Chapter 228: Years of Planning (3)

During the destruction of Buddhism at the end of the Incense Era, the high level monks of the Buddhist Sect created a desperate plan for the future of their religion.

While one ground supervised the ceremony to call a higher being inside the Western Pure Bliss Land and lure the Absolute Beginning Emperor inside, another group had another plan or mission. The upper echelon of Buddhism knew that as an Eternal Emperor, the Absolute Beginning Emperor would not die at the hand of the higher being, however being severely injured was more than enough for them.

Taking the short breathing that they had, they hatched a hasty plan: they chose someone to survive this calamity and one day revive Buddhism. However, in such a short time, no one actually had a real or feasible plan, so the upper echelons decided to find a way for a person to live long enough to accomplish.

By combining their power together, they created a formation that allows them to place all the hopes or wishes of Buddhism in one person: Shi Fuyu.

At that time, Shi Fuyu was one of the most talented monks of that period, and he was known for his vast wisdom, so he was chosen. As a result of that formation, Shi Fuyu attained a certain level of immortality--as long as he continued to absorb the power of faith once a while.

The downside of this transformation was that he was considered half dead and was forced to live in the form of a Primordial Spirit and the amount of power he could use was quite limited. However, Shi Fuyu had developed a powerful hiding method that allowed him to even hide in front of a Great Emperor--unless he arrogantly flaunt himself in front of powerful people

Only a few powerful or unique people could detect his existence. Unfortunately for Shi Fuyu, an Eternal Emperor was one of these existences. In order to hide himself from the Absolute Beginning Emperor, the upper echelon of Buddhism decided that it was best for Shi Fuyu to hide in the most powerful and mysterious Forbidden Land of the Myriad Emperor World: The Nether Hell.

The Nether Hell is one of the oldest and most mysterious places existing in the world; and among all the six Forbidden Lands, it is by far the most dangerous.

Many Great Emperors--including a few Eternal Emperors--have tried to get rid of them, but they all either died inside, were severely injured or failed. That includes Empress Wu--even she could not do anything about it.

Using the strange power existing inside, Shi Fuyu was able to hide from the Absolute Beginning Emperor--until he disappeared.

After that, while traveling the world like a wandering ghost, he tried to find different ways to revive Buddhism.

His first attempt was to spread the philosophies and cultivation methods of Buddhism throughout the entire world in an attempt to revive the religion, but he greatly underestimated the Absolute Beginning Emperor's divine ability.

As soon as those scriptures were written down, they were completely destroyed. When Shi Fuyu tried to preach the ideas or thoughts of Buddhism, he became incapable of speaking. After years of trying, he discovered ways to share his ideas, but all the people he did so to unfortunately forgot anything they learned about Buddhism; the knowledge was simply wiped out from their memories.

Of course there were a few powerful scriptures that could actually be written down without the interference of the magic, but few people could actually cultivate these techniques. To be precise, only truly powerful geniuses could cultivate them, but these people still could not pass down these scriptures to other people.

During the Devil Era, Shi Fuyu thought because Buddhist cultivation techniques were the nemesis of the Devil Race, that the Absolute Beginning Divine Ability would let things go and allowed Buddhist to rise again in an effort to save the human race from being enslaved, but he was wrong.

Nothing changed.

During those time, Shi Fuyu despaired as he could not see any hope or future for his plan to work. Many times he wanted to end his long and miserable life, unfortunately he could not.

Not because of his strong will, but because the power of the [Hope Formation] prevented him; every time he tried to end his life, the formation would activate and save his life. Then, the remnant thoughts of all his former colleagues will appear and remind him of what he was fighting for.

So, Shi Fuyu continued his journey.

In order to sustain himself and not become crazy through the long passage of time, Shi Fuyu would often place himself in deep sleep for countless years; In these period of peace, he would forget everything before waking up to continue his mission

After living through 3 Eras and billions of years, he finally found a solution:

By cultivating the [Absolute Beginning Dao Art} to the highest level, he could trace back the beginning or origin of Buddhist that the Absolute Beginning Emperor had erased.

