After three rounds of drinks, even though the wine conjured by the Zhili Technique was not intoxicating, Heavenly Daozi was already speaking with a hint of drunkenness.
Heavenly Daozi told Ren Qing everything he knew about the Spirit-Entering Technique, hoping only that Ren Qing would not repeat his mistakes. Little did he know that Ren Qing's plans were even more dangerous—so bold that they could practically be called reckless.
There was no helping it. The situation was deteriorating, and he was facing existences above the Earth Immortal realm. Ren Qing had no choice but to take some risks to perfect the Spirit-Entering Technique.
If he wanted to acquire a means of self-preservation within a mere few decades, taking a shortcut was unavoidable.
Only after Heavenly Daozi put down his wine cup did Ren Qing support him toward the statue at the village entrance.
"Huang Qi, even becoming an Immortal Wanderer doesn't mean you can live in carefree freedom…"
Heavenly Daozi disappeared into the statue. Perhaps it was merely Ren Qing's imagination, but the stern expression on the statue seemed to relax somewhat.
"Carefree and at liberty? Before transcending the Three Dao Ancestors, I doubt anyone can truly be carefree and at liberty."
Ren Qing looked around. His gaze lingered for several breaths on a simpleton in the village before a beam of spiritual light left his right hand and landed between the man's brows.
The simpleton was named Li Mu. He had been born with a mental disability, yet he was a genuinely good person, always helping the villagers without asking for anything in return whenever he had free time.
Under Heavenly Daozi's protection, he had lived into his early twenties despite having neither father nor mother.
"Ah… ah… ha…"
Li Mu seemed to notice Ren Qing. He turned toward the village entrance and smiled foolishly, then kowtowed several times toward the statue, prompting the surrounding children to jeer and cheer.
If nothing unexpected happened, Heavenly Daozi would probably pass the position of mountain god on to him.
There was no need for particularly great strength merely to protect a village. As long as one possessed a kind heart, one would generally not do anything wrong.
Ren Qing nodded toward Li Mu, but his consciousness did not immediately return to his main body.
Using the same method by which he had once nurtured the Fleshly Tathagata, he first used Dragon Roar Within the Casket to turn the bacterial soul into the form of a book.
The pages were like human skin, while the cover was like white bone.
He then had Corpse Fengdu perform a simple zombification, before finally infusing it with an immortal position. The book seemed to be shedding its old form and transforming into a living, flesh-and-blood creature.
Ren Qing filled the books with stories of supernatural beings and strange occurrences. There were twenty-eight volumes in total, and he sent them to the Storytellers in the various cities and towns.
After finishing all this, Ren Qing left the Stomach World without hesitation.
Coming from that tranquil paradise isolated from the world into the deathly darkness of the Buddha Realm, even Ren Qing felt slightly uncomfortable. No wonder Heavenly Daozi had hesitated earlier about reincarnating.
Ren Qing, clad in the black goat skin vessel, wandered aimlessly through the darkness.
In his mind, he began perfecting the Spirit-Entering Technique, conducting countless analyses, continuously deleting portions of its contents before checking everything with the information flow.
Ren Qing discovered that the difficulty of cultivating the Beast Pen Method was far lower than that of the Restraint Officer Method. Removing the flaws from the Spirit-Entering Technique should therefore not be difficult.
Strictly speaking, the source of the Heavenly Demon aura was not the Supreme Heavenly Demon, but the Daode Heavenly Venerable. That left considerable room for maneuver.
Ren Qing increasingly felt that the Supreme Heavenly Demon was something of a thief who had stolen the Dao. While the Daode Heavenly Venerable was unable to descend into the mortal world, it had seized the Heavenly Demon aura for itself.
As far as the Daode Heavenly Venerable was concerned, it was difficult to say whether the Supreme Heavenly Demon could even be considered the same kind of existence.
As Ren Qing had predicted, the Spirit-Entering Technique truly was a method of guiding the Heavenly Demon aura through visualization and assimilating oneself with it—a kind of "inviting the gods" technique.
