Variations of the Nine Types

"Teacher, I'm back!" After dinner, having taken a leisurely walk home to digest, Ji Jue finally pushed open the doors of Chaosheng, carrying local specialties in hand. Only, he couldn't help lowering his voice as he spoke. For some reason, an inexplicable nervousness and guilt crept over him. Wait, it wasn't like he had skipped class to go to an internet cafe. When the master has business, the disciple shoulders the labor! He was an outsourced errand-runner returning home with his mission accomplished... What on earth was there to be nervous about?! The only reason he had come by so late was simply that Ye Xian was usually free around this time. Alchemy was a rigorous and intricate discipline. Even a grandmaster had to proceed with caution and total focus. Decades of preparation might culminate in a single day's results. And even during routine work, no one wanted someone knocking on their door right as they were getting into the zone just to hand them a couple of eggs. Ji Jue was busy enough trying to stay in her good graces; why would he deliberately go out of his way to annoy her? The exaggerated music and rowdy noise of a variety show still echoed in the living room. Ye Chun, whom he had just seen that morning, had already reverted completely to her true form. From her solemn, dignified appearance earlier, she had rapidly devolved into a salted fish lounging on the sofa and munching on snacks. Catching sight of Ji Jue, she merely waved a hand, pointed at the table, and then pointed toward the study. Meaning: leave the stuff on the table, Auntie's in the study. Too lazy to even utter a word. "Lazy enough to drop dead, aren't you!" Ji Jue shook his head, set the items down, and knocked on the study door. The door wasn't shut, merely unlatched. It seemed a previous visitor had left not long ago. Half a cigar lay extinguished in an ashtray, which struck Ji Jue as extraordinarily surprising—he really wanted to know who possessed such massive clout that they could smoke right in front of his teacher without getting kicked out, and even have an ashtray offered to them... Glancing at Ji Jue, whose surface calm hid goodness knew what inner musings, Ye Xian didn't bother explaining. She pointed to the seat across from her, gesturing for him to sit. "I thought you wouldn't come by until tomorrow." Ji Jue gave a guileless smile, putting on the earnest expression common to every ambitious young man eager to advance: "I figured since I'm back, I ought to report in on my work to Teacher as soon as possible." "..." Ye Xian's expression turned even more bizarre as she countered, "Do you think there's anything I don't know already?" Was it the long-range missile launch base covering the entire Federation that you secretly cobbled together out at sea, or that freakish monstrosity you cooked up in Kunwu by grabbing a corrupted shard of a natural disaster? Or perhaps your massacre across the snowfields of Huangzhou, along with that blindingly long list of battle achievements that scorched the eyes of who knew how many dogs? Or maybe that massive purge concluding just this morning, orchestrated by your sole impetus in alliance with multiple factions? What other damn specialty tricks do you have that I don't know about? "You did well," Ye Xian praised. "Even Nirvana thinks you're a talent. They specifically came to flatter me that my edge hasn't dulled, asking if I'm interested in letting my student join them so everyone can do great things together." "Ah, well..." Ji Jue froze instantly, breaking into a cold sweat. "Slander! It's all slander, Teacher! You know me. I've always been a law-abiding citizen! I was forced into all those things by circumstance. How could I ever collaborate with terrorists like Nirvana?!" "Right, exactly. That's what they value most about you." Ye Xian nodded. "Particularly how, after pulling off feats that even terrorist organizations haven't managed, you still get the Security Bureau to wipe your ass for you. A true genius." Classic you! Every single time you leave home, you pull off some existential-crisis-inducing stunt and deliver a dizzying surprise! Fortunately, shrouded under the natural disaster, outside influence and interference had been shut out. Nobody knew what had transpired inside the Nether Sea Worm except those directly involved. On top of that, Ji Jue had done a clean enough job, leaving behind no survivors to testify against him. Only a teacher like Ye Xian, who saw right through her student's core nature, could guess a fraction of it. Otherwise, the inquiry team from the Ring of Taiyi and the Absolute Sentence squad would probably already be knocking at her door—is this student of yours a direct lineage descendant of an Embers grandmaster or an orthodox heir of the Profound? Oh well, it wasn't like there was much difference between the two. Don't ask. If you must ask, that's just how everyone in the Tianlu lineage is. "All right, stop jumping at shadows." Ye Xian shot him an indifferent glance. "It's only because that old vixen Lyu Yingyue took the heat this time, handling the formalities and cleaning up the fallout for you. Setting aside the corrupted relic for now, as for missiles that can cover the whole Federation, you'd better not let that happen a second time. Otherwise, the Military Department will be the first to take you out. Everything else doesn't really matter. What's done is done, and doing it thoroughly is just as well." Saying this, she beckoned to Ji Jue: "Enough of that. Where's the stuff?" "Oh, right, right here! It's almost finish—" Ji Jue instinctively reached into his pocket and pinched the thesis whose ink had barely dried. But before pulling it out, he suddenly felt a sharp gaze piercing through the