"Patron Luo Chen harbors many latent perils within his body. Most of them are neither truly grave nor wholly trivial, and all could be remedied one by one through cultivation. Yet two among them are like fishbones stuck in the throat—intolerable until expelled!"
Master Xuan Du spoke with calm, measured grace, appearing to see straight through Luo Chen's current state with a single glance.
Luo Chen's interest was piqued at once.
He knew very well that he had an issue within his body, but in his mind, there was only one.
Yet the monk claimed there were two. Could there be another flaw he was unaware of?
"Please speak plainly, Master!"
Master Xuan Du smiled faintly and pointed across the empty air toward Luo Chen's brow.
"A defect in your life soul is the first."
Luo Chen was not surprised that the monk could discern this. This Glazed Pure Land was extraordinarily miraculous; anyone within it was transparent as colored glass. Since the monk could see the defect in Qingshuang's divine soul, he naturally could perceive the hidden danger in Luo Chen's as well.
Even so, having it pointed out so directly still weighed heavily on his mind.
Clinging to a sliver of hope, he pressed, "Is there a cure?"
Master Xuan Du shook his head.
Luo Chen froze. "If there is no cure, why does Master believe you can offer conditions that move me?"
Master Xuan Du smiled. "The life soul is the root of the divine soul. The reason ghost cultivators struggle to attain the Great Dao is that they are inherently born lacking thirty percent of their life soul. How could this humble monk possibly mend it for you? However, Patron is not a ghost cultivator after all, and the depth of your soul's foundation is exceedingly rare in this world. Because of that, there is a glimmer of hope."
Luo Chen's expression turned solemn, and he listened intently.
"With Patron's foundation, you must have already reached the stage of condensing a Primordial Spirit, yet failed to achieve it due to the flaw in your life soul. This humble monk possesses a mantra that can help you circumvent this shortcoming and forcibly condense a Primordial Spirit."
Luo Chen's eyes lit up instantly.
"Truly?"
"A monk does not speak falsely!" Master Xuan Du made a devout salute, then added bluntly, "However, this method only treats the symptoms, not the root cause. If Patron wishes to cultivate without hindrance in the future, you must still find a way to make your life soul whole."
Luo Chen sank into thought.
Evidently, that incantation could only resolve an immediate crisis. The Primordial Spirit condensed through it would likely possess flaws, making it utterly impossible to use for charging into the Soul Formation realm.
Still, it was an avenue!
Moreover, if he could condense a Primordial Spirit first before going to the Tianyuan Dao Sect to retrieve his life soul, it would be far safer.
After some deliberation, he said with measured reluctance, "I am indeed somewhat tempted. But relying solely on such an incantation is not enough to make me risk my life for you."
This was a cue to hear the second condition.
Master Xuan Du was not surprised. Getting straight to the point, he revealed the second hidden danger within Luo Chen's body—one that truly caught Luo Chen off guard.
"Patron's magnificent physique is far too heterogeneous, and it has begun to constrain itself."
"Uh..." Luo Chen was baffled.
Master Xuan Du explained in detail, "Has Patron not noticed? The sheer strength of your physical body is not inferior to Patron Qingshuang's true divine beast form, no weaker than a Buddhist Great Vajra Physique, and rivals even the Flawless Golden Body of orthodox body cultivators. Yet during battle, does it not lack the seamless harmony of those three, even feeling awkward and discordant in many ways?"
Luo Chen's brow furrowed deeply.
He recalled an unexpected discovery he had made during his fight with Qingshuang.
Back then, the scouring wash of his source power had been unable to wash away the bizarre magic power she had left in his body, rendering his flesh-regeneration ability almost useless.
At the time, he had assumed it was due to Qingshuang's peculiar arts. Now that he reflected on it, how could source power be so frail?
Where had things gone wrong?
He mulled over the word "heterogeneous" from Master Xuan Du's lips, wondering if it stemmed from the numerous body refinement techniques he had fumbled his way through without guidance.
He had first walked the path of baleful qi body refinement, then the quasi-demon transformation, complemented by thunder and fire tempering, internal cores, and external medicines, gradually stepping onto the archaic path of cultivation.
Yet because the upper limit of archaic body refinement was restricted, he had been forced to draw upon the Gu arts of the Southern Border, engaging in the cruel and merciless Hundred Poisons Body Refinement.
