"Was it destroyed like that?!" wondered Yang Qing as he constantly scrutinized the area where the red abyssal thorn tree had been.
That tree with just a moment of its appearance, had destroyed a top-tier ascendant grade treasure, paralyzed all of them with just its presence, and would have likely ripped their lives as easily as drinking water had Vice President Tao Wen not intervened, and if the effects of the saint grade treasure the 'voyager bell' not been activated, they would not have even known how they died.
But now, within a few seconds of the arrival of the Vice president, the tree was no more.
Even though he was glad to be alive, Yang Qing still had a bitter taste in his mouth, when the disparity in abilities was out there in the open.
He never thought he was some undefeatable monster, the instructors had made sure of that, but he at least thought when he broke into the palace realm, and the newfound strength he had along with the various measures the Order gave them, he felt he could go anywhere around the continent and guarantee his life.
But those brief few seconds with the red abyssal thorn tree and the intervention of Vice President Tao Wen had upended all that.
With his palace realm cultivation, he felt he was just as weak as he was when he was in the body refinement realm and had been scared half to death by the pressure that had been released by a foundation establishment cultivator, who had once come to visit their clan before they moved to the Order.
To say the experience was terrifying was an understatement. And today, Yang Qing felt exactly that. As a palace realm cultivator, he was just a stronger ant.
If he and a body refinement cultivator were targetted by a soul formation expert, they would both die the same and just as fast, and he had a feeling even someone at the domain realm could do that, but at least when it came to a domain expert, he had his medallion and the one time trigger engraved on it, that could block an attack from a peak stage domain expert just once, after that, he would be on his own.
But Yang Qing quickly pushed those pessimistic thoughts to the back of his mind, as a gleeful smile appeared on his face.
He was alive, he still had the babirusa meat and the 1000 ingredients to try, and the best part of all, he was glad that his blind faith in the abilities of the Order had been rewarded.
He couldn't help but smugly think to himself,
"What a big tree to hug.."
As his thoughts reached this point he couldn't help but turn his head to the newcomer. It was an elderly man with a kind-looking face, snow-white hair tied in a bun, and he had simple plain grey robes that had three symbols embroidered on them.
One was a red sword, the other was a sword with four ringed colors; blue, gold, black, and white, and the last sword was a grey traveller's sword.
On seeing those symbols, Yang Qing and the rest had looks of shock and awe on their faces, from the realization of who the elderly man was.
Despite having never met him, those three symbols were a dead giveaway as to his identity.
Inquisitors had the sword as a symbol of their unit, as they were considered to be the swords of the Order.
The red sword was a symbol of the special inquisitors, and the sword with four ringed colors was the symbol of the regular inquisitors. The sword's color would match the court rank they were in. It was similar to the judge's robes. While the final vagrant-looking grey sword was the symbol of the roaming inquisitors.
The fact that the kindly elderly-looking man had all three symbols on his robe, could only mean one thing, he was the chief inquisitor. He was the only one allowed to have all three symbols on his robe since he was the head of all three divisions with the assistant directors immediately below him.
Yang Qing and the rest of the judges have never met him, but their inquisitors have, during their induction ceremony. Unlike judges, the ceremony for inquisitors was private and hidden, the only people involved were the inquisitor, the higher-ups from the spirit council, and the inquisitor's hierarchy of which the chief inquisitor was one of them.
From what Yi Jie and Feng Xin had told him, only the chief inquisitor had those three symbols in his robe.
Other than the ceremony, he was as enigmatic as the vice president or the president, and in terms of power, as the head of all the inquisitors at the Order, it wouldn't be an overstatement to say his rank and power compared to the vice presidents wasn't that far off. He had the same repute as the chief justice, the head of all judges, and in terms of combat, Yang Qing could only assume as the head of all inquisitors, a combat-oriented group, his combat abilities were definitely among the top within the Order, despite the kindly looking face he had on.
"I'm not sure if you've met, but this is Zhu Qiu, the chief inquisitor..." the apparition of Vice President Tao Wen said as he pointed toward the kind-looking elderly man.
"We greet, chief inquisitor Zhu Qiu.." the five said as they respectfully cupped their fists to the chief inquisitor.
"You really did well to hang on. The Order will be in good hands. It seems the day I retire is soon, then I can focus on gardening.." Chief Inquisitor Zhu Qiu said with a light chuckle.
"Gardening?!" the five wondered.
"He is pretty good at it.." Vice President Tao Wen said seeing their looks of confusion.
"He was one of the primary designers of the Medicine Valley and is a purple-grade herbalist. A few of the saint-grade herbs we have is thanks to him.." he added.
"Brother Tao Wen, aren't you praising me too much? I ended up ruining 50 ascendant-grade herbs before I even succeeded, and countless other resources. I was sure Fan Ru would have killed me at some point, with how wasteful I was..."
The five judges could detect a real wariness in his tone when he said Fan Ru which drew an incredulous look from Yang Qing as he knew her personally.
She was the valley master or hall master of the Medicine Valley. Her appearance was that of a beautiful woman in her late thirties. She had an easygoing personality but also an assiduous one when it came to alchemy, herbology, and healing.
She had a one-track mind when it came to those things, and she could easily lose herself in them, whenever she had a sporadic line of research to conduct, instantly abandoning all her duties as valley master in favor of her research, leaving the deputy valley master, Ren Shu to pick up the slack and fill the void.
Yang Qing always pitied the deputy hall master for having an unreliable boss, and getting overworked, though the thought of Ren Shu getting overworked brought him comfort that he wasn't the only one getting squeezed dry by the Order.
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