The soul banner was complete, but it could still be improved over time. Xavier recalled the little ghosts to their soul orbs, and along with the soul orb of the wild boar, he pressed them against the soul banner. The three ghosts were pulled into the soul banner as their soul orbs disintegrated into nothing. They were now connected to the soul banner and to Xavier through it. He now had far greater control over them then he had before and could even take direct control of them if he wished.
Using his connection to the soul banner, he willed it to return. The soul banner was almost twice as tall as Xavier and had an ominous aura to it, shrank down to the size of his little finger and then released a grey glow and flew into his body. It was now in his core, surrounded by the meager mist clouds of his spiritual energy. He would need to use his spiritual energy to slowly refine it to make it stronger and strengthen his connection to it.
The first time he had created a soul banner; it was nowhere near as good as this one. It was a small banner tied to a wooden pole and was limited to what would fit into a storage bag. It required constant maintenance and needed to be constantly taken out of the storage bag to be used. His first soul flag couldn't be considered as a mistake or even a real regret of his past, but an annoyance of his past had been avoided with a far better option.
The noise of a dozen paralyzed wild boars struggling to move brought Xavier back to the moment. With a thought First and Second appeared in front him, and a small blurry boar shaped ghost hovered above his hand. The moment the third ghost was brought out, he felt his limit. At his current cultivation level, he could use three ghosts at a time and no more, but as his cultivation grew the more ghosts he could control. But right now, it was time to let the little boar feed on the souls of these boars.
When it entered the first boar it was about the size of Xavier's fist and looked frail, when it was done devouring the first soul, it had doubled in size and started walking in an unsteady wobble towards the next boar. After it had devoured the last boar, it had grown far larger. It was about half the size it was when it was alive, but its body was no longer clear, it was murky. It was contaminated with the remnants of the souls devoured and needed to be purified. Walking to the boar, Xavier plunged his hand into the boar's head and released his soul fire. The pale green flame spread throughout the boar's body, and soon a sizzling sound could be heard as little puffs of black smoke rose out of its body. After a few minutes, the sizzling sound stopped, and no more black smoke appeared, and the purification was complete. The boar had shrunk a bit but was now crystal clear with a faint hint of blue. Since he had purified the boar, he decided to do the same to First and Second. When it was done, they had gone from being almost as tall as him to being shoulder height. But like the boar, they were now crystal clear with a faint blue color.
looking at the sky, he could tell that there was about two hours before it became dark. He still had something he wanted to do, tossing storage bags to First and Second, he ordered them to place a boar in them and follow him. It wasn't a long walk to where he wanted to go, it was a grass covered clearing with what looked like a miniature mountain in the middle. Walking to the side of this miniature mountain it looked like someone had cut it down the middle and stolen half the mountain leaving a cliff face. He ordered the ghosts to place the bodies of the boars at the foot of the cliff and go back to get more bodies while head the boar stay behind to guard him.
This would be the place he would work. He would burn the bodies of the many boars he would kill here, and he process their bones to make weapons and armor here. This place would gather an aura of death and negative energy which would be necessary for his later plans. Not long from now this place would be a place of terror for living creatures, but a paradise for ghosts. When the last of the bodies was stacked up against the face of the cliff, Xavier added the skinless, legless body of the first boar to the pile, and used corpse fire to light it on fire. The black flame only extended a few inches from the bodies and only burn flesh and blood, there was no need to be concerned about the forest catching fire. Corpse fire was slow and released a lot of smoke as it worked.
As the thick black smoke started to rise in the sky, Xavier wondered if anyone who saw it would be curious enough to come take a look. It would save him the trouble of looking for bandits if they came to him. The thought of it made smile a bit, but when the moment was over, he headed back to his camp. It would be dark soon and he was hungry.
The first thing he did when he arrived at camp was find stick and stab it into the boar heart and ordered first to hold it over the fire. While the heart was cooking Xavier began cultivating, he quickly replaced what he used and began the slow process of strengthening his cultivation. Breaking through to the 3rd layer wouldn't happen today or tomorrow, but not long after it would. It would increase his strength, and he could begin to use more of the spells he knew, and he could control another ghost. All of which would help with his goals for being here be accomplished quicker.
When he was done cultivating, he took the heart from First and began eating it. He enjoyed it but wished he had remembered to use the spices he had brought. After he was done eating, he felt stuffed and was planning to go to bed soon. Removing the spirit stone from the cauldron caused the array to stop glowing, and the liquid inside began to solidify. When it was completely solid, he placed it in his storage bag so he could bring it to the new work area. The liquid in the cauldron would become liquid again when the spirit stone powered the array again. he tossed the stick used to cook the heart into the fire, even though he was going to have the three ghosts guard him while he slept, he still wanted to keep predators away from where he was sleeping.
Waking up before dawn, he sent Second to gather firewood while he cut up some pork belly and put it in a pot till it was fried in its own fat. After he was done eating and stored the pot of rendered fat, he went looking for more wild boars. Within ten minutes of walking, he found a group of over a hundred wild boar. The three ghosts ran through the crowd of boars infecting them with ghost poison. Just under sixty fell to the ground paralyzed before the rest sensed something wrong and ran.
Xavier ordered the boar to begin devouring their souls, but after the ninth soul the boar couldn't eat anymore. It had grown to the same size as it was before it had died and was now a pale emerald-green color. It also seemed solid, instead of see-through. Xavier put his hand into the boar and used his soul fire to purify the boar, it lost a bit of color but remained the same size.
This is what he wanted to see; the boar had reached saturation. It was the strongest it could be at this stage and could even be seen by mortals if he wished. Its body was now completely made of pure soul energy, which is very useful to ghost cultivators.
With a thought, First walked to the side of the boar and stabbed his arm into it and began devouring. The boar lost it color and began shrinking, while First grew and started glowing a pale emerald-green color. When First was completely saturated it stopped devouring the bour's soul energy. First now looked exactly like the attendant that Xavier had killed.