Chapter 496: Chapter 12 Secret Sect Taoist Inheritance
"The cosmic upheaval truly spares no one."
Li Mo originally thought the Buddhist sects ascended smoothly to the Upper Realm, but after learning from the Karma Seal Mother that Nirvana had been distorted into Yongle, he realized the fate of the Buddhist sects was even more tragic than that of the Daoists and Demons.
Some monks managed to ascend to Nirvana before its essence was twisted, only to be greeted by human-headed kites.
The remaining monks became food for the No-Life Mother.
"How ironic, though the path to Feather Transformation Ascension must be correct."
During the cosmic upheaval, numerous cultivators achieved Feather Transformation Ascension, likely due to some mortals’ Word-to-Law influence altering the rules of ascension.
"They’re coming."
Li Mo heard the No-Life Mother’s stomach growl and realized she was about to feast.
He could already picture the scene inside the Buddhist temples.
A multitude of monks devoutly knelt on the ground, chanting scriptures while enduring the pain brought by Feather Transformation Ascension, their backs slowly splitting open.
Maggots crawled out from the discarded husks of their old shells, sensing the inexplicable pull of an unknown force.
They were filled with joy, thinking they were headed to the Upper Realm where Buddha resides, only to find themselves instead in a dark, narrow, fleshy world.
Li Mo’s expression turned peculiar as the No-Life Mother’s stomach swelled to a diameter of 200 to 300 meters.
Her skin was stretched until it became semi-transparent, making it easy to notice the human-shaped maggots crammed inside her stomach, struggling to break free.
The monks’ desperate faces were pressed against the surface of her skin, which then began to dissolve along with their flesh and bones.
Li Mo couldn’t help but feel horrified, thinking, "Damn it, if I climb the immortal ladder, will my journey’s end also be a bloody maw?"
*Belch～～*
The No-Life Mother let out a satisfied belch.
Seeing the monks almost completely digested, Li Mo quickly suppressed his distracting thoughts.
[Qingliang Temple]
Li Mo spent half a breath’s time reading the feedback from the Creation Book; Qingliang Temple was a small, ancient Buddhist temple, with its inheritance focused on cultivating one’s mental realm.
He did not choose Qingliang Temple as his opportunity, knowing the monks would soon all perish.
Li Mo planned to seek Taoist inheritance from large Buddhist temples with Void Refining Stage techniques and above; Qingliang Temple was certainly insufficient.
"What a pity. If the Buddhist sects had ascended simultaneously into the No-Life Mother’s stomach, I could’ve harvested them all at once, hehe."
Soon enough, another Buddhist sect appeared.
[Pushan Temple]
A temple primarily focused on body refinement, but their techniques back then were merely mundane martial arts—a temple so small it could barely count as a minor Buddhist temple.
[Fu Ruan Temple]
A temple specializing in cultivating the next life, essentially adept in body seizing and reincarnation. Though it was a medium-sized Buddhist temple, it didn’t suit Li Mo.
[Yellow Stone Temple], [Wei’an Temple], [Vajra Temple]...
As Buddhist temples were vanquished one by one, Li Mo grew increasingly tense.
After all, there was only one Substitute Dao Page left; once an opportunity was missed, it was gone for good. If he hesitated too much, he might end up empty-handed.
Even if better opportunities remained, Li Mo’s current need for inheritance outweighed everything else.
"Let’s get a large Buddhist temple. Medium-sized ones don’t even have Void Refining Stage techniques..."
Li Mo’s pupils shrank as the first large Buddhist temple appeared amid his expectations, causing the No-Life Mother’s stomach to swell beyond 800 meters.
[Mei Mountain Temple]
Just as Li Mo was about to confirm it, he discovered that all the disciples of Mei Mountain Temple were nuns.
Mei Mountain Temple specialized in cultivating destiny and required its disciples to marry into common mortal families, then seize the daughters of the lineage through reincarnation upon death.
Li Mo felt somewhat helpless.
Mei Mountain Temple undoubtedly possessed Void Refining Stage techniques, but they weren’t necessarily suitable for cultivating his Buddha Demon Body and held no promise for his own technique derivations.
While he hesitated, the entirety of Mei Mountain Temple dissolved into pus.
The aura of the No-Life Mother grew increasingly violent; she already exuded the presence of a Land Immortal, and her immense size caused the temple’s main hall to collapse.
Li Mo took a deep breath.
Then came dozens more Buddhist temples, though their ascension frequencies were noticeably diminishing.
Finally, a second large Buddhist sect appeared: [Secret Sect].
The Secret Sect, though part of the Buddhist realm, leaned heavily toward unorthodox demonic ways, with their inheritance promoting entry through visceral Dharma transmissions.
The True Word Sect was a branch temple of the Secret Sect.
"The Secret Sect is exactly what I need."
Li Mo confirmed the opportunity without hesitation, and the Corpse Mountain Mini World enveloped the stomach.
Tens of thousands of maggots fell into the Corpse Mountain Mini World, many bearing marks that clearly indicated their origins from the Secret Sect.
To Li Mo’s surprise, the majority of the maggots retained their consciousness, expressing ecstatic joy upon seeing the richly spiritual environment of the mini-world.
"Haha! Turns out Feather Transformation Ascension really leads to the Yongle World!!!"
"As expected of the Yongle World! Its abundant resources are incomparable to those in the mortal world; there’s even living Seven Treasures Spirit Monsters."
Some maggots noticed the plant and tree cultivators transformed from Seven Treasures Spiritual Materials and couldn’t help but praise them repeatedly.
They displayed an entirely naive fascination with the towns built by plant and tree cultivators and tried to investigate them further.
"But where is Buddha? Maybe he’s at the peak of the mountain..."
