The Heavenly Court, the Hall of Divine Soaring.
The Jade Emperor sat on his throne, watching his subordinates in a noisy commotion, his previously good mood completely ruined.
"Alas!" The Jade Emperor sighed.
Since the end of the Journey to the West Calamity 1,400 years ago, the Primordial World has gradually entered the Dharma-ending Age.
Chaos Sealing, the Great Dao was hidden, the Heavenly Dao was not revealed, Spiritual Qi was depleted, and the various Great Thousand World and Middle Thousand World gradually collapsed.
In the end, only this Small Thousand World remained, serving as a place for a group of once-powerful beings to eke out a living.
The cultivation levels of everyone have now regressed to an unbearable degree.
Putting others aside, even the Jade Emperor himself, once Peak Quasi-Sage level powerhouse, is now only at the level of Heavenly Immortal. In a few more years, he might not even be able to maintain his Heavenly Immortal strength.
The Jade Emperor was like this, and so were the other gods in Heavenly Court.
The cultivation levels of most of those celestial Heavenly Soldier and generals have fallen below the realm of Human Immortal.
If this continues, within a hundred years, all the gods in Heavenly Court will probably regress to A Record of a Mortal's Journey to Immortality!
The Jade Emperor and his entourage did consider a solution.
Absorbing the Incense Vow Power?
However, it has been unusable since the mortal world entered the technological age two hundred years ago.
The filth of the mortal world is rampant, polluting the Incense Vow Power, making them virtually unusable.
This thing is deadly to anyone who uses it now. Not only will their original Spiritual Power be corrupted, but their soul will also be corrupted. Forget about increasing their strength, they'll be lucky if their strength doesn't decrease significantly.
Cultivating by absorbing the Power of the Sun and Moon?
After the Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi and earth was exhausted, the divine radiance of the sun and Moon God was withdrawn, and their Power of the Sun and Moon was no longer there, rendered useless.
Absorbing the power of the earth's veins?
Like the Power of the Sun and Moon, once Spiritual Qi is depleted, the power of the earth's veins disappears.
Moreover, even if they could absorb the power of the earth's veins, they wouldn't dare. Would they abandon the mortal realm? Would they ultimately abandon this entire Small Thousand World world?
If even this last Small Thousand World disappears, then they will become rootless duckweed, drifting Void through the void.
Originally, both the Jade Emperor of Spirit Mountain and the Tathagata of Spirit Mountain were in despair, but unexpectedly, things suddenly took a turn for the better recently.
The Jade Emperor still remembered that just seven days earlier, when he was preparing to go into hibernation again, he suddenly sensed an immense opportunity appearing in the mortal realm.
Opportunity?
He is the Jade Emperor; what opportunity in the mortal realm could possibly evoke such a response from Jade Emperor?
Moreover, the Jade Emperor hadn't Perception such an opportunity for countless eons.
Not only the Jade Emperor, but almost all the gods and Buddhas in Heavenly Court and Spirit Mountain sensed the existence of this opportunity at the same moment.
And this opportunity arose precisely because of Ling Yi, or more precisely, because of the novel written by Ling Yi.
To be precise, it's a line from Ling Yi's novel. "Refine the heart of the realm, create the universe, thoughts are endless, intentions are boundless, ignite Chaos, borrow the infinite, shape the divine pool, comprehend the Spirit Court!"
Ling Yi didn't know what this was, but the Jade Emperor and the others understood a set of techniques from these words.
A Body Refining, capable of connecting with Chaos.
But even the Jade Emperor and the others could only understand these things.
To be precise, this is just a theory, without any specific cultivation method.
To this end, Tathagata expended his Magic Power to fly to the Heavenly Court and verify this matter with the Jade Emperor.
The final conclusion is that this theory is feasible.
But theory alone is not enough.
