Reborn with Infinity Skill Points, I Enslaved All Universes-Chapter 217 --Mind Hunt

Watching the soul manager efficiently carry out his duties, the small soul perched on his shoulder asked curiously:

"Daddy, we’re souls just like them... So why are they being dumped here?"

The soul manager gently rubbed the little soul’s head with fatherly affection, then replied in a warm tone:

"Child, you’re still too young to understand. As souls, we are eternal beings, it’s true—but if we go too long without passing through the Gate of Life, our consciousness will eventually dissipate."

"And when that happens, we become just like them." freёnovelkiss.com

...

Daniel had already learned this not long ago.

For a soul, if too much time passed without traversing the Gate of Life, they would slowly lose self-awareness and become no more than the discarded remnants in the junkyard.

Technically speaking, these souls were still "alive"—but only barely.

It was life in the most mechanical sense—existence without awareness, without purpose, without self.

Daniel had also uncovered a more troubling truth:

The reason so many souls failed to pass through the Gate of Life was because the city lord Glaton controlled access to it.

For the average soul, one could only gain entry to the Gate by accumulating sufficient "contribution points."

But under Daniel’s perceptive scan, he discovered something else entirely:

The Gate of Life actually had no restrictions.

There were no quotas, no waiting lists, no functional limits.

In theory, if left unmonopolized, any soul could pass through and re-enter the cycle of life—renewed, revived, reborn.

And yet this limitless, unrestricted Gate was now entirely under the control of Soul City’s lord, Glaton.

Daniel couldn’t help but feel a chill run down his spine.

This was no accident. This was the deliberate manufacture of artificial scarcity.

It was a system crafted for exploitation—a system where ordinary souls would toil endlessly for Glaton’s benefit, chasing a false promise of "rebirth."

The entire setup was a grotesque display of capitalist manipulation.

If there was a word worse than "scam," Daniel would have used it.

He sighed softly, then in a flash of motion, leapt down into the junkyard.

At the same time, he began absorbing the soulless husks—those spirits whose consciousness had already dissolved.

Since their minds were gone, Daniel saw no issue in borrowing them for his own use.

And so, without further hesitation, he started harvesting these soul bodies in bulk.

While these mindless souls were worthless to others, to Daniel, they held unimaginable value.

Why?

Because to synthesize certain God Rank Skills, he required vast quantities of soul essence.

Unknowingly, Daniel had already collected five billion soul fragments.

But that wasn’t nearly enough.

He opened his inventory and activated [Forceful Convergence], a skill designed for high-efficiency resource gathering.

Within just five minutes, Daniel’s inventory held one hundred billion souls.

And yet, despite such a massive intake, the junkyard didn’t look any different.

After countless years of accumulation, the place was layered—mountains of discarded souls piled atop one another, a horrifying yet deeply sorrowful sight.

With one hundred billion fragments in hand, Daniel stopped collecting and opened his God Rank Skill Compendium.

[God Rank Skill: Mind Assassination]

Required Materials:

Heart of a level 200 abyssal monster10 million souls from the myriad races × 100 = 1,000,000,000,000 (one hundred billion total)

Daniel had already gathered all the components.

Now that he had enough, he immediately selected "synthesize."

[God Rank Skill: Mind Assassination — Acquired]

Skill status: Not yet maxed. Would you like to enhance it fully now?

Max it out.

Why even ask?

Moments later, a torrent of spiritual energy erupted before Daniel’s eyes.

The soul resonance lasted nearly thirty seconds before finally dissipating.

When the light faded, Daniel’s status screen now showed a new divine skill:

[God Rank Skill: Mind Hunt]

Effect 1: Each of your attacks now applies a Sanity Reduction effect. This effect can only be dispelled by a god-tier being. Any creature below god level will eventually fall into complete madness once their sanity falls beneath a certain threshold. (You may manually dispel the effect on any target.)

Effect 2: You may exert limited control over any creature driven mad by this sanity loss. The stronger the creature, the weaker your control becomes.

Upon reading the effects, Daniel blinked in surprise.

This wasn’t what he had expected.

He’d assumed Mind Hunt would be a direct offensive ability—something like a mental assassination strike.

But as it turned out, it was more of a buff-type skill, one that enhanced his attacks with sanity damage.

Still... it was incredibly powerful.

This meant Daniel now had another method to hunt monsters—one that didn’t rely solely on brute force.

Under normal circumstances, an Awakener needed to whittle down a monster’s health bar to zero to secure a kill.

But now, with Mind Hunt, Daniel had a second option.

Rather than just using his skills to blast enemies into oblivion, he could instead lower their sanity, driving them mad in the process.

Once a monster went insane, it became far easier to deal with—perhaps even turning on its own kind or lowering its defenses.

He could, in theory, manipulate them into tearing themselves apart.

In short, the benefits of acquiring Mind Hunt far exceeded the cost.

And more importantly, Daniel now possessed a mental attack ability.

This kind of soul-level technique was particularly effective against certain unique or resistant creatures.

It was a massive improvement to Daniel’s overall arsenal.

In terms of raw offensive power, he wasn’t lacking.

But as he leveled up, he found that monsters were no longer so easy to defeat.

Many of them had special defensive mechanics, and relying solely on brute force became increasingly inefficient and time-consuming.

With Mind Hunt, things had changed.

Now he could strike from the mental plane, bypassing traditional defenses entirely.

In fact, Daniel had once considered whether he could truly kill the Emperor of the Abyss, Malkar.

From a purely offensive standpoint—it seemed plausible.

But in reality, Malkar possessed numerous buffs and defensive enhancements. Killing him wouldn’t be so simple.

Mind Hunt, however... had the potential to change that.