[Will you advance to Water Snake? This will consume 1 year of lifespan.]
[Will you advance to Flood Serpent? This will consume 10 years of lifespan.]
The sound of bones colliding echoed throughout Ren Qing's body. From time to time, he spat out scarlet blood as dense scales spread across his skin.
His ghost shadow also underwent changes, darting rapidly through the guest rooms inside the cabin.
His internal organs began showing signs of draconic transformation, frantically evolving from the inside out. Even the corpse qi retreated into his dantian, allowing Ancestral Lineage Derivation to reshape his body as thoroughly as possible.
At the same time, the pseudo-dragonized limbs scattered throughout various regions had their flesh and bones dissolve before transforming into cocoons resembling beating hearts.
At Ren Qing's current level, the Heavenly Dao Crack could only withstand an advancement to the Yin Difference realm before reaching its limit. It needed some time to gradually recover.
His head took on the appearance of a dragon's, with yin-attributed lightning pouring from his mouth and nostrils.
According to the Daoist Canon, the Primordial Ancestor Dragon had originally possessed a dragon's head and human body. Ren Qing found that this half-dragon state was indeed much more natural to control.
Still, in order to conceal his aura, he reverted to his original appearance.
Ren Qing flexed the joints in his hands and feet. Both Fengdu Corpse Emperor and Ancestral Lineage Derivation strengthened the physical body, increasing his raw strength by nearly another fifty percent.
He decided to use the interval while the Heavenly Dao Crack healed to properly adapt to Ancestral Lineage Derivation.
Otherwise, once Ancestral Lineage Derivation advanced to the Yang Spirit realm, every casual movement might leak lightning, potentially destroying the ghost ship outright.
The ghost ship also seemed to sense the danger. Its flight became exceptionally steady, as if afraid that even the slightest turbulence might disrupt Ren Qing's secluded cultivation.
The skeletal magical artifact stopped several times along the way. Only after confirming that it had not discovered the ghost ship did it continue heading south.
They had already reached the heart of the Endless Forest. Not only were the trees far denser, but even their branches possessed offensive capabilities.
The branches attacked any birds that flew past, devouring them until not a scrap of flesh remained.
The ghost ship had been following the skeletal magical artifact for several months. The Endless Forest was at least three times larger than Xiangxiang, yet there was still no sign whatsoever of living creatures.
It took Ren Qing half a year to completely stabilize Ancestral Lineage Derivation, allowing him to transform into his dragon form at will.
However, he had yet to try the Primordial Ancestor Dragon's complete form. He feared that its aura would stir up the Endless Forest and invite unnecessary trouble.
Moreover, he vaguely sensed that if he transformed into both his dragon form and zombie form simultaneously, his strength would likely reach an unimaginable level.
[Will you advance to Horned Dragon? This will consume 1,000 years of lifespan.]
Seeing that the Heavenly Dao Crack could now withstand a thousand years of lifespan expenditure, Ren Qing continued advancing Ancestral Lineage Derivation.
His body expanded uncontrollably. Bone spurs erupted from his joints and spine, tearing apart his Daoist robes, while his head transformed into a dragon's.
His head now brushed against the ceiling, indicating that his normal dragon-headed humanoid form had surged to a height of five meters.
Just his breathing left the entire guest room in ruins through the lightning it released.
Closing his eyes, Ren Qing meditated on Ancestral Lineage Derivation, restraining his aura as much as possible. It wasn't that he couldn't control a Yang Spirit realm technique, but rather that his body itself had begun unconsciously influencing the surrounding environment.
The pseudo-dragonized limbs all completed their transformation.
The arm-shaped weird creatures became flood dragons resembling human arms. At their severed ends, worm-like mouths extended outward, sucking the blood of their prey.
At the same time, Ren Qing noticed that the distant skeletal magical artifact had clearly shown slight activity when he advanced Ancestral Lineage Derivation.
He closed his eyes and sensed it. Although there were no dragons inside the artifact, there was the skeleton of a flood dragon.
Coincidentally, Ren Qing also possessed the Fengdu Corpse Emperor immortal office. That flood dragon skeleton was completely countered by him. Even if it possessed Heavenly Aberration realm cultivation, it would be useless.
For the moment, he had no intention of exposing himself. After all, he still needed someone to lead the way.
