Volume 4, Chapter 96 – The Venerable Net

Meanwhile, on the return journey, Bai Xiang went back to the medium-sized flying vessel that was being towed along. After bathing in the cabin and changing into another robe-skirt of the same style, she finally took out the storage jade plaque Steward Li had given her.

This kind of jade plaque contained an Illusory Realm space inside it, which in itself was equivalent to a sealed-off Illusory Realm minor world. But as mentioned before, the moment such fragments were split away, they began to die off. So just like a true Illusory Realm, the internal space inside a storage jade plaque also needed the protection of an Immortal Venerable-level spirit pool in order to remain stable.

And because that kind of “stability” was easily interfered with in the course of battle, these things had deliberately not been made into bracelets or rings. In the Void Realm, they counted as one of the symbols of the Venerable ranks.

Bai Xiang had no spirit pool and so could not shelter the storage jade plaque and keep its internal space stable. But she had something even stronger than a spirit pool: the little yellow jade inside the box.

That little yellow jade was a Heavenly Stem Precious Jade, an Order-Preserving Treasure. In itself, it was equivalent to one of the greatest fragments of the primary order.

A spirit pool, meanwhile, was only a crude imitation of the primary order. In terms of keeping such fragments stable and enduring, at least in that regard alone, no spirit pool could compare to it.

“Even with this thing prolonging its life, Shenwu Heaven only managed to last almost two thousand years. So this kind of protection clearly has its limits.”

Bai Xiang first took out the round-edged box containing the little yellow jade from her chest and let the faint glow it gave off shine over the jade plaque.

She had tested it already. Doing this once was enough to ensure that a jade plaque would remain stable for a long time.

Only then did she project her awareness into the plaque’s interior and take out several books, some formation diagrams, a treasure sword glittering with silver light, and a rectangular black card that did not look very remarkable at first glance.

Bai Xiang picked up the sword first. She saw that its hilt was thick in the middle and narrow at both ends. The pommel-weight and guard were carved with the heads of some unknown beast, and the guard extended a little farther into the scabbard. Two small ancient seal-script characters were engraved there:

Silver Spring.

The Silver Spring Sword.

A sudden intuition rose in her heart. Bai Xiang drew it with a sharp ring, and a dazzling layer of silver light immediately flashed across the wall of the cabin. Then she drew out the Tianxuan Sword and crossed it against this one. Although she had not used her full strength, the Silver Spring Sword emerged entirely unharmed.

There was no mistake. Its quality might be slightly inferior to the Tianxuan Sword’s, but this too was a lower-tier sacred weapon.

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One could only say that the Silver Sea Merchant Guild truly lived up to its name: it was wealthy and extravagant beyond reason, as though money meant nothing to it. For those cultivators who walked the sacred weapon path, a lower-tier sacred weapon was tied to advancing a realm. It was enough to make them fight and seize at any cost.

And this Meng Qiaosheng had actually sent one over as a meeting gift.

And not just that. He had sent another one even after seeing that she already possessed the Tianxuan Sword.

The meaning was obvious.

You may not need one.

I still cannot fail to give one.

So the Silver Sea Merchant Guild really does know more about me than it has shown.

Bai Xiang sheathed the Silver Spring Sword, put it back into the storage jade plaque, and began checking the formation diagrams and books.

These, on the other hand, were exactly the Upper Realm materials she currently needed most.

The Upper Realm’s territory was incomparably vast. Countless minor worlds had been scattered everywhere under the interference of Void Tribulation. It was far beyond anything Bai Xiang could ever fully understand just by killing a few people and reading through a few sets of memories.

She immediately immersed herself in examining them, beginning with the Silver Sea Merchant Guild’s home region, the Cangyin Sea.

According to the records, billions of years ago the region of the Cangyin Sea had been pure nothingness. There was nothing there at all, only endless emptiness and darkness.

But at some unknown point, people observed the appearance of a “silver light band” there. It looked like a strip of silver silk cutting across the void, radiance flowing through it, beautiful beyond compare.

There were many legends about that floating band. Some said it was a Loss of Order phenomenon. Others said it was a lingering trace of power left behind after great powers had clashed in the void.

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Then, as many Illusory Realm fragments drifted over afterward, they gradually formed a belt of fragments built upon that silver light. From that point on, it was named the Cangyin Sea and placed under the Demon Court’s Thirty-Three Heavenly Seas.

