Silver letters kept appearing before his eyes. They came so quickly that they almost overlapped.
At the same time.
Hu Long felt a faint, cool current stream into his body from the point where the tip of his left index finger touched something.
Seeing this.
Hu Long's gaze shifted slightly.
He soon noticed what was different.
His finger was touching a withered root as thin as a toothpick on the stone platform.
The root extended from a wooden crack in the lotus pedestal beneath the Bodhisattva statue.
As a wood carving, it was effectively dead. It should have lost the ability to photosynthesize and no longer had any biological functions.
It shouldn't have been able to grow roots.
But that wasn't necessarily true.
If tiny spores or seeds had been carried by the wind into a crack or hollow in the wood carving, it wasn't impossible for them to grow there.
He didn't pay it much attention.
What caught his attention was something else. He lifted his hand, and the cool current vanished at once. The Source Value that had been steadily increasing before his eyes stopped, too.
When he resumed touching it, the feeling returned.
Clearly, those faint, cool currents were Source Value itself.
As for why he hadn't felt it while sunbathing earlier...
Perhaps it was because the amount of Source Value he'd gained had been too small, making the cool current too faint to notice.
This time, the amount of Source Value was much greater and more concentrated, so he could feel it. In other words, a quantitative change had brought about a qualitative one.
Once he understood this.
Hu Long paid it no further mind and glanced around.
Seeing that no one was paying attention to him.
He pretended to bow his head in prayer.
The Source Value continued to increase. In just a few dozen seconds, the amount displayed on the panel had climbed into the double digits.
After that, however, the rate of increase slowed noticeably.
It was still rising, though, by an average of 0.01 wisps every second or two.
It continued for a little while longer.
Then the letters disappeared completely, and no more appeared before his eyes.
Is that it?
Hu Long's thoughts stirred, and a trace of regret showed in his eyes.
The cool current gradually faded away, too.
He touched the root again, but nothing happened.
It was as if everything that had just happened had been an illusion.
Seeing this.
He summoned the Primordial Plain Panel with a thought.
His gaze fell on the final line, Source Value.
[Source Value: 16.21 wisps]
He'd originally had just over four wisps of Source Value.
Now he'd gained more than ten in one go.
This had been quite a haul.
That single haul was worth nearly four months of sunbathing.
Is there something inside this?
Hu Long's eyes flickered.
He was curious about what was inside the lotus pedestal that could provide him with so much Source Value.
He was tempted to smash it open, but in the end, he decided against it.
Whatever else it was, it counted as a national intangible cultural heritage.
More importantly, it could no longer provide him with Source Value.
Hu Long abandoned the idea of investigating further.
Now that he'd made this discovery.
He didn't leave right away.
Instead, he tried his luck at the other Buddha statues.
After all, if one lotus pedestal could provide him with more than ten wisps of Source Value...
A few more, and he'd be set.
Unfortunately, the idea was far more appealing than reality.
Even after he'd made his way around the entire Wood Buddha Temple.
He didn't receive another Source Value notification.
There was nothing Hu Long could do about it.
He could only pretend to be curious and ask one of the monks about the Bodhisattva statue's origins.
After spending another thousand yuan on incense offerings, he got the information he wanted.
The wooden Bodhisattva statue was more than three hundred years old. It was one of the few statues to survive the last fire.
It had been badly burned, however, and only its base remained. It had been restored afterward.
Its formal title was the Great Night King of the Sorrowful Footprint.
Legend had it that the Bodhisattva had vowed to remain forever in the lightless night, watching over all living beings in the Dark Realm.
The black lotus beneath its feet was the "Night Treasure," forged from boundless darkness.
Hu Long had never heard of this Bodhisattva.
But according to the core teachings of Buddhism, all living beings had Buddha-nature and the potential to attain enlightenment and become Buddhas.
Therefore, in a broad sense, any practitioner who aspired to "seek the Way of the Buddha above and enlighten all living beings below," and put that aspiration into practice, could be called a Bodhisattva.
Thus, the number of Bodhisattvas was as boundless as the number of living beings who made that vow.
It was only natural that he'd never heard of this one.
To put it in plain language, they hadn't come up with the names of the remaining Bodhisattvas yet. They could make up as many as they wanted.
At dusk.
The sun sank in the west, and the clouds across the sky turned into a stretch of silk woven from crimson gold and deep purple, spreading in a brilliant red across the horizon.
Beneath the sunset.
Hu Long drove a limited-edition sports car through the gates of his home.
His parents were still at the company handling business. After graduating from college, his older sister, Hu Zhao, hadn't wanted to take over the family business. Instead, she'd started a tech company of her own and was busy all day long.
Even his little brother, who was just over a year old, had been sent to an early education center.
In the enormous house, it seemed that he was the only one with nothing to do, along with the housekeeper, Wendys, and a few servants.
He didn't return to his bedroom. Instead, he wandered aimlessly through the gardens.
The grounds covered several thousand square meters. Artificial hills rose in layers, water wound through the grounds, and pavilions and covered walkways were scattered among carefully tended plants and trees. Every step offered a new view.
It was nice to take a stroll when he had nothing else to do.
Hu Long stopped at a wooden pavilion beside the water. He took a handful of fish food and casually scattered it across the pond.
The tiny morsels fell into the water, breaking the still surface at once.
Koi from all sides rushed toward them. The shimmering surface broke into shifting patches of gold and red.
He watched the ripples spread across the water.
A thoughtful look came into his eyes.
Three days had passed since his visit to the Wood Buddha Temple. After getting a taste of the benefits there, he'd visited several other famous temples and Taoist temples in Huanyang City and nearby cities over the past two days. Unfortunately, he hadn't found anything.
It was as though only that Bodhisattva statue at the Wood Buddha Temple was special.
Where does the Source Value on the Primordial Plain Panel come from?
Hu Long absently rubbed the remaining fish food between his fingers.
Only by making a comparison could he feel the difference.
Ever since he'd gained ten wisps of Source Value all at once.
He'd found that gaining just 0.1 wisps from a whole day of sunbathing paled in comparison. Naturally, the former was far more appealing.
Unfortunately.
So far, the only things that could provide Source Value were sunlight and that wooden Bodhisattva statue.
Yet he couldn't find the slightest thing they had in common.
What bothered him even more was that, whether at the Wood Buddha Temple or at the temples and Taoist temples he'd visited afterward, explanations about ghosts and gods were either vague or deliberately mysterious.
None of the so-called "magical artifacts" worked, either.
Still, on second thought, it wasn't as if he'd gained nothing.
Money had opened doors for him.
He'd spoken with the Taoist priests and abbots and had tactfully asked them about ghosts and monsters.
They'd claimed that Taoist and Buddhist practices could ward off evil.
There was one other point.
The stronger the body, the more abundant its vital energy. Those with strong yang energy and plenty of vigor were less likely to be invaded by evil spirits.
That claim vaguely matched things he'd heard here and there in his previous life.
As for Taoist and Buddhist practices, even if they really existed, these people clearly didn't possess such abilities.
So Hu Long didn't believe them, naturally.
Looks like I can only find a way to improve my physical fitness for now.
Hu Long opened his hand, letting the last few pieces of fish food fall into the water.
As long as he had enough Source Value, improving his physique shouldn't be difficult. That was probably the most reliable path.
Once the body became strong enough, no ghosts or monsters would be able to get close.
Unfortunately, he still hadn't found a trace of a path to the supernatural.
If he could just download supernatural skills directly.
All his problems would be solved.
Just then.
A young male servant approached.
"Second Young Master, the eldest young lady is back. She asked you to come over."
"Mm, got it!"
Hu Long replied.