After the immortals and mortals of the Stomach World were separated, the resource sites of the various branches were gradually relocated. Even if they weren't moved into the Heavenly Palace, they were at least transferred to remote regions.
Once the artifact-towns had taken shape, they were established within the Heavenly Palace.
Heavenly Dao City resembled a Daoist temple from the outside, containing twenty-one main halls and more than three hundred side halls. Everywhere one looked were decorations unique to Wuwei Daoist Temple.
Statues of the successive sect masters of Wuwei Daoist Temple could be found throughout the city, while Ren Qing's own statue stood at the center.
Restraint Officer City was enclosed by walls surrounding the entire small world. Towering fungal trees transformed from cultivators could be seen everywhere.
There were comparatively few buildings in the city, but each stood thirty to forty meters tall, connected at their tops by bridge-like passageways that formed elevated streets.
After all, the ground was covered with fungal trees, and a moment's carelessness could result in being caught in the effects of a technique.
The Forbidden Corpse was also located in one corner of the Restraint Officer Palace, where hundreds of cultivators transported resources around it, mainly to nourish its mutated organs.
The forbidden zone of the intestines and stomach had already been successfully fused through Little Third's refinement, though Ren Qing had yet to try adding any more bizarre objects into it.
The two Heavenly Palaces were still continuously being improved. They remained far from the upper realm Ren Qing envisioned and would probably require an ecosystem far beyond the ordinary before they reached that level.
Wine Lake Island in the mortal world was shrouded in dense fog, and Dream City at its center had completely disappeared.
Ren Qing had moved Dream City into the Heavenly Palace, opening up a third palace known as the Zhili Palace. The only thing within that small world was Dream City itself.
Cultivators who wished to enter the Zhili Palace had to connect with Dream City through their dreams. Otherwise, no matter how high their cultivation was, they could not freely enter or leave.
Dream City had now become the communication hub between the various branches of the Restraint Officers' Hall. At all times, over a hundred thousand cultivators traded all kinds of resources within it.
This alone showed how well the branches accepted the separation between immortals and mortals. They had even willingly reduced the frequency with which cultivators descended into the mortal world.
Everything was done to ensure that the mortal world remained free from interference by the Heavenly Palace and the Underworld, maintaining a healthy cycle.
During the two years Ren Qing spent in seclusion, more than ten years had passed within the Stomach World.
Now it was almost impossible to find cultivators above the Ghost Envoy realm in the mortal world. As for the various races living together, ordinary people had long since become accustomed to it.
Even the jailers rarely approached the inland anymore, honestly cultivating in the wilderness instead. Their traces could also be found on the islands overseas.
The tales of gods and ghosts seemed to have become relics of the past, to the point that children born in recent years no longer even knew whether ascension to the upper realm was real.
The Restraint Officers' Hall in the mortal world had once again returned to its role as a governmental yamen.
In the past, because of external pressure and the widespread cultivation system, the people of the Stomach World had devoted themselves wholeheartedly to improving their cultivation.
Now, under the deliberate guidance of the Restraint Officers' Hall, the craze for cultivation gradually faded, though body cultivation remained popular throughout the mortal world.
The perfected stage of body cultivation was equivalent to someone who had just entered the Ghost Envoy realm, naturally allowing them to nurture a bizarre object.
At that point, body cultivators would sense the existence of the upper realm and could choose to attain the Dao and ascend.
In the short term, the number of cultivators reaching the Ghost Envoy realm dropped dramatically, but from a long-term perspective, it indirectly stimulated population growth.
Another reason lay in the bodily and spiritual mutation caused by the Restraint Officer techniques.
Mutation itself was the process of changing one's form of life. The chances of producing offspring gradually declined, and reproductive isolation could even occur.
After reaching the Heavenly Aberration realm, Ren Qing had already ceased to belong to the category of "human." He was an Immortal Wanderer with one foot already inside the immortal path.
Immortals and Buddhas had no need to reproduce anyway. Creating life in large quantities was merely a routine method to them.
Throughout the two years of seclusion, Ren Qing had constantly been deducing Buddhist techniques. Whenever he encountered a bottleneck, he would meditate on his techniques or refine artifacts and pills.
