Volume 4, Chapter 35 – True Mandate

Back at Listening-to-Rain Tower alone, Bai Xiang first went to the practice chamber to regulate her breathing. Then, looking at the Zhenyuan sword embryo and the captured sword laid out before her, she began her usual post-battle review.

Cui Yuanhao’s title was “Immortal Venerable Hanrong,” while Ning Haiyun’s father was “Immortal Venerable Ningyuan.”

The difference between these titles already seemed enough to show the gap in strength.

In Bai Xiang’s view, Immortal Venerables whose titles clearly carried the flavor of their Divine Pools were the type not afraid to walk the outside world, nor afraid of their Divine Pool’s foundations being known.

Those like “Immortal Venerable Ningyuan,” who refused to let even their title give anything away, or simply used a place name as their prefix, were clearly the weaker Immortal Venerables. The moment their secrets were exposed, it would basically come down to a fight to the death.

For Cui Yuanhao to call her “Immortal Venerable Shenming” meant that, in the eyes of the outside world, she was counted among the former type as well.

In their eyes, her Divine Pool rules were probably “Shenming void-vibration.” Cui Yuanhao had clearly taken that as a given, which was why he suffered so badly once he tried to fight her up close and was finally completely suppressed.

Immortal Venerables really were a different breed.

That was Bai Xiang’s biggest takeaway from this battle.

Divine Pool rules differed from one Immortal Venerable to another, and any Immortal Venerable able to leave a name in the outside world had, for the most part, pushed their Divine Pool’s rules to the extreme. Leaving aside how exaggerated their combat power might be, the most basic point was that they were incredibly hard to kill off completely.

Bai Xiang noted down every move Cui Yuanhao had used in the fight and later skimmed back through them, only to find there weren’t many at all.

That was only natural. During most of the fight, she had kept Void-Imagination Shenming active, leaving Cui Yuanhao’s Dao-Void Method cultivation completely locked. Many of his techniques never had a chance to come out; he could only rely on his trump-card Divine Pool rules to go head-to-head with her.

She had done that because she felt there was no need.

As long as she killed Cui Yuanhao and pulled out his soul for reading, those techniques would naturally become known to her.

She’d paid for her lack of intel.

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The people of the Shenwu Immortal Dynasty didn’t even count as small fry compared to Immortal Venerables. Even though Crown Prince Wu Qing had an Immortal Venerable father, there were mysteries you simply could not grasp before reaching that realm. Their memories were of no real use when it came to analyzing Immortal Venerable-level opponents.

Having first failed to read the souls of the Seven Illusory Heavens Alliance, and then seen Cui Yuanhao lose to her yet not die, Bai Xiang was now certain that soul-reading would never be so easy again. She warned herself not to treat it as a given in the future and to always have a backup plan.

Then she turned her gaze inward and, as a matter of course, picked up the captured Tianxuan Sword for a closer look.

She had no idea what material this sword was forged from. The blade felt blazing hot to the touch, while the gold thread wrapped around the hilt was warm and smooth like jade. Holding it felt like stroking a bird’s feathers, bringing an unexpected sense of calm and comfort.

Beneath the guard, two archaic seal script characters for “Tianxuan” were engraved. That reminded Bai Xiang of an old historical tale.

In the year 646 of Great Yu, a demon fox rose in Wuqiu and plunged the realm into chaos. The Human Emperor Xin of that era had braved all dangers to seek out the Demon Pool of the immortal demon Xuan Bird, sealed the Demon Pool into a sword, and forged the Imperial Sword Xuange to behead the demon fox and set things right.

Immortal-demon Xuan Bird… This sword gave the same feeling. The sword light and sword Qi it released were also golden and bird-shaped.

With the name Tianxuan, it probably wasn’t the legendary human-path Sacred Sword Xuange.

But it might have been modeled after Xuange.

After all, the severing of heaven and earth was not absolute. Some smaller Illusory Realms occasionally made contact with the main world, and the flow of information between sides was not completely cut off.

Mm… It wasn’t impossible that Xuange was copied from Tianxuan instead.

Bai Xiang tried channeling Qi-Origin into the Tianxuan Sword and, unsurprisingly, was rejected.

