Daily life of a cultivation judge

Following his trail of thought, Yang Qing willed his thoughts to the Xuanwu.

"History of the Jade Leaf Academy.."

A moment later fourteen lights flew to him. Some were scrolls, others were books, a few tablets, and one tree trunk that had been hollowed with writing on its hollowed-out interior.

Yang Qing stared wide-eyed as he didn't expect to get anything. He had been told his clearance was restricted to matters concerned with the Deer Mountain Range. With eagerness, he quickly went for the tree trunk. The more bizarre-looking one was bound to contain the juiciest of information.

However, twenty minutes later he had a dejected look on his face as he put away the last scroll.

"Figures they would be so thorough..." muttered Yang Qing with a look like he had just swallowed a fly.

None of the scrolls, books, tablets, or the tree trunk contained what he was looking for. He had hoped he would find information about the founder in there somewhere, but he found no hint or mention of the founder.

While the information recorded in those fourteen instruments was pretty in-depth, ultimately, it lacked what he truly wanted to find out, and as he read through them, he realized they all came from the low-tier blue grade level, which was his original clearance level.

Sighing in defeat, he willed the fourteen objects to return whence they came. He had no intention of wasting what little time he had left in reading things he already had access to, no matter how intriguing the information was. With his guess that Long Wan may have been the founder of the Jade Leaf Academy, he became interested in the Academy, considering if he didn't make it to the Order, being a student of the Academy may have been the next best thing for him, and he had a feeling had his family's old friend, Alchemist Ma Bo who was a guest teacher at the Academy, had he been there when he was leaving, he would have left with him for the Academy instead of coming to the Order.

Reading the backstory of the Bi Xie Empire from the perspective of Long Wan made him curious about the academy, and even though he didn't have proof of it, he felt strongly that there was a chance he was the founder of the Jade Leaf Academy. While confirming that guess wouldn't add much to his life, Yang Qing always felt a sense of fulfillment when he filled the gaps in certain parts of history. His whole fascination with completing broken cultivation arts, and researching lost ruins, languages, and techniques was born out of that interest, but ultimately no matter how much he wanted to unveil the history of the Jade Leaf Academy, his access was ultimately limited and he needed to make the most of it.

After a regretful sigh, Yang Qing focused back as he closed his eyes to process everything he had just read, as he gathered his thoughts. About ten minutes passed by before he finally opened his eyes which flashed with a thirst for answers.

He took out a parchment and a smooth luminescent colored charcoal from his storage ring. He slowly drew out a large circle that filled the entire parchment and then proceeded to make tiny symbolic drawings along with some highlighted writing that accompanied them. For example, in one part of the parchment, he drew a few mountains and winding streams and a courtyard in the middle of it with a symbol of an eagle at the center. Slightly above the courtyard, he wrote the words 'Deer Mountain Branch'.

Yang Qing paused and held his chin as he admired the drawing with deep satisfaction. While his drawing paled in comparison to a seasoned master who had stepped on the dao of painting, if he was compared to the rest, even mundane expert artists, he was sure his skills wouldn't lose out to them. His drawings did lack the vitality of a drawing done by a dao painter, however, it was still vivid with deep clarity on the details which was in part due to his skills, and the other was the luminescent charcoal which helped make the colors of the drawing feel lifelike. One could see the veins of the rocks that made up the mountain, a reflection of light on the streams and rivers that winded in between and around the mountains, and the luster of the gold eagle symbol.

After one more satisfied nod, Yang Qing continued his drawings. Inch by inch, the parchment was filled with a variety of drawings and a label next to them. Far west, there was an azalea, blue oak, and a massive python sleeping beneath verdant grassland, and above the drawing was the label ' clear sword river sect', a little bit to the southeast, there was a drawing of a beautiful sycamore tree with purple flowers with a lady with an innocent look holding a fruit in one of her hands, and she looked to be singing as she was flanked by a lark, a moth, and a massive beetle. Next to that drawing, he wrote the words, 'Meifeng's lair'.

Yang Qing started by drawing all the places he visited and passed during his time at the Deer Mountain Range, quickly filling out the map. Any place he visited, he drew, whether it was the sacred graveyard torch where he met the sacred flame swan, Gu Xing, to the battleground where Hao Da and the rest fought against the obsidian serpents, down to the locations he had been given by Meifeng on where the fire adler bear had taken the daughter of the obsidian serpent couple to help refine her body, in preparation for her to inherit the treasure bone of a flood dragon.

