“Alchemy of Souls” Season 1 introduced us to the mystical city of Daeho, where mages and commoners lived together. There are many mage families, but four of them are the most powerful: the Park family of Songrim, the Seo family of Seoho, the Jin family of Jinyowon, and the Jang family of Cheonbugwan. Power can be used for both good and bad intentions. Jang Gang of Cheonbugwan used Alchemy of Souls to return the favor of the dying king, and it was bound to greatly affect the fate of everyone in Daeho. Jang Uk was born as a result of sorcery, and his father abandoned him. Jang Uk faced humiliation growing up, and hence, he was desperate to gain power similar to his father.
Jang Uk made a deal with Naksu, a notorious assassin who lost her powers after shifting souls to save herself. Naksu trained him and helped him gain power, and in exchange, Jang Uk was going to help Naksu gain her power back. In the process, they fell in love, and Naksu decided not to regain her power as it would mean parting with Jang Uk. However, Naksu and Jang Uk had many enemies, and the vilest of them, Jin Mu, used her to get Jang Uk out of his way. He manipulated Naksu with sorcery, and she stabbed Jang Uk in the heart. In the end, she jumped into the lake and met her demise. However, Jang Uk had the ice stone inside him, which brought him back to life.
Spoilers Ahead
‘Alchemy Of Souls’ Season 2: Plot Synopsis
Jang Uk got stabbed by his lover, Naksu, in “Alchemy of Souls” season 1, and both of them met untimely and unfortunate deaths. However, the ice stone in Jang Uk’s body resurrected him, but the power of the ice stone and his infamous love story with Naksu painted him as a notoriously powerful mage of Daeho. Naksu is known to be dead, but her body was retrieved by the people of Jinyowon, and now Naksu lives as Jin Bu Yeon in her real body, but she has no memories of the past. Her mother and master Lee are the only people who know her secret, and to keep it a secret, Lady Jin has locked up Bu Yeon in a secret annex. It is Jang Uk’s encounter with a soul shifter that gives away Bu Yeon’s secret, and fated lovers as they are, Jang Uk and Bu Yeon end up together again. Jang Uk fakes marriage with Bu Yeon because he needs her power to retrieve the ice stone from inside of him, and Bu Yeon needs Jang Uk to help her escape the prison she has been living in for three years.
Jang Uk has been assigned the duty of killing soul shifters by the king, Dang Gu is now the leader of Songrim, and Seo Yul has returned from Seoho after three years. Bu Yeon’s sudden revelation to the assembly of mages causes a ruckus, but the person most concerned is Jin Mu, who knows Naksu’s real face and recognizes her right away. However, Bu Yeon has lost all her powers, and she can only regain them after regaining her memories. Moreover, she has Jinyowon’s powers as well. Soon, master Lee confirms to Seo Yul that both Naksu and Bu Yeon’s souls exist in one body, and Bu Yeon’s soul is likely to take over the body once Naksu regains her powers. Seo Yul didn’t want the blood-stained history to repeat itself, so he decided to get rid of Naksu. However, he returned from the verge of death himself after Bu Yeon, Jang Uk, and the crown prince helped remove the blood parasite from his body. Jang Uk and Bu Yeon have fallen in love, and Seo Yul lets them spend some final days together before Naksu’s soul leaves her body forever.
Jin Mu has been trying to provoke the crown prince against Jang Uk for quite some time now, and this time, the crown prince seems to be following Jin Mu’s lead in every case, but his nonchalant behavior is suspicious, and it seems like he is planning something behind Jin Mu’s back. The crown prince knows that Jang Uk was born under the king’s star, and that’s why Jin Mu proposes to send him to a faraway fort. However, this is Jin Mu’s strategy to execute his plan of creating another ice stone. He plans to take control of Jinyowon, and Lady Jin has almost lost in front of him, but Bu Yeon comes to her rescue. Bu Yeon regains all of her memories as Naksu when she sees the reflection of the blue mark in her eyes in the water. With her memories back, she starts regaining her powers as well. To not hurt Jang Uk again, she voluntarily leaves his side and returns to Jinyowon.