Though all methods ultimately converged into the single river of source power, was it truly free of flaws?
Why had that unnamed blended poison remained separate on the outside, unable to integrate into his source power?
While Luo Chen was lost in deep thought, Master Xuan Du's gentle voice continued by his ear.
"Regarding Patron's condition, there are actually many solutions, but ultimately, all require discarding a portion of what you have built."
"Presumably, Patron is extremely reluctant to cast aside what took a lifetime of cultivation to achieve. Thus, what you need is a method that preserves both."
"My Buddhist sect possesses a body refinement divine ability renowned throughout the realm. If Patron is willing, this humble monk will gladly bestow this technique to resolve your hidden danger!"
Luo Chen blinked. "Dare I ask what divine ability this is?"
Master Xuan Du smiled faintly. "Nothing more than Three Heads and Six Arms!"
Luo Chen was stunned.
It truly was a divine ability!
In the world, the Buddhist term "Three Heads and Six Arms" had already become an adjective for formidable divine abilities.
Yet he knew that the Buddhist sect genuinely possessed such a body refinement method.
The Wrathful Vajra he had fought before was rumored to be the First Seat of Jinshan Temple, a small monastery in the Western Desert, who had made rapid leaps in body refinement only because he chanced upon an incomplete version of Three Heads and Six Arms.
Unfortunately, that technique had been fragmentary. The Wrathful Vajra had only cultivated two heads and four arms, leaving his physical body incomplete, which ultimately allowed Luo Chen to personally shatter his golden body.
Now, Master Xuan Du was willing to transmit such a supreme method to him?
"By utilizing the method of Three Heads and Six Arms, you can comb through your foundation and separate your various techniques, allowing you to retain every single one without mutual interference. When fighting in battle, your might will multiply, leaving you with few equals."
"Patron Luo Chen, what do you think of this remuneration?" Master Xuan Du asked warmly.
This time, Luo Chen was genuinely tempted.
He instinctively glanced toward Qingshuang. Though she said nothing, their tacit understanding let Luo Chen know she was tempted as well.
Of course, even at this point, Luo Chen had not fully made up his mind.
"Both of us are currently grievously wounded. Even if we obtain these methods, we cannot convert them into combat strength in the short term. I fear we will not be of much help to Master!"
Xuan Du waved his hand dismissively. "That is a simple matter!"
Luo Chen was slightly astonished. Even with the aid of a spiritual ground and miraculous spirit pills, the injuries he and Qingshuang bore would take several years to fully heal.
Yet from the monk's mouth, it sounded like the easiest thing in the world.
Under such circumstances, what reason was there to refuse?
Amid his hesitation, Luo Chen suddenly asked, "Earlier, Master mentioned that Master Huiping belongs to the Chan lineage, Mahakala to the Pure Land lineage, and that the Hanging Temple claims to be the Buddhist ancestral home under heaven. May I ask which lineage Master hails from?"
Xuan Du pressed his palms together in a Buddhist salute. "This humble monk primarily cultivates Mahayana Buddhism and pays homage to the Moonlight Glazed Bodhisattva."
***
The Glazed Pure Land was vast and expansive.
Three places were particularly conspicuous within it:
The Buddhist temple, the Bamboo Sea, and the Pagoda Forest.
At this moment, Luo Chen stood amidst that endless, overlapping forest of white pagodas.
"The people of the world dwell in a sea of bitterness, and the sea of bitterness is hell itself. The Glazed Pure Land does not encompass the Eighteen Hells, but it holds the concept of the Eight Cold and Eight Hot Hells. If Patron wishes to master the Three Heads and Six Arms as quickly as possible, the Eight Cold Hells is the ideal place for rapid progress."
A calm, balanced voice drifted from afar. Amidst shifting radiance, the surrounding white pagodas began to tremble.
Standing among them, Luo Chen was not surprised.
He and Qingshuang had already struck a deal with Master Xuan Du.
In exchange for generous compensation, they would help Master Xuan Du ward off outside foes and assist his breakthrough to the Soul Formation realm.
Since the enemies had yet to arrive, they still had ample time.
