Chapter Summaries

Long Tian traveled to the Cloud-Hidden Swamp with Chen Hao and Uncle Xu to hunt a Yin-Yang Swamp Frog and gain his Third Soul Ring. After absorbing it and reaching the Third Ring, he began to understand that his new Soul Skill could protect him by offsetting incoming attacks.

• Long Tian found Chen Hao and Uncle Xu waiting to accompany him to the Cloud-Hidden Swamp, and they traveled north together.
• Uncle Xu gave Long Tian and Chen Hao medicine against the swamp miasma and warned them about the poisonous fog and deep bogs.
• At dusk, Long Tian spotted three Yin-Yang Swamp Frogs and sneaked toward them while Chen Hao and Uncle Xu waited to assist.
• The largest frog sensed Long Tian and attacked, but Chen Hao knocked it from the water and Long Tian killed it with his Light Bullet and shadow powers.
• Long Tian absorbed the frog's Soul Ring, reached the Third Ring, and sensed that his Third Soul Skill would create a protective film of chaotic light.
• The group left the swamp, and Long Tian reflected on his progress as the carriage carried them back toward Bluestone Town.

Long Tian refined his defensive Soul Skill and reached level seventeen while Zhao Xiaopang and Chen Hao continued growing stronger. After receiving a message summoning him south of the city, Long Tian left Bluestone Town for Spirit City with Zhao Xiaopang and Chen Hao.

• Long Tian tested his Third Soul Skill against attacks and named it Yin-Yang Body Protection.
• Long Tian's cultivation reached level seventeen, Zhao Xiaopang gained his first Soul Ring, and Chen Hao advanced to level nineteen before sparring with Long Tian.
• Zhao Xiaopang brought Long Tian a message written in Shen Mo's handwriting telling him to meet south of the city.
• Long Tian decided to leave the next morning, and Zhao Xiaopang insisted on accompanying him.
• Chen Hao joined Long Tian and Zhao Xiaopang after Mr. Wang instructed him to go with them.
• The three youths left Bluestone Town and set out along the road toward Spirit City.

Long Tian reached Spirit City with Zhao Xiaopang and Chen Hao, then met his father, Long Tieshan, at Old Chen's Blacksmith Shop. Long Tieshan revealed evidence about Spirit Hall's deadly experiments and gave Long Tian a damaged diagram that might help him unite light and darkness, while confirming the experiments were still underway.

• Long Tian, Zhao Xiaopang, and Chen Hao arrived in Spirit City and settled into an inn.
• Long Tian went alone to Old Chen's Blacksmith Shop, where Long Tieshan was waiting for him.
• Long Tieshan explained that the Iron Guard had escorted a dossier documenting forced Martial Soul fusion experiments that killed or drove hundreds of subjects mad.
• Long Tieshan gave Long Tian a copied diagram describing a possible way to fuse light and darkness at their source, though the instructions were partly unreadable.
• Long Tian asked whether the experiments were still happening, and Long Tieshan nodded.

Long Tian learned more about his father’s past in the Iron Guard and the dangerous Soul Fusion experiments, then decided to investigate them with Chen Hao and Zhao Xiaopang. The chapter ended with Old Chen burning a message that the Iron Guard Seventh Squad’s file had been removed from the secret archive.

• Long Tieshan told Long Tian that his mother knew nothing about his Iron Guard past and explained that he had to leave Spirit City before dawn.
• Long Tieshan examined Long Tian’s Martial Soul and advised him to gradually open the barriers between light and darkness in his dantian.
• Long Tian returned to the inn, shared his father’s account of the ongoing experiments with Chen Hao and Zhao Xiaopang, and said he intended to investigate who was behind them.
• Chen Hao and Zhao Xiaopang joined Long Tian’s plan to investigate the experiments.
• Old Chen found a message saying the Iron Guard Seventh Squad’s file had been removed from the secret archive and burned it.

