Volume 4, Chapter 84 – A Stronger Spirit Pool

Once she had fully processed it, Bai Xiang could not help reevaluating Monk Zhuye a little more highly.

Because at present, there should not be many people who knew that “the essence of a tribulation struggle is contending for the dragon-throne.”

At the very least, forces like Tianfu Mountain and Taixu Monastery did not know. It was not as though she had never gone to them before and tried asking what use Blood Soul Heaven had for abducting people like Liu Yong, but their answer had also been “we don’t know,” and she could tell they were not faking it.

Blood Soul Heaven itself had been carrying out those captures with utter brazenness, which also seemed to show that they were acting from a position of confidence. In other words, they believed that at this stage, very few people would understand the deeper meaning involved, and those who did know the truth would not casually go around telling others.

That was probably the logic of it. The Demon Court, for example, certainly knew what Blood Soul Heaven was trying to do. But if some force went to report the matter and ask about it, the answer they got would definitely be some vague, empty response.

That only further highlighted the importance of Monk Zhuye and the Spirit-Command Sect inheritance he had received. Perhaps only lineages ancient enough to have survived the previous round of Void Tribulation and tribulation struggle would know secrets like this.

“I want to ask you something.” Bai Xiang fixed her eyes on the dark-skinned monk. “When you say contending for the dragon-throne… can I treat the ‘dynasty’ itself as a condensed spirit pool?”

She already had a guess in her heart, but she needed further confirmation.

“Amitabha.” Monk Zhuye recited a Buddhist invocation. “What is meant by the ‘primary order’ is the order of the main world. If one wishes to be acknowledged by that mysterious source and obtain the final right to remain behind, then naturally one must use every kind of method to strengthen the impression of oneself.”

Then I understand.

Bai Xiang said nothing, but in her mind she thought of how, across more than sixteen hundred years, no matter how the lands of the Nine Provinces had been overturned, those people had always insisted on preserving concepts like “Great Yu” and the “Yu Dynasty.”

She had originally thought that was done through powerful figures forcibly extending a dynasty’s lifespan, and through self-deceiving measures such as intermarriage and name changes in order to preserve so-called orthodoxy.

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But now that she looked at it, the behavior itself was highly suspicious. Taken on its own, its nature was not even all that different from the “head shops.” Both were methods of strengthening or even rewriting a person’s concept within a certain range.

Bai Xiang estimated that in the lands of the Nine Provinces now, and perhaps even across the whole world, there were many people who, even if you explained the truth to them and told them that the concept of the “Yu Dynasty” could be overturned, would still find the idea horrifying and impossible to accept. That was because their concept had already been rewritten by this broad spirit pool. They believed with unwavering certainty that the “Yu Dynasty” was the only legitimate orthodoxy on that land. No matter who came or what was said, nothing could make them change that conviction.

Once the number of such people grew large enough, reaching tens of millions, or countless tens of millions, then the “Yu Dynasty” truly would become a spirit pool. And behind that aspiration-force condensed from all living beings, there might well be one or even several terrifying experts capable of drawing power from that spirit pool.

Oh, and there was also Sword Dao.

It was all about strengthening concepts. All about changing cognition. The effect of “Sword Dao” in condensing aspiration-force was obviously stronger than that of the “Yu Dynasty” alone. And Great Yu had designated Sword Dao as its state art, binding itself to Sword Dao over a long period of time, then using methods such as Saint-Transition Pills to forcibly control the Nine Daos… that would inevitably cause the concept of “Sword Dao” to merge into the dynasty itself, perhaps even into that very spirit pool.

That was why there were folk sayings that when Sword Dao prospered, Great Yu prospered. The fate, rise, and fall of the two really were bound together.

At that thought, Bai Xiang truly felt that her decision to stay in Maozhou and develop cautiously, rather than running off to Yujing the moment she gained a little strength, had been absolutely correct.

Yujing City was a den of tigers and wolves.

The Yu Emperor Sacred Dynasty, which controlled Sword Dao, and whatever lay hidden behind that spirit pool, might be able to tolerate someone like Xiang Xian. But that was because when Xiang Xian blew up Yujing, she could still be regarded as acting within the rules covered by that spirit pool.

What Xiang Xian did did not amount to overturning the logic of that spirit pool at its root. Perhaps that was the reason, or perhaps it was because invoking that spirit pool required some kind of price, and those hidden things judged that it was not worth using measures beyond a certain limit against her. That was why she had been able to come back alive.

But I’m different.

I created the Path of Qi. I possess martial strength and influence greater than even my master’s. Those things are direct threats to the rules and logic of that spirit pool. Those people might ignore my master, but if I went to Yujing instead, they would absolutely not remain indifferent.

