The Strange and Supernatural: Starting with Soul Borrowing Cultivation

In the chaotic Great Zhou, raging fires cannot burn away the bones of the wicked cultivators, and iron cavalry cannot stamp out the dust of the demonic path. Heresy cults feed people to Gu, demonic sects make people endure suffering, Taoist temples go about the world behind a façade, and orthodox sects prolong their lives by possessing others. An ordinary martial artist may spend a century mastering the art, only to manage little more than shaping forms and gathering qi. Those who cultivate the immortal path must endure three calamities and nine tribulations, and nine out of ten die. Wicked cultivators use human lives as fuel, taking shortcuts down a path of no return. In this world, people are like grass, and life can be snuffed out at any moment. Xu Xiaoyun transmigrates here and finds himself from the start nothing more than livestock waiting to be slaughtered. Fortunately, a ghostly lamp kindles within his soul. He can draw the souls of the dead into the lamp, refine them into soul oil, and use its light to extract the skills the dead mastered in life, stealing yin to nourish yang. After that, Xu Xiaoyun develops a habit: wherever there are dead people, that’s where he goes. The more chaotic the world becomes and the more people die, the livelier he gets. The Blood-Drinking Taiyin Scripture, the Awakening of Insects Sword Art, the Human-Skin Technique, the Returning Origin Borrowed Body Art, the Demon-Subduing Heavenly Chapter... He has walked every road traveled by the dead beneath the heavens. When Xu Xiaoyun finally looks up again, a path of dry bones stretches behind him. In this strange and sinister world, there is nowhere he cannot go. In this foul, chaotic age, it turns out he has long been free to go wherever he pleases.