Above The Sky
Chapter 425 - 425 395 Experimental Materials 23

425: Chapter 395 Experimental Materials (2/3) 425: Chapter 395 Experimental Materials (2/3) Leyan Territory was already under martial law.

This was the situation the Night Snake realized the moment he arrived in Leyan Territory.

The Holy Hall Enforcers hadn’t arrived yet, and these people didn’t seem to be hastening their own actions, even going so far as to take Alchemical Potions to speed up their flight with the help of the wind.

The ‘Swift Night Winged Snake’ was a Magical Beast Bloodline known for both secrecy and speed, so thunderstorms and pouring rain couldn’t stop him, and even served to disguise his tracks.

But even so, Leyan City, enveloped by seas of flowers, was plunged into turmoil.

The city, which should have been under curfew, was now brightly lit, especially the Baron’s castle, the home of their ‘experimental targets,’ which was surrounded by bursts of firelight that made him, accustomed to blending into the darkness, somewhat uncomfortable.

—What happened?

With such doubts in mind, the Night Snake, unwilling to expose his identity, concealed his movements; he floated through the curtain of rain, his black carapace absorbing all light and noise, rendering his form even more silently indiscernible.

Then, he saw her—for the Huai Guang Church’s Radiant Nun Yingguang was negotiating with a white-haired, exhausted old man, addressing the numerous city guards and civilian leaders gathered around the Baron’s castle.

The sister of the Holy Hall Enforcer known as ‘Redemption,’ indeed, she had been pursuing the missing cases all this way, but could she have found the target so soon?

And that old fellow beside her—wasn’t that Moda, the Steward of Baron Leyan?

Could it be that this steward had broken free from memory rewriting and had told the truth to the nun?

But how could that be possible, given Moda’s mental strength, how could he possibly break free from a Spirit User’s brainwashing?

“Wait, where is Baron Leyan?

And those four test subjects?”

Anxiety surged in his heart, and Night Snake suddenly felt a bad premonition, realizing the reason why the Huai Guang Church deployed two Holy Hall Enforcers to Leyan Territory: “Could it be that Baron Leyan and the test subjects slipped away from the castle against the plan, and this nun just happened to break into the castle and discover evidence of the experiments?!”

“How could it be such a coincidence!”

Soon, his conjecture was confirmed, for the white-haired, horned Sister Huai Guang pulled out one piece of evidence after another from within the castle.

If the initial bone sculptures and human skin scrolls didn’t reveal anything to ordinary people—only the experienced city guards and butchers turned pale—then what the Sister Huai Guang brought out next, human internal organs, and most visibly, human hands and feet preserved in antiseptic and nutrient solutions, even closed-eyed head specimens, made everyone scream in horror.

“Isn’t that little Bonnie from the village next door?

She disappeared a year ago, and her family was almost driven mad; her father was about to sell their house to hire Adventurers to look for her deep in the mountains…

How could she be here?!”

“Oh, Light of Huai Guang, this is too horrifying—what on earth is the Baron doing?!”

“It must be that the Baron was ensnared by others.

I knew from the start that those ominous children were not right!”

Even seeing such incontrovertible evidence, the citizens present found it hard to believe that their own Baron was an evil Alchemist who often went out to intercept merchant caravans and lone travelers, even plundering his own territory’s residents to conduct experiments.

On the policy front, Baron Leyan had always used the profits from Alchemy Materials such as Radiance Grass to provide various subsidies to the residents of the entire Leyan Territory, enabling them to settle down and farm peacefully; while not making them rich, it generally ensured they didn’t go hungry, even allowing them to occasionally add some possessions to their homes.

Surveying the entire Agate Stone Plains and its surroundings, there was no Lord more generous than Baron Leyan—this was commonly known.

How could he do such a thing?

But the evidence was overwhelming, and the Huai Guang Church never lied.

The silver-haired Dragon Maiden held aloft a peculiar sample bottle in her hand, inside which was a Radiance Grass sample entangled with mycelium.

The Radiant Nun addressed everyone solemnly, saying this was discovered in Baron Leyan’s Alchemy Laboratory—a bio-weapon sample unique to Fiery Flame Land.

Beyond that, she said nothing else, yet the crowd still erupted into an uproar.

—Fiery Flame Land?

—Baron Leyan is colluding with Fiery Flame Land, so he conducted these human experiments?!

—Is Fiery Flame Land aiming to harm our Leyan Territory?

Though it lacked any logic or reason, the mere three words ‘Fiery Flame Land’ were enough to infuriate all the Southern Ridge People—especially over the past six years, as the threat from Fiery Flame Land had indeed affected the Southwestern Trade Route, directly impacting the standard of living and interests of all Southern Ridge People.

In that light, cursing Fiery Flame Land itself became a kind of political correctness.

As for those who wanted to defend Fiery Flame Land, and logically analyze it…

Are you a spy for Fiery Flame Land?

You still want to speak for Fiery Flame Land!

“Fiery Flame Land?

Since when did we become Fiery Flame Land?”

The Night Snake was utterly perplexed in his heart: “Why do the Southern Ridge People love to use Fiery Flame Land as an excuse?”