Buddhist techniques proved even more complex and cumbersome than he had imagined. There seemed to be no discernible pattern whatsoever.
Based on the nature of Buddhist qi, he unexpectedly created a strange Restraint Officer technique, though it lacked the unique characteristics of a Buddhist Fruit Position.
**Nirvana Buddha Method**
Created by Ren Qing. Cultivation requires absorbing Buddhist qi before remaining in a place of filth until the Buddhist qi corrodes the flesh and bones, at which point the technique is successfully cultivated.
The Nirvana Buddha Method had absolutely nothing to do with true Buddhist techniques. After mastering it, every mutation path focused primarily on resisting Buddhist qi.
Ren Qing gave a copy of the Nirvana Buddha Method to Song Zongwu as a reference, while the original was stored in the "Treasure Pavilion" within the Heavenly Palace reserved for storage, where it would never be circulated.
The Treasure Pavilion housed all sorts of strange materials and techniques, most of which carried a certain degree of danger and could throw the mortal world into chaos.
The techniques created by Ren Qing were all kept under strict secrecy. Unless someone attained immortality, he had no intention of teaching them to anyone.
"Sigh..."
Ren Qing frowned deeply. Unable to find any breakthrough, he grew somewhat irritated and projected his consciousness into the Longevity Forbidden Zone.
The Little Thunderclap Temple was shrouded in Buddhist qi. The monks of Lingshan Temple had long since completely taken refuge under the Fake Tathagata, chanting scriptures together with the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.
Throughout the temple, over a hundred golden beetles transformed from Dreamflowers could be seen. Any trace of escaping Buddhist qi was immediately absorbed.
With Sitting-Deer Arhat continuously producing Buddhist qi, the amount stolen had already reached the Heavenly Aberration realm. It could truly be called an immense quantity.
Ren Qing looked toward Liaoshan. Among all the monks, he alone had become skin and bones. Both body and soul had already been consumed as fuel for Buddhist qi.
Liaoshan's face was filled with devotion. His body was already on the verge of death, his internal organs suffering varying degrees of failure. All that remained was to reincarnate and cultivate Buddhism once more.
After placing their faith in Sitting-Deer Arhat, their souls had already been branded by Buddhism. Their way of thinking had become completely different from that of normal people.
Even if they became Nether Souls, their intelligence would still be fundamentally flawed.
More than a dozen monks had disappeared, but not because of age, illness, or death. Rather, disagreements over Buddhist doctrine frequently escalated into deadly fights.
Ren Qing shook his head. The monks of Lingshan Temple were beyond saving.
The Fake Tathagata's scriptures had been collected from ordinary temples among the people. Most of their content guided others to accumulate merit for their next life.
Yet the monks always managed to twist the meanings.
For example, one line read: "The world is like a sea of suffering, and man crosses it upon the raft of the flesh."
They interpreted it literally as constructing an altar out of flesh and bones to pray to the Buddhas. They promptly killed several novice monks and pieced together a horrifying altar.
The novices had died with smiles on their faces, as though being chosen was the highest honor.
By the time Ren Qing discovered it, the altar had already been solidified into a bronze-like material by the Buddhist qi and fused with the ground.
He silently waited for the right moment. Since deducing Buddhist techniques had yielded no progress, he could only begin with the Sitting-Deer Fruit Position itself.
Liaoshan had always been somewhat obsessive, so over many years, Ren Qing secretly and imperceptibly implanted an obsessive disease seed deep into his soul.
As long as Liaoshan died, no matter how the Sitting-Deer Buddhist qi reacted, Ren Qing would notice.
From Song Zongwu, Ren Qing had learned about Buddhist reincarnation. Any living being could become the target of possession by a soul.
Usually, they would be born in places far from human habitation, perhaps even emerging from the womb of a wild beast.
Ren Qing did not hasten Liaoshan's death. Any unnecessary action might stimulate the Sitting-Deer Buddhist qi. There was no need to complicate matters at the final stage.
