Daily life of a cultivation judge

Shen Mu took a deep breath in a bid to exorcise the torture he had endured the past few days. He didn't start out wanting to be the leader of some gang. When he was young, just like every other impressionable young kid, he wanted to be a virtuous cultivator and sail the skies of the world. He was well on his way to doing exactly that.

He wasn't born into a well-off family. He was from an indistinct village, born to a father who was a hunter and a mother who was a blacksmith. He lost his father when he was young. He died in an accident during one of his expeditions.

As for his mother, she wasn't originally from the village and had only stayed on account of his father. When he died, she wanted to leave and asked Shen Mu who was twelve at the time to leave with her. Shen Mu afraid to leave all he knew behind, decided to remain in the village.

His mother eventually left, but not before leaving him with a foundational technique whose grade he didn't know at the time and only came to discover later that it was a top-tier orange-grade technique. She also left him with a few cultivation resources and an amulet that she exhorted him to keep on him at all times. After that, she left.

Shen Mu rapidly improved with the resources left to him. The village also took great care of him, though materially it was small, but in terms of helping fill the void left by his deceased father and his mysterious mother who had left for parts unknown, they filled that void perfectly which in part was why Shen Mu was able to make rapid improvements in his cultivation.

He eventually left the village when he broke through to the qi refinement realm, in search of a sect to help guide him in the next part of his cultivation journey. He only took with him the amulet his mother gave him, handing out whatever resources he had left, to the village, which included the top-tier orange-grade cultivation art his mother had given him.

Even after discovering the true grade of that art later in life, handing that cultivation art to them was something he did not regret. It was the one thing that helped preserve the person he once was.

With his talents, it wasn't hard for him to gain admission into one, though the sect didn't have a palace realm cultivator, it was a sect with a long heritage, having been around for almost 30,000 years. It was filled with over a dozen core formation experts, controlled territories, and resources that rivaled those of well-established kingdoms.

He was in disbelief when he gained admission into the sect, and even more so when he caught the eye of one of the deacon elders who wanted to accept him as a disciple. In his excitement, he quickly accepted, a choice he soon came to regret.

With considerable resources, a deacon elder for a backer, his talents shone through like a tiger that had grown wings. In two short years, he was already one of the standouts among the outer disciples; be it in terms of combat or cultivation speed he was leading the group, as he became one of the earliest to attempt his breakthrough to the foundation establishment, gaining quasi blue grade pillars in the process.

Thanks to the quality of his pillars and his skills with the saber, he managed to garner the attention of the big figures of the sect as he was quickly promoted to inner court disciple. But he soon came to realize how different the world of inner disciples and core disciples was when compared to the life he had as an outer disciple.

When you're an outer disciple you are all at the same starting line, all striving with single-minded devotion to improve yourselves and show your value to the sect. The competition was fierce and chaotic at times but it was pure. Those who rose above the rest rose through their strength and even though the competition wasn't bereft of schemes at times, most times confrontations were direct, schemes having little to no impact on the final results.

But, when it came to the domain of the inner disciples and core disciples, things were different, the rules were different. Having strength wasn't enough, for one to wade through those waters with just strength alone, it had to be strength that was enough to suppress the entire sect, not just your fellow disciples. It had to be strength that was capable of making everything else orbit around it, anything less and it wasn't enough.

Without that type of strength, to survive there one would need a different type of 'strength'... connections and backing were the faces of that strength which Shen Mu was severely lacking in, when he stepped into that world. He went in with naivety thinking his talents would be enough to give him a footing in such a place but without tall trees to shelter a young sapling from the storm, no matter how full of potential that sapling had, it would be blown away effortlessly when the storm came and that was what happened to Shen Mu.

His talent though decent, wasn't a complete standout, and the backing he thought he had in his master who was a deacon elder, his master was the first to sever ties with him when he angered one of the core disciples when he refused to bend the knee.

In a single leap, the sect that he saw as the land that would nurture his dreams, only nurtured nightmares that have continued to haunt him ever since. He was thoroughly suppressed to the point that he would have lost his life had the amulet his mother had given him not activated to save him from the killing blow from his own master who had come for his head when he was out for a sect mission all to curry favor with that core disciple.

