Chapter 516: The Buddha - 516
A truly uncountable number of years passed as Zhou Fan thought. In the end, time began to move again as if nothing had happened. Nobody could sense that anything had happened at all.
Zhou Fan sighed as he sat down. He did not have an answer as to how to advance. In the end, he could only think of a few ways to find a way.
He needed to make new paths. His path, and the path of the rest of the universe, was cultivation. Progenitor Ke represented a slight difference, but it was still cultivation in the end.
What he needed was a new path to growth, one different from cultivation. In fact, he needed not just one, but many. The issue was, creating paths artificially was not going to help. He had spent countless years thinking, and almost everything he could possibly think of had been thought.
In order for new paths to experience true difference, Zhou Fan could not be the one to traverse them. Besides, he was meant for cultivation. On other paths, he may not even grow that fast.
This could of course be overridden by his power of cultivation, but once again, that would be artificial growth.
The first thing to do would be to create the path. There was nobody in this universe that had the potential to do such a thing. Even Zhou Fan's creation of his path was more or less a freak accident.
Zhou Fan would like to do it himself, but he faced the same problem as before. It would be artificial. He couldn't break through like this.
In order to breakthrough, he needed someone, at least one person, like him.
And to do that, he would have to once again get involved with the affairs of the universe.
Zhou Fan sighed and looked over. Everyone with a high cultivation level was rushing towards the new realms. Their progress was slow, of course, and not many would ever leave the True God realm, but they were still excited at the prospect.
Zhou Fan paid attention to Zhu Yi after so long. As he had recovered, Zhou Fan had granted a lot to Zhu Yi.
Zhu Yi had God King rank 1 meridians. He also had the Three Qi Divine Physique.
This increased the reserves of his Qi by three times in the same level, all while keeping his cultivation speed the same.
With this, instant completion was much more useful.
The River of Cultivation still had a ban on Time Qi. Zhu Yi was the only exception. Zhu Yi was going strong and Zhou Fan did not plan to stop him.
His gaze focused on his original planet, the planet earth. Gazing through time, Zhou Fan saw a specific figure, and even himself.
—-------------------------------------
As Zhou Fan meditated, the Buddha, his mentor, walked away, leaving behind only a few words.
"We are not the same."
Seeing Zhou Fan reach some sort of understanding, the Buddha smiled and left. It was his time to die, and he was satisfied.
In the distance, he saw a beautiful tree. "A great place to breathe my last."
Suddenly, as he walked, a green and blue circle appeared in front of him. The Buddha stopped in shock.
Looking through the circle, he saw a familiar, yet unfamiliar face.
Countless years apart, Zhou Fan looked at the Buddha. "I need your help."
The Buddha quickly calmed down and sighed. "So be it."
Without hesitation, he walked through the circle. As soon as he did, Zhou Fan closed it. He panted.
Even for him, opening a portal so far through Time and Space was extremely difficult. The Buddha looked around, finding himself in a lavish yard, far greater than any he had ever seen, even in his prince days.
In the distance, he saw stars, but the distance was so far even they were blurry.
He looked at Zhou Fan, who was meditating under Leaf.
The Buddha was about to speak, but Leaf moved. The Buddha stared shocked as Leaf moved one of its branches to touch him.
He looked at Zhou Fan. "You've got a lot of explaining to do."
Zhou Fan nodded. "It seems I do."
The Buddha sat across from Zhou Fan as he spoke. Zhou Fan briefly described everything that had happened in his life, emitting unimportant details, as the Buddha listened.
"With all this power, what exactly do you need my help for?" The Buddha asked.
"I've reached a limit like no other. My path is the path of cultivation, but I feel that you may be able to create your own path. In doing so, perhaps, even if there is just a tiny chance, I can see something."
The Buddha thought for a moment and nodded. "I am willing. What exactly do you need me to do?"
Zhou Fan thanked him and waved his hand. A blue circle appeared. Beyond it was a random place on earth.
"I need you to go and do what you do. And I need you to do it without cultivating. I've managed to give you a few thousand years of lifetime without influencing your path. You can use Qi, but in order to help me, you must never cultivate. Of course, if you are going to die and wish to traverse the path of cultivation, I have no issue with it." Zhou Fan said.
The Buddha nodded. "And about meridians…"
"You are a mortal without the ability to cultivate. To you, meridians are like a useless organ. Perhaps you can use them for whatever your path is."
Long ago, there were countless people with no cultivation talent like the Buddha, but they had become rarer and rarer as time passed. Now, it was nearly impossible to find someone without the ability to cultivate.
The Buddha understood and stood up. Without a word, he walked through the circle. Zhou Fan hoped that the Buddha would find his own path. There was nobody else with even a slight chance. The time and effort Zhou Fan would need to put in for just a slight chance to produce another person like him and the Buddha was unfathomable.
Chapter 517: The Buddhist Path - 517
Zhou Fan silently waited five hundred years. He did not watch in this time, only waited patiently.
To say he was not anxious would be a lie. This was extremely important, and if the Buddha couldn't succeed, then perhaps nobody could.
