Overview of Alchemy of Souls

‘Alchemy of Souls’ is a South Korean romantic fantasy drama set in the historic period. It features Jung So-min, Lee Jae-wook, Hwang Min-hyun, and Go Youn-jung in lead roles. It was streamed by tvN on every Saturday and Sunday from 18 June 2022 to 8 January 2023.

The show has two seasons and a total of 30 episodes. The show is available on TVING and Netflix.

Profile

Cast

Main

Supporting cast

• Yoo Jun-sang as Park Kin
• Lee Ha-yool as Sang-ho
• Yoo In-soo as Park Dang-gu
• Joo Seok-tae as Jin Woo-tak
• Park Eun-hye as Jin Ho-gyeong
• Yoon Hae-bin as young Jin Bu-yeon
• Arin as Jin Cho-yeon
• Joo Sang-wook as Jang Gang
• Oh Na-ra as Maidservant Kim Yeon
• Jang Tae-min as Servant Lee
• Bae Gang-hee as Do-hwa
• Im Chul-soo as Lee Cheol (Master Lee)
• Woo Hyun as Monk Ho-yeon
• Seo Hye-won as So-yi
• Park So-jin as Joo-wol
• Choi Jin-ho as Gil-ju
• Jo Jae-yoon as Jin Mu
• Lee Ji-hoo as Cha Beom
• Lee Bong-jun as Gu Hyo
• Cha Yong-hak as Yeom-su
• Joo Min-soo as Han Yeol

Synopsis

The story happens in the fictional land called Daeho which is famous for its powerful mages and materials possessing supernatural powers. Songrim is the place where young hairs from prominent families are sent to train as mages. It is under the strict control of Master Park Jin.

When every student in Songrim possesses supernatural ability, the only son of the great mage, Jang Gang, lives like a commoner in Sogrim with his energy sealed by his father. Also, Jang Gang prohibits the other masters from teaching his son Jung Uk and helping him unlock his zeal. Though everyone obeys his order, no one knows the intention behind his deed.

Jang Uk’s father was considered the greatest master in their country and was also a good friend of the King. He was the only mage in the country who mastered the alchemy of souls, the prohibited art which helps the user to perform the alchemy of souls and shift their souls into the body that they choose.

Right after the birth of Jang Uk, his father sealed his energy. He has been living in Sogrim struggling to find a teacher who can help him to unlock his seal.

Though Sogrim is powerful, it is cautious about the emergence of soul shifters. Soul shifters are the people who live by feeding on the energies of humans. After some time, they become wild and bring disaster to society.

A girl named Nak-su lost her father when she was a child during such an outbreak. Her father runs wild after turning into a soul shifter, and he was slashed to death by Jung Uk’s father in front of her eyes. Thereafter, Nak-su was taken care of Jin-Mu (a friend of Jung Uk’s father, to whom he passed down the technique of alchemy of souls).

Jin Mu is jealous of the powers held by the four prominent families. He trains Nak-su and teaches her the alchemy of souls to avenge the prominent families by making her believe that her father was murdered without a valid reason.

One day Nak-su and Park Jin encounter each other. In the fight, she gets seriously injured by the arrow shot by Park Jin, making her body weak. Therefore, she decides to perform alchemy of souls and shift her soul to the strong body of a girl whom she sees in a market. Instead of shifting her soul to the selected body, her soul gets stuck in the weak body of a blind girl named Mu-deok.

None of Nak-su’s powers works in Mu-deok’s body, and shortly, she will be sold to an inn. Though she tries to escape from the inn, she meets Jung Uk, and he buys her as his servant.

Being stuck with Jung Uk in the weak body of Mu-deok, Nak-su starts to learn about the truths that were unknown to her. Jung Uk, who is desperately searching for a master, asks her to teach him because he identifies her as Nak-su by seeing the blue mark in her eyes. Since she does not possess any powers, she decides to stay with Jung Uk, thinking it is the safest option. She agrees to teach him but gives him a tea mixed with poison. While he struggles for breath, she tells him that she will accept him as her student if he comes back to life.

Jang Uk will be shortly taken for medical treatment.

Heo Yeom, one of the great masters of Sogrim, treats him and to save his life, he opens a gate of his energy that was sealed by his father. After regaining consciousness, Jung Uk finds Mu-deok, who is almost smashed to death for poisoning Jung Uk.

Mu-deok starts to train Jung Uk in secret.

Living with Jung Uk, Nak-su starts to learn about the identity of ‘Mu-deok’.

The real Mu-deok is the eldest daughter in the Jinyowon family who possesses the qualities of a priestess. When she was only a girl, Jin Mu and Jin Woo-tak (Mu-deok’s father) used her to extract ice stone, which is used to perform the alchemy of souls. However, she could not control the sudden surge of power and fell into the water while handling the power.

