Chapter Summaries

Ten-year-old Chen Hong tested a crude Soul Engine in his White Cloud Village blacksmith shop and continued repairing villagers’ tools. After recalling his unusual Psychic Power Martial Soul and low innate Soul Power, he left the chapter reflecting on the dark future he had glimpsed at school.

• Chen Hong injected Soul Power into his handmade Soul Engine, making its axle turn briefly before it stopped.
• Uncle Wang brought Chen Hong a damaged hoe and a piece of ore he had found while digging.
• Chen Hong began repairing the hoe and set the ore aside to smelt, while Uncle Wang thanked him for fixing villagers’ tools for free.
• Chen Hong’s background revealed that he had Psychic Power, Level 11 Soul Power, and a first soul skill he called Sage Time.
• Chen Hong recalled leaving Suotuo City Martial Soul Workers’ School after one day because he had discovered that the world’s future was damn dark.

At the Blacksmith Shop, Chen Hong smelted mysterious ore and discovered it produced a metal with unusually strong Soul Power conductivity. He identified its magnetic properties, named it Soul Guidance Mithril, and decided to ask Uncle Wang for more.

• Chen Hong finished making a hoe for a village uncle, then crushed and washed the mysterious ore to separate its sediment.
• Chen Hong smelted the densest batch of ore powder and cooled the resulting metal into a small silver lump.
• Chen Hong used his Martial Soul Psychic Power to test the lump and discovered its strong Soul Power conductivity.
• Chen Hong activated Mental Focus and found that the metal had a tiny magnetic field with positive and negative poles.
• Chen Hong named the metal Soul Guidance Mithril and decided to ask Uncle Wang to find him more.

Chen Hong discovered a possible vein of Soul Guidance Mithril near White Cloud Village and secretly worked to refine the ore into wire. After rebuilding his Soul Engine with the new material, he ran out of soul power before he could test it.

• Chen Hong found Uncle Wang mining several large pieces of Soul Guidance Mithril Ore and told him to keep the discovery secret from neighboring villages.
• Uncle Wang carried the ore back to the Blacksmith Shop, where Chen Hong refined it into a block and forged it into thin wire over the next day.
• Chen Hong worked through repeated sessions of Sage Time, stopping briefly to eat chicken soup Uncle Wang brought him.
• Chen Hong dismantled his Generation 0.1 Soul Engine and wound the Soul Guidance Mithril Wire into a new coil.
• Chen Hong completed the Generation 0.2 Soul Engine, but had no soul power left to test it.

Chen Hong traveled to Suotuo City with his Generation 0.2 Soul Engine and visited the Spirit Hall Branch to collect his monthly disaster relief food. After finding the gambling house had barred him, he went to his father Chen Lin’s ironworks to show him two treasures.

• Chen Hong powered up the Generation 0.2 Soul Engine, packed it with a piece of Soul Guidance Mithril Ore, and set off for Suotuo City.
• On the journey, Chen Hong greeted a five-member Spirit Hall patrol team and gave its members bright red fruits.
• Chen Hong collected several Gold Soul Coins from the Spirit Hall Branch as his monthly disaster relief food.
• Chen Hong found the gambling house had barred him for winning tens of thousands of Gold Soul Coins, so he headed to the workshop district instead.
• Chen Hong visited his father Chen Lin at the Chen Family Ironworks and said he had two treasures to show him.

Chen Hong demonstrated his Soul Engine to Chen Lin and explained that it could eventually replace a soul master's individual Soul Power. He then asked his father to use his connections with the Spirit Hall Branch in Suotuo City after revealing that White Cloud Village had discovered Soul Guidance Mithril Ore.

• Chen Lin tested Chen Hong's 0.2-generation Soul Engine and questioned its efficiency compared with using Soul Power directly.
• Chen Hong suggested that a material capable of storing Soul Power could let the Soul Engine operate independently, and Chen Lin proposed Spirit Bones as one possibility.
• Chen Hong said the Soul Engine could theoretically replace a soul master's individual Soul Power, earning Chen Lin's support.
• Chen Hong asked Chen Lin to contact the Spirit Hall Branch in Suotuo City and revealed that White Cloud Village had discovered Soul Guidance Mithril Ore.
• Chen Lin called the discovery a major matter and went to find Bishop Suotuo.

Chen Lin and Chen Hong reported a newly discovered Soul Guidance Mithril ore vein to Bishop Suotuo, who confirmed the sample was valuable Soul Guidance Device material. Chen Hong explained how he found it but kept his Soul Engine research secret, wary of others stealing his work.

