Volume 3, Chapter 125 – Spirit Pool

At daybreak the next morning, Bai Xiang opened her eyes at the same time as the sky, and when she looked down she saw her little sister sleeping on her chest.

She reached out, pinched Bai Zhuqing’s small face, and turned her over. It was easy to see the lingering fatigue between the girl’s brows and lashes.

The things I did last night, especially some of the permissions I gave her in certain matters, seem to have been a bit too much for her.

Bai Xiang silently reflected on herself.

There was plenty of time for them to be together anyway. Next time she really should not go quite so far and should at least give Bai Zhuqing time to adjust.

Some things truly were different now.

Lying on the bed, feeling the fact of her own existence, and feeling the pressure and clinging warmth of Bai Zhuqing curled up against her, Bai Xiang reflexively compared her present state of mind to how she had been before.

According to ancient tales, if one could see through and reach the Innate realm, one would be able, in a single stroke, to pierce the mystery of the womb and recover the true spirit and wisdom of one’s previous life.

She had never taken this saying very seriously. In her view, she had already solved this mystery: her past-life memories should have awakened at the very moment she “transmigrated” and woke up.

But the truth was somewhat different from what she had thought. In reality, her true spirit had come to this place to be reborn long ago, but for certain reasons it had remained suppressed, unable to awaken the memories of her previous life.

Her talent, her soul-abilities, had actually been hiding in this body from the very beginning, but because she did not know of them, they could not manifest.

Only when she was provoked by Shenli and her subconscious defense mechanisms were triggered did her previous life’s memories and dormant wisdom suddenly wake. Because the will and thoughts of that past-life consciousness were so overwhelmingly strong, they pushed down the new consciousness of her second life, which was why she had thought this was “transmigration and rebirth.”

With the ten years on the sickbed added on top, the strength level of the first life’s consciousness was absurd.

To put numbers to it, if the consciousness of her second life was worth one point, then the consciousness of her past life would be over one hundred. The terrifying gap had nearly crushed the second life into a mere subconscious. Only the residual impressions of her memories kept it from disappearing.

That was why, later, she had to endure everything until she opened the Hidden Spirit Orifice, then truly completed her fusion with “herself,” allowing the Three Flowers of essence, qi, and spirit to become whole again. With that, she broke through in one leap to the Yuan Orifice realm, which roughly corresponded to an Immortal Venerable of the upper realm.

Yet according to the memory fragments of Ji Chang, Wang Changhe, Wu Qing, Zhao Dongyan, and the others, even an Immortal Venerable could not do such a thing.

The true core of the Shenwu Immortal Dynasty’s power was Emperor Wu, and Emperor Wu was one of those Immortal Venerables. Wu Qing’s memories clearly recorded parts of his cultivation path. Bai Xiang was sure that Emperor Wu had never discovered the Hidden Spirit Orifice.

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“The so-called upper realm is a cultivation world made by stitching together countless small Illusory Realms. The cultivators there practice by properly following the Dao-Void Method. That method has no record of cultivating the Hidden Spirit Orifice. This shows that seeking and opening the Hidden Spirit Orifice was never a necessary path over there, which matches Ji Chang’s impression. Many methods involving the soul were only comprehended by cultivators by chance.”

Awake and idle, Bai Xiang happened to be using Jade Spirit to sort out her gains. She organized the many memory fragments, wanting to see if there was anything useful for her next steps in cultivation.

For example, the yellow-robed Daoist who wielded the golden wheel and lived till the end was named Xue Hongyi. Beyond being the foremost of the three grandmasters and three consecrated elders of the National Preceptor’s Manor of the Shenwu Immortal Dynasty, he was also the current master of the Purple Soul Monastery.

He had taken the dharma name Golden Wheel Adept. The Golden Wheel talisman Ji Chang had used had come from him.

Before Bai Xiang broke through, a single talisman made by that man could threaten her. After her breakthrough, killing him took only one sword, easier than slaughtering chickens and dogs.

From this it was clear how powerful the suppression from the Yuan Orifice realm and Immortal Venerable realm was upon lower beings. It was a complete leap in the level of life itself. Faced with this qualitative change in power, no matter how many lower beings you piled up, they could not resist; there was only one ending for them, and that was annihilation.

Only a powerhouse at that level had the qualifications to establish an Immortal Dynasty. These memories also confirmed that the myriad powers of the upper realm all had Immortal Venerables backing them, and it was those figures who decided all resource allocation.

Yet even such Immortal Venerables, such exalted beings, even Emperor Wu at that level, still could not pierce the mystery of the womb or discover the Hidden Spirit Orifice.

Bai Xiang pondered. From this difference one could clearly see the specific distinction between Yuan Orifice and Immortal Venerable.

When Wu Qing had seen the Three Flowers above her head, he had cried out phrases like “Three Flowers and Five Qi, the mysterious transformation into Immortal Venerable,” but the Dao-Void Method did not contain the cultivation process of the Hidden Spirit Orifice. The “Three Flowers” concept that emerged from it could not be the same as the essence, qi, and spirit that Bai Xiang understood.

The Dao-Void Method did emphasize essence, qi, and spirit.

