After washing himself in the cold water, he wouldn't want to waste his time collecting the bones, he would want to be sitting by the fire. But he couldn't just leave the bones, he knew from experience that there were things near the stream that would steal anything left behind. He decided to have the little ghosts do it, he ordered First to collect the bones and bring them to Second, then he handed an empty storage bag to Second and ordered Second to place the bones First brought him in the storage bag. Then ordered both of them to return to the camp when all the bones had been collected. These were simple orders that the little ghosts could complete at their current stage of development.
As First began running back and forth carrying bones to Second and the bones disappeared into the storage bag, Xavier took off his clothes. The water turned pink as he washed his clothes, and when the water stopped changing color his hands were tingling. By the time he had washed all the blood off his body his hands were numb, and even holding the storage bags was difficult. He quickly made his way back to camp and threw more wood on the fire to warm himself up. And when he could move his hands, he took a towel out of his storage bag and dried off before changing into clean clothes. After he had warmed up a bit more, he removed a jar of ink and the large cast iron cauldron from his bag.
Picking a medium sized brush, he dipped it into the ink and began drawing an array around the cauldron. When the array was complete, Xavier flowed a bit of his spiritual energy through it to set the ink by drying it faster. Since the cauldron wasn't made for this type of use, it didn't have a place to rest a spirit stone on, so Xavier would have to use a stick to wedge the stone against the array to activate it. When the little ghosts arrived with the storage bag filled with bones, the next phase of work could begin.
Xavier unfurled the massive boar's hide on the ground. In life, this boar's shoulders are as tall as he was and over two times longer than him. Now in death, it's massive hide would be processed and refined into a soul banner and become Xavier's first step to power.
Mortal leather workers would scrape the hide with knives to remove the fat and blood left on the hide, they would then use salt or boiled brain to remove moisture from the hide, then they would stretch the hide to break it down enough to be useable leather ready to be made into various goods. As a cultivator, Xavier had a different way of doing it. He would use corpse fire in a very controlled manner, he would burn off the fat, blood, and hair on the hide while boiling off excess moisture. In an hour he would have what he needed instead of days or weeks of hard work. Of course, with this convenance also came the risk that he would reduce a large portion of the hide to ash, but there plenty of boars around to get a new hide.
Using corpse fire for a prolonged time was draining on his spiritual energy, but section by section was completed. The hide had shrunk a bit when the refinement was complete, but there was more than enough to work with. Pulling a jar of ink and several brushes, Xavier began drawing formations on the hide, several dozen interconnected arrays formed a rectangle wider and taller than Xavier. When he was done with the last array, it was past noon.
He was low on spiritual energy, so he decided to cultivate for a while. When he was done, he filled the cauldron to the brim with spirit herbs before adding water. Taking a stick from the firewood pile, he wedged a spirit stone against the array on the side of the cauldron. The moment the spirit stone touched the array it began to glow red and the water inside the cauldron began rippling. After a few minutes, the rippling water in the cauldron turned a light green color as the herbs started dissolving, till they disappeared completely. A small ash covered finger bone appeared in Xavier's hand before being toss in the cauldron. The bone bounced on the top of the liquid and for a second or two stayed on top of the liquid. When it did begin to sink, it made a hissing noise as any impurities were dissolved away into a foul-smelling smoke. When the smoke clear only half the mass of the bone remained as a pure white bubble in the green liquid.
He tossed bone after bone into the cauldron, as for the longer bones, he needed to hold them upright to keep them from falling out of the cauldron. When the pure white bubble was about to cause the green liquid to overflow from the cauldron, he stopped tossing bones in. Standing, he extended his hand towards the cauldron and activated a spell. It was the bone controlling spell, a spell from one of the various inheritances he had collected. He didn't understand its uses before he went to the mainland and joined the Soul Controlling Sect. He knew it as a spell to create bone spikes on one's bones that extended out of the skin. Since it was supposed to be extremely painful, Xavier learned it then quickly let it rot in the back of his mind. But learned that when an elder of the sect saw someone use it, he quickly figured out different uses for the spell and then the sect demanded the spell, and everything connected to it from the sect that owned it or be destroyed. When the sect got the spells, they began altering them to suit the needs of the sect. Instead of purifying the bone inside the body, they did outside. Instead of using your own bones to make weapons, they used the bones of their enemies. From there they learned to created weapons and armors for both cultivators and ghosts, and many other things.
When the spell activated the white bubble of bone goo in the cauldron flew into his hand. As he continued using the spell the glob of bone goo began to change shape. Soon he was holding a 10-foot-long rod, a moment later and the ends of the rod became pointed, and crossarms started growing two feet down from the tip. As he held it in his hand, he began to assess his creation. He liked the length, but the thickness and the weight were wrong. Placing the tip above the cauldron he started to refine it, small globs of bone goo dripped off the tip and into the green liquid. When everything was to his liking, he flowed his spiritual energy into the shaft of soul banner. Where the spiritual energy flowed the color of the shaft changed from a liquid white color to a pale metallic white. This color change marked it change from bone goo to a sold metal-like bone that was several times stronger than steel.
After drawing several arrays on the shaft, it was time to join it to the boar's hide. Placing the shaft on the ground, he dragged the boar's hide over it, and after some adjustments he got the position of the shaft right. He positioned himself where he could touch the arrays on the hide but not be on the hide. Taking four spirit stones from his bag, he tossed on the hide, then he placed his hand on the arrays and began flowing his spiritual energy into it. The part of the array he was touching glowed bright red and began extending along the array. But when the glow got near one of the spirit stones, the luster of the spirit stone instantly vanished before it exploded into powder. Devouring the power of the spirit stone powered all the arrays at once and caused the other three spirit stones to explode into dust as they were devoured. Now that the arrays were fully powered, Xavier began to activate them.
The boar's hide outside the arrays began to quiver as it shrank into arrays, leaving only a large rectangle laying on top of the shaft. With a thought, several thick ribbons extended from the top of the banner and wrapped around the crossarms of the shaft before fusing into the back of the banner. Now connected to the banner, the arrays on the shaft began lighting up and activating. With another thought the spiritual energy of the shaft and banner started to flow together becoming one. Soon the bright red arrays of the shaft and banner began sinking into itself, disappearing from sight. The banner turned a dull black color, and at first glance didn't look like much.
There were still two final steps before the soul banner was complete. Taking a knife, he made a two inch long cut on his forearm and pressed it onto the shaft. Flowing his spiritual energy into the soul banner caused the shaft to turn from a dull metallic white color to a brilliant metallic crimson color. This formed a blood connection to the soul banner, turning it from a simple tool and into a part of him he could control at will.
For the last step he would need to kill something, so he headed into the woods. When he spotted several dozen wild boars relaxing together, he ordered Second to paralyze a dozen of them, and he ordered First to use its ghost poison to kill a boar without devouring its soul. First jumped into a boar and stayed inside, while Second jumped through boar after boar. All the boars fell to the ground, and with so many of their kind falling, the rest of the boars fled. By the time Xavier got to the boar First had jumped into, it had died and First came out. Stabbing the soul banner into the ground, he activated it, and it began to absorb the soul of the boar. When the last of the rainbow-colored mist entered the soul banner it shuttered. It was now complete, its dull black looking banner now shimmered like pitch black water. And Xavier could sense a space inside it to house ghosts and souls and far worse things.