Volume 1, Chapter 2 – Sword Dao and the Demon Pool

Since she had already “Known the Self” and entered the Dao—had, per the elegant woman in a suit from her memories, awakened her own “heart-aspect” and gained a real chance to pursue the Great Way—Bai Xiang certainly wouldn’t consider making up academics anymore.

It wasn’t about personal preferences; the return on cramming academics was too low.

She had indeed inherited the original memories, but clearly not all of them; most only surfaced when she thought of something related.

And when she tested herself just now, anything to do with academic subjects left her mind practically blank, apart from some ancient legends, local chronicles, basic historical facts, and simple arithmetic.

Clearly, even after being sent by Bai Shengju to transfer into a regular class, the original owner hadn’t invested much effort in academics.

What she truly wanted was still to train with the sword.

Under those circumstances, cramming academics would be a poor use of time. Since she had awakened her heart-aspect, better to spend this last not-quite-year focusing on the sword.

Chilong No. 1 High was the best in the Chilong Circuit; that she could transfer in at all spoke volumes about Bai Shengju’s pull.

So: sword first.

If it really didn’t work out, she could always lean on family connections and repeat a year.

There was just one thing Bai Xiang couldn’t figure out yet—why did this world have only sword dao, and no saber dao or spear dao?

That kind of basic knowledge wasn’t in Compulsory 5. She read the whole book and got only a sense of Great Yu’s modern development; nothing else useful.

She dug through her memories; no one had ever mentioned it.

It seemed to be taken for granted in Great Yu—like how no one in her last life asked why most people used chopsticks. It was just the default.

Thinking it over, Bai Xiang reached under the pillow and pulled out a phone.

An old-school “Nokia,” though she didn’t recognize the exact model.

She had the operating steps in memory; she booted it up with practiced ease. The first thing she saw was the time: 17:36 on September 13, 2053. Then her eyes went to the wallpaper: a woman in a white training uniform holding a sword.

The woman stood on a high platform, black hair tumbling down; both sides seemed packed with spectators. The distant night-sky backdrop held a close-up of her face.

Quite pretty.

But haughty.

That was Bai Xiang’s first impression.

Her features tended cold; her brows had even been shaped into “sword brows.” From her lofty angle, anyone looking at the image felt as if they were being looked down on.

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Her identity came back now: Chai Xuan, from Daizhou, styled Daoist Zhong’an. Last year she suddenly broke out of obscurity, taking first in both the academic and sword exams—the national top scorer of Great Yu.

Back then she made jaws drop; even now she was still a hot topic.

After all, June to September was not even three months; her buzz hadn’t had long to fade, and lately the flood of reports about her appearance at Qizhou University’s Sword Institute had been overwhelming.

But none of that was the key point.

The key was: Bai Xiang had met Chai Xuan.

That winter break, she had visited the Shenming Dojo with her father, Chai Jingyuan. When Bai Shengju saw Chai Jingyuan, he drew him into the back garden to chat—clearly old acquaintances.

The original owner hadn’t thought much of her—until the top-scorer headlines made her take notice.

After a moment’s thought, Bai Xiang opened the gallery and deleted every saved Chai Xuan wallpaper. Then she picked a solid black image from the system wallpapers.

She hadn’t forgotten why she’d grabbed the phone. She opened the browser, confirmed she had a signal, and pecked out: Why… Great Yu… sword dao reigns supreme…

She hit search; a flood of results popped up.

Bai Xiang read them one by one, gradually gaining a real grasp of sword dao’s historical roots.

Simply put, it had to do with national conditions and historical-cultural context.

In ancient Great Yu there were many weapons—sabers, spears, swords, halberds. A sword cuts worse than a saber, thrusts worse than a spear, and can’t reach like an arrow; by rights it shouldn’t hold today’s status. Yet sword dojos now dot the land, while other martial halls are nearly extinct.

That’s because, in Great Yu, only the sword created its own culture.

It is both weapon and ritual object. From soldiers gripping it in battle to scholars wearing it in courtly confrontation, the sword has carried 1,600 years of Great Yu’s rise and fall, 1,600 years of the realm’s tempests.

Historically, Great Yu’s dynastic line faced three most perilous brushes with extinction: in 646, 938, and 1375.

Each crisis plunged the land into war. Some were “demon calamities,” some pure “man-made” strife—but every time, the symbol that ended the chaos was the sword.

In 646, the fox demon of Wuqiu wrecked the realm. The Human Emperor “Xin” braved peril, sought out the Demon Pool of the immortal beast “Xuan Bird,” sealed it into a sword, forged the imperial blade “Xuange,” and slew the fox to set things right.

In 938, the Luo and Huang clans of the Dingbei Circuit usurped the throne. Fires raged across the nine provinces; the land split in three. Again, a scion of the imperial house, “Yao,” wielded the divine sword “Chixiao,” stirred the heavens, and called down a falling star to set the realm back on its axis.

In 1375, the northern demon kingdom was revived. Demon Pools surged across Great Yu, oddities everywhere; whole swathes of Huangzhou and Daizhou were nearly ten homes out of nine gone. Hundreds of thousands of the Emperor’s Guards were wiped out. Then an extraordinary figure, “Chan Master Daokong,” rose out of nowhere; with one person and one sword he cut down all the abominations, and his blade was imperially enfeoffed as “Zhenyuan.”

