Yang Qing's year was among the top five in terms of number of people who finished the test. The highest-known record was 145 years ago with the total number of people who completed the test being twenty-eighth.
Yang Qing's year was the fifth, with thirteen participants completing it. The lowest record of finishing participants was one, with the general average throughout the years being four or five.
There was a monument called the Purple grade monument which was fashioned from a 100,000-year-old purple moonstone. In it were the engravings that had the records of the performances of each year of the purple grade test.
The Order conducted only one such test a year and it was the most brutal and ruthless. Other than the test being flooded with ferocious beasts that had noble and special bloodlines, there were prisoners of requiem thrown in there.
For every participant they eliminated, they had a few years taken off their sentences along with being given certain special rewards that improved their way of life at the prison. The prisoners had their cultivation bases sealed, but they were all at least in the late stages of the foundation establishment realm, and in terms of skill were judged to be skillful by the standards of the instructors.
They were even fallen prodigies within their midst. In addition, the instructors even went to the extent of hiring assassins for the test, the formation arrays had no clues in them, and everything could kill you in there even the very air you breathed. There was no such thing as a special zone.
Surviving alone was hard enough let alone reaching the finish line, and worst of all, the test lasted for a bare minimum of six months and that was if four people or more worked together, and one of the four had the greatest luck attribute, and even then when they reached the finish line, they would be half poisoned, missing a few limbs, missing memories, crying, trembling and traumatized beyond belief.
The only good thing was the rewards in the purple grade were extremely generous, and regardless of what number you finished at, as long as you finished the rewards were all the same which were 300,000 merit points, personal tutoring from a domain expert for two months, two blue grade artifacts and one blue grade art, and have the formation hall, beast hall, and the alchemy hall lend you their services for free just once. One could redeem this at any point in their life, it wasn't a must they do it immediately.
Yang Qing got the two black dragon horses via this reward. During his year, he teamed up with Kang Huilang and Xia Boqin. He and Kang Huilang had peerless jade physiques while the latter in addition to the physique, he had also mastered fist intent in addition to having spear sense and sword sense.
Xia Boqin at the time had a gold body which was considered incredible, especially with his background in consideration. However, he had also mastered sword intent at the time and it was all self-taught and he didn't have Kang Huilang's broken harmonious cataclysmic jade bones to assist him. Using the rewards from completing the test, he managed to reach the diamond body stage.
The three of them, in addition to another member, had teamed up for the test. Even with the four of them working together, they only barely made it through. Yang Qing lost an eye, almost every bone in his body was broken, while Kang Huilang had lost both arms at some point, and Xia Boqin was riddled with poison and a lost arm and leg, while the final member of their party survived with one lung and one leg.
He hadn't heard from the last member since she joined the roaming inquisitors and the erratic schedule that came with it, though they still hang out with their group whenever she is free.
Feng Xin and Yi Jie had been in the test too, but the former got eliminated at some point..Yang Qing never learned how, but he had no doubts food may have had a factor, as for Yi Jie he did manage to clinch a position by teaming up with five others, making it a six-man team. Only three made it through, of which Yi Jie was one of them, and Lai Lei, who was the chief inquisitor to Dai Chen.
The purple grade test was a complete horror show and it was set by the collective effort of the assistant deans of the Insitute across all faculties.
In some of the scariest moments in Yang Qing's life, that test was among the top three. It was up there with the method his family used to help him break through to the peerless jade physique and in his early years as an outer core court judge when he discovered the Order wanted to work him to his last drop of qi.
Yang Qing shook his head free of those painful memories as he and the rest made their way out of Autumn Mountain.
.....
Herb garden soup restaurant
"Are you sure you're going to finish all that?"
Yang Qing flinched as he saw all the different earthen bowls filled with different kinds of soups and gourds sprawled all around the table.
A misty smoke that had a refreshing aroma came from the soup contained in those bowls. Some were as mellow as a lake, while others looked like a volcano waiting to erupt.
Yang Qing grimaced in pain as he watched a lady with short red-brown hair greedily chug two bowls at the same time.
"100 middle-grade spirit stones, gone.." he muttered in pain as he watched the lady speedily empty more bowls and called the waiter to refill them.
Yang Qing's throat instantly dried up.
"Xia Ting, even if Judge Yang Qing offered to treat you, it doesn't mean you push it..."
"That will be all for now...Thanks..."
Yang Qing was almost in tears of gratitude when he saw Yu Gen step in for him.
"Uhm wait, could you bring us the Urn of Merry, please?" Yu Gen suddenly said when he took stock of the soup on the table.
Yang Qing who had prepared a word of thanks instantly swallowed them as he cursed Yu Gen who was currently showing the most innocent smile out there.
"Many thanks, Judge Yang Qing for hosting us. We are really lucky to have you as outer boss this time.." said Yu Gen.
"Mmh, thanks Yang Qing...I appreciate it.." chirped Xia Ting as she chugged another soup, but this time she only went with one.
"No problems seniors, it's as I should.." Yang Qing said with a fawning smile trying to swallow the blood that was welling up.
I hope your ashes fill up that urn.
"Now where were we...aah! the case concerning Ma Yuan..." Yu Gen went silent as a sigh escaped from his mouth.
Yang Qing after parting ways with Dai Chen and the rest, searched for the two roaming inquisitors attached to him to find out the progress of Ma Yuan's case while also being filled in on the progress of the other cases, so he could decide which case to start on tomorrow.
He didn't have any judicial assistant like Mao Yunru to monitor the case logs, so he had to do it himself. Normally that's how things operated. Mao Yunru had been his judicial assistant for a month since she was taking over his cases, along with being promoted to a superior core court judge.
Those undergoing major promotions such as moving from the inner core court to a superior core court would need to undergo on-the-job learning from their senior for a month as a judicial assistant before they took up the post.
Yang Qing did the same before his promotion ceremony to the palace courts. He worked as a judicial assistant for an outer palace court judge for a month. After that period he went back to his court to finish up on the workload Lei Weiyuan had forced him to do after his breakthrough stunt.
Yang Qing had already grown accustomed to having a judicial assistant, that he felt worried and anxious to suddenly going back to handling these things on his own.
Did something happen to Ma Yuan's wife and daughter?
Yang Qing on seeing Yu Gen's troubled look instantly jumped to the worst-case scenario as he waited with bated breath for his next words.
If something really did happen to them, he would be the one to have to break the news to Ma Yuan.
"If things fold out the way they are based on the investigation, then I have to say Judge you really picked quite the case...the details are in there..." Yu Gen said as he passed a recording talisman to Yang Qing.
In that talisman were his step-by-step findings on the case.
"I enlisted the help of your inquisitors; Feng Xin, Zheng Hu, and Su Jinjing to confirm certain matters pertaining to it, they should be coming with the results today or tomorrow..but things are not good
"You found it?!" Yang Qing uttered in shock the moment he poured his spiritual sense into it.
"Yes, we did and some part of me wishes we didn't," Xia Ting somberly said.
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