The battle had seemed easy, but in truth he had already used every means at his disposal.
If his Sword Art had not reached Dao Resonance Perfection, with his Sword Light condensed into a perfect whole, the suited man's blood-corrupting technique would have had difficulty staining his Sword Light in such a short time.
For an ordinary Qi Refining, Fourth Layer cultivator, merely coming into contact with that blood-corrupting technique would likely have muddied their Spiritual Power and cut their strength by one or two tenths, turning them into another wronged soul at the man's hands.
"Good thing the Spiritual Power refined through these unorthodox arts is so impure. Otherwise, things could have been even more dangerous."
After turning it over in his mind again and again, Bai Yi stepped over to the suited man's corpse.
He reached out, and the cracked bone token in the suited man's hand slowly fell into his palm.
The instant he touched it, the Dao-Deriving Mirror deep in his sea of consciousness trembled faintly once more.
A few blurry images surfaced in his mind like slides.
In the images, the suited man used men and women born during yin hours as materials, stripped the bones from their brows, and soaked and engraved them with heart's blood to form bone tokens. He then repeated the process to make twenty tokens, using sinews and veins as cords to weave them into a set of wicked sect artifacts.
The images in his mind faded. Bai Yi furrowed his brow slightly.
He flicked his sleeve, and a gust of Spiritual Power slammed the suited man hard into the ruins.
Those who cultivated the Dao in pursuit of eternal life paid no heed to life or death. The weak were butchered like cattle and sheep; only by setting foot on the Great Dao could one take control of one's own fate.
Once he had steadied himself somewhat, Bai Yi swept his sleeve, sending a gust of wind and sand to tear the suited man's clothes apart.
A black-and-crimson banner embroidered with countless drawings of evil ghosts was revealed, and he drew it straight into his palm.
The Hundred-Ghost Banner was the most common artifact used by Blood Demon Sect Evil Cultivators.
It extracted a hundred souls and raised them like poisonous insects, having them gnaw at one another until a chief ghost was born.
The more pain a living being suffered before death, the stronger the resentment in the soul extracted from them, and the more vicious the chief ghost that emerged.
The more evil ghosts it contained, the mightier the Hundred-Ghost Banner became. During the Immortal Alliance's campaign against the Blood Demon Sect years ago, one elder of the Blood Demon Sect waved his banner, summoning tens of thousands of evil ghosts. They formed a ghost domain, leaving devastation in their wake.
"Whether it's the Bone-Eroding Blood Token or this Hundred-Ghost Banner, their methods of refinement are worlds apart from the Artifact Refining methods taught by the Immortal Alliance."
"They're more like the Artifact Refining methods of evil cultivators from the cultivation world in my previous life."
Bai Yi considered this, and the notion that had already taken root in his mind grew all the more certain.
But he didn't dwell on it for long. Even if his guess was right, it would do him no good at this point.
He used his Spiritual Power to gather the suited man's belongings, along with the items that had fallen from the Hundred-Ghost Banner, and his figure gradually disappeared beneath the moonlight.
After returning to his neighborhood by car, Bai Yi used the Cleansing Art to wash the dust from himself, then put the Hundred-Ghost Banner and spirit ores into a supermarket bag. He entered his home as though nothing had happened.
He chatted with his parents for a couple of sentences, then went into the Cultivation Room and locked the door.
Taking everything out of the supermarket bag, Bai Yi couldn't hold back a grin.
Eight spirit ores: five First-Tier Inferior-Grade and three First-Tier Middle-Grade. The suited man alone had contributed two First-Tier Middle-Grade ores, a Blood Essence Stone and a Yin Soul Stone, weighing over ten kilograms in total.
Besides those, there was a First-Tier Inferior-Grade Demonic Artifact, the Bone-Eroding Blood Token, and a First-Tier Superior-Grade Demonic Artifact, the Hundred-Ghost Banner.
"Kill and rob, and you'll get a gold belt. The ancients weren't lying!"
Bai Yi glanced at the items on the floor. Just the two artifacts alone were worth over 400,000 yuan.
And that was with the Hundred-Ghost Banner and Bone-Eroding Blood Token being Demonic Artifacts. If they were traditional orthodox artifacts, their value would probably be another forty or fifty percent higher.