• Chen Lin and Chen Hong visited Bishop Suotuo at the Suotuo City Spirit Hall Branch and joked about Chen Hong's past trouble at a gambling house.
• Chen Hong revealed that he had discovered a possible Soul Guidance Mithril ore vein, and Chen Lin presented a refined sample to Bishop Suotuo.
• Bishop Suotuo confirmed the mithril could conduct Soul Power and recognized it as exceptional Soul Guidance Device material.
• Chen Hong told Bishop Suotuo how he found the ore and urged Spirit Hall to secure the vein before the City Lord's Mansion could act.
• Chen Hong withheld his Soul Engine research because he feared a connected academic thief might copy and claim his work.

Bishop Suotuo agreed to report Chen Hong’s discovery of a Soul Guidance Mithril Ore Vein to Spirit City and asked the Chen father and son to remain in Suotuo City while representatives traveled there. Chen Hong returned to the blacksmith shop, argued with Chen Lin, and then went to visit his mother, Ning Lu, at the Suspended Pot Medical Center.

• Bishop Suotuo decided to report the ore vein to Spirit City and asked Chen Hong and Chen Lin to stay in the city until representatives arrived.
• Chen Lin agreed to Bishop Suotuo’s request and took Chen Hong back to Chen’s Blacksmith Shop.
• Chen Lin told Chen Hong he could visit his mother or forge iron without pay, and Chen Hong threatened to complain to her before leaving with his bundle.
• Chen Lin told the smiths he was saving up a dowry for Chen Hong as they laughed at the father and son’s bickering.
• Chen Hong crossed into the Commercial District and arrived at the Suspended Pot Medical Center, where his mother Ning Lu was the clinic master.

Chen Hong visited the Suspended Pot Medical Center to complain to his mother, Ning Lu, and found her meeting Ye Lingling, a prospective student at Heaven Dou Royal Academy. Ning Lu compared the two of them and scolded Chen Hong for not attending school, but he claimed he had achieved something before she angrily confronted him.

• Chen Hong arrived at the Suspended Pot Medical Center and asked Auntie Ye where Ning Lu was.
• Auntie Ye sent Chen Hong upstairs to Room A, where Ning Lu was entertaining a guest.
• Chen Hong met Ye Lingling, who introduced herself as Ning Lu's acquaintance and a prospective student at Heaven Dou Royal Academy.
• Ning Lu told Chen Hong she had wanted him and Ye Lingling to meet and criticized him for staying in the mountains and never attending a proper school.
• Chen Hong protested that he had achieved something, and Ning Lu angrily challenged him.

Chen Hong showed Ning Lu and Ye Lingling his Soul Engine, while Ning Lu healed his bump with her Life Nectar. As Ning Lu praised her son to Ye Lingling, the girl asked whether Brother Hong's Soul Power Level must be very high, leaving Chen Hong embarrassed.

• Chen Hong assembled his Generation 0.2 Soul Engine and showed Ning Lu how Soul Power made it spin.
• Ning Lu used her Life Nectar to heal Chen Hong's bump, and he reflected on her formidable combat abilities and medicinal wines.
• Ye Lingling recognized the Soul Engine's potential and suggested it could run without a Spirit Master if it had a stored energy source.
• Chen Hong explained that such a device could power Soul Guidance Carriages, impressing Ye Lingling.
• Ning Lu told Ye Lingling that Chen Hong was smart, steady, capable, hardworking, and ambitious.
• Ye Lingling asked whether Brother Hong's Soul Power Level must be very high, leaving Ning Lu and Chen Hong speechless.

Chen Hong explained to Ning Lu and Ye Lingling why limited Soul Power did not define a person's worth, and described his ambition to advance Soul Tool research and share knowledge that could help people across Douluo Continent. He left them impressed, then jokingly declared himself a legend.

• Ning Lu explained that Chen Hong's cultivation had been slow because he suffered an injury before birth, and Chen Hong claimed he had invested his talent in intelligence.
• Chen Hong told Ye Lingling that his goal was to recreate the Soul Tool research system and argued that wisdom could benefit more people than individual strength.
• Chen Hong cited Ning Lu's clinic and Ye Lingling's mother's search for remedies as examples of ways to serve others, and explained how shared knowledge could change society.
• Chen Hong declared that he would pursue his ambitions despite his average Spirit Master talent and others' mockery, hoping to leave a lasting mark on the world.
• Ning Lu and Ye Lingling stared at Chen Hong in admiration, and he joked that they had been dazzled by his handsomeness.

