Daily life of a cultivation judge

With held breaths, the crowd saw the stone flash with a gentle azure light that had released an ancient aura. A second later, the light dimmed as writings appeared on the weathered stone Steele.

Xie Rong couldn't make sense of what the writing was as it was in the form of a language he had never seen. Still, the confusion disappeared an instant later when the writing stopped. Another light flashed once more which seemed to have rotated the syllables, reforming them into something Xie Rong could finally understand.

Cultivation realm: true realm: bronze body refinement stage, Pseudo realm; fifth stage of the pseudo foundation establishment stage.

Status: Unstable and brittle from the pseudo pillars that are absorbing the host's life essence into yin energy.

The maximum capacity of pseudo pillars has been reached, addition will result in the death of the host.

Lifespan: 3 years, 28 days.

Bloodline affinity: Original ( metal and fire), Pseudo ( water and wood).

"Do I have two cultivation bases?" Xie Rong muttered in confusion as he read the first part as he moved downwards his eyes widened at the report given before finally smiling in defeat when he reached the last line.

"Figures," he said with a bitter smile.

Even though he expected his body to have problems and he had also been informed of the dangers of being a human cauldron one of which was a decreasing lifespan the more pillars he formed.

He couldn't help but feel dejected when he saw the actual value showing what was left of his lifespan.

Three years, three years that was what he had left. Some foundation establishment cultivator he was. He was weaker than mortals in every sense of the word, whether it came to strength or even lifespan.

He couldn't help but laugh at the irony of it all. Even though he had left home to escape his guilt, it was still true that he wanted to grow stronger but instead, he became weaker than he was when he left home. There was never a crueler joke.

"I deserve this I guess.." he said as he turned to walk back, his dejection affecting the rest.

The display of Xie Rong's lifespan left the group severely on edge as they hesitated to come forward, luckily Xu Yuan stepped in.

"Yang Qing, may I?

Yang Qing nodded to Xu Yuan with a grateful look.

Xu Yuan clapped his hands, creating a subtle gentle rhythm that managed to calm the worrying youths.

Pulled out of their stupor, they couldn't help but look to the source of the clap.

"The promise we made to you at the valley still stands. Regardless of what your lifespan shows, we will ensure you get more than what you have lost..

Know this, whatever you see on the heart stone, that is not how things will end for you. Me, my fellow daoist here, and all the rest at Medical Valley will ensure you get to live your lives.." Xu Yuan solemnly said with certainty in his tone.

His confidence and matter-of-fact tone influenced the youths enough to calm them down. Yang Qing took advantage of the sense of calm around to resume the evaluations. To help reduce the pressure of who would be next, he made a unilateral decision as he made the evaluations start from the left to the right.

One by one they made their way to the heart steele, each wearing the same expression when they saw their lifespans. Luckily they had Xu Yuan's words to fall back on to steady themselves.

Whether it was those who were pill slaves or human cauldrons, they all had less lifespan than they should have had. The one with the highest lifespan had 68 years left and said person, was 10 years old and was among the newest recruits as a pill slave. The human cauldrons were the ones who had it worse, as even their newest members had lifespans that were less than 30 years.

Once the last person was tested, Yang Qing turned to the group from the Chen family.

"To prove the veracity of the heart stone steele, Patriarch Chen Zian I would like to invite you over as the final person to be tested..."

Patriarch Chen Zian calmly nodded as he calmly walked over to the heart stone steele. With one fluid motion, a single drop of blood fell on the stone, and his results were shown.

Cultivation realm: 12th stage of the core formation realm

Status: Stable

Lifespan:4,012 years

Bloodline: Earth attribute

"Patriarch Chen Zian, can you confirm the results to be a true representation of your state?"

"They are.." Chen Zian curtly said, though his eyes couldn't hide the mild surprise he had when he saw the results.

"Thank you for your assistance, you can step back now.."

"The heart stone steele's functionality has been proven. We can now move to the next stage, which is the evaluation of the spiritual herbs and potions that were produced from harvesting them.." Yang Qing said as he pointed to the former pill slaves and human cauldrons.

"The evaluation will be done by daoist Mei Xiling from the Medical Saint Garden. Daoist Mei Xiling, the floor is now yours.." added Yang Qing as he made a welcoming gesture towards the female disciple of the Medical Saint Garden.

As she made her way to the center of the courtroom, seemingly appearing out of thin air, a white jade table appeared, and on top of it were about a dozen mushrooms that had nebulous caps that had stars on them that glowed with a hazy almost misty white hue. These mushrooms were moon starcap mushrooms, sky-grade herbs that had excellent properties for cleansing and strengthening the soul.

