Although this would waste at least twice as many Soul Beads, it would greatly reduce the workload. Zhou Ziwei didn't want to waste too much time here, lest things get complicated and the news of the Storm Mercenary Group's annihilation spread. In that case, his goal of waiting here for the Black Market Assassin Network to take the bait would be ruined.
Thinking of this, Zhou Ziwei began to fuse the soul beads in his hand. Although he could not separate the soul beads, it was not too difficult to combine the two formed soul beads back into one, but it would consume a little more soul power.
Once you have a high-quality soul bead that is made up of two soul beads, if you put an ordinary soul bead and this high-quality soul bead together, the ordinary soul bead will be quickly absorbed by the high-quality soul bead, and Zhou Ziwei will no longer need to waste any soul power.
Zhou Ziwei first tested the power of a high-quality soul bead that had fused two souls by smashing it into the cave. The power of this soul bead was indeed enhanced, but it did not double the power that Zhou Ziwei had imagined. Instead, it only increased the power of the rays generated by the explosion of the soul bead by about half a meter.
How could it only increase by half a meter? Zhou Ziwei scratched his head, genuinely puzzled. If that were the case, wouldn't it mean that even if he used the Soul Pearl, which fused with ten souls, to explode, the resulting ray wouldn't reach ten meters?
So... how many would there be?
Since the soul bead formed by the fusion of two souls can only release rays that are 1.5 meters long, it is likely that the soul bead formed by three souls will not be able to increase the length of its rays much further, and it certainly will not reach 2 meters.
Zhou Ziwei certainly didn't intend to waste so many soul beads to carve out this passage, but in order to figure out exactly how the power of his soul bead had increased, Zhou Ziwei still planned to make another soul bead that fused with three souls to test it out.
So Zhou Ziwei once again expended some of his soul power to fuse the two ordinary soul beads together. Then he took out another ordinary soul bead and placed it next to the high-quality soul bead, preparing to let the high-quality soul bead absorb the ordinary soul bead on its own.
When the two soul beads of different qualities were placed together, they seemed to be magnetically attracted to each other. Then Zhou Ziwei saw the color of the ordinary soul bead fade rapidly at a speed visible to the naked eye.
They watched helplessly as the color of the ordinary soul bead changed from its original jet black to light gray. In just a little while, once the color of the soul bead had completely faded, it would burst and disappear like a soap bubble.
Suddenly, Zhou Ziwei had a thought and hurriedly took action, grabbing one soul bead in each hand and forcefully separating the two soul beads that had been attached together.
Zhou Ziwei first put the soul bead that had fused with nearly three souls aside, then held the pale-colored soul bead that was on the verge of destruction tightly in his hand for a moment, and then burst into laughter.
The soul power contained within this soul bead is now pitifully small, but... isn't that just perfect for ordinary people to absorb? With so little soul power, it shouldn't be enough to burst a person's sea of souls, right? In this way, wouldn't he have essentially found a way to heal Xiaomei?
Thinking of this, Zhou Ziwei became even more excited. He didn't even bother to dig the tunnel anymore. He immediately took the Soul Bead, which had been weakened dozens of times, and ran to the Storm Mercenary member he had turned into a vegetable-like, mentally impaired person. He roughly pinched open the person's nose and, without saying a word, stuffed the bubble-like Soul Bead into the person's mouth...
Next, Zhou Ziwei once again channeled a wisp of his soul power into the person's body, closely monitoring the changes in the weakened soul bead and the person's reaction, his excitement tinged with boundless anticipation...
Volume 1, Rebirth of a Prodigy, Chapter 259: White Mist
We finally succeeded!
Seeing that the weakened soul bead was absorbed by the Storm Mercenary Group member in front of him, and that there was no sign of him exploding or dying even after a long while, and that his eyes were becoming clearer and clearer, Zhou Ziwei finally breathed a slight sigh of relief.
The mercenary remained silent, but upon seeing the haphazardly scattered bodies—some unconscious, some already dead—he appeared somewhat apprehensive. He clenched his fists and instinctively ducked into a corner, watching Zhou Ziwei warily.
At least he's started to show emotion, which is a good thing.
Zhou Ziwei knew perfectly well that the soul bead from before had been weakened far too much. It was probably just a hair's breadth away from disappearing into the air like a soap bubble. Therefore, the soul power contained within it was pitifully small, which was why the mercenary had not fully regained his senses.
So how much soul power can an ordinary person withstand at once to effectively absorb it without being overwhelmed? Zhou Ziwei felt he had to figure this out, otherwise he wouldn't dare to let Xiao Mei use it recklessly.
For now, we have no choice but to use this unfortunate soul as a live subject for experiments.
However, this mercenary shouldn't be considered too unlucky. At least he has a glimmer of hope to survive because of this. Zhou Ziwei has decided that as long as this mercenary can survive the next experiment without dying, Zhou Ziwei will keep him and make him one of his followers.
