Chapter 125: Void Soul Gang, Spirit Refining Method
They can control the heavens and the earth, but can they control what others think?
No matter how much resentment Huiming and Huizhi felt in their hearts, wishing they could tear him, Hong Yuan, into a million pieces, when they came before him, they still had to grovel and act subservient, respectfully, and that was enough.
Hong Yuan took an interest in Void Soul Gang and continued to inquire, and Huiming answered honestly every time.
Then Hong Yuan waved his hand, having Huiming and Huizhi take him to the library of Vajra Temple.
At these words, Huiming and Huizhi’s faces visibly twitched.
This was because the richest collection in Vajra Temple was the Secret Treasure Pagoda that had been burned down.
The pagoda could be rebuilt, but the many rare treasures and vast classics inside had truly turned to ash.
And, most importantly, the Nirvana Dharma Eye!
The Nirvana Dharma Eye was in Hong Yuan’s hands, but Huiming and the other monk would not naively think the other side would hand it over.
Fortunately, Vajra Temple’s nearly four hundred years of accumulation was too rich; even without the Secret Treasure Pagoda, several libraries still stood tall.
Hong Yuan leisurely entered one of the heavily guarded libraries and saw tens of thousands of volumes of books inside, each classified: sorcery, Records of Disasters, historical documents, unofficial histories and anecdotes, Buddhist secret classics, and so on.
After sending Huiming and the others away, Hong Yuan browsed the books on his own, starting with sorcery.
One book after another was flipped through, and Hong Yuan even saw a fragment of《Hundred Arts Catalogue》, which recorded more than a dozen sorceries: common five elements techniques as well as Mechanical Arts, Poisonous Gu Secret Technique, talisman and prohibition techniques, Celestial Phenomenon Secret Technique…
In a flash, three days passed, and Hong Yuan moved between several libraries, obtaining a large amount of information, naturally including that on Void Soul Gang.
Much of this information, Huiming had not mentioned.
Hong Yuan did not think the other had deliberately concealed it; it was probably because there were too many books, and as the head of Vajra Temple, Huiming had to handle official duties, cultivate, and save a large number of female bodhisattvas… how could he read them all?
Just like in Hong Yuan’s previous life, there was a period when he bought a ton of books, filling an entire large bookshelf and still having more, but in the end, he only really read a few.
Only now, with the ability of never forgetting what he saw, and a thirst for all kinds of knowledge, could he read without sleeping or eating.
The biggest difference between Void Soul Gang and Inner Gang or Outer Gang was that the inner and outer gang bodies transformed the fleshly body with sorcery, while Void Soul Gang focused on spirit.
One classic described it thus.
Sever the shackles of the fleshly body, refine the spirit to immortality.
In this book, the exponent believed that whether Inner Gang, Outer Gang, or Void Soul Gang, all were products of living beings seeking longevity.
Inner and outer gang bodies sought eternal fleshly existence.
Void Soul Gang, on the other hand, regarded the fleshly body as a transitional phase, condensing one’s own spirit into a Void Soul, achieving longevity in the world in the form of spirit.
The book mentioned that once the Void Soul leaves the body and enters this vast heaven and earth, it would be disturbed by all kinds of fluctuations in the void and could not last long, so it would attach to something as a host.
Such an item could be called a Spirit-Hosting Object!
The exponent mentioned that he had once dealt with a Spirit-Hosting Object: a dry well in Wushan County of Linjiang Prefecture, which one day suddenly surged with a clear spring…
This then led to over a hundred people jumping into the well and dying.
“Hmm? Linjiang Prefecture, Wushan County?”
Hong Yuan immediately recalled this story; he seemed to have seen it in《Records of Disasters》, where the book also recorded that a Vajra Temple monk had managed to suppress it, finally filling the well with quicklime to stop the deaths.
The process was very vague, but it definitely was not that simple.
It matched!
This exponent described retrieving an object from the well, identifying it as a Spirit-Hosting Object, but did not elaborate further, instead turning to speculate that it was caused by Void Soul Gang【Nether Gate Yin Spring Gang】.
“So all the demons, ghosts, and monsters in this world are gang body cultivators?”
“Inner and outer gang bodies often cause various bodily mutations, which are demons and monsters in the eyes of the world, while Void Soul Gang turns into formless, incorporeal ghosts and gods?”
Hong Yuan’s face showed contemplation.
Void Soul Gang was extremely complex; leaving aside the side details, the core was ritual and Spirit Refining Method.
No!
Rather, the most crucial was the Spirit Refining Method.
Hong Yuan really wanted to observe it, but unfortunately Hong Lian was dead, and there was no such method in Vajra Temple.
This much he could guarantee: whether Huiming and Huizhi were lying, he could sense it.
Hong Yuan took out the Nirvana Dharma Eye and a small bell.
He carefully examined the Nirvana Dharma Eye and sensed it with spiritual sense, but in his perception, this dharma eye showed no abnormality, as if it had truly become a pebble.
Only when he first obtained it had this Nirvana Dharma Eye shown spirituality.
That instant ripple, making one’s mind feel empty and everything void, was too real; otherwise, if dropped on the ground, Hong Yuan would have taken it for an ordinary stone.
Unfortunately, over these three days, Hong Yuan had tried many methods, even infusing force into it, but the Nirvana Dharma Eye seemed dormant.
Vajra Temple regarded it as a supreme treasure, and several top masters of Red Lotus Sect had come out in force to fight for it.
Both sides stuck to their claims.
The eye of the Buddha?
Or the eye of the Great Desire Heaven worshipped by Red Lotus Sect?
In the past few days, Hong Yuan had flipped through countless books and had not seen any record of the Nirvana Dharma Eye, and when he asked Huiming, the other insisted it was left behind by the Buddha’s nirvana.
As for which Buddha?
Huiming also could not say.
Hong Yuan gazed at the Nirvana Dharma Eye and suddenly thought of the mural on the dome of the Secret Treasure Pagoda, his face showing a pensive look.
After a moment, he took a small wooden box and put away the Nirvana Dharma Eye, then picked up the bell and walked out of the library.
“Song Yinglong” was imprisoned in a stone chamber.
He had originally been bound with refined steel chains, but later it was found he neither moved nor swayed, like a corpse, so no one bothered with him.
Hong Yuan entered the stone chamber and saw “Song Yinglong”; the bronze mask on his face had been removed, his eyes tightly closed, his face pitted and skin iron-blue.
Thinking back to his first clash with Song Yinglong, the other’s spirited arrogance and domineering hero’s demeanor.
For some reason, after that, old Song seemed to have been continuously unlucky.
“Old Song, oh Old Song, how did you just die like that? I’m not even ready to receive your inheritance yet!”
Hong Yuan sighed, then showed disgust.
“Not even three prefectures’ worth of land; don’t say taking a state, at least take half a state government before you die.”
“This bit of inheritance, who are you looking down on!”
Ding ding ding!
With his light sigh, the bell in his hand shook, emitting a crisp sound; the corpse puppet that Song Yinglong had become abruptly opened its gray-white eyes, letting out a roar that made the entire stone chamber hum and dust fall rustlingly.
The corpse puppet then roared and attacked the only living person in the chamber, charging like a gale, its claws possessing the strength to tear metal and split iron.
Bang!
The corpse puppet was directly kicked in the face by Hong Yuan and sent flying back even faster, crashing into the stone wall with a boom.
In an instant, the stone wall shook violently, suddenly breaking open a huge human-shaped hole, and the corpse puppet was flung out.
