A few minutes earlier, while the avatars searched for treasures and the ancestors of the 12 powers trembled and argued, Bao Wuji had already set up a small Nascent-Tier array with the treasures he had taken from poor ancestor Tie, fueling it with perfect-grade spirit stones.
With everything ready, he vanished from there and returned to where the powers were. His eyes quickly marked the targets across the pastures, ignoring the ancestors in the sky who seemed to be guarding themselves while discussing grimly via sound transmission.
Taking advantage of his affinity with the earth element and the concealment he could achieve thanks to his powerful cultivation realm compared to everyone present, he suddenly dove into the ground as if it were water, traveling swiftly to the feet of the Nascent Soul cultivators.
Then, an unusual scene unfolded.
Nascent Soul cultivators who were watching over the people began to be swallowed by the ground before they could even react or make a sound.
One by one, they were sucked down and disappeared, like moles burrowing into the ground. Everything happened so fast that those around only realized it once all of them were gone.
Bao Wuji, smiling contentedly inside the earth, almost hummed with joy like a farmer harvesting vegetables… though from within the soil.
Floating there underground with him were the captured cultivators, gathered into a huge ball of limbs and wide-open terrified eyes, all enveloped in an aura that prevented them from moving or releasing their own.
'Hehe! Can I say I'm a cultivator who harvests cultivators on my cultivation path?' Aotian thought, amused with his silly joke as he shamelessly kidnapped people.
Not that they deserved compassion, since they showed none when doing worse to those with whom they had no enmity.
Once the harvest was complete, old Bao wasted no time: he returned to the array he had built and dumped the pile of people there.
With a pulse of spiritual energy, the array isolated the powerless cultivators with ease, freeing Bao Wuji's hands and allowing him to focus on his mission.
His eyes roamed the captives, who had been unrolled by the array and laid out in neat rows. He tapped his chin thoughtfully.
"Uhmmm… let's start with…" His finger passed slowly from one to another until it stopped on a man, whose eyes widened in horror—the only thing he could do at that moment. "…you!"
The man had nothing remarkable about him, but Aotian remembered seeing him being unnecessarily cruel to some of the slave-seal victims, and decided to start with him.
Placing his hand on the terrified man's head, Bao Wuji wasted no time: he began the Soul Search.
With two realms of advantage, the search was far easier on a Nascent Soul cultivator than it had been on ancestor Tie, who was in the Soul Formation realm.
Before the powerful Bao Wuji, the man's resistance was irrelevant, and his life—barely over a thousand years—made the task even simpler.
In the end, although not perfect, compared to the 2/10 fragments of memories obtained from ancestor Tie, this time he managed to retrieve 8/10 of the target's memory, losing only trivial fragments.
Seeing the techniques and experiences he had absorbed, Aotian quickly processed everything with his many minds, discarding the superfluous.
'8 spells, 2 Qi concealment techniques, 1 cultivation method, 1 talisman inheritance, and several other Nascent-Tier insights, including a more sophisticated soul-searching technique. All without spending a dime. Profit! Bloody profit!'
Aotian thought excitedly, and Bao Wuji couldn't contain his joy, even licking his lips as he stared at the other cultivators, who looked at him in horror after what he had just done.
The poor guys only didn't soil themselves because cultivators don't shit.
Despite the funny scene, Aotian's mood dimmed as he realized what he was doing.
'Ugh… even if they're probably not good people, what I'm doing is basically a slaughter line… it's worrying that I feel normal about this, and even have time to make jokes right after killing someone.'
Even if they were enemies—and this time, enemies by their own choice, not fabricated by himself as when he invaded the Eternal Sovereign sect—Aotian still couldn't be completely cold.
Although he didn't hesitate to kill and no longer felt discomfort thanks to his many minds helping relieve the emotional burden, until now he had always been certain those he eliminated weren't good people. But it would be entirely different if he ever had to kill someone good. Aotian only hoped he would never face such a situation.
And even if he were certain—which he wasn't—that everyone here was indeed cruel, he still felt it wasn't right to be in good humor and happy with gains while taking lives.
Back in his main body at the sect, Aotian rubbed his temples and sighed.
'Haah… you need to calm down, Aotian. Don't lose yourself in this cultivation world, where life is worth less than dust. Even though life on Earth was fragile too, here… even with superpowers capable of lifting mountains and lives that last thousands of years, I feel like life is even more worthless.'
