Volume 2, Chapter 75 – Settlement

Most of the day passed. Night fell over Qizhou. The cold night wind reminded people it was already late autumn, but it still couldn’t blow out the fire burning in their chests. People clustered in groups or pulled out their phones, determined to describe the “miracle” that had happened that morning in Qiyun Hall to everyone they knew.

It was easy to imagine that, after today, her name would truly break through Qizhou’s borders and no longer be a thing whispered only in the south of Great Yu. Even across the whole country, she would no longer be just some pretty, hollow name on the Yaoxiang Rankings .

She would truly become famous throughout the world, like a comet arcing to its highest point. Not only would she outshine all the young talents of the Nine Provinces today, she would all but step beyond the frame of this era, standing shoulder to shoulder with the human immortals and earth-masters of history.

It was empty fame. Bai Xiang didn’t care.

She had Xiang Xian help her turn down all the viewing invitations. That very day she moved with Xiang Xian up to Wuqiu Mountain—the small hill that housed Qizhou University’s Sword Institute and the Benling Dojo—becoming the most highly valued guest the dojo had hosted in quite some time.

She could ignore those illusory things, but she had put in the work, after all. Old Man Wang Ran had promised to let her read the Benling Thirty-Six Stance Arts and their many commentaries, and that was a benefit she definitely planned to collect.

As the night deepened, Bai Xiang returned alone to the side room they’d given her. She took Feixiang Heaven down into her lap and immediately began cultivation and review.

This was non-negotiable. After every battle, she did this without fail.

She first checked her progress toward embracing the core. After fully accepting the transmission of The Tiger-Subduing Arhat Scripture , the pace hadn’t increased much, but she did have a new feeling—that “everything was under control.”

Right after first condensing the core, she’d only been able to tell that what she was doing wasn’t wrong in broad strokes. Now she was a hundred percent certain. That meant her control over her inner realm and heart-vessels had grown even stronger.

Not through brute force from her soul-ability, but through her own understanding.

That was precious.

This understanding would inevitably be tied to whether she could blaze new trails in the Dao in the future.

“I’m done checking myself…”

When she’d finished all that, Bai Xiang lowered her head to look at the sword.

“Now it’s your turn.”

“You made such a fuss today about eating ‘something really nourishing.’ Let me see what it did to you.”

Her fingers closed around the Han-style hilt. Her palm’s channels and veins instantly pierced the material barrier and entered the sword body. Bai Xiang felt a huge wave crash open before her eyes, and her entire consciousness was wrapped, submerged, in endless blood-colored qi-sha.

It wouldn’t harm her in the slightest. As those waves came crashing down, she absorbed them in an instant, turning them into thick, pure streams of qi-force that filled her body, then flowed along the routes of her heart-vessel chart toward the place where the “embryo of the qi core” lay.

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Sizzle, sizzle!

The new qi-force being added in was blood red, impossibly conspicuous next to the other colorless, transparent streams. Before Bai Xiang could even decide how to handle them, her soul’s perspective let her see clearly as the qi core drew them in, scrubbed all the red away in a blink, and spat them back out in a new, colorless, formless state, folding them into her inner current.

Great.

She shook her head inwardly.

With this little thing around, she probably wouldn’t be able to keep up her disguises from now on.

Why had she suddenly felt that way, standing in the roar of the stadium crowd today?

Mainly because her demonic-aura disguise had vanished all at once. It was only a matter of time before others noticed something off. She couldn’t help wondering whether, very soon, she’d face that “everyone pointing fingers at you” her master had talked about—whether what she’d just seen was a rehearsal of that day.

In truth, it would inevitably happen.

The first time she’d fought in public was her duel with Liu Mengqing. She had already thought then of dyeing her qi-force red to imitate demonic aura, but there hadn’t been enough time. At best she’d managed to tint it pink, which was still different from the blood-red demonic aura everyone was used to.

Most people probably didn’t care—at worst, they assumed she had some kind of special Demon Pool. But if anyone with an agenda dug into it, that flaw would never wash away. This had only pushed the exposure date forward.

From the start, she’d only dyed it to stall for time, so she didn’t regret accepting Bolou’s challenge.

Bolou had simply picked the wrong opponent—at the wrong time.

By Bai Xiang’s own calculations, if Bolou had asked her to fight a day earlier, and if they’d only fought a “match” rather than a “life-and-death battle,” she would probably have needed to use her soul-ability just to barely fight him to a draw.

Bolou’s movements were too fast, his strength too great. Her soul-ability could track his motions, and the Jade Spirit could calculate his attack paths, but if her body couldn’t react, then all that “reading ahead” was useless.

She would have had to call on her soul-ability, let it ignore physical laws and rewrite her inner flow, forcefully driving her limbs to change course—only by using that “desperate kill move” would she have had a chance to kill him, not beat him.

But one day later was a different story.

On the path of qi, once the road to embracing the core opened, even unfinished, the qualitative change it brought was unimaginably great and terrifying.

The Jade Spirit Pill had provided exactly the massive energy this metamorphosis needed. Right up until Bai Xiang collapsed on the bed and fell asleep that morning, her physical strength had still been rising.

