"Once the Mind Monkey returned to righteousness, the Six Thieves vanished without a trace."
Baron fell into thought. As a holder of one of the Eight Extraordinary Skills, he differed from ordinary foreigners. He had graduated from a prestigious university, could speak seven languages, and had majored in classical and modern languages as well as Eastern studies.
Naturally, he had read the Eastern classic Journey to the West: Exorcising Evil. He knew that Sun Wukong was the Mind Monkey, and that after escaping Five-Finger Mountain, he had slain six bandits. The Six Thieves were named Eye-Sees-Joy, Ear-Hears-Anger, Nose-Smells-Love, Tongue-Tastes-Thought, Mind-Sees-Desire, and Body-Root-Worry, corresponding to the six roots of the human body: eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind.
"The World-Honored One once said: the suffering of all beings mostly comes from failing to uphold the precepts and indulging their desires."
"With the six roots impure, it is difficult to attain Buddhahood."
Baron asked tentatively, "Do you want me to take refuge in the Buddhist Sect and observe the Eight Precepts?"
"Observing precepts is for cultivating the heart, but cultivating the heart does not require observing precepts. Whether taking refuge in the Buddhist Sect can free you, I do not know. But if you remain in Quanxing and indulge your desires, you will surely never be free." Lin Xian glanced back at Xia He, his meaning profound. "If one commits lustful evil, all sentient beings become karmic sins. If one indulges desire, all actions lose the joy of life."
Xia He shuddered at once, as though her hidden thoughts had been struck. She turned her head aside.
"If one craves wine, worries and fears rise and fall without constancy. If one clings to pleasure, youth lasts but an instant."
Baron sank into deep thought. Over the years, he had constantly pursued fine food and wine, using them to fill his desires and gain a sense of satisfaction.
When his desires were fulfilled, he felt empty. When they were not, he suffered.
He had always shifted between these two emotions in an instant, tossed back and forth as he experienced the suffering of impermanence.
"If one is greedy for sleep, one will suffer endlessly and never find liberation." With that, Lin Xian turned back to Baron. "Yet I know a cultivator who has not slept for decades. His state of mind resembles yours. Perhaps he can resolve your worries."
"Where is that cultivator?" Baron pressed, a trace of longing appearing in his eyes.
Lin Xian smiled faintly and patted Baron's shoulder. "Child, every gift fate bestows has long since had its price secretly marked."
"You will receive what you desire." Baron lowered his head humbly and knelt on one knee with utmost reverence. "Please grant me your gift."
"Follow me until the Luotian Grand Ceremony begins."
Lin Xian nodded, leading Baron onto the golden bridge and back to World Group, leaving Xia He standing there in a daze, lost and despondent.
[Ding-dong, host Lin Xian has issued a side quest: decipher the ultimate mystery of the Six Vaults Immortal Thief. Please have System 10086 complete it as soon as possible.]
It was the same familiar scene, the same familiar formula.
System 10086 worked away laboriously, struggling to push the progress bar forward. It had considered giving up, but the sunk cost was simply too great.
Persisting might offer a sliver of hope. Giving up would leave it with nothing.
In the end, the profound meaning of the Six Vaults Immortal Thief was deciphered. Lin Xian seized it and refined it in an instant, then suddenly chanted, "The Six Vaults Immortal Thief is damn awesome, seizing Heaven and Earth's creative power, reversing life and death's Reincarnation, one two three four five six seven."
System 10086: "...Host, what the hell was that last line?"
"Ahem. I am not good at poetry. Let's try that again."
Standing in the pill chamber, Lin Xian looked at the furnace before him. He suddenly recalled that after Xu Xiang's death, a baby had been born in the hospital. Such was the mortal world: life and death. A sense of life and death surged into his heart, and an intense urge forced him to pull out his phone. Then he said in a deep voice, "Bring the medicine!"
A thousand words could not compare to popping pills for Immortal Cultivation. Boundless magical power.
The World Association staff who had long been waiting at the foot of the mountain filed in one after another. Box after box of precious medicinal herbs was continuously transported into the alchemy chamber on the mountain, displaying World Group's financial power to the fullest.
In modern society, some Otherworlders revered the pursuit of immortality and the Dao, devoting themselves wholeheartedly to bitter cultivation. Others drowned themselves in sensual pleasures and pursued enjoyment.
When the forest was large, all kinds of birds could be found. There would always be unworthy descendants who could not hold themselves back, trading the life-extending ginseng left by their ancestors, the breakthrough lingzhi, and century-old fleeceflower root for gold and silver.
All of it now benefited Lin Xian.
Blazing pill fire ignited. Lin Xian narrowed his eyes as he looked at the pool of medicinal liquid, considering how to make the most of these precious herbs.
