Daily life of a cultivation judge

Above the skies of the Scarlet Peony sect,

"This should about confirm it. The ocean turtle cauldron did belong to the Duan family at some point. The spiritual markings of their founder and the subsequent three clan leaders are still present in the cauldron. 

They hid their markings well, almost as if they knew the cauldron would be lost one day. Mmh but I wonder where they managed to find the cauldron.

It looks like it has been around since antiquity and despite almost 70% damage, it's still releasing energy undulations that closely resemble that of a low-tier monarch-grade artifact. Too bad its spirit seemed to have been destroyed ruining any chances of restoring it to its former glory, but even then, I can see why the two of them would rather go to war than let it go.

A cauldron that is able to pacify volatile ingredients without the need for the alchemist to use their spiritual sense and soul essence to contain the volatility, not only that, it's also able to strengthen the spiritual essence of the alchemist, enabling them to maintain their peak state for long durations of time. With such advantages, even an orange-grade alchemist would be able to concoct blue-grade potions.

How did the Duan family risk traveling with such a treasure? Anyone worth their salt would be able to tell how valuable the cauldron is at a glance, especially its materials, the shell of a viridian ocean turtle. 

The one who crafted it surely would have been at the gold grade.

Well, my work here is done. I just need to submit the findings and let the department handle the rest. Mmh should I pass by the White Baobab Kingdom and see if the wine Dai talked about is ready? The Kingdom isn't far from here. What do you think Shadow? Should we make a detour?" Lai Lei said as he stroked the head of the shadow flame hawk he was seated on.

The shadow flame hawk was about 20 meters long with its wing span being half that. It had a grey flame cloak on its neck that extended all the way to the underside of its feathers creating an infinity loop image. 

The shadow flame hawk was known for its incognito abilities. Its shadow flames are able to isolate its presence from every sense including scanning by divine sense. Its flames also act as a barrier or protection against soul-based attacks and it has mild healing capabilities when it comes to curses.

Even though it was known mostly for its stealthy and sentinel capabilities, its speed was above average. It could cover a 100-kilometer distance in ten minutes.

The shadow hawk narrowed its eyes in pleasure as it welcomed Lai Lei's scratches.

"I take that as a yes.." Lai Lei said as he took out a yellow parchment that had a detailed map of their area.

"The White Baobab Kingdom is here, and we are here.. we can pass through the broken whale fin peak to make it in good time. Shadow take us away.." Lai Lei said as he used a cultivation spell to project their travel route to the shadow flame hawk which screeched in acknowledgment and flapped its wings which despite being large didn't create as much of a breeze with their movements.

When they were a few kilometers away, Lai Lei took out his communication talisman to call the Administrative department member who had given him the case to inform him of the findings.

His eyes narrowed when he saw the runes of the communication talisman weakly flicker instead of letting out the gentle golden glow they usually did.

"Shadow be alert.." he immediately said as he narrowed his gaze toward his surroundings. They were currently flying above a place known as the jagged rock-scorched plains. 

The plain lacked human presence due to its barren nature. There were poisonous yellow magma channels that crisscrossed all over the plains. The magma made the air dry and inhospitable to both people and animals as it not only raised the temperature to abnormally high levels, but it released steam that contaminated the spiritual qi of the area. If a foundation establishment cultivator were to try to absorb said contaminated qi, their meridians, and innards would be boiled from within by the tainted qi and exhibit symptoms of flame poisoning, which if left unattended, would kill them within ten minutes, which would leave their bodies calcified into yellow rocks, similar to the jagged yellow rocks that were all over the plain.

There were very few animal species and plants that could survive the area, and each one of them was poisonous, with the most dangerous species being the yellow poisonous flamed thorn chameleon. It was like a fish in water in such a treacherous environment, continuously feeding and growing stronger from the magma-tainted qi and its flames. It was stealthy and its whole body except its eyes was filled with minuscule thorns that would be coated with poisonous yellow flames upon release.

A yellow poisonous flamed thorn chameleon in the foundation establishment stage could easily fall a spirit beast at the core formation realm if they were in this environment. It was a king here, however, if you took it out, its strength would plummet to the point even a fledgling qi refinement spirit cub would easily kill it, but within this plain, it was one of the most dangerous things to come across.

Lai Lei's alertness, however, wasn't to those chameleons or to the tainted spiritual qi in the area. To both he and the shadow flame hawk, if they wanted to, they could acclimate to the area even more so than the chameleon if they wanted to. His wariness was to the strange reaction of his communication talisman, and his instincts honed by years of experience were screaming, telling him that something was afoot.

He had already unsheathed his long sword as he restrained his spiritual sense to within 200 meters of his body even though his normal range was above 500 meters. His shrinking spiritual sense was part of the combat training preparations given by the Institute.

If you suspected you were being ambushed and your spiritual sense deployed at normal range didn't detect it, you needed to shrink it by half and concentrate on it within that range which results in the amplification of your spiritual sense. The details one could get in a concentrated range would be higher than if it was left at the normal range. However, in exchange for concentrated clarity, one sacrificed the allowance of distance for reacting to the ambush. So those who did this had to train their reactionary speeds to the peak, which the Institute ensured it did, along with the training afforded to Inquisitors.