[Inventory: Souls (x10)]
As the name of the method suggested, the <Soul-Snatcher Method of Death> didn't simply result in the death of Yi Tian's partner.
It quite literally absorbed their life force and the energy in every single cell in their body then once the body was no more than a shriveled corpse reminiscent of a dried plum, the soul was snatched away and placed inside of Yi Tian's inventory.
Those ten slaves were regular humans with no spiritual roots meaning that they had zero talent for cultivation, similar to himself before the system awoke.
There was quite literally zero chance of them ever becoming a cultivator.
If there were, Yi Tian would've been in the Qi Condensation realm years ago because his mother was extremely wealthy and his allowance represented that.
One might consider for a second that it would still be more useful to turn those slaves into actual slaves with the Master Method but Yi Tian had to disagree.
As that method was only at the first level, there was a limited spot for slaves; ten to be exact.
As he already had Byeon Min-Hee taking up one of the spots, he only had nine left and if he were to use all of those spots on the slaves, it would just be extremely wasteful.
[Perverted Energy: 298]
Each slave gave him around 30 or so P.E. which was the equivalent of using the Leech Method on the women ten times per person.
Yi Tian was sitting down on a chair, naked, hair disheveled, and his body drenched in sweat.
The method was cruel.
While doing the deed, he could visibly see their body start to lose its vitality.
The color in their eyes slowly became dull until it was completely grey.
And their once attractive bodies quickly became "old" and "wrinkled".
Yi Tian wasn't picky about the color, size, and shape of the women he chose to indulge himself but that didn't mean he was into old hags who looked like corpses.
However, he had to push through because he had to finish what he had started and by the fifth woman, he had become numb and the madness in his heart had grown twice as large.
"System, upgrade <How to run away>."
[Upgrading
[Technioque: Art of Fleeing (UC)]
With just 20 P.E., he was able to upgrade the Common technique to an Uncommon one.
"How much would it be to upgrade it once more?"
[100 P.E.]
"Let's do that then. Upgrade it one more time."
[Understood. Upgrading
[Perverted Energy: 178]
With just 120 P.E., he had been able to upgrade a Common ranked technique to a Rare one.
He uttered a heartless phrase unknowingly, "So the price of a Rare technique is four people. That's rather cheap."
Undermining the lives of humans, Yi Tian then asked his system, "How much would it be to upgrade once more?"
He already knew that he wouldn't be able to afford it but was curious.
[The next upgrade is the final possible evolution for the technique. It would cost 500 P.E. to get the technique to its final form.]
"Seventeen lives," he muttered. "And that's only if they're regular people. What if..."
'...they were cultivators?'
He could only imagine how much P.E. he'd be able to extract from cultivators but that was something that he'd have to test out for himself later in the future.
"I'll have to upgrade the method to the next level if I want to use it on cultivators."
For the moment, the Soul-Snatcher Method being only at the first level meant that it could only be used on regular people.
Each method had its limitations that could only be removed or reduced by leveling it up.
As stated earlier, Master Method could only hold ten slaves at the same time. If he wanted a new slave, he'd have to remove one of the old ones from his reins first.
Soul-Snatcher Method was limited to being used on regular people and the number of daily uses was at ten which was why he stopped at purchasing ten slaves instead of buying more; he could've bought more for later but that would've increased the risk of him being exposed (if someone discovered that he was purchasing slaves but they would disappear off the face of the planet soon after, they might investigate their disappearance and connect the dots).
The Leech Method's rate of conversion was currently at its lowest and later on, the further it upgraded, the more P.E. he'd receive from the same amount of qi.
For the Yin-Yang Method, the speed of growth the two partners would receive during the act of harmony would increase with each level.
As he wiped himself dry with a towel, he asked the system, "What use do I have for the souls in my inventory?"
It wasn't one of the pieces of knowledge that had been forcefully shoved into his brain.
There didn't seem to be a pattern to what he automatically knew versus what he had to inquire from the system such as the amount of P.E. it would take to upgrade something.
[The souls have numerous uses.]
[1. They can used to create powerful explosions.]
[2. The host can insert them into the bodies of others as long as the body is either dead or in a very vulnerable state.]
[3. The souls can be inserted into puppets, transforming them into living puppets.]
[4. If you're out of P.E., you can use the soul as emergency energy needed to activate your techniques.]
"All four uses are pretty damn useful," Yi Tian chuckled as he finished getting dressed.
* * *
Yi Lihua was conflicted.
She had been waiting for Yi Tian to contact her but it had already been a day and there'd been nothing from silence from his end.
She wanted to barge into his living quarters like she usually would do without permission but a part of her was worried that she would run into having sex with one of his servants again.
It wasn't her first time seeing him do such things but after learning that their feelings were mutual, it made things complicated.
Firstly, it made it a lot easier for her to picture herself in the shoes of the servant, as the possibility of that coming into reality is much higher.
Secondly, it angered her knowing that he had feelings for her but was still indulging himself in other women.
One of her bodyguards who she used as a spy to gather information around the city had informed her a while ago that Yi Tian was currently at the red light district.
At first, her reaction was to clench her fists and ask out loud, "Why would you head to that rotten place instead of coming to me? Do you really love me?"
(Reminder: he never said that he loved her, just that he likes her.)
However, after a while, the scene of him inserting his rod inside of other women, just picturing it caused her to gulp and enter her bedroom.
After kicking everyone out and telling them not to disturb her for the next hour or so, he got undressed and began touching herself while imagining what Yi Tian was doing to the courtesans.
"Yi Tian... Yi Tian~" she moaned his name while arching her back, a finger inside her tight virgin hole.
She was unable to orgasm but once she felt like she reached a pretty satisfactory spot, she stopped and quickly cleaned up after herself.
Spraying perfume on her to mask the smell, she began heading out.
"Where are you going Master?" one of her servants asked.
"None of your business. Tell Mother I'll be home late."
The servant wasn't a hundred percent certain but was able to make a pretty educated guess that wherever she was heading, it had something to do with Yi Tian.
Nothing more than a servant, she didn't dare warn her master about the cons that came with hanging around that disgrace, even if it was to bother him and to keep her relationship with Yi Zhu in a good space.
Little did she or anyone else know that her true intentions for bothering her cousin were never about Yi Zhu.
That was simply an excuse to justify her desire to be by the side of the person whom she loves dearly.
Yi Lihua who was heading out, a part of her wanted to stay inside her home and wait for Yi Tian to contact her first, but the impatient part of her that desperately wanted to see her crush overwhelmed that prideful side of her.
'I'll wait for him at his home,' she thought as she expected him to still be indulging himself in alcohol and women at the red light district.
Coincidentally, Yi Tian was also heading home after extracting the souls of ten women who were reduced to nothing more than dried corpses which after stomping on them, turned into a pile of ash and dust.
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A/N: I plan on uploading a chapter daily, sometimes only 5 a week depending on my schedule. BUT! For every review that someone leaves on this novel, I will release an extra chapter to reward you guys. (A little shameless but I do want this novel to succeed and hopefully be able to make a living writing which would allow me to focus all my time on writing and reviews + power stones would help out a lot)