Inside the laboratory, cold blue light fell silently, illuminating the entire hall until it was spotless.
A row of brand-new cultivation pods stood neatly arranged in the center of the experimental area.
Pale green, high-concentration nutrient fluid flowed slowly within them, giving off faint bubbling sounds.
Through the semi-transparent pod walls, ten bodies could be clearly seen floating inside.
They possessed identical facial features and bone proportions.
Even the fine patterns on their skin were no different from Benjamin's own.
The ten clones floated quietly in the nutrient fluid, their eyes tightly shut, their chests rising and falling gently and rhythmically with the nutrient circulation, like ordinary people asleep.
Benjamin stood before the cultivation pods with his arms folded, carefully examining the results of his work.
After a moment, he nodded in satisfaction.
"The bodies are fine. Then... next comes the souls."
His gaze slowly swept across the ten slumbering clones.
The reason he had chosen to use his own genetic material to create experimental subjects through the relatively slower method, rather than directly creating them out of thin air with Alchemy, was not because of any particular preference. It was out of caution.
After all, although he had studied the Blood Sacrifice Method quite thoroughly, it had ultimately remained at the theoretical stage and had never truly been used. According to the method's records, though it was called a blood sacrifice, what was truly sacrificed was not merely the physical body, but a complete life formed jointly by bloodline, flesh, and soul.
Benjamin worried that creating them from nothing through Alchemy might produce some subtle deviation he had failed to notice. When that happened, it could cause the entire sacrifice to fail, or even trigger a backlash.
So, to be safe, the experimental materials used in the early testing