Right from the start, ever since Theodore had learned that a Harmony segment had been subdued, he had anticipated that his harvest would turn out to be absolutely delightful. And now that he was reading through the three Talents' descriptions, he could confidently say that his expectations had been met.
At first glance, if one solely considered the grades of his options, then 'Will Harmonization' seemed to be the most promising. Supreme-grade Talents were extremely rare, primarily found amidst the more outstanding Pillar descendants or on Supreme Pillar heirs. He himself didn't have many of them either, so he couldn't deny that he was tempted to select this one and be done with it.
However, the exact details of how it worked made him hesitate. Although fusing wills was different from fusing souls, it could still have a profound impact upon a being. If too many of these fusions took place, then it would eventually become hard to say where one's self began, and where it ended. One would cease to be a distinct individual sooner or later, transforming into some sort of agglomerated hive mind under one's own primary control...
But despite that being a non-negligible issue, it was undeniable that his Divine Will was currently one of his greatest weaknesses. In general, any confrontations between wills should be avoided as much as possible, unless one was certain that one's foe was so far beneath oneself that no harm could come from a clash. Yet considering that he almost always fought those at higher cultivation stages than himself, especially now that his Numen was still in its comparative infancy, strengthening his will would give him a huge boost in the short term.
There was another downside to this Talent that had to be taken into account, though: It required that the will fusion target's mind did not resist the process at all. Currently, Theodore simply had no way to ensure that that would be the case. Unless he manually subdued his targets and made them his Slaves, it would be almost inconceivably difficult for him to get others to agree to such an arrangement.
What he was missing was a Talent like the third one on the list, 'Mind Encroachment'. Despite being 'only' of Mythical-grade, it was a rarely seen and valuable Mind Control-type Talent and worked perfectly well in combination with Will Harmonization. It was just a pity that he could only choose one of them.
Last but not least, sandwiched between the two others, there was 'Soul Fragment Entanglement'. It appeared rather unassuming, but it actually hid terrifying potential. Allowing a person to split their own soul without significant negative consequences could already be quite useful on its own, but it was the second half of its description that caused him to grin in excitement.
Having always lacked a proper Clone-type Talent of his own, he had long since desired to obtain one from somewhere. Technically, once he arrived at higher cultivation stages, he could create his own clones, but those would always suffer from a large number of flaws that Talents specializing in this field simply did not have.
Admittedly, on its own, Soul Fragment Entanglement wasn't really a Clone-type Talent either–and even combined with his freakish regeneration capabilities, it still wouldn't bless him with actual, perfect clones. But that didn't mean that it wouldn't bring him additional layers of safety, far more options than ever before, and decent clones that were a bit superior to those that he could eventually create once he was stronger.
'To be honest, if this one hadn't shown up in the list, then I might have seriously considered choosing Will Harmonization, despite the numerous issues it has. After all, I wouldn't 'need' to constantly use it. Perhaps, every now and then, it might come in handy. And even if I may have ultimately decided against it, I would have surely chosen Mind Encroachment.'
Glancing at the three Talents' exact description again, his smile widened.
'But with Soul Fragment Entanglement in the picture, that changes things. I already have a number of ideas about how I'd like to use it!'
Having made his final decision, he confirmed his selection, causing the notification to disappear. He himself, however, felt no different from before at all. Compared to many other recent Talent acquisitions of his, this latest gain had not instantly led to drastic, noticeable changes.
"Don't worry about me, everyone, I just want to test something."
Warning the others in advance, he shot a smile at them and ripped out one of his fingers, throwing it into the Lesser True Void in front of him. Before any blood had even had the opportunity to pour out, his entire digit had already regrown.
Normally, when he lost any of his body parts, his physical vessel would first recover, and then anything that had been separated from him would either be annihilated by his foes, or it would attempt to make its way back to him. Once it reunited with his body, it would be broken down into pure Energy and reabsorbed.
Therefore, unless he willed a lost limb to stay in place, or sealed it away somehow, there would be no instances of random Theodore pieces drifting around aimlessly. Still, under regular circumstances, he only kept some backup flesh scraps hidden away that could activate his Sacred Phoenix Physique in the event of an untimely but not thorough enough death.
But today, he would try his hand at something completely different. Keeping his removed finger in place, he focused mostly on his own soul. Just like so many times before, he shot a quick, contemplative glance at the two seals that he had not yet been able to unlock, then he felt some newly acquired instincts figuratively whispering in his ears.
This was one of the hidden benefits of having obtained the Soul Fragment Entanglement Talent–he fully understood how to safely separate a part of his soul from the whole.
Following his gut feelings' instructions, in mere moments, a fragment perhaps accounting for one percent of his entire soul had been split off. He knew that all that it would take to reunite it with the rest of his soul was a single thought, but for now, he had no reason to do so.
