In the deeper Jingzhou, everything was a vast expanse of white, with vegetation that looked like glazed glass growing everywhere.
What entered Ren Qing's eyes was an extremely dense Buddhist aura that drilled straight into flesh and bones, attempting to erode every living being.
If Ren Qing had not known that Jingzhou was a unique forbidden zone formed from Immortal Position rules, he would truly have thought that the Deeper Layer World was the Western Buddhist Realm.
From this, it could be seen that the mastermind really was a cultivator from the Buddhist Sect.
Moreover, traces of civilization still existed in the Deeper Layer World, as could be seen from the official road not far away. There were at least towns connected to one another.
Ren Qing felt somewhat uncomfortable because the Fleshly Tathagata's five senses were situated between those of Arhat statues, resulting in three different sets of organs.
Whenever he received any information, it was tripled.
What shocked Ren Qing was that the Deeper Layer World seemed to be spherical, with ground in every direction, only covered by Buddhist aura.
If nothing unexpected happened, he was very likely inside Taiyin Star Lord.
Since Taiyin Star Lord was so close at hand, setting up a hidden move with an Immortal Position should not be difficult. The next step was to find Fortune Virtue Earth Immortal.
The Buddhist aura prevented the Fleshly Tathagata from seeing too far, so the Deeper Layer World remained a mystery, and it was unknown what secrets filled it.
Ren Qing endured the strange changes in his body and soul, carefully observing the surrounding environment.
He discovered traces left by the movement of large numbers of enormous creatures. Even on the ground hanging upside down above his head, he could see Buddhist statues that almost pierced through Heaven and Earth.
Although the Buddhist statues were humanoid, they bore traces of Heavenly Dao Insects.
Moreover, most of the Buddhist aura in the Deeper Layer World surrounded the Buddhist statues, clearly suppressing them, which meant that something was sealed within.
Could Fortune Virtue Earth Immortal also have been forcibly converted to the Buddhist Sect in the Deeper Layer World?
It seemed that the mastermind's methods were indeed somewhat terrifying.
Just as Ren Qing was about to investigate further, the Fleshly Tathagata began trembling uncomfortably. The murmuring continued as it desperately resisted the erosion of the unknown Buddhist aura.
He was just about to help the Fleshly Tathagata when he noticed that within the Mud Pellet Palace where he was located, an unfamiliar soul aura was slowly condensing.
Ren Qing's first reaction was that a cultivator was trying to seize the Fleshly Tathagata's body.
But he quickly noticed that the soul aura felt somewhat familiar. It should have originated from ancient times.
Ren Qing casually digested the soul, and a large amount of unfamiliar memories appeared in his mind, all of them concerning a monk called Puwu.
Puwu had studied under Xianhua Temple. According to the information in his memories, he had originated several thousand years ago.
After digesting the memories, Ren Qing discovered that Puwu's experiences had been extremely ordinary. In his previous life, he had been a monk who had only just begun cultivating, and his life had suddenly come to an abrupt end when he was just over twenty years old.
There was an obvious gap in Puwu's memories. One moment he had still been reciting scriptures before the Buddha, and the next moment he had descended into the Fleshly Tathagata's Mud Pellet Palace.
Ren Qing also summoned the information flow and examined the Buddhist aura of the Deeper Layer World.
[Dipankara Buddha]
[Age: ???]
[Lifespan: ???]
[Technique: ???]
"Dipankara Buddha..."
Ren Qing frowned as he thought. Any Buddha connected to a Tathagata Fruit Position should have been extremely famous in both this life and their previous life.
Yet there was nothing about Dipankara Buddha in his memories...
Wait, could Dipankara Buddha really refer to the Dipankara Buddha? It seemed that Dipankara Buddha was also known as Dipankara Tathagata.
It was said that when Dipankara was born, everything emitted a faint radiance, which was why he was named Crown Prince Dipankara, and after attaining Buddhahood, he was also called Dipankara.
If the mastermind was a Buddhist disciple of Dipankara Buddha, then what exactly was the Buddhist Sect's Heavenly Dao?
Dipankara Buddha was the Past Buddha of the Buddhist Sect. If Dipankara Buddha was connected to Dipankara Buddha, then it would also be normal for him to summon ancient souls.
