Shen Heng

Biodata

Power Progression

Martial tiers and ability grades advance separately. In particular, the fourth-tier Origin Crystal used for his ability evolution does not mark his martial breakthrough to Fourth Tier 313 321 397.

Background and History

Transmigration and inherited debts

Shen Heng apparently dies while saving a little girl in his original world, then awakens in the body of another Shen Heng. His host had been a well-behaved child before his father’s death and the family’s financial decline. During high school, the original Shen Heng began gambling, accumulated debts, and died suddenly after several nights without sleep 1.

Soon after awakening, Shen Heng meets Nannan and her mother. When a large dog attacks the mother, he overcomes his fear, calls for assistance, and enters the alley to help. The attacker is subsequently identified as a Mutilated Hound, and his contact with its Origin Crystal apparently awakens Hearing Enhancement 1 5.

He also inherits the original owner’s damaged family relationships and loan-shark debt. Rather than continue the original owner’s habits, he cleans the apartment, cooks for the family, and seeks legitimate ways to earn money. Huang Shaohua’s interest in Shen Shuning makes severing financial ties with him an urgent priority 8 9 10 11 16.

Joining the Supervision Bureau

Shen Heng joins the Supervision Bureau while still unranked, setting cultivation and debt repayment as his immediate goals. Wang Hai trains him in firearms and close combat, while Shen Heng practices Five Animal Fist diligently enough to reach First Tier 16 20 32 35 38.

He redeems basic saber instruction for 30 points. When his savings remain short of the 60,000 yuan owed to Huang Shaohua, Xu Yuqin offers money from a wage advance and additional savings. Shen Heng accepts her help and promises not to borrow again 53.

During the spore incident, he takes Le Gu Nan into combat after making her promise to retreat if necessary. Despite still being First Tier, he later kills a Tier 2 Decaying Spore Guard with a pistol sneak attack and withdraws with a chest wound 68 78 82.

Developing his combat system

At Lakeside Center, Shen Heng demonstrates Flow to Li Daoyi. His enhanced hearing lets him identify irregularities in circulating Origin Power, allowing him to maintain a technique that demands unusually fine control 116 117.

Headquarters later specifically orders him to attend its first training camp, despite his ability being only D-Class. Over three months, he develops Vibrating Blade, Sonic Wave Body Tempering, stronger Origin Power control, and Echolocation. Repeated battles against people and Calamity Beasts greatly improve his adaptability 144 147 178 204 207.

After returning to Linhai, he continues refining his techniques. Against Shadow Erosion, he develops Flow · Overclock, closing a dangerous physical gap at the cost of severe bodily strain. Once recovered, he prepares another ability evolution and successfully reaches B-Class 208 218 301 302 311 313 314 321.

Linhai leadership

Yu Jingming’s death becomes a personal turning point. After Jingming loses control and mutates, Shen Heng subdues him but still hears savage inner cries. He ultimately kills him, then remains beside the body in silence. The narration identifies this as the first death of someone Shen Heng knew well 343.

Shen Heng becomes director of the Linhai Supervision Bureau. During the low-temperature cloud incident, he reports the rat threat’s elimination to headquarters representative Lu Zhaoming and coordinates containment arrangements; Lu ultimately makes the clouds retreat 381 388.

His subsequent Fourth Tier breakthrough transforms his physical attributes, increases his Origin Power reserves, and substantially expands his sensory range. He later kills the Near-S-Class Bone Porcelain Puppet during the Suicheng incident 397 429.

Erosion Zone operations and war

Assigned to the Plateau Erosion Zone, Shen Heng begins questioning whether intercepting Calamity Beasts alone can effectively stop the Ruins Realm invasion. He also invests in allied strength, lending Lü Wenrui nineteen Origin Crystals so the latter can reach Fourth Tier 454 458.

As an exploration-squad captain, he prioritizes complementary abilities over personal familiarity. He defeats Wang Hu to establish his authority and explains that squad composition must cover weaknesses rather than simply group strong individuals together 506 507 513.

During the prolonged beast tides, he bears increasing responsibility for others’ lives. Fighting two Sky-Sundering Kamaitachi, he combines spiritual power with sound-wave imaging to process the battlefield more efficiently. Later, he commands fewer than two thousand troops near Frontier-Pacifying City, conserving food and repositioning to intercept enemy reinforcements 584 613 614 683.

False worlds and Black Stone Valley

When adaptation threatens Stone’s awareness, Shen Heng helps him carve reminders into his forelimb identifying the world as false and directing him to seek Shen Heng and Han Ling. He also investigates the Black Rats’ apparent sacrifices to their god, considering whether sacrifices can purchase answers or distort local rules 920 1013.

