Being a talent in the Chusheng Demon Sect

Chapter 384 Conferring of Ordination and Register
Although it was unbelievable, Lü Yang tested the old man several more times until the old man was almost scared out of his wits before he finally confirmed that he had indeed ambushed the other party.

Then there is nothing more to say.

Take action, search the soul!
Fortunately, after leaving the Earth God Temple, the other party's status dropped drastically, falling directly from the original pseudo-Foundation Building stage to the Qi Refining Perfection stage where he was cultivating great supernatural powers.

There's no need to torture someone who's at the Qi Refining stage.

Soon, as Lü Yang's divine sense surged in, fragments of the old man's memories immediately surfaced, revealing the accumulated experience of his half-life of cultivation.

"The origin of this local deity is actually that he was just the first village chief of Baixiang Village. It was he who led dozens of villagers to reclaim wasteland in Taiyue Mountain and establish Baixiang Village. After his death, the villagers spontaneously worshipped him, offered incense, and bestowed upon him a title, which is how he became the local deity of Taiyue Mountain today."

"Ordination by incense and talisman".

Lu Yang lowered his eyelids and quickly extracted the most crucial part from the Earth God's memories, namely the current cultivation system of the Seven Luminaries Heaven.

The cultivation of the Seven Luminaries can be summarized in eight words.

The incense is lit and the ordination is conferred, and five steps are taken to ascend to heaven.

Upon initial ordination, one is worshipped by the people of a township or village and can be considered a local deity, also known as the Earth God. However, in a poor or dilapidated place, this is merely a false foundation-building level.

That being said, this type of incense god has many limitations. The biggest limitation is the territory under their jurisdiction. For example, the local land deity in front of us may have the strength of a pseudo-Foundation Establishment cultivator in their own land temple, but once they leave the land temple, their status is only equivalent to a Qi Refining Perfection cultivator with great supernatural powers.

"Even so, it's still quite exaggerated."

Even if it's a false foundation building, it's still foundation building. Having a position is better than not having one.

More importantly, this method of cultivation is incredibly fast. As long as you can gain the worship of ordinary people and receive the blessing of incense, you can immediately ascend to heaven!
For example, isn't this Bai Xiangcun landowner a case in point?

He was just an ordinary person in life, but after death he became a pseudo-Foundation Establishment cultivator. If he were placed in a dilapidated place, he would be the envy of countless Qi Refining cultivators.

"Above the Earth God is the City God."

The City God has four ranks.

County City God, Prefecture City God, State City God, and the highest-ranking Capital City God correspond to the early, middle, late, and even the final Great Perfection stages of Foundation Building, respectively.

As the name suggests, a county city god is a city god who can receive incense offerings from a county. However, although it is said to be from a county, a considerable portion of the offerings are actually intercepted and sent to higher places. This is how the prefectural city god came about. Similarly, there was the prefectural city god, and eventually the capital city god who governs all the city gods in the world.

It's a step-by-step process, like paying a tax.

This established a powerful and all-encompassing City God system, with the entire Seven Luminaries Heaven and the Central Plains under its rule.

"It's very similar to the Dao Court, but much worse."

Lu Yang pondered to himself that this system based on the people was similar to the Jiangdong Dao Court, but the City God system relied heavily on incense offerings and was very dependent on the people.

However, the official positions in the Dao Court are not subject to so many restrictions. They are entirely bestowed by the Dao Court Emperor, and the people only need to maintain a certain number.

Moreover, the Taoist court is much stricter than the City God system.

Under the rule of the Dao Court, there have never been any independent cultivators. Any force must be recorded within the Dao Court's departments, otherwise they cannot even cultivate.

In comparison, the City God system has far too many loopholes.

The biggest flaw is that people's hearts are fickle, and the so-called incense offerings can be taken away too easily. Not everyone will believe in and worship the City God.

That's how the "evil worship" came about.

"So-called evil worship is actually about establishing a belief system different from the City God system, bestowing titles and deities, and then trying to overthrow the existence of the City God system."

