Saul stood frozen in place, not daring to move.
There was no surprise at falling into a windfall, only an oppressive feeling of dark clouds looming overhead, casting an eerie shadow.
Before Saul could react a second ti, he heard Gorsa's light laugh, and saw his silver eyes narrow in a crescent shape.
"No need to be so nervous. Perhaps you’ll die before that day ever cos?"
In that case, I'd prefer inheriting your legacy, thank you!
Saul didn't dare to voice his thoughts and could only lower his head even further.
"Let's talk business. What did you find?"
Saul took a deep breath and began to report, "After returning to the second storage room, I placed the puppet on myself as per your instructions. But when I went to check on the corpse group, the puppet's eyes suddenly turned black."
"Is it the newly placed body that's problematic?" Gorsa imdiately guessed.
"Yes, I carefully examined Nick's body and discovered subtle ntal fluctuations on him. If it weren't for the changes in the puppet you gave , I might have mistaken it as so fluctuations from the necromantic formation inside the stone coffin."
Gorsa leaned against the wall, showing no surprise. "Interesting, while we were on guard against hidden enemies, the real problem turned out to be the corpses that appeared as per routine beside you."
He looked down at his hand, noticing that one of his fingers' pink bandages seed a bit loose. Before Saul could notice it, it tightened again.
"If they are using the bodies to hint at you, the instructions must be very simple."
"I've noted the ntal fluctuations. Master, do you think we could deduce any aning from it?"
Saul handed over the notes he'd been carrying close to his body, but Gorsa rely glanced at them and returned them imdiately.
"I’ve never worked with modified languages, and without understanding the foundational logic, reverse-engineering could lead to many possibilities. It's of no value," Gorsa said. "However, I can check those who have interacted with the bodies. You don't need to worry about it. Just focus on the new experint. I heard you've applied for the soul infusion experint's test subject?"
"Yes," Saul hurriedly replied, "But I only asked them to assist in recording specific reactions."
However, Gorsa waved his hand dismissively. "It's fine. The soul infusion experint is about to be discontinued. It turns out, people who can't even reach the Second Rank by themselves will get no use from a Second Rank body. Just treat them as normal expendables."
"Uh, I understand."
The Tower Master was telling Saul not to care about the lives of the test subjects during his experints.
After a mont of silence in the room, Saul thought he'd be sent away next.
But unexpectedly, Gorsa sighed softly and began discussing another matter. "Kaz should have already told you about the specific division of labor and progress for the experint. I think it's ti you knew the background of this experint."
Gorsa had considered telling Saul earlier, but his physical condition had been unstable at the ti.
"The origin of the resurrection is that soone died. However, Yura's situation was different—she chose death voluntarily."
Voluntary death?
A reckless act?
Saul's eyes widened as realization hit him. "Is it the experint about whether the soul can exist independently from the body?"
"That's right, it was for that hypothesis..."
Gorsa's thoughts began drifting to the past.
He had actively sought a marriage alliance with the Kema Duchy, aiming to find soone to help him manage the territories they had sent to him.
He was a wizard, not a lord, and certainly not one of those who had lost hope of further advancent, only to numb themselves with secular power and pleasures.
So who would want to personally govern a territory? Naturally, it was better to find a helper, and the best helper was the current administrator of the land.
Thus, Yura had caught his attention due to her pursuit of knowledge, and in the end, he chose her.
But after a few years of marriage, Yura's true nature revealed itself. Not only was she stubborn, but she was also daring enough to experint with anything.
Especially after Gorsa opened the material vault to her, so of her wild ideas began to materialize, and she began conducting increasingly crazy experints.
Wizards specializing in dark magic were always fascinated by corpses and souls, and thus most of Yura's experints were centered around these things.
Gorsa did not find this inappropriate; on the contrary, he felt this was the mark of a true wizard, and as a result, he admired Yura even more.
Unfortunately, the story didn’t evolve into a sweet romance.
One day, Gorsa returned ho to find his young wife with her head split in two, while her excited soul floated in the air.
Can the soul exist independently of the body?
They had discussed this question long ago, and at that ti, Gorsa had dismissed Yura's hypothesis. He never expected that she would use herself as an experint to prove her viewpoint right.
Gorsa asked Yura why, if she could already stabilize her soul leaving the body, she still had to kill her physical body and sever all escape routes.
Yura replied that without fully detaching from her body, the experintal data would be inaccurate.
At this point, Gorsa shook his head with a sigh. "That was the day I truly realized how crazy my wife was."
Saul, listening across from him, was left dumbfounded.
For an unverified hypothesis, she had even been willing to sacrifice her life.
"After the soul left her body, the most important thing was, of course, to keep the soul pure, untouched by corruption." Gorsa continued, "Yura was not unprepared. She had many temporary vessels, the standing corpses you saw in the storage room."
"Before she officially killed herself, she had possessed each of them to ensure there were no issues, thinking it would be flawless."
However, things still went awry. Despite being cautious, avoiding any form of corruption, and occasionally resting in a body, Yura’s soul still began to undergo mutation.
The first symptoms were that Yura began to feel that she was no longer herself.
Gorsa took over Yura's experint, tirelessly working to purify her soul. Yet, the corruption kept coming back.
Gorsa imdiately halted the soul independence experint.
He began creating stable bodies for Yura.
But this experint was also unsuccessful. No matter how he created a body, even one nearly identical to Yura's using her flesh, it couldn't permanently house her soul.
After several failed possession experints, sothing even worse began to happen. Yura gradually forgot her past mories and insisted that she was just a copy created by Gorsa.
She even considered the scenes where Gorsa had handled the duplicate Yura as proof of Gorsa killing her.
"Creating a vessel that can permanently house Yura's soul is very difficult," Gorsa sighed. "Since then, I gathered a group of wizards and recruited many apprentices, starting resurrection experints focusing on soul purification and finding compatible bodies."
"But even after decades, we still haven't found a suitable vessel that can protect the soul from corruption like the original body."
At this point, Gorsa suddenly lifted his head and fixed his intense gaze on Saul.
"So, Saul, how did you manage it?"
Saul froze, his mind buzzing.
Gorsa's body slowly leaned forward, and his silver eyes seed almost ready to pop out from the bandages. "How did you manage to take control of another’s body and still stay alive without any signs of corruption or loss of control?"
"I’m really... very curious."
(End of Chapter)
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