Chapter 63: Shattering the Mental Cage
Exactly twenty-four hours after successfully recruiting Ye Guyi into the Church of the Water God, Furina set foot inside the Research Department's white-walled building.
Sunlight streamed through the towering glass dome overhead, dancing across her azure hair, yet it did nothing to soften the severity etched between her brows.
This was a department she had personally driven into existence, into which she had poured nearly thirty percent of the church's resources, and upon which she had placed hopes that transcended the era itself. Yet the quarterly report she had reviewed that very morning had made her slender fingers tighten against the pages, leaving faint creases in their wake.
Aside from the soul tool project under Huo Yuhao's lead, which was advancing steadily, the other fields—especially the core subjects she cared about most: the essence of martial souls, artificial soul rings, and the creation of soul bones—had produced results as thin and fragile as autumn cicada wings. The research on soul ring absorption limits, while seemingly dense with data, was in truth nothing more than a re-verification of common knowledge that the soul master world had held for a century. The progress on martial soul compatibility amounted to little beyond a few inconsequential annotations added to an already vast, well-known chart.
As for martial soul evolution and mutation—the report held only a sparse handful of words: "Currently gathering case studies; theoretical framework still under construction." And for artificial soul rings and soul bones, the entries were even more glaring: "No theoretical model exists at present; practical exploration has not yet commenced."
Are we paying the highest salaries in the entire church just to keep a troupe of document transcribers and data-charting craftsmen? The thought circled relentlessly in her mind, ultimately giving rise to this impromptu, all-hands meeting.
Within the Research Department's main hall, several dozen scholars and low-ranking soul engineers in white robes had gathered. They spoke in hushed, uneasy tones, the air thick with a palpable, unspoken tension. Most had come from the Star Luo Empire; the remainder, from the Dou Ling Empire and the Heavenly Soul Empire. Each had arrived at the Church of the Water God carrying their own private ambitions—some hoping to stun the world with a single brilliant breakthrough, others simply seeking a stable livelihood. But at this moment, all of them felt their confidence faltering.
Footsteps approached from a distance. The hall fell instantly silent. Every gaze converged on the entrance.
Furina walked slowly up to the lectern. Her sea-blue eyes swept across every face below. She did not speak at once—and that silence bore down with a weight greater than any reprimand.
"Everyone," she began at last. Her voice was crisp and clear, yet carried an undeniable, immovable authority. "I have called you here today because I wish to re-examine our research direction. And to help you push open a window that habitual thinking may have long kept shut."
She picked up the thick report and gave it a slight shake. "Aside from the soul tool project, which has made some progress under Huo Yuhao's involvement, the results in the other fields—allow me to be blunt—are abysmal. Soul ring absorption limits? Basic martial soul and soul ring compatibility? These are the most elementary of elementary foundations. They are far too easy to break through. Yes, I asked you to solve these problems—but are the results you've given me really nothing more than a single, tiny step upon these foundation stones? You could at least have taken ten steps forward!"
"As for what I truly want—you are nowhere near achieving it."
Below the lectern, many lowered their heads in shame. The bespectacled man serving as interim department head couldn't help but offer a defense: "Your Holiness, we have in no way been negligent! It's just... the targets you've set—artificial soul rings, artificial soul bones, controlled martial soul evolution—they truly... truly lie beyond the scope of existing knowledge. We've combed through every tom, every notebook, every ancient fragment we could find, and there is simply no viable theoretical starting point. It is not unwillingness—it is... it is simply beyond reach."
"Beyond reach?" Furina repeated the words softly, the corner of her lips curving into an ambiguous, almost mocking smile. "When the first human discovered fire, when the first soul master absorbed a soul ring—were those not also 'beyond the scope of existing knowledge' at the time?"
She set the report down, planted both hands on the edges of the lectern, and leaned forward slightly. Her gaze burned. "Today, I am not here to discuss specific theories with you. What I am here to do is shatter the shackles inside your minds."
