Chapter 282: Three Paths of Incense Cultivation, Praying and Wishing, Responding to Everything

When Tao Kan left Qian Chen, his face was slightly pale, but he could still maintain his demeanor.

Qian Chen stroked his chin, watching his retreating back in deep thought: "Setting aside other aspects of the aristocratic families, their composure and bearing are truly extraordinary! To be slaughtered into such a state by a single strike of my blade and still maintain a facade of decorum—without some cultivation, one truly couldn't persist."

The green ox saw Tao Kan walking back with unsteady steps, like an immortal stepping on clouds.

It widened its ox eyes in confusion: "Aren't you going to buy incense? Why do you look like you've been harvested by a group of fox spirits from the Xin family?"

Tao Kan wiped the cold sweat on his forehead, cupped his hands and said: "Spirit Venerable, my purse is shy, and even after exhausting my storage bag, it is still not enough. I had to pledge the Innate Wood Essence you bestowed upon me!"

"Pledge it if you want!" The green ox said indifferently: "It was originally for you to buy incense, it was you who insisted..."

"Wait..." The old ox came back to its senses.

As the head of the Tao family, how could Tao Kan be shy of purse? What he prepared daily in his storage bag was enough for the expenses of many small families for a year!"

"He scraped all the assets in your storage bag and still felt it wasn't enough, and then asked for that wisp of Innate Wood Essence?"

The green ox exploded with anger!

"Even a lion's mouth isn't that big." The green ox said furiously: "This is the green lion under Manjushri Bodhisattva opening its mouth! This person actually dares to be so black-hearted?"

Tao Kan hurriedly grabbed the green ox's board-horn and said: "Didn't the Spirit Venerable say, since we've reached this point, expensive is expensive?"

"Is this just a little expensive? This is scraping three taels of oil from dead bones, this is a skin-peeling little ghost!" The green ox said angrily: "Go, I'll take you to find him. If he doesn't give me an explanation today, my cultivation as an old ox wasn't slept out!"

Tao Kan hurriedly said: "It's not just incense... there's more!"

After much persuasion, Tao Kan stopped the green ox, his face slightly ashamed, and gritted his teeth: "Originally I bought ten sticks of incense. Although it cost a lot, I still had a small half left in my storage bag. But he asked me again, he still had a batch of Three Mountains talismans and spirit pills in his hand..."

The green ox calmed down: "Now that we are in a dangerous place, holding a pile of useless spirit items is indeed not as good as trading them for usable spirit pills and talismans. But as a rogue cultivator, how many spirit pills and talismans can he take out to make you pledge the Innate Wood Essence to accept them?"

Tao Kan smiled bitterly: "Yuanqi Spirit Pills!"

"Yuanqi Spirit Pills, aren't those from the Supreme Dao..."

When the green ox said this, it suddenly came back to its senses, and after a long silence, it said: "So that's it, this is life-buying money!"

"The Supreme Dao suppressed demons here, warned three times, and you still broke in. The true transmission disciples sent by others to investigate the demonic cave, mixing among the rogue cultivators, watching you families kick over the facade stone tablet, having this kind of end, is naturally a small punishment and a big warning. Now that you have entered a dead end, it is also a favor to come out and sell you the spirit pills and talismans you urgently need. At this point, being able to buy them is already a favor!" The green ox sighed slightly.

"Sure enough, the Louguan Dao has suffered a calamity! But other Supreme Dao traditions are still there..."

Tao Kan smiled bitterly: "And, our families, the Jin and Lei families have suffered heavy casualties, people's hearts are scattered, the Xin family's situation is not good either. Although my Tao family has preserved its vitality, it is also precarious. Speaking of which, it is self-inflicted!"

The green ox said in surprise: "How so? Is there anything else I don't know?"

Tao Kan lamented: "This Thunder Cave secret realm was actually not opened by our Xin and Tao families. It was a true transmission disciple of the Daoist sect who had also sold Yuanqi Spirit Pills in the Wuling market a few months ago, who brought my third son and the Xin family's thirteenth lady deep into the earth orifice spirit cave to form a core. It was created by triggering the Yuanqi earth orifice true qi and the Nine Heavens Thunder Transformation."

"We were also blinded by greed, so we regarded this place as private property!"

"Now looking at this demon-suppressing cave, and the previous event of that Daoist true transmission forming a first-rank core in the spirit cave. It is clear that the Supreme Dao had arrangements thousands of years ago and occupied this secret realm. The Jin and Lei families wanted to vent thunder energy and exhaust the Thunder Sea, which was truly seeking their own death. Triggering the birth of this demonic cave clearly responded to the calamity..."

