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The real purpose, of course, is to allow believers to condense the seeds of faith, so that they can be called believers.
If Ling Wuji were to plant the seeds of faith in others himself, it would naturally be a very simple thing.
But he needed some means to screen believers.
In other words, he needed to use this ritual to sense the emotions of people other than his believers, which was what the old Taoist priest called "using the false to cultivate the true." So he did not hesitate to explain those terms in detail to Kasumigaoka Utaha, but he did not have any expectation that Kasumigaoka Utaha could condense the seeds of faith.
A monk needs a burning desire to break through the barrier of life and death.
The same is true when one wants to gather the seeds of faith.
But then again, if a person's life is stable, and if she is a beautiful female writer who became famous at a young age like Kasumigaoka Utaha, who has almost everything she needs, is her curiosity to step into the mysterious side really enough to condense into a seed of faith for her?
So Ling Wuji just waited and saw.
"So, the purpose of the Taoist scriptures is to deepen the faith and determination of the people who read them? But what use is that faith and determination to the believers?"
Kasumigaoka Utaha was not a stupid person, so the explanation given by Ling Wuji was not too difficult to understand.
So she quickly grasped the key.
"Of course the wool comes from the sheep."
Ling Wu Ji just said.
"Then is there no way to make believers' faith and willpower work for themselves? Why do we need to go through the middleman of 'God'?"
"You got the premise wrong," Ling Wuji replied to her message with a sneer, "If they can solve the problem themselves, why should they believe in God? Religion has always been an activity that only people who are powerless against reality will truly participate in. The more desperate they are about reality, the more powerless they are, the more they will dedicate themselves to the so-called gods, hoping that the gods can take away their pain, loss and helplessness, and expect that they can transform themselves into another person so that they will no longer be so painful.
"But are you really that miserable and helpless?"
The answer is naturally no.
This emotion, which is just normal worry during adolescence, cannot be described as painful or helpless.
"Then why don't you give me the normal, access to the Mystical Side?"
"Didn't I tell you that method a long time ago?"
"But you don't seem like someone who would truly believe in a god, do you?"
Kasumigaoka Utaha knew very well that besides the Green Clan and becoming someone's follower, there must be other ways. The young man must have chosen that other way to have the means he has today.
"Don't even think about that."
Ling Wuji could tell at the first glance that she had no aptitude at all in practicing Taoism or martial arts. Moreover, even if she had the aptitude, she was almost an adult, and her mind and body had already been formed, so there was simply not much potential that could be tapped. It is not impossible for people who started practicing martial arts and Taoism at this age to break through to the Golden Elixir stage, but how many such people were there in Lu Chunyang's thousands of years?
Even if one has excellent aptitude, if they start practicing at this age, most of them will only linger at the level of life and death and the innate realm until death, not to mention that she does not have that aptitude yet.
In comparison, the Shinto system and the Green Clan do not require any qualifications.
Of course, strictly speaking, the Shinto system also requires certain qualifications. For example, the "Taishang Laojun Divine Mantra" mentioned by Ling Wuji before. If you want to absorb the faith of Taiqing among the Three Purities and use this magic spell, the difficulty is basically equivalent to obtaining the basic authority of the core area in the Shenzhou barrier. This spell can restrain all people, things, and things outside the Three Purities system. Even disobedient gods and godslayers, if they are not factions within the Three Purities system, will be suppressed to a certain extent by this spell.
It’s just that Ling Wuji designed the Shinto system himself, and he himself serves as a living god, so naturally he has the final say on everything in this system.
If you must say it, within his Shinto system, it is actually a competition of who can please Ling Wu Ji more.
It's just that apart from giving a little special treatment to Arisa of the Shrine, Ling Wuji didn't set any levels for the believers, so he basically treated everyone equally. He usually wouldn't refuse the believers in the IS Academy who wanted to pray to him and borrow his power, but in Ling Wuji's eyes, these were basically very small trivial matters, and sometimes he was impatient and directly set a value for those believers. As long as they prayed, the Sky Curtain Barrier would tell them how much wish power they had left.
Ling Wuji only drew one layer and returned the rest to them.
They themselves had participated in the specific layering of the sky curtain barrier and the weaving of spells, so they could understand some of the spells themselves, but they did not have the authority. In fact, even if they had the authority, they could not use it. It was like you knew the account password of a computer, but you could not find the power supply to start the computer.
What Ling Wu Ji gave back to them was faith and willpower that could serve as a power source.