Filled with fear, anger, and distrust at everything around him, it wasn't long before he turned into who or what he was today. He betrayed without a second thought, killed without a second thought, used cunning to the extreme to both protect himself and torment his victims, fawned over those he needed to, exploited those he needed, and destroyed those he needed.

There was not a line he would not cross and nothing he would not do as long as it guaranteed his well-being. It was why despite being stronger than most of the heads of the so-called 'noble' families of the Red Maple Empire, he would always don the servile persona.

If there was one thing that sect taught him in the end it was how to throw the luxury that was pride as a cultivator and adjust to circumstances. Be a lion in front of mice, and be a mouse in front of dragons. Those heads might be weak, but their heritage wasn't. It wasn't something that a peak core formation expert with pseudo-saber intent could contend against.

He became a man of many faces because of it up until a week ago when that fear he felt as a disciple finally came flooding back and then some. As he was punched with a force that could pierce even through to the heavens above, he finally realized that everything was immaterial in front of strength. That truth was something he had realized during his years as an outer sect disciple, but it somehow got lost in the fog of time.

"That is a strength I don't feel regret or shame bowing down to.." thought Shen Mu as he fixed his gaze on those he had colluded with. He couldn't help but chortle as a childish thought surfaced in his mind.

"Maybe I still have the chance to be that hero I always wanted to be when I was younger.."

Something seemed to have shifted in him as he completed that thought. Ever since he fled that sect and the path of slaughter he chose to go in, he always felt like a snake was constricting him, tightening itself ever so tightly around his body, and soon he couldn't even breathe under that mounting pressure and suffocation brought by that constriction.

Everything within him was smothered, his bones quaked, and he always felt this vivid sensation that the snake was getting ready to swallow him, leaving him always on edge. The thing that kept him slightly sane was the amulet his mother gave him which was still as mysterious as ever. Always stepping in when his life was in danger.

However, even with the amulet's intervention, he was still greatly affected and it wasn't just his mind, even his cultivation base had been greatly affected too.

Most in the Red Maple Empire knew him as the leader of the Black Scorpion Gang who was a peak stage core formation expert and had pseudo saber intent. What they did not know was, that Shen Mu already had these results close to 1,000 years ago, 997 years ago to be exact. His cultivation halted at that time, which coincided with the first time he ever spilled an innocent's blood. The time when he had the luxury of knowing and feeling guilt.

1,000 years passed by, and his cultivation base didn't so much as budge an inch, no matter how much effort he put in, all the resources he used, it wouldn't move, and the path ahead became vaguer and vaguer and before he knew it, he couldn't see or sense it at all. He became desperate and was driven to near madness as a result, doing everything and anything to try and get it to budge including taking jobs he would never have considered taking all for the sake of trying to get his cultivation to move even a millimeter, but it was all for naught.

What he got for his efforts was a snake that grew in size every day, suffocating him each day, and eventually..over the past four years he had this premonition it wasn't long before that snake devoured him.

But now, he could feel a glowing warmth spread around his body, massaging every part of his body, healing the strain left by that snake. He closed his eyes in comfort as he felt his body lighten feeling the greatest relief and release he had ever felt.

His eyes suddenly widened when he felt that gentle warmth that was freeing him from all the torment he had endured suddenly transform into a sharp force that instantly spread all over his body slicing the snake that had enveloped him before finally dealing with its head as it did, he felt something that had long stagnated move.

"This?!" he muttered in disbelief.

"True saber intent, interesting.." muttered Yang Qing as he saw the resplendent light surrounding Shen Mu like it was cleansing him. His thoughts were immediately cut short when he sensed undulations of energy produced by the wood amulet Shen Mu wore.

Shen Mu whose emotions were all over the place, halted in even more shock when he sensed the movements coming from his amulet. Just when he was wondering what was happening to it, the amulet released an ethereal earth red glow that materialized into the silhouette of a person.

On seeing that person, Shen Mu's eyes widened as his lips trembled.

"Mother?"

The silhouette was of a woman in her early forties, with brown hair freely flowing that matched her free spirit.

"I am glad I didn't have to take the life of my own child.."