Chapter 46: The Opportunity to Overturn the Urban Version

After Bloodbeard completely devoured Cheng Yu’s soul, its previously peak Qi Refining cultivation began to loosen, showing faint signs of a breakthrough to Foundation Establishment.

However, because Cheng Yu had burned away a large portion of his soul to cast the curse technique earlier, it caused Bloodbeard to fall just short of breaking through in one go.

Lu Yan didn’t mind. If necessary, he’d just kill another Foundation Establishment cultivator to make up the difference.

Among his three main souls, the Powerful Spirit specialized in defense, the Giant Spirit excelled in raw strength, but only Bloodbeard could fuse all the ghost spirits through soul fusion techniques and unleash the full might of the Soul Banner—enabling him to kill enemies above his level.

Once Bloodbeard’s cultivation rose further, and it could merge hundreds or even thousands of ghost spirits into one, it might not be impossible for it to contend with a Golden Core cultivator.

Compared to these three main souls, each with their unique supernatural abilities, Cheng Yu—a troublesome Foundation Establishment cultivator—wasn’t even worth mentioning. Even if he had been added to the banner, he wouldn’t have outshone the others.

“I hadn’t paid much attention before, but after that fight with Cheng Yu, I’ve realized… aren’t these main souls’ supernatural abilities a little too powerful?

What exactly are these abilities? Could they be linked to the characteristics of the Apocalypse Version?”

As that thought passed through his mind, Lu Yan retracted most of his ghost spirits, leaving only a hundred roaming outside.

He swept his gaze over them and issued a command:

“Search the surrounding area. Bring me everything that contains spiritual energy.”

The moment his voice fell, the hundred ghost spirits melted into the darkness and began their sweep of the nearby terrain.

Lu Yan then walked to Cheng Yu’s crushed corpse and began searching through the pile of bloodied flesh. He quickly retrieved two storage pouches.

One was red, embroidered with a Red Lotus emblem—clearly from the Red Lotus Demon Sect.

The other was blue, a relatively common style that could be purchased in any shop.

But compared to the low-grade pouch Lu Yan currently used, this blue one was already a low-grade magic artifact. Its value was more than ten times higher, with several times more space and a spatial array that could preserve its contents for over a hundred years.

Lu Yan bent down to pick them up, but a sudden spike from his Super Sense made him freeze.

His hand paused mid-air. With a wave, a wisp of Xuanhuang Merit Fire floated into his palm, surrounding him in a glow of Merit Light before he once again reached for the pouches.

The moment he touched them, the red pouch flared to life with a distorted and vicious face. A wailing soul rushed out toward Lu Yan—but it couldn’t even pierce the Merit Light, and under the glow of the Merit Fire, it quickly disintegrated.

“No real offensive power… likely some kind of tracking curse.

If that mark had been imprinted on me, the Red Lotus Demon Sect would’ve been able to locate me instantly. I’d be endlessly hunted down.”

Lu Yan silently marveled at how subtle and insidious the methods of the demonic path were, though he wasn’t particularly worried.

The Xuanhuang Merit Fire was a natural counter to such dark arts. Even if a mark had been left on him, he could erase it easily.

He reached into the red pouch and found it largely empty—except for one item: a crystal-clear blue crystal the size of half a person.

Normally, spiritual stones would constantly leak spiritual energy into the surroundings, but this blue crystal was incredibly restrained. Unless Lu Yan made direct contact, he wouldn’t have even noticed its energy.

“Could this be the legendary Spirit Marrow Ore?”

His eyes widened in astonishment as he realized what he was holding.

Ordinary spiritual stones came from spirit stone mines. But deep in the core of certain rich veins, a rare mineral could sometimes be found—Spirit Marrow Ore.

In terms of raw spiritual energy, it only slightly surpassed spiritual stones. But its value far exceeded its appearance.

Why?

Because Spirit Marrow Ore could absorb ambient spiritual energy and infect nearby materials, turning them into spiritual objects through prolonged contact.

These spiritual objects couldn’t exist without the ore’s influence—but this very trait, when combined with specialized arrays, could be used to cultivate a spiritual vein!

Many sects established branch sects or rogue cultivator markets using Spirit Marrow Ore and appropriate formations to birth temporary spiritual veins.

Depending on the ore’s quality, the spiritual veins formed varied in strength—but none could exceed Second-Grade, meaning they were suitable only for Foundation Establishment-level establishments.

That might seem trivial to a great sect, but for cultivation clans and lesser powers, it was a treasure of strategic value.

Lu Yan didn’t know the exact grade or price of this Spirit Marrow Ore.

But even the lowest-grade kind would cost tens of thousands of spiritual stones—enough to purchase multiple Foundation Establishment Pills.

For Lu Yan, though, this stone’s value far exceeded any number of pills.

Because he realized—if used correctly, this single piece of Spirit Marrow Ore could become the key to overturning the entire Urban Version!

“Such a priceless item… even Golden Core cultivators may not possess one. How did a mere Foundation Establishment cultivator like Cheng Yu get his hands on it?”

After a moment of thought, Lu Yan came up with a single answer:

The ruin!

The Red Lotus Demon Sect had infiltrated Wushan for over a decade for the sake of excavating that ancient ruin.

If they had persisted for so long, perhaps they’d already made some progress—and this piece of Spirit Marrow Ore most likely came from within that ruin.

It had been stored separately in a sect-issued red pouch with a tracking curse—clearly meant for transporting precious items.

Chances were, Cheng Yu himself didn’t even know what he was carrying.

“Whatever the truth may be… this Spirit Marrow Ore is mine now.”

Although the Xuanhuang Merit Fire had already purified the pouch, Lu Yan still removed the ore and stored it in his personal storage pouch, placing it close to him.

With that done, he finally turned to the blue storage pouch.

Upon opening it, the first thing that met his eyes was a book titled:

“Red Lotus Karma Flame Sutra”.

Compared to the version Lu Yan previously obtained, this one was clearly more advanced. It detailed not only the breakthrough from soul condensation to Foundation Establishment, but also provided the complete cultivation method all the way to late Foundation Establishment.

Seeing this volume, Lu Yan finally let out a sigh of relief.

One of his main goals in coming to the cultivation version of the world was to obtain the follow-up techniques of the Red Lotus Karma Flame Sutra.

Being able to cultivate all the way to the peak of Foundation Establishment meant he wouldn’t have to worry about his path for a long time.

As for the method to condense a Golden Core?

That was still too far off.

He’d make his plans for that after reaching Foundation Establishment.

(End of Chapter)