Long Tian learned that the Iron Guard Seventh Squad’s file had been taken from the secret archives and entered the age-group tournament to remain in Spirit City. He began tempering the light and dark Qi in his Soul Rings, while two people examining the file discussed his connection to Tie Shan and the same path.

• Old Chen told Long Tian that someone had removed the Iron Guard Seventh Squad’s file from the secret archives shortly after Tie Shan left the city.
• Long Tian, Chen Hao, and Zhao Xiaopang registered for the age-group tournament, with Zhao Xiaopang volunteering as an event assistant.
• Long Tian mapped streets in southern Spirit City and checked for anyone following him.
• Long Tian practiced mingling light and dark Qi, gradually enduring the pain and eventually tempering both his First and Second Soul Rings at once.
• Two people in a secret room examined the Seventh Squad file, confirmed Tie Shan had been found, and discussed Long Tian’s Light and Dark Twin Dragons and tournament entry.

Long Tian won three tournament matches, reaching the eight-year-old group’s final four after defeating Murong Qing with an unstable fusion of light and dark power. That night, he discovered someone had inspected his drawing and connected the intrusion to the missing copy of a file.

• Long Tian defeated Wei Lan and a level-twelve Fire Lizard Soul Master, drawing attention to his Mixed-Color Soul Rings.
• Long Tian overcame Murong Qing’s ice attacks with a burst of fused light and dark power, and Murong Qing conceded.
• Long Tian advanced to the final four, while Zhao Xiaopang cheered him on and Chen Hao watched from the thirteen-year-olds’ area.
• At the inn, Long Tian noticed a new crease on his drawing and suspected someone had searched his belongings.
• Long Tian recalled Old Chen’s note that the original file had been returned but its copy was still missing, and he reviewed the strangers he had encountered.

Long Tian defeated Gu Yan in the age-group semifinals by breaking through his spider-silk defenses with the Power of Chaos, while an unidentified man in gray watched him closely. That night, the watcher reported Long Tian’s unusual power, and Long Tian continued cultivating while keeping the most important refining insights to himself.

• Long Tian prepared to face Gu Yan, whose Silver Thread Spider silk had quickly defeated his earlier opponents, and noticed an unusually still man in gray watching from the stands.
• Long Tian used Shadow Vision and his Yin-Yang Twin Wings to evade Gu Yan’s spider-silk traps and attacks during their semifinal fight.
• Long Tian struck Gu Yan’s woven silk wall with a ball of the Power of Chaos, and Gu Yan surrendered after the blow shattered much of his web.
• Long Tian recognized the gray-clothed spectator as suspicious and memorized his face, while Chen Hao later won his own semifinal.
• Long Tian studied his incomplete refining plans and cultivated, while the man in gray wrote a report emphasizing the Power of Chaos and sealed it with a sword-and-star insignia.

Long Tian defeated Zhang Yueming in the tournament final by combining his Light and Dark Qi to break the Mysterious Light Mirror. After winning, he received an invitation from Spirit City Academy and noticed the candied-hawthorn vendor watching him before disappearing into the crowd.

• Long Tian rested before the finals, then learned that Zhang Yueming’s Mysterious Light Mirror could reflect ranged attacks and reveal Shadow Stealth.
• Chen Hao lost the thirteen-year-old final to the Ice Serpent user, then encouraged Long Tian to seize his chance.
• Long Tian bypassed Zhang Yueming’s mirror with chaotic power formed from Light and Dark Qi, shattered it, and forced Zhang Yueming to surrender.
• A Spirit City Academy lecturer invited Long Tian to study at the academy, and he said he would consider it.
• Zhao Xiaopang celebrated Long Tian’s victory while Long Tian spotted the candied-hawthorn vendor watching him; the vendor then vanished into the crowd.

Long Tian met a former Iron Guard who explained that a fragment of Zhang Yueming’s Mysterious Light Mirror had captured his Power of Chaos and could help him approach the real mirror in Spirit City Academy’s secret vault. After learning that the mirror held a visual record of the experiment connected to his father’s case, Long Tian decided to answer the academy’s invitation.