There would never be another opportunity like this.
The herbs before him were already the precious medicines publicly available in the Inhuman World. Even if World Group wanted to buy them again, they would be priceless and unavailable.
With that thought, Lin Xian transformed Divine Runes into a spiritual blade and actually cut open his own arm. Scalding crimson blood, faintly tinged with gold, flowed into the pill furnace. Like lava dripping into water, it sparked an earth-shaking transformation. Billowing green smoke rose and seemed about to gather into a cloud!
Seeing this, the alchemists refining pills did not rebuke Lin Xian for adding things recklessly. Instead, they cried out, "Cloud vapor rises to the azure heavens; when the pill is complete, dragons and tigers appear!"
"Host... y-you, what are you doing?"
It was not only the alchemists who were dumbfounded. At that moment, System 10086 froze as well. This was the first time It had seen a host harm himself to refine medicine. Even among hosts, this was utterly outrageous.
"I have eaten Sacred Fruit and soaked in Divine Spring. My blood naturally contains this divine power, so there is nothing more suitable for taking the lead in refining medicine."
Lin Xian's face turned slightly pale, but his eyes remained incomparably resolute. His words rang like metal. "Refining medicine, refining people, refining Heaven! If I do not even dare refine myself, what kind of Dao refinement is that?"
"It is only a little blood. I can replenish it later."
"One step ahead, always ahead. One step slow, always slow."
"If I cannot break through to a higher realm at the fastest possible speed, what future can I speak of?"
"My path is to charge with all my strength into the Great Saint Realm, comprehend the Five Great Secret Realms in full, and observe the six levels of the Immortal Altar from the beginning."
"Six Vaults Immortal Thief, help me break through!"
Lin Xian sat cross-legged on the ground. His large intestine, small intestine, stomach, triple burner, gallbladder, and bladder operated at full power, forming the six bowels and complementing the five viscera. They created a perfect digestive system that completely broke down the medicinal liquid he consumed, converting it into enough Postnatal Essence Qi to help Lin Xian break through.
At the same time, another function of the Six Vaults Immortal Thief activated, drawing in the essence of Heaven and Earth with all its strength and transforming it into Primordial Essence Qi to stabilize his foundation.
"Silent, reaching the rootless. Vacant, standing upon the kalpa's lofty ridge. Vast and open, the scripture of cavernous mystery. Who can measure this secluded distance..."
He silently recited the true scripture and circulated his cultivation method. Dense Qi rose and curled around him, little by little repairing his body and empowering his flesh.
The Shrouding Method used the Self-as-Seed. When the Desolate Heaven Emperor created this method, he had drawn upon the Indestructible Scripture and was also skilled in battle. As a result, cultivators of the entire system cultivated the Primordial Spirit as well, but ultimately focused on the physical body. Their accomplishments in the Primordial Spirit were often a level weaker than their physical cultivation.
Under Heaven's Will Slash, without Longevity Substance to replenish it, a Great Emperor's Primordial Spirit would fall into Ji Mie after tens of thousands of years. Yet an Emperor Corpse could endure for millions of years.
The strength of the physical body was not exclusive to Great Emperors and Ancient Emperors. The same held true for low-level cultivators.
When the Sea of Bitterness of a Desolate Ancient Sacred Body first opened, it possessed divine strength of ten thousand jin. Even an ordinary body possessed several thousand jin of divine strength.
An Undying body was what the Shrouding Method took pride in.
Now, empowered by the Six Vaults Immortal Thief, Lin Xian's divine strength continued to rise and his body continued to ascend. At last, with a crack, he seemed to reach a limit and open something!
Lin Xian abruptly opened his eyes. His body and spirit ascended together, and three platinum divine lights burst forth with unstoppable force. He condensed a Heavenly Vein and gave birth to Divine Sense. A silver-white rune seemed etched between his brows, adding an air of immortality to his plain and natural appearance. The third divine light flew from between his brows like a flying sword.
Baron, whom he had previously been able to force out only with brute strength, was now exposed completely with a sweep of Divine Sense. Every mote of dust between Heaven and Earth entered his sight.
"Open!"
Lin Xian shouted. With only a stomp of his foot, spiderweb-like cracks appeared across the earth and rocks. Whole stretches of forest turned into flying wood chips, while a boulder more than ten meters away exploded in an instant. Moments later, there was nothing left near the pill chamber; it had become a barren expanse.
The alchemists, Otherworlders, and World Association employees serving Lin Xian in the pill chamber immediately felt their knees go weak, as though they had beheld a deity!
"An immortal, an Immortal Venerable..." At last, someone could not help groaning. Could such an existence still be human? Why was he still in this mortal world!