Cultivating the Sanskrit Scriptures

"You take half, I'll take half, I'll drink half... and I'll drink it!"

The amount of heavenly materials and earthly treasures Zhang Xuezhou needed to break through to a higher realm was enormous; he brewed Nine Treasures Wine more than ten times in the Kunlun Sacred Land.

Even if each batch of Nine Treasures Wine, Zhang Xuezhou still managed to brew over a thousand jin in total.

With his body transformed into a six-zhang-tall giant and the Realm Technique constantly consuming energy, Zhang Xuezhou felt he could consume this much.

But if there's nowhere for these drinks to go, they can only be forced inside the body, constantly impacting the soul, leading to a drowsy and confused state.

Yang Jian, indulging in wine, drank a large amount of Nine Treasures Wine, and his speech became somewhat slurred.

"Can the True Lord sober up on his own?" Zhang Xuezhou asked.

"Shuo... Shuo Xian, your brewing skills are amazing!"

"Ah?"

"I can't outdrink you, and I can't outbrew you!"

Yang Jian shook his head. The spinning and changing world before his eyes brought all sorts of bizarre and fantastical images to his mind. His rigid thinking, which had been sitting in the Guan River Mouth for a long time, began to come alive, and all sorts of past events kept surfacing in his mind.

Although he drank a lot of alcohol, no elixir or alcohol had ever caused Yang Jian to be in his current state.

This was somewhat reminiscent of his time cultivating the Eight-Nine Mystical Art, but Yang Jian knew very well that it was not for cultivating the physical body.

To remove the effects of the Nine Treasures Wine from his body, he doesn't need to consume Hundred Flowers Brew, but rather he needs to figure out Zhang Xuezhou's purpose for the Nine Treasures Wine Nine Treasures Wine, so that he can eliminate the adverse effects it causes.

"You... you taught me this method of drinking... drinking!"

Yang Jian didn't hesitate and chose to ask for it directly.

"My method of drinking is nothing special; you may listen, but to truly understand it requires fluency in Sanskrit, and this method has a flaw on the seventh level!"

"The... the flaws aren't a problem, I know a little Sanskrit... when the time comes, I'll cultivate to the sixth level... level one!"

Yang Jian had once directly demonstrated the Eight-Nine Mystical Art, and Zhang Xuezhou was not stingy with his own knowledge, but he would still make sure to clarify what needed to be said.

He obtained a handwritten copy of the Heart Sutra from the new emperor. The scrolls of bamboo slips spread out, which made Yang Jian's eyes widen.

"Oh dear, these are scriptures from those two Western lunatics!"

Xiaotian cursed, his use of the two Western religious leaders' titles was clearly quite impolite.

"I hate those twisted and convoluted characters of theirs the most! They always spout off about how these characters contain traces of profound truths, but they can't explain why!" Xiaotian shouted. "Even Laojun said they're just playing tricks!"

"Laojun didn't say that, those words were said by... Celestial Venerable Lingbao!"

Yang Jian flipped through the bamboo slips, his hands forming a magic finger gesture, his body contorted into a twisted shape, his mouth, eyes, and nose almost forming a single line, and then he murmured a chant.

"Is this how one practices the Heart Sutra?"

The new emperor watched Yang Jian's cultivation closely, then turned his head and asked a question.

"I didn't train like that back then; I relied entirely on the effects of the medicine to force my cultivation!"

Zhang Xuezhou responded in a low voice.

As a cultivator of the Yin-Yang School Nine Heavens Sect, his cultivation was that direct and simple.

If one's cultivation is not thorough, the Yin Yang Nine Heavens Sect practitioners will only think that the medicine is not potent enough, rather than that they are making mistakes in their cultivation or lacking ability.

Zhang Xuezhou's introduction to the Heart Sutra is completely different from Yang Jian's introduction to spiritual practice.

As he spoke in hushed tones, Yang Jian's body twisted strangely, his head touching the soles of his feet as he moved back and forth, his entire body almost contorted into a circle.

At the same time, a glimmer of light appeared behind Yang Jian's Yang Jian, making his eyes a little clearer.

"His cultivation method is indeed effective!"

Zhang Xuezhou's cultivation method is not a reliable reference, but Yang Jian's cultivation method is right before our eyes, as the other party has also entered the realm of cultivation through this method.