"Amitabha Buddha, the Heavenly Evolution is forty-nine, the Great Dao fifty, and humanity escapes one of them. The mortal realm's Ling Yi must be those the Escaped One. We need to devise a plan for what to do."
"Putting everything else aside, the most important thing right now is to protect Ling Yi and ensure that nothing happens to him," the Jade Emperor said after a moment of contemplation.
"Good!" Tathagata nodded.
After a pause, Tathagata, "Perhaps the root of our opportunity lies not in Ling Yi, but in Ling Yi's dream. If we could enter Ling Yi's dream, perhaps we could directly face our destiny."
The Jade Emperor shook his head and asked, " Tathagata, can you guarantee that our opportunity is merely something in Ling Yi's dream, and not Ling Yi himself?"
"No!" Tathagata shook his head.
"What if we ruin this opportunity by using our Dream Entry techniques?" the Jade Emperor asked again.
"Wait to die!" Buddha said Tathagata, his face contorted with bitterness.
Yes, they can't afford such consequences.
Better safe than sorry. If they manage to wipe out even the Escaped One, they'll be doomed!
"Therefore, we cannot interfere too much with Ling Yi, and we cannot even let him know of our existence. We only need to protect him secretly."
Tathagata a moment of contemplation, the Buddha nodded and said, "In that case, let Spirit Mountain take care of protecting Benefactor Ling!"
The Jade Emperor rolled his eyes and said, " Tathagata, you're still the same as always, shameless. Don't think I don't know what you're thinking."
"At this time, you'd better put aside those messy thoughts. If you ruin this opportunity, do you believe everyone will want to kill you?"
"Just tell me, will you be able to handle it?"
The Tathagata chuckled dryly and said, "This humble monk naturally knows what is important."
You'd better know!
"Amitabha Buddha, since that's the case, then this humble monk will return to Spirit Mountain to make arrangements."
Watching Tathagata's departing figure, the Jade Emperor frowned. He had originally wanted to discuss with Tathagata a plan to protect Ling Yi.
It now seems clear that Tathagata had no such intention.
"This guy, no wonder he's the apprentice of those two old scoundrels, he's just like them, his heart is filthy!"
At this moment, Taibai Jinxing, standing nearby, flicked his whisk and asked, "Your Majesty, Tathagata that Buddha intends to seize the initiative and take advantage of his proximity. What should we do?"
"How is the investigation into Ling Yi going?" the Jade Emperor asked.
"Your Majesty, this Ling Yi is very strange. He cannot see past Reincarnation, nor can he predict the present or future. Although he is A Record of a Mortal's Journey to Immortality, he transcends Karma and is not in the formless realm."
"Hmm, it is indeed a bit strange!" The Jade Emperor nodded.
Upon discovering Ling Yi, the Jade Emperor's first task was to make calculations about Ling Yi, but he couldn't deduce anything.
Ling Yi didn't take it to heart. If Ling Yi was the Escaped One, then some kind of miracle was quite normal.
"This Ling Yi is twenty-two years old this year. He grew up in an orphanage and completed university while working part-time. He previously worked as a designer at a software development company."
"But because his idea was stolen, he resigned in anger and has been unemployed at home recently. Our previous donations have completely solved his financial problems..."
After listening to Taibai Jinxing's report, the Jade Emperor thought for a moment and asked, "Who do you think is suitable to descend to the mortal realm to protect Ling Yi?"
"Your Majesty, it's not just about protection; it would be best to cultivate a good relationship with Ling Yi, even becoming friends or family. I suspect that Tathagata is taking advantage of this proximity."
After a pause, Taibai Jinxing emphasized, " Ling Yi just broke up with his ex-girlfriend and is still single."
The Jade Emperor immediately understood what Taibai Jinxing meant.
In the past, the Jade Emperor would never Xu Xian being and a mortal; it was a heavenly rule, and more importantly, it concerned the face of the Heavenly Court.
Taibai meant that not only should the Jade Emperor personally break the heavenly rules, but he should also proactively offer Ling Yi a wife.
