Asking the Waters, Slaying Immortals

Disaster descended from the immortals, and his closest family perished. He knelt outside the immortal sect, only to receive this reply: “No spiritual root. A mortal body, tainted bones. You have no fate with the immortal path.” A scroll of sheepskin. A spirit stone. A legend of one mortal slaughtering a million cultivators. By chance, he discovers that mortal kingdoms have spirit-ban zones, where dragon energy holds sway! Even the weakest dragon energy can reduce anyone below the Golden Core stage to an ordinary mortal! Outside a spirit-ban zone, call me a mortal and I won't take offense. Inside one, call me the cultivators' gravedigger! “Old fool, you stepped into the mud and called it a non-Newtonian fluid. I just made sure you broke through its surface tension!” “The cliff above your heads? I've already sabotaged its load-bearing structure!” “Heh... cultivators?” “In a spirit-ban zone, how are you any different from mortals?”