Dao of Sitting and Forgetting
Who is this?
A Nascent Soul formation master raised his head and looked at Hu Mang.
"This is a colleague from the Underworld Bureau who worked with me before. He wants me to investigate some information about the demonic path," Lin Zhiying said frankly.
"The Underworld Bureau, investigating information about the demonic path?" the Nascent Soul formation master asked, puzzled.
Is there any connection between these two things?
"What level of intelligence?" he asked cautiously.
"What level of intelligence do the Holy Son Cult possess?" Lin Zhiying asked.
"Wait a minute, let me check. I haven't heard of this demonic sect for several years."
Old Min, look at the state you've become! Heavenly Gate has almost forgotten about you.
Hu Mang thought to himself, "This is what I'm complaining about."
"Wasn't the Holy Son Cult destroyed?" another formation master looked up and asked.
"Yes, that happened more than ten years ago. We found out; the Holy Son Cult has been removed from the red list."
"May I investigate now?"
"Wait a moment, let me verify your colleague's identity."
The Nascent Soul Array Master looked up, and Hu Mang clearly felt a Divine Sense land on him, and then his Divine Sense projection appeared on the control panel in front of him.
The projection quickly turned into a signal and disappeared. A moment later, the Nascent Soul Array Master nodded.
"The Underworld Bureau has confirmed with us that they are indeed their people."
"Alright, Little Hu, let's go."
Hu Mang nodded and silently followed behind Lin Zhiying. He could feel the Divine Sense of the Nascent Soul level still faintly surrounding him.
Lin Zhiying walked to the main control console, and while adjusting military data, handed over something without looking up.
"You've been overseas for quite some time now, are you familiar with this?"
Hu Mang was taken aback, took the thing and looked it over a few times, "Isn't this a storage box?"
"Hmm, do you know where this thing comes from?"
Hu Mang hesitated for a moment, then said tactfully, "It's said to have come from the exit of Heavenly Gate."
Lin Zhiying scoffed and said, "Smuggling is smuggling. What's the use of being so euphemistic?"
"I don't think I've ever seen anything like this inside the Heavenly Gate," Hu Mang wondered.
"Yes, this is exclusively for overseas markets. You'll find out soon enough why."
Lin Zhiying quickly completed the operation, and soon a huge map of Nanyang appeared in front of Hu Mang. As Lin Zhiying pressed the button, densely packed coordinates began to appear on the Nanyang, and many of the coordinates were moving.
"These are—" Hu Mang's expression changed as he realized something.
"That's right, just as you thought. The storage box itself is an imperfect magical Law Artifact. It cannot store objects containing Spiritual Qi, so you need to use an object to lock in the Spiritual Qi before putting it into the storage box. Otherwise, the storage box will explode due to the conflict of Spiritual Qi."
"The reason for this technical problem is quite simple: Heavenly Gate has not yet fully mastered the legendary Storage Bag technology. According to what I've heard, it's because the technology for simulating Qi of the Void is not yet mature, and the parameters cannot be properly adjusted, causing void fluctuations that interfere with the Fortune. Therefore, it has not been fully released to the market, but rather used as a transportation tool for the import and export of large goods."
"You know what happened next: overseas monks discovered this item and used it extensively in smuggling, underground trade, and the buying and selling of goods."
Hu Mang suppressed his astonishment and said, "So, this was actually a secret plan carried out by the military."
"That's right. After learning about its flaws, we deliberately allowed its smuggling to continue. The reason is simple: the void fluctuations it emits are the best way to monitor it. We developed a special storage box monitoring radar. The more cultivators use it, the more cultivators we can secretly locate, especially those from the demonic path, who are our key monitoring targets."
Lin Zhiying began to slide the array. Soon, a large number of coordinates disappeared, leaving only some small coordinates with special markings that appeared in the "Nanyang Map".
"The remnants of the Holy Son Cult you're referring to should be these few."
Lin Zhiying snapped his fingers, and the next moment, the names and pictures of the people at these coordinates appeared in phantom form.
Hu Mang even saw an image of the Old Man Min, but it was marked with the words "suspected dead".
You even know that!
Hu Mang took a deep breath, feeling a shock for the first time, a shock he had never felt even when facing a Spirit Transformation cultivator.
This time it was a pure technological crushing victory, or rather, a systemic crushing victory.
Lin Zhiying continued, "... Since these remnants of the demonic path are not on the red list, their lives are insignificant. I'll give you their coordinates later; whether to kill them or torture them is up to you."
Hu Mang snapped out of his daze, stroked his chin, and said, "This doesn't count as interfering with the military's major plans, does it?"
Not only Lin Zhiying, but also the other military cultivators around them laughed.
"If we really have a grand plan, we'll follow the righteous path. What's the point of assassinating demonic cultivators?"
Hu Mang still couldn't quite understand.
"Since you have so much data on demonic cultivators, why not launch a large-scale extermination operation instead of just monitoring them?"
Lin Zhiying stopped laughing, and the atmosphere became serious. After a long while, the female lieutenant colonel finally spoke:
"The more dangerous the adversary, the more important it is to maintain a sufficiently large strategic buffer zone; otherwise, an accidental clash could easily trigger a chain reaction that is uncontrollable."
Dangerous adversary, who?
It's definitely not some overseas demonic sect; it's that mysterious and unpredictable Immortal Dynasty, isn't it?
Could a large-scale attack on the demonic path be mistaken for an attack on the Immortal Dynasty?
Even the powerful Heavenly Gate needs to maintain a sufficient strategic buffer zone, yet Hu Mang, in all his years overseas, has never seen any people from the so-called Immortal Dynasty, nor any territory of the so-called Immortal Dynasty. This is truly astonishing.
