The Holy Spirit Cult divided its so-called brainwashing techniques into three types.
They were the three main categories of Soft Mental Distortion, Direct Mental Branding, and Environmental Conditioning.
Ordinary cult members, for instance, underwent Environmental Conditioning.
Newly recruited Evil Soul Masters were constantly indoctrinated with teachings such as how righteous Soul Masters discriminated against Evil Soul Masters, and how the Holy Spirit Cult was their only true home.
Then, through blood sacrifices and cultivation through slaughter, their minds were gradually assimilated by dark forces as they took life after life. They willingly sank into depravity, then succumbed to darkness.
Tang Ya and Ma Xiaotao, on the other hand, were cases of Soft Mental Distortion.
The former already harbored an intense obsession with revenge. Corrosion by evil poison continually magnified that hatred, making her believe that only the Holy Spirit Cult could give her strength.
The latter had a defective martial soul to begin with. She required no large quantities of evil poison; they only needed to infuse her with dark soul power and transform her martial soul into the Dark Phoenix.
Finally, there was the method Zhongli Wu was currently using on Xuan Zi.
It was also the most central of the Holy Spirit Cult's brainwashing techniques.
Mental Branding!
This method was extremely straightforward. It required neither conditioning nor evil poison, directly invading the victim's Sea of Consciousness to plant a Mental Mark, rewrite their perceptions, and twist their values.
It portrayed the Holy Spirit Cult as salvation and every other faction as an enemy, blurring family bonds, friendships, and all memories of the past.
It made the victim eternally loyal to the Holy Spirit Cult and obedient to the Cult Master.
If the victim ever entertained thoughts of resistance afterward, the brand would trigger excruciating mental pain, forcibly suppressing