So sometimes, Ling Wuji felt that he was actually in a banking system, but the faith of these believers who had the seeds of faith in him was as fickle as their faith in stocks. That's why he thought of using the VR game to expand the source of faith and willpower. Anyway, if you want to gain faith, you don't need the seeds of faith, you just need to believe.
Volume 3: Between God and Man: Chapter 4: New Believers
As for Kasumigaoka Utaha, Ling Wuji actually just wanted to pull her into that studio to work as a copywriter.
So in a sense, the two pieces of information that Ling Wuji gave her were just for her to familiarize herself with first, so that she would not be completely unprepared when the studio was set up. Although Ling Wuji couldn't even recruit her at the moment, it was still unknown when he would be able to realize this vision.
But Ling Wuji has already decided to spread this information.
However, even people like Kasumigaoka Utaha could hardly understand it. Even if Ling Wuji spread it so directly on the Internet, most people basically stayed away from such messy and extremely obscure text.
“That’s why I want to spread it through games…”
Integrating these things into the worldview of the game and spreading them out would definitely be easier to understand than dry text and diagrams. Even if it wasn't so easy to understand, as long as people were interested in the game, he wouldn't be afraid of not being able to collect the power of wishes. It's just that he had another wish for the game, and under that wish, this little thought was actually a bit insignificant.
Not to mention that he hasn't even figured out the outline of his studio yet.
So it is very difficult to proceed in this matter.
However, Ling Wuzhi is too young no matter how you look at it. If he wants to convince others, even if he brings up his record of defeating Luo Hao and Kusanagi Godou, it won't mean anything. If he wants to recruit others to participate in this matter, he must offer more practical benefits.
The people on the mysterious side are skeptical because they don't see any benefit in this matter.
“Perhaps the secular side is a more suitable breakthrough point?”
Ling Wu Ji thought about it and decided not to continue wasting his time on such things.
However, what he did not expect was that the first believer who planted the seed of faith was not himself, but was actually in the IS Academy.
What happened to those young ladies?
……
Although Ling Wuzhi did not say it explicitly, in fact, he did treat those dozens of students in the IS Academy as tools, and basically only planted the seeds of faith in them for the purpose of stratifying the authority of the Sky Curtain Barrier.
But no matter what, the IS Academy is a military school after all. If you choose to join the army after graduation, you will at least start as a captain, which is definitely a promising future. So in addition to the scores of the IS adaptability test, applicants must also pass a very rigorous cultural course examination to enter this school. Therefore, most people in this school have above-average qualities.
However, the reserve retainers of the Kōbōin family were not actually very averse to joining Ling Wuzhi's secret cult.
It is better to say that they used Ling Wuzhi's secret cult as a bond, and advanced and retreated together, which set off quite a trend in the school. Not to mention that they sometimes used the magic on the sky curtain barrier to secretly bless themselves, so they were always successful in combat training. This invincible style made outsiders extremely envious of their small group, so the trend became more and more popular, which made the freshmen admire them, so they secretly spread the belief in the "Star God".
As we all know, Japan is a country that pays great attention to atmosphere.
In Japan, being able to read people's expressions is basically an indispensable skill.
The book "The Chrysanthemum and the Sword" written by an American also mentioned that the Japanese national character is that they are naturally inclined towards a sense of order and obedience of "everyone in his own place". In other words, the Japanese always want to integrate into the collective and always find their own place in the collective.
Not to mention that the Japanese are born to "admire the strong", that is, they worship the strong.
Therefore, when the freshmen heard that there was such an invincible group among the seniors, they would naturally worship them. And under the rather distorted Japanese concept of looking at the atmosphere, this trend immediately swept the entire first grade.
Do you want to know the secret of why the seniors are so powerful?
Do you want to be like my senior?
Do you want to join this group of senior sisters?
Come on, devote your body and soul to the "Star God"!
Generally speaking, this is the tune.
Of course, in fact, whether it is those who have already been planted with the seeds of faith by Ling Wuji or the later ones, basically few of them take this seriously. They just regard this trend as an interesting rumor with a little bit of mysticism related to tarot cards, constellations, etc., and just listen to it as a rumor.
Not to mention that among the freshmen there are heirs to old English aristocrats, such as Cecilia Orcutt, who transferred from England.
As we all know, Protestantism is the state religion of England. Some people have been baptized by priests since childhood and believe in Jehovah, although they may not be very devout. Religion is more of a cultural custom to them. But in any case, heirs of old aristocrats like Cecilia will most likely not believe in such messed up things, but sneer at them.
