Myriad Souls Infusion Array

[You killed five martial artists who tried to rob you. With a wave of the Myriad Soul Banner, their souls were also sucked inside.]

["Let us out! You damn demonic cultivator!"]

[Watching the faces of those five people struggling on the surface of the banner, you revealed a hint of a villainous smile.]

["Thanks for the martial artist souls, my five good bros! I, Red Hair, gladly accept them! Hahaha!"]

[The Myriad Soul Banner spoke up at an inappropriate moment.]

["Didn't you say you disliked the nickname 'Red Hair'?"]

["Ahem, I don't need you to remind me!"]

[Times were hard, and morality had decayed. Traveling abroad, this was not the first time you had encountered something like this.]

[Although you couldn't trigger the "Biological Father" trait in front of humans, once the Myriad Soul Banner was brought out, you were still their daddy.]

[Unless the robbers' cultivation realms were too high, in which case you could only admit defeat.]

[Then again, true experts wouldn't lower their status just for a few hundred crystal stones.]

[You indeed didn't carry a large bundle on you, so where did you keep your crystal stones?]

[The answer was, the Myriad Soul Banner.]

[This thing also had the effect of a spatial storage artifact, allowing you to put some items inside.]

[However, you could only store items with relatively stable properties; otherwise, they would be corrupted by the demonic aura inside the Myriad Soul Banner.]

[Crystal stones could barely be put inside, but they couldn't be left there for too long.]

[Every time you left them inside for too long, you would find that the numbers never matched up when you checked the accounts with the Myriad Soul Banner.]

["I clearly put five hundred in."]

["No, it was four hundred and fifty."]

["You stole them."]

["Ha! How is that possible? I am a grand immortal artifact. Would I steal your broken stones?"]

[These were the usual lines exchanged between the two of you.]

[The twenty-third year. You were forty years old.]

[You arrived at Divine Weapon City, the provincial capital of Divine Weapon Commandery in Lingzhou.]

[This was a special city.]

[Rumor had it that there was originally no city here. Many years ago, an old master skilled in artifact refinement settled down in this place.]

[As a result, some people came to become his apprentices and learn the craft, while others came to ask the old master or his disciples to refine artifacts for them.]

[With the increasing number of people coming and going, this area became bustling and gradually developed into a large city.]

[Later, the old master's disciples formed a unique martial artist faction, the Divine Weapon Pavilion, which specialized in the art of forging spiritual artifacts.]

[The city was then renamed Divine Weapon City.]

[Even the commandery it was located in was renamed Divine Weapon Commandery.]

[And this Divine Weapon Pavilion was now the strongest faction within the Five Regions, being one of the eight martial arts sects known as the Eight Pillars of the Five Regions.]

[Your crystal stones were limited, so you didn't dare to extravagantly hope to hire a top-tier artifact refiner from the Divine Weapon Pavilion to forge the Myriad Soul Banner for you.]

[But Divine Weapon City didn't just have the Divine Weapon Pavilion as its sole artifact refinement sect nowadays. There were also many second and third-rate minor sects whose fees were much cheaper.]

[The Hidden Weapon Tower was one of them.]

[Feng Mo, a seemingly young disciple of the Hidden Weapon Tower, fell deep into thought after looking at the blueprint of the Myriad Soul Banner you handed him.]

["This thing of yours, what is it called again?"]

["The Demon Subduing Banner!"]

["Is it?"]

[The more Feng Mo looked at it, the more he felt that this thing resembled the Myriad Soul Banner mentioned in ancient texts.]

[Of course it looked similar, because the blueprint was provided by the Myriad Soul Banner itself.]

[The Myriad Soul Banner knew that you currently lacked the resources to restore its true body and could only make a low-end version, so the blueprint it provided wasn't exactly identical to its actual self.]

[If it were completely identical, Feng Mo would have determined on the spot that you were here to forge an evil artifact.]

[Proper artifact refiners like them were not allowed to make evil artifacts.]

