Destiny is ashes

Chapter 1080 The True Nature Master
Heaven and earth devour people.

It sounds scary, but it's not.

This is simply a description of the subconscious human fear of being eaten, the fear of falling from the top of the food chain, and the instinct to reject anything related to 'being eaten' or 'becoming a target of other beings'.

But in reality, for An Jing at this moment, the true meaning of these four words was not terror, but rather... naturalness.

The meaning of "Heaven and Earth devour people" is very simple.

Just as people consume qi and spirits to refine rare and precious materials to elevate themselves, the universe uses people as resources to strengthen itself.

And this is not a rare occurrence.

Hundreds of thousands of years ago, or even longer, the pioneers of the Daoist Court had already discerned this truth—that humans cultivate the Great Dao with spiritual energy, which is essentially the Great Dao cultivating humanity with spiritual energy.

This is a process of mutual achievement and improvement, just like the relationship between Pi Yi and Hong Lu Bai Xiang. Hong Lu Bai Xiang made up for Pi Yi's incomplete body, while Pi Yi gave Hong Lu Bai Xiang the wisdom he lacked.

The final step in cultivation, "Unity with the Dao," is when a person cultivates spiritual energy to its ultimate level, and spiritual energy also cultivates the person to its ultimate level. When both sides achieve perfect harmony and spiritual unity, they become one, with no further distinction between them.

This is the concept of "harmony between man and nature".

This is the Dao, which is also the most original description of the Dao of Returning to Emptiness.

[Yuanshi Taoist God]

The method of "Heaven and Earth Devouring Humans" that An Jing has now come to understand is so simple—it is not simply that this method of cultivation uses humans as resources to strengthen itself... nor is it merely that the cultivator uses the "Hundred Forms of the Furnace" as a medium to transform all things in heaven and earth into resources for their own growth.

However, this 'path' itself is constantly growing stronger and perfecting itself through 'cultivators'.

The so-called inheritance is just like this. A discipline, a cultivation method, a sect, and even the destiny cave of martial arts, the spiritual realm and blessed land that becomes after the fall of the array realm within a martial artist's body... in essence, they are all 'the path of cultivation lies in the cultivator'.

An Jing is both a 'human being' and the 'Heavenly Way' of his own grotto-heaven world, so he naturally has to walk both paths and let them complement each other.

He bestows destiny and opportunity upon his followers, and after their cultivation, battles, and even death, their insights and power will ultimately be 'returned to Heaven'—and this Heaven is none other than An Jing himself.

Now that things have come to this, An Jing has fully understood.

Therefore, one will be vigilant.

—He himself is able to treat everyone equally.

An Jing would never deliberately hasten the death of cultivators of the Feathered Path in order to accelerate his own cultivation, so that they could become his resources faster and better.

—But what about other people who practice this path?
What about those powerful figures in the future who also created their own unique worlds?

Even if only one person among them is weak-willed and seduced by power, it will cause extremely terrifying destruction and 'corruption'!
"No wonder the Dao Integration Technique cannot be passed on indiscriminately..."

An Jing muttered to himself, understanding dawning on him: "Every Dao-merging cultivation method probably has a part where 'heaven and earth devour people' in the end."

"If one has a firm will and a flawless heart, that's fine; one can be as fair and just as I am."

"But if that's not possible... then it's an evil heaven, a demonic heaven, a heaven that is neither heaven nor heaven!"

The right path and the wrong path are often not clearly distinct, nor are they obviously right or wrong.

Its boundaries lie entirely in a single thought, depending entirely on the user's own mind.

A single thought can turn a god into a demon—that's what it means!

"If this kind of skill is to be passed down in the future, I'm afraid we'll have to set up many trials and absolutely not make it easy to reveal. Other things are fine, but we can't relax our standards in the slightest when it comes to character and morality!"

An Jing let out a long sigh.

In his past life, when he read novels, he always found it strange that those peerless martial arts techniques always set up various tests, and only after confirming that the successor was of pure character and firm will would they pass on the knowledge.

Looking back now, its essence was precisely to ensure that the scales of 'divine thought versus demonic thought' would tip more towards the 'divine' side. Saints are hard to find, and even a divine being is always better than a demonic one.

