Where Did This Merit Come From?

The spiritual pills in the Storage Bag were far more potent than Lu Yan had expected.

He had originally thought it would take another five or six days to break through to the Second Layer Qi Refining, but that one spiritual pill had brought the breakthrough forward by several days.

This was especially important to Lu Yan, who urgently needed to improve his cultivation at this stage.

Besides that, during this round of cultivation, Lu Yan had sensed another kind of spiritual energy, utterly opposite to Moonlight Spiritual Energy: Great Sun Spiritual Energy, hidden within the sunlight.

Great Sun Spiritual Energy was everywhere beneath the sun, but it was extremely weak and could only be refined by breathing in and circulating large amounts of spiritual energy.

Lu Yan still hadn't figured out exactly what Great Sun Spiritual Energy did, but he could feel that after circulating it through his body, his spiritual energy had become a little purer.

Lu Yan guessed that Moonlight Spiritual Energy had given rise to the transcendent system among zombies, while Great Sun Spiritual Energy might be connected to the human transcendent system in the Apocalypse Version.

However, Lu Yan had never seen any survivors, so naturally he had no way to confirm whether his guess was true.

Picking up the Soul Banner again, he waved it. Twenty-seven Vengeful Souls and one Main Soul Warrior appeared behind Lu Yan, and the room was once more enveloped in a sinister ghost domain.

After his breakthrough, Lu Yan could feel that the burden the Soul Banner placed on him had lessened somewhat. He could keep it going for three minutes if he drove it with all his strength.

This was naturally a considerable improvement for Lu Yan. He put away most of the Vengeful Souls, leaving only nine.

Leaving the Abandoned Building, Lu Yan began following his plan: harvesting wandering souls and hunting down the weaker Transcendent Zombie territories in the surrounding area.

Outside the building lay the city's main street, already blocked by piles of scrapped cars.

As he walked along the street, littered with car wreckage, Lu Yan could clearly sense pairs of eyes turning toward him from the surrounding buildings. Beneath the buildings' shadows, bloodlust and feverish excitement filled the air.

But under the daylight and the Great Sun Spiritual Energy it contained, the zombies didn't dare move about freely beneath the sun.

After surveying the area, Lu Yan already knew that the strongest Transcendent Zombies in the shops along the street were only three Mid-Stage Qi Refinement zombies. They posed no threat to him at all.

As he approached a large supermarket, Lu Yan could even hear the threatening roars of the Mid-Stage Qi Refinement Transcendent Zombies inside.

The corner of his mouth curled up. Black mist instantly poured from the Soul Banner, engulfing the entire building.

The hunt began!

Half a month passed in the blink of an eye, seemingly bringing no change at all to this city that had been abandoned for decades.

Once again, inside that same Abandoned Building, Lu Yan sat cross-legged on the floor and took the last pill from the porcelain bottle.

He had used quite a few of the spiritual pills he'd gotten from Steward Chu. Only three remained.

Lu Yan had taken one when he broke through to the Second Layer Qi Refining, another a few days ago to speed up his cultivation, and now this was the last one in his hand.

Lu Yan swallowed the pill and once again began cultivating.

As the spiritual energy vortex spun faster, a clear cracking sound rang through the room. Lu Yan finally broke through to the Third Layer Qi Refining.

He slowly opened his eyes, but there was little joy in them.

Over the past half month, Lu Yan had spent his days harvesting Zombie Wandering Souls and his nights cultivating after taking pills. His cultivation and strength had advanced at a breathtaking pace.

Yet Lu Yan still wasn't satisfied.

His gaze fell on the Soul Banner stuck into the ground nearby. He reached out with his right hand, but in the next instant, a violent surge of ghost energy flung it away.

Seeing this, Lu Yan couldn't help furrowing his brow.

Compared with half a month ago, the Soul Banner had undergone earth-shaking changes.

Its shaft looked as though it had been carved from some kind of crystal, and sinister spiritual energy continuously rose from it. Intricate patterns covered the banner, woven from black fabric and golden threads.

Vicious-looking Vengeful Souls seemed to wander across its surface. At the center, a ferocious ghostly creature resembling a Ghost General of the Underworld held the ghosts in check.

Just one look at it made it seem as though the ghosts would burst free from the Soul Banner at any moment and devour all living flesh around them.

Count the ghosts on the banner, and there were already a staggering ninety-eight Vengeful Souls. Including the Warrior serving as the Main Soul, there were ninety-nine in all.

