Volume 3, Chapter 4 – Dao Lineage

Zhen’nan.

Bai Xiang stared at those two characters.

Maozhou, Zhen’nan Circuit.

For Yujing to be willing to grant a name like this—the earnest hope contained in it was something anyone could feel.

She studied the “Maozhou Map” carefully and confirmed that, like the other Nine Provinces, it was split into four Dao Cities. Of them, “Zhen’nan Circuit”—the embryonic town Bai Xiang was currently guarding—was the capital. The other three circuits fanned out toward the west.

On the map, a river clearly cut diagonally across Maozhou. This was the Long River, formed by snowmelt from the peak of the Nanluo Mountain Range flowing southwest. It could run all the way to Luohou and other nations and was one of the water sources for the southwestern states.

Of the three other circuits, the one in the upper left was called “Lianshui.”

Here there was a small lake that gathered the waters of the Long River and the Jing River. There was a relatively flat stretch of land on the shore—perfect for reclamation into a settlement.

The two Dao Cities on the mid-left and lower-left were called “Longchuan” and “Longguan.” From the perspective of people’s livelihoods, their locations weren’t ideal. The terrain was steep and uneven, and once construction began, work would have to be done along mountain ridges, making the engineering significantly more difficult.

But they possessed considerable strategic value, because these two circuits locked down the two gaps leading into the Nanluo Mountain Range. Once the Dao Cities were built, the entire range—along with the vast tracts of forest it encircled—would all fall under Maozhou’s control.

Even if illegal crossings couldn’t be completely stamped out, slipping in from this side would become much harder.

And once they held the high ground and fully controlled this stretch of ridgeline, if war ever broke out, it would be easy to either rush to reinforce the interior or dig in and hold the mountains. It was truly ground the military would fight over.

The document was extremely professional. Flipping to the back, Bai Xiang even found hand-drawn renderings of the finished project. Against a dark background, two towering cities of differing heights stood along a distant ridgeline. Each city had watchtowers and beacon platforms at its highest points. In the renderings, she could see twin beacon flames and points of light in the distance—forming the fan-shaped “Lianshui Circuit,” neatly enclosing Zhen’nan Circuit at its center. It all looked quite meticulous and thorough.

If all I wanted was wealth and rank, even just control over my own fate… getting this far might be enough to satisfy me…

She scrolled the screen, images flickering in the reflection of Bai Xiang’s eyes as she felt a touch of emotion.

She wasn’t particularly invested in these things. She only kept a rough impression of them in her mind and left the detailed data and information for Jade Spirit to organize. Her primary mind couldn’t afford to be wasted on such matters.

Rеаⅾ oո ΚаtRеaԁіոgСаfe

As always, she would just toss it to Zhuqing to handle later.

Putting away her phone, Bai Xiang swept another glance over the night-time construction site, then returned to her meditation chamber to continue her previous cultivation.

There was no one else around anyway, so she wasn’t worried about causing a sensation. After setting herself in Sword Contemplation, her body rose lightly to sit cross-legged in midair. Feixiang Heaven slid from its sheath of its own accord and lay across her knees like a well-behaved pet. The blood-red blade was eerily demonic, pulsing with a crimson glow from time to time.

Ever since it had absorbed the blood-sha and resentful spirits of tens of thousands, the sword had stayed in this form. Aside from the hilt, whose color had gradually been cleansed back to black, both faces of the blade beneath the guard were blood-red.

If not for its Han-style specifications, it actually looked a bit like the “Fire-Qilin Sword.”

“It’s been three months. Do you really like this look that much?”

Opening her eyes, Bai Xiang lowered her gaze to peer at the longsword.

Feixiang Heaven was her avatar and could use soul-based abilities. No matter how much blood-sha it took in, it could refine it all.

She hadn’t gone into battle again in these past days and hadn’t bothered with the sword’s appearance. She hadn’t expected it to maintain this form, so it could only mean Feixiang Heaven itself liked it.

How odd. For a sword to have that kind of preference.

Ying ying…

Feixiang Heaven vibrated lightly, the blade giving off a soft metallic hum.

“As you like.” Bai Xiang closed her eyes. “Just don’t develop too weird a taste.”

A red blade was still acceptable.

And she could always remove it whenever she wanted, so she let Feixiang Heaven be.

Rеaⅾ οո КαtReаⅾіոgCafе

Ying ying…

The blood sword vibrated again. After a moment’s pause, the bloody hue on the blade began to fade, and in no time it had returned to its normal appearance, the sword edge reflecting a bright, cold silver.

More obedient than I thought…

She didn’t open her eyes again, but the corners of her lips lifted slightly. Bai Xiang sank her full attention into her inner body-scape, continually feeding power into Jade Spirit’s calculations.

For the past three months, most of her energy had gone into explaining cause and effect to those close to her and helping others with spirit-pointing.

For Bai Xiang—who had mastered the Vibration Art, could simulate sonar to probe other people’s inner body-scapes, and had already run experiments on Lian Feng and a large number of demon-cultivator captives—this was no challenge at all. She started with her own kin: from Bai Shengju, Bai Guanshan, and Bai Lianzhou… to her two aunts and then Bai Leying and Bai Maoxu, she prioritized helping them enter the Dao through spirit-pointing.

