"They also extracted an enormous number of souls." Lilina narrowed her eyes, reminding me of something that had almost been forgotten in the moment.
"A soul itself is a set of highly efficient computational rules. A person's memories are the Database, self-awareness consists of various applications and interfaces, while the soul is the underlying computational rules and Operating System. A Carbon-Based Lifeform's brain has its 'hardware' computing capacity limited by its physiological structure. Once computation reaches a certain limit, all sorts of biological self-protection mechanisms activate: shock, unconsciousness, fatigue, inability to concentrate. Various physiological phenomena prevent the brain from processing beyond its physical limits. And since souls are attached to physical bodies in the vast majority of cases, their information-processing abilities are limited on that level as well."
I stayed silent and quietly listened to Lilina give me a science lesson. I had never expected this little chatterbox, always bouncing around nonstop, to have such a quiet and serious side—right now, she looked like a learned and wise teacher. I suddenly realized that the knowledge this little girl possessed was probably far greater than that of the most learned person in human history: she had completed her studies directly from the gods' textbooks.
"Under normal circumstances, a soul's computational ability is limited. But since there are normal circumstances, there must be exceptions—Boss, you know that some souls aren't attached to material bodies." Lilina suddenly blinked slyly, waiting for my reaction.
"Souls not attached to material bodies?" I thought for a moment, then suddenly understood. "Energy lifeforms! Psionic lifeforms!"
"And that Sister Light who sleeps in Boss's head all day," Lilina said, nodding. "The souls of non-corporeal lifeforms possess uniquely favorable computational advantages because they don't need physical organs to process data. Their souls therefore take on all computational tasks, without