The Great Technique of Ten Thousand Ghosts Seeking Vengeance

What should have been a heartwarming moment of mother and son reuniting, no one expected such an event to occur.

Yu Chi Zhen was severely injured. Despite taking medicinal pills, she was still a mortal after all. The fatigue from the journey and the mental strain left her exhausted.

Li Shiyin directly took her to a room to rest, while she temporarily looked after Li An... Only she could control the sword energy in Li An's body.

As night fell, Long Qiqi finally completed her task and had long since fallen into a deep slumber, her bottom sticking up in the air. She likely wouldn't wake up for a day or two. Meanwhile, Chasing the Wind, being a feline, took advantage of the night to run out and warn the spirit beasts of Dan Peak that their master had returned.

Qin Ran sat back down in his familiar and cozy little study. At his desk, he held a brush, transcribing a cultivation technique.

The name of this technique was...

"The Ten Thousand Ghosts Soul-Seizing Grand Method."

It was precisely the technique practiced by the Black-robed Man beneath Wuyi City!

That day, when the Black-robed Man's Ten Thousand Ghosts Soul-Seizing Array was broken, his physical body was killed by the sword energy of two Nascent Soul cultivators from the Boundless Sword Sect. His magical treasure was taken away by Zhao Yaqing, and his soul, originally intending to possess Qin Ran's body, was outmaneuvered by Qin Ran and devoured using the "Nine Extremes Demon-Devouring Technique."

Qin Ran devoured his soul not for the soul power it contained, although the soul of a Golden Core cultivator did strengthen Qin Ran's primordial spirit considerably. He did it for the Black-robed Man's memories, or more precisely, for the Black-robed Man's cultivation technique.

That is, this peculiar soul technique, "The Ten Thousand Ghosts Soul-Seizing Grand Method."

This technique was extremely similar to the nameless spirit-refining incantation passed down through generations on Dan Peak.

The nameless spirit-refining incantation was incomplete, only retaining the function of condensing the primordial spirit.

But "The Ten Thousand Ghosts Soul-Seizing Grand Method" was complete. It gave the Black-robed Man the ability to harm souls, to refine and control souls, and also... the ability to possess bodies.

Not every cultivator can harm souls. Without condensing a primordial spirit, the means to harm souls are extremely limited.

At what stage do cultivators come into contact with souls?

The Golden Core stage.

The Golden Core stage is the process of unconsciously condensing the soul within the golden core in the body. But this stage is unconscious; cultivators don't actually have the ability to control souls.

The real ability to harm souls only comes at the Nascent Soul stage and above.

As for possession, not every cultivator can do it either. For a cultivator to possess another body, they need something to occupy the other's shell, such as a Nascent Soul or primordial spirit. Below the Nascent Soul stage, there's no ability to possess.

Yet the Black-robed Man, merely at the Golden Core stage, could defeat Qin Ran's primordial spirit avatar with one move, and could also possess bodies with his soul.

From this, one can see the power of "The Ten Thousand Ghosts Soul-Seizing Grand Method."

When Qin Ran obtained the Black-robed Man's technique, he also briefly browsed through his other memories...

The Black-robed Man, named Zhao Pu, was originally a close eunuch to Zhao Zheng. Later, Zhao Zheng saw his loyalty and bestowed upon him the name Zhao Pu, leading him onto the path of cultivation, and also bestowing upon him "The Ten Thousand Ghosts Soul-Seizing Grand Method."

Due to the special nature of the technique, Zhao Pu then went underground, specifically doing some shady tasks for Zhao Zheng.

But as time passed, as Zhao Pu gained more and more of Zhao Zheng's trust and his cultivation grew higher, the desires in his heart also gradually swelled.

He began to be unsatisfied with his current status and position, unsatisfied with his current strength and power.

This is what's commonly called a demon in one's heart.

So, he wanted to refine the million soldiers of North Chu and the million citizens and soldiers of Wuyi City, turning them into his ghosts and cultivation power.

At the same time, it was also the reason why he recklessly trapped three Nascent Soul cultivators and over a dozen Golden Core cultivators in his array.

