Soul-Banishing Technique

Song Wen left the shop with the 180 spirit stones he had just acquired.

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, please do not be angry. This time, I am sincerely here 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 placed one bottle of corpse baleful qi into his storage pouch.

As Song Wen turned to leave, he suddenly noticed a cultivation manual placed in one 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 it. After wandering the market for so long, he had come to understand that for rare items of unknown origin, these vendors always shouted prices to the heavens. The actual selling price was often far lower than the asking price.

"May I pick it up and take a look?"

"Of course."

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

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

The cultivation manual contained only a single page, and the paper of that page differed from the paper used for the cover.

The technique was recorded on an exceedingly ancient beast hide, while the cover had clearly been added later.

More than half the contents of that page had been covered with paper. Song Wen could only see the first hundred or so characters, meaning the entire technique was likely only three or four hundred characters long.

Song Wen roughly scanned the first hundred characters and could generally determine that this was an exceedingly rare soul-refining technique.

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

This made Song Wen intensely interested in the technique, but he could tell that the manual before him was incomplete.

It lacked both the general outline at the beginning and the subsequent sections. The page in his hand should contain only the first level of the technique.

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

When Song Wen picked up the Soul-Banishing Technique to inspect it, the stall owner had not paid it much attention.

In his view, Song Wen would be like all the previous customers: first attracted by the famed name of the Soul-Banishing Technique, then disappointed to find that it contained only one page before leaving.

He had obtained this renowned Soul-Banishing Technique more than ten years ago. He had tried cultivating it himself, only to find that it was too severely incomplete to be cultivated at all.

Later, he had asked relatives and friends to try it as well, only to discover that they likewise had no way to cultivate it.

After that, he placed it at his stall for sale. Several inner disciples of the Corpse Demon Sect had bought it at high prices, but not a single one had successfully cultivated it.

Those Corpse Demon Sect disciples who had purchased the technique not only returned it to him, but also loudly spread word everywhere that the technique 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; they 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 have nearly forgotten it was even there.

Seeing that Song Wen was interested in the Soul-Banishing Technique, and that Song Wen was a newcomer who had only just entered the sect and possessed meager strength, once Song Wen bought the manual, there would be no possibility of returning it.

He immediately began to extol its virtues.

"Junior Brother truly has a good eye. This Soul-Banishing Technique is the Ten Thousand Souls Sect's secret, never-passed-down ultimate art, unquestionably a supreme technique for cultivating the divine soul. This technique is fated with Junior Brother. For only one thousand spirit stones, Junior Brother can take it away."

The Ten Thousand Souls Sect had been an exceedingly 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 exterminated by the combined forces of several major righteous-path sects.

The Ten Thousand Souls Sect's legacy had thus been severed.

Song Wen would not be talked into a muddle-headed daze by a few words of praise from the stall owner and believe himself to be the chosen son of fate, able to pick up an unrivaled cultivation technique simply by stepping outside.

He shook his head. "This technique is far too incomplete. It has neither beginning nor end, and it can almost certainly not be cultivated. It is not worth one thousand spirit stones."

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

"Junior Brother, don't be in such a hurry to leave. Since ancient times, business has always been done like this: shout a price to the heavens, bargain on the ground. Junior Brother, name your price."

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

"How could that be? How could I attack my own junior brother in the marketplace? Go ahead and name your price without worry."

"Really?"

After receiving an affirmative look from the stall owner, Song Wen held out one hand. "Five spirit stones."

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

Song Wen found it somewhat hard to believe and hesitated.

"I mean 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 hands. With the other, he held out his palm and demanded the spirit stones.

Song Wen was instantly dumbfounded. It seemed he had bid too high.

This Soul-Banishing Technique was most likely too incomplete to cultivate at all. Forget five spirit stones—even one spirit stone would be more than it was worth.

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

"What? You want to go back on your word!"

Feeling the sharp edge radiating from the stall owner steadily intensify, Song Wen gave an awkward laugh.

"Of course not."

Song Wen took out five spirit stones and gave them to the stall owner.

Upon receiving the spirit stones, the stall owner's expression immediately turned pleasant again.

The speed with which his face changed was no slower than the face-changing acts Song Wen had seen in Sichuan opera in his previous life.

"Junior Brother, have another look. See whether there is anything else you need."

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

Song Wen feared that if he stayed any longer, the stall owner would squeeze every last spirit stone from him.

"Take care, Junior Brother. You're welcome to visit my stall more often in the future."

The stall owner called loudly after Song Wen's retreating back.

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

Song Wen did not return directly to his cave dwelling. Instead, while the Transmission Hall had not yet closed, he returned there and purchased the Blood Escape Technique and a corpse puppet refining method called the Ghost Corpse Technique.

The Ghost Corpse Technique cost twenty-five spirit stones and was a corpse puppet refining method widely practiced within the Corpse Demon Sect.

The main reason Song Wen chose the Ghost Corpse Technique was that, first, this technique included methods for refining both walking corpses and living corpses into puppet corpses.