The Technological Revolution in Soul Master Cultivation

However, Xu Mochen simply brought out a latest invention and, through a series of deductions, silenced everyone present. First, Xu Mochen produced a newly developed drug and shared a shocking piece of news with everyone: this new drug, named the "Soul Power Awakening Agent," was designed to stimulate the potential of the spiritual body genes within the human body. Its function was to give ordinary people a one-in-ten chance of possessing the ability to cultivate soul power, thereby becoming soul masters capable of cultivation!

Although even by becoming a soul master through this method, one's soul power would almost never reach level 40 in their lifetime—reaching level 20 or 30 would already be considered a good result—this drug could only stimulate the potential of the spiritual body genes. It allowed trash martial souls to have a stronger ability to purify and absorb external soul power, but it could not change the inherently low quality of the trash martial soul itself.

Therefore, even if one gained the ability to cultivate through this method, the improvement in actual strength was very limited. Their combat effectiveness was not even as good as a low-level battle soul master of the same cultivation rank. After all, regardless of anything else, the martial soul of a regular soul master was inherently cultivatable, and its quality was certainly superior to those who became soul masters through external assistance.

Although this drug had many shortcomings, it still completely stunned everyone present!

This was something that could turn ordinary people into soul masters! No matter how low the probability was, or how limited its effects might be, it was still an unbelievable, epoch-making product!

Currently, the total number of soul masters within the entire Sun Moon Empire was only a little over 700,000, accounting for less than one two-hundredth of the total population! Moreover, over 99 percent of these soul masters were below level 60 with mediocre martial souls!

If this drug were to be popularized, it would mean that over one-tenth of the Sun Moon Empire's population would become soul masters! The number of soul masters would reach a staggering 15 million or more! For the Sun Moon Empire, this was not just a qualitative change; for large family groups involved in soul tool production and forces like the military, it meant the birth of more high-quality talent resources!

For large family groups, although many core components of standard soul tools required soul masters to complete, there were no requirements for the quality of the soul master's martial soul, and the vast majority of core components had very low requirements for a soul master's soul power.

As for the military, it didn't matter if the martial soul quality was poor. After all, the Sun Moon Empire was not like the Douluo Continent. If such soul masters were placed on the Douluo Continent, where martial souls determined combat power, their status might not even be as good as elite soldiers who were well-equipped and well-trained. But in the Sun Moon Empire, where soul guidance technology was advanced, it was a completely different story!

For the Sun Moon Empire's military, innate deficiencies in martial souls could be fully compensated for by equipping them with soul-guided weapons that consumed very little soul power! In fact, if the equipment was good and the training level was sufficient, their performance on the battlefield could even exceed that of the vast majority of unequipped soul masters of the same level with average martial soul quality!

Moreover, although the Sun Moon Empire's current soul-guided weapons and equipment included those that could be used without soul power, their effects were certainly not as good as "soul-guided weapons and equipment" that had low soul power requirements but were truly effective.

Facing the unanimous and exaggerated reactions of everyone, Xu Mochen simply smiled and stated that this drug had already passed three phases of testing and was fully qualified for mass production. He then threw out another question: If this drug were to be popularized in the Sun Moon Empire in the future, would the current number of soul beasts in the Sun Moon Empire be enough for all these soul masters to use?

Even if it were enough now, what would happen when the Sun Moon Empire's population continued to grow and such biological genetic technology continued to improve, causing the number of soul masters to skyrocket? Even if we adopted artificial breeding methods to cultivate soul beasts with all our might, could the reproduction rate of soul beasts really keep up with the rate of consumption?

And furthermore, everyone, you have only considered the number of soul beasts hunted for the sake of soul rings. Have you considered the number of soul beasts that died due to other circumstances? For example, the number of soul beasts that died from mutual slaughter, the number that died in accidents, the number of soul beasts killed by soul masters in the forest in self-defense, or the consumption of soul beasts caused by people actively hunting them for profit to obtain valuable items?

This series of questions suddenly plunged everyone in the Sun Moon Empire into deep thought. They began to calculate silently, and their expressions subsequently turned ugly.

Although the number of soul beasts in the four major soul beast forests of the Sun Moon Empire, plus the various artificial soul beast forests, exceeded several billion—seemingly vast and even more than ten times the total population of the Sun Moon Empire—if things were to continue developing at this rate, I fear that in less than five years, the number of soul masters would reach the tens of millions.

If this barbaric development were to continue, I fear that within seventy or eighty years, soul beasts would be completely extinct!

Of course, people were not unaware of the existence of marine soul beasts! However, even though the Sun Moon Empire's maritime technology had developed to a certain extent over the past few thousand years, and in recent years they had even built over a dozen steam-powered ironclad warships of the several-thousand-ton class, everyone still harbored an instinctive fear of the vast, boundless, and unknown dangers of the ocean. The mystery and terror of marine soul beasts in the sea were absolutely incomparable to those of land soul beasts, and the various storms and tsunamis in the ocean were regarded by many in the Sun Moon Empire as the wrath of the gods!

