"I've already completed 500 evaluations and now I'm left with only 900 more...Old Lei, you're really insidious with your means," Yang Qing chuckled bitterly as he took a swig of spring water rice wine.
It was close to 2 am in the morning, the moon was still out, the breeze was bone chilling and the scene was foggy.
The night had a sense of loneliness to it which seemed to magnify his current mood as an overworked worker of a black-hearted organization whose unforgiving hours leave him a broken solace.
Other cultivators were probably exchanging a few laughs over a hot pot and a cup of wine while he was in the skies moving from place to place, doing evaluations nonstop.
"I wish I was a poet," thought Yang Qing as he felt his current circumstances and the somber view were perfect ingredients for a breathtaking poem but alas he had no talent for it. All he could settle for was a poetical sigh at the moon as he swirled his wine making sure it grabbed the moon's reflection perfectly.
"This is what I've been reduced to..," Yang Qing shook his head as he continued on with the swirling. He realized while he may not have a talent for poetry, he had a gift for posturing as one. His moon reflection capturing swirl was getting more picturesque with every swirl. But you can only swirl for so long, before the woes of reality kick in.
That's what happened to Yang Qing, as at some point the wine lost its flavor and appeal to him when all he could think about was the 900 evaluations that were still waiting for him.
As per his scheduled route, his next evaluation would be in the territory of the Diamond body sect which just like the Spiritual temperance sect was a long-established rank 3 sect but unlike them they had a firm hold over their territory.
Just like its name, it was a sect that specialized in body refining techniques, more specifically it specialized in achieving the diamond body stage of the body refining realm.
While they could not guarantee that they could help every sect member achieve a diamond body due to the demands and constraints of reaching such a stage, especially in regard to talent, they have made sufficient progress in it, which in quantitative terms is enough to rival the achievements of some rank 1 organizations in that regard.
Due to the resource demands of reaching the diamond body stage, the sect allows other organizations to establish themselves within their territory in exchange for a fee that is either paid in spirit stones or herbs. They even give preferential treatment to organizations that have an alchemical background or foundations in spiritual herb growth.
This is why its territory has some of the largest herb producers in the northern part of the Southern continent.
As per Yang Qing's scheduled planning for his joint evaluations, just like the Blue Lotus Kingdom and the Summerfield Kingdom before it, the Diamond Body sect had also been chosen as a joint evaluation point.
There were 270 organizations within its territory that had filed for an evaluation.
After the Diamond Body sect, he would make his way further north to the territory of the Wind Gliding Mercenary Escort which was another rank 3 organization that had 250 unranked organizations being evaluated, before he finally finished with 150 organizations within the White Baobab Kingdom which was a rank 4 kingdom.
The remaining 500 evaluations were down south of his assigned quadrant. He opted to finish them last since the headquarters of the Order were closer to them.
The thought of how much he still had left to do, kept draining all his energy by the second and the gloomy weather accompanied by a deathly silence didn't help either.
"No, I definitely need a break before the next evaluations," Yang Qing firmly decided as he scanned the grounds below for a suitable place to take a much-needed rest.
Yang Qing's search lasted almost twenty minutes before he finally found a place that seemed like a suitable location to rest at.
His criteria was simple, he wanted a secluded place that was absent of people and one that wasn't part of anybody's territory. It took some time before he finally locked onto a place that fulfilled those requirements. The area was a ten-acre forest that had a lake in the middle of it.
The forest didn't seem to have anything special to it, it had a garden variety of mortal-rank herbs and a few earth-rank herbs that were generally useless. The area had a dangerously low temperature and an accompanying fog, which served as an excellent deterrent for people.
In terms of spirit beasts, there were not that many, just a few critters here and there, of which the strongest had an early stage foundation establishment realm, cultivation base.
Its layout suited Yang Qing's needs perfectly, and the only downside to him was, the spirit beasts present none of them were particularly meal worthy. But that could be remedied since he had detected a few fish in the lake in the middle of the forest.
Just as Yang Qing was fantasizing about the smoked fish he would be having when they landed, his pupils froze in surprise.
"Now this is an interesting surprise. A yin mist form Hornwort, and a Starlight crab..what are these two doing in the same place?...
