Chapter 431 – Soul Essence

Ordinary humans and mages who had been in intimate contact with elemental force were still very different from one another.

However, mages held an extraordinary status among humans, and mage corpse materials were not easy to come by.

For now, these ordinary human corpse material cards were sufficient for them to practice Death Servant techniques.

After Mo Lan used these corpses to design a complete set of ordinary human corpse series material cards, she produced a batch and distributed one set each to Lilith, Vasida, and Sylph.

After all, they had discovered these corpses together.

They had already discussed and agreed on how to divide them.

If there was only one of any particular corpse material, Mo Lan would take it to craft into cards and then distribute copies to everyone.

Lilith and Vasida received them like precious treasures, because this set of cards contained not only ordinary human corpse materials of various sizes and body parts, but also quite a few high-quality soul essences.

This was a spiritual material that could typically only be extracted from Ghosts or from the soul fire of skeletons. It was useful for creating Death Servants and enhancing their spiritual aptitude.

The Soul Extraction technique in Necromancy Magic was specifically designed for extracting soul essence.

“The soul essence quality from ordinary humans is this high!” Lilith exclaimed in surprise. “The essence that appeared after those beast-shaped Ghosts were dispersed before wasn’t even this good!”

“Human psychic power is the most active. The soul essence that can be extracted after death is also of higher quality,” Mo Lan said. “Even ordinary humans have stronger psychic power than low-rank transcendents of other races.”

“No wonder everyone says humanoid Death Servants have high agility!” Vasida said.

“However, the {Material Card – Soul Essence} produced by my Book of Cards are all purified. Unlike those extracted directly from Ghosts or freshly dead corpses, which carry a portion of the deceased’s spiritual imprint from when they were alive, no matter how many you use, the Death Servant will only be a bit smarter but still a blank slate that needs us to teach it before it can understand anything,” Mo Lan said.

She had tried it herself. Only the cards crafted the first time using these corpses as materials would randomly carry a trace of the corpse’s spiritual imprint from life. Cards produced afterward by consuming Mana based on card-crafting experience could not replicate this.

Her Book of Cards could only directly create purified soul essence nourishment — the imprints left by souls could not be copied.

“Being able to produce {Material Card – Soul Essence} is already incredible!” Lilith said. “The reason this material is so rare is that a single portion represents one, or even several, intelligent beings’ souls. Now that it can be exchanged for with energy, it’s so much more convenient!”

“Exactly! I can’t wait to study the Death Servant technique. It’s getting late too — let’s set up camp first!” Vasida suggested.

Mo Lan and Lilith were thinking the same thing.

The group returned to the flying carpet. Lilith first steered the carpet a bit deeper into the Black Forest, then ascended to a high altitude. Mo Lan took out her own flying carpet and joined it alongside Lilith’s.

This time, however, it was Vasida who brought out a tent for everyone to rest in.

Back at the Academy, she had lived in a dirt cave dug into a hillside in the Inner Region, but now her tent was decorated warmly and beautifully.

Each room was done in a different style, and quite a few featured decoration styles common on Earth.

Mo Lan found it all incredibly familiar. “Did you use a {Decoration Package Card}?”

“That’s right!” Vasida said. “I liked every style in the {Decoration Package Card}, so I decorated one room in each style. The tent’s big enough anyway! Just pick whichever one you like and settle in.”

Vasida and Lilith happily went off to study their newly acquired materials, but Sylph returned the cards to Mo Lan.

“I don’t plan on making Death Servants. I don’t need these.”

“You’re sure you won’t?” Sylph had always expressed that she wasn’t very interested in Necromancy Magic, so Mo Lan wasn’t particularly surprised at this point.

“I won’t,” Sylph said firmly.

Cultivating mutant plants and learning Magic and knowledge that could protect her had already consumed all of her energy.

In her view, Necromancy Magic couldn’t help her at all in the early stages, and she genuinely didn’t like dealing with corpses.

She liked the feeling of plants being full of vitality, thriving and flourishing. She didn’t like the stench of rotting corpses.

“Well, if you need them later, just come find me!” Mo Lan didn’t close the door on the matter.

People’s preferences could change!

After chatting with Sylph, Mo Lan went straight into one of the small suites in Vasida’s tent and headed to the workroom inside.

During this period, she had been studying Necromancy Magic — the Death Servant technique most of all — and had long been eager to try it. Now that she finally had the materials, how could she not give it a shot?

Undead creatures fell into three major categories: Zombies, skeletons, and Ghosts.

Ghosts couldn’t be artificially made into Death Servants, so she set them aside for now and chose only between Zombies and skeletons.

Zombies had intact bodies but lacked souls, possessing very little spiritual aptitude. A newly created low-level Zombie could only act on its master’s commands and could only understand simple combat orders.

Even an Advanced Zombie would struggle to learn anything slightly more complex.

A Zombie like egg fried rice that could cook was absolutely an anomaly among Zombies.

If not for a member of the Corpse Clan teaching it, with a normal Zombie’s spiritual aptitude and intellectual potential, no amount of soul essence would have enabled it to learn.

However, although Zombies lacked souls and were deficient in intelligence, they had the possibility of growing into members of the Corpse Clan — though it was only a possibility.

Mo Lan had recently read through every work on Necromancy Magic and undead creatures. Apart from Lady Ginia, she hadn’t found a second instance of anyone raising a Zombie into a Corpse Clan member.

Before that, witches had widely believed that the Corpse Clan was a naturally formed race, like Ghosts, and could not be cultivated through the Death Servant technique.

Skeletons had incomplete bodies — just a frame of bones — but the soul fire in their skulls gave them far greater spiritual aptitude and intelligence than Zombies. Even a low-level skeleton could learn one simple task.

During this time in the Black Forest, Mo Lan had seen skeleton warriors wielding clubs, skeleton archers using bows and arrows, lumberjack skeletons that could fell trees, and skeleton farmers that could plant them.

In terms of spiritual aptitude, skeletons grew far faster than Zombies.

But no matter how much fuel was added to a skeleton’s soul fire, it could never truly come back to life, possess a genuine soul, or become a being with reproductive capability like the Corpse Clan.

In terms of combat ability, skeletons of the same quality were also slightly weaker than Zombies.

However, skeletons were easier to repair and maintain than Zombies — a frame of bones didn’t need to worry about preservation issues.

After running through the pros and cons of Zombies and skeletons, Mo Lan already had her answer.

Skeletons were more suitable for her.

She didn’t plan to follow the typical necromancer witch’s path of corpse-sea tactics and building an undead army. At most, she’d raise a few Death Servants to liven things up at home, so Zhizhi wouldn’t be bored every day, hugging a wine jar with nothing to do.

If she didn’t need them to charge into battle, having higher spiritual aptitude and a bit more intelligence was actually better.