Chapter 2: The Edict
1511 Words
Three weeks of monastery life had turned him into something resembling an actual monk. At least on the outside.
His daily routine was simple: wake up before dawn (still traumatic for a former NEET), sweep the courtyard while greeting every ant and bird with "Amitābha," meditate until his legs went numb, eat rice that somehow tasted like enlightenment, then repeat until bedtime.
The system was working...sort of.
He could lift the heavy water buckets without his arms screaming for mercy. His meditation sessions no longer felt like torture—sometimes he actually zoned out for real instead of just pretending. And yesterday, he'd managed to balance on one foot during morning exercises without face-planting into the gravel.
Progress was progress, even if it was the spiritual equivalent of grinding low-level mobs.
But there was a problem.
"Good morning, Brother Chen," he said to a passing monk, hands folded respectfully. "Amitābha."
Brother Chen smiled and nodded. The familiar warmth bloomed in his chest.
"Beautiful day, Sister Mei," he greeted a nun tending the garden. "Amitābha."
She bowed gracefully in return. Another gentle surge of power.
"Hey there, little guy," he said to a temple cat lounging in a sunbeam. "Amitābha."
The cat opened one judgmental eye, decided he wasn't worth the effort, and went back to sleep. Still counted, apparently—the system wasn't picky about enthusiasm levels.
Everything was going smoothly until he rounded the corner and nearly walked face-first into Senior Monk Liu.
Liu was everything he wasn't: tall, serene, with the kind of beard that suggested he'd achieved at least three levels of enlightenment before breakfast. The man radiated spiritual energy that made the air itself feel heavy with wisdom.
"Good morning, Senior Brother Liu," he said, executing what he thought was a perfect bow. "Amitābha."
Liu stopped walking. His eyes—deep and uncomfortably penetrating—studied him like he was examining something distasteful. The senior monk's spiritual sense seemed to probe at him, and whatever Liu felt made his expression darken.
Then Liu did something that had never happened before.
He said nothing.
No return greeting, no nod, no acknowledgment whatsoever.
Liu simply walked past him like he was invisible.
The expected warmth never came. His chest felt cold, empty.
"Uh... okay then," he muttered to Liu's retreating figure. "Guess somebody achieved the wrong kind of enlightenment today."
But something about Liu's expression stuck with him. It wasn't anger or rudeness. It was... disappointment? Like he'd sensed something spiritually wrong that disgusted him on a fundamental level.
---
The next morning, instead of his usual routine, a junior monk appeared at his door.
"The Master wishes to see you. Immediately."
His stomach dropped. In every isekai story he'd ever read, "the master wants to see you immediately" was code for "you're about to get wrecked."
The Master's chamber was exactly what you'd expect: simple wooden furniture, calligraphy scrolls with probably profound meanings, and an atmosphere thick enough to cut with a spiritual sword. Master Huineng sat behind a low table, his presence filling the room like concentrated wisdom.
Senior Monk Liu stood beside him, wearing the expression of someone who'd just reported a particularly foul spiritual contamination.
"Sit," Master Huineng said.
He sat,
"Senior Brother Liu has brought a troubling matter to my attention," the Master began, his voice carrying the kind of calm that suggested he could level mountains with his disappointment alone. "He says your spiritual cultivation feels... hollow."
"Hollow how?" The words came out higher than intended.
"Your greetings," Liu interjected, his voice sharp. "They carry no heart-qi, no sincere intent. When you speak the sacred name, I sense... emptiness where compassion should dwell."
"Your words are like incense burned without reverence," Master Huineng added quietly. "The form is correct, but the spirit is absent."
'Oh s**t. Can they actually sense that?'
"I don't understand," he said, though he was beginning to. "I greet everyone respectfully. I follow all the rules. I've been growing stronger—I mean, more spiritually developed."
"Stronger." The Master repeated the word like it tasted bitter. "There lies the root of your error."
Master Huineng stood, moving with the fluid grace of someone who'd transcended the need for physical effort.
"Tell me, young disciple—when you say 'Amitābha,' what fills your heart?"
