The Sage Who Transcended Samsara

After Gu Xiaosang went into isolation, Meng Qi did not leave the Qingwei Realm immediately. Instead, he spent quite a long time exploring the entire Nirvana Realm battlefield from ancient times. Unfortunately, it was just as he had expected. There were no additional clues and the only thing for sure was that the Heavenly Lord Yuanshi and Lord Ling Bao had entered into battle here before they disappeared.

He used the Wu’Ji Seal and the Seal of the Dao to seal the place once more to prevent destruction that would affect the external realms. Afterwards, he flew out of the Realm and headed back to the Kunlun Mountain Jade Palace only to see that Daqinggen had been squeezed to one side inside the gatehouse, while the Celestial Hound sat on the chair properly with his paws up in the air, playing games happily in total ignorance of Daqinggen’s sorrow.

“Woof, woof, woof!” sensing Meng Qi’s return, the Celestial Hound barked cheerfully in greeting while Daqinggen rushed out from the gatehouse suddenly. With a sobbing tone, he said, “Old Master, you, you have to set things straight for me!”

No one would have known that the player on the other side of the internet was a dog… Meng Qi silently gave unspoken criticism as he simply picked up a Myriad World Talisman that emphasised on gameplay and gave it to Daqinggen. In an even voice, he said, “As a gatekeeper of the Jade Palace, you should pick yourself up from where you fell.”

Daqinggen grabbed the Myriad World Talisman as its face turned from blue to purple, purple to black, and lastly to a green tinged with red when it nodded its head,

“I understand.”

With a murderous aura and its fighting spirit boosted up, it turned its head and roared at the Celestial Hound, “Hey, you dog, come, let’s fight one on one, with the best of six games out of ten!”

Meng Qi did not stand around to watch them and just facepalmed himself while mourning silently for Daqinggen three times. Without the equivalent of the reaction speed and the investigative control over the self-thought of a Legendary being, Daqinggen would only play the part of a loser.

Yet, how did a good Celestial Hound begin to fall into depravity after entering my Kunlun Mountain Jade Palace?

Was it because the feng shui here was bad, or was it simply that my charisma was too strong?

Walking back to the silent room and getting on the Cloud Bed, Meng Qi gathered his thoughts as he pondered on the things that he had to do next.

“There definitely won’t be entry into the topmost level of the Nine Levels of Heaven at the moment, but we can’t just sit around waiting for Brother to complete his humanity and take over Heaven, or wait for whoever gets part of the power of the Celestial Ruler. There’s hard work to be done and experimentation to be tried out. For example, getting the List of Deification from Lu Ya. Or, secretly and indirectly pushing for Han Guang to begin the initial building of the Heavenly Court where he can hold power and bring about resonance. And then, arrangements can be made so he falls from grace, to avoid warming a snake in one’s bosom. However, this plan could be very hard to control, it’d be like walking on the edge of a cliff, one small mistake and we’d be in big trouble. So it can only be used as a backup plan to be further thought out…”

“Tracking the whereabouts of the Qing Emperor will aid me in foresight of the future in later days, but it’s a shame that the Six Heretical Teachers come and go so secretly, even Xiaosang did not know where their base was. In fact, the three masters that I wanted to find are so good at derivation and hiding the mysteries of heaven that it’d probably be too difficult to track them down by relying on my current standard of the Principles of Karma. Hmm, I can probably ask the Grand Wang Prince regarding this matter, he seems to understand Zhixu Mountain quite well…”

“Although Maitreya, the Bull Demon King, and the others are seriously injured, Dipankara Buddha and the Demonic Monarch were forced to awaken earlier and even though they haven’t reached complete fulfillment, they are still the most elite strong people. So, there’s a need for caution in their actions and plans, especially where Brother Qi is concerned since it’s probable that the Demonic Monarch won’t let him off the hook. He has tricks up his sleeve for sure, so I need to be wary of him as well.”

“As a conclusion, the current situation has entered into a much more relaxed state, allowing the terrans a period of time to focus on cultivation and breakthroughs.”

