Tokyo: Proving one's position from behind the scenes

The man in the white robe was a young man in his early twenties. His face held a kind of unwavering certainty that only comes from someone who is convinced that he has grasped the truth. He stuffed the leaflet into Yuuto Itadori's hand. The eye symbol on the leaflet gleamed in the sunset.

"Sir, you've come at the right time. There's a missionary meeting tonight, presided over by the leader himself." The man in white spoke quickly, as if reciting a line he had repeated countless times. "The Celestial Venerable of Transmission has bestowed great power upon the leader; you'll understand once you see it."

Yuto Itadori folded the flyer and stuffed it into his pocket, forcing a smile that he thought was genuine enough. "That's great. I've always wanted to find... well, a truly powerful belief."

He himself felt that what he said sounded a bit fake, but the man in white robes obviously didn't care. He just nodded in satisfaction and patted him on the shoulder.

Tiger Rod followed the man in white robes into the first-floor entrance. The reception hall was larger than he had imagined, with a light gray carpet on the floor and the eye logo he had seen on the flyers hanging on the wall. Below the logo was a long reception desk with several stacks of flyers and an open registration book on it. The registration book was densely filled with names and contact information, all written in different handwriting.

A number of people had already gathered in the hall. Some were wearing white robes, while others were in casual clothes. Those in casual clothes were probably first-time visitors, and like Huzhang, they were stopped in front of the reception desk to fill out registration forms.

Huzhang took the pen handed to him by the man in white robes and wrote a fake name on the registration form, "Zen-in Hui". He was then led to the "Non-Organized Ceremony Area" - an area on the right side of the hall cordoned off with barriers, where several rows of folding chairs were placed.

There were already twenty or thirty people in the viewing area, men, women, young and old, with all sorts of expressions. Hu Zhang found a seat in the last row and sat down with his back against the wall.

People in white robes filed in from the passageways on both sides, lined up in neat rows in the "already converted" area, and knelt down in a mechanical synchronization. Hu Zhang counted that there were probably nearly five hundred believers.

A microphone stood on the platform, behind which was a black leather-covered lectern. On each side of the lectern stood a row of believers in white robes, standing straight with their eyes looking straight ahead.

The lights dimmed, leaving only a white spotlight above the podium.

The cult leader walked out from the passageway on the side of the podium.

Hiroaki Akiyama walked behind the podium and placed his hands on the edge of it. He wore a pure white robe, the fabric of which shimmered with a very faint satin sheen under the spotlight. The stubble of his bald, bluish-gray hair was clearly visible under the light.

"Gentlemen," he began.

The voice wasn't loud, but everyone in the hall could hear it clearly; it seemed to have a peculiar penetrating power.

"Many of you are here for the first time today. You may have been brought here by someone, you may have come out of curiosity while passing by, or you may have seen something online and wanted to see if it was true. Whatever your reason for coming, now that you are here, please put aside your preconceived notions and use your own eyes to see what is about to happen."

"Come and see, behold the power bestowed by the Celestial Venerable Who Transmits the Dharma!"

He raised his right hand, palm up.

A very faint white mist began to appear in the air of the hall, flowing slowly in the beam of the spotlight, as if something was condensing and taking shape in the air.

A stream of water gushed from his palm.

The water was about the thickness of a little finger, so clear it was almost transparent, and it reflected a cool white luster under the spotlight.

It surged from Hongming's palm, drawing smooth arcs in the air along his hand, like a transparent snake swimming in the air.

Exclamations of surprise rippled through the viewing area. Several people in white robes stepped forward, took the water, and presented it to the people in the viewing area, allowing them to watch up close. The water droplets rolled around in their palms, the tactile sensation incredibly realistic.

Yuto Itadori also touched the water and feigned surprise. He looked at the water flowing in Hiroaki's palm and was thinking about something else.

The demon that Grandpa mentioned in his dream, that Sukuna, whose fingers could turn people into monsters, and those monsters also possessed supernatural powers. Is this Hongming's power related to that Sukuna?

