Chapter Summaries

Dong Jian and Li Man challenged Yu Xiaogang’s rigid advice about their future Soul Rings, insisting they would make their own choices and would not have him lead their hunts. That night, Dong Jian entered the Divine Dragon Secret Realm and faced a trial that showed him defense alone was not enough.

• Yu Xiaogang confirmed that Dragon Spine Valley existed and advised Dong Jian to strengthen his defense and Li Man to focus exclusively on control.
• Li Man questioned Yu Xiaogang’s evidence and argued that her Green Jade Bamboo could combine battlefield control with attacks.
• Dong Jian and Li Man rejected Yu Xiaogang’s demand that they follow his path, and Dong Jian said they had not planned to have him lead their Soul Hunt.
• Xiao Wu followed Dong Jian and Li Man out, then heard Dong Jian explain that a Soul Hunting leader needed to protect the team in the field.
• Dong Jian entered the Hundred Battles Hall, where the second-stage trial required one hundred valid battles before age twelve and recorded seven completed.
• A level-fifteen Agility Attack System mirror image struck Dong Jian down in ten moves, and the trial warned him that defense meant more than taking a beating.

One year after beginning field missions, Dong Jian and Li Man used their developing techniques to drive Gale Pufferfish away from a village without injuries, then clashed with Yu Xiaogang over the risks of their training. Dong Jian defeated a Hundred Battles Hall mirror image, while a hooded observer began a second phase of testing and three strange figures appeared in the woods.

• Dong Jian and Li Man coordinated their Light-Body Bear Steps and moving Green Bamboo Binding Formation to herd seven Gale Pufferfish back into the woods and complete the village mission.
• Dong Jian and Li Man recorded the strain and limits of their techniques, while the supervising teacher praised their coordination and confirmed the mission as a valid battle.
• Yu Xiaogang warned Dong Jian to stop practicing Light-Body Bear Steps and questioned Li Man's moving formation cores, but both students chose to continue while monitoring the risks.
• Dong Jian defeated the level-fifteen agility-attack mirror image in the Hundred Battles Hall, raising his effective battle count to twenty-four.
• A hooded man recorded observations of Dong Jian and Li Man's techniques and declared that the second phase of testing could begin, as three black-veined figures emerged deeper in the woods.

During an off-campus mission, Dong Jian, Li Man, and Yan Feng were ambushed by Return to One Society testers who had studied the students’ battle records and tried to record their Soul Skills. The students adapted, destroyed the recording array, and captured two enemies, but Mo Lin remained interested in Dong Jian as Number Zero and in whether Li Man was the key.

• Yan Feng led Dong Jian and Li Man into the abandoned mine, where they found signs of a battle and were trapped by three masked testers.
• Li Man identified the image-recording crystals and warned that the testers planned to record their Soul Skills before collapsing the mine.
• Dong Jian and Li Man adapted their fighting styles, destroyed the recording array, and helped Yan Feng capture the underground tester and the slime Soul Master while the sonic tester escaped.
• Dong Jian and Li Man broke through to level eighteen, and Yan Feng ordered them to turn the prisoners and evidence over to Spirit Hall.
• The escaped tester reported to Mo Lin, who decided to let Number Zero continue growing and investigate whether Li Man was the key.
• A heavy pounding sounded from behind a black-cloth-covered iron door in Mo Lin’s chamber.

Dong Jian and Li Man were injured when their new training methods exceeded their bodies’ limits, then agreed to set safeguards while continuing to develop their abilities. Dong Jian entered a new Body Refining Hall trial, while Li Man’s Green Jade Bamboo responded to a mysterious key linked to Dragon Spine Valley, watched by a hidden observer.