wall, bearing a resentment like ten thousand arrows piercing the heart, staring darkly at him. His hand froze in place. He gave two dry coughs and lowered his head. "...finished with the title, that is. I'll show it to you after the main text is written." "Who asked you about that?" Ye Xian was also fed up with the endless feud between her house's lazy slacker and hyper-competitive grinder. With a helpless sigh, she pointed at the case Ji Jue had carried in. "Oh, oh, oh! So you meant this! I thought... cough, cough, cough..." Feeling as though granted an imperial pardon, Ji Jue promptly picked up the case by his feet and placed it on the desk. He didn't even need to touch it. Ye Xian gave a slight hook of her finger, and the case drifted over on its own. After six layers of spiritus locks disengaged, the Solid Alchemy formed from mercury swiftly dissolved, reverting to liquid form. Amid swirling silver light, a guardless, fractured blade slowly rose and settled into her grasp. —Pan Ying! Unlike its broken state before Ji Jue departed, after traversing slaughter and blood sacrifices, tempered multiple times, the blade blank of Pan Ying was now over two feet long, its savagery and baleful aura far more ferocious. Yet the moment it rested in Ye Xian's hand, it fell dead silent, without the slightest sign of turbulence. Instead, it shed all miraculous luster, resembling nothing more than an ordinary broken iron sword. Only when she infused spiritus did wisps of crimson diffuse along the spine of the blade, alluring and eerie, like a sliver of blood jade. Along its twin edges, however, an agile gleam of blade light remained utterly flawless. Gathering in the cold glint, it became clear as water. Flicking her finger against the flat of the sword, a resonant hum instantly rose up, curling outward and echoing back and forth throughout the study. "Among the Nine Types, the Pan Ying form suits your style best after all: extreme, reckless, straddling the boundaries, great completion through great deficiency, breaking oneself to establish oneself, and even... rapid rise and rapid ruin. You know its flaws and perils well enough, so I won't waste words on them." Ye Xian offered a cool critique: "For your first exposure to the Xiangjian Nine Types, reaching this level is indeed rare. But your handling of the details remains sloppy—a problem stemming from your old bad habit of piling on materials. Alchemy isn't an energy-binding formula from Entropy; not everything can be brute-forced. Keep that in mind." She paused, her finger tracing past the blood jade along that thread of clear light, and nodded slowly. "By contrast, this grinding and honing work is truly commendable. After this trip outside, you've become much steadier. You don't have as much restlessness as before." "..." Ji Jue listened in silence, scrutinizing his teacher's expression, and tentatively asked, "So does this mean... I passed?" "Yes, it passes." Ye Xian nodded, making no effort to conceal her appreciation. No matter how strict she was, she would not disparage a student's achievements in such an assessment. "Judging from its quality, once completed, it will certainly transcend the 'Commoner.' In the Ye family of the past, it would have been enough to earn a marquisate." [Commoner], [Feudal Lord], [Son of Heaven]. These were the three tiers of judgment for the world's famous swords recorded in Shuo Jian, the latter volume of Treatise on Xiang Swords. The Sword of the Commoner: crossed before one's eyes, cleaving necks above and piercing liver and lungs below, slaying enemies through bloodthirsty courage and feral intent. Even if peerlessly sharp, it was merely an instrument of slaughter; no matter how brightly its edge gleamed, it would ultimately crumble into rotten ash. Such was the limit of mortal craft: bounded in achievement, unfit for grand purposes. The Sword of the Feudal Lord was otherwise: patterned above after the round heavens to follow the three luminaries, patterned below after the square earth to accord with the four seasons, harmonizing within human will to settle the eight directions. Its movement was as the shock of thunder, and within the four borders, none dared refuse submission. This referred to blades possessing the quality of Celestial Craft. In the hands of the mighty, their edge and power were enough to sever the chaos of an era and a domain, commanding victory and mastering the tides of the world. In short: an outright strategic-grade weapon. All nine sword forms recorded in the Xiangjian Nine Types possessed such potential. As for the even higher Sword of the Son of Heaven... fashioned from the Five Elements, governed by punishment and virtue, unclasped by Yin and Yang, maintained through spring and autumn, executed through autumn and winter... cleaving the floating clouds above, severing the sinews of the earth below... Ji Jue simply took it as the world-building author blowing hot air. After all, even the records in Shuo Jian were exceedingly vague. In all the history of the Ye family, only a single Sword of the Son of Heaven had ever been forged. In days of old, the Second Sovereign of the Eternal Empire had wielded this blade to awe the four seas and bring order to the eight wastes. Handed down through generations of emperors, it was the very reason the Ye family's station as imperial swordsmiths had endured for myriad generations. Little wonder their descendants praised it to the high heavens. Their forefather had borne the burdens of dozens, even hundreds of generations of descendants with just a single sword—what was wrong with bragging about it a little?! If something that good had happened to Ji Jue, he'd tell everyone he met that the Sword of the Son of Heaven was invincible under heaven, and