Reverse the Tide!

"Soul Power... Level 0.5?"

Kong Ming'an was slightly dazed. His blurred vision gradually cleared, yet everything carried an inexplicable sense of unfamiliar familiarity.

He lowered his head and gently raised a hand, curling it slightly as he felt the solid sensation beneath his fingers. His pupils trembled faintly.

Have I... been reborn? No, not entirely. More accurately, I've awakened the memories of my previous life?

Kong Ming'an was somewhat bewildered. Instinctively, he began recalling everything, trying to understand his current situation. Then...

Important pieces of information surfaced one after another in his sea of consciousness.

Sun Moon Empire... Mingdu... Hall of Worship... Kong Deming... the Kong Family's sole heir...

He was Kong Ming'an, the grandson of Kong Deming, the master of the Sun Moon Empire's Hall of Worship.

A piece of trash who had just awakened Innate Soul Power of Level 0.5 in his own grandfather's Laboratory?

Kong Ming'an remained dazed. The memories of his previous life far outweighed the six years of memories from this one, and the awakening process was anything but gentle, leaving his head splitting with pain.

At that moment, a broad hand gently landed on his somewhat slender shoulder.

"Ming'an."

The authoritative voice seemed to carry an inexplicable power, firmly suppressing his daze.

His chaotic thoughts were pulled back to reality. He slowly raised his head, and his gaze focused.

Before him stood an elderly man with white hair and beard, a resolute face, and a stern bearing.

Yet at that moment, those eyes that should have been imposing held a trace of genuine worry and concern.

Kong Deming.

The fragments of memory instantly fell into place. Identity, bloodline, relationship—everything became incomparably clear.

His brief daze finally settled, replaced by a calm stripped of a youth's panic.

Feeling that pitifully weak thread of Soul Power sluggishly circulating through his body, Kong Ming'an completely calmed down.

He did not respond to Kong Deming's comforting gaze, nor did he look at the expressions of pity or regret on the faces of the Rank 9 Soul Engineers around him.

His calm gaze met Kong Deming's eyes, and his voice was clear and steady.

"Grandfather, I want to try my Martial Soul again."

A hint of surprise flashed through Kong Deming's eyes, as though he had not expected Kong Ming'an to calm down so quickly. His gaze turned more probing and encouraging.

He did not stop him. He merely pressed his palm on his grandson's shoulder slightly harder before slowly withdrawing it.

The black-robed Soul Master in charge of the awakening stepped forward of his own accord. Once Kong Ming'an placed his hand on the Awakening Crystal Ball again, Soul Power slowly flowed into it.

No dazzling light erupted.

No powerful Soul Power pressure appeared.

Even the most common Soul Power fluctuations that accompanied Martial Soul Possession were so faint as to be nearly imperceptible.

Only the air above Kong Ming'an's outstretched right palm twisted in an exceptionally strange manner.

The space there seemed to have been struck by an invisible pebble, sending out circles of faint ripples that were almost impossible to see with the naked eye.

The air seemed to turn viscous and scorching. As light passed through that area, it underwent an extremely subtle refractive distortion.

This made the edge of Kong Ming'an's palm appear slightly blurred and warped.

"This...?" The black-robed Soul Master opened his mouth, his voice inexplicably dry.

As one of the Sun Moon Empire's few scholars who researched Martial Souls, he had spent decades helping commoners and nobles awaken their Martial Souls for free in pursuit of more samples. What kind of Martial Soul had he not seen?

But this Martial Soul...

He truly had never seen anything like it!

The black-robed Soul Master leaned closer, the probing intent in his eyes undisguised as he tried to find any trace of a Martial Soul within it.

A beast Martial Soul phantom? The outline of a Tool Martial Soul? Characteristics of the plant type? Why was there nothing at all?!

The black-robed Soul Master began questioning his life.

At the side, a trace of confusion also appeared on Kong Deming's face.

"Ming'an," Kong Deming said with unprecedented gravity and curiosity, "what is your Martial Soul?"

Kong Ming'an's gaze remained calm. He slowly curled his fingers, and the faint Spatial Ripple subsided with them, as though it had never appeared.

"Energy itself, Grandfather."

His voice was calm and unruffled, clearly echoing through the Laboratory, where one could hear a pin drop.

"Energy... itself?"

Kong Deming repeated in a low voice. Then, at a certain moment, a brilliant light flashed in his eyes, and amid his confusion rose a sudden shock and excitement at touching an unknown field.

"Energy"—this concept was far too fundamental in the world of Soul Masters, even more fundamental than the "Soul Power" of Soul Masters.

It was nearly equivalent to the origin of the world itself, yet it had never been directly defined as a "Martial Soul."

"Formless, intangible 'energy'..."

Kong Deming murmured, staring intently at Kong Ming'an as though he were truly seeing his grandson for the first time.

Kong Ming'an paid no attention to any of it.

His gaze swept over the surroundings and settled on the row of Soul Tool workbenches along one side of the Laboratory, each gleaming with the cold, hard luster unique to metal.

Innate Soul Power of Level 0.5 was a crippling flaw in the Douluo World. If he wanted to receive greater resource allocation and grow rapidly, his first goal was to prove his value.

