Legend of the Great Sage

Li Qingshan happened to be thinking about changing his human cultivation method.

The Battle Demon Statuary originated from the Demon domain. It could be cultivated to a very high realm, but the version he had obtained was modified and incomplete, so he could reach the fourth heavenly tribulation at most.

It was completely impossible for him to venture deep into the Demon domain and ask the Battle Demon clan for the complete cultivation method. By the time he could ignore the threat from the twelve Demon Gods, venturing deep into the Demon domain to face Qiongqi, what would he still use the Battle Demon Statuary for? For wiping his ass?

In terms of practicality, the Possession of the Battle Demon was a very nice move, but after he condensed the Heart of the Demonic and Divine, the demonic and divine within him had been balanced, and the five transformations had become one. The additional “battle demon” would bring more harm than good.

Even in battles in the future, he would probably have to base everything around the Nine Transformations of the Demonic and Divine and use his human cultivation method as a supplementary resource.

As a result, he opened his mind and searched through the islands. Sure enough, he had found many jade slips, but they had all run out of spiritual qi. Even if they would gradually recover as spiritual qi seeped in, the information they contained would no longer exist anymore.

He did find some cultivation methods carved into cliffs and rocks, but all of them were incomplete and were not of a high standard either. They were not even as great as the Battle Demon Statuary.

That did make sense. Any cultivation method that was up to scratch would contain a tremendous amount of information, enough to fill over a hundred books. As for the cultivation methods he wanted, if it were all recorded down as words, even engraving an entire mountain would not be enough, so it would all depend on this Stone Heart Empress now.

“Fellow Stone, I can help you recover, but I’d advise you to retain your current form for now! You’ve already undergone the fourth heavenly tribulation. You’ve lost all of your cultivation, but you don’t belong to this world after all.”

“Fellow, as the god of the world, you can’t even resolve such a simple issue? If you have any requests, feel free to mention them. I’ll definitely fulfill them to the best of my ability.”

“I do have a request, but I don’t think it can be fulfilled that easily. I need a cultivation method to replace my current one. The one I practise right now is called the Demon Suppression Statuary, derived from the Battle Demon Statuary of the Battle Demon clan from the Demon domain. I twisted it and used it to deduce the Battle Demon Statuary and even used it to condense a demon heart, so I’m basically no different from demonfolk in terms of cultivation now. I want to return to the path of regular human cultivators again, so do you have any ideas for that?”

Even Li Qingshan felt a little awkward. The creator of the cultivation method had gone from the demonic to buddhism after so much difficulty, yet he just had to undo everything he did and go back to the demonic. Once a demon heart had been condensed, converting it back was anything but easy, so he did not hold too many hopes.

“You’ve already become the god of the world. From now onwards, you coexist with the world, so why would you still need a cultivation method?”

“It was just my clone that became the god.”

“To think that’s actually possible. You definitely aren’t from this world.”

“Let’s not talk about this for now. In short, I saved your life in outer space.”

“You can even roam through outer space!?”

The Stone Heart Empress dared not view Li Qingshan as an aborigine of the small world anymore. If she possessed that kind of power, she definitely would not have turned into stone out of despair when the world was destroyed. However, as an existence that could wander through outer space, how was his cultivation so low? This Li Qingshan seemed to be hiding an endless amount of secrets.

“Thank you again for saving my life. I can provide you with a cultivation method, and it’s one of the greatest cultivation methods from my world.”

“Oh, what is it?”

“The Sovereign’s Limit Record of World Prosperity.”

“Sounds nice. Let’s hear more about it.”

“The greatest sect from our world was called the Sovereign’s Limit temple, and the Sovereign’s Limit Record of World Prosperity was the Sovereign’s Limit temple’s greatest teaching. It can be practised to an extremely high cultivation. Not only can it let the cultivator undergo the fifth heavenly tribulation, but it can also reach the peak of the fifth heavenly tribulation, the limits of Human Sovereign, which is why it’s called the ‘Sovereign’s Limit’.”

The greatest cultivation methods of a world would normally surpass the limits of the world, as it was possible for people that had ascended to connect with their original world and pass down some stronger cultivation methods. On top of that, through the long river of time, various coincidences and fortuitous encounters would occur, such as something like a Reincarnated Celestial.

Li Qingshan could recall that the “Three Graves” in the Great Xia empire’s Three Graves, Five Classics, Eight Chains, and Nine Mounds corresponded to this level of cultivation method. Perhaps it was slightly worse, but it would not be too different for cultivation methods of the same realm. After all, the world that the Stone Heart Empress originated from had developed for all those years, and they were a realm higher than the nine provinces, so how could it be of the same standard?

“Do you have anything better? Such as cultivation methods that reach the sixth heavenly tribulation?”

