"Speaking of which, I need to talk to you about the research on the life force."
As he said this, he turned to look at Angela, who was standing leisurely behind Hayden.
"I have finally made some new research findings regarding Ms. Angela's mysterious and incredible life force."
Then the old professor said this.
164: The Secret of the Secret Fire
"So, let's start today by talking about the essence of life."
Professor Albion has started teaching.
Although it wasn't necessary, Hayden still sat up straight and waited for the professor to explain, just like a student listening to a lecture.
"The breath that Lady Angela exhaled was called the Secret Fire or the Primal Power by the Old Gods."
"Through experiments, I have determined that this energy can manifest as matter, but it is not true matter; it can manifest as thought, but it cannot be affected by magic that interferes with thought. It can be transformed by magic, but its nature cannot be changed. I have conducted many experiments on these auras over the past year, and this is the only conclusion I can reach."
The old professor took out his magic wand and waved it, conjuring a blackboard and making the chalk automatically draw some diagrams on it.
"The Secret Fire is neither matter nor thought. It is a mystery that neither ancient magic nor modern arcane art has yet to unravel."
As he wrote on the blackboard, he said seriously,
"I believe this is energy at the soul level."
Soul level
Many ancient magical views and modern arcane theories suggest that the life of intelligent beings is divided into many levels.
First and foremost is the body, the material aspect of life. This aspect needs little explanation and is a realm already conquered by modern arcane arts. With enough money, modern people can modify their bodies in any way they want, recreate or replace them at will, and even mechanically replace them.
The second level is the level of thought. The human body is ultimately just a physical shell that is easily destroyed, while the mind is something much more resilient and powerful—this is just a theory of the Mitra Corporation, but major companies do agree on at least part of it: the mind can indeed unleash tremendous energy.
Like the body, the mind can also be influenced and altered by magic. Although people have been brainwashed and had their thoughts interfered with to some extent throughout history, at least in the past, thoughts still had a certain degree of independence and uniqueness. Currently, at least others cannot arbitrarily reach into your mind and add new things to your thoughts and memories.
However, as the technology of personality chips gradually matures, sooner or later, people's thoughts will also become something that can be easily rewritten and manipulated.
So what is the third level—the level of the soul?
The soul... remains a mystery to this day.
The soul has no physical structure. Even magic cannot directly see or extract the soul. Magic can only interfere with consciousness, thereby indirectly observing and influencing the soul. For example, if a person's personality consciousness is uploaded to the StarNet, their soul will also be uploaded to the network along with it.
However, if only a copy of the personality consciousness is made into the chip, the soul cannot be copied along with it.
But...so what?
From the company's and society's perspective, as long as a clone's body and mind are identical to the original, then there's no difference between them. An invisible, intangible, mysterious soul—since it doesn't affect anything else, who cares?
At most, only he himself and those who truly love him will care.
To be honest, what do humans need a soul for? On a material level, we already have a physical body; on a spiritual level, we already have thoughts. We have both the hardware and the software, so why do we need a soul?
However, humans do have souls. And once a soul is lost (for example, in the late stages of amnesia), a person becomes absent-minded, loses willpower, becomes mentally weak, and often falls into a coma.
The soul is such a mysterious thing.
However, at this moment, Professor Albion declared that Angela's aura, the so-called Secret Fire, was actually energy at the soul level—which is not surprising at all.
After all, Angela's aura is something quite inexplicable!
"However, both the ancient gods from beyond the heavens and the new capital giants have their own methods to synthesize the secret fire."
Hayden frowned and said,
"On the other hand, even with current arcane technology, we have never successfully created a soul."
This isn't a big problem for large companies, because clones also have souls. By simply installing a personality chip on a newly created, unawakened blank clone, the three elements of body, mind, and soul are complete, and it can be used normally—in contrast, the company also has ways to synthesize its own Secret Flame.
The old professor nodded: "That's why I said Ms. Angela's aura is energy at the soul level, not the soul itself."
"Whether it's the old gods or the new gods, I believe they all use existing souls to condense and synthesize the Secret Fire. The Secret Fire is the energy that drives life at the soul level. Once this life force of the Secret Fire is lost, humans will gradually begin to show symptoms of soul decay."
"Soul decay is not the loss of a living being's soul, but rather the lack of energy for the soul to continue functioning."
After Professor Albion finished speaking, he sent Hayden the data and reports from his experiments over the past year. Hayden quickly read through them on the projection screen. Although he didn't see the details, he could roughly determine that the professor's words were not due to dementia.
...Even so, Hayden still had one question he didn't understand.
“Miktikashiva said that the ancient gods from beyond the heavens already had the technology to synthesize secret fire, but the output was very low; modern large companies have the technology to produce relatively high output. So I have always thought that secret fire should be energy at the level of thought.”
"However, judging from the principles and operation of the [Kowtowing Bug] system, mental energy is not the same as secret fire. Although the [Kowtowing Bug] system can produce a large amount of mental energy, it is not secret fire. Secret fire energy is more... useful."