After all, unlike the Immortal Alliance's Spirit Artifact Technology Company, whose assembly-line production cut corners at nearly every turn, every traditional artifact was forged by an Artifact Refining master using vast amounts of Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures. Though they lacked technological enhancements, their power was also somewhat greater.
These, along with the other Spirit Ore materials, were worth at least close to 700,000 yuan. That was enough to cover five or six years of his family's earnings, even if they spent nothing.
"Let's see how many Enlightenment Glimmers they can catalyze."
He picked up the smallest inferior-grade spirit ore and focused his thoughts on the Dao-Deriving Mirror deep within his sea of consciousness.
Dao patterns and talismanic characters flowed across the mirror's surface. An ancient, primordial aura rose from it, and a thread of energy entered the spirit ore. In the blink of an eye, the goose-egg-sized ore was drained of its Spiritual Resonance, turning to powder that sifted between his fingers.
After absorbing the entire spirit ore, Bai Yi quietly looked at the Dao-Deriving Mirror in his sea of consciousness. It had not changed at all, and he wasn't surprised.
After all, a supreme treasure of the Great Dao like the Dao-Deriving Mirror wouldn't recover easily, even if it had been shrouded in dust for so long.
He casually picked up another spirit ore. As the energy poured into it again, the entire ore turned to powder.
The Dao-Deriving Mirror remained as still as a deep pool.
"Seems normal enough."
The third... no change.
"Good things are never that simple, huh..."
The fourth... no change.
Bai Yi rolled his neck. His expression shifted slightly, and, after a long silence, he picked up the last inferior-grade spirit ore.
As the powder scattered once more, the Dao-Deriving Mirror's surface trembled faintly. Bai Yi's calm expression finally turned scarlet.
He let out a dismayed cry.
"Huh?!"
The five spirit ores were only First-Tier Inferior-Grade materials, but their total weight still exceeded three kilograms and their value was close to 50,000 yuan. Tossing them in hadn't even made a ripple.
Who could afford to burn through resources like this?!
His family didn't own a mine!
Bai Yi gave a bitter smile. He had expected that nurturing the Dao-Deriving Mirror would consume a great deal of resources, but he hadn't imagined it would look like this.
"The only flaw with expensive things is that they're expensive!"
Bai Yi consoled himself, then grabbed the roughly two-kilogram Blue Water Stone.
As energy surged into it, the Spiritual Resonance within the Blue Water Stone flowed up his arm and into the depths of his sea of consciousness, as if being drawn from his marrow.
This time, as the Spiritual Resonance flowed in, a hazy radiance surrounded the Dao-Deriving Mirror. Flecks of starlight scattered like dew, as though a stream were winding around a mountain and kicking up ripples.
"It's changing."
Seeing the Dao-Deriving Mirror stir, Bai Yi was delighted. He hurriedly picked up the other two spirit ores, one in each hand, and drew out the Spiritual Resonance within them with his energy.
Deep in his sea of consciousness, the Dao-Deriving Mirror absorbed and breathed out the Spiritual Resonance. Its luminous radiance grew brighter, and countless points of light moved in orderly patterns, as if tracing the profound mysteries of the laws of heaven and earth.
Only after the two spirit ores had turned to powder did the light around the Dao-Deriving Mirror barely reach halfway.
"..."
Bai Yi's eye twitched repeatedly. Eight spirit ores hadn't even been enough to nurture a single Enlightenment Glimmer.
Without time to think, he picked up the Bone-Eroding Token. As his energy flowed into it, miserable wails and sobs poured frantically into his mind.
Caught off guard, Bai Yi's brain felt as though it had been struck by a heavy hammer. His Spiritual Power churned, his vision went black, and he nearly toppled backward.
A soft, milky-white glow welled up from deep in his sea of consciousness, like rain after a long drought. Under its radiance, countless wronged souls gradually grew calm and peaceful. Moments later, they vanished completely.
Once his sea of consciousness had settled and he had recovered, Bai Yi lowered his head and looked at the Bone-Eroding Blood Token in his hand, now as white as jade. A trace of lingering fear crossed his eyes.
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