"This could be of some help, but in the end, I guess I have to rely on myself for things like this," mumbled Beatrice as she touched her chin.
A few moments ago, Beatrice had just finished reading Selena's experiences at the Soul Transformation Stage, which proved to be a little bit less practical than she had hoped.
As it turns out, Selena's road to reaching the Soul Transformation Stage was both fast and smooth, not allowing Beatrice to gain much from reading about it.
Although the path of Beatrice herself might be even faster than that of Selena's, this did not mean that this notebook could benefit her much in this direction, as if Selena had struggled a lot while trying to transform her soul, Beatrice could have used the struggles and issues that Selena had faced as things to prepare for.
Sadly, though, Selena simply used her darkness to slowly but surely influence and transform her soul over the course of a decade, without any major hiccups.
A few moments later, Beatrice got up and placed the notebook into one of the nearby bookshelves, before walking out of the room she was currently in, and descending to a lower floor.
Step by step, Beatrice descended from the fifth floor, to the sixth, the seventh, and all the way to the ninth floor, where a formerly small town, which had become much larger over the course of over a decade, stood.
As soon as Beatrice arrived at this floor, one of the clones that were stationed on it arrived in front of her, with a small child walking behind her, already aware of the reason why Beatrice had come here.
"Really efficient..." mumbled Beatrice as she suddenly stretched out her hand and grabbed the little girl, causing the clone to click her teeth and walk away.
Seeing this, Beatrice, who had just knocked out the little girl, couldn't help but shake her head, feeling a little bit exasperated.
"I don't overwork them that bad, do I?" mumbled Beatrice as she picked up the little girl and threw her over her shoulder.
Over the past decade, the human farm, which originally had around 700 humans living on it, reached a population of over 2000 people, thanks to Beatrice's 'suggestions', with the majority of them being children.
Although the increase in population did not directly result in an increased workload for Beatrice's clones, as they didn't directly manage the town, other than a single clone who directed the major decisions of the town, with the increased population, the number of accidents and failures increased almost exponentially, making the clones have to create new systems and plans to prevent such things from happening in the future.
Right now things were a little bit better than before, as the Beatrice's finally managed to automate some of their work after all this time, but in the past, Beatrice really didn't like going on the Ninth floor, as she would be pestered by the clones who desperately needed manpower.
But even though this was the case, the number of clones stationed on the Ninth Floor remained the same, even now, as Beatrice really didn't want to have to create new clones unless she really had to, creating this situation.
'They'll calm down a bit more after a few more years pass, and they get things under control...' thought Beatrice as she immediately fled the Ninth floor, lest some other Beatrice come ask her for help once again.
In a few years, the first group of children that were born in this place would become adults, and much more easily managed, especially with all the psychological hints that they had been subjected with ever since they were born.
...
After getting up from the Ninth Floor, Beatrice made her way to the Third Floor, the Soul Experiment Lab, in just under thirty seconds, before placing the little girl that she had just 'harvested' onto a table.
A few moments after that, Beatrice once again began a series of experiments that she had long since stopped a long time ago, thanks to the fact that they didn't really produce any sort of results, other than creating twisted monstrosities of course.
The effects of Darkness on the human soul.
Right now, unlike when she first conducted these experiments, Beatrice was extremely proficient in manipulating the human soul, as such, she hoped this experience and mastery would translate into a successful experiment.
...
Just as Beatrice had expected, although she had been extremely careful to be as gentle as possible with the soul of the little girl, her first attempts at things like this rarely succeeded.
This one was no different, resulting in a little girl, who although appeared completely healthy, at least physically, had lost all of her rationality, and had to be put down by Beatrice.
"The brain isn't very damaged in the slightest, she could be quite useful as a zombie..." mumbled Beatrice as she decided what to do with the remains of the first experiment.
...
In the end, after experimenting on 17 different people, all taken from the ninth floor, Beatrice finally gave up once again.
No matter how gentle Beatrice was, after being in contact with pure darkness for just a moment, the souls of the humans that Beatrice had been experimenting on were instantly morphed beyond all recognition.
Beatrice had even gone as far as to capture the strongest willed human in the entire village, who coincidentally had some thoughts that she didn't like, and experimented on him.
But even this former soldiers, who had survived on the battlefield with his left hand cut off, was completely powerless in front of the darkness, managing to resist its effects for just a fraction of a moment more than the other humans.
"He was indeed slightly different from the others, but in the end, If I want to continue this line of experiments I need some mage apprentices as experimental subjects," mumbled Beatrice as she stared at the old man who was currently desperately thrashing against his restraints, having lost all the things that had made him truly human.
A moment later, Beatrice put the old man out of his misery and fell into thought.