He estimated that even if the mercenary's soul sea could gradually repair the original damage with the continuous replenishment of soul power, his original memories would most likely be gone. In that case, no matter how vicious the mercenary was before, after this ordeal, he would be like a blank sheet of paper. How Zhou Ziwei would guide him in the future would depend on how he would change him.
Next, Zhou Ziwei took out three ordinary soul beads again. He first fused two of them together, and then let the upgraded soul bead naturally absorb the energy from the other ordinary soul bead. When the energy in the ordinary soul bead was almost absorbed, Zhou Ziwei forcibly separated the two soul beads.
However, Zhou Ziwei acted a little too early this time, leaving about one-tenth of the energy remaining in the Soul Pearl.
In Zhou Ziwei's opinion... this amount of soul power shouldn't be enough to burst an ordinary person's sea of souls, but the specifics can only be known after trying it.
Once again, the newly weakened Soul Bead was stuffed into the mercenary's mouth. This time, the mercenary reacted more strongly, his face turning pale and red in turns, as if he was constantly suffering some kind of intense torment. After five or six minutes of this, he suddenly lost consciousness.
At first, Zhou Ziwei thought the guy was dead and was really worried. After carefully checking the man's pulse and pupils, he finally confirmed that the mercenary was not dead yet, but had just temporarily fallen into a coma.
Zhou Ziwei wasn't sure when the mercenary would wake up, so he left him there and left Little Mosquito to guard the place to prevent the guy from harming the little princess and the other children after he woke up. Zhou Ziwei himself had to continue his hard labor of digging the tunnel.
The power of the Soul Bead Ray, fused with three souls, didn't reach two meters as expected; it seemed to be only a little over 1.8 meters. It appears that the more souls a Soul Bead fuses with, the more disproportionately its power increases... Zhou Ziwei had originally thought that if adding a soul would increase the ray's length by one meter, he could simply fuse over thirty souls to create a Soul Bead and throw it onto the stone wall, instantly blasting open the passage. However, it now seems that's not the case at all. Regardless of how to maximize the effect of such a Soul Bead elsewhere, if it's only used for excavating a cave, it's clearly most cost-effective to simply use the most ordinary Soul Beads to smash it one by one.
However, in order to increase the speed, Zhou Ziwei still had to waste a little and used the soul pearl formed by the fusion of two souls. This way, the diameter of the blasted cave could reach three meters. He only needed to press the resulting stone powder on both sides and pat it down, so there was no need to transport it out of the cave one shovel at a time. This saved a lot of time.
Nevertheless, the workload was still considerable. By the time dawn broke, Zhou Ziwei had only managed to carve out a passage that was a dozen meters long.
This location is about twenty meters away from the direction Zhou Ziwei predicted. He estimated that with another day, they could completely dig through the tunnel.
Twenty meters seems to be a distance that can be scanned with soul power!
This cave was not easy to dig. It was time-consuming and laborious, and Zhou Ziwei made him look like a mud figure, covered in gray stone powder from head to toe. He looked as wretched as could be.
It would be terrible if we dug to our destination only to find there was nothing inside.
Zhou Ziwei didn't dare leave himself with this mystery, so he quickly released a wisp of his soul power, projecting it directly in the direction the cave was being dug...
Huh... what is this?
Zhou Ziwei's soul power had only penetrated about ten meters of rock strata when he suddenly felt a void ahead, and he had entered a hollow mountain belly.
What surprised Zhou Ziwei greatly was that... this space, sealed inside the mountain, was filled with a milky white mist. The mist seemed to have a soul and thoughts, but it did not repel Zhou Ziwei's soul power in the slightest. Instead, it had a faint attraction to him.
As Zhou Ziwei continued to extend inward, he could feel the fog becoming thicker and thicker, so thick that it hardly resembled fog at all, but rather something like cream.
At a depth of fifteen or sixteen meters, the suction force of the mist on the soul power became even more terrifying. Zhou Ziwei felt that if he relaxed even slightly, the released soul power would probably be wasted. He dared not let the soul power go any deeper and quickly withdrew it back into his body.
This white mist seems a bit strange... Could there be any danger in it?
Zhou Ziwei immediately became alert. There was no doubt that there were strange things in the space inside this mountain, but the question was... whether what was inside was a good thing or a bad thing for him? He had used up so many soul pearls just to penetrate this mountain and search for something he didn't even know what it was, and he didn't know if it was worth it.
After hesitating for a moment, Zhou Ziwei gritted his teeth. Regardless of whether it was worth it or not, since they had already dug the passage to a depth of more than ten meters, there were only ten meters left before they could truly enter the space inside the mountain.
If we give up now, we will definitely be safe, but... those twenty-odd soul beads that we just used up will just go down the drain for nothing?
