The duo had quickly made their way into the massive hallway of the building which had black tiles matching the color of the building. The Hallway was square with mysterious hazy liquid of different colors filling the wall at the front of the hallway and the two that were at the left and the right.

The liquid was sometimes misty, sometimes gelatinous, and sometimes free-flowing like a waterfall. The wall on the left was covered by 2 of these liquids one was deep blue and the other was dark gold with glowing glyphs shuttling around the liquids. Above the blue one was a blue template with the word core and above the dark gold liquid was a dark gold template with the word palace. As for the wall at the front, it was wholly covered by a pure white liquid that made the wall seem ethereal. It had the word spirit written over it. As for the right side, it had a black liquid that melded with the color of the building. If it wasn’t for the glowing glyphs and the word domain written above it no one would know there was anything there.

This liquid was a special form of treasure called the mimicry chaos sky metal. It has a unique nature of morphing into different states while still maintaining the formation arrays drawn on it. Its best feature is the ability to magnify and stabilize spatial arrays. The order thus used it to build spatial gates that led all around the building with every judge, inquisitor, and other officials being given a piece of the metal to be able to use the spatial arrays. Every chaos sky metal is distinctive from the other thus only pieces broken off from it would work on the arrays built from it.

The color code of the liquids represented the courts they were linked to. Blue was for core courtrooms, dark gold was for palace courtrooms, black was for domain courtrooms and lastly white was for the spirit courts. The color was how the judges were differentiated from each other. They had on robes that matched those colors like now Yang Qing had on blue robes while Yi Jie’s was red and blue. All inquisitors had red in one half of their robe with the other half being the color of the court they were attached to. They went towards the blue liquid and the glyphs glowed brightly as they were transported to the core court hallways and made their way towards one of the many courtrooms with the words superior labeled on it.

As Yang Qing and Yi Jie were about to get into their designated courtroom they saw the backside of a black-robed man standing in front of it with hands clasped behind his back. He had a short and slender stature with a half bun silver hair

The moment Yang Qing saw him he stood frozen with a look of trepid fear written all over his face, his earlier crazy grin nowhere to be seen.

“Seems like you managed to make it just in time huh Yang Qing?” Said the black-robed man with an unhurried calm tone.

To Yang Qing, however, this sounded like the voice of the grim reaper come to take his contract. And he wasn’t completely sure but he detected a hint of disappointment coming from the black-robed man’s tone.

“Why is old demon Lei Weiyuan disappointed I made it on time instead of being glad?” Yang Qing silently wondered to himself before dismissing it as something he imagined.

“Aaaaah Supervisor Lei Weiyuan it’s you? Of course, I’d come in on time. What kind of a person do you take me for? I’d give my blood, sweat, tears, and all of my qi for all that the cultivation order has done for me and entrusted me with. I Yang Qing have a lot of faults but one of my best qualities is my unbending will and tenacious spirit to see the cause of the order is fulfilled no matter the cost” Said Yang Qing with some piousness and fanaticism in his tone as if he would slay the world if the order asked for it.

But the people present knew his true nature. The only times Yang Qing shows unbending will and a tenacious spirit is when he is working towards his cause of slacking off and avoiding all troublesome situations.

The black-robed man turned revealing a middle-aged face with a slightly stern appearance and a matching silver medium beard and sharp silver eyes.

He cast a deep glance at Yang Qing who at this moment was still busy recounting all he has done for the order and embellishing some details even emphasizing that he broke through to the palace realm at great personal risk so he could share the burden of the courts. Completely forgetting he had earlier lied about his breakthrough and ended up being a superior core judge for 3 more months.

“You’ll be late Yang Qing the tenacious.” Lei Weiyuan interjected with a straight face to break Yang Qing from his continuous rumblings. Lei Weiyuan was the supervisor for all superior core court judges and the palace court judges. His work was basically to monitor the quality of their work to ensure integrity was upheld above all. Lei Weiyuan like others expected a lot from Yang Qing and never saw his true colors.

