Chapter 57: Demon Buddha Dual Cultivation

At the border of Ning Province, in an inn in Gushu Town.

Chen Yuan had already been recuperating here for seven days, recovering from the injuries caused by the eruption of the Blood Fiend Force in the Demon Sealing Valley.

The truth about the Demon Sealing Valley had long since spread across hundreds of miles as Wei Guangming and the other survivors escaped.

No one expected that the renowned Jianghu figure, who was thought to have suppressed the demons with his own body, turned out to be an old Devil Head of the Evil Path.

Many Martial Artists who had been unable to attend the Demon Sealing Conference for various reasons secretly felt lucky to have escaped a disaster.

At the same time, many people were discussing the Youzhou Loose Cultivator ‘Chen Tian’ and Thirteen Lang Luo of the Sun Exchange Alliance.

Wei Guangming and the others did not know that even without Chen Yuan, the Demon Spear Corpse Forest would have broken its seal anyway.

They only thought Chen Yuan had deliberately set them up, waiting until they were all trapped before acting to break the seal on the Divine Magical Weapons and resolve the situation.

Thus, in the rumors, Chen Yuan and Thirteen Lang Luo were depicted as heinous individuals who watched over a thousand Martial Artists fall into a death trap while they benefited from it.

Learning that Wei Guangming had not died, Chen Yuan was indeed somewhat surprised; that fellow truly had good luck.

However, with Wei Guangming heavily wounded and the Iron Clad Gate suffering heavy losses, he likely wouldn’t have the courage or the inclination to come looking for trouble with him.

After his injuries were healed, Chen Yuan finally took out the yunling jade he had obtained from the Three Absolute Evil Venerable to see what kind of Cultivation Technique was hidden inside.

The Three Absolute Evil Venerable practiced the three paths of Dao, Buddha, and Demon; Chen Yuan wasn’t picky about martial arts, as every Sect’s technique was useful to him.

Chen Yuan pressed the yunling jade to his forehead, calmed his mind, and slowly probed into it with his Internal Energy. The next moment, a beam of light entered his mind.

Simultaneously, the yunling jade shattered, its luster completely gone, looking like an ordinary stone.

After digesting the information, Chen Yuan followed the same procedure and read the technique from the other piece of yunling jade.

After a long while, Chen Yuan opened his eyes, a hint of joy appearing on his face.

The techniques in these two pieces of yunling jade were one Buddhist and one Demonic, yet they were surprisingly interconnected; practicing them simultaneously would double their power.

The Buddhist technique was the High Grade Earth-Grade Immaculate Crystal Vajra Sutra.

This technique was the most orthodox Buddhist Internal Skill and could also be considered a Body Refining technique.

However, unlike low-level Body Refining techniques like the Iron Clad Gate’s Iron Chain Across the River Skill, the Immaculate Crystal Vajra Sutra was a Dual Cultivation of internal and external.

One would internally Cultivate pure Buddhist Internal Energy and then use it for Body Refining. Only when the Physical Body became transparent like immaculate crystal was it considered a Major Achievement.

The defensive power of a body tempered in this way was incredibly strong, and at the same time, its explosive power was extremely formidable, possessing the strength of a Vajra.

It could be said that this was a technique with almost no weaknesses; if there were any, it was that it was too steady and slow in its cultivation progress.

Especially the process of tempering the Immaculate Crystal Body, which was a matter of painstaking effort, suitable for Buddhist Ascetics.

The Buddhist technique was good, but the Demonic Path technique was the real surprise.

It turned out to be a Low Grade Heaven-Grade technique called the Tathagata Freedom Demon Secret Canon.

In Buddhist scriptures, the Tathagata Freedom Heaven is the head of the Six Heavens of the Desire Realm and is said to be the residence of the Devil King Bojun.

The reason this technique could be ranked as Heaven-Grade was its ability to freely convert between Demonic and Buddhist power.

Practicing both Demonic and Buddhist techniques would not only avoid conflict but would instead complement each other.

While progress in the Immaculate Crystal Vajra Sutra was slow, when practiced alongside the Tathagata Freedom Demon Secret Canon, one could transform demon into Buddha to increase its progress. In battle, the shifting between Demon and Buddha would be eerie and overbearing.

Additionally, this technique had an effect called the Myriad Heavenly Demon Manifestations.

The Heavenly Demon is formless, manifesting in a myriad of ways.

This power of the Myriad Heavenly Demon Manifestations could fuse with any cultivation power one practiced, evolving into thousands of different effects.

Of course, these varied in strength, depending entirely on the Martial Artist’s own power and Comprehension Ability.

Upon reaching Major Achievement, the myriad phenomena would return to one, condensing into the Freedom Demon Manifestation, with even more terrifying power.

However, even the Three Absolute Evil Venerable did not know what exactly this Freedom Demon Manifestation was.

The Three Absolute Evil Venerable first studied the Dao, then Buddhism, and finally entered the Demonic Sect.

Therefore, his cultivation in Demonic Path techniques was the lowest; even he had not cultivated the Tathagata Freedom Demon Secret Canon to Major Achievement.

This Evil Path expert from a thousand years ago had actually taken the wrong path.

In terms of talent, he practiced Dao, Buddha, and Demon without any obstacles, making him a top-tier Great Grandmaster in the Jianghu.