Hayden, having said this, moved the report aside and asked in bewilderment, "Has there always been technology at the level of the soul in the world since ancient times?"
This time, Professor Albion did not answer directly.
Instead, he picked up a piece of chalk, tapped it on the blackboard, and said, "Look carefully."
Look closely? Look at what?
Before he could finish speaking, Hayden realized something was wrong.
Just as Professor Albion's chalk touched the blackboard with the last period, a spark flew between the blackboard and the chalk, like flint igniting a fire.
The professor, with lightning speed, extended his wand, catching the flickering, unquenchable spark with its tip, and then handed it to Hayden. Hayden, regaining his senses, immediately cast several analytical and detection spells, and within seconds he was horrified to discover:
"...This is the Secret Flame!?"
The thing resting on the tip of Professor Albion's wand is, without a doubt, a spark of the Secret Flame!
Very little, extremely little, so little that it could hardly be any smaller. This is probably the smallest unit of the Secret Flame, and its purity is far from that of Angela's usual breath—but without a doubt, it is a spark of the Secret Flame!
How on earth did the professor make this thing?!
"This is a secret fire synthesis technique developed by the ancient gods who fell from the heavens thousands of years ago. I simply modified it."
Professor Albion calmly explained.
"This is an ancient technique for synthesizing secret fire using [ritual]."
Long, long ago, the most primitive ancient gods had to regularly devour blood sacrifices, otherwise they would suffer from insufficient soul energy and fall into the symptoms of soul decay.
Later, another kind of ancient god fell from the heavens to the earth. The most intelligent of them invented a completely new method. They no longer needed to devour living people, but instead extracted the secret fire energy directly from people's thoughts, beliefs—and souls—through social order, rituals, and rule. In this way, inefficient blood sacrifices were no longer necessary.
Professor Albion is now demonstrating a technique that was once used by the ancient gods from beyond the heavens.
"This is a school. I am your professor, and you are my student."
As the professor spoke, he gently tapped the desk with his wand.
“I just deliberately created a classroom atmosphere, and you accepted this atmosphere, this ritual, this ‘sacred order,’ and believed in it without a doubt. Therefore, I was able to successfully transform your faith in the ‘ritual’ into secret fire—of course, if it weren’t for the fact that you’ve been used to eating secret fire food for the past year, such a simple ritual would not have been able to transform secret fire.”
Professor Albion then kindly added a comment, offering an explanation.
After all, Hayden's accumulated Secret Flame energy had recently reached a point where it was almost overflowing. The professor extracted only a tiny fraction of it—smaller than a grain of sand. However, if it weren't for his unique exception, it certainly wouldn't be so easy for anyone else to convert Secret Flame, not even a spark. It would require at least many people.
Long ago, in feudal times, people regarded the hierarchical order and etiquette of society as extremely sacred. They held the relationships between fathers and sons, teachers and students, and rulers and subjects in high esteem, even to the point of worship, a level of respect that is incomparable to or unimaginable to modern people. For example, the phrase "respecting teachers and valuing the Way" carried immense weight.
"Faith is a thought, and the energy of this thought is not the same as the secret fire—but it can indeed draw out energy at the level of the soul."
This was the conclusion the old professor reached.
"That's why, although magic cannot create souls, it can produce the energy of souls."
The original gods were unable to extract soul energy, so they could only resort to the crude method of blood sacrifice to directly devour people.
Later, the ancient gods from beyond the heavens developed a belief in the sacred order of social rituals to extract the secret fire, but the yield was still very low.
Then, four hundred years later, a new set of gods, led by Mithras, rose to power. These new gods, through capitalism and money, were able to extract even more secret fire from people's minds.
However, in this capitalist era, the old beliefs of the feudal era have long since been deconstructed and collapsed. Royal power is meaningless. People no longer worship the sacred and ritualistic—at the center of this new system stand the idols of the new era. These idols of the new era have long been born in response to the people's call.
But that's not the point of our discussion right now.
“Life has three levels, and the Secret Fire is the energy of life at the soul level. This life energy at the soul level is so powerful that as long as the wounds or defects of the soul are filled, the damage to life at the psychological and physiological levels will also be healed.”
As Professor Albion spoke, a sharp glint flashed in his eyes behind his glasses.
"In short, the Secret Fire is the ultimate elixir of life!"
To be honest, this wasn't something Hayden hadn't guessed.
So he tried to steer the conversation back on track: "But even so, I still can't revive Alastor using Angela's life force. Isn't that the main point we need to discuss now?"
“Of course you can’t revive Alastor directly with the life force,” Professor Albion said gently. “Have you forgotten? Before you sealed Alastor in the Dragon Ball, he and the dragon vein of the industrial zone had just received a large portion of Angela’s life force. His soul was replenished at that time. In fact, his problem is that his personality has become mixed with the dragon vein’s essence. That’s not a problem that can be solved by simply replenishing the secret fire, but rather a matter of harm.”
