Daily life of a cultivation judge-Chapter 1400: Dug out from the ground (1)

Thirty-Six Cardinal Thorn Jasmine, owned by an azure dragon called Long Wei, who planted it on one of the many mysterious islands that called the Millionfold Treasure Ocean home.

Yang Qing clicked his tongue as he shook his head. He had never heard of the azure dragon going by that name, not that he had even heard of other dragons, for that matter.

And as for the mysterious island where the Thirty-Six Cardinal Thorn Jasmine was planted, well, his understanding of the islands of the Millionfold Treasure Ocean was just about as expansive and rich as his understanding of dragons and other mythical races.

He knew next to nothing about those islands, given the mysterious nature of the ocean they inhabited. Not to mention, those islands were located in the deeper parts of the ocean, where only those in the soul formation realm dared venture.

And with how secretive and chronic hoarders cultivators were, it was understandable that there was little to no information about those islands or what lay in the deeper areas of the Millionfold Treasure Ocean.

On any given day, cultivators disliked sharing things. Yang Qing had heard of cases where sects fed their outer sect disciples dregs of pills and potions formed after a successful or failed brew. Those said dregs, which they were going to throw away, were recycled and fed to the outer sect disciples. That was not even the worst part. The worst part was making the outer sect disciples work to the bone and do missions that risked their lives to ’earn’ those dregs of pills and potions, which would suddenly turn from dregs to ’precious pills and potions crafted with great care.’

And if it was not waste being touted as gold, then it was a master handing out incomplete techniques to their disciples, withholding the complete thing with the excuse of tempering the disciples’ attitudes and patience and strengthening their willpower and testing their character, while at the same time helping them create a firm foundation in the early stages by slowly feeding them the technique in small bites so they did not choke on it.

Yang Qing had heard of countless exaggerated tales of how just casting a single glance at a powerful cultivation art would drive you to madness if you tried to cultivate when your realm was low, or how the art’s powerful spirit would possess you and erase your soul.

His grandfather had shamelessly used such tales on him to scare him senseless so he would not dare leave the body refinement realm. It shamed him to admit it, but his grandfather’s scare tactics worked. It was not that he was gullible, but more so that his insidious grandfather was a thorough liar.

When his grandfather told him those tales, he took it a step further and even dragged him to the graves of some Yang clan ancestors, whom he claimed had died due to succumbing to madness and getting devoured by the spirits in said cultivation arts the instant they broke through to the qi refinement realm. If it were only seeing the gravestone, then Yang Qing would not have been as traumatized as he was during said visits.

What truly sold the lie was the wailing full moon stones his grandfather had secretly planted beneath the ground of those gravestones. Wailing full moon stones were natural treasures, albeit their ranks were not high, as the only benefits they offered were to those beginning their journey in cultivation. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

The stones were used as identifiers. And what they identified was whether someone had an above-average soul or spirit. This feature was what made it a standard tool of use by many sects and other organizations out there that cared more about the soul’s aptitude, like a sect such as the Spiritual Temperance Sect, whose main cultivation art cultivated the soul and the mind.

For a sect like that, the wailing stone was used as the first test that participants had to pass when applying to be their disciple. And as one would guess, given its name, if you had an above-average soul aptitude, you would hear a wail from the stone, and the stronger your aptitude, the louder the wail was.

But if your soul aptitude was low to average, you would not hear anything from the stone. All you would see was a beautiful white marble stone with a reflective, gentle moonlight glow from its glossy surface.

Unfortunately, Yang Qing was not that lucky. Even before he got his peerless Yin Yang Jade Nature Bones physique, his soul aptitude had been high.

So, when his grandfather took him to those graves where he had craftily hidden the wailing stones, in the dead of the night, after he had worked him over pretty good with terrifying tales of how his clansmen succumbed to madness for just breaking through to the qi refinement realm, Yang Qing instantly fainted when he heard the scariest wail of his life. It made him believe that one of the dead ancestors had truly risen from the dead and sent a wail to warn him off breaking through to the qi refinement realm, having sensed such sacrilegious desires in young Yang Qing.

That experience was both traumatizing and embarrassing for Yang Qing, and he only recovered from it when he came to the Order and learned how other cultivators out there had been duped even worse than he was. It was then that he discovered that his grandfather was not the only dedicated, insidious, gifted liar.

The world was filled with countless like-minded talents who tricked and deceived others, either for what they had or to keep what they had to themselves.

Knowing he could not get anywhere with the Thirty-Six Cardinal Thorn Jasmine and the island, Yang Qing threw Yang Shitong a cold look that seemed to say, Why did he even bother mentioning something that can’t be followed up on? How am I supposed to unearth traces of a treasure that existed who knows when on the grounds that haven’t been there for just as long? Yang Shitong was too preoccupied with his own thoughts to even care or notice the dirty look Yang Qing was giving him.

Getting no audience, Yang Qing moved his gaze back to the rest of the list, replaying Yang Shitong’s words as he did. Their cases were pretty much hindered by the same helpless circumstances as with the Thirty-Six Cardinal Thorn Jasmine tree.

Where was he going to find the main grounds of the Eternal Blossom Sanctum Sect in order to locate the Wonder Jade Tree? That was assuming the tree was even there and had not fallen under new ownership, after all, the sect had fallen a long time ago. Yang Qing may not know exactly when, but he felt it was safe to assume it happened at least over ten thousand years ago.