Daily life of a cultivation judge

Right about now, with that scary thought dangling in her mind, the idea of Yang Qing playing mind games with her just to eat her later didn't sound all that bad to the cicada.

At least if she got eaten, she'd know it, unlike the alternative, where some foreign qi had been planted in her body and she had no idea who had done it, when they did it, or why.

"Is it really in me?" the cicada hesitantly asked as she looked up at Yang Qing.

"It is," said Yang Qing, with a tone that was both gentle and at the same time carried some austerity to it.

He may not be able to read the cicada's mind, but given the news he'd shared, he could, on some level, imagine her worries.

Any cultivator in her position would be unsettled after learning they had foreign qi inside them without their knowledge.

The cultivation world was chaotic, dark, and insidious. To survive in it, cultivators always had to keep their guard up because even a moment of carelessness could spell disaster.

That ever-present vigilance was what made it so disturbing when something slipped past it. Discovering a breach, especially one that had gone unnoticed, could shake even the most strong-willed of cultivators. The implications were simply too grave to ignore.

If someone could easily penetrate your defenses without you even knowing, then it undeniably meant that your life and death were no longer in your hands, but in someone else's. And that reality was unnerving, to say the least.

This was why skilled assassins were so feared—you'd never know when they struck until it was too late. There were countless victims who, even in death, never realized how or when they died. They just blinked, and their lives were silently reaped, with only their shadow and the killer bearing witness to the act.

But it wasn't just assassins. Even cultivators skilled in soul arts, or those who practiced esoteric arts like those related to karma, were feared just as much. Actually, one might argue that they were feared even more so than assassins.

At least with an assassin, the goal was clear: your death. It could be swift or agonizing, depending on the terms of the contract. But if someone proficient in soul arts or karma targeted you, your end might not be death, but something far worse, given the extent of what they could do.

This was why soul formation experts were held in such dread. With their insight and abilities, they could freely target the souls and karma of those weaker than them. They could plant or erase memories without their target ever realizing it, influence a cultivator's path without them knowing, and lead them by the nose without ever being seen.

Every cultivator below them, no matter how talented they were, were just pawns that could be freely and effortlessly manipulated by them, without them ever realizing it.

There was once a soul formation realm fiend cultivator who raised an entire rank three sect as cultivation pills, and they never knew it. Said fiend cultivator gave that sect a modified cultivation art that converted their entire essence, from their cultivation base, to their soul, blood, spirit, and qi, into a pill, and breaking through to the twelfth stage of the palace realm was the trigger for said transformation.

That fiend cultivator had altered that sect's core cultivation art without them ever realizing it, and had actually even raised its grade in the process of altering it, improving it from a middle-tier blue grade art to a top-tier blue grade art.

No one in the sect questioned the upgrade. The fiend had tampered with the memories of every single member, planting the belief that the improvement came from one of their talented grand elders who had a breakthrough in understanding during seclusion.

To make matters worse, the art bore no obvious signs of being fiendish. It caused no mental instability, no bloodlust, no frenzy—none of the typical hallmarks of fiendish techniques. Apart from turning its users into pills at the end of their palace realm journey, it functioned just like any other orthodox cultivation art.

Of course, one would wonder—sure, the sect not realizing anything was off with the cultivation art could be understood, given how abstruse cultivation arts were (not to mention this one had been tampered with by a soul formation cultivator)... fine, they didn't notice the art was tampered with.But how could they not notice a missing person? A late-stage palace realm expert, no less?

Herein comes the answer again... planted memories.

That soul formation fiend had planted yet another set of memories into them to explain the disappearance—and he corroborated it with something real. He made the sect believe it had ancient ties to a long-lost sect. The long-lost sect actually existed, but the supposed connection between it and the rank three sect was a complete fabrication.

The fiend planted memories that they were descendants of that ancient sect—but this time, the memories were only placed in the minds of the sect's higher-ups: the elders and the sect master. After all, for something of that magnitude, it made sense that only a select few would be in the know.

The best-laid lies are those made up of just enough truth.

So, in addition to the planted memories, that fiend cultivator gave them tangible items to reinforce the illusion, like an ascendant-grade artifact that truly belonged to that ancient sect. And that artifact had been refined into a portkey that led to a mysterious realm... one that belonged to the soul formation fiend himself.

So, with the ascendant-grade artifact and the planted memories, the disappearance of the twelfth-stage palace realm experts was explained as a long-standing tradition of the sect. Once someone broke through to the twelfth stage, they would earn the artifact's recognition, which, upon sensing their successful breakthrough, would instantly swallow them into the mysterious realm.

There, they would undergo further nurturing and face the test to inherit the full legacy of the ancient sect they were supposedly tied to. The only way they could be released from that realm was by reaching the middle stages of the domain realm.

It was a perfectly crafted ruse. Setting the threshold for exiting the mysterious realm so high meant that no one would question why no one ever returned. And the lack of success would only make the sect more determined.

Yes, there would be some within the sect who'd hesitate—maybe even delay their breakthroughs just to avoid being absorbed by the ascendant-grade treasure. But there would be no shortage of those eager to try, especially the talented ones. They'd be thinking to themselves, "I'll be the one to break the curse, to usher in a new era and inherit that legacy."

Besides, the fact that the exit threshold was so high only fueled the idea that the realm held real opportunities for breaking into the domain realm. And how many cultivators could resist that kind of temptation, even if they knew the other side of that coin was being trapped forever?

It was already widely known that breaking through to the domain realm was a journey fraught with risk. No matter where one went—whether it meant being trapped in a mysterious realm or seeking the path elsewhere—there was always the guarantee of life-threatening danger, either before or during the process.

Yet cultivators still took the plunge despite the risk.

So, for 30,000 years, that sect never stopped producing twelfth-stage palace realm experts. All of them braved forward, hoping they might finally break their sect's curse and fulfill its long-standing ambition—never once knowing they were being raised like fruit, just waiting to be harvested once they ripened perfectly.

30,000 years, and they never knew they were chives in someone's garden.

It took another soul formation expert to intervene for that illusion to finally break, and for its true contents to come to light. Had it not been for that, given the long lifespans of soul formation experts, who knows how long it would have lasted.

That rank three sect is the present-day holy land: The Flowing Leaves Valley.

Had the other soul formation expert not intervened back then, who knows if the holy land would even exist today?

Because even after being rescued from that nightmare, the shock of it all left the sect fractured—and it took a long time for them to come through on the other side of it.A major reason they managed to pull through was because the expert who saved them didn't just stop at rescuing them—he continued to support them long after the fact.

So yes, the cicada was right to be frightened because Yang Qing wouldn't be any different if he were in its shoes.

But luckily for the cicada, whoever had pulled its strings wasn't a soul formation expert—otherwise, Yang Qing wouldn't have spotted those strings.

"Here," Yang Qing said, gently waving his right hand like he was cupping something. A soft suction force was produced from the motion, drawing out all the nebulous yin qi from the ninefold natural yin array cicada's body.

The cicada's soul nearly left her body as she watched dark grey fog stream out of her and swirl gently into Yang Qing's palm, merging with the other grey fog already enclosed in the bubble.

The bubble expanded to accommodate the new influx, finally stopping when it reached the size of four large melons.

The cicada could hardly believe all that fog had been inside her. She would have shrieked—if the shock hadn't robbed her of all bodily functions, reasoning included.

"It was hidden in your soul," Yang Qing said softly, his gaze resting hesitantly on the cicada. "There's also a foreign spiritual imprint and an embedded rune in there."

The cicada's eyes went lifeless. She'd fainted....Again.