Chapter 113 Cangming Divine Cult, Optimizing Techniques

["Faith."]

[These two words were spoken by Han Ming, carrying an irresistible magic.]

["Kid, don't you have many subordinates?"]

["People are a precious resource."]

["With so many loyal subordinates, how simple it would be to increase your Divine Soul power."]

["Go establish a cult, revere me as a god, and you be the cult leader."]

["As long as you have them pray devoutly, the Power Of Faith generated will be absorbed by the mark I bestowed upon you."]

["Then it will be converted into the purest Mental Source Power and fed back to you."]

["With this source power, you will have higher computing power to analyze those complex Divine Art Models."]

["This benefits both of us, doesn't it?"]

[Hearing this, you sneered inwardly.]

[This Old fellow, his fox tail has finally been revealed.]

[He has been plotting for so long.]

[Deliberately restricting my progress.]

[Just to kidnap me into doing this for him.]

[Collecting faith? Increasing Divine Thought computing power?]

[I'm afraid it's to accumulate power to help him escape his predicament?]

[Regarding this obvious act of "aiding the enemy."]

[You directly chose to give 'Han Ming' the cold shoulder, not responding at all.]

[Attempting to chew through those obscure Divine Arts with your own strength.]

[But you weren't truly indifferent.]

[In fact, you listened, and very seriously at that.]

["Collecting faith to feed back to the Divine Soul... this is indeed a shortcut."]

["But why revere 'Han Ming' as a god?"]

["Why don't I just become the god?"]

[You considered yourself to have had contact with some churches and even served as a Divine Son for a while; your professional ability should be quite good.]

[You felt you could do it alone, and you directly kicked away the cooperation proposal offered by 'Han Ming'.]

[After all, in this grotto-heaven, for the people of the Mutual Aid Society...]

[You were the true god who protected all living beings and shielded them from the wind and rain.]

[Thus, a grand "God-making Movement" began in an orderly fashion within the Mutual Aid Society.]

[Combining the current situation of the Mutual Aid Society, you personally compiled an easy-to-understand "Cangming Scripture of Salvation" and erected a stone statue of yourself.]

[However... a month passed.]

[Although this matter proceeded in full swing and looked quite impressive...]

[You did not truly feel even a sliver of faith's blessing.]

[Just as you were completely baffled...]

[A certain Old fellow could no longer sit still.]

[You were anxious, but it seemed 'Han Ming' was more anxious than you.]

['Han Ming' took the initiative to contact you.]

[He probably paid some price again, mixing a faint Divided Soul into one of the drops of 'sweet dew' distributed daily.]

[When you were collecting the 'sweet dew' as usual...]

[He reached out to talk to you.]

["Kid, how have you considered it?" ]

["Thinking of kicking me aside and doing it yourself?"]

["Don't waste your energy."]

["Faith is a poisonous thing."]

["The water is too deep; you can't handle it."]

["Without a Godhead as a converter, if you absorb it directly, you'll just become a lunatic crushed by the stray thoughts of sentient beings."]

["Do as I say. The key points... you don't understand."]

["We'll go eighty-twenty, how about it? You get eighty, I get twenty."]

["Release the restraints on me first, otherwise, no deal."]

[The other side fell silent.]

[...]

[This old dog is so shameless and lacks any sincerity.]

[So you chose to continue giving Him the cold shoulder.]

[Then.]

[Refusing to believe in bad luck, you persisted for another month, modifying and copying the methods of the Heart-Eroding Cult.]

[You even tried to make the stone statue more exquisite, but it was still useless.]

[You even called several meetings with the upper management of the Mutual Aid Society to discuss this issue.]

[You tried several plans and spent several more months, but there was still no effect.]

["Fine, you win."]

[You grit your teeth, having to admit that in the Realm of the Divine Dao, you were indeed a layman.]

[To continue climbing the Heavenly Ladder, you could only choose to compromise.]

[You tore down your own statue and replaced it with the blurred divine statue of Han Ming.]

[Although this seemed to be following 'Han Ming's' wishes, it wasn't for nothing.]

[You were very much looking forward to learning the relevant core technology from 'Han Ming's' hands.]

["It's just a brief compromise. To learn the 'Burning Incantation' in that Old fellow's hands, I can endure it."]

[When the collective prayed to Han Ming's divine statue for the first time, the water-blue mark on your forehead was activated.]

[Through this deep energy exchange, you finally understood the so-called "key point."]

[From subsequent communication with 'Han Ming', you learned that the mark on your forehead...]

[Was not some simple Divine Power brand, but an extremely special "soul artifact"!]

