Source of Merit

Suppressing his excitement for the moment, hunting zombies and Wandering Souls could be done anytime; there was no rush.

Waving his hand, he collected all the Vengeful Souls into the Soul Banner. Lu Yan began to research another extremely important matter.

"Where exactly did the Profound Yellow Merit Fire come from?"

If Lu Yan were a slacking programmer, a bunch of messy code that could run would be enough; no one would bother researching how the program actually worked.

But cultivation allowed no room for error. If he couldn't take each step steadily, major problems would arise sooner or later.

There were two major prerequisites for cultivating the Profound Yellow Merit Fire: one was to possess a method of divine ability refinement, and the other was to possess sufficient Merit.

But the key issue now was that neither of these seemed to have anything to do with Lu Yan.

Doubt filled Lu Yan's mind, even making him unable to resist taking out the Red Lotus Karma Fire Sutra to check in detail if there was any record of the Profound Yellow Merit Fire.

However, as a high-grade Demonic Path cultivation technique, the Red Lotus Karma Fire Sutra contained absolutely no record of Merit or the Profound Yellow Merit Fire, nor any extra description of the Red Lotus Karma Fire spell.

"I used the incantation for the supreme-grade spell, Red Lotus Karma Fire, to unleash the Profound Yellow Merit Fire.

This is clearly a Demonic Path technique that uses karmic causality to kill enemies. How could it possibly be related to Merit divine abilities?

Could there be someone in the Demonic Sect secretly accumulating Merit to cultivate divine abilities?"

Lu Yan couldn't help but mutter a complaint.

But the next moment, Lu Yan's expression froze. He suddenly remembered that when he was cultivating the Red Lotus Karma Fire Sutra, he had referenced Buddhist and Daoist scriptures online to modify the technique because there were errors in the Red Lotus Karma Fire Sutra.

"Could it be because I modified the cultivation technique? But this is ultimately a Demonic Path technique. No matter how I modify it, it shouldn't directly turn into cultivating the righteous path of Merit, right?"

Flipping through the errors marked in the Red Lotus Karma Fire Sutra, the errors were all in seemingly insignificant places. Lu Yan cultivated according to the modified technique and encountered no problems.

"Could it be... that this Red Lotus Karma Fire Sutra was originally wrong? And after I modified it, it became its original form?

And this Profound Yellow Merit Fire is also related to the origin of the Red Lotus Karma Fire Sutra?"

Unfortunately, he was not currently in the Xianxia version, so Lu Yan's conjectures could not be verified.

"After the next time I go to the Xianxia version, I should focus on investigating information related to the Red Lotus Karma Fire Sutra."

Temporarily setting aside this matter with no leads, Lu Yan focused his attention on another question.

"Refining the Profound Yellow Merit Fire requires a massive amount of Merit. When did I accumulate so much Merit?"

In the Xianxia version, Merit was a good thing.

In ancient times, there were Moral Sect Cultivators who primarily cultivated the method of Merit. Although they were not skilled in combat between cultivators, they had a strong restraining effect on demonic and evil paths.

Even Demonic Path Cultivators who were a major realm higher could only walk around Moral Sect disciples. Even Yin Division ghosts and gods, and external evil gods could only retreat three steps.

It was a pity that on the eve of the Demonic Path Calamity, the Moral Sect was besieged by various sects, its high-level members suffered heavy casualties, and then it was completely annihilated by the Demonic Sect, thus completely severing its inheritance.

In a sense, it was precisely because the Moral Sect's inheritance was severed that the Demonic Path was able to run rampant in the cultivation world with the help of Soul Banners in later generations.

If the Moral Sect were still present, the various righteous sects would not be helpless against the rampant Soul Banners.

This topic has strayed. Even putting aside the restraint of Merit on the Demonic Path, a person with Merit, even if they don't cultivate the method of Merit, can still increase their fortune and opportunities and extend their lifespan.

Lu Yan did not consider himself a good person in the traditional sense; he even had quite a few human lives on his hands.

If you add the zombies from the Apocalypse Version, the number of lives lost at his hands is close to ten thousand. Every day, thousands of zombies are killed by the Vengeful Souls driven by Lu Yan, their souls stripped away and refined into Soul Banners.

Such a speed of slaughter, even a Demonic Path Cultivator of great power would likely only give a thumbs up and call him a born demonic seed.

Not only did he not bear the karma of these actions, but he also accumulated such a massive amount of Merit that could be refined into divine abilities. This left Lu Yan unsure how to comprehend it.

"Most likely related to the zombies."

After much thought, Lu Yan could only come to this conclusion.

After a moment of contemplation, Lu Yan waved his Soul Banner and summoned a Warrior.

"Go and catch a few ordinary zombies for me."

Upon hearing this, the Warrior flew out of the abandoned building.

Following a commotion and zombie roars from the streets and buildings below, the Warrior returned to the room after a while, carrying two zombies.

Lu Yan ignored the constantly falling rotten flesh from the zombies and examined them from head to toe.

His mind sank into contemplation. As he refined the Profound Yellow Merit Fire, Lu Yan had already realized that the strange radiance in his mind was Merit.

After confirming the amount of Merit represented by the strange radiance at that moment, Lu Yan flicked a finger, and a stream of Mana pierced through the zombie's head. With its physical body completely destroyed, the remaining Human Soul Seven Spirits also dissipated.

After killing one zombie, Lu Yan immediately entered a state of contemplation. The Merit in his mind neither increased nor decreased, showing no change at all.

This was enough to show that killing zombies did not accumulate Merit.

This caused Lu Yan to frown slightly. He summoned a Vengeful Soul and pointed at the remaining zombie.

"Strip its soul."

Upon hearing this, the Vengeful Soul extended its claws into the zombie's flesh and hooked the fragile zombie's Wandering Soul out of its rotten body.

As the soul left the body, the zombie's rotten flesh turned into scattered white bones, leaving only a muddled Wandering Soul.

Entering contemplation again, Lu Yan was shocked to find that the strange radiance representing Merit had increased by an almost imperceptible amount.

Although the increase was extremely small, it had indeed increased.

At this point, Lu Yan was completely certain that killing zombies did not bring Merit, but stripping the zombie's Wandering Soul from its body could bring Merit.

"Where exactly is the difference?"

Lu Yan fell into thought.

After a while, a thought suddenly flashed through his mind.

"It's the Apocalypse!"

Lu Yan instantly understood, and divine light bloomed in his eyes.

"In the Apocalypse Version, the root cause is that humans lack the Heavenly and Earthly Souls. After death, their Human Soul and Seven Spirits are trapped within their bodies, turning them into undead zombies.

Killing zombies does not bring Merit because zombies are already dead. The life and death of individual beings are insignificant to the entire world.

But stripping the Human Soul and Seven Spirits from the zombie's body represents breaking the bondage of the zombie's decaying flesh on the Human Soul Seven Spirits. To this world, this is eliminating the disaster of the Apocalypse, a great achievement!

The Heavenly Dao does not care whether the stripped souls naturally dissipate or are used for sacrifice to create Soul Banners.

As long as it helps the souls break free from the bondage of the zombie bodies, Merit will descend. This is why I can accumulate a large amount of Merit!"