Doctor Mo couldn't be happy for long; the power of the Soul-Curse soon manifested. He aged at the terrifying rate of one year per day, withering away rapidly.
He was terrified, trying every conceivable method to control the bizarre phenomenon happening to his body, but with minimal success.
If this continued, he would naturally die soon, just like any normal old man, wasting away into death. Fortunately, Yu Zitong's Primordial Spirit was faring even worse.
The truth was, after Yu Zitong had entered Doctor Mo's body, enough time had passed that he was beginning to be assimilated by the host's Primordial Spirit.
"Assimilation" was a passive form of Body Seizing. It was a sinister phenomenon where a foreign Primordial Spirit, lingering in another's body for too long, would be unconsciously influenced and gradually altered by the body owner's Primordial Spirit. Ultimately, only one consciousness could survive.
Seeing this, Yu Zitong had no choice but to consider active Body Seizing.
His reluctance didn't stem from any kind heart, but from fear of the legendary Three Iron Rules of Body Seizing in the cultivation world: First, a cultivator could not perform Body Seizing on a mortal, or the target body would collapse on its own, unable to withstand the process.
Second, Body Seizing could only succeed if the practitioner's magical power was significantly higher than the target's, preventing a backlash. The greater the gap in power, the safer it was.
Third, a cultivator, regardless of their power level, could only perform Body Seizing once in their lifetime. Attempting it a second time would cause the Primordial Spirit to dissipate for no apparent reason.
These three unbreakable iron laws, proven through countless attempts, had restrained countless villains seeking to cause chaos through Body Seizing and opportunistic cultivators trying to use the technique to escape calamity. Heaven still issued warnings against such heaven-defying acts, ensuring cultivators couldn't use the technique to throw the world into unrecoverable chaos.
Therefore, if Doctor Mo were a cultivator, Yu Zitong wouldn't necessarily fear him—they could fight to the death over the body. But Doctor Mo was merely a mortal with no magical power whatsoever, utterly incapable of withstanding Body Seizing. He'd likely be only halfway through when the body they fought over completely disintegrated.
Even if he sought another body to hide in, he couldn't avoid the fate of assimilation again. He'd face the same awkward predicament, only worse. His magical power would plummet with every exit and entry of his Primordial Spirit, dwindling rapidly until it was gone. He wouldn't be able to move freely between bodies and would be trapped alive inside someone else, eventually being assimilated.
After becoming a Primordial Spirit, he had no body to meditate and replenish his power. The magical power he carried diminished with each use and faded over time. He didn't know how much longer he could sustain himself.
Thus, unless Yu Zitong could find a cultivator with weak magical power who could also withstand the Body Seizing process, he absolutely wouldn't risk leaving his host body again.
Under the immense pressure of two threats—the host body about to collapse from the Blood Curse, leaving his Primordial Spirit homeless, and the imminent danger of being assimilated by the host's spirit—Yu Zitong, desperate to live, had to swallow his grudge. After much deliberation, he reluctantly made contact with Doctor Mo, revealing everything about the situation and the stakes involved.
Doctor Mo was furious at first, but quickly realized the tremendous opportunity presented. Without hesitation, he agreed to three conditions and reached an agreement with Yu Zitong, displaying the decisiveness of a schemer.
First, Doctor Mo would follow Yu Zitong's instructions to control his consciousness and avoid assimilating the foreign spirit. In return, Yu Zitong would teach him secret techniques to slow his aging and temporarily grant him magical power.
Second, Doctor Mo had to find a child with a Spirit Root capable of cultivating the Eternal Spring Technique, teach him the practice, and then, when the time was right, use his temporarily acquired power to perform Body Seizing and gain a new life.
Doctor Mo had initially doubted this and wanted to cultivate the technique himself. Naturally, he failed completely and was even mocked by Yu Zitong. Only then did he learn that someone without a Spirit Root couldn't cultivate magical power—making him what cultivators called a talentless mediocrity.
Finally, after successfully seizing a body, once Doctor Mo had sufficient time to stabilize, he would help Yu Zitong find a suitable body and assist him in his own Body Seizing.