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Seeing Bai Xiang fall silent, Monk Zhuye could tell she was thinking something through. He had probably guessed that she was extrapolating from one thing to the next, trying to infer the relationship between the great orthodoxies of all realms and the methods of spirit pools.

He advised her, “Ever since Void Tribulation came into being, and people forcibly created demonic power out of the primal haze, this sort of thing has flourished widely. Your Highness need not think too deeply on it.”

What he meant was that all such great orthodoxies as Dao-Void Methods, Sword Dao, and the Path of Qi, and even many factions besides, gathered people’s hearts through their root methods and established dojos. In truth, all of that was an attempt to condense spirit pool rules.

Because that was the most formulaic path to ascending to the Venerable rank.

Of course, a path to Venerablehood like that came with many flaws, and many restrictions on how the resulting power could be used or mobilized. But at the same time, it also had the convenience of system and structure.

Many weak Venerables were, in practice, doing the same thing as petty rural evil gods, deceiving sentient beings everywhere to gather their aspiration-force, all so that they themselves could attain the Dao and step into the Venerable ranks.

This… had always been how things were, from ancient times down to the present.

He could not understand why Bai Xiang was spending so much mental effort thinking about this. To him, it was perfectly normal. What Bai Xiang ought to be considering now was how to deal with the tribulation struggle.

Seeing that this was how he looked at it, Bai Xiang swallowed back certain thoughts she had been about to voice and instead asked about other details, receiving Zhuye’s loyal answers.

“My spirit pool is the Blackflame Tree,” Zhuye said. “This tree is demon-like, but not a demon. Before it awakens spiritual intelligence, it acts entirely on instinct. Its special trait is that its roots can walk, allowing it to survive in many kinds of extreme environments. And in the course of that survival, it can scatter seeds. The new trees that grow from those seeds are likewise regarded as part of itself, further ensuring its survival.”

This kind of demon-tree was actually quite easy to control. Following the sect’s inherited secret methods, Zhuye had raised and controlled a batch of Blackflame Trees. The moment he enlightened them, they spontaneously transmitted large amounts of aspiration-force to him, treating him too as one of the Blackflame Tree race, even as their king.

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Relying on that layer of cognition, he had stolen a small portion of the rule involved and condensed it into a spirit pool, stepping into the Venerable ranks.

Other than being rather good at staying alive, the Blackflame Tree was useless in almost every other respect. Since his spirit pool had been condensed for exactly that purpose from the start, Zhuye counted as one of the weakest kinds of Immortal Venerables.

“Seeds?”

Bai Xiang took out the ebony token from her storage jade. “This?”

“Precisely.” Zhuye nodded. “To a certain extent, the me you saw was only its projection.”

“So back then, you had many seeds moving about through Shenwu Heaven, and I just happened to run into one of them?”

“Exactly so.”

Then that made sense.

Bai Xiang nodded.

A large part of her wariness toward Zhuye had come from how their meeting felt just a little too convenient. But if sheer quantity was the basis for it, and Shenwu Heaven at the time already had very few settlements left, then the odds of running into him were much higher.

“So what does Your Highness intend to do next?” Zhuye seemed even more concerned about the tribulation struggle than Bai Xiang herself and asked again, still refusing to let the matter go.

He even offered a suggestion. “I think Your Highness ought to seize the time. Before the Sacred Court reacts, you should spread the orthodoxy of the Path of Qi as quickly as possible and gather as much aspiration-force as you can, then use it to condense an even stronger spirit pool.”

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As if it could possibly be that easy.

Bai Xiang shot him a sidelong glance.

That sentence had practically exposed Zhuye’s whole background. He had clearly not returned to the main world in a very long time and had no idea at all what the current state of the main world was.

The reason he knew of me was probably because some news from the main world had spread out.

A genius who had ascended to the Venerable rank over there, on top of founding a Dao lineage of her own and opening a new path.

Bai Xiang was not being arrogant. It was simply an accurate assessment of herself—she genuinely did have the right for her name to be carried into the Void Realm.

She then asked Zhuye about a few other details, such as what exactly lay behind Alos and Tina, and Zhuye gave her a full explanation.

“The main world was never made up of only one race of people,” Zhuye said, as though none of this were strange. “Some people have dark skin and flatter noses, some have reddish skin, blond hair, and blue-green eyes… all of that is perfectly normal. They each developed civilizations of their own as well, and some of those civilizations still survive today.”

“As for the force behind those two, from Your Highness’s description, they should be believers in certain ancient demonic beasts.”

“There are many such petty schemers in the Void Realm. They are not worth spending too much thought on.”