Chapter Summaries

Chen Ping tried to survive Zhongli Ren’s gruesome self-repair by offering him the Spirit Devouring Fierce Blade and asking to become his disciple. Zhongli Ren accepted the offering, but Chen Ping remained in danger because the available ingredients could not fully repair Zhongli Ren’s wounds.

• Zhongli Ren used Flesh Transmutation to repair his injuries with the organs and meat Chen Ping supplied while his Money Tiger guarded the cave entrance.
• Chen Ping realized Zhongli Ren might use him as material once the ingredients ran out and searched for a way to stay alive.
• When Zhongli Ren noticed Chen Ping handling his Storage Ring, Chen Ping knelt and offered a Level 9 Soul Engineer’s treasure in exchange for becoming his disciple.
• Zhongli Ren recognized the treasure as the Spirit Devouring Fierce Blade, took it, and accepted Chen Ping as his disciple.
• Chen Ping felt temporary relief but knew Zhongli Ren might still refine him because his supplies could not fully heal the wounds.

Chen Ping killed Zhongli Ren by detonating golden crystal inside his body, then gathered what he could from the remains while badly injured. He survived the encounter but was left with a broken arm, several broken ribs, and Zhongli Ren’s Storage Ring.

• Zhongli Ren finished forming his crude organs, and Chen Ping offered him pigskin while pretending to congratulate him.
• Zhongli Ren planned to use Chen Ping to patch his wounds and kill him, but Chen Ping shoved an infused piece of golden crystal into his belly.
• Zhongli Ren kicked Chen Ping away, and the golden crystal exploded into an enormous Invincible Shield that tore Zhongli Ren apart and killed him.
• Chen Ping reflected on how golden crystal worked and why the shield’s force had killed Zhongli Ren instantly.
• Chen Ping retrieved the Spirit Devouring Fierce Blade and Zhongli Ren’s Storage Ring from the gore, then splinted and bandaged his broken arm.

Chen Ping encountered the Emperor Auspicious Beast, the Three-Eyed Golden Lion, while trapped and badly injured in a cave in the Star Dou Forest. He used his cooking to bargain for a promise of protection, but the Auspicious Beast pounced on him before agreeing.

• Chen Ping prepared to fight the Three-Eyed Golden Lion with Zhongli Ren's Soul Tool Staff, then recognized her as the Emperor Auspicious Beast.
• The Auspicious Beast demanded the delicious-smelling food that had drawn her to the cave, and Chen Ping offered her a crispy chicken leg.
• After the Auspicious Beast ate the chicken leg, Chen Ping offered more grilled food in exchange for a condition.
• The Auspicious Beast pounced on Chen Ping when he withheld the skewers, and he demanded that she and her protectors promise not to harm him.

Chen Ping used his cooking to persuade the Auspicious Beast to spare him while she ate, though he remained trapped in the cave with her and the Scarlet King nearby. After the meal, the Three-Eyed Golden Lion questioned him about being a cook and caught him thinking about petting her.

• Chen Ping convinced the Auspicious Beast that killing him would cost her access to his cooking, then fed her skewers and soup.
• The Auspicious Beast ate the food while Chen Ping considered whether Du Weilun and Shi Xing could save him, then realized the Scarlet King made rescue unlikely.
• Chen Ping stopped struggling and recovered against the cave wall as the Auspicious Beast finished the meal.
• The Three-Eyed Golden Lion asked Chen Ping whether he was a cook in the human world, and he studied her appearance.
• The Three-Eyed Golden Lion sensed Chen Ping's thoughts about petting her and warned him to keep his distance.

Chen Ping persuaded the Three-Eyed Golden Lion to spare him by claiming to be the human world's greatest chef and revealing that he cooked for a Limit Douluo. He offered to prepare dishes for her regularly, leaving the Auspicious Beast weighing his proposal and asking how she could trust him.

• Chen Ping confirmed that he was a chef and claimed his work for a Level 99 Limit Douluo made him the greatest chef under heaven.
• Chen Ping listed numerous brain dishes and other delicacies, making the Three-Eyed Golden Lion eager to try them.
• Chen Ping explained that his injuries and lack of ingredients prevented him from cooking immediately, then offered to return from Star Dou Forest with seasonings and use Xuan Zi's Communication Soul Tool to stay in contact.
• The Auspicious Beast hesitated to take Chen Ping to Bi Ji for healing because he cooked for a Limit Douluo and might be dangerous to offend.
• Chen Ping identified himself as a First Year Core Disciple of Shrek's Martial Soul and Soul Tool Departments and offered to cook up to three dishes for the Auspicious Beast every two weeks in exchange for her preparing the ingredients.

Chen Ping left the Star Dou Forest with an agreement to exchange food for Soul Beast ingredients with the Auspicious Beast. He recovered in Shrek's infirmary, where Teacher Li had already healed his broken bones.

