Sanbao Temple.
This was one of the largest and most prosperous temples established by the Tara Sect.
The temple stretched three hundred and thirty-three zhang in width and length. Within the grand hall dedicated to the Mother Buddha, countless incense sticks burned day and night, said never to have gone out for a hundred years. It was claimed that one could even ride a horse inside the hall.
Of course, no one had ever dared to test this claim, so whether it was true or not remained a mystery.
The Tara Sect's incense offerings had only flourished over the past few decades, after being officially recognized by Emperor Yong'an.
Before that, for hundreds of years, the Tara Sect had been looked down upon for two reasons. First, it originated from the Western Regions; second, its divine techniques required wrapping the entire body in bandages, giving off a faint stench of decay and a mysterious, unsettling aura.
Ordinary people feared and despised them.
The Garan Temple, by contrast, was the orthodox sect of Great Wei.
But ever since the Tara Sect began to rise, its influence had grown beyond control.
After all, Garan Temple dealt with the sins of the heart and redemption in the next life, while the Tara Sect was far more practical,it cured the ailments of the body in this life.
So whenever mortals faced strange or incurable diseases, they would rush to the temples of the Tara Sect. The sect's monks could heal what doctors could not,and even what doctors could heal, they often did better.
Although many still believed their methods to be heretical and feared possible aftereffects, those who experienced them firsthand always said they worked wonders.
However, the faithful of the Tara Sect often, upon reaching "perfection of merit," would dissolve into a puddle of blood on the spot. Their deaths were far less serene than the tranquil sitting enlightenment of the Garan Temple monks, which harmed their reputation somewhat.
The abbot of Sanbao Temple was known as the Apothecary, one of the eight Guardians of the Tara Sect,one of the true cores of the sect.
In the back courtyard, as soon as Qingjian arrived, the Apothecary handed her a ring and said kindly, "Please check it, Attendant. The items the Holy Maiden requested are all within."
He wore a snow-white cloak, his entire body still wrapped in bandages, and his face covered by a golden mask patterned with lotus petals.
Qingjian took the ring and swept it once with her divine sense to confirm, then nodded.
She put the ring away, looked at the Apothecary, pressed her lips together, and drew a folded prescription from her sleeve, handing it to him.
The Apothecary paused, took it, and glanced over it. "This is... the formula for the Jade Refining Pill?"
Hearing that, Qingjian knew instantly that the prescription was genuine and let out a silent breath of relief.
The Apothecary was a Guardian skilled in alchemy, one step short of a grandmaster.
But the Jade Refining Pill formula had long been lost; even he could not recreate it.
To think... that man actually possessed the real formula.
Qingjian nodded. "I wish to request these materials. Can the Guardian refine them for me?"
The Apothecary thought for a moment. "I shall try my utmost. But... why does the Attendant not ask the person who gave you this recipe to refine it?"
Qingjian could not explain. She was currently assigned by Princess Prajna to serve temporarily as Gu Fangchen's attendant,a convenient way of spying on him.
Although Gu Fangchen had given her the pill formula, his intentions were clearly more complicated.
She could repay him for it by healing him when necessary.
But if she were to ask him to refine the pill himself, that would become a debt she would have to carry,a favor owed. The very thought unsettled her.
It felt almost like betraying the Princess.
Moreover, whether Gu Fangchen could even refine a pill of such caliber was questionable.
Others might not know, but Qingjian, having spent an entire day in close proximity to him, saw through him completely with her divine sense.
That man's cultivation was pathetically low.
Refining pills required precise control of divine consciousness, something Gu Fangchen clearly could not manage.
Qingjian lowered her gaze. "You need not concern yourself with that, Guardian."
The Apothecary smiled helplessly and put the prescription away. "The grade of the Jade Refining Pill is far too high. My success rate may not even reach one percent. Should I fail, please forgive me."
Qingjian shook her head. "It matters not."
She stored the ring and turned into a stream of light, flying back to the Prince's residence.
Upon arriving at the eastern wing, Qingjian's divine sense immediately detected an unfamiliar wisp of consciousness inside the room.
No,this was not new. It was Gu Fangchen's consciousness, separated from his body.
Expressionless, Qingjian watched the lively wisp of thought drifting about the air.
A single thought from her could crush that wisp instantly. The man was far too bold.
Then, her pupils shrank.
