AI Cultivation: Reborn as a Sword

The sword is righteous in a way that it can remain free of distractions; whether the obstacle is a close friend or a hated enemy should make no difference. To a sword cultivator, attachments are a great weakness.

Judging by the discussions happening around us, no one else has had issues with the seventh floor, which is to be expected. Most of the cultivators here come from a sect with demonic traditions, and those that come from a righteous tradition likely do not have enough life experience to form bonds of attachment that cannot be discarded.

For Lan Xiaohui, I know this is not the case.

“It is unfair to ask such a young cultivator to discard something they have not yet even experienced,” Zhu Ye says with a tone of regret in his voice.

Lady Yue shrugs. “It is easier to ask a young cultivator to discard it before they have tasted it.”

Lady Yue’s argument makes sense. It is easier to solve a problem before it really becomes a problem. But there is also always the danger of temptation later down the road. It would be much more effective to deal with it after it becomes an issue.

“I did not expect Zhu Xuelian to have such a weakness,” Zhu Ye says.

Lady Yue smiles. “I do not think of it as a weakness. If Zhu Xuelian can abandon her heart here, then she is no better than someone who cannot even pass the first floor of this Pagoda,” she says. “Even if she should fail here, to me it only proves that she is the most suitable sword cultivator of everyone here.”

“But will the Galaxy Sword sect see it that way? As far as I know, no one has ever been selected for the next event who did not pass at least ten floors of this Pagoda.”

Lady Yue shrugs.

At that moment, they both sigh, and the discussion around them picks up again, noting that many cultivators have been ejected from the Pagoda. This time, no geniuses have fallen victim to the Formation, but judging by the expressions of Lady Yue and Zhu Ye, at least one has: Lan Xiaohui.

“Six floors; she could not pass the seventh floor,” Zhu Ye says. “I did not expect this outcome.”

Lady Yue nods. “The rivers and the lakes are full of surprises. The road is always unpredictable.”

“She must be disappointed,” Zhu Ye says. “Let’s go meet her.”

Lady Yue nods again, and the two head down the observation deck towards the main area.

“Just what is Zhu Xuelian’s weakness?” Zhu Ye asks a question he has no doubt been pondering for a while now.

“It is the reason why she is here,” Lady Yue says, glancing over her shoulder at her companion. “The man she has come here to kill.”

Zhu Ye chuckles at those words.. “It all makes sense,” he says. “She is, as you said, truly suitable for this path.”

I did not consider it this way. In order to abandon her obsession with Yu Shun would be to abandon the very reason she is testing her Dao Heart in this Formation. If she abandoned her motivations, the Formation would kick her out; but if she stayed true to her desires, then she could not advance to the next floor.

“There she is,” Lady Yue says, nodding somewhere ahead, and her direction changes.

Soon, Lan Xiaohui enters my perception radius, staring at the pagoda with an expression of something between anger and regret. Though, the anger she feels is most likely directed at herself.

She turns around when we approach and it is quite obvious that she is holding back her tears. Her head dips low and her gaze is directed at the floor.

“I could not do it,” she says, her voice teetering on the precipice of cracking. I have never felt this emotion in her heart before and the fluctuations in her mood are violent and difficult to measure.

“It’s okay, little lily,” Lady Yue says, gently brushing Lan Xiaohui’s hair.

Lan Xiaohui shakes her head, the motion sending a few tear droplets flying free. She sniffs and then wipes at her eyes with the back of her hand. “It was all for nothing.”

No one is aware of Lan Xiaohui’s heart as I am, and only I can feel the heaviness in those words that she speaks. The future that Lan Xiaohui wanted — the very reason why she dragged herself out of that forest and decided to live again — to her now seems like a fine mist that passes between her fingers as she reaches for it.

It is not just about killing the man that betrayed her, but also regaining the illusion of control over her own life; recapturing the dignity that was taken from her. If Yu Shun closed the door to her future, then what my owner desires is to open that door again with her own strength; punishing the one that closed the door in the first place is only a step — a significant step — in that process.

Now, that dream is unraveling.

“I couldn’t do it,” Lan Xiaohui says again, and this time her voice does crack.

Lady Yue doesn’t say anything but instead passes my vessel back to Lan Xiaohui.

Once my owner receives me, she hugs me to her chest, and there is a guilty look in her eyes as her tears finally come free. “I could not abandon it,” she says.

That guilt in her heart; that choice of words; I begin to understand that Lady Yue was wrong about what Lan Xiaohui experienced in the Pagoda of Introspection.

It is made even more obvious when Lan Xiaohui hugs me tighter and tighter to her chest, a sharp determination rising in her heart to never part with me again.

It is not Yu Shun that barred Lan Xiaohui from achieving a better result in the Pagoda — it is not her obsession with killing him that she could not abandon.

It is me.

At that moment, a thundering cheer erupts from the crowd as something unprecedented happens. Until now, they cheered for several individuals that have already achieved extraordinary results. Xu Qiang of the Broken Sword Manor, for example, has managed to match the previous best result — which only happened twice in the sect’s history — of clearing twelve floors and he was not alone in this. Liu Gong — a rogue cultivator from the Sky Kingdom — has also managed to clear twelve floors.

But the cheer that happens at that moment is borne of something even more extraordinary. A relatively unknown cultivator from the Seven Killing Swords sect has managed to clear thirteen floors.

This cultivator, when she appears in front of the Pagoda, immediately looks towards Lan Xiaohui with eyes that are full of determination. And her name, which the crowd had not known until then, is chanted at the top of everyone’s lungs.

“Yun Fei…” Lan Xiaohui whispers.

And then, suddenly, the Pagoda flashes with a gold radiance which becomes multicolored as something even more preposterous happens which silences the crowd in an instant.

Wu Yulan, the mysterious but famous princess of Star City — whom no one expected to even participate in this event — has achieved what many considered to be impossible and has never happened in the entirety of Galaxy Sword’s history.

She cleared all fourteen floors of the Pagoda of Introspection, and while the crowd roared and chanted her name, several elders from the Galaxy Sword sect stared in complete disbelief at the girl that was running towards Lan Xiaohui and giving her an equally unprecedented hug which immediately launched a rumor mill that speculated the nature of her relationship to my owner.

Captured between these two bodies, I can only endure the indignity of being invisible to them despite my high Divine grade qualifications to be the most important entity in this area.