Immediately behind Yu Gen was an elderly man who looked to be in his sixties. He had white hair that looked to have just been combed roughly. He had on a black robe with white ribbons on the collar and sleeves.
His skin was lustrous and young looking despite his old look, and his eyes were brimming with life and had a blade-like sharpness to them. However, he reigned it when he saw both Yang Qing and Yu Gen look at him.
"Sorry, I do that when I'm afraid and in an unfamiliar place..." the elderly man sheepishly answered at being stared down by the two.
His fists could be seen trembling as he cupped his fists in apology to the duo.
"It's okay.." Yang Qing said as he dryly laughed at his nervous display.
If one looked at the elderly man, one wouldn't think he was a palace stage expert.
From the descriptions Yu Gen gave him, he inferred that the elderly man was Tang Qi an itinerant cultivator at the early stage of the palace realm.
Per Yang Qing's judgment, he seemed to have only recently broken through and hadn't completely accustomed himself to his abilities which was why his saber intent almost leaked out from nervousness.
Behind him, the next seven people all wore the same type of robes. The robes were red in color and had a blade embroidered on the chest.
The lead of the group was a middle-aged man who had a bronze complexion and a handsome face with hair tied up in a Daoist top knot that was held together at the top with a hair ornament that was fashioned in the shape of a hilt. His hair was completely black with hints of grey that added a mature charm to him.
His cultivation base was at the eighth stage of the core formation realm and Yang Qing detected a hint of sharpness from his qi. Yang Qing surmised the middle-aged man in the red robes had mastered saber qi.
His name was Shao Rong and he was the sect master of the Silver blade sect which was a rank 4 sect that was known for its skills with the saber.
Despite being a leading figure of a moderately average sect, his current demeanor was one fraught with fear and anxiety as he lowered his gaze afraid to look up.
He wasn't the only one. The six other members from his sect all wore the same looks of trepidation with their bodies visibly trembing beneath their robes.
The six members were all young and looked to be in their early thirties to late twenties. All six of them were in the late stages of the foundation stage with one of them being at the peak.
It was four males and two females. The one with the highest cultivation base was a female who had black hair smoothly flowing downwards and a narrow oval face.
Yang Qing was surprised to find that just like her sect master she too had mastered saber qi.
Yang Qing couldn't help but laugh inwardly as he saw their reactions. Flinching at everything. Considering how things were described by Yu Gen, their reactions were understandable.
Yang Qing had decided that his very first case as an outer palace court judge would be the theft case of the Silver Blade Sect and the itinerant cultivator Tang Qi.
After the seven cultivators of the Silver Blade Sect, there were two more people. They wore blue and white robes that had a black mountain emblem on them that had an array carved onto them.
The two members were from the Mountain Guarding Array manor which was a rank 3 merchant organization whose specialties lay in formation arrays.
Their niche was in laying down defensive arrays, and they had a blue-grade formation master as their founder, which was why the organization had a considerable reputation.
They lent their services to kingdoms, empires, clans, and other organizations, down to itinerant cultivators.
One of their founders was the blue-grade formation master by the name of Su Ye and he was at the third stage of the palace realm. Behind him was one of his workers by the name of Meng Bai who was one of the leading figures of the manor. He was at the ninth stage of the core formation realm.
However, unlike his boss who was calm looking and upright, he was cowering and shaking with clear nervousness written on his face.
The reason the Mountain Guarding Array manor was brought into the courtroom was because they had an involvement with the case. They were the ones who had laid the formation in the cultivation abode belonging to Tang Qi, and Meng Bai had been the one to personally handle it.
Yang Qing waited for the three groups to be arranged in their respective positions by Yu Gen before he finally began his introductions.
"My name is Yang Qing and I will be the judge in charge of the case. In the case before us, the Silver Blade Sect stand accused of violating the articles pertaining to the guidelines of ruin exploration, and as such they ended up ransacking the cultivation abode of senior Tang Qi when he was in closed-door cultivation.
You are accused of stealing his 24 cultivation arts from him, one of which is his legacy art the Rising Tide Saber art. 23 of the arts are mid-tier orange-grade arts while Rising Tide Saber art as per Tang Qi's statement is a low-tier blue-grade art.
Other than that you are also accused of stealing 21 sky-rank herbs of which 8 were top tier with the remaining 13 being mid-tier.
You are also accused of stealing 113 earth rank herbs with 98 of them being in the top tier and 15 being in the mid tier.
You are also accused of stealing 4 sky-rank artifacts and materials namely; the snow plume saber, thunderhead marble, violet rain cauldron, and robe made from the cocoon of the sunset grey butterfly.
And finally, you are accused of destroying the formation arrays in the herb garden and the training room of the abode...." said Yang Qing
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