Martial World

Chapter 1407 – Enlightenment Beneath the Bodhi Tree

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“Grandmaster Yuanji, born 2.61 billion years after the great calamity and died 2.7 billion years afterwards. He had an Empyrean realm cultivation and was an abbot of Mount Potala…”

Lin Ming quietly read the inscription on a stone tablet before perceiving the Buddhist scriptures upon it. A day later, when he came out from this Irreproachable Stupa, he discovered that this was already the last one.

Lin Ming didn’t know how long he stayed in this forest of pagodas. After he left, he felt that his divine sense had reached an unprecedented state of purity, filled with wisdom.

As he stared within this forest of pagodas for days and nights, he experienced the samsara of many lives, gaining insight into life.

“Mm… this is…”

As Lin Ming left the forest of pagodas, the surrounding scene had undergone some strange and inexplicable change.

Within the 72 Irreproachable Stupas was a pure land of ultimate bliss.

This was an extremely beautiful land. Spirit springs trickled through brooks and flowers and plants bloomed everywhere. Walking here, one seemed to arrive in a paradise of heaven.

In the skies, flower petals danced in the air, filling the world with auspicious bursts of shimmering colors.

And in the center of this paradise was a unique spirit tree.

There were many spirit trees in this utopia, but this tree was special; it immediately attracted Lin Ming’s eyes.

It wasn’t too thick nor was it too tall. It was only 40-50 feet high.

But, the trunk of the tree was like a powerful and vibrant divine dragon that grasped its claws deep into the earth.

This tree trunk was ancient. The bark was cracked and the hollow of the tree seemed to have experienced endless years before growing into such an appearance.

On the crown of this tree, most leaves were already faded away, leaving only several hundred still hanging on the branches. Although they were scattered, these hundreds of leaves were still luscious green, glistening with a healthy light like they were carved from jade.

Standing in front of this ancient divine tree, Lin Ming could feel an inexplicable peace amidst a deep and ancient aura.

Lin Ming felt something stir in his mind. He walked underneath this tree and carefully sat down. At this moment, he could inexplicably feel the aura of Buddhism envelop him.

Looking up, every green leaf danced around like a little fairy. Lines ran all over the trunk, containing the infinite charm of the Great Dao. Lin Ming didn’t doubt that even if a mortal with an extremely poor perception was to sit under this ancient tree they could also enter an ethereal state and achieve supreme enlightenment.

Bodhi Tree…

The name of this tree flashed through Lin Ming’s mind.

Lin Ming was 15 years old when he first stepped onto the road of martial arts. He entered the Seven Profound Martial House, and the first teacher he had there was a Martial House Instructor, Hong Xi.

Hong Xi had told Lin Ming about a fable he once heard.

In the legends, 3000 years ago in the Sky Spill Continent, there once existed a peerless genius named Emperor Shakya. Emperor Shakya sat underneath a Bodhi Tree for seven days and seven nights, fusing seven different martial intents into one and achieving supreme enlightenment. He had broken through the shackles of martial arts, cultivation and indestructible vajra body before breaking through the void for his martial path and ascending to the Divine Realm.

To the Lin Ming at that time, this legend had only been a legend. Whether it was ascending to the Divine Realm or fusing together seven different martial intents, all of this was simply fanciful stories, impossible matters.

He had even been suspicious of whether this legend was true or false. In the legends, Emperor Shakya had used a mere seven days and seven nights of enlightenment to break through his bottleneck of martial arts, allowing his cultivation to wildly rise by several large boundaries. This was a nearly unbelievable story. It had to be known that in the Sky Spill Continent, when going from Revolving Core to Life Destruction and Life Destruction to Divine Sea, these great bottlenecks could stop a person for thousands of years, or even their entire lifetime. For Emperor Shakya to suddenly jump through several realms of cultivation was simply too exaggerated.

But it was only recently Lin Ming realized that this legend left behind in the past, a mystery of unknown origins, was actually a riddle. The low-key Buddhist Emperor Shakya was in truth an Empyrean of Mount Potala.

