To ascend as an Immortal, one must go through three steps: cultivate until the Peak of Tribulation Transcendence, overcome the Immortal Ascension Tribulation, and transform all their Spiritual Qi into Immortal Power. The Immortal Ascension Tribulation could never be faced quietly.
It could not be crossed within an ordinary Secret Realm either—unless the Secret Realm’s rank was high enough, the Immortal Tribulation would not even descend. Immortal Power was certainly refined from Spiritual Qi, yet how that refinement was accomplished, no one knew.
That was the very foundation of existence in the Immortal Realm, a truth that even Immortal Elder Changcun could not have comprehended.
“Old Buddha,” Jiang Li said, “tell me, how did you become an Immortal?”
Within the restrained radiance of the Old Buddha of Mount Sumeru, his fleshly body appeared full and vibrant. The lifespan of one in the Tribulation Transcendence Stage was ten thousand years—by all reason he should have been an old man nearing the end, yet his bearing was bright and spirited, as though there were countless years ahead.
Jiang Li had read many ancient texts describing Immortals, and he had personally met Immortal Elder Changcun and Red Dust Fairy—both true Immortals. From a single glance, he could see that the Old Buddha of Mount Sumeru had indeed attained true Immortality.
An Immortal who had not gone to the Immortal Realm, but had instead achieved Immortality within the Nine Provinces. Even if he had not personally witnessed the Old Buddha’s condition, Jiang Li had already been eighty percent certain that the hidden manipulator behind all the recent events was this very man.
When he had first encountered that Spirit Transformation old man from the Divine Repository Cult, the hidden hand, sensing that things were going awry, had gone to the Heavenly Origin Dynasty and slain General Che Wu.
For the hidden manipulator to observe everything happening beside Jiang Li and yet remain undetected proved that he was proficient in the Dao of Space. Ji Kongkong had said that the mysterious assailant had appeared behind General Che Wu without the slightest warning and killed him in one move.
This meant that the hidden one was either a Peak Union Stage expert or had already reached the Tribulation Transcendence Stage. Later, that same hand guided him and Ji Kongkong to the Secret Realm of the Divine Repository Cult, collapsing the Realm at just the right moment—each plot calculated with uncanny precision.
Only someone deeply familiar with Jiang Li’s ways could have made such predictions. The Old Buddha of Mount Sumeru was the second oldest being in the Nine Provinces. Jiang Li had consulted him many times—about cultivation matters, about the temperaments of past Human Emperors, about searching for the Immortal Realm, even about the System‑generated portals connecting to other worlds…
Moreover, the teachings and evangelism methods of the Divine Repository Cult were far too polished—clearly the work of one intimately familiar with the art of proselytizing. Jiang Li had also met Sun Yuan and heard from Yu Yin about the battle with General Divine Might.
Neither of those two had displayed spatial abilities, showing they were strangers to the Dao of Space. Yet the Absolute Spirit Extermination Formation had occupied a space perfectly parallel to the Nine Provinces—how could that be, unless the mastermind was versed in spatial arts?
All these clues pointed toward two types of possibilities: either an unfamiliar Tribulation Transcendence expert skilled in Spatial Dao, or an Extraterrestrial Heavenly Demon who had infiltrated the Nine Provinces. Thus, Jiang Li had concluded that the Old Buddha was eighty percent likely to be the culprit.
Now that he had witnessed with his own eyes the Old Buddha’s ascension to Immortality, that eighty percent rose to a perfect certainty. Jiang Li recalled that during the second ritual of the Divine Repository Cult, when several High Priests worked together to kill a Spirit Transformation cultivator, they had divided the merit equally among themselves.
Back then, he had wondered: if one aids in murder, could they still gain merit? Or from another angle—each time a cultist kills someone, does the Cult Master also gain a portion of that merit? That had only been conjecture at the time.
But after he had met Sun Yuan and now stood before the Old Buddha, he understood everything. The Cult Master indeed shared in the merit from all followers, and the majority share went to him. The Power of Virtue could turn decay into miracles—it could even forcibly transform Spiritual Qi into Immortal Power.
“Jiang Benefactor, you jest,” said the Old Buddha with a faint smile, admitting openly to his Immortal status.
His disciples, seated beneath him, were in uproar, and even the monk he favored most, Buddha Child Wuzhi, was astonished. Jiang Li stepped forward slowly. His momentum rose with each step, sharp like a spear piercing through the firmament.
