hotmtlnovel Chapter 72 If only I had stripped their spiritual roots back then
Chapter 72 If only I had stripped their spiritual roots back then
Chapter 72 If only I had stripped their spiritual roots back then
"—It's a bit expensive." Qin Mo rubbed his temples.
Then he scrolled up and saw the prices of those high-level spiritual roots: top-grade heavenly spiritual root, 500,000 merits.
A top-tier dual-attribute celestial spiritual root, starting at one million merit points.
'
Qin Mo silently closed the page.
I'm not even going to look at it anymore.
Even if I saw it, I couldn't afford it.
However, he then thought, if he really wanted to create a cultivation army, what would his purpose be?
It was so that he could have a team that could fight for him, help him reap merit, and help him expand his power.
Instead of cultivating some genius disciple.
If that's the case, why be so fixated on the quality of one's spiritual roots?
An ordinary spiritual root, or even a damaged one, is enough.
Cultivators with incomplete spiritual roots have slow cultivation speed, difficulty in breaking through bottlenecks, and low potential for the future.
But so what?
He doesn't need them to cultivate to the Nascent Soul stage or the Divine Transformation stage.
Even if they are only at the Qi Refining or Foundation Establishment stages, they are already extremely powerful in this world.
A cultivator in the Qi Refining stage can cast spells.
In this world, these things are called psionic energy. And the value of a stable psionic energy user who cannot be corrupted by chaos is self-evident.
"Hmm—that works."
Qin Mo nodded slightly, his thoughts gradually becoming clearer.
"A flawed spiritual root costs one thousand merits, and with my own spiritual energy infusion, no extra cost is required."
"One thousand merits are needed to cultivate one immortal cultivator."
"If we accumulate enough merit in the future, we can gradually upgrade it; let's first set up the framework."
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"The only problem is the choice of people."
Whom should the spiritual root be implanted?
This is a question that needs to be carefully considered.
Loyalty, competence, and willpower are all indispensable.
Cultivating immortality is no child's play; those with weak willpower will suffer from qi deviation, which is the least of their worries.
Moreover, if these people were to rebel after obtaining the power of cultivation, they would be troublesome rather than helpful to Qin Mo.
"No rush, take your time, observe first."
66
Qin Mo closed his eyes, and in his mind, the faces of Jill, Brod, the two elder sisters, and even the Star Guardian soldiers appeared.
Which of these people are worth cultivating? Which are capable of shouldering great responsibilities?
"Let's make a decision after this battle is over."
He opened his eyes, his gaze carrying a hint of emotion.
"If I had known, I should have stripped those people of their spiritual roots when I was collecting their souls back then."
If their spiritual roots had been carefully removed and preserved back then, a great deal of merit could have been saved now.
"What a pity, what a pity."
Qin Mo shook his head. When he was collecting the souls back then, who would have thought things would turn out like this?
Who would have thought that a heretical cultivator would transmigrate to such a world?
"Never mind, I don't want to think about it anymore."
Qin Mo readjusted his thoughts.
"Why not use the resources at hand to conduct a small experiment first?"
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His gaze fell upon the storage ring. Inside were the hundred fighter servants that Orik had tearfully handed over.
"Perfect."
With a thought, Qin Mo probed his storage ring with his spiritual power, and with a gentle twitch, a fighter jet servant appeared out of thin air.
It is about two meters tall and has a robust build, but that robustness does not come from training, but from extensive mechanical modifications.
The left arm was replaced with a chainsaw sword, with rough gears and pistons exposed. The right arm, while retaining its human form, was covered with a metal-reinforced skeleton from the shoulder to the fingertips.
More than 60% of the torso is covered by mechanical components, with artificial muscle fibers and hydraulic pipes intertwined.
The head—that head was the part that Qin Mo felt most familiar with.
Half of the skull was opened and replaced with a transparent alloy shield, which clearly showed the brain tissue inside, most of which had been removed. Only the brainstem and part of the cerebellum were retained, which are responsible for maintaining the most basic vital signs and motor coordination.
As for the cerebral cortex, the parts responsible for thinking, memory, and emotion were all removed.
Instead, a chip embedded in the cranial cavity is used to receive commands and execute combat procedures.
Those eyes were empty and lifeless.
It looks like a living corpse.
Qin Mo circled the mechanical servant, carefully examining every trace of modification on its body.
Then he smiled.
"I didn't look at it carefully before, but now that I do, it's clear I didn't."
He reached out and gently flicked the alloy shield on the servant's head, producing a crisp "ding" sound.
"The Empire's methods are no less impressive than those of us heretics."
His tone carried a sense of "admiration between colleagues".
Depriving people of their minds, cutting off their souls, and turning living people into tools that only know how to obey and kill—isn't that exactly what those Corpse Refining Sect and Soul Stealing Sect in the cultivation world do?
In fact, the empire did it even more thoroughly than those evil cultivators, turning this kind of thing into an assembly line.
At least for evil cultivators in the cultivation world, refining a corpse puppet requires carefully selecting materials and taking several months to slowly refine it.
And what about empires?
Factory production.
Mass production.
"Yes, host." The system's voice sounded at the opportune moment.
"These servants, officially called 'combat servo units,' are cyborgs stripped of their minds, retaining only their combat instincts. Most of them come from artificially cultivated bodies, that is, unconscious human bodies mass-produced in artificial wombs, but some are modified by criminals."
"Artificially cultivated prototypes—" Qin Mo nodded thoughtfully, "In other words, most mechs are born without a complete consciousness?"
'
"Yes. Base-type mechs have never possessed a complete soul. Their souls are incomplete from the moment they are born, consisting only of the most basic spark of life and a faint glimmer of soul light that maintains their physiological functions."
6
"Hmm, 6"
Qin Mo closed his eyes and probed the machine servant's body with his divine sense. Sure enough, in the body pieced together by machinery and flesh, the soul was only a faint, almost invisible glimmer.
Even the soul is incomplete —
'
Qin Mo withdrew his divine sense, opened his eyes, and smiled slightly.
"In that case,"
He raised his right hand, and the banner of ten thousand souls trembled slightly. A ghostly blue soul flew out from the banner.
That was a ferocious soul that Qin Mo had long since refined, worn away its mind, leaving only its instinct to obey.
Qin Mo flicked his index finger, and the soul, like a stream of light, directly entered the servant's skull.
It merged with that faint remnant of the soul flame.
The servant's body suddenly trembled, and the nerve synapses on the surface of its half-exposed brainstem became active at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Then, those dull eyes lit up.
It transformed into conscious eyes that glowed with a faint blue light.
Then, it turned to Qin Mo and knelt on one knee.
"My lord, what are your commands?"
Qin Mo looked at the servant kneeling before him and nodded in satisfaction.
"Hmm, the fusion is going quite well. The soul stability is over 90%, and there is no rejection reaction."
"Wait, I'll use you as an experiment."
"6
"Yes, my lord," the servant replied.