“The Heaven Conferring Platform is half done and since it holds control over the Earth which further expands into the Myriad World, brother won’t need to waste his efforts on matters of the reflected self. If everything goes well, attaining the Legendary status will be a matter of days. However, he used to suffer from Dissociative Identity Disorder where one personality was full of emotion and passion, while the other personality was cold-hearted and relentless. Although he fully recovered by connecting and combining with the Mirror of Present Life, but will this experience affect his breakthrough on I am who I am? Or rather, will this kind of experience aid him in understanding I am who I am?”

“Master inherited the Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva Orthodoxy and finally broke through to achieve the Golden Body, meaning that his future will have boundless prospects. However, I’m afraid that he might not have the chance to achieve the Maha Bodhisattva attainment, not to mention the Legendary status, before the current situation changes. On the other hand, the Golden Body of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva is a combination of elements from Sambhogakaya, so even if he wanted to continue improving, he would have needed to make a transgression or something of the sort, which would have easily implicated him in the battle…”

“It won’t be too long until Zhiwei enters the realm of a Celestial Being since she has enough quantity of reflected self, but in order to achieve the status of a Legendary being and also break through the I am who I am bottleneck, she’ll require a more solid accumulation. She can’t be expected to do so for a while. Only Mister Lu Da and Senior Su Wuming who have now experienced the combination of I am not who I am, you are not who you are will have some sort of enlightenment and understanding, so hopefully, they can achieve the Legendary status as soon as possible, especially Senior Su who took the orthodox path. The chances of him breaking through soon don’t seem too small…”

“If there was an actual need to push forward the matter of the Heavenly Court, then Han Guang cannot be allowed to achieve Legendary status before this and needs to be stopped…”

“Zhao Laowu achieved Dharmakaya a few years ago, but he didn’t manage to break through even though he went into isolation. I wonder if something went wrong… Little Foodie has accumulated enough experience that is beyond others, so she’d most likely achieve Dharmakaya within the year. However, since she collected the Fu Emperor’s Two Music Scores and to a certain degree, connected with this influential figure who was active throughout the late Archaeozoic Era and early ancient times, she could be in danger. I’ll have to keep an eye on her, just in case of an accident…”

As many thoughts ran through his mind, Meng Qi realized that there were many things that he needed to do and that they were complicated and messy. In fact, most of it included worrying about others and wanting to lend them a helping hand.

“Hehe, I always thought that I had the potential to be that kind of caring aunty from the residents’ committee, what with me constantly worrying about others, and being loyal and affectionate…” Meng Qi praised himself shamelessly as he went through his thoughts.

He did not get rid of the interference that these emotions were causing him because after a brief observation, he knew that he was doing so willingly.

After having thought and planned out all these matters from top to bottom again, Meng Qi thought of another question. Why were all the major forces looking to control the Heavenly Court and living beings as well as to build the Underworld and complete the Real World?

Beneath the Nirvana Realm, in practicing the Dao of oneself or one’s own path, there were no words needed and it just had to be done. Just like Maitreya who others had laughed at, insulted, and slandered because they thought Maitreya lacked the pure heart of the Buddhist Society and that Maitreya did not embody the style of the Buddha. However, all of this was part of the path to build up a complete Buddhist Nation, and save the world.

But how about the Nirvana Legends? What were they up to when they fought for the exclusive right to build the Underworld during the ancient times?

This was definitely not just a fight for power as it seemed from the surface. There had to be something more profound to it, but what could it be?

Meng Qi racked his brains in puzzlement as he could not come up with an answer. Yet, if he did not figure out the real objectives of the Nirvana Legends, how could he control the situation and jump out of the chessboard to become a real chess player in the future?

“Maybe only personal experimentation will help me understand what the Legends were looking for…” Meng Qi nodded his head in deep thought as he came up with the idea of building his own personal Hell, “In fact, even though the Underworld now was taken control of by the Emperor of Feng Du, it was not completely successful and there is still a chance…”

Just as he thought about it, an idea came into his mind,

“What Master practices is the Golden Body of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva. I was worried about him just now that he would need to make a transgression of the evil spirits from Hell, which would have implicated him in battle easily. Now it seems like this will help him!”

