What truly gratified Lei Dong was the supply of flesh and spirit beasts drawn from the Heart Demon Hall. Over the years, the growth of his three High-Grade Spirit Ghosts and the Soul Devouring Shadow Tiger had been remarkably promising. Nurtured by the Spirit Nurturing Tower and consistently provided with the flesh of powerful demonic beasts, his ghost servants had all advanced to the level of Seventh-Rank Ghost Guards. High-Grade Spirit Ghosts were indeed worthy of their name; the fact that one could fetch 1.8 million in an auction proved its inherent value. Of course, the greatest advantage of a High-Grade Spirit Ghost lay in its sufficient aptitude and potential to advance to the Ghost General rank.
Conversely, a Mid-Grade Spirit Ghost was vastly inferior to a High-Grade one in terms of growth potential at any stage. Furthermore, for a Mid-Grade Spirit Ghost to reach the Ghost General rank, barring some extraordinary fortune, was nearly impossible.
As for the Soul Devouring Shadow Tiger, after it had fully matured and broken through to the Foundation Establishment stage, the abundant supply of high-quality souls allowed it to advance rapidly. Currently, its strength was gradually catching up to Lei Dong’s, reaching the fifth layer of the Foundation Establishment stage. It was truly a treasure spirit beast whose market value significantly surpassed even that of a High-Grade Spirit Ghost, which naturally made Lei Dong cherish it even more.
He hadn't had much time to replenish the vengeful spirits within the Myriad Ghost Banner, so the banner’s power had remained largely unchanged. However, with just a little time to feed it fresh military resources, Lei Dong was certain that, given his current cultivation and divine sense strength, the Myriad Ghost Banner would become an exceedingly terrifying magical artifact. After all, the Bodhi Clarity Tea hadn't been drunk in vain over the years, nor had the Heart Cleansing Fruit been uselessly consumed. Although Lei Dong lacked a precise comparative measure for soul strength, he estimated that his current spiritual robustness could, conservatively, not be inferior to a cultivator at the seventh layer of the Foundation Establishment stage, perhaps even reaching the peak of the seventh layer, or directly comparable to an eighth-layer cultivator. If he factored in the magnification effect of the Emperor Demon Seed, he wouldn't be far behind even a ninth-layer Foundation Establishment cultivator.
These factors were the bedrock upon which Lei Dong was qualified to “settle down” in this world. They were also the source of confidence for the ambition he secretly harbored, an ambition he had never revealed to anyone. To have climbed step by step from a novice at the first layer of Qi Refining, nervously entering the sect, to where he stood today, even he felt a profound sense of emotion.
Having resided here for a long time, Lei Dong had managed to map out the various market towns within a radius of tens of thousands of miles. Through years of business dealings, he had leveraged old connections to procure a batch of alchemy materials valued at a hefty 500,000 spirit stones. This collection of materials had been put on order with deposits paid two years prior. Now, he dumped the entire lot onto Ouyang Rong’er. Only materials worth tens of thousands of spirit stones were for other elixirs used by Qi Refining cultivators—a chance for her to experiment with different concoctions, though Lei Dong believed that given her current mastery of alchemy, she could easily extrapolate those skills. Thus, refining Qi Refining stage pills no longer required him to expend significant energy on making them one by one.
After she finished experimenting with the batch of Qi Refining materials, Lei Dong instructed her to try refining the Minor Five Elements Pill.
The Minor Five Elements Pill was an excellent auxiliary cultivation elixir usable by cultivators in the early to mid-Foundation Establishment stages. In previous years, Lei Dong himself had continuously used it until he broke through to the mid-Foundation Establishment stage, only switching to the Five Elements Pill after consuming his last stock of the minor variant.
Truthfully, the Minor Five Elements Pill was only a high-grade elixir among those usable by cultivators at the same stage; it wasn't the absolute best. Some extremely rare elixirs yielded superior effects, but those auxiliary cultivation pills commanded prices several, or even ten, times higher. Lei Dong dared not use them because his cultivation method, which involved constantly draining power via the Heavenly Demon Transformation, resulted in an astonishing rate of elixir consumption. Even with his wealth, he couldn't afford such extravagance; he couldn't sustain the cost. The Minor Five Elements Pill, or the Five Elements Pill, offered Lei Dong the best cost-performance ratio currently.
The market price for a Minor Five Elements Pill was about one Mid-Grade Spirit Stone, equivalent to one hundred Low-Grade Spirit Stones. A set of materials yielded one hundred pills per furnace. However, the value of each set of materials alone cost around three thousand spirit stones. The valuable herbs Lei Dong had gathered could, in fact, only supply her with about one hundred and fifty furnace batches.