Of course he would not just change the erasure. No, that would mean that he would have to fight an Eternal Emperor over control of his own divine ability; he was not that stupid.

After tracing the beginning of Buddhism, he would change it slightly and made sure that his new version--which was a combination of both Buddhism and Taoism--was a form of Buddhism that was not affected by Absolute Beginning Magic.

Essentially, he would create a loophole in the magic that prevented him from spreading Buddhism again. On top of that, his Tao Buddhism would have its Destiny or Qi Luck bound to Taoism; so if one prospers, the other will also prospers. If one fails, the other one will also fails.

However, in order to accomplish such a thing, Shi Fuyu needed many steps: First, he needed the Yin-Yang Eyes Physique, access to the [Absolute Beginning Dao Arts], and to become a Great Emperor.

He also knew that this was essentially impossible as Heavenly Physiques were essentially granted by Heaven and Earth, and he would never possess one given his state. 

So, Shi Fuyu tried to create a cultivation method that allows him to swallow a person's physique. Unfortunately, he failed. Due to his Buddhist nature and Dao, the Path of Devour did not agree with him, so all his methods he created were subpar and did not meet his requirement.

So, in a final attempt, Shi Fuyu tried to train a person to do his method for him. And the person he chose was in fact Mo Xingyun's ancestor, the Heaven Devour Emperor.

Just like Feng Heng, Shi Fuyu trained the Emperor from a young age; he chose a Devil Cultivator as he believed that only such a mindset and temperament was needed to create such a technique.

So, he led the young Heaven Devour Emperor to gain access to the [Gluttony Swallowing Scripture], he guided him to one of the 12 Ancestral Talisman and showed him how to create an Acquire Physique like the Heaven Devour Physique.

According to Shi Fuyu's agreement with the young Heaven Devour Emperor, after he proved the Dao, he would help him acquire both the Yin-Yang Eyes and the [Absolute Beginning Dao Arts] in order to accomplish his goals, unfortunately, he was betrayed.

Once the Heaven Devour Emperor reached a certain level of strength, he tried to swallow Shi Fuyu's Primordial Spirit. Luckily for him, he was an old fox and quickly recognized the action of his disciples, so he ran away beforehand.

Knowing that his disciples had a great chance at becoming an Eternal Emperor, Shi Fuyu went to hide again inside the Nether Hell Forbidden Land. He only came out once his disciple was exiled.

After that, he tried to find the Yin-Yang Eyes by himself. Shi Fuyu knew that without it, it was impossible to be granted access to the [Absolute Beginning Dao Art] from the Taiyi Profound Gate.

However, it was no use as he could not predict when this physique would appear. And when it did, it was already too late as the person was already taken by other powerful factions. Not to mention that he still needed a way to swallow that physique.

For his plan to succeed, he needed the perfect time where both the Yin Yang Eyes and the Heaven Devour Physique appeared at the same time. Shi Fuyu was losing patience as he had lived too long and his Dao Heart was not firm enough to continue like this--even the [Hope Formation] began to be incapable of keeping him alive.

So, he made a final gamble. He infiltrated the Heaven Mystery Pavilion and sacrificed his pseudo-immortality in order to divine the exact time that both these physiques would appear, who would have them, and where they were located. Then, he deep slept again until the right time.

After that, he chose Feng Heng to infiltrate the Taiyi Profound Gate. The reason was that Feng Heng had an innate talent referred to as Taoist Mind. Meaning, he was perfectly suited for taoism cultivating methods. Then, he stole the Yin-Yang Eyes from its owner before anyone would notice his talent.

One of the conditions to be allowed to cultivate the [Absolute Beginning Dao Art] is to have a very high understanding of taoist philosophy. So, Shi Fuyu spent countless Eras studying Taoism, so he was not worried about it. He also taught Feng Heng a lot about Taoism, thus one of the reasons he was able to acquire the position of Dao Child.

Now, all his plans have come to fruition, so he was planning for the future.