Daily life of a cultivation judge

After his meal just as he was about to leave for another excursion, Special Inquisitor Xiang He appeared in front of him and gave him all the information the Special Inquisitors had on the Blue Soul Flame Crow Syndicate.

Seeing how large the information was, Yang Qing changed his plans and made a beeline for one of the ponds that had a lotus platform carved with spirit rejuvenation runes.

Considering the scale of information Yang Qing brought with him rice wine and a charcoal stove to warm it over.

The scale of information Xiang He had shared with him was as expansive as it could get. It went from how the Blue Soul Flame Crow Syndicate started, to its hierarchy.

Information concerning the hierarchy was loosely based on the accounts of the members captured over the years, which was that they had one leader rumored to be at the late stages of the domain realm, the exact rank was unknown only that it was a female. Below her were three vice leaders, each a domain expert and a head of the three divisions of the syndicate.

The Blue Soul Flame Crow Syndicate could be considered an alchemy organization that had expertise in herbology, alchemy, and spirit beast zoology and each of the three vice leaders was head of one of those divisions.

Below the vice leaders were the branch masters also known as the deacons to the outside world and there were seven of them each at the palace realm. Two of them had already died at the Order's hands which left their current number at five, though from the report shared with him by Xiang He, Yang Qing read that they had already shored up their ranks and filled in the missing numbers and even added more increasing the number to eight.

Yang Qing easily parsed through the countless information on the syndicate with his eye crisscrossing over all the reports looking for something specific. He was looking for their techniques.

They may be considered an organization of herbologists, alchemists, and zoologists but even while donning those roles this was an organization of ruthless killers that had slaughtered hundreds of thousands, some for selfish reasons but others in the pursuit of their field of study.

It was often assumed alchemists and the like were bookworms with little combat abilities other than their potions, but those from the Blue Soul Flame Crow Syndicate subverted this notion considering the amount of blood on their hands. 

Yang Qing's interest was specifically in this, the means with which they attacked and the report didn't disappoint. There were thousands and thousands of in-depth accounts of the attacks they made. Seeing the information Yang Qing had a small tug on his lips. It seemed like Xiang He had anticipated what exactly he was looking for.

Yang Qing went through each of the accounts with apt attention and as to what he expected of the attacks, the syndicate's main form of attack was through poison-based arts, and other arts that targetted the soul.

With a name like theirs, it stood to reason they would be skilled with soul-based attacks. He had already detected some evidence of it at the battleground where he felt the dense yin energy attacks that still flooded the area along with a corrupting miasma that was different from the one released by the obsidian serpents.

The more he read, the more Yang Qing realized how truly dangerous the Blue Soul Flame Crow Syndicate was. They were considered to be subordinate to the Dark Helminth Sect but the more he read, the more he felt the level of danger posed by the Blue Soul Flame Crow Syndicate was just as high as the Dark Helminth Sect.

They were meticulous. From what Yang Qing read, in some of the attacks, the syndicate took decades to plan before they executed, and when they did, the level of casualty was high and they always managed to cover their tracks well and it would only be discovered long after they had left and sometimes their fingerprints would not be discovered at all.

For example, Yang Qing read that they had once manipulated the spiritual air of a particular area which reacted negatively with the spirit beasts in the area and made them frenzied and delirious.

Said spirit beasts wantonly attacked a village that bordered them, as they made their way inwards into the territory of a rank 3 kingdom known as the Snow Glaze Kingdom. The chaos and destruction caused by the spirit beasts alerted the higher-ups of the kingdom to spring into action, which was what the syndicate wanted all along and they were using the spirit beasts to do it.

The chaos managed to buy them enough time to sneak into the kingdom's secret vault and rob them of a wisdom pearl belonging to the snow glaze swan, which was their founding kingdom guardian spirit beast which was rumored to have been close to reaching the domain realm before it died.

After stealing the pearl they replaced it with a fake pearl that had been inscribed with a killing curse. The killing curse was powerful enough to kill a middle-stage palace realm cultivator instantly having their body and soul destroyed along with the pearl.

One of the ancestors of the Kingdom did die to the insidious trap left by them. The Snow Glaze Kingdom had thought the particular ancestor had absconded with the pearl and it was only much later that they discovered it was a ruse and that the Blue Soul Flame Crow Syndicate had stolen it.

The source of that information had been the Order who only managed to discover it from the confession of one of the branch masters they had captured and killed at the time, who had been part of said operation.

From his account, they spent fifteen years planning it. There were a lot of things to consider such as finding the right concoction to muddle the minds of spirit beasts and within them, there had to be one that was at the palace realm for them to be able to draw the attention of the royal family of the Snow Glaze Kingdom.

This all required a lot of skill and resources as they had to do it without the palace realm spirit beast noticing it. After that, they used esoteric arts to control the souls of a few servants and guards in the royal palace as they studied it from top to bottom to locate the secret vault and they had to do all these under the noses of the palace realm figures within the palace.

The level of cunning and obscurity they went through to achieve their goals made them extremely dangerous in Yang Qing's mind.

This left him wondering if they went to such an extent, then how long have they been planning their move in Deer Mountain Range?

Yang Qing continued reading all their recorded attacks silently noting down every means they used. After three hours he had gone over the recorded attacks a few times to confirm a theory he had in mind.

Yang Qing put down the last talisman as he rubbed his chin in contemplation.

"From what I've read it is within their means to curse someone even under the protection of their array without anyone being the wiser even the person themself.

His injuries may have had their hand in it.." muttered Yang Qing