"However, most of the evil sects are not very powerful. They mostly occupy remote and sparsely populated areas outside the Central Plains, making it difficult for them to cultivate powerful deities. There are only two exceptions: one is called the White Lotus Sect, which worships the Eternal Mother, and the other is the ancestral temple of the imperial court."

Seeing this, Lü Yang's eyes brightened even more. "This incense and spirit offering... what a treasure!"

With just the simplest faith, one can transform the thoughts of an ordinary person into the power of incense offerings, thereby enhancing their cultivation and rank—it couldn't be more perfect for him!

Because he possesses the Banner of Ten Thousand Spirits!
In Lü Yang's view, the City Gods of the Seven Luminaries were too naive, having sought to gain worship and incense offerings from mortals through protection from beginning to end.

Why go through all that trouble?

It can be solved with a little bit of mind-controlling technique.

In this respect, the White Lotus Sect has some skills, including many methods to bewitch people and gather followers, but it is still too inexperienced compared to the Myriad Spirits Banner.

Because members of the White Lotus Sect might betray them.

The spirit of the Myriad Spirits Banner is absolutely loyal!
Thinking of this, Lü Yang had already started to calculate: "According to the memories of the local earth god of Bai Village, the incense offerings in the world can currently support a maximum of three city gods."

Today, it is divided equally among three entities: the City God system, the White Lotus sect, and the Imperial Ancestral Temple.

Although the three families were vying for power and profit, they also formed a delicate balance, as no one wanted to have a fourth entity that could be their equal.

The methods adopted by the three companies were also very simple.

Control the population.

After all, the foundation of the worship of gods and incense lies in people. The more people there are, the more faith there is, the more incense is offered, and naturally, the more gods and incense can be worshipped.

Therefore, as long as the population is controlled, the possibility of a fourth City God is eliminated.

"On the other hand, if the people of the Seven Luminaries keep having babies and the population explodes, they can support not only three, but even nine City Gods!"

Nine City Gods? Nine who have reached the Foundation Establishment stage!

"This is my opportunity!"

At this thought, a cold glint suddenly appeared in Lü Yang's eyes. If he could really do this, he would have a chance to fight his way back to that wretched place!
However, he quickly regained his composure.

The beginning is always the hardest. Although his ideals were lofty, reality was harsh. If he wanted to specialize in the practice of incense and deities, he still had a fundamental problem to solve.

He's not a local!

Although the Seven Stars Heaven is not prejudiced against outsiders under the development of Hongyun, it is unlikely that it will provide outsiders with the same treatment as locals.

"Including these spirit banners on my body, they are ultimately not natives of the Seven Luminaries Heaven. Without the influence of their rank, no matter how loyal they are, they cannot generate faith and incense offerings out of thin air. If I want to follow the path of incense and deity, the only way is to have the Seven Luminaries Heaven accept me and treat me as one of their own."

But how do we do that?
Lu Yang stroked his chin. Unless he could bribe the Heavenly Realm like he did in the Myriad Martial Realm, he would always remain an outsider in the Seven Luminaries Heaven.

How to bribe?

'The energy of the earth's veins. No, the energy of an entire earth's vein!'

Eight hundred miles of Skull Mountain!

Looking back now, I should have taken the 800-mile-long Skull Mountain ley line back when I was in Jiangbei, but I completely ignored it.

Lu Yang slapped his forehead. He should have noticed something was wrong back then; after all, the Skull Mountain's ley lines were valuable, yet he seemed to have completely forgotten about them. Looking back now, it seemed that the heavens and earth had already been subtly interfering with his thoughts through his immortal body!
Lü Yang became increasingly angry the more he thought about it.

"Heaven and earth are ruthless. Then don't blame me for being unjust."

Thinking of this, Lü Yang immediately decided: if he wanted to undermine the foundation of heaven and earth, he would start with the Eight Hundred Mile Skull Mountain, otherwise how could he continue to make progress in the Seven Luminaries Heaven?

(End of this chapter)