With a pinch of his hand seal, the Blue Water Curtain vanished, transforming into eighteen Ocean-Calming Pearls that slipped into his sleeve.
Elsewhere in the Eastern Fence World, powerful backers regularly collected Cultivation Resources from their subordinate forces in exchange for protection. In the Western Desert, eminent Buddhist monks regularly solicited alms and likewise protected their affiliated forces. The difference was that the Buddhists employed relatively gentler methods.
After arriving in the Western Desert, Wang Changsheng and Wang Ruyan discovered that most cultivators there believed in Buddhism. Life-and-death duels between cultivators were rare, and there were not many High-Level Cultivators. Western Desert cultivators placed great importance on the safety of mortals. They believed in, revered, and worshipped Buddha, living self-sufficient lives. Extermination wars between factions seldom occurred. When disputes occasionally arose, Buddhist cultivators swiftly stepped in to mediate, doing their utmost to keep things from going too far. According to the locals, killing for treasure was an act despised by every faction.
The Western Desert had always been poor in Cultivation Resources. On top of that, its cultivators generally believed in Buddhism. They worshipped Shakyamuni, believing that killing for treasure was evil and would condemn one to the eighteen levels of hell after death. They regarded suffering as a form of cultivation: suffer in this life, and enjoy blessings in the next.
Even when someone did kill for treasure, the eminent monks of Ten Thousand Buddha Temple would capture the culprit, imprison them, and use Buddhist teachings to reform them.
That was simply impossible anywhere else in the Eastern Fence World.
Especially in the South Sea—if you killed my fellow disciples or kin today, I would make you repay it tenfold, a hundredfold tomorrow. Reform a murderer with Buddhist teachings? Such a thing did not exist. Fighting killing with killing