Essence and qi referred to opening the Hidden Heart Orifice and Hidden Field Orifice, then remaking the vital essence and refining essence into qi. This part of the path was the same as with the Yuan Orifice realm.

But that “spirit” did not refer to the Hidden Spirit Orifice. It referred to a concept called the Spirit Pool.

The Spirit Pool corresponded to the Demon Pool.

The reason the Dao-Void Method had that name was that the “void” in it came from the cosmic void.

The Void Tribulation had interfered with laws and principles, causing the appearance of demonic power in the natural world, this polluted force. This power slowly tainted many beings and gave rise to the species called demons, which in turn opened the way for sentient beings to grasp and seek out extraordinary paths.

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Before that, there had been no such thing as demonic power. Without demonic power there would be no Dao-Void Method and no arts that made use of demonic power. There would be no divine abilities at all.

Because in essence it was all a reversal of the rules.

The original rules did not permit intelligent beings to grasp extraordinary power. Cultivation itself was a rebellion against heaven’s decree.

A Demon Pool was even more so a gathering of the concept of “loss of order.” In the Illusory Realms of the upper realm, the same phenomenon was called void demons. Because they were closer to the cosmic void and nearer to the source of all loss of order, the Void Tribulation, they were even more dangerous and even more deadly; even people like Wu Qing turned pale at the mention of them.

The Spirit Pool concept had been inspired by the existence of Demon Pools. Some sentient beings believed that Demon Pools were the expression of an entirely new Dao. Every Demon Pool, no matter how large or small, no matter how strong or weak its concept, was redefining a new rule within its own sphere of control.

So could one plant such a seed within one’s own soul and, by polishing and creating a Dao and a set of rules that belonged to oneself, ascend to a higher level?

That was the Spirit Pool concept within the Dao-Void Method. The so-called Immortal Venerables and exalted beings could actually be understood as “high-level intelligent beings who have walked out a Dao uniquely their own and can exercise absolute control within that domain.”

It sounded a bit strange, but also somewhat reasonable.

Putting herself into it, Bai Xiang realized that her own Shenming Sword Dao could also be classified that way.

The transformed Empty-Imagination Shenming, could that not also be regarded as a new set of rules?

Judged from a vast, cosmic perspective, what was the difference between such an existence and a Demon Pool?

There were still some differences.

Bai Xiang silently shook her head in her heart.

First was the driving force.

The Three Flowers and Five Qi cultivated by the Dao-Void Method and the Three Flowers and Five Qi she had cultivated were not the same thing at all.

Leaving aside the lack of a Hidden Spirit Orifice, in the step of refining essence into qi, what the Dao-Void Method refined was “one’s own demonic power and demonic qi,” while what she refined was “heart-aspect Origin Qi.”

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The gap was huge.

She conservatively estimated that she should be stronger than the ordinary idea of an Immortal Venerable.

One side was worshiping and imitating the phenomenon of loss of order. The other side was genuine creation.

Using another example: this universe and world was like a virtual network. In it, some program command had locked away the extraordinary, not allowing intelligent beings to break the ordained limit of fate. The power of loss of order was like a virus that had invaded from outside. Borrowing that viral power let you break fate, but it also meant being bitten back by the virus. Even cultivating the Dao-Void Method all the way to the Immortal Venerable realm did not seem to allow one to achieve eternal life.

On Bai Xiang’s side, though, she had forcibly written an entirely new program.

She was essentially forcing this universe and world to accept the new program she had coded, the path of qi, and forcing it to become “something that can run this program.”

And she had actually succeeded, without suffering any obvious backlash so far.

That was certainly a good thing for her, but what exactly was the underlying principle…

Her brows furrowed slightly.

The more she thought about the logic behind it, the more Bai Xiang felt that what had happened during those ten years on the sickbed had been anything but ordinary.

It was far too mysterious.

This was the only piece she could not understand.

“Mm…”

A whimper sounded against her chest, then a fuzzy little head pushed up. Bai Zhuqing was finally awake.

Mm…

The girl opened her drowsy eyes, blinking as she looked up in a fog. Immediately, a calm, focused, fair face filled her vision.

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Skin so fine and delicate it seemed it would burst at a touch.

Her features were even more beautiful and eerily demonic than she remembered, a step more perverse in their allure.

Add in that pair of golden eyes studying her… Bai Zhuqing snapped awake in an instant, and her mind started replaying all the outrageous things she had done with the owner of those golden eyes.

This… this is way too embarrassing!

Her flustered emotions spun out of control. She immediately burrowed her head back down, and it took her a long moment to realize that she had buried herself into a soft, warm valley.

“Get up.”

Bai Xiang’s command came from above her head.

“If you want to be my Dao companion.”

“This level of cultivation isn’t nearly enough.”

A minute later, Bai Xiang tossed her struggling little sister into the big wooden bath and left her to wash herself. Bai Xiang sat down at the desk, opened the computer, and tried to connect to the phone network.

For the moment she had climbed another mountain. With her current cultivation, it should be enough to protect Maozhou and the southern Qi lands, so she could set cultivation aside briefly.

She planned to get in touch with Aurora, who had ended up in Luohou.

If possible, she also planned to have a proper talk with Aurora’s father.