Everyone's hearts shook violently as they stared at the old monk in disbelief. They had never imagined that the sole surviving person aboard this enormous golden vessel would have such an astonishing background!
"My Buddhist teachings fall short of Shakyamuni's. I could only be considered someone who guided him along the way. He forged his own path. The others and I who were respectfully called his teachers really amounted to very little."
The old monk pressed his palms together, his tone humble.
Ye Fan and Pang Bo, both Earthlings, knew that Shakyamuni had studied under several teachers before his enlightenment, including Brahmin cultivators and ascetics, and only later founded his own teachings.
This old monk was at least an Ancient Buddha, and very likely the ascetic from back then!
Before Shakyamuni founded Buddhism, Buddhist teachings had already existed in the world. Their transmission on Earth had merely been fragmented and gradually declined, with even their doctrines straying from orthodoxy.
This was actually an old monk who had once instructed Shakyamuni!
The mere thought of that background made their heads spin. He had to be a genuine living fossil, a Buddha at the Saint Sage level.
"Holy monk, are you going to stop us from entering the sea eye?" Jiang Zhu asked.
"This old monk should have passed into nirvana long ago. For two thousand years, I have clung to life with a single breath of true qi, all to guard this Demon Sea Eye..."
Through the old monk's account, everyone learned of a long-buried past. They had been ordered to guard the Great Thunderclap Temple, bearing the heavy responsibility of suppressing the Heroic Spirits of Yinghuo Ancient Star.
It was an arduous mission.
This ancient star had once teemed with life, a flourishing Life Source Land. But a war spanning