"I feel..." He paused. What did he feel? "Warm. Like... like the Buddha's blessing flows through me."
"And what do you think when you see your fellow monks?"
"I think... I should greet them. To show proper respect."
The disappointment in the Master's eyes was physically painful to witness.
"Yet your heart-qi tells a different story. There is no genuine warmth in your words, no true recognition of their Buddha-nature."
'Oh, Oh fuck.*
"Child," Master Huineng continued, "you speak our most sacred greeting, yet your spirit remains closed. 'Amitābha' should flow from boundless compassion, not... whatever coldness I sense in your heart-qi."
"But I've been following the monastery rules—"
"Rules without understanding are empty ritual. You are like a parrot repeating sounds, hoping others will mistake mimicry for wisdom."
The Master walked to the window, gazing out at the courtyard where other monks practiced with genuine spiritual intent.
"You cannot walk the true path until you understand what it means to greet the world with love, not hunger for advancement."
Liu nodded, his spiritual senses probably still recoiling from whatever emptiness he'd detected.
"Therefore," Master Huineng said, turning back to him, "you will leave this monastery."
The words hit like a spiritual lightning bolt. "Master, please, I can cultivate better—"
"You will wander the mortal world. Live among common people. Experience their joys and suffering. Only when you truly understand compassion—only when your 'Amitābha' carries genuine heart-qi and not selfish intent—will you be welcome to return."
"You're... you're casting me out?"
"I am freeing you to find what cannot be learned within these protected walls."
Master Huineng's expression softened slightly. "This is not punishment, child. It is opportunity. The greatest spiritual breakthroughs often come not from safety, but from the wandering path."
---
An hour later, he stood at the monastery gates with nothing but his gray robes and a crushing sense of failure. The other monks had gathered to see him off, their faces showing various degrees of pity and curiosity.
'Well, this is just perfect. Speedrun getting kicked out of cultivation school, Probably a new record.'
As he walked down the mountain path, his mind raced. What was he supposed to do now? Where was he supposed to go? How do you learn compassion when you literally get rewarded for social interactions?
The path wound through a small grove where morning light filtered through ancient trees. Birds sang overhead. Insects buzzed in the undergrowth. It would have been peaceful, if not for the crushing existential crisis.
Then he saw it.
A small roadside shrine, so old and weathered it was barely recognizable. The stone Buddha statue was cracked, moss growing in the crevices. Someone had left wilted flowers that were now brown and forgotten. Prayer flags hung in tatters, their colors faded to nothing.
Something about it made him stop.
Maybe it was the way the morning light fell across the broken statue's serene face. Maybe it was the complete abandonment—this sacred thing that no one cared for anymore. Or maybe it was the sudden, crushing realization that he'd been exactly like everyone else, walking past things that deserved reverence because they couldn't advance his cultivation.
He knelt beside the shrine and carefully removed the dead flowers.
"I'm sorry no one tends to you anymore," he whispered to the statue.
The broken Buddha seemed to smile at him through the moss and cracks. Not because it would give him power, but because it deserved respect. Because even forgotten sacred things held meaning.
Without thinking about systems or cultivation or advancement, he pressed his palms together and bowed deeply.
"Amitābha."
The world transformed.
Power rushed through him like a spiritual dam had burst, but this was completely different from the gentle warmth he was used to. This was 'understanding'. Clarity. Like clouds had been stripped away from the sun itself.
For one brilliant moment, he felt it—the boundless compassion the Master had spoken of. The recognition that every being, from the mightiest cultivator to the smallest ant, was struggling through existence just like him. That broken Buddha statue wasn't just stone; it was a symbol of countless souls seeking peace and enlightenment.
The sensation faded, leaving him gasping on his knees beside the shrine.
'Holy s**t. THAT'S what they meant by heart-qi.'
He looked back at the monastery, now small in the distance, then ahead at the road stretching toward the unknown world.
For the first time since arriving in this cultivation universe, he smiled without irony.
"Alright then," he said to the morning air. "Time to figure out how to actually cultivate compassion."
The path ahead was uncertain, dangerous, and filled with unknowns.
He couldn't wait to see where it led.
- Writer