Simply put, one drew closer to the Supreme Heavenly Demon through one's body and soul, thereby borrowing its power.
Of course, the more you borrowed, the more you eventually became part of the Supreme Heavenly Demon.
The more thoroughly Ren Qing understood the Spirit-Entering Technique, the stranger his expression became.
He settled his mind and continued perfecting the technique with his eyes closed. In any case, he had the protection of the skin vessel, as well as the Heavenly Demon Tribulation. As long as he did not venture too deeply into the Buddha Realm, this place was actually safer than the outside world.
He was like a lone wandering ghost traversing the Buddha Realm. With the assistance of countless bacterial souls, it took him more than half a month before he finally made some progress.
Spirit-Entering Technique
The Spirit-Entering Technique was created by Ren Qing. Cultivation required placing a medium beneath the tongue and visualizing the immortal or divine being corresponding to that medium. Only after the body underwent transformation could the technique be successfully cultivated.
Ren Qing would have liked to use the information flow to forcibly master it, but he was not cultivating the technique himself. The one who needed to master the Spirit-Entering Technique was the skin vessel.
The original Beast Pen Method directly consumed remnants of Heavenly Demons, gradually transforming the practitioner's physique toward that of the Supreme Heavenly Demon. The practitioner treated their own body as the medium, while offering a portion of their soul to the Supreme Heavenly Demon.
The medium was equivalent to a spiritual root or spiritual constitution.
The steps of cultivating the Spirit-Entering Technique were now completely different, but its core remained the same: borrow the aura of the object being visualized to nourish oneself, allowing the skin vessel to break through its current bottleneck and accommodate more Heavenly Demon aura.
The target visualized by the Beast Pen Method appeared to be the Ghost Metal Goat, but in reality it was the Supreme Heavenly Demon. This merely lowered the practitioner's guard.
After perfecting the Spirit-Entering Technique, Ren Qing could now change the target of visualization.
There was only one prerequisite: the object being visualized had to be like the Supreme Heavenly Demon, composed of a unique form of aura. Otherwise, it would be difficult to cultivate the technique in the first place.
The first thing Ren Qing thought of was the Fleshly Tathagata.
The Fleshly Tathagata indeed possessed a physical body, but its essence was formed from the Buddhist aura absorbed through its immortal position. It was extremely close to a Buddha possessing a Buddhist fruition.
Ren Qing even suspected that a Buddha possessing a Buddhist fruition could likewise become a target of visualization.
Buddhas and the Supreme Heavenly Demon were remarkably similar. The Buddha was "I am all sentient beings," while the Supreme Heavenly Demon was "all sentient beings are me."
Before reaching the Tathagata Fruition, Buddhas possessing a Buddhist fruition were, like the Supreme Heavenly Demon, composed of aura. Only upon attaining the Tathagata Fruition would they possess physical bodies.
Apart from using the Fleshly Tathagata in place of the Supreme Heavenly Demon, there were even more extreme methods, but Ren Qing would explore them little by little for now.
Ren Qing used Heavenly Demon Possession and, for safety's sake, returned to the outskirts of the Buddha Realm.
He found an underground cavern to prevent black goats from disturbing him during his closed-door cultivation, allowing him to focus on practicing the Spirit-Entering Technique.
He directly removed the skin vessel and controlled it from a hundred meters away.
Ren Qing used the Zhili Technique to influence the skin vessel. The latter had barely developed rudimentary intelligence and could respond to some simple commands.
There was no time to waste. If the skin vessel was damaged because of this, he would simply refine another one.
The skin vessel crawled awkwardly on all four limbs inside the cavern, resembling a genuine black goat. Its mouth and nostrils continuously breathed as well.
Ren Qing dug a fingernail-sized piece of flesh from the surface of the Fleshly Tathagata's body, then instructed the skin vessel to hold it in its mouth. The burning Buddhist aura made the skin vessel bare its teeth in pain.
The fragment of the Fleshly Tathagata's flesh was pale white and had a texture resembling jade.
