Journey of the Fate Destroying Emperor novel Chapter 167

Shi Fuyu pondered for a while to reorganized his words, then he said, "At first, many people did absorb the power of faith to cultivate--especially in the early stage of the Incense Era, however, the power of faith and incense had repercussion or side affects."

"Side effects? According to the records in the Profound Gate, faith and incense is very poisonous to the spirit. Is that what you mean by repercussions?" asked Feng Heng.

"It’s not that simple. Do you know what faith actually is?"

"No."

"Faith is basically the aggregation of spiritual power of countless people. For example, when someone prays to either offer worship to a higher being or to ask them for something, a part of their spiritual power will combine with the spiritual energy between Heaven and Earth to form the power of Faith or Incense."

"The negative side of this is the fact these spiritual powers are not pure, but full of emotions and desires. As a matter of fact, the power of faith was first discovered when a monk accidentally absorbed this power in a temple while breaking through the Primordial Spirit Realm."

"That monk discovered that he could use the Incense to go through the Heart Demon Tribulation needed to turn his soul into a Primordial Spirit. Later, this method was used by Buddhist and other sects to make it easier to break through into that realm."

"However, faith is not only made of positive emotion or desire, but also negative one, which can easily affect a person’ spirit, forcibly changing their nature. Especially later on in that era when Buddhist sect absorbed a massive amount of Incense Power."

"The majority of monks in that time became brutal and greedy. They would slaughter people for no reason. More importantly, they would enslave mortals to force them to pray and offer Incense to them." _{freewebnoveℓ.com}

Shi Fuyu paused for a moment, then took a short passage down memory lane. Meanwhile, Feng Heng hurriedly asked, "So, how did the people of that time deal with the problem?"

The question jolted Shi Fuyu from his memories, he smiled before answering, "This problem occurred in the early stage of the Incense Era, so I’m not very sure exactly what happened."

"What I do know was that it was solved by the Karmic Unbound Emperor."

"Karmic Unbound Emperor? Never heard of him," replied Feng Heng.

Shi Fuyu paused for a moment after hearing this, then he looked at his disciple deeply.

"Master, is there something wrong?"

"No," replied Shi Fuyu as he secretly sighed. "The Karmic Unbound Emperor was actually the first Buddhist Emperor of the Incensed Era. He created the Karmic Heavenly Flame and passed it down to the world."

"As a result, the Buddhist Sect could use this flame to burn out the impurities inside the Incense Power, thus making it easier to absorb."

"Since this flame has the name Karma, does that mean it could be used to wash away the Karma of the people who absorb Incense Power?" asked Feng Heng.

"You are correct, however, Incense is not as karmically binding as Qi Luck. As long as the person who absorbed the power accomplished the wish or desire of the people who prayed to them, they can still escape being bound by karma."

"Master, since the problem was solved, why did other people stop using that power?"

"That’s because the majority cultivator labeled the Incense Dao as heretical or unorthodox. Not to mention that only the Buddhist Sects had access to the Heavenly Karma Flame."

"Furthermore, the flame did not completely solve the problem. At first everything was fine, however, the Buddhist Sects decided to expand their borders to all the other worlds in the community."

"They not only preach the philosophy and ideas of Buddhism, but also use these worlds to gather a massive amount of Faith. However, with this large amount of power, even the Karmic Flames could not remove all the impurities."

"At that time, the Buddhist Sect began to fracture due to the internal contradiction."

"You mean infighting?" asked Feng Heng with a surprise look on his face.

"Yes. The term ’Buddhist Sect’ is used to refer to a coalition of all the different factions of that era that practiced the teachings of Buddha. So, you can imagine the contradiction with so many Emperor Lineages collaborating together."

"So what caused the split between them?"