From the day when Mu-deok went missing, her mother, the head of the Jinyowon family, was desperately searching for her. Even after these long years, she still misses her daughter and waits for her to come. On the contrary, her father cared less about Mu-deok. He believes that Mu-deok is not his daughter and is also responsible for her missing.

Jin Mu and Jin Woo-tak (Mu-deok’s father) are still after the ice stone. Jin Woo-tak and her sister, a witch, captured the Queen. To gain the power to execute their plans to gain the ice stone (it is capable of gifting immortality and bringing the dead one to life), Jin Woo-tak’s sister transfers her soul to the Queen’s body.

To take out the ice stone, which is kept in the sacred room of the Jinyowon family, Jin Woo-tak and Jin Mu bring a girl named So-yi whom they captured from the streets. The key to the sacred room’s door is the presence of Jinyowon family members. To check whether the girl is really her lost daughter, Jin Bu-yeon, her mother produces her in front of the door. Fortunately, the door opens since Mu-deok presence is also there.

However, when forced by circumstances, Jin Ho-gyeong (mother of Jin Bu-yeon) was forced to expose the ice stone that the Jinyowon family possessed. Later, there arises a demand to test the powers of the ice stone. Nak-su in Mudeok’s body was asked to appear for the test. The test is that she will be killed by Jin Ho-gyeong and later will be brought back to life using the ice stone.

Since Mo-deok’s body is the body of the eldest child of Jin Ho-gyeong she identifies Mu-deok as her real daughter when she suffocates her to death. The incident triggers the powers of the ice stone, and everyone becomes trapped inside a barrier formed by the powers of the ice stone. Inside the barrier, Nak-su uses the power that she regained and kills a soul shifter.

It needs a huge amount of energy to break the barrier, and using one’s energy will result in losing the power of that person. Jang Uk decides to use his energy though he knows he will lose his powers. The other thing that the ice stone will expose is about the person who is born with the king star energy.

A person with the king star energy can control the energy of the air, water, sky, and earth and can become the king if he wishes to.

Jang Uk uses the technique taught by Nak-su and breaks the barrier. Meanwhile, Jang Uk’s father appears in the city after a long time. He controls the power of the ice stone, knowing that the witch in the Queen’s body is trying to perform alchemy of souls to shift her soul to another body. Since the three of them perform their magic at the same time, the witch fails to transfer her soul. Jang Uk’s father absorbs the negative energy formed by the black magic and sacrifices his life as repentance for his sins. Before his body turns into ashes and diffuses into the air, he reveals that Jang Uk’s biological father is the king himself.

Jin Mu, who escaped from getting captured, goes to meet the Crown Prince in secret. He tries to manipulate Crown Prince by injecting insecurities by telling the powers of Jung Uk. He tells that Jung Uk will never lose his powers due to his birth under the king star power.

Afterwards, Jin Mu sends his servant to fetch a magical bell which can control the minds of soul shifters. It can make the soul shifters run wild and also make them petrified. Shortly, he casts the spell on Mu-deok and turns her wild. On the wedding day of Park Dang-gu and Jin Cho-yeon, she kills Jin Cho-yeon’s father.

Jin Mu reveals that Nak-su’s soul resides in Mu-deok’s body and blames her for the series of bad events that happened. Meanwhile, everyone in Sogrim chases Mu-deok. Before getting struck by Park Jin’s powerful arrow, Jang Uk shields her. However, controlled by Jin Mu’s black magic, Mu-deok stabs her sword into Jang Uk’s body.

The dead body of Jang Uk will be taken to cremate, but as punishment, his body is decided to cremate in a public place for saving Nak-su. On the flip side, Mu-deok, whose body has already started to turn into stone, jumps into the river where the petrified bodies are dumped.

Season 1 of the drama ends by showing Jang Uk walking out of the pyre, undead due to his king star powers. Mu-deok will be dragged out of the water by two anonymous people.

Season 2

The second season explores the story of Jin Bu-yeon. Now, her soul resides in the body of Nak-su. It was Jin Ho-gyeong who took the body of Mu-deok. She takes her body to the house and asks master Lee to help her daughter. Master Lee agrees but tells her that both the souls of Nak-su and Jin Bu-yeon are trapped in the same body, and among the two, it is the power of Nak-su’s soul that dominates. Therefore, when Bu-yeon comes back to life, her body will take the shape of Nak-su’s original body. Likewise, if she regains her memories, she can either choose to live as Nak-su or Bu-yeon.

To prevent Bu-yeon from regaining her memories, her mother locks her in a room and fixes her marriage in secret. However, Bu-yeon’s existence becomes exposed to the public when Jang Uk invades into her house to kill a soul shifter.