A lot of alchemists or those doing jobs or practicing techniques that put huge demands on their souls usually chewed on the mushrooms to stave off mental exhaustion and extend the duration of time they can remain concentrated.

Other than the moon starcap mushrooms, the jade table also had over a dozen vials filled with different colored potions. Some of the vials had the symbol of a flaming red lotus on them. The Owner of the Red Flaming Lotus Alchemy Pavilion nervously clenched the sleeves of his robes when he saw those vials.

Mei Xiling walked over to the jade table and neatly separated the vials of potion, before finally going for the mushrooms and dividing them into four groups. After she was done, four more moon starcap mushrooms appeared in her hands, likely coming from the storage ring on her left hand. She placed the new group of mushrooms at the farthest end of the table, separate from the rest.

Only when she was done, did she finally speak.

"Except those four.." she said as she pointed to the four mushrooms that came from her storage rings.

"Except for those four, the rest of these moon starcap mushrooms were produced in Red Maple Empire, specifically the farms in Black Tear County, Cherry Blossom County, Spiritwood County, and Misty Caldera County.

They have all matured and for clarity, I was the one who personally harvested them in those mentioned locations at the request of the Order.

I used a harvesting technique exclusive to the Medical Saint Garden so any of my peers or elders from the sect could easily verify it should you wish to do so..." Mei Xiling paused slightly before moving to the potions.

"I bought some of these potions from the Red Flaming Lotus Alchemy Pavilion. I recorded the whole purchase in this recording jade talisman.." she added as a grey talisman appeared on her palm.

She inserted a bit of qi into the talisman lighting up the runes on it which then produced a grey light curtain that was blank at first before it was colored with images that transformed into a video.

In the video, Mei Xiling could be seen walking into a pavilion that had an eye-catching red flaming lotus sculpture crafted out of sunfire topaz.

Once inside, she asked for a few potions and their prices, which the attendant attentively provided as he added a few sentences meant to impress upon her how their wares were a cut above the rest, he was especially wordy when he was handing her the ripple aqua sap potion and the magma vein insight potion, exhorting how both potions could help trigger insights and epiphanies into the water, earth and fire elements that were deep enough to lay the foundations for the palace realm.

Mei Xiling was already a palace realm expert and in the fourth stage at that. It could thus be assumed she had hidden it as she made that purchase. The owner, Song Ba could also be seen in the recording. He looked to be in heavy discussion with someone on the counter over, only throwing an acknowledging nod to the attendant after he had completed the sale for Mei Xiling.

Once she had bought the potions she wanted, Mei Xiling left the store and the recording ended immediately after.

"The talisman is a silver void talisman which is able to record soul signatures. The persons in the recording can easily be confirmed.

With that out of the way, the next part is the evaluation. I will be using a few simple known methods to bring to light the key ingredient used in said potions and moon starcap mushrooms. Said key ingredient is life essence as whole, human life essence..."

Mei Xiling throughout her whole conduct was cool, composed, direct, and sharp, cutting directly to the core of the matter.

With a flick of her hand, two things appeared, one living and the other unliving. The living thing was a fly that looked to have been sculptured from a clear block of ice, while the unliving object was a stick, that looked like any other mundane stick out there. It was brown and dried.

"I will start with the moon starcap mushrooms.." Mei Xiling said as she used the stick to point toward them. A look at her and one would think they were in a classroom instead of a courtroom session.

"Moon starcap mushrooms require impure yin for growth. This is yin that has a touch of something that doesn't go well with it, in most cases its yang energy, but as a substitute earth or lightning energies can do as well, but yang is the most preferable.

Yin is dominant, yang is minuscule in amount, creating an impure yin energy. The moon starcap mushrooms are dubbed so, one is because of how they look and the other, the name itself shows how it grows.

Clear skies, full moon, cluster of stars. It draws upon the energy of the moon and the stars to grow, and it's most effective during clear skies. Because of these three simple conditions, it is one of the easiest sky-grade herbs to grow, as you don't even need to do anything. The only problem with using this method is it takes too long for them to mature which is why substitutes were found to fill in the place of the energy they get from the moon and stars which brings us to why we are all here today.

One of those substitutes that perfectly replaces the two celestial bodies is the human body which is rich in yin and yang energy. Provided one can control the release of both energies perfectly to meet the needs of the moon starcap mushroom, human life essence is considered to be one of the best substitutes for nurturing them.

Human life essence shortens the growth period considerably, from needing sixty years and above to nurture it, to just needing five years and it's almost always guaranteed that the quality of moon starcap mushrooms nurtured from human life essence will always be high.

But nothing is free of course. The cost for such quality and speed is the loss of the human life used to nurture those moon starcap mushrooms.."

Even though her tone remained the same which was calm and direct, there was a coldness seeping in there as she made the last statement.

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