• Dong Jian defeated the Rock Ox mirror image in the Hundred Battles Hall, but his own increased weight caused tiny cracks in his right tibia and compressed his meridians.
• A healing teacher ordered Dong Jian to stop high-intensity training, and Li Man argued with him about whether he should keep training other parts of his body.
• Li Man’s seven-point formation training caused her to lose consciousness and accidentally fling the injured Dong Jian into a stone wall, worsening his fracture.
• Dong Jian and Li Man agreed on limits for their training and gave each other permission to stop a session if the other’s condition became dangerous.
• Yu Xiaogang advised them to abandon their complicated new techniques, but Dong Jian and Li Man chose to adapt their methods instead.
• Dong Jian entered the Mountain-Bearing Walk trial in the Divine Dragon Secret Realm, while Li Man’s Green Jade Bamboo revealed a message about a key awakening after level eighteen; a black-clad observer recorded that the key had responded.

Dong Jian and Li Man spent six months developing Sinking Body Stance and a three-layer bamboo formation, then Tang San defeated Dong Jian in a spar despite his improved stability. Li Man sensed a connection between Green Jade Bamboo and Dragon Spine Valley, while a Soul Beast flight toward Nuoding City prompted the Hundred Battles Hall to turn Dong Jian’s trial into a real battlefield test.

• Dong Jian learned to transfer shifting weight through his whole body and into the ground, eventually reaching the fifteenth step of Mountain-Bearing Walk without aggravating his old injury.
• Li Man refined her Green Bamboo Binding Formation into three layers, and she and Dong Jian adopted careful training limits and regular physical checks.
• Over the next six months, Dong Jian reached the thirty-third step and developed Sinking Body Stance, while Li Man continued to struggle with a brief pause when switching formation layers.
• Tang San defeated Dong Jian in a spar by exploiting the limits of Sinking Body Stance, but Dong Jian remained uninjured and argued that the training had prepared him to withstand greater forces.
• Li Man received a clearer call from Dragon Spine Valley and saw a golden bamboo grove, suggesting that a power there shared Green Jade Bamboo’s origin and was waiting for her.
• Soul Beasts fled south from the mountains north of Nuoding City, and the Hundred Battles Hall changed Dong Jian’s trial to bearing the load on a real battlefield as black smoke and an unfamiliar roar rose from the forest.

Yan Feng and his students redirected a fleeing herd of Soul Beasts and rescued Qinghe Village, where Dong Jian and Li Man both advanced to level nineteen. They destroyed the devices controlling a Fusion Soul Beast, but Dong Jian absorbed a contaminated black key fragment as another, more powerful experimental subject roared deeper in the forest.

• Yan Feng led Tang San, Li Man, Xiao Wu, and Dong Jian to Qinghe Village, where they guided the migrating Soul Beasts away and evacuated the villagers.
• Dong Jian held off a nearly thousand-year-old Rock-Backed Rhinoceros for four charges until the last carriage escaped, advancing to level nineteen; Li Man also reached level nineteen while managing the evacuation.
• Yan Feng's group joined Gao Yan in destroying the devices controlling a Fusion Soul Beast, which then self-destructed.
• A black crystal entered Dong Jian and was sealed by the Hundred Battles Hall stele as a contaminated foreign key fragment; Li Man sensed something unusual, and Dong Jian told her the Divine Dragon Secret Realm had reacted.
• Gao Yan found a metal plaque bearing the Return to One Society's mark, while a deeper roar revealed another, more powerful experimental subject remained in the mountain forest.

Dong Jian and the others reviewed the Qinghe Village mission, where Yan Feng distinguished Dong Jian's disobedience from Li Man's reasonable battlefield adjustment and assigned them corrective measures. Dong Jian discovered that the black key fragment in the Divine Dragon Secret Realm was linked to Li Man's Green Jade Bamboo, but kept the secret from her even as the fragment warned that their first passive resonance would occur within thirty days.

