Yang Qing looked around and realized some of the senior members like the likes of Meng Chao and the rest who knew the identity of Mo Ye as one of the three vice presidents of the Order, all had puzzled expressions on their faces on seeing him on the platform. Clearly, they too, didn't expect him to make an appearance.
At this point, Yang Qing could only hope Vice President Mo Ye was just taking a casual stroll and nothing unexpected was underfoot. However, no matter how much he tried to downplay the whole thing, Yang Qing kept wondering how the entire ceremony could go wrong.
He even ended up transmitting those worries and fears to the three saint-grade artifacts when he kept reconfirming their abilities and their odds of protecting him against any unexpected situation. It was only when he was threatened with a serious beating by the three saint-grade artifacts, did he stop.
Some part of him even started having regrets about why he even broke through to the palace realm and filed for the promotion. Being a superior core court judge wasn't that bad, the cases were not absurd when compared to the ones from the outer core courts, as for the pay,... well Yang Qing had already learned to live on the scraps he got, so he could have survived, and the authority was fairly decent. The only scary thing about the whole thing was he would always be under the thumb of the old fiend Lei Weiyuan.
"I just need to survive the next half an hour to an hour, then I'll be safe," Yang Qing muttered to himself as he tightly clutched his golden eagle medallion whose authority level had been upgraded.
In addition to the saint-grade treasures, his authority was temporarily elevated during the ceremony. He had primary control over all the arrays that were within the platform and the greater part of the Star blooming mist valley. His authority as of this moment equaled that of Ling Meimei the formation hall master and the spirit council members who were on the podium with him.
He could control over a hundred different types of arrays within a single breath, thanks to his elevated authority. The degree of skill involved in laying down those arrays was beyond his scope so he couldn't quite gauge the full power of each individual array, however, thanks to the medallion he could feel a little bit of their output potential and that brief exposure left his hairs standing even with the protection of the blue universe robe and the other saint grade artifacts.
Soon a problem cropped up for Yang Qing. All this while he had been standing on the platform, sorting out his brief gains from the little scuffle he had with Gui Shiren from the scarlet blood ghost hand syndicate, however now that he was done, he felt a little awkward and mildly afraid of going to his assigned seat at the platform.
The members of the spirit council, the vice president, the Chief Justice, and Vice Chancellor Wu Ling had already crowded out the area as they chatted amongst themselves. Yang Qing didn't have the guts to saunter off there, tell them 'excuse me,' so he could sit in his seat.
Would he just have to stand there until the ceremony began? Luckily his woes were abated when Assistant Director Feng Lei invited him over to the seat next to him. He was the only one who remained seated in his position even when the Vice president and the other spirit council members arrived. The bare feet lady of the spirit council that was seated next to him had already left her seat and went to mingle with the rest of her colleagues, only the Assistant Director of the Special Inquisitors remained at his seat with his otherworldly charm coupled with his slovenly appearance.
Yang Qing was all too quick to grab the lifeline given to him as he made his way to the seat next to Assistant Director Feng Lei.
"Yang Qing have you ever thought of joining the Special Inquisitors?" asked Assistant Director Feng Lei.
Yang Qing almost tripped over when he heard that question.
Is the Assistant Director kidding? Thought Yang Qing.
All his life one of his main goals was to avoid dangerous and troublesome situations at all costs, which was why he opted to join the Order which seemed like the safest place for someone in his circumstances i.e. someone without a strong background, to develop. And at the Order, he worked tirelessly to ensure he would get a post that put him away from the front lines which is why he chose to be a judge. His first choice was to join the administration hall, but he was tricked and lied to when deciding.
He was told those in the administrative department got horrible pay and their work hours were brutal since they handle everything within the Order, whereas judges had great pay and had a degree of freedom in their working schedule. As long as they finished their daily allotted caseload, they could clock out at any time.
Yang Qing was ecstatic when he heard that, which was why he did everything he could to ensure he was a sure-in to become a judge. However, he soon discovered how misconstrued those supposed benefits were, the moment he started. The daily caseloads were so monstrous that he ended up staying all through the night till the next day at times, so his workload wouldn't pile up, as for the pay, Yang Qing quickly found out boiled rice and cold broth wasn't a bad dish to survive on, 27 days a month.
Just as Yang Qing was debating on how to gently reject Assistant Director Feng Lei's recruitment, a silence started spreading through the crowd, quickly followed by faint murmurings. It wasn't too hard to find the cause of it when a bulk of the guests that had arrived all faced in the same direction.
Yang Qing too faced that way along with Assistant Director Feng Lei. Their gazes were locked in on the new guests that had just arrived. It was a team of five, and they were all ladies of varying ages. They all wore the same type of robe, which was an almond-green velvet-like robe.
Yang Qing didn't need Song Guozhi's file to know who they were, since every member of the Order regardless of rank had certain organizations committed to memory and those organizations were rank 2 and rank 1 organizations.
The guests who had just arrived in the almond green robes were from a rank 1 sect called the Sparrows of the harmonious skies sect. It was a sect with a long history and could be considered mid-tier among rank 1 organizations which was something because it meant they had more than one expert who was in the soul formation realm, as for their current exact number, even the Order with all their means had no clue.
The Sparrows of the harmonious skies sect, by those who didn't know, would assume the sect was an all-female sect because the majority of their sect members from the higher-ups down to the outer disciple were mostly female. However, the sect itself had an all-inclusive policy when it came to disciple recruitment, but there were certain factors in place that made it seem like they solely recruited females, one of which was their core cultivation technique, the Thousand sky traversing sparrow technique.
Yang Qing didn't know much about the technique itself other than it was rumored to be a high-tier gold-grade technique that was teetering to the purple-grade core and was the reason the sect has flourished to date. However, the technique itself had certain peculiarities to it that made it so it was difficult for a man to cultivate it to the blooming stage of cultivation arts mastery, which ended up creating the all-female dynamic of the sect. Though they have had a few male disciples who have achieved major success with it like their current vice sect master, however those who could, were few and far between, and usually they could only do so because of other certain factors such as having a special physique that gave them a certain advantage towards learning that technique.
Their vice sect master was one such example as he mastered the technique because he had a yin wind physique that granted him a type of natural affinity to the technique rooted in the Wind Dao.
Yang Qing saw Meng Chao and Dean Zhu Lao head over to greet them as they guided them to their section. The platforms where the guests stayed were partitioned into different zones. There were five different zones and the placement of those zones was done in accordance with the ranks of the organizations. Rank 1 organizations had their own zones, rank 2, and so forth up to rank 5. The clear segregation had to be done for a bunch of reasons; such as the lower-ranked organizations would feel uncomfortable if they were made to sit next to members of high-ranking organizations.
Even with the presence of the Order, certain stigmas especially ones rooted in strength, were still very much prevalent which could be seen in how the majority of the guests present went silent when the members of the Sparrow of the harmonious skies sect arrived.
Another reason was the danger of the ancestral dragon vein. It was costly to lay down a protective mechanism against the dao corroding effect it had on weaker members, so the Order placed a blanket protection in one single area, which became one of the factors for zoning.
…
The arrival of the Sparrow of the harmonious skies sect seemed to have been the signal for the arrival of other high-ranking organizations. Some well-established rank 2 and rank 1 organizations started arriving in droves.
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