Time flies, and two years have passed. On this day, inside Zhang Ling's room, he sat cross-legged with a pale face, the room filled with the blue smoke of calming incense. The Soul-Devouring Worm in his spirit had grown to the size of a thumb. Over the past two years, this worm had devoured a significant amount of his spiritual power. Zhang Ling trembled all over, large beads of sweat already soaking his upper body. At this moment, he was performing the Soul Splitting Technique, a process of immense pain. This scene lasted for nearly a quarter of an hour, leaving Zhang Ling pale and his eyes dull as he collapsed onto the bed. For the following half-month, he slept seven or eight hours each day. These were the after-effects of splitting his soul. He had only severed a small piece of his soul, yet it was so dangerous. He felt a stabbing pain in his head every day, but fortunately, with the help of calming incense, he was slowly recovering. Now, in his sea of consciousness, a black pearl the size of a fist floated. Inside the pearl, the Soul-Devouring Worm twitched occasionally. This was the fragment of his soul that he had split off. He could get rid of Wei Shen's control as long as he took it out now, but he didn't do so because the death of the Soul-Devouring Worm would surely alarm Wei Shen, which would be beyond his control. He was not in a hurry.
His cultivation had reached the peak of the twelfth level of Qi Refining. He could use the Foundation Establishment Pill to establish his foundation whenever he wanted. After all, even if he solved the Soul-Devouring Worm at the Qi Refining stage, his chances of escaping from this person's hands were not high. It was better to wait until after establishing his foundation to have some power to resist, and then decide whether to escape or turn against this person. This would give him a better chance of survival. After all, this person had already reached the Pseudo-Core Realm, not an ordinary Foundation Establishment cultivator. Escape was his main goal, as his chances of killing this person were not high. In the past two years, Wei Chen had not appeared even once. The cave door remained tightly closed, with no sign of his return. However, thinking about the three years this person mentioned, now with less than half a year left, he felt uneasy. He was not in a hurry to break through, but instead pondered another secret technique. After studying the Nameless Soul Refining Technique countless times, he focused on a strange secret technique recorded within: 'Soul Shocking Thorn'. This was a spiritual attack secret technique, quite peculiar to cultivate. It involved condensing spiritual power to attack the spirit of another. However, his spiritual sense was only at the level of a Qi Refining cultivator. Even now that he had reached the peak of Qi Refining, and had cultivated the Soul Refining Technique, his spiritual sense could barely detect movements within fifty feet. His spiritual sense was far from meeting the minimum requirements for cultivating the Soul Shocking Thorn. He estimated that at least the Golden Core stage was required to use this secret technique. But the black paper recorded many conjectures and assumptions about the spirit and spiritual sense. Among them was a clever method: using remnant souls and demon beast essence souls, refining them through a secret technique into a special item called 'Soul Piercing Pearl'. This could also achieve the effect of attacking another's spirit. Although the effect was not as good as a true secret technique, this type of secret technique was often difficult to defend against. If he could cultivate it, it would undoubtedly be another trump card. With the pressure from Wei Shen, he began to refine the Soul Piercing Pearl. He didn't have demon beast essence souls, but he happened to have a high-grade magical artifact, the Soul Banner, which contained thirty-odd remnant souls that could be used to condense the Soul Piercing Pearl. Subsequently, he went to the sect's treasure pavilion and spent more than a thousand spirit stones to exchange for the materials needed for the Soul Piercing Pearl. There were only three materials: a bottle of late-stage first-order demon beast essence blood, three mid-grade cold jades, and an array pattern engraving knife used by refiners. The demon beast essence blood was worth two hundred spirit stones and was used to stimulate the ferocity of the remnant souls. The cold jade was in the shape of square bricks, each several inches in size. The three pieces were worth more than eight hundred spirit stones, very expensive, and were used to store the remnant souls.
The array pattern engraving knife was a special tool indispensable for refining, capable of inscribing array patterns and restrictions on materials. Refiners and array masters would use it, similar to the alchemist's furnace and the talisman maker's talisman brush. He exchanged for a high-grade engraving knife magical artifact, worth more than seven hundred spirit stones, much more expensive than ordinary high-grade magical artifacts. This was because he would also need to refine sword talismans soon, and this item would also be used. After exchanging for these three items, he had less than a hundred low-grade spirit stones left. These spirit stones were obtained from the cultivators he killed in the Blazing Flame Valley. Among them, he also obtained four mid-grade spirit stones: two wood attribute ones, one fire attribute one, and one earth attribute one. After preparing the materials, Zhang Ling took out the Soul Banner and cast several hand seals on the small black banner. Immediately, the black banner grew to be more than a person tall and stood beside him. He pinched out several strange hand seals, and Zhang Ling's incantation began. He saw the yellow spiritual power in his hand gradually turning gray and yellow. Only then did he breathe a sigh of relief, as this step had consumed a lot of energy. This is the Soul 引魂术(Guiding Technique), a kind of Demonic Dao spell. It is used to牵引引魂 (guide) the souls. Qi Refining stage cultivators cannot easily cast it. He had specially cultivated it in order to refine the Soul Piercing Pearl. It was very difficult to cast, often succeeding only once every five or six attempts. Unexpectedly, he succeeded on the first try today. Under his control, the gray and yellow spiritual power entered the black banner. A gust of cold wind wafted from the black banner. Dozens of fierce ghost shadows appeared. Seeing this, Zhang Ling flicked his finger, and a porcelain bottle on the table was opened, flying out two spots of black and red blood. Woo… woo woo… For a time, a burst of wailing sounds came from the black banner. The Yin souls on it bared their teeth and claws, as if they wanted to tear through the black banner and rush out, but suddenly, gray chains appeared on the black banner, pulling most of the ghost shadows back onto the black banner. Zhang Ling pointed at one of the ghost shadows, and a bright gray and yellow flame suddenly appeared on the ghost shadow's forehead. The flame floated out of the black banner, and the ghost shadow behind it also followed closely. In the blink of an eye, it broke away from the black banner and floated in mid-air. This ghost shadow had a ferocious face, with the upper body of a human and the lower body wrapped in a layer of gray mist. Zhang Ling's spiritual sense swept across the Yin soul's spiritual sense, and the Yin Qi on this Yin soul was roughly equivalent to the mid-stage Qi Refining strength. It seemed that this person was at least a late-stage Qi Refining cultivator before his death. These Yin souls had been refined by someone using Demonic Dao methods. They had long lost their intelligence and were all unconscious remnant souls. Then, he pointed at a cyan jade bead on the table, and the Yin soul flashed into green light and disappeared into it, and the jade bead also turned gray and black. Then he took a golden engraving knife, infused it with spiritual power, and then saw the two drops of essence blood floating in the air flashing and dripping on the engraving knife, and the engraving knife was dyed bright red. Looking at the jade bead, there was a faint trace of gray and black color entwined on it. Zhang Ling took the engraving knife and began to carve on the jade bead. Blood-colored threads appeared on the jade bead. Puff! Before long, a cracking sound came from the wooden house, and his refining failed. After a while, another cracking sound came. Two days later, Zhang Ling, with a gray face, left the small courtyard and headed towards the sect's market. ……
He used up three pieces of cold jade and more than twenty Yin souls before he refined a Soul Piercing Pearl, but the effect was not good. He found a tiger nearby to test it. The Soul Piercing Pearl refined with remnant souls did not kill the tiger, but only caused it to bleed from its seven orifices and lose its fighting power. This would not work. It was far from enough for the Foundation Establishment stage. It seemed that the Yin souls were not strong enough. He planned to go to the sect's market to see if he could find stronger remnant souls or demon beast essence souls. ……