Daily life of a cultivation judge

In less than a minute Feng Xin had already made his way up Peng Zhen's peak. He continued onwards and opened the door to Peng Hall.

The mirage dragonfly was nervously flying around the hall closely monitoring the situation of the members of the green fog swamp sect who currently lay unconscious on the floor. Despite the purple-black smog having been cleared out not a single member had woken up. The mirage dragonfly was closely monitoring them to prevent any unexpected accident from occurring to them in their feeble and unconscious state. It still remembered Feng Xin's warning vividly about not eating them but if an accident were to happen to them its instincts told it Feng Xin would still not let it off even if it had nothing to do with it. It was already on thin ice with Feng Xin with its fate hanging in the balance. It still remembers what Feng Xin said about there being a chance it may be fed to the cloud-swallowing kite. It could only try and make itself as useful as possible to try and increase its odds of survival.

The doors of the hall opened startling the mirage dragonfly which was already on tenterhooks. It shrieked in fear as it readied itself to attack whoever was at the other end of the door. It didn't dare to use its spiritual sense in case the intruder felt it. Right now surprise was its best card.

As it was debating the combo of moves it would perform to end the fight swiftly without injuring the members of the green fog swamp sect It got a clear look of who had opened the hall. A feeling of relief washed over it which it would have never expected to get from seeing Feng Xin. Its wings were beating in a more relaxed manner and its antennae were less rigid than they were just moments ago.

Feng Xin smiled at the mirage dragonfly's rigid look. His hair had already turned back to black as opposed to the white color he had on the roof of the sect master's building. He slowly walked over as he spread his spiritual sense, covering the whole building. He carefully scanned every member in the building. Once he confirmed everyone was okay he retracted his spiritual sense. The mirage dragonfly was visibly relieved once it saw the unchanged expression on Feng Xin's face after his scan.

"Do you have a name?" Feng Xin suddenly asked bringing the mirage dragonfly out of its brief celebratory state. It was puzzled as to why it was asked that before it nodded its head in affirmation. The nod was done in the same impassioned state it had done before when Feng Xin had asked it if it wanted to come with him. It was a strong repetitive nod that moved as fast as its beating wings that it even caused small gusts of wind.

Feng Xin could only helplessly sigh at its reaction. He could understand why it was acting that way. Considering the earlier threat he had made about feeding it to the cloud-swallowing kite, he figured it must be using every moment to ingratiate itself to him to stop that fate from happening. Its antics may have started working as Feng Xin's gaze toward it was less cold than before. Feng Xin fished out the milky white transmission bead he had used with Bolin and threw it towards the mirage dragonfly that was still fervently at it with its rapid nods.

It was thanks to its all-around compound eyes that it managed to spot something white coming towards it before it instinctively caught it with its front legs. It looked at Feng Xin with a look that seemed to be asking what it was supposed to do with the bead.

The mirage dragonfly unlike Bolin the rainbow mist toad rarely interacted with other beasts in the green fog region. Its interaction was virtually nonexistent. It always kept to itself hiding in its cloaking abilities. This made it unfamiliar with a lot of things, especially the ones relating to human cultivators. The only reason it was even around the area where Feng Xin got surrounded was that it had been tailing the green flowered babirusa. The babirusa always had a good nose for finding areas that were filled with spiritual plants with acceptable levels of qi content. Most were in the mid-tier and upper tier of the earth rank sometimes there'd be a few top-grade ones.

The mirage dragonfly would always appropriate a few under the cloaking effect of its ability. It was faster than the babirusa so it never worried too much about being caught. However, it was conscientious enough to take just enough to meet its needs and leave plenty for the babirusa. It would even leave a few of the plants that grow around its nest as payment. The green flowered babirusa may have noticed it but never did anything as if in tacit agreement with the mirage dragonfly.

