Weird Path Cultivation: I Can Exempt the Cost
The six-armed headless figure alarmed the entire Restraint Officers' Hall, especially because it involved Song Zongwu.
The next day, Li Tiangang dispatched a large number of cultivators specializing in soul-related techniques to stand guard beside the temples, but unfortunately, the figure never appeared again.
It was as if it had only come to convey a message, leaving Li Tiangang deeply puzzled.
"Ten Spiritual Bodies, Complete at Once?"
Li Tiangang repeatedly muttered the phrase to himself while searching through a vast number of Buddhist scriptures, yet found nothing even remotely similar.
The Buddhist scriptures possessed by Restraint Officers' Hall had all been stripped from the memories of Buddhist cultivators by Ren Qing. There were certainly discrepancies in them, and some information was likely incomplete.
As for the Secret Transmission Buddhist Language, it was said to be used for recording the words of the Tathagata. Tang Sheng had only learned fragments of it from his long-deceased master.
Li Tiangang had already contacted the secluded Ren Qing, who should be ending his cultivation retreat soon.
A trace of helplessness appeared on his face. He wanted to find several people to discuss the matter with, but Li Yaoyang, Lady White Bone, and the others had all taken the opportunity to enter seclusion.
With a few flashes, Li Tiangang arrived at the Dharma Serpent, the secondary head of the Forbidden Corpse. Several Hundred-Eyed Tiger Demons were using aberrated organs inside it to monitor the outside world.
"Has anything unusual happened around the canyon lately?"
The sudden appearance of Li Tiangang startled them. The leading tiger demon quickly replied, "Reporting to Lord Li, ever since the corpse qi disappeared, many living creatures have begun appearing on the plains..."
The tiger demon hesitated for a few breaths before uncertainly adding, "Starting two years ago, nomadic mortals gradually began grazing livestock on the plains. However, they move to a different pasture every few days."
"Half a year ago, over a hundred nomads settled on the plain beside the canyon. We verified it ourselves. None of them possess any cultivation."
Li Tiangang nodded. He then forcefully stimulated the aberrated organ with a technique, but all he could see were herdsmen following their sheep.
He observed carefully for a long time, yet no matter how he looked at it, there was no possible connection to Song Zongwu.
Li Tiangang had the turtle demons responsible for divination verify the situation as well. There was nothing unusual at all.
In the end, he could only conclude that the temple disturbances had been caused by Ren Qing's breakthrough. However, to be safe, he still ordered cultivators skilled in Gu arts to send Gu insects onto the plains outside.
In truth, the moment he learned that the incident involved Song Zongwu, Ren Qing had already ended his retreat.
Li Tiangang could not confirm whether the six-armed headless figure in the temple was Song Zongwu, but Ren Qing was at least eighty percent certain.
After all, when he and Song Zongwu parted ways, he had given Soul Butterfly Projections to both Song Zongwu and Great Dream True Person so they could stay in contact through Dream Techniques.
However, after Ren Qing left Jingzhou, he could no longer sense either of their locations.
Yet the Soul Butterfly Projections had never disappeared. On the contrary, after several advancements of the Dream Techniques, they had become even more stable.
Ren Qing spent several days trying to communicate with Song Zongwu through meditation, but the latter's condition was extremely strange. His soul was like a tangled knot.
He actually agreed with Li Tiangang's conclusion.
Something must have happened in the outside world, causing Song Zongwu's consciousness to appear in Dream City.
As for why it appeared inside a temple, Ren Qing suspected it was related to Song Zongwu's habits.
Whenever Song Zongwu had free time, he would visit a temple, replace the Buddha statue with himself, perform morning Buddhist rites, and recite scriptures.
According to him, if one wished to cultivate Buddhist methods without being influenced by Buddhism, then one had to cultivate oneself rather than the Buddha.
Ren Qing shook his head helplessly. Song Zongwu's behavior clearly showed that his consciousness had become blurred and was now operating entirely on instinct.
There was something strangely off about it. It was nothing like the Song Zongwu he knew.
"What exactly happened to Song Zongwu after he went to Lingshan Temple?"
