55: Chapter 55 The Way of Corpse Refining

Post-war inventory and distribution.

Liang Qiming received a pitch-black superior-grade bone sword from the storehouse. The blade was slender, cool to the touch, and contained a wisp of congealed corpse baleful qi.

The sword was named Bone-Eroder, its scabbard carved with twisted skeletal patterns, and the edges of the blade shimmered with an eerie green, as if dipped in poison.

He held the sword in his hand, scrutinizing it repeatedly, then unsheathed it an inch; the sword let out a low, dull cry, humming and trembling.

Twenty-eight years had passed since he transmigrated.

At the third level of Qi Refining, he used an inferior-grade flying sword. The blade had cracks and was an old item his father had used in his youth.

Later, he changed to a mid-grade Azure Peak Sword, which had required him to grit his teeth and scrape together half a year's savings.

A superior-grade Magical Artifact.

When he was a child, these four words represented things he only glimpsed from afar in the market, things he didn't dare approach across the counter. While the clan disciples in brocade robes toyed with them casually, he could only stand on the street and watch.

It wasn't a lack of talent, nor a lack of hard work.

It was a lack of capital.

If low-level cultivators wanted to rise, they could only gamble with their lives. Hunting demon beasts in the deep mountains, seventy percent died in the beasts' maws; exploring ancient cultivation ruins, ninety percent became withered bones in formations. Only those lucky enough to survive earned the right to climb one step higher.

Liang Qiming didn't want to gamble. He stayed steady for twenty years, waiting for the clan's turning point.

Today, this Bone-Eroder Sword was icy and heavy in his hand, yet it felt hotter than any flying sword he had ever owned.

He wore the sword at his waist and received a mid-grade heart-protecting mirror. The mirror surface was palm-sized, with a Black Tortoise pattern carved on the back; injecting mana would cause a layer of pale gold spiritual light to float up.

Liang Qiming fastened his armor, stood at the storehouse entrance, and looked up at the sky.

The autumn day was high and vast, with light clouds and a gentle breeze.

He had finally become the kind of person who "wears brocade robes and carries a fine sword."

Liang Shoushan returned to the back mountain the next day to enter secluded meditation.

Clan affairs were still managed by Liang Chengye, with all income, expenses, and personnel assignments handled in an orderly fashion.

Liang Qiming found his father and said he wanted to look at the several cultivation methods they had seized.

Liang Chengye didn't ask much and took three jade slips from the storehouse, placing them on the table.

Liang Qiming first explored "The True Explanation of a Hundred Poisons."

The content of the jade slip was vast, covering everything from the toxicity of common snakes and insects to recipes for rare poisons, and even branches of cultivation methods for tempering the body or entering the Dao through poison—hundreds of thousands of words in total.

Nurturing poisonous creatures required long-term investment, and compounding poisons demanded the right time and place. While sneak attacks with poison were effective, it didn't suit his temperament.

He put this one down and picked up the "Secret Record of Insect Control."

The path of insect control was even more tedious than using poison. There were hundreds of types of spiritual insects, each with different diets, strict breeding environments, and long reproduction cycles.

Although one could drive swarms to cover the sky at high levels, the initial investment was too large and the results too slow.

Not suitable.

The third one was a grey-black jade slip, cold to the touch.

The Corpse Refining Method.

Liang Qiming sank his divine sense into it, reading word by word.

The method was divided into three volumes. The first volume discussed the selection of corpse materials: newly deceased cultivators were best; the deeper the resentment, the greater the potential of the resulting zombie. Secondly, demon beast carcasses could be used, with focus on muscles, bones, or marrow. Mortals were also an option, but their upper limit was extremely low.

The middle volume recorded the refining techniques. How to saturate the corpse with mana, how to lay down miniature spiritual energy circuits in the joints, organs, and skull, and how to feed it with essence blood to brand it with a divine soul mark. Every step had precise procedures, taking anywhere from several months to several years.

The final volume discussed corpse control and advancement. A newly formed zombie's intelligence was dim, capable only of executing simple commands; after several years of nurturing, it could understand human nature, protect its master, patrol at night, and fight in coordination. If fed enough resources and spiritual items, an Ironclad Zombie could evolve into Silver-clad, Gold-clad, or even the legendary Gold-clad Yaksha.

