"Why did that sound a little familiar?"
"More than a hundred thousand beasts hunted? Hybrid spirit beasts with incomplete souls? Refining the Ten Thousand Beast Banner?"
Lu Yan froze for a moment, and then a thought surfaced in his mind.
Could the Beast Slaughtering Demon the stall owner mentioned be me?
During the three months of the Apocalypse Version, Lu Yan had hunted more than a hundred thousand zombies. By refining the souls of over a hundred thousand zombies, he had obtained the Hundred Soul Banner now stored in his Storage Bag.
World Version Updates brought endless changes to the world. They could create or erase things out of thin air, but in most cases, certain things in different versions always had traces that could be followed.
Lu Yan had refined the souls of more than a hundred thousand zombies, even causing a 0.2% Version Change Value in the Apocalypse Version. The changes this brought were mapped through Information Mapping into the Xianxia Version, becoming his frenzied slaughter of beasts carrying spirit beast bloodlines deep within Mount Wu.
Of course, this did not mean that zombies necessarily equaled those beasts. After all, zombies were scattered across the world in the Apocalypse Version, and there were even powerful zombie kings comparable to those in the Foundation Establishment Realm. They were fundamentally different from the beasts of Mount Wu.
Different versions were connected, but they were not in a one-to-one correspondence. That was the norm for World Version Updates.
Realizing this, Lu Yan secretly breathed a sigh of relief.
When he had slaughtered zombies in the Apocalypse Version, Lu Yan had considered whether the zombies he harvested would become him massacring ordinary people once their information was mapped into other versions.
Although he had been somewhat concerned at the time, Lu Yan had not stopped eating for fear of choking. Instead, he had relied on the convenience of the Apocalypse Version to rapidly increase his strength and build up trump cards for himself.
Now it seemed that although the title of Beast Slaughtering Demon did not sound pleasant, it was still far better than becoming some murderous maniac who was the public enemy of the righteous path. It was within an acceptable range.
After hearing the stall owner's account, an appropriately shocked expression appeared on Lu Yan's face.
"I never expected something like this to have happened in Mount Wu!"
Lu Yan's shock greatly pleased the stall owner. He was accustomed to throwing out information ordinary cultivators did not know, using it to build a connection and turn them into returning customers.
"But speaking of which, Fellow Daoist, how did you learn about the Beast Slaughtering Demon and the Ten Thousand Beast Banner? Could someone have seen that madman in Mount Wu?"
The stall owner waved his hand and said casually, "There's no use asking me about that. I only heard other people talking about it.
"After the matter spread, though, I heard that Ten Thousand Spirit Mountain was preparing to send a Foundation Establishment Great Cultivator to Mount Wu to investigate. But those were all just rumors.
"After all, it was only a hundred thousand beasts. It was hardly worth the attention of those great figures."
As they spoke, a cultivator came to buy talisman manuals and books. The stall owner immediately went over, and after just a few words, he closed a deal worth two Spirit Stones.
Only after placing the two Spirit Stones into his Storage Bag did the stall owner satisfactorily explain to Lu Yan:
"Actually, I think that although this matter has spread far and wide, it isn't very credible in itself.
"Slaughtering a hundred thousand beasts in three months means killing more than three thousand beasts a day. Leaving aside how difficult it would be to find so many beasts in the mountains and forests, even if the beasts stood still and let him kill them, an ordinary Qi Refining cultivator couldn't finish the job.
"And that Ten Thousand Beast Banner supposedly derived from the Ten Thousand Soul Banner is even more ridiculous. If other creatures could truly be used as substitutes for refining a Ten Thousand Soul Banner, the demonic path would have ruled the cultivation world long ago."
At this point, the stall owner snorted coldly, his face full of disdain:
"Back then, during the Righteous-Demonic War, the spark that ignited the demonic path's defeat was that heavenly punishment. But even before that, the demonic path had already begun showing signs of decline.