Dipankara Buddha might very well be a fragment of the soul that Dipankara Buddha severed before losing control.
Ren Qing felt somewhat troubled. This had once again become connected to an existence above the Earth Immortal realm. Still, there was at least one thing worth celebrating: the mastermind should only have borrowed part of Dipankara Buddha's power.
Otherwise, there would be no reason why he could not completely refine Fortune Virtue Earth Immortal.
Ren Qing controlled the Fleshly Tathagata to open its mouth and spit out a damaged Strange Object.
The Strange Object soon transformed into a Gu insect. Its appearance resembled a centipede, with dozens of pairs of baby-like legs, and it moved extremely quickly.
Ren Qing watched as the centipede Gu slowly crawled toward the thick fog, but before it had taken more than a few steps, the Gu insect collapsed onto the ground and began convulsing all over.
Then, under Ren Qing's gaze, the Gu insect actually transformed into a human body, while its head became more and more like a statue in a temple.
In a short period of time, the centipede transformed into a strange Buddha.
Ren Qing could feel another soul aura gathering in the Centipede Buddha's Mud Pellet Palace, and its dull gaze gradually regained intelligence.
"Where is this?"
The Centipede Buddha muttered in a daze, but before it could recover, it noticed the Fleshly Tathagata, which looked like a hill not far away.
"What kind of demon... ah!"
The Ghost Shadow silently circled around the Centipede Buddha and directly twisted off its neck, extracting its soul and bringing it to Ren Qing to digest its memories.
While controlling the Fleshly Tathagata to repel the omnipresent Dipankara Buddha aura, Ren Qing obtained useful clues from the Centipede Buddha's memories.
He quickly figured out the situation.
Under the influence of Dipankara Buddha, the Gu insects of the Deeper Layer World would gradually transform into Buddhas. Once the transformation was completely finished, the soul of an ancient Buddhist cultivator would seize the body.
The reason it had no effect on the Ghost Shadow was that it acted entirely according to instinct. It had no soul, and it did not even have a Mud Pellet Palace.
Ren Qing did not know what the mastermind's plan was or why he wanted to create large numbers of Buddhas in the Deeper Layer World. Could it be to select Buddhist disciples for Dipankara Buddha?
But after ancient monks seized the bodies of Gu insects, would they not go insane?
Through the two ancient monks, Ren Qing learned that the Buddhist Sect several thousand years ago had still been relatively pure, and order still existed at that time.
At least there had been no situation where the souls of believers were treated as consumable materials.
After the ancient monks arrived in the Deeper Layer World and discovered that they had become a different kind of Buddha, even if they did not go insane, they would become extreme.
Why did it feel as though they still could not escape the consequences of coming into contact with the Heavenly Dao?
"Mm..."
Ren Qing shared the same five senses as the Fleshly Tathagata and realized that the Dipankara Buddha aura was becoming increasingly dense, trying to drill into the Fleshly Tathagata's body.
He maintained the Fleshly Tathagata's stability while using his consciousness to draw in a strand of Buddhist aura.
Ren Qing's heart burned with anticipation. If the Fleshly Tathagata could consume Dipankara Buddha aura by leaps and bounds, it was impossible to know how far it would grow.
Just the three Arhat Fruit Positions alone had already allowed the Fleshly Tathagata to bear enough Heavenly Dao Transformation to help Ren Qing accelerate the healing efficiency of the Heavenly Dao Crack by twenty percent.
Ren Qing wanted to absorb the Dipankara Buddha aura, but the Fleshly Tathagata seemed unable to bear the burden.
Its mountain-like body shook, and some of its flesh began to collapse, while the expressions of the three Arhat statues at the bottom twisted to their limits.
Ren Qing was startled.
Although the Fleshly Tathagata was not particularly precious and could be refined again using the same method, its growth required a great deal of time and Buddhist aura.
Ren Qing stopped consuming the Dipankara Buddha aura and simply sealed the Buddhist aura within the Fleshly Tathagata's body.
The Buddhist aura outside no longer targeted the Fleshly Tathagata. It was possible that after the latter contained a strand of Buddhist aura, it had already been acknowledged by the rules of the Deeper Layer World.
Ren Qing planned to first advance the Fleshly Tathagata to the Heavenly Aberration realm.
For the time being, it would no longer bear Heavenly Dao Transformation, so as not to affect the efficiency of consuming Buddhist aura.
