The fact that the King was not a mage, nor did he have any close associates who were mages, as Beatrice had seen, meant that the Aephovian Kingdom was really even weaker than Beatrice expected.
After all, with mages in their midst, killing a mortal, no matter how well-defended, should be quite trivial.
'I should be able to conduct my experiments here without much worry,' thought Beatrice as she took another look at the king before disappearing.
...
Looking at her lab, which had not been used for over seven months, Beatrice couldn't help but shake her head as she placed her fingers on a table.
"It's only been seven months and this place has already become so dirty, this was pretty badly built," mumbled Beatrice as she shook a rather thick layer of dust off her finger.
A few moments after Beatrice said that, cleaning equipment, as well as several buckets full of concrete suddenly flew into the room and began quickly cleaning it up.
Under Beatrice's control, the cleaning equipment made quick work of the dirt which had accumulated in the room, being much faster than normal people.
Whilst the cleaning equipment was doing its thing, Beatrice walked up to the walls of the room and began touching them.
After she sent her Mana into the walls of the room, Beatrice was clearly able to sense any and all cracks which were present.
As such, she was able to quickly control some concrete, sending deep into those cracks, far beyond where a normal human would be able to.
Not only that, Beatrice was also able to make sure that the concrete did not have any gaps in it, making sure that the concrete did not have any gaps.
In only around ten minutes, Beatrice was able to reinforce her lab far beyond what it was originally like, to make sure that nothing could find its way inside of it.
By then, the cleaning equipment had also completely cleaned the room, having got rid of any dust and killed any bugs present inside.
As such, Beatrice was then able to quickly make sure that everything else was in order whilst she waited for the arrival of her new experimental subjects.
Only five minutes after Beatrice was able to clean up the room, she suddenly heard a knock on the door, causing her to get up from the chair she had been sitting on and walk up the stairs.
After Beatrice opened the metal door to the lab, she was greeted by three men, two of which were armed and holding a third man in their arms.
"Miss Beatrice, This is the criminal you have requested, officially, he has been 'executed'," said one of the guards, causing Beatrice to lightly nod.
"I understand," said Beatrice as she watched the two men place the prisoner on the ground before walking out of the dark hallway, and closing the door behind them.
A few moments later, Beatrice walked back downstairs, only now with a floating man behind her.
The first thing Beatrice did once she got back down was to tie the man to a table before stretching her arms.
"I have around two months up until the flying ship returns, hopefully, I can succeed before then," mumbled Beatrice, knowing that the success of this backup plan of hers might prove crucial in the future.
After a few moments, Beatrice stared at the head of the man for a few moments, causing his soul to become visible to her, soon after that, she got to work.
...
Seven days later,
Over the past seven days, although Beatrice tried to be as careful as possible, and reuse her experimental materials as much as possible, because of her experiments of the soul, she still ran out of materials.
Although her father had accidentally 'found' some criminals and sentenced them to death, this was not nearly enough for Beatrice to continue her experiments, as in only a week, she had already run out of criminals.
At this moment, Beatrice was sunk in thought as she looked at the man in front of her, who had just woken up.
"whoo arr yoo? whad'd yoo doo t' me?" asked the man as he held his head with his hands, being clearly in extreme pain at the moment.
Seeing this, Beatrice shook her head as she then took out a syringe.
"donn toush me, i'll beed yoo upp!!" said the man as he tried moving his body, but sadly, he was currently being restrained to the bed, and could not move in the slightest, allowing Beatrice to inject him extremely easily.
"fffuck yoo, yoo bish..."
A few moments after being injected, and after shouting some profanity, the man finally fell unconscious.
As she stared at him, Beatrice couldn't help but sink into further thought.
"It as though the damage to his soul isn't that severe, although his speech is slurred, he can still form sentences," mumbled Beatrice as she tapped her finger on the chair she was sitting on.
After a few moments, Beatrice decided what to do.
"I will go through his memories once again and try to see if anything has changed after the damage, and to see if I did any damage to them as well, if not, after some more mastery on my part, this could prove useful," mumbled Beatrice as she looked through the memories that she had extracted and sent into a corner of her own mind.
In a few moments, Beatrice once again sunk into the mind of the 'Criminal', and began looking through the latter's memories.
...
Over thirty minutes later,
As she looked at the man, who was now lying motionlessly on the table, seemingly staring at her.
"Whqt dkd hoi do to me, yiu whpfe?"
Staring at the man, who although had lost control of his body, still managed to curse her, Beatrice couldn't help but brightly smile.
"It looks as though my improvement speed is increasing, maybe I can move onto more complicated projects soon," mumbled Beatrice as she once again sunk into the mind of the man.
Of course, the already extremely fragile mind no longer managed to hold on, after a third round of mind reading.