“That little girl, I distinctly remember her brain structure being closer to test subject number four, the Spirit User Linda activated for the experiment to see if she could imbue a corpse with a soul and implant ‘false memories’ to create something akin to a ‘resurrected corpse,’ which is why she was abducted.”

As a scholar who had obtained his knighthood through research achievements, Night Snake was actually quite familiar with those experimental specimens, especially since many of them were special targets he had asked Baron Leyan to capture or had sent his men to seize.

That pitiful and foolish man would obediently do anything he was told, just with the excuse that “it’s related to the technology to resurrect your child.” Truly worthy of someone of Mountain People bloodline, with a head as direct and ignorant as a rock.

Yet, he didn’t know that his child, the ‘Chosen One’ himself, was also one of their experimental targets.

Spirit Energy.

Resurrection.

Immortality.

Even the most ignorant could understand the weight of these words.

Ordinary people would regard such matters as impossible fantasies, as miracles unattainable by anyone.

And they were turning these vain delusions into reality with their own hands, little by little.

Artificial Spirit Users were being experimented on by all Terra Nations, and there was already substantial evidence suggesting that after the Calamity of Heavenly Fall, all surviving Humans possessed a part of ‘Spirit Energy Potential,’ varying only in extent.

Through intense emotional upheaval, causing one’s thought patterns to distort and reach a certain threshold—a robust and twisted circuit that forms a ‘soul’—this latent power would gradually activate, and even manifest instantaneously as ‘Spirit Energy.’

Compared to fleeting happiness, enduring pain and despair, emptiness and distortion, are more likely to create powerful Spirit Energy.

This is a feasible and replicable process—Postnatal Spirit Energy Users can now be artificially created through technical means.

The catalyst just consumes a considerable amount of experimental materials, and the creation process requires a meticulously designed ‘plot’ to drastically affect emotions, which makes the procedure extremely cumbersome and still reliant on luck, thus lacking practicality for now.

In the end, the ‘Heartlight’ of the Third Energy Level is about uncovering the inner Spirit Energy, a more natural method for creating Artificial Spirit Users.

Should they really succeed in their research, it would only be useful for the First and Second Energy Levels, which isn’t of much significance.

Therefore, after confirming this, the Spirit Wisdom Institute shifted their focus onto the ‘Chosen Ones.’

Onto the newborn child of Baron Leyan.

Chosen Ones have no pattern to their emergence, they are a complete random variable.

These Spirit Energy Users are born with a soul and activated Spirit Energy, representing the ‘New Humanity’ that is born alongside Spirit Energy, undoubtedly the direction of future human evolution.

Each Chosen One’s Spirit Energy is different and not necessarily powerful, but they all have the potential to advance to the Third Energy Level because their souls are inherently fully integrated with their bodies, allowing them to naturally evolve into the ‘Heartlight Body,’ just like all Sublimators of the Third Energy Level.

How marvelous it is, the Chosen Ones with inherent souls – they are perfect subjects.

Exceptional materials, exceptional experimental targets.

—For instance, if a Chosen One’s soul loses its own body, will it still have various unique and strange qualities?

—Will their Spirit Energy continue to grow with ‘age’?

—After losing their own bodies, can the souls of Chosen Ones be resurrected in a brand-new body through ‘Echoes’ or ‘Memory Transcription’?

—Once they acquire a new body, can they naturally evolve a Heartlight Body again?

—At that time, can they still be considered Chosen Ones?

And so on and so forth…

The so-called ‘Echoes,’ ‘Resurrection,’ and ‘Immortality’ are essentially by-products of experiments.

They are the by-products of the pursuit of the essence of Spirit Energy and the principles of soul creation, as well as the natural wonders that arise in Chosen Ones.

Indeed, the quest for truth might consume some experimental materials, but this is also a necessary consumable.

For those to sacrifice for this great advancement is indeed the honor of those living in a daze, unaware of their own significance.

So the Spirit Wisdom Institute planned such an accident.

In that accident, the Baron lost his wife and child, but unexpectedly discovered that his child’s soul still existed… Then, the Men in Black who were ‘proactively’ sought after by the Baron started to ‘enthusiastically’ provide him with various resurrection plans.

One experimental plan after another.

Wrapped around this extensive experiment related to the essence of the soul, one subsidiary project unfolded after another.

Artificial Spirit Users, Cloned Spirit Users, Mental Distortion Limit, Flesh Reassembly, Anti-Mental Disturbance experiments…

Memory rewriting, Conceptual Coverage, Artificial Bloodline, Prophet’s Echo Assimilation…

On Baron Leyan and his ‘adopted sons and daughters,’ many research projects bore fruit, repeatedly earning commendations for their Southern Ridge branch.

Especially since Night Snake had opened up a series of connections along the South Ridge frontier, letting as many refugees as possible from the West Frontier Plains who left their homes come over… These refugees thought they could escape to the relatively more comfortable South Ridge, unaware that only a handful would be properly settled and the vast majority would have to fend for themselves.

As a result, they had an abundance of cheap experimental materials, which were extremely rich and valuable.

Most of these people who dared to leave their homes to seek a living often had strong spirits and had endured hardships, making them especially durable subjects for psychological experiments, far more useful than the average person.