On the Road

The carriage axles creaked as they turned.

In the faint twilight, the wheels crushed the swirling dust and sped down the main road.

They swept past shrubs and thickets.

The forests on either side rushed backward.

Leaving the packs of wild beasts far behind.

The driver cracked his whip, urging the horses onward.

The three carriages had formed a sizeable convoy, black banners raised above them. Even if they encountered mountain bandits, those bandits would never dare loot carriages flying such a banner.

The old Centurion gnawed on dry provisions and washed them down with cold water.

His hawk-like gaze scanned the darkness within the forest.

Something seemed to flicker faintly there, trailing far behind them.

The old Centurion frowned, the wrinkles on his face piling together as though carved by knives and axes.

"Move faster. This place feels a little cursed."

If the immortal masters had still been alive, they naturally would not have needed to be so tense, fearing that something might go wrong.

But things had gone against their wishes.

They had come to the Prefecture City.

There had been more than twenty people, along with two immortal masters.

When they left, there were still more than twenty people.

Only, the two immortal masters now lay silently in the rear compartments of the carriages, without a breath of life left in them.

Summer had arrived, and temperatures had risen. Even the solid ice in the icehouse could no longer hold out.

Thus, while they had been in Eight Directions Prefecture City, they had hired physicians to preserve the bodies.

Otherwise, if the corpses began to stink beyond endurance and sparked an epidemic, that would be troublesome indeed.

See the living in person; see the dead as corpses.

They needed to transport the immortal masters' remains back to Liang Capital.

As for all the remaining items, every scattered belonging had been gathered up. They did not dare disturb anything carelessly.

All of those things had to be brought back to the Attendant Tower in Liang Capital.

As night gradually fell, the things lurking in the dark forest were like sharks that had scented blood, their eyes wide as they stared fixedly at the convoy.

Tu Shan Jun awoke.

After his mana ran dry, his body had collapsed into black smoke and returned to the Soul Banner.

These days, he had been slowly repairing his body.

Li Qingfeng's living soul had entered the Soul Banner.

Tu Shan Jun had not actively summoned his soul. Rather, after Li Qingfeng died, his living soul had automatically been absorbed by the Soul Banner.

It possessed neither awareness nor clarity.

It appeared muddled and dazed.

It could not speak, nor could it listen. It was no different from the other living souls.

Tu Shan Jun remained silent for a long while.

His expression was complicated.

Regret.

Hesitation.

And the promise he had failed to fulfill all surged into his mind.

Tu Shan Jun opened his mouth, yet nothing came out.

What would saying it accomplish?

It would only comfort himself. Could he truly expect Li Qingfeng to hear him again?

Though vicious ghosts surrounded him, Tu Shan Jun still felt terribly alone.

He had become as solitary as he had once been.

Fortunately, he was no longer as powerless as he had been at the beginning.

Yet he clearly possessed strength, but still could not fulfill his promise.

What a helpless thing that was.

"He died because I wasn't strong enough."

"I couldn't save him because I wasn't strong enough," Tu Shan Jun murmured softly.

His voice was hoarse and unpleasant, like buzzing sheets of iron grinding against one another.

Piercing to the ear.

Even more maddeningly grating.

Tu Shan Jun had thought the banner master would be somewhat special, or that the Soul Banner would grant him preferential treatment.

But judging by the looks of it, even the banner master had no exemption.

That also ruled out the possibility that Zhao Shixian had merely been putting on an act.

With so many Qi Refiners' living souls and yin ghosts added to the Soul Banner, his strength had advanced greatly. He had now firmly reached the sixth layer of Qi Refining.

Banner Name: Soul Banner

Banner Master:

Grade: High-Grade Artifact

Banner and Soul as One (Passive Solidification): Absorbing baleful intent and living souls can raise the Soul Banner's abilities and grade.

Backlash (Passive Solidification): When the banner master's strength and divine sense are insufficient to suppress the Soul Banner's Main Soul, the Main Soul may actively backlash against the banner master and refine them into a Banner Slave.

Soul Storage: Extracts living souls from dead corpses and stores living souls and yin ghosts weaker than the Main Soul. (Current Main Soul strength: 'Qi Refining Sixth Layer'.)

Spirit Storage: The Soul Banner can store yin souls and ghostly entities. Current storage (109/1000).

Repair: Consuming a certain amount of baleful intent and living souls can repair the Soul Banner and Main Soul.

Night Parade of a Hundred Ghosts: All thousand ghosts within the Soul Banner may be released, gathering their night-walking soul arts into a single erupting strike.