• Yu Xiaogang criticized changes to the Qinghe Village defense plan, while Yan Feng defended Li Man's decision to abandon an empty section and identified Dong Jian's extra charge as disobedience.
• Yan Feng ordered Dong Jian to follow retreat limits and required Li Man to plan alternate formation routes and give clearer directions.
• Dong Jian found that the Divine Dragon Secret Realm identified the black fragment as a contaminated key and said Green bamboo could help purify it after he reached level twenty, obtained a Second Soul Ring, and completed a first Dual-Key Resonance.
• Dong Jian sealed the fragment and decided not to tell Li Man until he knew whether it could harm her.
• Li Man confronted Dong Jian about the secret realm's reaction, said she would not force him to reveal his secret, and warned him not to wait until events were out of control to tell her she was involved.
• The sealed fragment detected Li Man's Green Jade Bamboo and warned Dong Jian that their first passive resonance would occur within thirty days.

Dong Jian and Li Man’s key fragments resonated during a Return to One Society ambush, forcing them to work together to stop their bamboo formation from harming the convoy. After the mission, Dong Jian admitted he had concealed the danger from Li Man, and the awakened fragment warned them away from Dragon Spine Valley, where a nonhuman guardian awaited.

• Dong Jian avoided training with Li Man as their key fragments’ responses intensified and the countdown to passive resonance fell to fifteen days.
• On an escort mission, Yan Feng led the convoy into a bandit ambush, while Li Man used preplanned backup routes to protect the medicinal herbs.
• A Return to One Society device triggered the fragments’ resonance, overwhelming Dong Jian’s weight control and causing Li Man’s three-layer bamboo formation to spiral out of control.
• Dong Jian redirected his shifting weight through the formation, and Li Man severed its unstable layers, ending the resonance before it harmed the convoy.
• After the ambush, Dong Jian admitted he had concealed the key fragment’s danger, and Li Man told him to disclose risks that involved her.
• At Qingfeng Town, both heard the fragment warn them not to go to Dragon Spine Valley, where a figure with inhuman eyes sensed that the key had awakened.

Dong Jian and Li Man disclosed their knowledge of the Key Fragment, developed a method to stabilize its resonance, and trained until both reached level twenty. As they considered their Second Soul Rings and whether to enter Dragon Spine Valley, a messenger revealed that someone there already knew their names and breakthrough.

• Dong Jian told Li Man that the Key Fragment required level twenty, a Second Soul Ring, and their first Dual-Key Resonance to purify, and they agreed to share information affecting her Martial Soul.
• Dong Jian and Li Man tested ordinary contact between their Martial Souls, stabilized the resonance with the Sinking Body Stance and a fixed bamboo formation, and named the method the Meridian Suppression Formation.
• Yu Xiaogang urged Dong Jian and Li Man to train separately after their earlier resonance, but they continued supervised testing and withheld some information from him.
• Over the following months, Dong Jian and Li Man refined their techniques, then reached level twenty during a joint combat assessment as Li Man guided her team and Dong Jian pushed a weighted stone pillar across the finish line.
• Yu Xiaogang recommended Second Soul Ring targets and warned them away from Dragon Spine Valley, while Dong Jian and Li Man argued that avoiding the valley would not resolve the Key Fragment's contamination.
• Yan Feng's injured Soul Hunter reported that a guardian at Dragon Spine Valley knew Dong Jian and Li Man had reached level twenty, and the Key Fragment's eye markings opened in the Divine Dragon Secret Realm.

Dong Jian and Li Man secured academy approval to hunt for their Second Soul Rings in Dragon Spine Valley under strict safety conditions. After the key fragment warned them not to trust the valley keeper’s first suggested Soul Beast, the team reached the valley and the keeper greeted them as “Number Zero” and “Green Bamboo Key.”

• The Soul Hunter described a gray-robed man who knew Dong Jian and Li Man’s names and levels, and Li Man received a warning from the golden bamboo fragment not to enter the valley because contamination could turn on its host.
• Dong Jian and Li Man rejected Yu Xiaogang’s fixed Soul Beast plan, and the vice dean approved a five-person expedition led by Gao Yan with Yan Feng and Lin He protecting and monitoring them.
• Yu Xiaogang proposed that Tang San and Xiao Wu join the expedition, but Dong Jian and the vice dean refused, and Xiao Wu stayed behind to await the team’s return.
• Dong Jian and Li Man agreed not to decide in advance who would absorb a Soul Ring first and to share any key-fragment anomalies immediately.
• The sealed key fragment showed Dong Jian an image of the valley keeper connected to three shadows and warned him not to trust the first Soul Beast the man pointed out; Dong Jian told Li Man the full warning.
• The team reached Dragon Spine Valley, where the gray-robed keeper recognized Dong Jian as “Number Zero” and Li Man as “Green Bamboo Key,” saying he had waited ten years for them.