"First—utterly discard the word 'impossible.'" Her voice was absolute, unwavering. "From this moment on, your task is not to prove why something is impossible, but to think about how to prove that it is possible! The moment you erect a mental barrier labeled 'impossible,' even if the possibility appears right before your eyes, you will be blind to it. This is the cardinal sin of any explorer!"
She paused, letting those words sink deep into their hearts. Only then did she turn to the matter at hand.
"Artificial soul bones and soul rings are indeed difficult. So let us first return to the most fundamental question: soul rings and soul bones."
"What exactly is the essential difference between humans and soul beasts? Why can soul beasts rely on the accumulation of years, on cultivation and breakthroughs—from ten-year to hundred-year, thousand-year, ten-thousand-year, even hundred-thousand-year—while human soul masters must hunt soul beasts and plunder their soul rings in order to advance?"
Several people below seemed about to speak, but Furina raised a hand to stop them. "Do not ask me 'why.' That is precisely the riddle you need to solve! I am not a scholar. I am the Pope who poses the questions. You—you are the ones responsible for finding the answers, for breaking through those barriers!"
She stepped down from the lectern and began to walk among the white-robed scholars, her voice ringing clearly beside every ear. "I will give you a direction to consider. Perhaps—humans themselves are a special type of 'soul beast.'"
"People possess martial souls of endless, bizarre variety. Some are born with innate soul power. Is this not, in its essence, remarkably similar to how soul beasts possess different forms, attributes, and cultivation abilities? Now consider soul bones. When a soul bone is absorbed by a soul master, it slowly adapts over time to its host's martial soul characteristics. If passed down as an heirloom through generations—theoretically, it could even evolve to the point of perfect resonance with a family's martial soul. What does this tell us? It tells us that the human body possesses the capacity to remold and nurture soul bones!"
Her voice rose, carrying an almost galvanizing force. "Since our bodies can adapt to—can reshape—foreign soul bones, then why can we not take a step further? Why can we not rely on our own innate strength to condense soul rings and soul bones that belong exclusively to us?"
She strode back to the lectern and turned to face the assembly once more. "Look at those brilliant, heaven-defying predecessors in the long river of history. Ten thousand years ago, one of the Four Great Elemental Academies—Blazing Fire Academy—mastered the 'Ring Fusion' technique, which could merge the power of multiple soul rings into one, unleashing might that surpassed all limits."
"The Clear Sky Sect, once the foremost of the Upper Three Sects, possessed the 'Ring Detonation' profound art—by instantaneously detonating a soul ring, they could transform its vast stored energy into a single, heaven-shaking strike! Though the ring would temporarily vanish and leave the user weakened afterward, it proved beyond all doubt that a soul ring is no immutable, dead object. Its energy can be guided. Fused. Even—detonated and reconstructed!"
"Since our predecessors could 'fuse rings' and 'detonate rings,' then why, today, can we not pioneer the methods of 'condensing rings' and 'creating rings'? This is no wild fantasy—it is merely taking the next logical step up the ladder of thought! What you need most is not more documents and references. What you need most is imagination that shatters through all shackles, and the fearless, unrelenting spirit of creation!"
Furina's gaze swept across the hall once more. This time, what she saw was no longer all confusion and shame. In some eyes, sparks of contemplation had begun to flicker to life. The hunger for challenge had been kindled.
"From this day forward," she declared at last, her voice carrying unshakable finality, "I want to see reports that are no longer mere accumulations of data and citations of texts. I want to see bold hypotheses. I want to see audacious, soaring ideas. I want to see experimental designs that may look absurd at first glance, yet brim with the spirit of true exploration! The mission of the Research Department of the Church of the Water God is to pioneer the future—not to regurgitate the past. All of you—do not fail this era. And do not fail the heart of an explorer beating within your own chests."
Her words fell. Silence blanketed the hall. Then—scattered applause began, quickly swelling into a wave. Though the road ahead was still shrouded in dense fog, Furina's speech had struck like a blade of piercing light, shattering the walls within their minds and pointing the way toward a direction that, however arduous, was charged with boundless, limitless possibility.