"Isn’t the lifespan of cultivating immortals very long?"
An Jing narrowed his eyes, concealing the flickering bloodlight within his pupils: "And they can even create Artificial Heavenly Spirit Roots? I remember you saying that creating artificial Spirit Roots is feasible, but it requires a Golden Core to do so, and consumes quite a lot of resources."
"To be precise, it has to be a Golden Core Peak cultivator, a True Lord who has obtained the ’Immortal Industry’ to manage it, and it also requires the consumption of the Five Elements Spiritual Materials corresponding to the attribute. The better the Spiritual Materials, the better the Spirit Root."
Subdue Evil, the Sword Spirit, sighed: "As for having a long life, it comes with making more mistakes."
"An Jing, not everyone has god-given abilities useful in every situation like you—imagine a cultivator specializing in Body Refinement getting a Divine Skill that reduces defense and increases Divine Sense, wouldn’t that be a waste? Or someone altering the direction of their Divine Skill’s progression just to survive in battle, that would then be imperfect, and they could no longer advance."
"Whether it’s cultivating errors, deviation, or being stuck at a bottleneck, not advancing an inch, or even being tainted by Demonic Qi and sustaining damage to the meridians... the longer the lifespan, the more the mistakes accumulate, and when that time comes, do you intend to stick with your errors, training all sorts of weak, scattered skills, settling for just getting by, or do you want to find a perfect body to seize and cultivate anew with the experience from rebirth?"
An Jing fell silent. In his past life during peaceful times while gaming, he too liked to explore with the first account and perfect the process with the second. If it were one of those games where you couldn’t reset your stats, an initial wrong decision could indeed be incredibly frustrating.
"Humans have regrets, but there is no pill for regret in this world, hence Body Seizing has become a choice."
As he said this, Subdue Evil seemed to recall a distant past: "Of course, some choose reincarnation, which is the proper way to start over."
"But the Spirit Roots of reincarnation are also a matter of luck. Even if the soul can be slightly adjusted to ensure the reincarnated body definitely has a Spirit Root, it still faces the Mystery of the Womb. Convenience always falls short compared to Body Seizing."
"The only thing that restricts them is that bodies seized are not always convenient to use. Unless there is a high level of compatibility, it can only be smoothed over with time, leading to a long period of weakness which, if discovered by enemies, means certain death."
"As for creating Artificial Heavenly Spirit Roots? No no no, that’s not even close. This is merely using some Heavenly Spiritual Roots as materials to ’piece together’ a body, just like humans use Demon Spirit bodies to refine into magic treasures, it’s ’a living Magic Artifact’ crafted from a human body."
Speaking so, Subdue Evil’s tone also turned cold: "And this, coincidentally, circumvents the discomfort of a ’seized body.’ Tailored refining according to the soul will ensure this Magic Artifact body feels no discomfort or unease, and no period of weakness, even potentially performing better, just like a Reincarnator who has been reborn into the most suitable body."
"The only issue with this method lies in subsequent maintenance—after all, this body is also a kind of Magic Artifact, its threshold of endurance being at best Foundation Establishment. If one desires to climb higher, it would require specific tuning and upgrades, and disregarding the resource consumption, the amount of effort is truly vast. This sort of expense, it’s better to just have a True Lord create an excellent body."
"But regardless of the method, the amount of resources consumed is vast, beyond what ordinary True Persons can provide."
"That’s really strange."
An Jing frowned deeply: "According to what you said, Subdue Evil, if one is capable of Body Seizing, at the very least they should be at the Purple Mansion Realm. Then those True Persons in the Tianyuan Realm should gather enough resources and ask a True Lord they are familiar with to craft a body for themselves, wouldn’t that be better?"
"That’s where the problem lies."
Subdue Evil said gravely: "This might have been a problem during our time, but now, in the era where the Feather Transformation Dao has prospered, the related modulation and maintenance are unexpectedly simple."
"Besides, Tianyuan Realm has more ’unusable’ Heavenly Spirit Roots than one would imagine... low cost, low maintenance requirements, thereby making it possible for even True Persons without significant assets to acquire a useful body."
Feather Transformation Dao...
An Jing took a deep breath. This special path was the source of many problems in the Tianyuan Realm.
He lifted his head again, looking at the ’brain jellyfish’ in front of him.
This was a perfect vessel for the Heavenly Fire Spirit Root, and as long as a corresponding Flesh and Blood or Feather Transformation body were crafted for it, a Foundation Establishment Purple Mansion could be easily nurtured, an excellent asset whether for personal use or for cultivating loyal subordinates.
But An Jing only felt... sadness.
He spoke softly: "That even the ’Immortal Path’ would need such lowly measures, so uncarefree, uncomfortable, impure, and unappreciative of life?"
"This is not the way of immortals."
In the perspective of Nian Quan and Huo Qing, An Jing was silent for a few seconds after seeing the bizarre brain, then raised his hand and swung out a sword Qi, completely pulverizing it.
None of them found it strange, because this was just like An Jing.
"Collect all these devices."
Having destroyed what was presumably a ’body’ ordered by some True Person, An Jing shook his head: "The items are good, in our hands they can be put to even better use."
"After cleaning up, continue to look for the control room and the treasure chamber of the Night Niche Gang—there’s no need for pleasantries, if we can plunder these sects we should do it, are we to leave it for them instead?"
That’s the rationale, and soon the three of them had moved all the movable equipment out of the high-level laboratory.
But they were still unable to find where the control room and treasure chamber were.