On the wedding night, when Bu-yeon is sent to the groom’s house, a magical fog covers the boat on which she is travelling, and she goes missing. Later, the boat appears in front of Jung Uk. Bu-yeon becomes happy to see Jung Uk again.

Jung Uk takes Bu-yeon to his house, telling his foster mother that Bu-yeon is his bride. Afterwards, Bu-yeon starts to live in his house. One day, she touches the sword of Nak-su and gets a glimpse of her lost memory.

Bu-yeon starts to regain her memory every time she touches the things to which she shares an emotional connection. One day, she comes to the forest where Jung Uk has made tombs for the soul shifters that he killed. He also made a tomb for Mu-deok and placed the jade stone that he had gifted to her as a token of his love.

When Bu-yeon touches the stone, it gives her the memories of her life as Nak-su with Jung Uk.

Meanwhile, Seo Yul, the close friend of Jung Uk, suffers from pain due to an energy-eating monster worm inside his body. The worm was first injected in So-yi (the girl who was first produced as fake Bu-yeon by Jin Mu in season 1) to control her. She has a crush on Seo Yul. When Seo Yul was badly injured in a fight, she gave her energy to him. In the transfusion, the worm inside her body got transferred to Seo Yul’s body.

Bu-yeon, who is able to see the energy of people, notices the worm and asks Seo Yul to seek treatment. Nonetheless, Seo Yul ignores it, and one day, he goes for a fight when he learns So-yi (the girl) is in danger. The fight causes so much damage to his body by draining his energy completely. He will be rescued and taken to the Sogrim by Jung Uk.

Master Heo Yeom consult Seo Yul’s body and understands it as a high-risk case. After a series of research, they reach a solution that Seo Yul can be saved using the energy of the fire bird kept in the sacret room of Jinyowon.

Bu-yeon takes up the role of carrying the blood worm trapped in a bead that carries the energy of Seo Yul to the room where the figurine of the fire bird is placed. Master Heo Yeom extract the energy and the blood worm from the body of Seo Yul and transfers it to the mouth of Bu-yeon. She carries it to the room filled with gold where the fire bird’s statue is placed. The Crown Prince, who is also present in the room to aid the mission, pulls out the blood worm from Bu-yeon’s body and destroys it.

Seo Yul completely recovers after the treatment. Shortly, everyone starts to discover plenty of dragon bird figurines in the rivers, which are secretly dumped by Jin Mu at night. The dragon bird statues are known for their ability to absorb water. By dumping them, Jin Mu plans to dry up the rivers; through such an act, he plots to evoke the energy of the fire bird. However, the fire bird’s energy cannot be evoked without the powers of Bu-yeon.

In reality, Jin Mu is the stepbrother of Bu-yeon’s mother. However, he has not received any privileges from the Jinyowon family. He deeply desires to take possession of the ice stones and all the valuable magical items kept in the Jinyowon family’s secret room. To gain the leadership position of Jinyowon, Jin Mu threatens Jin Ho-gyeong (Bu-yeon’s mother) by telling her that he will expose the wrongdoings if he denies it. To save her respect, Jin Ho-gyeong decides to hand over the emblem of power to Jin Mu.

Bu-yeon decides to save her mother this time. Instead of her younger sister, she takes her family’s emblem that signifies power to the meeting where it should be handed over to Jin Mu by her mother in the presence of the Crown Prince. Rather than giving the emblem to Jin Mu, Bu-yeon declares that she is powerful enough to take up the leadership of Jinyowon. She asks her mother to believe her and give her a chance to prove her powers.

To evaluate Bu-yeon’s powers, Jin Mu throws the emblem inside a dangerous place inside a magical door and asks her to bring back the emblem. He did so to trap Bu-yeon inside the door because the people who entered the place never returned. Jung Uk and the Crown Prince also walk into the door to help her. They find an ice stone inside the rib case of a human skeleton. Using her powers, Bu-yeon recognise that the ice stone can be used to shift souls, but it does not contain the power of the sky.

The Crown Prince and Jung Uk come out of the door to fight Jin Mu while Bu-yeon stays inside the door. She cannot return until she finds the emblem. Meanwhile, Sogrim turns against Jin Mu and calls for a fight. Jung Uk uses all his powers and defeats the full force of Jin Mu. Scared of getting caught by Jung Uk, Jin Mu runs and enters the magical door that he opened to test Bu-yeon.

Jin Mu sees the ice stone lying near the skeleton and eagerly grabs it. That time Bu-yeon appears in front of him and tells him that ice stone will engulf his soul. She leaves the dying Jin Mu inside the door and exits the door with the emblem that she discovered from the river.

She produces the emblem in front of the mages in a meeting and takes up the leadership of Jinyowon.

The Queen, who is living inside the body of the witch, becomes devastated to know that Jin Mu is trapped inside the magical door. She was conspiring with Jin Mu to shift her soul to another body. She enters the magical door with one of her trusted men and finds Jin Mu who is lying on the ground.