Taking advantage of this window, Luo Chen and Qingshuang naturally began to recover their strength and test whether the techniques Master Xuan Du provided could truly resolve the hidden dangers within their bodies.
One had to admit, the white-robed monk was remarkably generous.
He had not only provided the techniques, but also the matching grounds for cultivation.
These Eight Cold Hells were the perfect environment to accelerate Luo Chen's mastery of Three Heads and Six Arms!
As the white pagodas shook, a vast amount of chilling qi surged up from the earth. In the blink of an eye, the area turned into a desolate expanse of howling blizzards and frozen glaciers.
The power of extreme cold began to mount relentlessly.
Luo Chen had not yet focused his mind. Gazing outward, he pondered Master Xuan Du's actions.
*Through the probing that Qingshuang and I did, he has already condensed a Primordial Spirit and possesses a Great Vajra Physique. His foundation is unquestionable.*
*Yet without a Tier 5 spiritual vein, how does he plan to break through to the Soul Formation realm?*
*Earlier, when I observed with my Crimson Eyes and Golden Pupils, this Glazed Pure Land was gathering external spiritual opportunity. Could it be that the key to breaking through to Soul Formation lies in spiritual opportunity rather than ordinary spiritual energy? Is this spatial spirit treasure, the Glazed Pure Land, substituting for a Tier 5 spiritual vein by aggressively drawing in spiritual opportunity to fuel his breakthrough?*
Luo Chen's deductions were remarkably reasonable and very close to the truth.
Yet if that were the case, the problem became glaringly obvious.
For the Glazed Pure Land to gather external spiritual opportunity, it could not possibly close its entrance.
With such a conspicuous disturbance, the arrival of the Hanging Temple's monks was only a matter of days.
"I wonder how much time this will buy for Qingshuang and me?"
Shaking his head, Luo Chen severed his wandering thoughts and sat cross-legged on the ground. Two objects appeared in his hands:
A jade slip and a string of Buddhist prayer beads.
The jade slip recorded the method for Three Heads and Six Arms, while the prayer beads were meant for cultivating the Buddhist incantation to condense a Primordial Spirit.
Looking at the two objects, the one that tempted Luo Chen most was naturally the Moonlight Mind-Purifying Incantation, which could forcibly condense a Primordial Spirit despite a damaged life soul.
Yet after weighing his options, he suppressed that impulse.
That incantation treated the symptoms rather than the root cause, and learning it in the short term would be of little immediate use.
It could not compare to the great divine ability of Three Heads and Six Arms, which could forge a golden body!
*I want to see whether this divine ability is truly as wondrous as Xuan Du claims, capable of helping me untangle my heterogeneous techniques and govern all my powers!*
Ignoring the plunging temperature outside, Luo Chen studied the jade slip with meticulous care.
In merely half a day, he had committed it entirely to memory.
Yet it was only memorized.
The jade slip was filled with arcane Buddhist terminology, crabbed and tortuous to read, and exceedingly difficult to comprehend.
Presumably, Master Xuan Du had never expected Luo Chen to quickly master the technique either, merely intending for him to recover his state in the Eight Cold Hells as swiftly as possible.
Yet who was Luo Chen?
He had a cheat!
A divine ability was at the Tier 5 level.
To achieve entry-level mastery required nothing more than a hundred achievement points!
Luo Chen glanced at the attribute panel that had been shelved for years. With a flicker of his thought, he deftly funneled achievement points into the divine ability *Three Heads and Six Arms*.
In the blink of an eye, light flashed.
Under the Body Techniques column, a new entry had clearly appeared:
[Three Heads and Six Arms: Entry-level 1/100 (Divine Ability)]
Sure enough, this physical technique truly belonged to the tier of divine abilities.
Yet unlike a divine ability like the Wither-Bloom Dao Finger, where comprehension meant instant mastery, Three Heads and Six Arms possessed a proficiency progress bar.
Clearly, this was a divine ability that could be mastered step-by-step through arduous cultivation and physical tempering.
Such divine abilities had relatively lower barriers to entry, though their upper limits might not be exceedingly high.
Luo Chen did not care. As long as it could truly resolve his internal issues and enhance his strength, nothing else mattered.
In his early days, he had even cultivated the quasi-demon transformation; why would he balk at a Buddhist divine ability?
