Daily life of a cultivation judge

Just as he arrived outside, Yang Qing received a call from the guard Pan Liu that the Wang couple were already taken to the Flaming Goose Restaurant in Blue Respite town and were waiting for him, with the guard leaving to return to his duties. Yang Qing promised him a few dishes at a restaurant of his choosing, to which Pan Liu mentioned he was a regular frequenter of the Sunset Dew, a quaint little restaurant famed for its wine and seafood.

Yang Qing had visited the place a few times but not as often. It was a place one would go for a little solitude, a good drink, and a view. The Sunset Dew was built next to a lake. If it wasn't for the fact that the best way to enjoy the place was alone, Yang Qing would have been a regular, but when it came to dining, he preferred company and conversation to go along with it which was something the Sunset Dew wasn't known for. For company, they had burning charcoal, the lake view, wine, a few sea dishes, and a skilled guqin player playing tranquil music in the background. It had its audience.

"I wouldn't be surprised if Senior Ye Xun was a regular there.." muttered Yang Qing as he remembered the taciturn gold eagle guard from the Deer Mountain Range.

After getting the confirmation about the Wang couple, Yang Qing made a call to one of the Instructors in charge of the extra training handed down to the Zou siblings and the rest to find out if their 'training retreat' was done.

Luckily for him, they had been done for four days and were in the middle of being reoriented back to reality to help their minds come back from the hellish treatment they had endured for the past four months. It wasn't only them as the participants of the gold grade and the purple grade tests would go through the reorientation process. It worked like a rehabilitation process where their minds were slowly being mended together from the broken pieces they were left with from the test.

During his time, he and the rest of the participants from the purple grade test went through the reorientation phase for a month and a half. It entailed meditation and the use of cultivation resources that would soothe their nerves, and heal their minds and tormented spirits and bodies such as the Elysium Oasis Springs, or the Radiant Reflection Falls. Both were natural treasures that were able to calm even the most frantic of people. No matter in shattered your mind was, meditating in those places made one feel like they were in the safest, most comfortable place in the whole world.

But even then, it took Yang Qing and the rest over a month to escape the tormenting flashbacks of the test long enough to function.

"It's only been a few days since they began the rehabilitation. Are they capable of functioning?" worriedly asked Yang Qing to the Instructor.

"As long as it's nothing complex, they should be able to.. What do you need them for?"

"Their guardians have just arrived. I need them for the settlement procedures..."

"If it's that, I think they should manage, especially if it's around familiar figures. How's their relationship?"

Yang Qing went on to give a brief description of the Zou siblings' relationship with the elderly couple.

"That's even better! It will help them recondition faster.." said the Instructor with clear enthusiasm.

Yang Qing couldn't help but smile wryly at that comment. Someone who didn't know might think the Instructor said that comment from a place of compassion but they would be terribly mistaken if they thought that.

The Instructor's enthusiasm was on a different aspect. The sooner the Zou siblings recondition, the sooner their next meal of torture will come. Putting them through their paces, and leaving them broken was something that brought pure joy to those fiends. You would find a pure smile on their faces as you suffered an overwhelming loss against one of the inmates, but if you defeated them, all you would get was a cold look and a tongue-lashing lecture on the millions of areas you fell short, despite defeating an opponent who had close to over 100 years of experience over you, a renowned killer who had seen it all and lived through it all, and had a cultivation base greater than yours by a major realm and were fighting for their freedom.

After confirming with the instructor to have the siblings delivered to the Flaming Goose Restaurant, Yang Qing made his way there.

It wasn't long before he was at the dividing fork of the Respite Valley, the one on the left led to the abodes that belonged to Order employees, while the one on the right led to the accommodation of their families, both sides were as vast as an entire rank 3 empire. The area did belong to a former Holy Land after all. Even after the years that had passed by with the Order gaining more and more people, only an eighth of the land had been occupied, leaving large swaths of land unoccupied.

Yang Qing flew on the right path that had the sign 'Talon's Edge' written next to it, and it wasn't long before he arrived at an entrance with the words 'Blue Respite'. The whole area was covered by an invisible protective barrier that was capable of defending even against an early-stage soul formation expert.

Yang Qing took out his gold eagle medallion which served as his entrance token that allowed him entry through the barrier. A vast land of green greeted him. Meadows, forests, grasslands, herbs, and small hills surrounded the area as far as the eye could see, accompanied by a warm tropical climate and fresh air packed full of rich spiritual qi that had condensed into blue dew on the grasses and trees growing around.

Yang Qing flew northwards, in the direction of two hills. Behind it lay the Blue Respite Town, his target for the visit. After several minutes he had already arrived. The town was small but bustling with life.