The green ox heard Tao Kan's sorting out and felt a sense of sympathy: "The Daoist sect is truly ruthless! Playing several great families in the palm of their hands, yet you still don't know it."

"Those Jin, Lei, and Xin families, I'm afraid they died without knowing how they died. Sure enough, it is 'Supreme inaction, running the sun and moon; divine and bright, the Great Dao is dark and mysterious'."

One man and one ox looked at the Lei Yu and Jin Zhong who were in a mess with sympathy, and then looked at the Shenxiao Sect Lin Zhanglao, who was equally solemn but still showed a little confusion.

Lin Zhanglao saw the inexplicable expressions of the two and felt a move in his heart, starting to calculate whether he had fallen into the calculations of the senior who suppressed the demonic cave thousands of years ago.

Qian Chen and the others put on the straw-leaf talisman-book raincoats, casually inserted the three sticks of Prayer Incense into their hats, and stepped into the white bone forest with the three sticks of incense fire on their heads. The overseas rogue cultivator holding the ghost-god small axe walked at the very front, Qian Chen in the middle, and Guo Ye holding the pipe and Ma Laohei followed at the end.

They walked for dozens of zhang before a young rogue cultivator who was shrinking his head and brain greeted them, and followed them with two companions.

"Seeing Seeing Xiao Yu, why not follow behind those great families? Those families are powerful, so it's possible for them to blaze a trail in this dangerous place that looks very eerie!"

One of his companions doubted: "Although that 'Know-Everything' has a lot of knowledge, precisely because of this, they go deep all the way, I'm afraid there are rules. We don't know the way, so following behind like this, there is quite a bit of danger!"

"If I hadn't seen some of their rules, I wouldn't have dared to follow!" The young rogue cultivator Seeing Seeing Xiao Yu whispered: "You also know that when I was young, I followed an old incense-offering guest who had fallen on hard times for five years in the Jianghu before I entered the Dao and established my foundation."

"In our lineage, one must offer to a god to possess them to be considered to have established a foundation and be able to practice magic. Relying on the power of gods to cast spells—they are called gods, but they are actually just gloomy spirits and beast spirits. Those who can truly offer to gods are long past being rogue cultivators!"

The little ghost with green skin on the back of the young rogue cultivator Seeing Seeing Xiao Yu raised its head and grinned at the two, then continued to greedily sniff the fragrance left by Qian Chen and the others.

Seeing Seeing Xiao Yu patted the little ghost on his back, keeping a suitable distance from Qian Chen and the others, trailing far behind.

"Back then, my 'Master'..."

"Sigh! If he hadn't taken me in, harboring ill intentions, wanting to refine me, a child with natural yin-yang eyes, into a little ghost for him to possess and establish his foundation, I wouldn't have broken off relations with him!"

"The cultivation method my master taught me is the incense cultivation lineage. Incense cultivation has three paths: the upper path is Heavenly Incense, the middle path is Earthly Incense, and the lower path is Human Incense. Heavenly Incense communicates with gods and originally originated from the Wu sect lineage of offering to gods in ancient times. It is also the supreme Great Dao of presiding over sacrifices and communicating between the divine and human paths, the orthodox path of cultivation in ancient times."

"The Son of Heaven in ancient times practiced the path of sacrifice. The Heavenly Incense path, sacrificing to heavenly gods to obtain the fruit of conferring gods, is the grand orthodox path."

"The Earthly Incense lineage, however, is a lineage where spirits cultivate incense fire, cultivate yin virtue, cultivate faith, cultivate wish power, and become gods after death. Nowadays, they often borrow the name of the Buddhist sect to cultivate their own incense fire golden bodies, open halls, summon believers, and establish great sects. Although they are dismissed as evil paths, they have also produced many great beings who are immortal and have cultivated into gods!"

"Only my Human Incense path is a path of magic that cultivates inviting gloomy spirits to possess the body, cultivating humans and ghosts together, and communicating with all spirits. Heavenly Incense sacrifices to confer gods, Earthly Incense spirits cultivate gods, only my Human Incense only cultivates techniques and not the Dao. It is difficult to achieve immortality, and the final merit of cultivation is just benefiting the gloomy spirits on one's body."

Seeing Seeing Xiao Yu said, gesturing toward the smoke that hadn't dissipated in front: "Do you know what incense this is?"