"And this brings us back to the question of what 'I' am."
What is the essence? What can be replaced? What is real? Who am I?
The eternal metaphysical question.
Hayden was starting to get a headache from listening to this.
On the contrary, Angela, standing behind him, listened to Professor Albion's "lesson" and showed a somewhat admiring expression: "Teaching is indeed a very profound skill. I couldn't explain the same thing to my master so directly."
Hayden was immediately shocked: So I was the only one who didn't know anything?
"After all this talk, we still haven't found a way or a plan to revive Alastor. Is this really okay?!"
So he finally couldn't help but complain.
If this continues, the entire chapter will just be about magical concepts! The story isn't progressing at all!
His impatient reaction naturally made Professor Albion sigh: "You must not be impatient. That is the quality an arcanist should have... But then again, you are actually closer to a pragmatic wizard than an arcanist who really wants to pursue knowledge and seek truth."
That's absolutely true. Hayden wasn't without a thirst for knowledge; he was curious about things. But what he truly loved most were practical technologies, not spending his entire life searching for truth—it's a matter of emphasis. Liking something and liking it the most are different things.
"There is an idea to revive Alastor."
So Professor Albion sighed and continued...
"Since his ego is now mixed with the dragon vein essence, we just need to separate them again."
That makes a lot of sense. But how exactly should it be done?
The old professor, however, didn't answer directly. He raised his eyebrows and instead asked Hayden, "Hayden, you've made new staves and scepters from various spoils of war this year, which is quite good. But why didn't you make yourself a sword-shaped magical artifact?"
In many magical traditions and rituals, magicians use swords as magical implements. We won't discuss the Eastern paradigm, as everyone has heard of Taoist priests wielding magical swords to cast spells. However, in Hayden's most commonly used Arcana (Tarot) magical system, the sword is also a very important magical elemental tool.
In the four-elemental magic system of Tarot cards, Hayden's most frequently used wand represents the fire element. So what does the wind element represent?
The answer is [sword].
A sword is an artifact that represents the wind attribute among the four elements!
But why is the wind a sword?
Because wind is breath. People exhale not only when they blow, but also when they speak. In other words, words are also a kind of breath, and also thought, exhaled from the mouth in the form of breath.
Words are the sharpest weapon in the world. They are so deadly, like a drawn blade, a sharpened dagger, that in the past they crushed the feudal lord class, freed thought from its cage, destroyed ancient and towering noble castles, and stirred up the old gods to split them in two.
"Doesn't Ms. Angela sing often? Song is both words and breath."
Professor Albion said with a smile,
"Over the past year, you have often used your spoils to craft new magical artifacts without realizing it—the songs of Lady Angela can themselves create the finest swords in the world."
That will be Angela's Secret Fire Sword, the Sword of Life, the Sword of Soul, the Sword of Thought, capable of cutting through everything.
Even the sharpest blade of death cannot rival it.
165: A sharp sword came out of its mouth.
Early that morning, Karen received a strange bill. It included a note from Hayden asking her to pay it for her.
Karen, of course, would pay for Hayden's purchase. But she also made sure to check what Hayden had bought and how much it cost. To her surprise, she discovered that Hayden had ordered moonstone ingots.
As we all know, the moon has always possessed abundant and valuable mineral resources. Furthermore, many special alloys can only be refined in outer space. The weightless environment is ideal for industries requiring low gravity; the sun's energy can be fully absorbed due to the absence of an atmosphere and pollution; and various resources can be discovered on the moon and many asteroids… It can be said that the universe holds immeasurable wealth.
Long ago, the Mitra Corporation took control of the moon. However, they didn't pursue any immigration or development there. The Mitra Corporation explained that the moon's habitability was extremely low, the environment was harsh, and the cost of making it a permanent human settlement was too high, so it wasn't necessary. They only built some semi-underground factories or mining workshops on the moon.
As for why the Mitra Corporation refused to allow ordinary people to immigrate to the moon for development, only the Mitra Corporation itself knows the reason.
The moonsteel Hayden ordered today is actually an alloy mined on the moon and refined under the unique conditions of space, with lunar iron as its main component. Its production volume isn't particularly low, but due to the Mithra Group's monopoly, the price is somewhat high.
Even at a high price, it was just a rare iron alloy used in industry. Hayden was only buying a few ingots, so it wouldn't cost much, and for Karen at this point, it was a drop in the ocean. She quickly paid for it for him and then couldn't help but wonder what Hayden intended to do with the ingots.
Unexpectedly, a while later, Karen received a second bill. This time, Hayden asked her to advance some money for several Olympian bronze ingots, which were priced similarly to moonstone.
As the name suggests, Olympus bronze is a material exclusively owned by the Mars Industries Group. Mount Olympus is located in orbit around a satellite outside of Earth, and this bronze is refined there.