He held no expectation of recouping his investment from this batch of materials; Lei Dong was mentally prepared that even if these one hundred and fifty batches were a total loss, it didn't matter. Any major sect that sought to cultivate an outstanding alchemist would pour astronomical sums into the initial stages. This was precisely why smaller families and minor sects often lacked the capability to maintain their own alchemists. But if they succeeded in cultivating an excellent alchemist, immense profit would follow. In Lei Dong’s calculation, given his own aptitude, higher cultivation required exponentially more resources converted into elixirs. Having an alchemist at his disposal would save him tremendous resources in the future, and if Ouyang Rong’er maintained her current rate of progress, even making money off her skills was a realistic prospect. After arranging Ouyang Rong’er’s subsequent studies, Lei Dong left one of his Shadow Ghost Soldiers—a First-Rank Shadow Ghost Guard—at Little Green Valley to continue urging her to cultivate and practice alchemy relentlessly. Naturally, this also served as protection for her. As for the flawed array protecting Little Green Valley, Lei Dong couldn't address it immediately; reinforcing a mountain-guarding array was often a massive undertaking. After staying there temporarily for a little over a year, Lei Dong planned to bring her back to the Yin Fiend Sect; there was no point in remaining in such a backwater. Several days later, with his flight speed significantly increased, Lei Dong used the Evil Ghost Tree to travel under the cover of night, already covering tens of thousands of miles. This region fell within the jurisdiction of the Heavenly Dao Alliance, but he was heading toward another area bordering the Celestial Sound Palace.
This was a vast, desolate expanse, littered with swamps, wilderness, and ruined cities. A chilling ghost aura and potent demonic energy permeated the air. Within this territory spanning several thousand miles, there was once a densely populated mortal kingdom. However, several hundred years ago, a plague descended upon this land.
In just a few years, all the humans and animals in that nation were annihilated. When numerous refugees fled to neighboring countries, not only were they refused shelter, but the other kingdoms actually dispatched elite armies to slaughter them and forcibly drive them back into their own devastated homeland.
This incident once drew the attention of the Heavenly Dao Alliance headquarters. However, after the cultivators dispatched by the Alliance finally determined that the plague was a misunderstanding, they abandoned the mortal kingdom and enforced even stricter blockades around all its borders. Ten years later, no living souls remained within the nation. The borders were pushed further and further out over time. To this day, armies remain stationed at critical mountain passes to prevent mortals from casually entering the area. Cultivators, however, knew that the plague had long been eradicated due to the successful containment. Over a hundred years ago, some cultivators entered the region to explore and many struck it rich. The reason was simple: centuries of abandonment meant that spiritual herbs and elixirs were abundant, many having matured for several hundred years, with occasional finds of thousand-year-old specimens. Moreover, following the plague catastrophe, hundreds of years passed, leading to the formation of several large, and countless small, concentrations of Yin Souls. Rumor held that some even captured High-Grade Spirit Ghosts, and innate demonic beasts such as the Soul Devouring Shadow Tiger had been sighted.
Consequently, this area became a popular treasure-hunting spot over the last century. But the world was full of cultivators, and even though those massive death grounds occasionally yielded apparitions like the Wild Ghost General, they couldn't withstand the frantic invasion of humanity. In just a century, human cultivators swept through like locusts, causing the spiritual grasses and herbs in this region to return to the normal levels found elsewhere—now only occasionally discovered by luck, or perhaps even slightly less frequent. Many strong concentrations of malevolent energy and Yin Souls had been scattered, leaving only remnants. As a result, fewer cultivators were active in this area now than in other desolate wildernesses.
Lei Dong didn't come here seeking those elusive spiritual medicines; such items were virtually untraceable after excessive exploitation.
His long journey here was primarily to capture ordinary Yin Souls. While he couldn't guarantee much else, in a place like this, focusing solely on Lesser Ghosts would still yield considerable rewards. The reason was simple: many cultivators who captured Lesser Ghosts deemed them useless and discarded them in bulk, inadvertently inconveniencing other cultivators hoping to profit by capturing Spirit Ghosts.
The territory spanning several thousand miles was quite large. When Lei Dong arrived in this desolate and ruined land, devoid of human presence for thousands of miles, he was instantly struck by an intense, chilling miasma. A sudden, large-scale death causes overwhelming resentment, naturally giving rise to numerous Yin Fiend grounds. Although many of these grounds had already been disturbed, Lei Dong figured finding some dilapidated Yin Fiend locations wouldn't be an issue.
He landed within the ruins of an ancient city. Bricks and tiles had long since crumbled and weathered away; only a few scattered bluestones offered a suggestion that this was once a populated city. Most of the rubble and broken tiles were buried beneath the sandstorms. But in Lei Dong’s experience, this location was precisely a Yin point. He landed on the periphery, settled cross-legged, and quietly waited for nightfall.
As soon as darkness fell, Lei Dong felt gusts of cold wind blowing gently, and the familiar sounds of ghostly wailing echoed from afar. Lei Dong unfurled his massive divine sense forward, flattening it into a thin sheet. Indeed, scattered fluctuations registered within his consciousness. Lei Dong’s face lit up slightly; the numbers seemed quite substantial.
He immediately rose, his body suffused with the deathly netherworld ghost aura. At his command, the three Seventh-Rank Ghost Guards and one First-Rank Ice Ghost Guard vanished into the darkness.
"..."