Earlier that day before Feng Xin was surrounded it saw the green flowered babirusa madly dashing towards a particular direction with unconcealed greed and excitement written all over its face. The mirage dragonfly like a loyal mooch tailed the babirusa with equal excitement. It knew this must be the mother load of spiritual plants, there may be sky-rank plants involved this time. In all the years it had been tailing the babirusa not once had it seen it having that level of excitement. Based on this it assumed surely the babirusa had sniffed out something extremely good. Soon they arrived at the clearing where Feng Xin was surrounded.

The mirage dragonfly was cautious at first especially after it detected the aura of other spirit beasts that were in Feng Xin's encirclement. The spirit beasts present were almost the same level as it while two beasts were a fatal threat to it. That was the green flash viper and the rainbow mist toad. It had wanted to escape the moment it spotted all these beasts in one area. It never liked confrontation, though it was never one to shy away from it once provoked. But curiosity got the better of it as it wondered why all these big shots were in one place. It was then it spotted Feng Xin. This slim weak looking human in a place he shouldn't be in. The reason it had overlooked him was because of the pressure it got from the other beasts. However, a change soon overcame it the more it stared at Feng Xin. Something instinctual was telling it to devour the human before it. The feeling got more intense the longer it lingered there staring at Feng Xin. It did not know when but it felt a voice inside telling it if it were to successfully consume the human ahead it would grow tremendously powerful even beyond the three false kings of the lower southern part of the green fog region. The green flash viper present in the encirclement was one of them.

The green fog region was extremely enormous in and of itself. Its sheer size alone could match several rank 2 empire territories combined. The deeper one ventured into it the stronger the spirit beasts and sentient plants that had embarked on cultivation were. The central region was the stomping of the truly monstrous ones. There were domain-level spirit beasts and spirit plants in there and it was even rumored there were a few spirit beasts at the soul formation realm and one of them was the true overlord of the place. Feng Xin had got into the green fog region from the southern side. The green fog swamp sect, the spirit beasts that had ambushed him, and even the three false kings were located within the outskirts of the southern region of the green fog. Though it was called the outskirt or southern region of zone 8, it covered an area of over 2.5 million acres which was about the size of a province.

An explorer at the early stages of the soul formation realm once ventured into the green fog region and drew a rough map of the area. He segmented the region into 10 rings or zones. The outermost ring was zone 10 while the innermost ring was zone 1. He never got to zone 1 as he had a premonition if he stepped in there he would not make it out alive. It was even a struggle to survive in the area he named zone 2. The only reason he added another zone instead of naming zone 2 as zone 1 was he noticed those fearsome beasts he fought against seemed to all be consciously avoiding a certain area of the region. Curious, he tried to venture into the area but he stopped at what seemed like a boundary separating that area from the rest of the region when a deep sense of dread overtook him. He stood rooted at that boundary for almost a month before he used all his power just to move his body and escape from the region. Once he made it out of the green fog region he never came back. He auctioned off a few copies he made of his map and journal experience to some of the large sects, families, and various powerful organizations. He then used the accumulated wealth he gained from the auctions to build himself a powerful abode as he closed himself off from the world despite being one of the most active soul formation realm experts around the continent.

The various powerful sects, clans, and organizations sent some of their people to the green fog region to confirm the findings of the journal and map but the people they sent couldn't make it past zone 4 despite some of the members being at the domain level and the weakest being at the middle stage of the palace realm. This was enough proof of how scary the green fog region was and they were not curious enough to send more powerful people to find out about the upper zones. They had lost a few domain-level experts just to reach zone 4 which was already a painful loss despite finding out that the environment got richer like a blessed cultivation ground the upper they moved in the zones. For example zone 4 was filled with monarch rank and even ascendant-level herbs of the low tier. Ascendant-level herbs are the primary ingredients used to refine pills and potions that are used by those at the domain level. This information alone was enough to incite greed in most but the news of domain-level experts dying was enough to cool those excitements down.

The green fog swamp sect, the core formation spirit beasts, and the three false kings were all located within the southern region of the eighth zone.