• The Auspicious Beast carried Chen Ping out of the cave, and he persuaded the Scarlet King to spare Shi Xing and Du Weilun, who had come to find him.
• Chen Ping arranged to meet the Auspicious Beast in seven days to collect Soul Beast ingredients and promised to prepare food in return.
• Du Weilun gave Chen Ping emergency pills and brought him back to Shrek Academy; Chen Ping handed him the Recording Pearl and fell asleep.
• Chen Ping woke in Shrek's infirmary and discovered that Teacher Li had healed his broken arm and ribs.

After recovering in the Medical Room, Chen Ping learned that his Storage Ring had shattered and his Spirit Devouring Fierce Blade was being kept by Dean Yan. Yan Shaozhe praised Chen Ping for killing a Level 85 Evil Soul Douluo and discussed the Emperor Auspicious Beast recording before raising a matter about Shrek Academy’s Inner and Outer Courts.

• Teacher Li told Chen Ping that his Storage Ring had burst and the Spirit Devouring Fierce Blade had been sealed away with Dean Yan.
• Chen Ping asked Dean Yan to purify the blade’s evil energy and lamented that he still had not obtained his Second Soul Ring.
• Qian Duoduo and Yan Shaozhe visited Chen Ping, argued over who should take him Soul Hunting, and promised to help him find a ring safely.
• Yan Shaozhe praised Chen Ping for killing a Level 85 Evil Soul Douluo, surpassing Mu En’s record for defeating an Evil Soul Master across a level gap.
• Yan Shaozhe explained that Mu En and Xuan Zi had reviewed Chen Ping’s Recording Pearl and instructed him to keep preparing meals for the Emperor Auspicious Beast.
• Yan Shaozhe began discussing the first half of the Recording Pearl and Shrek Academy’s Inner and Outer Courts.

Yan Shaozhe agreed to use Chen Ping’s footage as teaching material and promised to cleanse the Spirit Devouring Fierce Blade, while Qian Duoduo urged Chen Ping to prove the value of Soul Tools. After they left, Chen Ping examined the loot he had taken from Zhongli Ren.

• Yan Shaozhe asked to show Chen Ping’s escape footage to Inner Court students, and Chen Ping agreed while suggesting they carry more Soul Tools.
• Yan Shaozhe said he would deal with the Spirit Devouring Fierce Blade and have it delivered that afternoon, then left.
• Qian Duoduo explained why Shrek students resisted Soul Tools and encouraged Chen Ping to establish their worth by defeating Martial Soul Department students.
• Qian Duoduo entrusted Chen Ping with the task of changing Shrek’s attitude toward Soul Tools and left after telling him to recover.
• Chen Ping picked up the Storage Ring he had taken from Zhongli Ren and prepared to inspect his spoils.

Chen Ping searched Zhongli Ren’s Storage Ring and found rare metals worth at least eight hundred thousand Gold Soul Coins in the Douluo Three Kingdoms. After considering how to turn his disguise into a smuggling scheme, he proposed selling Evil Soul Master outfits to border mules, leaving Teacher Li stunned.

• Chen Ping examined Zhongli Ren’s Storage Ring and found restricted and classified rare metals worth far more in Shrek than in the Sun Moon Empire.
• Chen Ping considered posing as an Evil Soul Master to trade rare metals but realized he lacked the knowledge and skills to pass as one to real Evil Soul Masters.
• Chen Ping put on Zhongli Ren’s black robe, token, and staff and startled Teacher Li with his disguise.
• Teacher Li warned Chen Ping that a convincing disguise was useless without Evil Soul Masters’ coded language and methods.
• Chen Ping proposed producing hundreds of outfits for border mules so soldiers would mistake them for Evil Soul Masters and let a large shipment of rare metals cross the border.
• Teacher Li widened his eyes at Chen Ping’s plan.

After Chen Ping obtained a thousand-year second Soul Ring and settled into academy life, he spent the vacation pursuing Soul Tool engineering and blacksmithing. He worked at Qian Duoduo’s forge, trying once more to reach the Thousand Refinement realm.

• Chen Ping’s suggestion and Zhongli Ren’s Soul Tools were sent to the Inner Court, while Chen Ping returned to a peaceful routine of study and cooking for Ning Tian, Wu Feng, and the Auspicious Beast.
• Chen Ping and Qian Duoduo subdued a thousand-year Demon-Eyed Tree, allowing Chen Ping to absorb his second Soul Ring and rise from level twenty to twenty-three.
• Chen Ping planned to spend his vacation advancing toward Level 2 Soul Engineer and learning blacksmithing rather than returning home or following Huo Yuhao to the Far North.
• Chen Ping’s relentless laboratory work and regular forging had advanced his Soul Tool skills and helped him sense patterns within Douluo Continent’s rare metals, but he still had not achieved Thousand Refinement.
• At Qian Duoduo’s private workbench, Chen Ping forged components and focused on making turbine blades that could withstand high-temperature jets, preparing to try Thousand Refinement again.

