``` [At those words, you fell into thought.]
[The Master had gone to the East Sea in search of immortals and had not returned for two hundred years. That was why the Nine Great Surnames now controlled Great Qi's court, their noble houses so deeply rooted among the people.]
[Your impression of the Master was hazy. The Confucian School's classic, the Holy Sayings, recorded his every word and deed, and he did seem every inch a sage.]
[Yet Lu Hua had told you that the Master had created Marsh Lake for the Dragon-Raising Pool, breeding Demonkind across a thousand li and leaving the people of Jiannan Circuit in misery. That made him a cold man who regarded all living beings as straw dogs.]
[Then there was the fear he inspired in the Demon Master and Master Lotus Pond, and the reverence the people of Great Qi held for him.]
[It was hard to piece these fragments into a complete picture.]
[When you came back to yourself, Master Lotus Pond's gaze rested on you. "Young friend Xie Guan, you have an affinity with the Buddhist Sect, and you are the heir of an old friend."]
["Your progress in martial arts clearly lags behind your Primordial Spirit cultivation..."]
[You nodded. With the Yang Talisman Scripture Lu Hua had given you, nothing stood in the way of your further Primordial Spirit cultivation.]
[But you had no martial art that led straight to the Ninth Realm of Martial Dao.]
[The old monk continued, "I have a Buddhist treasure art, the Indestructible Vajra Body Divine Art, and the Founding Emperor's Sacred Ape Classic, which I obtained in Great Qi."]
["It seems you used the Sacred Ape Stance to establish your martial foundation. This classic contains methods leading straight to the Eighth Realm of Martial Dao."]