The reinforcement was perfect and all-encompassing—a “hexagonal” boost in every stat, enough to rival the Tiger-Subduing Arhat Stance.

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Only with that had she managed that sword strike that shattered a Divine Fetus sword finger.

Even now, the transformation hadn’t stopped. That made Bai Xiang harbor a special kind of anticipation for the completion of her qi core.

On the qi side, “Transforming Qi” corresponded to “Condensing the Aspect” on the Sword Dao side.

At this stage, the gap in fighting strength between Transforming Qi and Condensing the Aspect wasn’t actually that big.

Although Bai Xiang had been able to “instantly kill” ordinary Condensing the Aspect cultivators right after stepping into Transforming Qi, once she started facing Purple Qi, Purple Blood, and people like Bolou—half a step into the Purple Core—fighting them had grown more and more difficult.

Demonic power really was a mysterious and mighty outer Aspect. Early on, its quality couldn’t match her sword-Qi, but as dao-age rose, quantity turned into quality. Demonic power gathered and condensed could withstand sword-Qi cuts, keeping her blade from being absolutely unstoppable in this major realm, from chopping through anything and everything.

But the qi core… felt different.

Just setting foot on the road to embracing the core had brought such a huge change… Bai Xiang hadn’t actually met any Purple Core cultivators yet, but she didn’t think the gap from Purple Blood to Purple Core could possibly be this big.

Nine turns of the Purple Core.

Once her qi core was formed, how many “turns” would it be equivalent to?

“Bzzz…”

Her phone vibrated.

Bai Xiang paused her cultivation, picked it up, and checked her messages. It was from Xiang Xian, scolding her for “ditching her master to drink alone” and slipping off by herself.

You’re the one who loves drinking. That’s why I left first…

Bai Xiang ignored her and flicked the screen upward. From the stacked row of chat windows she saw a lot of congratulatory messages.

【Your strength jumped that fast? Are you even human? You sure you’re not the Martial Star incarnated?】

That was from Old Man Yu He.

【Congrats~ But your edge is really too sharp lately. In the past few decades, there’ve been talented youths disappearing or dying in both the Qize regions, and even whole families slaughtered in some villages. Once this business is wrapped up, you’d best head north to Yujing with Dao Lord Xiang. It’ll definitely be safer there than in the south.】

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That was from Tao Shuohua.

Aside from those were congratulations from a bunch of Shenming Sword Dao senior and junior brothers, all marveling that she’d made a splash outside again and clamoring for her to treat them when she got back.

A smile touched Bai Xiang’s lips as she replied to each in turn. She reported her safety to Bai Shengju as well, then finally opened the last window.

【Congratulations, Auntie!】

Bai Zhuqing’s tone was very lively, with a smiling emoji attached.

【Auntie should go to bed early and take care of your health!】

And that was it?

Bai Xiang blinked and scrolled upward with her thumb, only to find that was really all there was.

She didn’t go nuts on me… She actually changed?

As she puzzled over it, a new popup flashed from the text messages app.

【Your scheduled assessment application has been approved. Candidate number: b-28544. Please reply to confirm in order to accept the Phase Two task.】

Phase Two?

Bai Xiang frowned.

The signature was the Sword Dao Association’s. The font was silver, the official mark that scammers couldn’t forge.

So this was probably the Swordsman’s License assessment mission Yu He had applied for on her behalf.

But why was it starting straight from Phase Two?

Wasn’t Phase One supposed to be choosing a task first?

She opened the Jobs Directorate website, navigated to the Sword Dao Association tab, and pulled up her mission records—where she saw the words “[Phase One Task: Thwart the Luohou Delegation] completed.”

So that was it.

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Because they’d uncovered real problems with the Luohou delegation, her merit had been bumped up?

Yu He had said Tao Xingxuan couldn’t stand for the entire Sword Dao Association. Turned out he’d been right.

Bai Xiang hadn’t expected them to be this rigidly fair, and her impression of the Sword Dao Association improved a notch.

After a moment’s thought, she replied to confirm. In less than three seconds, a follow-up text arrived.

【Phase Two Assessment: Investigate the reason for the Luohou Delegation’s entry into the country. Reply again to confirm and accept the task.】

【Warning note: This task may require crossing national borders. Candidate should be fully prepared.】

“…”

Bai Xiang stared at the message for a while, thinking of Tao Shuohua’s warning.

Talents kept going missing?

She thought of Bai Nianchan, and even of her little junior brother Lian Feng.

Lian Feng’s family had been killed by Zhengwo Dao, forcing him to wander the world at a young age.

His talent really was impressive. Had he suffered disaster because he was a “genius”?

Bai Xiang hesitated a little. She had quite a backlog of things in hand: studying the Thirty-Six Stance Arts, investigating Qingyun Pharmaceuticals—and with Tao Shuohua’s warning on top of that, she wasn’t sure how much she’d gain from accepting this assessment right now.

Heh…

She exhaled lightly and set the phone down. Feeling the power surging through the muscles and bones of her arms, she was suddenly seized by the urge to draw her sword and cut all shackles to pieces.

But not yet.

She told herself.

She swallowed another Jade Spirit Pill and sank back into cultivation.