The Soul-Harvesting Puppeteer - Chapter 33

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 33
‘Hahahaha.’
Han Eol chuckled with delight, then splashed blood onto the large Magical Stone embedded in Giret’s chest.
Moments later, bubbles rose across the stone’s surface. The once-solid Magical Stone began to soften, showing signs of melting.
Whoosh!
Han Eol immediately unfurled an energy barrier.
Sluuurp—
Mana streamed from the Magical Stone into Han Eol’s Soul Space, drawn through the barrier.
His Soul Space expanded proportionally with each current of power.
It wasn’t merely the size that grew—the quality of his mana had become incomparably finer than before.
After absorbing all of Giret’s Magical Stone, Han Eol tested his energy barrier again, and more than thousands of palm-sized fish swam across its surface.
Among them, only a few were yellow; the majority were transparent.
Yet compared to the yellow fish, the transparent ones moved far faster and looked considerably more ferocious.
‘This is substantial. My defense has grown exponentially.’
Han Eol seized the opportunity to gather more spoils.
In truth, through Giret’s Soul Remnant—what remained after the soul departed, leaving only the husk—absorbed by his chromatic palm, he knew precisely what to claim.
After the Magical Stone, the most crucial prize was the Pyros Ring.
It was a fact Han Eol had only recently discovered: the Pyros Ring came in male and female variants.
Previously, while exploring the Seven Continents, Han Eol had slain a female three-headed eight-tailed Giret and claimed a Pyros Ring as spoils.
Now this male Giret also possessed a Pyros Ring.
But the two rings were not identical.
The previous ring was female.
This new one was male.
According to knowledge Han Eol had extracted from Giret today, a pair of Pyros Rings—male and female—could be combined into a single ring, and doing so would enhance its options.
‘Oh, magnificent. Like a Set Item? Where gathering the complete set adds new properties beyond the original ones.’
Han Eol felt anticipation surge through him.
Chapter 8
The Sacred Group did possess Set Items, in fact.
Of course, such treasures belonged only to the group’s owning family, so Han Eol had never laid eyes on one—but he’d heard rumors all the same.
‘So the Pyros Ring is also a Set Item, or rather a Set Artifact? Hahahaha.’
With joy in his heart, Han Eol slipped the ring from the dead Giret’s finger.
The female Pyros Ring bore two options: 1) Stealth, 2) Movement Speed Increase.
Among these, Movement Speed Increase was a passive ability that activated instantly upon wearing the ring. Thanks to it, Han Eol’s agility and movement speed had surged dramatically.
Stealth, by contrast, was an active-type ability that required the wearer to channel mana into the ring to activate.
So far, Han Eol hadn’t been able to use Stealth.
His ability to manipulate mana was a very recent development.
Meanwhile, the male Pyros Ring he’d acquired today bore two equally magnificent options.
The first was Short-Range Teleportation.
This unusual ability functioned similarly to a magical technique called Blink, allowing the ring’s wearer to instantaneously teleport within five meters, dodging enemy attacks or leaping over obstacles.
Unfortunately, this too was active-type, requiring deliberate mana control to function.
In contrast, the male ring’s second option, Shove, was passive, activating automatically without the wearer’s conscious effort.
When the ring’s wearer took an attack, this option would forcefully push the attacker backward, disrupting their strike.
Han Eol was pleased with both options on his new ring. Each enhanced his survival, and neither could be spared.
‘They’re perfectly tailored to me. Haha.’
With genuine delight, Han Eol fused the two Pyros Rings together.
Click.
With a crisp sound, the male and female pair merged into a single ring.
The merged ring retained all options from both originals. But in addition, a new Set Effect emerged.

This was the Set Effect of the merged ring.
‘Jackpot!’
Han Eol grasped its utility in an instant.
Active abilities were inherently less practical than passive ones.
In the heat of frantic combat, managing the Pyros Ring on top of everything else was no trivial matter. Without considerable mastery, teleportation could backfire—you might end up materializing right in front of your enemy. That was the danger.
And what if mana ran dry during battle?
Then Stealth and Short-Range Teleportation would fail instantly. If Han Eol relied on these abilities and his mana depleted, he’d be left defenseless.
