21st Century Necromancer

Although Chen Yu decided to continue promoting the relationship between Minami and Inomata Naoki, it wasn't something that required immediate attention.

Emotions sometimes cannot be rushed, and while at certain moments we need to take decisive action, more often feelings need to be accumulated over time.

Though human emotions are influenced by hormones and various chemicals and are often impulsive, emotions are more about the accumulation of memories.

It's difficult to develop feelings for strangers. Biological parents separated from their child at birth cannot have the same depth of affection as adoptive parents who have lived with the child for decades. That's because of the dependency and sense of security formed over the long-term relationship.

The human body is a highly precise and delicate chemical factory, with all our emotions stemming from hormonal influences.

Sense of security is also a feeling produced by hormones affecting our brain, but long-term security forms memories. These memories can engrave themselves in our minds, becoming habitual, even turning into conditioned reflexes.

When we see familiar people or things in unfamiliar environments, we feel reassured and relaxed, which is due to the combined effects of memory and conditioned reflex stimulating the secretion of hormones, thus eliciting such feelings.

Feelings work the same way; the impulse of love stemming from encountering someone attractive triggers hormone secretion, and the duration these hormones remain in your body is how long your love for that person lasts.

If you only see each other once and never again, the secretion of love hormones will cease, and the duration of love will not last long.

But frequent encounters that stimulate the secretion of love hormones will extend the duration of love. Simultaneously, a form of memory forms in the other person's brain, which is the feeling of love upon seeing you.

This feeling deepens with memory, leading you to believe that you've fallen in love with someone and are willing to be together.

However, for Minami, who died and only her spiritual body remains, her physical body is long gone, and though her spiritual body looks no different from a living person, it doesn't have the function to secrete hormones. All her emotions and sensations do not stem from the body's precise chemical reactions but from the most direct feelings of her soul.

Such emotions, while experientially similar to those caused by bodily hormones, have essential, subtle differences.

In short, the feelings of the soul are more genuine and lasting.

Physical emotions last at most a few decades, but the love and hatred of the soul persist for hundreds, even thousands of years, until the soul fades away.

Therefore, Chen Yu did not manipulate Minami's hormonal secretions to produce feelings as he did with Inomata Naoki and Tokairin Yūko. Instead, he guided her in various ways, allowing her to develop her love for Inomata Naoki on her own, especially since Minami didn't have a body for Chen Yu to control.

Now that Minami was beginning to doubt whether she had fallen for Inomata Naoki, further provocation would only make her panic and reject the idea. While there were ways to achieve his goal, a better approach was to let her think for herself.

Given Minami's current situation and her innate character, she was highly likely to convince herself not to like Inomata Naoki, leading to a seemingly plausible but false conclusion.

This avoidance would fabricate an apparently unassailable reason for her to feel content in believing she didn't like Inomata Naoki and hadn't been attracted to him.

However, after she arrived at this conclusion, providing a huge stimulus that destroyed her self-justifications, overturning the reasoning she'd used to persuade herself, would equally persuade her that, in truth, she did like Inomata Naoki.

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Since Minami's matter didn't require immediate attention, Chen Yu naturally had the time to help Misumi Mikoto construct her own Necromantic Space.

After Chen Yu's specialized coaching, Misumi Mikoto had acquired enough knowledge and practical ability to perform the entire ritual, with the only thing left being to conduct it.

Compared to when Chen Yu performed his ritual, Misumi Mikoto's conditions were undeniably better, whether it was the pre-prepared ritual altar Chen Yu had used, the preparation of various ritual offerings, or the choice of a secure location for the ritual—all were far superior to Chen Yu's own initial circumstances.

Remembering his early ritual experience, which nearly led to a confrontation with some low-level Official-level Superhumans and now, being a Demigod himself, caused Chen Yu to look back on that time with a feeling of both laughter and tears.

But that was the first time Chen Yu had killed and controlled another soul. Perhaps his mindset shifted from that of an ordinary, contented person to a Demigod who now sees friends and brothers as utilitarian, starting from that very moment.

Chen Yu had no intention of reflecting on his actions. Admittedly, turning Inomata Naoki's feelings into a bargaining chip and causing such a big commotion was somewhat unfair to a friend, but Chen Yu had no intention of harming him.

Even if Inomata Naoki was being used in this matter, at worst, he would suffer a heartbreak.

Even when exploiting friends, Chen Yu still had his own limits.

Just recalling those early days, Chen Yu suddenly remembered that the superhumans who attacked him seemed to be a family and belonged to a yakuza organization called the Bluebird Group. The one he killed and whose soul he controlled was a female Ninja, whom he manipulated to live indistinguishably from a living person.

A body controlled in such a manner would gradually turn into an Undead. Chen Yu remembered that he had refined her soul back then, allowing her to cultivate independently. He wondered what her strength was like now.

Thinking of this, Chen Yu recalled the Necromancy Sect inheritances he'd spread, namely the Cultivation Method of the Undead Servant. He wondered how many people had cultivated these inheritances and what levels they had reached by now.

For a Necromancer, those who had cultivated these inheritances were excellent sources of potential recruits. With just a simple conversion and guidance, they could become part of a qualified Undead Legion.

These individuals were already factored into Chen Yu's calculations of available forces, but it was uncertain how many there were; perhaps it was time to take stock of their numbers?