Island nation, Mount Asama, Saotome Research Institute.
Hovering above the peak of Mount Asama were two enormous aircraft: the Mobile Fortress Eldent and the Golden Saucer Scorching Sun. Quite a few people from both ships had already entered the institute, looking around with curious expressions.
This was probably the first time in ten years that the Saotome Research Institute had been flooded with so many Outsiders at once.
As a research institute studying one of the most dangerous energy sources in the multiverse, it theoretically should not have allowed so many nonprofessionals inside. But considering the mech trade and resource exchange that would follow, they had come anyway.
There was not much remarkable about the institute itself. Other than having practically hollowed out the entire mountain to serve as a laboratory, its technology was not much more advanced than Cheng Tian's shipboard biological research facility.
Yet those with relatively high Spirit Attributes, as well as people like Cheng Tian, who had made particular achievements in the field of souls, could clearly sense the abnormality of this place. That feeling only grew stronger after entering the institute.
Cheng Tian stopped at the corner of a long, eerie, empty metal corridor. In his field of vision floated things resembling aggregates of Soul Fragments, suspended in midair in a state similar to Unclaimed Spiritual Essence.
With a wave of the Ghost Ksitigarbha Gauntlet, those ownerless Soul Fragments gathered around him.
Cheng Tian examined them and found that they were like someone who had bought five or six twelve-hundred-piece jigsaw puzzles, thrown away over half the pieces after mixing them all up, then tossed every remaining piece together. They were a complete mess.
However, under the gauntlet's guidance, these tangled Soul Fragments, which were difficult to sort effectively, began grouping themselves.
Before long, Cheng