Mmmh, is that a yin spirit meridian?....no wonder," Yang Qing thought as an interested smile flashed on his face.
"Ellie drop down there," Yang Qing's voice suddenly turned urgent when he gave the order, as he disappeared off Ellie's back and rapidly dropped to the lake's location.
Ellie was surprised at Yang Qing's drastic reaction but even in her surprised state, her speed didn't falter as she faithfully followed Yang Qing's instructions by rapidly descending to the lake's location.
By the time she landed, she spotted Yang Qing pulling what looked to be a corpse out of the lake.
The body seemed to be a male's and was frigidly pale white to the point it released a faint white mist when Yang Qing pulled it out of the water.
...
"Luckily he still has a faint breath on him," Yang Qing muttered as he rapidly jabbed a couple of acupuncture needles into the man.
The man's face was indistinctive due to how pale he looked. His muscles seemed like they had contracted and congealed together making identification difficult. About the only thing of color on him, were the purple veins that were protruding from his arms and legs, and the ragged blue robes he had on.
"Yin Yang reversal," Yang Qing calmly said once he placed the final needle in the man's chest.
He quickly formed a seal with his hands that transformed into a circle that was made up of the black and white YinYang symbol.
The circle began rotating in a clockwise manner as soon as it was formed.
At first, the speed was slow, but with every complete rotation, the speed would double till it reached a point only a blur of black and white could be seen as black scripts spread from that circle to the rest of the pale man's body.
After a few seconds, a change started to happen to the man's body. The black scripts seemed to be draining the fog from his body and then transporting them back to the rotating circle. The rapidly rotating circle created a small whirlpool of fog as it kept absorbing the fog that was being drained by the black scripts. The circle had transformed into a bottomless pit that swallowed every fog that was produced from the man's body.
In five minutes, the man's appearance started turning normal. His skin looked like it finally had normal blood flow from the light brown texture it regained.
It didn't take long for Yang Qing to cancel the technique after it seemed like whatever had been affecting the man, had been completely removed from his body.
Yang Qing still wasn't done with the treatment. He proceeded on to use the man's wrist as a conduit for pouring his qi into him, so he could use it to heal whatever internal injuries the man may have had.
"A core formation expert with a broken dantian?..this ..." the more Yang Qing learned of the man's situation, the deeper his frown became.
"Mmmh the cold yin poison in him, some of it doesn't seem to have originated from this lake.
Is it from the same person who crippled him?
Was he thrown here?"
An endless stream of questions continued to flood Yang Qing's mind the more he examined the man.
The man's dantian seemed like it had been cleanly shattered. This showed that the person who did it, vastly outpowered him and could have easily killed him if they wished to but they purposely left him alive.
The shattered dantian still had traces left of the cultivation art used on it, which was more than enough for Yang Qing to use to glean a few clues from it, such as the attribute of the art. That trace showed that the art used on the man was mostly a cold-related cultivation art that was strong in its yin nature.
This was why Yang Qing couldn't help but wonder if the man was thrown into the lake. If you had a cold yin injury and were thrown into a place filled with dense yin energy like the lake before him, it would exacerbate the injuries you had, bringing with it an enormous level of torment to the person.
Without Yang Qing's intervention, the man would have undergone an unimaginably painful death. Even in his unconscious state, the pain still struck him since Yin-based attacks not only affected the body but the soul too.
"What could he have done to warrant such a ruthless action to be taken on him," Yang Qing wondered as he finished the last of his treatment. Based on how much of the lake's yin energy he had on him, it seemed like the man had been submerged in the lake for almost a month.
He couldn't do much about the broken dantian since even the Order didn't have means of restoring a completely shattered one, but his qi had dense vitality which was more than enough to heal all the other internal injuries he had on him.
Yang Qing also didn't have to expend much since the man's natural vitality took care of the rest.
Even though his cultivation got crippled, he still had the body of a core formation expert, which was majorly the main reason he survived this long even after being plunged into the Yin-rich lake and having a cold yin injury himself.
"W..h..y d...I.....d y..o..u s...a...v...e me? You..... should ...have..... let.... me die?" a weary cracked emotionally devoid voice came from the man who had at some point opened his eyes that seemed just as soulless as his voice.