However, the moment the fragment left the Fleshly Tathagata's body, it transformed into a miniature Arhat's head, its eyes still blinking instinctively.
Ren Qing felt a headache coming on.
Having the Fleshly Tathagata cultivate according to the technique's instructions was no easier than having a mortal cultivate an Earth Immortal Ascension Method.
But Ren Qing had no better option. He could only try again and again.
Visualization was essentially constructing the image of the Fleshly Tathagata in one's mind. The more complete the image, the better the effect of the visualization.
Using the Fleshly Tathagata's flesh as the medium, the practitioner could directly steal Buddhist aura to nourish their body.
Most Restraint Officer Methods also combined circulating energy through the meridians with visualization, but the Restraint Officer Methods emphasized circulation, whereas the Beast Pen Method emphasized visualization.
While Ren Qing was busy with the Spirit-Entering Technique, the outside world was also becoming increasingly turbulent.
It was obvious that the major factions had joined the hunt in the Beast Pen, perhaps because they vaguely sensed that a catastrophe was about to descend.
Their exploration for immortal positions had never stopped, and two more kinds of immortal positions had appeared.
They were the Five-Road Gods of Wealth and the Water Virtue True Lord. However, neither had been verified yet, and the Restraint Officers' Hall had dispatched cultivators to investigate them.
With the existence of the Turbid and Aberrant Immortals, interest in immortal positions among those in the Heavenly Aberration realm naturally surged.
All that was missing now was someone willing to be the first to take the risk. Once a cultivator refined an immortal position, the others would undoubtedly go mad over them.
The Heavenly Court Ascension Method had also been deliberately and inadvertently spread.
Wuming had certainly already learned of the Matchmaking Immortal's Ascension Method, yet he remained unmoved. He had probably guessed that a faction was plotting something behind the scenes.
After all the various sides began maneuvering against one another, the situation unexpectedly settled into a rare period of calm.
Every cultivator was watching and waiting, including those old monsters who had lived for who knew how many years. At any moment, they might seize an opportunity and act.
Ren Qing, who was half the instigator behind everything, was still painstakingly cultivating the Spirit-Entering Technique.
"It worked…"
Ren Qing stared at the motionless skin vessel and finally released the breath he had been holding back for a long time. Then the more than ten pairs of Double Pupils on his forehead opened, allowing him to barely see through the darkness.
Wisps of Buddhist aura flowed into the skin vessel.
Ren Qing called the Buddhist aura of the Fleshly Tathagata Spirit Mountain Buddha Qi. It was extremely special. Regardless of whether the Fleshly Tathagata was digesting Karmic Fire, its Buddhist aura always contained traces of it.
Ordinary Buddhist aura was bronze-colored, while Spirit Mountain Buddha Qi alone was golden, resembling a burning flame.
Because of the Spirit-Entering Technique, the flesh medium inside the skin vessel's mouth began emitting Spirit Mountain Buddha Qi. The domineering nourishment strengthened the skin vessel and pushed it across the Martial Practitioner realm.
Ren Qing could feel that the skin vessel's bottleneck had become precarious. Once it broke, the surrounding Heavenly Demon aura would surge madly into the skin vessel.
Suddenly, Ren Qing's expression changed.
As the proportion of Heavenly Demon aura increased, the Spirit Mountain Buddha Qi unexpectedly showed signs of becoming violent.
"Something's wrong…"
Ren Qing's pupils widened.
The disturbance was caused by the Karmic Fire mixed into the Spirit Mountain Buddha Qi. It was fundamentally incompatible with the Heavenly Demon aura.
He hurriedly stopped circulating the Spirit-Entering Technique.
At this moment, the skin vessel was already burning with Karmic Fire, its exterior riddled with holes. Had it not been for the protection of an immortal position, it would probably have been destroyed long ago.
Ren Qing helplessly shook his head. He had been on the verge of succeeding, yet everything had fallen apart at the last moment.
At least he had figured out the intricacies of the Spirit-Entering Technique. Since the Fleshly Tathagata could not serve as the visualization target, he could simply change to another one.
