Daily life of a cultivation judge

Yang Qing rubbed his eyes when he saw a blurry silhouette at the corner leading to his abode, that sort of resembled Lei Weiyuan's figure.

"What was in that wine for it to reproduce my worst fears.." Yang Qing said as he laughed bitterly.

"Don't worry Old fiend Lei, I know it's been a month since I did our curse-dispelling morning ritual, not to worry, starting today I will make sure to resume it in honest. The four-year tradition will be maintained.." he added as he bowed solemnly to what he assumed was a specter of Lei Weiyuan born out of his fear of the person, and the fact that he would probably see him today after not being in the courtroom for close to three months.

Yang Qing went on to pat the shoulders of the 'specter' only to freeze halfway when he made solid contact with it. Whatever wine he had in his system was instantly evaporated as he shakily adjusted his gaze like he had just seen a ghost, meeting eye to eye with those silver eyes. Those silver eyes that always seemed to see through everything he did.

"Old Le.. Le...Lei, is that you?" he asked shakily.

"Glad to see you enjoyed your vacation well.." Lei Weiyuan said with a calm demeanor that always made Yang Qing feel like he was waiting for a guillotine to fall on him.

"Whhy are you like that?" Yang Qing hastily asked, fear being rapidly amplified and produced in every part of his body as he pointed to the silhouette of Lei Weiyuan which seemed to be made of mist which was why Yang Qing automatically assumed he was hallucinating in the first place.

"Oh, this? I was casually testing out a cultivation art Dean Zhu Lao came up with for reproducing imprints from a single thought in places we have not marked but have visited. I'm still not too familiar with it, hence the look.." Lei Weiyuan casually said.

"A thought imprint?" Yang Qing asked with widened eyes.

Imprints operated similarly to talismans except unlike talismans, they contained the spiritual will of the user, it was like a clone of the user, except an imprint contained a small fraction of the user's abilities, and they needed a medium as an anchor. The medium needed to be something that was at the monarch grade at least and if the medium got damaged, the imprint would disappear.

But from the way Lei Weiyuan described the thought imprint he was experimenting with, it did not seem to have a medium, with the only point of contact being places he had visited.

"You don't need a medium?" incredulously asked Yang Qing.

"No, not really, the 'prints' I leave at the places I've been to are more than enough. I can use the surrounding spiritual qi and the 'print'. You can consider the print similar to a scent like how animals identify who or what is in the area, or how they mark an area to warn of others. It's something similar.

As cultivators the more powerful you are, you leave traces everywhere you are. The art uses those traces as conduits and provided the spiritual qi is sufficient, you can reproduce an imprint from it..."

"That's incredible!" muttered Yang Qing as his eyes shone in innocent wonder.

"It is, but at the moment its demands are too high that only someone at the domain realm can execute it, and because what is being produced is a domain's expert imprint, it needs a lot of spiritual qi in the area to support it, and the location needs to be a place the expert is intimately familiar with, but even then it has a few instabilities here and there.

With time, Dean Zhu Lao hopes to reduce those demands and the instabilities with our help.." Lei Weiyuan patiently explained as he stroked his beard out of habit even if it was only a corporeal spirit.

"I can't wait for him to refine it.." Yang Qing eagerly said before something Lei Weiyuan said struck a chord in him.

"Intimately familiar? The fact that he is here, does it mean? No, No.. How many times has he been here?"

One scary thought after another flooded Yang Qing's mind as his skin paled at the ominous implications he was thinking about.

Choosing the path of ignorance is bliss, Yang Qing quickly took his mind off of those thoughts as he asked Lei Weiyuan what he was doing there. Yang Qing had doubts about whether it was just to test the thought imprint cultivation art, or to scare him, which he had this intuitive feeling was one of the reasons, but other than that he felt Old Lei had to have another reason for appearing outside his abode a few hours from dawn.

"Well, I came for two reasons. One is to remind you, that you resume your duties today to avoid any mixups like that time.."Lei Weiyuan said as he narrowed his gaze on Yang Qing prompting the latter to lower his head in shame for having been caught at the time, and not for pulling the scheme in the first place.

"The other is about your first case, it is the Red Maple Empire, right?"

"Mmh.." Yang Qing said with a nod as he lifted his head.

"With the son of Li Guiren, one of the founders of the Golden Bamboo Pavilion, when it comes to handling his judgment, Domain inner court judge Hou Dehui will be present in the courtroom as will Li Guiren and quite possibly the other two founders.

Whatever conclusions you come to, let not their presence or what they represent, influence you. We already have a lot of enemies, adding one more to the pile won't matter. So don't hold back on account of trying to reduce troubles for the Order.

Let your verdict be a pure unadulterated reflection of what you believe suits him. That is all, take care, and don't be late.."

"I won't and thank you, Supervisor Lei Weiyuan.." Yang Qing said as he cupped his fists in deep gratitude.

Just as Lei Weiyuan's imprint was about to dissipate, it froze as Lei Weiyuan's gaze fell on Yang Qing.

"Yees?" Yang Qing hesitantly asked.

"Earlier, as I was forming my imprint, I seem to have overheard you mention my name and a morning curse ritual.."

"Supervisor Lei, I don't want to keep you, I have tonnes to prepare since it's my first day back in a while. Forgive me for my poor manners.." Yang Qing hurriedly said as he quickly bowed and fled to his abode, praying Lei Weiyuan would not reproduce another imprint within his abode.

"He can't get in, right? I have never invited him here, but then again.." A scary thought flashed in his mind as Yang Qing powered all his isolation arrays in overdrive, expenditure of spirit stones be damned.