Li Fan’s divine sense drifted through the blank soul.
As time wore on, the soul continued to dissipate, and the space within it shrank steadily.
But even at the very end, when it had dwindled to almost nothing and everything inside lay right before his eyes, Li Fan could find no trace of the Soul Contract.
Truly, “look but see it not, listen but hear it not!”
With a sigh, this soul completely vanished.
Li Fan was not discouraged. He immediately extracted another soul and began the next attempt.
The days passed one by one. In the blink of an eye, more than half of Anchor Year 26 had gone by.
Across five assessments, Li Fan consistently scored at the top on the theoretical construction of the Tianxuan Soul-Locking Array, and just as consistently at the bottom when it came to identifying Soul Contracts.
This caused Ji Hongdao to look at Li Fan with a trace of unavoidable pity in his eyes.
Li Fan, however, remained as steady and unhurried as ever.
On this day, Li Fan examined the Soul-Gathering Pearl in his hand. Only about a third of the golden light remained.
Three hundred and twelve... Not as many as I initially imagined. The seemingly solid golden light visible from the surface was likely an illusion caused by a clustering effect.
Three hundred and twelve was the number of souls Li Fan had already consumed. While not an exceptionally large number, it was certainly not small either.
Even so, Li Fan’s progress remained slow. In the tests, his identification accuracy rate was only around five in ten thousand, basically no different from blind guessing.
And it was said that some cultivators had already achieved an astonishing accuracy rate of ninety-nine percent.
The gap between people is truly vast.
Shaking his head inwardly, Li Fan skillfully extracted a soul and plunged his divine sense into it.
Hmm? Having observed over three hundred souls of Five Elders Council cultivators, Li Fan sensed something different the moment he entered this one.
Unlike the other soul interiors, which were blank and empty, this one still contained lingering fragments of the cultivator’s memories.
They had stubbornly resisted the cleansing, transforming into a reef that stood firm within the soul.
Slowly drawing closer, Li Fan observed the mass of red light before him.
Within the red glow, scenes constantly shifted, their exact contents unclear.
However, one could vaguely discern that it was just a small fragment of memory, playing on a loop.
Li Fan recalled Ji Hongdao’s previous instructions.
.....
“The emotion and memory cleansing for the cultivator souls in this batch of Soul-Gathering Pearls was conducted en masse.
“Some cultivator souls are innately tenacious. If they also have something they could not forget even in death, it’s perfectly normal for the cleansing to be incomplete.
“If you occasionally encounter a few that slipped through the net, don’t panic.
“Although memories remain, having undergone the cleansing, their aggressiveness is nearly gone. You can relax and explore these memories without fear.
“So for you, it’s actually a rare opportunity. It’s possible to obtain some techniques, secret arts, or even confidential information about the Five Elders Council from these residual memories.
“There’s no requirement to hand over any information obtained from the souls’ memories. Consider it entirely your own fortune, so don’t feel any psychological pressure.”
.....
The risk shouldn’t be great, but one must still take precautions to avoid a mishap.
After a moment’s thought, Li Fan severed the connection between this strand of divine sense and his main body.
That way, even if something went wrong, the worst he would lose was this single strand of divine sense.
Conversely, if there truly was no danger, he could still bring any acquired memories back to his main body.
Preparations complete, this thread of Li Fan's divine sense began to attempt contact with the crimson cocoon of light before him.
Immediately, he was unable to move or speak, as if he had entered another person's body. He could only observe the surroundings through the other's perspective.
Several images flashed rapidly before his eyes. However, there were numerous gaps between them, removed by the cleansing process.
A shifty-looking cultivator sidled up to him, slipping a strangely carved jade slip over.
“Fellow Daoist... interested in some forbidden texts?” he asked in a low voice.
“Scram,” the possessed cultivator snapped, clearly annoyed.
...
“Fellow Daoist... forbidden texts for you? It’s top-tier stuff. You won’t regret it,” Another cultivator murmured as he edged closer.
The possessed cultivator gave it serious thought, but in the end, still shook his head.
...
“Fellow Daoist, how about this forbidden text? Miss it, and you’ll regret it for life.
“Created jointly by Singing Book Elder and Marvelous Brush Immortal, it is fully immersive, unbelievably lifelike...”
This time, his host hesitated for a long moment before finally whispering, “...How much?”
...