Ren Qing's consciousness once again entered the Stomach World.
More than half a month earlier, he had invested twenty-eight bacterial souls to create the books. The stories recorded within corresponded to the Twenty-Eight Lunar Mansions, and the Storytellers had already been reciting them for several months.
Ren Qing wanted to use the method by which he had refined the Fleshly Tathagata to mass-produce pseudo-immortal gods.
Of course, the Fleshly Tathagata possessed a certain special nature. Its birth was primarily due to the death of this world's Ancient Buddha Tathagata. The pseudo-gods produced in mass quantities could not possibly be used to transfer Karmic Fire.
Horn Wood Dragon, Neck Metal Dragon, Root Earth Raccoon, Room Sun Rabbit, Heart Moon Fox, Tail Fire Tiger, Winnowing Basket Water Leopard.
Dipper Wood Unicorn, Ox Metal Ox, Girl Earth Bat, Void Sun Rat, Rooftop Moon Swallow, House Fire Pig, Wall Water, Kui Wood Wolf, Bond Metal Dog, Stomach Earth Pheasant, Pleaides Sun Rooster, Net Moon Crow, Turtle Beak Fire Monkey, Three Stars Water Ape.
Well Wood Wolf, Ghost Metal Goat, Willow Earth Ram, Star Sun Horse, Extended Net Moon Deer, Wings Fire Snake, Chariot Water Earthworm.
Of course, some of this world's immortal positions were likewise connected to the Twenty-Eight Lunar Mansions. It was unknown whether there was any relationship between them.
The stories of the Twenty-Eight Lunar Mansions gradually became deeply rooted in people's hearts.
Under the Heavenly Dao's covert interference, temples dedicated to the Twenty-Eight Lunar Mansions were built throughout the mortal world of the Stomach World, and the incense offerings were fairly abundant.
Ren Qing directly fused the books into the statues within the temples, allowing them to receive the worship of believers and seeing whether they could form existences like the Fleshly Tathagata.
He was fairly confident in this.
Back then, besides the Fleshly Tathagata, Ren Qing had also used fabricated Buddhist scriptures to attempt to nurture pseudo-Buddhas, and the results had indeed been promising.
The pseudo-Buddhas formed at the time, however, were nothing more than monsters made from malformed pieces of flesh stitched together. They were far inferior to the Fleshly Tathagata.
Ren Qing had not investigated further and instead extracted the immortal position from the Buddhist scriptures.
His requirements for the Twenty-Eight Lunar Mansions were not high. As long as they could reach the level of vessels, that would be enough.
If they truly succeeded, cultivators could use the Twenty-Eight Lunar Mansions to temper their bodies. Even if they could not break through their existing bottlenecks, they could at least strengthen their physiques and foundations.
In a sense, the Twenty-Eight Lunar Mansions were also a type of pseudo-immortal position.
Once Ren Qing's Heaven and Earth Genesis advanced to the Earth Immortal realm in the future, it would possess slots for Heavenly Immortal positions. If he then fused those Heavenly Immortal positions into the Twenty-Eight Lunar Mansions, perhaps he could truly create an alternative kind of "immortal position."
However, if cultivators attained immortality and enlightenment through the immortal positions of the Stomach World, they should be different from the Turbid and Aberrant Immortals. Ren Qing had no idea what they would become.
He patiently waited inside his cave.
After nearly half a year, the Twenty-Eight Lunar Mansions fused into the statues finally began to transform one after another.
The incense faith unconsciously generated by worshipping believers was absorbed by the Twenty-Eight Lunar Mansions. Their original book-like forms gradually transformed into human shapes, becoming almost identical to the appearances of the statues.
The process made Ren Qing's hair stand on end.
He watched as the books gradually grew facial features, developed organs resembling brains, and finally grew four limbs.
Even the Fleshly Tathagata, despite being in the Heavenly Aberration realm, possessed no intelligence whatsoever. The Twenty-Eight Lunar Mansions seemed to be the same, perhaps possessing even weaker instincts.
Within their bodies was an aura resembling smoke and dust, which should have condensed from incense offerings.