How Does Jin Mu Come Back To Life?
Jang Uk notices the blue mark in Bu Yeon’s eyes, and she confesses that she is a soul shifter but doesn’t reveal her true identity. They don’t get to talk much as the crown prince arrives after Jang Uk, and they examine the mysterious blue stone that caused the wraith to follow Bu Yeon. Jang Uk recognizes that it is an ice stone that has lost its energy and likely belongs to Shaman Choi. The stone wants to absorb the energy from a human, just like a soul shifter. While Jang Uk is busy looking at the stone, Bu Yeon wonders how Jang Uk entered Gwido and why the crown prince is with him. The crown prince reveals that he has joined hands with Jang Uk to bring down Jin Mu and his scheme to make a new ice stone. However unreasonable it may sound to others, the crown prince got so angry when Jin Mu threw away his turtle that he made the decision to get rid of Jin Mu. Jang Uk never went to the northern fortress and had been fooling the king and Jin Mu. The crown prince has entered Jin Mu’s secret organization and knows their plans.
Lady Jin is curious whether Naksu’s soul will leave Bu Yeon’s body, but Master Lee has different news for her. Master Lee thinks that Jin Bu Yeon is none other than Jin Seol Ran, the most powerful priestess of Jinyowon and master Seo Gyeong’s lover. Master Seo Gyeong had left behind the ice stone to save Seol Ran from dying. That’s why Lee thinks that Seol Ran’s soul was trapped in the ice stone, and when Lady Jin used the stone to resurrect her dead baby, Seol Ran’s soul was transferred into the baby. Bu Yeon has a striking similarity to Seol Ran, and Lee thinks Seol Ran is the one who has made everything happen. Everyone that Naksu met has a soul connection with her. The crown prince has a similar relationship with Bu Yeon to the one that he had with Naksu. When he tells Bu Yeon that the blue jade belongs to someone else, Bu Yeon tells him that she has that person’s memories. The prince regrets what he did to Naksu, but Bu Yeon assures him that Naksu wouldn’t want him to be in pain for long.
Jang Uk plans to take down all the remaining soul shifters in Daeho at Jin Mu’s secret organization, which the crown prince has already infiltrated. They need to return from Gwido, leaving behind Bu Yeon alone, if they want to execute their plan successfully. Before going, Jang Uk recognizes Bu Yeon’s real identity as Naksu but decides to feign ignorance because acknowledging her identity would mean that he would have to kill her—his lover. He leaves Gwido with the prince so that they can execute their plan. Songrim is also prepared to back up Jang Uk in his big mission. The prince is already inside the secret room when Jang Uk enters Cheonbugwan directly from Gwido. The barrier outside the secret room is difficult to break, but not for Jang Uk. He clones himself, and his clones kill 78 soul shifters in the room while he sends Jin Mu to Gwido because Naksu wants to avenge the one who ruined her life. Jin Mu is greedy about the ice stone, and when he sees one in Gwido, he immediately asks Bu Yeon to put it inside him. His greed gets the best of him, and the empty ice stone starts absorbing his energy. He doesn’t die right away, but his body starts withering.
The news of Jin Mu’s death and the mass killing of soul shifters spreads quickly, and Jang Uk is being held responsible for Jin Mu’s death as well. He decides to go to the northern fortress to avoid trouble for Songrim, but Bu Yeon confesses in front of the unanimous assembly that she killed Jin Mu. The assembly demands that Bu Yeon remove the ice stone from Jang Uk, and to that, Bu Yeon boldly replies that there is one soul shifter he has yet to kill and leaves the assembly. Jang Uk accepts that he let a soul shifter go and promises to come back only after killing the last soul shifter. In the palace, the king is anxious after hearing about Jin Mu’s death, and the queen has lost her mind as she can see her dream of soul shifting fading away. Bu Yeon had decided to stay inside Gwido and wither away like Jin Mu, but the turtle leads her to the plaque that she was looking at, and she thinks of it as a sign to go back. After returning, Seo Yul meets her first and tells her how Jin Mu manipulated her using the bell potion and that Naksu didn’t kill people of her own free will. However, neither Bu Yeon nor Jang Uk thinks that it is an excuse for them to spare her.
