"Bang!"
The prisoner's entire body turned red and hot, and finally burst into flames. However, "burning" isn't entirely accurate, as he wasn't harmed within the flames. Within the flames, the prisoner's body grew larger and larger, transforming from a muscular man of about 1.8 meters tall into a nearly 4-meter-tall, obese figure, just like... an inflating balloon!
Andrew's gaze finally changed; he knew this prisoner was doomed. Sure enough, moments later, the human balloon exploded!
After cleaning up the shattered flesh and blood, Andrew thought to himself, "As expected, fusing with essence blood is extremely dangerous. I didn't expect that a Warrior of the Seventh Rank couldn't even withstand the essence blood of Saint-level Magical Beast."
Thinking about this, Andrew was very curious about how Beirut had created the Four Ultimate Warriors. After all, Beirut had given them the essence of the Azure Dragon, the Sovereign.
For a mortal to be able to fuse with the Azure Dragon Essence Blood is nothing short of a miracle!
"Again!"
Andrew grabbed another prisoner and began his second attempt...
This time, the process was similar to before, and the result was also similar: another prisoner died from the energy swelled in his blood essence.
The third time...
The fourth time...
As Andrew conducted his experiments, he summarized his findings. Over the course of half a month, none of the twenty-five prisoners survived. This situation moved even Andrew, who was usually indifferent to their lives. However, Andrew did not come away empty-handed during these two weeks.
"I discovered that they weren't actually suffocated by the energy in their blood essence..."
Andrew looked at the Thunder Dragon Essence Blood in his palm and muttered to himself.
"The blood essence of the Saint-level Dragon Clan is indeed powerful, but it certainly doesn't possess this kind of destructive force. Moreover, during the energy absorption process, I also intervened to divert most of the energy away. The remaining energy should not be fatal to a High-Level Warrior..."
"Every prisoner who dies has their body blown to pieces. That's horrific, but it's not really important. I focused too much on that and overlooked another point..."
Andrew gradually began to have some guesses: regarding the fusion of essence and blood, the most important thing should not be the physical body.
"Logically speaking, the fusion of essence and blood should involve the fusion of the physical body, and subconsciously, I overlooked the factor of the soul. In reality, for all living beings in this world, the soul is the most important thing!"
Andrew recalled that in the original book, Beirut had explained why the Sovereign could not descend into the Material Plane. Normally, with the Sovereign ' control over energy, completely concealing their power would be no problem. However, even so, the Sovereign could not descend into Material Plane outside their birthplace because their souls were incompatible with those planes; the two repelled each other. Given the strength of the Sovereign ' souls, the only possible outcome would be the collapse of the Material Plane.
This matter seemed unrelated to his experiments, but to some extent, Andrew was deeply inspired.
"Soul repulsion is likely a more fatal reaction than physical rejection!"
To verify this hypothesis, Andrew continued his experiments. This time, he focused more on the changes in the prisoners' Divine Power than their physical bodies. The last prisoner, an eighth-level Earth Element warrior, had a strong physical body, but his soul was only at the level of a sixth-level mage. This experiment was the one Andrew had been most looking forward to. From the very beginning, he was extremely cautious in every action and observed with utmost care.
Unlike before, this time he focused his observation on the other person's soul.
The essence blood of the Earth Element Saint-level Dragon Triceratops entered the prisoner's mouth. As time passed, a layer of rock armor condensed on the prisoner's body, and his body, like everyone else before him, was swelling. Andrew observed the other's Divine Power and discovered a slight fluctuation.
Is this what they mean by soul repulsion?
Andrew determined that the fluctuation was caused by a conflict between the prisoner's soul and the Dragon's soul energy contained within his blood essence. Later, when the prisoner's entire body was encased in rock, this fluctuation became even stronger.
Andrew tried to suppress the conflict by channeling his Divine Power into the other person's mind, but his efforts were in vain. Half an hour later, the explosion occurred as expected...
With mixed feelings, Andrew cleaned the laboratory. This time, he was 80% certain that the ultimate secret of fusing essence and blood was the soul.