Therefore, no one could guarantee that the Sun Moon Empire would have the ability to conquer the ocean and hunt enough marine soul beasts to supply the cultivation needs of hundreds of millions of soul masters within three hundred years.

Only then did they suddenly realize that the improvement and development of artificial soul ring technology had reached an imminent stage! Consequently, all parties not only immediately began to respond and support the development of artificial soul rings but also scrambled to request to join the relevant research projects.

On this point, Xu Mochen did not hold back. He generously agreed to the requests of many forces and applied for the Parliament to introduce relevant laws to support and supervise the research and production of related products, with all parties participating together to avoid a situation where one family dominated and monopolized the relevant technology.

This proposal was not only unanimously passed by the Imperial Parliament but also received praise from countless bigwigs in all walks of life. You must know that if Xu Mochen really wanted to, he could have kept this technology secret and waited until the Sun Moon Empire faced a shortage of soul beasts before letting the Sun Moon Royal Group bring it out for monopoly control. This would be tantamount to completely controlling the lifeline of soul master cultivation and taking the opportunity to make a fortune!

Although the Sun Moon Empire had anti-monopoly laws and patent laws, they stipulated that as long as a new technology was reported, its holder could enjoy thirty years of patent protection. This meant that the Sun Moon Royal Group could have completely relied on this technology to enjoy thirty years of monopoly! The benefits that these thirty years could bring to the Sun Moon Royal Group were absolutely unimaginable.

Yet, faced with such tempting profits, Xu Mochen was able to put the overall interests of the Sun Moon Empire first. He was not only willing to share technology in this regard but even took the initiative to ask the government to supervise such technology!

This made this twelve-year-old figure appear much taller in the eyes of the bigwigs. If this matter were to be spread by the newspapers, it was certain that Xu Mochen's prestige among the people would reach an unimaginably high level!

Coupled with Xu Mochen's amazing contributions in other areas, there was no doubt that even though he had not yet officially ascended to the throne, in the eyes of the vast majority of the Sun Moon Empire's people, he was already the undisputed emperor of the Sun Moon Empire.

As the development summary meeting drew to a close, Xu Mochen also reminded everyone present to remain humble and vigilant at all times to ensure that the development of the Sun Moon Empire would not go astray.

In fact, Xu Mochen had keenly discovered that due to the rapid take-off of all walks of life in the Sun Moon Empire over the past few years, with countless exciting events, a blind optimism had emerged throughout the Sun Moon Empire, from the giants of various circles down to the common people. There was a booming wave of industrialization, rapid technological progress, colorful artistic innovation, and an extremely strong desire for consumption! Many people even naively demanded that the government relax commercial supervision and market intervention, completely allowing the market economy to develop freely without restraint.

Everyone was intoxicated by a beautiful dream, always feeling that this prosperity and high-speed development would continue forever. Little did they know that Xu Mochen saw many hidden, deep-seated crises within this beauty. Although these crises might not erupt within ten years, once they did, the impact on the Sun Moon Empire would be catastrophic.

Although Xu Mochen wanted to explain his inner worries to everyone in detail, seeing the confident and blindly optimistic look of the giants present, Xu Mochen knew very well that no matter how much he said, it would likely be regarded as alarmist. He simply stopped taking radical measures to intervene and instead adopted other methods to prepare, waiting for the crisis to erupt completely before stepping in to turn the tide.

After all, humans are the kind of animals that always need to learn a few lessons before they can begin profound self-reflection. Occasionally suffering some huge setbacks could also serve as a warning for the future development of the Sun Moon Empire.

In addition, another major event was announced by Xu Mochen, and this event once again made the atmosphere, which was about to relax completely, tense again: according to the resolution of the Sun Moon Empire Parliament, it was finally decided to prepare advanced sailing vessels, supplies for long voyages, and relevant personnel, and to set sail in one month to officially launch an ocean exploration to the east, striving to find the "Douluo Continent" that Xu Mochen had mentioned.

What was even more unexpected for the bigwigs of the Sun Moon Empire was that the Crown Prince actually wanted to go on this voyage himself! To visit that so-called Douluo Continent!

For a moment, the entire venue fell into a dead silence. Everyone stared straight at the calm-faced Xu Mochen with incredulous eyes. Subsequently, without a doubt, many bigwigs from various industries jumped out to object. Of course, they were not objecting to the ocean exploration to the east; they were objecting to the Crown Prince putting himself in danger!

After all, the Crown Prince was simply too important to the development of the Sun Moon Empire! Coupled with his noble status! If anything were to happen to him, the entire Sun Moon Empire would likely fall into huge turmoil! At that time, all walks of life in the Sun Moon Empire, which had finally begun to develop at high speed, might be hit or even severely damaged!

Among the objectors, those closest to Xu Mochen or the Sun Moon Empire's royal family, such as Kong Dehan, Xu Yuanding, and Ye Xingyun, were the most intense! Ye Xingyun even openly stated that if the Crown Prince really wanted to risk his life, he should please step over his dead body first!

After all, the Sun Moon Empire's shipping industry was not yet developed, and its ability to resist the various dangers of the ocean was still weak. This meant that if Xu Mochen wanted to travel with the fleet, the risks he would have to bear would be unimaginable!