The problem was that there were currently not many types of Buddhist aura that could be used to feed the Fleshly Tathagata, and he did not know whether they would be enough to advance to the Heavenly Aberration realm.
Only then did Ren Qing remember the many Heavenly Aberration realms that had ascended.
Their current circumstances were probably not very favorable. After all, the rules of the Deeper Layer World were hostile to Daoist Sect cultivators everywhere.
If they could not resist the erosion of the Buddhist aura, they might have already become Buddhas.
Ren Qing, on the other hand, was at ease. After his body and soul transformed into a Nightmare Demon, he sat within the Fleshly Tathagata's Mud Pellet Palace, which was actually almost no different from having a soul.
Unfortunately, the Fleshly Tathagata's mobility was practically zero. Although it could rely on the Arhat statues at its base to move, there were only three statues.
Not only was it slow when walking, but it also made an enormous amount of noise.
Ren Qing estimated that Buddhist Sect forces of various sizes occupied the Deeper Layer World, so he simply waited for them to discover the Fleshly Tathagata.
He wanted to see how the Buddhist Sect forces would deal with the Fleshly Tathagata.
If danger arose, Ren Qing could use Heavenly Demon Possession to escape at any time, so he did not need to worry about becoming trapped in Jingzhou and being unable to escape.
He used Heavenly Demon Tribulation to erase his own presence, then communicated with Matchmaking Immortal in the Dragon Blood Sea Region, sensing the situation of the Heavenly Aberration realms through the red threads.
The current era could also be considered an Age of Declining Dharma, after all, the path to immortality had almost been severed.
It was impossible for a Heavenly Aberration realm to be reached through bitter cultivation alone. They all possessed various means of protecting themselves, so for now, they were still managing with ease.
Ren Qing guessed that all of them should have methods to resist the Buddhist aura.
Some Heavenly Aberration realms with shallower cultivation seemed to be preparing to leave Jingzhou, but most of the Heavenly Aberration realms still held hopes for the opportunity.
It was not necessarily an Ascension Method. They might also want to figure out the method by which the mastermind controlled the Immortal Position.
Besides, they had already arrived in the deeper Jingzhou. With no threat to their lives, staying for a while longer might perhaps lead to a turning point.
Ren Qing planned to pull them onto the Heavenly Court's pirate ship when they could no longer hold on.
It could even be predicted that the cultivators who left Jingzhou would definitely tell others about it, and the forces participating in Jingzhou could only become more numerous.
The new forces in the Surface Layer World would probably discover the method of using Gu insects to ascend before long.
Ren Qing took out the Buddhist aura of Infinite-Meaning Bodhisattva and handed it to the Fleshly Tathagata to consume.
The Buddhist aura of the Bodhisattva Fruit Position was clearly consumed more slowly than that of the Arhat Fruit Position, but all of the Arhat Buddhist aura he already possessed had been completely absorbed.
The Fleshly Tathagata began to squirm. Just looking at its appearance was indeed enough to make one's scalp tingle, and it was even more terrifying than the Buddhas transformed from Gu insects.
Especially the gradually forming face of Infinite-Meaning Bodhisattva. The Bodhisattva statue was several times larger than the Arhat statues, and one could see flesh constantly churning.
At the same time, he studied how to arrange an Immortal Office for Taiyin Star Lord. In theory, the Deeper Layer World was located inside the Blood Moon.
Before long, some civilians from the Deeper Layer World passed by.
When they saw the Fleshly Tathagata's appearance, they were so frightened that their souls nearly left their bodies. Quite a few collapsed onto the ground and almost fainted because of it.
Ren Qing noticed the figure of a Merit Monk mixed among the civilians.
However, the Merit Monks' status in the Deeper Layer World should not be very high. They performed the lowliest labor, which certainly did not match their expectations.
Ren Qing guessed that since the deeper Jingzhou was a world where Buddhas could be found everywhere, the role of mortals should be to serve the Buddhas.
The Merit Monks had been demoted to the lowest level, while their innate nature was forcibly suppressed, so they would definitely become increasingly extreme.
But as for whether the mastermind intended to come into contact with the Heavenly Dao, Ren Qing was still completely confused. He always felt that the situation had already slipped beyond the other party's control.