Moreover, he was the youngest Empyrean of humanity. He had used a mere 10,000-20,000 years of cultivation to reach the realm of an Empyrean. His future was limitless.

For such a character, jumping past several lower realms and fusing together seven different martial intents was nothing at all.

Moreover, it was said that Emperor Shakya had sent out a billion incarnations to the three thousand worlds to experience a billion lives. Even now, most of these avatars had yet to return.

If Emperor Shakya received all of his avatars, then perhaps his strength would rise to yet another level. At that time, it would be hard to tell just who was weaker or stronger between him and Divine Dream.

Bodhi Tree… seven martial intents fused as one…

Lin Ming sat in meditation. Currently, the martial intents he knew were the samsara martial intent, ethereal martial intent, and Primordius martial intent, the last of which included the Heavenly Demon martial intent, Heavenly Mortal martial intent, and Heavenly God martial intent.

But in fact, even though Lin Ming had closed up for several years in Primordius Heavenly Palace, he still hadn’t been able to fuse together the Heavenly Demon, Heavenly Mortal, and Heavenly God martial intents.

In addition, Empyrean Divine Dream’s divine dream space and Empyrean Divine Seal’s black hole horizon could both be considered martial intents.

If a martial intent had to be explained, it was a Concept of martial arts that came from the martial artist themselves. What it corresponded to were the Laws. Laws originated from the universe and were a martial artist’s understanding of the universe’s rules.

When everything was considered, Lin Ming actually had seven different kinds of martial intents.

But, to completely fuse these seven different kinds of martial intents together was more difficult than climbing to the heavens!

This was because, of his martial intents, five of them were peak transcendent divine mights. In fact, the black hole horizon left behind by Empyrean Divine Seal had likely surpassed the category of a transcendent divine might.

To fuse them together was to endure a thousand sufferings and 10,000 hardships.

As Lin Ming sat beneath the Bodhi Tree, he soon entered a complete ethereal state.

Time passed day by day. Lin Ming remained motionless, like a sculpture in a garden.

Every day, there would be a crystalline leaf that gently fell down from the Bodhi Tree. As it fell onto Lin Ming’s body, it would drip with a verdant green.

Occasionally there would be a Bodhi seed that fell down. These fingernail-sized Bodhi seeds were completely covered with ancient patterns that weaved together into images of Buddha, lifelike and spiritual.

The Bodhi leaves and Bodhi seeds would eventually turn into crystalline motes of light that fused into Lin Ming’s body.

The Buddhist scriptures and Buddhist comprehensions that Lin Ming studied began to slowly swirl within him, fusing with his spiritual sea.

The samsara martial intent that was within Lin Ming’s spiritual sea had faded away. It turned into a pure flow of energy that converged onto the Primordius martial intent. The ethereal martial intent was also the same.

All of these changes were sublimated within Lin Ming’s soul, becoming purely lucid.

Like this, Lin Ming sat beneath the Bodhi Tree for 33 days.

33 days later, Lin Ming’s eyes flashed open.

With an incomparably loud whistling sound, a spear-shaped battle spirit the color of blue jade howled into the air, circling in the air before returning to Lin Ming’s spiritual sea.

As for Lin Ming’s aura, it suddenly exploded outwards like an army of galloping horses!

His strength had greatly increased. The bottleneck of the early Divine Transformation realm had long been shattered by Lin Ming during these last 33 days!

Middle Divine Transformation realm!

Blue soul battle spirit!

As Lin Ming rose up from beneath the Bodhi Tree, he felt as if the entire world was different.

His soul had undergone a nirvana, and his martial intents had been thoroughly smoothed out.

Heavenly Demon, Heavenly Mortal, Heavenly God, these three martial intents had fused into the complete Primordius martial intent. As for the samsara martial intent and ethereal martial intent, they had also fused with it.

It was only the black hole horizon and divine dream space that Lin Ming wasn’t able to fuse together. But even so, his understandings of these two martial intents were much clearer than before.

“Congratulations, Benefactor Lin.”