Despite how meekly the sword sat in her hand now, the moment Qi-Origin wrapped around it, it began to tremble violently, faintly conveying an emotion like “do that again and I’ll shatter myself,” forcing Bai Xiang to stop.

Quite a temper.

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Bai Xiang actually didn’t care whether she could use this sword or not. Her life-bound Dao sword was already confirmed to be Feixiang Heaven; she had no interest in other swords.

But the way this one resisted her at every turn, even giving off a hint of fear, did leave her a little displeased—and a little puzzled.

It probably wasn’t Cui Yuanhao’s weapon. If it were, he would have taken it out from the very start.

In other words, there was likely a true spirit dwelling inside this sword, entangled with the true spirit of some other powerful Immortal Venerable and recognizing that person as its master. Its rejection would then make sense.

But fear…?

Bai Xiang lifted her left arm, revealing the bandage wrapped around her wrist.

Was it because of the memory of piercing my arm?

The thought made her frown and sink into deeper reflection.

The outside world now called her “Immortal Venerable Shenming” and assumed that her Divine Pool rules were “Shenming void-vibration.”

But in reality, they were not. She had not condensed any Divine Pool. Her divine flower was formed by harvesting the Great Medicine of the Hidden Spirit Orifice, and she considered that kind of Three Flowers to be the orthodox Daoist path.

Her method of cultivation was orthodox—but was she?

She had always felt that the path of the Divine Pool was taking shortcuts, but the essence of a Divine Pool was to establish its own rule within the concept of the self, a rule that was, for all practical purposes, “absolute.”

Cui Yuanhao’s inter-born ice and fire, so hard to kill, showed just how absolute a Divine Pool rule could be.

These Divine Pools and Demon Pools weren’t that hard to understand. You could think of them as containment objects from those rule-based novels; the concept was basically the same.

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So what about my soul-abilities?

As long as something was inside her body, as long as she knew of it, the way its rules operated became entirely subject to her will.

That ability had always been called an “ability” in the past, but now, it truly looked like a Divine Pool rule—almost identical.

She had, in fact, watched its formation with her own eyes. It had been the result of those ten years in bed, her mind constantly turning during that time.

But why had it been so easy…? Bai Xiang still couldn’t understand.

She could only chalk it up to a fortunate anomaly.

Maybe it was simply one of the basic rules in many universes, or maybe several universes had overlapped at that time, and the singular point where they intersected had just happened to land on her, triggering a spontaneous mutation.

Guesses like that had no real basis, of course, but for now they were all she had.

So I can be considered to possess a Divine Pool as well?

On the surface, my Divine Pool is “Shenming void-vibration.”

As the Path of Qi spread wider, more Shenming disciples would be able to use the void-vibrating Dao. People would definitely start to realize that this couldn’t be her Divine Pool.

At that point, all eyes would turn to these golden eyes. The Xuandi Scripture and the Xuandi inheritance would be brought up, and they would guess that her Divine Pool was the Golden-Pupil Illusory God.

But in truth, it was neither.

In that case, I shouldn’t actually be cultivating the Sword Dao…

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With such a bizarre Divine Pool, I ought to be like some ancient demon in a myth, cultivating a way to “swallow heaven and devour earth.”

No matter what the opponent was, no matter what its material makeup might be.

As long as I swallowed it, brought it into my body, I could refine it in an instant… That would be far more domineering than cutting with a sword.

The thought made her lips twitch with amusement.

Such things were only for daydreams. Like the old joke about “how to put an elephant into a fridge,” the hardest part was always the first step.

“Swallow heaven and devour earth.”

In reality, she had yet to hear of any actual technique or divine ability that could do that…

With that thought, Bai Xiang withdrew her focus, set down the trembling Tianxuan Sword, and instead drew out the warped Zhenyuan sword embryo. Then she pulled out Feixiang Heaven, its edge pitted from its clash with the Tianxuan Sword. Pressing the two together, she watched as Feixiang Heaven began hungrily devouring.

There would be a way.

Half-closing her golden eyes, she gently stroked the changing blade.

The legend of the nine swords.

Maybe it was time to have a talk with the court.