Furnaces of the Celestial Path

Shen Yuan was once the greatest genius of the Celestial Fire Sect. Then his sworn brother betrayed him. Poisoned, his Golden Core shattered, Shen Yuan was left to die in a cursed forest. Instead of death, he finds the Soul Forge of Bonds — a forbidden system that grows stronger not through slaughter or enlightenment, but through the people he protects. Every genuine bond restores his cultivation. Every lost soul he shelters expands his Sanctuary. A fallen phoenix hunted by her clan. A wolf-spirit assassin raised as a weapon. A nameless snow spirit abandoned by the world. One by one, the broken gather around him. But compassion has no place in the cultivation world, and the Sanctuary Shen Yuan is building may become powerful enough to defy the heavens. Even if he has to burn the world to protect it. — Description from novelcodex.org