Soul Gathering Pill: The Soul Banner absorbs wandering yin souls and baleful intent to condense Yin Soul Pills. Yin Soul Pills can assist the banner master's cultivation (one pill per twelve hours). Devouring baleful intent and yin ghosts can speed up the condensation of Yin Soul Pills.

Zhang Wanlong's living soul possessed the strength of the Qi Refining Second Layer.

After using Soul Inquiry, what he obtained was no different from what he had gotten from Zhang Gui.

The stout Attendant appeared to be at the third layer of Qi Refining, on the verge of breaking through to the fourth.

"Soul Inquiry."

Extract:

Turtle Spirit Embryonic Breath Art

Qi Refining Essence Cultivation Art (Introductory Chapter)

As its name suggested, the Turtle Spirit Embryonic Breath Art was a breath-concealing technique.

It could effectively restrain one's aura and conceal the spiritual radiance that belonged to a Qi Refiner. It was not a simple art.

As for the Qi Refining Essence Cultivation Art, it seemed rather ordinary, with nothing particularly special about it.

It was a common, widely available cultivation method.

Any cultivator newly entering Qi Refining could buy this technique from a cultivator market for half a Spirit Stone. It was the most widely circulated cultivation method, one that could be cultivated without any doubts or misgivings.

But its progress was slow.

Judging by the stout cultivator's bone age, he had to be at least thirty-something.

At that age, he had only reached the third layer of Qi Refining. He likely had no future in this life, much less any hope of seeking immortality and pursuing the Dao.

Still, though this man had fared poorly in the world of Qi Refiners, he could thrive within a mortal dynasty.

He had even joined the Attendant Tower.

In the future, he could spread branches and leaves, forming a small lineage.

Then, by passing the cultivation method down, there would eventually be descendants with good spirit roots who could use it to set foot upon the immortal path.

After extracting the stout cultivator's skill seeds, Tu Shan Jun turned to look at the middle-aged Qi Refiner who called himself Wen Lichun.

"Soul Inquiry."

Extract:

Bell-Control Art

Nether Spirit Art (Incomplete)

Artifact Refining Insights (Pseudo)

Three skill seeds flew into Tu Shan Jun's mind.

Tu Shan Jun immediately understood the workings of the technique.

It was actually a specialized incantation for controlling the Soul-Seizing Bell.

That was the very thing that had affected his ghost body, making the battle so unsatisfying and leaving him irritated.

A method for controlling artifacts was somewhat useless to Tu Shan Jun.

But this Qi Refining cultivation method had some substance to it. It possessed all five elements and was of no low grade.

Judging by Wen Lichun's experience, this cultivation method advanced exceptionally quickly.

From the small, one could glimpse the great. Just its first three layers were actually more exquisite than the Blood Fiend Art.

Unfortunately, it was an incomplete cultivation method, containing only the first three layers of mental formulas and circulation routes.

No matter how exquisite it was, it would present great problems for future advancement.

Though Tu Shan Jun could obtain the insights and experiences of others, he had only just begun cultivating. Comparing notes and guiding others was one thing.

Completing a cultivation method was out of the question.

That was simply not something a beginner could accomplish.

Without vast accumulation, even a genius could not achieve it in one leap.

What interested Tu Shan Jun most was this Artifact Refining Insights (Pseudo).

This thing was actually artifact-refining experience that Wen Lichun had studied and summarized himself.

Though it could not refine true artifacts, it could still produce pseudo-artifacts that did not qualify for a grade.

Those pseudo-artifacts were not important to Qi Refiners, but in the mortal world, they could be called divine weapons.

Besides, people improved. Being able to study artifact-refining notes and develop his own insights already proved that this man's comprehension was not bad.

All that knowledge had now benefited Tu Shan Jun.

Qi Refiners truly carried all sorts of strange and unusual things. Unfortunately, Tu Shan Jun himself was only a soul banner, so he had no way to take the Storage Talismans from their bodies.

One lost track of the years on the road.

Within the Soul Banner, there was no turning of sun and moon.

Tu Shan Jun could only count the Yin Soul Pills to mark his days. Over this stretch of time, the Soul Banner had spontaneously absorbed the wandering baleful intent between heaven and earth and condensed seven Yin Soul Pills.

That meant seven days had passed.

If calculated from that day, today should have been Li Qingfeng's seventh day after death.

Tu Shan Jun's expression remained normal, though a complicated look flashed through his eyes.

Immortality!

This only strengthened Tu Shan Jun's determination to become immortal.

Perhaps becoming immortal could resolve his current situation.

Reverse yin and yang, restore his human body.

Then break free of the cage and live another way.