The goal was clear, and so was the path.

Kong Ming'an stepped forward and walked straight toward the nearest Soul Tool workbench.

Kong Deming merely watched silently from the side, his eyes carrying a thoughtful expectation and scrutiny.

Stopping before the workbench, Kong Ming'an did not hesitate in the slightest. He picked up the most basic Level 1 Soul Tool Core Baseboard.

It was a pale cyan metal plate half the size of a palm, its surface smooth as a mirror.

As his fingertips touched the cold metal, the introductory Soul Tool knowledge Kong Ming'an of this life had begun studying long ago surfaced in his mind.

After a brief pause, he picked up the thinnest Soul Tool Engraving Knife beside it.

Then, the weak Level 0.5 Soul Power within his body began to flow with extreme slowness and difficulty.

It moved so slowly that it was agonizing to watch, every push as laborious as trudging through a swamp.

However, at the instant that weak Soul Power struggled into the tip of the engraving knife and was about to touch the baseboard's surface—

Deep within Kong Ming'an's calm, unruffled eyes, an exceptionally subtle fluctuation seemed to pass, so quick that it could have been mistaken for an illusion.

The next moment, the change occurred.

The instant the knife tip touched the metal baseboard, there was none of the Soul Power glow that normally had to appear when a Soul Engineer activated a Soul Tool Core.

The hard metal surface softened and sank in an extraordinarily strange way, as though the knife had touched not metal, but some fluid that could be molded by will.

There was no piercing scraping sound, nor any spray of metal shavings.

Driven by Kong Ming'an's terrifyingly steady wrist, the engraving knife glided over the metal baseboard like flowing clouds and running water, without the slightest pause.

His sluggish, despairingly weak Soul Power seemed to have been granted an indescribable "penetrating" and "molding" quality in his hands.

It was no longer merely the force that drove the engraving knife. It was more like an invisible key, acting directly upon the energy structure that formed the metal itself, taming and reshaping it with ease.

Drawing Soul Tool circuits should have been a difficult fusion of Soul Power, Spiritual Power, and precise craftsmanship. Yet beneath his hands, it displayed an almost eerie smoothness and harmony.

It was as though the formless "energy" Martial Soul possessed some primordial resonance with the material energy that made up Soul Tools.

Time passed in absolute silence.

The only sounds in the air were the faint rustling of the engraving knife's tip over the metal baseboard and Kong Ming'an's steady, weak breathing.

The final arc closed perfectly.

Kong Ming'an set down the engraving knife, and his fingertips trembled slightly.

...It was a sign that his Soul Power was nearly depleted to its limit.

A fine layer of sweat seeped from his temples, and his face was somewhat pale, yet his eyes had never been brighter.

Almost casually, he injected the last thread of Soul Power into the Soul Tool Core in his hand.

The next moment...

"Bzz—"

An extremely faint yet clearly audible resonance rang out.

It was not a blinding brilliance, but a stable, gentle pale-blue halo that pulsed softly like breathing, illuminating every fine line on the Soul Tool Core!

He had succeeded!

A standard Level 1 Soul Tool Core had been successfully activated in the hands of a youth who had only just awakened his Martial Soul and possessed merely Level 0.5 Innate Soul Power!

Dead silence.

Inside the Laboratory, the Rank 9 Soul Engineers who had merely been spectators and were still considering how to comfort their superior fell into dead silence.

Wait... what?

How was that possible?!

Soul Power of Level 0.5... was barely enough to operate a Soul Tool. How could it possibly support the precise engraving and activation of an entire core circuit?!

The Rank 9 Soul Engineers, who had all seen their share of grand scenes, fell silent together.

But at that moment, Kong Deming had already taken a step forward, moving so quickly that he stirred a faint gust of wind.

He completely ignored the Level 1 Soul Tool Core emitting stable blue light. Those eyes that saw through the essence of all things, like the most precise Soul Tool scanner, locked firmly onto the Soul Power circuits Kong Ming'an had just engraved.

His gaze swept across the circuits' smooth grooves, which looked less like engraved marks and more like naturally formed channels; across the strange sheen faintly flowing within them; across the utterly seamless, frictionless connection between the Soul Power circuits and the baseboard...

"Energy..."

Kong Deming's voice was low, carrying a hint of almost unrestrained delight. His fingertip hovered above the core and trembled slightly.

"...So it could be interpreted this way?"

He sighed softly. Only after a long while did he take a deep breath and turn toward Kong Ming'an.

At that moment, Kong Deming's eyes no longer held the worry and concern an elder had held for a junior's future. In their place burned the fervor of someone who had discovered a new continent.

With grave seriousness, Kong Deming slowly asked:

"Ming'an, what do you need?"

He did not answer immediately.

He ignored the blazing curiosity in Kong Deming's eyes and the overwhelming shock erupting from the dead silence around him.

He merely looked quietly, as though drained of all strength, at the slowly operating Soul Tool Core in Kong Deming's hand.

The gentle yet stable blue light illuminated his slightly pale face, drained by the exhaustion of his Soul Power, yet extraordinarily calm.

Against that pale-blue halo, the corners of his lips lifted into a relaxed curve.

So this wasn't entirely a hopeless start after all, was it?