THE GOD EATER

Chapter 35: How To Refine Willpower.

”As simple as the method of the Martial Body Sect, it has granted their disciples a very powerful will. In fact, any attempt to influence their minds and control them usually helps to refine their willpower and make their Dao Heart stronger.

Then he pointed at the fourth name and said with a smile on his lips, ”Of the five methods, perhaps the method of the Sword Heart Sect is the most interesting. This is because it relies on morality.”

”The disciples of the Sword Way sect divide morality into black and white, which are good and evil, respectively. Then they choose to focus on one of them and sacrifice the other to what they have chosen.”

”A disciple of the Sword Way sect that has chosen to do good must always do good, while the one who has chosen to do evil must always do evil. It might seem simple, but there is a reason why disciples of the Sword Way sect are the ones who suffer from a broken Dao Heart the most and become demons easily.”

”I dare to say that relying on morality for one’s Dao Heart is folly because the definition of good and bad is relative. In fact, even using the same definition of good and bad, something that you did not do in the past that used to be evil might actually be helpful to someone else, which is good, and something that you did in the past that used to be good can easily become the bad thing to do over time.”

”Take, for example, the swordsman who went to kill a monster who was forcing the people of a village to sacrifice humans to him. The swordsman couldn’t stand this and went to kill the monster because he thought that the monster was evil.”

”He killed the monster and thought that the villagers would be grateful for the good deed that he did. But the villagers cursed him because, without the monster to protect them, other monsters could just waltz into the village and eat whatever they want at any time.”

”As it turned out, the monster was taking human sacrifice as payment for the services that it rendered. The monster never forced the villagers to sacrifice to it, and it never cheated them after it got paid. It was the villagers who struck the deal with the monster. So the monster was a hardworking being, and what the swordsman did was evil.”

”What sealed the deal was that many people died because of the actions of the swordsman. Far more people died than the human sacrifice that the monster ate once in a while. When the swordsman heard this, his Dao Heart shattered, and he became a demon.”

At this point, Muni couldn’t stop himself from laughing. As he laughed, he said, ”There are many such stories. Like the time the swordman who condemned a pig monster for eating an entire village of people was condemned by the pig monster for raising pigs in captivity, fattening them, and eating like some depraved person.”

His laughter increased when he thought of something and said, ”Or the evil swordsman who wiped out an entire forest of beasts and left the carcass to rot in the forest because he thought it was an evil thing to kill more than one needs and let things waste, only to find out that by wiping out the beasts in the forest, he had reduced the load of predators in the forest, which helped herbivores to survive and prosper.”

”Later, he heard that by letting the carcass rot in the forest, he let nutrients enter the soil,l which benefited the trees in the forest and which, in turn, helped the herbivore population to bounce back. At the end of the day, his actions helped the forest prosper, so it was good, not evil. So his Dao Shattered.”

He spoke at length of many more examples of swordsmen whose Dao Heart broke because they misjudged the situation or went too far, such that their evil actions became good and their good actions became evil. This went on for a long time, with him laughing the whole time.

After he stopped laughing, he said, ”My point is that morality is too fickle. The standard for good and bad for the same action changes from person to person and from race to race.”

”So it seems foolish to rely on morality for something as important as Dao Heart. But that’s probably just me being ignorant. Which I won’t be surprised is the case. After all, their sect’s founder was a Dao Lord, and the Sword Way Sect has managed to stay afloat after more than a hundred thousand years since it was established.”

He shook his head and said, ”What can my point of view compare with that of a Dao Lord. Especially, one who established a sect that has survived for so long. Besides, the disciples of the Sword Way Sect still have the highest offensive power. So they must be doing something right.”

Finally, he coughed and said, ”And that brings me to us. We in the Four Directions Sect like control. In order to refine our Dao Hearts, we train ourselves to control ourselves better.”

At this point, he began to draw on the board again. He also drew a large circle this time around. But he split the circle into two with a vertical line.

On the left half of the circle, he wrote conscious and logic. While on the right half of the circle, he wrote unconscious and emotions.

Then he turned to them and said, ”In the Four Directions Sect, we believe that the mind is split into two main parts and that these two parts are the parts controlled by conscious thoughts and logic or unconscious thoughts and emotions.”

”We know that willpower can come from both parts of the mind. But we also know that in order to refine willpower and increase the density of the mind, we must purify it and let the mind be occupied by only one part.”