Chapter 545: Chapter 529: The Correct Way to Open Gold Mountain

"Continue."

Allen’s voice lacked any warmth. The Soul Probe was maintained at a low power of three percent, scraping intelligence from Sargeras’s soul in a slow and continuous manner. It had already been four hours.

Jarvis was reconstructing this fragmented information in real time, building the underlying logic map of Purgatory’s self-sustaining system:

[Demon Resurrection → Demon Hunting → Soul Acquisition → Demon Evolution → Death in Battle → Payment of soul tax → Souls Returning to the Blood Pool.]

It was a perfect, closed internal circulation system.

"What do you demons use to settle large-scale transactions?" Allen asked.

Sargeras’s soul trembled slightly. After four hours of mental torture, he had given up on meaningless resistance and opted for selective cooperation, attempting to exchange his "surplus value" for a moment of respite.

"Soul Coins," Sargeras said, his voice hoarse and weak. "Pure souls condensed and processed by the Purgatory Will... One standard Soul Coin is equivalent to the complete soul of an ordinary mortal."

"The exchange rate?"

"...What?"

"How much Purgatory Demon Iron can one Soul Coin exchange for in your world?"

Sargeras fell silent for a moment, seemingly finding the question meaningless. "One coin... can exchange for about a ton. But very few demons would make such a trade. Metal holds little meaning to us."

Allen’s finger paused for a fraction of a second. A ton of Purgatory Demon Iron. On the open market of the Wizard Association, this metal sold for around 200 Low-Level Magic Stones per ton. Purgatory was a closed market possessing countless Extraordinary Materials, yet it only recognized souls as currency. If someone could supply souls to this market on a massive scale... they could absolutely reap exponentially higher profits.

Allen casually turned off the Soul Probe. Sargeras was relieved of a heavy burden. The cluster of dark flames floated listlessly in midair, nearly drained of the strength required to maintain its form.

"I have one more question." Allen’s tone was casual. "If I were to sell artificially manufactured souls to Purgatory in bulk—tens of thousands of them, with a continuous supply—do you think your kin would be willing to do business with me?"

Supplying... souls? In bulk?

After a full three seconds of being stunned, a burst of frantic, shrill laughter erupted within the quarantine zone, shaking the Suppression Runes on the walls until they rippled. He even forgot his current predicament of being pinned inside a cage by chains.

"HAHAHAHA—! Supplying artificial souls? Wizard, are you joking?!" Sargeras laughed so hard that his entire soul trembled, filled with endless mockery and disdain. "I admit, the power of those iron-shelled weapons of yours exceeded my imagination, but your ignorance has truly opened my eyes! What do you think a soul is? Wheat growing in a field? Something you can reap and mass-produce at will?"

Sargeras’s tone was brimming with the superiority of someone experienced, and he began to "lecture" this whimsical victor.

"I know that among you humans, some Moonlight or even Dawn Star Level Wizards possess what you call artificial soul technology.

"But manufacturing even the most inferior soul requires a long time to cultivate a Spirit Embryo, the investment of precious Consciousness Resonance, and the consumption of astronomically priced Extraordinary Materials! The unit cost far exceeds the value of the soul itself! If someone had that kind of free time, directly slaughtering a city in the Mortal Plane would be ten thousand times more cost-effective! However, mortals all have masters, and those Advanced Wizards have plenty of ways to squeeze out more value, so why would they ever make such a loss-making deal?

"In Purgatory, only massive quantities of souls hold any trading value. A few hundred? A few thousand? That’s spare change in a beggar’s bowl! As for mass-producing souls, did you think no clever person has ever come up with this idea before? But it is an absolute loss-making venture! It can never be realized! Do you understand? This is common sense!"

Sargeras asserted this with absolute certainty. He stared fixedly at Allen, seemingly unable to wait to see a look of sudden realization mixed with overwhelming shame appear on that perfectly calm face.

However, Allen’s expression did not change at all. He merely listened quietly, like a purchaser patiently sitting through a product pitch. Meanwhile, deep within his consciousness, another highly efficient conversation was taking place.

[Retrieve the complete cost report of the ’Artificial Soul Large Model: Zero’.]

[Command confirmed. Retrieving... Report generated.]

A massive data panel unfolded in Allen’s consciousness.

[Project Name: Artificial Soul Large Model - Emergence Plan]

[Core Technology: Based on the large-scale collection of emotional data from intelligent lifeforms, utilizing computing power simulation to induce ’seed’ programs to emerge with independent consciousness.]

[Cost: During the runtime of the ’seed’ program, Cybertron consumes approximately 100 Magic Stones worth of computing power. No materials required.]

[Output: Independent conscious entity, equivalent to a standard soul.]

[If manufactured in bulk, the unit production cost of a single soul can be further reduced.]

Sargeras was right. From a traditional perspective, this was indeed a loss-making venture. When traditional Wizards manufactured souls, they took a path that combined biology and mysticism. Cultivating embryos, extracting living consciousness, and carving complex Runes—the costs of this artisanal, workshop-style production were naturally inverted compared to the profits. But he, Allen Wesren, was following a completely different system derived from the informatics and computer science of his past life.

A soul, in essence, was nothing more than a high-dimensional, self-referential information processing system. As long as there was sufficiently massive computing power, supplemented by vast amounts of emotional data collected from holographic games as variable stimuli, souls could directly "emerge" within a virtual network.

The cost? Only Magic Power and server depreciation. What the traditional Extraordinary World could not achieve, his Cybertron could.

[Jarvis, if we industrialize the ’Emergence Plan’, establish a dedicated ’seed’ cultivation pool, and increase the computing power to 50% of Cybertron’s total capacity for parallel computing, how much can the production cycle and costs be compressed?]

[Conducting simulation deductions...]

[Model establishment complete...]

[Deduction Result: Large-scale production can significantly shorten the cycle. Coupled with optimized algorithms, the ’maturation’ time of a single soul can be compressed to 72 hours.]

[Estimated Cost: Energy and computing power costs will be approximately 25 standard Magic Stones per unit soul.]

Exchanging 25 Magic Stones for one ton of Purgatory Demon Iron was nearly a tenfold windfall!

It was too high. The profit margin was simply too high. What was it that Ma Shen had said back in the day? If there is a three hundred percent profit, capital will dare to trample all earthly laws. And now, this bunch of demons was treating a tenfold profit like useless stones thrown on the ground.

Looking at this number, a concept bred and spread through Allen’s mind like a virus. He thought of "Bitcoin" from his past life on Earth. That was a virtual currency "mined" by consuming massive amounts of electricity and computing power. And now, he possessed the technology to "mine" souls. The similarity was uncanny.

Using Magic Power, computing power, and the emotional data originally collected from the games, he could print Purgatory’s ultimate hard currency out of thin air! Every server running at high speed would become a "Soul Mining Machine" continuously printing money!

"...Why have you stopped talking, Wizard?" Seeing that Allen remained silent for a long time, Sargeras assumed his "common sense" had thoroughly intimidated the other party, his tone growing increasingly smug. "Do you finally understand how ridiculous your idea was? Abandon those impractical fantasies and obediently accept my terms. You will—"

Allen finally shifted his gaze, cutting him off.

"Your intelligence is very valuable, Sargeras." He looked at the Demon Iron Mountain Range on the light screen—a place the demons considered barren wasteland—with a gaze resembling a man admiring his own soon-to-be-listed private enterprise. "In return, not only will I spare your life, but I will also offer you a brand-new position."

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