Pan Long's question stunned Bi Lingkong. Several seconds passed before she answered, "Merit could certainly help me enormously right now. The monks have several wondrous Merit arts that could turn the situation around in one stroke."
"It's just..." She paused. "Merit arts can't be performed through someone else. Only the person who possesses the Merit can draw on it by casting the spell themselves. In other words, it's no use if I cast it. You'd have to do it yourself. But even if you started learning now, there isn't enough time..."
"How much longer can you hold out?" Pan Long asked.
"If I focus on clinging to life, another day or two shouldn't be a problem. But even the simplest form of Compassionate Voyage to the Other Shore takes more than a day or two to learn!"
The crow lowered her head, looking thoroughly dejected.
Pan Long saw it differently. "What does Compassionate Voyage to the Other Shore do?"
"Compassionate Voyage to the Other Shore turns Merit into a bridge across the sea of suffering. It can carry someone out of danger across ten thousand miles in an instant, and they're guaranteed to land somewhere safe. It's a famous Buddhist School art for escaping calamity, and plenty of monks know it," the crow said. "But it's founded on the bodhisattva's successive stages of cultivation—the ten faiths, ten abodes, ten practices, ten dedications, and ten grounds. You'd have to reach at least the ten abodes to use it."
Pan Long understood the first part, but the rest left his head swimming. Ten this, ten that—he couldn't even memorize it on such short notice, much less cultivate it.
"Is there anything that doesn't require cultivation?"
"The Buddhist School has an exoteric branch and an esoteric branch. The esoteric branch emphasizes the three