Chen Hong was pressured by Ning Lu to spend time with Ye Lingling and help her learn the clinic’s work. He began showing her around and took her into the Main Pharmacy, while his mother watched approvingly.

• Ye Lingling praised Chen Hong and said she wanted to follow his example, making him worry that he had encouraged her admiration.
• Ning Lu decided to help Chen Hong get closer to Ye Lingling and told him to show her around the clinic.
• Chen Hong admitted that Bishop Suotuo had asked him to stay in the city for a week, and Ning Lu assigned him to teach Ye Lingling about the clinic.
• Chen Hong led Ye Lingling downstairs, held her hand, and explained the clinic’s patient area and pharmacies.
• Chen Hong showed Ye Lingling the herbs in the Main Pharmacy and led her inside to learn about the ingredients used in her mother’s prescriptions.

Chen Hong explained the uses of Soft Bone Rabbit Marrow and Black Jade Bone-Breaking Paste to Ye Lingling before learning she had reached Level 18. Recognizing her buried desire to resist the fate of a Nine Heart Begonia Soul Master, he challenged her to a duel, leaving the two Support Soul Masters facing off.

• Chen Hong explained how Black Jade Bone-Breaking Paste could help heal broken bones and complement Healing Soul Masters’ abilities.
• Chen Hong encouraged Ye Lingling to resist unfair treatment, then learned she had reached Level 18.
• Ye Lingling picked up a bone as a club and challenged Chen Hong to follow his own advice about resisting.
• Chen Hong realized Ye Lingling understood the constraints facing Nine Heart Begonia Soul Masters and wanted control over her destiny.
• Chen Hong and Ye Lingling announced their Soul Master levels and prepared to duel: Level 11 against Level 18.

Ning Lu found Chen Hong and Ye Lingling after their fight and knocked her son unconscious in a fit of rage, then revived him with Life Nectar. Ye Lingling blamed herself and cried as Ning Lu tried to comfort her.

• Ning Lu drove the curious patients and their families away before entering the herb-drying area.
• Chen Hong bragged that he would defeat Ye Lingling, while Ye Lingling saw Ning Lu approaching behind him.
• Ning Lu struck Chen Hong unconscious with a Wind-Piercing Cannon Fist after Ye Lingling told her that he had bullied her.
• Ning Lu used the Life Nectar in her Seven-Colored Wine Gourd to revive Chen Hong and soak his body.
• Ye Lingling realized Ning Lu believed her because Chen Hong had provoked the fight, then apologized tearfully when Ning Lu asked if she was hurt.

After Ning Lu beat Chen Hong for bullying Ye Lingling, he tried to win her sympathy with a diary entry while recovering from his injuries. Ye Lingling visited him, apologized for running away, and used her healing Soul Power to treat him.

• Ning Lu comforted Ye Lingling after learning Chen Hong had bullied her, then beat Chen Hong to make amends to the girl and her family.
• Wrapped in bandages, Chen Hong wrote in his diary about his visit to Ning Lu and placed it where she would see it.
• Chen Hong spotted Ye Lingling at the door, hid beneath his blanket, and pretended to be asleep.
• Ye Lingling embraced Chen Hong and apologized for running away when Ning Lu confronted them.
• Ye Lingling's Begonia Flower Bud sent healing Soul Power through Chen Hong's body and improved his injuries.

After Ye Lingling comforted Chen Hong, he recalled his past life as a repair soldier stranded in a war against the Swarm. Recovering overnight from Ning Lu’s beating, he headed to the family ironworks with a new idea for optimizing the Soul Engine, laying the groundwork for Soul Guidance Engravings.

• Chen Hong comforted Ye Lingling after Ning Lu beat him, while she used her Nine Heart Begonia to heal his injuries.
• Chen Hong remembered surviving repeated battles against the Swarm and promising his mother that he would return home alive.
• Chen Hong woke to find a silver-blue Plasma Bug Egg on his chest and screamed; he also discovered dragon-horn buds growing on his head.
• Chen Hong took the version 0.2 Soul Engine to the Chen Family Ironworks and went to work in the private courtyard.
• Chen Hong began experimenting with an Intaglio Coating Method for Soul Guidance Mithril, which later generations called Soul Guidance Engravings.

Chen Hong worked with Chen Lin to forge iron sheets and Soul Guidance Silver Thread, then developed a way to channel and compress Soul Power through a specially engraved tool. He demonstrated the Soul Power Scalpel’s cutting power and concluded that soul skills were different forms of translating Soul Power.

