Soul Guidance Technology
If the Tang Sect had combined their research on Hidden Weapon and Soul Power, what chance would the Sun Moon Empire have? It just goes to show that the rules of our ancestors were truly harmful.
To put it bluntly, it's fixed mindsets that kill people. They always think that what our ancestors passed down is the best, and they're unwilling to adapt at all.
They only started frantically copying others' strategies after they attacked with more advanced Soul Tool. Where were they before?
[This is normal, though. Those who have already benefited from the status quo will never voluntarily step out of their comfort zone; they will only think about change when faced with a harsh reality check.]
Shrek City, Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect Branch.
After reading the contents of the diary, Ning Tian felt that Lin Ye was right. She came from the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect School, where traditional Soul Master were respected and Soul Tool were always looked down upon, considered to be unorthodox and not worthy of respect.
But now that I think about it carefully, Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect's support Martial Soul is indeed powerful, it can only support a few high-level Soul Master and cannot benefit ordinary people.
Soul Tool are different; even an ordinary person without Soul Power can protect themselves by wielding a low-level Soul Tool.
I used to think that the Sun Moon Empire had gone astray, but now it seems that perhaps the path they chose was more suitable for the long-term development of civilization.
Sects that cling to centuries-old rules and refuse to change will inevitably be left behind by the times.
Having discussed the stubborn old guard on the Douluo side, let's talk about the radicals on the Sun Moon Empire side.
Many people believe that the Sun Moon Empire's Soul Guidance Technology is unparalleled and that it will eventually unify the continent. However, they have just as many problems, and their fundamental flaws are even more fatal than those of the Douluo Continent.
[To start with the most intuitive point, the essence of Soul Tool is a container and amplifier of Soul Power. It cannot generate power out of thin air. All energy sources are still the Soul Power of the Soul Master, or rather, the Soul Core of the Soul Beast.]
The Sun Moon Empire is currently mass-producing low-level Soul Tool, which looks impressive, but in essence, it is still exploiting Soul Beast.
The only difference is that Douluo Continent kills Soul Beast to obtain Soul Ring for their own use, while Sun Moon Empire Continent kills Soul Beast to obtain Soul Core to create artifacts for everyone to use. Therefore, the consumption rate will only be faster, not slower.
[If you do the math, you'll see that an ordinary level four Soul Guidance Cannon requires a Thousand-Year Soul Core as its core.]
A ten-thousand-strong Soul Engineer Corps would need over a thousand Soul Guidance Cannon alone; how many Thousand-Year Soul Beast would they have to kill?
Not to mention high-level Soul Tool; which Soul Tool of level seven or above wasn't forged from Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Beast?
The Sun Moon Empire's territory is only so big, and the Soul Beast Forest within its borders has long been plundered by them. Now it relies entirely on expanding outwards and plundering the Soul Beast resources of neighboring small countries to survive.
Once all the surrounding resources are exhausted, their Soul Guidance Legion will be nothing but a pile of scrap metal.
More importantly, there is a talent gap.
The low barrier to entry for Soul Tool applies to lower-level users. For true high-level Soul Engineer, the requirements for talent, Soul Power, and knowledge reserves are no less than those for Titled Douluo.
The Sun Moon Empire implemented a nationwide soul guidance education program, which seemed to have a large base of participants, but in decades, only a handful of people could actually reach the threshold of level seven or above.
Virtue Hall only has a few Level-Nine Soul Engineer at most; the rest are all mid- to low-level. While they may seem numerous, they're simply not enough for a top-tier battlefield.
Moreover, they went to the other extreme: over-reliance on tools, forgetting the potential of human beings themselves.
Many Soul Engineer are so focused on researching Soul Tool that they neglect their own Soul Power cultivation, believing that having Soul Tool will allow them to challenge opponents of higher levels.
If you encounter an opponent with exceptional cultivation and the ability to use Soul Tool, they can destroy your Soul Tool at close range, leaving you with no choice but to surrender.
To put it bluntly, the current soul guidance system of the Sun Moon Empire is a bloated giant; it looks intimidating in size, but it's actually all bark and no bite.
With insufficient high-level combat power and endless resource consumption, the company relies entirely on expansion to survive. Once expansion stops, internal conflicts will immediately erupt.
Sun Moon Royal Soul Engineering Academy, Female Dormitory.
It was already evening.
The night outside the window permeated the sky, and the light from the guiding street lamp shone through the window frame onto the desk, casting a half-lit, half-shadowy silhouette on Ju Zi's profile.
Ju Zi sat at her desk, still pondering what Lin Ye had said earlier, but upon seeing the latest entry in her diary, she suddenly felt a chill run down her spine.
She's not just a bookworm who obsessively studies blueprints.
As a key Core Disciple cultivated by the academy, she had participated in the logistics accounting of the Western Soul Guidance Legion of the Empire with her mentor, and knew clearly how many Soul Core the Empire's Soul Tool production line consumed each year.
Last year alone, the Imperial military consumed nearly three thousand Hundred-Year Soul Core and over four hundred Thousand-Year Soul Core in its procurement of level three to five Soul Guidance Core, and this number is still increasing at a rate of 20% per year.
To fill the gap, the imperial army has been stationed on the edge of the Western Sunset Forest for many years, relentlessly exterminating Soul Beast, not even sparing cubs under a hundred years old.
The density of Soul Beast in Sunset Forest has decreased by 70% in the past ten years. Now the army has begun to advance into the territory of small countries further west, ostensibly for "border clearing," but in reality, it is naked resource plunder.
Soul Guidance Technology is the foundation of the Sun Moon Empire and the key to crushing the old forces of Douluo. Sacrificing some Soul Beast is indeed nothing.
After all, humans and Soul Beast are natural enemies. Not only Soul Beast, but even those small countries that were annexed were just stepping stones for unifying the continent.
But upon hearing Lin Ye's words, for the first time, a hint of wavering arose in her heart.
If, as he says, the Soul Guidance System is a bottomless pit that relies on consuming Soul Beast to prolong its life, then what good would it do to unify the continent?
Once all the Soul Beast on the continent are wiped out, and there are no Soul Core left, all the Soul Guidance Cannon will become useless. Won't the empire's glory also vanish into thin air?
She was more aware than anyone of the talent gap problem.
The academy enrolls thousands of students in the Soul Guidance Department every year, but most of them can only reach the threshold of Level 3 Soul Engineer in their entire lives. Only one in a hundred can reach Level 5, and Level 7 and above are extremely rare.
Many students are addicted to the thrill of using low-level Soul Tool to challenge opponents of higher levels, neglecting their own Soul Power cultivation.
Despite being twenty years old, his Soul Power is still stuck at level thirty, and he can't even beat an ordinary Soul Grandmaster without his Soul Tool.
Ju Zi was always different from others; she never considered the Soul Tool as her everything.
In addition to eight hours of soul guidance research every day, she would spend four hours without fail meditating to cultivate her Soul Power, even though her mentor said she was wasting her time.
Although her Innate Soul Power was not high, she continued to cultivate.
Moreover, she always believed that a tool is just a tool, and only when the person wielding the tool is strong enough can the tool's greatest power be unleashed.
Now it seems that her choice coincided with what Lin Ye had said.