The Secret Way of Immortality

The sealed skull gleamed with a metallic luster, a testament to its occupation by the hard-boned disease, trapping the brain as if it were a prisoner within.

Ren Qing promptly retrieved a fungal soul from the diseased tree.

This fungal soul, named "Cerebral Infarction," was among the few diseases within the diseased tree capable of directly causing brain death, highlighting the troublesome nature of collecting disease strains.

He attached his consciousness to the Cerebral Infarction fungal soul, infiltrating the skull with the aid of his ghostly shadow.

The giant Corpse Buddha's skull proved exceedingly tough; even the ghostly shadow, capable of shifting between tangible and intangible forms, struggled, taking the better part of a day.

The arrival of a living being's aura within the skull immediately triggered a reaction from the brain.

The surrounding blood vessels spontaneously transformed into pythons, attempting to locate Ren Qing's presence, but the effects of the Calamity Dissolution Method were not something a monstrous beast could overcome.

Ren Qing's consciousness peered through the Cerebral Infarction fungal soul, his brow furrowing.

The brain before him was no ordinary organ; instead, it resembled a bizarre, indescribable entity.

The giant Corpse Buddha's brain was a dark grayish color, covered in a dense network of blue veins, completely devoid of the usual uneven ridges.

At the very center of the brain, a massive single eye had grown.

Dense Buddhist energy radiated from within the brain, the aura forming countless identical human faces, their twisted expressions seemingly enduring some torment.

Ren Qing took a deep breath, then directed a portion of his ghostly shadow to make contact with the brain.

A surge of information flooded his mind.

【Yuan Zhi】

【Age: 768 years】

【Art: Maitreya Sutra (Perfected)】

【The Maitreya Sutra was created by the compassionate Maitreya Bodhisattva. Cultivation requires the approval of Buddhist energy. Upon mastery, the compassionate Maitreya Bodhisattva can temporarily gain the wisdom of the Buddha's disciples for ten lifetimes, and the Buddha's disciples can reincarnate for ten lifetimes.】

The Buddhist energy stirred restlessly towards the ghostly shadow, but fortunately, Ren Qing refrained from acting rashly, allowing the ghostly shadow to retreat into the shadows beside the Cerebral Infarction fungal soul.

Ren Qing stared intently at the giant Corpse Buddha's brain.

When Buddhist energy constructed the giant Corpse Buddha, it used the soul of a past cultivator as its foundation. It seemed this person was "Yuan Zhi."

Yuan Zhi, after mastering the Maitreya Sutra, had also been an Earth Immortal, but tragically, once he achieved perfection, he was devoured by the Buddhist energy.

Buzz...

The brain trembled violently, the single eye filled with intense unwillingness, attempting to break free from the shackles of the Buddhist energy and escape the fate of past cultivators.

However, it quickly returned to stillness.

Under the suppression of the Buddhist energy, most of Yuan Zhi's soul was in a state of chaos, only occasionally regaining clarity.

In a sense, after Ren Qing had metallized the skull, Yuan Zhi found it difficult to influence the blood vessels, effectively severing his life force completely.

Ren Qing narrowed his eyes, pondering for a long time.

His goal was to control the giant Corpse Buddha, not to liberate Yuan Zhi.

Helping this soul escape control would offer Ren Qing no benefit whatsoever, and might even cause the giant Corpse Buddha to collapse.

Ren Qing realized that Yuan Zhi's soul was the core of the giant Corpse Buddha.

If the Buddhist energy were to leave the giant Corpse Buddha in the future, it would definitely take Yuan Zhi's soul with it, so he had to find a replacement soul, thereby avoiding any potential risks.

Ren Qing attempted to move the Cerebral Infarction disease strain towards the brain.

The Buddhist energy did not impede the disease strain, allowing the Cerebral Infarction disease strain to quickly proliferate, permeating the entire brain in a short time.

Ren Qing did not act rashly; the Cerebral Infarction fungal soul immediately withdrew from the skull.

He knew that the transformation of the brain had to be meticulous, so he did not intend to complete it within a short period.

Ren Qing sat cross-legged outside the skull, focusing all his energy on the brain's distortion, which occasionally produced fluctuations of Buddhist energy.

He discovered that the distortion of the brain was not troublesome; the difficulty lay in controlling Yuan Zhi's soul.

Ren Qing had been cautious enough, but any action targeting the soul, before it could be implemented, would attract the intervention of Buddhist energy.

If he could not influence the soul, it would be impossible to change the giant Corpse Buddha's behavior.

Having no other option, he settled for the next best thing, focusing on indirectly controlling the brain, ultimately choosing the Jailer Method, "Man in a Bottle."

【Engraved on a nameless ancient altar, cultivation requires being born with two heads. The two heads are placed in porcelain bottles, kept alive with a special medicinal primer. One is placed in a place of the lower class, and the other is placed in a private school. Hang them for three years to complete the refinement.】

He had not originally intended to distort himself in the direction of the Man in a Bottle, because this type of technique only had strange objects from the Martial Artist Realm and the Half-Corpse Realm.

But in the current situation, the Man in a Bottle was indeed the most suitable; if it didn't work, he could always switch to another Jailer Method.

Ren Qing extracted the Cerebral Infarction disease strain from the brain, then replaced it with the "Soul Division disease strain."

The Soul Division disease strain refers to schizophrenia, which could be used in conjunction with the Jailer Method Man in a Bottle to breed a second soul.

He was all too familiar with multiple personality disorder; the destruction of the Heavens Above was due to Ren Qing using it to cause the growth of evil thoughts.

The Soul Division disease strain gradually covered the brain, and Ren Qing could feel that Yuan Zhi's soul's consciousness was becoming somewhat unstable.