During a later memory-related episode, Shen Heng has no conscious recollection of Han Ling, yet experiences a strong bodily sense of familiarity when she is mentioned 1037.

After spending seven days in Black Stone Valley, he emerges with worsening mental pain and a molten-gold, hook-shaped mark on his forehead. He believes the mark grants one opportunity to exercise the authority of distortion 1055.

Appearance

• Initially wears a blue-and-white school uniform 1.
• Acquires extensive training bruises during his early Supervision Bureau combat practice 34.
• His Fourth Tier transformation increases his body weight as his flesh becomes capable of supporting much greater strength 397.
• After Black Stone Valley, bears a molten-gold, hook-shaped forehead mark 1055.

Personality

Shen Heng is compassionate without being indifferent to danger. He hesitates before confronting the dog attacking Nannan’s mother, but acts once he realizes she is still alive. He privately insists that he values his own life, even when others interpret his rescue as recklessness 1 34.

He approaches cultivation experimentally, researching sound-wave behavior and adapting it into practical techniques. His work ethic is unusually strict: when asked how he spends his spare time, he explains that he generally puts it into more cultivation 169 178 429.

His leadership combines approachability with calculated decisiveness. Wu Hao observes that he normally puts on no airs, yet becomes extraordinarily calm during operations, analyzing options before making decisions and displaying considerable ruthlessness when necessary 607.

He recognizes the weight of responsibility rather than treating command as prestige. As the number of lives depending on him grows, he acknowledges the burden but never considers abandoning it. He also rejects gambling and warns Lü Wenrui against rationalizing ordinary losses through his luck-related ability 501 584.

Abilities and Skills

Listening to the Cries of All Living Beings

His B-Class ability combines enhanced hearing, sound-wave manipulation, inner-voice perception, and emotional interference. Shen Heng estimates that the component powers are approximately C-Class individually rather than each possessing B-Class strength 318 321 505.

• Inner voices: Can hear thoughts relevant to an opponent’s intended actions, allowing him to anticipate attacks 318 319.
• Emotion Interference: Can manipulate a target’s emotions, though Fourth Tier mental power makes interference easier to detect 505 413.
• Combat limitation: Foreknowledge cannot compensate indefinitely for a sufficiently large gap in speed and strength 319.
• Activation: Inner-voice perception is not always active; he does not automatically know Zhou Zhenguo’s thoughts during their conversation 663.

Enhanced Hearing and Sonic Imaging

His original passive ability develops from long-distance listening into detailed acoustic reconnaissance 5 204.

• Initially hears up to approximately 500 meters away and detects nervousness, fear, joy, and panic in speech. This is not infallible lie detection against composed liars 5.
• Echolocation reconstructs a beast’s outline, build, and movement from reflected sound, including when the beast remains still 204.
• At Fourth Tier, hearing reaches 50 km, while sonic imaging reaches approximately 15 km 397.
• Combines spiritual power with incoming sound waves to accelerate battlefield mapping and coordinate precise responses 614.
• Information processing remains a bottleneck as the volume of sensory input grows 649.

Early Hearing Enhancement cannot be switched off, causing intrusive noise and difficulty resting. After evolution, he can block incoming sound, but doing so requires continued attention 7 13 227.

Sound Wave Manipulation

Shen Heng changes sound-wave frequency, focus, and density using Origin Power and mental strength 136.

• Sound Wave Attack: Initially causes brief dizziness more reliably than serious damage; reflections and resonance can amplify it in suitable terrain 136 169.
• Sound Barrier Shield: Forms a dense buffer that initially only slightly deflects same-tier attacks rather than reliably blocking them 136.
• Sound Simulation: One of the three applications identified after his first evolution 136.
• Direct killing: At Fourth Tier, can kill Second Tier or weaker targets from several hundred meters away and Third Tier targets within a few dozen meters 404.
• Resistance: Fourth Tier mental power sharply weakens his direct sound attacks. Damage also diminishes over kilometer-scale distances 404 413.

Flow and Flow · Overclock

Flow circulates Origin Power throughout his body to improve speed and strength. Hearing lets him identify abnormal vibrations and stabilize the circulation route 105 117.

• Initially sustains it for only two or three hours because of its mental demands; after his mental breakthrough, can maintain it all day 117 217.
• Flow · Overclock adjusts circulation frequency and flow rate for a much greater temporary physical boost 302.
• Shen Heng later estimates that Overclock can briefly provide approximately A+ physical enhancement; he does not claim confirmed S-Class performance 340.
• Causes intense internal burning and has a hard limit determined by what his body can endure 302 614.
• The physical enhancement comes from his developed technique, not a native body-enhancement ability 516.

Vibrating Blade

A self-developed saber technique that layers sound waves onto a blade, increasing vibration frequency and cutting power 178 190.