The moment the system forced entry-level mastery, Luo Chen immediately felt subtle anomalies within his body.
His source power still surged like a mighty river through his flesh.
Yet his vigorous vitality, the omnipresent blended poison, and even wisps of magic power were tangling together, influencing and constraining one another.
In the past, Luo Chen had insisted on total fusion, consolidating all his might into a single point.
Looking back now, before reaching the requisite realm, forced fusion only tied his hands and feet. Combing through and separating his powers was far superior.
Just then, a surging torrent of chill crashed against him from the outside.
In a physical stress response, his vast magic power immediately rose to resist the freezing current.
The Eight Cold Hells were divided into eight lesser hells, including the Hell of Blisters, the Hell of Chattering Teeth, and the Hell of Splitting like a Blue Lotus.
Dwelling within them subjected the physical body to immense suppression, requiring different powers to counter each form of torment.
This passive response happened to be the perfect mechanism to comb through the powers within Luo Chen's body. He could then use the method of Three Heads and Six Arms to channel them into different heads, categorized by their distinct natures.
The first to be spurred into action was magic power, which was one of Luo Chen's greatest strengths.
Next came source power, unconverted surging vitality, blended poison, baleful qi, pill aura...
When he saw the intensely concentrated baleful qi and pill aura, Luo Chen was quite shocked.
Ever since achieving modest success in his cultivation, he had constantly used the Great Perfection stages of the Cleansing Art and Dragon Slaying Art to purge alien auras and powers from his body to prevent his identity from being exposed.
He had not expected that exceptionally pure traces of baleful qi, pill aura, and the like still remained hidden deep within his flesh.
"Being able to discover them is a good thing," Luo Chen murmured.
He continued pushing his body to its limits, attempting to force out more lingering powers from deep within.
As time slipped by, when a wisp of pure, unadulterated black qi surfaced on his arm, Luo Chen was genuinely stunned.
He actually harbored demonic qi within him?
Yet in the next breath, he realized that this demonic qi most likely originated from the Yuantu Sword!
To think that the Yuantu Sword he nurtured day and night, while seemingly influenced by him, had also been continuously influencing him in return.
"No wonder Xuan Du could tell at a glance that my learning was heterogeneous. With so many conflicting powers mixed inside, my body was practically a powder keg. It was only because my magic power and source power were formidable enough to suppress all these disparate forces."
After murmuring to himself, Luo Chen continued drawing out his body's potential.
Only when no further residual power could be forced out did he begin the arduous task of circulating *Three Heads and Six Arms*, separating and commanding the various powers.
***
Inside the Glazed Buddhist Temple.
The moment Luo Chen began formally circulating *Three Heads and Six Arms*, Master Xuan Du opened his eyes in considerable astonishment.
"So fast?"
He had known that Luo Chen's disparate repertoire meant he had exceptional talent, which had allowed him to master elements from a hundred different schools.
Yet he had never dreamed the man's talent would be so monstrous.
In just a few short days, he had directly grasped the basics of a body refinement divine ability.
One had to understand that even back in the Hanging Temple, only a select few had been qualified to cultivate this divine ability.
Though said to have a low threshold, that threshold was premised on an exceptionally powerful physical body—and those who met that prerequisite were exceedingly rare.
Xuan Du could not help turning more of his attention toward Luo Chen.
As feedback from the Eight Cold Hells returned to him, his shock only deepened.
A dense, boundless might resembling that of an ancient desolate beast, baleful qi refined to the absolute extreme, and that faint, looming wisp of demonic qi...
"Just how much slaughter has this Luo Chen committed to accumulate such terrifying baleful qi?!"
"He even commands a treasure of the demonic path!"
"I wonder whether having him cultivate Three Heads and Six Arms will bring good or ill. May it not seal one fallen Buddha only to nurture a great demon in his place."
"I only hope he values the Moonlight Mind-Purifying Incantation, upholds his Dao heart, and does not fall into demonic depravity."
Murmuring to himself, Xuan Du ceased monitoring Luo Chen's cultivation, nor did he pay any further attention to Qingshuang resting inside the Glazed Jade Pure Bottle.
For as the days slipped by, gathering clouds of turbulence had finally begun to amass outside the Glazed Pure Land.
They had arrived!
Chapter 987