Iger drew a sharp breath.

Ever since he learned that the Belldet family could mobilize the cognitive power of millions, drawing directly upon a massive reservoir of mental energy, a critical question had plagued his mind as a Mind Class sorcerer. Is Evelyn not terrified of poisoning herself?

In the realm of consciousness, any thought that was not strictly one's own was no different from a slow, insidious poison. Dissociative identity disorders offered the perfect proof of this. Even split personalities generated by one's own mind, as clean and harmless as they might seem, could still utterly destroy their host. The invasive, chaotic thoughts of complete strangers were far more dangerous.

A day or two of exposure might not matter. But to steep in the thoughts of others for too long would inevitably lead to mental exhaustion, distorted self-awareness, severe psychological volatility, and worse.

The Belldet control system, founded on the concept of taking from the debtors and turning it back against them, was neither a revolutionary breakthrough nor a technique uniquely monopolized by a necromancer Angel. Yet no other controller had ever successfully replicated it. Why did the Belldets alone dominate the entire Gospel? Because spirit, consciousness, and thought formed an indivisible whole.

Just as winning the lottery instantly elevated a person's mood while constipation ruined it, a person's thoughts directly influenced their mental state. Raw mental energy was like unrefined, pulpy fruit juice, thick with fragmented thoughts and volatile emotions. The energy the Belldets extracted had to be riddled with these impurities....