“This matter is dangerous and needs to be planned in detail…”

The silent room was gloomy as light shone into the room in spots. Meng Qi came to his senses as he returned to reality and realized that the most important thing for him to do now was to practice, practice, and practice some more. This was in line with him striving to apply projections in the Myriad World as soon as possible to achieve the level of fulfillment from the Imprint of Additional Self which would naturally follow from the birth of the universe or from the breaking of a Universal Fragment.

Before this, he took out the Myriad World Talisman and contacted the Grand Wang Prince.

After a few ringing tones, Wang Siyuan’s weak voice sounded through the Myriad World Talisman,

“Cough, how may I help you?”

Tricksters would indeed be tricksters… Meng Qi thought to himself before saying, “I saw the Heavenly Way Monster.”

“At the time, I was at Changle, too,” Wang Siyuan said with a smile, as if he had foreseen the failure of Gao Lan.

“What was its background?” Meng Qi followed the flow as he questioned him closely.

Grand Wang Trickster was familiar with the Heavenly Way Monster. In fact, he had once been under its control, and only managed to jump out from the chessboard through moving forward in death.

Wang Siyuan remained silent for a moment before coughing severely, “If I knew its background, why would I have needed to bury the past of the Wang family and go through with all these crazy things?”

“However, I have two guesses. The first one is that it’s related to the Heavenly Primogenitor in the Archaeozoic Era and the second one is that it’s a transformation from a Nirvana Legend who was dead but had not gone cold.”

The only Heavenly Primogenitor that had achieved the Fruit of Dao… Nirvana Legend who was dead but had not gone cold… Meng Qi nodded his head slightly as he took note of Wang Siyuan’s conjecture and asked, “Is it possible for you to find Zhixu Mountain, or the disciples of the Evil Sect and Thoughtless Clan?”

“You’ll meet them if you are destined to do so, and you’ll get to know about it if it’s fate, cough, it all depends on luck,” Wang Siyuan said. “According to hearsay, the Six Heretical Teachers have opened up their own heaven and earth at the Edge of Chaos, similar to the original Demon Realm. In addition, their Six Sects are focusing on the Dao of oneself and are only travelling Jiang Hu to seek experience and anything they need. They’ve never bothered about worldly concerns and their tracks are untraceable, cough, you can ask the previous Buddha Bodhisattva of the Saha Pure Land. After all, the relationship between the Six Heretical Teachers and Gautama Buddha is close, so they may have some clues about them.”

The previous Buddha Bodhisattva of the Saha Pure Land? The majority of them had already been swallowed into the stomach of the Supreme Buddha! Various thoughts ran through Meng Qi’s mind and finally landed on two candidates. The first was the Immortal Demon Fairy while the second was Manjushri Heavenly Senior Guangfa…

After a brief discussion where decisions were made on some matters, the caring-aunty nature within Meng Qi broke through as he asked with care,

“What have you been doing recently?”

Wang Siyuan coughed a few times before his voice rang out somewhat insanely, “You’ll figure it out when we meet next time.”

As the communication through the Myriad World Talisman cut off, the corner of Meng Qi’s mouth twitched and his brows furrowed. What big thing is this maniac planning now?

…

Zhao Heng woke up from his sleep with a start to see moonlight spilling through the window, illuminating the space in front of him. All around him was cold and silent.

However, he was unable to enjoy the scenery as he breathed heavily, recovering his breath only after a long while.

It was that same nightmare again!

That nightmare where he had failed to break through, that depressing and gloomy nightmare!

He thought that he could let go of the past and his past ambitions. However, when he went into isolation in his attempt to break though, the normally absent feelings of sorrow, emptiness, and conflict had all appeared, making it difficult to go through with the most vital step.

That was right. How could it be easy to forget decades worth of the path that had been branded in his blood? Once upon a time in Shen Du, Xiaomeng had once teasingly said to exchange their positions. He would be the Prince and I would be the Swordsman, but I had rejected the suggestion straight away without joking because it was really what I thought.

The rebuilding of his path now would only be slightly easier than compensating for the regret in his dark trial.

The inconsistency between his mind and body was naturally the reason for his standstill and endless nightmares.