He became a direct entry judge and all who got in as direct entries were all stellar at their work and conduct. He started great but a couple of months in he started pulling off schemes to do as little as possible some were successful but others not so much. Which led him to be personally supervised at every turn. When he became an inner core court judge it seemed he had turned over a new leaf. He was always on time and conducted himself with an air of seriousness and attentiveness to his work. He seemed fully committed and after a couple of years, he managed to be a superior core court judge.

The rank itself was nothing to scoff at. A person at the peak of core formation realm wouldn’t necessarily make it to be a superior core court judge. One of the key requirements was to have a gold or purple core. Those at the core formation have different colored cores that were a representation of the quality of their cores. The cores were red, orange, blue, gold, and purple. With red being the weakest and purple being the strongest.

The kind of core you form is dictated by the type of pillars you formed at the foundation establishment stage. Someone who formed red pillars at the foundation stage usually ends up with a red core that is if they don’t use certain special natural treasures or alchemy pills that may help improve their rank to an orange one. However, some bridges can never be gapped with treasures and that is when forming a gold core and a purple core. Only gold pillars and purple pillars can do that.

The higher the grade of your core the smoother and more abundant your qi reserves are and also helps in the support of high-tiered spells and techniques. The rate of qi refinement and replenishment was also higher the better the grade of your core. A gold core cultivator could trounce a red and orange core cultivator easily. As for purple core, they have even a larger advantage however the greatest benefit of having a purple core manifests itself once you’re at the later stages of palace stage going forward.

Yang Qing ended up with a purple core. One of the biggest reasons for this other than his talent was the careful guidance of the instructors who after 500 years and the number of geniuses that passed through had found some of the basic requirements for forming a purple core. One of them was having a diamond or peerless jade body and the other was to reach the perfect qi completion stage otherwise known as the 13th stage of qi refinement even though the outside world only thinks there are 12 stages. Yang Qing would have never known how to achieve this stage if it wasn’t for the order.

This is why the order never accepts applicants who have established their foundation already or have a silver body. A point of note is that the minimum threshold to be a judge is a blue core while an inquisitor is orange.

Yang Qing quickly woke up from his reverie rumblings and bowed to the supervisor as he made his way to his courtroom. Just as he was about to enter he heard Lei Weiyuan softly say something.

“Blood, sweat, and tears. Interesting.”

Yang Qing quickly turned back when he heard that in time to see a small smile on Lei Weiyuan’s face as he walked away.

Yang Qing waited till Lei Weiyuan had disappeared before he grabbed Yi Jie by the shoulders yelling with some worry in his tone.

“Yi Jie did you just hear what that old demon has said.”

Yi Jie quickly broke free from his grip as he made his way leaving the panicking Yang Qing behind as he said with an innocent look on his face “I think he said blood, sweat, and tears. Your speech must have moved him deeply. Good job Yang Qing”

Yi Jie flashed him a thumbs up with a grin similar to the one Yang Qing had been making when he was thinking of his upcoming revival ceremony of Soft life Yang Qing.

Yang Qing walked into the courtroom with a dead look on his face. Even corpse cultivators had much life in them than he did at this moment. He absentmindedly made his way to his podium which was made from 50,000-year-old red dragon wood and had a golden eagle symbol inscribed on it. He completely ignored the beautiful fair-skinned lady who was at the desk just below him wearing similar blue robes. She had purple round eyes that seemed to have a moving cloud in them. Her name was Mao Yunru and was Yang Qing’s judicial assistant/trainee. All judges at his rank were required to guide someone under their wing to take over their role once they were promoted and Mao Yunru would be his replacement once he went to the palace courts.

“What happened to him? Did he mess with the arrays in the carriage again to try and slow time in there so he can sleep more?” Mao Yunru asked with an inquisitive look on her face as she stared at the listless look Yang Qing had on as he silently muttered over and over again “no he didn’t say that, no he didn’t say that”

Yi Jie was all too happy to fill in all the details of what just happened and not forgetting to make sure he loudly enunciated blood, sweat, and tears for Yang Qing to hear. Which resulted in a shiver from the poor guy. From the look of things blood, sweat, and tears Yang Qing was about to be born in place of Soft life Yang Qing.