“I know, Old Buddha, that you have fought against Heavenly Demons many times and achieved great merits for the world. You have indeed done a vast number of good deeds. Yet I would know—were there truly merits descending from Heaven for all these deeds?”
The disciples of the Buddhist sect looked at Jiang Li’s formidable bearing and quickly parted to clear the way. None of them understood what was happening. When had the Old Buddha achieved Immortality, and why was the Human Emperor now furious?
“To save countless lives is boundless merit. Why ask what you already know?”
The Old Buddha joined his palms together, his voice calm.
“Benefactor,” he continued, “since you know the Dharma, then look at me. Do I bear even half a trace of karmic sin?”
His expression was complex—somewhere between smiling and weeping. All who studied the Dharma understood that to cultivate Buddhism, one must perform good deeds and accumulate virtue, never slaying innocents.
Otherwise, one would be burdened with immense karmic force, their heart burned by the Red Lotus Karmic Flame, suffering unbearable pain, a torment that could only be eased through immense acts of benevolence. The previous Buddha Child had, through carelessness, slaughtered countless mortals.
The karmic force devoured his soul; in the end, he turned from Buddha to demon, falling into the Demonic Path.
“Benefactor,” the Old Buddha said softly, “the Heavens have changed—the Heavenly Dao itself has become the Demonic Path.”
Jiang Li fell silent. He wanted to refute the Old Buddha, yet no words came to him.
“Why does one seek to ascend as an Immortal?” the Old Buddha asked, faintly smiling.
That smile carried a trace of silent mockery—of Jiang Li, perhaps, or perhaps of himself.
“Jiang Benefactor, if I did not become an Immortal, I would have three years of lifespan left. I do not wish to die.”
“Does Buddhism not teach of karmic cause and effect across past and future lives?”
Jiang Li pressed.
“If you perform good deeds in this life, in the next you shall be reborn in the Heavenly Path. Old Buddha, have you not transcended life and death?”
The Old Buddha’s composure shattered. He rose abruptly from his lotus seat, no longer in meditation posture. His tall frame, nearly two meters in height, radiated fierce power.
“Next life, next life, next life! Of course I have not transcended life and death! “In the next life, I forget all of this.
Even if I am reborn in the Heavenly Path, basking in bliss, what meaning does that have? In this life, I die—die completely! “Why must I perform good deeds for some future self?
What of me in this life—what am I to do? Is the meaning of my current existence only to serve the next life?
“Jiang Li, answer me!”
The monks around them were dumbstruck. None had ever seen the Old Buddha so lost, so unhinged. Buddha Child Wuzhi pressed his palms together, lips trembling.
His senior brother leaned closer to listen, and to his shock, realized Wuzhi was quietly chanting the Rebirth Mantra!
“If you live only for this life,”Jiang Li’s voice was calm but cold,“then bear the fruit of these nine million souls.”
Finally, he understood why the Old Buddha had forced Sun Yuan to activate the Absolute Spirit Extermination Formation. Logically, the Old Buddha could have retreated elsewhere, abandoned the Divine Repository Cult, and started anew. He had no time left.
Jiang Li spoke as he walked, stopping at last before the Old Buddha, looking up at this elder he had once respected deeply.
“Old Buddha, no one wishes to die. But the nine million citizens of Heavenly Origin did not wish to die either.”
“So it is truly as I thought.”
The Old Buddha sighed in resignation.
“Jiang Li, do you know why—after I learned the method of harvesting Merit Power from the Extraterrestrial Heavenly Demons—I did not tell you? Because you and I walk different paths in our hearts.”
“A true Buddha sacrifices himself to save all beings,”he murmured.
“That, I cannot do. Only you Human Emperors can.”
Beneath the land of the Kindness Realm, the golden swastika radiated dazzling light. The entire nation of the Kindness Realm shrank rapidly until it rested within the Old Buddha’s palm. Within that golden country, all its people vanished without a trace.
This was the very feat that even the Great Dream Lay Scholar had failed to achieve. The Kindness Realm had never truly existed—the people within it were mere phantoms. Yet these illusions were so real in texture and sensation that they were indistinguishable from reality itself.
Even a Union Stage cultivator could not discern them. A Buddhist divine art blending the Dao of Illusion and the Dao of Space—The Buddha Kingdom in the Palm!
(End of Chapter)