• Enables him to cut down a defensive Tier 3 Calamity Beast despite the limited direct damage of his ordinary sound attacks 190.
• Can release accumulated vibration outward as a ranged attack 218.
• By a later assessment, maintains three sonic layers steadily and briefly reaches a fourth, exceeding ten thousand vibrations per second 340.
• Vibrating Blade · Shockwave transfers the compressed waves rather than using them solely to improve the weapon’s edge 512.
• Stable fourth-layer maintenance remains unfinished in his later Fifth Tier assessment 586.

Cultivation and Supporting Techniques

• Five Animal Fist: Foundational cultivation method used for his First Tier breakthrough 38.
• Heavenly Cycle Breathing Technique: One of his principal cultivation methods 207 311.
• Sonic Wave Body Tempering: Uses sound-wave vibrations to strengthen his body gradually 207 413.
• Sevenfold Force: Layered-force combat technique; reaches the fifth fold by his Fifth Tier assessment 311 586.
• Falling Wild Goose Steps: Footwork technique incorporated into his completed training-camp combat system 207.
• Visualization and meditation: Develop mental power, later allowing control of external Origin Power within a limited range 390 649.
• Origin Power Configuration: Improves control and utilization while continuously absorbing Origin Power; occupies approximately thirty percent of his Fourth Tier reserves 394 397.
• Firearms and cooking: Receives pistol instruction from Wang Hai and retains competent cooking skills from his previous life 10 32.

Equipment and Items

• Long saber — His primary melee weapon and the medium for Vibrating Blade 178 302.
• Pistol — Used to kill a Decaying Spore Guard during the spore incident 82.
• Fluid Battle Armor — Later upgraded with improved primary material; substantially reduces the injuries he suffers against the Sky-Sundering Kamaitachi 586 613.
• Origin Crystals — Used for cultivation, ability evolution, and strengthening allies 313 454 500 547.
• Hook-shaped forehead mark — Acquired in Black Stone Valley; believed to hold one use of the authority of distortion 1055.

Relationships

• Xu Yuqin — Mother of his host body. Initially works two jobs to cover his debts; later helps him meet Huang Shaohua’s repayment demand. Shen Heng takes increasing care of her health and comfort 8 53 290 389.
• Shen Shuning — Older sister. Her initial hostility softens as she recognizes his dependability. He later accepts that she must serve on the front lines but asks Li Daoyi to keep her away from the Plateau Erosion Zone 106 143 769.
• Wang Hai — Captain and early instructor. Teaches him firearms and combat, explains cultivation milestones, and supplies the crystal for his B-Class ability evolution 32 35 313.
• Han Ling — Long-standing colleague and squadmate specializing in explosive long-range attacks. She supports him personally, discusses the war with him, and pleads for him to return alive from a dangerous operation 454 516 607.
• Le Gu Nan — Early combat companion and later collaborator. Shen Heng encourages her development, including analysis of concrete and asphalt as combat materials and cooperation on her father’s cultivation aid 78 208 547.
• Li Daoyi — Senior cultivation adviser interested in Flow. Explains later-stage training and promises to obtain a late sixth-tier Origin Crystal if Shen Heng advances 117 390 769.
• Yan Sheng — Friend inherited from the original owner’s school life. Remains loyal despite being drawn into violence connected to Shen Heng 20 62 64.
• Yu Jingming — Saber-practice acquaintance whose mutation forces Shen Heng to kill him. His death deeply affects Shen Heng 68 338 343.
• Yu Chunhe — Yu Jingming’s younger sister. Shares tea cakes and family memories with him; later declares her intention to continue her brother’s protective work 338 344.
• Zhou Xuan — Former training-camp roommate and later control specialist in his squad. Supports Shen Heng during disciplinary trouble and shares his Miao upbringing and Nuo opera 458 513 584.
• Lü Wenrui — Training-camp acquaintance with the unpredictable Fortune ability. Shen Heng is wary of his luck effects but lends him nineteen Origin Crystals to strengthen the group 437 454.
• Qin Yu — Squadmate and reconnaissance collaborator who supplies observations about enemy weaknesses and the Black Rats’ activities 547 683 1013.
• Wang Hu — Powerful fighter who accepts Shen Heng’s authority after losing their duel 513.
• Stone — Loyal Stone-Armored Beast companion. Shen Heng praises his efforts to protect people, arranges transport for him when wounded, and helps him resist the false world’s influence 884 920.

Notable Quotes

“We will win!”
— Answering a soldier’s doubts after Qin Ye’s death 620.

“War is an act of violence to compel the enemy to submit to our will.”
— Responding to Zhou Zhenguo 663.

“If there’s any time left over, I just put it into cultivation.”
— Explaining his daily routine 429.