But the Set Effect eliminated every one of these drawbacks.
From now on, as long as Han Eol wore the Pyros Ring, the moment he took damage, he would automatically slip into Stealth mode—invisibility itself.
And the instant he was struck, he could evade via Short-Range Teleportation.
Though the range was limited to five meters, this alone dramatically increased his odds of survival in a crisis.
‘I’ve really got the luck of the gods. Ha ha ha. To lay hands on such an extraordinary artifact—coming to the Highland was absolutely the right call.’
Han Eol slipped the merged Pyros Ring onto the middle finger of his left hand, beaming.
Whoosh.
The moment he put it on, the Pyros Ring melted into Han Eol’s flesh, leaving only the faintest trace.
After absorbing the Magical Stone, now the Pyros Ring—by any honest measure, he’d struck the mother lode.
But this was only the beginning of Han Eol’s windfall.
Ten minutes later, Han Eol visited the Control Room of the Ancient Ruins.
He’d learned about the Control Room from the knowledge the Giret Clan slave had left behind.
Originally, the Control Room was a sealed space with no doors and walls on all sides, making it inaccessible to anyone save the master who held dominion over the Ancient Ruins.
Giret himself had been permitted by the Ruins’ master to enter and leave, but touching anything inside was forbidden.
Han Eol was different.
He was the new master, having assumed all control of the Ancient Ruins from its previous owner.
Burst!
The moment Han Eol stepped onto the circular magic circle inside the Ancient Ruins, it erupted into a dazzling pillar of light shooting straight upward.
As if in response, the final character of the golden-hued string of letters carved on the inner wall of the Soul Core in Han Eol’s upper dantian blazed with brilliant radiance.
The circular magic circle and the letter string on the Soul Core’s inner wall exchanged luminous halos, and soon resonance cascaded through both, culminating in a tremendous photonic explosion.
Flash!
In an instant, Han Eol’s body vanished without a trace from atop the magic circle.
When Han Eol reappeared, he stood in an isolated chamber hundreds of meters deeper underground than the Ancient Ruins—the Control Room itself.
‘So this is the Control Room. Let me have a look around.’
Han Eol surveyed the chamber, drawing on Giret’s knowledge.
The first thing he found was four separate storage vaults.
1. A Magical Crystal Stone vault stocked with the highest quality Magical Crystal Stones.
2. A rare materials vault assembled over countless ages by the Spirit Race master of the Ancient Ruins.
3. A medicinal supplies vault containing ingredients needed for crafting all manner of potions.
4. An artifact vault holding every sort of treasure and relic.
Each vault overflowed with wonders that made the eyes widen.
‘Even bringing just a fraction of these to Midland would earn me extraordinary attention from the Sacred Group.’
The thought crossed Han Eol’s mind briefly, but he didn’t linger. He left the vaults behind and hurried on.
The contents of these vaults were his now, after all. He could inspect them thoroughly later at his leisure—there was no rush.
Han Eol had decided to claim something far more important first.
Chapter 9
What truly captured Han Eol’s attention was the Long-Distance Teleportation Magic Circle at the heart of the Control Room.
The circular magic circle he’d used moments before was designed for short-range movement between the stone ruins and the Control Room.
But the Long-Distance Teleportation Magic Circle installed at the Control Room’s center was the vital hub connecting the Ancient Ruins to the other base facilities the Spirit Race master had established across the Fifth Continent.
The dead Giret had been allowed access to the Control Room because he also managed the vaults there.
But the Long-Distance Teleportation Magic Circle itself was forbidden even to him as a slave.
‘Let me see where this goes.’
Using the Long-Distance Teleportation Magic Circle was the same as before.
Boom!
The moment Han Eol stepped onto the circle, lights kindled from its perimeter inward, then erupted into a brilliant pillar of radiance shooting skyward.
Then the second-to-last character in the golden-hued string of letters inscribed on the inner wall of the Soul Core in Han Eol’s upper dantian blazed with resplendent light.
The two luminances soon echoed each other, and resonance engulfed them both.
‘The golden letter string, cryptic as code, is the key that activates the magic circles. This is genuinely innovative technology.’
Han Eol marveled at the Spirit Race’s magnificent civilization.