Zhou Ziwei was not a person who was afraid of trouble. Since the things inside had aroused his curiosity, if he did not find out the truth, he would probably not be able to sleep peacefully in the future.
Damn, it's just a matter of consuming another ten or so Soul Beads, right? Let's do it!
Without further hesitation, Zhou Ziwei took out two more ordinary soul beads, fused them together, and then smashed them deep into the cave...
With a final, muffled thud, the cave wall in front of him crumbled into dust, and Zhou Ziwei finally broke through the entire 26-meter-deep cave.
The moment the tunnel was completed, Zhou Ziwei immediately ran out through it. He dared not venture into the mountainside at this time.
If the interior of this mountain is truly a natural space without any connection to the outside world, then there is probably no air inside, but there might be quite a bit of toxic gas. What exactly that milky white mist is makes Zhou Ziwei even more suspicious. At this moment, it is best to temporarily hide and let the air circulate first.
Back into the main cave after exiting the passage, Zhou Ziwei stood cautiously to the side, waiting. He could sense that the air in the passage was indeed circulating, but the circulation was extremely slow. This indicated that apart from the newly excavated passage, there were probably no other ventilation holes, not even the smallest ones. Otherwise, there would definitely be strong convection within.
Zhou Ziwei waited outside for about half an hour, estimating that even if the air circulation was slow, the air inside the mountain should have been almost completely exchanged and replenished. Only then did Zhou Ziwei take a deep breath and carefully walk into the passage.
Passing through the last patch of stone dust that hadn't been cleared away, Zhou Ziwei was immediately greeted by a vast expanse of white, as if he had stepped into the clouds. Upon closer inspection, Zhou Ziwei realized that the milky white mist was not actually water vapor; its condensation was very strong, and even after so much breathing, not a single wisp of mist had drifted away with the airflow, indicating that the mist's mobility was not very high.
Zhou Ziwei tried reaching out a hand and gently stirring it in the mist in front of him. The mist churned and rolled like smoke for a moment before gradually returning to calm, remaining unchanged from its original state.
After thinking for a moment, Zhou Ziwei still didn't dare to go in rashly, so he released a wisp of his soul power again and carefully explored inside.
Although the fog had a strong pull on soul power, Zhou Ziwei had already made up his mind and was prepared to sacrifice this wisp of soul power. As long as he could find out what was inside and whether it was useful or harmful to him, it would be worth it even if he lost some soul power. This was much better than him personally going in and risking his life.
The soul power was like a flexible tentacle, burrowing around in the white mist. Soon... after penetrating about five or six meters, the tentacle-like soul power seemed to have encountered something and was "whooshed" away to the side.
"Huh... is it a soul, or... a living being?"
Generally speaking, there are only two situations in which his soul power is directly deflected: either it touches the body of another living being with a soul, or it directly touches a simple soul.
This is a completely enclosed mountain interior. Zhou Ziwei doesn't believe that any animal could survive and reproduce in this godforsaken place. So, it's quite possible that the thing is a pure soul. After all, he had seen many members of the Storm Mercenary Group whose souls, like moths to a flame, rushed into this direction one after another. Presumably... this must be what those things are.
When Zhou Ziwei's soul power was flicked by that thing, it immediately felt a little out of control. And as soon as it was out of control, he felt the deadly suction force in the mist increase exponentially.
This immediately startled Zhou Ziwei, who hurriedly withdrew all his soul power back into his body...
“Woo—” Zhou Ziwei seemed to hear a silent roar, which was obviously the soul cry made by the soul he had just encountered.
Of course... this kind of soul cry is different from a soul roar. It should just be a natural expression of a soul venting its emotions. However, Zhou Ziwei was still startled and quickly took out a soul bead to be on high alert.
In his view, although the terrifying rays emitted by the Soul Bead after being wrapped in soul power would decompose normal matter into its original particles, this did not mean that the Soul Bead could only be used to deal with ordinary physical objects. The ethereal and intangible creatures such as soul bodies would probably also suffer a fatal blow under the attack of the Soul Bead's rays. The rays would probably completely disintegrate the soul as well.
However, these ideas are still just Zhou Ziwei's personal speculations at this point. Whether they will actually work or not will only be known after a real experiment.
Unfortunately, although Zhou Ziwei was prepared for battle, the spirit that had been yelling so fiercely just moments before, now shrieked twice and then stopped, showing no intention of chasing after him.
What a cunning creature!
Zhou Ziwei couldn't see where the soul was, nor could he see what was in that thick fog. So he didn't dare to throw the soul bead out carelessly. After all, the decomposition rays of the soul bead were too terrifying. What if there was something good deep in the fog, but it was destroyed by the soul bead in an instant? Wouldn't that be terrible?
