Temporarily suppressing his excitement, hunting zombie wandering souls can be done at any time, there's no rush.
With a wave of his hand, he collected all the vengeful spirits into the Soul Banner, and Lu Yan began to study another very important matter.
"Where exactly does the Profound Yellow Merit Fire come from?"
If Lu Yan were a lazy programmer, a bunch of messy code would be enough as long as it could run; no one would study how the program runs.
However, cultivation does not allow for any missteps; if each step cannot be steadied, it will eventually lead to big problems.
To cultivate the Profound Yellow Merit Fire, two major prerequisites are needed: one must have the divinity transformation method and sufficient merit.
But the critical issue now is that neither of these things seems to have anything to do with Lu Yan.
Doubts filled Lu Yan's mind, even prompting him to take out the "Red Lotus Karma Fire Scripture" to check if there was any record of the Profound Yellow Merit Fire.
But as a high-grade Demonic Cultivation Technique, the "Red Lotus Karma Fire Scripture" completely lacks any record about merit and the Profound Yellow Merit Fire, nor does it have any extra descriptions concerning the Red Lotus Karma Fire spell.
"I used the incantation of the top-tier spell, Red Lotus Karma Fire, to cast the Profound Yellow Merit Fire.
This is clearly a demonic method that uses karmic force to kill the enemy, how can it be related to Merit Divine Techniques?
Could it be that someone within the demon sect secretly accumulates merit to cultivate divine techniques?"
Lu Yan couldn't help but casually complain.
But the next moment, Lu Yan's expression froze as he suddenly recalled that when he was cultivating the "Red Lotus Karma Fire Scripture," he had modified it by referring to Buddhist and Taoist classics online due to existing errors in it.
"Could it be because of the modifications I made to the Cultivation Technique? But after all, it's a demonic cultivation technique; how can modifying it directly lead to specializing in merit and the right path?"
Flipping through the "Red Lotus Karma Fire Scripture," marked errors were corrected by Lu Yan according to the revised Cultivation Technique without any issues occurring.
"Could it be... the original 'Red Lotus Karma Fire Scripture' was wrong, and what I modified is its true form?
And is this Profound Yellow Merit Fire also related to the origins of the 'Red Lotus Karma Fire Scripture'?"
Unfortunately, the current situation is not in the Xianxia version, and Lu Yan's conjectures cannot be verified.
"The next time I enter the Xianxia version, I should focus on investigating the information related to the 'Red Lotus Karma Fire Scripture'."
Temporarily setting aside this matter without a clue, Lu Yan shifted his attention to another problem.
"Refining the Profound Yellow Merit Fire requires an immense amount of merit. When did I accumulate so much merit?"
In the Xianxia version, merit is a valuable thing.
In ancient times, there was a cultivator who primarily focused on Merit Techniques, though not good at combat between cultivators, it had a strong restraining effect on evil and demonic paths.
Even a demonic cultivator of a higher major realm would avoid meeting a disciple of that sect, and even Yin spirits and evil gods would retreat miles away.
Unfortunately, just before a massive calamity in the demonic path, that sect suffered attacks from various sects, with major losses among the higher-ups, and subsequently, was exterminated completely by demonic sects, leading to its complete extinction.
To some extent, it was the extinction of that sect's heritage that allowed the demon path to rampage in the Cultivation Realm with the Soul Banner.
If that sect still existed, righteous sects would not be helpless against the rampage of the Soul Banner.
This topic has digressed, but even without discussing merit restraining the demonic path, those bearing merit can enhance their fortune and life span.
Lu Yan considers himself not a traditionally good person, even having quite a few lives on his hands.
Counting the zombies from the Apocalypse Version, nearly ten thousand lives have ended at his hand, with thousands of zombies killed daily by vengeful spirits he commands, stripping souls to refine Soul Banners.
Such a path of slaughter would make even a demonic powerhouse give a thumbs up and call him a natural demon breed.
Yet, without bearing karmic force and accumulating enough merit to refine divine techniques, Lu Yan was at a loss on how to interpret this.
"It is most likely related to zombies."
After pondering for a while, Lu Yan could only make this guess.
After a moment of thought, Lu Yan waved the Soul Banner to summon a Warrior.
"Go and catch a few ordinary zombies for me."
Upon hearing the order, the Warrior flew out of the abandoned building.
There was a stir and zombies' roars echoing from buildings downstairs, and after a while, the Warrior returned to the room carrying two zombies.
Ignoring the continuously falling rotten flesh from the zombies, Lu Yan scrutinized them up and down.
Immersing his mind in contemplation, with the refinement of Profound Yellow Merit Fire, Lu Yan already realized that the strange brightness in his mind was merit.
After confirming the amount of merit represented by the strange brightness, Lu Yan flicked his finger to pierce the zombie's skull with magical power, completely destroying the physical body and dispersing the remaining human soul and the seven spirits.
Upon killing a zombie, Lu Yan immediately entered a state of contemplation, and there was no change in the merit within his mind, neither increase nor decrease.
This is enough to demonstrate that killing zombies does not accumulate merit.
This made Lu Yan frown slightly; he summoned a vengeful spirit and pointed to the remaining zombie.
"Strip its soul."
Upon hearing this, the vengeful spirit plunged its claw into the zombie's body, extracting the fragile zombie wandering soul from the decomposing body.
As the soul left the body, the rotting zombie flesh turned into bare bones that scattered across the floor, leaving only a confused wandering soul.
Upon contemplation again, Lu Yan was shocked to discover that the strange brightness representing merit had slightly and almost imperceptibly increased.
Despite the extremely small amount, there was indeed growth.
Thus, Lu Yan fully confirmed that killing zombies would not bring merit, while stripping the zombie wandering soul from the flesh could bring merit.
"What exactly is the difference here?"
Lu Yan fell deep into thought.
After a while, a thought suddenly flashed across his mind.
"It's the apocalypse!"
Lu Yan suddenly came to a realization, and light shone in his eyes.
"In the Apocalypse Version, at its root, it's because humans lack the heaven and earth souls, making their human souls and seven spirits trapped within the flesh after death, transforming into neither dead nor alive zombies.
Killing zombies doesn't bring merit because zombies are already dead people; the life and death of individual beings are insignificant to the world.
But stripping the human soul and seven spirits from the zombie's body means lifting the shackles on human souls and seven spirits caused by the decomposing bodies. To the realm, this is eliminating the apocalypse disaster, an immense merit!
The Celestial Dao will not care whether the stripped soul naturally dissipates or is used to make Soul Banners.
As long as it helps the soul escape the shackles of the zombie's body, merit will fall. This is why I can accumulate a large amount of merit!"