Xu Hongru was greatly astonished to find Feng Menglong imbued with a vast amount of wish-power. As the third leader of the Wenxiang Sect, even his own efforts in spreading the faith had not achieved such a transformation, or rather, the transformation of wish-power he now witnessed in the scholar before him was unlike anything he had ever seen!
What kind of power was this?
How could a penniless scholar, devoid of any magical ability, repel and even injure him, a cultivator?
The reality was absurd, yet Xu Hongru had to accept this preposterous scene. He considered the possibility of it being "Haoran Zhengqi" (vast and upright energy), but Haoran Zhengqi was not something ordinary people could condense. If all scholars in the world numbered one stone, then ninety-nine percent of them could not condense Haoran Zhengqi.
He felt his limbs becoming uncontrollable, his incense-and-fire power rapidly dissipating, much like ice and snow melting under the scorching sun. The power that the other party had just unleashed, amplified by wish-power, had become the nemesis of his incense-and-fire power!
Seeing Xu Hongru's limbs unresponsive, Feng Menglong and the little fox immediately seized the opportunity to flee through the main entrance of the Yin Temple. Before leaving, Feng Menglong didn't forget to tap Xu Hongru with the Beidi Tianpeng Ruler, but Xu Hongru showed no change.
"He's not a monster, he's human!"
"The leader of the Wenxiang Sect! That must be it!"
The two of them fled at top speed, disappearing without a trace. Xu Hongru, meanwhile, remained in the temple, his body numb and sore. It took him a while to recover. He stared, disbelieving that a fox spirit with low magical power and a mortal without the strength to even truss a chicken could escape from under his nose!
Where was a cultivator's dignity?
"I am, after all, a master of the Eighth Divine Fire Realm, and I am augmented by wish-power. Even a fifth-stage cultivator of the Ninth Realm, or a half-step Earth Immortal, would not daunt me here."
"If I were in a Yang Temple, with the blessings of countless wish-powers and incense-fire, protected by the radiance of all treasures, even a true Earth Immortal or a Primordial Spirit would not be something I couldn't contend with."
"To be so terrified by a scholar's angry shout that my limbs became uncontrollable!"
Xu Hongru finally recovered, his gaze darkening as he looked at the fox corpses scattered across the ground. Fortunately, only minor imps had died. It seemed the two had come here merely to steal something...
It wasn't important, as long as they hadn't stolen the treasures from the Yang Temple, which, of course, they couldn't have done.
He began to ponder Feng Menglong's peculiarities again. The strangest part was the report that the scholar had been conscious when sent to the Milong Casino, and supposedly unaffected by the fox's seductive incense-fire, which was extremely bizarre.
The little fox spirit was no longer important.
This scholar had to be captured!
Returning to the Yang Temple, Xu Hongru immediately mobilized the sect members to capture Feng Menglong. He also sent word to the fox Daoists who were welcoming the Nine Lotus Fox Ancestor, urging them to return quickly to deal with the corpses of their minor kin.
Furthermore, he informed the expert from the Inner Mountains, who had not yet crossed over, to recount everything that had just happened.
"Oh? A mere scholar's shout managed to injure you? No doubt, it's Heaven and Earth's righteous energy, though it's still in its nascent stage. With his eyes shining brightly and his demeanor serene, such a person, when highly focused or under stress, can gather Heaven and Earth's righteous energy through his spirit. Creatures of ghost and spirit, upon receiving such a blow, would lose half their lives; they dare not touch it."
"And you say he possesses a powerful wish-power. Wish-power combined with righteous energy, the two together, their might far exceeds the sum of their parts."
"Wish-power is the most miraculous force in the world. It can bring the dead back to life, trace the past, turn stone into gold, allow the spirit to roam freely in the heavens, transform the intangible into the tangible, and the false into the real."
