Lu Feng stood before the first man just like that, without any wild gestures.
He was simply like a towering Sacred Mountain.
Standing before that monk.
Giving an impression of being "indestructible," "unbeatable," and "eternally invincible."
He fingered his prayer beads, looking less like a senior student come to interrogate him than a "Sutra Master" come to examine his learning. His debating method was simple: he inserted a Small Debate Topic into a Great Debate Topic, then laid countless traps within that Small Debate Topic.
Having studied the scriptures for ten years, Lu Feng knew the rules well.
No matter how a scriptural debate unfolded, every debate had one unshakable principle.
One had to "speak with substance."
And "march under a justifiable banner."
Everything said had to be a direct quotation from Buddhist scriptures or a Great Sage's commentary on those scriptures. Anything outside those two categories was wrong, and the four people beside them would immediately rule it a defeat.
No matter how eloquently you spoke, making heavenly blossoms rain from the sky.
It was still wrong.
Thus, most people began a scriptural debate with clear minds and clear thoughts. But as the debate continued, under their opponent's mounting pressure, aggressive advances, and spears of the lips and swords of the tongue, the slightest lapse in clarity became an opportunity for someone to dig a pit.
One wrong sentence was enough to lose the whole game. Of course, the Sutra Student Monk seated on the ground could also challenge the person standing. The rules were the same: exposing an error with a question or leaving him speechless with a counterquestion also counted as victory.
And so Lu Feng gave his opponent no chance whatsoever to counterquestion or think.
He spoke faster and faster, without even stamping his feet or striking his hands to make sounds that would shake his opponent. He simply kept questioning him, his voice growing louder and his words faster, while his opponent grew increasingly flustered, as though he had truly returned to his earliest days at the monastery, debating for the first time against veteran student monks with ten or twenty years of study, who refuted him until nothing he said held any worth.
His courage faltered before the battle even began.
Lu Feng's mind was exceptionally clear. More importantly, he was still continuously performing mantra practice with one hand. That Great Compassion Resonance radiated from him, gradually making his opponent afraid to look him in the eye, afraid to listen to his words, and afraid to think of any rebuttal.
As though voicing a rebuttal would itself be disrespectful to the Lama's true form.
Lu Feng's words were like a divine mountain on the plateau, lodging themselves in his opponent's heart again and again.
His opponent no longer dared raise his head to look at Lu Feng. By the end, even his throat seemed blocked by a mountain. He opened his mouth and went, "Ah, ah, ah," but could not utter a single word.
Rather than weakening during the debate, this feeling grew more and more severe, until obstructing masses crowded his heart!
In the end, he collapsed helplessly onto the ground, his face flushed red from the strain and his eyes nearly bulging from their sockets, clutching and pounding his chest in pain.
Lu Feng put away his prayer beads and bowed to him again, then stepped over the monk and approached the next one. "Please instruct me."
He was like the Vajra in the Bright Venerable's hand.
Able to shatter all delusion.
Pressing forward without hesitation, bearing that "momentum" as he crushed ahead without restraint!
The second monk also bore a faint lingering resonance. But it felt exactly like what Zhuogedunzhu had left behind when, without giving Lu Feng an empowerment, he had granted him three uses of the Secret Mantra. It was like someone emerging from a place filled with offering incense, its fragrance still lingering on his body.
Something one could smell but not grasp.
That was resonance.
It existed, yet one could not describe precisely what it felt like.
That was the impression these monks gave Lu Feng.
Elder Mingfa stared at Lu Feng's back, his gaze extremely sinister, but did nothing.
He merely glanced at Zhiyun beside him and said flatly, "This boy has a profound affinity with the Buddha."
Master Zhiyun pressed his palms together and bowed. "You praise him too highly, Elder Mingfa."
Elder Mingfa had no interest in engaging with Zhiyun.
He too began reciting mantras, his thoughts unknown.
As for Elder Mingzhi, from beginning to end, apart from a twitch of his eyelids when the aura of a Dharma Protector appeared-
At every other moment, he had not even lifted his eyelids. He simply sat on the Dharma Throne, seemingly uninterested in everything happening before him. Whether it was the earlier appearance of a "Dharma Protector's" aura or Lu Feng now revealing "Mantra Holder" methods beyond those of a Sutra Student Monk, he showed no reaction.
Everyone was watching for his response. If he moved, it meant someone here must have broken the rules. He would not need to act himself; the attendant monks behind him would step forward to stop it. The attendant monk representing the Abbot Venerable could likewise stop everything.
As long as he struck the Dharma Gong.
Everything would also stop.
But neither did anything, because all of this fell within the permitted rules. Lu Feng did not know that "Mantra Holders" and "Spirit Shamans" were both kinds of people within the supernatural sphere known as the Secret Dharma Region. The difference was that "Mantra Holders" could not compare with accomplished senior monks, because in the eyes of many senior monks, "Mantra Holders" lacked two of the Three Mysteries.
Of the Three Mysteries of body, mind, and speech, a "Mantra Holder" possessed only one, gaining only divine mantras. Forever unable to attain great perfection and transcend the world, unable to attain nondual wisdom, he was merely a powerful Mantra Holder. Without unfathomable wisdom, it was difficult to comprehend the blessing of the Buddha's true form.
It was like certain Yogis who cultivated only channels, winds, and bindu, and practiced no other methods. Whether these people belonged to the Outer Dao, however, was defined by the monks. If they said they did, they did; if they said they did not, they did not.
The authority to define this was not in their own hands. Thus, many monastic lineages had Yogis, Mantra Holders, and Spirit Shamans. Some went further still: certain Spirit Shamans were themselves a great lineage.
"Dharma Protectors" and "Mantra Holders" were both permitted in debates between Sutra Student Monks.
As for why they were permitted?
It was because the sons of serfs could not obtain the methods of "Dharma Protectors" or "Mantra Holders."
Many Sutra Student Monks selected from among the serfs could only obtain the "Kalyāṇamitra" degree in their fifties. That was simply because, though they passed the debating examination in their twenties, they had to work for thirty years to earn enough money for the "Great Offering." Yet even more serf-born Sutra Student Monks remained Sutra Student Monks into old age.
Then they were dismissed, made to leave, their fate...
There was no comforting fate that could be spoken of. This was also why Lu Feng intended to leave this place once he completed his task. Here, apart from those at the very top, no one else counted as human. Lu Feng passed them one by one, watching them fall to the ground in turn, watching as not one of the Sutra Student Monks who bore him ill will was willing to surrender.
He refuted them one after another, and only when those who bore him ill will had fallen to the ground did he turn toward the few Sutra Student Monks still alive. These Sutra Student Monks immediately took off their monastic robes, folded them, and offered them with both hands to Lu Feng before them.
At this sight.
The attendant monk acting for the Abbot Venerable struck the Dharma Gong, producing a clear ringing note.
The sound passed through the rear courtyard, through the Debate Hall, and reached the Plaza outside the Debate Hall.
Everyone who heard it craned their necks. As one, like fledglings awaiting the return of a great bird, they all looked toward the same place.
Lu Feng accepted their monastic robes, then removed his own as well and respectfully offered them before the attendant monk representing the Abbot Venerable.
The attendant monk glanced at him, took out a slip of paper, and unfolded it.
Elder Mingfa did not open his closed eyes. He knew it was over.
The road to becoming a "Kalyāṇamitra" now lay unobstructed before this Sutra Student Monk named Zhasa.
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