But now, who cares about that anymore?
"Your Majesty, Tathagata, Spirit Mountain is still a group of monks. Even if there are female bodhisattvas, they would never be Ling Yi's girlfriend or wife."
"If we gain the upper hand first, then Tathagata what, Buddha will be at a disadvantage."
Seeing that the Jade Emperor was still deep in thought, Taibai became a little anxious.
"Your Majesty, times have changed!"
The Jade Emperor smiled helplessly, "Do you think I don't know? It's just a matter of who should be sent!"
Hearing the Jade Emperor say this, Taibai breathed a sigh of relief, then smiled and said, "It doesn't matter who we send, it's important who Ling Yi chooses."
Meanwhile, on the way back to Spirit Mountain, Tathagata was also pondering how to arrange for someone to approach Ling Yi.
He actually preferred to force Ling Yi into his Dream Entry, since Buddhist School has many methods for doing so.
But as the Jade Emperor said, Ling Yi was the last hope of Heavenly Immortal. If anything went wrong, all the Heavenly Immortal would probably really fight him to the death.
Whether they risk their lives or not is a minor matter; since the Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi is now depleted, they're just waiting to die anyway.
But after all, this is our only hope.
If there hadn't been this hope, he wouldn't have dared to do anything reckless. But now that there is hope, how could he dare to mess things up?
It's better to be safe than sorry. What if Ling Yi stops Dream Entry and the novel stops updating?
"But who should we send down to the mortal realm? Pilanpo? No, she is, after all, a mother. If the truth were to be revealed later, it might not be appropriate."
" Guanyin Bodhisattva is an option. After the Journey to the West Calamity, Guanyin completely transformed into a woman, which is feasible."
" Peacock Mahamayuri Bodhisattva, well, she is the Buddha Mother after all. Alas, there's no one else suitable on Spirit Mountain. We can't possibly have other male Bodhisattvas transform into female forms, can we?"
The Jade Emperor ultimately overestimated the Tathagata's bottom line.
What the Jade Emperor and Taibai could think of, how could the Tathagata not have thought of?
No matter how close or distant the brothers or friends are, nothing beats the closest connection with family.
What is Ling Yi doing at this moment?
Of course I'm typing.
He was originally planning to completely stop updating today.
After all, he's really not cut out for writing novels.
Although updating this non-fictional novel allows his dream to continue, it is ultimately just a dream.
Whether you do it or not doesn't make much difference.
But with so many Little Qian from the viewers, how could he dare to stop updating?
Someone who can tip so much money must be someone important, right? Finding their identity would be like finding a thief, wouldn't it?
The key point is that he withdrew the money; not only did he withdraw it, but he also spent six thousand on rent.
Ling Yi really didn't know what was so special about his rambling account that warranted a reward.
Do these people really just like this kind of thing?
Let's keep going, it's all about word count anyway, just filler.
Ling Yi spent two hours struggling to write even two thousand words.
Including punctuation, it's exactly 2000 characters, not a single one more or less.
There was no way around it; for Ling Yi, every extra word or punctuation mark was torture.
After finishing writing and uploading, I'll go to sleep.
In a daze, Ling Yi reappeared in front of a stone tablet.
Upon seeing this stone tablet, Ling Yi knew that he was dreaming again.
I don't know if today's dream was a repeat, or if it's going to be a sequel.
Whether it will be a sequel depends on whether Ling Yi can continue to explore further.
This dream was quite interesting.
The stone tablet is like the starting point for each Dream Entry.
Previously, he could only move within a kilometer radius of this stone tablet.
Beyond a kilometer's radius, there was only a black fog.
But after two sequels, Ling Yi has explored a corner of an abandoned mountain village and encountered a monster. He had to enter the monster's Dream Entry for three consecutive days before he finally killed it.
It was only after this monster was killed that the inscription appeared on the stone tablet.