Buddhist Treasures

After discussing matters, everyone on the Five-Colored Altar decided to leave it together and explore the dim land in the distance, searching for a way to survive.

Watching the others set off, Lu Chen offered no opinion. He kept a low profile, barely making his presence felt.

He had inexplicably arrived in the Shrouding the Heavens World with nothing to his name. He had brought no so-called system, nor received any divine arts or supreme treasures. At present, he was merely an ordinary person, no different from Ye Fan and his classmates. The slightest carelessness could cost him his life.

Mars, the Great Thunderclap Temple! Our chance of survival here should lie in the Buddhist artifacts Tathagata left behind. Lu Chen gazed at the hazy night sky, his thoughts racing as he swiftly recalled what had happened here in the original course of events, searching for a way to keep himself alive.

"Come look! There's writing on this boulder!"

Before long, the group discovered ancient characters carved into an enormous rock. They were actually bronze inscriptions from the Pre-Qin era, and everyone immediately crowded around.

After studying them closely, a few classmates familiar with ancient writing identified the two characters as "Mars," leaving the group shocked and bewildered.

For this was the name the ancients had given Mars, and it also signified a star of calamity.

"Mars? How is that possible?" a female classmate cried out. She had never imagined that she would one day leave Earth. She could not believe this conclusion, nor did she want to.

"At its closest, Mars is about fifty-five million kilometers from Earth. At its farthest, that distance reaches four hundred million kilometers. How could we possibly be on it?"

A male classmate with some knowledge of astronomy offered this analysis, likewise unwilling to believe the truth.

All thirty people in Ye Fan's group were stunned by this conclusion.

Soon, they spotted two faintly glowing moons in the sky, proving that this planet had two natural satellites. Mars, as observed by modern technology, happened to have exactly two moons. Then there was the vast, reddish-brown land around them.

They had no choice but to accept that they had left Earth and arrived on Mars, hundreds of millions of kilometers away.

Although they could not be absolutely certain yet, they were all but sure. Their chances of returning to Earth had already become exceedingly slim.

Crossing hundreds of millions of kilometers, voyaging through the starry heavens-the methods of cultivators are unfathomable! Lu Chen looked up at the stars, secretly awed by the Five-Colored Altar's power of transportation. Reading a story in a book and experiencing it himself, feeling the mighty power of myth, were two entirely different things.

Glancing over the others, who were on the verge of collapse and despair, he quietly left the group alone and walked toward a faint light in the distance.

Ye Fan's classmates were so distraught and panic-stricken that none of them noticed Lu Chen leaving ahead of them.

By the faint starlight, he soon reached the ruins of a palace complex. After pausing briefly to examine them, he crossed the area and arrived at his destination-the Great Thunderclap Temple.

An ancient hall of modest size stood here, its interior covered in thick dust. A Buddha statue occupied the center, with only an ancient bronze lamp beside it.

Strangely, the lamp was utterly free of dust. A flame still burned upon it, enduring without going out, providing the only light in this place.

There was nothing particularly remarkable about the Buddhist temple's exterior. It was square, with an ancient, timeworn plaque hanging above the entrance, bearing four archaic characters. Although Lu Chen could not read them, he knew they meant "Great Thunderclap Temple."

An ancient bodhi tree grew before the hall. Its trunk was thick, and its luxuriant branches spread over the entire building.

Unfortunately, the ancient bodhi tree had long since withered. Only six Bodhi Leaves remained on a few branches more than two meters above the ground, brimming with green vitality. Everywhere else, its branches were bare and dead.

"Tathagata Buddha's Great Thunderclap Temple. To think I would one day set foot here."

Excitement stirred in Lu Chen's heart. This was the Buddha's dwelling from myths and legends. What mortal could ever truly lay eyes upon it?

Although this was not a divine being from his own spacetime, he was still an inconceivable existence. Plucking stars and grasping moons, overturning heaven and earth with a palm-for such a figure, these were merely casual feats, no different from those of the immortals of legend.

Steadying himself, Lu Chen carried a section of stone wall over from the ruins and used it as a step to pick the six Bodhi Leaves from the tree.

Although the enormous bodhi tree had withered, its six remaining leaves shimmered with a faint green glow. Translucent and lustrous, as though carved from peerless jade, they brimmed with rich vitality. A single glance was enough to tell that they were no ordinary objects.

Leaves from an Immortal Divine Medicine-divine treasures that even a fortune could not buy, and I picked them so easily! Looking at the six Bodhi Leaves in his hand, Lu Chen was delighted.

