Daily life of a cultivation judge

“Did you ever find out the identity of the grey-haired lady?” asked Yang Qing.

“No, we have not. However, our power level is what has restricted us. If it is as my great great grandfather said that the person who did all that to the Shu clan is a palace realm cultivator, then with our strength and foundations we can’t go around digging what happened back then.

We risk inviting disaster to the clan and not a way to prevent it. Unlike him, we don’t have a massive sect to run to, and it’s not like we can go to his master and try and seek his help on the matter.

After the death of my great great grandfather, he did come over to help for the first hundred years, but after that, he never came back. We can consider his ties with our clan severed.

With how we are currently, in the past 5,000 years we haven’t made any headway in the case because we haven’t actively dared to investigate it. The only thing we can do is ensure what my great great grandfather saw that day is kept alive until a point where we will have someone capable of fulfilling his wish…” said Tang Wenwan.

Even though his skin was wrinkled making his facial expressions indiscernible, one could detect embarrassment and shame oozing from him.

“Pardon me Patriarch Tang Wenyan, but there are one or two things I’d like to seek your clarification on if you don’t mind?” asked Mo Liwei.

“If there is anything I can shed light on, I’m more than happy to do so..” answered Tang Wenyan.

“You said your great great grandfather was a core formation expert and one that had a gold core at that. Based on the experiences I’ve had at the Order, he should be alive right now. Those with a gold core have a life expectancy that reaches 5,000 years.

Even though he shattered his core which likely reduced some of those years, there are ways to regain those years and ensure you live out the complete 5,000 years. His master as an elder of the Celestial Harmony Sect would in no doubt know those means and have the necessary materials to accomplish it.

What I want to know is, is your great great grandfather alive?” asked Mo Liwei.

“As for the next question, it’s more or less directed to both you and Yu Gen. While i don’t mean to doubt the veracity of the tale you have told us, Yu Gen how does what happened then tie to the Ice Emerald Sect? ｏｖ𝚕．ｃｏ𝚖

And if there is something that ties the sect to that incident at the Shu family, then Patriarch Tang Wenyan’s account of the events isn’t enough since by his own admission he wasn’t there.

What we have is second-hand information, which isn’t enough for us to decide on the punishment of the sect.

We need something that ties them to it..” Mo Liwei gently said.

Despite how harsh his words seemed, the other judges were in agreement with him. While Tang Wenyan didn’t seem like he was lying, his words alone were not enough damning evidence.

“When I said there was a living witness, I meant it…” Yu Gen said with a teasing smile.

“Patriarch Tang Wenyan, would you please..”

“To answer your question senior, the first and second questions have more or less the same answer.

Yes, my great great grandfather should have had more years to live even with his shattered core, and yes, his master did leave various pills and natural treasures to help prolong his life but he never used them.

The Celestial Harmony Sect may or may not have known this, but his shattered dantian wasn’t the result of his cultivation going haywire because he was attacked by his internal demons but rather my great great grandfather did that to himself…”

As Tang Wenyan said this he undid the buttons of his Tang suit revealing his bare chest.

“Once during a mission for the sect, he stumbled onto a grotto, and in it, he found the corpse of some cultivator that had grey bone in his hands. That bone had an esoteric cultivation art inscribed on it.

That technique was called the chrysalis soul incubation art. He didn’t know the grade of the art, but the more he studied it, the more he realized it was the answer he needed.

The first stage of the art could only be completed by sacrificing his core, which was how he ended up with a shattered dantian, and in exchange for it, he got the chance to materialize a part of his soul, and within that soul was specific memories.

The art itself was incomplete but the parts that were available were more than enough to help my great-great grandfather with what he wanted…”

The green polished stick in Tang Wenyan’s hand transformed into a grey bone that was the length of an arm.

The bone had inscrutable markings on it and had cracks all over it.

Yang Qing and the rest had their pupils constrict when they saw the bone. The faint energy fluctuations it released were that of a domain expert. Whoever or whatever that bone belonged to had a cultivation base that was in the domain realm though the energy within it had long dissipated and all that was left was the tiniest of traces.

At its state, even a foundation establishment cultivator could break it if they hit it at full force. If its energy wasn’t dwindled, Tang Wenyan with his ninth stage foundation establishment cultivation base would struggle to lift it let alone get close to it.

Even in death, a domain expert was a domain expert. Every part of the corpse of a recently deceased domain expert contained enough energy to pulverize someone in the foundation establishment realm.

For Tang Wenyan to be able to hold it closely the owner of that bone had to have been dead for at least 50,000 years or whoever inscribed a cultivation art on it dissipated the energy in it which made no sense since the more energy the bone had, the better it could preserve whatever he/she had inscribed on it.

“He started researching the art when he was at the Celestial Harmony Sect and continued to do so even after he had left and came back to the clan.