Before she left, Gu Fangchen had been at the lowest level of the ninth rank. Yet now, in the blink of an eye, he had advanced to the eighth?
It had not even been a single day!
Even the greatest geniuses recorded in history had never achieved such a ridiculous feat.
To advance one rank per day,was he even human?
Qingjian frowned deeply. "How did he do it?"
It defied everything she understood about cultivation.
A man whose dantian had been crippled for years, branded as useless,how could he suddenly become a peerless prodigy overnight?
Could it be... that Gu Fangchen had been telling the truth? Was he truly a genius?
Qingjian took a deep breath and forced her thoughts to calm.
Not necessarily. Perhaps he had used some sort of heretical shortcut.
And even so, an eighth rank was still nothing impressive. He could not possibly refine the Jade Refining Pill.
She shook her head and, with a flash of her figure, appeared in the room.
...
Gu Fangchen floated in midair, curiously examining his surroundings.
His vision was slightly blurred, as though filtered through a haze. The space around him seemed soft and luminous, and his range of perception only barely extended beyond the room,enough to sense the neighboring courtyard.
He was not like a ghostly, half-transparent spirit. He had no body at all.
At the Shell-Departure stage, divine consciousness was purely a thought.
It felt like dreaming, as if observing himself from a detached third-person view.
Physical objects no longer affected him. He could pass through walls, see through barriers, and discover information impossible to perceive with mortal senses.
Only upon reaching the seventh rank,the Wandering Spirit stage,would divine consciousness take on a tangible form.
Those upper-rank masters whose powers could shatter mountains and slay enemies from a thousand miles away,those spectacular effects came much later.
In the early stages, the cultivation of the Divine Path was dull and simple.
Aside from effortlessly passing willpower checks, disarming mechanisms in secret realms, and obtaining extra information during NPC conversations, a low-rank Divine Path cultivator's practical ability was little different from that of an ordinary person.
For the lower three ranks, a Divine Path cultivator was nothing more than a fragile spellcaster. If they failed to strike first, and a Martial Path cultivator unleashed a skill, death was certain.
Thus, in most cases, Divine Path cultivators first built up defenses,hiding, biding time, growing quietly.
The Divine Path specialized in the late game. Moreover, since most experience books were written by Divine Path experts, leveling up was relatively easy.
More importantly, the higher the Divine Path cultivation, the harder the cultivator was to kill.
Even if the physical body perished, so long as the divine consciousness found a new vessel within a certain time, the person could revive.
Even if they did not, they could still continue to exist.
By contrast, Martial Path cultivators held overwhelming advantage in the early stages, but after reaching the middle ranks, progress slowed drastically. The resources required increased exponentially.
A Martial Saint like Ding Xingfeng could not be produced by talent alone. It required the full support of a sect,or even an entire nation.
That was also why, after his reputation was ruined, Ding Xingfeng never betrayed Great Wei.
Without Great Wei or Emperor Yong'an, he would have remained a nameless soldier in the ranks. His success and downfall both stemmed from the same root.
The difference between the Martial Path and Divine Path was also clearly reflected in their titles.
A fifth-rank Martial cultivator could already be called a Grandmaster, while a Divine cultivator required at least the fourth rank and significant prestige in their field.
At their core, this world possessed only two cultivation paths: the Martial Path and the Divine Path,body and spirit.
The first six realms of each differed, but the top three converged.
Other so-called paths, such as the Sword Path, Array Path, Soldier Path, or Fate Path, were simply different disciplines or techniques.
Gu Fangchen circled the room once, feeling his vision blur and dizziness set in.
By his estimation, only about one stick of incense had burned.
"I just advanced, and without an upper dantian as foundation, my divine consciousness is unstable," he murmured. "I must resolve my physical body's problem soon, or it will drag down my cultivation."
He clicked his tongue softly.
It was said that at the seventh rank,the Wandering Spirit stage,one could influence physical matter.
That would merely provide an emergency safeguard when refining puppets, nothing more.
To be truly free from dependence on the flesh required reaching at least the fifth rank,the Freedom stage.
As the name implied, one who attained this realm could live without a body, moving freely as they pleased, indistinguishable from ordinary people.
If they so desired, they could even conceive offspring purely through divine intercourse.
Many mortal legends of mysterious dreams leading to pregnancy originated from fifth-rank or higher Divine Path experts amusing themselves.
Some heretics even pursued such acts deliberately for pleasure.