At first glance, incense aura seemed colorless and formless, appearing exceptionally pure. In reality, the opposite was true.
Incense aura contained the enormous, chaotic collection of miscellaneous thoughts from countless believers. Its nature was similar to Buddhist aura, although the latter was composed of countless souls.
Fleshly Incense Immortal
Created by Ren Qing. It could absorb incense offerings to advance and contain the wishes of all sentient beings.
Ren Qing glanced at the skin vessel, which had already recovered most of its damage. He then controlled it to establish contact with the Ghost Metal Goat of the Twenty-Eight Lunar Mansions.
The medium was merely a handful of ashes from an incense burner.
The skin vessel immediately drew in the incense aura of the Ghost Metal Goat, and its entire body began crackling.
The Heavenly Demon aura indeed showed no reaction to the incense aura. It simply allowed the Spirit-Entering Technique to nourish the skin vessel, and the bottleneck of the Martial Practitioner realm shattered instantly.
The moment the skin vessel stepped into the Half-Corpse realm, its body rapidly grew taller.
It shot up from around 1.6 meters to more than two meters. The dragon horns atop its head became even more exaggerated, reaching nearly half a meter in length.
The skin vessel stood within the darkness, the two pairs of Double Pupils in its eyes radiating a chilling presence.
The Spirit-Entering Technique had strengthened the skin vessel to the point that its toughness rivaled the Ghost Envoy realm. The Heavenly Demon aura entering and leaving its pores resembled countless tentacles.
However, the Ghost Metal Goat constellation within the Stomach World had nearly collapsed because the skin vessel had extracted too much of its incense aura.
It could be reduced back into book form at any moment.
Fortunately, believers continued providing incense without end.
Another drawback of drawing upon a constellation for cultivation was that it would assimilate the practitioner. A mortal might very well find their body and soul transformed into the appearance of the constellation by the time they reached the Yin Difference realm.
Ren Qing had chosen the Ghost Metal Goat because its appearance resembled that of the skin vessel.
The Beast Pen Method worked the same way.
The only difference was that Ren Qing's constellation possessed no intelligence, so it would not seek to assimilate all sentient beings like the Supreme Heavenly Demon.
Ren Qing's thoughts stirred, and he began spreading faith in the various gods and immortals of the Heavenly Court throughout the Stomach World.
Even if he could not nurture the Fleshly Incense Immortals for the time being, he could first increase the number of believers.
Once the Fleshly Incense Immortals took shape, relying on a large-scale following, they would quickly reach the Yin Difference realm, and perhaps even the Yang God realm.
After putting the skin vessel back on, Ren Qing indeed felt that the pressure of the Buddha Realm had weakened considerably. He should now be able to continue deeper toward Jingzhou.
Just as Ren Qing was preparing to transform into shadow and leave the underground cavern, he suddenly realized something.
He could not help looking at his hands.
The dense Heavenly Demon aura wrapped around his flesh, and immediately afterward his body transformed into an illusory shadow and disappeared from the spot.
Ren Qing entered another perspective.
The skin vessel seemed to have become part of the Buddha Realm itself.
Without even using Heavenly Demon Possession, he moved through the darkness at an imperceptible speed, passing through vegetation, rocks, and mountains without any physical collision whatsoever.
Ren Qing's face lit up with delight.
After reaching the Half-Corpse realm, the skin vessel had awakened the ability to partially become incorporeal. Exploring the Buddha Realm had naturally become much easier.
He no longer needed to worry about being surrounded and attacked by black goats. After all, the skin vessel was recognized by the Buddha Realm as one of its "kind."
After reaching ten thousand li into the Buddha Realm, Ren Qing could no longer see any cultivators.
However, he noticed obvious traces of insects crawling across the ground.
Clearly, the Insect Nest Matriarchs were still active within the Buddha Realm.
It made sense. As existences approaching the Fortune Virtue Earth Immortal realm, the Insect Nest Matriarchs were far more powerful than ordinary Heavenly Aberration cultivators.