His eyes remained fixed on the Little Thunderclap Temple. If he couldn't uncover any clues from Liaoshan, then the path of Buddhist techniques would be completely blocked.
Thinking about it carefully, if he could use a Fruit Position to transfer Heavenly Dao transformation to Dipankara Buddha without actually cultivating Buddhist techniques...
Attaining immortality could be accelerated by several hundred years, while the risks would be reduced to a minimum.
Ren Qing's Spirit Division pored over countless Buddhist scriptures, and several months passed in the blink of an eye.
Almost nothing changed within the Longevity Forbidden Zone. Both the land and the sea of clouds were ruled by the Fungus People, allowing them to influence the rules governing the formation of bizarre objects.
Amid the scripture chanting that echoed throughout the clouds of the Little Thunderclap Temple came the labored breathing of an old man at the end of his life.
"Cough, cough, cough, cough..."
Liaoshan coughed violently, his face flushing bright red. The aura emanating from his body and soul visibly declined with every passing moment.
The surrounding monks looked at Liaoshan with envious eyes, wishing they could suffer in his place.
Amid their hypocritical congratulations, Liaoshan's heart finally stopped. Sitting-Deer Buddhist qi emerged from his body together with his soul.
His corpse was not wasted either. Sitting-Deer Buddhist qi devoured it into ashes before stopping.
Sitting-Deer Buddhist qi floated above the monks' heads, but it did not go off to reincarnate.
Ren Qing's eyes flickered. He noticed that Sitting-Deer Buddhist qi had actually swallowed Liaoshan's soul, clearly having no intention of allowing him to continue living.
It seemed that even after inheriting a Fruit Position, if one deliberately refused to cultivate its technique throughout an entire lifetime, the Buddhist Fruit Position would even strip away the right to reincarnate.
After digesting the soul, Sitting-Deer Buddhist qi entered the body of another Buddhist disciple.
The Fake Tathagata spoke.
"Zhihui, you have become a Buddha..."
The faces of the surrounding monks filled with disbelief. Why had Zhihui become the Sitting-Deer Arhat? Where had Liaoshan gone? Had he descended into the mortal world for further tempering?
Ren Qing paid no attention to the commotion within the Little Thunderclap Temple. Using The World Is Like a Dream, he sensed Liaoshan's soul, and his expression immediately changed.
Liaoshan's soul was enduring endless illusions, utterly incapable of distinguishing truth from falsehood.
One instant he was a cow or sheep wandering the grasslands. The next, he became a cricket perched upon a leaf, or a wild dog roaming a field...
To Liaoshan, every single breath was as long as an entire lifetime, and his consciousness gradually sank into oblivion.
Ren Qing closed his eyes and attempted to look toward the Fruit Position hidden within the Buddhist qi, only to feel a sudden palpitation in his heart. The divination on the tortoise shell had changed to "Misfortune with Fortune."
He knew he couldn't delay. He immediately controlled the trace of Liaoshan within the Buddhist qi.
Eighty-seven Buddhas flashed by in an instant. Liaoshan's soul was immediately expelled, and they even conveyed a faint sense of threat.
Taking advantage of that moment, Ren Qing sacrificed the obsessive disease seed as the price and finally caught a glimpse of the Fruit Position.
His pupils dilated. He immediately withdrew his consciousness from the Longevity Forbidden Zone, only relaxing after confirming that the cracks on the tortoise shell had completely healed and the divination had returned to "Auspicious Omen."
Ren Qing had never expected the Fruit Position to be so... ordinary.
At the very core of the Buddhist qi was an old, tattered Buddhist scripture.
On its cover were the words *Immovable Scripture*, along with the signature "Pukong."
No matter how he looked at it, it was nothing more than an ordinary book. Signs of frequent reading could even be seen. There wasn't the slightest trace of anything miraculous about it.
Pukong was a Buddhist Dharma name. Perhaps it belonged to the monk who had copied the scripture?
Ren Qing didn't know what to say. After witnessing the secret hidden within the Fruit Position, he felt even less certain about how to deduce Buddhist techniques.
He glanced at the Heavenly Dao Crack. For now, he'd better prepare to advance to the Heavenly Aberration realm first.