Daily life of a cultivation judge-Chapter 1001: Striking an agreement (4)

The phrase that misery loves company became true for the three of them. Liu Jie’s injury had affected them all greatly, which in turn guided their actions thereof.

On top of trying to find a breakthrough for the sect, Xie Yuan and Meng Jiayi still kept trying to find ways to cure Liu Jie’s injuries.

No matter how impossible it seemed to find a treasure that contained enough essence of heaven and earth needed to heal the injury to his origin, the duo never gave up in their search for it, but eventually, it proved a daunting task to carry while at the same time worrying about the sect, so the three of them decided to split tasks.

It was at that period that Meng Jiayi started the process of handing over his authority as then sect master to Xie Yuan. Xie Yuan would focus on the overall development of the sect, while Fan Ha would help share that burden in the protection she offered as a sect guardian while Meng Jiayi scoured the continent for clues on anything that could cure Liu Jie’s injuries.

He alternated his role with Fan Ha, as both on top of searching for possible cures for Liu Jie’s injuries, also continuously worked at improving their strength rapidly.

Even though it wasn’t received well by other elders, they still agreed to use a sizeable sum of the resources that they had to help rapidly improve the duo’s strength.

Rather than spread out the resources around the sect, with the Yu clan breathing down their necks, it was thought better to centralize the resources and use them on the most powerful members of the sect. At least then maybe they could grow strong, even if not domain-level strong, but strong enough to buy enough breathing room for the rest of the sect.

However said measures meant that others would have to suffer and these were the elders of the sect, with the core elders suffering the brunt of said measures.

While the Yu clan couldn’t attack them directly, that did not mean they didn’t have other indirect means of strangulating them. They went after most of the sect’s resource channels that were not in the sect grounds which were protected by the formation arrays that their domain-level ancestor had put down that could at least guarantee their protection against anyone below the domain realm.

As such, the sect was completely restricted to its grounds and while the grounds itself was still rich in resources, those resources were not infinite, and the more powerful one was, the more resources they consumed, hence the need for other channels to help supplement those needs.

The Starlight Lake Sect had an ever dwindling access to those channels thanks to the concerted and determined efforts of the Yu Clan, and as such could only use what was produced within their sect grounds and what they had accumulated over the years since their founding.

Because of their history, their reserves were plentiful but if Xie Yuan and the rest hoped for the sect to continue, and its foundation intact, they couldn’t use those resources wantonly, especially with no clear way to replace it.

That was one of the reasons Liu Jie had opted to go to the Millionsfold Treasure Ocean in the first place. It was to save on the resources he would require to reach the domain realm by looking for them elsewhere. Sadly after his injury, neither Xie Yuan nor Meng Jiayi could take that risk, especially the latter who was considered the strongest expert of the sect, bar Fan Ha.

The sect couldn’t afford to lose Meng Jiayi too thus it was unanimously decided that the majority of the disbursed resources would be given to him and Fan Ha, with the additional resources being picked from the allocated amount that was meant for the elders. At least this way the expenditure would remain the same.

Though the elders were disgruntled, they still saw the sense in it and hence gave their support even if it meant a delay in their cultivation.

If the sect managed to produce two late-stage palace realm experts, they would have much more breathing room than if they had a dozen first-stage palace realm experts. The former could at least make the Yu family apprehensive about their actions as compared to the latter.

It was a worthwhile trade-off and the sect came to see its fruits when Fan Ha improved from the sixth stage to the eighth stage of the palace realm as a result of her wonderous ability as a nine-heart deer, she was able to keep the top experts of the Yu family at bay and as a result the sect got enough breathing room to produce two more palace realm experts.

But just as Xie Yuan and the rest thought they were about to escape the dark cloud that had surrounded them, tragedy struck once more.

News reached them that one of the Yu family’s late-stage palace realm experts stumbled onto a lucky encounter and that lucky encounter was worthwhile enough to illuminate a path that led to the domain realm.

News of one of the elders of the Yu family going into seclusion to attempt a breakthrough into the domain realm sent shockwaves throughout the Starlight Lake Sect. Whatever reprieve Fan Ha’s presence and her growing cultivation realm had given them was instantly shattered, and tense desperation and despair took its place.

No one was immune to the effect, with the greatest effect appearing on the leaders and the older members of the sect who realized what fate awaited them should the Yu family produce a domain expert.

If they successfully broke through it would only be a matter of time before the Yu family stormed the gates of the Starlight Lake Sect, as for what would come next, in the best-case scenario, the Starlight Lake Sect is made into a subordinate of the Yu family but not before a little culling is done to establish dominance or the entire sect gets destroyed.

