What Kind of Person Is an Evil Soul Master?

After Kong Ming'an finished speaking, the Laboratory fell silent once more.

Kong Ming'an had made it very clear. The pros and cons of removing Remnant Souls from Soul Rings were far too obvious, and both the opportunities and risks were suffocatingly immense.

If it succeeded, a single Soul Ring could possess multiple Soul Skills. For traditional Soul Masters, who generally only had nine Soul Skills, that was an outright dimensionality-reducing blow.

If it failed, it would be equivalent to directly crippling a Soul Ring. With a Soul Skill missing, it meant a direct loss of combat power for a traditional Soul Master.

"...This technology is still in the experimental stage, and even the underlying theory has many shortcomings. So for now, I will not make this part of the research public. Just listen."

Kong Ming'an spoke frankly.

There were currently too few samples. Even counting himself, the only real successes were himself and Elder Yi.

But could he and Elder Yi really be considered normal people? Not really.

He possessed powerful control over energy, allowing him to halt all kinds of experiments at any time to protect himself and conduct trial and error.

As for Elder Yi, there was even less need to mention him. Though he was a Remnant Soul, the quality of that Remnant Soul was absurdly high. Combined with his terrifying accumulated experience and control over all kinds of energy, failure was exceedingly rare.

The success of the two of them could basically be attributed to isolated cases and did not yet have universal applicability.

But... one had to know that this world had never lacked gamblers.

Using a Soul Ring as a "wager" in exchange for the possibility of gaining more Soul Skills was a single-choice question for many Soul Masters. Many would risk trying it.

For example...

"Ming'an, I think I can do it."

Xiao Hongchen made a confident declaration.

Kong Ming'an glanced at him, then shook his head.

"No, you can't."

Xiao Hongchen: "???"

No, how could this guy reject me outright?! Am I really that pathetic?!

Xiao Hongchen got heated again. Kong Ming'an had long grown accustomed to it.

He raised a hand and took out ten special circular Silver White Soul Tools from his Storage Soul Tool Ring. Then he looked toward his own old man.

"Grandfather, this item is called 'Soul Capture.' It can capture and extract the Remnant Souls within Soul Rings below the thousand-year level, then purify the Soul Rings, allowing them to achieve the same effect as my current Soul Rings.

"Keep one for yourself, and give the rest to people you trust. Also, have them record the process of comprehending their Soul Rings and hand those records to me."

Kong Deming immediately understood and put away the ten Soul Captures.

What did Kong Ming'an want to do? Very simple—he still wanted to collect more samples.

Without actual results and samples to support it, any theoretical experiment was nothing more than a castle in the air.

And the group of Rank 9 Soul Engineers under his old man's command were all excellent samples.

Every one of those Rank 9 Soul Engineers had decent control over Soul Power and Spiritual Power, and they also did not place quite so much importance on their Soul Rings.

Moreover, those people could barely be considered "one of their own," so it was better to keep the benefits within the family.

For all those reasons, there truly was no one more suitable to serve as samples than them.

After thinking for a moment, Kong Ming'an looked at Meng Hongchen, who was still pondering the matter, and Xiao Hongchen, who seemed to want to say something else. Smiling, he reassured them:

"You two needn't rush. Just cultivate step by step. If nothing unexpected happens, you should be able to directly enjoy the results."

"Really?"

"You have my word."

A while later, Kong Deming and the others left the Laboratory. It immediately grew quiet inside.

Kong Ming'an slowly rose and walked to a workbench nearby. He tapped it lightly several times, and in the next moment, a section of the wall sank inward, revealing a hidden compartment.

Inside the hidden compartment was a dignified old man with flowing white beard.

At this moment, if an Evil Soul Master from the Holy Spirit Cult had been present, he would certainly have recognized the old man inside the compartment as Nangong Wan—the Second Elder of the Holy Spirit Cult and leader of the Xishui Alliance, who had supposedly entered seclusion to cultivate!

With calm eyes, Kong Ming'an lightly tapped his brow. The Eye of Life opened, and a gray streak of light naturally fell into Nangong Wan's body.

The next moment, "Nangong Wan" slowly opened his eyes. After pausing slightly, he stepped out of the hidden compartment with somewhat stiff movements.

"Elder Yi, thank you."

Kong Ming'an's tone carried a hint of gratitude. The other party had put in no small amount of effort to make his First Soul Ring so perfectly satisfactory.

"No need."

"Nangong Wan"—or rather... Electrolux—smiled and shook his head. "My research into Soul Rings has also benefited me greatly, and if you had not provided the idea, I likely would never have thought of using such a method to temporarily obtain a body."

Electrolux naturally revealed his Soul Rings. Nine gray Soul Rings, engraved with intricate magical circuits and radiating a holy aura, slowly emerged around his body.

His aura had already steadily surpassed that of an ordinary Super Douluo. Even that had been somewhat restrained, so no one could say for certain what his true strength was.

And this was also one of the achievements of the past year or so.

After initially understanding the nature of Soul Rings, they had concluded that removing the Remnant Souls within them could free up the Soul Rings' carrying capacity.

But at the same time, Kong Ming'an had a sudden idea: could a Soul Ring be completely stripped clean and used to carry a soul instead?

Electrolux immediately approved of the idea and expanded upon it. They concluded that if a Soul Master's soul were combined with Soul Rings that had been completely cleansed, then theoretically, it could be possible to control that Soul Master's body through the Soul Rings.

The theory was established, and practice began. Thus, after the selfless contributions of three Evil Soul Masters with the respective cultivation levels of Soul King, Soul Saint, and Soul Douluo—

the Method of Possession came into being.

Of course, the Method of Possession they had devised differed somewhat from the Methods of Possession in novels from Ming's previous life. In truth, it was more like the Method of Puppetry.

The reason it bore the name Method of Possession was merely an expectation for the future.

Now that they had a method, it naturally had to be used. And the user was naturally Electrolux.

For Electrolux, an ordinary Soul Master naturally was not worthy. At the very least, he needed a Titled Douluo as a body to borrow temporarily.

After giving it a little thought, Kong Ming'an very simply settled on a target.

Wasn't Nangong Wan, who just so happened to be in Mingdu and was both the leader of the Xishui Alliance and the Second Elder of the Holy Spirit Cult, an excellent target?

Thus, through a sneak attack and prior preparations, his old man—a Rank 97 Super Douluo—defeated Nangong Wan, a mere Rank 92 Evil Soul Master, despite fighting above his rank, then handed him over to Kong Ming'an.

After that came soul extraction, body processing, and then using the body as a vessel for Electrolux to temporarily inhabit.

What? Wasn't taking someone's life so directly somewhat inhumane and excessively cruel?

Come on, what kind of person was an Evil Soul Master?

In Ming's mind, Evil Soul Masters held an even lower status than Soul Beasts. Their only value was serving as expendable materials. That was simply making the best use of them.