Daily life of a cultivation judge

Yang Qing let out a small chuckle when he saw the reluctant look on Haishi's face as they were leaving. She seemed to have formed a bond with the crescent moth and the diamond beetle more so the latter. He had no idea if it was because they were all insect spirit beasts, so it was a form of camaraderie among fellow insect spirit beasts or something else. 

She did say she had been close with the green flowered babirusa and maybe her fondness for the diamond beetle may have something to do with it.

The diamond beetle had not yet awakened its sentience, and in terms of cultivation base it could be considered to be at the same level as a qi refinement cultivator, but even then, it had a significant build to it.

It was about the size of Yang Qing's head and would continue to grow the higher its cultivation base grew. By the time it reached the core formation realm Yang Qing had a feeling it would be about the same size as the hulking green flowered babirusa.

Yang Qing couldn't help but laugh again as he saw Haishi and the diamond converse in an inaudible language before they finally left for the branch.

After arriving at the headquarters, Yang Qing excused the two spirit beasts to do what they wanted since Luo Meili wasn't back yet. She and Su Jinjing seemed to still be doing groundwork on the potential.

Yang Qing had a faint shiver when he got the news. It had already been two days since the two left and they were still conducting the investigations.

By this point, he knew there had to be something there though some part of him secretly hoped they were slacking off. But he knew better, other than him, Feng Xin was about the only other person who would dare do that. Luo Meili and Su Jinjing were fastidious in everything they did which was why Yang Qing couldn't help but be worried about what kind of headache they would bring his way.

Yang Qing decided to block out everything administrator Mo Guang told him as he made his way to his study. He would pretend there was no case looming over his head up until he was seated in a courtroom bringing down his gavel but until then, he would bury himself in his investigation.

On reaching his office, Yang Qing decided to pursue the foundation circle angle by calling his family's old friend Alchemist Ma Bo. He filled him in on the details as he described every single part of the foundation circle he saw. With his expertise and long-standing cooperation with the Yang family, as they improved their body refining process, he could think of no one better to consult with on the sophistication of the foundation circle he saw.

After sharing everything on the matter, Alchemist Ma Bo came to the same conclusion as him which was whoever made that setup had to have at least a blue-grade level of expertise in alchemy, geomancy, and spirit beast anatomy along with an accompanying understanding of the human body refinement process.

He did add something after, which was about Yang Qing's suspicion that the circle was built in preparation for an evolution.

Thanks to his post as a guest teacher of the Jade Leaf Dao Imperial Academy and his deep fascination with the body refinement process, he did come across records in the ancient library of the academy stating that body refinement had some effects on spirit beasts especially one that adhered to the foundation circle.

The effect though was it helped in unlocking aspects of their bloodline or making it purer. When it came to evolution he had not yet come across any evidence that suggested it helped with it and he too had his reservations about the effectiveness of the circle toward the evolution process.

As far as he knew when it came to evolution, even spirit beasts with a high affinity for the creature they are evolving to, the process was difficult, fraught with dangers, and had a high degree of failure and usually, for an evolution to even begin, a natural treasure of affinity was needed, without the whole process was moot.

Yang Qing felt like he had gone back to the beginning when he felt his theory being debunked, but Alchemist Ma Bo did promise to research it further at the Academy whilst also consulting other teachers with specialties in the subject.

Yang Qing decided to adopt the same method as Alchemist Ma Bo and contacted Ren Shu, Lei Weiyuan, and a few instructors from the Institute whose specialties touched on body refinement, alchemy, herbology, and spirit beast refinement.

In the process of sharing all he had, Yang Qing felt his spirits soar as a burden that he had been unwittingly carrying, lighten.

Yang Qing had a wry smile as he realized Hao Da's attack had affected him more than he had realized which made him act contrary to what he would normally do.

Usually, even when he dealt with things he was good at, he liked consulting others and bouncing his ideas off them, but when it came to Hao Da's case which had been a cloudy fog with nothing to clasp at, he didn't know whether it was some false sense of responsibility, guilt towards failing to save Ma Yuan's wife, but without knowing he had been going at it alone like only he could do it, ignoring what made the Order work and his life easier.

He didn't know about other places, but the Order had some things that made it uniquely different from other places, one of which was the invisible line between cultivators was absent.

A foundation establishment cultivator or even one who was at the qi refinement could easily interact with a palace realm cultivator while a core formation cultivator could receive the guidance of a domain expert. The barrier was not there, and it was one of the reasons for their meteoric rise.

Yang Qing had never been under the illusion that because he was a peerless jade physique user who had even managed to form a purple core at the core formation realm, that meant he was heads and shoulders above the rest. 

There were a lot of terrifying individuals in the Order, like Chief Song Chuanli who despite being at the core formation realm, should he wish to, with his achievements as a gold-grade craftsman and botanist, could directly leap to the domain realm or the terrifying instructors whose presence is just as terrifying as a domain expert's or the healers of the medical valley that could restore even a cracked dantian and reform a body.

All around there were people with defying abilities, and Yang Qing at some point had forgotten about it as he tried to do everything alone like some sort of hero trying to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders. But he was no hero, he was a parasite who liked sponging off others while lying cozily under the shade. He felt ashamed for forgetting himself. It was time he acted true to his character.

With the sudden realization, Yang Qing quickly arranged every piece of information he had gathered thus far along with rising questions that came from said questions. Once everything was in order, he made calls to every single person he could think of who could help, which also involved informing special inquisitor Xiang He of the fleeting shrouded trace he had detected at the location with the inner flame mosaic flower.

What he didn't realize was because of his actions, he had unearthed a thread that had been wiggling around the continent from a long-forgotten past whose remnants still haunt the continent to this very day.

Gears kept turning in Yang Qing's mind the more exchanges he had with his colleagues from the Order. The gloomy fog was showing signs of light and possibly revealing what lay within it.

Yang Qing's eyes and grin grew wider and wider when he saw that it wouldn't be long till the mystery was solved, but he eventually met a roadblock and to progress further, it would need the accounts of a certain stubborn couple who were there.

"They should be back tomorrow, hopefully, their attitudes will have changed by then.." muttered Yang Qing as he thought of the obsidian serpent couple.

They were at the nexus of it all. They knew what the fire adler bear did to their daughter, they could maybe know who the mysterious partner to the fire adler bear had been, and they knew what exactly was done to their daughter for her evolution into a flood dragon to be a success, and through their insight, he could maybe find some clues that showed how the Blue Soul Flame Crow Syndicate even discovered their daughter.

But all that was predicated on them being willing to share what they knew and were not still laying blame on the Order and the Deer Mountain Kingdom for the death of their child.

But if they were unwilling to cooperate...

Yang Qing couldn't help but sigh when his thoughts reached this point.

If they refused to cooperate, then their souls would have to be searched which though wouldn't kill them would ruin their chances of ever reaching the domain realm because of the strain soul reading would leave on them. The more powerful a cultivator was, the more damage they took when their souls were forcefully read, and the couple being palace realm experts that had reached the seventh stage, Yang Qing could only imagine the damage they would suffer.

He hoped they would reconsider.

With nothing else to do, Yang Qing decided to take a walk around the branch as he wondered inwardly if he had truly gone over the effects of the Ice Emerald Sect or did he still have some lingering effects from the ordeal.

Considering his actions, he felt it was likely that he hadn't completely rid himself of it