Daily life of a cultivation judge

Yang Qing stood rooted to the ground for quite some time before he finally weakly walked away from the lonely courtroom.

"1,400 evaluations in three days isn't this too much? They want to work me to death, Yes they definitely want to work me to death. I've pulled a few schemes here and there, exploiting the Order but none of what I ever pulled is enough to warrant this.

Will I survive?" Yang Qing worriedly muttered.

"Even if I make a complaint, with how things always go they may pile even more workload on me with the excuse of training my temperament and the high hopes they have for me.

No, no, no, Yang Qing endure. It's just three days, you can survive three days with no sleep or food and constant work right?" Yang Qing muttered to himself trying to rouse his spirits.

"No, I can't. But what other option do I have other than just do it and collapse while doing it," Yang Qing's figure quickly deflated as he slumped his shoulders walking distraughtly to the administration's floor.

"1,400 evaluations," Yang Qing weakly muttered as he shook his head in defeat.

Once one became a judge of the superior core court other than handling cases there were other duties that fell under their docket and one of them was handling the promotion of unranked sects, clans, and other organizations into rank 5 organizations. In that same vein, they also handled the demotion of rank 5 organizations.

For one to be promoted to rank 5 they needed to have atleast one member of the organization having a cultivation base that was at the foundation establishment realm. Whenever an organization had one of its members breakthrough to the foundation establishment realm they can file with the Order to have their organization evaluated for a rank-up promotion.

Upon a successful evaluation, they will receive a rank 5 certificate along with a plaque issued by the Order. Receiving the certificate meant you were under the rules that govern the Order and should anything happen to the Organization they can submit their case to the Order. Those with the certificate have priority over those without.

With how understaffed the Order is, it came up with the ranking system as a way to have a rough estimate of the organizations around, their locations, and their general power level as a way to grow its pool of information around the southern continent and also ease its work in the monitoring and enforcement of the agreed upon rules.

They set the minimum threshold for being ranked to be the foundation establishment instead of the qi circulation stage or body refining stage because the latter two groups are as many as the grains of the sand in the ocean. If they started evaluating organizations that had body refinement or qi circulation experts at the helm they would never be done with it even after a millennium passed and monitoring them would prove impossible.

Though it was still a huge struggle for the Order even with the minimum ranking requirement set at the foundation establishment realm as the number of experts at that level was not small either due to how rich the southern continent was in spirit qi and other cultivation resources.

Yang Qing at times couldn't help but lament the irony of the situation as the better the Order did their jobs the more rank 5 organizations popped up and the more their workload became.

When constant wide-scale wars were a thing it was the lower-ranked sects and organizations that paid a price which made it hard for new sects and other cultivations organizations to get a footing especially if they did not have someone powerful to protect it, one who was at least at the later stages of the core formation realm.

In addition to the promise of priority in their cases, the Order added another incentive so Organizations would willingly undergo a ranking evaluation. This incentive was quota privilege.

Depending on the rank of the organization they would be assigned a different number of quotas. For example, a rank 1 organization would be given 10 quotas, while a rank 2 organization would get 7 quotas as for a rank 5 organization, they would get 1 quota.

With that quota, they can have one of their members no matter the age, trained at the Institute for a whole year.

Within that year they will share classes with the other students of the Order though their access will be limited compared to the Order's own students. For one the amount of subjects they can take is limited, unlike the Order's students who have no limitations as long as they have the energy and talent for it. The other is the restriction to the main library where they can only access the first floor while the last one is the grade of cultivation art they are trained in during their stay is capped at the middle rank of the orange grade.

Though for a fee, the institute can train them in a low-rank blue-grade art of which the type of art they get taught is left to the discretion of the institute and if the cultivator with the quota fails to gain mastery of the art within the year, the institute doesn't offer refunds and they are also forbidden to share that art with their organization or even children or any other person they have a close relationship with. If it's found out they have disclosed the cultivation art, they have their cultivation base crippled and sent to the mines for the rest of their lives.

Other than that everything else is the same, such as receiving the same treatment in accommodation, food, and clothing even allowances and rewards students get for good performance.

Though the higher-ranked organizations may not value such an opportunity the lower-ranked ones are all too glad to get evaluated. Having their disciples or clan members trained at the Order is a life-changing opportunity that they can't afford to let pass them by. The experience those members gain there is enough to last them several lifetimes which will in turn benefit their organizations.

Some of these organizations have even used their quota as an incentive to recruit more talented members.

This is why the number of organizations seeking evaluations and promotions from rank 5 up to rank 3 is always in an upward increase compared to those from rank 2 or rank 1 organizations. However, even though the Order seems to have made headway with lower-ranked organizations, when it comes to the high-ranked organizations it's a different matter.

Due to the mildly invasive nature of evaluations most rank 1 or rank 2 organizations rarely go through with it which is why the number of rank 1 organizations on the Order's file hasn't changed for the past 500 years except for the rank 1 sect that got demoted. And when it comes to rank 2 organizations while there is still a good number of rank 3 organizations that seek promotion evaluations when graduating to a rank 2 organization, the same cannot be said of a rank 2 organization that already has the qualifications of a rank 1 organization. Most choose to hide that they already have a soul formation realm expert. So on paper, it seems they only have a domain expert as the peak expert at the helm when in reality they have a soul formation expert.

It is why the number of rank 2 to rank 1 promotions conducted in the past century only numbered about twenty. While it is extremely difficult to break through from the domain realm to the soul formation stage, the Order doubted that in the whole southern continent, only twenty people were able to advance to the soul formation realm in the past 100 years.

This is why the Order adopted other means such as use of the Shadow hawks, their own intelligence department to try and get a rough picture of the power segmentation and profile around the continent. It's still slow work in progress as these organizations know to hide their power well not only from the Order's eyes but other organizations around themselves as well.

Though the flames of war in the southern continent have been doused a little, the habits ingrained from times of war still remain.

….

Yang Qing soon made his way to the administration hall. Before he left for the evaluations there were procedures he would have to follow especially considering he would be away for three days. The procedures were meant to ensure his safety while he was outside, especially with the recent attacks on Order employees for the past 50 years.

Yang Qing headed to one of the transportation arrays in the hallway of the superior core courtrooms. The area was still packed full of cultivators like usual, who secretly threw wary respectful glances at him as he passed by. There were also those who had vengeful eyes, provocative eyes, eyes filled with battle intent, and so forth though they were a select few.

Yang Qing paid them no heed as it was a common occurrence. Those who came here had different outlooks towards judges or inquisitors. Some saw them as beacons of hope to address their grievances and mete out justice on their behalf while others saw them as nosey eyesores who were constantly ruining the essence of being a 'free cultivator' for them.

…

With a hazy translucent flash of the transportation array, Yang Qing disappeared from the hallway and reappeared in front of a large intricately designed door made of twilight sky ebony wood which was an ascendant grade material that could withstand the blow of an early-stage domain expert without budging an inch.

Tsk

Yang Qing clicked in envy as he saw the door more specifically the material used to make it.

"Order does love its face. Wish they put as much effort in the abodes as they did with the administration floor," silently muttered Yang Qing as he pushed open the twilight sky ebony doors.