The specific realms of Taoist cultivation are as follows:

1. Condensing the soul: In this step, one must refine the essence into energy and use visualization to condense the "soul" in the sea of ​​consciousness, which is the practice that Xu Sheng completed in the womb.

2. Soul Refining: This step is to continue to train the soul and make it stronger, until the soul power is strong enough to spread out of the body surface. This is the practice that Xu Sheng completed three years after he was born.

3. Manifesting the soul: This step, after allowing the soul power to manifest on the surface of the body, one must continue to temper the soul with various methods to make the soul power stronger. This was a practice that Xu Sheng had spent five years to complete.

Fourth, external soul: This step is that the soul power can gradually be released, and can directly affect the external physical world slightly! But the external soul power is still very rigid, it cannot turn, it can only be released straight. This is the state of practice that Xu Sheng is in now.

5. Soul and spirit: This step is the next realm that Xu Sheng wants to reach. If he can succeed, the soul power will be spiritual, the outward soul power will be able to turn, etc.

Only at this point can one be considered to have cultivated the 'spirit and soul', which also means that the Taoist's practice has reached a qualitative change.

A watershed has been crossed.

In fact, all of these practices are inseparable from the Taoist general principle of "refining essence into qi, refining qi into spirit, refining spirit into emptiness". When you reach the realm of spirit and soul, you have actually reached the level of refining qi into spirit.

After that there are: out-of-body experience, night wandering, split spirit, day wandering, yang spirit, transcending tribulation, and true person.

These are the seven realms to be climbed.

These are all part of 'refining the spirit and returning to emptiness'.

The ultimate goal of these Taoist practices is to become a true person!

Use the power of thunder to return the soul to emptiness and merge it with the body to become a real person!

Therefore, many people usually like to call some enlightened people as: Master xx.

In fact, this is just a compliment. In today's world of Liao Zhai, it seems that no one has ever heard of any living practitioner reaching the realm of true man.

Of course, it is also possible that there are some masters hiding in the world, so it is possible that Xu Sheng doesn’t know about it.

After all, it is possible that some people also know about the evil existence of the fake Guanyin Bodhisattva. In order to fight against this evil existence, they will hide themselves in the crowd and continue to practice.

If Xu Sheng wanted to deal with that fake Guanyin Bodhisattva, he would have to overcome the calamity and become a real person! Thinking of this, he couldn't help but feel that the road ahead was long and arduous.

But Buddhists do not need to overcome tribulations.

Because the Buddhist practice directly treats the physical body as a mere mortal shell.

Just abandon the physical body!

So they don't have to endure the thunder tribulation.

All you need to do is practice hard and sit in meditation.

Taoism emphasizes the "dual cultivation of nature and life", while Buddhism only cultivates nature and not life.

actually!

In the history of practice in this world!

In the beginning there was only Taoism, but no Buddhism.

All practitioners practice dual cultivation of body and soul. Although all practices are aimed at cultivating the spirit and soul, the ultimate goal is to rely on the power of the spirit and soul to make the body immortal.

But later, at some unknown day, the practice of "Buddha" appeared, which was developed on the basis of Taoist practice.

Abandoning the Taoist obsession with the physical body, they regard the physical body as a mere stinking skin bag, and torture their own bodies through methods such as "asceticism" in order to strengthen their own souls.

In the end, he completely abandoned his body!

To make it sit and become one, means to crush it into pieces!

Then one can become a Buddha with just the spirit and soul!

Therefore, people in the world often spread the legend of a great Taoist master with white hair and a youthful face.

But the Buddhists did not leave behind any similar legends.

The legends left behind by the great Buddhist monks are all about "ascetic monks" and the like.

This is also the reason why the little Taoist nun said "Buddha is Tao" when she was debating with Chun Yangzi.

In fact, Xu Sheng had already understood these things in his previous life, but now he still listened carefully to Senior Brother Twenty-Eight's systematic explanation.

Mainly I want to know if there are any other changes in the Taoist practice today after more than a hundred years.

But overall, there aren't many changes.

The rest involves specific cultivation methods and what to pay attention to when practicing various methods, what to do to achieve better results, etc.

This aspect is quite important. Having someone to teach you step by step and personally impart their practice experience can help you avoid many pitfalls in practice.

After all, in his previous life, Xu Sheng could only collect martial arts techniques, but he couldn't practice them at that time, and it was impossible for him to personally experience the pitfalls that would be encountered in the process of practicing various martial arts techniques.

Especially some small details that need attention are very critical.

It's hard to understand without experiencing it yourself.

In short, under the meticulous guidance of Senior Brother Twenty-Eight, Xu Sheng's practice progress was indeed faster.

However, it is still a long way from being able to cultivate a spirit.

Practicing Taoism is not something that can be achieved overnight.

It will probably take some years to cultivate the soul.

Three more days later.

This day.

Senior Brother Twenty-Eight called Xu Sheng and Cheng Shou over.

"Twenty-ninth Junior Brother, Thirty-third Junior Brother, I asked you to come here today."

Senior Brother Twenty-Eight said, "I almost forgot that Master had told me to give you a great treasure!"

"What?"

Cheng Shou's eyes lit up: "Good baby?"

"A gift from the master?"

Xu Sheng also breathed rapidly: "What kind of magic weapon is it?"