Dong Jian refused to absorb a corrupted Dragon-Patterned Ironback Bear that Gu Jiu had deliberately sent to him, but the team continued investigating Dragon Spine Valley for Coiled Dragon Golden Bamboo. They found the bamboo grove and discovered that two identical Gu Jius had surrounded them.

• Gu Jiu guided Gao Yan's team to a contaminated Dragon-Patterned Ironback Bear, but Dong Jian refused to absorb its Soul Ring, and Gao Yan killed it when the corruption forced it to self-destruct.
• Li Man found golden bamboo powder carrying Soul Power like Gu Jiu's, confirming that he had lured the bear to them.
• Gao Yan allowed the team half a day to investigate independently, and Li Man sensed a pure current of plant Soul Power leading to Coiled Dragon Golden Bamboo.
• The team found fresh footprints like Gu Jiu's inside the bamboo grove, although they showed no path in or out.
• Gu Jiu appeared inside the grove while an identical Gu Jiu stood behind Gao Yan's team.

Li Man entered the Coiled Dragon Golden Bamboo grove, severed its contaminated roots, and defeated the parent plant before absorbing its roughly 720-year-old Soul Ring. She reached level twenty-one and gained Dragon Bamboo Piercing Formation, while the chapter ended with a new uncontaminated Soul Beast appearing and a warning that killing it would loosen the seal beneath the valley.

• Gao Yan and the team identified the two Gu Jius as bodies controlled by one consciousness, and Li Man sensed that underground contamination was threatening the Coiled Dragon Golden Bamboo and its young shoots.
• Despite Dong Jian's objections, Gao Yan gave Li Man a quarter of an hour to act, while he occupied the Gu Jius and the others guarded the retreat route.
• Li Man protected the young bamboo, severed the contaminated roots, and defeated the Coiled Dragon Golden Bamboo as it made its final attack.
• Li Man absorbed the plant's Soul Ring, reached level twenty-one, and gained the Second Soul Skill Dragon Bamboo Piercing Formation.
• Both Gu Jiu bodies collapsed and warned that the Green Bamboo Key was complete and that Number Zero was next.
• A roughly 750-year-old uncontaminated Soul Beast appeared, and the Key Fragment warned that killing it would release part of the valley-bottom seal as chains snapped beneath the grove.

After Li Man obtained her second Soul Ring, the team found a dying Dragon-Patterned Ironback Bear guarding a sealed stone door and learned Dong Jian could temporarily take over part of its duty. Dong Jian defeated the bear and began absorbing its Soul Ring, but the seal broke and a snake-scaled claw reached out from behind the door.

• Li Man used her new Second Soul Skill to clear a blocked mountain cleft, and the team withdrew from the contaminated golden bamboo forest.
• The team found a 750-year-old Dragon-Patterned Ironback Bear maintaining a seal, and Dong Jian tested his ability to take over one underground node.
• After learning the bear was near death and had guarded the seal alongside earlier generations, Gao Yan allowed Dong Jian to fight it under strict conditions.
• Dong Jian defeated the Ironback Bear and began absorbing its Soul Ring as the first chain snapped and Gao Yan and Yan Feng held the stone door shut.
• A black-and-white, snake-scaled claw reached through the gap, revealing that more than one being lay beneath the seal.

Dong Jian fused the Dragon-Patterned Ironback Bear’s Soul Ring and gained Mountain-Shaking Stomp, which temporarily reinforced the seal beneath the stone door. He and Li Man then faced a choice about purifying the Key Fragment as Gu Jiu urged them to open the second lock.