[This soul artifact was equivalent to a precise "Faith Filter and Transformation Furnace."]

[When believers pray to the divine statue, those cluttered thoughts full of Mortal desires are sucked into the soul artifact.]

[The Godhead Laws inside the soul artifact would burn away and strip these "toxins."]

[Leaving only the purest, most original Mental Source Power, which is finally fed back into your Sea of Consciousness.]

[Without this soul artifact as a relay station, a Mortal's Soul directly facing the collective tide of faith would instantly be assimilated into a lunatic.]

["Boom!"]

[As the pure Mental Source Power was injected, your thinking speed increased more than tenfold!]

[The secret technique models that once gave you a splitting headache now became crystal clear.]

[With the support of this massive computing power, you once again began your clearing mode.]

[...]

[Time flew by, and years passed like a shuttle.]

[You served as the "God-Favored Grand Archbishop" for decades.]

[During these long years, you did not allow yourself to become a mere "clearing machine."]

[You are a person good at learning and reflecting.]

[As the supreme ruler of the Divine Cult, you watched an organization grow from nothing, and saw how faith took root across generations.]

[During this period, the old people who followed you from the outside world finally succumbed to the erosion of time and passed away one after another.]

[After Chen Chen, Zhou Hua, who once managed punishments, passed away peacefully in his sleep.]

[Li Li, who had always been loyal to you, also reached the age of over eighty.]

[She closed her eyes with one last trace of longing for the outside world.]

[Chen Liang, who used to call you "Big Brother Xu" behind you, had now become an old man with age spots all over his face, needing a cane to walk.]

[Hardly any of the older generation remained. The main body of the Mutual Aid Society now consisted of the "new generation" born within the grotto-heaven.]

[They had never seen the outside world and lived their entire lives in this "Grotto-heaven Paradise."]

[A place beyond the mundane world, a sanctuary for the heart.]

[In their worldview, this misty grotto-heaven was the entirety of the world.]

[And you were their leader.]

[Their reverence for you was innate.]

[But you did not relax your management of the cult because of this. Instead, in the process of running the cult...]

[You gained an extremely deep understanding of the operational logic of "cults" and "religions" regarding the "human heart."]

[You saw through the essence of how religion and cults manipulate the human heart.]

[Its true function is to provide spiritual reliance.]

[Providing comfort for the Soul and norms for behavior.]

[At the same time, it is a means of inheriting culture, gathering people's hearts, and maintaining order.]

[Standing high in the divine temple, you watched the believers below in coarse hemp clothes kneeling devoutly, lost in thought as you summarized.]

[You learned how to subtly reshape a person's values through tedious but ritualistic prayer processes.]

[Learned how to use the herd mentality to manipulate the will of a massive group.]

[This "soft power" of playing with hearts and driving groups was also something you needed to learn as a leader.]

[In addition to the accumulation of "soft power," in "hard power"—that is, the Martial Dao—]

[You likewise did not slacken in the slightest.]

[Since your Martial Dao Realm was bound and restricted, unable to Breakthrough in "quantity,"]

[You poured all that massive faith computing power into the deduction of "quality" and "technique."]

[Combining your deep understanding of the water Spiritual Form over the past decades, you began to drastically improve your original traditional martial Foundation.]

[You reconstructed the Coiled Dragon Post Stance, giving it a complete makeover.]

[The post stance that could originally only be used to condense blood and Qi was forcibly deduced by you into a "trinity" method that could govern Divine Thought, Origin Qi, and blood and Qi.]

[Cangming Sea-Suppressing Stance!]

[As long as you fixed your posture and stood in this stance,]

[The acupoints and yuan seed in your body would perfectly resonate with the surrounding water elements.]

[Constantly nourishing your Physical Body.]

[Your aura became as deep as an abyss, steady as a mountain.]

[And your Eight Extremes Fist, the fist technique for refining force, also underwent enhancement.]

[You had long surpassed the level of Hidden Force and truly stepped into the legendary Realm of Transforming Force, where "not even a feather can be added, nor a fly alight!"]

[You shed the originally fierce exterior of the Eight Extremes Fist, perfectly merging it with the Martial Dao True Intent of "water's ultimate softness and water's ultimate strength."]

[Now, even without using any Divine Arts or special abilities, you could throw a punch with just your Physical Body.]

[On the surface, it appeared as gentle as a breeze brushing willows, without a hint of violence.]

[But the internal force was like a hundred-fathom tsunami, continuous and unstoppable.]

[The force penetrated the body, enough to instantly shatter the internal organs and yuan seed of a Martial Artist of the same level into powder!]

[Martial Dao returns to its Origin; technique approaches the Dao.]