Liang Qiming put down the jade slip and remained silent for a long time.

Raising a corpse was simpler than dealing with poisons.

That was his first judgment.

It wasn't that it was technically easier, but that the logic was more straightforward: selection, refining, feeding, controlling.

Every step had a trail to follow, with no need for years of trial and error or relying on the weather. How much resource was invested and how much combat power was produced was a clear account.

And—

He glanced toward the back mountain of the Manor.

There was a portal leading to Blue Winter Star.

And on Blue Winter Star, there were over two hundred million Servitors whom no one cared about and whose deaths were of no consequence.

Those laborers who had been modified into semi-mechanical beings endured endless toil while alive, and their corpses were casually incinerated or discarded after death. If he took a few intact ones and processed them with the Corpse Refining Method...

Liang Qiming did not say it out loud.

He put away the jade slip and nodded to his father.

“I want to try this one.”

Liang Chengye nodded; the path of corpse refining was much safer than refining sword souls, so naturally, he wouldn't object.

—

Liang Qiming unfolded that grey-black jade slip again, reading the first volume of the Corpse Refining Method word by word.

The first step was not material selection, but site selection.

Refining zombies required a Place of Yin Baleful Qi. This so-called Yin Baleful was the cold death energy accumulated in the earth's veins, which was hard to form in ordinary Feng Shui layouts.

If there were no natural Yin holes, one would need to use Magical Artifacts and talisman formations to artificially set them up, transforming an area into a place suitable for raising corpses.

The method listed several simple Yin Baleful formation diagrams. The required materials weren't particularly rare: yinhun stones, jusha banners, and a few demon beast bones. Setting up the formation wasn't complicated either; if buried according to the diagram, it could be completed in seven days.

But the risks were clearly written.

Once a Place of Yin Baleful Qi was established, it would attract mountain spirits, wild monsters, and lonely, vengeful ghosts from dozens of miles around.

They naturally chased Yin Qi and would view this place as their nest. If the formation was set up in the wild, the person setting it would need to stand guard day and night to kill incoming threats.

A slight oversight could lead to the formation being destroyed at best, or the corpse embryo being stolen at worst.

Liang Qiming paused for a moment upon reading this.

He chewed over the risks twice and suddenly smiled.

Mountain spirits and wild monsters? Lonely, vengeful ghosts?

The Warhammer universe had none of these.

When people in that world died, their souls were either coveted and devoured by the Chaos Gods of the Warp, dissipated in the endless void, or were protected by that distant golden light of the Emperor, returning to some unknowable state.

There was no reincarnation, no transmigration, and no lonely souls wandering the wilderness waiting to devour Yin Qi.

At least not for ordinary people.

As for mountain spirits and wild monsters—he had never seen them on Blue Winter Star.

If he set up a Place of Yin Baleful Qi on Blue Winter Star...

Liang Qiming picked up the jade slip again, this time turning to the middle volume to look at the methods for zombie advancement.

The cultivation method listed three paths.

First, devouring essence blood. The fresh blood of living beings contained vitality and Yang energy, which reacted violently with the zombie's Yin Baleful body. This was the fastest and most brutal way to advance. However, this method easily caused the zombie's ferocity to increase greatly, making it much harder to control.

Second, devouring Yin Baleful heavenly treasures. Yin soul beads, nether grass, and black ice marrow all fell into this category. This was mild and controllable, but such treasures were rare and expensive.

Third, devouring souls. Souls were the source of living beings and were a great supplement for zombies; the advancement effect was between the first two. The disadvantage was that souls were hard to obtain, requiring the killing of people to refine their souls, and there was a whole set of tedious methods for the restraint and feeding of soul bodies.

Liang Qiming read the third path three times, already having a plan in mind.

Selection of materials: take corpses from Blue Winter Star.

Site selection: set up the formation on Blue Winter Star.

To advance the zombies, if he took the third path, it would still require consuming lives—specifically, the souls of living people.

He closed the jade slip and did not make an immediate decision.

With the Corpse Refining Method before him, he would not give it up. Compared to personally charging onto the battlefield and fighting with his physical body, controlling corpse puppets was far safer.

What was damaged was the corpse, not himself. What was lost was a puppet refined with resources, not a cultivator the clan had worked so hard to nurture.