Volume 2, Chapter 51 – The Future of Sword Dao

Taking the bottle, Bai Xiang glanced at it in her hand, then lifted her head. “Thank you, Teacher.”

Even without counting the transmission of the Jade Spirit method, just from how much Xiang Xian had been thinking for her from every angle, that change in address was worth saying.

“This is nothing.” The corner of Xiang Xian’s mouth twitched, but she still did her best to maintain a calm expression. “As long as you cultivate properly, strive to Embrace the Core as early as possible, and raise a Divine Fetus, that’ll be enough payback for all of this.”

Divine Fetus?

Bai Xiang heard a new term again and said to Xiang Xian, “May I ask Teacher to explain the realm divisions on the road ahead in Sword Dao?”

I thought you had zero interest in that!

Xiang Xian couldn’t help feeling a little emotional inside.

Bai Xiang had never once asked her about this before. That wasn’t normal.

Under the sky, who joins a trade and doesn’t first ask about that trade’s future prospects?

Other disciples begged her from day one to tell them how to become “Sword Lords.” Bai Xiang was the opposite—she just quietly trained, never making a sound, and somehow held it in without ever coming to her.

“‘Divine Union condenses the Aspect, blood and qi become a Core’—you’ve heard that saying, right?” Xiang Xian began to explain.

Bai Xiang nodded.

The phrasing she’d heard wasn’t exactly the same, but it was roughly the same idea, all pointing straight at the third major realm after Condensing the Aspect—Sword Dao’s “Purple Core.”

“I’ve talked with Old Brother Bai. He said you’ve read a lot of Buddhist and Daoist classics, so let me ask you a question first.” Xiang Xian nodded. “Do you agree with many great figures in ancient Buddhism and Daoism when they say the route of Sword Dao is ‘still to be verified’ and things of that sort?”

At that, Bai Xiang immediately thought of what Chan Master Wenluo had written in The Scripture of Returning to Origin and Transforming Qi.

She paused, then tipped her chin lightly. “I partially agree.”

Rеаd οո KаtRеaԁіոɡСаfe

“You’re very honest.” Xiang Xian was quite satisfied with that answer.

Because for anyone who grew up steeped in Buddhist and Daoist texts, there was almost no one who didn’t harbor doubts about Sword Dao. The only difference was how deep those doubts ran.

“Then what if I told you…” Xiang Xian deliberately drew out her tone, “that such doubts do have a point?”

What did that mean?

Bai Xiang finally frowned.

Calling out your own family’s dirty laundry, huh.

“You must’ve heard a lot about Sword Dao’s hidden dangers—for example, demonic blood regression, losing control and breaking seals, pollution and aberrant transformation…” Xiang Xian began listing these “Sword Dao wrong paths.” With every one she named, her tone grew more serious.

“Especially since its source of power is actually Demon Pools. It’s by taking in Demon Pools, using them, that you produce demonic aura and demonic power.”

“With this sort of cultivation system… forget Buddhism and Daoism resisting it. Even many swordsmen themselves don’t dare call it the proper path. They don’t dare say they’ll die a good death when they grow old.”

Those words sounded outright heretical, but thinking carefully, there was some logic to them.

After all, yes—when you laid demonic blood regression, breaking seals and losing control, and pollution and aberrant transformation all out in front of you, who would dare say this road was the right one?

The only reason no one talked about it was because, at the time, this was the only solution humanity had found. If they didn’t walk this road, they could only become demonic beasts’ food, generation after generation with no hope of ever rising up.

“So we’ve been looking for a solution too.” Xiang Xian nodded again. “We’ve been searching for a better answer since ancient times.”

“And that answer is to fully convert external power into our own.”

“And ‘Purple Core’ is the first step toward stripping out the Demon Pool’s hidden dangers.”

She paused for a moment, waiting for Bai Xiang to digest this, then continued describing the details of Purple Core.

Rеаd оn KatRеаⅾіոgСafe

“From Condensing the Aspect onward, a swordsman accumulates three thousand years of dao-age to strike at Purple Core.”

“Do you know what standard that ‘dao-age’ is based on? How much is one year of dao-age?”

This was a question Bai Xiang had already thought about on her own, so she answered immediately, “It should be an average number—the amount of dao-age a person can gain in a year without relying on any external aid.”

There was no other way to count it.

Other calculations would be a mess. Only like this could “one thousand years of dao-age” or “three thousand years of dao-age” have a quantified standard. Only then could you explain how human cultivators who couldn’t even live two hundred years were supposed to talk about millennia.

