Defiance of the Fall

Chapter 180: Invitation

Since he heard about it Zac had wondered how a monastery could stand strong in the middle of the Dead Zone, wantonly purifying the area. He would have thought that the undead leaders would have purged the area and flattened the mountain, not wanting to leave such a cancer in their backyard. But he had a feeling that the tens of thousands of letters were part of the answer somehow.

Some distance from them a set of stone stairs led up the mountain, simple and unadorned compared to the rest of the area. At its end far up the mountain Zac could vaguely spot a few roofs of the monastery, though much of it was shrouded in a white mist.

“Are we really still in the Dead Zone?” Zac couldn’t help ask with a subdued voice to Sui who stood next to him.

“Buddha guards this place, and the mountain grow stronger every day. It is the beacon of hope for many of us,” Sui answered with reverence in her eyes as she looked up at the shrouded monastery in the distance.

A deep gong suddenly spread out from the top of the mountain, somehow clearing Zac’s mind in an instant. For months worries had plagued his mind, and new issues kept cropping up. However, it was all blown away from the sound, and it appeared it was the same for Sui as she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The two simply stood and took in the tranquility for another few seconds until a jarring voice broke the serenity.

“That’s him! He pretended to be a monk, I think he works for the undead trying to spy on you!”

Zac couldn’t help roll his eyes as he looked over at the direction the sound came from. Wang Fang stood some distance away, clearly trying to suck up to two monks.

Both monks appeared to be some sort of guards, as they each held a staff with some iron hoops at the end. Just looking at them Zac sensed they had to be at least level 30 from their presence. The two guards looked back at him, though they looked confused rather than anything else.

The others of the party stood some distance away, looking at the ongoings with troubled faces. Clearly they didn’t want to get involved in what was going on, neither speaking up for Zac nor helping Wang Fang.

Zac took the accusation in stride, as he didn’t feel it would be very hard to prove his innocence. He was especially sure of that as he just received a prompt he had never seen before. After mulling it over a few seconds he made his choice, making the prompt disappear again.

However, Sui wasn’t as calm as she scurried over toward the two monks who both seemed to recognize her. As soon as she approached they both put their hands together and bowed in greeting.

“Don’t listen to Fang, he’s talking crazy. We accidentally hit David with our truck on the way here,” she said, and followed up with a quick recounting of the situation.

The two monks looked a bit troubled at the situation, but soon one of the two hurried toward the long stairs leading toward the monastery while the other one walked over toward Zac, much to the joy of Wang Fang.

“Patron, please accommodate this penniless monk and stay for a moment. While Patron Sui is a respected guest of the monastery, it is still a fact you contain an unordinary amount of yin energy. Please stand by while we confer with our senior brothers,” the monk said with a courteous bow.

“That’s fine, I’ll look at your mountain for a bit. It is very interesting,” Zac said as he sat down.

Zac truly didn’t mind the wait, as he found the inscriptions extremely interesting. Every type of inscription he’d encountered so far came from the system or integrated societies, and they all had one thing in common.

They were based on the fractals that made up the skills and pathways for Cosmic Energy. The fractals from the system felt the purest and unadulterated, whereas the ones from the Creators and Demons differed in various ways. However, they shared the same root.

From how Zac understood it, the fractals were the language of the Dao and they contained hints of various truths. That’s why it was possible to study skill fractals to slowly gain insight into the Dao. It was all based on a cohesive system drawn up by the Apostate of Order billions of years ago.

It was different with the Sanskrit writings on the mountain walls, as they had nothing to do with the fractals. Zac couldn’t understand how it was possible to draw power from something that seemed to be its own system, rather than the system of the multiverse.

It felt like a true miracle that the monastery somehow had managed to create something with Earth Scripture. As for exactly what the mountain did, Zac still wasn’t completely sure. It emitted a pressure as heavy as the world, yet at the same time it was light as a feather.

The only thing he could figure out after watching it for twenty minutes was that the mountain itself was the thing responsible for converting the miasma in the area. But that was likely only part of the capabilities of the mountain.

For the monastery to still stand strong, it likely possessed some sort of defensive or offensive abilities as well. Otherwise Mhal or one of his colleagues would have just destroyed the whole thing. Abbot Everlasting Peace should be quite powerful, but in the end he was only level 41. He shouldn’t be able to fend off the whole Undead Hordes with his own power.

One possibility he thought of was that this monastery was chosen as an outpost and the monks were given a crystal just like his. Maybe they possessed some extremely strong arrays that kept the area safe in case of attack. However, Zac didn’t gain access to those kinds of arrays until he finished the first Incursion quest.

He didn’t really make any headway with the scriptures, so didn’t mind seeing a coulple of monks slowly descend the stairs and walk toward him.

“Amitabha, patron. Abbot Everlasting Peace has asked for your company if convenient,” the monk said with a bow.

The old monk himself seemed quite confused about the invitation, and the same could be seen on the others. However, Zac himself wasn’t too surprised. When he arrived at the monastery he got the option by the system to make his presence known, which he accepted.

“Sounds good,” Zac only said and got to his feet. “Let me just talk with my travel companions.”

With a few steps he walked over to the group who now sat around a table having dinner some distance away, with the group of warrior monks following close behind. Sui looked over with a troubled face, but Zac spoke up before she could say anything.

“Thank you for your help over the past days. I am not sure I would have survived without your gift of life. If possible I will return the favor in the future.”

“You need to survive impersonating a venerable first,” Wang Fang retorted with a gleeful face, clearly misunderstanding the presense of the monks behind Zac.

