Last Week's Ancient Book

"Why does that sound a little familiar?"

"Hunting over a hundred thousand beasts? Spirit beasts with mixed blood and missing souls? Refining a Ten Thousand Beast Banner?"

Lu Yan was stunned for a moment, then a thought surfaced in his mind.

"Could the Beast Slaughtering Demon the stall owner mentioned be me?"

During the three months in the Apocalypse Version, the number of zombies Lu Yan hunted exceeded a hundred thousand. It was by refining over a hundred thousand Zombie Wandering Souls that he obtained the Hundred Soul Banner currently in his Storage Bag.

World version updates bring infinite changes to the world, capable of creating or erasing things out of thin air. However, in most cases, some things in different versions always leave traces.

Lu Yan refining over a hundred thousand Zombie Wandering Souls, even causing a 0.2% Version Change Value in the Apocalypse Version, resulted in changes that were mapped through information into the Xianxia Version. This manifested as him venturing deep into Witch Mountain and frantically slaughtering beasts with spirit beast bloodlines.

Of course, this doesn't mean that zombies are necessarily equivalent to these beasts. After all, in the Apocalypse Version, zombies are spread throughout the world, and there are even powerful Zombie Kings comparable to the Foundation Establishment stage, which are completely different from the beasts in Witch Mountain.

There are connections between different versions, but they are not in a one-to-one correspondence. This is the normal state of world version updates.

Realizing this, Lu Yan secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

When he was slaughtering zombies in the Apocalypse Version before, Lu Yan had wondered if the information from these zombies he harvested would be mapped to other versions and result in him wantonly killing ordinary people.

Although he had some reservations at the time, Lu Yan didn't stop because of a potential problem. Instead, he relied on the convenience of the Apocalypse Version to quickly increase his strength and accumulate trump cards for himself.

Now it seems that while the title of Beast Slaughtering Demon isn't pleasant, it's much better than being a murderous demon who is the public enemy of the righteous path. It's still within an acceptable range.

After listening to the stall owner's story, Lu Yan showed an appropriate expression of shock.

"I didn't expect such a thing to happen in Witch Mountain!"

Lu Yan's shock made the stall owner quite pleased. He was used to throwing out information that ordinary cultivators didn't know to build rapport and make them repeat customers.

"But speaking of which, how did you know about the Beast Slaughtering Demon and the Ten Thousand Beast Banner? Did someone see that madman in Witch Mountain?"

The stall owner waved his hand and said casually, "It's useless to ask me about these things. I just heard others talking about it.

However, after the matter spread, I heard that Ten Thousand Spirit Mountain is preparing to send a Foundation Establishment Great Cultivator to Witch Mountain to investigate, but that's just unconfirmed news.

After all, it's just a hundred thousand beasts, not worth the attention of those important figures."

While speaking, a cultivator came to buy talisman books. The stall owner immediately went up and quickly completed a transaction for two Spirit Stones with a few words.

After putting the two Spirit Stones into his Storage Bag, the stall owner explained to Lu Yan with satisfaction:

"Actually, I think that although this matter is widely circulated, it's not very reliable itself.

Slaughtering a hundred thousand beasts in three months, killing over three thousand beasts a day... Leaving aside how difficult it is to find so many beasts in the mountains and forests, even if the beasts stood still for him to kill, an ordinary Qi Refining cultivator couldn't possibly kill them all.

Furthermore, that Ten Thousand Beast Banner derived from the Ten Thousand Soul Banner is even more ridiculous. If other creatures could really be used as substitutes for refining the Ten Thousand Soul Banner, the Demonic Dao would have already dominated the cultivation world."

At this point, the stall owner snorted coldly, his face full of disdain:

"During the war between the righteous and demonic paths, the fuse that led to the Demonic Dao's defeat was that Heavenly Condemnation. But even before that, the Demonic Dao had already shown signs of decline.

As for the reason, it's also simple. The Demonic Dao had already gone mad with killing at that time. They slaughtered too many mortals to refine the Ten Thousand Soul Banner, completely disregarding sustainable development. As a result, in the later stages of the righteous-demonic war, there were hardly any mortals left to extract souls and refine spirits from as materials for refining Soul Banners.

The Demonic Dao also thought about using the souls of other living beings as substitutes, but whether it was wild beasts, desolate beasts, or spirit beasts, none could replace human souls.

Transformed demon races could be refined into Soul Banners, but the problem is that transformed demon races have cultivation comparable to Golden Core True Persons and are few in number. With that effort, it would be better to find a way to ambush and kill Golden Core True Persons of the righteous path."

"Only the human race is the leader of all spirits in heaven and earth, favored by heaven and earth. The vengeful souls and ghost creatures refined from their souls and spirits are capable of growth.

If the souls of wild beasts were used instead, even if a Soul Banner could be refined, it would only be a superficial imitation.

Not to mention that the wild beasts in Witch Mountain originated from the hybridization of spirit beast bloodlines. Many of them were born as anomalies rejected by heaven and earth, their three souls and seven spirits incomplete and utterly worthless.

If you truly want to refine a Soul Banner using these wild beast souls, it is absolutely impossible unless the Heavenly Dao bestows a blessing!"

The stall owner's confident words sent a shock through Lu Yan's heart.

Although this matter seemed absurd to others, as an Unchanging One who had personally experienced several version updates, Lu Yan knew very well that this matter was not false.

The Zombie Wandering Souls he had slaughtered were missing their Heavenly and Earthly souls, and their origin could be traced back to the evolution of the wild beasts in Witch Mountain.

The version update transformed the incomplete souls of these wild beasts into Human Soul Seven Spirits, giving them characteristics similar to human souls, which allowed Lu Yan to refine Soul Banners using Zombie Wandering Souls.

To some extent, weren't the changes brought about by the world version update also a blessing from the Heavenly Dao?

Lu Yan looked at the stall owner with a hint of almost imperceptible surprise in his eyes.

This stall owner was only at the sixth level of Qi Refining, but his knowledge and vision seemed to far exceed the level of this realm.

Before Lu Yan could speak, the stall owner suddenly pulled out a book from the messy ancient texts on the stall.

"Seeing that you and I are fated, I'll sell you this book, Heavenly Dao Treatise, for ten Spirit Stones.

This is a genuine ancient text, expounding on the great Dao of heaven and earth and the foundation of all things. It is said that it even hides the secrets to ascending to immortality."

"Pfft!"

As soon as the stall owner finished speaking, the stall owner selling herbs next to him couldn't help but mock:

"A broken book full of wild, baseless guesses with no substantial information dares to call itself an ancient text. He Dongsheng, you're truly driven mad by poverty."

He Dongsheng wasn't angered by being exposed on the spot, he just smiled awkwardly and said:

"Although Heavenly Dao Treatise is not related to cultivation and only expounds on some principles of heaven and earth, it is indeed a genuine ancient text.

Look at the aging of the pages, the cover, and the incomplete ancient Daoist script. It is absolutely a rare treasure.

They don't buy it because they don't recognize its value. Perhaps your opportunity has arrived, and you can comprehend the great Dao of heaven and earth from it. At that time, ascending to immortality will definitely not be a dream!"

Lu Yan's gaze fell on the Heavenly Dao Treatise in He Dongsheng's hand. He could faintly smell a light tea scent from the book, and his expression immediately changed.

Soaking paper in tea to make it look old – this was the most common method of aging book pages in the Urban Version. Even an outsider like Lu Yan had heard of it.

This Heavenly Dao Treatise didn't look ancient; it looked like it was from last week!