Everyone is relieved to know that Jin Mu is dead as there won’t be any chaos in Daeho anymore, but the queen makes a wrong move out of desperation and gives a second life to Jin Mu. The queen goes inside Gwido with her cousin, Yun Oh, to find the location of the soul ejector from Jin Mu, and it turns out that the soul ejector was inside the queen’s body itself. Jin Mu had put it inside her when she had shifted her soul with shaman Choi, but the queen had no memory of it. The queen dies as Jin Mu suckers the energy out of her, and right after, he shifts souls with Yun Oh with the soul ejector and leaves his body to wither away. One person’s greed helped another greedy person. In the end, Jin Mu is not a trustworthy ally, as he has always used others to get what he wants.
How Did Jang Uk And Bu Yeon Prevent The Great Chaos?
Before the tragic event that happened between Jang Uk and Naksu, they had promised each other to sit on the top of the tallest tree in Danhyanggok together and get married. They couldn’t keep the promise back then, but now they have another chance to fulfill those promises before Naksu’s soul leaves the body. They spend time on top of the tree, and as for their marriage, Master Lee officiates it. They want to spend as much time as they have left with each other, and for the first time in three years, Jang Uk smiles and acts like himself. However, it doesn’t last long. The real Jin Bu Yeon shows herself to Jang Uk and predicts the tragic events that are going to unfold in Daeho soon. As master Lee believed, the one who was born as Bu Yeon is Jin Seol Ran, and she holds herself responsible for the chaos. She thought that she would stop the great chaos, but she only realizes now that she has become the reason it is happening. If she hadn’t trapped Naksu’s soul in her body and didn’t transfer the ice stone inside Jang Uk, none of this would have happened. She tells Jang Uk that she will have to take over the body to fight against the mages, who are going to cause the inevitable great chaos.
Jin Mu has returned to the palace as a soul shifter, and it turns out that not only the king but the entire assembly of mages has colluded with Jin Mu to get the ice stone. The king believes that Jin Mu will give him the ice stone, and the mages believe that they will all get to use the stone’s power equally, but in reality, Jin Mu wants the stone all to himself to become the most powerful man in the world. Jin Mu has been manipulating all of them and has even made the king disinherit the crown prince as his heir because he betrayed Jin Mu. The crown prince’s golden plaque gets confiscated, and he gets imprisoned. Jin Mu is desperate now as he is a soul shifter and has chances of running wild anytime. He convinces the king and the mages to forcefully get the firebird from Jinyowon. He makes Cho Yeon open the door to Jinyowon by threatening to kill Lady Jin. Jin Mu’s behavior is violent and terrifying, yet the mages turn a blind eye to it, not even considering the fact that they could be the next to die at his hands.
After Jin Mu retrieves the firebird, Jinyowon starts collapsing, and the dangerous relics start escaping one by one. Cho Yeon goes to ask Songrim for help while maidservant Kim supports an injured Lady Jin, who is trying her best to stop relics from escaping. When Park Jin reaches Jinyowon, most of it has already collapsed, and it is difficult for him to enter it. The only thing he can do now is seal Jinyowon to stop the remaining relics from escaping. He is not ready to do it as his lover, Kim, is still inside, but when Kim tells him to seal the door herself, he has no choice because he also needs to carry out his responsibility. Jin Mu asks a heartbroken Park Jin to join him if he wants his lover back. Jin goes with Jin Mu, but instead of joining hands, he fights against them. Park Jin alone fights against the eight most powerful mages of Daeho, but it is Jin Mu who stabs him in the back after Jin has defeated everyone. Songrim is in deep grief as Park Jin has passed away. Jang Uk comes back from Danhyanggok to see a completely different Songrim that changed overnight. There are three empty coffins in front of him, one each for Park Jin, maidservant Kim and Lady Jin, because their bodies couldn’t be retrieved. However, Jang Uk believes that they are alive.