Some elders of the Secret Sect noticed the unusual nature of the Corpse Mountain Mini World, finding it increasingly more like an unformed miniature world—not the Yongle World.
Li Mo’s eyes flickered with a hint of absurdity.
He hadn’t expected the Substitute Dao Page to bring monks from eight thousand years ago into the present; could the Creation Book truly possess the rumored divinity of an immortal artifact?
The maggots transformed from Secret Sect monks, lacking any cultivation, began to dismantle the ecosystem of the Corpse Mountain Mini World, attempting to hunt creatures and plant cultivators to rebuild their Buddha Dharma through blood and flesh.
"Any novice monk must offer three pounds of flesh to the temple elders."
The abbot [Shangying] said coldly, prompting the maggots to tear each other apart. The stench of blood permeated the mountains and forests.
Shangying gobbled up chunks of flesh and then rammed his head against a rock.
*Thunk.*
Shangying’s skull cracked, with blood pouring over his exposed brain, which faintly began to emit Buddha Qi.
"They mustn’t be allowed to persist; time will only allow them to grow stronger."
Li Mo wouldn’t let them act as they pleased; he lifted the Corpse Mountain in the palm of his hand.
He leaned closer.
The disciples of the Secret Sect trembled in terror, gazing at the vast, indistinct giant face that appeared above the mountain.
Shangying’s expression froze, and regardless of whether Li Mo was Buddha or not, he quickly knelt and kowtowed.
"Mercy, Buddha! Shangying, abbot of the Secret Sect, greets the Buddha."
Li Mo sneered and directly absorbed all the Secret Sect disciples into his Artifact Core Body; countless roots entwined their flesh and bones.
By now, Shangying realized that Feather Transformation Ascension was nothing but a lie.
"Buddha, we are willing to honor you for eternity, to endure the pain of corporeal decay, to remain silent and unfed for millennia, to..."
Li Mo gazed pensively at Shangying.
Shangying continued, "In the mortal realm, the hardship of rebirth grants us mere mortals the chance to ascend through Feather Transformation Technique, for Heaven’s Dao..."
*Boom, boom, boom!*
Explosions echoed within the internal space of the body, as tens of thousands of monks shattered, and the Secret Sect’s Taoist inheritance flooded into Li Mo’s mind.
Li Mo’s expression grew uncertain.
When Shangying mentioned Heaven’s Dao, an indescribable sense of threat instinctively arose in him, as though the truth behind the cosmic upheaval harbored unspeakable danger.
"Could discovering the truth come with some dire consequences?"
"Troublesome. Once the cosmic upheaval repeats itself, even intentionally avoiding it won’t prevent one from inadvertently deducing its outcome."
"Let it go for now. Perhaps I’m overreacting."
Li Mo eventually regained his composure, then began organizing the Taoist inheritance of the Secret Sect.
The history of the Buddhist sects is unretraceable, but the Secret Sect spans merely over twenty thousand years, suggesting it’s a deliberate branch cultivated by the Buddhist sects.
Orthodox Buddhist sects experimented with incorporating unorthodox ways into their practice, resulting in the creation of the Secret Sect.
For Li Mo, the Secret Sect was highly compatible with his Buddha Demon Body, but its technique’s upper limits did not reach the Ninth Realm of Immortality—though it contained complete content for the Void Refining Stage and Body Integration Realm.
Regarding the Mahayana Realm of the Eight Realms of Immortality, the Secret Sect only offered rudimentary insights.
"This will suffice."
"Achieving Land Immortality already places one at the mortal world’s zenith. Obtaining further techniques shouldn’t be too much trouble later."
Xia Dao Palace had extrapolated ancient Buddhist ideologies into a cultivation system for the future.
As a result, the progress made in perfecting the Tao Seed surged.
Not long after, the foundational framework for the Buddha and Demon Cultivation Scripture took shape.
Given the slight variations in techniques, Li Mo prepared to recommence cultivation without hesitation, beginning the Circulation Cycle of his childhood stage.
The Buddha Demon Body emitted radiant light as physical traits entered a new cycle of fusion.
Familiarizing himself with the childhood stage, the Weak Crown Period’s content naturally took form, with Buddha Demon Spirit Power intensifying within the circulation cycle.
Li Mo immersed himself in cultivation, his Buddha Demon Body nearing a transformative breakthrough.
Time slipped by unknown.
As the Great Wilderness Immortal Body approached the brink of transcending mortality, the Tao Seed had refined the Void Refining Stage content of the Buddha and Demon Techniques to perfection.
"The method for breaking through the bottleneck is reincarnation through rebirth?"
"Where would I find the time to experience the mortal world? Even if I were to perish young in every lifetime, it’d still be impossible."
The Buddha and Demon Cultivation Scripture required Li Mo’s consciousness to seize another’s body, planting a strand of Spiritual Power in their Mud Pill Palace, to undergo the processes of birth, aging, illness, and death. The transformation of the Spiritual Power would naturally lead to the Void Refining Stage breakthrough.
Li Mo pinched his nose bridge in frustration, muttering, "Nowadays, where is there true birth, aging, illness, and death? By the time mortals reach twenty, the Death Disease already makes such experiences virtually impossible."
"Unless afflicted with innate disease, dying violently at nineteen."
Li Mo’s eyebrows lifted as he murmured, "Doesn’t the Mother Furnace have the ability to create Artifact Embryos? I could thoroughly manipulate their births."
"One Artifact Embryo’s nineteen-year lifespan isn’t enough to break through the bottleneck, but what if it’s a thousand, ten thousand, even a hundred thousand of them?"
Li Mo became thoughtful as he began to communicate his consciousness with the Mother Furnace.