“Exactly.” Xiang Xian smiled. “Three thousand years of dao-age are needed to charge at Purple Core—one thousand years of Purple Qi, two thousand of Purple Blood. This process is essentially just strengthening the cultivator’s body.”

“The Demon Pool is an outer Aspect, impure to the true self. Starting from Purple Blood, you attempt to use your own blood to wrap the Demon Pool and assimilate it.”

“Once the assimilation succeeds and the Purple Blood transforms the demon into a Core, the Demon Pool’s nature begins to change. Along with that, the cultivator’s control over demonic power—especially their physical toughness—undergoes a massive leap.”

“At that point, in the ‘Purple Core realm,’ that earlier situation at the Condensing the Aspect stage, where human cultivators feared close combat, basically stops happening.”

“Then can I understand it this way—” Bai Xiang spoke up, “from the Purple Core realm onward, the main goal is to completely refine the Demon Pool within the Purple Core?”

Going from Condensing the Aspect to Purple Core was just the very start of that process.

But from Purple Core onward, it was clearly about seeing that process through to the end.

“Your comprehension isn’t bad.” Xiang Xian confirmed her guess. “That’s exactly it—after breaking through to Purple Core, you begin the most dangerous segment on the cultivator’s path: the Nine Turns of the Purple Core.”

“With each turn, the heavens grow heavier. Split into nine stages, you fully refine the Demon Pool. Every single time is a cross-examination of your own heart; every turn carries the possibility that you’ll be polluted by the Demon Pool and become a Yaosui.”

Yaosui?

Bai Xiang remembered that Yu He had also mentioned this term. It hadn’t sounded like an ordinary kind of demon.

Rеaⅾ οn KatRеаԁіngСαfе

“Yaosui refers specifically to those beings who have fallen and been corrupted from human cultivators…”

Xiang Xian’s voice dropped very low.

“They are neither human nor demon. They’re more cunning and cruel than demons, and because they already had a foundation of dao-age before falling, they’re also extremely powerful.”

Bai Xiang asked, “How do I identify a Yaosui?”

“No need to identify them.” Xiang Xian frowned. “Anything that fails to kill you definitely isn’t one.”

“What about the ones that can kill me?”

“If something can kill you, does it really matter whether it’s a Yaosui?”

Bai Xiang froze, for once failing to follow the turn in logic.

“Yaosui are trouble, so in Great Yu, all cultivators at Condensing the Aspect or above are on record. Each one has an observer. If something goes wrong, a notice is sent immediately to warn the surrounding regions, and people are dispatched to eliminate them.”

Xiang Xian missed her chance to mock her aloof disciple. She just casually explained and went on sighing.

“Only with great courage and great resolve can you cross this barrier and escape the hidden danger of demonic power pollution.”

“From then on, there will be no more demons in your sword. All mighty power will belong wholly to yourself, turning at your will and under your complete control.”

“This is the Divine Fetus realm.”

“The Divine Fetus is me—like being born anew.”

“……”

“……”

Rеαԁ οn KаtRеaԁіոɡСαfe

After finishing that part, she waited quite a while and still didn’t hear Bai Xiang flatter her, so she lowered her head, frowned, and looked at her. “Don’t you think that’s amazing?”

So she really was in the Divine Fetus realm.

Bai Xiang was certain of it in her heart, but on the surface she only showed curiosity. “Because I heard the pinnacle of Sword Dao is the ‘Sword Lord’…”

“The Sword Lord is too far away.” Xiang Xian cut her off before she finished. “That’s the realm of the ancient Sacred Emperors—did you study history? Those people who could wave a sword and call meteorites down from the sky. We can’t compare ourselves to them.”

Bai Xiang still wouldn’t let it go. “Then from the Divine Fetus to the Sword Lord, how many more steps are there?”

“…One step.”

“Strictly speaking, it’s two.”

Xiang Xian was silent for a while before answering.

“After the Divine Fetus is an extremely profound and mysterious realm. Buddhists call it ‘Emptiness-Contemplation,’ Daoists call it ‘the Innate.’”

“What makes it mysterious is that no one knows how to enter it.”

“Even those who have gone in don’t know how to describe that process.”

“There’s no method you can imitate.”

“There’s no experience you can sum up.”

“If it weren’t for the fact that history truly does have examples, that only by crossing this mysterious realm can one become a Sword Lord—and that more than one Sword Lord has been able to prove its existence…”

“Then very likely, people would doubt whether it even exists at all.”