The third thing Shen Lian did was that he went to the Taiwei Pavillion and found the common information of the cultivation world on the first floor.
There were so many cultivation sects in this world but there was a possibility that not many sects that had immortals with longevity.
Furthermore, the celestialism which were guarded by these immortals were becoming lesser and lesser. These sects were the authentic Xuanmen.
The still standing Daoist school and Celestialism after ten thousand years of ups and downs were the four main Daoist sects. Qing Xuan was one of them.
There was a difference in cultivation between Buddhism and Daoism. The dense forests under the sky, the stars filled skies and the distance of the door were smaller than the Daoist schools but it also has its differences, which totals to a total of eight schools.
The first one was Sanlun sect, also known as Faxing sect. The second one was Yujia sect, also known as Faxiang sect, Cien sect, Weishi sect. The third one was Tiantai sect. The fourth one was Xianshou sect, also known as the Huayan sect. The fifth one was Chan sect. The sixth one was Jintu sect. The seventh one was Lv sect. The eight one was Mi sect, also known as Zhenyan sect.
To put it simply, the eight schools were known as ‘Xing, Xiang, Tai, Xian, Chan, Jin, Lv, and Mi’.
Buddhism was an open and convenient gateway and a path to confirm the truth. However, due to the difference in wisdom, level of luck and morals and the root of the acceptor added with the different background and surrounding environments or the interpretation of Buddhism and the emphasis on cultivation, these schools were formed.
There were many masters that came from the eight main schools, there was even a highly ranked monk who wrote a poem that talks about the ins and outs of the eight schools. The poem goes like this:
Wealth for Mi sect,
scarcity for Chan sect,
and anyone for Jin sect,
Patience for Weishi sect,
wisdom and truth of Jiaxiangkong.
Huayan becomes the tradition,
The discipline of training the body.
Tightly organized were the principles of truth,
Of the Tiantai sect.
The final stage for the eight schools of Buddhism was to achieve the status of ‘arhat’, which was similar to the immortals of Daoism.
The immortals with longevity were then categorized to Dixian, Renxian, Shenxian, and Guixian. After Powang, the Qing Xuan methods of exercises were for Dixian.
The Renxian, Shenxian, and Guixian were not orthodox and it was not derived from the nine states of cultivation. Shen Lian could not find any details about this on the first floor of the Taiwei pavilion.
This was due to the fact that after cultivation, one’s memory would not be too weak, therefore the information on the first floor of the Taiwei pavilion would not be allowed to be lent out. Even the most ordinary disciple had to spend one or two days to remember most of the content regarding the cultivation world, they could also find out through a leisure chat with their seniors and teachers.
Buddhism aside, there were also the nine paths of the demons, the five teachings of the wicked and there were also unknown figures.
Of course, the first floor also has the kind of categories on Dao skills and sword skills but Shen Lian did not research too much into it. After all, it was easy to remember these stuff but to truly understand it fully and apply it would require a lot of energy and effort. His main task was to collect the Yin Jade from the River of Spirits.
Even though the headmaster did not mention that there would be consequences if he did not complete the task of collecting the thirty pieces in one month, Shen Lian did not want to find out what the consequences were.
The River of Spirit of Qing Xuan was situated behind the Zifu peak that neighbored the Taiyi main peak. No one knew the start and the end of the final flowing direction. Shen Lian already knew that the person in white that he met that day was the soul summoning envoy of the Jiuyou netherworld. As long as he leaves before sundown from the nearby areas of the River of Spirit, he will not have another encounter.
Jiuyou was an extremely mysterious world, even within the information that Shen Lian looked through, there was only a brief mention of it and there was not even a mention of the existence of reincarnation.
As for the power of the Yin spirit of the river, the river bed would produce bits and pieces of crystalized Yin Jade by chance.
The Yin Jade was used to make jade talisman to be worn on the body. It has a calming effect. With a piece of jade talisman like this during the cultivation of inner Qi, there was a bigger chance of preventing Qi deviation.