Ren Qing continued meditating on his techniques. The scorched black marks left on the walls gradually faded, while the furniture was fully restored by the Fungus People tribe.
All in all, Ren Qing had spent nearly two full years breaking through to the Ascension Ladder, showing that advancing realms was anything but something that could be accomplished overnight.
After finishing the cultivation of Ancestral Lineage Derivation, he once again turned his attention to the Buddhist Position.
Sutra-Reciting Arhat remained much the same as before. However, during the ten years that had passed inside the Stomach World, it seemed to have undergone an almost imperceptible change.
The Sutra of Buddha Recitation, which had fused with the Ghost Immortal Office, seemed slightly more intelligent than the other Buddhist sutras from the same period.
Ren Qing checked the information flow. Finding no differences in the sutra's information, he paid it no further attention.
He took out **The Tathagata's Original Self Sutra** and carefully read it from beginning to end, making sure there was nothing strange mixed into its contents.
The Tathagata's Original Self Sutra was an utterly ordinary Buddhist scripture. Not only the Cishi people possessed copies, but even Wuwei Daoist Temple had once obtained a fragmentary version.
Ren Qing did not immediately use Dragon Roar Within the Casket on the scripture.
Although Dragon Roar Within the Casket had become vastly more powerful, he still felt it wasn't safe enough. Who knew whether the Buddha had left behind any hidden contingency?
Ren Qing looked toward the disease tree inside his Mud Pellet Palace. Every branch was laden with various disease fruits.
After several hundred years of development within the Stomach World, nearly every known disease had been collected, even giving rise to a great number of variants.
The number of bacterial souls had officially exceeded ten thousand and was still steadily increasing.
Ren Qing swept his gaze across the disease fruits and quickly selected one. He then used Zhili Technique to accelerate the nourishment and growth of its bacterial soul.
The insects inside the other disease fruits transported countless corpses of their own kind into it.
Doing so was equivalent to sacrificing the overall strength of the disease tree's bacterial souls to nurture a single bacterial soul. The disadvantages greatly outweighed the benefits.
However, the disease Ren Qing had chosen was simply too rare. The number of disease seeds was limited, causing that bacterial soul to remain only at the initial Ghost Envoy realm.
[Compassionate Monk Disease Seed]
[The Compassionate Monk disease seed had evolved from the depression disease seed. Its symptoms manifested as complete detachment from desire, leaving one like a walking corpse whose frontal lobe had been removed.]
Through the sacrifice of countless bacterial souls, the Compassionate Monk disease seed quickly reached perfected Yang Spirit realm.
Naturally, all the bacterial souls were weakened to varying degrees, but the damage wasn't fundamental. They would recover after a period of recuperation.
Ren Qing used this opportunity to assess the current strength of the bacterial souls.
There were now just over three hundred Yang Spirit realm bacterial souls, forming the main force responsible for deducing techniques. Roughly one thousand were in the Yin Difference realm, while the remainder were all in the Ghost Envoy realm.
Common cold bacterial souls, for example, had already reached perfected Yang Spirit realm by feeding on the illnesses naturally spreading among the living beings of the Stomach World.
The Ghost Envoy realm bacterial souls were all produced through the disease seed gu-raising process.
If Ren Qing didn't deliberately spread those diseases, living creatures would never naturally contract them. Their growth rate was therefore easy to imagine.
Of course, if he truly turned the Stomach World into a breeding ground for pathogens, the result would likely be no different from universally spreading dragon blood. Sooner or later, everything would collapse.
Ren Qing brought the Compassionate Monk bacterial soul to the Heavenly Palace and observed it for a moment.
He then erased the bacterial soul's memories, leaving not even its intelligence intact, reducing it to an utterly vacant fool.
After confirming that nothing had been overlooked, he copied **The Tathagata's Original Self Sutra** into the bacterial soul's memories.
The Compassionate Monk bacterial soul instinctively began reciting the sutra. Its disease of complete detachment matched Buddhism remarkably well, giving it the bearing of an enlightened eminent monk.
Only then did Ren Qing activate Dragon Roar Within the Casket.
Dragon Roar Within the Casket could pseudo-dragonize even foreign auras, much less a tangible Compassionate Monk bacterial soul. Its divine ability immediately took effect.
Had Ren Qing not interfered, the bacterial soul would likely have evolved toward a shadow flood dragon. But he had a different plan.