Taking a deep breath, he composed himself and returned to focusing on Bao Wuji.
Looking at the captives, he didn't judge them as evil simply for being enemies or placing slave seals. After all, this world was full of circumstances.
What if some were being forced as well? What if they had their families held hostage? Besides, these were orders from superiors—they were basically soldiers, bound to follow commands even if they didn't like it.
The first one he killed because he had already seen genuine cruelty in his eyes, but as for the others, he wasn't sure.
So, using the memories of the dead man, he found another cruel one. This time, he allowed him to answer a few questions before acting.
Even without a lie detector like Lie Zheng, with two realms of advantage and several of Aotian's minds focused on catching details, it would be difficult for the man to lie unless he was extremely skilled.
The question was simple:
"Were you forced to be unnecessarily cruel to others and even kill innocents? Or did you do it because you wanted to, or thought their lives were irrelevant and worthless?"
The answer:
"I was forced, please let me go!"
The result:
Soul Search.
Well, the process wasn't complicated, so the summary didn't differ much from what actually happened. They were already enemies—Aotian just needed a reason so his hand wouldn't tremble at the execution.
Thus, with the target confirmed as deserving of death, for the first time Aotian applied a Soul Search technique that wasn't based purely on brute force. Although it was just a common technique, not yet synthesized, it was quite efficient.
With his hand on the man's head, he began the usual process of extracting memories.
But unlike other times, he sent sound transmissions in special patterns directly into the target's soul.
['Nascent Soul cultivation techniques.']
['Nascent-Tier fire-element spells.']
['Techniques of…']
Basically, he sent messages and images into the man's soul, which, unconsciously, was forced to focus and recall those things. This allowed Aotian to capture complete techniques without the risk of fragmenting them.
Thus, he quickly fished out the main parts first and only afterward absorbed the rest.
Because of this precision in prioritizing the best things, he ended up losing a little time instead of simply pulling everything at once. This reduced his acquisition rate from 8/10 to 7/10 of the memory. Still, Aotian didn't mind, since the most valuable parts were secure, without gaps or flaws, which compensated for the loss.
It's worth noting that even with this technique of forcing the opponent's soul to focus on something, the soul still instinctively fought back, trying to push random memories forward to interfere. For others this could be a problem, but Aotian, who wanted absolutely everything, devoured these memories with ease without stopping to filter them further.
Releasing the man's head, whose life aura had already vanished, Bao Wuji closed his eyes. All available minds immediately got to work processing the memories as quickly as possible.
When he finished, he moved on to the next target.
The Soul Search itself was very quick, lasting less than a minute, but Aotian paused for about twenty minutes afterward to deal with the rest of the processing, before beginning a new round.
During the Soul Search itself, he already discarded much of the mental trash that could affect his personality. But afterward, he organized the gains to avoid his mind being cluttered with chaotic memories.
It could be said that, with his many minds, Aotian had already begun a prototype of a mental castle. After all, each mind accumulated vast knowledge and memories that needed to be organized. With spiritual energy and the soul and spirit strength of a cultivator, this was easy—in fact, almost a prerequisite.
It's impossible to live thousands of years with a disorganized mind full of scattered memories. Cultivators, known for their long lives and flawless memories, naturally kept their minds extremely well-structured.
Thus, little by little, one Soul Search after another, Bao Wuji accumulated techniques and experiences from others, which, after Aotian's processing, would serve as fuel for the synthesis of new techniques.
This time, each of the 12 powers had brought around twenty Nascent Soul cultivators to help control the crowd without the ancestors needing to act directly.
That meant that at this moment, in Aotian's hands, there were around 240 Nascent Soul cultivators.
Just thinking about the final result excited him.
'Damn! I'm already about to start synthesizing Nascent Soul techniques, and it's only been two months since I synthesized the Golden Core ones! Beiyan Continent, you are my treasure!'
Overcome with excitement, Aotian completely forgot his promise not to feel joy while killing. Bao Wuji even began to hum during the Soul Searches, under the horrified gaze of the imprisoned cultivators.
While the humming echoed, on the other side, at the gates of the Shadowfallen Burial Mountain, panic spread.
Everyone was terrified at the sudden disappearance of more than two hundred Nascent Soul cultivators.