• Chen Lin stopped Chen Hong from hammering and forged twenty thin iron sheets and silver thread according to Chen Hong’s instructions.
• Chen Hong carved an S-shaped groove into an iron sheet, had Chen Lin embed the silver thread, and tested how Soul Power affected iron filings.
• Chen Hong used Sage Time to rethink his assumptions about Soul Power and decided to approach it directly rather than through familiar technological concepts.
• Chen Hong wrapped silver thread around an engraving knife and devised a path that compressed Soul Power toward its tip.
• Chen Hong used the Soul Power Scalpel to slice an iron sheet cleanly in two and concluded that energy flow, not the vessel, was the core of soul skills.

Chen Hong studied the mysteries of Soul Rings with Ye Lingling in his bedroom, while trying to keep Ning Lu from discovering his antics. He realized that Ye Lingling and others had become important to him, and Ye Lingling woke the next morning embarrassed to find she had fallen asleep beside him.

• Chen Hong returned to the Suspended Pot Medical Center excited to continue studying runes, and Ning Lu and Ye Lingling wondered if he had overworked himself.
• Ye Lingling told Ning Lu that Chen Hong still needed treatment for his meridian injuries, and Ning Lu encouraged her to care for him.
• Ye Lingling found Chen Hong awake and studying a Soul Ring, so he invited her to help him comprehend its mysteries.
• Chen Hong sensed memories of obtaining his Soul Ring and begged Ye Lingling not to tell Ning Lu about his behavior.
• Chen Hong watched Ye Lingling sleep and realized that people besides his mother had become important to him.
• Ye Lingling woke in the morning, found Chen Hong gone, and cried out in embarrassment that she had fallen asleep.

Chen Hong developed a theory for visualizing Soul Power flow and built a copper-and-mithril device to test whether Soul Guidance Mithril could store compressed Soul Power. He left the dangerous experiment for his father, Chen Lin, to help with after waking.

• Chen Hong waited outside the Chen Family Ironworks before dawn and reflected on how his mental introspection might reveal Soul Ring patterns.
• Chen Hong speculated that fully understanding a Soul Ring could let him cast soul skills without one, then set the idea aside to focus on the Soul Guidance Engraving Knife.
• Chen Hong woke Chen Lin and went to the inner courtyard to carve a sealed copper cylinder and assemble it with a compression circuit, mithril node, and movable valve.
• Chen Hong prepared the device as a test of whether Soul Guidance Mithril could contain compressed Soul Power and waited for Chen Lin to wake before asking him to help.

Chen Hong tested a Soul Power storage canister with Chen Lin, then used the experiment to develop ideas for Soul Power compression and portable Soul Skill launchers. He began refining his First Generation Soul Engine and considered seeking support from Spirit Hall Headquarters.

• Chen Lin charged Chen Hong’s unstable Soul Power storage canister and threw it toward Chen Hong, whose hiding place was buried when the canister burst and knocked down a section of wall.
• Chen Lin dug Chen Hong out of the rubble, and Chen Hong said he would remember the mishap and look to Chen Lin first next time there was something good.
• Chen Hong considered how his Compression Engravings could store and convert Soul Power into different Soul Skills, and concluded that his ideas were leading toward traditional Soul Tools.
• Chen Hong decided Spirit Hall Headquarters might provide an opportunity to find an investor, then dismantled his 0.2-generation Soul Engine and began refining the First Generation Soul Engine with Chen Lin’s materials.

Chen Hong let Ye Lingling nourish his meridians and began guiding her in comprehending the Soul Power within her soul ring, discovering that the process drained her Mental Power. After a nightmare and a hurried escape from the sleeping Ye Lingling, he returned to his usual routine until Bishop Suotuo arrived.

• Chen Hong invited Ye Lingling to nourish his meridians and offered to teach her Comprehending Soul Rings when she was free.
• Ye Lingling fell onto Chen Hong after her legs went numb, so he guided her in sensing the Soul Power inside her soul ring.
• Chen Hong realized the practice consumed too much Mental Power for Ye Lingling to sustain for long and considered testing it on his parents later.
• Chen Hong dreamed of his mother seeking a hundred million daughters-in-law, woke in terror, and fled when he found Ye Lingling hugging his arm.
• Chen Hong spent his days guiding Ye Lingling and working on the Soul Engine until Bishop Suotuo arrived.