Otherworld Advance Team
Chapter 520 - 513: Soul and Spirit

Chapter 520: Chapter 513: Soul and Spirit

"Don’t get upset just yet." Seeing her agitated state, Luo’er could only try to calm her first before speaking further.

"Do you know that person named Fulajie’er who Luo’er mentioned?" Li Si stepped forward, looking at her in amazement as he asked this question.

"Of course, I know her!" Nightingale lowered her head, speaking through gritted teeth so tight that everyone could hear the grinding noise they made.

"This..." Luo’er and Li Si exchanged a glance, at a loss for what to say next.

Nightingale kept her head down in silence for a while, as if realizing something. She let go of Luo’er’s clothes and stood up resolutely, walked straight to Li Si, and said with a determined look: "Li Si, I want to find her!"

"Wait a moment," Li Si instinctively stepped back, then said seriously, "Nightingale, you joined the Frontline Command before me, so you should know the rules of the command better than I do."

"But..." Nightingale pressed her lips together, unable to retort.

"You are the liaison officer of the Advance Team, and also one of the most reliable researchers at the Headquarters. We don’t want to lose you. If you want to go, you should at least give me a reason first!" Li Si did not yield an inch when it came to this matter.

"I understand." Nightingale nodded, then turned and walked back to the spot where she was sitting just now. She bent down to pick up the scattered books on the ground, flipped through a few pages, and held them up for everyone to see.

"As I’ve mentioned before, ’Creating God Plan’ comprises two projects - body creation and soul ascension. From what we’ve seen so far, the people of the Ancient States seem to have overcome the difficulties of body creation. They are probably studying the consciousness network device left behind by our ancestors, trying to achieve soul ascension," Nightingale stated coolly.

"You mean..." Luo’er widened his eyes as if he had understood her intention.

"Exactly," Nightingale glanced at him then continued, "Those ghosts that you have encountered are probably failed experimental subjects from the soul-ascension experiments."

"Why is that so?" At her words, Luo’er and Cheng Ziang looked at each other in shock.

"Soul ascension requires solving two problems. The first one is the soul’s dependence on the body. If not interfered with, a separated soul will return to the body in a short time, which makes it impossible to transfer the soul to another ’body’."

"Secondly, once the soul loses its way back to the body, it will dissipate quickly in the atmosphere, and the body will become brain dead due to the loss of the soul. As a result, a person who has their soul extracted is essentially dead. Therefore, the second problem is how to constrain the soul so it doesn’t dissipate in the atmosphere, and to ensure that the body does not die," Nightingale explained.

"So," Luo’er widened his eyes and asked her, "the reason those ghosts can appear is because their souls are constrained by the Magic Cluster?"

"That should be the case," Nightingale nodded, then continued, "Those people probably thought of using the Magic Cluster to constrain the soul and to stop it from dissipating. Through my long-term research, I found that the souls of Otherworld’s inhabitants have a high affinity with magic, almost equal to the affinity with their bodies. Therefore, if they could use the Magic Cluster to constrain the soul, the soul’s loss would be minimized, which could then be compensated for with magic."

"So, does that mean that those people’s plan has already been more than half successful?" Luo’er asked anxiously.

"It shouldn’t happen so quickly. The combination of the soul and the god-creating body is not an easy task, there are too many uncertainties in it. That’s why those people are using others as experimental subjects," Nightingale analyzed.

"So, is Fulajie’er an experimental subject?" Hu Daoke widened his eyes in anger as he questioned.

Nightingale did not directly answer his question, but after pondering for a moment, she asked another question: "Aren’t the majority of those ghosts females and relatively young?"

"How do you know that?" Luo’er was taken aback, asking almost subconsciously. During his visit to Nailin Town, most of the information he gathered confirmed that the majority of the ghosts were indeed female voices.

"Women’s souls have a great affinity for magic, far more than men’s, making them the primary subjects for the experiments. Moreover, the younger these subjects are, the greater their will to survive. If their souls leave their bodies, their first instinct is to return, rather than let their souls dissipate. The experimenters need such vibrant, survival-driven souls." Nightingale said coldly.

"That’s too much!" Hu Daoke clenched his fists, his teeth locked tight.

Luoya stood beside Cheng Ziang and seeing Hu Daoke’s reaction, she couldn’t help but look up at Cheng Ziang, and asked curiously, "Why is he so angry?"

Cheng Ziang glanced at her and sighed, "Even on Earth, conducting dangerous experiments on human bodies is against ethics. It’s considered a crime against humanity!"

"Oh!" Luoya looked at his slightly stern face and nodded in half-understanding.

"But how did they end up in that state?" Luo’er couldn’t help but ask.

"Tell me everything you’ve been through without missing a detail!" Nightingale commanded.

"I understand!" Luo’er nodded.

Then, he described in detail their experiences over the past two days to Nightingale, with the situation where they met Fulajie’er narrated particularly thoroughly. Nightingale listened attentively, nodding occasionally.

"So, their bodies are still in a state of sleep, but once they fall into deep sleep, the souls leave their bodies and wander in the forest. Is that it?" asked Nightingale.

"Yes, that’s what she told me, but I’m having a hard time understanding her concept of sleep and deep sleep." Luo’er replied honestly.

"Hmm." Nightingale nodded and then she turned around to look through some files. After a while, she found a stack of blueprints, glanced through them and seemed to have found the answer.

"Exactly, their souls haven’t completely left their bodies, but they can’t return either. Once their bodies start to fall into deep sleep, the consciousness in their brains would control their souls outside the body and wander around." Nightingale muttered to herself.

"What does that mean?" Luo’er was confused and completely lost the thread.

"In simple terms, as I mentioned before, if the soul leaves the body and isn’t restricted, it will return to the body quickly. But if the connection between the soul and the body is completely severed, the soul might dissipate in an instant before even getting controlled."

"Thus, the experimenters must have played a trick. They didn’t fully block the soul’s return path, used the body to constrain the soul from dissipating, and then used magic to create a ’container’ to lock up the soul. In this way, a small part of the soul remains connected to the body, with the majority wrapped in magic and lingering outside the body." Nightingale explained.

"But why do they have to be in deep sleep to wander outside? If the soul has already left the body, why does the body have to be in deep sleep for the soul to roam?" Luo’er couldn’t help but ask.

"Consciousness!" Nightingale analyzed, "It’s their consciousness. The experimenters can’t control the channel through which consciousness transfers. Hence, consciousness would move back and forth between the soul and body. Only consciousness is the real self."

"Isn’t consciousness just the soul?" Luo’er asked, his eyes wide.

"Not really. Rather than calling it a soul, it is better to say it is made up of the three souls and seven spirits, forming human sensation and physical body. Consciousness, however, is the soul, forming human thought and is the real self. The experimenters could force the spirits out of the body as they have form and can have affinity with magic. On the other hand, the soul is formless and can’t be controlled."

"They restricted the connection between the body and spirits, not allowing spirits easily return to the body, and then wrapped them in a magic container. But the soul can’t be controlled, they can attach to the spirits. The experiment subjects have some spirits remaining in their bodies to maintain the body’s functioning, so their consciousness can attach to their bodies. But once the body falls into a deep sleep, their consciousness can leave the body, attaching to the spirits outside, not constrained by the Magic Cluster." Nightingale explained.

"Err... " At this point, Luo’er was speechless. Nightingale’s research was too profound for him to even grasp any question to ask next.