Volume 3, Chapter 14 – Inspiration【2】

Very strange.

And very suspicious.

This kind of microscopic idea that breaks through the limits of the body’s visual capacity might seem at first glance to have nothing to do with the Xuan Emperor Canon or the Five Worms Treatise , but don’t forget what got Bai Xiang and Han Yuanfeng tangled up over this in the first place… it was actually that “nerve monster,” the “nerve-vein fiend.”

Nerves.

Heart meridians.

Those are also things you can only truly glimpse on the microscopic level.

If the nerve-vein fiend isn’t a natural species but something artificially remade, then there’s no doubt that those people… the Yuhua Sect… must have mastered some way of peering into the microscopic long ago.

They would have had scientific argumentation to back it up.

So Bai Xiang thought to herself.

If that kind of support dates back to before Great Yu, sixteen hundred years ago, then objectively speaking their concepts and theories could be called “advanced.”

That would already count as biochemical-experiment-level research, worthy of being called “biology,” at least more scientific than those methods of soaking in golden solutions and mercury.

In that instant, Bai Xiang suddenly developed a fierce interest in the Xuan Emperor Canon .

The Five Worms doctrine really did have a wonderfully skewed angle to it—it was like opening a door that, while not new, had always been overlooked by Bai Xiang until now. Drawing on some Daoist canons and Buddhist sutras, she instantly had new ideas and realizations, which were very helpful to innovating the path of qi.

In traditional martial arts and combat cultivation there’s also a concept: “breaking the void and seeing the undying spirit.” It lies above both the Core realm and the Astral Qi (gangqi) realm.

In novels, once a martial artist reaches that realm, not only can they extend their lifespan and easily live to a hundred and fifty or sixty, they can also control every detail of their body at a microscopic level—bulging their muscles at will and shrinking their bones as they please.

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In the past, Bai Xiang hadn’t understood what that meant. Now she wondered: could that also include controlling the bacteria and viruses within her body?

After all, whether it was the Treatise of the Body-Vessel or the Treatise of the Life-Fire —whether you treat the body as the boat that ferries you across the sea, or as the fuel for your life-flame—the body being stronger is always better. On that point, there could be no mistake.

So couldn’t you start from that and achieve the most basic level of extending life?

Saint-Emperor Gu had been a heaven-favored genius who founded Sword Dao, and yet he only lived to ninety-three.

Even she herself—on the path of qi, with her Golden Core in the Core realm already formed—could only vaguely sense that her lifespan was just over a hundred years. In that respect, it didn’t quite live up to the Golden Core realm.

If she could create a method that doubled one’s lifespan just by tempering the body alone, wouldn’t that be the best possible start for the pursuit of Immortal Dao and eternal life?

Bai Xiang was curious whether this kind of microscopic method, and the teachings and secret arts on how to “metamorphose,” might be recorded in detail in the Xuan Emperor Canon .

Unfortunately, the Xuan Emperor Canon in the Yuming Library was only a fragment and didn’t include those crucial parts.

Nor did it carry any echo of history she could read. That suggested either it hadn’t been written by anyone truly versed in “xuan arts,” or that it was simply so ancient that its spiritual imprint had completely dissipated.

She could only think of a way to deal with that later.

Taking out her phone, Bai Xiang wrote up a message about the nerve-vein fiend and sent it out in bulk to selected recipients, just to warn those relatives and friends.

This thing was grotesque.

She herself wasn’t afraid, with her soul-based ability to warn her in advance. Zhuqing, having perhaps inherited Little Aunt’s gift, wasn’t all that afraid either.

But everyone else had to be extremely careful when facing it.

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She hadn’t forgotten that, once the nerve-vein fiend realized it had been exposed, the first thing it did was pounce toward Bai Zhuqing. That meant it was certain it could quickly bore into Bai Zhuqing’s body and seize it as its hostage.

There was an even more terrifying possibility: that it could fuse with a host’s nervous system and completely replace it.

Could it also use that to read all the memories stored in the host’s brain?

As for that corpse—“Bai Chenyu”—was that identity something it had fabricated, or had it once been the real Bai Chenyu?

Shaking her head, refusing to follow those twists and loops any further, Bai Xiang heard someone walk into the main hall of the Dao field.