Chen Ping planned to make a Level 2 flying soul tool by adapting a turbojet design into a more efficient turbofan, and began forging the Thousand Refined steel needed for its turbine blades. After hammering through the day and into the night, he felt he was finally beginning to understand Thousand Refinement.

• Chen Ping identified a turbofan and bypass duct as the key to making a flying soul tool usable by lower-level Soul Masters.
• Chen Ping decided to forge by feel rather than dwell on the principles of Thousand Refinement.
• Chen Ping tested the heated Hundred Refined steel and began working it with a one-handed hammering technique.
• Chen Ping hammered for over ten hours, refining the steel until it became palm-sized and its grain patterns improved.
• Chen Ping felt he had begun to grasp the feel of Thousand Refinement.

Chen Ping used the Living Being Carving Knife while forging Hundred-Refined Steel and unexpectedly completed Thousand Refinement, creating the first Thousand-Refined metal on the Douluo Continent. He suspected the knife had bestowed life on the steel and wondered whether it could make Thousand-Refined metal reproducible.

• Chen Ping hammered Hundred-Refined Steel for hours and urged it to develop traits that resisted heat and metal fatigue.
• Chen Ping used the Living Being Carving Knife to restore his strength and vitality, then resumed hammering.
• A bright gray light appeared after Chen Ping's next hammer blow, and he quenched and tempered the resulting Thousand-Refined Fine Steel.
• Chen Ping realized the Living Being Carving Knife might have supplied the steel with vitality and considered whether it could enable mass production of Thousand-Refined metal.

Chen Ping discovered that his Thousand Refinement fine steel had gained high-temperature resistance, then used it to prepare for building a smithing hammer and demonstrated a powerful flame-jet Core Array. The next morning, Shrek Academy began its entrance and advancement examinations, while Chen Ping emerged from Qian Duoduo's laboratory looking utterly exhausted.

• Chen Ping found that his Thousand Refinement fine steel resisted heat and realized it could serve both as turbine-blade material and as a smithing hammerhead.
• Chen Ping activated two Class 2 Soul Tool Core Formations and produced a concentrated blue flame for his planned Soul Power Turbofan Engine Module.
• New students arrived at Shrek Academy for entrance examinations as returning students prepared for their advancement examinations.
• Chen Ping came out of Qian Duoduo's laboratory with dark circles and barely any strength, alarming senior students and discouraging new students from joining the Soul Tool Department.

After emerging from the Soul Tool Department laboratory, Chen Ping hurried to the Martial Soul Department and arrived just in time for the advancement assessment briefing. Learning that Huo Yuhao was also absent and had been granted a separate assessment, Chen Ping reflected that his actions had already begun to disrupt the original timeline.

• Chen Ping finished developing his upgraded turbofan Flying Soul Tool after days of testing and work in Qian Duoduo's laboratory.
• Chen Ping realized the term had begun and rushed to the Martial Soul Department classroom for the advancement assessment briefing.
• Mu Jin welcomed Chen Ping and explained that Dean Qian had arranged separate assessments for him and another absent student.
• Wang Dong passed Chen Ping a note asking whether Huo Yuhao was also in seclusion in the Soul Tool Department, and Chen Ping said he did not know where Huo Yuhao was.
• Chen Ping wondered whether the Secret Art Soul Bone he had sold to Ning Tian had affected Huo Yuhao's return and considered how killing Zhongli Ren had changed events.

Chen Ping slept through Mu Jin’s assessment briefing after spending several days and nights working, while Dai Huabin struggled with his class-monitor duties and believed his month of training with whale rubber had made him stronger. The chapter left Dai Huabin’s hopes of cultivating at noon thwarted by a student council meeting.

• Chen Ping’s physical strength had surpassed Dai Huabin’s after months of eating nourishing Soul Beast meat with Wu Feng and the Three-Eyed Golden Lion.
• Chen Ping fell asleep during Mu Jin’s explanation of the advancement assessment, and Mu Jin told Dai Huabin to wake him if he was still asleep at roll call.
• Dai Huabin resented being left with the class-monitor workload because Huo Yuhao had not returned as deputy monitor.
• Dai Huabin reflected that he had eaten whale rubber for a month and believed his physical ability rivaled a rank-forty Soul Ancestor’s.
• Zhu Lu told Dai Huabin that he had to attend a student council meeting at noon, ruining his plan to cultivate toward rank thirty-seven.

