Chapter 296: The Diagram of Visualization

Mo Hua involuntarily opened wide his mouth. He hadn't expected the cultivation world to be so vast, with so many cultivators, and that he was still fortunate enough to be the first to try something new. Mo Hua was conflicted; he didn't want to be a pioneer with no prior examples. If he did it improperly, he might get a stomachache.

"Then what should I do?" Mo Hua asked. "Will one day my sea of consciousness be invaded by evil thoughts, causing me to lose my original heart and truly become a man-eating little ghost?"

Mr. Zhuang glanced at Mo Hua. "No need to worry about the distant future. The living little ghosts have all been eaten by you. After death, some miscellaneous thoughts, what do they count as?"

"At most, you could say this is..." Mr. Zhuang thought for a moment and then said a word: "Eating but not digesting."

"Eating but not digesting..." Mo Hua pondered for a bit, then understood. "Indigestion?"

Mr. Zhuang nodded. "You can say that too."

Mo Hua then felt relieved and enthusiastically asked other questions: "Teacher, how exactly did the visualization diagrams come about? Also, you said visualization diagrams contain dangers. Is this little ghost one of those dangers? Is this what you meant by 'non-human' ways? Do all visualization diagrams contain these kinds of little ghosts? If I encounter them again later, what should I do?"

Mo Hua's voice was clear, and he asked a long string of questions in one breath.

Mr. Zhuang couldn't help but rub his forehead. Having a clever disciple was also a bit troublesome. Their minds worked fast, they had many questions, and answering them was a bit strenuous.

Mr. Zhuang thought for a bit and decided to start from the basics. He then asked Mo Hua: "Cultivators all possess extraordinary powers, all relying on three things. Do you know what these three things are?"

"Is it divine sense, spiritual power, and physical body?" Mo Hua answered.

Mr. Zhuang nodded. "Correct. Any ability of cultivators is based on divine sense, spiritual power, and physical body."

"Martial arts use spiritual power to stimulate the physical body. Spells use divine sense to condense spiritual power. Formations use divine sense to communicate with the Heavenly Dao, and use formation patterns to conduct spiritual power. Other cultivation paths are roughly similar, just with slightly different emphasis."

"If you encounter any strange, bizarre, or absurd things in the cultivation world later, and you are unable to grasp them or have no clue, you can always consider them from these three categories."

Mo Hua suddenly realized. "Then the little ghost inside the visualization diagram, with no physical body and no spiritual power, is pure divine thought, simply the power of divine sense?"

"Correct," Mr. Zhuang said. "In other words, the so-called visualization diagram is just a carrier of divine sense. What is carried inside the diagram is the remaining divine sense of certain cultivators due to fate, or divine thoughts born by chance from certain non-human things."

"These divine senses or divine thoughts are often called evil things, or ghosts and monsters, by cultivators."

Mo Hua asked: "Can these evil things and ghosts and monsters all be eaten?"

Mr. Zhuang knocked Mo Hua's little head once. "Don't be greedy, always thinking of eating everything."

Mo Hua smiled sheepishly.

Mr. Zhuang warned: "These evil things and ghosts and monsters are also divided into strong and weak. The green-faced little ghost you encountered happened to be relatively weak and could be eaten by you. If you encounter strong ones, you won't know who eats whom."

"How strong can they be?" Mo Hua was somewhat curious.

A deep dread flashed in Mr. Zhuang's eyes, and he said in a heavy tone: "Extremely terrifyingly strong."

Mo Hua's expression also became stern. Even the profound and mysterious Mr. Zhuang felt terrifying?

Mr. Zhuang looked at Mo Hua, pondered for a moment, and still felt it was best to give Mo Hua a warning first. Originally, Mo Hua's realm was low and he was far from contacting these things, but now he unexpectedly inexplicably found a visualization diagram and swallowed the ghost inside it. Who knew what he would encounter later.

Mr. Zhuang still liked this little disciple very much and didn't want him to fall into irretrievable disaster due to ignorance and fearlessness.

"There are some dangers in this world that you are unable to see," Mr. Zhuang said. "Wild mountains and ancient temples, dust-sealed caves, and underground ancient tombs often contain some indescribable evil things or ghost things. They feed on human divine sense and are good at polluting the human heart."

"Cultivators with weak divine sense who encounter these things cannot see them, cannot touch them, and may die without even knowing how they died. Either their divine sense is completely swallowed, or their sea of consciousness is occupied by the evil thing, and they are unknowingly controlled by it, becoming a living dead-like puppet."

"And some existences have survived longer, their divine thoughts are vast, nearly indestructible, and even with a cultivator's divine sense, they cannot be glimpsed. Some cultivators hold reverence in their hearts, honoring them as 'ghost gods' or 'evil gods,' and kowtow and worship them."

"But these ghost gods and evil gods are mostly evil in nature, their divine thoughts are treacherous, and the cultivators who honor them often come to no good end..."

"Whether they are weak little ghosts and evil things, or incomparably powerful ghost gods and evil gods, all who exist in the world must have a dwelling object. This dwelling object is precisely the visualization diagram."

"That's why I told you that visualization diagrams contain dangers, they contain non-human ways..."

Mo Hua listened with alarm and fear, but also doubted: "They all hide in diagrams?" So small a diagram, can they live in it?