"The reason was simple. The demonic path had become completely blood-crazed back then. It slaughtered far too many mortals to refine Ten Thousand Soul Banners, never considering sustainable development. By the later stages of the Righteous-Demonic War, there simply weren't many mortals left whose souls could be extracted and spirits refined into materials for Soul Banners.
"The demonic path had also considered using the souls of other living beings as substitutes. But whether beasts, wild beasts, or spirit beasts, none could replace human souls.
"Transforming Demon Race members could indeed be refined into Soul Banners, but the problem was that transforming Demon Race members had cultivation comparable to Golden Core True Persons and were exceedingly rare. With that kind of effort, it would be better to find a way to ambush a Golden Core True Person from the righteous path."
"Only the Human Race stands at the head of all living things beneath Heaven and Earth, blessed by Heaven and Earth. The Vengeful Souls and ghostly entities produced by refining their souls possess the potential to grow.
"If the souls of beasts were used as substitutes, then even if a Soul Banner could be refined, it would merely possess the outward appearance and nothing more.
"Not to mention that the beasts in Mount Wu originated from hybridized spirit beast bloodlines. Many were aberrant creatures rejected by Heaven and Earth from the moment they were born, with incomplete Three Souls and Seven Spirits. They were utterly worthless trash.
"If you truly wanted to use the souls of these beasts to refine a Soul Banner, it would be absolutely impossible unless the Heavenly Dao bestowed its blessing!"
The stall owner's emphatic words shook Lu Yan to his core.
Although this matter seemed like utter nonsense to others, as an Unchanging One who had personally experienced several Version Updates, Lu Yan knew very clearly that it was no delusion.
The zombie wandering souls he had slaughtered lacked the Heavenly and Earthly Souls. Tracing their origins back, they had evolved from the beasts of Mount Wu.
The Version Update had transformed the incomplete souls of those beasts into Human Soul Seven Spirits, granting them traits resembling human souls. That was what allowed Lu Yan to refine Soul Banners with zombie wandering souls.
To some extent, were the changes brought by the World Version Update not also a blessing from the Heavenly Dao?
A trace of barely perceptible astonishment entered Lu Yan's gaze as he looked at the stall owner.
This stall owner was only at the Qi Refining Sixth Layer, yet his knowledge and breadth of vision seemed to far exceed what was appropriate for his realm.
Before Lu Yan could speak, the stall owner suddenly pulled out a book from among the disorderly ancient texts on his stall.
"Seeing as you and I are fated to meet, I'll sell you this Heavenly Dao Treatise for ten Spirit Stones.
"This is a genuine ancient text from antiquity. It expounds on the Great Dao of Heaven and Earth and the foundation of all things. They say it even conceals a secret sufficient to let one ascend to immortality."
"Pfft!"
The moment the stall owner finished speaking, the stall owner selling medicinal herbs nearby could not help laughing at him:
"A broken book full of flights of fancy and wild guesses, without a shred of substantive information, dares to call itself an ancient text from antiquity? He Dongsheng, you're so poor you've gone mad."
Even after being exposed on the spot, He Dongsheng did not get angry. He merely gave an awkward laugh and said:
"Although the Heavenly Dao Treatise has nothing to do with cultivation and only explains certain principles of Heaven and Earth, it truly is a genuine ancient text from antiquity.
"Look at how aged these pages are, this cover, and these incomplete ancient Dao characters. It is absolutely a rare treasure.
"They don't buy it because they don't know what they're looking at. Perhaps your karmic opportunity has arrived, and you might comprehend the Great Dao of Heaven and Earth from it. When that happens, ascending to immortality will definitely be no dream!"
Lu Yan's gaze fell on the Heavenly Dao Treatise in He Dongsheng's hand. He could faintly smell a light fragrance of tea wafting from the book, and his expression immediately changed.
Soaking paper in tea to make it look old was the most common method of aging book pages in the Urban Version. Even Lu Yan, a layman, had heard of it.
This Heavenly Dao Treatise did not look like it was from antiquity. It looked like it was from last week!
Before you continue