What an Ascension

"... What a transcendence this is."

Iver murmured softly.

The art of resurrection exists in this world, and there are quite a few.

The Supreme Heaven of the past could also create the Magic Cauldron to resurrect mortals, and the Shadow of Avalon was essentially a large-scale resurrection ritual. Moreover, the Celestials and Pillar God transforming mortal souls into apostles capable of descending into the Material Realm can also be considered a form of resurrection.

Aside from the power involving the Celestials and Pillar God... according to Iver's understanding, the "Insect Amber" master of the Path of Twilight has mastered the Non-Destructive Resurrection Technique, and the Path Trait "Silent Dead" can also give people a second life. The Dedication Path can also exchange life for life.

Even Iver's "sister," who didn't exist in his memory, had her achievements recorded in the Silver and Tin Palace of Avalon —the invention of an Unstable Resurrection Potion.

However, any resurrection comes at a price.

The cycle of birth, aging, sickness, and death is a natural law of the world and the foundation for the world to achieve perpetual motion.

Humans are born with a soul, which gradually develops and grows during the growth process; and after death, the Fruit Fall, the soul returns to the world... and then the seed sprouts, giving birth to new life again.

In this process, the total number of souls increases. The total population of mortals also increases, creating a mutually beneficial positive cycle. From this perspective, the world is like a bank, constantly providing loans. The slow growth of the soul in the Material Realm is the interest it earns.

However, if a large number of people stop participating in this cycle during this process... for example, becoming apostles, or becoming the dead, or being resurrected, it will eventually lead to the world running out of money.

—If one day everyone gains immortality and the world's soul reserves are completely depleted, then children will be unable to be born. Newborns born under duress will no longer possess souls.

This is not just needless worry.

It is actually a form of "soullessness".

In the Parthian Ancient Kingdom, because numerous rituals involving the soul were performed simultaneously in various places, pregnant women who conceived or gave birth in the wrong place might give birth to children without a soul.

They're like people born into a vegetative state, but the situation Tai Yi. Their brains are normal, just unable to activate... like a computer with normal hardware but no operating system installed.

Scholars in the West have also studied this phenomenon.

Some people have tried various methods to activate the brains of soulless infants, but they have never been able to awaken their human intelligence—the limit is to turn humans into animals.

Without a soul, one cannot remember their own name... or rather, cannot separate themselves from the world. Therefore, an independent personality cannot be born... even if strict training methods can enable those with a soulless disorder to act and speak autonomously, they still lack a personality. The closest current solution is to use a simulated soul-driven system, treating the body of a soulless patient as a golem.

Jacob's research can fundamentally solve this problem.

In this village, solidified by the Twilight Power, there were originally no newborns. It was essentially a naturally existing "soulless environment," incapable of giving birth to newborns.

Jacob developed the technology to create "Swamp People" when he was in his twenties.

To replicate a soul through some means—theoretically speaking, this is a one-time resurrection technology that requires special geographical conditions to achieve, so it's not too far-fetched.

However, Jacob somehow exploited a bug. Or perhaps the ritual he designed simply had a bug.

—He allowed the "original soul," which should in principle be destroyed when a new soul is born, to be preserved for unknown reasons.

In this way, he transformed the art of "resurrecting souls" into "copying souls".

In other words, he literally split one person into two.

Jacob must have known that this technique was taboo and would cause huge controversy.

Therefore, instead of releasing the "original" components of his soul, he stored them away in a place known only to himself...

If nothing unexpected happens, it should be inside the Fairy Hole.

Iver guessed that this was probably a coincidence.

Because if Jacob did it intentionally, there's no reason for him to hide the souls in the Fairy Hole... he should have preserved them by some means or used them for secondary experiments. These souls are undoubtedly extremely valuable "one-of-a-kind" items, precious special cases where errors have occurred.

He acted as if he had made a mistake in a test and then nervously adjusted the reading to the correct position—he hid the original souls that hadn't been destroyed by the ritual in the Fairy Kingdom so that no one would know they hadn't actually been properly destroyed.

From this perspective, it's even possible that those Mud Bone Turtle were brought over and kept by Jacob.

After all, the Mud Bone Turtle is not a pure undead, but a wild creature.

They didn't come naturally; they must have migrated from somewhere. It's entirely possible that Jacob realized his mistake, stopped the Swamp People Ritual, and brought in a bunch of Mud Bone Turtle to plug the opening.

The purpose was to prevent people from uncovering the Fairy Hole, thus entering the Fairy Kingdom, and seeing the original souls of those "Swamp People" who, in principle, shouldn't be here! Thinking of this, Iver suddenly widened his eyes.

"Speaking of which, Hai Na's father..."

Iver suddenly remembered that the Magnetic Hammer came to Eagle Cape Village about ten or twenty years ago.

What happened back then?

That is because Hai Na was born for some reason, breaking the common sense of Eagle Cape Village.

At that time, Hai Na's biological father suddenly abandoned his pregnant wife for some reason and left Eagle Cape Village. He never returned.

Jacob had already returned to Eagle Cape Village for quite some time by then, and had not yet died from "typhoid fever".

If the swamp ritual had already ceased to be performed by then, why would Hai Na's mother go to the swamp?

How could she possibly find the Magnetic Hammer if she didn't go into the swamp, which was a no-go zone?

But if we consider this as Jacob's experiment... and these nameless natives as Jacob's assistants, everything makes sense! Following the timeline, clues rapidly pieced together in Iver's mind—

Jacob must have stumbled upon Eagle Cape Village when he was in his twenties.

He stumbled upon this village, imbued with the power of twilight and hidden in a crevice by fairy energy, and Fairy Hole filled with pure earth elemental power. Through his genius, he then developed an incomplete resurrection ritual...

But his research failed.

The resurrection ritual did not proceed as planned because the original soul was not destroyed by the ritual. Jacob then stopped or suspended the ritual and left Eagle Cape Village.

More than forty years later, Jacob, who now has two sons and Scaleless Hand is about to retire from the stage of history, returned to Eagle Cape Village.

This time, he doesn't plan to leave again.

With his superior skills, he somehow managed to give birth to a newborn in Eagle Cape Village, a village sealed by the Twilight Power.

Therefore, he became known as the "benefactor" of Eagle Cape Village by the elders.

Hai Na was one of the samples he cultivated.

She is not only like everyone else, but also possesses adaptability to the path beyond dusk; apart from a lack of sensitivity to time, there is not a trace of Eagle Cape Village in her. She can even leave Eagle Cape Village without any problems—although the natives can leave, the "Swamp People" cannot.

Then, for some reason, Hai Na's father suddenly fled Eagle Cape Village.

Immediately afterwards, the Swamp People Ritual was restarted.

He certainly wasn't after resurrection technology at that time. He could have developed much better resurrection technology long ago.

At this point, he could only initiate the Swamp People Ritual for its original byproduct—the artificial soul that had been copied.

And then... his death.

Iver suddenly felt a chill run down his spine.

Jacob, who invented resurrection technology and even artificial souls in his twenties, was his own grandfather...

Was he really dead?

Also, why did he catch a "cold" at the same time as me? Was it really a cold? And...

"Who I am?"

Iver murmured softly.