[As the world's largest sect of artifact refiners, the Divine Weapon Pavilion also bore the responsibility of supervising all artifact refiners in the world.]

["What quality are you aiming for?"]

["Preferably high-tier, but mid-tier is acceptable too."]

["Are you providing your own materials?"]

["Yes."]

["Only one set?"]

["I only want to make one."]

["But there is a chance of failure in artifact refinement. You only have one set of materials. In case of a mistake, will you just give up, or will you purchase materials from us?"]

["Uh... if there's a mistake, will you refund my refinement fee?"]

["Of course not."]

["Then wait a moment."]

[To be safe, you decided to save up some more crystal stones before coming back for the forging.]

["Oh, middle-aged man thirsting for power, are you short on crystal stones? There is a small woods ten miles outside the city. Just squat there, and you'll have some!"]

[A leopard cannot change its spots; the Myriad Soul Banner urged you to go rob people.]

[Actually, robbing wasn't completely out of the question.]

[But you were now the somewhat famous demon-slayer, Red Hair!]

[You had a bit of an image to maintain.]

[Anyway, killing demons was extremely easy for you, and earning crystal stones using demon materials wasn't slow either.]

["In the blink of an eye, I've reached middle age again. As for my cultivation realm..."]

[The bigger problem now was that your cultivation realm was stuck at the twelfth level of the Spirit Gathering Realm.]

["Breaking through to a major realm is not easy, and mental cultivation methods are much harder than external and internal martial arts."]

[The Soul Tempering Realm required cultivating the third of a martial artist's three vital energies—Essence Energy!]

[The cultivation technique used for this was called a mental cultivation method.]

[Among the high-tier cultivation techniques you brought out from the Crimson Heart Sect, there was a high-tier mental cultivation method called the "Azure Flame Mental Mantra".]

[You had been studying it for a while now, but you still hadn't grasped the basics. It felt much harder than any of the cultivation techniques you had learned before.]

[Not knowing if it was because the quality was too high, you were considering whether to switch to a lower-quality one to practice first.]

["Oh, middle-aged man stuck at a bottleneck, do you need my help?"]

["You're full of wicked ideas. Can you really help me break through?"]

["Soul Tempering, Soul Tempering. Don't you think this is my area of expertise?"]

["Oh... that makes sense. What's your method?"]

["The Myriad Soul Empowerment Array!"]

[The Myriad Soul Banner explained it in detail.]

[It roughly required the following items.]

[First, at least ten thousand souls needed to be stored in the Myriad Soul Banner. It was referring to mortal souls; if they were demon souls, it wouldn't need that many, a few hundred would be enough.]

[Second, find someone who knew how to set up arrays to lay out a Myriad Soul Empowerment Array. If the other party didn't know what this array was, the Myriad Soul Banner could provide a complete set of solutions.]

[Third, a large amount of crystal stones. Array formations could not function without crystal stones, and the Myriad Soul Empowerment Array consumed an especially large amount of them.]

[Fourth, the main body of the Myriad Soul Banner had to be at least a mid-tier spiritual artifact. Currently, it was just a tattered banner used for sweeping graves, which definitely wouldn't do.]

[As long as this array was activated and you could withstand the impact of a massive number of souls rushing into your body within a short period while inside the array, the door to the Soul Tempering Realm would naturally open for you.]

["Mainly, it's because your innate talent is poor, kid, otherwise it wouldn't be this troublesome. But you should also be thankful that I'm here, or else you would never reach the Soul Tempering Realm in this lifetime."]

[You ignored the Myriad Soul Banner's attempt to elevate itself by putting you down.]

["Crystal stones and souls aren't difficult to get. By slowly killing demons, I can save them all up. Refining a new main body is also a problem that can be solved with 'money'. So that means I just need to kidnap an array master."]

[You suddenly jolted in shock.]

[Oh no, I've been led astray by this Myriad Soul Banner guy!]

[It's "invite," not "kidnap."]

[Therefore, the immediate priority remains the same: hunt demons and trade their materials for spirit crystals.]

[With enough spirit crystals, any problem can be solved.]