Alchemy of Souls (Return / Hwanhon / 환혼)

You poor thing.

Child, eat this.

Child.

Go on.

I will bring you more meat.

Eat slowly.

Mom.

Geon!

I told you to reach out to me if anything were to happen to him.

How could you let things come to this?

He will be fine once he absorbs human energy.

He returns back to normal.

Your son has run wild.

I shall retrieve his soul.

No!

You were the one who turned my son into a soul shifter.

Either get him another body,

or feed him the energy of human souls!

Bring back my son.

Bring back my son!

If word gets out that I used forbidden sorcery,

we will both be doomed.

No...

Please...

No, please. Geon.

Stay with me for just a bit longer.

My son...

Why do the bodies of soul shifters turn like rocks when they run wild?

A crack forms when the bodies clash with the souls they carry,

which causes them to lose energy.

This is already the eighth soul that has run wild.

I guess I should stop shifting souls.

You should go to the royal palace.

His Majesty has been asking about the new spell

that you have been trying to master.

I hear...

you have been trying to master a new kind of spell.

It is nothing grand. It is just a trick I tried out for fun.

I know I cannot ask to live for longer.

However,

it saddens me that I do not have an heir.

I wish you a quick recovery.

I cannot do anything with this sick body.

But I might have a chance

if I were to live in a body that is young and healthy.

There is no way for humans to switch bodies.

But you can.

The alchemy of souls.

That is forbidden sorcery.

If a soul clashes with the body, it could even turn into an evil spirit.

How could I dare

move the soul of a king to another person's body?

How about your body?

Not for too long. Just seven days.

Let us switch bodies for just seven days.

I heard you once gave a soul a dead man's body

and that it lived in that body for over half a year.

I am a king protected by the skies, and you are the best mage in this land.

So what is there to worry about?

And after seven days, you can turn things back.

You have mastered the ability to do something

that only the best mages can do.

Yet you are just wasting your time

shifting souls into dead bodies.

Jang Gang.

Give this king a different body.

His Majesty and I have switched bodies.

I shall make Do-hwa mine.

If she bears a child, know that it is mine.

Do-hwa.

Do-hwa.

You are very beautiful.

No, that cannot happen.

That cannot happen.

No!

ALCHEMY OF SOULS

The energy of the sky rules the wind, clouds, and rain.

This energy reached the ground

and created a huge form of energy.

A country was built around Lake Gyeongcheondaeho,

a lake that embodied that energy.

The name of the country was Daeho, due to the enormous lake it had.

Humans who had the power to control this great energy

were called mages.

This story is about the mages of Daeho, a place that does not exist

in both history books or maps.

20 YEARS LATER

So you are Naksu,

the Shadow Assassin who has been going around

killing the mages in the city.

They call me Naksu,

for wherever I go,

heads fall to the ground.

A beautiful name, is it not?

Kill her.

Shoot!

Do not let her get away.

- Capture her. - Yes, my lord!

Let us go that way. Follow me.

Over there!

I will not die like this.

I cannot.

Goodness, you are so impatient. I am coming.

What do you want?

Oh, my goodness!

TAVERN

She is dead.

She does not have the blue mark.

This blue mark proves that her soul has left this body.

Does that mean she failed

to enter another body?

SONGRIM

One.

Two.

Three.

Yul, come here.

Is she Naksu?

Yes.

This mark shows that her soul has left the body.

Remember this mark. When someone tries to switch bodies,

it leaves a blue bruise like this right on top of their heart.

Does that mean her soul escaped her body?

She seems to have tried, but I think she failed.

This proves that her soul has escaped her body,

but we found no signs of her soul having entered another body.

- It is a whistle. - A whistle?

I once had a similar one myself back when I had a pet bird.

Did she have a pet bird?

I think she had it for quite a while.

It looks like it is an important item.

She may have been an assassin who killed people like it was nothing,

but she was still human. She must have had a story of her own.

A lot of people have already seen Naksu's body.

Word will spread about the alchemy of souls.

Has it been 20 years since we have seen a soul shifter?

Yes.

The last soul shifter ran wild and ended up killing many people.

I am worried that might happen again.

Uncle!

Uncle, I heard Naksu was a soul shifter.

Master Heo, did you see her too?

You seem awfully excited to start rumors.

Rumors have already spread. I came as soon as I heard.

- Where did you hear it? - At Chwiseonru.

You are a mage of Jeongjingak.

But instead of practicing, you go to bars and listen to rumors.

Songrim Jeongjingak is not only a place for mages to practice their spells,

but also a place to gather information.

Also, Dang-gu here will

follow in your footsteps

and become the leader of the Songrim household.

He should know his liquor.

Now, tell me.

Which liquor tastes best at Chwiseonru?

I do not go there as often anymore now that Wook is not here.

"Wook"? The son of Jang Gang?

Is he not learning how to write at the village school in Yeongchundang?

He got kicked out of there ages ago.

Right now, he is in Gisan.

I sent him to receive training from Buddhist Monk Ho-yeong.

Wook went to train at a Buddhist temple this time?

Today, I shall end my training.

You have not even finished your training.

How dare you decide to end the training without my permission.

You asked me to expand my knowledge,

so I read and memorized hundreds of spell books.

You asked me to train my mind,

so I patiently sharpened hundreds of swords.

However, you never taught me any kind of spell.

The only lesson I learned here is that

you have no intentions of teaching me spells at all.

Now that I have learned a big lesson,

I would like to end it and leave.

The leader of Songrim asked me to keep you here for three years.

I know you are building a sanctuary with the money I paid you in advance.

I will not ask for a refund, so I hope it is successfully built.

Where do you think you are going? I never said you could leave!

Did it sound like I was asking for your permission?

You were conceived through your mother's affair

and were abandoned by your father.

So what would you know about respecting your master?

I refuse to teach a guy like you.

I may not know much about respecting a master,

but I do know how to be a creditor.

Say one more word,

and you will not be able to build that sanctuary.

Because I will be getting a refund.

No one in this world will teach you spells because of your father.

Goodness, thank you for your concern.

I will find my own master.

Someone extremely powerful and skilled.

Mu-deok, are you all right?

Why did I have to enter a body like this one?

I am sure she was blind.

But why is it that I see?

Is it because I am a different soul?

She did not even have a blue mark showing I entered her body.

How unusual.

Try to bear with the motion sickness. We are almost there, Mu-deok.

"Mu-deok."