• Long Tian considered the academy’s invitation while Chen Hao argued that joining would give him resources and a natural way to investigate the Iron Guard.
• A messenger delivered an unsigned letter inviting Long Tian to Old Sophora Alley to discuss fragments of the mirror, and Long Tian went alone to meet the sender.
• The gray-clad man from the tournament showed Long Tian a mirror fragment bearing a trace of his Power of Chaos and explained that the mirror had absorbed it when it shattered.
• The gray-clad man revealed that he had served in the Iron Guard with Long Tian’s father and said the real Mysterious Light Mirror contained images of the experiment tied to the sealed case file.
• The gray-clad man warned that someone else had creased the lower right corner of Long Tian’s diagram scroll, and Long Tian returned to the inn with the fragment.
• Long Tian told Chen Hao and Zhao Xiaopang that he would reply to the academy’s invitation the next day.

Long Tian enrolled at Spirit City Junior Academy and secretly investigated the Mysterious Light Mirror’s whereabouts. He confirmed it was stored in the old archives building, but needed a four-ring Soul Master or another way past its restriction, so he planned to ask Zhao Min about historical records.

• Zhao Min enrolled Long Tian, arranged for Chen Hao to transfer and Zhao Xiaopang to join the preparatory class, and assigned Long Tian a dedicated mentor.
• Long Tian and Chen Hao identified three restricted academy locations and agreed to search them for the Mysterious Light Mirror.
• Long Tian picked the lock to the library basement and found a record stating that an old copper mirror had been transferred to the fourth cabinet of the old archives building.
• Chen Hao found that the old archives restriction required at least four rings, while Long Tian and his companions had fewer.
• Zhao Xiaopang suggested Zhao Min might take Long Tian to consult old files, and Long Tian decided to ask her about historical records of mixed-color Martial Souls.

Long Tian used Zhao Min’s help to enter the old archives and secretly confirmed that the Mysterious Light Mirror was stored in the fourth cabinet. He left the mirror in place and planned to find a way to retrieve it without making Zhao Min suspicious.

• Long Tian asked Zhao Min to help him research records of Mixed-Color Martial Souls, while he and Chen Hao and Zhao Xiaopang planned to inspect the fourth cabinet.
• Zhao Min brought Long Tian into the old archives building, where he learned that its restriction did not stop a three-ring cultivator from entering when someone opened the door for them.
• Long Tian picked the fourth cabinet’s lock and found the bronze mirror matching the gray-clad man’s wax seal, then returned it to its box without being noticed.
• Long Tian told Zhao Min that the records contained no examples like his twin light-and-dark mixed rings, and Zhao Min offered to lend him the archive key in the future.
• Long Tian told Chen Hao and Zhao Xiaopang that he needed another plan to take the mirror without arousing Zhao Min’s suspicion, and decided to study her schedule for three days.

Long Tian stole the bronze mirror from the old archives building and used it to reveal a secret experiment in which Soul Masters were imprisoned and their Martial Souls extracted for fusion. After hiding the mirror, he resolved with Chen Hao and Zhao Xiaopang to locate the underground chamber where the experiment was still taking place.

• Long Tian, Chen Hao, and Zhao Xiaopang put their plan in motion, with Chen Hao keeping watch and Zhao Xiaopang ready to distract anyone approaching the archives.
• Long Tian borrowed the archives key from Zhao Min’s assistant, entered the building, and took the bronze mirror from its cabinet.
• A guard locked the iron door behind Long Tian, so he escaped through a rotting second-floor window and returned to the dormitory by way of an alley.
• Long Tian used his Soul Power to activate the mirror, which showed imprisoned people, extracted Martial Soul cores, and a child labeled as material for a fusion experiment.
• Long Tian told Chen Hao and Zhao Xiaopang that the experiment was ongoing and planned to take the mirror to Old Chen’s home before they searched for the underground chamber.