Once this method appeared, they naturally weren’t entering the Sword Dao anymore.

She had already clearly explained the pros and cons to everyone, and made it plain that this method could, at best, currently be cultivated to a realm suspected to be “Innate.” It would also manifest different Transforming Qi traits depending on each person’s temperament. Even so, she still couldn’t stop their curiosity.

Or you could call it “enthusiasm.”

“The path of qi is not the Sword Dao, yet it actually lets me change my Dao lineage as well.”

That was Bai Shengju’s sigh after he’d condensed his path-of-qi seed.

The road of the Sword Dao only truly began at the Condensing the Aspect realm.

In that realm, the Demon Pool was fully formed, which meant you couldn’t easily switch methods. Even if you could, the price was enormous.

But with Bai Xiang’s help, he had dissolved his demonic power and used it to stimulate his body’s potential. Condensing a Transforming Qi seed had not been difficult at all, which left him deeply moved.

And through each round of spirit-pointing and experimentation, Bai Xiang was also verifying her ideas, refining and systematizing the path of qi and fully settling its progression route.

Rеαⅾ оո ΚаtReаԁіոgСαfe

It began with “Enter the Dao”: using spirit-pointing as the gate, reshaping the inner body-scape’s circulation, and cultivating a new inner diagram—advancing various methods in tandem and accumulating Transforming Qi.

Once the accumulation was sufficient and Transforming Qi was achieved, one could be called a “Refine Qi” cultivator.

The Refine Qi stage combined the core essences of more than ten scriptures, including The Scripture of Returning to Origin and Transforming Qi and The Tiger-Subduing Arhat Scripture, as well as the distilled fundamentals of over ten “heretical arts.” Cultivators raised their level by “slaying Aberrations” and “excavating the inner body-scape.”

Especially the fact that “excavating the inner body-scape” could also raise one’s cultivation—that was a major breakthrough.

By pushing their internal qi-force to the extreme through such methods, Refine Qi cultivators could then attempt to break through to the “Golden Core.”

Yes, Golden Core, not “Qi Core.”

Why so… that couldn’t be explained without mentioning how, after successfully embracing the core, Bai Xiang had vaguely sensed that at some far-off point in the future, at some particular moment, her body would rot and die.

Once the core was formed, one knew Heaven’s mandate. It was nearly the same as the Daoist idea: “Swallow a single Golden Core, and my fate is mine, not Heaven’s.” So she’d simply borrowed Daoism’s term and slapped the “Golden Core” of the cultivation system onto her path.

She was already copying the Refine Qi stage. What was one more Golden Core?

So.

Enter the Dao, Refine Qi, Golden Core.

Three tiers, each a step higher than the last, from nurturing methods to practicing methods. All the critical junctures were laid out. The road was paved.

She had formally established the Dao lineage of the path of qi. Even if entry was still brutally strict and required her personal spirit-pointing guidance, if she took it outside, it would already count as founding a sect and establishing a school.

Bai Leying had said that if this were ancient times, Bai Xiang would definitely be hailed as a Dao Ancestor–type figure, with ten thousand households keeping lamps lit before her portrait.

Mm, Leying liked to run her mouth, but this time she really wasn’t wrong.

Rеаⅾ оո КatRеαԁіոɡCafе

Once this first round of spirit-pointing was done, there were still people like Xu Shu, Hu Hu, and Ma Yue up next.

On top of that, Benling Sword Dao and Shangqing Sword Dao had both come to an agreement with Bai Xiang, sending several of their next-generation core disciples to seek spirit-pointing. For these three months, Bai Xiang truly hadn’t had a single easy day. She could only use the dead of night to study her own methods.

Time passed, and the horizon lightened.

The first ray of morning sunlight slipped through the window crack and fell across Bai Xiang’s face. She opened her eyes, sleeves falling as she set down a pair of feet in black stockings, ending her cultivation.

“Master said she had to return to Yujing to deal with the rebellion. Who knows when she’ll be back.”

She checked the time and decided to wake a certain someone up first.

Though Listening-Rain Tower was only a temporary structure, it was the “Dao Master’s residence” after all. Its interior was simple but dignified, each floor very spacious, with running water and electricity already connected.

Bai Xiang went down the stairs to the fourth floor, rounded a corner, and looked toward the desk—where she immediately saw a head resting on the tabletop, rising and falling with each breath.

A glance at the letters, maps, and notes scattered all over the desk was enough. Bai Xiang didn’t even have to go around to see the computer screen to know that the person had clearly worked themselves to sleep at the table.

Thinking for a moment, she didn’t try to call her awake. Instead, she walked over, slipped an arm under the crook of her knees, and lifted her up in a princess carry.

“Eh?”

The girl in her arms woke at once. With a flip of her bangs, a pale and delicately pretty face emerged—who else could it be but Bai Zhuqing?

“Sis Xiang’er… Auntie?” Bai Zhuqing grabbed Bai Xiang’s neck in a panic.

“I did not have that dream about touching you! Don’t throw me off the building!”