Ren Qing stood up and stepped out of the shadows within the intestinal forest, revealing his bizarre body under the light.
His skin was covered in festering wounds, and every breath sent scorching white vapor from his nose and mouth. He looked exactly like a walking corpse.
Yet after suppressing the aura of his techniques and infusing himself with vitality, his skin recovered at a visible rate. Within moments, he looked no different from an ordinary person.
Only his complexion remained deathly pale, and his body temperature seemed somewhat higher than normal.
Ren Qing headed toward the secondary head, the Dharma Serpent, intending to connect with the aberrated organs and use them to observe the thousand-li plains more thoroughly.
After taking only a few steps, he casually grabbed his right arm with his left hand and tore it off.
Dark-red blood dripped to the ground. Wherever it touched vegetation, sizzling sounds immediately followed.
The various beasts in the intestinal forest shrieked and fled from Ren Qing, as if instinctively sensing the aura of a natural predator.
Ren Qing ignored the commotion and casually cast Dragon Roar Within the Casket on the severed arm.
The arm immediately began writhing. Human-like facial features grew from its palm, while countless tentacles extended from the severed end, allowing it to crawl freely.
It leaped onto a branch and soon vanished into the depths of the intestinal forest, heading somewhere unknown.
The marrow within Ren Qing's body surged violently. The wound instantly stopped bleeding, and a brand-new arm grew from the stump.
The divine ability he had nurtured through Aberration Fusion was called Death Gives No Birth, a power related to the legendary Indestructible Bone from his previous life.
In What the Master Would Not Discuss, the Indestructible Bone was considered the most terrifying type of zombie.
"The Indestructible Bone gathers the resentment of heaven and earth, draws in the death qi and foul qi of the world, and is abandoned by the Three Realms of Heaven, Earth, and Humanity, existing outside the Six Paths of Reincarnation. It draws strength from resentment and feeds on blood."
Ren Qing's divine ability, Death Gives No Birth, allowed him to regenerate his body and soul from any remaining blood or bone fragments of himself, even if both body and soul were completely destroyed.
The body and soul created through Death Gives No Birth were not like the Rat Mother created by the Rat Affliction Technique. They were entirely new lives that merely inherited the original's memories.
Ren Qing resurrected himself through the residual soul aura contained within his blood and bones. His cultivated techniques and even the strange entities within his body could all be restored.
Of course, the stronger his cultivation became, the longer Death Gives No Birth required.
For a Yang Spirit cultivator, at least a hundred years would be necessary. For Heavenly Aberration Realm, it would likely approach a thousand years. As for a True Immortal, several thousand years would obviously be required.
Regardless, Death Gives No Birth was an ultimate life-preserving divine ability.
During his retreat, Ren Qing had already used Dragon Roar Within the Casket to transform more than a dozen arms into pseudo-dragons. He had even placed some of them in the outside world.
In addition, Dead Man's Sutra had granted him an astonishing regenerative ability.
Not only had his survival capabilities increased dramatically, but the divine ability itself was beyond imagination.
He summoned his information stream.
[Lifespan: 756 years]
[Techniques: Dead Blood Scripture (Bone Teeth Technique, Dead Man's Sutra)]
[Strange Entity: Indestructible Bone Zombie]
[Divine Ability: Death Gives No Birth]
Ren Qing had not relaxed for even a moment during the past five years. Although his other techniques had made no progress, his Corpse Dao techniques had already reached No-Birth Immortal.
For other techniques, without special opportunities, five years would at most be enough to reach Multitude Yang Immortal.
Corpse Dao techniques were different.
There were only three techniques in the entire path, and Dead Man's Sutra required no lifespan expenditure. Naturally, the progress far exceeded Ren Qing's expectations.
Ren Qing had originally assumed that, with the assistance of the information stream, advancing to No-Birth Immortal would be easy.
What he never expected was that the Corpse Core within Dead Man's Sutra actually possessed a faint consciousness, creating enormous obstacles to the breakthrough.
Although the information stream guaranteed that he would not perish, it still took him two full years to wear down the Corpse Core's consciousness.