• Dong Jian endured the Soul Ring’s crushing pressure and learned to distribute its weight through his body into the ground.
• Li Man linked the seal’s nodes with her bamboo formation while Gao Yan and Yan Feng held back the serpent-scaled claw emerging from the stone door.
• Dong Jian completed his Second Soul Ring at level twenty-one and used Mountain-Shaking Stomp to restore all six nodes and force the claw back behind the door.
• The group found an inscription reading “One door, three locks. Three beasts, one body,” and suspected Gu Jiu was connected to the being sealed inside.
• Dong Jian and Li Man received an offer to purify the Key Fragment, but Gu Jiu warned that doing so would open the second lock; they delayed their choice as the second chain began to tremble.

Dong Jian and Li Man partially removed the Return to One Society’s locating contamination from the Key Fragment, but their attempt left traces of their Soul Power on the second lock. As the group escaped Dragon Spine Valley, Gu Jiu revealed that the lock remembered them and demanded they bring Tang San next time.

• Dong Jian and Li Man proposed a ten-breath test to channel the Key Fragment’s surface contamination into a stone fragment, and Gao Yan agreed to supervise one attempt.
• Dong Jian and Li Man used their combined formation to strip away an outer eye marking, while Dong Jian’s Mountain-Shaking Stomp forced the contamination into the stone fragment before they cut off the resonance.
• Dong Jian learned that the Key Fragment’s locating contamination had been reduced to twenty percent and remote tracking was temporarily disabled, but the second lock had recorded both keys’ Soul Power.
• Gao Yan led the group out of Dragon Spine Valley as Gu Jiu’s shell appeared at the exit, called Dong Jian Number Zero, and told them to bring Tang San next time.
• After the group left, black-and-white and golden patterns appeared on the second chain, followed by a faint blue pattern resembling Blue Silver Grass.

After returning from Dragon Spine Valley, Dong Jian and Li Man reported the danger and tested their new Soul Skills while the academy sealed the valley’s secrets. Qin Ming invited them to seek admission to Heaven Dou Royal Academy in two years, while Tang San remained unsettled by Gu Jiu’s interest in him.

• Gao Yan decided to submit a public report about Dragon Spine Valley and keep Dong Jian and Li Man’s personal Martial Soul secrets confidential.
• At Nuoding Academy, Gao Yan reported Gu Jiu’s multiple shells, the sealed stone door, and its connection to Tang San, while Dong Jian and Li Man withheld details about the Divine Dragon Secret Realm.
• The vice dean barred students from returning to Dragon Spine Valley without permission, and Tang San agreed not to investigate on his own.
• Dong Jian tested Mountain-Shaking Stomp, while Li Man demonstrated Dragon Bamboo Piercing Formation and their still-limited Dragon Bamboo Tremor Formation combination.
• Qin Ming offered Dong Jian and Li Man a chance to be considered for Heaven Dou Royal Academy if they reached level twenty-eight and passed a combat assessment within two years.

Two years after leaving Nuoding Academy, Dong Jian and Li Man traveled with Qin Ming to Heaven Dou Royal Academy while Tang San and Xiao Wu set out for Shrek Academy. They began an assessment against Yu Feng and Osler for a place as substitutes on the Imperial Fighting Team, with the fight still underway at the chapter’s end.

• Dong Jian and Li Man practiced their refined Soul Skill control and tried, unsuccessfully, to fuse their Martial Souls for the eighteenth time.
• Dong Jian and Li Man met Tang San and Xiao Wu at Nuoding Academy’s gates, then parted from them as the two pairs set off for different academies.
• Ten days later, Qin Ming brought Dong Jian and Li Man to Heaven Dou Royal Academy and introduced them to the Imperial Fighting Team.
• Qin Ming set a two-on-two badge contest against Yu Feng and Osler, with special restrictions on the two opponents.
• Yu Feng and Osler released their Martial Souls as the assessment began; Osler charged Li Man while Yu Feng took to the air, and Li Man placed bamboo shadows near likely positions.

