"Prefatory note": This chapter contains quite a lot of sword-forging theory. Though I think I wrote it rather well, everyone has their own tastes in radishes and cabbage. Readers who mind can choose to skip it or leave it for now. The main text follows.
Cheng Xinzhan had made several rounds of choices, streamlining and refining his Dharma Treasures. This process had also involved strengthening and reshaping them.
These included the Five-Element Dharma Swords.
Through all those rounds of selection and streamlining, he had always firmly chosen to keep the Five-Element Dharma Swords.
The sword was an instrument of dignity and majesty, an instrument of command.
A sword was, in fact, a form of the Dao.
In this world, it had long been generally accepted that the living being closest to the Dao was the human, the flower closest to the Dao was the lotus, and the object closest to the Dao was jade.
In fact, another line could be added after those words:
The weapon closest to the Dao was the sword.
The sword was the sovereign of all weapons. A gentleman wore jade at his waist and a sword at his side, never removing them without cause.
Of course, the sword spoken of here was merely the sovereign of weapons. Objects fell into a bewildering variety of categories. Apart from weapons, there were ritual vessels, vehicle fittings, sacrificial vessels, funerary objects, monetary objects, farming implements, household utensils, implements of refined pursuits, weights and measures, architectural components, and so on. Each of these categories had its own object closest to the Dao, and those were separate matters.
Precisely because swords were the weapons closest to the Dao, Sword Cultivators were the most widespread among the world's practitioners who wielded weapons and commanded artifacts. They also reached the highest attainments