Volume 4, Chapter 55 – Advancing Again (2)

The washroom was filled with dense white steam. In the small bath specially built for this purpose, Bai Xiang was leaning back against the edge, resting in ease while also enjoying the attentive service her younger sister was providing.

She was not the sort of person who, once she had money and resources, would pour them all into comfort and indulgence. To put it plainly, this bath was only a little larger than the bathtub in an ordinary household. Its edges also had recessed seats carved into them, on both this side and the opposite one.

That way, with Bai Xiang sitting on one side and Bai Zhuqing on the other, if Bai Xiang stretched out her legs, the distance in between was just about perfect for Bai Zhuqing to catch her feet and set them in her lap, kneading her soles with her palms.

Of course, this still did not amount to proper cultivation. For the current Bai Xiang, something like massaging acupoints was of no real help.

But then again… even though she knew full well that this was the case, when faced with the way her younger sister looked at her, eager to please like a little animal, she still could not quite bring herself to refuse clearly.

She did not understand why anyone would enjoy this sort of thing, but since it was only something to do in passing while soaking in the bath, letting her hold and knead them was harmless enough.

Bai Xiang’s thoughts drifted somewhat. She was thinking about whether the future awaiting everyone who had stepped onto the Path of Qi would truly be the same as hers.

To cultivate Dao-Void Methods to the level of an Immortal Venerable, one had to endure all kinds of hardships, and the hardest step among them was to condense and forge a unique divine pool, which was tantamount to seizing rules and order from this world itself.

The very idea of such a thing sounded deeply arcane. Before this, Bai Xiang had known only a rough outline of the concept. She had inferred it through the corruption and distortions surrounding the “Head Shop,” but her understanding of many of the subtle details had not been nearly as deep as that of cultivators from that side.

But after seizing part of Immortal Venerable Jiuli’s memories, the gates in this area had basically been thrown wide open before her. There was no more mystery left to it.

Immortal Venerable Jiuli’s divine pool was called Striving for Supremacy. Among all divine pools, it belonged to the category with a relatively narrow scope of interference.

To condense the Striving for Supremacy divine pool, one first had to achieve one thing: from the moment one began cultivating, one could not suffer a single defeat.

That did not mean one had to be invincible under heaven. Tricks were allowed here. If one believed an enemy was not someone one could defeat, then one could first find a way to avoid them, so long as one had prepared a reason for oneself in advance.

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That was exactly how Immortal Venerable Jiuli had done it. If he could beat them, he fought them. If he could not, he avoided them. And even so, he had still carved out a fierce reputation in the region of the Yinsha Sea, which was actually no small feat for someone whose status was essentially that of an itinerant cultivator.

Throughout that process, he would inevitably condense his own momentum.

It was the momentum of the strong, the force of presence, and even more, the momentum of victory. Such a thing affected a person’s essence, qi, and spirit. The difficulty, however, lay in stripping it out from the realm of the abstract and turning it into a tool that he could enjoy permanently.

Rituals and prepared materials were unavoidable. Each time this momentum was stabilized, Immortal Venerable Jiuli had to defeat a powerful opponent, using victory in battle to drive that momentum still higher.

Only after seven such times could the process be completed. From then on, that momentum would be permanently fixed around him. It would cause his cultivation speed to surge forever, let him grow stronger and stronger in battle through Striving for Supremacy, and allow him to perform above his normal limits at all times.

And most valuable of all, so long as someone stood against him as an enemy or an opponent, so long as they engaged him head-on in martial combat, then as time passed, their own momentum would be absorbed by Striving for Supremacy and devoured by him bit by bit.

That was why his divine pool was said to have a relatively narrow scope of interference. Compared with many divine pools whose condensation and formation required affecting the ecology of an entire region, the divine pool Striving for Supremacy only ever affected Immortal Venerable Jiuli himself, along with the opponents killing each other with him during any given span of time.

That also explained why, during the stretch of time Bai Xiang exchanged blows with him, her bodily functions, reaction speed, and concentration had all declined somewhat. Even she had been affected by Striving for Supremacy and had unconsciously had a portion of her momentum devoured.

But once she quickly realized what was happening and guessed that the rules of a divine pool were interfering with her, her soul-ability took effect and completely erased that influence.

This is not the first time you’ve helped me.

Bai Xiang let her thoughts sink into her Inner Body-scape. Looking across the vast world of white mist, where only the golden core shone, she could not help feeling a little emotional inside.