Mr. Zhuang shook his head. "Although they are called visualization diagrams, they are not necessarily all diagrams. Some murals, stone statues, strange patterns, etc., may all be visualization objects. It's just that cultivators habitually refer to them uniformly as 'visualization diagrams'."

Mo Hua nodded, feeling greatly broadened in his horizons. If not for Mr. Zhuang's guidance, it would be absolutely impossible for him to know this cultivation knowledge. If he really encountered powerful ghost things, he would probably really die without knowing how.

Mo Hua asked: "Is this knowledge also considered common sense in cultivation?"

"This is not common sense in cultivation," Mr. Zhuang said, "but cultivation secrets. These are secrets only known to some ancient families proficient in divine sense, or ancient sects with inherited formations. General cultivators are unable to know them."

Mo Hua nodded frequently, seriously remembering this rare cultivation secret in his heart. Besides Mr. Zhuang, no one else could tell him these things.

"Understand?"

"Understood," Mo Hua said, and then thought of something again. "But..."

Mr. Zhuang saw him hesitate to speak and said helplessly: "Just ask what you want to ask, don't hold it in."

Mo Hua smiled brightly and said: "Thank you, Teacher!" Then he began to ask: "When I first saw this visualization diagram, I saw a Daoist boy, and then I looked again, and the Daoist boy became a little ghost. Why is this? Does every visualization diagram have two appearances?"

Mr. Zhuang looked at Mo Hua with surprise. Such a subtle point, which he had not mentioned at all, Mo Hua could also figure out on his own. He was indeed talented and intelligent, with extremely high comprehension.

Mr. Zhuang smiled slightly, his face showing approval. He said: "All things in the world have both a surface appearance and an original appearance. Visualization diagrams are even more so. The various scenes inside the diagram are its surface appearance. Beneath the surface appearance exists the original appearance of the divine thoughts."

Mo Hua thought along with Mr. Zhuang's words: "Then the little Daoist boy inside the visualization diagram is the surface appearance, and the green-faced little ghost is its original appearance?"

Mr. Zhuang nodded. "Correct."

"Do all visualization diagrams divide into surface appearance and original appearance?"

"Yes, but it cannot be so simply divided," Mr. Zhuang explained patiently. "Some diagrams have their surface appearance as their original appearance, and in some diagrams, the original appearance is just a surface appearance hidden deeper."

"Surface appearance, original appearance, original appearance, surface appearance..."

Mo Hua thought for a while, felt a little dizzy, then asked: "How do I distinguish?"

Mr. Zhuang raised a slender finger and said slowly: "One is to rely on divine sense. If your divine sense is powerful, stronger than the divine thoughts of the ghosts or evil things inside the visualization diagram, then you can see through its truth."

"Two is based on experience. The more visualization diagrams you have seen, the more intuitively you can discern some truth from falsehood and see through some surface appearances."

"Three is to rely on the perception of the Heavenly Dao. The deeper the perception of the Heavenly Dao, the closer you are to the essence of the Great Dao, and the more you can see the original appearance hidden beneath the surface."

"Among these three points, the first point is the most direct, the second point requires time, and the third point is the most difficult."

"Perception of the Heavenly Dao..." Mo Hua pondered for a moment, then doubted: "How to elevate the perception of the Heavenly Dao?"

Mr. Zhuang said: "One is to look at nature, two is to look at tempering."

Mo Hua frowned, carefully thought for a moment, suddenly his eyes brightened, and he said: "Meditation elevates nature, formations temper comprehension?"

Mr. Zhuang didn't expect him to understand immediately and nodded: "That's right."

Mo Hua thought from beginning to end again, and gradually understood: "My divine sense is strong, and because I meditate every day and draw formations every day, my perception of the Heavenly Dao is also deeper. So, unknowingly, I saw through the original appearance of that green-faced little ghost. The green-faced little ghost then drilled into my sea of consciousness, wanting to eat my divine sense..."

"But..." Mo Hua's expression was doubtful, "That third boss's divine sense is also strong, why didn't he see through the original appearance of the visualization diagram?"

Mr. Zhuang said lightly: "Although his divine sense is somewhat strong, his nature is too greedy, his desires blind his heart, and his perception of the Heavenly Dao is too poor. Naturally, he couldn't see through it."

Mo Hua understood. It seemed that nature was still very important, otherwise, it would be easy to be blinded by lard, deceived by the surface appearance, unable to see through the original appearance of things, and thus deviate from the Heavenly Dao.

Through this conversation with Mr. Zhuang, Mo Hua understood a lot and sincerely said: "Thank you, Teacher!"

Mr. Zhuang's gaze was somewhat profound, and he asked: "Do you know why I am telling you so much now?"

"Because I asked you..." Mo Hua silently said in his heart, but he knew that since Mr. Zhuang asked this way, it was definitely not that simple. He could ask, Mr. Zhuang could answer, or he could not answer. How much Mr. Zhuang answered, and what he chose to answer, could all have many implications.

Mo Hua reviewed Mr. Zhuang's answers carefully in his mind again, feeling that what Mr. Zhuang answered was all related to 'divine sense' and 'Heavenly Dao'. But why he said these, Mo Hua couldn't figure out for a moment.

Mr. Zhuang saw that Mo Hua was somewhat thoughtful, but his small eyebrows were tightly locked, and his expression was a bit perplexed. He then no longer kept suspense, but asked meaningfully: "Foundation building is to build the foundation of the Great Dao..."

"You thought well, what kind of Dao foundation are you building?"