"Well then, just when I was finding this huge stone a little tasteless, some background music came along to liven things up..."
Zhong Shenxiu was using the way of object-refinement to explore the secrets of the Saint Monk’s Stone Buddha and was somewhat troubled by his own excessive rationality.
Come nighttime, the continual chants of Da Mo echoed in his ears.
He did not attempt to guard his spirit on Spirit Mountain, but instead tried to relax completely, lowering his defenses, allowing these mournful chants to drag him into some unforeseen realm.
Under this inexplicable state, he viewed the reclining Buddha with a different level of insight.
Those grey-white, stone-like patterns, were just like veins, through which an unknown life force flowed.
Stones... also possessed life!
His thoughts diverged, endlessly generating associations.
Perhaps, under the command of Da Mo, there was a group of special worshippers.
They had freed themselves from the shackles of flesh and blood and were lives born from stone, with physiological structures and social forms completely different from humans.
And the Saint Monks of the Stone Buddha Temple, by imitating this form, had obtained a Divine Power.
This could perhaps be named—Stone Buddha Unbreakable Divine Power!
"The Path of the Stone Man!"
"Transforming parts of one’s body into grey-white stone, gaining an unrivaled defensive power... and even this conceptual defense... might be able to withstand my Void Poison!"
"In a certain world, the Stone Man is seen as the ultimate lifeform, the highest mystery of the cultivation path, and the ultimate goal of the powerhouses from that world is to cultivate themselves into Stone Men."
"Above the Stone Men, there lies the realm of the Stone Man King, powerful enough to suppress the strong of all ages..."
A jumble of thoughts were continually captured by Zhong Shenxiu, translated into information he could comprehend.
However, not all information was orderly.
It was chaotic, tangled, and even contradictory at times.
"To transform into a Stone Buddha, one needs to grasp the concept of life within stone..."
"Wrong... The Stone Man Method is the ’Cannibalism Skill’, one must consume humans to achieve great success..."
"I seem to understand why some scriptures of the Stone Buddha Temple have gone astray..."
Zhong Shenxiu suddenly shifted his eyes.
On his body, unknown to him, a layer of grey-white stone skin had formed, making his movements extremely difficult.
’Without realizing it, have I already entered the beginner’s level of the Stone Buddha Scripture? But isn’t this courting disaster? I feel my flesh, bones, everything turning into stone, and soon I’ll become a stone Buddha statue...’
He blinked his eyes, and the Great Grandmaster’s Divine Power immediately surfaced, suppressing the petrification.
Zhong Shenxiu stood up and shook off the lime on his body: "No... it’s hard to tell how long it would take to master this martial art, but transforming into a Stone Buddha, the indestructible Divine Power indeed seems quite splendid. Paired with the Nine Lives Evil Technique, it can make me the nightmare of my adversaries, and I can defeat a number of Divine Power Realm Cultivators with just my physical body."
He meditated for a moment, then directed his thoughts toward the Heavenly Show System:
[Do you want to spend 50 Heavenly Show Points to master the Stone Buddha Scripture?]
After all, whether one’s body could bear three Divine Powers remained to be tested.
And one of the four great strange scriptures, the Stone Buddha Scripture, definitely held value for cultivation.
Zhong Shenxiu thought hard, and instantly felt a violent pain throughout his body.
He grunted, nearly unable to stand.
Within him, waves of powerful energy arose from nothingness, transforming his body.
Or rather... eroding!
A gray-white color was constantly corroding his internal organs, leaving behind peculiar patterns.
These patterns partially overlapped with the Divine Power Talismans formed by the previous two Divine Powers, but most of them were markedly different.
At this moment, those overlapping parts, one erosion pattern infecting another, finally turned into a messy, paste-like tangle.
Zhong Shenxiu suddenly felt a sign of physical collapse from this body.
Just like when breaking through the Ten Thousand Gu Hand, the martial arts body anomaly exploded again, and every cell in his body began to revolt.
"Turning into tiny Gu, at this time, is actually a good thing..."
Zhong Shenxiu was not panicked at all, after all, the door to return had already been opened, and if he managed to play this body into collapse, then he could just dust off his buttocks and escape.
He turned his spirit into millions of fine threads and with the information control ability of a Great Grandmaster, he penetrated every inch of his body, manipulating tiny Gu and began to reconstruct the three Great Divine Power Talismans.
Especially in those few parts where the erosion overlapped, which were of utmost importance.
Jing Fan turned his head and seemed to see the Undying Evil Emperor’s arm fall off, turning into fine sand and scattering.
No, that wasn’t sand, but thousands of ants, which kept climbing up his pant leg, eventually merging to form the shape of an arm, only it was somewhat misshapen, as if the bones weren’t joined right, resulting in deformity.
’To cultivate the Stone Buddha Scripture, there should be such an unforeseen event?’
He murmured to himself, but considering that the Undying Evil Emperor was a Great Grandmaster, there wasn’t much to say, he let the transformation take its course without making a sound.
The next moment, a leg of the Undying Evil Emperor also fell off.
When it was reattached, it seemed to have turned into some kind of animal limb...
Another hour later, the head of the Undying Evil Emperor fell off...
Jing Fan closed his eyes and recited the heart mantra, no longer daring to watch, treating all this as an external demon, to be suppressed by his own spirit.
Unconsciously, a night passed.
The morning sun rose in the east.
Zhong Shenxiu, clad in a white robe with a Shura mask on his face, walked out of the Stone Buddha Forest.
"Does the benefactor wish to eat?"
Jing Fan clasped his hands together and asked.
"No... I have already fully comprehended it."
Zhong Shenxiu smiled in response, and suddenly, his entire skin was covered with a layer of gray-white stone.
Though this gray-white stone skin was only a thin layer, it carried a primordial and unshakable aura of strength, truly the supreme Martial Arts Divine Power of Stone Buddha Temple—Stone Buddha Unbreakable!
"How... is this possible? To fully comprehend the Stone Buddha Scripture overnight?"
Jing Fan felt his Buddhist heart trembling violently, almost shattering.
It should be noted that in the Stone Buddha Temple, anyone who successfully cultivated the Stone Buddha Scripture and had not yet turned to stone automatically qualified to become a Saint Monk!
’Which is to say... If the Undying Evil Emperor is willing to become a monk, he will be the next... Saint Monk of Stone Buddha Temple?!’
Jing Fan felt like he was about to be played with, as if the entire world had become unfriendly.
’I demonstrated Divine Power for you since you’re an acquaintance. You bald donkey, not grasping the opportunity, why are you distracted?’
Zhong Shenxiu rolled his eyes and secretly pulled up his attribute panel:
[Name: Xun Liuyi (Zhong Shenxiu)]
[Martial Arts Three Passes: Divine Power]
[Martial Arts Divine Power: Void Poison, Nine Lives (9), Stone Buddha Unbreakable]
[Heavenly Show Points: 150 (22%)]
[Door of the Myriad Ways: Ready to open]
’Hmm, previously when posing as the Undying Evil Emperor, I managed to gain almost thirty Heavenly Show Points along the way, all smashed in... In exchange for the great success of the Stone Buddha Scripture, it’s not bad at all. Especially... the unexpected gains.’
Zhong Shenxiu introspected and could see deep within his flesh where the three Divine Skills intertwined and eroded each other, those jumbled lines, vaguely seemed to form an incomplete symbol, inducing fear merely at a glance.
This was the reward for his death-defying efforts through the night, discovering that only in this form did the intersection of the three physical Divine Skills seem to attain a semblance of stability.