It wasn’t just one person. A man and a woman came in, both wearing tight, deep-black battlesuits, each with a treasured sword sheathed in the slot on their back.

“Benling, Xia Ran (Shangqing, Leng Qiu).”

“We pay our respects, Dao Lord.”

The two spoke in unison and bowed to Bai Xiang. They were Xia Ran and Leng Qiu, whom she’d met at the Qizhou University exchange tournament.

As mentioned before, Bai Xiang had explained the path of qi to Wang Ran and Li Sheng, but the two hadn’t been ready to make a quick decision. Following Bai Xiang’s suggestion, they’d instead sent two core disciples over to see the results on them first.

These two were precisely those disciples.

Freed from the restraints of their elders and having gone through the process of changing to a new method and supporting each other in joint research, their relationship had progressed by leaps and bounds. Bai Xiang guessed they’d more or less “cultivated their feelings to fruition.”

But what she cared about was their strength.

Her younger sister Zhuqing could at best hold off a mid-tier Condensing the Aspect cultivator. Lian Feng would only be weaker than Zhuqing, not stronger. And Han Yuanfeng, in a real fight, amounted to little more than a high-tier Condensing the Aspect. Relying on just that much power to guard the nerve-vein fiend would not set her mind at ease.

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These two, however, were different.

Even before they switched to the new method, they had already been Purple Blood Condensing the Aspect. After changing to the path of qi, their strength had climbed further. By her estimation, they could already touch the edge of “Sword Core”—that is, Sword Dao’s Core realm.

“I’m going to travel.”

Bai Xiang didn’t waste words, stating her reason for calling them here.

“About the nerve-vein fiend, Lian Feng should already have filled you in.”

“While I’m away, I’ll trouble you two to sit guard here. Above all, you mustn’t let that thing slip away.”

Xia Ran and his little girlfriend exchanged a look, and in Leng Qiu’s eyes he saw absolute resolve.

So he replied, “You flatter us, Dao Lord… Since it is your order, we will of course do our utmost.”

Xia Ran had good sense. He understood that the situation changed too quickly for anyone to cling to the past. There was no way he could still treat Bai Xiang as a peer.

The person before him was not only Dao Lord of Shenming, but a great cultivator on par with the Divine Fetus realm.

More importantly, with his master Wang Ran’s permission, Bai Xiang had taught the path of qi to the two of them. By that reckoning, she was half a master to them as well.

Xia Ran still vividly remembered his astonishment that day, and how shocked and excited he’d been after entering through spirit-pointing.

The path of qi was nothing like those demon arts.

Unlike those demon and heretical methods that required you to rebuild your cultivation from scratch, the most fundamental difference between the path of qi and Sword Dao was only that the source of power had been swapped out.

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From the Demon Pool to the original self-born qi.

From the outer Aspect to the inner self-Aspect.

Beyond that, the only adjustment was that the heart-meridian diagrams had to be redrawn to form an internal cycle. In every other respect—whether fist techniques or sword arts, even divine abilities—everything could be performed in conjunction with the newborn qi-force, and their power would be no weaker than before, only stronger.

And it completely eliminated the risk of contamination… if that wasn’t the Great Dao, what was?

The more deeply he understood and studied the path of qi, the more unfathomable Bai Xiang seemed to Xia Ran.

Especially the way she casually tossed them some of her insight notes—which even included something as supreme as The Tiger-Subduing Arhat Scripture . They had given Xia Ran tremendous inspiration. His respect for Bai Xiang was already close to the respect he held for Wang Ran.

Leng Qiu was the same.

Bai Xiang had also studied Shangqing sword arts. In pure swordsmanship she couldn’t compare to Abbess Li Sheng, but what Leng Qiu needed now were sword insights after switching to the path of qi.

In that respect, Bai Xiang was the only person in the world who could teach her. Naturally, she was full of respect for Bai Xiang as well.

Seeing how sensible the pair were, Bai Xiang felt a bit more at ease.

After they left, she went upstairs alone, came to her sister’s bedside, and saw that Bai Zhuqing was sleeping soundly without the slightest sign of waking.

This time, I really am leaving.

With a casual tug she drew her sister’s bed curtains shut, then went up another floor and stepped out onto the viewing platform. Taking a step into empty air, her figure slowly faded and dissolved away.