But Yuuki Asuna, who is currently studying at the IS Academy, is naturally also a first-year student.
She also didn't know that the so-called "Star Lord" was Ling Wuji himself.
Of course, she is not dissatisfied with real life.
So she just followed the trend and said a few words of gossip.
Huang Lingyin, who knew from the beginning that the cooperation between Ling Wuji and IS Academy was just a cover, was also a first-year student. Although she did not fully understand the truth, she knew in her heart that this so-called Star Lord must have been made up by Ling Wuji, and she chose to stay away from this trend among first-year students.
Although many freshmen came to her for help because they could not understand the strange Chinese characters in the Taoist scripture.
Although Ling Wuji did use Japanese to compile the Taoist scriptures, he was not Bai Juyi after all. Some words would lose their meaning if they were separated from the original meaning of the Chinese characters. So when he encountered such a situation, he had to stick to the original meaning of the Chinese characters instead of forcibly translating those Chinese characters into Japanese.
Generally speaking, under such circumstances, there is no possibility of actually producing a new believer who can condense the true seed of faith.
Most people just believe it vaguely, or even somewhere between belief and disbelief.
But when there are more people, anything can happen.
Ling Wuji didn't know what kind of feelings that girl had. Maybe it was just a coincidence, but she did strictly follow the knowledge and steps in the Taoist scriptures and rituals, and truly condensed the seeds of faith. After that, the girl used the power of the Shinto system and completely surpassed all the first-year students from an ordinary freshman! It was like she had evolved!
Volume 3: Between God and Man: Chapter 5: Jealousy
Ling Wuji later found out that the fundamental reason why that girl condensed the seed of faith was just jealousy.
This is also the reason why Ling Wuji didn't even sense it.
He was almost losing this emotion.
What on earth could he be jealous of others now?
The most fundamental reason for jealousy is that others have what you want but you don’t. Ling Wuji is not even sure what he wants now, so he doesn’t understand this emotion at all. The only thing that is certain is that this emotion is not in his nature, and his clear nature does not require him to use falsehood to cultivate true nature with this emotion.
But the problem is that after that girl did it, all the first-year students in the IS Academy were completely excited.
After that girl successfully turned herself into the queen of involution, the jealousy of those first-year students continued to erupt.
"Jealousy" ranks second in the definition of the seven deadly sins of Christianity, and is second only to "pride". Although emotions themselves are actually contrary to reason, the flames of jealousy are the ones that are most likely to make people lose their minds. Originally, that girl was an ordinary person, but she became the best in the grade just because she condensed the seed of faith. So, if it is just because she can condense the seed of faith according to the Taoist scriptures and those rituals, there is no reason why she can do it, but they who are originally better than her cannot do it!
Ling Wu Ji was speechless for a moment when he saw that the first-year students of IS Academy were condensing the seeds of faith one after another purely out of jealousy.
If things continue like this, it will really have the makings of a cult!
But the quality of students in IS College is already extremely high. Even if Ling Wu Ji wanted to stop it, the students' understanding was already high. What's more, they have a clear precedent in front of them. The variable of whether or not to become a believer also occupies a very important position in the competitiveness of the internal circulation, so he could not stop the change of that trend at all.
So in the end, those who were able to understand basically succeeded in condensing the seeds of faith and left their classmates behind.
Of course, the rest of them are not all without that understanding.
For example, Cecilia Orcutt did not join this trend due to the customs of her hometown.
For example, Huang Lingyin, she was not unaware that this might not be feudal superstition, but she grew up in China and really could not accept this practice.
The two foreign transfer students were already being marginalized in IS Academy, a school full of Japanese. Now that they did not join this trend, this implicit marginalization became even more serious. Huang Lingyin was fine, because she could interpret the Taoist scripture to a certain extent.
Although there are actually quite a few things that she doesn't understand.
And from the appearance point of view, she is actually no different from the Japanese.
But the blonde Cecilia Orcutt did not receive the same treatment as Huang Lingyin.
Not to mention that she was usually very arrogant to others, always regarding herself as a noble, and looked down on her classmates' "commoner" status. Originally, because her IS was a third-generation aircraft, which was one generation behind the training aircraft "Zhan Tie" used by her classmates, her grades were among the best at the beginning of the school year. In addition, as the heir of the Orcutt family, she was usually generous and had no concept of money, which made her sought after by many people.
But later, some people became Ling Wuzhi's followers and were even able to control the second-generation machine "Zhan Tie" to defeat the third-generation machine.