Soul-Banishing Technique

Song Wen walked out of the shop, carrying the 180 Spirit Stones he had just obtained.

He returned to the stall where he had previously asked about the price of Corpse-Baleful Qi.

Before he could speak, the stall owner recognized Song Wen first and said displeasedly,

"Why is it you again? Here to cause trouble again?"

Song Wen smiled.

"Senior Brother, do not be angry. This time, I sincerely came to buy Corpse-Baleful Qi. How about sixty Spirit Stones per bottle?"

The stall owner said, "As long as you can produce the Spirit Stones, of course I'll sell."

He had put out three bottles of Corpse-Baleful Qi for sale, yet not a single bottle had been sold so far.

The price Song Wen offered was reasonable, so naturally the stall owner had no reason not to sell.

After counting out sixty Spirit Stones and handing them to the stall owner, Song Wen put one bottle of Corpse-Baleful Qi into his storage bag.

As Song Wen turned to leave, he suddenly noticed a cultivation manual placed in a corner of the stall, titled Soul-Banishing Technique.

Song Wen asked, "How much is this cultivation manual?"

Having already completed one transaction, the stall owner's attitude improved considerably, and his expression became more welcoming.

"One thousand Spirit Stones."

The stall owner named an astronomical price.

However, Song Wen was not frightened by the price. After wandering around the market for so long, he had come to understand that for rare items of unknown origin, these vendors all cried their prices to the heavens, while the actual transaction price was often far lower than the asking price.

"May I take a look at it?"

"Of course."

Song Wen picked up the Soul-Banishing Technique and began flipping through it.

The moment he opened the cover, disappointment welled up in his heart.

The cultivation manual contained only one page, and the paper of that page was different from the paper used for the cover.

The manual had been recorded on an extremely ancient piece of demon beast hide, while the cover had clearly been added later.

Most of the page had also been covered with paper. Song Wen could see only a little over a hundred words at the beginning, meaning the complete manual was likely only three or four hundred words long.

Song Wen roughly glanced over the first hundred or so words and could more or less determine that it was an exceedingly rare type of soul-refining cultivation manual.

Moreover, it was a technique that devoured fragments of others' souls to forcibly strengthen one's own divine soul.

This greatly piqued Song Wen's interest in the manual. However, he could tell that the one before him was an incomplete copy.

It lacked both the general outline at the beginning and the later portions. The page in his hand should only be the first level of the cultivation manual.

"How much are you selling this cultivation manual for?" Song Wen asked.

While Song Wen was examining the Soul-Banishing Technique, the stall owner had not paid it much attention.

In his view, Song Wen would be like all the previous customers—first drawn in by the name of the Soul-Banishing Technique, then disappointed and gone once he discovered that it consisted of only one page.

He had acquired this famous Soul-Banishing Technique more than ten years ago. He had tried cultivating it himself, only to find that it was far too incomplete to cultivate at all.

Later, he had asked friends and relatives to try it as well, only to discover that they likewise could not cultivate it.

After that, he placed it on his stall for sale. Several inner disciples of the Corpse Demon Sect had bought it at high prices, but in the end, not one of them succeeded in cultivating it.

Those Corpse Demon Sect disciples who had bought the manual not only returned it to him, but also spread the word everywhere that it was fake and could not be cultivated, shattering his hopes of using the Soul-Banishing Technique to swindle a few Spirit Stones.

Those inner disciples possessed both strength and powerful backing, and were not people he could afford to provoke. He could only swallow his anger and accept his bad luck.

For the past two years, the Soul-Banishing Technique had sat ignored in a corner of his stall. Had Song Wen not picked it up today, he himself would nearly have forgotten that such an item existed.

Seeing that Song Wen was interested in the Soul-Banishing Technique, and that Song Wen was a newly initiated disciple with meager strength, the stall owner knew that once Song Wen bought it, there would be no possibility of returning it.

He immediately began to boast.

"Junior Brother truly has a discerning eye. This Soul-Banishing Technique is an unpassed-down supreme art of the Ten Thousand Souls Sect, absolutely a top-tier cultivation method for the divine soul. This cultivation manual is fated with Junior Brother. For only one thousand Spirit Stones, Junior Brother can take it away."

The Ten Thousand Souls Sect was an immensely powerful ghost-path sect. It had dominated the Vast Azure Mountain Range, where the Corpse Demon Sect was located, for nearly ten thousand years, and was a true hegemon of the Cultivation World.

However, several hundred years ago, it had been jointly exterminated by several large righteous-path sects.

The inheritance of the Ten Thousand Souls Sect had thus been severed.

Song Wen would not let a few boastful words from the stall owner make his head spin and convince him that he was the child of destiny who could pick up a peerless cultivation manual merely by stepping outside.

He shook his head and said, "The manual is far too incomplete. It has neither a beginning nor an end, and it is almost certain to be impossible to cultivate. It is not worth one thousand Spirit Stones."

As he spoke, Song Wen placed the Soul-Banishing Technique back onto the stall.

"Junior Brother, don't be in such a hurry to leave. Since ancient times, business has been done like this: cry your price to the heavens, bargain on the ground. Junior Brother, at least make an offer."

Song Wen glanced at the stall owner and said unhurriedly, "I'm afraid that if I name a price, you'll attack me."

"How could that be? How could I lay hands on my own Junior Brother in the market? Go ahead and name your price without worry."

"Truly?"

After receiving the stall owner's affirmative look, Song Wen held up one hand. "Five Spirit Stones."

The moment the stall owner heard Song Wen counteroffer, he immediately replied, looking as if he feared Song Wen might run away, "Deal!"

Song Wen could hardly believe it and said hesitantly,

"I meant five low-grade Spirit Stones."

"Of course, low-grade Spirit Stones."

With one hand, the stall owner stuffed the Soul-Banishing Technique into Song Wen's hand. With the other, he held out his palm, demanding the Spirit Stones.

Song Wen was instantly dumbfounded. It seemed he had offered too high a price.

This Soul-Banishing Technique was most likely too severely incomplete to cultivate at all. Let alone five Spirit Stones, it was not even worth one.

Seeing Song Wen hesitate, the joy on the stall owner's face gradually faded, replaced by an unfriendly expression.

"What? Are you trying to go back on your word?"

Feeling the stall owner's aura grow increasingly sharp, Song Wen gave an awkward laugh.

"Of course not."

Song Wen took out five Spirit Stones and handed them to the stall owner.

After accepting the Spirit Stones, the stall owner's expression became genial once more.

The speed at which he changed faces was no slower than the face-changing opera Song Wen had seen in his previous life.

Song Wen hurriedly shook his head. "No need. I've bought everything I need. Farewell."

Song Wen feared that if he stayed any longer, the stall owner would squeeze every last Spirit Stone out of him.

Hearing the voice behind him, Song Wen could not help quickening his pace.

Song Wen did not return directly to his cave abode. Instead, taking advantage of the fact that the Transmission Hall had not yet closed, he returned there and purchased the Blood Escape Technique as well as a Corpse Puppet refinement method called Ghost Corpse Technique.

The Ghost Corpse Technique cost twenty-five Spirit Stones and was a Corpse Puppet refinement method widely practiced within the Corpse Demon Sect.

The main reason Song Wen chose the Ghost Corpse Technique was that it included methods for refining both walking corpses and living corpses.