One of the Matriarchs was Wuming's mole, while another was a believer of the Maitreya Buddha.
The composition of the Insect Nest could therefore be imagined. It was not surprising that they could survive within the Buddha Realm. They might even have managed to seriously wound the Fortune Virtue Earth Immortal.
Ren Qing followed the traces without restraint, searching for the Insect Nest cultivators.
Unfortunately, after advancing another hundred li, the skin vessel once again reached its limit. He could only slowly nourish it with the incense aura of the Ghost Metal Goat. At most, it would take a month or two to advance to the Ghost Envoy realm.
The temples of the Twenty-Eight Lunar Mansions had already taken root throughout the Stomach World.
However, compared with gods and immortals with clear divine duties, such as the Kitchen God and Rain God, the Twenty-Eight Lunar Mansions did not carry particularly auspicious meanings.
Ren Qing therefore adopted the customs of ancient times from his previous life, dividing each month into twenty-eight days, with one Lunar Mansion presiding over each day in succession.
In this way, the incense offerings to the Twenty-Eight Lunar Mansions truly became abundant.
Ren Qing realized that there was no need to build temples to spread the faith of gods and immortals. As long as customs were associated with the gods and immortals, incense would naturally accumulate.
Weren't door gods simply portraits pasted onto the doors? Every time people entered or left their homes, they would naturally see them.
Under Ren Qing's influence, the mortal world of the Stomach World increasingly resembled the ancient world of his previous life, except that strange and varied races were scattered everywhere.
The skin vessel smoothly advanced to the Ghost Envoy realm, and its abilities were strengthened once again.
Now, when entering the partially incorporeal state, Ren Qing could move silently without making even the slightest sound.
While planning the divine and immortal faith of the Stomach World, Ren Qing continued toward Jingzhou.
The traces left behind by the Insect Nest became increasingly numerous. It appeared that a battle had taken place not long ago, and the corpses of Heavenly Dao insect-men could still be seen everywhere.
At first, Ren Qing thought the Insect Nest had fought the black goats.
But he soon noticed something strange.
It had actually been a four-way melee.
For some unknown reason, the Insect Nest Matriarchs had each acted independently, resulting in internal conflict.
The Heavenly Dao insect-men under the command of the four Matriarchs had all undergone varying degrees of mutation.
The Heavenly Dao insect-men under the Blood Bat Matriarch and Earth Serpent Matriarch were the most normal. However, their bodies had undergone a certain degree of Heavenly Demon transformation. Their bodies were covered in black hair, or their feet had become like goat hooves.
They seemed to be using Heavenly Demon transformation to avoid attacks from the black goats.
The corpses of the Heavenly Dao insect-men under the Black Crow Matriarch had already decayed substantially. Only after inspecting them did Ren Qing discover that they had originally possessed zombie bodies.
The zombie bodies had likewise been grafted with the skin and flesh of black goats, though the result was somewhat grotesque.
The Black Crow Matriarch was controlled by Wuming, which meant Wuming's patience was not as great as Ren Qing had imagined.
The Heavenly Dao insect-men under the Scale Armor Matriarch appeared normal on the outside, their scales seemingly intact. Yet their flesh and bones had transformed into a bronze-colored metallic material.
Faced with the harsh environment of the Buddha Realm, the Buddhist mole Scale Armor Matriarch and the Corpse Immortal mole Black Crow Matriarch had rebelled at the same time.
The Insect Nest had already fallen apart.
Just as Ren Qing was preparing to leave the battlefield, the corpse of a black crow Heavenly Dao insect-man opened its eyes and stared at him with an indescribable gaze.
More than a hundred corpses rose to their feet.
Then they spoke in unison.
"Who are you?"
Ren Qing narrowed his eyes.
He had not expected his first contact with Wuming to occur within the Buddha Realm.
Wuming had actually used the Insect Nest Matriarchs, one of his trump cards. Ren Qing wondered what kind of gain he had been plotting to obtain.
"Wuming, long time no see."
The corpses fell into a prolonged silence.
The black goats nearby had already rushed over.