Didn't the Immortal Dynasty follow the cultivation technology route exemplified by the Heavenly Gate?
So what kind of road did it take?
If it weren't for what happened today, Hu Mang wouldn't have known that Heavenly Gate valued this opponent so much.
He almost considered the other person a legend from overseas.
After a moment of awkward silence, Lin Zhiying deliberately changed the subject.
"Actually, we once thought of using this method to lure out those top-ranked Demonic Saints, but those Demonic Saints never seem to use storage boxes, but rather the legendary Storage Bag, so their coordinates have always been impossible to pinpoint, making the capture operation difficult to carry out."
Luckily, my friend was also using Storage Bag.
Hu Mang secretly wiped away a cold sweat.
I am the Sealed Holy Son, and I have nothing to do with those true demon sons.
"By the way, did you extract any secrets about the Immortal Dynasty from the demonic saint we captured earlier?"
This time, Lin Zhiying didn't answer, and firmly refused:
"This is classified information. You're not a relevant person, so I can't tell you."
So I wasn't involved after all?
Okay, if you say it's not, then it's not.
After obtaining the information he wanted, Hu Mang once again left the East Sea Archipelago, then found an uninhabited area and took a ghost ship back to Zheng Family Garden.
Without saying a word, he handed over the coordinates of those "Holy Son Cult" to his subordinates.
This is not something he should go there in person.
After all, apart from the old Golden Core Old Man Min, the highest-ranking member of the Holy Son Cult is only at the Foundation Establishment Late Stage. Zheng Family Garden's strength is sufficient to deal with these people.
This also provides some opportunities for those experimental monks to conduct their experiments.
As for Hu Mang himself, he once again traveled back to Spring Thunder Ridge in the Azure Mysterious Realm.
This time, he was determined not to emerge until he had gone into seclusion and comprehended the "Flower of Spirit".
Spring Thunder Ridge, in the Seclusion Chamber
Hu Mang was sitting cross-legged on the stone bed, with the Daoist book "The Treatise on Sitting and Forgetting" that he had just acquired placed in front of him.
In the Azure Mysterious Realm, seclusion doesn't necessarily mean a dead end. Going out to travel, slay demons, or even study Daoist techniques can all provide an opportunity to seize the changing opportunities of the world and achieve a breakthrough in cultivation.
The reason why Hu Mang was forcibly confined was purely because this junior brother Hu was too unrestrained. In the eyes of the senior brother, if this temperament is not tempered, he might cause big trouble in the future.
That's why this happened.
Spiritual practice is a pretense; true training is what matters.
However, Hu Mang stated that such a temporary breakthrough is not entirely impossible.
The biggest reason is none other than the Golden Core he had just condensed.
Old Xie once said that if one successfully forms the Golden Core, it may be possible to comprehend the "Three Flowers Gather at the Crown."
Having achieved the Three Flowers Gather at the Crown, it is only natural that one would comprehend the "Flower of Spirit."
What Hu Mang needs to do now is to maximize this "possibility".
There wasn't really a good solution.
After all, once the Golden Core Elixir is formed, the ancient cultivation method has reached its peak.
That's all.
However, when Old Daoist Sima, who wrote "The Treatise on Sitting and Forgetting," was alive, the Dao of Alchemy had not yet flourished. At that time, cultivating the spirit and nature was the mainstream practice among Daoists.
The highest state of "Treatise on Sitting and Forgetting" is called the Dao of Sitting and Forgetting.
If one uses the Golden Core Dao of Sitting and Forgetting, will it trigger any special evolution of Divine Sense?
Would you consider this a form of "creating nothing from nothing"?
Hu Mang turned back to the first page of the book " On Treatise on Sitting and Forgetting," his gaze falling on the opening passage. "What is there that one who sits in oblivion does not forget? Inwardly, he is unaware of his own body; outwardly, he is unaware of the universe. He merges with the Dao, and all thoughts are forgotten."
According to the normal path of Dao of Sitting and Forgetting, practitioners need to start by "severing ties," gradually reducing their perception and dependence on the outside world. Then comes "gathering the mind," bringing the scattered mind back to oneness. Next comes "simplifying affairs," simplifying attachment to external things. Finally, there is "true observation," reaching the state of oneness with the Tao.
The entire process is gradual and step-by-step, usually requiring several years or even decades to achieve any success.
But Hu Mang didn't have that much time to take things one step at a time.
He chose a different path.
He sank his consciousness into his Dantian and touched the Golden Core that had just been formed.
He took a deep breath and then did something extremely bold—he slowly raised the Golden Core from his Dantian, moved it upwards along the meridians, passed through the chest, passed through the throat, and finally hovered at the ancestral aperture between his eyebrows.
The Golden Core Aperture.
Simply put, it means transferring the Golden Core from the Middle Dantian to the Upper Dantian.
This was an extremely risky move.
The Golden Core is the foundation of a cultivator. Under normal circumstances, it should remain steadily in the Middle Dantian, nourished and protected by the Qi and Blood throughout the body.
Moving the Golden Core to the head is tantamount to exposing the cultivator's most core source of Spiritual Qi to its most vulnerable position. If one is not careful, at best the Golden Core will be damaged and cultivation will regress; at worst the Golden Core will explode and the soul will be scattered.
Throughout history, very few people have dared to do this.
Because no one with a sound mind would do that.
But Hu Mang dared to do it!
Because he was willing to pay the price.
At worst, it'll just mean the explosion of Golden Core.
As long as he can transfer the Golden Core out of his body at the crucial moment, his foundation will not be damaged; he is very familiar with this operation.
At worst, he can just condense another Golden Core.