There was all sorts of reading material in those two boxes, though none of it was a unique copy.
After all, Bai Sui cared about the knowledge and information in the books, not about preserving them as rare editions.
So whenever he came across a unique copy, Bai Sui simply transcribed it. Dozens of inkblots floated within his Divine Sense Domain, copying several books at once.
Hongan-ji Temple had been built outside the capital because of its size, but it was still nearby. Word of Bai Sui's deeds there had long since reached the Daimyo Mansion.
As Bai Sui drove the carriage back, no one dared stop him. Some even offered to drive for him, but he politely declined.
When he returned to his lodgings, Bai Sui paid no attention to the money. Instead, he carried the boxes of books straight inside.
Bai Sui felt that he was growing lazier by the day. Ever since he'd acquired this Divine Sense Domain, he'd become less and less willing to do things with his own hands.
Indeed, the five boxes of books and scrolls floated behind him, carried along by qi guided by his Divine Sense.
After skimming through the books, Bai Sui picked up one of the scrolls.
It was a cultivation scroll he'd pried—no, that the head priest had insisted on giving him.
Bai Sui unrolled it and read its contents carefully.
About half an hour later, he set the scroll down.
He took a sip of tea and organized his thoughts about what he'd just learned.
These monks call chakra the Talent of the Immortal Clan. Their method of cultivation is to temper the body and practice Buddhism.
Tempering the body strengthens it, while practicing Buddhism cultivates the spirit. Together, they produce the Talent of the Immortal Clan—a process much like how physical and spiritual energy combine to form chakra.
The reason the head priest didn't possess the Talent of the Immortal Clan was that he practiced a different system.
This system focuses exclusively on the spirit, directing all one's energy toward it. It could be called the secret tradition passed down among the head priests.
The reason for this was that one of the head priests discovered that when the spirit reached a certain level, the soul could linger briefly in the mortal world after death, becoming a Buddha Body. The Buddha Body could then draw on the Talent of the Immortal Clan of the entire temple to unleash tremendous power, even using that power to travel to the Pure Land of its own accord.
It was thanks to several head priests like this that they'd been able to spread their faith throughout the Ninja World and amass wealth from every corner.
Bai Sui knew that these so-called Buddha Bodies were probably what was known as Yin Spirit Ghost Cultivation—in other words, they were at roughly the same level as his own soul. Of course, their actual powers differed.
Afterward, Bai Sui read all the other scrolls related to Hongan-ji Temple's cultivation methods. He gained plenty of useful knowledge. Of course, he knew these couldn't be everything; there had to be things that were never written down. But he wasn't greedy, and he was already quite satisfied with what he'd learned.
Quite a few things in the scrolls gave Bai Sui ideas. Take the Cursed Seals, for instance. As people in the Ninja World had used this power over the course of history, some gradually noticed that chakra flowed in specific patterns when certain techniques were used.
By studying those patterns, people had developed Hand Seals and Cursed Seals. Unlike Hand Seals, however, Cursed Seals were more closely guarded, known only to a few powerful clans and experts.
That was because Cursed Seals demanded more of their users than the widely known Hand Seals.
According to the scroll, inscribing a Cursed Seal required a high degree of control over chakra. Whether it was applied to a person or an object, the user had to avoid harming the target while still inscribing the seal precisely.
And unlike techniques that were released immediately, Cursed Seals often had to be separated from their chakra source. So the inscriber had to inject enough chakra into the seal as they inscribed it.
The more functions a seal had and the greater its power, the more chakra it required.
Different Cursed Seals often demanded different chakra natures. Some could even conflict with one another, making the inscriber's skill all the more important.
The formation those Hongan-ji monks had used earlier had actually been inscribed in advance with Cursed Seals. The links between the seals gathered everyone's chakra together to create a barrier.
Once formed, the barrier would affect both those inside and outside it. Within its bounds, it could suppress and drain the chakra of everyone present.
Outside, it would create a defensive shield that could even reflect ninjutsu of a certain strength. Bai Sui had found all of this in the scrolls.
Although Bai Sui had tried and found that neither his True Qi nor his qi could directly form Cursed Seals, the discovery had still opened up new possibilities for him.
So, during the time he spent in the capital of the Land of Iron, Bai Sui sometimes went out to treat patients during the day and returned to his lodgings at night to study Cursed Seals.
Time flew by, and three months passed in the blink of an eye.
During that time, Bai Sui had not only treated patients during the day but also gathered a great deal of information about the Ninja World. It would prove very useful for his upcoming travels.
The completed Cursed Seals gave him a reference, and they reminded him of Cloud Seals from his previous life. He'd never studied them, but he'd read some related scriptures, such as the True Text of the Five Emperors Suppressing Heaven, the Scripture of Cloud Seal Salvation, and the Great Method of the Supreme Clarity Lingbao.
For some reason, however, the Cloud Seals from his previous life didn't work either. After using qi to form one Cloud Seal after another, Bai Sui saw no reaction at all.
Still, with the Cursed Seals and Cloud Seals to guide him, Bai Sui had managed to make some progress over the past three months.
Thanks to the high-speed workings of his Divine Sense, after countless experiments, Bai Sui finally discovered a rune that worked. Its winding strokes resembled a series of swimming dragons. Looking at it, Bai Sui thought of Bird-Worm Script from his previous life.
Unlike the seal-script characters of his previous life, however, this rune had ninety-five strokes. Bai Sui couldn't say what it meant.
Once formed, it could store qi, gather qi, and even release it.
Though Bai Sui had managed to form the rune, he didn't understand what it did. He was still exploring its possibilities. He even suspected that what he was looking at might not be a single rune, but he didn't understand it well enough to break it apart.
As the saying went, every beginning was difficult. Bai Sui believed that now he'd made a start, he would eventually figure something out.
Bai Sui felt he'd stayed here long enough. It was time to set out on his travels again.