At this time, an old voice sounded out in Lin Ming’s ears.

Lin Ming perked up and he respectfully bowed. “Junior greets Senior Great Limitless Buddha.”

In this moment, the land of pure utopia began to blur. A form slowly walked in from the edge,  becoming gradually clearer.

This old monk with the white eyebrows and large earlobes was Great Limitless Buddha.

“Benefactor Lin, this old monk originally agreed to allow you to stay in the Irreproachable Stupa for seven by seven, 49 days, but Benefactor Lin has been in enlightenment under the Bodhi Tree for 33 days…”

Lin Ming was startled. As he was gaining insights within the Irreproachable Stupa he had entered a completely ethereal condition and had long forgotten about the seven by seven, 49 day deadline that Great Limitless Buddha had set for him.

“My apologies. Because this junior was reading the scriptures, I momentarily lost my wits and forgot the time.”

“No harm. If Benefactor Lin can stay here for such a long time and even see the pure lands of ultimate bliss and meditate beneath the Bodhi Tree, that is your Buddhist faith, and a good deed. Empyrean Divine Dream entrusted this old monk to help temper you and enhance your strength as much as possible, and this old monk can be considered as barely having accomplished that. Of course, this mainly depends on Benefactor Lin’s own ability.”

“I thank Senior.” Lin Ming felt a heartfelt gratefulness. He was extremely lucky. Even though he didn’t have any background at all, he was still able to study the essence of Empyrean Primordius, Empyrean Divine Dream, and Empyrean Divine Seal’s inheritances: the true inheritances of two peak Empyreans and a True Divinity powerhouse.

Now, he had even been able to grasp some insights of Mount Potala, an influence with a 3.6 billion year background.

In the Divine Realm, there were no other Empyrean disciples that were able to experience such things and have such lucky chances.

In addition, Empyrean Divine Dream was willing to support him with any resources at her disposal. Currently, in terms of resources, he was no worse than any top Empyrean disciple.

Lin Ming thanked all of these supreme elders that helped him from the depths of his heart.

“Very well, Benefactor Lin, the battle at the Bright Luster Great World has grown fierce. In order for a genius to grow, it is impossible to seclude yourself forever to cultivate into an Empyrean. You must go to the Bright Luster Great World and walk your own road of martial arts!”

As Great Limitless Buddha spoke, he waved the sleeves of his robe. Lin Ming felt space blur around him, and in the next moment he had appeared at the entrance of Mount Potala.

Thinking about it, since the First Martial Meeting had concluded, eight or nine years had passed in the blink of an eye.

In this long period of time, Lin Ming had experienced only a handful of battles. He had fought several times at Demondawn World and had also been chased down by Tian Mingzi to the Sky Spill Continent.

For the rest of that time, Lin Ming had been closed up in training. He had trained in Divine Dream Heavenly Palace for one year and Primordius Heavenly Palace for four years. After returning to the Divine Realm, he had also cultivated for another three some years.

In this long span of time, Lin Ming had gone from the peak of the middle Divine Sea realm to the middle Divine Transformation realm. That was a full boundary of cultivation that he had overcome.

All of his previous accumulations had exploded out at once.

Lin Ming’s steps moved and he appeared hundreds of miles away. He stepped on space, flying away. In the air, Lin Ming took out the Primordius Heavenly Palace that had been shrunk by hundreds and thousands of times. His figure turned into a beam of light that flew into it. Then, Primordius Heavenly Palace turned into a soaring comet that flew towards the Bright Luster Great World!

During this great calamity, there was a treaty in place which stated that besides the Bright Luster Great World, fighting was off limits in the other 3000 great worlds of the Divine Realm. Even so, Lin Ming intended to be careful. The defenses of Primordius Heavenly Palace were much stronger than those of any ordinary spirit ship.

As for how high profile and glaring Primordius Heavenly Palace was, Lin Ming completely ignored it, not bothering with hiding anymore. In jumping over a boundary and a half to challenge the Good Fortune Saint Son to a duel 100 years from now, his actions could not be any more high profile.