Yang Qing couldn't help but frown at Xia Ting's words as he went on to delve into the recordings.
Everything written there was pure conjecture on the part of the two inquisitors based on what they had dug up on the case for the past three weeks as he was supervising the entrance examination for the potential students of the Order.
Right off the handle, Yu Gen had already written to whom they suspected to be the ones responsible for the abduction of Ma Yuan's wife and daughter along with crippling his cultivation.
They suspected the female Ma Yuan had seen attack them was a member of the Ice emerald sect and that lady was one of its elders going by the name of Deng Yaozu.
From what Yang Qing could remember, Ma Yuan had said he heard his wife mention the name Yao when she was pleading for his life from the lady who attacked. Ma Yuan said she had stopped herself midsentence as she said the name, which meant the word 'Yao' was incomplete.
Yu Gen's and Xia Ting's conjecture on her identity and name wasn't that far-fetched. In the report, he also included a short bio of the Ice Emerald sect.
It was a rank three sect of considerable repute and had been in existence for less than 50,000 years. It was located in the southwestern part of the southern continent close to the shorelines of the continent and the Celestial Ocean bordering the south continent and the west continent.
Just like other sects and organizations that rose up the ranks, one of their founders caught a lucky break almost 10,000 years ago while exploring a mysterious realm and ended up getting a natural treasure that helped catapult the sect into what it is today.
The treasure was rumored to be a top-tier monarch grade treasure which in terms of cultivation base was equivalent to someone at the peak of the palace realm.
With the aid of that treasure, in just under one thousand years, they managed to have their first palace realm expert despite struggling to have one in 40,000 years. In the next 9,000 years, more palace realm experts came out from the sect, bringing the current total to seven as per the Order's record.
With the rise in strength, the Ice Emerald sect slowly rose up from being one of the common rubble in their area to being a local hegemon and governing an area that was at least 1.5 times larger than the territory of the Red Maple Empire.
Sects and other organizations that were once competitors slowly turned into lackeys or moved to other areas to set up or became underlings of organizations that were just as strong as the Ice Emerald Sect.
While the rise of the sect wasn't overly unique, it still had aspects that made it stand out, one of which was it was an all-female sect.
They never accepted any males, no matter how talented they were which ruined the flights of fancy of a few of many who tried to get their admissions into the sect.
The reason the sect gave for the requirement was it was because of their sect's treasure and legacy. Originally when the sect was founded it accepted both sexes, however from around 40,000 years ago with reasons unbeknown to outsiders, it became an all-female sect, and the reason floating around currently was it was because of the sect's core legacy art, the Emerald frost flow veiled scripture which from what Yu Gen's notes was an incomplete part that was part of a larger art known as the Frozen serenity scripture which belonged to an ancient sect called the Frozen serenity that existed over a million years ago.
Different parts of the Frozen Serenity scripture could be seen floating around the southern continent across different organizations. Yu Gen had listed a few of them of which the Order was one of them.
The Order had two parts pertaining to the scripture; one was the frostfire art which was a body and soul refining technique, and the other was the Winter's embrace art, which was a meditation technique suitable for even domain experts and in terms of grade was a blue grade art.
Yang Qing couldn't help but think the Frozen Serenity scripture may have been a purple grade or at least a top-tier gold grade art if parts of it could be in the blue grade.
Mmh, maybe their rise had more to do with the part they have rather than the treasure they got...
Yang Qing couldn't help but feel the art in the Ice Emerald sect's hands had a part to do with their rise. Even before the so-called treasure, they had been steadily improving even though they didn't have any palace realm experts at the time.
Yang Qing almost forgot himself to the allure of the mysterious Frost serenity scripture and the sect itself before he quickly focused back on the report.
In the early parts of the report, nothing seemed off and Yang Qing easily read through it including the hierarchy of the sect and the relationships of the sect.
From the report, he managed to spot some overlap with his line of thought which painted the Ice Emerald sect more and more as the suspect behind Ma Yuan's case.
Among the relationships listed was the Lunar Bug sect, which had a thorny bordering murder each other relationship with the Ice Emerald sect. The reason for that was the Lunar Bug sect also had a cultivation art from the Frozen serenity scripture.
The different parts of the scripture could be used to complement and add to each other since they come from the same source. With this thought, before the Ice Emerald sect rose to a rank 3 sect, the Lunar had on more than one occasion tried to get a copy of their part of the Frozen serenity scripture to use it to improve their own part by fair means or foul, and they reached a high peak when one of the elders of the Ice Emerald sect got murdered in the process.
The feud has lasted for over 40,000 years and when it started the two sects had been at the same power level, with the Lunar Bug sect being slightly stronger since it was a bit older than the Ice Emerald Sect. It was because of this that the Lunar Bug sect was always tyrannical in its approach.
However, the dynamics changed when the Ice Emerald Sect finally had a palace realm expert while they at the time had three quasi-palace realm experts.
Out of fear, the Lunar Bug sect latched themselves onto a rank 3 empire for cover in exchange for being their subordinate and giving out other resources that were tempting enough that to date that empire still has them under their wing despite the Ice Emerald sect now having more palace stage experts and more seemingly in the works like Deng Yaozu who it turns out was one of the youngest elders of the sect and was a quasi palace stage expert.
The Empire in question was called the Twin River Empire, which though at the moment was recorded to have only five palace realm experts, one of them was presently at the sixth stage of the palace realm, which was two levels higher than the peak expert of the Ice Emerald expert.
The reason the Lunar Bug Sect stood out to him was of the places Ma Yuan lived with his wife, Rapid Twin County was one of the places, and the place in question was under the control of the Lunar Bug Sect.
With the strained relationship between the two sects, Ma Yuan's wife choosing to settle in that location was within reason.
There were a couple of things Yang Qing didn't understand. One was the reactions of Yu Gen and Xia Ting and the other was as far as he could tell the Ice Emerald Sect as far as sect went didn't have a bad reputation to the point of abducting someone's daughter.
The sect had the same reputation as the Spiritual Temperance Sect which was, it was a recluse sect that mostly kept to itself and rarely interacted with others.
But as he continued to read the report, his face started contorting little by little, till by the time five minutes had passed by his forehead was filled with veins, and his eyes were livid.
"Is this all true?!" Yang Qing grimly asked.
He strained his voice to make it as low and as calm as possible, but the boiling rage in it was still evident to the two inquisitors.
"It is.." Yu Gen answered.
"And there is more, it seems to have been going on for over 10,000 years. It is why we had to enlist your inquisitors and not only them but also other roaming inquisitors who were free.
With the findings coming in, you will have to invoke the five-party judge judgment from the Judicial review committee and the Spirit Council in preparation for what comes next.
I'm sorry Yang Qing, dealing with what comes next can't be easy, especially as one of your first cases as a palace court judge..." added Yu Gen with a sympathetic sigh as he saw the complicated gleam flashing in Yang Qing's eye along with mild hesitation.
"It has to be done.." Yang Qing finally said as he plopped back with a tired expression.
"A forced demotion huh... Is my luck good or bad, I wonder?..."
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