"Your Wenxiang Sect's use of wish-power remains at the first level, merely collecting wish-power to expand your scriptures and doctrines, permeating them with incense-fire and spreading your ideology to brainwash people. However, the level of influence you can achieve is greatly limited."
"It's not as good as the Fire Lord of the Huangtian Sect. She can utilize wish-power to the extent of resurrecting the dead. With such power, why bother with brainwashing? A public display of divine power, and followers will flock to her. Her talent can be considered rare even among the younger generation of the Outer Mountains."
Xu Hongru was astonished. "How can wish-power be utilized to such a level?"
The expert from the Inner Mountains replied, "With your current development, it's impossible. Your scriptures and doctrines are incomplete. Although wish-power appears to be collected, it cannot be condensed; it's as scattered as dust and sand."
"This is the result of advancing without being able to internalize it. No matter how much you condense, it will be destroyed with a single touch. To reach the second level, you must be able to receive wish-power and then internalize it. Subsequently, the third level is to be able to feed back to the outside world, just as the Fire Lord can allow her followers to be reborn in the boundless void through wish-power. This is called feedback, and only then is it a complete cycle. At this stage, higher-level applications are beyond the reach of small sects like yours, which are not recognized by the dynasty."
Xu Hongru understood some of it. This meant that the fourth step was to become a religion recognized by the dynasty; otherwise, the highest level was the third.
But how could wish-power be internalized? Was the power he used to augment himself not considered internalization?
When he pressed further, the expert from the Inner Mountains became impatient and reprimanded Xu Hongru:
"Even when cultivating external paths, one must lay a solid foundation. Without a foundation, how can one build a castle in the air! Only when your sect can operate openly and normally throughout the world, without hiding behind the guise of other sects, will you truly break free from the first step!"
"Stop wasting my time here. My physical body has reversed from the Inner Mountains to the Underworld, meaning I have died twice, and my losses are already immense. Quickly find a physical body with excellent spiritual roots, as I need to undergo 'Returning Yang Escape Transformation'!"
Body escape transformation is a type of corpse liberation technique. Corpse liberation techniques, in essence, originated during the Qin and Han dynasties. As a unique divine immortal art of that period, it formed from the fusion of pre-Qin concepts of the soul and resurrection.
Xu Hongru knew how the expert from the Inner Mountains had arrived in the Outer Mountains. He first underwent corpse liberation in the Inner Mountains, essentially committing suicide once.
Normally, after corpse liberation, a master would require a considerable amount of time to recover their cultivation and reshape a new body. But he did not. Instead, he directly depleted his cultivation and brought his physical body into the Underworld, thus his physical body effectively died a second time in the Underworld, and his spirit and form were also damaged to a certain extent.
Now, to return to the Yang world, he needed to use a Yang world body with excellent spiritual roots to merge with the damaged body from the Underworld. By unifying the physical bodies and then occupying their spirit and form, he could cross the two realms and successfully arrive in the Outer Mountains.
But the price for this was too immense.
A Pure Yang master had thus depleted his realm, his Pure Yang body transformed into a Pure Yin body, with no trace of Yang energy left, causing his strength to plummet. His Yang God avatar could naturally not be used, his spirit and form were separated and no longer compatible, and his spirit refinement cultivation was lost, leaving him only with his innate realm.
However, this expert from the Inner Mountains did not seem to care.
"I have already cultivated to spirit refinement and Pure Yang. It will only take some time to cultivate back. My innate realm is also sufficient for me to become a significant figure in the Outer Mountains. As long as I succeed in this crossing, the next time, it won't be just me coming."
Ascended masters could not come, because ascension truly involved facing great tribulations. If they fell, they might never regain their former realm. Therefore, the Pure Yang realm was the highest price the experts from the Inner Mountains could afford.
These Pure Yang realm masters, whose physical bodies and spirits had been damaged, still possessed innate combat power upon arriving in the Outer Mountains. Apart from being unable to manifest their Yang God, the gap between them and other innate masters was not significant.