Daily life of a cultivation judge

Moving on with a collected coolness about her, Mei Xiling's attention moved from the potions and the moon starcap mushrooms to the stick and the glass build fly.

"What I have on my left is the branch of a soul incendiary cedar tree, and to my right is the yin torch bug. I will be using both to confirm the makeup of these sixteen moon starcap mushrooms.

As you know, or maybe you might not, soul-incendiary cedar trees are highly sensitive to the yin energy a living soul produces. The essence or energy produced by a living soul is capable of causing it to ignite in a bright orange flame similar to the sun's rays.

The more the yin essence, the brighter the flames become. Then there is the yin torch bug. Like the soul incendiary cedar, the yin torch bug is sensitive to yin energy. But it does have some differences to the soul incendiary cedar tree in that the latter needs yin energy produced from the soul of a living being to trigger a reaction but when it comes to the yin torch bug it doesn't have such restrictions. It will react to anything that has yin energy in it, be it a living soul, yin energy that is naturally occurring from let's say a yin spirit vein, or some natural treasure of yin origin, or even artifacts and weapons of yin attributes, down to even corpse energy, whatever it is, as long as it has yin energy within it, the yin torch bug will react to it.

However, just like the soul incendiary cedar tree, it produces light in the presence of yin energy but has some variations to the light it produces that is a reflection of the nature of the yin energy it has come into contact with.

Yin energy from a living soul produces a pure white light with golden hues, yin energy from a corpse produces dull grey light, yin energy from naturally occurring objects like spirit veins and natural treasures produces a pale blue light, while yin energy from artificial objects like artifacts and weapons produces a light brown color that turns darker with the increasing grade of the artifact.

A sky-grade artifact will produce a brown color that is on the lighter side when compared to one that is at the monarch grade.

It's easier if I just show you.."

With a wave of her sleeves, three objects appeared on the jade table. Of the three objects, one was a fang about four inches in length and half that in girth. It looked intangible like it was made of grey smoke.

Next to the fang was a brooch that was azure blue. One look at the brooch made one feel like they were meditating next to a tranquil sea and completing the trio was a ceramic jar that contained pure white liquid, almost like milk except this one had some ethereal almost pure shine to it. It released a refreshing coolness.

"This is the fang of a dead moonshadow cobra, this brooch is a monarch-grade artifact made from 10,000-year-old azure sangfroid crystal, and this liquid is yin jade spirit liquid.." explained Mei Xiling as she pointed to the three objects.

Once she was done, she poked the crystal torch bug almost as if she was nudging it awake, which seemed to be indeed so. It was inanimate the whole time, but after being poked, it came alive as it excitedly flew around Mei Xiling who for the first time showed a touch of emotion on her face as she gently requested the torch bug to fly to the three objects.

The torch bug brushed its head against her index finger one more time before it nodded with a human-like expression as it flew toward the three objects.

It went for the yin jade spirit liquid first, and a second later it was clear why as it dipped its head in and took a sip, showing a clear look of ecstasy and satisfaction as it did so. A light was instantly produced in its abdomen. The light was pale blue.

The torch bug seemed to have forgotten Mei Xiling's request. A few seconds passed and it was still intoxicatingly slurping the yin jade spirit liquid showing no signs of stopping.

It took a few 'ahems' from Mei Xiling, to grab its attention, showing yet another expression as she did so when her neck reddened slightly in embarrassment with her eyes flashing in anger in the process.

Sensing the unveiled threat thrown its way, the torch bug used its wings to quickly apologize before moving on to the next object, the monarch-grade brooch. It brushed up against the brooch, the light in its abdomen switching from pale blue to light brown which grew darker in shade before finally settling in moderately brown.

Only when the color had fully settled did it move to the next object, the fang of the moonshadow cobra. It seemed averse to going toward the fang, showing a look of disgust even, but eventually, it used one of its limbs to make contact with the fang, still begrudgingly at that, and its torchlight changed colors from brown to dull grey. It did not waste a second longer than it had to, quickly removing its limb from the fang, quickly flying back to Mei Xiling to curry favor with her. Its reason? Everyone in the courtroom knew.

"Not now, maybe after. There's still something I need you to do.." Mei Xiling said with a sigh of exasperation. The torchbug deflated at not getting the response it wanted, stared longingly at the yin jade spirit liquid eventually tearing its eyes away to avoid the temptation and torture.

"With that, I think the demonstration should be more than satisfactory, we can now begin the tests.." Mei Xiling said as she took out more branches of the soul-incendiary cedar tree, sixteen to be exact.

With one fluid motion, she used the branch she already had in hand and made contact with one of the moon starcap mushrooms that was picked from the farms of the Chen family. The branch which was no different than a dried stick instantly burst into life as it ignited with an intense blue-white flame.

The stick burned for almost fifteen seconds before the flame died out, leaving white ashes in the aftermath.

Mei Xiling repeated the same process fifteen more times,and the results were the same at every turn. Sixteen soul-

incendiary cedar branches all ignited with blue-white flames every time the branch made contact with the moon starcap mushrooms from the farms owned by the Chen family.

After the last stick had burned out, Mei Xiling motioned for the torchbug to take over. Upon coming into contact with those mushrooms, the light produced by the torchbug was white with motes of gold, an indicator that the yin energy within those mushrooms were from living souls.

Once it was done, Mei Xiling motioned for it to remain where it was as she moved toward the group of moon starcap mushrooms that she had taken out from her storage ring.

"These moon starcap mushrooms, two are from the Medical Saint Garden, and two are from the Order. Now let's test with the stick once more, but for transparency let's do this.."

Mei Xiling brushed up the soul incendiary stick against the last mushroom from the Chen Clan's farms, and as expected it ignited, however, this time she didn't let it burn through the entire stick as she effortlessly separated the part that had caught flames from the rest of the stick, leaving half the stick unburnt.

"With this, you can be assured it is still the same stick.." she added as she moved to the remaining four mushrooms belonging to the Order and the Medical Saint Garden.

She prodded each mushroom with the stick, one by one, but there was no reaction. The branch maintained its mundane state where it looked no different than ordinary dead twigs.

"There's no reaction because yin energy from the soul essence of a living being wasn't used in their care.

Torch would you please?" she said as she beckoned the torchbug over.

The torchbug with familiarity went over each of the mushrooms, producing a pale blue light in the process unlike the white light with gold motes it produced with the previous sixteen mushrooms from the Chen Clan farms.

"With this, we can confirm these sixteen mushrooms were cultivated with the soul essence of living beings.

Now we move to the potions.."