Not one of those fates was a comforting one as they all led to the same end and that was the erosion of the Starlight Lake Sect from the continent. It was just that one option was instantaneous and the other was a gradual build-up of it.

The entire sect was beneath the guillotine, it was just a matter of when it would fall. The realities of it threw the sect into a frenzy and none was spared from it with almost everyone showing adverse reactions to it.

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Some disciples and a few elders deserted the sect, and those who decided to remain behind, some took to drinking and enjoying whatever time they had left, while others pushed themselves to cultivate madly in the hopes of using whatever strength they had to help the sect avert the storm that was headed its way. Xie Yuan, Fan Ha, and Meng Jiayi were part of this group.

That mounting pressure became the impetus that helped Xie Yuan reach the sixth stage of the palace realm, however, while she managed to profit from disaster, the same couldn’t be said for Meng Jiayi. In the desperation of trying to hurriedly improve his strength, a mishap happened in his cultivation as he was attempting to breakthrough to the seventh stage of the palace realm, and he severely damaged his vitality in the process.

Xie Yuan couldn’t help but inwardly smile bitterly as she recalled her thoughts back then. Meng Jiayi injured his vitality, and his lifespan was reduced in the process, then a few years later, Fan Ha left and then came back different. Even though she played it off as nothing, Xie Yuan could tell there was something different about her. She was still an eighth-stage palace realm expert, but something about her felt different. She felt hollow somehow.

Xie Yuan couldn’t tell why back then, but seeing Fan Cai, she finally found her answer. That period was one of the darkest periods of her life as Liu Jie died not long after having exhausted his lifespan as an early-stage palace realm expert which was shy of a few thousand years because of the damage to his origin.

At her wit’s ends, she gave up on cultivating and just chose to wait and pray. Pray that the expert from the Yu family would fail in their breakthrough and die. With how many victims the tribulation of the domain realm claimed, she hoped that the Yu clan member would be added to that tally.

Sadly for her, with the run of luck the Starlight Lake Sect had, her prayers were doomed to go unanswered. She sometimes joked around that because of how deeply she wished for that Yu clan member to die under their tribulation, the horrible luck and misfortune that surrounded her and the sect rebounded into good luck and fortune for that Yu clan member.

The Yu clan finally produced a domain expert, and every day since, Xie Yuan’s insides have not stopped churning. She had both dreaded and hoped for the end to come. The dread was that the sect would get destroyed with her at the helm and her too helpless to do anything about it, and the hope was, once destroyed, she would no longer have to shoulder such a burden and maybe just maybe, she would get to join the love of her life after and this time maybe she would do a better job of letting him know how she felt.

...

"The past 20,000 years have not been the easiest of years for us, but we managed to get through it somehow and in no small part because of sister Fan Ha’s efforts who has gone above and beyond all we could have dared ask of her," Xie Yuan said as she cast a gaze filled with admiration, thanksgiving and a little bit of guilt toward Fan Ha.

"All this time not once did she ever stop fighting for the sect even when the rest of us did. About six months ago, in the hopes of finding something to remedy sect master Meng Jiayi’s condition, she stumbled onto an earth profound pith jade stone hidden deep within a spirit vein that ran from our sect grounds, stretching all the way outside of it, with tributing branches everywhere.

Before our fall from grace, everywhere the spirit vein touched was our territory but with time, the majority of those places got swallowed up by his clan," Xie Yuan said, her gaze turning cold as it fell on Yu Hui, who having learned a lesson from before only answered back with a gaze filled with contempt.

"The place Fan Ha found that earth profound pith jade stone was within one of the regions that still remained under our control. In the process of extracting it, a party from the Yu clan got wind of it and besieged her.

She injured some of them in the process but not heavily. The Yu family exaggerated the extent of those injuries and asked for reparations from us, and as the already weaker party, despite the ludicrousness of the claims, we had no choice but to entertain them and give in.

We handed over the earth profound pith jade stone despite it being able to heal Sect Master Jiayi’s injuries, but even then it wasn’t enough," Xie Yuan said, pain, shame and anger present in her tone.

"We all know what they want..." she softly added with a look of resignation.

"Sister Fan Ha, offered herself up to them to settle the matter..." Xie Yuan paused as she cast a pleading look toward Fan Ha.

"Sister Fan Ha, there is no need for you to do this. If we get destroyed, we get destroyed. Everyone who stayed back at the sect already made peace with that end. You have done enough, more than enough even. We can’t take any more from you. Please, I am begging you to reconsider this," Xie Yuan said as she bowed her head, with her eyes glistening with unshed tears.