After five hundred years, he finally decided to check in. A blue circle appeared in front of him, showing the Buddha.
He was sitting under a tree, meditating. Around him, there were thousands of people. Some were cultivators, even up to the Core Formation realm, while others were mortals.
Others could not see, but Zhou Fan could tell at a glance that the Buddha had succeeded. Zhou Fan heaved a sigh of relief. He took a closer look at the Buddha.
Within his body was a golden heart. Around his body was a visible golden color. This was the color of Buddhist Qi. Using Buddhist Qi as a medium, the Buddha had done something that no other had ever done. He had created a path.
He was the only one that could lead this path. Even Zhou Fan could not properly help him.
This path seemed similar to some techniques, but it was in fact completely different. Even without cultivating, the path that the Buddha had created could be endlessly grown, perhaps even reaching the same level as Zhou Fan.
Zhou Fan looked at the Buddha's meridians, but they were untouched. Zhou Fan was surprised. By not utilizing the meridians, even cultivators could follow the Buddha's path.
Zhou Fan stood up and stepped through the circle. He soon sat next to the Buddha. The Buddha opened his eyes.
"You've succeeded." Zhou Fan said.
Surprisingly, the Buddha shook his head. "In my opinion, yes, but my path is different from cultivation, but it lacks Lifespan."
Zhou Fan took an even deeper look. As the Buddha had said, practicing this path would not increase the Lifespan of an individual.
Zhou Fan thought about this for a moment.
"If practiced with cultivation, do you believe that your path could reach the same heights as without cultivation but with a high Lifespan."
The Buddha shook his head. "Although this path can be cultivated along with cultivation, there will be a limit. My path requires absolute dedication to it alone. It is the Buddhist path."
Zhou Fan began to calculate. After experiencing a near infinite amount of years with the universe's time stopped, he felt as if everything that could possibly be done was much clearer.
After a moment, he spoke again. "Your path has strength enhancing properties, but no life enhancing properties. You can change this rather simply. It's more like a matter of essence."
Although the Buddha's path utilized Buddhist Qi, it created a completely different type of power within him, much like the power of cultivation to Zhou Fan.
"I understand what you say, but would you change the path of cultivation to simply fix a simple shortcoming?" The Buddha said.
"My path of cultivation doesn't have any shortcomings. On the other hand, your Buddhist path has a flaw that can be clearly seen. Even if you change it a bit, it will still be perfectly suited to you, much like cultivation to me." Zhou Fan explained.
"In my mind, your path of cultivation's lifespan is a flaw. Living so long, doesn't it all become meaningless at some point."
Zhou Fan shook his head. "You are misunderstanding something. As incredible as it is that you created your own path, the precursor of its existence is still me."
Zhou Fan snapped his finger, and all the Buddhist Qi surrounding him disappeared.
Those who had been in deep meditation around the Buddha woke up in confusion.
"I am the one who split the Qi's and I can merge them back together. Your path has flaws, this is yet another one. My path doesn't."
The Buddha remained unperturbed.
"How long did it take you to be able to produce the power of cultivation? At some point, I believe that I will be able to freely produce my power as well. It is simply a matter of time." The Buddha said.
Zhou Fan returned the Buddhist Qi to the surroundings. "Sorry. I didn't catch that last part. What was that again?"
"It's a matter of time." The Buddha repeated.
"I see. And how much time do you have left compared to how much you need?"
The Buddha remained silent without changing his expression.
Zhou Fan laughed and stood up. "I'll call this one my win. You need help changing your path?"
The Buddha sighed and the golden glow around him disappeared. It also disappeared from those in the surroundings. "I'll handle it."
Zhou Fan nodded and left. The Buddha would have to restart his path, but at least he would be able to live long enough to complete it more.
The Buddhist path was one that could be created through belief, resolve, enlightenment, and will. It would probably be much easier for the Buddha to create his own power from nothing than it was for Zhou Fan. That was since the power of cultivation only became a true thing later on. Before, it had simply been the act of cultivating.
The Buddha already had his power within him. As he sat down, Zhou Fan looked at the universe within his chest. Perhaps he could experiment on the Buddhist path with another universe later on.
It would naturally be impossible for anyone to surpass the Buddha, a great feature that came with creating your own path, but he could see if changing it in any way would help.
Of course, the Buddhist path had a long way to go before then. Zhou Fan sat and waited for the Buddha to progress.
While he did so, Leaf wrapped around him. The Time bubble did not only affect Zhou Fan, but the whole manor. In other words, Leaf had been cultivating for more than a sextillion years, up until Zhou Fan completely stopped time.
Leaf was now at the True God realm, and its power was incredible. Zhou Fan had big plans for Leaf in the future.
For now, he upgraded his meridians. Above immortal GodKing was Immortal venerable, and above Immortal Venerable rank meridians were Peak meridians. These were the Final meridians until Zhou Fan reached a new realm.
Leaf had Peak rank 1 meridians.
Weekly Power Status
200+ Power
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121 Power
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