Taoist Heming.

For some reason, Lu Ban didn’t feel any special feelings when he heard this name.

Maybe it's because he already knows the other person's identity and has witnessed how he went from an ordinary person to what he is now.

It's like when you see a gang boss who looks ferocious and vicious, as if he's going to take people's hands and feet if they disagree with him. He looks scary, but if you start from the moment he's still running in the alley wearing open-crotch pants and holding a pacifier, you'll feel the same way as Lu Ban does now.

However, Taoist Heming had obviously experienced a lot, and he didn't remember Lu Ban. He didn't know whether the other party would react when Lu Ban told him about the time when he ran through the streets in open-crotch pants when he was a child.

"Are you Taoist Heming?"

Lu Ban asked as if to confirm.

"What do you think Heming Taoist is like? Has he ascended to become an immortal? Or has he already decayed and turned into dust?"

Browning seemed to have misunderstood Lu Ban's meaning and asked a question in return. Without waiting for Lu Ban to answer, he continued to explain.

"Sublimation is a special kind of transformation that allows a person to abandon the constraints of the flesh and become a truly high-level being. In this case, my existence is no longer limited to the material."

Browning explained.

His words were tainted with corruption, causing Shia to frown slightly. However, for Shia, who had studied magic, Browning's remarks were not too outrageous and were still acceptable.

"Human consciousness also relies on matter to exist. Without matter, human consciousness is out of the question. If you want to achieve immortality and sublimate yourself, you must first give up your body, including all your material things."

As Browning spoke, he took out a small knife from somewhere. He picked up the knife and cut his fingers. The sharp blade cut through the skin, chiseled into the flesh, and rubbed against the bones, making a harsh sound. Then, he cut off the entire finger from the joint and put it in the palm of his palm to play with it.

"Flesh and blood are weak, and even those monsters will eventually be destroyed."

He was referring to those mud monsters. It seemed that Taoist Heming had indeed used the contents of the "Xuanjun Seven Chapter Secret Scripture" to summon the mud monsters and tried to merge his own will with them.

But he did not succeed. Either he preserved his will in some way, or he proved through experiments that this method was unreliable.

"As long as there is a body that can be destroyed, then immortality is a long way off. Some people are foolish and only focus on strengthening their bodies, hoping to obtain a body that has been tempered a thousand times, and want to rely on their own strength to defeat everything, but they are wrong."

Browning put the finger into his mouth like a biscuit, chewed it and swallowed it.

The old butler at the side saw this scene, his eyes were already bloodshot, and he fell to the ground. He looked like he was thrown into a bell and was struck dozens of times. He was unable to react to the outside world.

Looking at the old butler like this, Xia Ya punched him directly and knocked him out to prevent him from being contaminated again.

"You mean the process of transformation from an ordinary person to a god? How is this achieved?"

Lu Ban asked slowly.

He knew very well that Taoist Heming posed no threat to them at the moment. Otherwise, based on Taoist Heming's own condition, there would be no need for him to chat here with Lu Ban and the others.

The reason why the other party communicates with you means that he has a request.

Considering what Taoist Heming said about hiding here and using paintings from the ancient capital to suppress the incident, Lu Ban felt that there must be some missing link that he had not discovered.

“That’s a good question.”

Browning laughed. The wound on his cut finger healed quickly, and then a new finger grew out at a speed faster than Lu Ban's growing grass. There was no difference between the two.

"What is God?"

Browning asked back, and before Lu Ban could think, he spoke again, asking and answering his own question.

"In ancient times, thunder and lightning were gods, rainstorms were gods, landslides were gods, and ground cracks were gods. People revered natural phenomena, so they became gods. But we know very well that these are not gods. They have no will of their own. They are just the embodiment of laws."

Lu Ban had read about these things in books on folklore and mythology. The earliest beliefs and myths of mankind originated from the awe of nature.

"So, if lightning has a will, can it be called a true god?"

Browning asked.

"……law?"

Almost instantly, Lu Ban thought of the strange things in the world he lived in.

As we all know, those strange things are the embodiment of rules. They cannot be destroyed and will only move from one place to another. If these strange things awaken their will, then they can indeed be regarded as gods.

"So-called sublimation is the process of transforming oneself into a concept. Except for those born as the Old Ones, gods from outside the domain, or old gods from eternity, ordinary creatures who want to reign immortal must transform themselves into concepts."

Browning snapped his fingers, and fire appeared in his hands.

"If I give a civilization the concept of [fire], then I am a fire god, but I do not rely on these people to exist, only because I am the embodiment of fire. Of course, in this vast foreign land, there are also foreign lands without fire, such as a foreign land with only endless abyss and sea water, and evil lurking under the waves. In such a world, there is no concept of fire, and the influence of the gods who rely on it will be weakened."

"So, you exist in the Wasted City based on the concept of [Heming Taoist]?"

Xia quickly understood what Browning meant.

After Taoist Heming became [Taoist Heming], even if his body withered, as long as his name was still being passed down, Taoist Heming would be immortal. He could descend to the foreign land where this name was passed down in any way he wanted. The deeper the understanding of the concept of [Taoist Heming] in the foreign land, the stronger his power would be.

And if Taoist Heming mastered other concepts, such as fire, rain, and light, then he would truly be omnipresent and omnipotent, and could survive for a long and eternal time.

This may sound incredible, but you have to know that [concept] is also a kind of [knowledge], and [knowledge] has [pollution] and [power].

Becoming a concept is equivalent to becoming pollution.

This is why those Old Ones are so highly polluted that even just one glance at them can cause a person to lose their sanity and fall into madness.

This is the essence of sublimation.

"You are smart, that's why I am communicating with you."

Browning crossed his legs, tilted his head slightly forward and asked.

"Would you like to make a deal with me?"