However, even knowing this wouldn't actually help him much. The problem was identified, but the solution remained elusive. Not only him, but even Beirut couldn't solve it. As for whether Beirut had discovered it, Andrew thought it was very likely. In terms of Divine Power and knowledge, Beirut far surpassed him; if he could discover it, there was no reason why Beirut couldn't.
"However, Beirut and I have different goals. Beirut aims to activate the bloodline of the God-Eater Rat in his descendants, while I aim to fuse with the Azure Dragon Essence Blood. What he cannot solve, I may be able to solve. It seems that as long as we can ensure that the souls of the two parties in the fusion no longer repel each other, the experiment will be half successful..."
The soul is an extremely mysterious entity; even the Sovereign of Death, who governs life and death, cannot fully explain its secrets. After numerous attempts, Andrew still could not find a solution to the soul's rejection.
Spring has passed and autumn has come; three years have gone by.
For the past three years, Andrew has remained in the magic tower, tirelessly trying various methods to resolve the problem of the soul. Nearly a thousand prisoners have died at his hands, not only from the Lance Duchy, but also from the Yulan Empire.
That day, Andrew experienced another failed experiment, but a smile finally appeared on his face.
"Three years have passed, and I've tried countless methods, but the problem of soul rejection remains unresolved. I've realized that from the very beginning, I was going in the wrong direction. Soul rejection is one of the Laws of the universe; not only me, but even that madman, the Fate Sovereign, Orloff, is powerless to change it."
Andrew realized the truth and wisely abandoned the idea.
"My ultimate goal is to fuse with the Azure Dragon Essence Blood, hoping to avoid the dangers involved. The fact that Baruch can fuse with the Azure Dragon Essence Blood shows that soul repulsion isn't insurmountable. Perhaps, like Soul Mutation, it's probabilistic and uncontrollable. What I need to do now is determine whether I repel the Azure Dragon Essence Blood before fusing, and that will be enough..."
Following this idea, Andrew found a solution. For this purpose, he specially created a magical artifact, the Soul Repulsion Gauge. This meter is specifically used to measure the intensity of repulsion fluctuations. According to his experimental results, when the value on this meter exceeds twenty, the force of soul repulsion will burst the experimenter. Of course, this conclusion is not accurate, because he has not yet seen a value below twenty.
To figure this out, Andrew obtained many more death row inmates from the Yulan Empire.
By this time, the essence blood he had collected had long been exhausted. A year ago, Andrew once again swept through the Mountain Range of Magical Beasts, and dozens of Dragon perished innocently...
In order to establish data standards as soon as possible, Andrew tirelessly matched each prisoner with their blood essence and tested their soul rejection value. Unfortunately, none of the prisoners in this batch had a value below twenty.
"No, this method is too slow. The total number of death row inmates in the Yulan Empire isn't that large. Statistically speaking, the base number is too small, so the number of people who meet the criteria is also small. By the way, I can now test the values, so why are we still focusing on death row inmates...?"
Andrew suddenly realized that he no longer needed to feed each test subject Dragon Essence Blood, and the experiments would not result in death. He could simply bring his army over to test the experiments himself.
Without hesitation, Andrew mobilized 10,000 soldiers at once, starting the tests in batches. The tests lasted a full month, during which three soldiers scored close to twenty. Andrew shook his head and began testing the next batch...
Another year passed, Andrew tested the hundreds of thousands of soldiers in the Lance Duchy. He finally found four whose scores were below twenty. The highest score was fifteen, and the lowest score was only three!
"It seems that everyone's soul is unique, but there are also souls in the world with similar auras. Baruch and the others were able to fuse with the Four Divine Beasts Essence Blood, so their souls must also be in harmony with the Four Divine Beasts."
Seeing this information, Andrew finally confirmed that the possibility of blood essence fusion was not low. Of course, the Dragon Clan he tested were all from the Saint-level Domain, far inferior to the Four Divine Beasts that dominated countless planes. However, the results of this experiment and the plot of the original book both indicated that blood essence fusion could be successful.
After testing the army's stats, Andrew kept the four taxi drivers whose stats were below twenty.
These four were all Mid-Level Warrior, two at level six and two at level five. Standing before Andrew, the four felt an urge to worship him. This man was not only the all-powerful Duke of Lance, but also a legendary powerhouse standing at the pinnacle of the Yulan Continent!