A single soul-ability, simple as it was, had helped her so many times by now that she could no longer even count them all.

It was because of this ability that she could remain unaffected by most Illusory Gods of demon pools.

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And now the hidden danger posed by Illusory Gods had shifted from demon pools to divine pools, which were controlled and wielded by sentient beings and cultivators. Following the strange twists of the human heart, that made things far more sinister.

Yet she happened to possess this ability. So long as she herself could become aware of it, all those divine pool rules that interfered with external things could not envelop her. She would never be affected by those forms of order.

These were the very methods on which Immortal Venerables most relied, yet when they ran into her, they were no different from a weak demon pool. The outcome was still the same: they shattered to pieces.

By Bai Xiang’s estimate, all divine pool rules chiefly focused on interfering with external things would have little effect on her. What she needed to do was not rest easy, but remain even more vigilant, because some of those forms of interference had to be consciously noticed by her before she could erase them.

That said, returning to the question she had first been considering: what future awaited those cultivators who had been influenced by her and led by her onto this new path of Qi?

When Bai Xiang cultivated to the Origin Realm, she had not condensed any divine pool. The flower of spirit was the manifestation corresponding to the excavation of the Hidden Spirit Orifice.

But even she herself had only managed to do that by relying on a cheat. How could she possibly guarantee that later generations would also be able to find the Hidden Spirit Orifice?

If they could not, then it would also mean that later cultivators of the Path of Qi would be unable to reach the level of an Immortal Venerable. In other words, it would mean that the Path of Qi posed “almost no threat at all” to Dao-Void Methods.

Had Li Huiran seen this point?

That possibility could not be ruled out.

A new method that could not truly mass-produce powerful experts would never be able to influence the overall situation, no matter how powerful its creator might be.

Perhaps that was what he thought, and that was why he had taken no measures against my spreading of the new method.

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But then again, that kind of thing was not certain.

On the one hand, it was not yet certain whether cultivators of the Path of Qi, upon reaching that threshold, had to excavate the Hidden Spirit Orifice in order to break through into the Origin Realm.

The basis for this was a sudden intuition Bai Xiang had once had: she actually could have chosen to give up trying to find the Hidden Spirit Orifice. That vague feeling had told her that even if she failed to find it, she could still have advanced into the Origin Realm all the same.

An Origin Realm of that kind definitely would not have been so powerful or so complete, but it should have been enough to correspond to the level of an Immortal Venerable.

On the other hand, now that she had already learned the method for condensing a divine pool, she felt that there did not seem to be all that many hard limits involved.

Perhaps cultivators of the Path of Qi, when facing that bottleneck, could also choose to condense a divine pool to fill the vacancy left by the flower of spirit.

For now, that was Bai Xiang’s guess.

She had not yet seen a real case.

And while she was thinking all this over, on the other side of the bath, Bai Zhuqing was looking through the water and mist at the pale, tender arch of Bai Xiang’s foot extended toward her, her gaze faintly intoxicated.

How could such a perfect creation exist in this world?

No matter how many times she had touched it, the same feeling always rose in her.

In ordinary times, she had never once seen Sister Xiang’er spend any effort taking care of her body.

Trimming toenails, using cosmetics for skincare, using washes and products to care for her hands, feet, and face… Bai Xiang had done none of these things at all.

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Bai Zhuqing, after all, lived together with Bai Xiang. On this matter alone, she could guarantee it without the slightest doubt.

And yet, despite that… despite the fact that her elder sister did not expend even a fraction of effort on such things, Bai Zhuqing had never once seen a single part of her body grow the slightest bit “wrong.”

The length of her hair, the length of her nails.

The sheen of her skin, and how fair and smooth it was.

None of these had ever changed.

The only thing that had changed was the increasingly mature form and bearing of her figure as the years passed. How could Bai Zhuqing not feel astonished even as she envied it?

Could it be that Elder Sister really was some immortal from the heavens? Was that why, in this respect, she was simply unlike ordinary mortals like them?

The truth was actually very simple… the blame lay with her soul-ability.

With that thing, Bai Xiang possessed absolute control over her own body, and over the very concept of “self.”

If she wished, she could use that ability to “shrink bones” or “grow bones,” then “pull at muscles and flesh,” or even “make major changes to her face and bodily form.”

She could directly use that power to transform herself back into the body of her previous life.

The only reason she had not done so was that she found it meaningless. It also ran counter to “following Dao and nature,” and would be harmful to cultivation.