When Erik and Rugrat entered the ten realms they didn't know what was going on. They only knew that they had contracted the two week curse. When entering the second realm they came to understand their character sheets, and part of the system that is called the ten realms. A place that the strong make the rules and the weak cling to them for protection and hope that they might be left in peace. They passed through the trials of the Beast Mountain Dungeon, taking control of it and becoming the leader of nearly two hundred people. Now in command of the Alva Dungeon and looking to forge a new future, they need more power, mana stones, dungeon cores, monster cores, if not then the Dungeon will stop functioning and they will need to relocate once again. As they ascend to the second realm, Erik and Rugrat need to grow their skills, gain information and find a dungeon. It's hardly ever that easy.
The Battlefield Realm: A realm where sects rise and fall. Where the ground trembles under the feet of fighters from the higher realms. Where riches are gained, and empires lost. This is where Erik and Rugrat must go if they want to increase their strength, to increase the strength of Alva. They say that fortune favors the bold. This is the Ten Realms. To the victor go the spoils. The Fourth Realm will change their lives…or end them.
Thrust into an unknown, unwanted situation, most would feel panic, fear anger and fall into chaos. Erik and Rugrat are not immune to those feelings, but they have stepped into chaos so many times, it is simply a different challenge. Two weeks ago, Erik lost his legs and his arm. Today he got a message. "You have been randomly selected to join the Ten Realms. One may choose to ascend the Ten Realms, thereupon making a request to the Gods of the Realms. Only those who are Level 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, and 90 may ascend to the next realm. Fortune favors the strong!” For a retired combat medic and Marine Recon sniper, the Ten Realms offer a clear challenge and sense of purpose that they had only found on the battlefield. How much trouble can you get into in a new realm?
With the third realm new challenges arise. Erik searches for Old Hei while Rugrat deals with his broken mana system. For both, their path takes them towards the alchemist association's trial. They didn't mean to get into trouble, they swear, but in the ten realms trouble is not far behind the duo. They'll have to fight across the third realm to complete the alchemist association's trial. All isn't peaceful in the first realm as Alva and Vermire will face one of their greatest challenges yet. Chaos or creation, there's no knowing what might happen in the ten realms.
After taking and defending Vuzgal, Erik and Rugrat have a new task to complete: build a city. They have been racing through the realms at this point, but Vuzgal is a prize that they can't simply give up on. Alva is mobilized, as are their allies, to build out the new city. It is time that they solidify their gains, working on their crafts, their fighting ability and cultivation. As they expand their personal power, their gaze turns toward Vermire, to the dungeon. It's time they started to exert the strength they've built up. Alva moves in the shadows, but to what effect? The answer lies in the Fifth Realm.
As the fighting competition grips Vuzgal, the city-state declares its independence and strength.Alva prepares to retake the lost floor of Water.The Adventurer Guild hones their blades, training and cultivating. They prepare for war, for the Willful Institute to reap what they have sown.Erik and Rugrat's travels take them to the sixth realm, a realm with cities under the sun and dungeons beneath.Not all of Earth's modern knowledge is used to help or heal. The Beast Mountain Range is United under the Empire.Join Erik and Rugrat on their Epic Fantasy journey, even a small party's adventures can build a city and give rise to an Empire.If you love heart-pounding video game action, stats, loot, crafting and matching of realistic technologies with magical abilities. Well, why aren't you reading already?Grab the 6th realm part 1 today!
War has come to the Willful Institute. It has come to the first realm. For years Alva has trained, developed weapons and tactics never seen in the ten realms. Now Alva moves in the background, supporting the Adventurer's Guild. No band of fighters, no sect looking to gain individual honors. The armies of Alva were forged together in Alva dungeon. Tempered in body, in mind, in mana. Supported by Alvan traders, crafters, they reclaimed the lost floors of their home. They captured Vuzgal and defended it in the vicious battlefield realm. Now Alva is going to war. Their abilities, their skills tested head on. One individual is strong. A nation focused, a nation brought together for a single goal. It is something that could shake the very foundations of the ten realms. A beast stirs in the Beast Mountain Range, raising their eyes to the higher realms. It is time Erik and Rugrat stepped out of the shadows.