That number might seem high, but when Lu Yan could easily refine more than ten Vengeful Souls in a day's hunt—and could have done it even faster if the Soul Banner's refining speed hadn't been a bottleneck—ninety-eight Vengeful Souls after half a month actually seemed like too few.

It wasn't that Lu Yan was unwilling to keep refining them. The problem was that the Soul Banner had already reached the limit of what he could control.

When the number of Vengeful Souls reached fifty, the Soul Banner's quality had broken through to the level of a High-Grade Magic Tool.

With ninety-nine ghosts, its quality was already approaching that of a Top Grade Magic Tool.

Even though Lu Yan had refined the Soul Banner himself, there was no way he could suppress a Demonic Path Magical Artifact nearing Top Grade with his early Qi Refining Stage cultivation.

Top Grade Magic Tools! They were precious artifacts generally used only by Foundation Establishment Realm cultivators. Even High-Grade Magic Tools nearing Top Grade weren't something ordinary Qi Refining cultivators could use.

When the number of Vengeful Souls reached ninety-eight, Lu Yan experienced the Soul Banner's first violent upheaval. Even though he hadn't released the Vengeful Souls, those trapped inside the banner still rebelled, trying to devour every living creature around them.

Lu Yan did everything he could to suppress the Soul Banner. Relying on his control over it and the Main Soul Warrior's suppression, he barely managed to quell the Vengeful Souls' uprising.

But as the price, if he drove the Soul Banner again anytime soon, he might still face another outbreak of rebellion.

There were only two ways to suppress the upheaval: either gain enough cultivation to bring the Soul Banner fully under control, or become strong enough to suppress every Vengeful Soul.

Lu Yan had chosen the first option, trying to break through to the Third Layer Qi Refining and escape his predicament.

But the result was obvious. Even at the Third Layer Qi Refining, he was still in the early Qi Refining Stage—not nearly enough to drive a Soul Banner whose quality approached that of a Top Grade Magic Tool.

"Do I really have to cultivate for months and wait until I reach the Mid-Stage Qi Refinement, wasting this perfect opportunity to grow in the Apocalypse Version?"

Lu Yan's heart sank to the bottom.

Opportunities in the Apocalypse Version were far too rare. There was even a chance he could master a Hundred Soul Banner while still in the Qi Refining Stage and gain enough strength to protect himself.

If he let this opportunity go to waste, who knew how long he would have to wait for the next Apocalypse Version to begin?

The pills he'd gotten from Steward Chu were all gone. Relying on himself alone, it would be difficult to break through before the Version Update.

"Looks like I have no choice but to take the second path."

If his cultivation wasn't enough, he would have to suppress the Vengeful Souls with strength.

Normally, nearly a hundred Qi Refining Vengeful Souls would mean certain death even for a Peak Qi Refining expert. There was absolutely no way Lu Yan could suppress them with his strength.

But the Red Lotus Karma Fire Sutra he practiced contained a Supreme-Grade Spell that could, to some extent, counter Vengeful Souls.

Red Lotus Karma Fire!

Though Red Lotus Karma Fire came from a Demonic Path cultivation technique, it used Karma to condense red lotus flames—the very thing most capable of countering Demonic Path methods. The Vengeful Souls in the Soul Banner were naturally no exception.

If he could master it, then combine it with the authority he held as the Soul Banner's master to suppress the ghosts, perhaps a turning point would come.

The only problem was that Lu Yan had tried to comprehend this Supreme-Grade Spell several times before and failed. He still couldn't be sure whether he would succeed now.

"Maybe I've gathered enough Karma after killing so many zombies."

With the desperate hope of a man trying to revive a dead horse, Lu Yan began circulating the method for Red Lotus Karma Fire.

As he focused his mind, strange radiance appeared around invisible, formless things. Lu Yan had never seen them before, but he easily grasped them by gathering Karma and refined them using the Red Lotus Karma Fire method.

"So those things are Karma?"

Lu Yan hadn't expected that the spell that had troubled him for months would come so easily.

He opened his right palm and instinctively activated the spell. The next instant, flames the color of dark yellow and ocher rose from his palm.

Above the dark yellow flames, it was as if the gods of the cosmos were chanting sutras and intoning sacred mantras. Their presence was solemn and righteous, driving back all evil.

Inside the Soul Banner at his side, the Vengeful Souls that had been restless moments ago fell utterly silent.

Lu Yan was speechless. He stared at the dark yellow flames in his hand for a long while before a voice full of confusion finally rang out in the room.

"Where did this merit come from?"