661 Soul Creatures
"The remains of the souls of dead creatures I take in... Might still retain some of their characteristics?" Robin's silver avatar opened his eyes wide took a step back and looked at the huge tree in the middle of his soul domain, "Oh no..."
"Calm down, I said he retains some of his characteristics and not retains his consciousness!" Evergreen quickly waved to calm Robin down. She knew what Hoffenheim was to him. That was the entity that brought him to the brink of death twice. "All I said is that the soul force is usually loaded with some characteristics, or you can say some information."
"Explain more!" Robin took a step forward aggressively
"Okay, okay! Take it easy a little would you~" Evergreen smiled playfully, then extended her palm forward and something resembling an ice cube appeared above it, "Let's assume that the ice cube is the soul of a creature who just died. The ice cube would be the primordial soul plus any soul force that the creature has acquired throughout his life... At this moment of death, consciousness has ended and the soul domain has collapsed, so this soul mass will have no choice but to wander around aimlessly. But even without consciousness, the soul is cohesive and still retains its memories. It also stores all the information and characteristics about that dead creature. And now let us speed up the process by fifty years..."
At this moment, Evergreen did something that made the ice cube melt until it reached half its size and a liquid began to flood her palm and drip onto the ground, "...You can consider this water as soul force as well, but it has become free energy without any information, meaning that it no longer has a connection to the dead creature. It is also the soul energy that you usually absorb using your Soul Strengthening Technique. Usually, when someone mentions the term soul force, he usually means this pure type."
Robin furrowed his eyebrows slightly and pointed at the remaining half of the ice, "What about that one?"
"Now we come to the important thing, something you will encounter more often in the future…" Evergreen laughed maliciously, "The remaining piece contains that creature's initial soul."
"The initial soul survives up to fifty years after death?! This..." Robin opened his eyes to the end, and the concept of death for him began to change.
Evergreen shook her head quickly, "Okay, let's not exaggerate here, what do you mean by *survive*? Death is death. Even regardless of the bleeding of information and memories that happens to the initial soul after death, what is the benefit of the initial soul without a body? Without awareness?! It's just that the initial souls are among the secrets of creation and are not supposed to perish, so the initial soul may wander for hundreds of years or more until it is completely destroyed and transformed into an overflow of soul energy, or it may not be destroyed at all."
"...But as far as I know, the initial soul can grow a new consciousness?! As long as the initial soul is intact somewhere then..." Robin replied quickly, looking like he was thinking about something.
"This is if the initial soul was protected within its own domain and enjoyed peace for tens or even hundreds of years, but you saw for yourself what happens when you destroy Hoffenheim's soul domain, what souls experience afterward is far from peace!" Evergreen waved, "But just for your knowledge, There are indeed rare cases where these imperfect initial souls gain a new consciousness. This is often the result of a wandering initial soul colliding with something out of nature or a wandering initial soul staying in an evil zone for a long time, but that new consciousness has no connection to the dead creature what so ever, it is a terrible, ferocious entity called Wraith. There is a whole race of them in some places, I hope you never meet one of them."
"Oh…" Robin looked at the ground in disappointment, then seemed to remember something and pointed back towards the tree that looked like Hoffenheim, "Is that thing a Wraith then?!"
"This? Haha, you'd be dead by now!" Evergreen laughed loudly, then caught herself when she saw Robin's seriousness, "Of course not, my dear owner, Did you even give Hoffenheim's soul a chance to gain a new consciousness? You destroyed it and swallowed it with its information and memories. That one over there is a soul creature. Now allow me to go back to my explanation again and stop interrupting me!!
Robin raised both hands in surrender
"Good! Now where were we? Aha!" Evergreen nodded proudly and then pointed towards the small ice cube, "All known soul-strengthening techniques rely on pure soul force and no one can benefit from this large chunk, even though it is made of the same force. It is just like a person wanting to drink water and having this piece of ice in front of him, He will definitely wait for it to melt, and if he tries to swallow it, it will surly get stuck in his throat and kill him - a great example, huh? That's why I chose the piece of ice to illustrate from the beginning, hehe-"
Robin furrowed his eyebrows slightly
Evergreen quickly stopped her laughter and went back to walking back and forth with her hand behind her back, "Ahem, But just because most people can't use these masses, that is, the wandering initial souls, doesn't mean that no one can. There are a number of soul specialists who have come up with methods by which they can absorb these wandering initial souls from the air around them or directly from their victims, which gives them a huge boost in their soul force, but it comes with side effects... soul creatures."
Then I quickly continued before Robin asked, "A soul creature results from the merging of the information and memories of the wandering initial soul with your soul domain, as your soul domain naturally attempts to make a copy of that creature based on that information, thus producing a soul creature within your soul domain." Evergreen pointed towards the huge tree, "A soul creature has the same power as the person who possessed that soul before his death and has all his memories, characteristics, and way of thinking. At the same time, the soul creature derives its consciousness from you, so it can move and do what you dictate to it. It has no consciousness of its own since it sprouted from your own consciousness, therefore, there is no need to fear it, it has no right to refuse or accept if you order it to do something, and it cannot even have a long conversation, I think you can consider it as a stupid slave... Hoffenheim, for example, is considered a soul creature in the development process, but I think he will be ready for you to order him around very soon."
"Huh? Hahaha. He died because he refused to be my subordinate, so he became my slave even after his death. Indeed, fate is inevitable, haha." Robin raised his eyebrows and looked at Hoffenheim for a long time before he burst out laughing, then shook his head, "Too bad it's useless now, what should I do with him? I've read his memories and that's it, those soul creatures are useless as long as they're locked inside the soul domain, but I think they can bring joy to the place instead of this silence, I don't see any other use for them."
Evergreen tilted her head to the side, "Who said they couldn't exit the Soul Domain?!"