That being said, to refine such a jade talisman would require mana of the Huandan level. Therefore this jade talisman was hard to come by.
After all, the Huandan cultivators were not coolies who have all the time in the world to spend so much energy in making talismans for the usage of their juniors.
Also, it was a labor to be collecting the Yin Jade from the River of Spirits. Shen Lian was really feeling right now.
The last time he came in contact with some water of the River of Spirits, there was a gut-wrenching pain in his spirit.
The Yin Jade was on the bottom of the river, even his ebony sword could not pick it up.
Of course, even if he could, he would not be doing so, or even cracking his brain to look for other methods of collection, because he already knew the headmaster’s purpose.
Shen Lian stripped himself of his clothes and dived into the River of Spirits. The water seeped into his flesh and constantly eroded his spirit.
Shen Lian could use his powerful psyche to cut off the pain of the flesh but there was no other way that would work on the immense pain in his spirit. He could only bear with it as it is.
When Shen Lian dived into the river water, even though he was in a lot of pain, with colossal determination, he used the Mastery of Senses to have this spirit go to all parts of the vessels and meridian points like the inner Qi. It consumed the essence and Qi of vitality of the flesh to replenish the spirit that was eroded away by the river water.
After one trip, even though Shen Lian’s spirit was weak, but the connection with his flesh was becoming tighter.
The difficult part was that he had to divide some of his attention to look for the Yin Jade that was on the bottom of the river.
Because the pain in his spirits would not disappear due to the closeness of the connection between his spirit and flesh.
Simultaneously, if his spirit did not consume the essence of the flesh and the inner Qi, there was a possibility that he might hurt its root and not be able to hold out for a moment in the River of Spirits.
When he finally caught onto a piece of Yin Jade, Shen Lian swam with all he got and got onto the shore as he was reaching his limits.
A feather could sink in the River of Spirit, so when he was in the middle of the river, he would not be half floating and half sinking and be rushed away by the river waters.
This helped him lessened most of Shen Lian’s troubles.
Of course, he was afraid that no living flesh would want to train their swimming skills in the River of Spirit.
Even if there was the Gang Qi shield all over his body, he could not cut off the river water. Shen Lian speculated that even the Huandan cultivators with their strong spirits would still feel the pain when they enter the river.
Once he got up to the shore, there was hardly any inner Qi left in his body. Luckily in Qing Xuan, even the area with the weakest Qi of vitality had more of it compared to the ordinary world.
Shen Lian used the Xuanji martial art and the Qi of vitality came pouring into his body.
His eight vessels were clear and the Xuanji martial art woken up the many meridian points of the body and connected it to a network, which allowed it to refine the Qi of vitality with great efficiency.
Once his vessels were connected, the so-called Qiaodong was not the ordinary orifices points but the ‘awakened entrance’, also known as the ‘life and death entrance.’
The Daoist scriptures mentioned that ‘understanding one entrance would connect a thousand entrance, once accomplished it would be like Buddha and the celestials’, this was what it meant by ‘awakened entrance’.
This was one of the difficult points that were second to Huandan and breaking through Powang in the nine states of cultivation.
The difficulty was one level above connecting the Governor and Conception Vessels through the Tongmai state.
It was hard to open up the life and death entrance because it was between an existence and non-existence, there was no fixed position for it.
Some people can open up from the sole of their foot, some people might be on the arms, and there were no regulations for it.
Of course, there was one ridiculous way and that was to open up as many entrances in the body so there might be a chance for the life and death entrance to appear. This was from the experience of predecessors.
Xuanji martial art involved hundreds of entrance which would be beneficial for opening up the life and death entrance.
Every time Shen Lian went into the river, he would need three hours to regain his Qi. He even had to make it back to the lower house on Qingliang peak before sundown.
Lu Shouyi had no time to be concern about Lian Shen once he had gotten the proper teachings. He was not even clear on the level of pain Shen Lian endures every day.