The Path to Becoming a God
The sage wanted to explain things as simply and clearly as he could for his cousin, who still failed to grasp what he meant.
He pointed a finger at a mountain visible beyond the window.
"I could bring down that mountain over there without any difficulty."
"What?"
"I don't mean wearing it down gradually over time. I mean literally all at once."
"What are you talking about…"
"If I set my mind to it, I could kill thousands single-handedly. I could slip into the Kosala Kingdom this very moment and take King Virudhaka's head. No matter how powerful Kosala may be — even ranked among the three strongest nations — they would not be able to stop me."
"…"
It was an outrageously arrogant claim. Yet the sage's voice was so calm, so utterly matter-of-fact, that it sounded less like boasting or bluster and more like a simple statement of truth.
"All you need to do is govern the kingdom. If Kosala invades, call for me. That will be enough. Of course, you should still conduct regular military drills and train a minimal force of soldiers, just in case."
"Even granting that you are as strong as you say, Brother, that still…"
"Is there any other real option? Other nations certainly will not come to our aid. And practically speaking, the military strength of the Shakya Kingdom falls far short of what would be needed to face Kosala's armies."
"…"
His cousin still wasn't sure this was right, but he nodded anyway. The sage was a strange, incomprehensible man — yet he was not one to speak empty words.
Afterward, the sage formally transferred the throne to his cousin. Various minor matters still remained to be settled, but remarkably, the sage handled administrative and personnel affairs with near-perfect competence.
"…If you had become king, Brother, you would have been spoken of for centuries as a sage-king."
"I've always thought you exaggerate far too much."
Throughout all of this, the crown princess never once sought the sage out.
With a bitter smile, the sage summoned the disciples who had followed him thus far. Those captivated by Sunya's strength and drawn into his following were remarkably diverse — spanning every age, gender, and region. There was no clear common thread among them at all.
Looking over them, the sage made a major announcement.
"From now on, I will seclude myself in the forest and devote myself entirely to training. I will no longer have the capacity to look after you."
"…"
"So each of you should find your own purpose and walk your own path."
Despite his words, a considerable number of disciples refused to leave him.
"We will remain at your side and serve you to the very end, Sage."
"I want to see how far you can go — to witness the end of your path."
Each disciple had their own reasons. In the end, the sage and his remaining followers entered the forest, built modest dwellings, and trained body and mind. Even then, the sage kept his distance from the disciples, establishing his own residence deeper in the woods.
"Residence" was a generous word for it — it was merely a cave that offered shelter from the rain. He ate only the bare minimum, spending most of each day in steady meditation and martial practice. For the sage, that was enough. And yet his trained physique showed not the slightest decline.
Remember. The structure and composition that made up Nandihara.
Fortunately, his "eyes" could pierce through to Nandihara's very essence. Observing it, the sage was able to form a reasonably logical explanation of what a god truly was.
A god was a layered being. They possessed a material structure of flesh, yet the components that constituted them were spiritual or mental in nature. In other words, body and soul were not separate. Because their structure was fundamentally similar to that of humans, they experienced the same senses and the same joys and sorrows. But since their foundation was unbound by material limitations, concepts like aging and disease simply did not exist for them. The unique fragrance that clung to their bodies must have stemmed from the same principle.
Humans have souls as well.
The difference is simply that, unlike the gods, body and soul remain clearly distinct.
How can I fuse them into one?
The more one practiced Four-Image Martial Arts and wielded Prana, the more one's body transformed toward the ideal form one envisioned. In the sage's case, the change was barely noticeable. But some practitioners changed so dramatically that when they returned to their hometowns after decades, no one recognized them. Even those people, however, could not stop the aging of the flesh.
Is the answer in Prana after all?
Wielding Prana is similar to moving a part of the body. Most healthy people can easily move their arms and legs. But twitching an earlobe, or flexing only the chest muscles — that is an entirely different matter. And even when moving the same limbs, people differ in precision and the force they can generate. To move faster, stronger, and more precisely requires repeated training and effort. So to expand the range of Prana one can control, one must wield it more frequently and more extensively.
But that is not all. What influences Prana is the mental dimension — a person's will, their desires. That is why martial techniques are performed with ideology woven into them. And the firmer one's ideology, the greater a technique's power. This was an unconscious domain, making it extraordinarily difficult to solidify one's ideology.
Gods cannot lie. They simply can't.
This, too, was something he had confirmed with his "eyes." They cannot lie because they are mental beings. Their mental image is so clear — transcending mere ideology — that they cannot deceive even themselves. Speech, in particular, is more than a means of communication. It is the essence that separates humans from beasts, the wellspring that enables higher thought.
At the same time, the sage came to understand just how unstable a being a human is. Will, desire, ideology, emotion — none of them were fully connected as one. In other words, unlike the gods, their mental image was not clear. Conversely, if a human could take that jumbled, disordered mind and heart and complete them into a single, clear mental image, then becoming a being like a god would not be impossible. Just as senses that had interacted only loosely, essentially operating separately, had harmonized into one and awakened the higher-dimensional sense known as the Mind's Eye.
This, too, would have to be achieved in the unconscious domain. And so the only way was to keep training, keep striving, and forge body, energy, and mind into one.
Polish. Train.
The sage did not simply abuse his body. Excessive asceticism could actually disrupt the balance of body, energy, and mind. Instead, without favoring any one aspect, he organized his ideology every day, trained his body, and sought peace of mind.
One day, two days, a month, half a year… Time continued to flow, and before long, roughly two years had passed.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
While the sage was deep in meditation, the sound of many regular footsteps reached him from far away. He could tell at once that a military force was on the move.
"Master!! Something terrible has happened!!"
A disciple came running toward the sage in a frantic rush from the distance. The sage already knew what he was going to say.
"Is the Kosala Kingdom coming?"
"What? Yes. But how did you…"
The startled disciple was baffled. How could someone who had been shut away deep in the forest know a fact that hadn't even been spoken?
"At a certain point, there are things you simply know without needing to see them."
He spoke calmly, as if to reassure the anxious disciple.
"Don't worry. Just go back to whatever you were doing."
The sage quietly rose from his seat and set off somewhere. Watching him go, the disciple murmured to himself.
"But… how old is Master this year again?"
Even though he was already past thirty, the sage's appearance still looked young. Little by little, he was transcending the limits of humanity.
The soldiers were afraid. Even from a great distance, the vast army of Kosala was approaching — large enough to be visible to the naked eye.
"Are we all going to die today?"
"Don't say such unlucky things."
"…Still, I'll fight to the end. I will never surrender to those Kosala savages."
The soldiers steeled their resolve as best they could. Inside the walls, the civilians who could not fight clung to one another, trembling with fear.
"What's going to happen to us, Mama?"
A little girl asked the mother holding her close.
"It's all right. Our country has the Sage, doesn't it? He's the strongest person in the world. He'll protect us."
Even as she spoke, the girl's mother didn't believe her own words. No matter how strong an individual might be, she thought, no one could hold off an entire army. She even entertained the reasonable suspicion that perhaps the sage had abdicated the throne precisely to flee a situation like this.