Wanfa Daojun, starting from the Little Cloud and Rain Technique

Chapter 856 The Trail of Shi Xiu

The next day, Ji An flew over the edge of the Shenmu Sect, looking down at the verdant mountains and gazing at this most prestigious sect in the Central Continent.

In terms of combat strength, the Divine Wood Sect may not be the most powerful, but it is always a top sect in the Central Continent.

They possess the largest number of Nascent Soul and Golden Core cultivators, and have the most powerful logistical support in the Central Continent.

The Divine Tree Sect boasts the largest number of high-grade spiritual trees among all sects in the Central Continent. It cultivates a large number of spiritual herbs and plants, possesses the most powerful team of spiritual farmers and alchemists, and has also made significant achievements in beast taming and puppetry. It collaborates with all Nascent Soul sects.

This can be said to be the kind of sect that Jinling Sect wants to become in the future, a sect that uses Lingnong as its foundation to support its glory.

Many sects have experienced periods of rise and fall, but the Shenmu Sect has always maintained its prosperity.

Ji An has always believed that only resource-producing sects can survive and develop in the long run. From the records in the ancient books, it can be seen that most of the sects in the True Demon Tribulation were resource-consuming sects.

The Tianhe Sword Sect, Juque Sword Sect, Lingxu Palace, and other sects were once extremely powerful, but they were all besieged and exhausted during the True Demon Calamity.

The sun was shining brightly, but a thin mist covered the mountains, a special effect of the Divine Wood Sect's protective mountain formation.

Although Ji An possessed sharp eyes that could pierce through thick fog, he could only barely see the situation in the mountains and forests through the thin fog. Clearly, there were changes hidden within this thin fog that he was unaware of.

Bright light from several mountain ridges dazzled his eyes; the density of high-level spiritual plants here was comparable to that of the Gourd World.

There was a tall spiritual tree that was particularly eye-catching. It was too far away for Ji An to see clearly. It was a tree that was entirely green, and he roughly estimated that it was at least fifty feet tall.

The leaves should be long and narrow like willow leaves, but the shimmering light made it difficult for him to see clearly, though they were much longer than willow leaves.

Ji An felt that this spirit tree had reached the top-grade level of the fourth rank because the aura it emitted surpassed that of the Gathering Yuan Tree, which was a high-grade level of the fourth rank spirit tree.

The higher the grade of the spirit tree, the fewer fruits it produces, and the longer it takes for the fruits to mature. However, if the spirit tree reaches a certain age, the number of fruits it produces will gradually increase.

This phenomenon only occurs when a tree is at least tens of thousands of years old, and many fourth-tier spiritual plants cannot even reach that age. This is an exclusive benefit of top-tier spiritual trees.

The Juyuan Tree is currently only about seven thousand years old, and it will take a long time to reach that level.

Fortunately, the improvement of the spiritual vein's grade and the enhancement of the spell's effect can accelerate the aging of the accumulated spiritual wood, and he will always be able to wait until the day when the Gathering Yuan Tree is at its most prosperous.

"The Shenmu Sect has accumulated at least two hundred thousand years of experience."

Ji An sighed, urged the auspicious five-colored clouds to quickly pass through the outer circle of the mountain-protecting formation, and flew rapidly northward.

Once his cultivation reaches the ninth level of the Nascent Soul stage, he will definitely come here to exchange ideas with the cultivators of the Divine Wood Sect, exchange for high-grade spiritual plants, and share his experiences in cultivating spiritual trees.

The reason for waiting until the ninth level of the Nascent Soul stage is to avoid the situation of "big stores bullying customers" as much as possible. Only with equal strength can one obtain the right to fair trade.

A month later, auspicious five-colored clouds descended upon the summit of Chaoyang Peak.

Ji An stepped into the Wuji Hall and saw Lin Jiuxiao approaching with a wary expression, which puzzled him.

"What happened?"

He sensed that the other person was extremely nervous and could feel their heart rate increasing, which was very abnormal.

The other party is the sect leader, who has weathered many storms and should not be in this situation while overseeing the sect.

"So it's the True Lord who has returned. Please sit down and let's talk."

After the two sat down, Lin Jiuxiao's expression relaxed, and he said:

"This year we discovered that some Buddhist cultivators had entered the area controlled by the sect. True Monarch Haoran and True Monarch Wuyue went out to search for the enemy, but they were unable to find them."

Later, a large-scale search was launched, and it was discovered that many ordinary people had begun to enshrine Buddha statues in their homes.

We arrested and interrogated ordinary people, and found that they were brainwashed and fanatically promoted a distorted belief, saying that they wanted to build temples and sculpt golden statues of Buddha.

We were forced to perform soul searches on these people, but we obtained little useful information, and we still cannot locate the lurking enemy.

He carefully explained the information he had gathered, and then said:
"The sect's previous precautions worked, and they discovered Shi Xiu in time, but by the time they went to capture him, they had lost track of the enemy."

Only three days had passed between discovery and arrest, yet over a thousand ordinary people had been brainwashed. It was unknown how the enemy had distorted their reason, or how they had evaded the search.

He looked at Ji An with hopeful eyes. Over the years, no matter what situation they faced, Ji An always managed to break through. He had blind faith in him.

Where were the Buddhist monks first discovered?

Ji An's eyebrows furrowed tightly, and his expression became serious; the worst had happened.