As Dragon Roar Within the Casket took effect, the bacterial soul gradually compressed.
Before long, the bacterial soul transformed from a human shape into the form of a book. Countless bacteria piled together, forming flesh and bones with a texture resembling tai sui, making it look like a Buddhist scripture refined from a living human.
Ren Qing did not stop there. He used Fengdu Corpse Emperor to perform a simple zombification on the book.
Even though not the slightest trace of yin qi remained, the Fengdu Corpse Emperor immortal office still completely suppressed the scripture. Destroying it would be effortless.
He infused the Earth Immortal Office into the scripture, causing a faint Buddhist radiance to spread outward.
The bacterial soul from Zhili Technique, the dragonization from Ancestral Lineage Derivation, the zombie from Fengdu Corpse Emperor, and the immortal office from Heaven and Earth Genesis.
Ren Qing had practically used every method at his disposal to construct this scripture. He also relied on the turtle shell's divination to predict fortune and misfortune. Once Disaster-Dispelling Method advanced to the Ascension Ladder, he could continue adding further safeguards.
To Ren Qing, the scripture had absolutely no defenses. Destroying it would be as easy as turning over his hand.
He looked at the cracks on the turtle shell. After the scripture took shape, they showed no abnormalities, indicating that there were no hidden dangers in the short term.
If the Ancient Tathagata Buddha could truly revive within the Stomach World, which possessed an entirely different Heavenly Dao, then the monks in the outside world who recited The Tathagata's Original Self Sutra would long ago have become vessels for his reincarnation.
Unlike the previous time, when an infant crawled out of the scripture, this new entity developed at an extremely slow pace.
The book twisted continuously. Fungal flesh proliferated and accumulated into a writhing mass, its appearance bearing not the slightest resemblance to a Buddha.
Ren Qing summoned the information flow.
[Fleshly Tathagata Buddha]
[Condensed by Ren Qing. Can absorb Buddhist qi to advance and contain endless karmic flames.]
Ren Qing stared at the indescribable lump of flesh before him. It was difficult to associate it with the Ancient Tathagata Buddha. The longer he looked, the more grotesque it appeared.
If his guess was correct, this was the product of a failed attempt to give birth to a Buddhist Position.
But to Ren Qing, the Fleshly Tathagata Buddha was even more useful than the Tathagata Buddha Position. At the very least, it wouldn't contain some unknown hidden contingency.
He took out a strand of Sitting-Deer Arhat's Buddhist qi. The Fleshly Buddha immediately became restless.
However, the Fleshly Buddha could only move by wriggling its flesh, so slowly that the movement was nearly imperceptible. In the end, Ren Qing simply tossed the Buddhist qi beside it.
Crunch... crunch...
The Fleshly Buddha emitted the sound of chewing as the Buddhist qi was gradually absorbed.
Its flesh began growing, and its aura barely rose to the Martial Practitioner realm. A blurry face of the Sitting-Deer Arhat then emerged on its surface, wearing an expression of despair and madness that sent chills down one's spine.
Ren Qing checked the true Sitting-Deer Fruit Position within the Little Leiyin Temple of the Longevity Restricted Zone.
The genuine Sitting-Deer Fruit Position showed no abnormalities whatsoever, as though the two had absolutely no connection.
He fed the Fleshly Buddha Buddhist qi from other Fruit Positions, but the Fleshly Buddha ignored them entirely.
The thought transmitted by the Fleshly Buddha was that it would not stop until it was completely full from Sitting-Deer Buddhist qi. Only then would its strength likely increase.
Through the Fleshly Buddha, Ren Qing could absorb and release Heavenly Dao assimilation, but with only Martial Practitioner realm strength, it was nothing more than a drop in the bucket.
He opened up a Western Buddhist Realm within the Heavenly Palace specifically for the Fleshly Buddha. It became one of the Heavenly Dao's primary objects of attention and was monitored at all times.
As for how far the Fleshly Buddha could ultimately grow, even Ren Qing couldn't say.
He only hoped that before it finished devouring the available Buddhist qi, it would reach the Yang Spirit realm. At that point, he could try allowing it to contain Heavenly Dao assimilation.
In the end, the Fleshly Buddha might very well become a mass of flesh covered with countless Buddha faces, making it even more sinister than the Buddhas of the outside world.