After he was done with those areas, he finally finished with the territory of the Deer Mountain Kingdom, which he spent a considerable time with as he tried to recall every single detail he saw on his trip over. After ten minutes, he was done. He demarcated an outline that showed the entire territory of the Deer Mountain Kingdom. Within that demarcation, a lot of areas were left blank, with Yang Qing only drawing the route he took to the capital.

On the capital drawing, he drew enough to bring out the charm of the city as he saw it before he finished with the palace, which he only drew how it looked on the outside before his eyes narrowed as he drew two creatures that he seemed to have overlooked up to this point as he was making the drawing.

"Could they be the same?" he muttered as his gaze narrowed on the two creatures.Both creatures had the body of a lion and the head of a dragon, accompanied by a dragon's tail. One of them had a single horn that stretched backward and a pair of wings on its shoulders that looked like they were made of swirling clouds, with both wings closed. The other creature had two horns that stretched out backward but had no wings.

The two creatures were part of the Pi Xiu race, with the single- horned and winged one being the male of the species, the Tian Lu, and the double-horned one with no wings being the Bi Xie.

The drawings Yang Qing made were not based on the description given by Long Wan but were instead based on the two statues he saw outside the palace. Just outside the capital, the two statues had inadvertently drawn Yang Qing's eyes, not because they had anything that made them stand out, in fact, it was quite the opposite actually. They looked quite worn with cracks, and chips here and there, with their features not as distinctive. Yang Qing had felt it was odd for the two statues to be left hanging around at the entrance of the palace despite its beat-up state.

At the time he had thought there was more to them than met the eye, but after scanning them, he didn't detect anything and assumed they had been kept for sentimental purposes maybe, which was when the Imperial Secretary He Shan had admitted to such. The statues were kept because of their endurance and hardiness. No matter how much chaos and destruction the kingdom faced, somehow the statues always remained intact since the kingdom started. As a result, the first king of the Deer Mountain Kingdom decided to keep the two statues around out of an endearing sentiment on their ability to withstand hard times which was what he hoped for his kingdom, and every king that succeeded him continued to keep them around to echo his sentiments.

Yang Qing closed his eyes as he tried to recall every sensation he had when he was next to those statues to try and see if there was something he may have overlooked. A few minutes later he shook his head, as his gaze fell on the drawing of the statues.

"Could it have been dormant? If it is the same as the two statues that supported the rise of the Bi Xie Empire, then maybe the ritual of cleaning needed to be upheld which clearly the Deer Mountain Kingdom didn't do. Maybe that is why it seemed no different than regular statues when I was there.." muttered Yang Qing as he held his chin in deep contemplation.

Though the two statues were kept around the palace, possibly as a superstitious symbol for good luck, there were signs of neglect on them from the state they were in, and the accumulation of grime on them. Other than placing them at the entrance for symbolism, they were not cared for the same way the Wang Patriarch, did. But that was under the assumption that the two statues were similar to the one that transformed the fate of the Wang Patriarch. Yang Qing didn't feel it was wrong to hold a little reservation about them being the same ones, after all, Bi Xie and Tian Lu statues were pretty common as most people used them symbolically to bring good fortunes to their homes, businesses, and personal lives.

Yang Qing then went on to draw web-like lines that spanned across the entire parchment, seemingly connecting the entire boundaries and at the center of the parchment he wrote the words 'Bi Xie Empire'

"If their territory spanned the entire range, it would certainly explain why it is far richer than any rank 3 territory. The mature dragon veins, its ability to support a sacred graveyard, that grotto, and all the other mysterious happenings around it..even if it's not the same as what Senior Long Wan described about the Empire, there's no denying that the range is unique..it even drew the attention of that mysterious figure.

If my guess is right, then quite possibly, the capital of the Deer Mountain Kingdom and the capital of the Bi Xie Empire should be the same.." muttered Yang Qing as he traced a line to the royal capital of the Deer Mountain Kingdom which he circled.

"With the abilities and foundations described, how did such a behemoth figure even fall in the first place?" said Yang Qing as he drew a few question mark signs next to the words 'Bi Xie Empire' while adding a few more words next to it 'Sky rendering sword sect' and a few question marks next to it, while below he wrote 'ascendancy?'

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