Immortal Divine Medicines were the only divine treasures capable of granting longevity. Each was a unique rarity in heaven and earth, maturing only once every four or five thousand years. Their divine fruits could allow someone to live another lifetime, beginning life anew. Only unrivaled experts at the level of Great Emperors and ancient sovereigns could truly possess them.

The bodhi tree before the Great Thunderclap Temple was one such Immortal Divine Medicine. It was Buddhism's sacred tree, also known as the wisdom tree, contemplation tree, and enlightenment tree. It could awaken the divinity within living beings and was a supreme treasure that allowed cultivators to swiftly comprehend the laws of heaven and earth. According to legend, Amitabha Great Emperor had attained the Dao and become an emperor beneath this very tree.

After picking the Bodhi Leaves, Lu Chen approached the ancient tree's roots. He knew that the even more precious Bodhi Seed lay beneath them-the seed through which this divine tree could undergo nirvana and be reborn. Planted in suitable soil and watered with a top-grade Divine Spring, it could sprout anew and grow into a complete bodhi Undying Divine Tree.

After a moment of concentrated thought, he ultimately decided not to dig up the Bodhi Seed.

As far as he knew, a terrifying spiritual imprint lay within this seed. The divine tree already had an owner, and that owner was naturally the legendary Tathagata Buddha.

As for why this Buddha had left such an immortal treasure here instead of taking it with him, there were probably obscure, inexplicable connections involved. After all, Buddhism chiefly cultivated the next life and spoke of karma.

Just because Ye Fan could take it in the original course of events did not mean that he, an outsider from another spacetime, could do the same. Buddhism might seem to rarely take lives, but its methods of converting powerful experts were unquestionably the foremost in the world.

Who knew how many peerless experts throughout ancient legends had entered the Buddhist fold because of a single declaration: "You have an affinity with our Buddha"? As for whether those converts sincerely embraced Buddhism or had been forcibly enslaved, that was hard to say!

Although the Bodhi Seed had provided Ye Fan with considerable help on his cultivation journey, he had become deeply wary once he learned that it contained a spiritual imprint.

For this meant that he had no secrets. Everything was recorded by that spiritual imprint.

Thus, Ye Fan had tried repeatedly to remove it. Even refining it with the immortal flames of the Fire Domain had failed. Only with Heavenly Venerable Lingbao's Emperor Weapon-the Immortal-Slaying Sword-had he finally erased the imprint completely through its supreme sword qi.

"What a pity!" Shaking his head regretfully, Lu Chen stopped concerning himself with the Bodhi Seed and suppressed the greed in his heart.

He could not become insatiable and reach for every treasure simply because he possessed the advantage of "foreknowledge."

Many seemingly delicious cakes might conceal deadly poison within.

If he truly believed that being a transmigrator made him the protagonist of this era, and recklessly challenged heaven, earth, and even the air itself, he might not even know how he had died when the time came!

After all, only those who survived to the end and reached the pinnacle were the protagonists of heaven and earth.

As for geniuses who began with heaven-defying opportunities but died along the way, they ultimately became mere nameless bystanders, just like "my son, Wang Teng!"

Various Ancient Supremes lay dormant in the Shrouding the Heavens World, while several even more powerful taboo existences laid their plans behind the scenes. Danger lurked everywhere.

If Lu Chen truly touched upon certain taboos and angered them, those Supremes could crush him to death a thousand times over with a single thought.

Thus, he kept a clear head. Opportunities on the path to immortality certainly had to be seized and fought for, but his greed needed limits. He had to know where to draw the line and never charge ahead mindlessly.

Upon entering the Great Thunderclap Temple, he saw only a Buddha statue and an ancient lamp. Thick dust covered the floor, and on the surface, there appeared to be nothing else.

Lu Chen, however, naturally knew that more than a dozen Buddhist artifacts had been left inside. These were the treasures that could preserve his life here, and the reason he had slipped away to arrive before Ye Fan and the others.

Walking behind the Buddha statue, he swept aside the thick dust and soon discovered a golden scepter, an ancient artifact long buried in dust-the Vajra Pestle.

In Buddhism, this artifact symbolized invincibility and the power to shatter anything, a treasure wielded by the revered saints of legend.

Yet the Vajra Pestle now in Lu Chen's hand was far more than a symbol from mythology. It was a genuine ancient sacred artifact. Unleashed in full, its power could cleave mountains and sever peaks, burn rivers and boil seas.

Unfortunately, he was only a mortal now and could not unleash even a trace of its divine might. He could only use it to preserve his life on Mars. Once they left this place, these Buddhist artifacts would lose their power entirely.