The path of spiritual cultivation is like walking on thin ice. The so-called "going astray in cultivation" is probably not just a mistake in practice, but also a moral decline.

Everything can be decided in a single thought.

Although An Jing himself had figured out all the key points in an instant, his expression was as relaxed as if he had just taken a sip of water.

But at this moment, to the many other sea creatures present, what difference was there between An Jing's actions and those of a god?
In just a moment, the commander Piyi, who was originally seriously injured and on the verge of death with his body incomplete, was reborn in the Furnace of a Hundred Forms bestowed by Anjing, and even possessed a power far greater than before!
Moreover, all the sea creatures who have practiced the Blood Refining Technique passed down by An Jing can clearly sense that the source of that power is the manifestation of the Ascension Path they have been cultivating day and night!

—Will they be able to do something similar in the future?
After a moment of silence, a frenzy erupted like a tsunami.

"Heaven above all!"

"Your Majesty is invincible!"

"Nature Master! We love and respect you!"

now.

Tens of thousands of sea creatures, regardless of the severity of their injuries or their location, knelt down with utmost respect in the direction of An Jing at this moment.

The carapace, scales, and exoskeleton collided with the sand and stones, producing a continuous, dull sound, like the roar of another tide.

They performed the most devout and sublime ceremony.

An Jing looked around and was not surprised by the overwhelming praise.

He was like this in the Mingjing Sect, and he was like this in his previous life. Accustomed to being a teacher, he didn't care too much about these superficial forms of respect.

He simply observed the situation of these sea creatures carefully.

Most of the sea creatures' injuries were not as severe as Pi Yi's. Or rather, it was because Pi Yi was strong enough and was also an experimental product of the Blood Sea Demon Sect that his vitality was so strong that he could still live even after being injured to this extent. Other sea creatures would have died long ago and would not have been able to wait to be accepted into the Furnace of a Hundred Forms.

Of course. An Jing could not release all of the Hundred Forms of the Furnace within his body—although this was indeed a way to make the cave grow quickly, not to mention that the Hundred Forms of the Furnace itself was not yet perfect, An Jing did not need this method to grow.

On the contrary, he was still thinking about how to contain it.

"Sigh, it just didn't work out."

However, after careful consideration, An Jing had to admit that any powerful cultivation method that could align with the Dao was destined to have a part similar to 'heaven and earth devouring people'.

Because humans are a part of the universe, and a very crucial part at that—the universe needs humans to perfect itself, just as the way of the sword needs a constant stream of sword practitioners, just as the way of humanity itself is a collection of humans.

Heaven and earth are also such a collection, and the collection itself will 'swallow' and 'accept' other individuals. Accepting return only after death is already considered very gentle.

Human corpses naturally enrich the earth, and human wisdom naturally enriches the path.

We can't exactly say, "Oh dear, the earth has eaten our human corpses, so we should reject the earth and not eat any crops that have absorbed some of the nutrients from human bodies," can we? Obviously not.

The Blood Sea Demonic Cult was the result of the "Heaven and Earth Cannibalism Method" of the "Way of Creation" going out of control. The first leader of the cult may have been a genius, but his character was definitely not up to par. He used this almost evil and demonic method to achieve his success, and was then defeated by the Heavenly Mother Palace Master, who also cultivated the Way of Creation but walked the righteous path.

"Education, education...establishing merit, establishing words, establishing virtue...virtue is the highest, because virtue is the foundation."

"I see. The greatest difficulty for a 'Nature Master' is not teaching the ignorant to learn anything—that's something an ordinary teacher can do. The real difficulty for a Nature Master is to guide the most intelligent people, including himself, so that they don't go astray and to establish virtue while creating new laws."

"If one does not cultivate virtue, then the natural master is probably the one most likely to fall into depravity and embark on the path of evil."

For some reason, or perhaps as a revelation, An Jing thought of the young imperial bloodline that was somewhat similar to You Ruhui at that moment.

Xuan Mingyu... the Xuan Tian Emperor of this generation.

(End of this chapter)