The Stone Heart Empress said, “Don’t be greedy, fellow. You condense a Yin Soul after the fourth heavenly tribulation. Only after the fifth heavenly tribulation do you condense a Yang Soul. If you want to undergo the sixth heavenly tribulation, you need to combine yin and yang and attain an Origin Soul, and then you are known as a Human Immortal. For people of buddhism, that would be attaining the fruit of Anāgāmi, only a single realm away from the fruit of Arhat. By then, they would have completely shed their mortality, no longer reborn in the greater Desire realm upon death. Such a cultivation is well beyond what the likes of me understands.”

Li Qingshan remembered that the fruit of Anāgāmi was the third fruit of the four fruits of Arhatship. Undergoing the fourth heavenly tribulation was known as an arhat of the first fruit, which was also known as the fruit of Srotāpanna. The meaning of Srotāpanna was “entering the ranks”.

If he used the schools from his previous life as a comparison, Qi Practitioner were “kindergarteners”, while the next three realms were primary school students, middle school students, and high school students respectively. Only at the fourth heavenly tribulation could they be considered as “university students”, now with a clear objective and direction. The various forms of cultivation that came before that could be described as preparation for that step.

After that, the second fruit was known as the fruit of Sakridāgāmi, which was a step further. That could be regarded as “graduate students”. If they attained the third fruit, the fruit of Anāgāmi, then that would be impressive. No matter where these “doctoral students” went, they would be viewed as eminent monks, much higher than “graduate students”.

However, once they reached that stage, they had basically reached the end of their path of learning. If they wanted to make further progress and join “academia”, then they had to undergo the seventh heavenly tribulation and attain the true fruit of Arhat, which was becoming a true arhat. That was equivalent to the Dragon Subduing Arhat and the Tiger Taming Arhat that regular people knew.

They would enjoy eternal glory, gaining the recognition of buddhism and getting added to the ranks of their sages, standing divine, liberated from life and death, unbound by the cycle of suffering.

The Human Immortal for those not part of buddhism was equivalent to the third fruit of buddhism. They would reach a new limit on their path of cultivation, finally obtaining the right to be known as an immortal. However, if they wanted to remove the “human” from their name, they needed to go higher.

Any higher and they would stand among the ranks of immortals, shining with the moon and sun, coexisting with the world.

The difference between immortals and mortals was like an uncrossable chasm. By the sixth heavenly tribulation, they had not transformed into a butterfly yet, but they had already entered the cocoon. The regular cultivation methods would be isolated outside the cocoon, not something that cultivators could view. Even if they saw one, they would not be able to understand it.

Li Qingshan possessed the Nine Transformations of the Demonic and Divine, so he did not actually have to worry about this. Once he gave the twelve Demon Gods a thrashing in the Demon domain and beat up Xiaoming’s mum, was he still supposed to worry that he did not have a suitable human cultivation method?

“Alright, I’ve been thinking too much. But the Sovereign’s Limit Record of World Prosperity sounds like an orthodox cultivation method of daoism. Can it convert demon hearts?”

“It couldn’t originally, but the Sovereign’s Limit temple went from daoism to the demonic afterwards, turning it into the Sovereign’s Limit Record of World Destruction in pursuit of extreme destructive power. You can start with that cultivation method first before going from the demonic to daoism.”

Li Qingshan sighed inside. She truly was a figure that stood at the very apex of the world. Originally, he thought this would be very troublesome, but it was actually so easy to resolve when it came to her. This was probably also because that world’s cultivation community had been extremely well-developed.

Then he became rather curious. ‘Since the Sovereign’s Limit temple was already the greatest sect in the world, why did they go from daoism to the demonic? Don’t tell me they still wanted to unify the world under them? And how did these cultivation methods end up in your hands?”

“If only unifying the world was all that the Sovereign’s Limit temple wanted. Because of insufficient spiritual qi of the world, the Sovereign’s Limit temple worked with nine great sects to destroy all other sects and independent cultivators. Their alliance then fractured, leading to an array of different alliances, rivalries, and chaos for many years. They wanted to make the Asura realm descend, but the Asura realm never descended. Afterwards, five of the great sects worked together to destroy the Sovereign’s Limit temple, which allowed this cultivation method to spread. From that moment onwards, everyone understood that our world had been completely severed from the six realms of sa?sāra already, so even gathering spiritual qi became pointless. By then, cultivation methods had become worthless, so even mortals could come into contact with most of them. If you want them, I have a few more cultivation methods of equal strength that I can teach you.”

When she reached there, even the Stone Heart Empress’s mind trembled despite remaining very calm and composed the entire time.

Engulfed by the shadow of the end of the world, the war lasted over an entire millennia. Most cultivators in the world fell in battle, and ninety percent of mortals had been eradicated too. That was indescribably brutal. Everyone was filled with despair until the world collapsed and was destroyed.

It was exactly because of this that she was filled with such a strong desire to survive, not just to live, but to achieve longevity too!