Strongest Scammer: Scamming The World, One Death At A Time-Chapter 690: Pure Soul Qi (Bonus - )

People shivered everywhere, blaming it on the harsh winter cold.

"Are they absorbing emotions?" Han Yu wondered. "It feels like Eight Emotions Energy, but also not the same."

Hour after hour passed as more souls changed color. From pale white, they became corrupted gray. The entire town seemed to grow gloomy. Even the sky darkened, though it was still afternoon.

It was now the second day since the process had begun, yet Han Yu felt no exhaustion. What he was witnessing held his full attention. 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

After another six hours, the crystal had grown to three times its original size. Every soul had turned gray.

"Everyone prepare," Han Yu finally said after a long silence. "It is time."

"Finally," Fatui Zhuwen muttered, his voice hoarse.

With the crystal at the required size, the final refinement could begin.

Han Yu's flames grew fiercer as he closed the lid of the cauldron.

DENG!

The lid locked in place, its latches clamping down tightly as pressure began to build inside.

GONG. GONG. GONG.

The cauldron trembled like a sealed pressure pot. Inside, the blood churned violently.

Han Yu watched through his spirit sense. A thin, sticky layer formed around the crystal, resisting its absorption.

"MERGE!" Han Yu raised the heat to the highest level he had used so far.

WOOOOOOONG!

The cauldron groaned, as if it wanted to scream but had no mouth.

At the same time, the mass of gray souls began to shake.

"What now?" Han Yu murmured in shock.

He saw one of the souls shrink to the size of a tiny dot before it could no longer hold itself together.

Puff.

The soul burst apart.

Two colors emerged from it.

One was gray, which rushed into the cauldron and merged with the crystal, causing more of the blood to cling tightly to it.

The other was a pure white, translucent energy.

Han Yu froze.

Without thinking, he breathed in.

And drew that white energy into himself.

As soon as the white energy was drawn into Han Yu's body, it was pulled straight into his Soul Space, where the Eight Emotions Lotus reacted instantly.

The lotus trembled, its petals fluttering rapidly, almost like hands clapping in delight. It leaned toward the incoming energy with eagerness, drawing it in without hesitation.

"Soul Qi… pure and spotless Soul Qi?" Han Yu almost doubted his own senses.

His Soul Core answered for him.

It pulsed with excitement, sending waves of hunger and joy through his entire being. This was not Soul Qi that had been refined through long cultivation. This was Soul Qi that had come directly from souls themselves, dense, pure, and far more potent than anything he had ever produced on his own.

Han Yu did not even know what to think. His mind felt strangely empty, as if it could not immediately process the magnitude of what was happening.

Poof. Poof. Poof.

More souls began to explode in succession.

Their numbers did not decrease. Instead, they seemed to multiply by the second, as if the empty space left behind immediately attracted more. Grey and white energies flooded the hall, swirling together in a chaotic dance, while new souls kept pouring in to fill every gap.

"This… I can absorb this, right?" Han Yu wondered in disbelief.

He had never imagined gaining something like this from an alchemy process. His heart began to race, not from fear, but from opportunity.

He quickly glanced around. The other alchemists and formation masters looked exhausted, frightened, and confused, but none of them could see what he was seeing. To them, there was only the oppressive atmosphere and the strange unease in their hearts.

A slow smirk formed on Han Yu's face.

"No reason to let it go to waste," he thought.

He took a deep breath.

SHUA.

All the Soul Qi released by the exploding souls was drawn into him in a single, sweeping motion. It rushed into his body, pouring straight into his Soul Core as if it had finally found its true home.

Bit by bit, his reserves of Soul Qi began to grow at a terrifying speed. This was far faster than any cultivation method he had ever used. And it did not seem like it was going to stop anytime soon, because the souls simply kept coming.

"The souls in the hall were not the only ones," Han Yu realized with a sharp breath. "Just how many souls were drawn in? There is no way this many people and beasts were killed just to make the Living Blood."

He could sense more than ten thousand souls now. Some were faint and weak, which he assumed were animal or low level beast souls. But there were also countless human souls among them, strong and distinct.

Han Yu was certain that the Fatui Clan could not have killed so many humans without drawing the attention of far greater powers. Even a few hundred would already be dangerous. This number was simply impossible.

"Did it draw more souls than just the ones from the Living Blood?" Han Yu's mind was filled with questions, but none of them had answers yet.

What he did not know was that the Soul Binding Blood Crystal, following its own strange properties, had not limited itself to the souls used in the Living Blood. It had drawn in wandering remnants of souls from the surrounding area.

In a place as harsh as this, death was common. Hunters, beasts, travelers, cultivators, and even villagers all died from time to time, leaving behind faint remnants that normally faded away on their own. On their own, they could never be summoned back.

But now, powered by the strange combination of ingredients in the cauldron, something impossible had happened.

Souls from the town, from the nearby forest, and even from the edges of the Harrow Mountains had been pulled in.

While Han Yu was absorbing Soul Qi in secret, he noticed something else.

CLANG. CLANG. CLANG.

The crystal inside the cauldron began to jump violently, like a corn kernel in a pot, unable to stay still for even a moment.