[ That look in Xue Yang's eyes absolutely says "you can't force someone? We'll see about that." ]
A contract, huh? So it takes the resentful energy of the one performing the ritual and uses that as a beacon, or a tether--is it both? Binding the captured spirit to the world of the living using the same principle as a ghost, but there's a still-living body ready to hold it instead of the corpse of its original body. So all the ritual itself needs to do is summon the soul and align it to the body. Forcing the soul to do the sacrifice's bidding is obvious; unsettled resentful energy on that scale would collapse into qi deviation if left inside something living for too long.
So the obvious problem with using someone else as a sacrifice would be how to plant resentful energy for the ritual. Forcing it in on that scale would normally trigger a deviation before you'd have enough for a summoning. Even if it didn't there's a risk external energy wouldn't be sufficient to bind the soul. Maybe you can force someone to cultivate in an environment that steadily raises their resentful energy. Then you just need to make them share your goal so it gets passed along as their will. What do you think?
[ From one scientifically-curious demonic cultivator to another ]
indeed 😔
A contract, huh? So it takes the resentful energy of the one performing the ritual and uses that as a beacon, or a tether--is it both? Binding the captured spirit to the world of the living using the same principle as a ghost, but there's a still-living body ready to hold it instead of the corpse of its original body. So all the ritual itself needs to do is summon the soul and align it to the body. Forcing the soul to do the sacrifice's bidding is obvious; unsettled resentful energy on that scale would collapse into qi deviation if left inside something living for too long.
So the obvious problem with using someone else as a sacrifice would be how to plant resentful energy for the ritual. Forcing it in on that scale would normally trigger a deviation before you'd have enough for a summoning. Even if it didn't there's a risk external energy wouldn't be sufficient to bind the soul. Maybe you can force someone to cultivate in an environment that steadily raises their resentful energy. Then you just need to make them share your goal so it gets passed along as their will. What do you think?
[ From one scientifically-curious demonic cultivator to another ]