Cyber Ghosts

Chapter 100 Devouring and Control
“Do you think you’re the only one in the world?” Zhang Quan sneered. “Indeed, you can get some abilities from the books, and you can also choose specific abilities as you wish. This talent is truly extraordinary. However, ultimately, wasn’t it too much to make a person have a certain ability simply through external forces? It’s like you’ve heard that immortals can fly, but it’s wrong if you deduce from it that mortals cannot fly by taking planes. You cannot prevent others from having a knockoff version of mana just because you have a powerful one, right? Isn’t this the so-called ‘only state officials were allowed to set fires, and people were not allowed to light lamps’? ”

“Ugh …So that’s how it is.” Hao Ning thought for a while, but he did not want to reply to Zhang Quan’s long argument, “If that’s the case, then is Qili in any danger? Will there be some problems in his body or lifespan just like what had happened to Zhou Yuan?”

“Eh…” Zhang Quan stood up and looked at the imprint on the wall, “It looks like there is nothing wrong, but we have to call Qili back to take a look.” Zhang Quan waved his hand, then Qili and Long Fei appeared in the conference room immediately.

However, when Liu Shuai and Hao Ning saw Qili, they were petrified in a flash because they saw that Long Fei had turned into a black dragon and was dancing in the air while Qili was riding on the dragon god.

“Cool! Go! So, what big brother said when we were young was true!” Qili shouted excitedly, “Big brother Long Fei, I never thought that looking from the sky would be so—What?”

“Ha-ha, it’s cool, isn’t it?” The black dragon replied complacently, while he suddenly realized that he was standing in front of Zhang Quan in the conference room. His body shivered, and he turned into his human form hurriedly.

“You…” Hao Ning felt that Zhang Quan’s eyes that were originally squinting had widened to the limit. If he had a beard, he would blow his beard up to the sky with anger, “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Uh, we are not messing around,” Qili muttered. “I was just riding him …”

“Riding on him is not messing around?” Zhang Quan pointed at Long Fei and scolded, “You are a dragon god. Although you are not a great god, isn’t it a shame for you to be ridden by a kid?”

“Why do you think it’s a shame?” Long Fei looked at Hao Ning and the rest as he asked, “Would you feel ashamed being ridden by people?”

Everyone was stunned by Long Fei’s question. Their faces flushed red, and they did not know how to reply to the naive dragon.

“Cough, cough, cough,” Hao Ning coughed a few times deliberately and changed the topic, “Mr. Zhang, is there any problem with Qi Li’s lifespan?”

“He is a disaster if he is alive!” Zhang Quan glared at Li Long Fei. Li Long Fei did not know why Zhang Quan did that, but his body shivered under his pressure and his neck shrunk even more. Then, Zhang Quan sighed and shook his head, “Let’s wait and see.”

Zhang Quan extended his hand for the second time, and the air became dry again. Just like before, Zhang Quan used the black mist to hit Qili.

“Hey— —” Seeing the black mist coming towards him again, Qili did not dodge it but blurt out a word of ridicule.

As expected, a black shadow appeared beside the original soul imprint on the wall.

Zhang Quan glanced at it, then sighed, “look at it.”

Liu Shuai looked, and his expression changed, “It’s?”

“It seems like —” Hao Ning took a close look at the shadow. There was no other difference, but the “book” in his right hand seemed to be longer than the previous one. Alternatively, they should say that his right arm had become shorter, and the rest of it had been filled up by the book.

“Every time he uses his ability,” Zhang Quan didn’t even want to call Qili by his name but used “he” directly. He said coldly, “the part of the book spirit in his soul will become a bit larger. If he uses it a few more times, his soul will be gone.”

Then he turned to Zhou Yuan and said, “at that time, your Theseus’s ship will become another ship.”

“Gone?” Hao Ning asked in surprise, “you mean, Qili’s soul will be devoured by the book spirit?”

“Uh…” Zhang Quan muttered to himself, then looked at Hao Ning and nodded, “You are getting the point. What a good method! Smart! I’ve never thought about that before!”

“What do you mean?” Liu Shuai asked.

“This man’s original soul will be melted and devoured by the book spirit every time he uses his ability,” Zhang Quan continued to ponder, “but the book spirit cannot ‘ digest’ the soul, so it will inevitably gather at a specific place, and the soul can be extracted from there in some way.”

“Just like how alcohol and water fuse together,” Hao Ning’s eyes lit up as if he had understood, “and as long as this mixture is heated to 78 degrees Celsius, the alcohol will be purified out.”

“Err …” Zhang Quan was startled, then clapped his hands and laughed out loud. “Smart kid! What a wonderful example you have given! I was thinking of how to explain the complicated process of soul fusion and conversion to you guys, but your metaphor is truly enlightening!”

“Smart kid?” Liu Shuai curled his lips with a face full of disapproval. “He’s the prince of chemistry. He got full marks in both the high school entrance examination and college entrance examination.”

“Please keep a low profile,” Hao Ning laughed, then asked Liu Shuai curiously, “How did you know that?”

“You’ve always been showing off in the company. You even want the cleaners and the little kitty in the company next door to know about it!” Liu Shuai didn’t want Hao Ning to have a sense of superiority, so he made a gesture for Zhang Quan to continue.

“After the fusion of soul and book spirit, the original soul’s memories and consciousness would completely disappear if the mixture is purified by some means,” Zhang Quan pondered as if he was calculating, “oh, the handler will get a completely pure spirit body! In the past, the cultivation methods of the demonic arts could only obtain the spirits of the wrongdoers. Although the progress of one’s cultivation would be extremely fast, he had a great chance of going berserk during it. However, if one practice in this way, he will be safe and sound!”

“It’s like a piece of salt melting in water, and then being purified,” Hao Ning thought along Zhang Quan’s lines and described it with his understanding, “the salt would be purer, and it would not even remember its original shape. It has been a completely new piece of salt, right?”

“Yes! What an intelligent young lad, “Zhang Quan smiled as he looked at Hao Ning,” It’s a pity that you can’t cultivate mana, or else you would make even more achievements— “Zhang Quan emphasized the word “even more” deliberately. Liu Shuai looked out of the window and ignored him. Zhang Quan stopped for a while and then continued, “and what is scarier is—”

Hao Ning and Liu Shuai looked at each other and hurriedly asked, “Is there anything scarier?”

“If one’s soul is completely devoured, he will either go insane, or become a vegetable, or a zombie.” Zhang Quan slapped the table as if he was both heartbroken and excited, “at that time, the devil will be able to control this person with the source of the book spirit and accomplish his goals without being noticed. Then the devil will have endless pure spiritual energy for cultivation and have puppets controlled by him. It’s an excellent way for him to achieve multiple goals at one stroke.”

“So, you are saying that the devil can control independent people with just a few books? How is that possible? ” Although Zhang Quan’s deduction seemed perfect, Hao Ning still could not accept this conclusion.

“Hmph-hmph,” Zhang Quan sneered, “it is said that books are the essence of the human mind, and at the same time, your society is built on what books describe. Law, economics, history, science. You think that you are learning the knowledge, but how do you know you are not constantly transforming your soul to adapt to the knowledge? You think that you improve after you study, but is it possible that it is just another kind of control?”