Daily life of a cultivation judge

Yang Qing's body was taut like an arrow ready to be let loose at whatever predator had set its sight on him. He shrunk his palace sense to a 100-meter radius around him, taking great care to avoid the strange elm tree.

In his mind, if an attack was to come for him, it was likely to come from the strangest object in the area, and right now, to him, that object was the tree. He could only hope that his reactions were sharp enough to respond to whatever it might throw at him.

A minute passed by with no attack, but that only made Yang Qing all the more anxious. After five minutes, as his mind grew comfortable to his tense state, he started rationalizing about his present circumstances.

"Why am I panicking? Even if it is an unfamiliar place, it is still the Order's territory," said Yang Qing, as he tried to laugh off his earlier actions in a bid to calm himself.

His attempt proved futile. It was much easier to succumb to fear than it was to escape from it, and it also didn't help that the anchor he used for courage was a little unreliable to begin with.

This place potentially being under the control of the Order was one of the kindling fuels feeding the flames of fear and anxiety within him. In his days as a student at the Institute, the Instructors would occasionally trigger illusory gold-grade arrays in the middle of a class to help train their "mental preparedness."

One can only imagine what horrors they experienced thanks to those illusions. That, coupled with all the other menacing things the Instructors regularly put them through, left them paranoid and distrustful of everything and anything around them. Yang Qing's seed of fear and distrust against the Order wasn't planted when he was being overworked as a newly minted judge but rather during his time at the Institute, where he survived by questioning every single thing in that place.

Being here, those memories couldn't help but surface once more, influencing his present state in the process. At the Institute, one of the scariest periods was when they were rewarded with something good because it was always a precursor to something bad waiting for them around the corner.

For example, being personally and gently guided on how to cultivate a particular blue-grade art by the instructors, who did so with patience and kindness — offering extra attention, like a doting parent — only to find out that three days later, you were supposed to survive four days in some territory rife with bandits, some of whom were multiple levels stronger than you.

Yang Qing had the misfortune of being thrown into a territory that had six bandit gangs at the height of a feud with one another, so there was chaos all over. Even worse, the heads of those bandit gangs were all in the Core Formation Realm, while he was a measly seventh-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator. To fan the flames further, Yang Qing's presence in the area had been leaked. By his guess, this was no doubt the work of the Instructor, with the information in the leak being distorted. He was rumored to be an assassin hired by the lord of the territory those bandit gangs were fighting over. According to the leak, Yang Qing was hired to take the heads of the six bandit leaders, which only worsened the already tense situation.

It was one among a long list of horrible days and experiences he had at the Institute. Being here, he couldn't help but feel that familiar pang of anxiety in the pit of his stomach as he scanned the area around him.

The dots seemed to connect: something bad was going to happen to him. He had been given a generous reward by suddenly gaining placement in Sage Mountain, months in advance, all thanks to a kind word from some senior.

Were there really any kind seniors in the Order? From Yang Qing's experience, they were few and far between. He could count them on one hand, and with his reputation and rotten luck, he didn't want to bet on today's events being thanks to one of those few kind seniors.

"What cost will they demand?" he muttered nervously, as he quickly took out his purple lightning bamboo pole, taking one step at a time, twitching in response to even the faintest rustle of a blade of grass.

He started walking away from the strange elm tree, moving northward. He kept its view at the corner of his eye as he walked. If this was some twisted test of the Order, if there was one saving grace, it was that he wouldn't die; tortured...yes, horribly so at that — more than guaranteed, if his past experience was any indicator — but at least his life would not be in danger.

This, in some twisted way, though he was afraid, emboldened him to try and explore the area.

When he was about to take his fourth step, he suddenly flinched, twisting his body rapidly and swinging his purple lightning bamboo vertically as he spun.

The reason for his drastic reaction was the silver-grey light flying straight at him, its origin: the strange elm tree. Yang Qing's purple lightning bamboo met it squarely in its flight trajectory, his attack bathed with pure black-and-white lightning that had a calamitous aura to it. His hair also changed to match the color of that lightning, and his aura seemed as ethereal and as grand as the heavens themselves.

The power he was showing at this moment was a hundred times greater than what he had used sparring against Zheng Hu or during the clash he had with the celestial nesting weaver. How could he not, when he was swinging with his entire force, holding nothing back? A regular first-stage Palace Realm expert would have died instantly, their body exploding from being caught in his current attack.

Yang Qing's attack landed true as he intercepted the light. However, his expression turned grim as he saw his attack instantly dissolve the moment it came into contact with that light. There was no explosion, no rebound, or any sign that he had hit something. To Yang Qing, it felt like he had struck a soft sponge that swallowed and neutralized the entire force of his attack in one fell swoop.

If it was just that, he wouldn't have had the look he did now — a face of abject terror and shock. He couldn't move his body or even his qi. The instant his bamboo made contact with the light, he felt an unfathomable power from it immediately immobilize him. What shook him to the core was how effortlessly it had accomplished this. He didn't even realize how it had been done.

"Was that a punch?" murmured Yang Qing as he recalled the strange, familiar sensation he felt when his attack was being neutralized. However, his thoughts were soon cut off.

"This is it," he thought bitterly, as he surrendered himself to whatever fate awaited him at the end of that hazy silver light. The silver light, after neutralizing his attack, moved towards him. Only when it was a few inches from his face did it stop moving, fluctuating with a foggy glow that only made it all the more ominous in Yang Qing's eyes.

While Yang Qing's movements were bound, he still had full use of his palace sense, and just like with the elm tree, he could only see the silver light with his eyes, as it completely evaded the perception of his palace sense.

With a nervous heart, Yang Qing could only helplessly watch as the hazy light shivered, like a dog shaking off water from its fur, revealing a white-brown parchment within it. Just as Yang Qing was wondering what sort of dreadful misery that parchment would bestow on him, his pupils trembled slightly as he saw its contents.

His surprise was briefly cut off as he almost lost his balance. He seemed to have regained control of his body when the hazy light shed off the parchment. With his regained freedom, almost as if possessed or entranced, Yang Qing moved toward the parchment floating a few steps away from him. He stretched out his hands and gently grabbed it by its edges, his eyes focusing on the title at the top.

Brilliant Ray Fist Art (Silver)

Yang Qing brought the parchment closer, thinking he had misread, but no matter how much he looked at it, the title on that parchment was still the same — it was that of his blue-grade art, the Brilliant Ray Fist Art.

Yang Qing, confused as to why a parchment would have the name of his cultivation art, moved on to read the contents below it, hoping they would shed some light on the matter. However, his look only grew more surprised as he read, his eyes growing wider in stupefaction the more he read. The contents provided a complete breakdown of his art, step by step, leading up to the last insights he had integrated into it and the improvements they brought to the art.

Immediately after Yang Qing finished the last sentence, all the letters within the parchment rearranged themselves, guided by some transcendent power beyond Yang Qing's comprehension.

In the first few seconds, the words being formed by the rearrangement were incomprehensible, but as the seconds flew by, there was some sense to them — more so to Yang Qing, who immediately figured out what was happening as he waited with bated breath for the transformation to be completed. When it did, Yang Qing's eyes lit up as he looked at the parchment as though it were a priceless treasure.