He sat on a folding chair in the viewing area for a while longer, waiting for Hongming to finish demonstrating the second spell and then begin telling the story of "the Heavenly Venerable of Transmitting the Dharma in a Dream." He then turned his attention to the hundreds of people in the "already joined the sect" area. He looked at them one by one, but he didn't see the face of Domyouji-senpai wearing black-rimmed glasses.

But there were still gains.

Itachi's gaze lingered on the right, near the podium, where a middle-aged woman in her forties stood. She was slender under her white robe, with short hair and a face almost identical to Domyouji's, except she had more wrinkles and a more relaxed mouth. Next to the woman stood a man of similar age, not very tall, wearing black-rimmed glasses similar in style to Domyouji's, with his hands folded in front of him and his gaze level with the podium.

They must be the senior's parents.

Huzhang pondered for a moment. The senior's parents were here, but the senior herself was nowhere to be seen. According to the neighbors, the senior's family had "not been seen much lately," and this church was dedicated to organizing group activities—two mission sessions a week, plus various missionary activities—if the senior was also in the church, it was impossible for her not to show up at the mission sessions for a whole month.

Either she's not at headquarters, or she's somewhere at headquarters that she can't get out.

He recalled the common rumors about cults: locking people in basements, tying them to beds for exorcisms, starving them until they were delirious and then calling it "enlightenment"—there were all sorts of versions.

He decided to go and look for it.

Huzhang stood up from the folding chair, hunched over, and walked along the aisle at the back of the viewing area toward the exit of the hall, using the excuse of going to the restroom to leave the hall.

Huzhang walked out of the hall, walked along the corridor towards the toilet for a while, and then headed towards the stairs leading upstairs.

He had glanced at the fire evacuation map on the first floor before entering. The second floor was the office area and the "missionary hall," and the third floor was the leader's living room and the "meditation room."

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At this moment, Akira Nagayama was sitting in a room on the second floor of the Hoshimiya Inari Shrine office. He was sitting cross-legged on the tatami mat, his eyes closed, and the golden vortex in his dantian was rotating at a slow and steady speed.

Suddenly, he had a feeling.

The phantom images of three copper coins twirled at her fingertips. In that three-story office building in Chiyoda Ward, a conflict was about to erupt between a Gold Element cultivator and a Water Element cultivator.

This was within his plan, just a little earlier than he had anticipated.

The original plan was for each piece to follow its own path and be guided together at a suitable time. However, Itadori approached him directly because of a female student, and Hiroaki was the kind of ambitious person who wouldn't let any potential opponent go. The pieces' autonomy was higher than he had anticipated. This wasn't a bad thing; it just meant that the arrangement needed to be adjusted temporarily.

He withdrew the illusory image of the copper coin, opened his eyes, and moonlight leaked in through the cracks in the paper window, falling on his fingers resting on his knees. He glanced at his fingers, then took out a withered human finger from his storage bag.

Once a cultivator reaches the Foundation Establishment stage, they can obtain profound supernatural powers. The supernatural powers of the [Ghost Metal] lineage are mainly used for sacrificial rites to gods, and also involve the benefits and strength of metal.

Therefore, in the process of cultivating cultivators to disturb the spiritual atmosphere, he appeared more often in the form of "ghosts and gods," consciously making people believe that "extraordinary power comes from ghosts and gods."

The "Celestial Venerable Who Transmits the Dharma" needs a more concrete image. Although transmitting the Dharma through dreams can make the other party believe that the power comes from the gods, the presence of the gods only exists in the memory of the person being taught, and is completely unknown to others.

Yuujin Huzhang and Hiroaki Akiyama represent the elements of metal and water, respectively.

It would be a waste for the first direct confrontation between two orthodox monks to happen in such an unknown environment.

The Celestial Venerable of Transmitting the Dharma needs to manifest himself before a wider audience, so that the undercover agents from the Metropolitan Police Department, the believers present, and the great benefactors can witness it firsthand.

At the same time, neither of these two pieces can be allowed to break in the friction—Hongming cannot die, he is the link of Water Virtue; Huzhang cannot die either, the seed of the [Loujin] sword cultivator is not something you can just pick up on the street.