Formation Banner

The first thing Ji Yuan saw in the Storage Bag was rows upon rows of neatly stacked Jade Boxes.

They were identical to the Jade Box Wei Caishan had used to hold Rotbone Flowers.

Ji Yuan hurriedly took out two and opened them. Sure enough, each contained a Rotbone Flower!

Including the ones he had obtained from Wei Caishan, there were a full eighteen Jade Boxes...

With eighteen Rotbone Flowers, the [Pigsty] could finally be upgraded. He could live a life of picking up Spirit Stones every day and muddling through.

The tension in Ji Yuan's heart immediately eased by quite a bit.

After examining the Rotbone Flowers, he looked at another uncovered Jade Box beside them. Inside were neatly arranged... Spirit Stones!

Ji Yuan swept his gaze over them. There were exactly one hundred Spirit Stones lined up inside the Jade Box, with another twenty or thirty scattered beside them...

The cost of buying those high-grade Talismans had all come back in one stroke!

Sure enough, if you wanted to get rich, you had to kill first!

Aside from common cultivation pills such as Spirit-Recovery Pills and Hundred-Herb Pills, there was also a bottle of pitch-black pills. Even the bottle itself was black, and Ji Yuan had no idea what they were for.

The high-grade Talismans were gone, but there were still six Middle-Grade Talismans left, along with an unspecified number of low-grade Talismans.

They were not of much use to Ji Yuan. He roughly estimated that if he exchanged these Talismans and cultivation pills for Spirit Stones, they should fetch another seventy or eighty.

After looking through those, his gaze was drawn to another Jade Box in the corner.

Compared to the box that had held the Spirit Stones, this Jade Box was clearly far more exquisite. It had a hollowed double-layer design, delicate flowers and grasses carved upon it, and even a tiny golden lock.

With a thought, Ji Yuan took it out.

The golden lock was merely decoration. With a casual flick, he opened the Jade Box.

There was no danger. A jade slip lay quietly within the box, something Ji Yuan was already familiar with.

The previous times he had learned techniques, he had used inheritance jade slips like this.

What kind of technique could this be...? Ji Yuan muttered. Since Ghost Island Master had treated it so solemnly, its effects surely would not be poor.

Ji Yuan pressed his hand against the jade slip and sent a thread of spiritual energy into it. In an instant, a massive flood of unfamiliar memories surged into his mind.

Ji Yuan even felt a faint stabbing pain instinctively.

What the hell is this? I'm only learning a technique, yet there's this much stuff... Ji Yuan froze for a moment. After checking it briefly, he finally understood.

Holy shit, I really struck gold!

Ji Yuan was overjoyed.

The jade slip did not contain a single technique. What it recorded was the sect Ghost Island Master had mentioned...

The sect was called the Yin Ghost Sect, and what it excelled at most was refining Yin Ghosts.

For example, Ghost Island Master's Formation Banner, which was comparable to a mid-grade magic artifact, was called the Yin Ghost Banner, while its formation was called the Yin Ghost Formation.

The two Black-Mist Ghost Heads he had released at the start, capable of entangling flying swords, were Yin Ghosts he had refined.

According to the information in the inheritance jade slip, the methods required to refine Yin Ghosts were... filthy and exacting.

First, one had to select cultivators born during yin hours, then cruelly torture and kill them. Only ghosts born this way would be vicious enough.

Beyond that, there was the cultivation method for Rotbone Flowers.

One had to use the shinbones of those who had died violent deaths, place three Bone-Rot Flower Seeds within them, then bury them where yin energy gathered, with a layer of Spirit Stones laid beneath them, and so on.

As for their effects... Ji Yuan flipped through the memories in his mind, and his eyes suddenly lit up.

"Crush Rotbone Flowers into juice and apply it to the Bubbling Spring and Life Gate acupoints to temporarily increase the speed of spiritual energy absorption?"

Ji Yuan was delighted when he saw the effect, but doubt soon followed... He did not dare believe it. Rotbone Flowers were inherently foul and sinister things, and they had to be applied to the Life Gate and Bubbling Spring acupoints. Ji Yuan did not dare try it.

But on second thought, if there were no basis for it, why would the jade slip record it?

After reading through the contents of the jade slip, Ji Yuan gave it some thought and guessed at one possibility.

The contents of this jade slip were incomplete, and its information was fragmented as well.

Other than the method for constructing the Yin Ghost Formation and the method for cultivating Rotbone Flowers, it only contained miscellaneous scraps, such as the claim that the Yin Ghost Sect was merely a subordinate sect of a greater sect.

When Yin Ghost Sect disciples went out, they absolutely could not admit that they were disciples of the Yin Ghost Sect.

One could possess no more than five Yin Ghosts at once, or they would devour their master, and so on.

It did not even record a single proper technique.

After reading it, Ji Yuan understood why Ghost Island Master had been so excited when he previously mentioned having a secret tome left behind by his sect.

Ghost Island Master presumably knew that the jade slip's contents were incomplete as well.

If that was the case, then he absolutely could not try using Rotbone Flowers to increase cultivation efficiency.

After reading through the jade slip, Ji Yuan did not rush to refine the Formation Banner. Instead, he took another item from the Storage Bag... a ring.

It was entirely black, and he had no idea what material it was made from. It resembled a bone ring, with a skull carved upon it.

After hesitating for a while, Ji Yuan suspended it in the air with his hand before sending a thread of spiritual energy into it.

The instant the spiritual energy entered, a wisp of black mist rose from the ring. The mist transformed and finally formed the character "Yin." After lasting for two breaths, it dispersed.

The ring returned to its plain, unremarkable appearance.

"This seems to be some sort of token."

Ji Yuan made a rough guess.

Not knowing its purpose, he put it away. Only then did he look at the magic artifacts he had acquired... especially the black-bannered Yin Ghost Banner and the Mid-Grade Spirit Vessel.

The best things had to be saved for last. Ji Yuan first picked up the Skeleton Token used for protection.

It was a low-grade magic artifact. It had withstood several strikes from the Whitewater Flying Sword and suffered some wear, but it was still in decent condition. Its quality had been better than Ji Yuan's previous Dragon Armor Shield, though after being damaged, they were now about the same.

Ji Yuan planned to sell it after returning to Zengtou City.

Then there was the black magic robe. It too was a low-grade magic artifact, but it had suffered far more damage after taking a high-grade Demon-Subduing Talisman and being pierced several times by Ji Yuan's middle-grade flying sword.

The fact that it had not shattered on the spot already proved its quality.

Wei Caishan's Spirit Vessel was merely an ordinary low-grade Spirit Vessel, even worse than Ji Yuan's White Boat. It could only be sold for Spirit Stones.

After examining those, Ji Yuan finally picked up the palm-sized black Spirit Vessel.

He sent spiritual energy into it and refined it slightly.

Unlike low-grade magic artifacts, once this mid-grade magic artifact was refined, a piece of information came through.

The Spirit Vessel was called the Black Wind Boat. It raced over water like a streak of black wind. When driven at full force, it could even ride the wind for a short while, reaching astonishing speed.

Even underwater, it was faster than ordinary Mid-Grade Spirit Vessels.

It truly was an excellent magic artifact.

Ji Yuan glanced at the White Boat in his Storage Bag. Wu Laochuan had "lent" it to him back then, but now it was time to trade a bird gun for a cannon.

After completing the refinement, Ji Yuan took out the Formation Banner that emitted wisps of black smoke... the Yin Ghost Banner.

Ji Yuan had gained much today, but the most practical and precious item among it all was still this Formation Banner.