Jang Uk firmly believes that if an event can be foreseen, then there can be a variable that changes it, and he decides to be this variable. The crown prince briefly escaped the prison, but he has lost his rights as the prince, so he is helpless. Jang Uk has a solution for it and gives his golden plaque to the prince. He believes that the plaque should belong to someone who would do anything to protect his kingdom, not someone like him who doesn’t care about the world. The king had promised Jin Mu royal protection when he awakened the firebird, but the crown prince retracts that order and dethrones his father for putting the kingdom in danger. Jin Mu starts the process of awakening the fire bird earlier than planned when he gets informed that Songrim mages have attacked Cheonbugwan. Other mages are worried that the firebird’s energy might explode if they make a mistake, but they get another surprise. It’s Jang Uk who breaks the firebird’s barrier and sets the entire place on fire. All the mages burn to death, including Jin Mu. Jin Mu wanted to become the most powerful man in the world, but he died an insignificant death, not even with his own body.
Jang Uk became the variable and stopped Jin Mu from creating the great chaos that Bu Yeon had predicted, but he needs to make sure that it never happens again. To achieve that, he needs to get rid of the firebird, and Bu Yeon helps him with this. She awakens the firebird over Jang Uk’s constellation plate and sends the bird to Jang Uk, who is waiting in the middle of Lake Gyeongchandaeho. Jang Uk attacks the firebird with his energy first, and when it weakens, he gathers the lake’s energy to freeze the firebird. In the end, he shoots the arrow of his energy at the bird, making the frozen bird explode. Jang Uk changed the future that Bu Yeon predicted, proving that nothing is set in stone and one’s action can change the course of anything. Jin Bu Yeon, who had taken over Naksu’s body, returns it to her and leaves. She has seen the future change just now and doesn’t feel the need to stay behind anymore to protect what her lover strived for, a peaceful world.
‘Alchemy Of Souls’ Season 2: Ending Explained
As Jang Uk said, Park Jin, maidservant Kim, and Lady Jin are still alive. Bu Yeon entered Jinyowon through Gwido and saved her mother and Kim. She guided master Lee to find the firebird, but he found it injured Park Jin instead. Naksu’s soul survived thanks to Bu Yeon’s soul, which finally left the body. However, Bu Yeon left behind her divine powers in the body of Naksu. A year later, Naksu and Jang Uk travel across Daeho to catch the escaped relics. Dang Gu and Cho Yeon have given birth to twin boys, and Park Jin and maidservant Kim are happily married. The crown prince is now a respectable king who has chosen master Lee as his new master, which has, of course, led to rumors that the king is practicing chastity. Everyone wants the king to get married quickly to stop the rumors, but he wants Bu Yeon to choose a person with good energy for him. Seo Yul, who is now in charge of Jeonjingak, also gets Bu Yeon’s help to recruit mages. Yul has discarded the traditional methods where only mages from elite families were allowed to enter Jeonjingak. Now, anyone with powerful energy can apply to become a mage and get selected after the interview.
“Alchemy of Souls” Season 2 ended on a beautiful note with two lovers reuniting and becoming a fable as a couple who stand on top of a tree together and help people in need. The fated lovers, like a light and a shadow that always belong together, found their way back to each other. Though a short series, the finale episode was able to justify the climax that was built up throughout the story. There are fewer action scenes in this season, but all of them are worth watching. The story seems a bit rushed, but the final war pretty much makes up for that. This season is not as thrilling and suspenseful as the previous one, but it continues the story flawlessly and has a satisfying ending with no unanswered questions.