Dong Jian and Li Man won their assessment against Osler and Yu Feng by using the arena rules and coordinated tactics to keep the Swan badge until time ran out. They earned rotation places on the Imperial Fighting Team and learned that their next chance to prove themselves would come at a joint exchange with three other academies, followed by a possible visit to the Heaven Dou Imperial Palace.

• Li Man redirected Yu Feng’s low-altitude descent through her bamboo formation while Dong Jian used a Short Tremor to disrupt his flight, and she later drew Osler toward the central pillar by abandoning exposed formation nodes.
• Osler seized the Swan badge, but Dong Jian and Li Man trapped his escape route, disrupted his balance, and knocked the badge from his hand before Dong Jian caught it and protected it from Yu Feng until Qin Ming stopped the assessment.
• Qin Ming declared Dong Jian and Li Man the winners and gave them places as rotation members, while warning them to learn when their skills suited the team.
• Ye Lingling warned Dong Jian that recoil from his techniques could cause another fracture in his injured right leg, and Dugu Yan gave Li Man a list of competitors for the upcoming exchange with Blazing Fire Academy, Godwind Academy, and Skywater Academy.
• Li Man learned that the two best-performing rotation members could accompany the team to the Heaven Dou Imperial Palace, where Crown Prince Xue Qinghe would be present, and that information about her and Dong Jian had already reached his residence.

Li Man’s first simulated battle with the Imperial Fighting Team ended in defeat after her and Yu Tianheng’s conflicting orders broke their formation, while Qin Ming began training her and Dong Jian to coordinate their abilities. After Feng Xiaotian exposed Dong Jian’s difficulty judging airborne opponents, Huo Wu challenged Li Man to a one-on-one fight.

• Li Man’s team lost the flag-capture exercise when Dugu Yan’s poison mist and Dong Jian’s disruption broke their formation, while Yu Tianheng and Li Man issued conflicting orders.
• Dugu Yan argued that the team needed one control core, but Qin Ming said both Li Man and Yu Tianheng had made reasonable judgments and needed clearer signals and commands.
• Dong Jian failed to force either Shi Mo to retreat three steps, then adjusted his attacks to redirect their balance and learned from Ye Lingling that his left-foot stomp was weaker.
• Qin Ming guided Li Man and Dong Jian through their first successful attempt at combining their Soul Power in a Vibrating Bamboo Spear, which destabilized nearby wooden stakes.
• Feng Xiaotian defeated Dong Jian in a ten-breath challenge and explained that Dong Jian needed to read an airborne opponent’s body and center of gravity before they landed.
• Huo Wu challenged Li Man to a one-on-one fight to test whether her control abilities could do more than launch surprise attacks.

Li Man held out against Huo Wu’s flames and forced a draw by staying inside the circle until time ran out, while Dong Jian improved his ability to anticipate Feng Xiaotian’s flight. The chapter ended with Heaven Dou Royal Academy drawing a two-on-two control contest against Skywater Academy, pairing Dugu Yan and Li Man against Shui Bing’er and Xue Wu.

• Huo Wu used flames, fire shadows, and Blazing Sun to control the arena, but Li Man changed the terrain and used bamboo anchors to remain inside the circle until the incense burned out, resulting in a draw.
• Dugu Yan told Li Man that she made decisive choices alone but struggled to communicate her judgment in team battles, and Li Man agreed to improve.
• Dong Jian disrupted Feng Xiaotian’s planned flight with a short shock, prompting Feng Xiaotian to praise his progress in anticipating movement.
• Shui Bing’er arrived with Xue Wu and criticized the control shown by Huo Wu and Li Man, saying true control should be complete before an opponent notices it.
• Qin Ming announced that Dugu Yan and Li Man would face Shui Bing’er and Xue Wu in a two-on-two control contest over three ice crystal platforms, and Dugu Yan and Li Man disagreed over who should lead.