The two companions were confused. A man with a strong physique and strong bones who had practiced external martial arts muttered: "You let me carry corpses and coffins, fish for dead people, and pick up bones. I'm not afraid of dirt, tiredness, or bitterness. But I do these things because my brain doesn't work. Otherwise, my master would have taught me top-tier martial arts to fight for wealth in the army. Why bother teaching me these rotten jobs?"

The other one was dressed like a feng shui master, carrying a bag, and twisting his goatee, saying: "Could it be—Heavenly Incense?"

"Not only Heavenly Incense, but the first-rank Heavenly Incense known in the 'Incense Spectrum' as 'Communicating with all gods and Buddhas, responding to everything'—Prayer Incense."

"Look at the wish power in that incense, like golden smoke rising, turning into rain of prayer and falling!"

"The three sticks of incense are lit with the life fire from the shoulders and head lamps of the bronze divine man earlier. A section of the incense head is like a life fire. Three sticks of incense inserted on the head are like the three fires on the head and shoulders of a god. In the eyes of the ferocity hidden in the forest, it is like a god traveling, so of course, all evil avoids it!"

The young cultivator spoke with reason and evidence.

In Seeing Seeing Xiao Yu's yin-yang eyes, the incense in the air was like a thick layer of golden mist, rising like clouds, and bits of wish power golden light turned into gold coins, heavenly flowers, and sweet dew falling.

Everything around, whether it was the terrifying gloomy shadows underground or those eerie white bone trees, was in the spirit rain, bearing the auspicious, lucky, blessed, and wise qi, eliminating ferocity and being nourished and offered to by wish power.

"You don't even need the corresponding incense-burning secret method. Ordinary people light a stick of Prayer Incense and make a wish, and gods and ghosts will sense the wish power and come to help you realize your wish!"

"Whether it is wealth in the human world, cultivation resources, or even blessed fate and luck, you can ask for it." Seeing Seeing Xiao Yu imagined.

The three rogue cultivators—the one who burns incense, the one who carries dead people, and the one who looks at feng shui—even the little ghost behind Seeing Seeing Xiao Yu, looking at the smoke slowly dissipating in mid-air, couldn't help but feel a sincere envy in their hearts.

"If we could get a stick of such incense!" The big guy muttered: "I could wash away this gloomy aura and make a wish to marry into a good family!"

"You're so big, do you lack that bite of soft rice?"

The goatee hated that he didn't live up to expectations and kicked him.

"I couldn't afford to eat when I was young, and my master raised me on dead people's meat. When the wealthy Wang family in the countryside recruited a son-in-law, I went to the door, and after finally beating everyone away, I was told by the butler that I had a dead man's face, and was beaten out."

"Every time the immortal sect recruits people, I can hold the ring, but later they say I have bad luck in my bones and my luck is declining, and they chased me out again." The big guy looked regretful and sighed helplessly.

"Big guy!"

The goatee patted the big guy's chest, then hurriedly shook his hand.

His physique was truly like refined iron, and the goatee, a magic cultivator, felt pain in his hand from patting him: "Don't think about eating soft rice! If we get that incense, the three brothers of us can make a wish to find a big tomb. With my ability to look at feng shui and break seals; Seeing Seeing Xiao Yu's ability to invite ghosts to burn incense and ward off evil; plus your strength and dead man's fate, we will definitely be able to rob a big tomb."

"You carry the tomb owner on your back, Seeing Seeing Xiao Yu inserts the Heavenly Incense to fix the gloomy spirits and ghosts. My hands will search for him... just search like this."

The goatee's hands slid, like Taiji fishing, and he said with a comfortable face: "Pick one or two immortal treasures, and I guarantee you'll eat dry food for the rest of your life, and won't drink that clear spirit grain porridge! At that time, we want to eat clear jade rice, we eat clear jade rice, we want to eat purple-patterned dragon teeth, we eat purple-patterned dragon teeth..."

"I went to the Wuling market, and I also want a pot of rain-dew spirit buds, sitting in the Jianchun Building, sitting for an afternoon. The spirit energy in that tea, let it come and go, without even refining it!"

Seeing Seeing Xiao Yu listened, and slowly nodded his head, imagining such a future.

Under the protection of the Prayer Incense, the few people were safe and sound all the way, and walked to the depths of the white bone forest. Suddenly, Seeing Seeing Xiao Yu's face changed and he said: "Two brothers, the road ahead is not so easy to walk!"

"Relying on the legacy of others to walk here is already great luck. Next is nine deaths and one life, we just go to the road of life. The three brothers of us together will live..." The goatee put away his joking and mixed-up demeanor and said solemnly.

"Divided, we die!" The three said in unison. ===== CHAPTER 283 =====