The new emperor didn't aspire to the seventh or eighth level; he was no different from Yang Jian, only wanting to cultivate to the sixth level first and see how things went.

As long as the testing is actually effective and the capability is in place, everything else can be discussed later.

His eyes widened, and he memorized almost everything Yang Jian showed him. He was just waiting for the other to regain his senses so he could explain things to him in Great Han and see if he could help him cultivate as well.

"Can you practice with me?"

The new emperor was still silently memorizing, hoping to ask Yang Jian about his cultivation. When he glanced at Zhang Xuezhou, he saw that Zhang Xuezhou's body was also twisted and curled up, and his limbs had become extremely strange, much like the twisted tadpole script on the Heart Sutra. A bright light also appeared behind his head.

"Compare the scripture to its shape, and then look at the form of its body!"

Zhang Xuezhou gestured to Yang Jian with his mouth.

Yang Jian's twisting body resembled the distorted Sanskrit characters in the Heart Sutra.

Even the most inept practitioners use names like acupoints to locate their positions. Those with better lineages draw corresponding diagrams of the human body. Higher-level Principle use methods like the transmission of teachings through jade or golden light to make the teachings clear and understand the instructor's intentions. However, Western Sect have not developed to this level.

Although they appear to be Sanskrit characters, these images are actually symbols used to aid in spiritual practice.

Zhang Xuezhou finally began to understand why the scriptures of the Western Sect were so vague and incoherent. Explaining the content and recording the methods of practice made it quite difficult to describe.

He had previously learned the spirit of the Heart Sutra and forcibly cultivated it by relying on similar content such as Mental Strengthening, but he did not learn the form of the Heart Sutra. He relied purely on the Nine Treasures Wine to force it through. At this time, he was supplementing his physical form.

After following along and practicing, Zhang Xuezhou felt that his previous cultivation methods had become much smoother.

"This kind of cultivation is simply unheard of!"

The new emperor had never seen a distorted form of cultivation that required following written texts.

If the text of the Heart Sutra were considered as a picture, the external form of this sutra would be fully revealed.

"If they didn't have the great medicine, wouldn't they have to adopt these strange postures every day to cultivate?" the new emperor asked.

"Yes, the Western Sect's cultivators have very strange postures when they cultivate every day. I originally thought it was some kind of religious rule or ritual, but I didn't expect that's how they actually cultivate their Cultivation Method," Zhang Xuezhou nodded.

"Those Western Sect texts are very discriminatory towards dogs; I simply can't perform that kind of difficult move!"

Xiaotian interrupted unhappily, and after supporting his body upside down with his paws for a few seconds, he returned to a normal posture.

"I don't think I can finish it either!"

The new emperor's gaze swept over Yang Jian, then turned to Zhang Xuezhou.

The requirements for being like the Sanskrit script are simple, but achieving them is not easy.

Watching Yang Jian and Zhang Xuezhou bend their limbs back and forth as if they belonged to someone else, the new emperor felt a dull pain in his bones.

"It's not just 'seems,' it's 'absolutely impossible.' Our flesh and bones are fixed; to reach this level requires a perfectly healthy body... Wait, how could even a Shuo Xian be so easily defeated?"

Although Xiaotian is a dog, he is a dog with knowledge.

If Sanskrit scriptures like the Heart Sutra could be easily mastered, Western Sect wouldn't have so few masters and would rely on the same old faces year after year.

Many of the monks in the Western Sect are selected from among thousands of people, either by accepting capable and renowned individuals or by cultivating them from a young age, which is how some of them became highly skilled individuals of the ranks of Bodhisattva, Arhat, and Buddha.

Leaving aside the complexity of mental cultivation, even the external imitation is not something that ordinary people can accomplish.

Most cultivators have fully developed skeletal structures, making it virtually impossible for them to imitate Western Sect practices.

Yang Jian, who had attained sainthood in his physical body, moved his limbs freely beyond the limits of what was available. Xiao Tian was surprised to find that Zhang Xuezhou's movements were equally fluid and flawless, almost perfectly synchronized with Yang Jian's rhythm.

"Could it be that Immortal Shuo has achieved physical sainthood?"

Xiaotian had witnessed the power of Zhang Xuezhou's physical body before, and this time his guess was a step forward. He felt that the person in front of him was very likely to have achieved sainthood in his physical body, becoming the seventh person in the Three Realms to achieve sainthood in his physical body.