The resonance intensified, building toward an inevitable burst of light.
Rumble—rumble—rumble—rumble—Flash!
Han Eol vanished from the Long-Distance Teleportation Magic Circle, only to emerge at the center of the Fifth Continent, an incomprehensibly vast distance to the northeast of where he’d been.
Even traveling at the speed of light would have required years to cover that distance, yet Han Eol had crossed it in the blink of an eye.
Such a miraculous feat was possible.
The Spirit Race’s power so vastly exceeded the limits of humanity.
‘Then why did such a being grant me these foundations without asking anything in return? And what does it mean that he came to the Fourth Continent asking for my help?’
There were other questions too.
‘He mistook me for one of his own kind. Why would he make such an error? Could there be something about me that bears the marks of the Spirit Race?’
These thoughts occupied Han Eol only briefly.
“Ah…”
At the sight unfolding before him, Han Eol let out an involuntary exclamation.
The seven base facilities the Spirit Race had transferred to Han Eol each held significance, but the scale of Base Facility No. 1, positioned at the continent’s center, was staggering.
Across endless foothills, tens of thousands of Giret Clan slaves cultivated rare medicinal herbs in designated zones.
On the opposite side, where lava flowed through volcanic ridges, Cape Clan slaves—members of the giant race—refined a shimmering liquid metal so rare it was scarcely found elsewhere on the Fifth Continent.
This liquid metal that resembled blood was the essential substance that constituted the physical form of the Spirit Race.
Han Eol learned this fact later: the Spirit Race were a peculiar magical creature that existed only as spirit without physical body, and thus required a special medium to contain their consciousness.
That medium was precisely the crimson liquid metal—Blood Essence.
Blood Essence could only be refined using boiling magma, and even when the Cape Clan slaves labored ceaselessly throughout the year, they succeeded in refining barely a handful at a time, making its value incalculable.
Base Facility No. 1 produced medicinal herbs and Blood Essence, along with various other goods.
For instance, inside massive buildings that resembled factories on Earth, the butchering of low-intelligence Magical Beasts (actual beasts, not magical creatures) took place.
The extraction of Magical Stones from the beasts and the separation of bone, hide, and blood were all carried out by Cape Clan slaves.
The medicinal herbs, Blood Essence, and byproducts of the beasts produced this way were loaded onto leaf-shaped elongated airships and transported elsewhere.
The transport airships varied in size and purpose.
Yet their outward appearance bore a striking resemblance to the single-pilot airship Han Eol had acquired on the Seven Continents—the Pyros Leaf.
Han Eol slapped his knee.
‘Ah, so the civilization of the Giret Clan ultimately derives from the Spirit Race.’
Giret was a mighty magical race that dominated the entire Sixth Continent.
Yet to think that the roots of this brilliant civilization they had built stemmed from what they extracted through slave labor on the Fifth Continent—Han Eol felt a twinge of bitterness.
‘This is rather grim.’
Even as Han Eol grimaced, dozens of spheres floating irregularly throughout the Control Room cast their light on each sector with meticulous precision.
These bubble-like spheres were instruments for monitoring whether Giret and the Cape Clan slaves were shirking their duties or working diligently.
Moreover, these round spheres did not merely project images—they were automatically recording everything.
Furthermore, the harvest yield of medicinal herbs, the production volume of Blood Essence, and the acquisition quantity of Magical Beast byproducts were all quantified and displayed as numerals at the top of the projected images.
From these numbers alone, one could instantly discern which slave was working hardest.
Han Eol stood gazing blankly at the production activity footage from each sector displayed on the sphere surfaces for a moment, then shook his head with a shudder.
‘Right, I can’t afford to get distracted now.’
Han Eol’s reason for arriving here via the Long-Distance Teleportation Magic Circle was not merely to survey the production activities of Giret and the Cape Clan slaves.
‘I need to find the Blood Drop Library.’
The term Blood Drop Library rose into Han Eol’s mind.
The Puppeteer Who Harvests Souls
Author |
Junon
Publisher |
Samyang C&C Corp.
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Editorial Department
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The contents of this book may not be used in any form or by any means without written permission from Samyang C&C Corp. – Dreambooks.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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