Daily life of a cultivation judge-Chapter 1123 - Yue state (1)
1123: Yue state (1)
1123: Yue state (1)
Yang Qing’s Office
True to form, just as the Flying Shadow Hawk’s liaison had promised, a pile of obsidian-black talismans lay neatly arranged on Yang Qing’s desk the moment he arrived.
He walked over, took his seat, and began picking up the talismans one by one, eventually reaching the very last one.
Beneath it, a folded parchment lay in wait.
The lack of surprise on his face suggested he had expected it—and indeed, he had.
Without hesitation, he picked up the parchment and silently muttered an incantation.
At once, a change swept across its surface.
Initially blank, the parchment now bore a faint, dot-like drawing of an eagle amulet.
Positioned as if it were a seal, it resembled the insignias used by royalty to authenticate their letters—only simpler and less distinct.
Yang Qing retrieved his gold eagle medallion and pressed it against the drawing.
The two aligned perfectly, as though they were made for each other.
The moment they made contact, a faint golden light pulsed from the medallion, flowing downward into the parchment and concentrating precisely where the amulet and the drawing met.
For a few seconds, the golden radiance cascaded downward, before finally settling.
Taking this as his cue, Yang Qing withdrew his medallion.
No sooner had he done so than the parchment let out a soft caw—like that of an eagle—before splitting apart.
In an instant, it transformed into four rectangular paper tokens, each one covered in hundreds of intricate miniature runes from top to bottom.
Yang Qing muttered the same incantation he had used on the parchment earlier.
His words acted as a key, activating the runes on the four paper tokens.
At once, they began to radiate a hazy, light-gray glow, as if wisps of smoke or fog were seeping out from the inscriptions.
Gently, Yang Qing picked up one of the paper tokens and pressed it against a black talisman.
The moment they made contact, the talisman flashed briefly with a silver glow before its color shifted from black to pure white.
Once the transformation was complete, he moved to the next token and repeated the process, achieving the same result.
One by one, he continued until all four paper tokens had been used, leaving each of the once-black talismans now completely white.
The parchment had served as a key to unlock them.
Without it, anyone below the Soul Formation realm could forget about forcefully accessing their contents.
More than just safeguarding information, the talismans were inscribed with intricate seals and arrays that would retaliate against any unauthorized attempts to break them open.
The countermeasure was lethal to the point that it was strong enough to kill anyone at the early stages of the Domain realm and below.
Even those at the middle to late stages, while they might survive, risked sustaining severe injuries if caught unprepared.
That potency was precisely why Yang Qing carefully examined the four talismans multiple times, ensuring they had truly been unlocked before proceeding to use them.
The first talisman he chose to examine contained information about the Vast Blue Merchant Company.
As he interacted with it through his spiritual sense, the information within was instantly transmitted to his mind.
The moment the transmission was complete, the talisman vanished, as if teleported away—which, in fact, it had been.
In addition to the seals and runes that protected against intrusion, a teleportation rune had been inscribed, designed to activate the instant the information was fully conveyed.
It was yet another of the many redundant measures the Order employed to safeguard its records.
Already expecting its disappearance, Yang Qing shifted his focus to the newly acquired information.
The details regarding the Vast Blue Merchant Company weren’t entirely up to date, having last been revised six months ago.
Even so, the data remained valuable, as Yang Qing quickly spotted Li Gang’s name.
From the looks of it, he still held the same position as he did currently, which was a branch manager—specifically, branch manager of the Yue State branch.
Whether he was still stationed there presently remained uncertain, but the fact that he was a branch manager at the time was still significant to Yang Qing.
However, what truly piqued Yang Qing’s interest was the mention of Yue State itself.
Yue State was a rank-three nation and quite a unique one at that.
It was a nation that was built through a coalition of sects—fourteen to be precise—who had banded together out of self-preservation, and in the process, the Yue State was created.
It had been about 45,000 years since the Yue State was formed.
Before that, the land that made up the present-day Yue State had been home to sixteen sects, each existing independently of one another, with all the factional disputes and relationships that came with being neighbors.
At the time, none of these sixteen sects had a single palace realm cultivator among them, which served as a fragile glue that held their coexistence together.
However, that balance was shattered when one of the sects suddenly produced a palace realm expert.
Instead of laying low and slowly consolidating his strength, as most would, he acted out of greed and impatience.
The first thing he did was attempt to annex one of his immediate neighbors—a move that succeeded effortlessly.
After all, none of the surrounding sects had a palace realm cultivator of their own to oppose him.
In terms of sheer strength and ability, that palace realm expert completely eclipsed his neighbors.
A newly advanced first-stage palace realm cultivator had the power to level an entire city with a single flip of their hand, and if they infused their attack with the charm of the Dao, its destructive capability would increase a hundredfold.
This was why it was commonly said that a lone first-stage palace realm expert could single-handedly contend with a hundred peak-stage core formation experts.
At best, those experts might be able to force a draw—but outright victory was out of the question.
So it was no surprise that the palace realm expert openly displayed his greed and ambition the moment he broke through.
In a grassland surrounded by nothing but core formation experts, they were nothing more than defenseless lambs awaiting slaughter.
The only real difficulty lay in deciding who to start with first.
However, he had made a single misstep in his calculation.
A thousand ants might be nothing before the might of an elephant’s stomp, but a million ants were a force to be reckoned with—and if that wasn’t enough, ten million would be more than enough to topple the beast and strip it down to the bone.
And that was exactly what happened to the palace realm expert and his sect.
The moment he annexed his neighboring sect, alarm bells rang across the remaining fourteen.
It was clear to them that they would be next.
That fear and urgency laid the foundation for what would eventually become Yue State.
Alone, those sects were vulnerable to both the palace realm expert and his growing power, but together, they stood a chance—enough to preserve their lineages and independence.
And so, they united.
Being weaker did not equate to being dumber, just as strength did not always guarantee wisdom.