But to Gu Fangchen, before reaching that level, he needed to strengthen his body as much as possible to avoid hindering his spiritual progress.
With a thought, Gu Fangchen's divine consciousness returned to his physical body.
During this process, he felt clear resistance,like wading through water.
This was the result of staying out of his body too long. The connection between flesh and spirit weakened, and if prolonged, the body would reject the soul entirely, making return impossible.
That was what mortals called brain death.
He opened his eyes, exhaled deeply, and turned his head to see the cloaked Xiyin Attendant standing silently in the corner.
Qingjian extended a pale hand. In her palm lay a ring. "Young Master, the items you requested."
Gu Fangchen rose, took the ring etched with countless fine spiritual patterns, and examined it.
In this world, there were no specially made storage rings.
Any container engraved by an Array Path cultivator with a "Little Heaven Array" could serve as storage space,if the vessel's quality was high enough.
Naturally, the array itself was mandatory study for any player.
It was, after all, the backpack slot.
Buying one from an NPC was daylight robbery, so players had to learn to craft their own.
Gu Fangchen was intimately familiar with the Little Heaven Array. Scanning the ring's engravings with his divine sense, he immediately recognized the Apothecary's handwork,Tara Sect craftsmanship.
He looked up, smiling. "Did you happen to ask the Apothecary for materials for the Jade Refining Pill as well?"
Qingjian froze.
How did he know?
Gu Fangchen had only asked Princess Prajna to gather the materials; he had not specified from whom.
Sanbao Temple was not the nearest Tara Sect temple, but the Apothecary's materials were the finest,showing the Princess's high regard for him.
Given her earlier attitude, however, he should have assumed she would send someone random, not name the Apothecary outright.
Unless he was certain.
Qingjian recalled the Princess's sudden decision to personally kill Form-Grass Sword, likely linked to Gu Fangchen's list of materials.
But she had reviewed that list herself and found nothing unusual.
Which meant there was something hidden within, intelligible only to the Princess.
Her gaze darkened. This man's cultivation aside, his grasp of human nature was terrifying.
"The Jade Refining Pill cannot be refined by the Apothecary," she said flatly.
Gu Fangchen sighed theatrically, smiling faintly. "If you ask me now, you can still save some ingredients. Wait too long, and the price will be different."
Qingjian remained silent.
Unbothered, Gu Fangchen stretched, drew out the materials from the Little Heaven Array, and began sorting them.
"Keep an eye on the door. No one enters," he said casually, recalling the procedure as he began crafting the necessary guiding materials.
The Demon Refinement Method's array had to be carved directly onto his own body, so no external vessel was needed.
The key components were one hundred and eight Demon Suppressing Nails,and the array itself.
Everything else depended on sheer endurance.
So long as he passed the tests of flesh and will, the rest would follow.
After working for some time, Gu Fangchen nearly fainted from focus.
The Demon Refinement Method concerned his very life; it could not be approached as casually as the Reversal Wave Array.
He no longer had the Mandate of Heaven buff, so he had to be doubly cautious.
Night fell.
"Phew..."
Gu Fangchen exhaled deeply, setting the Demon Suppressing Nails into position according to the array diagram. His lips twitched.
Each nail was three inches long.
There were one hundred and eight of them, originally tools of torture used to seal cultivation and inflict agony on prisoners.
Now, every one would be used on his own body.
Or rather,on Qingjian's.
His expression turned complicated. Looking down at his robes, he scratched his head, then beckoned to her.
"Come here."
Qingjian stepped forward.
"Help me take off my clothes," he said calmly.
Qingjian froze, a flicker of anger and embarrassment rising in her chest.
He was truly treating her like a maidservant?
Gu Fangchen sighed inwardly.
He genuinely did not know how to remove these ancient robes. The body's previous owner had been an idle noble constantly waited upon,he had no clue how to undress himself.
Expressionless, Qingjian pressed her lips together and reached out, slowly removing his outer garment.
...
"You mean when you arrived, Form-Grass Sword was already dead?"
Inside a thatched hut, a massive one-armed man over two meters tall squatted beside the corpse, scowling.
Ma Gu knelt trembling on the ground. "Yes."
The one-armed giant narrowed his eyes, then sneered. "So Gu Fangchen is that difficult to kill?"
"I do not believe it. There exists no death that the Dao of Death cannot bestow."