Long Tian hid the bronze mirror at Old Chen's Blacksmith Shop and traced clues about its underground room to the Iron Guard and Meng Changyuan. After finding an old well that led beneath the city, he received an unsigned message ordering him to meet the man in gray at the Iron Guard camp's west gate at midnight the next night.

• Long Tian left the bronze mirror with Old Chen, who named Meng Changyuan as his father's former captain and told him how to contact the man in gray.
• Long Tian and Chen Hao reasoned that the mirror's hidden room was connected to Meng Changyuan and might have been relocated beneath an isolated part of the old city.
• Long Tian dreamed of a cage labeled for three-ring light-and-dark twins and woke shaken by seeing someone who looked exactly like him inside it.
• Old Chen revealed an old well entrance to the city's foundation passages, and Long Tian and Chen Hao found it behind the abandoned southern vegetable market.
• Zhao Xiaopang gave Long Tian an unsigned note from the man in gray, who demanded a midnight meeting at the west gate of the Iron Guard camp to hand over the copied manuscript.
• Long Tian decided he had to attend the meeting and began planning his route to the camp.

Long Tian secretly entered the Iron Guard camp and received a complete copy of records about the experiments his father had investigated. The copy revealed that test subject no. 17 was still alive, but reaching the current experiment site required at least five Soul Rings, leaving Long Tian to prepare for a long wait.

• Long Tian packed his belongings and slipped into the Iron Guard camp through its west gate with help from a man in gray.
• The man in gray gave Long Tian a copy of the experiment records and explained that the current site lay south of the old well behind an iron gate that required five Soul Rings to open.
• Long Tian returned to the academy with Chen Hao and read that more than a dozen test subjects were listed, most crossed out, while no. 17 remained alive in the dark room.
• Long Tian hid the copy and calculated that he could reach four Soul Rings by age ten, but would need another year or two to reach five.
• After Long Tian left, the man in gray sat alone in the storeroom and clenched his scarred hand.

Long Tian studied the copied Fusion Technique records and used their meridian diagrams to stabilize a vortex of light and dark Qi in his dantian, gradually forming a gray bead. He reached the limit for a fourth Soul Ring but lacked a suitable Soul Beast, and planned to investigate the foundation level beneath the old well before reaching five rings.

• Long Tian learned from the copied records that yin-yang balance could help the Fusion Technique succeed, and compared its diagrams with his father's scroll.
• Long Tian channeled all three streams of Qi toward the dantian confluence and formed a brief, stable ring of chaotic light and dark energy.
• Long Tian practiced the vortex each night until its lingering traces condensed into a gray point of light that grew into a rice-sized bead over half a month.
• Long Tian sensed that he had reached the limit for a fourth Soul Ring but suppressed his breakthrough because he lacked a suitable Soul Beast.
• Long Tian memorized the address of the old city's foundation level and resolved to locate the iron door and inspect the passage before reaching five rings.
• The iron door beneath the old archives remained locked, and no one noticed the empty space left by the wooden box.

Long Tian found an Earth Marrow Light Beetle in the underground passage and absorbed its dual-attribute Soul Ring, completing his fourth ring. He and Chen Hao returned to the academy after scouting the route toward the five-ring-restricted iron door, which Long Tian planned to reach later.

• Long Tian applied to Teacher Bai for Soul Hunting leave, and Old Chen showed him a booklet identifying the Earth Marrow Light Beetle in the old city's foundation layer.
• Long Tian and Chen Hao slipped out after midnight and entered the underground passage through the old well, while Zhao Xiaopang agreed to cover for them.
• Long Tian and Chen Hao followed the beetle tracks to a side chamber, where Long Tian killed an Earth Marrow Light Beetle and absorbed its Soul Ring.
• The Origin Return Pearl and Chaos Halo helped Long Tian form his fourth Soul Ring, whose black-and-white light reflected the beetle's dual attributes.
• Long Tian and Chen Hao turned back after scouting toward the iron door, then returned to the academy before morning; Long Tian considered how close he was to reaching it.