One had to remember that Ren Qing had already dismantled and reconstructed Dead Man's Sutra. Even so, traces of Corpse Immortal's hidden schemes remained.
The Corpse Core inherited the Undying and Imperishable characteristic and proved extraordinarily difficult to deal with. Without the protection of the information stream, he might have needed over a decade to break through to No-Birth Immortal.
Ren Qing did not know how the battle between Great Compassion Maitreya Bodhisattva and Corpse Immortal had ended.
He suspected that if the Great Compassion Buddha Qi had devoured the Corpse Core inside its body as well, Corpse Immortal might be able to lock onto its location.
The conflict between a True Immortal and a Buddha was probably only beginning.
Ren Qing felt incredibly fortunate that he had taken a detour back to Xiangxiang. Jingzhou alone contained three True Immortals, and neighboring Cishi might also erupt into a war between immortals and Buddhas.
The fact that Restraint Officers' Hall had escaped unscathed was truly a matter of luck.
Through No-Birth Immortal, Ren Qing fused his strange entities into the Indestructible Bone Zombie, granting terrifying enhancements to his techniques.
Most importantly, his zombie body was no longer fragmented but had become a unified whole.
He simultaneously possessed the recovery abilities granted by Bone Teeth Technique, the bodily enhancements of Dead Man's Sutra, and the Corpse Blood flowing through his veins from Dead Blood Scripture.
His physical strength had increased by at least dozens of times. The corpse poison within his blood had transformed into Hanba Fire Poison, capable of turning a thousand li into scorched wasteland when released.
Of course, the most important aspect of No-Birth Immortal was that the fusion of strange entities made the techniques themselves more closely integrated.
As a result, the Indestructible Bone Zombie also inherited the special trait of Dead Man's Sutra. Whenever other techniques consumed lifespan, the Corpse Dao techniques would indirectly advance their cultivation progress.
The effect had weakened somewhat. To advance the Corpse Dao techniques through the Ascension Ladder's five-thousand-year requirement, his other techniques would likely need to consume ten thousand years of lifespan.
For Ren Qing, even if he truly attained immortality, the indirect advancement effect of the Corpse Dao techniques would not become useless.
He had no idea whether the information stream would still be capable of consuming lifespan after he became immortal.
If Ascension Methods ultimately restricted him, he might be able to forcibly push his Corpse Dao techniques beyond Earth Immortal level through lifespan expenditure.
Unfortunately, at the current stage, advancing the Corpse Dao techniques through the Ascension Ladder still required relying on the information stream to resist the Heavenly Dao. Those five thousand years could not be avoided.
From the information gathered by the Forbidden Corpse, he learned that many nomadic mortals had gathered on the plains outside. Perhaps they could replenish the population of the Stomach World and increase lifespan generation efficiency.
Suppressing these distracting thoughts, Ren Qing focused on the urgent task of uncovering Song Zongwu's situation and headed toward the Dharma Serpent.
The Hundred-Eyed Tiger Demons inside the secondary head were discussing Li Tiangang's recent actions. None of them noticed Ren Qing's faint presence.
Without revealing his identity, Ren Qing connected his right hand to the nerves of a Hundred-Eyed eyeball. His vision immediately received the support of the Forbidden Corpse.
He saw several hundred mortals gathered on the plain at the edge of the canyon. Their sheep had nearly devoured all the surrounding grass.
The herdsmen had already begun slaughtering sheep to slow the disappearance of pastureland.
Even so, they did not dare move more than half a step away from the canyon.
Ren Qing frowned and looked a hundred li into the distance, only to discover vast numbers of nomads moving toward the canyon. Once they arrived, the size of the sheep flocks would increase by more than tenfold.
The cause of it all appeared to be nothing more than several pursuing wolves.
"Something's wrong..."
Ren Qing immediately linked all of the Forbidden Corpse's remaining eyeballs to himself, causing the scene before him to become clearer.
They were not wolves at all.
They were inverted Buddha corpses driving the sheep forward, their bodies covered in grotesque masses of mutated flesh.
As for why they were upside down, it was because their feet were fixed to thrones constructed from countless skulls.