There were many more examples. Together, they convinced people that—the sword possessed a kind of wondrous power.

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That only a sword made the ideal seal for a Demon Pool.

That only sword dao, born where the sword meets human reason, could suppress raging demonic force, turn it to one’s use, and yield all manner of marvels.

Not that other weapons could never serve as seals, but—

When a martial student of Great Yu begins forging a weapon for their “outer aspect,” if they choose a sword, their mind instantly floods with myths and legends of famous blades—with the sword’s culture and history—and through sword dao they think of human reason, of Daoist thought, of the Daozang classics.

But if they choose a saber, a spear, a bow?

There’s far less guidance along those lines.

Sword dao opens with the Dao’s first three realms. Of these, the first—“Know the Self”—is described in the classics as “planting a spiritual seed,” as “awakening the heart-aspect,” as “commanding the real body with a virtual heart-aspect,” and “using the heart-aspect’s power to mine the body’s potential.”

It’s an abstruse, metaphysical account. Bai Xiang took it to mean that only with exceptionally strong mental power, willpower, and focus can one enter the path.

In other words, sword dao places tremendous emphasis on the mind.

Not only does entry—Know the Self—demand a powerful spirit; later, when forging the sword and “sealing a Demon Pool into the blade,” you also need a strong mind to “avoid demonic backlash.”

Seen that way, sword culture truly plays a pivotal role in transcendent advancement.

Rather than a mere weapon, it’s a spiritual totem.

It steadies the human heart.

And it suppresses the Demon Pool.

“Demon Pool…”

At that, Bai Xiang searched “Demon Pool” again, comparing what came up with her memories.

A Demon Pool is the root of all monsters and aberrations.

It’s not just a literal pool of water; it can exist objectively in any form.

It can be a tree.

It can be a lake.

It can also be a building, an alarm clock, a pencil—even certain living beings.

They give off unseen, untouchable demonic miasma and force, weaving illusions and spawning monstrosities to attack, influence, and interfere with reality.

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The cause of a Demon Pool’s formation remains a mystery.

They have not died out to this day. Even with skyscrapers, steel fortifications, and electromagnetic weapons, urban legends of Demon Pools still surface now and then in the cities.

Hauntings.

Strange tales.

If they aren’t baseless, a Demon Pool is at work.

Science cannot parse Demon Pools. To date, the only thing that restrains them is sword dao.

No wonder sword dao still holds such status.

And no wonder it demands strength of mind.

After fiddling with the phone for a long moment, Bai Xiang reflected that her easy success at “Know the Self” likely came from the suffering of her previous life.

For tempering the will, what Daoist text can compare to ten years of a terminal disease?

She had endured so much pain that even her doctor wondered how she lasted a decade. Her spirit and will far exceeded the norm; no surprise that the moment she took over this body, she succeeded at “Know the Self.”

But why did I wake up in this body in particular?

She turned the question over again.

Sharing a name alone wasn’t enough to convince her. Even for a “spirit possession” story to make sense, the original owner would have to have had something seriously wrong.

Her thoughts halted. Bai Xiang’s gaze swept the room and finally fixed on a white thermos at the head of the bed.

She picked up the thermos and opened it. Inside was plain water.

Yet some powerful sense in the dark nudged her: there was something very wrong with this water.

A heart-aspect warning…

So the original died by poison?

“Bzz bzz—”

The phone suddenly vibrated.

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Bai Xiang looked down. Caller ID: “Chen Jing.”

Didn’t ring a bell, but the note above the name marked her as a classmate.

A glance at the time—almost 18:00.

A friend?

Dinner plans?

Guessing, Bai Xiang let the first call go.

The phone buzzed for over a minute before falling silent, then started again not long after.

This time Bai Xiang didn’t wait; she hit the button.

“Xiang’er—!!! You finally picked up!!!”

The voice was crisp; despite the urgency it didn’t sound shrill—more like a little bird chirping away.

Hearing it, memory finally kicked in, sketching a cute girl with twin ponytails and baby-fat cheeks.

Chen Jing—she’d been assigned as Bai Xiang’s deskmate after the transfer.

Outgoing, instantly friendly. She’d been astonished by the white hair and lashes; after learning they weren’t dyed and weren’t contacts, she kept asking whether Bai Xiang was mixed-race.

A noisy little girl.

Bai Xiang settled on that definition.

A deskmate did have the best chance to make a move…

Was it her?

Shenming Sword Dao was mid-tier at best among those in Chilong. Why would anyone bother plotting against such a small fry?

“I didn’t see you in class all afternoon!” Chen Jing, unaware she’d just been pegged as a poisoning suspect, kept squawking. “And I heard from Zhou Tao and the others you didn’t go to the sword hall either! Are you in the dorm now? Want me to come check on you? Should I bring food?”

“…Okay.” A low female voice came over the line, a little hoarse. “But don’t come to the dorm. Go to the beef-soup shop at the school gate first. I’ll be there soon.”