for the tournament, Tang Xiao obtains a ten-thousand-year Man Faced Demon Spider torso Spirit Bone and gives it to him.
• The Asura God, who had hoped Tang San would receive far more powerful spirit bones, considers how to compensate during the divine trials. His intended helper, Tang Chen, has resisted the task and passed it to Tang Xiao.
• The Five Elemental Academies’ students return to their schools after training with Chen Ming. Their teams—and Heaven Dou Imperial Academy—are now much stronger, raising expectations for an unusually competitive tournament.

Character developments and interactions

• Liu Erlong remains torn between hatred, grief, and a growing understanding of her late father, Yu Luomian. His death and the news concerning Yu Xiaogang have intensified her pain; she accepts Tang Xiao’s request despite her hostility toward the Clear Sky Hammer.
• Tang Xiao acts as both negotiator and enforcer: he overpowers Erlong’s attack, presses her to accept Shrek, and later supports Tang San’s tournament prospects with a rare Spirit Bone.
• Yu Xiaogang and Flender are emotionally unsettled by the connection to Erlong but comply under Tang Xiao’s pressure.
• Tang San receives a valuable Spirit Bone to address his comparatively low rank, while the Asura God’s continuing interference underscores the divine favoritism surrounding his development.
• Tang Chen remains unwilling to help Tang San directly, frustrating the Asura God.

Significant themes

• Grief and unresolved family relationships: Erlong’s feelings toward her father mix resentment with belated understanding and sorrow.
• Power and coercion: Shrek’s participation and Tang San’s advancement depend on powerful figures making decisions for others.
• Favoritism and unequal opportunity: The Asura God’s plans to compensate Tang San reveal the extraordinary support behind his progress.
• Rising competition: Intensive training across multiple academies promises a tournament far more formidable than those of previous generations.

Chen Ming reshaped the Heaven Dou Imperial Academy team and urged his allied academies to kill Tang San if they encountered him, claiming Tang Hao’s son was his sworn enemy. The chapter outlined the tournament’s route to the finals in Spirit City and revealed Spirit Hall’s exceptionally powerful prize.

• Chen Ming’s favored Heaven Dou Imperial Academy lineup included strengthened captains Dugu Yan and Ye Lingling, the Yu brothers, and Ning Rongrong with her evolved Eight Treasure Glazed Tile Pagoda.
• Chen Ming told allied academy teams to kill Tang San—or anyone with the Clear Sky Hammer and Blue Silver Grass—and said Tang San was the son of his sworn enemy, Tang Hao.
• The students accepted Chen Ming’s request after hearing that Tang Hao’s actions had sparked a war and that the Clear Sky Sect had left others to bear its consequences.
• The tournament rules sent the winning teams from the two empires’ elimination rounds to Spirit City for the finals, which Spirit Hall would fund.
• Qian Daoliu announced that the first-place prize was a fifty-thousand-year Evil Spirit Orca right arm bone with destructive power comparable to an ordinary Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Bone.

Chen Ming watched the Continental Advanced Soul Master Academy Elite Tournament from the judges’ seats and discussed Tang San’s ties to Tang Hao with Qian Renxue, while choosing not to interfere with the tournament. In Heaven Dou City, Tang Xiao secretly watched Tang San and wondered whether different choices in the past could have prevented the tragedy between the Clear Sky Sect and Spirit Hall.

• Chen Ming took a judges’ seat beside Qian Renxue, Xue Xing, and Ning Fengzhi, and noticed Tang San and Dai Mubai listed on Blue Tyrant Academy’s team.
• Chen Ming told Qian Renxue that he and Tang San came from the same hometown and that he had known Tang San’s father before learning he was Tang Hao.
• Qian Renxue suggested secretly killing Tang San, but Chen Ming warned that Tang San was difficult to kill and chose to let the tournament proceed without interference.
• Tang San felt watched while cultivating at an inn in Heaven Dou City, then dismissed the sensation and resumed cultivating.
• Tang Xiao secretly watched Tang San and regretted his past choices, wondering whether he could have prevented the rift between the Clear Sky Sect and Spirit Hall.

At the Heaven Dou City tournament, Shrek Academy struggled against the Heaven Dou Imperial Academy’s second team because Tang San’s Blue Silver Grass was weak. Tang San switched to his Clear Sky Hammer to help secure Shrek’s victory, and Chen Ming publicly revealed that it was his second martial soul.

• The tournament began in Heaven Dou City, where Chen Ming, Qian Renxue, and Ning Fengzhi watched the Blue Tyrant Academy team closely while Prince Xue Xing felt excluded.
• Shrek Academy faced the Heaven Dou Imperial Academy’s second team with a weakened lineup, and the match became a hard-fought battle instead of the one-sided rout of the original timeline.
• Tang San’s Blue Silver Grass attacks repeatedly failed to threaten the opposing team, whose spirit masters tore through his entanglements.
• Tang San withdrew his Blue Silver Grass and used his unringed Clear Sky Hammer and Tang Clan techniques to defeat two Soul Elders and help Shrek win.
• When spectators reacted to Tang San’s Clear Sky Hammer, Chen Ming used the arena’s speakers to identify it as Tang San’s second martial soul.

Chen Ming publicly analyzed Shrek Academy’s fighters, revealing their abilities and secrets, before punishing Dai Mubai and Ma Hongjun for insulting him. Tang San watched in fear and relief as Chen Ming’s overwhelming power silenced the venue.

• Chen Ming assessed Tang San, Dai Mubai, and Ma Hongjun, exposing Tang San’s identity and the fighters’ strengths and weaknesses.
• Shrek’s students realized Chen Ming’s commentary was revealing information that could compromise them in later matches.
• Ma Hongjun insulted Chen Ming under his breath, and Dai Mubai silently agreed.
• Chen Ming lifted Dai Mubai and Ma Hongjun into the air and struck them repeatedly, leaving them badly injured and unconscious.
• The crowd feared Chen Ming’s power, while Tang San felt both frightened and relieved that he had not openly joined the insult.