Cultivating demons, cultivating Buddhahood, and cultivating the Dao differed in far more than their methods of cultivation. There was certainly no question of different roads leading to the same destination.
The three traditions differed in their worldviews, their outlooks on life, and their values.
Even the innate aptitude and temperament required to enter each path differed. Some people yearned for Buddhist teachings from childhood, understood even the most complex Buddhist principles as soon as they heard them, and were moved by great compassion, great vows, and great deeds. Others felt both physically and psychologically disgusted at the sight of a bald head, and could not feel comfortable until they had hurled a curse or two.
Some people had loved the Daoist School’s Free and Easy way of life since childhood. They disliked crowds and disputes, stood on their own feet, and sustained themselves through their own efforts.
Others preferred the Demonic Path's freedom to do whatever they pleased: dominating others, taking from those who lacked to enrich their own surplus, insatiably greedy and selfish, wishing they could clutch all the world's fame, wealth, and power in their hands.
Different dispositions led them onto different paths, and the methods they practiced along the way differed as well. Naturally, their ultimate ends could never be the same.
Deng Yin's original disposition had never been particularly suited to either Buddhism or Daoism. Though he cultivated within the Orthodox Mystic Sect, he would ultimately slide onto the Demonic Path.
Back then, he and his wife Shen Wugou had joined together in dual cultivation. They were a flawless pair, coming and going together and walking the path side by side. Had things proceeded normally, they could both have succeeded in their cultivation and eventually ascended to the Immortal Realm together.
Yet his nature could not