The Buddha

Discord Link: https://discord.gg/NMmtDbwHVQ

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(Jing's POV)

[Date: 8/2/1024 > Next Day]

A makeshift altar stood before me, and the rest of the crowd, adorned with flowers and candles. On top of the altar was a row of pictures, showing off all the deceased citizens of Glory City, serving as a reminder of the damage the Dark Guild had done.

I stepped forward, standing directly in front of the altar as my hands trembled slightly. I knew the death of others was not only a possibility, but was practically guaranteed in this world– I had seen it in Nie Lie's memories after all, but seeing just how many coffins lined the field we were in made me realize that just because I had seen it in his memories, didn't mean I had truly experienced it.

It wasn't exactly painful - I barely knew these people after all - but rather it was eye-opening, showing me that the sense of loss in someone's memories was completely different from dealing with loss in reality.

After a moment the ceremony began: it was a long-winded event that lasted nearly 3 hours, ending only when all the deceased were properly cremated.

Even when the ceremony finished, the atmosphere was still somber, filled with the cries of the relatives, and friends of those deceased.

My parents stood in front of me and Lin, a rarely-seen somber look on their faces as they oversaw the ceremony alongside Shen Hong and Ye Zong.

To wrap up the event, Ye Zong gave a short speech, addressing and paying respect to those who had passed away, and swearing vengeance upon the Dark Guild.

Once the ceremony finished, Shen Hong and the other few noble families that had decided to bear witness took their leave, leaving behind only The Snow Wind Family, and my family, as both decided to stay back and spend some time interacting with the families of the dead.

"I never thought something like this would happen," Lin turned toward me and began. "I still don't understand what made the Dark Guild do this."

I shrugged in response, "I don't know either," I lied as I got up from my seat and made my way over to a group of children who were huddled around one photo, crying.

I felt a pang of sympathy as I looked at the scene, wondering, and hoping, this would never happen to me with my family.

As I made my way behind them, their eyes widened in shock as they hurriedly bowed, "Young Master Jing," they echoed in unison as I scratched my head in embarrassment. No matter how many times I heard it, the title would still grate my ears, I didn't want to meet the same end as every other Young Master after all.

I crouched down to their eye level and offered a small smile. "Please no need to call me that, just Jing is fine. How are you guys holding up?"

"Alright. Our mom is waiting for us," One of the kids pointed towards the back where the mom looked like she was tryna hold back her tears.

"Of course, just take this before you go. Use it wisely to take off your family." I said to him handing him about 30,000 demon spirit coins, enough for a lifetime for commoners. "Don't reject it, you gonna need it."

"Really?! Thank you so much, mister." The eldest-looking sibling thanked me profusely, crying and bowing. Though I stopped her before she could actually perform the bow; no matter how many times it happened it still felt unnatural.

As the trio of children ran back to their mom, I felt some weird energy enter my body, filling it with an indescribable sensation. It felt like soul force, but different at the same time.

'What was that?' I wondered in shock as I tried to sense if someone was invading my soul realm. Fortunately, that didn't seem to be the case, but I still couldn't tell what exactly had happened. 'Seems like I'll need to meditate to find out,' I sighed, cursing the timing of whatever had just happened.

"Jing, everything okay?" I heard my mom's voice, breaking my train of thought.

"Yeah, everything's fine Mom," I replied as I took my seat beside Lin once again. 'It seems like I'll just have to wait until nighttime before I can get my answer.'

(Scene Change > Night Time)

"Finally, let's see what's going on." The entire day I had been anxiously awaiting night, wondering just what happened back at the funeral that led to a foreign soul force entering my soul realm.

I quickly sat down on my floor and began my cultivation. The second I began using the Bodhi Path, a surge of information flooded my mind.

Information continued to appear in my mind for a few minutes giving me a small migraine as I tried to process all the information.

'Holy shit, I didn't think the Bodhi technique was this complex, I knew it rivaled the Heavenly God technique, but the complexity of this technique far outshone even that,' I thought, shocked.

Because of Nie Lie's memories, I knew everything there was to know about the Heavenly God Technique, so for me to say that the Bodhi Path was an even more complex technique wasn't something that I was expecting.

After I processed all the new information which was from the weird energy entering my body, I allowed myself to smile. Before, my biggest headache with this technique was the fact that I had no clue how to go about training any of the Six Paramitas, and they were the least difficult part of the technique.

However, apparently, all I needed to do was reach Bronze rank as that was the basic requirement for you to begin gaining any sort of rewards from this technique, and now that I had done just that, I'd reached the threshold to begin practicing 'Generosity'. And as such, the information that had just come to me was how to begin training 'Generosity'.

In retrospect, I was stupid. I believed that 'Genorsity' would be something special, but it was the furthest thing from that. The way to work on 'Generosity', was wait for it… being generous. Now you might be wondering why this was important to train, well, from what the information in my head told me, I would be given access to a new ability every time I had mastered one of the Six Paramitas. You would only be considered a master of 'Generosity', once it became naturally ingrained within you, practically becoming a part of yourself.

'Seems like I've got to become Santa.'

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Hey guys hope you enjoyed this chapter. I know it was ridiculously short, but the next chapter will actually be much longer because all the explaining and set-up for now has been done. Now all that's left is fights and actual cultivation.

Sorry if the explanation for generosity and the other Six Paramitas sucked, but I'm writing this at 4 in the morning and my mind isn't exactly working at 100% lol. Anyway, I will most likely add more, or update, the information in this chapter in a later one to make it a bit more understandable.

By the way, I saw a comment asking if the MC would be a goodie-too-shoes, and to be honest, most likely not. His cultivation technique will push him to be good yes, - you won't see your average villain, emo WN MC lol - but it won't push him to get himself killed for someone he doesn't know. He just needs to be a good person, not that much work, but I suppose being a good person in a cultivation novel or web novel stories isn't the easiest thing lmao. The MC will obviously do good, but it won't come at the cost of his life or anyone he loves either.

FML, I've been thinking long and hard, and I decided to go with Ning'er due to the overwhelming response lmao. I might change this in the future, but for now, this should be the love interest– I'll have to wait a while until any romance though. The MC was 16 in his past life so I'll wait until the two are at least close to this age; he isn't Nie Lie, lol.

Also, for the timeline, I'm heavily leaning toward the first timeline (one before he goes back in time) as most of you seem to be fine with that. If you have a problem with it, just comment and let me know what you think I should do, or why you have a problem with the OG timeline. I've seen some of your comments and most of them are actually helpful criticisms, whilst the others aren't so useful.

Anyway, hope you have a great day, short little 1.5k chapter, but please drop your power stones and leave some reviews lol.