Moreover, he was cold-natured and unscrupulous, allowing him to plunder many opportunities and secret treasures in the Jianghu without any qualms.

Had he continued to exert himself in the Martial Dao and completely fused the techniques of the Dao, Buddha, and Demon, he might have even forged a path uniquely his own.

Instead, he was seduced by the Divine Magical Weapons, driven by greed to the point of risking his life to control the Corpse Forest, only to end up with nothing.

Although the Divine Magical Weapons were powerful, they were not so strong as to be invincible.

At least in the original plot, Chen Yuan knew of several brilliantly talented powerhouses who could look down upon the Jianghu and traverse the world even without Divine Magical Weapons.

To experts of that caliber, Divine Magical Weapons were merely the icing on the cake, not their very lives.

After digesting the techniques, Chen Yuan first went to the innkeeper and paid for another month’s room in advance.

He planned to first reach the entry level of these two techniques before setting off for Ning Province.

Furthermore, besides these two techniques, Chen Yuan had over three hundred Spirit Pills he had brought out from the Demon Sealing Valley.

When Thirteen Lang Luo left, he also gave all the Spirit Pills he had obtained to Chen Yuan.

This stuff was a treasure for other low-level Martial Artists, but for Chen Yuan, it was actually somewhat of a white elephant.

These Spirit Pills were merely formed by the Devilish Qi leaking from the magical weapon Corpse Forest, connecting with the corpses on the ancient battlefield; the power within them wasn’t particularly strong.

However, many a mickle makes a muckle; if all three hundred plus Spirit Pills were refined, they would be equivalent in strength to over ten bottles of Low Grade Medicinal Pills.

However, while Medicinal Pills could be taken directly, these Spirit Pills required the Devilish Qi on them to be purified, which was time-consuming and laborious.

Chen Yuan planned to wait until he had mastered the entry level of the Tathagata Freedom Demon Secret Canon to see if he could control the Devilish Qi and purify these Spirit Pills in batches, which would save some time… Panyang City in Ning Province, Iron Clad Gate.

Panyang City was a city in The border between You and Ning, the closest one to Ning Province.

Since Wei Guangming took charge of the Iron Clad Gate, its prestige had gradually risen, and by now, it almost dominated Panyang City.

However, the Iron Clad Gate had recently suffered a heavy blow, and even Wei Guangming was seriously injured, causing the Sect’s prestige to plummet.

Because the Iron Clad Gate had acted overbearingly in the past, many Jianghu People in the city were secretly gloating, and the Iron Clad Gate was in no position to do anything about it.

Wei Guangming had even recalled all the Iron Clad Gate Disciples from outside and temporarily closed the gates for cultivation.

Inside the Iron Clad Gate at this time, Wei Guangming’s face was pale, and the room was filled with the thick scent of medicine.

A young Disciple in his early twenties was reporting the situation outside to him.

Finally, the young Disciple said with a face full of indignation, “Master, those Jianghu People in Panyang City are talking about our Iron Clad Gate this and that, and some even say you’ve been crippled.”

“If you hadn’t closed the Sect, I would have already led people to knock those bastards’ teeth out!”

“If you can’t even endure a few rumors and slanders, how can you ever become someone of consequence in the future!”

Wei Guangming rebuked, “Not only was I seriously injured in the Demon Sealing Valley, but the Disciples of the Sect also suffered heavy losses.”

“If we don’t recall the Disciples, close the Sect, and take the time to recuperate and recover our strength, I’m afraid our Iron Clad Gate won’t even be able to hold onto Panyang City!”

Just then, an Iron Clad Gate Disciple walked in and said, “Sect Leader, Old Daoist Qi of the Yinshan Five Ghosts has arrived, and he’s brought a young man with him.”

A flash of anger appeared in Wei Guangming’s eyes. “That old bastard actually dares to come!”

After leaving the Demon Sealing Valley, Wei Guangming and Old Daoist Qi had a falling out over the matter of payment.

Originally, he had invited the Yinshan Five Ghosts to help him seize Spirit Pills so that he could win the top spot at the Demon Sealing Conference and marry Bai Xuewei.

For this, he had given the Yinshan Five Ghosts a handsome reward, emptying several years of the Iron Clad Gate’s savings.

Wei Guangming had given Old Daoist Qi fifty percent of the reward in advance, with the remaining fifty percent agreed to be paid afterward.

And if the Yinshan Five Ghosts failed to help him, these things were supposed to be returned.

In Old Daoist Qi’s view, the Demon Sealing Valley was a trap; you certainly weren’t going to marry Bai Xuewei, and that wasn’t his fault.

For this, he had even lost four brothers; he could forgo the remaining reward, but don’t even think about getting back the payment already given.

But in Wei Guangming’s view, although the Demon Sealing Valley was a trap, you Yinshan Five Ghosts hadn’t helped my Iron Clad Gate one bit.

Not only did you not get the Spirit Pills, but when asked to kill someone, you were counter-killed in a four-against-one fight. How do you have the nerve to keep the Iron Clad Gate’s reward?

Because of this, the two had directly turned against each other and finally parted on bad terms.

They hadn’t come to blows only because both were seriously injured at the time and didn’t dare to linger.

Now that Old Daoist Qi actually dared to come to his Iron Clad Gate on his own initiative, he was simply delivering himself to the door!