Long Tian used the Origin Return Pearl to slip through a five-ring restriction and reach Number Seventeen’s underground cell. He began melting the bars to rescue the child as an unknown person reviewed a list above, with snow approaching.

• Long Tian stabilized his fourth Soul Ring and discovered that the Origin Return Pearl could potentially disguise his Soul Power from a restriction.
• Zhao Xiaopang delivered a note warning that Number Seventeen might be transferred within days, and Long Tian told Old Chen he would attempt a rescue.
• Long Tian and Chen Hao returned to the old well, and Long Tian used the Origin Return Pearl’s chaos Qi to squeeze through the iron gate’s barrier.
• Long Tian descended to the third level and found Number Seventeen, a child marked as a compound test subject awaiting fusion.
• Long Tian introduced himself to Number Seventeen and began heating the cell bars with fused golden, black, and gray-white light.

Long Tian and Chen Hao rescued Yu Jin from the underground chamber and brought him to Old Chen’s Blacksmith Shop, where Yu Jin revealed why he had delayed the formation of his Martial Soul. As Yu Jin slept and Long Tian rested, someone at the northern camp noticed the missing ready report and headed toward the old city.

• Long Tian melted through the cage bars, carried Yu Jin through the barrier with Chen Hao’s help, and escaped with him from the well.
• Long Tian and Chen Hao hid their tracks in the snow and took Yu Jin to Old Chen’s Blacksmith Shop.
• Old Chen fed Yu Jin hot porridge, and Yu Jin told Long Tian that his name was Yu Jin and that his captors wanted to use him to test the Fusion Technique.
• Yu Jin explained that he had delayed forming his Martial Soul to prevent the experiment, then pretended he was about to dissipate when his captors threatened to force the fusion.
• Long Tian watched over Yu Jin as he slept, while someone at the northern camp left for the old city after the expected ready report failed to arrive.

Long Tian helped Yu Jin recover and learned that Yu Jin’s dreams resembled the Origin Return Pearl’s power, while Yu Jin’s Martial Soul began to reappear. After finding signs that someone was watching Old Chen’s Blacksmith Shop, Long Tian moved Yu Jin to a hidden Iron Guard contact point in the east of Spirit City.

• Yu Jin sat up and told Long Tian about his dreams of golden and black light merging into a gray river, which resembled the Origin Return Pearl.
• Yu Jin released a faint thread of golden-black light from his palm, and Long Tian taught him a breathing method to help restore his Martial Soul.
• Long Tian found fresh footprints near Old Chen’s Blacksmith Shop, and he and Chen Hao agreed to keep watch and consider moving Yu Jin.
• Chen Hao told Long Tian that Number Seventeen’s original name had been blacked out later in the manuscript, leaving the identity of the person who altered it uncertain.
• Old Chen told Long Tian to move Yu Jin to an abandoned Iron Guard contact point, and Long Tian brought him to a courtyard house in Official Well Lane.

Yu Jin strengthened his golden-black Martial Soul and discovered that its presence resonated with Long Tian’s Origin Return Pearl. After Shen Mo warned Long Tian that the Iron Guard had linked him to the stolen bronze mirror and could track their unusual Soul Power, the investigation intensified.

• Yu Jin steadily practiced Long Tian’s breathing method and learned to sustain his Martial Soul’s golden-black light for longer.
• Yu Jin fully released his Martial Soul, and its intertwined dragon forms tilted toward Long Tian’s separated light and dark forces.
• Yu Jin told Long Tian that he had dreamed of a gray river and recognized the presence of the light Long Tian carried.
• Shen Mo warned Long Tian that the Iron Guard had traced the old archives key-borrowing record to him and connected it to the bronze mirror’s theft.
• Shen Mo cautioned Long Tian that the Iron Guard could track their unusual Soul Power more easily if Yu Jin formed his Martial Soul and they stayed close.
• Long Tian returned to watch over sleeping Yu Jin as the Iron Guard filed the borrowing record and an image of the melted iron bars marked with grayish-white residue.