Chen Ping and Wu Feng arrived at Shrek Academy’s Beast Fighting Arena for the second-year advancement assessment, where Chen Ping reflected on the disappearance of Spirit Hall’s Soul Hunting Forests. Dai Huabin challenged Chen Ping to follow his lead and fight a thousand-year soul beast, leaving the class wondering whether Chen Ping could keep his top position.

• Chen Ping marveled at the Beast Fighting Arena, and Wu Feng explained that even the Nine Treasures Glazed Tile Sect could scarcely afford to maintain one of its scale.
• Chen Ping compared Shrek’s costly beast enclosures with Spirit Hall’s self-sustaining Soul Hunting Forests and lamented that none of those forests remained ten thousand years later.
• Mu Jin arrived, and Dai Huabin distributed the assessment forms before the teachers led the students into the arena.
• More than a hundred students from Class One and Class Two lined up for their advancement assessments as twenty teachers stood by to ensure their safety.
• Dai Huabin told Chen Ping that he intended to take first place and challenge a thousand-year soul beast, then dared Chen Ping to follow his lead.

Chen Ping watched Dai Huabin and the other students gather for the advancement assessment, where Class Two’s Xie Huanyue chose to challenge a thousand-year Soul Beast. Xie Huanyue absorbed the Wind Netherwolf’s charge without moving, and Chen Ping recognized his remarkable force-dissipation technique as Xie transformed to counterattack.

• Du Weilun criticized Wang Dong for standing at the head of Class One’s line, and Dai Huabin hurried forward to reclaim his place as class monitor.
• Du Weilun sent Class Two’s Xie Huanyue to demonstrate first, and Xie chose a thousand-year Soul Beast despite being a Defense System Soul Master.
• A thousand-year Wind Netherwolf burst from the arena passage and slammed into Xie before he could activate Martial Soul Possession.
• Xie absorbed the wolf’s impact through his surging fat and stayed rooted to the ground, impressing Chen Ping with his force-dissipation technique.
• Xie shouted for his Rubber Elephant to possess him, seized the Wind Netherwolf by the neck, and transformed his fat into muscle.

Xie Huanyue defeated a thousand-year Wind Netherwolf and earned a perfect score on the second-year assessment. Dai Huabin requested older Soul Beasts for the remaining challenges, prompting Du Weilun to explain how their age would affect scoring.

• Xie Huanyue crushed the Wind Netherwolf with his thousand-year Soul Skill, and Teacher Li was called to treat the injured beast.
• Du Weilun awarded Xie Huanyue a perfect score of one hundred and fifty, astonishing the teachers and students.
• Dai Huabin, worried that Chen Ping might tie with Xie Huanyue, asked Du Weilun to raise the age limit of the challenge Soul Beasts.
• Du Weilun sent Wang Yan to request older Soul Beasts and told the students that each additional five hundred years added ten points to the base score.

Xiao Xiao, Wang Dong, and Wu Feng fought increasingly powerful Soul Beasts during the assessment, while Dai Huabin was stung by the consequences of his own bold declarations. The chapter ended with Dai Huabin resolving to become unrivaled among his peers after teachers reminded him that stronger rivals could surpass him.

• Xiao Xiao controlled a thousand-year Blazing Fire Monkey but failed to defeat it, earning one hundred and twenty points.
• Wang Dong defeated a two-thousand-year Soul Beast with Butterfly God Slash, but Du Weilun deducted twenty points, leaving her with one hundred and fifty.
• Wu Feng repeatedly knocked down a two-thousand-year Soul Beast until it retreated to the Beast Pens, earning one hundred and seventy points and taking the lead.
• Dai Huabin chose to challenge a three-thousand-year Soul Beast after hearing teachers praise his talent and briefly believing their admiration had returned.
• The teachers compared Dai Huabin to Yue Heng and noted that Xiaotao and last year's freshman champion had shown that stronger people could surpass him, prompting Dai Huabin to resolve to become unrivaled among his peers.

Dai Huabin faced a healthy three-thousand-year Golden-Eyed Hanging-Forehead Tiger in the Beast Fighting Arena and attacked it head-on with his White Tiger Martial Soul. The tiger broke through Dai Huabin’s defenses and struck back, leaving him in immediate danger.

• Dai Huabin entered the arena to face a three-thousand-year Golden-Eyed Hanging-Forehead Tiger, while Yan Shaozhe formed a barrier to contain its roar.
• The Golden-Eyed Hanging-Forehead Tiger circled Dai Huabin before suddenly pouncing with its claws and full weight.
• Dai Huabin released his White Tiger Martial Soul and activated his first and third Soul Skills, then slid beneath the tiger to strike its belly.
• Dai Huabin’s claw failed to break the tiger’s protective barrier, and the tiger shattered his barrier with a kick.
• The Golden-Eyed Hanging-Forehead Tiger twisted around and brought a claw down toward Dai Huabin’s face.