Zhao Pu was overwhelmed by the demon in his heart, inflating to the extreme, thinking that with the "Ten Thousand Ghosts Soul-Seizing Banner," even Nascent Soul cultivators were nothing in his eyes.

He ultimately didn't know that there are always greater heights to climb, he didn't understand his own position... he didn't know that he was never special, that if he could master soul power early on, others could too.

Moreover, others' opportunities and talents far surpassed his countless times over.

... He encountered Qin Ran and Li Shiyin, and then met his demise.

Organizing the Black-robed Man's memories, apart from regretting the loss of that "Ten Thousand Ghosts Soul-Seizing Banner," Qin Ran had another doubt...

That is, Zhao Zheng, wasn't he supposed to be a mortal emperor? How did he have cultivation? How could he casually bestow such a formidable technique to a eunuch by his side?

Thus, the man Zhao Zheng became shrouded in more mystery in the eyes of Qin Ran's main body.

But he could roughly guess that this was the reason why his avatar chose to join Zhao Zheng.

Zhao Zheng and his group could even sever the connection between the avatar and the main body, allowing the avatar to become independent. This kind of profound and mysterious technique was beyond Qin Ran's current understanding. So he roughly knew how terrifying Zhao Zheng and the Xuan Qin imperial court were.

After recording "The Ten Thousand Ghosts Soul-Seizing Grand Method," Qin Ran didn't intend to practice this technique. Although it was special and powerful, its side effects were actually too great.

Qin Ran was more interested in the spells within this technique. How could he not be tempted by spells that could harm souls? He wanted to break down these spells and enrich Dan Peak's technique library.

So after a busy night, Qin Ran finally finished organizing "The Ten Thousand Ghosts Soul-Seizing Grand Method," and he derived several usable spells:

The first was a spell for collecting souls and refining souls. The soul-collecting spell would make it more convenient for him to destroy bodies and erase traces in the future.

As for the soul-refining spell, it was what the Black-robed Man had demonstrated that day - the two types of evil ghosts and corpse ghosts. There was also a type called resentful ghost, very powerful, but the Black-robed Man hadn't been able to refine it.

This soul-refining technique required practicing this method, which Qin Ran couldn't do, which was quite a pity.

However, Chasing the Wind had a wolf spirit space and could control souls, so Qin Ran could show it to Chasing the Wind.

The second was a soul-searching technique, which could forcibly search through someone's memories.

It was equivalent to Qin Ran devouring the Black-robed Man's soul to obtain his memories, but the soul-searching technique didn't require devouring someone's soul like this.

However, being forcibly searched by the soul-searching technique was extremely painful, even worse than being devoured.

The third was the soul-worshipping technique, which was the spell the Black-robed Man used to directly "worship" Qin Ran's avatar to death.

In fact, this move had extreme limitations: First, the caster's cultivation level needed to be higher than the recipient's. Second, at least the recipient's true name needed to be known. Third, the recipient needed to be unprepared.

So, this was a technique that could only be used to ambush those with lower cultivation... The limitations were extreme, actually making it quite useless. Most crucially, it could only be used by those who cultivated this technique.

Fourth was the soul-fusion technique. This was perhaps the most valuable spell Qin Ran gained from his busy night. Because the effect of this spell... was to allow a cultivator's soul to quickly merge with the physical body after possession.

After finishing his records, Qin Ran put away the book and placed it on the bookshelf above the right side of his desk. On this bookshelf, there were many other techniques he had collected over the years, such as the Nine Revolutions Star Sword Technique cultivated by Li Shiyin, the Water Flower Heart Sutra he himself practiced, the previously obtained "Nine Extremes Primordial Spirit Demon-Devouring Technique," and so on.

Now "The Ten Thousand Ghosts Soul-Seizing Grand Method" was added to the collection.

He put away the new book, activated an array to hide this layer of the bookshelf, revealing ordinary books on the outside.

Qin Ran stretched, feeling generally excited and happy.

Then...

He looked out the window of his study and saw, early in the morning, another four or five-month-old infant riding a sword, chasing a white cat across the sky in front of his window.

"???" He felt something wasn't quite right...