He thought that Senior Brother Twenty-Eight was going to give him some powerful magical weapons.

But unexpectedly, the next moment, Senior Brother Twenty-Eight took out two guns from his space magic weapon.

"Here, I'll take you there!"

Senior Brother Twenty-Eight said, "Take it. What are you standing there for? Do you know what this is? It's the latest model of musket! It's not easy to get it!"

“……” Chengshou was dumbfounded.

“???” Xu Sheng was speechless.

I didn't expect that a real Taoist priest would give away not some magic weapon, but the gun that he had someone researched in his previous life!

"Why, you look down on guns?"

However, Senior Brother Twenty-Eight said, "Although we have magic power, magic power can block bullets! But how precious is our magic power? How time-consuming is it to recover? Now that muskets have appeared in the world, we Taoists must keep up with the times!"

"..."Xu Sheng was speechless.

"..." Cheng Shou was solemn.

"It's not easy for us to cultivate our magic power. If we can avoid not using it, then don't use it!"

Senior Brother Twenty-Eight said, "So, it is very important to have a gun for self-defense! If you are really entangled by karma and have to take action, just use the gun and you don't have to waste mana."

In the end, Xu Sheng had to admit that what Senior Brother Twenty-Eight said made sense.

He took the gun together with Cheng Shou.

Although guns are still useless against truly powerful practitioners.

For example, it won’t work if you face a fake Guanyin Bodhisattva.

Even cannons couldn't kill her at the time.

If Xu Sheng wants to kill the fake Bodhisattva Guanyin, he can only improve his cultivation skills.

But there's nothing wrong with having a gun for self-defense.

This thing is still very useful against some ordinary people or some ordinary practitioners.

"Don't use it recklessly. I'll teach you!"

At this time, Senior Brother Twenty-Eight continued to say, "The gun was invented by Xu Longsheng, the founding emperor of Daxu! It has been developed for more than a hundred years and has become even more sophisticated! It does not require any mana to activate it..."

Later, he even took Xu Sheng and Cheng Shou to the back mountain to practice shooting.

Xu Sheng was speechless about this. He didn't expect that the first thing he would practice after entering the Taoist temple would be spearmanship.

Of course Xu Sheng understood that these were all different evolutions brought to the world by what he had done in his previous life.

There's no way.

It's my own fault.

I can only bear it.

However, Xu Sheng had naturally practiced shooting in his previous life, so his shooting skills improved very quickly.

He was even called a sharpshooter by Senior Brother Twenty-Eight.

A genius with guns!

“Why do I always miss the target?”

Even Xiao Sanshichengshou doubted his life because of this and said, "And Senior Brother Twenty-Nine has only touched a gun for a few days and he can hit the target every time? Is our talent really so different???"

The next day, Senior Brother Twenty-Eight announced that Xu Sheng no longer needed to practice shooting.

Of course, Chengshou still needs to continue practicing.

He cannot neglect his usual spiritual practice.

Only after completing the daily practice would it be time to practice shooting.

However, Xu Sheng was not released.

Senior Brother Twenty-Eight was very cunning. He directly pulled Xu Sheng over and asked Xu Sheng to be the instructor of shooting techniques.

He would just slip away and come over to inspect when he had nothing to do.

"..."Xu Sheng was also speechless.

However, teaching Chengshou how to practice shooting was not a waste of time, so Xu Sheng did not refuse.

Anyway, he just gave some pointers every day and let Chengshou practice there alone.

Xu Sheng himself went to ask his twenty-eighth senior brother about the real matters of cultivation.

He found that Senior Brother Twenty-Eight liked to study mathematics and other science-related subjects. Of course, he did not delay his cultivation.

The reason for this is that Senior Brother Twenty-Eight wanted to emulate the founding emperor Xu Longsheng and combine some of the extraordinary powers of cultivation with the power of science.

After all, the materials used in muskets are common things in the world, except gunpowder!

And this recipe comes from the Taoist alchemy furnace explosion recipe.

According to what Senior Brother Twenty-Eight said, this founding emperor actually had such a wonderful idea that he used the energy of our Taoist alchemy furnace to make use of it with ordinary things! After turning this power into his own use, he created such a powerful musket!

Very amazing!

So, Senior Brother Twenty-Eight wants to follow him!

For this reason, he would occasionally take time out to study geometry and some learning materials circulated in the Daxu Research Institute.

The dual identities of a technology enthusiast and a Taoist practitioner were thus combined in the body of Senior Brother Twenty-Eight.

Of course, Xu Sheng wouldn't say much about Senior Brother Twenty-Eight's personal hobbies.

Six years passed in the blink of an eye.

Xu Sheng has been in Yunhu Temple for six years.

He is fourteen years old now.

However, his body has only grown to the size of a five or six year old.

And during these six years of practice, Xu Sheng's cultivation finally improved.

On this day, he cultivated to the realm of 'Soul'.

Finally, the 'soul' was trained into a divine soul.

"come over!"

Xu Sheng mobilized his spiritual power, which spread out from his sea of ​​consciousness and acted on a stone, lifting the dozens of kilograms of stone out of thin air.

"Up! Down! Turn!"

And all kinds of movements, up, down, left, and right, were successful.

"call!"

Afterwards, Xu Sheng took back the power of his soul, and the stone fell to the ground with a bang: "It's done, the soul has become divine!"