The others looked troubled, especially the Old Man who looked back and forth between Zac and the monks respectfully standing behind him with a slight frown on his face. Zac only ignored Wang, much to his annoyance.

“You are welcome. I believe helping you will be the largest karmic contribution of my life,” Sui answered with sincerity, drawing surprised glances from the others.

Wang Fang seemed completely infuriated by the comment, and looked ready to go another round. However, he wasn’t given the opportunity as Zac simply left toward the stairs with the monks in tow.

As he reached the stairs he saw that they weren’t actually unadorned like it seemed from the distance. They were covered with scripts as well, with Sanskrit covering both the left and right sides, leaving only a small part of the middle clear to step on.

“There are 2 700 stairs leading up to the Monastery of Everlasting Peace. Each step is inscribed with a line from the Diamond Sutra. The Sutra is then repeated nine times. To walk the stairs is to search for enlightenment through repetition,” the elderly monk commented as he saw Zac gaze upon the text.

Zac only nodded in response as he took the first step on the stairs. As he did a small pressure landed on his shoulders, but it wasn’t to the point of really bothering him. Mostly unencumbered he kept walking up the stairs as he looked at the inscriptions on the sides.

The monks behind Zac looked at each others with some surprise, but quickly followed Zac up the stairs. No one spoke as they kept walking up one step at a time. Zac couldn’t help but look at each line as he walked, being drawn to the words. He couldn’t actually read the Sanskrit, but through his language skill he still got a sense what it said.

Of course, that was just the surface. The sutras of Buddhism and Hinduism were notoriously cryptic, and one could spend their whole life pondering its layers. However, he was surprised to sense that he got a different inspiration from the 301st step compared to the 1st. The inscriptions were the same, yet their meaning was somehow different.

Curious, Zac kept climbing, trying to absorb whatever the Diamond Sutra was trying to tell him. The formless pressure was gaining slightly in strength with each of his step, and by the time he reached the seventh iteration of the Diamond Sutra it started to become quite strenuous, to the point that Zac was unsure whether he’d make it all the way.

Zac was contemplating whether he should start rotating his Cosmic Energy or ask the monks walking behind him what was going on. But in the end he felt that would somehow be losing, or failing some test. The monks behind him walked without any effort, telling Zac it wasn’t an issue of strength. Even the old man looking to be at least 70 wasn’t even panting, only kindly smiling at him when Zac looked back.

Since the old man wasn’t using Cosmic Energy, Zac instead summoned his Dao of Trees as he kept walking. He felt he was on to something as the pressure drastically lessened, and released a Dao Field around his body. More surprisingly it felt as though the meaning of the inscriptions on the ground changed as he walked, instead starting to talk about his Dao.

As he ascended the last sets of steps his Dao Field kept subtly changing, turning more solid and robust. When he finally stood at the end of the stairs the pressure suddenly completely disappeared, and his Dao Field spread out over fifty meters, twice what he managed earlier.

His mind was crystal clear as he stood still for a few breaths, only pondering on his recent insights into the Dao. The stairs and its inscriptions had somehow stabilized his evolved seed, something that might normally have taken him weeks of meditation.

“Amithaba, patron. All is none. Heart is all,” the old monk said behind Zac as he bowed toward him.

“I feel like I have been given a huge gift here,” Zac said as he looked down at he stairs leading back toward the base of the mountain.

“If you light a lamp for somebody, it will also brighten your own path. Remember, the Dao comes from the heart. The heart can manifest the myriad Dao, but also endless worries,” the old monk said with a kindly smile. “This way patron, the Abbot is waiting.”

The other monks in the party monks seemed much friendlier to Zac after he ascended the steps, and with a bow, they left him and the old man. The monastery wasn’t too big Zac noted as they walked, and perhaps it could house a thousand monks. Then again, they were on a mountain, and perhaps there were a bunch of monks living as hermits in caves.

The temple was simple and austere but in spotless condition. There was a solemn silence in the air, and the area exuded an ancient aura. Zac felt it would taint the tranquility if he spoke here, so he let the old man lead him in complete silence through the compound.

After a few minutes they had walked to the back of the temple, and Zac noted with some surprise they passed the larger halls. Instead it appeared they headed toward a small courtyard hidden in the back. It was small and unassuming, and absolutely not the place Zac thought the abbot would stay.

A few monks sat and meditated on a square in front of the gates to the small courtyard, and they all opened their eyes when they heard the footsteps of Zac and the old monk. Even Zac felt some pressure when faced with the calm stares of the monks in front of him.

Zac realized that while these monks might not be on the ladder, they likely weren’t too far off. Besides, judging by the mysterious things going on at the monastery they might actually be stronger than some rankers in reality.

The old man simply placed his hands together in greeting, and led Zac into the small courtyard. There Actually were two layers of doors, and before opening the second door, the old man first closed the outer one. When the old man opened the inner door next, Zac was blanketed with an extremely dense amount of cosmic energy, to the point that it could rival the small cave beneath the lake of Cosmic Water.

As they entered Zac was surprised to see that most of the inner courtyard was covered by a pond, though it seemed to be normal water. Zac saw a few koi swing about, but that wasn’t what drew his attention. In the middle of the pond was a huge lotus-flower, reaching at least 3 meters across, and on top of it sat a monk staring out at the sunset.

The imagery was quite striking, but that wasn’t enough to shock Zac. He was still left gaping however from the torrents of pure healing powers that swirled around the flower. It was as though the old monk sat in the middle of a hurricane wrought from pure life.