If we were to confront the Buddhist practitioners head-on, no matter how difficult the situation, we would know where to focus our efforts and how to break through the impasse.

However, since Shi Xiu is not confronting the cultivators directly, all the pressure is now on the cultivators.

Buddhist practitioners influence ordinary people in ways they are unaware of, and preventing this influence is of paramount importance.

Furthermore, are there even more deeply hidden brainwashed individuals who haven't been discovered? These lurking individuals are even more dangerous. If this is true for mortals, then those low-level cultivators are certainly no better off.

Lin Jiuxiao took out a yellow jade slip and handed it over, "True Lord, please take a look. The place where Shi Xiu was first discovered is five thousand miles northeast of the sect. The location has been marked with a red dot."

Furthermore, the yellowish-brown area is where the mortals who worshipped the Buddha statues were found; this was a gathering place for mortals, home to nearly a million people.

In order to quickly restore the population and obtain a continuous stream of new blood to join the cultivation world, the Golden Spirit Sect and its various vassal forces all adopted the method of "breeding".

Low-grade spirit rice is widely cultivated to stabilize and accelerate the physical development of teenagers. As long as these people are fertile, they do not need to work; they only need to keep creating babies.

This approach has yielded remarkable results, with the population recovering extremely quickly.

Ji An extended his divine sense to examine the information in the map jade slip and found that the center of the yellowish-brown area was marked with a red dot.

This area is a relatively flat valley where a market town was built, and a large city was established around the market town. The only good news is that the market town is outside the danger zone.

"How are you handling this so far?"

"The valley we have sealed off is strictly off-limits to all."

At the same time, a large number of puppets and low-level cultivators were deployed to conduct a thorough search, with the Five Sacred Mountains True Monarch and the Vast Righteousness True Monarch overseeing the operation.

Lin Jiuxiao gave a wry smile and continued:

"It's a clumsy method, but we don't have a better option for the time being."

He knew in his heart that the matter would likely end without any resolution, because the infiltrated enemy had probably already left the target area, leaving only a mess behind.

Unless the troublemaker Shi Xiu is captured, the entire Western Continent is in danger.

Ji An pondered for a moment and asked:
"Have you tried any other methods?"

"Yes, Junior Brother Yun Qianhe from the Array Formation Hall has proposed an idea."

He said that since we have a spirit-testing plate to measure the strength of spiritual power, we can definitely develop a method to test the power of the vows of the practitioner.

We are studying the confiscated Buddha statues and trying to find a suitable method to test the energy emanating from them.

If it can be successfully developed, it will at least be easy to identify who has had their mind distorted by Buddhism and where there are enshrined Buddha statues.

The Talisman Maker's Hall is researching talismanic water, intending to use it to distinguish between normal people and those with distorted minds.

The Beast Taming Hall believes that Shi Xiu and those with twisted minds must possess a scent that we cannot detect. They are planning to cultivate demonic beasts capable of detecting this scent; now it remains to be seen whether time is on their side.

Lin Jiuxiao said that after the incident, everyone pooled their wisdom and efforts and quickly came up with a solution, but what they lacked was time.

If the Buddhist sects continue their crimes across the country, they will be constantly on the run, and it is very likely that the population accumulated over a century will be "contaminated" by the Buddhist sects.

Now that True Monarch Xuanqing has returned to the sect, he feels that the sect has some leverage to stall.

“Good idea, a very good approach. The Buddhist practitioners cultivate their vows, which we can understand as a special kind of spiritual energy that can certainly be detected.”

"I'm currently stationed at the sect, so if similar situations are discovered in other areas, I can provide immediate support."

Ji An believes that spiritual energy, willpower, including demonic energy and monster energy, are essentially all forms of energy. Since they are forms of energy, there are ways to detect energy leaks.

He was pleased with the sect's current state, where they could quickly come up with ways to deal with difficulties.

The effects are not yet clear, but this positive attitude is commendable.

Lin Jiuxiao let out a long sigh of relief, revealing a long-lost smile. He felt a great release from the pent-up emotions of the past few days.
"With the True Lord in charge, time is on our side."

The sect's strongest members returned to the Western Continent, giving them confidence even when facing enemies at the late Nascent Soul stage.

"As long as we can locate the Buddhist monks, annihilating them will not be a problem."

Ji An said calmly that he was not worried about fighting head-on, but he was worried that those Buddhist cultivators would only move underground like rats in a gutter, which would cause huge damage, and he couldn't find a good way to deal with them.

If the Formation Hall or Beast Taming Hall makes progress in their research, and with the sect releasing a large number of flying puppets, the difficulty of finding Shi Xiu will be greatly reduced.

After discussing the current situation in the Western Continent, Ji An asked in a deep voice:

"Did Zeye mention when the sect's Yin Vein will be able to advance in rank?"

This was his biggest concern. Whenever the Daoist essence within the stone tortoise diminished, a sense of urgency would rise in his heart.

If he has enough Daoist essence, his combat power will soar again. In that case, he will immediately upgrade all his Daoist seeds to the Earth-grade level, and the power of the Golden Light of the Earth and the Chaos Five Elements Thunder will inevitably increase greatly.

After the Dao Seed is upgraded, the power of the related spells will be enhanced, and the mana consumption will be reduced, improving his combat power in all aspects.

(End of this chapter)