This volume, a project of the English Translation Committee of the Nichiren-shu Overseas Propagation Promotion Association (NOPPA), constitutes all 23 writings of Buddhist reformer Nichiren Shonin (1222-1282) included in the Nichiren Shonin Zenshu, Volume II: Theology 2, published in 1996.
Original enlightenment thought (hongaku shiso) dominated Buddhist intellectual circles throughout Japan’s medieval period. Enlightenment, this discourse claims, is neither a goal to be achieved nor a potential to be realized but the true status of all things. Every animate and inanimate object manifests the primordially enlightened Buddha just as it is. Seen in its true aspect, every activity of daily life—eating, sleeping, even one’s deluded thinking—is the Buddha’s conduct. Emerging from within the powerful Tendai School, ideas of original enlightenment were appropriated by a number of Buddhist traditions and influenced nascent theories about the kami (local deities) as well as medieval aesthetics and the literary and performing arts. Scholars and commentators have long recognized the historical importance of original enlightenment thought but differ heatedly over how it is to be understood. Some tout it as the pinnacle of the Buddhist philosophy of absolute non-dualism. Others claim to find in it the paradigmatic expression of a timeless Japanese spirituality. According other readings, it represents a dangerous anti-nomianism that undermined observance of moral precepts, precipitated a decline in Buddhist scholarship, and denied the need for religious discipline. Still others denounce it as an authoritarian ideology that, by sacralizing the given order, has in effect legitimized hierarchy and discriminative social practices. Often the acceptance or rejection of original enlightenment thought is seen as the fault line along which traditional Buddhist institutions are to be differentiated from the new Buddhist movements (Zen, Pure Land, and Nichiren) that arose during Japan’s medieval period. Jacqueline Stone’s groundbreaking study moves beyond the treatment of the original enlightenment doctrine as abstract philosophy to explore its historical dimension. Drawing on a wealth of medieval primary sources and modern Japanese scholarship, it places this discourse in its ritual, institutional, and social contexts, illuminating its importance to the maintenance of traditions of lineage and the secret transmission of knowledge that characterized several medieval Japanese elite culture. It sheds new light on interpretive strategies employed in pre-modern Japanese Buddhist texts, an area that hitherto has received a little attention. Through these and other lines of investigation, Stone problematizes entrenched notions of “corruption” in the medieval Buddhist establishment. Using the examples of Tendai and Nichiren Buddhism and their interactions throughout the medieval period, she calls into question both overly facile distinctions between “old” and “new” Buddhism and the long-standing scholarly assumptions that have perpetuated them. This study marks a significant contribution to ongoing debates over definitions of Buddhism in the Kamakura era (1185–1333), long regarded as a formative period in Japanese religion and culture. Stone argues that “original enlightenment thought” represents a substantial rethinking of Buddhist enlightenment that cuts across the distinction between “old” and “new” institutions and was particularly characteristic of the medieval period.
This “rich and rewarding work” explores the connections between ancient Buddhist doctrine and contemporary philosophy (Publishers Weekly). Tiantai Buddhism emerged in sixth century China from an idiosyncratic and innovative interpretation of the Lotus Sutra. It went on to become one of the most complete, systematic, and influential schools of philosophical thought developed in East Asia. In Emptiness and Omnipresence, Brook A. Ziporyn puts Tiantai into dialogue with modern philosophical concerns to draw out its implications for ethics, epistemology, and metaphysics. Ziporyn explains Tiantai’s unlikely roots, its positions of extreme affirmation and rejection, its religious skepticism and embrace of religious myth, and its view of human consciousness. Ziporyn reveals the profound insights of Tiantai Buddhism while stimulating philosophical reflection on its unexpected effects.