The Thirty-Three Heavenly Seas?

Seeing that entry, Bai Xiang thought of Immortal Venerable Jiuli, the one she had previously hunted down and blown apart after he abducted Liu Yong.

In that man’s memories, hadn’t his place of origin been the Yinsha Sea?

She searched for it, only to find that the book on the Thirty-Three Heavenly Seas contained no entry for the Yinsha Sea at all.

At once, Bai Xiang understood.

Apparently, the “Thirty-Three Heavenly Seas” was only an official title. It signified that those regions were under the Demon Court’s protection, and relatively speaking, more tightly governed.

But the Void Realm did not contain only thirty-three heavenly seas.

There were other places too, such as the Yinsha Sea and the Luocha Sea. These were also fragment belts of some renown. It was only because they lacked Demon Court oversight that they had few rules and were often wracked by fighting and bloody conflict.

They were more or less lawless zones. Translated into terms of the main world, they were akin to shadow-region nations.

The rest consisted of Visualization Charts of Void Demons. That set of volumes was more complete and detailed than the ones Taixu Monastery had sent. There were ten slim booklets in total, each recording fifty entries.

Bai Xiang flipped through them roughly, but did not find the ranking lists Steward Li had especially mentioned.

A thought stirred in her mind, and her attention fell on that black card.

The moment she picked it up and touched it, Bai Xiang felt her thoughts being drawn somewhere.

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She did not know what material it had been made of. Its surface was cool, translucent, and seemed to contain some kind of pure black liquid inside. It was those liquids that were tugging at her thoughts, like a vortex trying to pull them in.

Bai Xiang tried letting her thoughts relax and sink into the black card with the pull, but she discovered nothing at all inside it.

There was nothing unusual.

Inside the vortex there was only darkness.

After thinking about it, Bai Xiang picked up the storage jade plaque Steward Li had specially sent. Only then did she notice that there was a narrow seam along one side of the plaque, looking very much like a slot prepared for some specific object.

Could it be…

Bai Xiang immediately inserted the black card into the slot. At once, she felt the pull grow stronger.

Her mind followed it downward and finally saw what lay inside that darkness.

Information.

Chaotic information, like endless streams of garbled code, surged straight at her like a flood. It looked as though it was about to drown her consciousness completely.

But very quickly, the information reassembled itself and formed a simple interface in the darkness.

At the very top was a rectangular panel, with panels of different sizes on both sides, left and right. The layout looked rather like a newspaper.

In the middle was a search box, and above it was a single line of text:

[Welcome, Fellow Daoist, to the Venerable Net]

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“…”

Temporarily putting aside a certain strange sense of déjà vu, Bai Xiang focused on the topmost panel.

There were some talismanic symbols there, and together they formed a moving image. The content was that of a young cultivator standing proudly atop a mountain, his foot planted on the corpse of a “dragon beast.”

It looked like the photo on a front-page headline.

Bai Xiang did not know what kind of demonic beast it was, but it looked extremely dragon-like, except that its whole body was rotten and heavily mutated in many places. For now, she simply referred to it as a “dragon beast.”

There was headline text beside it as well.

[Taixu Monastery disciple Wang Xiu fought against the Ancient Calamity Dragon in Shenhe Heaven for seven days and seven nights, and emerged victorious. His Heaven’s Pride List ranking is expected to break into the top ten.]

Bai Xiang tried “touching” that panel. At once it enlarged, listing even more images and text. Beneath it were also entries for Taixu Monastery, Wang Xiu, Shenhe Heaven, Ancient Calamity Dragon, and so on.

There were even tags.

Bai Xiang raised a brow outside.

Whoever made this thing is certainly ambitious.

But very quickly her brow furrowed again, because at the very bottom she saw an entry for “Immortal Venerable Shenming,” together with an associated note beside it.

[Taixu Monastery disciple Wang Xiu publicly stated: “Immortal Venerable Shenming,” that is, Bai Xiang, Bai Zhixing, is not his match.]

[The writer has analyzed Wang Xiu’s personality and past conduct, and believes that he is in fact trying to pressure his sect, judging that Taixu Monastery’s move to befriend Shenming Sword Dao was a foolish blunder.]