He glanced at the outside world; they would arrive at the island in at most half a day.

Ren Qing had no intention of stopping, continuing to stimulate the brain with the Soul Division disease strain, while secretly completing the refinement of the magic treasure.

The three transformation routes of the Jailer Method Man in a Bottle were all very strange.

"Twins" was the transformation route taken by the heads in jars, the two heads each transforming into independent existences, but with close connections.

"Two-Headed" required sewing the two heads together. After regrowing the body, it belonged to one body with two souls.

"Headless" simply allowed the souls in the two heads to devour each other. The last remaining soul was placed back into the headless body.

Ren Qing naturally chose Twins, but he had no confidence in whether he could succeed.

Bang!!!

The giant Corpse Buddha shook violently, clearly having set foot on the lake island, standing on the edge of the island and looking towards the center.

Ren Qing knew that time was running out, and immediately set about completing the brain's transformation into a magic treasure.

At this time, almost all the cultivators in the Jailer Hall gathered in the stomach, watching the images displayed on the stomach wall and discussing them.

The island was actually made of accumulated white bones, and nothing else.

But when the giant Corpse Buddha walked into the island, the bottom of the white bone gravel revealed broken limbs, at first glance, there were at least tens of thousands of hands and feet.

Li Tiangang now began to believe that the island might really be related to the forbidden area.

Because only near the forbidden area would such unusual scenes appear, but it did not seem like a pure Yang God Realm forbidden area.

Li Tiangang ordered all the cultivators to stand ready.

And to prevent being unable to enter or exit the stomach world, he instructed the cultivators to transport a large amount of food to the temporary camp inside the intestines.

The giant Corpse Buddha strode towards the depths of the island, but its body gradually sank into the ground as if it had encountered quicksand.

It did not resist, allowing its body to sink into the ground.

When the giant Corpse Buddha's feet sank into the ground, the cultivators in the intestines suddenly felt their hearts beat slower, and they couldn't help but cover their chests.

Only the cocoon person was slightly better, the rest all knelt on the ground with pale faces.

Ren Qing noticed the abnormality through the ghostly shadow left in the intestines, but the distortion of the brain was at the most critical moment, and could not be lost.

He did not know whether the giant Corpse Buddha would form a second soul after completing the magic weapon of the Man in a Bottle, so he had to try his best to get closer to the multiple personality.

When the brain exuded the technique aura of Twins, the giant Corpse Buddha suddenly changed.

The giant Corpse Buddha's deformed disease strains all rushed towards the position of the neck, and even the cancer disease strains followed.

A large bump grew beside the neck, and then the facial features appeared on it.

Seeing this, Ren Qing forcibly gave up Twins, and instead chose the more suitable Two-Headed, even if there were only strange objects in the Martial Artist Realm.

After the brain was completely distorted, the second head had also formed.

Looking at the appearance, the two heads were no different, but the expressions were slightly different. The original head had a twisted and unwilling expression, while the newborn head had a calm Zen meaning.

Ren Qing could feel that the newborn head was about to give birth to a soul.

The secondary soul also belonged to the giant Corpse Buddha, but it was a pseudo-soul forcibly bred by the ability of the Man in a Bottle.

He did not stop this process, but quickly rushed to another head, the brain inside was relatively normal.

But as the brain was linked to the giant Corpse Buddha's blood vessels and nerves, Buddhist energy immediately poured into the brain, causing the blue veins to burst, and the light red color of the brain slowly moved towards gray-black.

Seeing that the single eye was about to grow, the secondary soul was about to be sealed by Buddhist energy.

Ren Qing put the Dream Flower on the brain, and used the double pupils formed by the Dream Flower to replace the single eye, thereby exerting influence on the giant Corpse Buddha's secondary soul.

The main soul could not be defiled, after all, it involved Buddhist energy, but the Buddhist energy did not have too many restrictions on the newborn secondary soul.

After Ren Qing refined the newborn head, he felt his control over the secondary soul, and then he unhesitatingly erased its consciousness.

In his opinion, the secondary soul did not need intelligence, it could be used as an ordinary artifact spirit.

Relying on the secondary soul, although Ren Qing could not completely control the giant Corpse Buddha, he could already exert influence in disguise.

This alone was enough, at least to prepare for the Buddhist energy to leave the body in advance.

Just as Ren Qing integrated the Martial Artist Realm strange fetus of the Man in a Bottle into the secondary soul brain, suddenly the frequency of his heartbeat slowed down significantly.

At the same time, the giant Corpse Buddha completely sank into the white bone gravel of the island.

Not only Ren Qing, but all the monks had the same situation, which should be derived from the different rules between the Dead Man's Forbidden Area and the outside world.

It took Ren Qing a long time to adapt.

He quickly checked the situation inside the intestines and found that the monks were gradually regaining consciousness.

But the monks' skin and flesh withered, and their appearance was like fresh corpses. They were all incredible to each other.

The intestines became very noisy, and it was only fortunate that most of the monks were used to being different from ordinary people, so the zombification did not cause any confusion.

Ren Qing looked at his arms with uncertain eyes, and his skin was covered with corpse spots, and it was blue and purple.

He cast the Rebirth Technique, and after increasing his vitality by a factor of two, the corpse spots disappeared.

Ren Qing hurried towards the intestines, while trying to figure out the Dead Man's Forbidden Area through the insect eyes, but the giant Corpse Buddha was still in the gravel.

The giant Corpse Buddha could not move, as if it had really become a corpse.

And around it were buried various behemoths, also sinking into the ground.

Obviously, only corpses can go to the legendary Dead Man's Forbidden Area.