After a brief stalemate with no movement from within the mist, Zhou Ziwei finally couldn't resist any longer and cautiously stepped into the mist.
In an instant, a feeling of returning to the womb welled up within Zhou Ziwei. He felt as if every pore of his body was being soaked in a warm and cozy atmosphere. The comfortable feeling traveled through his nerves to every part of his body, to every cell, causing Zhou Ziwei to momentarily lose his senses...
What...what is this thing...why is it so strange?
Feeling that the white mist was even stranger than he had imagined, but that it did not seem to harm his body, Zhou Ziwei was slightly relieved and then tentatively took a few more steps inside.
The deeper he went, the denser the fog became, and the more intense the comfort it brought to his body. Eventually, the intense comfort even reminded Zhou Ziwei of the feeling he had when he made love with Liu Xiaofei in Tengchong a few days ago... Yes, it was that feeling... the peak of pleasure that men and women experience after engaging in certain activities. The only difference was that in the latter case, the wonderful feeling would only last for a brief moment before slowly fading away. But now, Zhou Ziwei was experiencing this feeling continuously, and the pleasurable comfort from the outside in seemed to be slowly and steadily intensifying, as if as long as Zhou Ziwei was inside this thick fog, this wonderful feeling would never dissipate.
This is wonderful... I never knew being human could be so comfortable!
Zhou Ziwei sighed silently to himself, then strode forward, casting aside all his worries and hesitations, and slowly but resolutely walked deeper into the fog...
The sound of gurgling spring water reached Zhou Ziwei's ears. He had finally ventured into the deepest part of the thick fog. Here, if Zhou Ziwei released even a trace of his soul power outside his body, it would be immediately pulled away from his control by an invisible force and disappear without a trace. Helpless, he dared not release his soul power outside his body anymore. He could only try to enhance his five senses as much as possible, especially his eyesight. Without worrying about his nerves being unable to withstand it, he enhanced it more than ten times in one go. Only then, with the help of a sliver of dim light coming in from outside the cave, could he see that in the very center of this mountain cave, there was a pit about the size of a bathtub, with a pool of milky white liquid flowing inside.
The pool water rippled gently, and every now and then a bubble would rise from below, bursting quickly on the surface of the liquid. After the bubble burst, a wisp of thick, almost tangible mist would rise and merge into the air above, increasing the concentration of the mist.
Surrounding this white spring were dozens of souls in different forms, all standing there as if in a daze, each not bothering the other, only occasionally taking a slow step forward, moving closer to the spring.
At this moment, Zhou Ziwei was almost like those souls without physical bodies, bathed in the thick fog, which gave him an unprecedented sense of intoxication. He seemed to have a feeling that the white spring water must be the most magical liquid in the world, and that as long as he could step into it, he would obtain the most beautiful enjoyment in the world...
Volume 1, Rebirth of a Prodigy, Chapter 260: White Flame
Step by step, he followed his instincts and walked towards the pool of milky white water, but Zhou Ziwei was constantly struggling inside.
Regardless of whether the milky white spring water was actually beneficial to people, just one glance was enough to captivate him, drawing him in involuntarily. He couldn't stop even if he wanted to. Based on this alone, Zhou Ziwei knew that there must be something strange about the spring water!
Could this spring water actually control people's thoughts, or even their bodies? Oh... it can control not only people's thoughts, but even the thoughts of ghosts!
Seeing the faint, illusory figures around him, all of whom were walking towards the spring water step by step, just like Zhou Ziwei, and all of whom seemed to be acting against their will, Zhou Ziwei's inner struggle grew stronger and stronger.
But the spring water seemed to possess a fatal magic for him, making it impossible for him to resist its allure. Several times he resolved to turn around and leave immediately, but... the pleasure that the white mist brought to his body and soul made him unwilling to move an inch. Moreover, just looking at the thick, milky white spring water was like a voice constantly tempting him, making him powerless to resist even though he knew it was dangerous...
Finally... Zhou Ziwei walked step by step to the side of the spring. If he took just one more step forward, he would immediately fall into the pool.
However, at that moment, a soul on the other side of the spring jumped into the milky white spring water with a "whoosh" before him. Then Zhou Ziwei saw that the faint phantom seemed to have been doused with gasoline and set on fire.
With a "whoosh," a white, flame-like substance burst forth from the spring, winding its way up along the illusory image of the soul. In the blink of an eye, it completely engulfed the soul. In less than a second, the soul that had stepped into the spring was burned to ashes, leaving not a trace. The churning spring water instantly calmed down, returning to stillness, with only occasional small bubbles rising from it, bursting and releasing thick, alluring white mist.
Zhou Ziwei suddenly felt a chill run through him.
Is this... is this the consequence of entering the spring? If he hadn't been a little slow, if he hadn't still had a sliver of reason left in his mind, then... he would be the one burned to ashes by now.