Carefully manoeuvring it towards his torn off finger, he let the fragment claim this discarded part of his body for itself. Then, he shifted some of his focus and allowed this newly inhabited physical vessel to regenerate.
In less than a second, a whole new Theodore stood in front of him, already clothed. He wasn't an exhibitionist, so he had Faavi create a visually identical duplicate of his current garments for his pseudo clone on the fly.
"... I've controlled more than one body before, but every time, it takes a while to get used to."
Shaking both selves' heads with a helpless smile on their lips, he recalled past instances during his illusory lives, when he had been powerful enough to create some decent clones for himself. Without fail, whenever he stared at one of his bodies through the other one's eyes, it had felt... surreal.
This time, it was no different. Fortunately, having experienced such sensations a lot, he quickly shrugged off the discomfort and went about controlling both bodies simultaneously, moving them in distinctly mismatched ways, almost akin to a performance.
Only now did Xie Mei and Han Junqiao finally react to what had just occurred, their eyes going wide with shock and excitement. In the latter's case, she was considering the practical applications of having multiple bodies, and rejoicing at the fact that her Theo was now a bit more secure.
Xie Mei, though, felt like a heavy load had been taken off her mind. Her Reincarnation Clones had been giving her a headache for a considerable while now. After all, with so many of her and only one Theodore, wouldn't handling all of her selves be a bit of a problem? Now, however, with her beloved having multiple bodies at hand... many heretofore unimaginable scenes flashed through her mind, causing her cheeks to take on a deeply crimson hue.
"Hmm, not bad. It's just a pity that you'll have to recultivate each one of those pseudo clones from scratch."
Far more seasoned than the other two, Ninna immediately caught one of the bigger downsides that Theodore would have to deal with. Although his entire body could be reconstructed, and a part of his soul could even control it remotely, that didn't mean that his Dantians and their content could be duplicated in his current state. Unless he obtained a Talent specifically enabling such a feat, this would remain an issue.
He was already fortunate enough that his second vessel's Energy Vein Incorporation status had stayed the exact same as his primary body's–hoping for more right now would be highly unrealistic.
"It's alright. I can skip all body-related cultivation stages and realms before the Holos Acclimation Stage, plus all soul- and will-related ones as well. It's not going to take too long to catch up with my main self."
Having finished adapting, Theodore's first pseudo clone was the one that responded to Ninna's observation, a confident smirk on his lips. At the same time, the primary Theodore couldn't help but shake his head in helplessness.
"It's a shame that these creations still have so many flaws, but they will have to do for the time being."
Naturally, he didn't point out the specific weaknesses that he was alluding to. After all, while he trusted his people, he didn't have the habit of giving each of them an exhaustive list of all ways in which he could be taken down. If they could figure out some of them on their own, then that was fine, but he certainly wouldn't spell them all out for them.
'Because the fragment is always connected to the main soul, any sort of soul-based attack can impact not only my pseudo clone, but also my real self. Therefore, I shouldn't recklessly throw my other vessels into danger without a care in the world. That aside, I cannot produce endless numbers of them.'
Once more scrutinizing his own soul, he judged that he could currently repeat what he had just done maybe another four times. Because his soul effectively stayed 'intact' although he had cut off a part of it, it wouldn't suddenly start to recover and regenerate the fragment that had been separated from the whole–after all, it hadn't been damaged.
On the bright side, however, any improvements to his soul whatsoever would also simultaneously upgrade all of its various parts.
Allocating a mere five percent of his soul to pseudo clone creation might seem like peanuts in the great scheme of things at first, but he could tell that it was his limit. Even considering going any further than that made him break out into a cold sweat. He didn't doubt for a second that his entire soul would grow highly unstable and completely collapse if he separated a sixth or perhaps a seventh percent.
'That's anything but normal. Even if I divided my soul into 100 parts–the theoretical maximum–nothing like that should happen! There can be only one reason for this: Those seals. I really need to deal with them as soon as possible...'
Yet despite having figured out the most likely cause, there was nothing that he could do about it at this point in time. Even after his soul grew stronger again during the Psyche Transformation Stage, the Advanced Ascension Stage, the Gate Traversal Stage, and then again in the Celestial Stage... it probably wouldn't be enough to deal with the simpler seal of the two.
'Oh well. Five extra bodies should suffice for now. Patience, patience. In the third round, or at worst in the fourth, I should be capable of unravelling the first part of this mystery.'
Sighing to himself, he ripped off another finger and worked on getting the rest of his pseudo clones up and running. Before going head to head with Sarasvain, he aimed to reach his most powerful state. He wouldn't foolishly underestimate the man that his reliable, trustworthy right-hand woman had evaluated extraordinarily highly.