Chapter 164: Living a Bit Short, It Seems

Chapter 164: Living a Bit Short, It Seems

After exploring for a long time, Zheng Yichen frustratingly discovered that there were no mineral deposits here… Well, that was perfectly normal. Minerals weren’t something you could find just anywhere by digging a random hole. However, using this method, Zheng Yichen could still collect some metals. By finding areas with high metal content, he could take out a pre-prepared large, power ful magnet!

When not powered, it looked just like a lump of iron. But once the Magic Array engraved on it was activated and stimulated by lightning power, it could immediately produce a strong enough effect. Every time he used this thing, Zheng Yichen also had to make sure no one nearby was carrying important metal objects, especially iron!

“This thing… doesn’t seem to be that powerful, right?” Dan Marina asked. She had seen magnets before, but they all had ordinary magnetic force. In the Otherworld, there hadn’t been any additional development of this thing, as Magic could replace it in many situations. Some spells that could produce strong attraction could pull in not just iron, but also people or other objects.

Naturally, magnets weren’t needed. What magnets could attract was quite limited, and their applicability in the Otherworld wasn’t high. They were also easily targeted by Magic. More importantly, Magic was too convenient, and they hadn’t developed the related ideas either. A powerful magnet within a certain range wasn’t very useful and was easily countered. If placed on a battlefield… hmph, I heard your weapons are made of iron?

“It’s just that you guys never paid attention to this kind of thing and underestimated its power,” Zheng Yichen muttered, cleaning off the metal powder from it. These could be smelted and used later. Anyway, since there were no better materials at hand, he would just use these substitutes for now.

After all, the core of an Alchemical Puppet could be recycled. As long as it was removed and placed into a better Alchemical Puppet, it could be reactivated immediately.

Watching Zheng Yichen skillfully use Alchemy-related Magic to process those metal powders and shape them fluidly, Dan Marina had to admit that Talent was indeed something that made people envious and jealous. Zheng Yichen’s current craftsmanship was much better than what she had observed a few months ago.

Ordinary alchemist side-professionals could only look on with envy.

“…Uh, something’s missing.” Feeling the pouch hanging around his neck, Zheng Yichen felt a little troubled. He looked back toward Loris’s small house: “Loli, are there any powerful beasts or Magical Beasts nearby?”

“What for?”

“To gather some Souls.”

“Oh, no need to go then.” As soon as Loris’s voice fell, a Stream of Light flew out from her small house and stopped right in front of Zheng Yichen. It was a light sphere containing three bound Souls. The Souls trapped inside had lost their intelligence… ahem, that wasn’t important. What mattered was their purity. They were clearly the best Souls Zheng Yichen had seen so far, even better than the ones he had painstakingly compressed and purified from a large number of Souls.

The Souls retained their complete characteristics from when they were alive, making Zheng Yichen feel quite familiar with them. Finally, he smacked his claw — weren’t they Petty’s classmates whom he had encountered back in the Forest of Illusions? Though not all of them.

Their Souls were actually in Loris’s hands. They probably violated the Contract in some way and ended up getting themselves directly taken, right? “Hiss— are Souls collected through a Contract this pure?”

Zheng Yichen played with the sphere containing the Souls, muttering in surprise. As for feeling uncomfortable? Well, to be reasonable, back in the Forest of Illusions, Loris had already let them go once. If they could control their greed after leaving, there definitely wouldn’t have been any problems. Unless they died from an accident in life, accidental death wouldn’t trigger the Contract’s punishment as long as it didn’t violate the Contract’s restrictions.

Now that they appeared here, they must have done something stupid somewhere.

“Oh ho~ Superior-grade Souls. Though not the top-tier ‘Holy Souls,’ they are still the best obtainable through conventional means,” Dan Marina said with a giggle.

“Holy Souls…” Zheng Yichen shook his head. He didn’t hold any hope for that at all. How could something with ‘Holy’ in front of it be simple? That kind of Soul had to belong to someone who gave their life willingly, without the slightest unwillingness, both physically and mentally!

To be reasonable, any intelligent being, when facing death, would inevitably have some or a trace of other thoughts, no matter how carefree they were—like reminiscing about life, thinking it’s fine to die, or that death would bring relief… Even without any resentment, these thoughts would still make the Soul impure… Attaching even a trace of impurity made it this superior-grade Soul, not a Holy Soul. That one trace was an insurmountable chasm!

From ancient times to the present, the number of Holy Souls recorded did not exceed a hundred. Including those undiscovered or unrecorded, it would at most not exceed three hundred.

One could imagine how difficult it was for a Holy Soul to be born. It was almost like a miraculous coincidence crafted by nature. Now, imposing this concept onto Souls, just these three Souls could fetch an extremely high price on the Black Market. After all, this world had real Souls.

The saying that after death one returns to the River Styx was also confirmed. Some powerful beings had even witnessed the existence of the River Styx, unlike on Earth before Zheng Yichen crossed over, where Hell or the Underworld were known to everyone, but existed more in myths and stories.

Under these confirmed conditions, using Contracts to harvest Souls was unusually difficult. Unless truly forced with no way out, even commoners were unwilling to sign Contracts with their Souls, let alone Professionals. The quality of these Souls being superior-grade, Zheng Yichen guessed, was partly because the Contract was strong enough, and partly because those people were Professionals.

If they were ordinary people without much power or special traits, having a Soul quality reach medium-grade would be quite good.

Pinching out one Soul, Zheng Yichen observed it carefully. Well, Loris still hadn’t gone to the extreme. Although these Souls were largely intact, they were actually missing a part. It was like Zheng Yichen’s observation records of Souls dissipating—the Soul would lose most of its Soul Power, then a small amount of Soul Power carrying the Soul’s ‘consciousness’ would quickly vanish… Hmm, Zheng Yichen felt using ‘consciousness’ wasn’t quite right either; True Spirit might be more appropriate.

The True Spirits of these three Souls were gone, which was why they were in this mindless state. If, through the Contract’s power, their True Spirits were also turned into nourishment for the Souls, perhaps the quality of these three Souls could be even higher. Glancing at Dan Marina, she probably noticed this too, but surprisingly didn’t say anything.

Taking out all three Souls, Zheng Yichen, under her somewhat astonished gaze, grabbed them in his claw. He gathered his strength and began kneading them vigorously. Under his continuously increasing pressure, even a faint creaking sound could be heard in the air. This was the sound produced by the friction between Zheng Yichen’s claw and the invisible resistance.

“Uh… can that work too?” Dan Marina felt that perhaps she had lived for a bit too short a time…