Abstract: This presentation addresses major results of my past and present work utilizing X-ray scattering and spectroscopy on elementary excitations and electronic order in low-dimensional spin systems. The main body will go through my background of resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS) for investigating the magnetic and charge excitations on the cuprate ladder materials, and extend to selected studies on energy resolved/integrated resonant soft X-ray scattering (RSXS) of charge and magnetic order in layered 3^d transition-metal magnets. Lastly, prospective future scientific program and research idea that take advantage of RSXS will be discussed.