Jin Mu had secretly buried an ice stone in the witch’s body when he performed the alchemy of souls to shift the Queen’s soul to the witch’s body. He uses the ice stone and feeds on the Queen’s soul and, later, shifts his soul to the Queen’s man standing next to him.

Jin Mu goes to see the king in his new body and asks him to assist in his mission to evoke the fire bird. Drunk by greed, the King and mages from other places join forces with Jin Mu.

Jin Mu attacks Jinyowon and takes the preserved magical egg of the fire bird by defeating Bu-yeon’s mother. Likewise, he defeats Park Jin. When Jung Uk returns to Sogrim, he sees the empty coffins of Park Jin, Bu-yeon’s mother, and his foster mother. Everyone believes that they died in the fight, but Jung Uk inform them that the three of them were saved by Bu-yeom and they are safe.

Afterwards, Jung Uk goes to encounter Jin Mu. On the flipside, Bu-yeon, alongside Seo Yul, Crown Prince, Park Dang-gu, and Jin Cho-yeon prepares to evoke the fire bird at the horoscope house. He kills the fire bird which rose to the sky. Later, he kills Jin Mu, the King, and other greedy mages by setting fire to the place where they stand.

Bu-yeon was the reincarnation of a divine priestess who lived long ago. She is reborn to prevent the fire bird from destroying everything. Since Bu-yeon’s soul completes her life’s mission in the second life, she decides to leave, giving it to Nak-su’s soul to take over the body.

The drama ends happily by showing Nak-su and Jang Uk together, but with a new mission to destroy the evil spirits that escaped from Jinyowon when it collapsed.

Theme

‘Alchemy of Souls’ revolves around the life of a great mage and a talented assassin Nak-su who has the power to shift her soul using the forbidden technique ‘alchemy of souls’. With a touch of fantasy, romance, action, and humor, the drama takes its viewers to a magical country set in the Josean period. The story shows the growth and character development of each character in the most enchanting way.

When Jung Uk, the successor of the powerful Jung family, uncover new ways to unseal his locked energy, he becomes a cause for unwrapping the truth about his true identity and the truth behind the forbidden technique ‘alchemy of souls’. It shows the power of Jung Uk’s determination to rewrite his fate, which is imposed on him by his father soon after his birth.

Awards

Interesting Facts about Alchemy of Souls

1. From January to December 2022, ‘Alchemy of Souls’ ranked second on Netflix. It shared the second position with the other tvN drama, Our Blues’, released on 9 April 2022.
2. The planning and preparations to film the ‘Alchemy of Souls’ began in 2019.
3. Initially, the actress Park Hye-eun received the offer to perform the female lead role. However, she decided to step aside from the project since she felt that she was under so much pressure. Nonetheless, the actress made preparations to appear for the role. Later, actress Jung So-min received the opportunity.
4. ‘Alchemy of Souls’ is the second project of director Park Joon-hwa and Jung So-min together after the drama ‘Because This Is My First Life’ released in 2017.
5. On 3 March 2022, tvN announced the lead cast of ‘Alchemy of Souls’, including Jung So-min, Lee Jae-wook, Shin Seung-ho, Hwang Min-hyun, Oh Na-ra, Yoo Jun-sang, and Jo Jae-yoon. Afterwards, on 21 March, the names of other cast members, including Yoo In-soo, Im Chul-soo, Arin, Lee Do-kyung, and Park Eun-hye, were announced.
6. Jung So-min performed the female lead role in the first season. In the second season, Jung So-min’s role was played by Go Youn-jung, who only made a cameo appearance in the first season.
7. Danhyanggok is a fictional place created for ‘Alchemy of Souls’, and the giant tree shown is a real one which is located in the Garimseong Fortress, near Geumgang River in Buyeo County.
8. The shooting of ‘Alchemy of Souls’ was paused on 6 October 2021 due to the unexpected dictation of COVID-19 among the crew members.

FAQs

1. When did the drama ‘Alchemy of Souls’ released?
   18 June 2022.
   
2. Who played the lead roles in the drama ‘Alchemy of Souls’?
   Jung So-min, Lee Jae-wook, Hwang Min-hyun, and Go Youn-jung.
   
3. What is the Instagram ID of Jung So-min?
   @somin_jj.
   
4. Who wrote the screenplay for ‘Alchemy of Souls’?
   Hong Sisters (Hong Jung-eun, Hong Mi-ran).
5. What is the Instagram ID of Hwang Min-hyun?
   @optimushwang.
6. Who is the director of ‘Alchemy of Souls’?
   Park Joon-hwa.
   
7. What is the Instagram ID of Lee Jae-wook?
   @jxxvvxxk.