that White Stag, Aether, Tianyuan, and the rest shouldn't even think of comparing; hell, he might even carve stone steles across the whole world. Right now, to have this broken Pan Ying blade receive the rating of Feudal Lord from his teacher—even if referring to its future completed form—left Ji Jue elated. At the very least, it proved Ye Xian had not chosen the wrong person. Ji Jue truly possessed the aptitude and capability to inherit Treatise on Xiang Swords, and would not bring shame to this legacy. "Moving forward, aside from the missing blessings and recasting, what remains is the painstaking, slow grind of honing. It won't consume too much of your energy." Ye Xian tossed Pan Ying back into the case and asked slowly, "Among the Nine Types, what are your plans for the next one?" "Mm..." Ji Jue pondered for a moment before answering seriously, "With the experience from Pan Ying, I want to try Yuchang or Chixiao." Each of the Xiangjian Nine Types had its own inclinations. Pan Ying took Swarm as its core, branching in myriad directions. Yuchang and Chixiao, on the other hand, pointed toward White Stag and Mirror, or Tianyuan and Entropy. The former shifted formlessly, concealing its presence, capable of overpowering the strong from weakness, spilling blood within five paces and plunging the realm into mourning. The latter surged and transformed, summoning clouds and mist, steering the seasons of heaven, and commanding the eight directions. To this, Ye Xian slowly shook her head. "You're taking too big a step," she said flatly. "Pick another direction. Neither is suitable for your current stage. Achieving them is too difficult." Hearing this, Ji Jue didn't pry into reasons; he simply nodded. If Teacher said to change directions, then he'd change directions. Why bother asking a million questions? "Which one do you think is more accessible?" Ji Jue asked out of curiosity. "Then go with Chunjun." After a moment's thought, Ye Xian said, "Conveniently, your Soul-Calling Bell shattered anyway. Constantly relying on someone else's creations makes it hard to grow. Take this opportunity to catch up on what you've missed. "Chunjun combines the strengths of both Ascension and Aether, targeting souls and shaping, which complements Pan Ying perfectly. It's a bit pricey, but you aren't short on money right now. "If you succeed, not only will you achieve a foundational entry into spiritus refinement, but you can also combine it with your background in Dissociation Art to help you complete a basic version of 'Jingzhen'." Hearing this, Ji Jue felt a headache coming on, hesitating to speak. "Too hard?" Ye Xian asked. "A bit." Ji Jue thought about it and shook his head. "Honestly, aside from Pan Ying which allows for rapid results, the others all have their own troubles and hurdles. And they cover far too vast a scope—almost the entirety of the Twelve Sovereign Virtues. I don't even know if I could finish learning them all in a lifetime." "..." Ye Xian fell silent. For a long while, the look she gave him grew increasingly... derisive, as if looking at a fool. "Did you really think every single generation's inheritor of the Ye family was a one-in-a-million heaven-sent prodigy capable of completing all nine swords?" "Huh?" Ji Jue stared blankly. "Across the generations of the Ye lineage, the First Ancestor opened the fountainhead, the Third Ancestor laid the foundations for the prototypes of the nine swords, and the Middle Ancestor, through a stroke of fortune, gathered the power of the world, aid from all quarters, and the collective efforts of every Ye successor to complete the core of the nine swords. "Ever since, successive generations built upon that foundation brick by brick. Up to the present day, right up until the Ye family's destruction, neither Hanxiang nor Shuo Jian could truly be considered completely finished. "Let alone all nine swords, across the ages, those who could forge even two swords were few and far between. What on earth made you think you could master all nine?" Ye Xian lifted her gaze, giving him a mocking sidelong look. "Or did you think I had mastered them?" "Ah, well..." Ji Jue was dumbfounded, only now finally catching on. "You... you don't need to finish them all?" "Never mind whether you need to—an ordinary person wouldn't even harbor such a thought! There's a limit to aiming too high." Ye Xian scoffed. "By now, the nine sword forms have become nine completely different schools and arts. Their philosophies and styles are worlds apart. "Among the successors through the generations, anyone who could forge blade blanks for all nine swords was already considered to have gathered the strengths of the Nine Types. In the end, they still had to focus on a single path, or blaze a new trail. "The First Ancestor had never even heard of the nine swords, yet that didn't stop him from forging the Sword of the Son of Heaven." She shook her head. "What disgusts me most are pedants who cling blindly to the past, followed by bookworms. The paths of predecessors can sometimes be the ruts of their own ruined wagons. "Using them to discern your direction, familiarize yourself with fundamentals, and patch your shortcomings is plenty." As she spoke, she raised her right hand and spread her five fingers. A strand of shifting vermilion and purple spiritus rose from her fingertips, like the Heavenly Pillar reaching into the clouds, towering and unmoving, majestic in aura and startlingly domineering. Then it morphed into azure blue, vast and ethereal like the celestial vault... Amid dizzying transformations, it finally shifted abruptly into a restrained, dark crimson, churning with bloody vapor, savage and insatiable. This time, Ji Jue finally recognized it. That was the bloody light of Pan Ying!